Firefly: A Day Of Chainsaws

"Dogs", Jezza grumbles to himself as he sits overlooking the cargo bay. Said cargo bay is full of wiggling, yappy beagle puppies, doing what puppies do best; crapping and getting into things.

A line of chunky brown spit arcs from his mouth onto the head of the closest dog, provoking a shake of its head and causing it to scamper off amongst its fellows.

"This better be worth all this crap" he says, pulling his tobacco plug from his pocket and slicing off a piece. He grabs the shovel leaning on the rail next to him and heads down into the bay.

Noah Sutton looked up at one of the monitors arranged in a bank to his right and grunted. "Goram dogs," he muttered to himself as the image of the writhing mass of beagle puppies in the bay weaved across the screen. "Tai-kong suo-yo duh shing-chiou sai-jin wuh duh pee-goo," Noah continued, the string of profanity tailing off into silence. He produced a small metal and glass tube from a pocket in his work jacket, took a long pull, and slowly exhaled a ribbon of vapor that dissipated against the glass of the monitor. With his left hand, he reached for a coffee cup that was sat on the console in front of him, sipped, and winced at the cold and bitter remnants of its contents. He passed a hand over the receding brown stubble that carpeted both his pate and his chin.

"Goram dogs," Noah repeated, and went on, "and that hayseed to boot," as the image of Jezza Clowers strode into view on the cargo bay catwalk. No, Sutton reminded himself, he's the one who belongs. I'm the one who fits in here like a whore in church. Noah reflected on his situation while he took another draw from the vaporizer: sure, this gig would help keep him in the artificial hormones he required - and then some, if that fixer was to be believed, which Noah wasn't convinced was the case - and being out toward the fringe meant a LOT less heat on his ass. Folks out away from the core also tended to not care so much about his past. But he was a born street kid, growing up from one city to another. Sure, his parents had tried to expose him to the wonders of nature, right after they'd been unceremoniously transferred in their Fed jobs to the ass-end of Sionhan. He'd even learned to ride a horse passably, but he never felt as comfortable as he did around urbanity, technology, and some close-at-hand vices and the means to rob enough to enjoy them.

So, here he was, piloting a cargo-20 after some homespun mods with a bay full of goram dogs; with a doc who looked more likely to hurt than heal; with a fixer whose rep meant nothing but grift; and with muscle he couldn't read at all. Noah looked up at the starscape spread in front of the cockpit glass above and in front of him, fiddled with the nav console to make some final adjustments, and said to the 'Verse, "Fuck you, too."

Clowers, his turn at cleaning up after the dogs over finishes washing up at the med bay scrub station, slips his shoulder holster back on and slaps his kepi on his head. Retrieving his trusty shotgun pistol from the table he checks the load and slams it home.

There were few things Jezza Clowers trusted but his sidearm was one of them. He'd had it from the day he was forced into the Regiment and he'd taken more then his fair share of heads with it. It was scratched and battered but he wouldn't trade it for anything, which was good as it wasn't worth much. The Verse was full of surplus Alliance kit after the war after all.

His musings over he clomps his way through the ship to the flight deck, helping himself to some more chew on the way.

He acknowledges Sutton with a nod as he clangs onto the flight deck. "So", he grates out, "where's the rest?"

“Tryin’ to keep away from these gorram dogs is where I am,” Indigo said between chews of a ration bar. She was perched in her normal spot up above the main cargo hold, her feet swinging in time to the rim folk music she had blazing in one earbud.

She turned her emerald gaze on Clowers as she flipped back her shoulder-length auburn locks. “I ain’t allergic, but they’re just so… prone to leavings… which then invariably get underfoot. You boys care to find some real jobs, or are I the only one bored to tears with this quote unquote ‘honest’ work?”

"Gāi sǐ, but you're right goram ghostly," Sutton said into the intercom as he and Clowers turned to look at Indigo on the cargo bay monitor. "Didn't even see you sneak up from off-camera and all. Anyhow, I thought all the work - honest or other - was set up by your feminine hand... meaning you're the mastermind behind the great puppy caper. You got something more profitable in mind after we wrap this job?"

Sutton glanced up at Clowers' unreadable face, back to the monitor, and took a slow pull from his vaporizer. To the intercom he said, "I know plenty of fixers by rep. Surely you're not just asking after work with a bigger cut for the finder?"

“Fèihuà! This job jumped up on me like the damn fleas from all of those mutts; it was the best I could do on such short notice. Been meanin’ to send a wave to some contacts about something with a bit more flair.” Indigo lowered herself carefully to the bay floor, mindful to step around any droppings, before dancing gracefully over to the bulkhead, and the hatch into the rest of the ship. “And, my cut is just fine and fair as can be; I’m the best damn facilitator in the system, and I aim to prove it to you.”

As she settled into her cramped bunk in the tiny, grime-coated cubicle she called home on the flimsy, rusted garbage scow of a ship, Indigo sighed. She thought she had found a contact on New Melbourne who would buy these flea-bitten curs (by which, of course, she meant championship-level specimens), but it seemed old Anton wouldn’t believe her half-assed schemes anymore after that incident with the canaries.

She rubbed her eyes, and wondered aloud why she had forsaken the comfortable life of a Companion to fight a hopeless war for a bunch of ungrateful assholes who would never even know what sacrifices she’d made in the name of their freedom. For a moment, she almost allowed herself to cry, but tears were a luxury of the folks unburdened by reality; them touched in the head enough to not care about reputations and hot meals. She envied them sometimes; a sentiment she truly embraced when Sutton patched a return call from St. Lucius, one of the moons of Beylix, through to her bunk.

Mason Wilhelm’s scarred visage loomed in the screen, grinning ear to ear. “I hear you have some goods for sale?” He leered; Indigo knew this would be a tough sell.

“Five k? Are you serious, Mason?” Indigo asked, deciding to push just a bit further; Mason was intolerable in person, but she knew she could handle him on a viewscreen. At least the smell was only a memory of his disastrously offensive hygiene, and not the real thing.

“If you don’t like the number, I can lower it, whore.” He sneered at her reaction; he knew damn well that her actions during the war were justified, and that her Companion training was a different thing entirely. She grimaced, and chuckled, “And then, you miss out on an opportunity to broker the best championship-level specimens in the system to willing breeders? If you’re willing to let this deal go, I’m sure I can find someone else in the area to buy them. Perhaps Gregor would be interested?” Mentioning his brother nearly sent Mason into a full-on rage, but he simply twitched repeatedly, and smiled. Displaying his wide array of golden teeth, he nodded, “Well, played, whore. How about five k, plus an additional opportunity? All you have to do is bring another man some merchandise.”

Behind him, out of the plexi window, an old-growth pine toppled; its massive 90-foot bulk slammed into the ground, sending a wave of soil and detritus pinging against the side of the huge logging crawler. The video shook, and went out of focus for a moment before returning to Mason’s hideous face.
“What are we talking about here, Mason?" Indigo asked, trying to suppress her reaction to his ghastly reappearance. "You know I don’t move contraband...” He knew no such thing, but he still smirked and nodded.

“I need some lumber moved. To a very specific location. We’d best discuss details once we meet up. Land atop my crawler at the co-ordinates I’m sending your pilot now. Make it sooner, rather than later, love; yes?”

She nodded affirmative before angrily cutting the channel and wiping her hands in disgust.

Noah began entering the coordinates from Indigo's wave, then barked out loud into the intercom as he read the full entry. "Tā māde niǎo, you were right, Mistress Facilitator!" he said dryly. "Can't wait to unload these goram dogs and descend into the dark, dangerous, illicit, and scary underbelly of... lumber transport." He finished with the nav console and then pulled a small vial out of his hip pocket. He rubbed at the dull ache that was beginning to form at the nape of his neck, lifted his shirt, and pressed underneath the ribs on the right side of his abdomen. An empty vial popped out of a small slot and he replaced it with the new vial he'd just produced. He slapped the area like it was a stubborn box magazine, sighed, and took a slug from the still-cold coffee on the console. "Goram!" Sutton hollered, after sputtering through the bitter mouthful.

Turning back to the intercom, Noah continued to deride Indigo. "I expect Alliance troopers will be hot after this covert cargo of dressed lumber?" he asked ironically, as he got up and crossed to toward the coffee pot on the rear shelf.

“Now, hold on, Sutton; payment is payment.” She said into the wide, grey speaker/microphone that comprised the intercom above her bunk. The damn things always looked like grinning faces to her; made conversation a bit unpleasant.

“Another job is as good as gold out here in the boondocks; one more cargo run, and I’ll find us something with more pizzazz.” She cut the channel, and ran her fingers through her hair; she knew she’d better get something good, and fast, if she wanted to keep her berth on this boat.

As the graceful, yet utilitarian form of the Veritas-class transport descended from the black thunderheads of the St. Lucius sky, engines rotating to make a vertical landing atop the massive, multi-legged logging platform, Indigo sighed. Her homeworld of New Kasmir had once held forests this dense and beautiful. The blocky, silver hulk of the platform reminded her of what the Alliance had done once the planet had been pacified; few of New Kasmir’s old-growth forests remained, and watching devastation of nature on this scale made her queasy. Still, she had made promises, and she followed through on her commitments.

The China Cat Sunflower came to a graceful rest in the center of the landing pad on the back of the massive logging platform, rain pouring across the ship's viewports. Indigo patted the armrest of Sutton’s pilot chair, “Damn fine landing. Now, for the fun part…”

As she descended one of the loading ramps, Indigo took notice of an old Earth-That-Was vehicle beneath a tarpaulin; the small, wheeled ground transport sat at one edge of the landing pad, near the long, retractable ramp designed for such vehicles. As the rain continued to pour down in a constant misty spray, Indigo shielded her face and headed for the hatch leading down into the logging platform; she had hardly made it three steps when Mason Wilhelm himself emerged from the covered hatch. He scrambled to meet her halfway, similarly shielding his face from the downpour.

“Like the Capri, do you? One of only two left in existence. I take it you’ll want to talk somewhere less damp? We can go inside, or head back to your ship; whichever you prefer...” Considering that he was alone, Indigo was inclined to bring Mason back to the ship; however, she realized how untrusting such a move would be seen by a man such as this.

Noah set down his fresh cup of coffee and peered intently out of the cockpit canopy at the wheeled machine under the tarp.  The wheels fit no pattern he recognized, so his interest waned as he assumed that it was simply some cobbled-together backwoods mish-mash machine.  Instead, Sutton's interest was taken by the sight of Indigo being ushered toward a hatch by this "Wilhelm."  Normally he'd watch her go for a moment for simply aesthetic reasons; but now Indigo represented his only chance of continued ungainful employment, and he didn't trust anyone who would employ himself, her, and Clowers.  As Wilhelm opened the hatch for her, Noah quickly rolled his chair to the sensor console and set the system to monitor her biometric data for changes in parameters and location.

Finally he leaned back in his chair and sipped his coffee.  He wasn't sentimental, and he sure as hell wasn't aggressive or violent, but he damned well wasn't going to let his own goods be trifled with - be those goods real or yet-to-be relaized.

Several hours pass as Indigo works her charms on Wilhelm. Jezza spends it leaning against the cargo hatch wall, alternately between spitting his chew on the landing pad and watching for trouble.

Finally she returns and a forklift loads several pallets of wood, a crate of 'shine and some chainsaws into the hold. Indigo heads up to the cockpit, a leather carry all in her hand.

Jezza slaps the hatch close button and keys the intercom.

"We're done Sutton, let's get out of this dung heap."

Noah met Indigo at the inner hatch into the cargo hold.  He inspected the pallets of lumber as he loaded the booze onto a pallet jack and pushed it into the shielded section of the hold.  He returned, cast another appraising eye over the timber, and slowly pronounced, "Yep - that's wood."  He strode back out of the hatch and toward the cockpit in step with Indigo and quickly skimmed the documents she handed to him out of her leather bag.  "You're sure about this?" he asked as he checked the destination coordinates.

"Not sure," she answered dryly, "damned sure.  Why?"

"Qù nǐde!  That's a fair-to-middlin' wretched hive of scum and villainy, and an odd place to meet a gub'mint type.  Well," he sighed, looking from her back down to the paper before handing it back, "best be cautious with the nav route.  There's beasties and spooks not too far off from there.  Is that white lightning part of the cargo, or is that a tip?"

Sutton barged through the cockpit hatch while still waiting for Indigo's answer, plopped into the captains' chair at one of the pilot stations, and almost casually began to fiddle witht he piloting console.  The 'Cat began to rise smoothly on the gentle hum of her contragravity impellers as Sutton switched his attention to the navigation console.  He paid more attention this time but still worked quickly; by the time a starfield appeared in the cockpit windscreen, he was done and shifted back to the piloting console.  "Hold something tight," he remarked wryly into the intercom with a wink at Indigo as the entire ship bucked and screamed when its fusion torches took over from the atmospheric drive.