Episode 107. Part 3
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Nika keeps her hands on the Swordsman and motions Rina to go up the ladder first. She mutters to Rina as the woman passes her:
Nika: When you get up there, tell him (points to the roof and Christian) not to kill him (points at Swordsman).
Rina: (nods) Cut the chatter.
Arden is first up the ladder, being able to climb for himself. Mike needs help and Rina gives him a hand. On the ground, Nika guides the blindfolded Swordsman to the ladder and puts his hands on the rungs. She gives him a stiff nudge with her gun.
Nika: Climb. And if you make one wrong move, I will take the top of your head off.
Swordsman starts to climb. Nika follows him when he climbs farther than he can kick for her head below him.
Nika: (continuing) Or given the fact that I’m right behind you, I just might take your groin off.
Swordsman gets to the top of the ladder and executes a perfect backward somersault over Nika’s head and nails his feet on the ground. Rina’s on the roof and from the corner of her eye sees movement, pulls her gun in time to see the Swordsman go up and over. She squeezes off a shot as he falls mid-air. And then he nails his landing and stands there, ramrod straight with nary a wrinkle in his clothes, untouched by bullets.
Damn.
Rina doesn’t stop to figure it out. We have our men. We have the Swordsman’s card. We have our ride ready and waiting for us. Let’s get the fuckin’ hell outa here.
She hustles Arden and Mike aboard, starts strapping them into their seats for take-off. Nika clambers aboard and gets behind the wheel and Christian stands like Horatius on the shuttle’s ramp, covering our retreat with his rifle. When we’re all aboard, he closes us up and we’re out of there.
Behind us, we take some fire, a few shots and then nothing. It looks like they’re just going to let us go. This puts the wind up Rina’s back and she says to Nika:
Rina: You know they’ve got to be tagged.
Nika: (Oh fuck me!) No, not good…
Rina: You know it. They’ll be transmitting on a frequency. I’ll be able to fix it. Find it. Get it out of them. BUT we gotta get out of here first. Let’s go.
Rina starts looking around for something she can jigger for a frequency scanner. A spare comm unit, a walkie talkie, a fucking tin can and some string….
Christian spies Arden looking dazed out the window.
Christian: Arden.
Arden: (coming around) What?
Christian: See if there are transmitters on the two of you.
Arden: I don’t think they planted anything on us.
Christian: Were you unconscious?
Arden: No.
Christian: Okay, then make sure there’s no transmitter on him. (Points to Mike)
Rina’s digging through the storage lockers, looking for something she can use. She finds a spare field radio and starts modifying it. A moment later, her scanner is up and running and she listens hard, trying to pick up any warble, pop, or tick of a signal.
Nothing but static.
Rina: Great. I got nothin’, but that doesn’t mean nothin’s there. Let’s get out of here.
We fly back to Serenity Valley and redock with our ship. We check our short range sensors and no one’s following us. We can’t tell if the Feds don’t have a cruiser waiting for us to clear atmo, ready to blow us to smithereens. Swordsman is still alive, he’s an Operative of the Parliament, and there’s no telling what reinforcements he’s whistled up to take us down. But we’re going forward anyway.
Rina: Let’s just go. At least we’ll die trying.
We start strapping everyone in. It could be a bumpy ride. Arden is still shocked. Not drugged anymore, but still shocked by what he’s seen and heard. Christian slaps him lightly and gets Arden’s attention.
Christian: We’re going to try this. He has different experiences but theoretically he may have the same genetic makeup as you do, or very similar, based on what you’ve told us about your background.
Arden: (coming around) All right….
Christian: Think. What would you do. If you were him. Try to guess.
Nika: (pausing from doing preflight) Uhn. He’s got nothing.
Christian: (to Nika) Theoretically, they’ve had the same background to a point. They’ve had the same cultural influence when being raised. I’m guessing that this guy was probably raised in the same society.
Arden: We’re not raised to be warriors. We don’t have violence where I come from. Mostly. We don’t have police or soldiers.
Nika: Your guy used a sword, thank you.
Arden: That’s not normal where I come from.
Christian: Okay, in that case, just take care of this guy. (Points to Mike)
Arden moves to examine Mike and Christian dusts his hands off.
Christian: We need to go.
Nika: Yeah, I’m flying.
Christian: No. They’ll be waiting for us to take off. They may be gunning for us.
Nika: I know.
Rina: Anything would be better than sittin’ here waiting for them to drag us in.
Christian: Where does this valley go? A mountain range?
Nika: I’ll keep us low.
Rina: Nap of the earth.
Nika: Yep.
Rina: They’ll track us by our heat signature, but we’ll be under their radar.
Christian: They can track us by our pulse beacon.
Rina: Well, we’re yankin’ that. Tell me to yank it and I will.
Nika: Pull it now.
Done!
We fly 100 miles up the valley and enter the low mountains at the end of it.
Nika: Let’s get off this rock.
Rina: Let’s get out of here.
Christian: Can you outfly a battle cruiser.
Rina: We outflew the Yamato out here.
Christian: And their weapons?
He sees Rina’s expression and gives up, turning to Nika.
Christian: Can you dodge their weapons long enough to get us out of here?
Nika: I’ve done it before, but not with this ship. I can’t guarantee it.
Rina: Crap. I was about to suggest why don’t we go to Blue Sun. No one’s allowed in or out, would they follow us—no, that’s where all the ships are. Forget I mentioned it.
Christian: (sarcastically) Oh no, they won’t have that area blockaded….I’m less worried about getting us to a specific place and more worried about getting past orbit.
Nika: I’m definitely worried about that part.
Christian wants us to fly as close to a communications satellite and mimic its signals through our pinger, to make us look like the satellite, to fake out the Feds scanners. Rina goes to the engine room to rig the engines for the hard burn, just as we’d done before when escaping the Reavers. Nika continues to fly us clear of atmo as all this goes on.
And we find that there are no ships waiting for us. Listening to the comm chatter on the ground, we know that they are scrambling ships, but for the moment there is no one in the Black to take us out.
For the moment, we’re safe.
Best take advantage of that while we still can.
So we make best speed away from Hera and in the hours that follow, we start casting about for a place to go, a place to hide. A place we can refuel. We’ll have to stay away from the Fed stations, but there are plenty of independently-owned, Mom and Pop places. We’re poring over the charts and have just agreed we should avoid both the Core and Blue Sun System when a message comes through.
It’s on the Cortex, not coming from Hera. Nika opens it on the bridge. We all crowd in to see. It’s from Brian Connolly. It’s short, with only his name, Harbinger’s call sign and a set of coordinates. Nika doesn’t question them but plugs them in and sets our heading.
Christian: I got a very bad feeling about this.
Rina: Don’t say that, and I don’t care who you’re quoting.
Christian: I’m not quoting anyone, I have a bad feeling about this.
Nika: Well, you can take your bad feeling and you can decide if you’re on or off. Because that ship (points to the message with Brian’s name and Harbinger on it) I trust with my life. I’d trust that ship before I’d trust any of you.
Rina: That’s enough for me.
Christian: That’s if he wasn’t being coerced. There’s a lot of ifs there.
Nika: Ultimately it doesn’t matter, because that ship I’d trust before I’d trust any of you, and I trust you guys pretty damn far these days.
Rina: And they’re not expect us to go into the lion’s den. So what better place to hide?
We’ll have to stop for fuel on the way and Rina gripes we’d better hope no one puts a stop on our credit cards before we get that fuel.
So, as matters stand now:
- We’re several weeks away from a rendezvous point in the middle of space.
- We’ve got Mike thoroughly messed up on Chempliant, if we’ve read the signs right.
- We’re going into the lion’s den with the Feds gunning for us.
- Arden is pretty certain that the Operative is his big brother and was responsible for the death of that VA doctor, the one dead of stab wounds.
- We still have Malcolm Reynolds possibly waiting in the wings to pay off his debt…maybe we can sic him on Swordsman and let them take each other out of our hair.
- Oh, and let’s not forget that Arden is a walking time bomb.
In other words, it’s back to business as usual.
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