Writer's Block: Transportation

[wytchcroft]

In the past they promised us jetpacks for the future. We’re still waiting. What is your ideal mode of transportation? Has it been invented yet? <input ... > View other answers

Transport. The sun was setting now low over the broken metallic teeth of a dozen wrecked vehicles, pieces of machinery - motors, wings, doors, wheels and the what-nots, all piled up into a crude semi-circular wall, with many more strewn across the sandy space of the yard itself.

Not an easy place to walk straight across - from the gate to the crumpled looking shack of an office. Not without tripping over something.

And Captain Malcolm Reynolds did seem to keep doing that.

 

Still, transport... 

Funny, thought Mal to himself, how transport was so often the basic issue. Every man needs transport - everyone got a mind to go... someplace else. 

Yes, basic. Transport. 

'Course transport meant money, the need for money, so - coin.

Coin was the basic issue so often.

And coin naturally enough lead to guns. So, guns it was then - underneath and always it did seem so, most everything came down to guns. 
Yes, basic. Guns.

Didn't need to be a Tam blooded spook-in-boots to do the maths on that, and in some ways Mal was grateful to Horace Norbett for getting right down to it.

"Yep," he said out loud now as his elbow connected with the back of some lackeys skull,
"You tell old Horace I appreciate him skipping the bureaucracy on this one. One thing in life I find I truly cannot abide..."
He ducked for an instant as a shot careened overhead and came up again with his own pistol blazing, there was a sore sounding yelp from a ways off.
"...and that is red tape."
He shot the man again for good measure. Maybe he wouldn't regret sending Jayne off to try the North-side Township after all. 

All this over transport. Well, it was his own fault for figuring Horace might actually have something to deliver other than ordnance, but hell, they needed a new mule - and they weren't so easy come by.

..........................

Jayne Cobb looked deep and manfully into the wide brown eyes set deep into the face before him. A deep and unsettling rumble had started in his gut and a hot blush spreading up under the hairs on his back, down his arms and across his face. 

Gorram it - this was love, he knew it on the instant, same intimate feeling heh felt when he first held Vera in his arms.

This was real and powerful and - gorram it! - if Mal or Zoe or the little man saw him like this... well, he'd be humped.

The brown eyes blinked softly back at him.

There was a touch on his arm, it was the boy who that had introduced them. Skinny runt with a eager face - but right now Jayne was glad to know him.

"You like her. I can see it plain," the boy smiled up - with an open palm. 

Jayne had never minded paying for love - his hand was reaching into his pocket almost as quick as the angered face of Captain Malcolm Reynolds was reaching into his mind.

"That -" Jayne said in a low voice, "is the most beautiful mule I ever saw."

The brown eyes he was still gazing at blinked again - and this time there was a loud and delighted bray to go along with it.

.........................

"Oh, you think?" Inara was leaning back against the wall of the Serenity flight deck. She had been smiling but a moment before, and savouring the taste of a lai chi, but now it was back to the norm of scornful eyebrows and folding her silk wrapped arms in order to subtly clench her fists.

"Actually I don't." Wash grinned back at her, leaning round from the leather pilot seat. "No thinking required."

"Bless you dear." Standing behind him, Zoe gave Wash a friendly pat on the shoulder. "He has faith in my judgement." She smiled at Inara.

Wash gave a breathy chuckle. "I have faith in our Captain's ability to find reckless danger and predictable peril - then the pain, the shooting and OW!  No, Lamby I trust your judgement too!" 

Zoe released his shoulder. This time the smile she gave Inara had just an edge of steel. "Guess this Lady will take her highly prized judgement  - and some weapons naturally,"

"Naturally..."

"- into a shuttle and go bring the Captain back."

There was a pause. 

yep.

but someone had to say it. "What about Jayne?"

There was a pause.

Uh-huh.

"and some weapons, naturally, into a shuttle and go bring the captain back." Zoe repeated.

"Good plan honey!" Wash agreed enthusiastically.

 

...............................................................................

"Transport. Exactly." Shepherd Book nodded at Simon across the galley table and over the remains of a quick lunch and a not so quick read; his battered Bible was open in front of him - and like a nervous twitch his hand kept straying to it, waving as if at some invisible insects. 

Opposite him, Simon Tam looked thoughtful, whilst his sister smiled back at the Shepherd, whose fingers twitched again. 

"When St Teresa felt the presence of God, she was transported... her soul was in a state of transport."

Simon gave a small shake of the head. "I don't, I'm not - I mean... no disrespect Shepherd, but as a doctor I can tell you exactly the chemical reactions that make up that 'state'. And after how many centuries - science still has not proven anything like a soul, we can't -"

"Not quantifiable." River chimed in. 

Her brother looked pleased, not because she was agreeing, but because she was so clearly following the conversation. All too often it was painful for him to see the relative lucidity of their moments alone, unravel outside of her room.

Book's face wrinkled slightly in a typical half-amused look. 
"And if Moses was in the bullrushes you wouldn't have found him with a microscope," he said.

Simon was beginning to get his debating motor running. "But there's just no way - like River said you can't, when there's no dimensions to a thing then it only exists in the imagination." 
He smiled at his sister - this was almost like the old days, back on Osiris, showing themselves off before their Father.

"You can't measure what doesn't exist."

Book smiled. "But the soul is meant to be unknowable - you can't capture it in a test-tube or look on a chart and say, 'the average soul is" -

"Nine calories of fat, no carbohydrates and 64 calories of protein." River pressed a slender finger into the table top.

"What?!?!?!?!?" 

"On average," she muttered.

Simon's mouth moved up and down - and half his face was pointed at Book, the other half at his sister.

"Mei-mei, I don't -?"

"I believe she is talking about fish." Book offered.

"Fish?" Simon was still bewildered, "but "

"Yes, girl," Book soothed, "There are a lot of fish in the Bible."

"But how do you even KNOW that?" Simon peered at his sister with concerned intensity.

River flinched back. "It's in the damn cook book." She said voice perfect - and Book shifted in his seat, embarrassed at the accuracy. 

Jayne was right - that girl got everywhere, even the private cooking lessons he was giving Jayne.  

.................................................................

"Absolutely!" Mal blustered, "I knew there was something fishy from the get-go. I aint one to conduct business without back-up!" 

The captain was not at his most convincing, and in consequence the reaction he got from the men, beginning now to surround him, was a mite less than worried seeming, fact it was more in the way of being openly gleeful. There were guffaws, he noticed, yeah, a few of them.

"Back-up?" Horace Norbert himself was shambling into view now, his worn figure spot-lit by the reflected sun off a battered panel. He suited the place,  looking as he did like a child's drawing of a scarecrow, all wrong sized clothes, hands and head. The voice was a strong one.

"As in plan? I mean correct me if I'm wrong Captain - but it is normal for back up to indicate a modicum of strategy, that being the meaning of a plan, which is to say, thinking."

Ouch.

"Them's fancy words Horace."

The man in the ragged black coat and wide brimmed hat was awful close now.

"Seems only fair Captain," the man called back. "You got some fancy shooting in."

"I guess I did at that."

"Quick on the trigger."

 "Practice is all, Horace."

"You as quick at re-loading?"

Norbett gave a wide handed signal and the men rushed out from their hiding places - no need for cover now.

"Nee ta ma duh tyen-shia suo-yo duh..."

One thing for sure now, Reynolds can swear awful fast, I give him that, Norbett thought as his men wrestled the man to the ground.

end of pt 1.

Comments

[janie17.livejournal.com]

Some kind of teleportation device would be nice. You could just step into a chamber and appear at your destination. Or those philosophies in Harry Potter, those were pretty neat ways of traveling! :)

Realistically speaking, I just wish there was more public transit round Bumfuck. You basically HAVE to own a car to live where I live and public transit would help the environment and finances quite a bit. :)

[wytchcroft.livejournal.com]

i've been known to use astral projection once or twice when i'm feeling lazy:)

[janie17.livejournal.com]

Gah, lucky bum. I can't coordinate everything to do that. ;)

[wytchcroft.livejournal.com]

it helps that my brain is made of air and i can fart it through my ass!:)))

[janie17.livejournal.com]

HAHAAH! That always helps! :)