Kaylee’s Lament

Part Twenty-Seven

“Ain’t that pretty gorram crazy?” Jayne said in disbelief. “Beg pardon?” Wash asked, eyes wide. “You heard me. Do it.” “Just a note: when we covered the prospect of a ‘collision course’ in flight school, it was in the ‘things to avoid’ class.” “Was ‘pissing off the captain in a crisis’ covered in there too? Or did you skip that day? Just do it. Trust me.” He turned to Kaylee. “Sweet pea, I need speed, lots of it. Can we do that thing you did to slip these guys the last time?” Kaylee looked like someone just shot her dog at the mention of a collision course. “Yeah. But I can do better. Put together some stuff from the books, can boost us up right nice now without blowin’ anything out afterwards. About four minutes worth o’ ‘gorram fast’.” She paused. “Cap’n? You wouldn’t . . .” “Kaylee. Wash, and all of you, listen up. River gave me an idea that’ll work, I reckon, but you got to trust me. Just do your parts, and we should all make it through this fine.” He looked especially at Kaylee. “A little poorer,” he admitted, “but well worth the MacKlintock’s lives by my estimation.” “An’ River gave you this notion?” Jayne asked, mystified. “We takin’ orders from a gorram teen-aged crazy girl now?” He glanced at River. “No offense.” She stuck out her tongue at him. “We’re takin’ orders from me,” insisted Mal, “and I got the idea from a teen-aged supergenius who can see the gorram obvious when no one else can. Trust me. You’ll like this one, Jayne,” he said, clapping the man on his shoulder. “I promise. Now go get suited up. You too, Zoe. And have Simon move everything he can from the hold that ain’t gonna enjoy vacuum. Put it in the shuttles. Have the Shepherd an’ Inara help.” He turned back to Kaylee. “Can you cut the gravity drive for a bit, just under the cargo hold?” “Not just there. I either got to cut it off all together, or shift it to the back of the ship. But I can do it,” she affirmed. Mal could tell that she was struggling mightily for a breath of hope, one that included both live MacKlintocks and a functioning Serenity. And she was looking to him for that hope. Mal had seen that look before, back in the War, on young recruits facing a hopeless situation and counting on him for deliverance. They looked at him just like that, too. Of course, most of those kids died. “I’m gonna go suit up, too. River, you like a good EVA – you come too. You’ll be useful.” “Shiny!” she said, eyes sparkling. “If this doesn’t work and we all die,” called Wash as everyone scrambled out the hatch to their tasks, “I’m filing a grievance with the pilot’s union! I’M WARNING YOU!”

*

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“This is crazy,” Simon complained as he hefted another box of drugs up to the shuttle lock. Inara’s shuttle was already at capacity. “How does he think he can pull this off?” “He got the idea from River,” Book pointed out, carrying a hefty load himself. “She is your sister. And pretty smart, by all accounts.” “She’s got brain damage!” Simon exclaimed as he set the box down in the already crowded shuttle. “Is everyone forgetting that? I love my sister, more than anyone in the ‘verse, but rely on her for tactical advice? We’re trusting everyone’s fate to a girl who’s missing a good healthy chunk of her amygdala! And I don’t think she was completely sane to start with!” “Sanity, I’ve found, is often overrated. Many brilliant people were accused of insanity by those who didn’t understand them.” “And some of those people were actually crazy!” “Point taken. But I trust your sister, even if she’s a few pews shy of a church. ‘Sides, I heard of worse plans,” Book pointed out. Simon sighed heavily as he arranged the crates for maximum efficiency. “Me too. That doesn’t make this any less ruttin’ insane.” “Folk’s lives are on the line. I’d say that justifies some risks.” “I know. But this?” “You got a better idea?” “No, which makes this the absolute best bad plan we could come up with Hooray.” “You should take some solace from that.” “Somehow, I find it less than comforting.” Inara bustled in behind them. She was carrying two large boxes, and didn’t seem to be breaking a sweat. “Hurry up, you two! The Captain says we have another five minutes, no more, before he starts this hayride!” “Careful with that! Those bottles are breakable!” Simon cried as she dropped them jarringly. “Then shouldn’t we be more expedient with the moving? I would hate to see all that glass and chemicals all over the hold. We worked so hard to steal them.” She hurried off. Both men’s gaze followed her. “She certainly is a . . . fit woman,” Book remarked, noting how well she lugged around the crates. “But she never works out that I’ve seen.” “The average sexual experience burns roughly 3000 calories and dramatically increases oxygenation of the muscle tissue. It’s good cardiovascular, excellent for muscle tone, and can increase physical endurance significantly over time,” Simon supplied, following Book back out to the hold. “And Inara don’t look even close to average.” “Just what I was thinking.” Simon shook his head to banish the inevitable tangential line of thinking, then redoubled his efforts.

*

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“This is the craziest gorram plan I ever heard tell of,” grumbled Jayne as he pulled his gauntlets on. “Kinetic weaponry has a long and distinguished history,” pointed out Zoe as she began her suit-check. “Well, so do I, gorram it, and I’d hate for this t’be the last ruttin’ chapter!” “Just think about how shiny this will be if it works.” “Well, pardon me for thinkin’ ‘bout how dead we’ll be if it don’t.” “Death by explosive decompression takes an average of six point three seconds,” River said as she pulled on her own gauntlet, “though it is theorized that cerebral tissue continues to harbor consciousness for up to two minutes after initial disruption. This is difficult to prove as there is no real interface left at that point.” “Well ain’t she a gorram bundle o’ sweetness an’ joy today!” Jayne swore again. “An’ this is her gorram crazy-ass plan!” “Jayne,” Zoe said, fixing him with her best Slap-Jayne-Down-‘Cause-He’s-Being-A-Whiney-Bitch look, “would you rather cut and run and leave those folks to the slavers? You know what they’ll do.” “Yeah, well, I like ‘em fine, and they’re good folk. None better. They cook a mean pig. But this here is the only ass I own, and I ain’t partial to riskin’ it to lose money. Bad enough I risk it to make money.” “We all got to die someday,” Zoe said, philosophically. “Maybe today is the day.” “That’s great soldierin’ talk, Zoe. Real inspirational. An’ if we were ‘bout to attack a hill, I’d be real inspired. ‘Cept I ain’t no soldier and we ain’t takin’ no hill, so pardon me for bein’ a might twitchy when it comes to this gorram crazy-ass plan!” “The Captain knows what he’s doin’,” Zoe said with an air of finality as she put on her helmet and sealed it. “Check me?” she asked, and presented her back to Jayne. “Captain don’t know everythin’. Oh, that’s right, he ain’t never been wrong before, has he? Hmmm. Let me think . . . oh, yeah, only ‘bout every other day and twice on Tuesdays! You’re good,” he said, speaking of her suit’s configuration. “Captain says it’ll work, River says it’ll work, even my gorram husband admitted it might work when I twisted his ruttin’ arm. I say we try it. What do we got to lose?” “Lessee, there’s our loot, our ship, hmmm, what else, what else, got to be somethin’ – oh yeah, our rutitn’ lives! Hell, we weren’t usin’ ‘em much anyhow.” “You want to hide in the shuttle with Inara? I’m sure she has room,” Zoe said, using her best weapon against Jayne: his own inflated opinion of his status as a bad-ass. “I just might!” “Well, if you don’t trust the Captain, you can trust my hubby to get us through. He’s one pretty hot gorram pilot.” “You might be just a little biased about that, on account o’ you sleepin’ with him.” “You’re welcome to sleep with him too, if it improves your disposition. I’m only jealous about other women.” “Why does every other gorram conversation we got to have end up with someone invitin’ me to become a pillow biter?” Jayne complained. “I ain’t shown even the faintest of sly tendencies.” “Because denial ain’t just a river on Isis,” Zoe said, checking Jayne’s kit as he sealed his helmet. “You ever considered it serious? Sometimes you yelp so much we think you’re just repressin’ somethin’. You’re good.” “An’ how you figger you know what’s on my gorram mind?” Jayne asked, snidely. “’Cause I can read you like a gorram comic book,” Zoe shot back. “’Sides, I done talked with River. She reads minds. Mayhap she’s been inside there, seen some . . . unexpressed inclinations.” Jayne looked shocked, and stared at River, who was now putting her own helmet on and tucking in her hair. “You ain’t done that,” he accused. “Have you?” River just looked at him and shook her head inside the helmet. “Puppies,” she said through the suit radio. “Nothin’ but puppies. They’d lick themselves if they could.” “What kinda gorram answer is that?” Jayne demanded. “You seen puppies in my head? Sly puppies?” “Vous avez les cerveaux d'un poulet retardé.” When his face contorted in a stunning display of confoundedness, River added, “That’s French.” “Jesus, why can’t you speak Chinese like normal folk?” “Thought you liked French?” asked Zoe. “I think I’m losin’ my taste for it,” growled Jayne. “Specially if she’s seein’ . . . sly craziness in my head. Might could be all that French I been studyin’.” “Yeah, but you quit bitching about the plan,” River added. “That’s worth a little sexual head-trip.” “No it weren’t!” protested Jayne. “We’re ready when you are, Sir,” Zoe said into the suit radio. “I didn’t say it was worth it to you,” she said, grinning manically.

*

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“Mal, this plan is crazy,” insisted Wash. “Then call me crazy,” Mal said. He had his suit on, but not his helmet. “I thought I just did?” “You said the plan was crazy. You didn’t say I was.” “It was implied. Next time – assuming we aren’t all dead by then – I’ll be more explicit.” “Are you sayin’ you ain’t a good enough of a pilot to handle this?” “No, but—” “And I so much appreciate your support and expertise on this. A lesser pilot would be cowering in a shuttle closet, wetting his pants. Lucky we got a real man in the pilot seat.” “And he’d be a very wise, cowardly man who would live to a ripe old incontinent age. Me, I gotta be a greater pilot. I’ll sit here and steer and wet my pants in the pilot’s chair, like a real man.” “That’s the spirit! You about set up here?” “If you can call it that. Just waiting on Kaylee to finish up connecting her booster voodoo. Then I’ll send this poor ship right at the Conway.” “You picked a spot yet?” “Yeah, actually. Just behind the reactors on a Conway, if I recollect right, is a fairly unarmored cooling pump necessary to keep the reactor from goin’ nova. We hit it right, with enough force, and Conway go bye-bye.” “What if you’re off by a few degrees?” “If we hit it anywhere behind the reactor I’d say we’re shiny. In the front? Maybe we blow it up, maybe we just kill a bunch of people and piss ‘em off real bad.” “I want them pissed off. I suppose this could be classified as a double feint.” “Actually, I’d say it’s an elaborate mass suicide attempt, but then again I’m not a military man.” Before the verbal sparring could continue, Kaylee came in, also wearing a space suit minus the gauntlets and helmet, and began cheerfully rewiring a switch on Wash’s control board. “Just about set up, Cap,” she said. “We can probably do about four and a half minutes ‘fore she’ll need to cool down.” “But Wash will still have steering jets?” “Oh, yeah, different system entirely. See, I—” “Hold on, now, save the details for after we live through this. I just want her to do what I want her to do.” “She’ll do it, Cap’n.” Book’s voice came over the intercom. “Captain, We’ve moved pretty much everything we could. With your permission, we’re going to seal the shuttle locks, now.” Mal picked up the mike and answered, “Sure, do that. Keep monitoring, though. It’ll be an interesting show, whatever happens.” “That’s got it!” Kaylee said, sliding out from under the console and standing. She showed Wash what to do. “You hit this switch here to activate it, this one to cut it off. Don’t let it run over four and a half minutes.” “Why?” “’Cause the book said not to.” “Why?” “’Maybe ‘cause the core might blow up? Or the toilets overflow? How the hell should I know? That’s just what the book says.” “Four and a half minutes,” the pilot nodded. “Got it.” “Good,” Mal said, giving Kaylee a quick and very bulky hug. “Now get your backside back to the engine room and wait for my signal. You hear it, you cut the grav drive. You hear it again, you cut it back on.” “Wheee! Freefall!” With a big goofy grin heavily tainted with worry, Kaylee bounced back to the engine room. “We ready to hit it?” “Not yet. Want to place a call.” He reactivated the link and waited for Duncan to pick it up. The man looked even more harried – while they had been dinking around with dress-up games his ship had been running for her life. “Duncan, think we might have a solution to your pest problem. Wait for my signal, then I want Devon to pull that monster into a straight-on flight path. No dodging. Straight line. They want to take you alive, so don’t worry about takin’ hits from them. Anything they knock out we can put back together again.” “You better know what you’re doin’ Mal,” Duncan warned. “This is my family we’re talkin’ about.” “Hey, I coulda bugged,” Mal replied. “I didn’t. I’ll take this bastard out if I have to lose my ship to do it. That’s a promise.” Duncan’s eyes widened perceptively. “All right. On your signal, we take a straight-and-narrow. I figure that gives us no more’n five minutes afore he puts a hole in something useful. Don’t know what kinda craziness—” “Thanks, Duncan! Serenity out!” Mal turned to Wash. “You ready to do this?” “I gotta choice?” “No, not really.” “Then consider me bustin’ out with unbridled enthusiasm.” “I’ll do that.” He pulled his gauntlets back on. “Give the signal. I’m going downstairs to help. And Wash?” he asked as he was leaving. “Yeah?” “This was originally your idea.” “How do you see that?” “You’re the one that offered to throw rocks at ‘em.” “I WASN”T TALKING ABOUT THE RUTTIN’ SHIP!” he shouted at Mal’s back.

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“We ready?” “Bad craziness loaded and ready, Sir!” Zoe said. “We’re all sealed up, got our magboots on, and I got the other stuff you requested.” “Let’s go,” he said. He toggled the suit radio. “We lined up, Wash?” “After a fashion.” “Give her full burn, then. Let us know when you hit the high mark.” “Yes sir, captain, sir. You ready Kaylee?” “Ready!” answered the engineer into her own radio, back in the engine room. “Then Travelers, this is your pilot speaking. We’re just entering Trinity’s gravity well, and cruising at just under ‘extremely fast’. If you look out the portside viewport you can see some of the colorful natives in their natural habitat. In just a moment, we’re going to hit ‘gorram fast’ and hurtle willy-nilly at said natives in a desperate attempt at salvation. We may experience some slight turbulence as we cut the grave drive, but as we won’t be actually accelerating at that time, it is highly unlikely that you will find your ass smeared on the back bulkhead of the ship. Should that be an error, please inform the attendants who are coming around with complimentary beverages, cookies, and an assortment of nuts.” “Just get on with it, Wash,” Mal growled good naturedly into the radio. “Speaking of nuts, did I mention that was the captain speaking?” “He’s just nervous,” explained Zoe. “Gee, ya think?” Jayne asked sarcastically. There was an appreciable increase in the vibration that shook the ship as Kaylee’s homemade booster regime kicked in. Mal had to reach out a hand to steady himself on a nearby crate. He looked around at Zoe, River, and Jayne, all of whom were looking at him expectantly. He didn’t have anything profound to say. At the two minute mark he checked in. “Wash? How we doin’?” “Five by five, Cap. We’ll hit target in a little over three minutes.” “You got enough time to do what we need?” “I think so. As long as we don’t completely lose pressure, I should be fine. Can’t say that I ain’t regrettin’ putting on a spacesuit, though. If I don’t make it, I love you, baby!” “Enough of that crap,” Mal growled. “Everyone’s going to make it. Everyone’s going to be fine. We just gotta be willin’ to sacrifice a little for our fellow man, is all.” “I ain’t real good at that,” confessed Jayne. “Most o’ the time, my fellow man stinks.” “A minute and change!” Wash yelled out. “I love you, too, honey!” Zoe said. “Y’all are going to make me barf in my suit, you keep it up,” said Jayne in disgust. River just smiled and didn’t say anything. “Let’s go ahead and depressurize,” Mal ordered. Zoe hit the buttons on the console near the lock, and they all heard the rush of atmo escaping into the Black. It wasn’t a happy sound. It took with it various bits of trash and a dozen or so frozen corpses that had been stacked just inside. “Thirty seconds!” called Wash. “We’re really going gorram fast, now!” “Y’all get ready,” Mal said to his companions. “Everyone got a line tied off?” “Ten seconds!” “Get ready, Kaylee!” “Three . . . two . . . one . . . and we have shutdown, coasting at gorram fast!” “Now, Kaylee!” “Aye aye, Cap!” Suddenly, they were weightless. They didn’t move much, as all four of them had on magnetic boots that gave them some sort of purchase on the steel deck. Mal indicated that Zoe should open the main airlock, and so she did. In moments, the gaping maw of Serenity’s main hatch was open to the raw Black. Only the blue-green sphere of Trinity, a nearby jovian planet, and two increasingly large bright dots broke the monotony. “Do it!” Mal shouted. And they did.

*

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Firefly class vessels were not armed. They were light transport craft, designed for small milk runs between stations and planets. They were durable, and reasonably fast, but not designed for combat. They were designed for cargo. As Serenity careened towards the Conway pirate, coming up quick from behind and at a slight angle, she was perfectly positioned to impact into the cooling system just aft of the reactor that powered the pirate’s main drive and all of its auxiliary systems. When the tiny ship was just a few dozen kilometers away, it registered as a target and a threat to the pirate’s gunners. Since they were busy taking pot-shots at the Sky Hawk in an effort to disable her, but not destroy her, they had little opportunity to readjust their lasers and missiles on the new target. She came in low and fast and completely unmolested. When there was no way for the pirate to maneuver out of the way. Its fate was sealed. Because Fireflys were designed for cargo, not combat. When Serenity opened her doors like a mother’s womb, she gave birth to an ungainly child: a six ton TR-10 masticator section, nothing but a complicated slab of metal and plastic and ceramic. For added measure, the transponder box from the Golden Pear Blossom added an another three hundred pounds, and that was not counting the mass of the bodies and trash that had gone along for the ride. The masticator didn’t weigh anything in free-fall. Weight is what you lift. It did mass a significant amount. Mass is what hurts when it hits you. It took all four of them pushing, pulling, and blowing their EVA jets to get the massive thing moving enough to be propelled forward, out the lock, and just ahead, relative to the ship. When it got stuck at the lip of the hold, Jayne jumped on top of it (if there was really a top in free-fall) and wedged his feet against the bulkhead and pushed. It was just enough to get the thing moving again, although it took Jayne with it. He rode on top of it like it was a bucking horse, yelling a ferocious and gleeful war cry as it went forth into the ‘verse for the first – and last -- time. Jayne rode it like he was steering it, whooping all the way. Until its momentum outpaced his safety line, and he was jerked up tight like a dog on a leash. Mal and Zoe pulled him back in quick. He landed just as River closed the outer doors. Mal told Kaylee to start the gravity drive again, and suddenly everyone fell to the ground. Wash steered the ship out of the way by at least three degrees, avoiding a direct collision and instead swinging past it at breakneck speed. But only just. The masticator continued merrily along on its trajectory, not realizing that its figurative mother had left it to fly on its own. An object at motion tends to stay in motion, especially in a vacuum. No less authority than Sir Isaac Newton had said so almost a thousand years before. The masticator was in motion – a very fast motion. It had mass. Six tons of it. Weight is what you lift. Mass is what hurts when it hits you. Force equals mass times acceleration. The mass of the masticator, times the acceleration of Serenity, equaled a significant amount of force. It had more than enough force, and sufficient density, to plaster right through the armor of the Conway; enough to go right through its cooling system, and, luckily enough, sufficient to take out enough of the main reactor to cause an out-of-control fusion reaction. All the Black was lit up for an instant. It was a very big boom indeed. *

*

* “A hit! A direct gorram hit! I’m a ruttin’ genius!” Wash was screaming into the mike. They could only hear it on their suits, though, as the cargo hold was only slowly depressurizing. It was a big space. Mal looked around, and suddenly the cargo hold that had seemed so overcrowded was now hauntingly empty. “Bring her out into orbit,” Mal ordered Wash. “Match velocities with the Sky Hawk. I’ll be up in a moment.” He had just kicked probably two hundred thousand credits out the airlock. Enough to retrofit Serenity in style. He was so happy that he could have burst his suit and not noticed. Jayne was slapping him on the back, Zoe was hugging him, and River was doing a little dance of joy that looked positively hilarious in a spacesuit. Serenity was okay. Duncan and his family were okay. They even managed to save most of the cargo. Everyone was alive – save a few hundred pirates. As far as Mal was concerned, the average decency of the human race just went up by a few points. Two hundred thousand credits? Money well spent. A green light on the panel indicated that pressure was sufficient to be breathable again. Everyone stripped off their helmets, and Zoe and Mal rushed to the bridge, where a weary but jubilant Wash was making his pterosaur and his triceratops do their own impromptu dance of joy around the plastic palm tree taped to the console. He interrupted their dance only because his titaness of wife was demanding a hug, and that was a demand you didn’t resist if you knew what was good for you. Mal had Duncan on the monitor in an instant. The big man was beaming, and crying, and his brother was punching the air with his fists in the universal sign of triumph. “I ain’t got no gorram idea what you did, but I’m gorram glad you did it!” the master of the New Hawk shouted. “They’ve lost pressure and power, and the whole ship’s been sheered right in twain!” “We threw money at them,” Mal insisted. “That’s all. Ain’t that what the Alliance bureaucrats do to a problem?” “As soon as we get a little patched up, gonna set down for a spell. You wanna come down and have a drink or six?” “I’d like nothin’ better,” Mal assured him. “Let me see to my folk, get ship-shape, and we’ll meet you at the monastery!” “Keep flyin’, Mal!” Duncan signed off as he was hit by both wives and several spacesuited children in a massive puppy-pile style group hug. Mal looked up from the blank monitor to the viewport, where the Sky Hawk proudly flew, and the wreck of the Conway continued to come apart. A little voice inside told him that he should launch the shuttles and offer assistance to any survivors. Might even be some reward money in it for him. But then he thought about the men who preyed on the innocent; men like the Red Rock Tong. And he didn’t rightly care to go after them. “Worth every gorram penny,” he mumbled to himself as cheers broke out all over the ship.

Stay tuned -- one more chapter to go!