** Chapter 4: Night

In Which there are Ruminations, Late Night Banter and Bonding.

**

Captain Malcolm L. Reynolds, late of Shadow, lay in his bunk. He tossed. He turned. He stared at the bulkhead. He counted rivets. He took 15 seconds to ponder the eternal mystery of why, when you were cold, the covers were never warm enough and when you were hot, you couldn’t get rid of them fast enough. Then he settled down into worrying about what was really bothering him.

The crew.

Not that he was concerned about their efficiency or their competence. It was just a little jailbreak, and every single man jack of them had planned or participated in some form of escape. Most of them in the same one, at Niska’s skyplex. Even Inara, although her feats of derring-do seemed limited to slapping the aforementioned Captain Malcolm L. Reynolds in the face. Even sweet little Kaylee-girl had tried, and River had succeeded. Not to mention their wussified doctor, whom Mal suspected had played a far more active role in his sister’s rescue (from a highly secure, top secret Alliance facility that most people wouldn’t even admit existed) than he let on. The man was just too meticulous to leave something so important to someone else. Not that Mal would be letting His Honor, the High and Mighty King of Haughtyland anywhere near this job, unless one of the crew required his professional attention. But if it was required of him, Mal knew that even the doctor would do what needed doing.

He was worrying, true, but he knew they could do it. When something went wrong, they would come through. He was worrying about exactly where and when that “going wrong” part would come in. Because this job, simple as it sounded, was made far more complex purely because of the planet on which it would take place.

Mal had only been to Hibernia once before, just after the war. It hadn’t been a fun trip.

Only good thing about the planet: no Feds. Well, ok, truth be told, there were a lot of good things about that little world. Good weather, if you liked rain. Green as could be. Sweet people. Pretty coastlines. Great food. Damn, but the food there was good! He’d see if he couldn’t talk the O’Malley, Finbar the First, out of some of his very fine butter if there was time.

But the cities at least were policed, not by Alliance Federals (as per Londinium’s law that it should be allowed to maintain order on its own colonies) but by a private security firm called…oh hell, something like “Keep the People Down Inc.” or “Oppression LLC”. Who could remember all those damn corporate names that didn’t tell you anything about what the business actually DID. Anyway, their Hibernian branch was (unimaginatively, Mal thought) the Hibernian Planetary Constabulary. And most of the grunts were actually Hibernian. Born and raised, joined up for the six credits a week (plus three credits boot allowance, and the occasional free beer in a pub) and the chance to carry a gun. In a population that was generally poor, didn’t have good boots and was unarmed by law, it was tempting. But the officers, they were nearly all Core-world patsies, Londinium’s lackeys. And that could mean Feds, eventually. That was the city. Well, cities (plural) now, as Cork and Collins had probably gained enough people, traffic violations and bad Indian take-aways to deserve the distinction by now. The countryside was barely policed at all.

Which made it a haven for the old, disenchanted Browncoats like Saoirse who had come home with a few more scars and a few less illusions. Quite a few gave up on “Freedom, Peace, Irish Taught in Schools and Gorramit, Just Leave Us the Hell Alone!” after the war, but there were many, many more that didn’t. And in the best tradition of Irish Freedom Fighters ™ through the centuries, they formed dozens of little infighting organizations with the same goal and different ideas of how to get there.

Until about a year ago. Suddenly, more and more of the groups were consolidating, under two banners. The more pacifist groups (the ones Saoirse…and Mal agreed, truth be told, called Armchair Fenians) were coming under the heading of AIH, while the dynamiters, the snipers, the angry, the vengeful and frankly, the just plain bloody-minded, threw their lot in with the IHB.

And now someone self-described as “pretty high up” in the IHB wanted them to break her baby brother out of jail. Cai bu shi, right? But it was Saoirse. His fiery little Irish, who had been so pale in that big hospital bed, back when the Independents had hospitals. And beds. She hadn’t even got to finish out in muddy, terror-stricken style on Hera, like himself and Zoe. Like Finbar the Second. It had pained him, sure, to see her, on that not-fun trip to her home, still wobbling about the big stone farmhouse on her crutches, three years after Du-Khang. Seeing her leap from the Devoy ferry earlier that day on two strong legs (Yehsoo, had it only been today?) had been a balm to some tiny corner of his heart that still had to take care of her. The same corner that Kaylee had crept into long ago. The one that, wo duh ma, River was infiltrating daily with slow, mournful grace. So, ti wo de pigu, slap him in a dress and call him Daisy, he had to do it. Because Barry would have.

But that still left his crew in a nasty position. One that would probably drop them in a pile of gou shi that they’d have to shoot their way out of. But they could do it. That didn’t make him feel any better.

No, he wasn’t worrying about how the crew would do. He was worrying about them. It was as simple and as complicated as that.

**

“Zoe.”

“Nrgh.”

“Come on, sugar tush, the suspense is killing me here.”

“ ‘M asleep.”

“Oh, you are not.”

“No, I’m not, but I’m trying really hard.”

“Well, ‘A’ for effort, but I know you’re worried. You’ve got the furrowed brow thing going on.”

“Look, if I say that it’s command business and I will discuss it with you when it’s relevant, will you let me sleep?”

“Maybe.”

A groan.

“It’s command business and I will discuss it with you when it’s relevant.”

“Nope, sorry.”

“It’s up to the captain.”

“Still not cutting it.”

“We’ll talk about it tomorrow?”

“It IS tomorrow.”

“You know, you’re a persistent little son of a bitch when you want to be.”

“Why you love me. Besides, I will have you know that Mother Washburne is a damn fine woman.”

“Honey, I’ve met your mother. She makes me look warm and cuddly.”

“You’re not wrong. But you are straying from the topic of discussion, which was “What the Hell Is the Job?”, because all these pregnant looks and significant silences are killing me.”

“You wanna talk pregnant? Or silences? Cause either would be pretty welcome right now.”

“Look, hon. You know I have problems following orders. Command structure makes me twitchy. And all this ‘need-to-know’ business makes me feel like a crewman.”

“You are a crewman.”

“Yes that’s true. But I’m also your husband.”

“Yes. Therefore you are not JUST a crewman. But it’s up to Mal and Saoirse to explain this one. It’s her baby brother.”

“Ah HA!”

“Ai ya.”

“SO! Baby brother, huh? Is it time for a daring rescue a la Dr. Tam?”

“Ugh. Well I suppose if you guess, then I didn’t technically tell you.”

“I’ll remember that.”

“Lao-tien. I see a lot of games of Twenty Questions in my future.”

“Good night, dear!”

**

Saoirse was quietly picking out chords in her bunk, careful to keep it low while the others were sleeping. Even with the busy day she’d had she found it hard to sleep. If Mal refused, well, she’d have to do it. And she’d just end up shot or arrested, which amounted to the same thing. Which was why she’d asked him. She couldn’t do it alone, simply didn’t have the manpower to without her ‘boys’. They’d do it for her, those twelve young men who shot when she told them to, and never ask questions. She couldn’t involve them, though, not in something so personal. They weren’t in it for ‘personal’, she made sure of it. The vengeful, those in it for blood, she never allowed those men in her squad. It wasn’t allowed to be personal. Now Mal, that was different. Malcolm Reynolds was built for ‘personal’. He was the ‘personal’ guy.

Ruadhri. Poor boy. She saw him in her mind’s eye, hair more strawberry blonde than her own copper, but the only other redhead in a family full of brunettes. And one blond. Da always joked that Barry was adopted. Ma had said he was a changeling. Ruadhri and Saoirse took after their mother’s mother with their small stature, red hair and giant brown eyes. The other boys were the spitting of their father, tall and broad and dark haired and eyed. Barry, named Finbar for their father, and least like the huge, jovial man, had a shock of blond hair and a tall, thin frame. His eyes were grey, she could see them, flashing like the storm, going nearly white with laughter. She saw them wide and unblinking and dark as the sea as he inhaled softly, then exhaled as he squeezed the trigger. She or Mal or Zoe or whatever fresh-faced lieutenant had command that day would call for him, his eyes would darken and someone would bleed or die. Oh aye, he was fey. Ma had been right. As always.

“Minstrel Boy,” the soft voice startled her from her thoughts. “Thomas Moore. Not Utopia Sir Thomas More, the other one. Good song, important song. His song. the ranks of death.”

“That’s right.” Their eyes met and for a moment Saoirse was drowning. Her eyes were huge, and a little lost. The girl drifted into the tiny cabin and gracefully dropped to the floor, mirroring Saoirse’s position, sitting cross-legged. “You must be River.”

“Aye, pleased to meet you, Miss.” The accent drew a smile from Saoirse’s eyes.

“Come, now. Your brother said you’re from Osiris.”

“True enough.” River shrugged, her long hair falling artlessly over her thin shoulders. “Sure, and ain’t we all from somewhere that we don’t call home.”

Saoirse considered that, remembering both the heavy pavement of Dublin town and the sticky mud of Du-Khang, where she had acquired a limp (that was repaired) and a slight buzz in one ear that couldn’t be. She remembered the heavy scent of turf burning in the hearth, the lowing of cows and the squish of thick black earth under her feet. That was home, really.

“Mouths of babes. So you do the accent….what, for fun?”

“Not at all.” The shake of her head sent that long dark waterfall flying. “I find it interesting to note the psychological responses of individuals encountering a person who seems so familiar that she’s alien. Done it before.”

“Fair enough. You like licorice?”

“You bet!”

Saoirse pulled her carefully-hidden stash of candy from her duffle and carefully counted out five licorice sticks. Three for River, two for herself.

“Bit of a vice of mine, candy.”

“One of many.” Saoirse laughed quietly at the gently accusatory tone.

“True, girl, true,” she admitted. “Don’t know how I’m gonna get through the next ten days without a smoke. I drink, I curse. I’m a bad influence.”

“I should tell Simon.” River said, nearly entirely seriously. If the Hibernian had known how rare this lucidity was, she would have told him about the evening herself. As she didn’t, she merely smiled. “Really, Miss O’Malley, there’s no shortage of bad influences on this ship.”

“Right again. Shepherd seems like a bit of alright.”

“Oh, he’s shiny. Stuck in his outmoded value system of religious mores and misplaced trust in a belief structure with little basis in reality and no empirical proof, but he’s a nice man. Mostly.” She ripped off a bite of licorice.

That earned her a puzzled glance before Saoirse looked down at the instrument in her lap.

“You’re a strange girl, you know.”

“It’s been said.”

River closed her eyes as the guitar, which had gone quiet, picked up again. “The pale moon was rising/above the green mountain/the sun was declining/beneath the blue sea…” she sang as the correct measure came around.

Saoirse stared at her in delight as she went through the song. Her voice was pleasant enough, to be sure, but it was a rare treat to find someone off Hibernia who knew the old songs.

She didn’t know that River was pulling the lyrics from her mind.

*** Big Damn Shout-Out to one of my favorite writers, AMDOBELL, it you can spot it. Just to say how much I adore comments (and your stories, dear) :)