Dark and Stormy Night

'It was a dark and stormy night on the little ball of rock that I call home. An ion storm was in the air, lighting up the sky like a phaser bank on overload.'

That was the sort of idiotic tripe these stories usually started with, thought Max Vasser to herself, and in this case -- unfortunately -- the cliché was entirely appropriate.

She pressed herself farther back into the shallow doorway in which she stood, the slight overhang of the old building the only protection against the cold relentless rain. She wished for the forty-seventh time that she had had the foresight to bring along a weathershield, or even an old-fashioned umbrella, but after sneaking off the Rocinanté she couldn't very well go back without having to explain herself to West.

She pulled away the wet hair that was plastered to her face and reached down to her side with one hand, testing to see if the cold, unyielding lump concealed beneath her leather jacket was still there, and felt reassured. As long as she had that, she had all she really needed. She hoped she wouldn't have to use it, but feared that circumstances would dictate otherwise. That the bounty for the Snark would be paid 'dead or alive' was meager consolation.

Leaving the Rocinanté had been no trick at all -- after all, West trusted her. She had simply waited until West once again lost himself in Caribbean music and booze, then snuck around the other side of the cargo hold to the transporter alcove. The steel drums and marimbas had completely drowned out the brief harmonics as she beamed herself down to the planet Serenity, the Snark's last known whereabouts.

She made planetfall in Serenity City, in the section called simply 'The Zone' by those in the know. It was a ribbon of city a dozen blocks long and two wide where the Commercial Quarter bordered the Warehouse District. The area was a bizarre and sometimes dangerous amalgamation of seedy dive bars and trendy nightclubs; of sleazy, backroom brothels and exclusive, social hotspots; of glittering casinos and dark, dirty alleys; of ritzy tuxedoes and gowns, and filthy, torn rags. It was a place to go with a large group of friends for a night out on the town. It was not a place to wander the streets alone at night.

In a brief moment of weakness, Max wished West was at her side, but he'd made his choice and she'd made hers. She viciously pummeled back another attack of guilt for deceiving him, but with any luck, she'd be back aboard the ship before West woke up tomorrow morning with a fistful of credits to justify her actions.

After the whine of the transporter had died down, West swung out of his hammock, fully awake and alert, and shut off the music. He walked across the cargo hold to the transporter alcove and checked the beam-down coordinates in the buffer, then proceeded forward to the living cabin and the library computer terminal. All was done in complete silence, but his eyes spoke of the hurt and betrayal he felt. He wished Max would trust his judgment more, but he got the impression that sometimes she thought of him as just an overgrown child without a clue how to run his own life, and that hurt more than anything.

*Maybe we're just too different,* he thought glumly. He wondered if he and Max truly had a future together, or if their affair was just a brief flare in the night, hot as a supernova at first, but quickly fading until everything was sucked into the black hole that was left.

When he sat down in front of the library terminal, Gromit, who was still scrunching around looking for crumbs to vacuum up, squeaked in sympathy, as if to say, "Dames..."

West activated the computer and established a secure datalink with the Serenity City Police HQ computer. The sophisticated law enforcement A.I. system threw up thick firewalls and Boolean booby-traps at his unauthorized intrusion, but a special series of codes from West blew through the defenses like a congested elephant's sneeze through used tissue paper.

He checked a few facts from the police files, looked up his own record just out of old habit, then closed the link, leaving the police computer dazed and confused, and went forward into the cockpit to warm up the *Rocinanté's* engines.

Max would never forgive him if he overtly interfered in the 'mission' she had set herself, but he was damned if he wasn't going to watch her back. He hoped that in her haste to sneak away Max had paid enough attention to the details of the Snark's rap sheet, but he'd be ready in case she hadn't.

Because where there was a Snark, there was also a Boojum.