Hello! Sorry again for my delay in updating. I'm still mired in final projects and presentations, but I wanted to get this chapter up before too much more time passed. This is a somewhat unusual chapter, but it contains a lot of information that's necessary to the plot, so I tried my best to present it in an interesting way, and this is what came out.

Content warning: The loss of a parent in a violent death comes up in this chapter, including (brief) graphic description. Please do whatever you need to take care of yourself.

Soundtrack - Mal's Theme: "The Derry Tune" by Bruno Coulais & Kila, from Song of the Sea: Original Soundtrack (2014)

CHAPTER SEVEN

THE SCENT OF SOIL

Mal had a gun in his hand.

That was always the first thing he noticed. The second was the mud, slick beneath his boots.

In a three-point crouch, the grass reached up to his neck, scratching at his chin. The rest of him was hidden by a thicket of ivy, crowding the base of the evergreen tree which stood sentinel on the front lawn of the ranch.

In a dappled green ocean, Mal had been submerged. He couldn't see his body when he looked down. But he could sense his size. He tensed the muscles in his arms and legs, and they held the power of an adult.

He looked at the folks around him. The light on that morning was hazy, filtered through dense cloud cover, but Mal knew the faces of those people in any kind of light.

Silas crouched beside him on one side, Maribel on the other, their eyes set dead ahead. A mule was parked close by. Percy and Anders hid behind it, rifles resting on their shoulders. The more Mal looked, the more people appeared, figures penciling in against the monotony of grass and endless grey sky. More than two dozen men and women, half of whom worked on his mother's ranch.

Mal always saw her last. The only one in the open, his mother stood alone on the gravel drive. She had settled into her unmovable stance. Feet wide apart, shoulders pulled back. One hand on her hip, the other on her holster, ready to draw.

He preferred to remember her like this. The broad planes of her face sharpened in profile, her thick dark hair roped up into a bun, a few loose strands whipping her cheeks in a sudden gust of wind. A Lady in her own right, yet prepared to get down in the dirt and fight, if she had to.

A beat behind, always too late, Mal realized: the wind wasn't wind. It was the deceleration of a half dozen Alliance ships, descending on the ranch, slow yet certain, inexorable. They landed in formation, with the smallest at the head of the group. A sleek black and silver bullet. Its doors lifted, and five men crawled out. Like insects, their uniforms glinting in the diffused sunlight.

The Alliance detachment strode down the drive. All five held their hands clasped behind their backs, faces stony beneath the brim of their caps.

The man at the head of the group brought them to a halt. He didn't even remove his hat as he addressed Mal's mother.

"Nǐ hǎo, Mrs. Faith Reynolds."

"Gentlemen." She lifted her chin. "This would be my land you've parked on. I'm within my rights to ask you to leave."

"I'm afraid not, Mrs. Reynolds. The eviction notice you received previously is hereby in effect. You are to vacate this property, or be removed by force."

"Eviction?" She shook her head. "I don't think so. Let's call this what it is. Annexation of land by a governmental body using coercion or force. Which has been unconstitutional here for the past seventy years, by the ruling of the Primary Court of Shadow, L-Code A28-"

The officer cut her off. "Our authority supersedes that of the Court, and any other planetary governing bodies."

"We'll see about that. You go through with this, you can be assured I will appeal, and I'll bring a whole county of dispossessed folks along with me. You'll be sorry you ever stepped a toe over my property line."

The Alliance men betrayed no reaction to this. They stood stiff and still, like dolls.

"We're here because you broke the law, Mrs. Reynolds," the officer said patiently.

"So I heard. 'Tax evasion.'" She crossed her arms. "But since my government is now in the pocket of Blue Sun, I just didn't see the sense in funding their campaign to steal our land. Pushing farmers to buy their enhanced super-seeds, so they can squeeze 'em dry for 're-planting rights' every season. And if they can't pay, well, it's another pretty patch of soil for your collection."

The officer was unmoved. "If you don't vacate this property immediately, we are prepared to remove you." His words crept like cold fingers over the back of Mal's neck. "We have been granted the power to use lethal force."

On cue, the doors of the other five, larger Alliance ships hissed open. Boots clattered down the walkways, and the silver and blue uniforms of the Peacekeeping squadron multiplied until there were forty men, sonic rifles slung across their backs. standing behind the group in front.

And opposite them, one woman. Her arms shifted to her sides, one hand on the butt of her revolver.

"Funny thing about power, gentlemen." Faith's voice cut through the thin air. "Those who've got it tend not to expect it from anyone else."

Silas and Maribel tensed. So did Mal. His legs coiled beneath him, ready to move. A thread of tension stretched taut through the air, as subtle as a collective intake of breath.

The officer spoke up. "Let it be put on record that Faith Reynolds has been given ample warning. Yet she refuses to comply."

"Damn right I do. But for the record, make that 'we.'" Mal's mother drew her pistol, and cocked it with one hand. "You heard me, folks. Now!"

The field erupted, the curtain of grass and ivy blown open by gunfire, a sudden thunderstorm that shattered the air. The women and men of the Birdseye militia kept close to their cover, taking a few quick shots before they ducked back again, making the most of the peacekeepers' surprise. More than a few of the blue-and-silver beetles were dead before they knew what was happening.

Shouts slung back and forth between the commanding officers and their underlings. The peacekeepers scattered to more defensible positions, along the sides of their ships. The sonic rifles had a short range, and the militia clung to this advantage as long as they could. But it couldn't last forever. They would have to give up their cover, or give up the fight.

Percy was the first to emerge, from behind the mule. He tossed his arm forwards, and barked, "Move!"

The militia obeyed. Mal moved with them.

But somewhere in the kaleidoscope of bullets and people and the shells of Alliance armor, he lost sight of his mother. Before he could fire a single shot, the gun vanished from his hands. Among the towering figures of the militia, he shrank. Smaller, weaker. He looked down at himself, and saw skinny arms and legs. His feet slid in secondhand boots.

He watched one of his mother's hands crumple to the ground not ten feet away from him. Percy, with gentle, drooping eyes; Percy, who had helped Mal get back up the first time he'd fallen off a horse. Mal wanted to run to him, but there was an Alliance peacekeeper coming close. Mal scrambled out of his path, away from the hot, electric stench of sonic energy.

Someone yanked on his collar. He choked, stumbling.

"The hell're you doin' here, boy?" It was Maribel. She tried to pull Mal into her arms, to drag him to safety. Mal didn't say a word, didn't even look at her. He slipped out of the woman's grip like light through a net.

He kept moving, tripping over bodies, Alliance and Birdseye folk alike. Some were contorted in pain, moaning. Others lay still and silent. Mal was small and quick enough to be ignored. He ducked laser fire and bullets, none intended for him. He tried to see through the chaos of movement around him, but his vision blurred, panic climbing up his throat.

"Mama!" The word took almost all his strength. He gasped. "Mama!"

As always, he saw a body. A woman. Before he could reach her, Silas stepped into his path. The man gripped him by the shoulders. His voice came from a long way's off.

"You can't be here, son. You can't see this."

Mal's fear made him strong. He ripped himself out of the man's hands, and dove past him. He didn't get far. He came up against a wall of frozen air, and collapsed to his knees.

Mal could not reconcile what he saw with the world he knew. He touched the ground, and the planet tilted off its axis beneath him.

"Mama," he whispered.

She wasn't moving. Her eyes were open, but she wasn't moving. She lay still, lips parted, staring up at the sky. A dark stain, like a huge land mass, had eaten its way across her shirt, covering her stomach. The silver cross she wore around her neck, always, glinted from the hollow of her collarbone, untouched by blood.

Her hands lay empty, cold and pale. Mal held one in both of his, gripped so hard it hurt. He tugged at her.

"Mama." The word came apart in his mouth, splintered.

Someone grabbed Mal's shoulders, tried to pull him upright, pull him away. He resisted. Voices knocked against his ears, and bounced off. Nothing could penetrate the fog, dense and feverish, that had rolled over him.

The fog became material. A thick mist that sucked everything else away. Silas, and all the other militia folk, the Alliance ships, the evergreen tree and the front fence. Gone.

All Mal could see was his mother's body, splayed on the gravel drive. He looked up, and there was the head Alliance officer. Uniform pristine, unblemished by the corpses at his feet. Still wearing his cap. His laser pistol gleamed like a cruel smile, aimed for Mal's heart.

Mal let go of his mother's hand. A metallic weight settled into his palm, instead. The gun. He'd wished for it so hard, in that moment, he'd made it real.

He stood up, turning toward the officer. Mal didn't see the man's face. He saw a target.

He fired.

The release was immediate. It burst like a dam breaking in Mal's chest. It burned him from the inside out, consuming the oxygen in his lungs.

A dark hole bloomed between the officer's eyebrows. Mal watched as the man swayed, and fell.

Then, he looked down at himself. He saw the blood spreading across his own chest, a mirror image of his mother's. Too late, always too late, he pressed a hand against the wound. The blood spilled over his fingers, its heat reached his throat.

Only when he could no longer hold onto it did Mal let go of the gun. Only when he lost his balance, as the ground disintegrated beneath him, and he fell into the black.

/*/*\*\

Mal bolted upright, gasping for breath, one hand still clutched tight to his chest. He panted, blinking, as he fumbled along the edge of his sleeping berth, and at last found the button to turn on the light.

His bunk room materialized around him, and he exhaled. Sihnon. The present moment came back in pieces. He held onto them with all his might. Solomon Zhi's estate. In the stables.

Mal's breath caught. He crumpled in half, pulling his knees up to lay his arms across them. He rested his head against his forearms, and squeezed his eyes shut. Drops of heat escaped, to trace over his cheeks. He took a shuddering breath, and let it out slowly.

The trouble was he never knew he was dreaming. It didn't matter how many times he'd had this dream, so many times, it didn't matter how much it warped and diverged from what had really happened. Mal lived that morning, every time he dreamed about it.

Every time, he became the fifteen-year-old kid he'd been then, calling for his mother, clutching her limp hand.

In reality, he hadn't been there to see the fight. Faith had left him under the close eye of a neighbor. She had forbid him to come anywhere near the ranch.

Of course, he hadn't obeyed. But by the time he managed to escape, and run home, he was too late. He'd shoved Silas out of his way to get to her. He'd found her lying on the drive, already gone. That piece of the nightmare was always real. He could never change it. No matter how his subconscious recreated the event, making him into a militia member, or even an Alliance peacekeeper, a few times.

Mal lifted his head, and touched the chain around his neck. He followed it with his fingers all the way down to the cross. It was warm, and slightly damp with sweat. Mal pulled his shirt off over his head. Using a dry patch of fabric, he wiped the emblem clean.

The days following his mother's death were blurred with grief. All Mal could remember was Silas. Steady and quiet, standing beside him. Silas was the one who made sure the necklace got to Mal, when his mother's body was being prepared for burial.

It was Silas, along with a handful of the other Birdseye militia members, who had told Mal how it was.

"They weren't expectin' your Mama to throw legal code at 'em."

Nods of reverence. "Smart as a whip. That was Faith."

Trading small smiles, as they unrolled the legend. "She laid 'em out proper for the hurts they done us here. Takin' our livelihoods."

For years after, they repeated the story, usually when gathered around the stove in Silas' kitchen, at the end of a night spent drinking and reminiscing. Mal heard it so many times, he felt like he had been there, to see his mother make her last stand against the government men.

Mal rubbed the cross, staring at nothing, his mouth drawn tight. His heartbeat had calmed, at last. But the pain in his chest refused to release its hold, like a burning ember shoved down his throat. Mal touched the place where he'd been shot, in his dream.

A strange impulse sent him to his feet. Shaking off sleep, Mal shuffled over to the desk on the far wall, and picked up the little clay pot. It had no label, but he remembered what Miss Serra had called it: 'healing probiotic ointment.' He lifted the lid, and took a cautious sniff.

He'd expected it to smell like jasmine or wildflowers or some other niáng niáng qiāng nonsense. But the scent was more like soil, rich and earthy, reminding Mal of a forest floor. He breathed in deep, and exhaled through his mouth.

He shut his eyes. Inara Serra. Daughter of one of the most powerful men in the 'Verse. A man whom, incidentally, Mal had been assigned to spy on.

And he had pretty much ensured she would never want to speak to him again.

He couldn't think too clearly, it seemed, when she was right in front of him. Mal shook his head at himself. He wasn't about to lose sleep over the bruised feelings of some Coreworlder. But it had stung to see the hurt in her eyes, brief but genuine, at his accusation. His insinuation, really, that she hadn't come all the way down to the stables just to ask after his health.

A part- okay, most of him had wanted to unsettle her. Wrinkle her silk-smooth manner a bit. The victory tasted ashen in his mouth.

"I came down here because I thought you might like some company. I see now I was mistaken."

Well, Mal could do without her sort of company. But he knew his superiors wouldn't like to hear that he'd scared off what was possibly the best source of intel they could've hoped for.

He tapped the service panel set into the wall by the door, squinting at the time. It was 3:07, three hours since he'd fallen asleep. Two left before he had to get up, and face the day of his first debriefing. He would use his free Monday afternoon to go into the capital city and meet with his contacts, for the first time since his mission had begun, giving them a full report of his past two weeks on Zhi's estate.

Sleep was unlikely, all things considered. But Mal turned off the screen anyway, and stumbled back to his sleeping berth. Without meaning to, he took the little clay pot of ointment with him.

Only because he was dead exhausted, only because he was alone, Mal forgot his pride and took two fingertips' worth of the balm, to rub into his chest. It cooled pleasantly on his skin. The smell of mist rising from soil calmed him, as he breathed in.

Mal set the pot on the shelf above his head, and collapsed onto the mattress. Somehow, against all odds, sleep crept back to him. And the Coreworlder's smile lit warm, fleeting dreams that he would forget upon waking.

translations:

Nǐ hǎo - Hello (formal)

niáng niáng qiāng - sissy, girly, feminine

Does Chekhov's gun apply to guns in dreams, as well? Well, it should, in my opinion. So. Do what you will with that information.

I would so appreciate opinions/feedback on this chapter! Especially as it was a bit... well, strange. Next chapter gets the main plot moving again, and I'm super excited to post it, so I promise I'll try to get it up as soon as possible. Until then, stay shiny!