0533 Hours, November 25, 2542
Aboard freighter Serenity, en route to colony Whitefall
John flailed his left arm blindly until it collided with the alarm that screeched him awake. With a heavy handfall the machine was silenced, and the large man forced his eyes open to see the time.
He had overslept by three minutes.
He was getting old.
With a groan, the large man rolled into a sitting position and dropped his head in his hands. For the better part of a week, they had been traveling sub-light to their destination. It was frustratingly slow-going, but the less Slipspace travel they attempted the less likely they were to be flagged by Covenant sensor stations.
In that time, he had come to know Serenity's newest passengers better – on a Firefly-class freighter, there wasn't much choice in the matter. There was only so much room, and the trip to Whitefall was a long one.
Clarence was a simple man of few words. He kept mostly to himself, usually staying tucked away in his quarters except for mealtimes. Even then, he didn't say much. He just listened to Fred's bad jokes and Miranda's stories. He was looking for work in the outer territories, hoping to find somewhere to settle down. The soft-spoken son of soft-spoken farmers, John thought he was best left alone.
Avery J. Johnson was Clarence's opposite. Even unarmed and without a uniform, it was clear the man was once career military. Based on his physique – which was impressive, particularly for a man his age – John figured he was infantry, and likely noncom. The man's presence was always made known in one way or another – he frequently volunteered to assist with whatever task needed doing on the ship, he matched Fred's jokes with his own at supper, and if he slept it was sprawled out over the table in the galley. He said he couldn't stand the quiet of being isolated by himself.
The third passenger was the hardest to get a handle on. She didn't fit in like Avery, nor did she separate herself like Clarence. She laughed politely at jokes, engaged with Avery's stories when he called for audience participation, and even made her own attempts at sharing stories. She was a doctor and, supposedly, a fine one at that. She had dumbed-down her wardrobe, probably in a vain attempt to fit in with the others. Even her most casual dress left Miranda following the woman around like an awe-struck moa staring up into a rainstorm.
Even her name differentiated her from the others – Cortana. She was named, as she explained it, after the sword of the legendary Ogier the Dane. People like John, Avery, and Clarence didn't tend to know the first thing about Ogier the Dane, much less his sword. That kind of knowledge – frivolous, known just for knowing's sake – didn't often make itself known aboard ships like Serenity.
Her presence ate away at John. What was a doctor doing traveling out to the rim on a broken-down freighter the likes of Serenity? If she sold some of her clothes she could probably afford to buy a fancier ship, let alone charter it.
So what did she have to do with Maggie?
The question weighed on his mind day and night, keeping him awake. The old woman never steered him wrong before, and it was in no small part thanks to her that he and his crew were still alive. But could she have made a mistake with this Cortana? Just who had she asked John to ferry aboard his ship?
His gut felt heavy whenever he thought of the woman. Which was often, owed as much to the mystery surrounding her presence as to her physical appearance. John was still human, after all, and he couldn't help but notice that the doctor was as charming as she was beautiful. That, however, was part of what made him so nervous.
He was still wrapped up in these thoughts when the comm broke him from his reverie.
"John," Linda's voice came over the speaker beside his mirror, "I think you better get up here."
Without a word of acknowledgement, the ship's captain hurried up the ladder out of his quarters. Once he rose to the foredeck he took long, fast strides to the cockpit and burst inside without announcing himself, choosing speed over politeness. "What is it?" he asked gruffly.
"Signal," Linda answered, hunched over her control couch. "Somebody got themselves logged onto Waypoint and hailed the nearest Covenant vessel."
His stomach dropped out from under him. The Waypoint system was built to communicate across all of known space. Any transmission through the network was tracked, recorded, and analyzed by Covenant intelligence operatives.
"Tell me you scrambled it," John said, leaning over her shoulder to see the readouts she was analyzing.
"Of course I did," she answered indignantly, "but I have no way of knowing how much got through. I picked up the echoes of a Covenant cruiser just before I caught the transmission, and there's no way they didn't pin us."
While John muttered something unsavory under his breath, Linda finally turned to look at him. "We've got a mole on board," he said, more to himself than to her.
Without another word, the captain left the bridge. He raced down the foredeck, turning to starboard just before reaching the galley and descending the staircase on the bow end of the cargo bay. When he reached the last few steps he finally slowed, unsurprised at what he saw below him.
The doctor, her face obscured by short black hair, knelt beside her ever-mysterious crate. She turned to him when she finally heard his heavy footfalls on the metal grating, rising to her feet in a rush and offering him a timid smile.
"Good evening, captain," she said, her voice laced with forced politeness.
He returned her smile with a wide, humorless grin of his own. "Evening," he said, his right hand falling on the grip of his holstered pistol. "Unpacking your pajamas?"
The doctor opened her mouth, searching for words as she glanced over her shoulder at the crate.
His gun was drawn by the time she turned back toward him.
"Captain, what are you doing?" she asked, now appearing truly flabbergasted. "Are you out of your mind?"
"Just about," John answered with a grim smile, relaxedly aiming his weapon at her from the hip. He dropped the forced smile and asked, "What did you tell them?"
The doctor appraised him with a questioning glare, challenging, "What did I tell who?"
He lifted the pistol, now pushing the barrel into her face. "I've got no time to play your games now, doc. I know you sent a transmission. What did you tell the Covenant?"
The woman before him lifted her hands in submission, but angrily pursed her lips. She opened her mouth to argue but was cut off by a gruff voice.
"I hate to argue with anyone holding a gun, son, but you've got the wrong man."
John glanced over the doctor's shoulder to see Avery slowly step through the doorway that led to the medical suite and the passenger dorms. The older man held his hands outstretched at waist-height to show non-aggression.
"Far as I'm aware this doesn't concern you," John grunted. "I think you might like to keep it that way."
"I think we're a might late for that now," the man answered, subtly gesturing aft with his chin.
Keeping his gun trained on the doctor, John turned to take in the rest of the cargo bay. There, on the aft staircase, stood Clarence. He tightly gripped an MK50 Sidekick and slowly swept it over the bay.
"Drop your weapon, captain," he said. Though he was clearly trying to give off an air of confidence, the man's voice trembled ever so slightly as he spoke. As John complied with his command, Clarence descended the staircase.
"Cortana," he said, turning his attention to the woman, "you are a difficult woman to track down. Half a fleet is combing the 'verse for you."
John found himself surprised. He had come to assume that any agents of the Covenant tended to be after himself and his crew, not his passengers. "Well you've found her now," he said slowly, calculating Clarence's mentality. "Whatsay we put her in some handcuffs and then talk about what to do with her like civilized folk?"
Sure, it was hypocritical. But it was worth a shot.
"Oh no, captain," Clarence said, his whole body jerking as he put John in his sights. "Don't think I've forgotten you and your crew. I know what you are, you see, and I'm sure I could fetch a fair amount of prize money for turning you all in."
"You seem a tad twitchy there, lawman," Avery said. "Why don't you put the gun away? Nobody's going anywhere, and I think we could all benefit from some calm."
"You think I'm opposed to shooting you just because you're an old man?" Clarence asked, shifting his aim to Avery with another full-body jolt.
"I really think you ought to put that gun down," Avery said in a calming voice. He took a slow step toward the other man.
"One more step and I put you down," Clarence warned.
The older man froze in his tracks.
John's hand twitched. Every instinct within him was screaming to leap for the M6D that lay no more than 60 centimeters from his left boot. He knew, though, that with Clarence acting so desperately any wrong move could turn into a firefight.
Eventually the hold fell silent, the tension so thick one could almost hold it in their hand. No one moved. It seemed as if time itself was standing still.
Then, the silence broke.
The med bay door slid open with a deafening clang. Miranda energetically burst through the door, a cheery smile on her face despite the time of morning. She was making noise – singing a song, telling some joke, John didn't know. But it was all Miranda, and that meant it was loud.
Clarence moved on instinct. Like a cornered animal, he lashed out at the first potential threat that presented itself. The Sidekick in his hand sounded like a cannon in the small echo chamber. Miranda crumpled to the floor.
Time suddenly seemed to catch up.
Cortana seemed to fly to Miranda's side, ripping cloth off her sweater and pressing it to the young girl's abdomen. John lurched for his pistol on the ground. Avery rushed Clarence.
John didn't even see the older man move, but by the time he had his gun in hand Clarence was in a moaning heap on the bay floor.
Alerted by the noise, Fred burst into the large room followed by Kelly. The former took in the scene with one glance and made his way toward Clarence, a knife materializing in his hand.
Avery stepped in front of him. "He's Covenant, son," he said warningly. "Don't make a bad situation worse by putting that kind of target on your back."
Fred glowered down at the smaller man, his grip on the knife tight enough to turn his knuckles white.
"The kid's hurt, Fred," Kelly said, grabbing Fred by the shoulders. "We'll tie this one up and deal with him later."
"I'll be back for him," Fred growled before stomping away and kneeling next to the doctor.
"Captain," Linda's voice came over the speaker, "Covenant cruiser just hailed us. Ordered us to dock and prepare for prisoner transfer."
"Change course," Cortana said urgently, her eyes wide.
John snorted. "I'm not doing a blasted thing for you. You brought this down on us."
The woman rose to her feet, breathing heavily and a guilty look crossing her eyes. "She'll die if I don't save her."
"You're going to take a walk out that airlock if she does," he threatened.
"She'll still be dead."
Miranda gasped in pain. "Everyone's so mad," she said deliriously. "Did I do something?"
"No kiddo, you're just fine," Fred answered in as soothing a tone as the man could muster. He then looked up. "Do as she says," he said firmly.
John didn't take his eyes off Cortana. Her gaze held constant as well.
"Linda," he finally said, his voice quiet, "Change course."
Cortana nodded, relief flooding across her features. "Help me get her to the infirmary," she said, taking one of Miranda's arms while Fred grabbed hold of the other.
"Doc," John said as the ship creaked against the sudden change in direction. "What I said earlier still stands. If Miranda dies, so do you."
Cortana looked him in the eye and nodded.
Hours passed before Cortana finally found a moment to rest. The girl, Miranda, was stable – a fact to which Cortana knew she owed her life. While she had yet to see the crew of the Serenity be particularly cruel or violent, she knew Maggie did not often deal with people who didn't make good on their promises.
She checked Miranda's biomonitors once more to ensure that all was well before finally stepping foot out of the infirmary.
The big one – Fred, if she remembered correctly – whipped his head in her direction the moment the doors opened. His glare was enough to freeze her blood, and not just because he was more than two meters worth of muscle and pent-up anxiety.
"She needs rest, but she's stable now," Cortana said with as convincing a smile as she could muster with such a cold pit suddenly formed in her stomach. "She should pull through with no issues. The worst of it is already past."
Fred nodded brusquely but otherwise remained still.
"You can check on her if you'd like?" she offered, sidestepping out of the infirmary doorway.
The mountain before her continued to regard her with a suspicious glare, but after a moment he ducked past her into the infirmary.
Cortana stepped through to the cargo bay to check on her luggage, feeling as though a weight had been lifted from her chest. The girl would be fine, the crew were most likely not going to toss her out the airlock. If nothing else went wrong, she actually stood a chance of getting to Whitefall in one piece.
Then she walked into the hold, and her heart froze still.
"Doctor," John said, his voice open without being friendly, "I was wondering when you'd make your way down here." He was standing in the center of the hold, precariously close to her cargo.
"I'm not sure I understand, captain," she said, forcing what she hoped would come across as a friendly smile onto her face. "I have simply come to gather some things before I sequester myself in my room for the interrogation I'm sure you plan to give me." She did her best to keep her tone measured and even.
The ship's captain nodded, though his face clearly communicated his disbelief.
"Don't think I haven't noticed that you run away down here any chance you get," he said, leaning on her crate. "It's important to me that I know everything that's going on in my boat – that includes knowing what kind of contraband you've got stowed away here."
"No, please," she answered, her gut dropping out from beneath her. She took several scrambled steps forward, but the tablet dinged to alert the completion of its task.
"Let's take a look-see, why don't we?" John asked rhetorically, snatching the tablet and pressing the activation code. "I'm dying to know what has the Covenant in such a fuss."
The pressure seals on the crate released with a hiss, and the large man shoved the lid from its perch above the box.
He became eerily still when he peered into the crate.
"Captain," Cortana tried, desperation leaking into her cracking voice, "I understand what it looks like, but –"
Her words caught in her throat when he wheeled around to face her, the façade of calmness that had only moments ago adorned his handsome face now replaced by a look of wild and reckless hatred. His gun was in his hand, once again aimed directly at her chest.
"Doc," he said, seething, chest heaving as though the mere act of looking within the crate had exhausted him. "You've got five seconds to give me whatever sick joke of an excuse you have for this."
Cortana ignored him. She brushed past him, headed straight for the crate and its incredibly precious cargo. She hesitated a moment to allow the smoke to clear from the chilled, vacuum-sealed pod. Eventually the smoke dissipated to reveal the sole cargo of the overlarge crate.
Nestled within the pod, curled in upon herself in a fetal position, a young girl stirred.
Cortana knelt low beside the crate, reaching for the girl. She froze, arms partially outstretched, when she heard the man behind her draw his weapon. "I need to check her vitals," she said slowly.
"I want both of those hands right where I can see them," John answered coldly. "I wager you've probably done enough to this poor girl already."
"Captain, you don't understand," Cortana pleaded, her voice betraying her anxiety. "She wasn't supposed to wake up yet, I don't know if she can handle the shock."
"The shock?" John all but growled. "The shock of waking up the child bride of some cattle baron? Or maybe this one was for you. I'd hate to –"
He was interrupted by a shriek as the girl inside the crate suddenly jumped to her feet. She gasped, flailing her arms as the too-rapid waking process took its toll on her young form.
Cortana surged forward, the captain's weapon be damned, and grasped the young girl by her shoulders. "Joy, you're alright," she said urgently, repeating the message several times. "You're alright. I'm here. We're safe."
Partially restrained, the girl's wild eyes finally managed to focus enough to recognize her. "Cortana?" she asked tentatively. Then her face contorted and tears formed in her eyes. "Cortana they're talking. They're always talking and talking and they won't stop!"
"It's okay, Joy," Cortana said, putting as soothing a tone in her voice as she could. "They're gone. They can't get to us. We're safe here."
The girl kept babbling, tears continuing to spill down her face. She finally stopped speaking when Cortana pulled the girl's smaller frame against herself in a tight embrace.
The doctor looked up to see that the majority of the crew had arrived in the hangar. Linda and Avery were standing on either side of John, Kelly halfway down the staircase; each of them regarded her with a mixture of confusion, concern, and disgust. The only sound was of the young girl's sobs.
Finally John spoke. His voice held a slight tremor, though Cortana didn't know whether to attribute it to rage, fear, or disgust. "What is this?" he asked.
The doctor took the entire crew in, hugging the girl to herself even tighter. With a trembling voice of her own, she managed to respond, "This is my sister."