Big Damn Hero

30

The planet Shadow, long ago

“Mal! Mal! They have Jamie!”

Jinny Adare came galloping on horseback across the field where Mal was working, breaking up the rocky, hard-packed soil for planting. Mal cut the motor on the rotavator and mopped sweat from his brow with his sleeve.

“Who has Jamie?” he said.

Jinny reined in. “Bundy. Crump. They cornered him outside Camacho’s Grain and Feed. Said they’d had a call about someone shoplifting. Jamie was coming out lugging a sack of cobnuts. He said to Bundy he’d paid for them fair and square and if he was a shoplifter he’d steal something way less bulky than a forty-pound bag of horse feed. Bundy and Crump took him away at gunpoint anyway.”

“Who told you this?”

“Cat Camacho herself. She saw it all, and called me straight away. Bundy’s had a mad-on for Jamie ever since we tried busting Willard Krieger out of jail.”

“Had a mad-on for all of us,” Mal said, recalling the number of times either Bundy or Crump or both of them had hassled him in the street, at the Silver Stirrup, lots of other places, while he was innocently going about his business. Several times Bundy had baldly stated his desire to run Mal and the other Amigos out of town, or worse. He was itching for some payback after the humiliation of the jailbreak incident and Marla Finn’s thwarting his attempted prosecution of the culprits.

This campaign of harassment had been going on for months, and all of the Four Amigos had done their best to ride it out, hoping the sheriff and his sidekick would tire of it eventually; but now Bundy seemed to have ratcheted things up a gear.

“They taken him to the jail?” he said.

“I don’t know. That’d be the first place to look, I guess.”

“Okay. Let me get a horse and saddle up…”

“No time. You can ride with me.”

Mal heaved himself up behind Jinny, and she spun her horse round and spurred it into motion.

It was no hardship sitting with his arms around Jinny’s trim waist, her back against his chest, smelling her lavender-scented perfume at close range and a slight but heady tinge of sweat beneath it. Despite the circumstances Mal wished the ride could have lasted longer. He’d had only sporadic contact with the Adares since the jailbreak and practically none at all with Toby. As far as he knew, Jinny and Toby were still an item. But in that moment, feeling this strong, beautiful woman in front of him, so capable, so determined, Mal’s passion for her was rekindled. There was nothing he wanted more in the world — in the ’verse — than Jinny Adare.

The town jail was locked up. Empty. The sheriff’s office was shut too. Mal and Jinny made inquiries all over town, and eventually they learned that Bundy and Crump had driven out of Seven Pines Pass in their official police hover cruiser, headed towards Sageville on Arroyo Road.

Mal and Jinny raced in pursuit. They had no idea what the police officers’ plans were for Jamie, but they were sure Bundy and Crump intended no good.

Four miles out of town they came across the hover cruiser parked by the roadside. Three sets of footprints led away from the vehicle, out into the wilderness.

“We walk from here,” Mal said, dismounting.

“Why? Riding’d be faster.”

“Noisier too. My hunch is it’s better if they don’t hear us coming. We can get the drop on them then.”

Jinny dismounted too and tethered her horse, then accompanied Mal as he began following the trail of footprints. Sheriff Bundy’s heavier, deeper tread was discernible on the right of the three — the man could do with losing several pounds — and Mal could only assume the trudging set of footprints in the middle were Jamie’s. The two police officers were manhandling Jamie along between them. This had all the hallmarks of a prisoner being walked towards the gallows.

Suddenly Mal gestured at Jinny to hunker down. He had heard voices up ahead.

They crept forward on all fours through the sagebrush until they caught sight of Bundy and Crump standing beside a tall mesquite tree. Jamie was with them…

And he had a noose around his neck.

Jinny bit back a gasp of horror. “They wouldn’t…”

Mal hushed her. “They won’t,” he whispered, “not if I have anything to do with it.”

As they watched, Bundy was jeering at Jamie, whose hands were cuffed behind his back. “This has been a long time coming, kid. Ever since the Finn woman got you off the hook, you and your deadbeat pals have been asking for it. Now the chickens are coming home to roost.”

“You’re not going to do this, Sheriff,” Jamie said. It wasn’t clear if he was making a prediction or a wish. “You wouldn’t dare. You’re just trying to scare me.”

“Am I?”

“Yeah, and just so’s you know, it’s working. I’m scared. Okay? So can we call it off now? You’ve accomplished what you set out to.”

Crump tugged on the rope, cinching the noose that little bit tighter around Jamie’s neck. The rope was slung over a bough of the mesquite, tied off around the tree’s trunk.

“Have you got a gun?” Jinny asked Mal.

“Nope, only a knife. You?”

“No. Didn’t think to bring one. I was too panicked.”

“It’s probably for the best. Don’t want to give Bundy and Crump cause to shoot us in ‘self-defense.’ Not that they’d need much excuse, by the looks of things.”

“What are you going to do? Do you have a plan?”

“Definitely.”

“Is it a good one?”

“Definitely not. Just stay low. When I give the signal, move.”

“Move where?”

“I don’t know. Just do something.”

“Mal?”

“Yeah?”

She kissed him. Just once. Lightly, an inch to the side of his lips. It made him feel ten feet tall.

Mal rose from the sagebrush, waving his arms over his head. “Oh, hi there, Sheriff. Deputy,” he said at the top of his voice. “Fancy bumping into you guys out here in the middle of nowhere.”

As one, Bundy and Crump turned and drew on him.

“Whoa,” Mal said, striding out towards them. “Easy, fellas. I’m not packing, as you can see. I’m here to parley. I see that we have what some’d call a good old-fashioned lynching.”

“What you see,” said Bundy, not lowering his gun, “is the due process of the law. We caught Jamie Adare red-handed, in the commission of an act of thievery. We are well within our rights to sentence and punish him in the manner of our choosing.”

“Not sure I recall there being a trial.”

“Not sure I care what you think, Reynolds. You could say my deputy and I are teaching you owlhoots a lesson. We’re fed up to the back teeth with your games and your tomfoolery. I run an orderly town, and I won’t stand for any sort of misbehavior.”

“And you know what?” Deputy Crump chimed in. “When the Alliance comes and incorporates Shadow into the Union — and it’s gonna happen any day now — you’ll find there’ll be even stricter law enforcement. Those Alliance folks don’t tolerate troublemakers. We’ve seen it on some of the Red Sun planets already, Alliance troops cracking down on anyone as gets too uppity. They call ’em insurgents but we all know they’re just crooks and criminals.”

“And what do they call that cracking down?” said Bundy. “They call it a ‘police action.’ So we, as police ourselves, are only emulating their example. Starting with you miscreants.”

Mal shrugged. “I tell you, Sheriff, I’d already been giving thought to joining up with the Independents. Seems as though you’ve just pushed me a few steps further in that direction. But let’s not bring politics into this. Let’s keep things strictly personal. How’s about this? You take that there noose off of Jamie, then we all shake hands and walk away, no harm, no foul.”

“Or how’s about I just plant a bullet in you right now?” said Bundy. “On account of you’re committing an obstruction of justice. What do you say, Orville? Reckon that’d fly?”

“Reckon it’d fly right nicely,” said Crump.

“Better still, you can halt there, Reynolds, exactly where you are. Don’t come a step nearer.”

Mal did as bidden, in the full knowledge that either Bundy or Crump would drill a hole in him if he disobeyed. He was now within ten paces of the mesquite tree, and somewhat closer to Crump than to Bundy.

“Good boy,” said Bundy. “Stay put, and you can watch your pal Jamie dangle, knowing there ain’t a thing you can do about it. Knowing, too, that it’ll be your turn next.”

Jamie cast Mal a frantic look. Both of them had come to the same realization: Bundy and Crump were not kidding around; this was not all just some piece of theater. They were going to go through with the hanging. Because they could. Because they were the law. Because the prospect of war in the ’verse, which over the past few weeks had become less of a possibility and more of a cast-iron certainty, seemed to have given them the courage to act as intemperately and self-indulgently as they liked. Because when chaos loomed, reason and accountability went out of the window.

Behind his back, Mal flapped his hand at Jinny. He trusted she would interpret the gesture correctly. He was telling her to get out of there. Nothing was to be gained by her remaining. He and Jamie were as good as dead. No point her making it three for three.

In the event, the vagueness of his plan — the nonexistence of it, really — worked against him. Jinny, instead of fleeing, stood up out of the sagebrush.

“Well, well, well,” said Bundy, pushing his wide-brimmed hat back on his head with the barrel of his pistol. “Lookee here. Got the whole gang, just about, apart from the Finn brat. Now we got us a proper audience. Ain’t no one going to be more upset about Jamie Adare’s neck getting stretched than his kid sister.”

“Please, Sheriff Bundy, I’m begging you,” Jinny said. “Let him go.”

“You got something you wanna bargain with, girl?” Bundy’s leer made it patently obvious what he was hinting at. “’Cause tempting though that’d be, I think I’d much rather watch you watch your brother die. Talk about satisfying. Orville? I’ll keep my gun trained on these two. You set about doing what needs to be done.”

Deputy Crump holstered his sidearm and unlashed the rope from the tree trunk. Then he took the strain and started to pull, using the trunk like a pulley to mitigate the weight on the other end of the rope. Jamie’s feet left the ground. His legs kicked. The noose tightened and he began making horrendous choking, gargling noises. His face rapidly purpled.

Mal knew he had one shot at this. He might die as a consequence. He might die even before he was able to achieve what he was setting out to do. But either of those fates was better than allowing Bundy and Crump to get away, unopposed, with what was unarguably cold-blooded murder.

He whisked his knife from its sheath and slung it through the air.

The blade cleaved clean through the rope, inches above Jamie’s head.

Sheriff Bundy’s attention had been divided between Mal and Jinny. Hence he was slow getting off a shot at Mal, so slow that Mal had time to duck out of the way, even as Jamie tumbled to the ground.

Deputy Crump also fell as the rope was cut and went slack in his hands. Suddenly, with nothing to counterbalance him, his strenuous pulling was converted into strenuous falling backwards. He sprawled in the dust. Mal pounced, planting a knee on Crump’s chest to pin him down, then slid the deputy’s gun out of its holster. He drew a bead on Bundy, cocking the hammer.

Standoff.

Jinny ran to Jamie’s side and released the noose. Jamie rolled over, retching and wheezing.

Bundy eyed Mal beadily. “You won’t, boy. You don’t have the stones. You ain’t never shot no one in your life, and the last person you’re going to start with is a lawman.”

“Or maybe,” said Mal, “the first.”

And he fired.

Neither Jinny nor Jamie could believe it. Same went for Crump, who stared up at Mal aghast.

Even Mal himself was a little surprised. It was as though some part of him had known he had no choice, while another part reeled in astonishment.

Bundy went down like a sack of coal. For several long moments Mal was convinced the sheriff was dead. He hadn’t known he had it in him to kill someone. Now he understood what it took: the right motivation, the right mix of necessity and desire. This was it. He had crossed a bridge he could not cross back. His life from now on would never be the same.

Then Bundy hauled himself up into a sitting position. “Gorramn owwww!” he cried, clutching his shoulder. “That hurts like a tā mā de hún dàn!”

Not dead. Just wounded.

Mal didn’t know how he felt about that. Relieved, yes, but not entirely.

“You moron, Reynolds!” Crump exclaimed, still pinned under Mal’s knee. “We weren’t really going to hang him!”

“Huh? You expect me to believe you?”

“Believe what you want. It’s true.”

“Sure is,” said Bundy. “You think we’d be able to get away with something like that? ’Specially not with that fancy-talking lawyer-bitch Finn woman around. Nope, all’s we were doing was giving Adare a scare. I’ve heard tell it can take a man up to six minutes to pass out during a short drop hanging, twenty minutes till he’s actually dead. We weren’t going to let him dangle more than a minute or so.”

“Making a point,” said Crump. “Teaching him a lesson. Teaching all of you lot.”

“Some gorramn lesson,” Jamie croaked.

“Sure looked to me like you were going to go through with it,” Mal said.

“And to me,” said Jinny.

“Wouldn’t have been effective if it hadn’t been convincing,” said Bundy.

“And that stuff about hanging me as well?” said Mal. “That just big talk too?”

“Damn straight,” said Bundy.

Mal rose to his feet. “Okay,” he said. “Fact remains, you crossed a line, both of you.”

“As did you, Reynolds,” said Crump. “Shooting an officer of the law.”

Mal turned the gun on him. “I can always make it two officers of the law. Want that?”

Crump gulped and shook his head.

“Then shut up and listen. I reckon we all need to come to some sort of accommodation here. This is my proposal. Events went as follows. You, Sheriff Bundy, and you, Deputy Crump, came out into the wilds in order to carry out some target practice. There was an accident. Crump discharged his gun — this very one in my hand— and wounded his superior officer. That’s it. No attempted hanging, bogus hanging, whatever it was. Jamie, Jinny and I weren’t even here. What do you say? Sound reasonable?”

Bundy’s expression was steely. Blood oozed out over the fingers of the hand he was pressing against the bullet hole. Finally he said, “Seems as though I don’t have a choice.”

“You do. You can choose not to go along with what I’m suggestin’, and both you and your buddy Orville will find yourselves in shallow graves in the shade of this very tree. You think I’m not serious? I wasn’t aiming to wound you just now, Bundy, I was aiming to kill. And now that I’ve started down that road, don’t see as how I’m liable to stop. There won’t be any witnesses to your deaths, at least none that’ll testify against me. Ain’t that right, Jinny? Jamie?”

Sister and brother both nodded resolutely.

“There we go,” said Mal. “But just to make sure the three of us walk away unharmed and you don’t get it into your heads to shoot us in the back, we’re going to empty your gun of its shells, Sheriff, and this one as well, and take your ammo belts.”

When that was done, and Mal had unlocked the handcuffs on Jamie using the key from Crump’s belt, he and the Adare siblings took their leave of the lawmen, heading back to the road. While Jinny got back on her horse, Mal hotwired the police cruiser and drove it off with Jamie in the passenger seat. There seemed nothing to be gained by making it easy for Bundy and Crump to get back to town.

“Mal,” Jamie said, “how can I ever thank you?”

“You don’t need to. You’d have done the same for me.”

“I would’ve at that.” He fingered the line of rope burn on his neck. “I knew Bundy’d been getting more and more out of control lately. Just never realized he might take it as far as he did. Think he’s gone a little crazy.”

“Think the whole ’verse is going a little crazy. Bundy’s craziness just a by-product of that.”

“Yeah. I wouldn’t have put it past him to kill me, though. Wasn’t any doubt in my mind but that I was a goner. And now you’ve interfered, he’s only going to hate us all the more. That was some fancy knife-throwing, by the way.”

“I was aiming for Crump,” Mal said.

“Really?”

“Yeah, and I’d’ve got him too, if that damn rope hadn’t gotten in the way.”

They both laughed.

“Listen, were you being serious back there?” Jamie said. “About signing up with the Independents?”

“I’m giving it some proper thought. Crump wasn’t wrong about how the Alliance is behaving on the Red Sun worlds, and elsewhere. As you can see from what I did to him, I would seem to have a problem with authority riding roughshod over people. Guess that sentiment extends way beyond Seven Pines Pass, Shadow, the Georgia system, all the way out into the wider ’verse. Besides, ain’t as if there’s much going on for me here. Just farm work, ranching, the day-to-day grind…”

“The call of adventure, huh?”

“Something like that.”

“Got me a feeling that I’m hearing it too,” Jamie said. “Maybe it takes a brush with death to put things into perspective. If you threw in with the Independents, I might just too. There’s a recruiting office opened up in Da Cheng Shi, I heard.”

“I heard that too.”

“Not sure how I’d break it to my parents.”

“Same with me and my mother. Might be best if we just didn’t, simply hopped the train to Da Cheng Shi without telling ’em. You think Jinny would join us?”

“Not sure how she feels about the whole situation. She doesn’t much like the Alliance, that’s for sure, but I reckon it’d be better if she stays at home anyway, for our parents’ sake. One child running off, like as to get himself killed, is bad enough — but both of them?”

“Yeah, I see your point.” But Mal might quite have liked it, were Jinny to have come along with them to Da Cheng Shi. Might have quite liked to spend some time in close proximity to her, without Toby around. See what developed.

“You don’t think we’d be running away, do you?” Jamie said.

“What do you mean?”

“From Bundy. Because if I know that man, he’s going to be sticking to our agreement for a while, but when his shoulder’s better, when he’s back on his feet, he’ll be fuming. He won’t let it rest. He’ll come after us again.”

“You think? I think he’s licked and he knows it.”

“Maybe you’re right. You’ve always been the confident one, Mal.”

Or, Mal thought, the one who doesn’t think things through or care about the repercussions.

They abandoned the police cruiser on the outskirts of Seven Pines Pass and walked the rest of the way in. Jamie announced that the drinks were on him, and they headed straight for the Silver Stirrup, where Jinny caught up with them later. It turned into one of the epic drinking sessions of Mal’s life, five straight hours of necking beers and whisky chasers and laughing uproariously with the Adare siblings. And when it was over, Jamie staggered homeward in the dark while Jinny accompanied Mal to the Reynolds ranch, leading her horse because she was far too inebriated to ride.

What happened next was as inevitable as it was, in hindsight, regrettable. They got as far as the bluff overlooking town. Next thing they knew, they were kissing. Next thing they knew after that, Jinny had laid out her horse’s saddle blanket on the ground. Beneath the stars, on a hot night, with all three of Shadow’s moons on the rise and a slight cooling breeze, they made love. It was sweet and fierce, tender and spectacular. Unforgettable.

Afterwards, as they lay together with Jinny’s head cradled in Mal’s arm, she said, “We shouldn’t have done that.”

“What, taken the Lord’s name in vain as much as we just did?”

“No, I mean it.” Her face was serious. “Toby and I… We’re still together. As far as he’s concerned, we’re a couple. I think he’s going to ask me to marry him. He keeps mentioning engagement rings and stuff, and looking at houses for sale.”

“That does surely seem like the talk of someone with marriage on their mind. What do you think about it?”

“I think I love Toby but I don’t love love him, if you see the difference.”

“The difference being two loves instead of one.”

“Can you ever not be facetious?”

“If I knew the meaning of the word, I’d know what I wasn’t supposed to be. So if Toby proposes…”

“I’ll say no.”

“And crush him forever.”

“Don’t say that!” Jinny snapped. “Please, don’t.”

“You know it’s true. Guy like Toby, when he gets wrapped up in a girl, there ain’t nothing going to untangle him easily, not without it hurtin’ him plenty. ’Specially a girl like you.”

“But I can’t say yes if he isn’t the man I want to be with for the rest of my life.”

Mal wondered if he might be the man Jinny would want to be with for the rest of her life. He didn’t dare voice the thought, for fear that he would be as crushed as Toby was going to be when Jinny rejected his proposal.

“Whatever happens,” Jinny said firmly, “this thing tonight, you and me, it was a one-off. You hear me, Mal? It was terrific, it was lovely, but it’s not going to be repeated.”

“So, what, this was just my reward for saving your brother?”

“No. No! I need to figure out where I stand with Toby, apart from anything else.”

Mal was crestfallen. He was also quite sure, within himself, that despite what she said, it was not going to be a one-off.

And he was right. He and Jinny kept contriving to be in the same place at the same time, their paths crossing seemingly by accident but not really. These random encounters all had the same outcome. And there would be guilt afterwards, and a vow not to see each other again, invariably broken.

Naturally Toby was appalled when he learned about what Bundy had done, or tried to do, and said he would inform his mother. She would have Bundy out of a job within a week, and sue him for damages, too. Mal and Jamie, however, persuaded him not to tell her. They reckoned Bundy was neutralized, Crump as well. Both lawmen were so far sticking to the story Mal had concocted about a firearms accident. Both were getting ribbed for it by the locals and were taking the mockery stoically. Their feigned chagrin suggested to Mal that they wanted to put the truth of the incident behind them, and involving Marla Finn might just stir up something that appeared settled. If Bundy were plotting any kind of revenge, he was hiding it well. Maybe, for all his pigheadedness, even he realized he had overstepped the mark and needed to pull back.

Then war broke out on Shadow. The Alliance had been pushing its influence further and further out from the Core, sweeping up more and more planets in its barbed-wire embrace. All across the ’verse there had been skirmishes between Alliance troops and opposition forces, ragtag militias that were poorly armed but made up for it with guts and determination. It was war in all but name, until finally the Alliance declared that a state of hostility existed between it and all worlds that resisted its influence. This was simply formalizing what had hitherto been implicit.

By then, Jinny had broken it off with Toby. She had also broken it off with Mal. Toby did not know that they had been seeing each other behind his back, but Jinny felt she could not simply take up with Mal, not so soon after ending things with Toby. She said she needed time out to think about their relationship and figure out what she herself wanted, promising it was just temporary. She was still bruised and fragile from having to jilt Toby. It had not been an easy decision.

Toby came to Mal for consolation, and one of the hardest feats Mal had ever pulled off was offering the kid a shoulder to cry on. He ached to tell Toby about himself and Jinny but knew he never could. He couldn’t shake off the feeling that he had lost her. Instead, he comforted Toby, got him drunk, was every inch the good friend.

Next day, he found himself on that train to Da Cheng Shi. Jamie was with him. So was Toby.

Once again, as before during the heyday of the Four Amigos, Toby was tagging along. His motives were straightforward. He couldn’t bear to remain in Seven Pines Pass. He couldn’t stay as long as Jinny was there, a constant reminder of what he had once had and could never have again. He hated the Alliance, that was for sure. He detested what they were doing. He wanted to stand up and be counted, to give those bullies a bloody nose, to draw a line in the sand. But whereas for Mal and Jamie that was reason enough to do what they were doing, Toby was driven by a still darker imperative. Misery.

Once more Toby addressed the crowd of Browncoats in the mining cavern.

“Here is how it went down,” he said. “Less than a year after Mal and I enlisted, along with our friend Jamie Adare, the Alliance bombed the hell out of our home planet, Shadow. By then we’d all been through basic training. You all know how that was. Sometimes brutal, sometimes boring, sometimes downright amateurish. But we were all pulling together, all on the same side. It felt good even when we were slogging along knee-deep in mud, trying to keep formation, pretending to fire these broom handles they’d given us instead of guns because they didn’t have any real guns to spare, aiming ’em at an enemy that wasn’t there. Yet. Then came a lull. Our drill sergeants, some of whom seemed to be just making it up as they went, told us to go home. They’d taught us all they could. They would summon us when we were needed.

“The war was drawing closer to Shadow every day, like this big thundercloud on the horizon steadily growing bigger and bigger, more and more ominous. We were told to go be with our loved ones for a spell, and wait for the call. It’d be coming soon enough.

“Mal, Jamie, and I returned to Seven Pines Pass, our hometown. Jamie’s sister Jinny was waiting to meet us off the train, and she wasn’t happy with any of us, no sir, on account of we’d up and left her behind without telling her where we were going and she’d had to find out about it the hard way, through a wave from Jamie. Each of us had our reasons for keeping her in the dark, the details of which needn’t detain us here. However, Jinny and a few of the locals were keen to do their bit, and so they’d begun stockpiling arms, against the likelihood of the Alliance occupying Shadow. They’d put together a sizeable cache — enough to equip a platoon or maybe more — and had stashed it out back of a meadow on the Adare property, in a cowshed.”

Mal remembered that cowshed for various reasons. One was that he and Jinny had met there for a tryst on several occasions. The smell of mingled cow musk and hay never failed to evoke strong feelings in him, even to this day. Sometimes it was almost, in a bizarre way, an aphrodisiac. Other times, it could reduce him to tears.

He also remembered the cowshed for the smoking ruin it had become, all twisted spars of charred wood sticking upwards, with a halo of scorched earth around it.

And for the burned, mutilated corpse lying close by.

“Jinny’s and Jamie’s parents knew what was being kept there,” Toby continued, “but turned a blind eye. Jinny took it upon herself to guard the arms cache round the clock. It was her way of showing support for the Independent cause. And here’s the kicker. She was guarding it that night when the Alliance called in a Zeus missile strike to destroy it. She was there when a space-to-ground projectile fitted with a thousand pounds of explosive sailed in from heaven and obliterated that cowshed and everything in it and everything within a hundred-yard radius around it. Including Jinny.”

Faces stared up at the platform, and Mal stared at nothing. All he saw was Jinny’s dead body, burned into a contorted, skeletal parody of its living version. The face like a blackened skull, jaws opened in a soundless scream. The cindered remains that were barely recognizable as those of the first woman he’d ever truly loved.

All these years, Mal had assumed that rage had burned away the last of his deep grief, but now his heart sank down into another icy pit brimming with sorrow so thick he began to drown. Couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think.

The crowd had fallen silent, as if in respect for the dead. Exhausted, out of gas, Mal hung his head and mourned everything that had happened between Jinny and him, and everything that had not happened.

After a long moment, Toby stretched out a hand and pointed at Mal. “When they told him that she’d died, the first words out of the mouth of Malcolm Reynolds were, ‘She was supposed to be safe.’”

Mal recalled the moment. Those were his exact words, spoken to Jamie and Toby. Someone — he forgot who — came running into the Silver Stirrup to announce the missile strike. They’d all heard the detonation not ten minutes earlier, and seen the accompanying far-off flash in the sky; and they all had speculated what it signified, whether it was simply the onset of a thunderstorm or something more sinister. The moment they learned it was a missile aimed at the Adare ranch, they sprinted out that way. The farmhouse itself was intact, save for the fact that every single windowpane in it had been blown out and the roof was missing several shingles. Mr. and Mrs. Adare were likewise shaken but unhurt.

However, no sooner did Mal see the impact site, and Jinny’s body, than he fell to his knees and uttered the sentence Toby had just quoted.

What he didn’t grasp was why it mattered. What significance “She was supposed to be safe” carried for Toby.

That was when Toby slid a hand into his pocket and retrieved a small, rounded lump of metal that had been distorted out of its original shape by intensely high temperatures. It was roughly the size and shape of a fob watch, and for a moment Mal could not fathom what it was or why Toby had produced it.

Then it dawned on him.

It was the locket. The gold locket with the ornate “J.” The one he hadn’t given to Jinny, and then, later, much later, had.

Toby levered open the lid, with some difficulty. The hinge barely worked.

Inside was a mass of circuitry, fused into so much silvery goo.

“See that, everyone?” He displayed the locket to the crowd. “See that, Mal? A homing beacon. The homing beacon that you put there. The homing beacon which gave the Alliance the exact coordinates for the arms cache. Thanks to you, they couldn’t miss. Thanks to you, Jinny Adare died.”