Revenge and Rainbows
"Rainbows!" River excitedly says as she flips Serenity around and around so she can keep the rainbows created from the rain hitting this moon's terraformed atmosphere in view.
Wishing really hard that Walsh was still at the controls Mal suggests "Hey darling perhaps we could fly a bit straighter and upright would be nice too."
"but rainbows" River starts to reply before seeing Mal has his stern Captain face on. "Sorry sir. Correcting coarse."
"Thanks. We can't have Jayne making a mess again can we?" Mal jokes.
River laughs at the memory of Jayne sickin up in the shuttle when she flew through those canyons a while back. She didn't do that many loop d loops.
Confident Mal has straightened out his pilot he gets up and heads back to what he was doing: securing the cargo with Zoe. It still feels odd to have it all laid out in the open. Mal still doesn't think of himself as an honest man but here he is. He knew Inara did well but he had no inkling just how well. Thanks to her funds along with his steady honest work Serenity is like new. "Although the way she haggled Preacher Perkins up for transporting this load it shouldn't surprise me." Mal chuckles to himself. Personally, he never faired that well when haggling with a preacher. In fact many towns sent their preacher to do their bargaining knowing most folks won't haggle as hard with a man of God as they would a merchant. That don't bother Inara none though. In fact she made them uncomfortable.
Mal still can't believe she is giving up being a Companion. He feels more than a bit of guilt at this development. While he never agreed with her line of work, he never wanted her to give up her livelihood for him. The added fact that her old job also gave both an excuse for them not to be together is completely irrelevant. Now that she is a partner in Serenity neither has any more excuses to avoid forming a different partnership. She should be back from the Companion main temple in a few weeks. "Figures even quittin is a long complicated process with these fancy folk." he thinks with a smirk. Despite being scared silly, he is happy. Sometimes you have to stop running and just face things head on.
"Almost done." Zoe calls dragging Mal out of his thoughts.
The smirk on her face lets him know his stupid grin is back. With a bit of effort he wipes it off again. "Can't let the crew think I've gone soft." he chides himself. However, whenever Inara pops into his head he just can't help himself. Focusing back on Zoe he gruffly replies "bout time." Zoe smirks again as she mock salutes him.
Suddenly, Serenity swings hard around nearly throwing Mal over the railing of the cargo bay walkway. "Damn rainbows!" he shouts ignoring Zoe's raised eyebrow at his remark as he rushes back to the cockpit determined to have a word with his pilot.
When he reaches the cockpit he stops in his tracks as he sees tears streaking down River's face. She is pushing Serenity into a hard burn out of the system. "What's wrong darling"
"He's hurt. Hurt bad. Got a reach him." she stutters as tears flow free.
Mal doesn't have to ask who she is referring as there is only one person she cares for not on the ship at the moment. His heart goes out to her even as the cold soldier in him mutters "He choose the life knowing the costs." "But that's not true. He, like River, didn't get a choice. The Alliance made it for them." his kinder half replies. "Don't worry darling we'll get to him in time."
"You don't know that but thanks for lying." River replies through her tears.
A few hours later Serenity is entering a fringe system just recently added to the Alliance. It only has a few settlements and a small Alliance base. The base is more of a refueling stop than a true base. Thick black smoke can be seen coming from the nearest settlements as well as the base. The remains of several Alliance as well as a few ships unknown to Mal lay scattered about several miles of terrain around the base. Landing River jumps out of her seat to run to the airlock but Mal grabs her. "We can't just run in there. We need to gear up with some sort of plan."
Reluctantly nodding River lets Mal lead her to the cargo bay where Zoe Jayne, and Simon wait already geared up for a fight. Once Mal and River have donned their armor they all pile in the mule and head out. Zoe takes the mule in fast straight towards the base. It is clear the base has fallen as large sections of wall are missing and several base buildings can be seen burning. Strange alien machines can be seen lying in pieces right where they fell in their assault on the base.
River points the way for Zoe as Mal and Jayne constantly scan the area around for any sign of danger. River has them pull up not at the main building but a smaller side building just barely standing. River drags Simon with her as she charges into the wrecked building. She doesn't let him stop to check the bodies they pass as she knows they are all dead. In a back corner they encounter an unusual site. Dozens of human corpses, which at first merely looked like heavily armored soldiers but upon closer look reveal they are bonded to their metal components. In the corner of this room lies Max. Dozens of wounds seep blood showing some sign that he is still alive. Simon gets to work right away. "We have to get him back to the ship." Simon states matter of factly. River and Jayne lift Max onto the mule while Simon does what he can as they all race back to the ship.
Zoe and Mal take a closer look at the attackers. The attackers clearly started out human as several show scars likely from the surgeries which implanted the metal components. As they finish lugging one of the bodies on board for a closer look, Kaylee calls Mal. "Hey Captain. I'm getting a weird read from the base reactor."
Rushing to the bridge, Mal starts prepping from immediate launch as he has a sinking feeling what those reading mean without even seeing them. Blasting off he orders over the ship's com "Those of you which can strap in. Things might get a bit rough." Sure enough before Mal has even cleared atmo the base's reactor explodes taking out the base and surrounding towns.
"That blast is too big to just be the base reactor. Someone must have helped it along." Zoe comments studying the mushroom cloud through the view port. Luckily, Serenity's windows are shield in a way that protects her eyes from the glare of the blast.
"I was afraid of that. Figured whoever did this doesn't want witnesses. Keep a sharp eye for trouble." Mal orders from the pilot chair.
"Got em. They are coming out of the star's cornea. Looks like a freighter. Soyvo class I think. It's launching fighters!" Zoe shouts from the copilot station.
"Time to go." Mal remarks as he pushes Serenity into another hard burn. After the rough treatment River gave Serenity getting here, Mal hopes his ship can take another extended hard burn. This far out there isn't much to hide behind but Mal has an idea. He runs for the Mining Guild shipping lanes. He knows the Guild guards their space lanes fiercely so that should deter his pursuers. The trick will be to keep the Guild from shooting Serenity out of space.
Explosions rock Serenity as the fighters fire missiles. Don't worry. Missiles at this range will never catch us in a hard burn." Mal states confidently.
"You have been wrong before sir." Zoe remarks meeting Mal's eyes for a second then raising her hands as she adds "Just saying sir."
"I got to be right sometime." he quips back as he banks to compensate for another missile's blast wave. One down side of missiles in space is their area of effect is much greater without atmosphere to absorb the blasts energy. While the missiles are exploding far behind Serenity, the shock waves are causing some damage. Almost like how they used depth charges to hunt subs back on the earth that was. Both sides know the missiles don't have to get a kill just slow Serenity down for the fighters to catch her.
Zoe gets a bad feeling when she sees Mal face light up. That look always leads to trouble.
With the Guild Shipping Lanes just out of visual range, Mal announces "I got an idea." confirming Zoe's fears. He picks up the radio mike and starts broadcasting "Reavers! Reavers ! They got new ships! Help! Help!" The panic he slips into his voice he hopes will help sell his ploy.
As he hoped the Guild guardian ships on his screen come about and start to close with the fighters. The bulk transports the Guild uses for hauling minerals are too big and too slow to outrun anything so the Guild deploys guardian ships which are fast and heavily armed. The Guild has no intention of losing its valuable cargo to raiders or anyone.
Seeing the Guild ships joining the fight, the fighters reverse course and run for it. At this distance they easily make their escape.
Seeing they are safe, Mal throttles back. "Thank you. You guys saved our bacon. We thought we were done for sure." Mal praises over the wave to the Guild ships.
A terse "This is restricted space. Move on." is the only reply he gets which suits him just fine. Answering questions when he has answers is bad enough. Answering questions he doesn't even know the question too yet is downright annoying. He does keep a close eye on the Guild Guardian that shadows them until they are out of the system.
Steering for the nearest station, Mal leaves Zoe to watch the auto pilot so he can go check on Max. Arriving at sick bay he is surprised not to find a angry or nervous River. She is in fact assisting her brother as he performs surgery on Max. She looks like a professional the way she moves about the room, often handing something to Simon before he has asked for it. Mal hopes Max pulls through as he kind of likes the guy. Also, River has dealt with enough pain. She deserves to have some happiness. Not needed here, Mal heads back to the bridge.
Once back on the bridge Mal sees the question on Zoe's face "Ya we were the only ones to use Soyvo as carriers. Damn it all to hell! I don't need this." he curses.
"Captain, you remember the rumors about the Legion?" Zoe asks knowing full well he does. The Legion was the best unit the Independents had. They had hit the Alliance harder than anyone else. Won more battles. Hell they had done the impossible so many times even Mal looked up to them. Not that he would ever admit it. It's just when things were dark during the war, the Legion gave them hope.
"They're all dead." Mal answers doubtful but after the Reavers he has to admit anything is possible. "Besides its been almost 20 years. No way they would've stayed silent that long." he continues.
"You saw the markings on that ship two then." Zoe remarks.
"I didn't see nothing but trouble. Lord help however is on those ships if Max dies. They'll be no stopping her." Mal comments. Meeting Zoe's eyes he sighs and says "Go catch some bunk time. I'll take her for now. You can spell me in a few hours."
Nodding Zoe heads off to her bunk now located in the passenger compartment as her old room is too painful to be in.
Several hours later, Simon taps Mal on the shoulder waking him from the nap he was taking in the pilot's chair. "I have an update. We need to get to the Core as fast as possible. A Core world hospital is Max's only chance." he states.
"We ain't got the fuel for that at the moment. We need to hit a fuel station at the very least." Mal replies.
"Every minute counts. I did what I could but he won't last long. I don't know how he made it this far. He lost so much blood that even using up our entire stock of blood he barely has enough to keep his body functioning at all. I'm afraid brain damage is almost certain. Still, there is some small hope." Simon grimly explains.
"River taking it hard." Mal states not having to ask.
Nodding Simon replies "She won't leave his side." Punching the locker, which surprises Mal causing Mal to jump a bit, Simon continues "Her eyes plead with me to save him but I just can't do anymore with this equipment. Even if we make it to a Core hospital I wouldn't give Max more than a fifty percent chance of any sort of recovery."
"You're doing all you can. Can't ask more than that. River knows that." Mal declares resting a comforting hand on Simon's shoulder.
"I just wish I could do more." Simon remarks.
"Don't we all." Mal answers turning back to watch the stars.