Thor Firefly - Aim to Misbehave

1. Auflage 2024
ISBN: 978-1-78909-843-3
Verlag: Titan Books
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, Band 9, 228 Seiten

Reihe: Firefly

The ninth exhilarating and original Firefly novel tying into the critically acclaimed and fan-beloved series, from creator Joss Whedon, follows Mal, Book and the rest of the crew mounting a madcap heist to untangle themselves from a sinister web of lies on a backwater moon. Stranded and Broke It all started with the geese. The Firefly crew is eager to get paid for their latest job, but when payment arrives as a gaggle of geese instead of a purse, their stay on the planet Brome gets an indefinite extension. Don't matter that the geese will fetch a pretty penny once they get somewhere to sell them. Without coin, they can't buy fuel, and without fuel, they can't get off-world. Serenity is stuck. A Figure from the Past Luckily the foreman of the local fuel refinery, Lyle Horne, wants to hire them, but not to work in the factory. A philanthropic authority known as The Governess has been kidnapping his workers. Lyle's fixing to get them back- with the help of Mal and his crew. Only trouble is, Lyle's got a mysterious past with Shepherd Book, one the preacher ain't too keen to talk about. Plans Go Awry Out of options and out of time, they launch a three-pronged plan: Mal will break into her fortress of an estate to retrieve the workers, Inara and Simon will pose as potential donors to the Governess's charity as a distraction, and Jayne will stay behind to keep an eye on Lyle. But things never do go smooth, and soon the crew finds they have more than a few geese running amuck on Serenity.

Rosiee Thor began her career as a storyteller by demanding to tell her mother bedtime stories instead of the other way around. She spent her childhood reading by flashlight in the closet until she came out as queer. She lives in Oregon and is the author of Young Adult novels Tarnished Are The Stars and Fire Becomes Her, and the picture book The Meaning of Pride. Follow her online at rosieethor.com and on Twitter @rosieethor.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Thor, Rosiee

Leseproben

Henry Evans didn’t like God. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe, just that he didn’t have much proof that God liked him either. All these years, and the big man upstairs hadn’t done much to make his life better. Despite his imagined mutual disdain, every so often Henry got the distinct feeling he was being watched, and not by the raccoons patrolling the dark back alleys of Patrick, capital city of the planet Valentine.

“You’re late,” he said into the night.

“How do you do that?”

“Do what?” Henry turned to face the direction of the voice just as the familiar figure of Lyle Horne stepped into the dim light of the alley behind Scatter Shot, the once bustling but now derelict tavern where they’d made their hideaway.

“Know exactly when I’m coming.” Lyle was not a tall man, but what he lacked in height he made up for in sheer magnetism. A sly smile twisted his lips and a flicker of gold caught in the hazel of his eyes. “It’s like you’re some kind of oracle.”

“I’m just observant,” Henry said, and uncrossed his arms, the tension in his muscles unspooling at the sight of his partner. Truth was, he’d mistaken some native possum-type creature for Lyle just a few minutes earlier, but he wasn’t about to tell him that. Let him think Henry was impressive once in a while. “So, what kept you?”

“I don’t know if I like the path this narrative’s takin’. You’re late, what kept you… You know I don’t keep a schedule, Hevans.”

“Your relationship with time is rather fluid, yes.”

“All my relationships are.”

“You gonna tell me what you got or keep me guessing?” It’d been a week since their last job and Henry was getting a tad nervous. They didn’t sit and wait, he and Lyle. That wasn’t their way. It was much harder to hit a moving target, and Henry and Lyle hadn’t stopped moving since they’d started up together a few months back. When the next job hadn’t lined up, Henry had thought it might be a welcome break from all the action, but that was six days ago and he wasn’t breathing any easier.

Henry motioned Lyle inside the abandoned tavern. Splintered wood stuck up from the floorboards, and a large ceiling beam had split the counter in two—a safety hazard if Henry had ever seen one. It was better this way, though. No one would come looking for a couple of lowlifes in a dried-up watering hole.

“Got us a job,” Lyle said, his grin as wide as his big-brimmed hat. “Well, got us some loot.”

“And you got us a buyer, I hope?”

“Surely do.” Lyle drew out one of the more stable chairs and plopped down. “A potential buyer, anyway. We just gotta track ’em down.”

“Why do I get the feeling this isn’t so much a job as a hunch?” Henry had picked up most of Lyle’s tells, but it didn’t take much to know when Lyle was hedging. He was always hedging. That was Lyle’s way, and most of the time it worked in Henry’s favor, even if it had taken him by surprise the first few times. Maybe surprise wasn’t strong enough a word for it. It took him by outrage, or by horror, the cavalier way Lyle carved a path through life, leaving bodies in his wake—sometimes enemies, sometimes friends. Henry didn’t plan to be one of them. By now, he knew better than to ask questions. With Lyle, you either followed or you didn’t, and Henry wasn’t about to get left behind.

“Do you trust me?” Lyle asked, throwing Henry a wounded look.

They were the same words he’d asked that first night when they’d met, when Henry had been double-crossed by his own crew, left bruised and bleeding and primed to take the blame for their misdeeds. “Do you trust me?” Lyle had asked without preamble. Henry hadn’t even known Lyle’s name yet, but he had a kind smile and a gun, and Henry found he needed both desperately, so he’d said yes.

He’d kept on saying yes, and it had kept on working for him, so he rolled his eyes, drew up a chair, and said it again. “Yes, fine, I trust you. Now, what have you got?”

Lyle’s face quieted and he placed a small data card on the table between them. “Took this off a uniform at the Crooked Rose.”

Henry’s stomach dropped. There had been rumblings for months. At first, Henry had thought it was all talk—the Allied planets were so numerous, it seemed impossible that they’d all come together and actually agree on a course of action—but then the soldiers had come, and war was officially in motion. An independent movement had sprung up quickly, and no matter how hard the Alliance tried to eradicate them, they kept popping back up like weeds. Henry didn’t like to think about it if he could help it. War didn’t make work like his any easier, and the longer it went on, the more likely it was to sweep him and Lyle up in its current.

“Alliance? Lyle, what do you think you’re doing, messing with them? I thought we agreed—no war,” Henry said.

“War’s coming for us all, Hevans. I ain’t of a mind to wait around for it to get me.”

“So, you went to an upscale bar and pickpocketed an Alliance soldier?”

“Officer, at least. Might’ve been ranked higher. Wasn’t really paying attention to his medals. I was busy swiping this.” Lyle tapped the data card, a light-gray chip with nothing more than a faded Blue Sun logo on its top side.

“And what if he noticed your hands in his pockets, Lyle?”

“Oh, he noticed.” Lyle’s eyes danced with mirth. “I reckon we got a few hours’ peace before he realizes it’s gone, and by then we’ll be rid of it anyhow. Independents will be pleased as punch to get their hands on this kind of intel.”

“I don’t like this. Not at all.”

“That would have more weight if you liked much of anything.”

That wasn’t really fair, or true. Henry liked things. He liked clean socks and the scent of rosemary. He liked watching the sunrise and the sound of a city asleep. He liked fruit when he could get it, and he liked soup. And loath though he was to admit it, he liked Lyle Horne as well. He wouldn’t say so, of course—the man would be even more insufferable than he already was if he ever got wind of anything more substantial than a begrudging agreement to a mutually beneficial partnership coming from Henry. And Henry wasn’t all that keen to alert Lyle to any fondness that his partner might find a way to weaponize against him, should their luck turn.

In truth, though Henry’s time working with Lyle Horne had been brief, from the moment Lyle had swooped to Henry’s rescue, they’d been a real team. Life hadn’t been easy since Henry left home—it hadn’t been easy before, either—but these past few months working with Lyle had at least been fun.

“All right, say I’m in. What then?” Henry asked warily.

“What then? We get ourselves a drink to celebrate.”

“To celebrate what?”

“Henry Evans, getting off his high horse.” Lyle punched him playfully on the arm. “That’s the fastest you’ve ever agreed to a job, I think. Bring out the fireworks, folks, we’ve gotta commemorate this.” Lyle gestured around as if to invite a nonexistent crowd in on their private joke.

“Very funny. You buying?”

Lyle chuckled, one hand braced on the table as he tipped his chair to balance on its back legs. The chair, as it turned out, had other plans. The wood splintered under his weight, sending Lyle crashing to the ground.

“Lyle!” Henry reached for him, their hands meeting just before Lyle hit the floor.

Laughter bubbled up from the man on the ground. “You pay,” he said weakly. “This chair ain’t the only one around here who’s broke.”

Before Henry had a chance to argue, there was a sound like a gunshot and the world around him went sideways as Lyle kicked Henry’s feet out from under him and pulled him down.

“What happened to a few hours?”

“Guess my estimations were off,” Lyle whispered. “Run.”

Henry didn’t need telling twice. He scrambled forward on his hands and knees, catching a glint of shiny metal out of the corner of his eye before he dove for one of the broken windows. Splinters of wood and glass scraped his arms, but otherwise he was unscathed when he rolled to a stop outside.

Brushing himself off, Henry ducked behind a trash can in the alley as the sound of gunfire filled the air. “I told you this was a bad idea,” he began, but Lyle wasn’t beside him. Henry cast about for any flashes of movement, and there, illuminated by a small spotlight sweeping the tavern, was Lyle, darting back toward the table. He was visible for only a moment, as his fingers closed around the data card, before he bolted toward the alley.

“I told you to run!” he yelled, grabbing Henry’s elbow and pulling.

As Henry let the momentum carry him forward, he caught a glimpse of their pursuer. An Alliance officer, it was not. Instead, a steel, angular drone exited the Scatter Shot tavern, a low hum reverberating through the space as it speared a bright pillar of light directly at them.

Henry dipped toward another alley, slinking deep into the shadows. He knew the streets of Patrick about as well as he knew Lyle—which was to say, by instinct alone—so he let himself be guided only by the soft patter of Lyle’s boots on the concrete and the thunder in his veins.

“Lyle,” he whisper-shouted as concrete bled into a dirt path. They were...