A/N: Muchos thanks to my betas, Chicafrom3 and April Nicole. Well, y'know, if I'd actually waited for them to send it back to me. I got impatient, haha. But when they get it back to me, I'll fix whatever mistakes they catch. Until then, all the fuck ups are mine.
-------------------------------
"Gan ni niang," Jayne hissed, watching Serenity's nose dive down towards the earth. Serenity spiraled a few times, smoke rising out from behind her in a thick black cloud. The girl was two seconds away from getting intimate with the ground.
One of the Alliance cruisers behind her dropped out of the sky and another took it's place. Jayne cursed, no matter how many of them you shot down, they just kept coming, one after the other and Serenity was closing in on the ground fast. The ship began to groan and she was shaking so badly that for a moment, Jayne wondered if she'd shake herself into pieces. The grinding got louder the closer the ship got to the ground and a thirty yards before she hit earth, Serenity's nose started pulling up.
Jayne muttered curses between his teeth as he hefted up Vera on his shoulder. Not even his best girl could breach metal, but the Alliance ships had gotten close while they chased after River. They were close enough that if he squinted and turned his head just right, he could see the bastards in their cockpits, looking smug.
Vera might not be able to breach hulls but she could breach glass just fine.
He sighted the one closest to Serenity and tried to get a lock on the target but the way the ships were veering around each other, it was almost impossible.
"Snipers," Jayne bellowed, looking around him at the boys hunkered down in the trenches with him, watching the dog fight over their head. "I need all of you as can shootin' those jeeps down. Don't be wastin' your ammo. Shoot 'em if you got a decent lock on the guy flyin' that pile of go se. Ain't gonna do us no good to shoot at the ship itself."
The boys stared up at him with big eyes and Jayne muttered another curse. "You all deaf and dumb? I said git."
Finally, just when he thought he might have to drag them all to their feet himself, they scrambled up on the fire step, guns in hand and started sighting the Alliance cruisers. Jayne crawled up over the sandbags that protected the trenches and darted into the cover of a nearby tree, already blown in half from the fighting earlier. The jagged edges stretched up a few feet over his head if he bent down far enough.
It was decent cover, but he needed to get closer to the Alliance trenches if he was gonna lay down some cover so the boys shooting at the Alliance ships wouldn't get their heads blown clean off their shoulders.
Dropping down to his elbows and knees, Jayne wriggled along the ground until he could drop down into a nearby missile crater as a bullet whizzed past his left shoulder. He braced Vera on the edge of the crater and stood up just far enough so he could see what he was shooting at with out making himself too big of a target.
Overhead, Serenity had just barely pulled herself out of her nosedive, but she was limping along at half her regular speed and still taking hits. Jayne didn't like thinking about the crazy girl, getting knocked around the cockpit and shot at. He didn't really care to examine exactly why he didn't like thinking on that though.
He squeezed off a few rounds, watching the purple-bellies stupid enough to be coming over the side of the trenches fall to the ground, dead or dying.
-------------------------------
Two more Alliance skiffs fell to the ground and another took direct hit. It was still flying but it dropped back enough to give River time to maneuver the ship around it.
She needed to head back for atmo, but she wasn't sure if Serenity would make it through with out shaking herself apart. The ship had taken too many direct hits to her backside and underbelly and the alarms were sounding and buzzing and ringing so loudly that she could barely think.
Wash's little plastic dinosaurs that she had insisted stay in their places on the console were all over the place now, one of them, the T-Rex she thinks, is under her foot.
She's good enough at flying. Mal says she's gorram amazing. But she knows that she'll never really measure up to Wash. She quantifies flying, turns it into a mathematical equation, something easier for her to understand. But Wash flew like he breathed, with grace and ease. She'd seen him worry and panic countless times, but when he flew, he was calm. When he flew, he knew exactly what to do. River wished that she knew exactly what to do, but she didn't. She could calculate the angles and distances of the Alliance ships. She could quantify them to her hearts content but she had no idea how to shake them. Wash would have known.
Serenity groaned again as she turned the ship towards the Independent trenches. Wash would lead them to over to Mal and the troops, she thought. He would lead them to where it would be easier for the snipers and the anti-aircraft gun to get a good lock on them. Gently, River urged Serenity forward, her thumb lovingly rubbing over Serenity's controls. With out love, she'd fall right out of the sky, River remembered.
Two more Alliance skiffs crashed down into the earth behind her as she eased Serenity down so low to the ground that her belly was almost rubbing the dirt as she they hurtled through the air.
"Please," River said quietly. "I need you to please not toss me out of the sky, Serenity."
-------------------------------
Jayne dropped down to his stomach when Serenity flew overhead, so low that if he'd been standing up he wouldn't have had much of a head left on his shoulders.
The girl was flying too low, she was about three seconds away from scraping Serenity's belly open on some trees or rock outcroppings. She made a wide, lazy circle and brought the ships back around above the Independent's trenches. The snipers and Mal on the M30 brought down two more skiffs, the ground shaking and trembling when they fell. The rest of them got smart, they circled around their own trenches and came back around in front of Serenity.
Jayne clenched his teeth as River barely out-maneuvered the ships and started trying to gain some altitude. A movement to Jayne's left caught his attention and he turned and shot at the source of the movement. Two Alliance soldiers stumbled out from behind a group of massacred tree stumps and fell to the ground hard.
"Fall back!" Mal was yelling somewhere off to Jayne's left. "All troops, fall back!"
This wasn't going well, but it didn't take a rutting genius to figure that out.Jayne glanced back at the trenches, he couldn't see down inside of them, but he knew that all their boys were gathering up what they could and hightailing it through the trenches. They were already pushed back almost to Beylix's one ocean. Any farther and they'd be trying to shoot from underwater.
They were running out of ground to hold.
Jayne couldn't see Serenity anymore. He assumed the girl had gotten her up and over the hills behind where the purple-bellies had dug in. Wherever she was, the remaining skiffs had all followed her.
-------------------------------
"We ain't got no more ground to hold, Colonel!"
Mal gritted his teeth, his hand clenched too tight on the butt of his gun. He knew this wasn't exactly going according to plan but he didn't need some snot-nosed Corporal whining about it either.
"I know that, Donald," he ground out, surveying what was left of his troops and their supplies and-- "Where the gorram hell is Jayne?"
Mal cursed loudly under his breath, he didn't have time to look after this bunch of wet-behind the ears boys, his pilot and his mercenary. And none of 'em could seem to stay where he told 'em too.
Jayne was covered from head to toe in mud and dirt when he rounded the corner and Mal barely recognized him. "We got our backs to the water," Jayne gritted out after he'd limped up to the rest of the platoon. "And we got 'bout half the men we started out with."
Less than half. They'd sent half the boys around to come up over the mountain to drop in and surprise the Alliance troops. Unfortunately, the purple-bellies had been waiting for them. It was like they knew from the get-go what they were planning.
Mal was starting to suspect that little River was right. They had gorram government-made Readers over there. It would explain why every strategy they'd been trying the last month and a half was failing before it had even gotten a start.
"They got readers," he mumbled. "Girl was right, they got Readers over there."
"Wa cao!" Jayne exclaimed. "We don't got a ruttin' chance."
Mal set down heavily on the fire step and rubbed one dirt-caked hand down his face. Jayne, for once, was right. They didn't have a chance. Every step of ground they took earned them two steps back because the Alliance troops were right there waiting for them.
They were losing Beylix just like they'd lost almost every scrap of land they'd fought for in the last month.
Mal sighed. "Get the commander on the line," he barked. "Tell 'em we're pullin' out. Tell 'em... tell 'em we're surrendering Beylix."
-------------------------------
Kaylee sighed, "They did a number on you, didn't they old girl?"
She absently stroked a hand down Serenity's hull, inspecting the damage to the plating and calculating costs of new parts in her head. There was a big old gash in her underbelly, she was going to need that repaired if she was gonna get up in the air any time soon.
"How is she?" River asked from behind her, her voice soft and nervous.
Kaylee pasted a warm smile on her face before she turned around, it was getting harder and harder for her to smile these days but she didn't have to be a mind-reader to know that River felt bad every time she brought Serenity back to her all scraped up.
"She's gonna be just fine," Kaylee said, turning back to the ship and gesturing, "Just a few little tweaks and some new paint and she'll be good as new."
"I didn't... I didn't hurt her?" River asked, nervously twisting her hands.
"Nah, she's gonna be just fine. She knows ya didn't mean 'er no harm, River."
River nodded, but her eyes didn't look certain. Every time she slipped into Serenity's pilot seat, she was certain the ship would toss her out of the sky because she couldn't love her like Wash had. Mal had said that love kept the boat flying, but no one could love Serenity like Wash had and River was always afraid that Serenity would be angry with her for trying.
"Take care of Simon," River mumbled softly, "Like you take care of Serenity."
"What, sweetie?" Kaylee's voice was muffled by Serenity's belly. She's crawled up under the boat to get a better look at the twisted, broken metal panels.
"Nothing," River said quickly. She tucked her chin against her chest and took long strides until she reached the cargo bay where Mal and Jayne were stacking up bodies. They buried the ones who were too mangled to identify on Beylix and the ones that they could got stacked like planks in the cargo bay to be taken home or wherever they could bury them in proper graves.
"Captain," River said softly.
"I done told you no, little witch." His voice was dark and he didn't turn around. His shoulders hunched as he finished securing the bodies so that they didn't slide all over the ship during take offs and landings. He was sprinkling saw dust all over them to stop the smell when they started to rot.
"Everyone is dying," she said softly. "I can help, I want to help."
"You help me by flying us where we need to go and not crashin' my boat," Mal instructed. He turned around and his mouth was set in a grim line. "Your brother's told us I don't know how many times what they did to you in that place. That really something you wanna go back to?"
When River didn't answer, he pressed on, "Would think that's the last place you wanna go back to, Lil' Albatross."
"It is," River said softly, dogging his steps as he left the bay and headed for the mess. "But we'll die, gasping for breath and coughing up pieces of lung and--"
"Really not needin' to hear this right now, Lil' Witch."
"Please, Captain," River pleaded. "Please. You'll die. Jayne will die. Kaylee will die. I will die. Inara will die."
Mal froze, his back went rigid but he refused to turn around and look her in the eye. River carefully slipped around him, drawing herself up in front of him.
"The math has been checked, everything is quantified. Every possible angle, every possible outcome. Please, Captain. This is the only way to achieve the optimal outcome."
Mal's eyes were hard and his mouth drawn into a thin line. "Gonna do this whether I give you the ok or not, ain't ya?"
"This girl is very stubborn, Captain," River said, nodding grimly.
Mal leaned heavily on the metal railing, looking down on the cargo bay. The remaining soldiers were bunked up, the wounded fading in and out of consciousness and half of them would probably die before the night was over even though Simon had done his best to patch them all back together. He had a cargo bay full of dead and dying boys who were barely old enough to take their first sip of whiskey on civilized planets and a platoon to feed and weapon up when their main source of supplies had just been closed off.
"You find a way to stay in contact at all times." Mal's voice was hard and terse. River could tell that it was killing him to concede but he was seeing things for what they were. They were fighting a losing battle and he wasn't about to fail twice in one lifetime.
"You'll carry a com, I don't care how you smuggle it in with you, but you ain't goin' unless you can promise me you can come up with some way to stay in constant contact with this boat. We lose contact with you and we're coming to get you. They start cuttin' on you again, we're comin' to get you, dong ma?"
River nodded, her heart pounding. She hadn't really started thinking about the enormity of her actions until the Captain had given in. She sometimes still had dreams about being back in the Blue Room, she still woke up sobbing into her pillow so that she didn't wake anyone up. And now she was voluntarily offering herself up for capture.
"It will have to be Jayne," she said grimly. "He will have to be the one to give her up. He has tried once before, they think they have the measure of the man."
Mal nodded. The girl had a point. He'd expected it to be him who did the turning over but he was high profile, even in Alliance circles. They knew what he'd done on Miranda and why. Him turning the girl in was just too unbelievable. Jayne, on the other hand... well, he was a man who went where the money was good. And when it came to the bounty on that girl's head, the money was better than good, it was gorram mind blowing.
"You're gonna have to be the one to talk to him, Lil' Witch," Mal said, hooking his fingers through his belt loops as the two of them turned their backs on the stacks of bodies. "I don't know what's goin' on with the two of ya and I ain't sure I wanna know, but he ain't gonna take to this plan of yours."
River's fingers clenched and unclenched into fists. He was right, if Jayne were to be brought into this plan, it would have be her doing and not Mal's. She nodded, worrying her lower lip with her teeth. "She will speak with Jayne," River said finally, "She'll make him see."
-------------------------------
"Ain't doin' it."
"What?" the girl demanded, her voice rising in pitch. "Why?" River's little hands were clenched up into knots and her eyes were wide, like she'd never expected him to say no and she didn't quite comprehend that he had.
Jayne didn't look up from the bowl of rice in front of him. "Said no, meant no."
"That is not a suitable reason," River insisted. "That is just a re-telling of the previous point!"
Jayne kept his eyes down on his bowl. The girl had gone and asked too much from him this time. Something that he weren't willing to give. He wasn't going to turn her in, not again. Not after... everything.
River snorted. "She would expect you would turn her in more readily after everything."
Jayne's head jerked up a fraction of an inch. "What'd I tell you about that?" he demanded roughly.
River paused in her indignation, "Which that?" she asked, head tilting to the side. He'd told her more than once to quit referring to herself in the third person, but he'd also told her to stop poking around in his mind more times than she could count.
"What?" Jayne asked, raising his head finally. His face was twisted up in confusion.
"Which that." River repeated. "You said: What'd I tell you about that?" she told him in a perfect imitation of his own voice. "But you did not specify which that. Jayne does not like it when the girl speaks in the third person limited. He also does not like it when the girl 'pokes 'round in his head.'" Again, she imitated him perfectly. "She is unsure as to which that you were referring."
The confusion on Jayne's face didn't abate, if anything, he looked more confused. "Uhh, both of 'em, I guess."
River gave a little nod, as though that were acceptable to her. "All right."
A pause. "Will you please just--"
"Still ain't doin' it."
"Why!" River demanded, her voice rose in pitch with every word. "She has thought this through. She has... she has done the math. I have done the math and this is the only way to reach an optimal outcome!"
"Throwing you back in that place to get your head all cut on is your plan?" Jayne demanded, finally putting down the chopsticks he had been using to shovel rice into his mouth. "I'm startin' to think Mal has better plans than your crazy ass."
"I need to be on the inside. I can gather information, I can do something."
Jayne stood, crossing the floor to the sink in a few, big strides. "Already are doin' something, ain'tcha? You're flyin' this piece of go se."
"She's not--"
"I know, I know," he grumbled. "She ain't go se. I got Kaylee defendin' this hunk'a metal to me every five seconds, don't need you doin' it to. She keeps me in the sky and not dead and that's good 'nuff for me."
He tried to skirt past the girl, but she insinuated herself in front of him, her thin arms crossed over her chest. "Jayne."
"Girl."
"She has got a name," River replied indignantly. She had hoped this would be easier but with Jayne, everything had to be done the hard way or not at all.
"I know."
River sighed with exasperation. "Please. It has to be you. No one else can do it."
Jayne's face went hard and his voice was nothing more than a growl when he spoke. "Said that once before and you didn't mean it."
"She did mean it," River protested, grabbing at his arm even as he tried to brush past her. "She meant what she said and she said what she meant. Did what she wanted with whom she wanted. No lies, no untruths."
Jayne sighed. "You're tellin' an untruth right now, girl. Didn't mean nothin' to you when you was doin' it. Maybe you're thinkin' a mite different now or maybe it's just cause you need somethin' from me, but it didn't mean a damn thing to you."
He pressed his mouth into a tight line and pushed past her. River wavered on her feet before getting her balance again. She muttered a string of Chinese curses under her breath. "You are a stupid man, Jayne Cobb."
"I'm a stupid man?" Jayne demanded, whirling back around to face her. River blinked up at him and the anger slipped off of his face. "Reckon' yer right." He paused and refused to meet her eyes as he pushed past her. "And I still ain't doin' it.