A/N: Sorry this is a bit short. Really, I shouldn't be writing this. I need to study quite urgently, but I just can't let this drop. So I've just written this little bit and I really ought to get back to work now.
Dislaimer: Same as before. Firefly and Alien are not mine.
Chapter Two – Unsettled
It wasn't the scream that had woken Simon. Actually, he wasn't too sure what it was, but there was something that was unsettling him. Call it brotherly instinct, maybe, but he'd found that once again a niggling sense of worry for River had rendered him unable to sleep peacefully. He couldn't even pinpoint exactly what was causing him such unease, but when he'd woken early with that strange sense of foreboding present in his mind, he'd immediately made the decision to leave Kaylee sleeping in bed, thrown on some pants and a shirt, and gone to check on his sister.
When he'd reached River's room to find she wasn't there the feeling of worry immediately intensified, but he forced himself to stay calm. It wasn't the first time she'd gone walkabout while the rest of them were sleeping, and he knew she was quite capable of taking care of herself when the situation called for it. But still, something about this felt wrong.
He briefly considered waking Kaylee or the others to help look for her, but then decided against it. There was no point getting them all out of bed when he didn't even know for sure that there was actually a problem. This wasn't likely to be another Jubal Early situation – bounty hunters wouldn't come after him and River now that the Alliance no longer had a price on their heads, and even if someone was after River she could easily incapacitate them in three seconds flat. Everything was probably perfectly fine, Simon reasoned with himself. River might have just been unable to sleep and gone for a walk. But he still needed to find her, just to be sure.
The first place he looked was the bridge. With River having taken over from Wash as Serenity's pilot the bridge had become one of her favourite places to be. She loved to be up there, even when they were just cruising through space and there wasn't much for her to do other than look out at the stars and planets around them. But she wasn't doing that right now. Simon had found the bridge to be empty, and so had immediately gone on to check the engine room. River wasn't there either.
An irrationally strong sense of panic was beginning to settle on him as he made the decision to search the cargo bay, but he forced himself to suppress it. She's fine, he told himself. I can't find her but she can't possibly have left the ship. As long as she's on board Serenity she's safe. He wasn't entirely sure how true that was, but it helped him to focus on that. He'd be better able to find her if he could just stay calm and think rationally.
It was just as he stepped out onto one of the upper catwalks that he heard the scream.
That was when the panic had finally kicked in. Looking down at the hold below him Simon could make out River's slender shape standing by the airlock, and he saw she was staring at one of the cargo crates with a look of horror on her face. He didn't have time to think what the reason for that might be before he darted down the stairs to reach the floor, calling out her name as he did so. She didn't seem to hear him, but there was a loud clanging noise as she kicked the crate into the airlock door. Just as Simon reached the bottom of the steps River dashed over to the controls for the airlock, hitting the button to open the outer hatch.
Wondering what in the 'Verse she was doing, Simon ran to her and grabbed hold of her just before she was able to open the inner airlock door. "River!" he shouted again.
This time she seemed to hear him and spun round to face him, breaking his grip on her arm. "Simon?" She seemed surprised to see him.
"River, what are you…?" he began to ask, but River shook her head and spoke over him in an urgent tone.
"We have to get rid of it, Simon. The bug is bad."
Simon didn't know what she meant, but he recognised the urgency in her tone. It was the kind of urgency stemming from horror and fear. This was how she'd sounded when she'd talked about Miranda, and Simon knew that whatever she had to say he would have to take seriously. "Bug?"
"It wants to hurt you, Simon."
That didn't make any more sense that what she'd said previously, but he doubted she was going to explain it in any way he'd be able to understand. "River, why were you trying to open the airlock?"
"Squish the bug. Suck it into space. It can't hurt us there."
"What bug?" Simon asked again, still confused.
River didn't say anything in answer, but instead she pointed towards the crate she'd kicked up against the airlock door. Simon turned to look at it, and recognised it as the crate they were supposed to be delivering to Mr. Yutani's contacts on Copernica: the one they weren't supposed to open.
Simon frowned, realising that this probably was indeed something bad, and turned back to his sister. "Bug? Is that what's in there?"
She nodded.
"What kind of a bug?"
River didn't have time to answer before they heard a voice shout out from behind them. "What the gorram hell is going on?"
