Unlikely Bedfellows, Chapter 1
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
This is just to start the ball rolling, as our Big Damn Heroes encounter an Alliance officer with a conscience (c'mon, there'd have to be ONE) and the people of Haven may yet get a little justice.
CATEGORY: FICTION TIMES READ: 4211 RATING: 9.0 (G) SERIES: FIREFLY
CHAPTER 1
I.A.V. Dortmunder
200 metres off Serenity ’s port bow
Ten days after the Miranda wave
Commander Lindayne deVries had entirely expected Reynolds’ reaction to her statement: he collapsed in paroxysms of incredulous laughter. This went on for nearly two minutes, until he regained a measure of control, still whooping.
She didn’t move, nor react. She knew that was what he expected her to do. Her detailed study of his profile told her how this would play out. Reynolds looked out of the screen at her again, expecting her to show annoyance or exasperation. She did neither, simply waited patiently.
Finally, she asked mildly, “Are you done?”
“Do you guys have time for jokes? Ain’t you all too busy bringin’ the light of civilisation to them as don’t need it?”
“Save the sarcasm, please. I’m quite serious. I’ve been authorised by the Parliament directly to pay you 10,000 square just for hearing me out, and a further 90,000 if you agree. It’s an easy job, relatively little risk or work, and it won’t even cost you any fuel to speak of.”
Predictably, the crew’s interest perked up somethin’ keen at that, though Jayne scowled. “Can’t trust no ruttin’ Alliance, Mal.” He then, surprisingly, affected a contrite look. “Hell, I should know.” Mal did not belabour the point in front of the others; there was no need, it was settled. He knew Jayne had genuinely regretted what he’d done.
He’d have spaced him without hesitation otherwise.
“We sure could use ten thousand square, Cap’n,” Zoe mused.
“It wouldn’t hurt to hear them out, Mal,” Inara pointed out reasonably.
“Might if they haul us in,” Jayne growled.
“You all three got a point…Commander, what kinda guarantee can you give me an’ mine we ain’t gonna regret this?”
“Given that you’ve been bound by law five times, I can understand your concern,” deVries responded sardonically. “I’ll come over in a med-shuttle, alone, unarmed, and transfer to your ship via whichever airlock you designate. The Dortmunder will then back o
(Correctly formatted, this time...after repeated editing!)
Comments, please?
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Keep flyin',
K
"You can't take the sky from me!"
However, like AMDOBELL, I am not sure how to take Captain DeVries and her behaviour shown so far. Yes, I think the series would have had Mal encounter "faces" of the Alliance who acted counter to how he perceived Alliance officers and politicians would behave, and Mal needs that encouragement to revise his attitudes...but Lindayne deVries just seems too openly emotional and touchie-feelie for a military leader or CO of a naval vessel of any purport. Especially of a cruiser the side of the Dortmunder (if it's the same city sized vessel from "Serenity" and "Bushwacked"). Still, the Alliance wouldn't have picked just ANYBODY, so I have to wonder just how much of the shown behaviour is true and how much is an act to get Mal & co. to trust....
Okay. About Lindayne deVries: yes, she is rather sentimental when it suits her - I may have overdone that a bit, and I might even rewrite it. This is due at least partly to her upbringing - you may recall she mentioned her mother (Londinium's Director of Planetary Security) and her mother's wife (the Parliamentary Speaker). Backstory to follow, but suffice it to say for now that these two women, who incidentally have a 10-year age gap (the former is the younger of the two, though both don't look any older than mid-thirties - Lindayne is 29) have very different attitudes, both to motherhood and to the Alliance. Lindayne's birth mother is, as you might imagine, devoted to the Alliance. Her wife, however, hates her job (as mentioned in the Prologue) and is, at best, rather disillusioned. Her position accords her access to rather more information about the Alliance's doings than the average citizen, and in fact she has acquired access to rather more than that. She is in fact a very naughty girl. :)
But I defy anyone who has strong motherly drives and is unable to have kids for whatever reason to be anything other than sentimental about them. Motherhood is a powerful force indeed, as surely anyone on this site who's a mother can confirm.
You may recall the Alliance captain in 'Bushwhacked' calling for a double guard on the nursery? Oddly enough, that line created Lindayne in my mind. Doesn't the fact that those ships have nurseries imply that they're rather like Picard's original Enterprise, carrying families as well as crew - with crew actually having families, in fact? Does it seem reasonable that a woman who can't have kids but desperately wants them would like to spend time with them? Joss created Firefly with the express intent of pointing out that people won't really be any different in 500 years' time. There'll still be crusaders, criminals, cheats, liars and all grades in between. Lindayne is an expression of this notion.
I would argue about the crew being won over by her. First off, hey, this is a job, they're bein' paid!
Second, Jayne isn't going to trust her an inch. Zoe is cautious as always, but as always she's following Mal's lead. Kaylee always trusts everyone unless they turn on her, bless her. :) Simon is warily trusting, because River accepts her - of course, River's cheating a bit by reading her mind. Mal and Inara don't know what to make of her yet - Mal because of his (understandable and usually accurate) preconceptions of Alliance officers, and Inara because she's reading in Lindayne's body language that she's a mass of contradictions.
But of *course* she is - conflicted characters are always interesting. :)
However, I think I'll risk giving a bit away by saying that Lindayne is NOT trying to manipulate Mal. She has no agenda of her own other than either trying to clear the Alliance's name, or trying to root out what she sees as a few bad apples. Her feelings are honest, her tears genuine. I say again, the Alliance officers can't all be robots - especially if they're veterans, as Lindayne will later reveal herself to be (she fought at Du-Khang, New Dunsmir and other battles, but did not take part in the offensive which left Shadow devastated, and was injured in action two weeks prior to Serenity Valley).
I do apologise for sending our Big Damn Heroes back to Haven and, later, Miranda; still more for exhuming Book, Mildred and Hiroko (the latter two mentioned in the novelisation). In self-defence, anyone who knows anything about military matters will tell you there's no substitute for on-the-spot observation, the whole boots/facts on the ground thing. How else would they prove what happened? The Alliance is no more immune to left hand/right hand machinations than any other government; I doubt the officers on Ariel expected to be murdered by what they saw as high-ranking officials. Similarly, it's likely the Operative's actions would be off the record - and I doubt that anyone lower in the hierarchy would be aware of suc
To explain: I tend to write a fic as bits & pieces, then have trouble tying them together because other ideas keep occurring to me, plus I fall in love with particular scenes and keep endlessly tweaking them. It's a bad technique, I KNOW it's a bad technique, and I've been TRYING to stop it happening, I've been fighting the ideas. But the ideas are winning...
Next chapter soon, I promise!
Captain Lindayne strikes me as a "fixer" character, already beginning to see the issues of the crew and working to address those issues, even as she conducts her investigation. Take care that she does not become too powerful or insightful as she goes about her fixing, you might also consider throwing in some mistakes and misunderstandings.
The actual premise here is a very interesting one. I'm wondering if confirming what has happened to prevent a war will have a twist. And if so, what choices will the crew make?
I avoided reading/commenting for a while as I was working on my own story that also involves an unexpectedly sympathetic Alliance character. I like what you've done here and hope you'll be continuing this story and posting more soon.
Thanks again for the comments! There are all sorts of ideas I've been having lately, to the extent that I'm seriously thinking of writing an entire SEASON. Among these are:
Another encounter with Lindayne (after one or two changes in her career which are happening later in "Unlikely Bedfellows"), in which she and our BDHs encounter slavers;
Mal, Zoe, Jayne and Kaylee are stranded on Ezra, Kaylee's hurt to the point where it's doubtful she'll make it to the nearest outpost (remember Ezra's a desert planet...with Niska's skyplex in orbit!), and the others have NO idea even of what planet they're on;
Someone may (or may not) have developed an FTL drive! Our BDHs and the Alliance are, needless to say, anxious to get their hands on it...
More soon (for a given value of soon)!
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