Mal

Mal walked to the infirmary door and looked in. Book sat in a chair near the bed, looking oddly drawn. The preacher seemed to be alternating between staring at the form on the gurney and a spot on the floor. Mal walked in to the room, inspecting the greyback. She was pale, but lying flat. Her entire torso was swathed in bandages and gauze, and she was covered from the waist down by a pair of blankets. Probably no more than thirty, to him, she looked terribly young.

Mal found himself noticing small things about her – three fingernails on one hand were broken, and the knuckles were already bruising. The other hand was bandaged to the wrist, a few drops of blood already peeking through the gauze. Her neck rested on a strip of brown leather. Blood was still shining in her dark hair, which was sticking to her face in some spots. Even as he watched, Book reached over and smoothed a tendril of hair from her face, wiping at the trail of red-black it left behind. Feeling awkward, Mal cleared his throat. Book looked up, shifting, and Mal noticed that the Shepherd’s elbow was also bandaged.

“You too?” he said, trying to lighten the mood. “Hell of a way to lose weight.”

Book managed a tired smile. “She seemed to need it more than I.” He nodded toward the biohazard tub, and Mal couldn’t help but notice it looked awfully full of things he didn’t want to look too close at. “A lot of it. And I had some to spare. Inara only took over after Simon got worried.”

“Speakin’ of the good doctor,” Mal replied, “he said there were some complications, and that you wanted to see me. Those two things connected?”

“Conjure they might be,” Book said. “We weren’t too sure on what to tell you, so we decided to give the good news to everyone and let you decide who gets the bad.”

“How bad?” Mal asked, feeling his heart sink with just those two words.

“Odd bad.” The older man stood slowly, coming to stand next to the greyback. “Did Simon tell you that she died on the table twice?”

Mal narrowed his eyes. “He mentioned something about it. Used some important doctor word for it. Guess he’s learning humility after all. No need to brag about raisin’ someone twice.”

Book smiled. “Boy knows his stuff. He triaged her first, figured out what to do. I have to admit – it’s pretty amazing to see that boy in action when he knows what he’s doing. He decided not to worry about the bullets since Jayne had mostly stopped the bleeding in the shuttle.” He paused. “You may want to tell Jayne that he helped save this girl’s life. Might make him feel a little better about things.”

Mal nodded. “I’ll let him know. Go on.”

“First time it happened was when we pulled that… thing out of her chest. That’ll be my bootprint she finds on her back when she wakes up. Didn’t think surgery could be that… well, anyway. Simon worked on her and brought her back, stopped the bleeding. That’s when we used most of the gauze. It was right after that we found the 92 in her system. Once we determined what it was, we tried to get enough of a counteractive into her system to get her stabilized. It seemed to work at first, but between the blood loss and everything else, I think it was too much. She stopped breathing, and then coded again. Simon was worried about her breathing, so he cut the collar and went to take it off. It was stuck, so he was getting ready to pull it off when I stopped him.”

Mal felt himself getting a little uneasy. “Why’d you stop ‘im?”

“It would have killed her. It’s been an awfully long time, Mal, but I know an Alliance prisoner collar when I see one.”

The uneasiness grew. He had heard the Alliance did some odd things to prisoners of war and to their own populace, but he had never heard of someone being collared. “Mind tellin’ me what that means?”

“It means that Asylum isn’t quite what we thought it was. My guess is that since I was there last, it’s been converted to a prison planet. These collars are used by the Alliance on certain types of prisoners to keep them in one spot. There’s a patch on the inside of the collar that holds hundreds of filaments. The collar itself is hardwired into the prisoner’s body, and any attempt at escape, either from a planet, ship, or just taking the collar off, usually means a nasty and painful death.”

“What kind of prisoners you conjure they collar?”

“I know that in the war they collared some Independent POWs. Mostly, they’re used for political prisoners, or people who are more valuable to the Alliance alive than dead. It could be any number of other things. Mal,” here the Shepherd paused. “Some of them can also be used to track prisoners.”

Mal stared at him dumbly. “Track? As in, they know where we are?”

The Shepherd shook his head. “Maybe. I don’t know what the range on one of these is. We may be too far out. She may not be tracked. But it’s something to consider.”

A dull headache was beginning to form behind Mal’s eyes. Just once, he thought. Just once I wish it could be simple. “Is there any way to tell?”

“Not really. This isn’t really something you’ll find on the regular Alliance waves. But you have to realize, I’m in the dark about this too.”

“Not quite so dark as the rest of us, though,” Mal shot back. “Anything else you got for me, spit it out now.”

Book folded his arms, though with the heavy bandages it seemed more like one arm cradling the other. “I was getting to that. The second time when she was down, when Simon started to take the collar, he thinks he broke some filaments. After we brought her back, we noticed some odd readings. Elevated levels of chemicals that shouldn’t have been in there. Odd hiccups showed up on some of the scans, and we found evidence of Chi-26 in her spinal fluid.”

“Let me guess… another toxin?”

“In a way. More of a biological agent. It’s a sort of a catalyst. Makes things happen. We were able to counteract it, but Simon thinks that between the reactions her body was having and the time she was down, there may have been permanent damage.”

“So not only have I pretty much kidnapped an Alliance officer, my medic managed to save her and turn her into a vegetable at the same time.”

“I wouldn’t go so far as to say we kidnapped her, Mal, and with any luck, she’s a long way from a vegetable.”

Mal straightened. “She told them to leave her. They didn’t listen. Granted, maybe that’s the one time they shouldn’t have, but I need more than just this.” He thumped the button for Simon’s bunk. “Doctor, I want you in the infirmary.”

Alarm filled Simon’s voice. “I’m on my way.” A moment later, he came running into the infirmary, his hair mussed as he pulled on his shirt. Mal opened his mouth to say something, then decided against it. He gestured to the sleeping officer.

“How long ‘fore she wakes up?”

Simon looked at the clock. “Another couple of hours. I’ll want to do more tests then, make sure that her cognitive functions are still intact. She had a large contusion and with the amount of time she was down, I - ”

Mal cut him off. “Stay with her. I want to know the second she wakes. I am getting very not happy with her on board.” He cut off Simon’s protest. “The second she wakes.” He looked at the Shepherd. “Rest a spell, if you can. I’ve got some thinkin’ to do.”

Book nodded gratefully. Simon looked no less exhausted, but sat in the chair obediently. Mal walked the Shepherd to his room, then went to the lounge. He sat on the couch, thinking.

Reavers, Alliance, busted ship – how much is a man supposed to take in one day? Now this? He scrubbed his hands through his hair. I don’t need this. I don’t need it at all. I’ve got a full payload due in less than three days and a ship full of people who ain’t been paid in over a month. And Book spoutin’ off about Alliance stuff that ain’t public knowledge don’t help. We’ve been runnin’ since Leto. This is the best job we’ve had in months, and I ain’t gonna let some bleeding heroic greyback change anything.

Mal let his mind wander along the possibilities. They were few and not too attractive. Finally tiring of racking his brain, he leaned his head against the back of the couch, feeling the ache in his body that came from too much adrenaline and too little sleep. He stretched without effect, closed his eyes, and dozed.