Hey all this is my first story so read and review

Standard disclaimers apply I own nothing except story

It had been her third surgery and the pain was unbearable, fortunately she had the habit of completely losing conscienceness and waking up days later when her body healed to where the pain would be bearable. This is what River Tam had come to expect from her life at the Academy, however the time had come to leave. It had taken her eight months to work out how to ecsape and the only reason for such a long length of time is because of her training, the surgeries they subjected her to and then the time to recover.

Once evening had fallen and it was time for lights River knew it was now or never. She calculated that it would take 15 minutes to 6.5 minutes for the day guard to change out to the night guard and night servalence to kick over on the cameras that were over her cell.

Once she read the minds of the day guard and knew that they were finished for the day which ment her gap of time had started, so she started utilizing the one flaw she found that Academy had in her cell.

This top secret government facility had the most advanced internal security in the verse, and one would think that in the design of this place that ventilation could have been made without putting ducts in the occupants cells. They were clever however makeing the cover disguised so it looked like part of the wall, with River there it was only a matter of time before she found it.

Working off the grate cover was the real time consuming process, using the tools she made to get off the last of the cover she moved with a soft touch but at a fast pace. The last of the cover come off with ease and she slid into the air duct backwards, making sure that when checked on it would be some time before the figured out the route she used to made her way down the ducts. Must move quickly she thought. River made it halfway through the facility before she ran out of ducts to travel through but she knew she was past the labs and holding area where the heaviest surveillance was so any cameras now would be at the enterance and loading dock. Looking around through the grate she come upon she could see that she arrived at a slender hallway, she started to make her move out of the air ducts when she felt jolt to her mind that told someone was coming towards her so she stoped to get a full read of who it was. It turned out to be a day guard who was on his way home so to get threw the door at other end of this hallway she knew she would need the guard to open it. Before the guard was within any form of earshot she removed the grate then hoped down to the floor, a glance around at the hallway told her that the hallwa was wide enough for her to wait on the ceiling like limber spider that she was as a result of her time here. Unknowingly and unwittingly the guard came down the hallway and passed under River without incident, she hoped down without any sound what so ever and watched him grab his keycard and punch in his personal code.

As the guard heard the door shut behind him he felt a kick to the back of his knee and felt the cartledge break and the bone come out of the joint this resulted in him falling to his knees, before he had a moment to think slender strong arms wraped around his neck and a female voice told him "the girl is sorry for this but you have what she needs to escape and there is a ninety-nine percent chance you will sound the alarm so you must not be allowed to go any further." River did truly only meant to disable the man by makeing him pass out from a head lock but again as a result of her time her reality shifted and the weapon that the Academy had worked so hard to create took over and gripped even tighter and snapped the mans neck. Feeling the thrill of what she done but at the same time not wanting to take on more gaurds then she could handle so took the gaurds body and brought it to a classroom that was close by, being that this places facade was being a school there were numerous ones there, she stripped the body down for the full uniform and the keycard.

River made her way to the loading dock so she could aquire any vehicle that was there. Knowing she was comeing up on some cameras she tucked her hair into the cap that came with the uniform and kept her head down. She swiped the keycard and entered the code and was in, the dock was massive crates were stocked in different corners of the room she found a mule that was being off loaded with two men offloading what was in the truck and one man standing guard. Makeing her way quietly she was greatful that there were so many crates that she could use, she made it to the front of the mule and silently got on the roof and waited for the guard to go from the side of the mule to the back where the other two men were, when the moment was right she leaped into a kick that hit the guard in the head and sent him unconscience then turned to the other two men she disabled one with a throat shot and a hard elbow the next took a chest kick and knee to the head. With everyone tooken care of she put the three men behind the load of crates close to the mule then opened the doors to the dock and got behind the controls to the mule and took off out of this place. In the distance River Tam heard alarms coming from the direction of the Academy, the next stop was the space docks to find away off of Ariel.

The mule was left in a back alley, it would be at least a day maybe two before anyone would really notice it. She was out of the mule and taking her first few steps when reality shifted again and the girl that truly was River came back. However she was in the vice grip of fear and anxiety, so many voices in her head and some were so loud that it almost kept her from performing basic bodily functions. She fell to her knees crying holding her head, breathing deep and letting her body work to soothe and work to make the noise in her head go from a loud roar to an annoying murmer that she could live with to get moving again.

River made it to the space dock and looked for a ship to get passage on, she had at most 300 credits from the guard and a really nice gold watch, not enough to get her traveling in luxury but it would get her off world. She passed by a few ships but the minds she read of the men how worked them to her that they would eventually want more then the money she was offering and that was never gonna happen. As she was looking around she suddenly was hit from some one running into her, the person was a 6 foot male with very bright blue eyes and realizing what he had done he turned around and checked to see if River was ok but before a word was said out of his mouth she a read his mind and knew he was crew to a ship that would suite her needs. " oh my god, I am so sorry I didn't see you are you alright" he said " the girl is uninjuried, you are a co-pilot of a passenger freighter that is fixin to depart are you not." River replied for a second the man was taken back but knew where this girls line of questioning was going so in response to her question the man said " yes and if you're looking to book passage we have one cryo tube left so passage usually runs but 900 credits but...you seem kinda desperate I'll take 500 credits." The split second the sentence left his lips River came back with " 300 and this gold watch should cover it so where is vessel please and thank you." He pointed to a vessel. She nodded and followed him, they entered the passenger compartment and got in to the cryo tube she was a little nervous because she was unsure of how cryo sleep would react to what had been done to her but she was left with little choice. The co-pilot helped her in, she nodded and smiled in appreciation so he smiled and said jokingly " By the way my name is Gary Owens and I'll be your co-pilot, I hope your journey on the Hunter-Gratzner is a pleasent one." With that the door to the cryo tube was closed and she shut her eyes and prepared for the journey.