Fic: Above and Beyond (2/3)
Above and Beyond (2/3)
~*~
Skinning knuckles on stone, he forced his hand down into his pocket. He figured it was Kaylee, and he wondered what the hell he'd tell her. Could Jayne make the four kilometers, on foot, over rough terrain, quick enough to make any kind difference? Wash was very well aware their firepower was finite. Mal, at least, if he was smart and stayed holed up in the shuttle, would be alive when Jayne showed up, especially if he forced the hatch shut. But Wash knew absolutely Mal was not smart that way. And if Jayne left Serenity, Kaylee would be left defenseless if their ambushers decided to follow their tracks back to her for a possibly even greater prize. Of course, it would be impossible for them to force their way onto Serenity, if all they had were standard firearms. But Serenity wouldn't be able to move without him - or some kind of real pilot - at the helm. Now, if Inara and her shuttle were currently tucked into Serenity, all sorts of different scenarios would open up. But they weren't. They were the next moon over, doing Companiony things. He had no idea how Kaylee could help them or they could help Kaylee.
He was so focused on Kaylee, in the seconds he needed to retrieve the comm and thumb on the receive button, that it took him a moment to understand he was listening to Mal's voice, not hers. Static-blurred and feeble, but definitely Mal's.
“-renity, come in, this is the captain.”
“He's got power,” Wash exclaimed, careful not to bump Zoe's arm as he bent his elbow, trying to get the unit close to his face.
She shook her head. “We were hookin' the radio up to the flashlights' power cells when we heard the mule, and I came to fetch you. He musta got it done.” Then she fired again, twice to her left, then shifting slightly to fire once to the right. Then she became still, expression intent, watchful. Ears ringing, Wash brought the comm as close as he could to his mouth, twisting his neck so he could speak past Zoe's shoulder.
“Mal, can you hear me? Come in, Mal.”
“Wash! Y' got a comm! You two okay?” Mal's voice was faint, even as close as the comm unit was to the shuttle. No way he was punching through to Serenity.
“We're good. We're under cover, we got high ground.” Wash was kinda tickled he'd thought to add that last bit.
“Can you get outta here, down the back, to the mule?”
Wash looked up at Zoe, brows lifted questioningly. She gave her chin a negative jerk, then turned her head so she could speak into the comm as Wash held down the send key.
“We're pinned. We got at least eight shooters spread up and down the wash. They all got easy shots at the shuttle hatch,” she rattled out. Wash realized she was strongly suggesting that Mal not stick his head out of it. Then she got a speculative look, and went on, “I could maybe set down enough fire to cover Wash so he can slip-”
And she stopped as Wash lifted his thumb off the key, cutting her off, glaring at her furiously. “Don't even think it, lambie-toes,” he snapped.
“Wash-” she started, and she was using her first-matey command voice, and that just wasn't gonna fly.
“No,” he said flatly, staring directly into her eyes. “You have fourteen rounds left now. Even if I leave you the pistol, that's just another eight. That's not enough to hold off eight or however many shooters, until I can get back here with some other cunning plan up my sleeve.” Her lips compressed, and he realized she didn't intend that he come back at all. And that was never going to happen, and he said doggedly, “I'm not leaving you. 'Sides, I think I got a fix for this.”
Well, it wasn't really a fix. Actually, it was a crazy-ass stunt first semester flight school plebes risked, one that got them mega big-time demerits if found out, to test their mettle and reflexes. But it was quick, and simple enough that he thought he could guide Mal through the technical bits. The real problem would be afterwards, whether Mal could avoid killing himself. The majority of the plebes had managed not to kill or even seriously maim themselves, so Mal's odds weren't too bad. He hoped.
Her brows rose, and he replied, “It could work. Could get the shuttle running. Most of it rests on Mal.”
And that was the right route to take, 'cause things resting on Mal were just shiny as far as Zoe was concerned. She only took a moment to consider it, then nodded. He keyed the comm on again, in an interval when Mal wasn't sending, and she said, “Captain, Wash can get the shuttle running. You'll have to let him talk you through it.”
It surprised Wash, actually, how quickly and enthusiastically Mal came back on this.
“Hell, yeah, Wash. Let's do this.”
Okay. Wash took a deep breath. Three shots sent another series of dirt showers down on their heads. Zoe responded with a single, judiciously placed round, and there was some faint, but alarmed sounding shouts from below. He didn't know where the fault in the system lay. He prayed it wasn't in the direct feed from the fuel cells, which it could very well be, because that fix was beyond the equipment Mal had available to him. Even Wash couldn't really fix that, it would take Kaylee, although maybe he could jury-rig a temporary work-around. If it were his hands actually in the shuttle, and he wasn't under fire, so he could take his time to noodle about.
He thumbed the send button. “First, Mal, go to the helm. Make sure everything is off, all toggles down, all sliders set to zero.”
“Wait. Before we get started. Zoe, if we can't get this done, want you to raise Kaylee. Tell her to get a hold of Inara. They can work out how to get Serenity to the main port, an' any legal stuff needs get done. Inara will know what's what.”
Zoe glanced at Wash, and he keyed the respond button. “Yes, sir,” she said simply. And that was it. After a moment, Wash blinked, then lifted his thumb so they could receive, realizing, yet again, that reams of communication of the sort that went right over his head had taken place between the two of them.
“Okay, Wash. Everything's for sure off.”
“Uh,” Wash replied, gathering his scattered thoughts. “All right. Get back to the engine access panel.”
“I'm there, got it open.”
“Shiny. What we're gonna do next is take the regulatory system off-line. Just inside, upper left, there's a smaller box. Open that.”
“I see the smaller box, I'm opening it.”
“You should see maybe a dozen system leads.”
“What I'm seein' is a gou cao de tangle of rainbow colored noodles.”
Wash chuckled, then said, “Yeah, well, go ahead and yank all those noodles free of their aft connection.”
“Done,” Mal came back a few seconds later.
“Okay, what you just did was take all the regulatory systems off-line - all the safety systems and the power governor. Stuff like that.”
“Happy day,” Mal said dryly.
“Yep. Shut-”
A flurry of incoming interrupted, cut off by a single sharp retort of Zoe's mare's leg. Then she reached behind her for the bullets in the loops on her belt, reloading swiftly.
Wash noted in the back of his mind that she now had twelve shots left, and continued, “Shut that box back up, and look way deep into the engine access.” And here he closed his eyes tight, as he visualized, hoping he was remembering the power line configuration of the school's teaching craft accurately, and that the shuttle craft had a near enough arrangement. “What you want is the power routing board. They can look a little different in different engines, a square or a rectangle or sometimes a narrow bar in the center with two discs on either side. But it's flat and has all sorts of rainbow noodles wired into it, usually in bundles. See anything like that?”
“Gorram dark back there.”
Wash opened his mouth to suggest Mal get one of the flashlights, but then remembered that their batteries had been cannibalized to run the radio. Instead he said, “Try following wires back. Lots of them originate there.”
“Yeah! That's got it! A rectangular plate, 'bout 30 by 20 centimeters, loaded up with noodles.”
“That's it, yes. Unclip it, pull it out as far as the leads allow. Don't jerk anything loose, but you're gonna wanna get it to where you can see it.”
“Gimme a minute.”
Zoe twisted, angling her gun sharply to the right, her left elbow digging pretty fiercely into his bicep, firing twice. The ejected shells pinged against stone, both bouncing back to hit Wash's cheekbone, tap, tap. He couldn't help flinching, hissing at the bite of the heated metal.
“Sorry, baby,” Zoe murmured, shifting her weight off his arm.
“You can kiss it better later,” he replied, grinning, and while her eyes remained intently forward, her lips curved in a return smile. Then she tucked her head lower, waiting out the dozen or so shots hitting the rocks around them. Maybe they were trying to scare her into laying low.
“Got it. Lord, I thought that first bit was a tangled mess.”
“The leads aren't wrapped in bundles?”
“Nope.”
Tzao gao. Having the wires bundled by unit would have made this so much simpler. “No problem,” Wash said. “We just gotta track down the leads to the drive.”
“Gotta tell ya, Wash, can't make head nor tail of this.”
Wash, leaning heavily on the memories of a couple nights' mischief almost a dozen years back, replied, “Look to the upper right hand quadrant. Should be a block of leads there, in clumps of yellow, red, gray, and green.”
“Uuuhh... Yep. Yep, there they are.”
Inwardly thanking Alliance manufacturing standardization regulations, Wash said, “Start pulling everything but the yellow wires.”
“Doin' it.”
Wash took a calming breath, knowing this would take Mal a bit, given the two dozen plus connections he was gonna have to pull, then winced, wary of more hot shells as Zoe pulled the trigger, then levered in a new round, once, twice, three times.
“What am I doin', by the way?”
Wash grinned to himself. He'd been wondering how long Mal could go without asking questions. “These leads all go to the drive. They regulate the power feed to all the separate elements that, working together, make up the drive. You're yanking the leads to everything except the gravity screen, so only that part will be getting power when you activate the drive.”
“I wanna do that why?”
“'Cause that-”
Again, Zoe's carbine cut him off, then she was reaching down between them, for the rounds looped on the front of her belt, feeding them quickly into the mare's leg's load port.
A tad distracted by Zoe's hand questing down around his midsection, Wash went on, “Because that and the thrusters are as basic as you can make the shuttle and have her still be flyable. Hopefully, we'll have cut out whatever in the system caused the power bleed.”
“There's some corrosion. Couple just don't wanna come.”
“Y' got wire snips?”
“Uh, yeah.”
“Then just cut 'em. Just make gorram sure you don't cut a yellow one.”
“Kaylee's gonna have my hide, hackin' away in here like this.”
“You just tell her you were following my orders. She can take it out of my hide.”
“Yeah, but you'd like that.”
“I refuse to answer on the grounds that my wife is listening to every word I say.”
Was right then when a dusty broad brimmed hat poked up on the other side of the rocks at Wash's feet, shading a pair of wary gray eyes. In a rush, seeing the awkwardness of their situation, the fellow under the hat reared up, grinning, slinging his rifle off his shoulder. Zoe heard him just as Wash saw him. For a moment, Wash froze as Zoe writhed, her thigh grinding painfully into his groin as she fought to turn, to get her carbine around in their narrow shelter without lifting her head into possible incoming rounds. An understanding of what was about to happen burst in Wash's mind, as the guy lifted his gun, its muzzle drifting, in a thick, time-clotted moment, toward Zoe's back. The shock galvanized his body, his fingers scrabbling at the holster on his thigh, his palm finding the pistol grip, twisting to pull it free, thumb finding the safety just before his forefinger squeezed the trigger. The gun bucked in his hand, and the guy jerked spasmodically to his right, his rifle flinging wide even as it fired. He kept spinning, thrown back and to the side by the force of Wash's bullet shattering his shoulder. With a shriek of pain and terror, he abruptly dropped out of sight, pitched backwards down the steep slope. Wash could still hear him though, a retreating series of clatters and gruesome thuds, punctuated by sharp, agonized cries. Then he fell suddenly silent.
A lull enveloped the entire area, a pause on both sides, Zoe conserving ammo, while their ambushers absorbed the possible demise of their... kinsman, friend, neighbor? Wash found he was still pointing the pistol, his arm rigid, toward the last place he'd seen the man's face - eyes wide, mouth open and twisted - and slowly lowered it.
“Oh, my God,” he breathed. “I think I killed him.”
Zoe shifted around on top of him, kindly relieving the intense pressure on his testicles, glancing a few times at his face in between scanning their surroundings for movement. He holstered the pistol, then groped around for the comm he'd didn't remember dropping, found it, which wasn't hard to do, given Mal's angry voice rasping from it, and brought it to his mouth.
“We're good,” he reported, repeating the phrase a few times before Mal let up on the send button long enough for Wash to get through.
“What the hell happened?”
“Guy came up on our rear. We're good. You done clearing the leads?”
“Ah. No. Just... Hang on.”
Wash kept quiet, well aware that Mal was hating that their positions weren't reversed, him and Zoe covering each others' backs, while Wash tinkered in the shuttle's guts with his own hands instead of Mal's. Wash kinda hated it too.
“Okay, Wash. All's that's left is yellow wires.”
Zoe fired twice in rapid succession, then asked, “Much longer, Wash? They're moving in on the shuttle.” She laid down three more shots, which, by Wash's count, left her one. Even through the ferocious ringing in his ears, he could hear a man screaming.
Speaking as quickly as he could, Wash rattled out, “You're almost done here, Mal. Reclip the board. You don't want that loose while you're flying. While you're back there, look for a dial set in the rear wall of the compartment, probably dead center.”
Zoe loosed her last shot, then stated, “I'm empty.”
Wash, who'd been keeping count, nodded, and not wanting his right hand to be messing with anything other than the comm unit, said, “Can you reach the pistol?”
She didn't answer, merely snaking her hand down his side, to slide the gun from its holster, while at the same time she flipped her carbine, putting it away at her thigh.
“Board's back. Aaaand... there's the dial.”
“Right next to this dial, there's a toggle, right?”
“Yep.”
“That's the manual engine start. Flip the toggle.”
“Done.”
“The dial, is it reading green?”
“Yep.”
A wave of relief swept over Wash. That meant the problem wasn't in the feed from the fuel cells and Mal would have power.
“Okay, that's it then. She's ready to fly. Make sure to strap in before you start the drive, 'cause we cut out the ship's grav. And-” The comm clicked, and Wash realized Mal had cut him off, probably haring for the helm. “And go easy with the thrusters and be gentle with the stick,” he finished, speaking into empty static. “She's gonna kick and yaw like an opiated elephant.”
The sweet whine of jets spinning awake echoed between the hills, and Wash yelped, “Yes!” as Zoe grinned widely. Then both of them gaped, craning to look up, as the shuttle's pods shrieked, launching her straight into the sky. She shrank almost immediately into a silver coin-sized disc, then jagged eastward and out of sight.
“Lao tien ye,” Wash gasped. “The Gs must have been intense. I hope to hell he didn't just break his neck.”
A few belated, spiteful shots rang out after the craft. Not that they'd ever had a chance of hitting her, given her velocity. And even if they had scored, a hull designed to be able to absorb the dings of a little minor space debris would've easily shrugged the hits off.
~*~
To Above and Beyond (3/3)