80) But I Just Can't Make A Sound

For all that she knew change was a constant (been having that life lesson reinforced since she was three) she never liked it. Change (in her considerable experience) was never a good thing. It meant upheaval. It meant fear. Things like security and safety falling to the wayside and exchanged for things like pain and anxiety and hunger. She got so she always had her guard up, had to be ready, had to anticipate, because it would come whether she wanted it or not. And if she wasn't ready?

Well, she'd learned a lot about all the craptastic ways things could go wrong. A year in the laundry service before she'd looked down that hall one day and saw the rest of her life stretching out the same. Thirteen wasn't a great age to be on the streets but it wasn't like any age was a good one. The Core had the advantage of being more populated, denser, and that meant the gangs of kids went largely unnoticed. Every adult pretty much figured they belonged to someone else.

The Tongs, the Mafia, the Bratva, and Yakuza… every single one of them had their fingers in all sorts of dirty pies. And all of them had a use for street kids that were smart, sneaky and subtle. If you couldn't be those three things, you'd better be big, strong and fast. If you were a kid, it was understood that before you reached a certain age, you were 'unaffiliated' and you could be of service to just about any group so long as you kept your mouth shut about what you did.

When you got to looking more like an adult than a kid, then circumstances got a little more dicey. Adults…had to choose sides. Or at least be so fuckin' good at what they did that it was worth it to everyone to leave that person to themselves and buy their services by the job. Again, so long as they kept their mouths shut.

She'd been smart, and sneaky and she could be subtle though it was kind of a push for her. But at fourteen she'd been getting enough regular meals that she'd begun bleeding normally again and unless she got time to herself and privacy, she couldn't hide her gender easily. Funny how starving had been better for hiding. She wasn't an idiot, a pretty girl, almost of age, if she was smart, she'd be turned into a kind of honeypot, to use against enemies. Trained as close to a Companion as whoever could manage, most likely with an emphasis on espionage and assassination.

But that only worked if you were a 'girly' kind of girl. She'd seen it happen often enough to know that she wouldn't do well in that trade. Girls like her, if they didn't show any aptitude for something specific, like pickpocketing or finding information, or even fighting, if you were lucky someone might like you enough to take you in as a 'ward'. It might mean sex, or it might not. You'd get more training, but it would be in whatever was useful.

Not that the same thing didn't happen to the boys. It just seemed like boys had less of a firm 'expiration date' on what the bosses considered childhood. She'd seen good looking boys get turned into the poor man's version of a Companion same as girls.

But at that point, she decided that it was probably better to leave altogether. Stow away on a freighter. It had worked too, small enough to fit in the ducts, hide in places the crew wouldn't see, steal food, use the head to keep herself clean when no one else was around. No point in hiding if people could smell you because you stank of filth.

She hadn't figured to meet people she'd actually like when she bought cheap passage on the Hunter Gratzner. And she really hadn't expected anyone to like her back. Certainly not to the extent that they'd stick their neck out for her. Shazza and Zeke had made sure she understood how to use the breather and got her to help (and stop bothering Paris P Ogilvie, antiquities dealer, entrepreneur). Hell, Paris had kept her from running out in a swarm of baby sky sharks to help Shazza and Riddick. He'd probably saved her life. Carolyn had done her best to protect her. Abu had included her with his little flock as someone he should watch over.

She hadn't liked Johns much, but when he'd gotten killed…that was just one more loss, one more change… Of course, she hadn't known his intentions for her at the time. Slightly (but not really the more she thought about the merc) shocking to hear she was no more than a piece of meat. Something to use and discard.

Figured. Sometimes her people skills skewed wildly wrong. She'd learned that usually happened when she didn't have time to observe people. Had to make snap judgements. Of course, when Riddick did it, it worked out for him. But then he was around twice her age.

But he'd protected her. Protected all of them, kept her from getting eaten. Kept her from getting left behind for the sky sharks because he knew damn well what was going on with her body and why the predators were so interested in her. Riddick had kept her secret as long as he could. Hell, she'd've done anything he wanted for that alone. When he and Carolyn came back for her and the Imam… well. That put him at the head of the line as far as important people in her life went. With Carolyn a close second.

She'd hated Johns for yelling at Carolyn, for blurting out her secret, seeing how shamed the Pilot had been by it. It was all on Carolyn's face, how afraid she was, how ashamed and betrayed she felt that Johns had broadcast something she'd told him in confidence. Jack guessed Carolyn had the same trouble with snap judgements she did. But she still hadn't wanted Johns dead.

But Carolyn had run through the rain and the dark and brought Riddick back with her. And then she'd gone back to get Riddick. Had gotten really hurt going back for him. So yeah, Riddick, Carolyn and then the Imam. Because Abu was a nice guy but he hadn't exactly been effective had he?

She'd been really worried they'd leave her with him because 'escaped convict' and 'pilot who's supposed to be dead' versus 'law abiding shepherd' for who should get custody of her... The odds of her being allowed to stay with Riddck and Carolyn hadn't been good. Nobody with any sense would have thought she'd be better off with the convict and pilot. Carolyn had talked Riddick into staying though. And they'd decided to keep her with them. She'd bet platinum to pot stickers that Abu had tried to talk them out of it too.

Jack hadn't had high hopes when she saw Serenity the first time. The ship was this hodge-podge of shiny new and worn old parts and the barker couldn't have had a sweeter face if she'd tried. And she'd been disappointed in people enough to know that a sweet face and sunny smile didn't always mean a sweet and sunny nature. Kaylee could've been some sort of honeypot for the ship. Pulling in customers to bilk. River had been just plain old weird.

But the ship grew on her. Mal gave her the courtesy of acting like her age didn't have anything to do with her brain. And he gave her clear expectations. That was kind of a relief. She'd been a little hopeful when it was suggested she learn to fight from River. They were around the same size, at least they were back then.

It hadn't worked out well though. River would say all these cryptic things. Show her something and then show her the same thing again when Jack didn't get it. Maybe she could have dealt with that a little better, but it was so frustrating to finally be told she could learn to fight and then have to learn from a girl who wasn't much older than she was. And they hadn't been on the boat two weeks before Riddick started to flirt with her. He flirted with everybody, but it was different with River. He couldn't stop looking at her.

She liked Serenity but ever since they stepped onto the boat it felt like she couldn't do a thing right. Not enough to impress Riddick. Make him see her. Yeah, her plan to make that happen had only made things worse. But to be honest she'd never seen a guy turn down a blowjob, even a lousy one. Just another way Riddick was different.

More changes. She hated change.

So yeah, she'd been a jiàn huò to River and a brat and now she'd disappointed Mal and Carolyn and pissed Riddick off so bad Mal had get his Captainy voice out to make Riddick let go of her. She'd blustered and given him attitude to hide the fear, but she knew he could smell it, dangling from his fist like a worm on a hook. She defied anyone to not be afraid in that situation. Riddick was so much bigger than she was that one punch could've killed her easily.

The only bright side to the whole tiān shā de mess was that Mal had punished her in the privacy of her own room. So, it wasn't like anyone could just walk in and see her bare pì gu getting paddled by one of Mal's big hands. Painful to sit, to walk, to do anything that wasn't lying on her stomach. Mal had grimaced every time he tried to use his right hand and arm, so she guessed he was kinda being punished too. Which sucked for him since he hadn't done anything but keep his word. She could tell though; he really had hated doing that. Had petted her hair and let her cry on him a little after, which she totally hadn't expected. Mal and Carolyn were pretty much neck and neck for second most important people in her head.

The two new people…they were a little odd. Not the sort she'd've expected to see traveling together, but once she heard some of the story it made more sense. She guessed Jayne (weird name for a guy but Jack wasn't exactly normal for a girl so she couldn't really talk) had been part of Mal's crew before and he'd left. But the girl, Bea... she was a stranger.

Jack might not have official duties, but she was still smart, and sneaky. Smart enough to take Jayne's advice about those wanted posters. Sneaky enough to use her free time following Bea around. And sleeping with her head close to her door so she could hear if Bea walked down the hall to the lounge. Jack had spent quite a bit of time loosening one grate and putting a little metal dowel under one corner. It didn't sit quite level and whenever someone stepped on it, it moved just a bit. An echo of metal through the hollow space under the grates. Just enough to wake her up, not enough to really disturb anyone else.

Bea had offered to teach her about guns. Maybe another girl would have just thought it was a nice gesture. But Jack knew a honeypot when she saw one. If she took the girl up on it, not only would she be disobeying Mal's direct order (again but she wasn't going to get into that), she'd also be hostage to whatever Bea wanted in return for the lessons. Jack didn't have much to offer besides information but if Bea wanted it, that was reason enough to not give it up.

She'd stepped up her efforts to keep track of the blue-haired girl after that. Jayne had given her an out (thank God) and she'd been able to make her escape.

Jayne was kind of like Riddick, big and dangerous (though not to the same degree) and gruff. But he knew how to explain things in a way she'd understand. And he seemed to notice what she'd done with the grate. Enough that he distracted Kaylee when she mentioned fixing it.

Jack was really glad he'd done that. Because now she was in kind of a pickle.

Simon was in Kaylee's bunk. Carolyn was in Mal's bunk (and she wasn't going to think too closely about what they did while they were in there, because gross). River, for all that she wasn't glaring (and she was a lot nicer than Jack would be in the same situation, like she understood or something) and treating Jack like gǒu shǐ and probably would listen, she was asleep in Riddick's bunk and from what Riddick had said, really needed to sleep on that seventh day. So no one would be pleased if she woke River up.

Riddick was on the bridge, and he was still pretty pissed off at her anyway. Yeah, he'd stepped in and clarified some moves with her training. And he wasn't glaring at her every minute of the day. But this was too important for her to leave it to chance. And he might not listen to her because she hadn't exactly proved trustworthy, had she? Her own gorram fault. Tā mā de niǎo.

Because Bea was in shuttle two using the cortex for Buddha knew what, but if she was doing it in the middle of the night it couldn't be anything good. And Jack couldn't exactly go and knock on a hatch door without Bea maybe hearing her and clearing out before she could get caught where she wasn't supposed to be. Mal had wanted Kaylee and River to work on getting some camera eyes on the passenger areas and sensitive parts of the ship, but they hadn't gotten far without the right parts. And the right parts weren't cheap.

Jack knew how to get to the crew bunk hallway without going down through a crew bunk. She'd seen a while back that Kaylee had the grille of the environmental vents on a hinge with a latch so the ducts could be cleaned more easily. The ductwork behind it had an airlock that would close in an emergency, but this wasn't an emergency. Not a ship wide type emergency like a hull breach or fire.

Every hinge and door and lock on Serenity worked without a squeak or rattle. Kaylee had brought her along to do that chore and said if Jack wanted, she'd start teaching Jack about engines so she could help there too if she liked. Jack liked. But the maintenance they'd done made it very easy (maybe a little too easy) to sneak around the shuttle airlocks and doors. The shuttles had life support systems independent of the Serenity's, but it was easier to keep a door to the airlock open, kind of helped both systems along. Zoë did that with her shuttle and made it plain that anyone who entered without knocking on the doorframe would get worse than a boot thrown at their head. (Mal had been the guinea pig who got the boot.)

Anyone who spent a lot of time on ships knew to leave at least one, if not both of the doors open. It wasn't like the shuttle could detach from Serenity with them open. Not even by accident. Not without Kaylee overriding the mechanical safeties and River the cortex ones.

The tricky part of getting to the duct leading to the crew bunk hallway was you had to reach it from the stairs that went up to the catwalk. The stairs were the closest to the vent (and the airlock) but unless you could cling to a wall, you had to use a stick to unlatch the vent cover/grille, pull it open, climb onto the grille and stretch your leg out for your foot to reach the lip of the duct, and pull yourself (and the grille) back into a semi-closed position, then pray you could keep your balance well enough for the rest of you to follow your foot into the duct.

Jack knew the theory was sound, she'd seen River do it when Kaylee had wanted to clean those ducts. The shorter girl had made it look easy, and she'd done it just to save Kaylee the trouble of getting a ladder. This was a little more important than a ladder. Deep breath, remember what Jayne, Riddick and Zoë said when they were training, just do what she did and if you gotta slow it down then do it. You could always speed up once you'd perfected what you were practicing. No point in doing the wrong thing fast. And right now, the most important thing was getting into the duct without going splat (on the cargo bay floor one deck below her).

Well, she was glad she'd started working out more. And doubly glad that Jayne had taught her a more effective way to do it. Her weight made the grille hinges creak though. Loud to her but not something that would attract attention at least. Though it didn't bode well for the hinges holding her weight for long. Niú shǐ. Quick, stretch her foot out, longer legs made this part faster at least, though a heavier body negated some of that. Hook her foot, toes down over the lip and bend her knee to pull herself closer to the duct, closer, closer, almost…

Oh, thank God and Buddha, she was in. Turn around, reach through the grille and re-latch it into place. At least it still closed. Apologize to Kaylee later for bending the hinges a bit. Now to get out.

Short trip through the duct, unlatch the grille over the hall, push it open, turn, crouch with her back to the opening and cautiously exit the duct feet first.

And she'd have made it too, if Jayne hadn't been coming out of his bunk door to use the head and scared the hell out of her. "Tián tián de xié'è cào zài zhè lǐ fāsh ēng le shén me?" He must've picked that one up from Riddick, he was the only one she'd heard use that phrase/curse and she'd heard some pungent ones on the street.

Lost her grip, slid down faster than she'd planned, land wrong, oh that was going to hurt…

She was right (oh yay), yeah it did.

At least he'd kept his voice down.

"Jack, what'n the ruttin' hell're you doin' here," Jayne helped her up and when she couldn't put weight on her right ankle put his arm around her waist.

"Need your help Jayne," Jack pushed the pain away. "I dunno if anyone else who's awake'll believe me. An' if I'd gone through the upper hall, she might've heard the hatch open."

"Who," Jayne set her down so she could put her weight on the wall and held up a hand for her to pause, then pounded (mostly quietly) on Mal's door.

Soundproofing must be good down here because she barely heard the Captain curse, "Zài dì yù de dì qī gè guā yuē jī zhōng shì shén me." Mal jerked the door open with a pissed off look on his face, no shirt, bare feet, pants barely buttoned up to decency. "Jayne what?"

Jack had to give it to Mal, he packed a damn near Riddick amount of aggravation into the question. Fortunately, while Jack might've mumbled 'never mind' and high tailed it (until she recalled just why she was waking/interrupting him), Jayne was made of sterner stuff. "Jack's got somethin' to tell you an' she's worried about someone overhearin'," Jayne shrugged. "She was comin' to get me she said."

Mal poked his head farther out of his bunk and looked to where Jayne had gestured towards Jack. Her face must've looked worried as hell because all that aggravation drained off his expression like coffee down Jayne's gullet in the morning. "Right then," He looked over his shoulder, "Carolyn, gotta get dressed. Jayne," He took in Jayne's outfit which consisted of shorts and (incongruously) knitted orange and yellow slippers with pom-poms on the toes. "Put somethin' on don't shock women an' children."

Jayne muttered something unintelligible and ducked into his bunk. He was pretty quick because by the time Mal was telling Jack to come in Jayne was back out in pants and a tee-shirt to help her walk.

Shit. She'd really just wanted to tell Jayne so that he'd tell Mal. "Uhm…so…" She tugged at a curl nervously. "I know you don't…trust Bea." She began. "An' I know I ain't exactly proven myself of sterling character neither. But I belong to Serenity an' she don't."

"That why you were gettin' Jayne," Mal inquired in a voice a bit more gentle than she'd been expecting.

"Yeah, him an' Bea are pretty much the only ones ain't mad at me right now, or at least pretendin' they ain't mad, or y'know 'busy' having bunk time," Jack would've said fucking but Mal had a thing about language and how to use it politely.

The Captain nodded, "Explains why you didn't go to the bridge and Rick."

"Yeah," Jack tugged at the curl again, damn thing wouldn't stay off her face. "I figured Jayne'd believe me." She didn't want to spend too much time on that and hurried on, "I've been followin' Bea around when I ain't doin' chores or workin' with Zoë, y'know, in my copious amounts of free time." Mal repressed a snort of what sounded suspiciously like laughter at her sarcastic tone and nodded again. "I messed with a grate in the hall near her dorm so I'd know when she got up in the night."

"Smart," Mal complimented. "And has she been?"

"Yeah," Jack nodded. "So I'd follow her, y'know? She went all over the ship, like she was bored, but then she got to shuttle two…" She sighed, "The good thing about oilin' all the hinges an' stuff for the doors is that nothin' squeaked when I was following her around. The bad thing is after we did that, she could get into the shuttle, and no one would hear her."

"Jayne, go wake up River," Mal ordered. At least Mal got immediately why Bea in shuttle two was a bad thing.

"Already awake," The dark-haired girl stood in the doorway in what Jack guessed were her fancy kind of night clothes. Something soft and pale green like shorts and a camisole, edged to look like ripples in the fabric. Pretty but not ruffles. Her hair was falling down to her butt, loose and wavy, she'd obviously been waiting for Riddick to come to bed.

It did make the portable cortex source box she held look a little strange though. "Sending a text message to Riddick on the bridge, warning him to walk soft and go to shuttle two, cut off escape routes."

Less than thirty seconds later the grates over the bunk hallway shook soundlessly and Jack guessed Riddick had acted pretty fast. Hopefully Bea would still be there.

That hope was dashed when Mal's hatch was tapped and then pushed down, "Nobody there," Riddick informed them quietly. "But the shuttle's warm, like the life support was on."

"Shouldn't be on," River shook her head.

"All right," Mal went from interrupted boyfriend/Captain to Captain Reynolds with a jut of his chin. "Rick, you step quiet, go down to the dorms, make sure she's there, then you lock her in her bunk. I don't care if you gotta barricade it. She don't leave 'til we fetch her."

"On it," Riddick disappeared.

"What if she's got cortex stuff in her bunk," Jayne asked, and Mal blinked at him but nodded.

"That's a fair point."

"She don't," Jack shook her head and shrugged when they all looked at her. "Last time you came and got her for dinner I went through her room. That's why I was so late. Figured we'd be better off knowing if she had anything dangerous."

"Would she be able to tell?" Carolyn asked quietly.

"Nah," Jack shook her head. "Don't get paid to do a job in secret if you do it so it's obvious it's been done."

Mal took a minute to parse through that and gave her a little smile. "Good work Jackie girl."

That felt good. Made the throbbing in her ankle worth it.

Author's Note: So Bea is up to something, and Jack, being the sneaky person she is, figured out that it couldn't be anything good. And I wanted something from Jack's perspective.

Chinese Translation:

jiàn huò (bitch / slut)

tiān shā de (Goddam! / goddamn / wretched)

pì gu (butt)

gǒu shǐ (dog shit)

Tā mā de niǎo (goddamn it /lit. 'His mother's dick')

Niú shǐ (cow dung)

Tián tián de xié'è cào zài zhè lǐ fāsh ēng le shén me? (what in the sweet unholy fuck is going on here)

Zài dì yù de dì qī gè guā yuē jī zhōng shì shén me (What in the seventh sphincter of hell)