Unfinished Business

Chapter Eleven

By the time the dessert buffet was revealed, most of the crowd had settled down into small groups enthusiastically discussing the coming operation. Most of them hadn’t had this much purpose or direction in their lives since the War, and it was like a whiff of fresh atmo to them.

As veterans, they were mostly infantry. The Independents had found it easier to recruit infantry than any other kind of soldier in the skills-poor reaches of the Rim, and it was easier to put a rifle in a man’s hands and show him how to use it than it was to take him and arm him with the education and background necessary to, say, crew a warship or fly a fighter. Now they were mostly gun-hands: smugglers and petty thieves, mercenaries and criminals. This was the most structure they’d had since Serenity Valley. It was also the first purpose they’d had.

The real movers-and-shakers were crowded around the crate-cum-war-room at the head of the cargo bay. That group included most of the captains, the former intelligence personnel, Candy Cane McBane, and other Very Important Browncoats. Mal and Zoe were included, as was Duncan McKlintock, who suddenly looked like the loneliest man in the ‘verse.

“We’ve reduced the preliminary stages of our plan to six main tasks,” Rachel was saying as she spread out dossier folders on the crate. “Each must be completed if this operation is to go forward. And each must be completed quickly – we have reason to believe that the ship is in danger from the current instability.”

“None of these is particularly difficult,” the Brigadier added. “We tried to keep them simple and straightforward. But most of them are illegal and involve some risk to your ships, if something goes wrong. I’d like to say we have adequate back-up for you, in case that happens, but that would be what we in Intelligence call ‘a lie’. We’re not only unsanctioned, participation in this by many of us constitutes a violation of the terms of the Amnesty and Reconciliation Acts and cou