Drive

Chapter Two - Decisions

--

While River went about piloting Serenity out of atmo, the rest of the crew met in the dining area to discuss their job.

“A car?” Jayne peered over the paper and made a confused snarl at the very idea. “We’re gonna rob a gorram car?”

“It appears so.” Mal paced the length of the room as he conjured up a plan in the back of his mind. “Seems to me there might be more heat on this vehicle than Boyle’s willin’ to share with us.”

“It’s probably an Alliance trap.” Zoe contributed. “Easy target, let some information slip, and they’ve got their thieves in shackles.”

Jayne let the paper float down onto the table. “I say we skunk the job an’ find employment elsewhere. Ain’t takin’ a bullet for somethin’ I don’t know what it is.”

“For once, I agree with Jayne on this one.” Simon said with a shameful look. “There’s no way the Alliance would ever transport any sort of ‘artifact’ on a less-that-secure vehicle like that. It would have to be a trap.”

Mal gazed at the floor and rubbed his forehead after being struck with the fact that he too agreed with Jayne. “咒骂这个旋转木马…Alright. The job is supposed to be takin’ place on Relanor, which is where we’re headin’. That moon is home to some employment opportunities anyways so we’ll just keep the course for now. Don’t be tellin’ Boyle ‘bout this neither. The last thing I need is another angry midget lookin’ to get even.”

--

“Only one thing is gonna walk you through this, Mal.” Shepherd Book said quietly as the two looked out over the town. “Belief.”

“You know I always look to you for counsel, but sermons make me sleepy, Shepherd.” Mal took a drink of water. “I ain’t lookin’ for help from on high. That’s a long wait for a train don’t come.”

“When I talk about belief, why do you always assume I’m talking about God?”

--

“Captain!” Kaylee’s voice rang out over the intercom. Mal snapped out of his daze and clicked the receiver.

“What is it?” Had he been sleeping? He couldn’t even relax in his own room anymore without being visited by ghosts.

“The gravity field all over the place. You might wanna check on our pilot.”

As Mal turned away, he saw the various items in his room begin to vibrate. “Huh.” He said before climbing up the ladder to the main hallway.

“Captain Reynolds!” Simon came at a full sprint from the dining room.

“Getting some exercise, Doctor?” Mal joked sleepily.

“It’s River! She’s asleep!” He began sweat from his run.

“What? At the helm?”

“No, in her bed! I just woke up and I found her in bed! Dead asleep and I can’t wake her up!”

Mal pointed towards the bridge. “Well who’s flyin’ the…Oh, this just isn’t my best day ever.”

The two began walked towards the bridge and up the stairs. They were met with an empty pilot’s seat and the surface of a decently-sized moon circling towards them and growing more detailed by the second.

“Ho ho! Ain’t that just the scariest thing?” Mal leaped over into the pilot’s seat and grabbed the controls. He planted his feet firmly on the ground and began to pull backwards with all his strength. The front viewports began to light up red as the ship hit atmo. The silence of space was destroyed under the whistling sound of rushing air and the rumbling sound of the engines.

Simon managed to gain his footing enough to ask, “What can I do, Captain?!”

“Notify your next of kin!” Mal shouted out as he struggled to bring Serenity back level. “Tell ‘em you’re about to be in a really cool lookin’ spaceship crash.” He quickly whipped the controls to the right and brought the ship out of the spin, then activated the forward thrusters to bring everything back level. The metal creaked and cracked after the ride became steady.

One by one, the rest of the crew entered the bridge to find out what had happened.

“Why can’t we ever make a landing what isn’t made following a tailspin?” Jayne said. “Thought I was comin’ down from a hangover things was spinnin’ so fast.”

“Where’s River?” Zoe asked.

Mal put the ship on autopilot and stood up to stretch his legs. “It seems she took a lunch break.” He looks Simon straight in the eye. “Doc, I know I’m a naughty man. I’m guilty of almost every crime the Alliance has written up. One of the only laws I haven’t broken is child abuse, but I will shove that girl in an airlock if she leaves like that again. 了解?”

“Yes…it won’t happen again. I don’t understand why she would have done that. She’s been almost fully recovered ever since Miranda.”

“Bullet in the brainpan, squish.”

--

Simon slid the door to his room to find River still sleeping. “River?” He said softly as he entered. “River, wake up.” He shook her shoulder until eyes slid open.

“噢祖母什么大牙您有.” River said in a low voice before yawning.

“Yes, that was a part of the story that I read to you yesterday.”

“It made me tired and then…” She sat up quickly. “I’m not on the bridge!”

“Nope. We all found that out just a bit ago.”

“No, no, no, no, no. I can’t be here. I have to be on the bridge!” She began to put on her slippers.

“River, you’ve been up for three days straight. You can’t keep flying this ship manually all of the time.”

“But it makes her happy!” She began to tear up and whimpered, “It makes her happy when I fly.”

“Her? Who are you talking about?” Simon tried desperately to calm River down, but she darted out of the door to leave Simon with his questions.

--

-Relanor-

Mal picked out a small plateau on a hill over looking the main city on Relanor. A semi-developed town, it was beginning to light up house-by-house as the sun set behind it. It was as a flare in the desert.

“The Mule packed up?” Mal asked as he threw his pack on board the hovercraft.

“Packed and ready to go, Cap.” Zoe responded. After pulling on the ignition the engines fired up and the craft began to float a few feet off the ground.

“Good. Let’s hit the local bars and see what we can dig up.” He clicked on the intercom. “Little one, we’ll be back by mornin’. Don’t go leavin’ without us.”

“Roger, Captain.” River said with a hint of sadness in her voice.

Jayne marched down the stairs wearing the yellow and orange beanie that his mom had made for him. “Awwww. I think you hurt her feelin’s.” Despite being snappy, Jayne’s personality always seemed brighter when he wore that hideous beanie. It was a mystery that was the topic of much discussion among the crew.

“Jayne, why are you bringing Vera along?” Zoe glanced at the dual-cartridge monster of a gun slung around Jayne’s shoulder.

Jayne knew he wasn’t supposed to bring any heavy artillery along. “Just…”

“Wanted to be prepared.” Mal and Zoe said in unison. “We know.”

--

“Maybe it’s just her lady time.” Kaylee sat with Simon on the engine room hammock. She rubbed her bare feet along Simon’s leather shoes as they talked.

“I’m not so sure. I think it’s something on the ship that’s bothering her.”

“Well heck, it’s probably Jayne. He’s the only thing ‘round here I can think of can make someon’ jump out an airlock.”

“She said something about making ‘her’ happy. I don’t know what she meant by that.” Simon stared beyond the flooring in deep thought.

“Her? Well, who would be pleased by her flyin’ Serenity? Inara’s still back on Persephone so it can’t be her. I can’t even tell who’s flyin’ back here so it’s probably not me.”

“You think it’s Zoe?”

“Would make perfect sense to me. She just lost her husband, the pilot, and a friend. Maybe it helps?”

Simon put his arm around Kaylee and planted a kiss on her. “Thank you.”

“Well it was pretty simple. Even I spotted that.”

“No…I mean…thank you for dealing with me. I know it can’t be easy dealing with me when my sister is in her moods.”

She leaned her head on his shoulder. “Oh, she’s just bein’ little. I was a little girl like that once too. She’s probably just tryin’ to please everyone.”

“I think that’s it. Maybe she’s just trying to repay us for taking care of her…Maybe.”

“Maybe.” Kaylee made an ear-to-ear smile and hopped onto the floor.

“What are you doing?” Simon said happily.

“All this talkin’ ‘bout stuff got me wantin’ an autopsy by the good doctor.” She closed and locked the engine room door.

--

“I’m just sayin’…” Mal gulped on his words as he drank up at the bar. “You know, a lot of people think the Alliance is nothin’ but a bunch of…meanies. You know? They’d sooner steal candy from a blind baby than be courteous…You know?”

The Alliance soldier took another drink of the Chinese whiskey. “I…I know! That’s what they think. That we go n’ beat up grandmas in the alleys. We don’t…Well, at least I don’t. Know some others who…”

“It’s just an image problem really. That’s all people see.”

“Exactly. They don’t see all the stuff we do behind the scenes.” The soldier hid his face behind his hand and peered at Mal through his fingers. “We wanna help out. We do.”

“Ah, I hear ya. Here’s to you.” Mal raised his glass.

“To meee.” The soldier took another shot. “Ahhh.”

“So, what’s your business on a moon like this? More behind the scenes stuff?”

“Naaaaah. We’ve got something going on tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow, you say?” Mal signaled to Zoe, who was sitting at a table just next to the bar.

“Yeah, we got something kinda big goin’ on tomorrow. Can’t say what it is. You know…top secret. Oooooooo.” The soldier made a ghost sound. Zoe began laughing behind him.

“Don’t suppose you can make any of that non-secret. Be an interesting story.”

The soldier slapped Mal on the shoulder. “Ahhh, what the heck. You seem like a nice enough feller. Yeah, we’re movin’ somethin’ in a car to a port just north of here. Don’t know what it is but they’ve got me on guard duty around town…again…That’s all I ever do. Guard….guard….guard.” As the soldier trailed off, Mal and Zoe left the bar through the swinging doors.

“So there is a car moving tomorrow.” Zoe said. “Are we still following through with the job?”

“Sounds good to me. If it was as big as I thought it was, then that soldier might have been a bit more enthused about it. Probably something small.”

“Soldiers will also probably come if they’re called by whoever’s in that car.”

“Also likely. We’ll head back to Serenity and plan it out there. Sleep on it…Where’s Jayne?”

The two approached the Mule and found Jayne unconscious and hanging over the side.

“Jayne!” Mal yelled in Jayne’s ear. “Hey!” He yelled again and gave him a firm slap across the face.

“Wha! Wuh! Huh?” Jayne came to. “Y’all are back already?”

“Yeah, so what happened here?”

Jayne got to his feet and dusted off his clothes. “Just a civilized discussion ‘tween two gentlemen.”

“Take it you lost that debate.”

“Slipped with a word or two.”

“Right.”

--

The crew discussed tomorrow’s plan while Jayne slept the night away. His philosophy on complicated plans were that as complicated as they did indeed get, it would always boil down to “Jayne, you need to take out…” fill in the blank. As he lost consciousness, he tapped his foot on the bed rail to the “Fruity Oaty Bar” theme song. It helped him relax and he hummed it often, except around River of course.

“Da da da dada da. Doo doo da da doo doo da doo.” He said quietly along with the song in his head. Then, he fell asleep. His snoring seemed to vibrate the very walls that made up his room.

“You shouldn’t sleep so loud.” A voice said.

Jayne practically hit the ceiling in fright and grabbed the nearest firearm he could find. In the corner sat River. She sat in his chair with her head hunched over and her long, black hair hanging over his favorite gun.

“Hey, psychogirl, what the hell are you doin’ with Vera?!” He stood up as if to threaten River in some way. She quickly snapped all of Vera’s components back together and pointed the rather large gun at him. “Oh…alright. You can…play around with her if you want.”

“I wouldn’t shoot you, Jayne.” River’s smile scared Jayne more than the gun pointed at his head.

“Well…that’s good.” Jayne said.

“Here.” She swung the rifle around for Jayne to take it. “Go on. You can take it.”

Slowly, he gripped the gun and pulled it towards him. “What’d you do to her?”

“I fixed her.”

“Fixed her? She wasn’t in need of no fixin’.” Jayne said almost laughing at the idea.

“I replaced the compression coil with a new one and removed the plug. So Vera can shoot with a 10 increased accuracy rate and a 35 increase in firepower.” River kept on smiling.

He couldn’t figure out some of the numbers that River had pointed out, but as far as Jayne could tell, Vera would shoot better and more powerful.

“Huh.” Jayne said looking it over. “Well I guess you aren’t useless after all.” He fought with his temptation to fire a bullet off into the wall.

--

“So that’s it then.” Mal told his crew. “We go tomorrow.”