SECRETS

Chapter 2

Zoe's light didn't quite reach the top of the room though it did show the long metal ramp down. River headed down it following the cat. Their footsteps echoed hollowly in the huge room. To either side where closed doors and she chose the one on the left. Slowly, it creaked open.

"Don't go wanderin' off, " Mal warned.

"We should go this way." River peaked around the edge, but saw only darkness. "Zoë, I need light here."

The black woman joined the young girl. The light revealed ugly gray walls.

"Looks to be some sort of military complex, sir."

"Then we'd best be careful."

As a group they stepped into the hall. River led using her extra sense to try and perceive of anyone ahead.

"Seems deserted." Jayne stated what was becoming obvious to them all.

River found stairs and they climbed it to the top. She looked around at the control room, which is what it had to be, although the equipment seemed quite old.

"Is this some sort of computer?" Simon asked, looking at the monitor and keyboard.

"Seen those in the history books," River replied, sliding into the chair, which cracked slightly under her weight.

"Careful or you'll be on the floor," Mal commented. "Think you can git it to operate?"

"If there's power."

"Kaylee, you and Jayne go see if'n you can find some power."

"Yes, cap'n."

Inara stood beside River, gazing out a window covered by some sort of metal shield. "I wonder what they were hiding from?"

"Rather like to know where we are." Mal glanced around. "Any ideas, River?"

She shook her head concentrating on trying to get the ancient machine to work. "I only know the Alliance didn't want," she paused as the power suddenly came on.

"Kaylee found the power," Mal said with a fond smile.

"Why do you suppose they didn't want this found?" Simon asked.

"Hard to say. Maybe didn't want folks knowin' there was an easier way to travel than ships."

"Or out of their control," Zoë added.

"But this place is primitive. Why would they object to anyone finding it?"

River's fingers flew over the keyboard. The screen popped on displaying data and figures, some of which she'd seen some of which she never had.

"Maybe we'll know the answer soon," Reynolds responded.

She worked at the computer trying to make sense of it. The most she could figure out was that it was how, whomever had been here once, controlled the big traveling ring.

With a sigh, she stopped her work and joined the others in the neighboring room. It too, had a big window, the glass now cracked and shattered in spots, overlooked the room below and a huge table with chairs sat in the center. In the back of the room were more rooms and a long pole stood with a tattered red, white, and blue piece of cloth attached to it.

"Any luck?" Mal asked her.

River shook her head. "Best I can figure is that it controls the ring. There are lots of combinations recorded."

"So we'd have to know where we're going before we put one in." Zoë pretty much stated the obvious.

Simon sitting next to Kaylee at the table turned an alarmed fact to River. "Does this mean we can't get back to the ship?"

Biting her lip, River sat down. "I think so."

"There's a room below with food in it." She figured Jayne would think about simple survival.

"But we don't know how old it is," Mal pointed out.

"What? So we starve."

"Which would be worse," Simon continued. "Slowly dying, or quickly because of food poisoning?"

"I didn't come along to die." He glared at River. "You'd better git us home."

Wan suddenly appeared, jumping up on the table, carrying something in her mouth. She dropped it in front of River.

Inara screeched and Kaylee made a gagging noise.

"It's just a rat." Simon half reached for the dead rodent.

"There's your food source, Jayne." Mal half smiled.

"Rather starve than eat THAT!" The mercenary sneezed and retreated to one of the smaller rooms.

"Oh, I don't know." Zoë thoughtfully went on. "Rat ain't half bad cooked right."

'You've actually eaten rat?' Simon seemed shocked.

"You do what ya have ta. Thanks for remindin' us, Wan." The captain put out his fingers. The cat sniffed them and butted her head against them. He scratched behind her ear. "Meanwhile, might as well git comfortable. Seems we're goin' to be here fer a spell."

The others had gone to bed hours ago, yet River still worked at the computer. Not the first one they'd found in the control room, but another she'd discovered in one of the other rooms. She wasn't completely alone, Wan had stretched out across the old wooden desk and gone to sleep.

River felt pressured to find a way home, or at worst, find another place to go. She'd surmised from the many files she'd scanned through that they were in a complex deep inside a mountain. The reports were signed by various generals starting with someone named West, then Hammond, O'Neill and finally, Landry.

Her searches indicated the reports were filed more by subject than date. What she desperately wanted to find was the last one. Maybe it would give some clues about what had happened here and why the complex was now abandoned.

"You should get some sleep, River." Simon gazed fondly at her from the door.

"Want to find out what happened."

"It could have happened suddenly. There might not be any records."

"Everyone expects me to get them home." She hadn't meant to sound so defensive.

"We all willingly came along. No one is blaming you."

Her eyes met her brother's blue ones. "Not yet you mean."

"Well, I have to admit I never thought I'd be reduced to eating rat."

"It wasn't too bad."

Zoë had prepared them a banquet of rat with some vegetables she'd found growing wild in a small garden someone must have kept once.

"No, it wasn't. I just hope we don't have to make a steady diet of it."

"Better than protein."

He smiled. "True." He came around the desk, leaning forward. "Find anything?"

"Just names of generals who had been in charge here. All sorts of talk about alien technologies and alliances with beings called Jaffe, Tok'ra, Tollun."

"That doesn't make any sense. We've never encountered any type of beings other than those who fled the Earth that was."

"And they talk about Earth, too." She flipped onto a report she'd found earlier. "Simon, I think we're on Earth."

He leaned forward reading the words. "You could be right, mei mei." His breath quickened. "If this is Earth, no wonder the Alliance didn't want that ring to be found."

"'Fraid we'd come back?"

The brother and sister looked up startled. Malcolm Reynolds stood in the doorway.

"I don't think so." River hit another button causing a new report to come up.

"Am I reading this right?" Simon sounded stunned.

"Find somethin'?" The captain came around the desk so he could see what she'd found.

"This can't be right." When River had been at the government school they'd taught how the Earth that was had become overpopulated and that the countries had built ships to escape. Yet, this report indicated everything they'd been taught about that early history was wrong.

"Well, well," Reynolds muttered.

"If they came here and found this," Simon straightened up.

"Then they have good reason for wantin' folks not ta find out."

"If I can't get us home, it doesn't matter what I found."

"Those reports give any clues on where might be a good place to go, or how to git us back home?" He waited for her answer.

"There is a report here about a place called Atlantis." She quickly brought it up. "It's the only one that gives coordinates with it. From what I can tell, they sent an expedition there and later a ship. But there is a problem."

Mal sat down on the desk. Wan raised her head and yawned. "Problems can be solved."

"To get there, we need more power."

Reynolds smiled. "Well, I have one of the best engineers and she if can't figure out where to find more power, well, maybe we should go explorin' and find a nice bit of land to settle on."

"If what the report said was true," Simon reminded him. "We won't find anything but a volcanic wasteland."

"Been a long time. I'm sure things have improved."

Actually, they hadn't. River went with the Captain and Zoë to explore the surface. It had been a long climb up since Kaylee couldn't figure out how to get the elevators to work. They'd been exhausted by the time they reached the top and worked open the hatch. It gave easily testifying it must have been opened recently. Probably by the whomever had first found the ring and come here.

Though she had expected to find a land covered in thick black molten rock, what they found instead was even more shocking. The three of them stood facing the outside world speechless. As far as they could see thick white covered the land and frigid wind plucked at their thin clothes.

"They lied to us!" Malcolm Reynolds spat.

"Might have been the cover story created by the first settlers, to cover the truth, sir."

"Someone must have known."

"Lie stays around long enough, everyone assumes it's the truth." River wasn't sure where she'd heard that said.

"That's true enough," Mal agreed.

"No one could live here, sir."

He took a final look and they started back down the long descent. Once they reached the deep level again, he told everyone else what they'd found.

"Nothin' but snow and ice. There's no way we'd survive long enough to find a someplace hospitable."

"So we're stuck here?" Her brother plainly didn't like the idea.

"Got us another avenue. River's found a set of coordinates to another place. But we need more power to git there. Kaylee, that's goin' to be your job."

Their engineer nodded.

"Wan keeps us supplied in rats, so we won't starve."

Silence followed his statement. Not everyone liked eating the rodents. River just hoped they didn't have to keep eating the stringy meat.

"Jayne, Zoë, you'd best help Kaylee. River, keep searchin' those records. Find out all you can."

She could have guessed that would be her job.

"Doc, you and Inara go through any rooms we ain't been through. See what you can find that will help us survive. Maybe they left coats and such."

River shivered. He must be thinking about leaving if he thought they'd need coats. Then, they might not have any other choice, if she didn't find an another way out or they discovered a warm place to go.

Days drug on while each of them worked at their assignments Serenity's captain had given them. Kaylee found many of the devices in the various labs fascinating and had to be reminded she had a job to do to boost power so they could go to this place called Atlantis.

"Wasn't there some sort of legend about it sinkin' under the ocean?" She asked at dinner the night before they were going to test the contraption she'd built.

"Fairy tales my mother used to read to us," Simon replied. He sipped his water. They'd found the pipe system still worked. That had delighted everyone since they could take showers and bathe plus wash their clothes.

"So, how could this Atlantis be a place to go?"

"The reports called it the City of the Ancients." River had read as much as she could on it. Or at least, what records had been available. "They seemed to believe they were descended from these beings."

"Now ain't that an interestin' notion," Mal commented finishing off his rat.

Jayne sneezed. "Goram cat."

"Remind me and I'll give you another injection." Simon shared an amused smile with Kaylee.

"Cain't we just leave the varmit here?"

"Considerin' she saved our lives and fed us," Mal sat back in his chair. "No."

Jayne muttered something in Chinese.

'Now that ain't nice," Reynolds scolded.

"True though." The mercenary glared at the feline and stalked off into another room.

"Just doesn't appreciate good help." Zoë finished off her dinner and picked up her glass.

Inara picked up the cat and put stroked the long fur. A deep purr echoed in the room. "Do you think we'll find anyone at Atlantis, considering how long it's been?"

"Hard to say. If they established a colony, like we did, we might just meet their descendants." Zoë took a swallow and put the glass back down.

"We might," Mal agreed.

When they all awoke, Kaylee fired up her contraption and River used the very slow computer to dial the symbols. It seemed to take forever and she wondered how they ever managed to run a successful program.

"Ever find out what they called the ring?" Mal wanted to know.

"A stargate." She put in the last symbol and waited. The water finger jumped unsteadily than settled back like a shimmering mirror.

"Think we'd best go." Reynolds hurried down the stairs. "Kaylee!"

"Comin'!"

The group hesitated at the bottom of the ramp. Wan slipped past brushing River's leg. The cat paused, putting a paw out as if to test the stability of the wormhole. She then leaped through.

"How come we're always followin' the goram cat?" Jayne asked.

"She's smarter then we think," River replied her rapid footfalls echoing in the room.

"Goram cat," Jayne muttered as he and the others followed.

To be continued