Rings Hollow, Part 2.
“I swear this place gets uglier every time I see it,” Mal muttered, surveying the ramshackle community of shacks and huts. There had been the usual rigmarole of checks and passwords and searches and mirrors and tongue depressors, all about as worthless as the next. The guns and guards and gates were employed to somewhat better effect.
“Could say the same about you sir,” Zoe cut back, looking in no mood to humour him.
“Distinguished’s the word I’m going with these days,” he retorted, ruffling at his hair, a coating of dust not helping the encroaching grey. “How you holdin’ up?” He asked with genuine concern.
“Worse than ever.” Her voice was distant and her eyes were hard and cold.
“All jokin’ aside, things don’t look too bad…colorful y’might say…but…”
“You bring supplies or not?” She cut straight through his cordial joviality.
“You know me...” He shrugged and made at a wolfish grin.
“I thought I did.” Her tone was bitter.
“Meanin’ what exactly?” The grin disappeared.
“Never figured you to still be sitting on a fence. Time was, things were this bad…”
“I’d what? Run off an’ join an army? Look around you Zoe. The war is done. The ‘verse is done.” His voice rose and took on a keener edge, his shoulders rising with that forgotten air of command. “Now it was your decision to come down here and set up this little shanty town of yours, probably one of the worst you ever made…”
“That before or after marrying Wash?” It was impossible to read whether the remark was intended to placate him or wound him. “I’m just tryin’ to make a difference.” Zoe let out a long sigh and looked away to the horizon. The sun was sinking low and picked out groups of shuffling shapes, distantly visible from atop the compound’s walls.
“What do you want from me?” He asked levelly.
“Not a thing.” She threw up her hands.
“What is it you really think you can accomplish down here anyways?”
“Hold out against that bastard up there,” Zoe stared skyward, a look equal parts disgust and contempt.
“Well you know my feelin’s on that particular subject,” Mal tried again at levity.
“I’m not talking about God sir…I’m talkin’ about the station.” Little in her look changed as she turned it on him.
“I need to keep my boat flying. In case you hadn’t noticed, there ain’t a powerful lot of people left handing out work, fuel or food anymore. Hell, there ain’t even a powerful lot of people.”
“Really?!” Now it was her turn for sarcasm.
“Look, can’t says I care much for the man. I’d probably rather spend a night with one of those things out there but they’re workin’ on a cure or some such up there. Least that’s what I think the doctor was ramblin’ on about…”
“I know…they abduct people from here to use as test cases. We brought down one of their raiders and they retaliated by air-dropping infected into the compound…” Her voice trailed off, he knew the signs himself of horrors replayed behind the eyes.
“That a fact?” The question was more to mask the ripple of quiet fury than anything else.
“I ever lie to you?” Zoe’s voice was old and weary but somewhere in there was the glimmer of the woman who’d lain pressed against him in a filthy foxhole with fire falling all around. It was a question that needed no answer, but he gave one all the same.
“Not a once.”
“Now I can’t say we’re not grateful for the supplies and if you choose to ally yourself with Farcus and his station, then that’s your business and I can’t stop you. But that being the case, I’d thank you to never set foot near my town again…sir.”
~
Mal’s mood was the darker side of pensive as he guided the Mule back across the dusk landscape, gliding the savage edges of it needlessly nearer the groaning hordes out of sheer petulance. Appendages and torsos spiralled away into the gathering night accompanied by grotesque gouts of viscous blood. River demonstrated her uncanny balance, something ordinarily a marvel to him. She lent far enough over the side to deliver surgical sword strikes while balanced precariously on naught but a few toes. Jayne took pot shots left and right as they drew nearer to the landing point.
“The head Jayne!” Mal roared at him as he took out the knees of yet another unsuspecting creature.
“I just like to watch ‘em squirm,” Jayne shouted back over the noise of the engines and the blinding blasts of buckshot. The remark resonated uncomfortably with Mal, reminding him too closely of the man whose employ he was now in.
~
The zombie moaned loudly as it lurched unsteadily forward towards Simon. It was a hideous, guttural noise from somewhere deep within its core. It conveyed its sole remaining thought, its only driving need, as it staggered across the hangar, arms snatching at empty air and swaying from side to side. The smell was unspeakable, the pungent odour seeming to have more life than the cadaverous body. It’s face was half fallen away and its emaciated form jutted through gaps in it’s soiled clothing.
“Simon, this isn’t a good idea,” Kaylee’s voice quavered a little from behind his shoulder.
“It’ll help…it will, I need another one to be able to run comparative tests. In order to have a control subject…” he tried to explain, surprised at the amount of pity in his own voice.
It wasn’t their fault. After the broadwave, things changed. Or at least they tried to. People started to rise up, a thing that generally led to martial law and emergency measures. Those measures sadly included the deployment of a newer and thoroughly untried form of the Pax. The results were somewhere in the middle of the last form. The population became half subdued, half monstrous. They didn’t lie down and they didn’t cut swathes through the galaxy - they did a little of both. Rendered nearly lifeless and cold, without breath or a beating heart, just the hunger.
Something was different in this toxin. It took up residence somewhere, perpetually fuelling itself, communicable through fluid transfer. The problem had been compounded by the slow onset of symptoms, both from the original release of the agent and from those subjected to bites and other injuries. Those seeking to flee one world simply took the problem to the next. The remnants of the Alliance on the central planets had embarked a fleet for a newly discovered system. Now there was no telling whether there was even anything habitable out there or if they’d arrive with little more than ships peopled by the living dead.
“I’m thinkin’ control was what caused this in the first place,” Kaylee spoke with equal sadness.
“I know what you mean, but we have to…” Simon was interrupted as the ramp began to lower, “Oh no! They’re early!”
There was a bright flash and the deafening ring of a shotgun blast as what was left of the zombie collapsed forward onto the deck. The Mule flooded the hangar with a rush of dust and noise as it surged up the ramp.
“Got that one in the head. Happy now?” Jayne was asking Mal as he killed the engines. The Captain leapt down from the mule and strode purposefully towards Simon.
“Captain, this is intolerable, that mentally defective man-ape…” Simon began to reason, playing towards everyone’s general distaste for Jayne’s methodology. Apparently it was ill-timed as Mal seized him by the front of his shirt and slammed him against a bulkhead.
“Cap’n!” Kaylee yelped at him as the Captain’s fingers strayed dangerously close to a holster.
“I don’t want more than one of those things anywhere near this ship again you hear me?” His voice was a low growl and there was something dangerous in his eyes. Simon knew better than to argue at a time like this.
“Yes,” he answered sourly and Mal’s grip loosened somewhat but he didn’t let go.
“Now I gave you an order. You were supposed to remain airborne. Speaking of which, who in the hell is…” Mal’s voice trailed off as the growl of engines sounded from outside the ship.
~
“River!!!” Simon and Mal shouted in unison as they clambered their way up through the dining area, Serenity climbing at an absurdly steep angle. As they cleared the fiery glow of the atmosphere the nose dropped, allowing Mal to make it to the bridge. He slid swiftly into the co-pilot’s seat and put a hand to the controls before rounding on River. Simon expected him to start shouting some more but his voice was level and calm. He could never be sure if it was something Mal reserved solely for her or something she brought out in him.
“I got it darlin’…you can ease off now…that’s it. Now we’ve talked about this…”
“I know…I’m sorry…I just miss dancing with her…” River spoke quietly and saddened, running a loving hand over a console. Her fingers danced past where she had neatly arranged Wash’s plastic dinosaurs and palm trees, providing each with a label in Latin and a use-name of Wash’s. A particularly graceful plesiosaur labelled Zoe, a stout triceratops named Hoban.
“I’m sure she misses you too… you’re just a little too…efficient shall we say? Now why don’t you go bother Kaylee for a spell?” He actually made it more of a question than an order.
“No bother. I see her too clearly, too cold and too clean and too clinical, like an X-Ray. Kaylee sees her differently, knows where to touch, where to bite, where to stroke…like a lover…” River spoke longingly as she pirouetted past Simon, running a stray finger across his cheek. The fluffy bobbles of her rainbow striped hat trailed behind her like orbiting stars as she headed for the engine room.
“Captain, I can assure you…” Simon spoke steadily as he came cautiously onto the bridge.
“I really don’t need to hear it right now doctor. You planning on taking us into shuttle range of the station or you got cuttin’ to do?” There was no hint of apology but some of the anger had ebbed away from him.
“Well actually I’ve found a combination of compounds that act as a sedative. I’ve been able to render the subject into a lowered state of consciousness…” Simon began explaining what his afternoon’s tests had yielded.
“English, doc. Hell, I’ll even settle for Mandarin.”
“Gerald’s asleep.” Simon gave in.
“Well ain’t that a thing? Wonder if zombies have dreams,” Mal smiled darkly at him as Simon took over the controls.
“Well actually, my case studies show that their brains are rendered…” he responded in earnest as Mal headed back towards the shuttles. He paused and look at Simon, both tired and worn.
“Joke, doc. Not a very good one, I’ll warrant you that…just take her in close, nice and steady. Then I conjure you’ll be needin’ a mop for that mess back there.”
Rings Hollow, Part 3.