Frame Story: Jack Tallis is infamous. Back Story: Hoban Washburne is infamous.

“Jack Tallis is your uncle?” Mal asked, as he and Zoe came into the dining room. Kaylee, who had cooking duty, was already seated at the table with a plate of food; Wash was filling his plate from the pan on the stove. Mal sniffed: something with lots of garlic. They’d all be hitting the mint mouthwash later.

“Was my uncle,” Wash corrected.

“And you never mentioned it?” Mal grabbed a plate for himself. Looked like Kaylee had tried to stir-fry some of the canned vegetables with sliced protein, which had resulted in an unappetizing-looking vegetable mush with protein chunks. Well, some of his own efforts had looked, and likely tasted, even worse. Mal spooned some onto his plate. Next to him, Zoe took a plate for herself.

Wash shrugged, walking around to the table and taking a seat. “Didn’t want anybody to think I was trading on that to make my way.”

“Not the way you fly,” Mal said. “But we mighta got a few jobs out of it, if we’d known!”

“Now, see, that would have been the kind of thing I was trying to avoid,” Wash pointed out. “But we probably got a few jobs out of it anyway. Uncle Jack liked to take care of family, and he surely knew where I was.”

Mal sat across from Kaylee. Zoe took the seat next to Wash. Mal shook his head, disbelieving. “Jack Tallis. Jack Tallis’s nephew is my pilot.”

“Is he famous or something?” Kaylee asked. “I’ve never heard of him.”

“Infamous, more like,” Mal said. “Jack Tallis made his name as a gunrunner, long before the war. Back when the independent worlds was wasting their resources on little private wars. Tallis got rich and went legit – Tallis Transport is one of the largest non-Allied shipping firms, one of the few the Alliance never could seem to absorb or run out of business. Tallis had a reputation for ruthlessness, early on,” he glanced at Wash, who nodded.

“Wu du bu juhn fu,” Wash confirmed. “I got lots of lectures on the wickedness of Uncle Jack.” “Wow!” Kaylee said. “Any of my relatives had ever got rich, the rest of us would have been camping on their doorstep!”

“Not my folks,” Wash said. “My dad was Mr. Honest Job, all the way.”

“So what happened with you?” Mal asked.

Wash shrugged. “I thought the whole honesty and fairness thing ought to go all the way up the food chain. Didn’t seem like an honest job to me if I was the only one had to be a stand-up guy.”

“That’s how you ended up here?” Mal asked, laughing.

Wash smiled a little ruefully. “More or less. I guess it is a bit of an irony, when you think about it. At least the folks we deal with are usually honest about being bad sorts. It’s the kind who want you to believe they’re good sorts while they’re bleeding you dry who bother me.”

“Are we bad sorts?” Kaylee asked, sounding slightly injured. “Cap ‘n’ Zoe don’t shoot anybody ain’t trying to kill them, and we don’t steal from anybody don’t deserve to be stole from – do we, Captain?” she looked imploringly at Mal. Zoe stared straight down into her plate, hiding a smile. Mal sat back in his chair and considered Kaylee.

“Well, Kaylee. I guess that’s pretty much what Wash was trying to say,” he replied. He looked at the forkful of food in his hand, and tried to think of something more to say, so as to put off having to actually eat it. “Shame to have to replace my pilot.”

“Why do you need to replace me?” Wash asked, suddenly wary. The prospect of job-hunting again made him feel faintly ill.

“’Cause your rich uncle died? You don’t conjure you’re up for some kind of inheritance?” Mal asked. It occurred to him that if Wash left, Zoe might go, too, and he frowned. This marriage thing looked bound to complicate his life.

But Wash didn’t look as though he planned on going anywhere. “I guess maybe,” he said. “Although if Uncle Jack ever meant to leave me anything, he never mentioned it. And he got married a couple of years ago, so I just assumed his wife would get the business and all.”

Mal was somewhat relieved to hear that, although he supposed it was ungenerous of him to be. “Well. Maybe you’ll still get a little something.”

Wash shrugged. “Maybe I will, maybe I won’t. Doesn’t matter to me, really. All I want is a chance to say goodbye.”

**

5 years earlier (2509)

“Hoban Washburne, please come to the nearest courtesy desk. Hoban Washburne, please come to the nearest courtesy desk.”

The port was busy, and Wash was unused to hearing his name broadcast in public places, so it took him a moment to realize that he was, in fact, being paged. He considered not answering – it might be his folks, and he really didn’t want to hear it – but it might also be the recruiter or someone else he really needed to talk to, so he left the window where he’d been watching the ships lift off and went hunting a courtesy desk.

“I’m Hoban Washburne,” he said. “Somebody paged me?”

The old man working the courtesy desk checked his screen. “You have a broadwave,” he said. “Come around here and you can take it at the public console.”

Wash stepped around the side of the counter, crossing his fingers and hoping it wasn’t his mother . . . or the Alliance military. He realized, belatedly, that today was the day he was supposed to show for his pre-induction physical, and that they might already have missed him.

Before he could walk away, though, his caller appeared on the screen. Wash wasn’t completely relieved when the face that greeted him was Jack Tallis. Especially when his Uncle said, “Your mother tells me you’re headed for Hera to sign up with the Browncoats.”

“I’m headed for Hera to talk to an Independent recruiter,” Wash corrected. “I haven’t signed up for anything yet.” He glanced up worriedly at the old man working the courtesy desk, but he was talking to another traveler.

“Browncoats are going to lose this war, Wash. Already have lost it, really; they just haven’t come to terms with it yet.”

“So they tell me,” Wash said.

“Have you thought about what happens then? Really thought about it? Do you want to spend a few years in a prison camp, or find yourself blacklisted from any decent job – not just flying – because you spent six months wearing a Browncoat uniform just to spite your mother and me?”

“It’s not about spite,” Wash insisted. “My sympathies have never been secret.”

A woman passing by gave him a curious and hostile look, and Wash lowered his voice. “I’m out of work, and they have jobs. And their jobs don’t feel like blood money to me.”

“Killing people you don’t know isn’t blood money?”

“Not unless they’re conscripts or civilians,” Wash said. “So far the only civilian casualties I’ve heard about have been on the other side.”

Jack sighed. “I know you’ll make your own decision. That’s fine. But just as a favor to me, will you consider one other possibility?”

“What’s that?” Wash wondered if his mother had begged Jack to give him his job back, so he wouldn’t go to war. He wondered if he would take it.

“There’s a fellow used to work for me – name’s Gabriel Tanaka. He has his own ship now, but he needs a pilot. I told him about you. Will you talk to him?”

Wash considered. “Does my mother know about Tanaka?”

“Your mother! Oh, no! Wouldn’t she howl! No, her idea was that I might have better luck than she would, talking you out of this fool notion of joining the Browncoats. I won’t kid you, working for Gabe may not be a great improvement over signing on for a war, but I think your chances of staying a free man might be better. Gabe’s on Persephone right now. I can find you transport there. Go, talk to him, and if you don’t like what you see or hear, then go to Hera, or whatever you decide to do. But just give it a chance. You’ll like Gabe, he’s a fair-minded guy.”

Wash sighed, and wondered why he was agreeing to let his mother and his uncle meddle in his life again. He decided it was because the notion of killing for a living -- on either side -- didn’t really appeal to him. “All right,” he said. “Find me a ship to Persephone. I’ll talk to Tanaka.”

"One more thing," his uncle said. "If you're going to skip the government's invitation to join their fine fighting forces, you might not want to go around answering to your given name in public places."

"Yeah, that had occurred to me," Wash said, wondering how is Uncle knew about the draft notice -- and whether his mother did -- but too cautious of his surroundings to inquire.

Jack tapped some keys. "Your ticket is for Wash Warren. Check your post at Eavesdown Docks on Persephone when you get there, I'll make sure your new ID is waiting on you. Until then, look innocent and lie convincingly. You can do that, right?"

"Look innocent, maybe," Wash said. "I'm not so good at the other."

"Nothing to be ashamed of. You should have a few days' grace before they miss you," Jack said.

Wash nodded, casting an anxious glance around as he cut the transmission.

**

Wash loitered, bored, in the Paradise Gift Shop, centrally located in the midst of the Eavesdown Docks. If Tanaka didn’t show in the next five minutes, he was leaving. Wash’s tolerance for standing around staring at overpriced T-shirts and coffee mugs that said “Eavesdown Docks, Persephone” had been exhausted about fifteen minutes earlier. He wandered into the toy section, where he stood with one eye squinched closed and the other pressed to a cardboard kaleidoscope, slowly watching the patterned plastics shift and re-form.

Someone laid a hand on his shoulder, and Wash jumped, the kaleidoscope dropping forgotten to his side. He'd discarded all of his old ID and replaced it with what his Uncle had sent, but that would really only protect him as long as he kept himself relatively unnoticed. Anybody with access to a snap couldn't help but notice that Wash Warren bore an uncanny resemblance to Hoban Washburne.

He turned, suppressing nerves, and came face to face a swarthy, muscular man with a scar that ran from his temple to the right-hand corner of his mouth. The effect was rakish and piratical, and Wash’s first thought was he got the scar I wanted!

“You Wash?” the man said. Apparently his scar came with some nerve damage; the right side of his mouth didn’t move quite right when he talked. When Wash nodded -- Wash Warren, he thought; if anybody asks, it's Warren, not Washburne -- the fellow said “Gabriel Tanaka,” and stuck out a square, fat-fingered hand.

Wash transferred the kaleidoscope to his left hand, and returned Tanaka’s handshake. “Captain Tanaka, nice to meet you. I understand you’re looking for a pilot?”

“I’m not the only one,” Tanaka said. “Don’t turn around. The two Domestic Security officers standing at the door are holding this morning’s pickup list.”

“What’s a pickup list?” Wash asked, very careful not to turn.

“Soldiers who go AWOL are put on a weekly pickup list. It includes citizens who don’t show for their pre-induction exams. DomSec’s supposed to bring them in if they see them. They might not have noticed yet that you’re on today’s – ‘Washburne’ will be close to the end of the alphabet, so you’re not on the first page or anything. But unless you want to join up, you’re going to have to tread carefully.” Keeping one eye on the DomSec officers at the door, Tanaka took a few slow steps toward the back.

Wanting a glimpse himself, Wash turned slightly and laid the kaleidoscope back on the shelf. Sure enough, there were two security officers standing there, and one had a datapad tucked under his arm. Wash knelt, putting the glass shelves between himself and the officers so that he could get a better look.

One of the officers scanned the store, and Wash quickly looked down, feigning interest in the contents of the lowest shelf. He didn’t have to feign interest for more than a fraction of a second; in a cardboard box on the bottom shelf were several clear bags of toy dinosaurs, all molded from unrealistically garish plastic. Wash picked one up, interested in spite of his current predicament. He was still irked at his Uncle, but he did miss the dinos.

“I think you could use one of these, don’t you?” Tanaka said, holding a dark ballcap lettered with the Eavesdown Docks – Persephone logo.

“You buying?” Wash asked. “’Cause I’m broke.” Out of the corner of his eye, he watched as the two DomSec officers strolled through the T-shirt displays. But they weren't looking at the shirts. Their hard-eyed gaze was taking in each person who passed outside the store; occasionally, they consulted their datapad and spoke in terse low voices with each other.

Wash moved to put a square building pillar in between himself and the officers.

“I’ll take it out of your first paycheck,” Tanaka said, also positioning himself so as to be inconspicuous.

Guess that means I’m taking the job, Wash thought. Not exactly the way he would have chosen to do things, but surely it beat whatever the Alliance had planned for draft-dodgers and soldiers who went AWOL.

The DomSec officers wandered farther back into the store, stopping behind a magazine rack. Tanaka tapped Wash on the shoulder. Wash followed Tanaka to the checkstand, and laid the cap in front of the cashier. “These, too,” he said, placing the bag of plastic dinosaurs alongside it, and heard Tanaka grunt.

“Hey, it’s my money – once I earn it,” Wash said.

“You’re definitely kin to Jack,” Tanaka commented, amused. He laid the money on the counter and collected his change.

Wash pressed the brim of the ballcap into shape and settled it low over his eyes, then followed his new employer from the shop. ------------ Wu du bu juhn fu [One must be ruthless to be great]