Chapter 8
Meanwhile...
Mal carefully poked his head out from under the camouflage tarp and squinted against the cool night air, then raised his binoculars to his eyes and switched them into night mode to have another look at the camp. His body felt stiff and cold after lying flat on his stomach for the last three hours, scoping out the place and waiting for the little community to retire for the day. Maybe he was getting too old for recon, or maybe he had been just as miserable during the war and just repressed the memories. Whatever the case, he was relieved to finally see it quiet. People had retreated to their tents, except for a couple of guards who seemed more interested in warming themselves by the single fire still burning than actually do the guarding.
"Security's a joke," he whispered to Zoë, who lay next to him.
"Or a trap," she whispered back, studying the site through her own binoculars.
"Don't think so," he argued. "They're clearly not used to people finding their camp, let alone barging into it. What you reckon? That shack on the left there?"
"Has to be," she agreed. "Only one with a lock."
The lock in question was little more than a chain and a padlock, but also, as noted, the only one in sight. It hung in front of a door in one of the rickety, hastily built huts, and Mal was willing to bet a lot that this was where Svetlana Peng stored her valuables. Not that he currently had a lot, or anything at all, to bet.
"If we enter from the east, we can easily slip past the guards," he mused. "We bust out our medicine and then steal one of their vehicles."
He gestured with the binocs towards the line of quad bikes parked on the little field.
Zoë sighed. "Still not liking this plan."
"Noted. Let's go." He moved to stand.
"Wait!" she hissed and turned her head a little.
"What?"
"Thought I saw some movement."
Mal had a look. He saw nothing. He heard nothing either, except for the faint rustling of leaves.
"Probably nothin'," Zoë eventually concluded. "Maybe an animal."
"Let's go," Mal said again.
They carefully made their way through the woods, backtracking a little to get down from the little hill they'd used as a vantage point and approach the camp from the opposite direction, moving slowly as to not trip in the dark or make any sounds, and then tiptoed in between the tents.
The camp was eerily silent. There was only the occasional snore from a tent. The sound made Mal wonder if Jayne was in any of them, but he quickly shook the thought. He wasn't going to spend any more energy on that man!
They reached the shack without any trouble, and Mal produced a bolt cutter from his backpack. Zoë held the chain while he cut the lock, then carefully lowered it to the ground as Mal gently opened the door.
The hinges still screamed. Probably not very loud, but definitely enough to raise his blood pressure and quicken his pulse. Zoë shot him a warning look, as if he had made the sound. He shrugged lightly, gave her the boyish grin he knew would annoy her, and slid into the room.
They had made the correct assessment. As Mal turned on his flashlight to the lowest setting and carefully searched the room, it was quickly confirmed that this was the camp's armory, stuffed with guns and ammunition in various sizes. Jayne would have been like a kid in a candy store.
Gorramnit, there he was, invading his headspace again!
Mal ignored the thought of his former gun hand, as well as the guns, and he and Zoë turned their focus to the crates piled up against the walls. They used the bolt cutter to open them, one after the other, until they eventually found the right one.
It was a different one than before, but a quick count of the carton boxes inside confirmed that all the medicine was still there.
"Bingo!" Mal whispered and slid off his backpack.
The sudden sound of running feet coming from outside made them both freeze up, holding their breaths. Neither of them moved a muscle, but they still communicated, the way only old war buddies could, wordlessly through long looks in the low light. They would be ready for whatever came. But whatever or whoever it was, it passed right by them, and the sound faded away.
"Did I mention this is a terrible plan?" Zoë hissed into Mal's ear before she too shrugged her backpack off.
"Once or twice," he replied.
Less than five minutes later they were on the move again, carrying the crate between them as they slowly exited the shack and began the hazardous journey through the camp.
Even Mal was beginning to doubt his plan at that point. As evidenced, someone was clearly awake, and to get across without being detected would take a miracle, or at least a huge amount of luck. And everyone knew Mal Reynolds's crew never had huge amounts of luck thrown their way. Or any amount, for that matter.
Still, they almost made it.
Which meant they made it to the quad bikes, and they did manage to put the crate on one of them. But that was where Mal decided to push it.
Zoë had climbed onto the driver's seat and pulled open the cover under the handlebars to hot-wire it. "Sir?" she hissed when she noticed he wasn't climbing on behind her.
He pulled out his pocketknife and gestured with it towards the rest of the bikes, and she gave him another stern look, but didn't voice any complaints. Not that it would have stopped him.
He had managed to sabotage two of them and was hacking away at the wiring of the third, when the bright beam of a flashlight suddenly swept across the line of vehicles and hit his face, blinding him. "Who's there?" someone shouted.
Mal turned on his own flashlight and directed it back towards the voice. He still couldn't see anything but the bright whiteness, though. "Hi!" he smiled nonetheless.
Zoë's quad bike roared into life, and still seeing nothing but black spots bouncing before his eyes, he turned and stumbled towards the sound.
"Thieves! Thieves!" someone yelled. A gun went off. Other voices soon followed, as did the sound of running feet.
By the time Zoë pulled up next to him, Mal had regained just enough eyesight to see where he was supposed to throw himself, and as soon as he'd landed rather clumsily across the crate, she sped off, with him sprawled in the back, hanging on for dear life.
"Sir?" she shouted at him over the sound of the engine.
"Yes, I know," he shouted back, blinking hard and fumbling for his gun, "terrible plan!"
Meanwhile...
There were two other women in the holding cell, but the usually sociable Kaylee didn't want to interact with neither of them.
One was a drunk old woman, slumped and snoring against the wall. She'd talked to Kaylee earlier, called her "honey" and asked her how she got her hair "to do that", whatever that meant. Kaylee had tried to avoid her, which wasn't easy in a tiny eight by ten feet room, and was relieved when she'd finally passed out.
The other was a scantily clad woman of the kind Jayne spent his nights with. The Feds currently sitting in the front office probably did too, as they had been by to flirt and gift her cigarettes several times already. The tobacco smoke made Kaylee's eyes burn, but she dared not say anything. The woman hadn't spoken to her either, just looked her up and down when Kaylee was first shoved into the room, then rolled her eyes.
That was several hours ago. Exactly how many, Kaylee did not know. She had lost track of time. They had taken her timepiece along with the rest of the few personal items she'd had in her pockets. They'd only let her keep the clothes she was wearing, sans belts and bootstraps, for "safety reasons". There were no windows in the cell, either, but judging by the silence and the lack of activity in the office, it had to be late at night.
Mal had said they'd return in the morning, and as much as Kaylee wanted him to come and rescue her from her predicament, she knew that meant they would find the ship sealed off and impounded, and then be caught red-handed with stolen goods. She needed to get out, if only to warn them, but she had no idea how, and dawn drew ever closer.
She sat down against the wall, close to the cell door, with her knees pulled up to her chest, and tried not to panic.
She was still sitting there when one of the Feds sauntered up to the bars, gave another half-smoked cigarette to the prostitute and waved her away from the door before unlocking it.
"Alright, miss," he said, and it took a moment for Kaylee to understand that he was talking to her, "come with me."
She got to her feet and followed him to the desk in the front office. He hadn't put her in handcuffs this time, which she appreciated, but there were two other men there, and one was guarding the door. There'd be no escape, and they clearly didn't fear her.
She nearly laughed.
Why would they?
Mal had drilled Kaylee on what to do in these kinds of situations. "You've got rights," he'd told her, "even if they forget to read 'em to ya. You don't have to answer their questions. They're not allowed to hit you."
Of course, knowing about your rights was one thing. Being brave enough to demand them, was something else entirely.
She was placed on a chair. The Fed didn't sit, but leaned against the desk, folding his arms. One of the others brought her a cup of water.
"Now." The Fed checked his papers. "Kaywinnet Lee Frye, is it?"
He already knew that. He'd taken down her name himself. "Why am I here?" she asked.
He ignored her question. "Where is the rest of the crew?"
"I don't know," she said, which was only half a lie. She knew where some of them were, of course. Sort of. But she'd been surprised, and relieved, when she'd discovered they hadn't found River. She had no idea where the girl was, nor Wash, for that matter. "Why... why am I here?" she repeated.
"Weren't you told when we arrested you? You're under suspicion of theft and the moving of contraband."
"Oh."
"So, I am going to ask you again, where is your captain and the rest of the crew?"
You don't have to answer their questions.
"I would like legal representation," she said. It came out much lower than she'd intended, and she was forced to repeat it.
The Fed exchanged an amused look with his colleague. "You got money, dear?" he asked.
"Shenme?"
"You're allowed a wave, sweetie!" the smoking woman yelled from behind the cell bars down the hall.
"Shut up, Linda!" the Fed yelled back.
"But she is, Harry! Get it right this time, or you'll get in trouble again."
"I said, shut up!"
Kaylee felt a little awkward, as if she was suddenly caught in the middle of a lovers' quarrel. She'd been right about these two, apparently. They were on a first-name basis and everything.
"I... I get a wave?" she asked.
The Fed, Harry, shot her an angry glare. "You do," he snarled, and pulled a card from a desk drawer. "Get up! Thanks a lot, Linda!"
"You're welcome, dear."
Kaylee was yanked from the chair and taken to a back room. Harry handed her the card and pushed her towards a vidphone in the corner. "One wave," he declared, then left her there.
Kaylee hurriedly stepped up to the screen and touched it, jumping a little as it flashed into life and the emblem of the UAP filled it. "Ni hao!" it greeted her.
"Hi," she said, before she'd had the time to think, and inserted the card into the slot.
What now?
Really, there was only one person she could call.
She rubbed her sweaty hands against her overalls, then punched the number with a shaking finger, hoping whatever the local time was over there, it wasn't in the middle of the night.
Characters moved across the screen. Connecting... Connecting... Kaylee held her breath.
And then Inara's lovely face filled the screen in front of her, and she nearly collapsed from relief. There wasn't a thing in the 'verse Inara couldn't make better, she was certain of it.
"Kaylee!" the Companion smiled, but even through the Cortex, she could read a person like an open book, and her smile fell. "What's wrong, mèi mèi?"
"Oh, Inara," Kaylee cried, "I'm in trouble."
Meanwhile...
The nights here were dark, but short. Just two hours after Xuan Wu, the Black Sun, had disappeared beneath the horizon, it appeared again, spreading the first light of a new cycle through the trees. For Wash it came as a blessing, but he hoped for the locals' sake that they had good blinders. According to his timepiece the local time was about two hours past midnight, a little too early to start your day, in his opinion.
He hadn't slept at all, of course. He'd stayed close to town, safely out of sight, but near enough to keep an eye on the place, just in case the Feds for some unlikely reason decided to release control of his ship. But the tape and the guards remained in place, and the best he could hope for was to be able to intercept the others before they returned and walked straight into the trap.
Several times he'd pulled out his transmitter and just looked at it, weighing the risk against the benefits. So far, he'd decided against it. For all he knew, they had been caught already, and he needed to keep River safe.
Speaking of River, she had given him no trouble, but remained quiet and calm. For the last hour or so she had even been asleep, leaned up against a tree. She was a mystery, that girl. Tense and frightened one moment, then like a trustful child in the next. But there was a pattern to that behavior, at least. Wash was beginning to see it. If she seemed trustful, it was because she was.
She jolted awake.
"Not morning yet, sweetie," he told her. "Even if the sun insists it is."
"We're not there," she said.
"We had to hide, remember?" Wash reminded her, thinking she was confused. One would be, waking up in the woods like that.
She rose and looked around, a mask of deep concentration on her face, as if she listened for something.
"We have to hurry," she decided.
"Hurry? Wh– wait!"
Before he could stop her, she took off. She bolted into the forest, luckily away from the town, and for a second or two there was no reaction on his part, as he just stood there, staring dumbfounded at her pink sweater as it disappeared amongst the trees.
Then he spurred into action and ran after her. "Wait!" he called, as loud as he dared.
"We need to be there," she shouted back.
"Where? You don't know this place. River!"
But it did look like she knew it. At least it looked like she knew where she was going. She reminded Wash of a foxhound pursuing her game, she even paused now and then as if to sniff the air.
"Have to be there, have to be there," she kept repeating, like a mantra, not necessarily directed at him.
Wash was about to shout back when he tripped on a root and fell, landing face first in a muddy puddle. The backpack smacked into the back of his head, and for a short second he just remained there, thinking he might as well just stay in that puddle and leave her to her own incomprehensible devices. But the moment passed, and he scrambled back onto his feet.
"River!" He sounded mad. It even surprised him.
"We have to get there before he lands!"
He continued his pursuit. Zāo gāo, she was fast!
"Lands? Before who lands?"
She didn't answer.
They ran.
Later, Wash would learn they ran for nearly ten miles that night, something he would boast and brag about for a long time to come. But right now he was a huffing and puffing and quite miserable man trying to keep up with what turned out to be an extremely fit teenage girl.
She noticed. She even had the decency to pause and wait for him now and then, especially as their run turned into a constant uphill one. But not for long. She forged ahead up an increasingly steeper slope, jumping from one rock to the next, and he scrambled on behind her, nearly crawling on all fours at times.
Finally, she came to a stop, right underneath an overhanging cliff near the top. "You're slow," she remarked, as he caught up with her and nearly doubled over, struggling for breath.
"I… have… a backpack," he panted.
"We made it," she declared.
"Where… are we?"
"Where we need to be. A soft place to land."
"A soft… What?"
He looked at his timepiece. Nearly four in the morning. Well, what better way to start your day than with a two-hour run?
He slumped over, catching his breath. "What now?" he asked.
She snuggled herself into the little nook underneath the overhang and motioned for him to come join her. "We wait."
He didn't have the energy for further questions, and it wasn't like he had somewhere else to be.
"Okay."