The Last Firefly
Prologue: Mistakes Made
Capital City, Ariel, White Sun – Three years Pre-War
"I'm leaving, and there's nothing you can do about it." Raziel Tyler shouldered the bag containing all his money and belongings left in the 'Verse, and faced his parents. Sylvia Tyler, Raziel's mother, just stood by the house's grand staircase, holding a handkerchief to her face, as she wept silently. Raziel's brother and two sisters, Amenadiel, Puriel and Shoftiel, stood by their mother. Raziel's father, James Tyler, stared Raziel down, bitter disappointment in his eyes.
"If you walk out that door, you will never be welcome back in," he said menacingly. "And if you do come back…"
"You'll what?" snapped Raziel savagely. "You'll kill me, just like those people on Shadow you put to death with nothing more than your gorram signature?" Raziel spat at his father's feet, and turned on his heel. "When I come back, because I will, I'll be a better man than you ever were, and you will be asking for my mercy." Opening the door, he gave his parents and siblings one last look. "And if you want to kill me, have the balls to do it yourself."
The mansion's front door shut with a resounding boom, as Raziel Tyler walked away to start his new life.
The Nine-Tails Bar, Corinne, Whitefall, Athens, Georgia System
"I still can't believe we knocked over an entire Alliance castle using nothing more than a single cherry bomb and a piece of string!" Raziel cackled, as Southunder spit his drink all over the bar from laughing. Southunder clapped Raziel on the back with his enormous robotic arm, and heaved himself off his stool. Standing over eight feet tall, Southunder cut an extremely menacing figure. A heavy robotic arm, red cybernetic eye, intricate tattoos, and many guns and knives in holsters over his entire outfit completed Southunder's badass look. And his rank as a Commando cemented Southunder's badass reputation. As Raziel watched amusedly, Southunder strode slightly unsteadily towards the bar, grabbed a bottle of whisky, and raised it high. "An' I say all those purple-belly cowards can get FUCKED!" he roared at the top of his voice.
The bar full of Independent soldiers broke into raucous cheering, but Southunder wasn't finished. "We gave those zen me jiu (motherfuckers) what for!"
The cheering intensified. People had jumped up on tables and were whooping and hollering at the sky. "And we showed them!" Southunder roared. "That we'll never be under their heels again! Because we are proud! Because we are Independent! BECAUSE WE ARE FREE!"
At his words, the bar erupted in cheers and roars. In the midst of it all, Raziel raised his glass to Southunder. After the cheering had finally died down, Raziel glimpsed an Independent Lieutenant entering the room.
"We have a new assignment," he informed the pilots and gunners. "We've been requested to provide air support at Serenity Valley."
Serenity Valley, Hera, Georgia
The firestorm was devastating. Ships of all sizes and armaments careened through the sky over Serenity Valley, dealing death and destruction to Alliance and Independents, ships and soldiers alike. Raziel gritted his teeth and wrenched on the controls of his little skiff, blasting past a larger Alliance fighter that was hammering an Independent Medical ship. As Raziel thought he'd wasted the maneuver, the fighter changed course and whipped around, coming for him.
"He's on us, Archangel!" came the shout from Raziel's navigator. Monty, an enormous bear of a man with a beard to make a Viking envious, swiveled his seat around. Monty jumped up and buckled himself into the skiff's turret, pushing the dead gunner out of the way. Monty opened fire on the Alliance fighter, hammering shell after shell into its armored flanks. Meanwhile, Raziel expertly weaved the little skiff between ships and around the many rock formations of the valley, hammering the Alliance soldiers with withering fire from the skiff's forward guns.
"Ta ma de," (fuck!) Monty shouted, falling back in the gunner's seat as the skiff shook. "Bastard just took out our rear gun!"
Raziel hissed, rolling the skiff to avoid a shell sent skyward by an alliance tank. "I got an idea. Strap in, Monty."
With that, Raziel hauled back on the controls. The little skiff powered into the air until the engines couldn't carry the craft any more. As they started to fall, Raziel flipped the skiff over and leaned hard on the trigger. The skiff's forward cannons roared to life, puncturing the Alliance fighter's cockpit. The pilot convulsed and died, but not before firing a missile at the skiff.
The missile streaked upward and impacted. The skiff shook as one of its engines was torn apart. Their descent continued. The valley floor loomed up, pitiless to the stricken craft. Raziel and Monty yanked hard on their ejection levers. Twin lances of fire blasted out of the craft's cockpit, as the skiff crashed down on top of an Alliance tank. Raziel picked himself out of the wreckage of his ejection seat and looked up at the sky. His eyes widened. An entire ship was flying at him, smoking and burning like the devil's chariot.
"Gorram it!" Raziel shouted, falling back against a mound of dirt and bodies of purple-bellies, as a flaming Alliance Attack Shuttle roared overhead, crashing into the gun turret whose occupant had brought the shuttle down. His shout caused an Alliance soldier to pop his head over an embankment, only to have it shot off by Raziel's fellow browncoat.
Monty grabbed Raziel's pigu (ass) out of the dirt, and dragged him over to a sheltered cave. "Gorram it, Archangel, what the hell was you thinking?" Monty growled, his soup-catcher bristling with a life of its own. "Air support's fixin' to shoot through and put the whoopin' on these purple-belly hun dans (bastards). Ain't no way I'd be stickin' my head out there just yet!"
A minute passed, while Raziel shook his head to clear the ringing from the explosion out of his ears, but there wasn't much relief to be had. Instead, glancing out of the cave mouth, Raziel slowly stood up and looked out of the cave in horror.
Serenity Valley had become a bloodbath. Instead of the promised Independent air support, Alliance cruisers had descended into atmo, and were raining death and hellfire on the browncoats. As Raziel watched, openmouthed, a bullet smashed into his shoulder, and as he collapsed, a fallen rifle caught his head, and blackness descended.
Author's Notes:
Hi everyone. It's the Seacopath.
In case any of you were wondering why I deleted the previous version of The Last Firefly, it's because I didn't like the way the story was going any more. I was paying too much attention to smaller events, and as a result, the overall story arc suffered, and wasn't really going anywhere.
Another thing I noticed was that everything was set up a little too conveniently. I got a few comments along the lines of 'Seacopath, you made everything too easy for the crew.'
So, here comes another try. The prologue is the same as before, but a whole new and improved adventure awaits afterwards. There will be more drama, more action, more adventure, more angst, more tears, more hardships, and more awesomeness.
Thanks for being patient while I struggled with writer's block, and I look forward to all my readers joining me for another trip through the amazing 'Verse.
Come with me on the journey.
-the Seacopath