Chapter Two: Where a plan is a tragedy to some.
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If they hadn't all discussed the matter together already, Mal and Inara's latest argument on the subject alone would have made it clear that the crew finally had a job on the table after a very long dry spell. Trouble was, of course, that the job sounded just as bad from the description as most of those they'd had in the past year had turned out in the end, and the contact offering it was a lowlife that they'd generally made a point in the past not to deal with. Not as dubious as Niska, certainly, but avoided until now for good reason nonetheless.
Unfortunately it seemed to be the only thing on offer, at least to them. There had been a slight bit of discussion as to coming up with their own score. However, doing so brought it's own share of problems, not limited to their lack of ideas and the uncertain nature of trying to fence goods not previously agreed upon. Their last attempt at doing that kind of job with the Lassiter had hung over all their heads for far too long, and they needed the cash now besides, not at some future date when they might find a buyer.
So even though nobody was fond of the idea of the job, they committed themselves and all sat down to plan out the details for doing it. There was also some attention put towards planning what they'd do when the plan went wrong, as their plans seemed to do so very often. The job wasn't so much intrinsically tricky as it was complicated by the circumstances surrounding it. It was a heist rather than a transport job, and those always involved a lot more details, but this one in particular was a very well-guarded facility in a busy spaceport. It wouldn't be impossible, after taking into consideration all the combined skills of the crew and their knowledge of the location, but it was going to be tricky. They'd been turned onto the job and given safe codes for it from someone even more untrustworthy than their usual contacts were, meaning a double-cross of some kind was almost guaranteed. But it was what was on offer, and between Kaylee's know-how of the local security systems, an upcoming holiday that should thin down the population loitering in the area, and their relative weapons skills, not even to mention River's more interesting abilities – with no other jobs on the table, this was something they had to risk.
All coming together. Just one last step. Flip the switch on the way out and fix things.
Perhaps it was this extra planning that helped, or maybe the crew of Serenity was just due a little bit of uncomplicated good luck for once. The locals really were off the station or all tied up in getting plastered at the bars well away from the vaults. Those that weren't were easily diverted by the distractions Simon and Jayne separately provided. The passwords and safe codes from their contact were actually good, and though there were some complicated electronic locks, between Kaylee and River, the crew actually made it into the vaults and back out again without setting off any alarms or being caught by anyone – aside from the single human guard they'd left tied up in the vault. In no time at all, the crew was back aboard the ship and heading out towards the planet where the rendezvous was set.
Whatever it was that made things actually go smooth for once, the job went off just as well as any of the crew could have possibly hoped, and even better, their untrustworthy contact actually opted to pay them straight up rather than attempting any kind of a double-cross. Mal didn't even manage to get so much as a scratch in the whole deal. It was enough to make the Captain fidgety that their luck was going far too well. He complained often when things went wrong, but he was obviously not comfortable when things went so easily, either.
Still, it was a job done well, and paid decently enough, which had been a definite rarity for the crew of Serenity as of late, and even Mal couldn't remain in bad spirits for too long with such a plainly positive outcome. Even better yet, they got word just a day or so later of another job at the next moon over, which had a moderate shopping district that most of the ladies on the ship were terribly eager to visit - now that they had some coin to make it worthwhile to stop in at such a place.
An old friend of Inara's had retired out this way as well, and she'd exchanged a few pleasant waves with her while the crew was getting on with the job. Now, since it looked like they were going to be stopping in for a while, she'd decided to have an actual face-to-face visit. As much as she was fond of – had grown to love, to be honest – the people aboard Serenity, she did still have the occasional yearning to interact with someone in possession of a little more culture and sophistication. For all that they'd come from the Core, River had been barely more than a child when she'd been shipped off to that horrible school, and poor Simon just didn't have any of the true flair for culture and conversation that she still found herself missing.
Staying a Companion herself, going back to the training house or not, just hadn't been an option. Not after the Operative, and Mal and Miranda and the crew being so torn up and ... Mal. It had been one thing to learn about River and the Academy. Inara knew herself to be intelligent and well-schooled, and when it came down to it, every government in human history had at least one shameful act, one dirty secret program few ever knew about while it happened. The existence of the Academy did not mean the Alliance as a whole was fundamentally rotten, but Miranda? Miranda was a different story entirely. The scope of an entire planet being wiped from the records after a huge failed mind control experiment resulted in millions of deaths and nightmare monsters being allowed to continue rampaging through the outer planets unchecked for years – that was surely not the actions of one small group of villains outside the knowledge of everyone else. If it was, that only made it clear that one small group had far, far too much power.
Bad enough alone to have to wonder if any of her past or potential future clients had their hands far enough into the government to know about Miranda. Worse still, the Alliance and the Guild had always had very close ties. Companions often became advisers or officials themselves when they retired from active service. The thought that some of the women she'd admired and emulated at the head of the Guild on Sihnon being a part of Miranda, either the original experiment or the cover up after, didn't bear thinking about. She hated the thought, but couldn't get it out of her head.
Her faith in the Alliance had never really been shaken before. She'd supported Unification, even after moving out to the rim and seeing the status of things on the outer planets. Perhaps the Alliance wasn't perfect, but the advantages available in the Core being made available to those disadvantaged folk had never seemed like a bad idea, no matter how little any of her shipmates would have agreed with it. It was just that there were too many people spread too thinly across too many worlds for any one government to absorb all at once, especially when so many of them were so stubborn about going their own way. Now, however, she was tempted to reevaluate every idea she'd ever had about the Alliance. She certainly couldn't go happily back to the Guild, even if they had been entirely willing to forget about the incident with the Operative at the training house, and that was by no means certain.
There had been a wave on that very subject, hinting that they would allow her to make her apologies for the incident, possibly pay some reparations and fees, and allow her to come back into the fold. Though they insisted that if she did so she would need to come back to one of the main Guild houses in the Core to operate. It had not even entered her mind to seriously consider it. As much as she'd always loved her job, life in the Houses in the Core hadn't been a smooth fit for a while before she'd shipped out on Serenity the first time, and it was even less so now.
Still, as set as she was on leaving her long-time vocation as a Companion behind, she did occasionally miss the trappings that she had been surrounded by for most of her life. So the opportunity to see an old friend, especially one removed far enough from the Guild to be seeking her out sorely for usable gossip about her own recent choice to leave, was incredibly welcome. Thus when the ladies made their plans to go shopping, they were all planning on going out in Inara's shuttle and the others would head back to the ship on foot, while Inara would leave from there to spend the evening seeing her friend and rendezvous with the ship before they left the planet the next afternoon.
Even though she missed the intricate trappings and ceremonies of being a Companion, that wasn't to say that she didn't get a great deal of enjoyment out of a girl's day out with Kaylee and River shopping together. They had asked Zoe to come along, but the widow had been unenthusiastic and eventually decided to come along only to be there as security to walk the two girls back home. Though she had always been somewhat on the stoic side, Zoe just didn't join in on the fun as she would have before Wash had died, so that did put a little bit of a damper on their outing. Still, Zoe wasn't actively trying to depress them and it was hard to keep the mood down long with Kaylee leading the way, cheery as ever.
All in all, it was a pleasant afternoon out, and her visit with her friend was likewise enjoyable. As strange as her appearance out here was, someone else who'd been Companion-trained and a friend easily picked up on her lack of desire to talk about her current circumstances. There had been some concern that the woman would push anyway out of curiosity and familiarity, but it didn't happen, and they passed the afternoon in pleasant distraction talking about relative inconsequentialities. It was just what she had been missing and as she was getting back in her shuttle to head on home to Serenity, she felt entirely content.
Inara had just picked up the radio and started to call back to the ship when things went strange. "Serenity, this is Inara, I'm about five minutes out from -" She lost her grip on the steering wheel as it jerked harshly under her hands.
Mal's voice came to her over the comm. "What was that last, Inara? You're breakin' up a bit."
She reset her grip more steadily on the controls and was looking over the various instruments on the panel, but she could not see any indicators that explained what was wrong. She had seen nothing out the viewport that would explain any sudden turbulence and her frantic scans over the panels in front of her showed nothing wrong with the craft's instruments. As the shuttle continued to jerk erratically under her hands, that was clearly not the case, however. "Something's wrong with the shuttle. The controls aren't registering anything wrong, but the whole ship is twitching."
There was a pause from the other end of the line, and Mal's voice came through in a steady tone, which only her long-term knowledge of his moods allowed her to recognize as a put on. "Alright, don't panic Inara. I've called Kaylee up here and she'll sort you out. Girl's the best mechanic running, I'm sure it's nothing."
She let his reassurances calm her as much as possible while the shuttle kept jerking erratically. Inara wanted to believe him, but the movements of the shuttle only got worse the more time passed, and she couldn't help but worry. However, while she was a decent enough shuttle pilot, she wasn't a mechanic, so there was nothing to do but hold on until Kaylee could try and diagnose the problem. She did know that panicking would not help.
"Hey, Inara, it's Kaylee. Cap'n says that you're having some trouble with your shuttle?"
Inara walked the mechanic through what was happening and what the gauges on her panel were showing. Kaylee asked her a few more specific questions about individual indicators, and the mechanic's puzzlement was clear from her tone. When Inara's answers were interrupted for the second time by the shuttle's jerks, Kaylee asked, "It's gettin' worse, isn't it? I think you better just try and bring her down where you are and we'll have to come meet you soas I can have a proper look at 'er."
Inara wasn't surprised by the suggestion; she was still some distance away from the ship and she had been on the verge of suggesting such a thing herself. Even if she could cover the remaining distance – something she was not remotely sure of by this point – trying to make a connection to the landing cradle on Serenity with the way the shuttle was jerking would just not be feasible. The sensibility of the choice was only underlined by the fact that she was still flying over mostly empty ground where she was less likely to crash the shuttle into something else. Inara did her best to brace for a potentially rough landing, and prepared to put the shuttle down immediately.
Although she was a fairly good shuttle pilot, she stayed on the comms with the crew on Serentiy all through her descent. Kaylee and Mal had been joined by Zoe in the cockpit and the three of them were doing their best to give her advice; it wasn't really helping in the sense that any of it was useful, but the voices of people she loved did help calm her a bit. Even if they didn't sound all that calm themselves.
Unknown to Inara, the sounds of the three of them had been loud enough it had attracted the attention of Simon, River, and Jayne, as well. By the time Inara was turning the nose of the shuttle downward to descend, the whole crew were gathered on the bridge around the radio, tense with concern.
"Kaylee? Kaylee, it's getting worse, trying to turn downward. Is there anything I should try to do?" Inara's tone was understandably pushing past slight worry into notable panic.
Kaylee's expression twisted up in concern. "What exactly do you mean by worse, Inara? Is it shakin' more or is it doing something new?" She gave an unhappy glance towards the Captain, clearly distressed, but giving it her best effort. "I can't help if you don't tell me more specifics."
"It's getting worse, the shaking. It feels like the whole ship is coming apart – Wait! Kaylee, the panel is going -" whatever it was that Inara was going to say next was cut off, but not by silence. Her voice was cut off by a burst of angry static and a choked, but still bone-chilling scream.
Behind them, out of sight of the rest of the crew, River stood in the alcove between the bridge and the crew quarters hallway. In amidst the flurry of worry and activity centered around the pilot's console, no one saw that the expression on her face was a sly smile.