Chapter Seven: Ponderous Condemned Champions
"Is the radio working?" Book asked as he swung the shuttle back toward the asteroid field. On the radar display, the forbidding shape of the Reaver vessel closed in on them like a swooping bird of prey.
"I don't know," Simon said, standing beside him and fiddling with what he guessed were the radio controls. "I've never had to-"
The ship shook. Simon nearly fell to the deck, and he heard River moan quietly - in pain or fear, he didn't know. The paralytic that the Reavers' darts were coated with numbed most sensations except pain, and as far as he knew, they liked it that way . . . .
"EM weapon," Book hissed, through gritted teeth, and several monitors flared, flickered, and went dark. "That one was close."
"What do I do?" Simon asked, still trying to figure out how to operate the communicators.
"Dial down to your left," Book whispered, turned and weaving the shuttle in ways it wasn't designed to handle. "Down. Down. There. Turn counterclockwise to three seven seven one three."
Static boiled out of the small speaker by Simon's ear, and he grabbed the radio microphone.
"Can they hear us?"
"Give it . . . a try," Book said after a second, his words forced. His knuckles were pale, gripping the control yoke for the shuttle tightly, and he swung the ship around again. "They're right behind us."
Simon tried the radio, speaking into it quickly, and almost blurted out Serenity's name on an open channel before remembering their deception. As he tried to raise the ship, however, nothing came back but static.
The shuttle jolted suddenly, pitching Simon off his feet, and then the craft began to spin around. Book's arms pumped and weaved, sending the ungainly craft through an evasive maneuver that ended with the doctor slamming sidelong into a bulkhead and left him groaning in pain.
"They're right . . . on our tail," Book said, his words slow and uncertain. Simon clambered to his feet, and saw the distant, glazed look in the Shepherd's eyes even as he tried to keep the shuttle twisting and dodging. Another EM beam lanced past them, and sparks of lightning shot over the shuttle. Monitors flickered and faded, lights blinked, and the shuttle banked hard to one side. Simon barely managed to catch himself on the wall as the little craft rolled and bucked.
Book was passing out from blood loss, Simon realized. The bandages on his body were soaked through with crimson. The doctor reacted quickly, grabbing the shuttle's medkit and taking out a biofoam injector. Book didn't argue as Simon pulled up his shirt and stripped away his bandages, to reveal the bloody, barely-clotted gashes and cuts in his flank.
"Can't hold . . . much longer," Book hissed, his voice slurred. His eyes glazed over, and as Simon began to pump the foam bandage into his skin, the preacher keeled over, sliding sideways out of the seat and releasing the controls. His weight settled onto Simon, who caught him and eased Book to the floor. The shuttle shook and spun, sliding out of control without Book at the helm.
As he laid the preacher down, Simon felt a rush of giddy terror. He was the only one in any position to fly the shuttle.
The floor punched her in the nose.
It wasn't supposed to do that. Simon had tried to strap her in, but there was too much moving and too much shaking and too much rape and sparks running out of the engine like flowing water
Terror poured out of Simon like a wild river, into a river and out of a river
- cut her down -
The floor was cold. Cold like a memory. memory of fire, of night and torches and
- but she's our -
The Black pressed all around them, but he wanted to paint the canvas golden
- so cut her the hell -
She closed her eyes, feeling the cold and the pain and the closing hunger all dancing inside and cutting into her brain . . . .
- what does that make us?
And she smiled.
He clambered up into the seat, mind racing. It was vaguely familiar, and he knew what most of the controls did. Coming from a Core planet, Simon had taken the usual courses on basic flight operations, so he could handle hovercars and small shuttles, and his medical training had included courses on piloting ambulances, so he wasn't completely lost. However, the configuration of the shuttle was different than a hovercraft or atmospheric shuttle, and the conditions were far from what he was trained for.
For one thing, he'd never had to worry about dodging mad space pirates while piloting an ambulance.
He had no idea where they were relative to the Hemmingway, or Serenity - if Serenity was even in range to pick them up. The wild escape from the Reavers, plus the maneuvering the Hemmingway had pulled to put distance between them, had changed their relative positions. It didn't help that he'd been mostly unconscious during the trip to the Alliance ship in the first place.
"I'm lost," Simon muttered to himself, even as he turned the control stick in a hard maneuver that sent the shuttle careening sideways. And, he realized, I probably shouldn't have pulled that hard.
He fought to bring the shuttle around, and aimed toward the asteroid belt. The thin line of drifting rocks was looming up ahead, much closer than he remembered it being before, and he gave the engines all the power that he could-
A powerful bang ran through the hull, and the shuttle shuddered and twisted.
With a crashing, gut-churning pulse of terror, Simon realized what had just happened: the Reaver ship had hit them with a magnetic grapple.
They were caught.
"Ready?"
"Just a sec . . . got it!"
"On ten?"
"On ten."
"Okay, kids. Watch how I soar."
Simon scrabbled for Book's pistol, clutching it in tight fingers.
"Too . . . late now," Book whispered, and Simon peered down into his bloodied face. He flashed back to Haven, barely six months ago, when he'd last seen the Shepherd like this: bloody, dying, and yet desperately peaceful. And Simon remembered how furiously he'd worked to save the dying holy man, his blood pouring over his fingers, his breath stilling twice and his furious attempts to resuscitate him.
"I'm not giving up on you," Simon said, steeling himself, and rose, moving to where River lay. He froze for a heartbeat as he saw her lying on the floor, and then knelt beside her.
"River," he breathed, rolling her over onto her back, cursing himself for not strapping her in correctly. There were a multitude of things he wanted to say at that moment, but his mouth went slack as he saw her . . . smiling?
"River?" he breathed.
"Time to go," she whispered, looking up at him with glazed, serene eyes.
The shuttle's proximity alert howled.
The Reaver ship's hydraulics whirled and hissed, reeling in the prey that it had found. It bore scars across its flanks from where laser beams and missiles had rent and torn its hull, but it was functional, and its crew - now only a couple dozen - were still hungry. The slavering jaws of the beast awaited soft, weak meat, to consume and break and defile.
The beast's eyes were locked so tightly on its prey that it never saw the ugly, gunmetal blob until it was right on top of them.
Were anyone who could appreciate the scene watching, they would have likened what happened next to a hippopotamus doing Olympic-level gymnastics.
It screamed down out of the asteroid belt, a wild ribbon of golden plasma leaking from its swollen aft. As it shot toward the Reaver vessel's desecrated hull, it suddenly spun in place, thrusters flipping and firing in a delicately timed sequence that flipped the vessel around so that the very end that was leaking plasma was leveled at the Reaver ship, less than half a kilometer away.
It shot down between the Reaver vessel and the fleeing shuttle trapped in its grasp, the thrusters firing and bringing it to a relative halt, matching the speeds of both ships with an ease that made the maneuver seem simple.
Then, the primary engine of the not-too-terrifically-good vessel Serenity fired. Plasma erupted from its rear, in what a certain mercenary would later remark looked like "the prettiest fart I've ever looked at."
The golden emissions washed over the Reaver vessel, spreading across its hull, leaking into the rents and tears and battle damage scarring its skin. Viewports were blinded to opacity by the heat, and sensors were fried or scrambled by the wash of plasma spraying over the pirates' ship.
That same plasma spread over the grappling line, and while the cable was rated to survive reentry temperatures, the plasma released by Serenity was much, much hotter. Metal flared, glowed, twisted, and then came apart, and with a snap that threw a young doctor off his feet, the shuttle was free.
Serenity's thrusters roared again, speeding it up, as the Reaver ship banked and flew away, hopelessly blinded for a precious few seconds by the plasma wash.
Aboard the shuttle, Simon managed to stumble back into the cockpit, to see the most beautiful sight he could imagine: Serenity, floating just ahead and below them, the docking lights on its starboard shuttle dock blinking to guide him home.
"So, hon, what does that make us?" Hoban Washburne asked, looking back up at his wife as the shuttle clicked into place.
"A big damn husband," Zoë replied, kissing him on the cheek.
"Maybe we should start a club," Mal remarked, his expression sour, before turning and clattering his way out of the bridge.
"Yeah, we could have our own business cards," Wash added, brightening to the idea. "And cake! Big Damn Cake!"
Mal didn't respond, instead marching down the stairs running to the cargo bay. As he walked, a myriad rush of emotions flowed through him, his fingers tightening and relaxing and his jaw working. Anger and relief fought a vicious war in his brain as he walked down the steps, and he glanced up at movement as he stepped onto the catwalk in the bay. Jayne was waiting for him, moving along the metal grating with that same worried-doting look he'd had when Kaylee was shot or River had been hurt.
Kaylee was hurrying out onto the main floor, and Mal heard Zoë following him down the steps behind him.
Across the bay, standing outside her shuttle, black hair billowing in the lack of gravity, Inara watched. His eyes met hers, and he pulled away from her gaze almost as quickly.
The shuttle door hissed open, and Mal decided to let anger take over, and give the preacher a good piece of rage.
"What the hell were you thinking?" he yelled, pushing through the door past Jayne. "I told you-"
His words died as he saw Book lying on the floor, bleeding and gasping-
Haven
-and Simon was trying to get him up, while River lay on the floor, unmoving. For a heartbeat, he thought she was dead, but he caught her eyes, alive and awake-
"Gorrammit, stupid girl, what the hell-"
Jayne was shoving past him, even as Mal stepped forward, helping the doctor lift Book up, the anger melting like ice tossed at a star.
"How bad is he, Doc?" the captain asked, looking over Book's wounds, seeing dozens of cuts and scrapes that made all his own war wounds flare up again at just a glimpse.
"He's not good," Simon replied. "I may have to operate."
For his part, Jayne was crouching beside River, shaking her and muttering and calling her a half-dozen angry names as he scooped her up.
"Is River hurt?" Mal asked, seeing the wounds she'd suffered too.
"Just a paralytic," Simon said, his voice that quick, clinical tone one always associated with a medic in a life-or-death situation. "I need to get them both to the infirmary."
They passed over the threshold into the cargo bay, and weight ceased to have any meaning, making it easier for Mal to guide the battered, semi-conscious Shepherd.
"Mal!" Wash's voice sounded over the intercom, and the captain heard Kaylee's shocked exclamation as she saw what had happened to Book - which doubled when she saw River, cradled in Jayne's arms, a second later.
"Zoë, get them down there," Mal ordered, and then turned off his magboots and kicked off the wall. He shot down to the bottom of the bay and hit the deck, turning the boots back on and grabbing the intercom in one smooth motion.
"Wash, you got a reason you're yellin' my name like I'm on fire?"
"Yeah, 'cause we're about to be," he responded. "Those Reavers are a bit ticked and they're gunning for us."
"We burned their sensors, didn't we?" Mal asked, and Wash grunted.
"They still have the good old Mark One Eyeball," Wash replied, "and their engine is still kicking. They're closing, tight on our butts."
"Can't be more than a couple dozen Reavers on that boat," Mal said, and Wash laughed nervously.
"Yeah, good thing we've got River back, she can deal with them pretty-"
"River's hurt," Mal said, and Wash went silent for a moment.
"Oh. Oh. Yeah. We're humped."
"Get 'em off us," Mal ordered, "And I'll bake you a big damn cake myself."
"I'd rather face the Reavers, sir," Wash said, and Mal closed the com. He stopped for a heartbeat, exhaling, letting his mind run as he considered his options. He turned, looking around the cargo bay, and then, one of the most dangerous notions in the 'Verse happened.
Malcolm Reynolds had a plan.
"Set him down here," Simon ordered, his tone quick and clinical as he and Zoë moved Book into the infirmary. They brought Book in, strapping him down onto the main operating bed, while Jayne came in behind them with River cradled in his arms.
"Gorram dumbass moonbrained girl," he was growling at her, but his tone was quiet and tinged with worry. Her eyes were open, but she was limp, just like when he'd pulled her out of Niska's ship, and he saw the blood and cuts and tears on her clothes and skin.
"Put River over there," Simon ordered, gesturing to the second bed, and began pulling off Book's dressings. Zoë brought over a case of surgical tools, and Simon went to work.
"She gonna be alright?" Jayne asked, strapping her down to keep her from drifting.
"She's been affected by a moderate paralytic," Simon said, not looking up as he started working on the most serious of the preacher's wounds, the stab that had gone clear through his stomach. Blood drifted out into the air from his wounds. "River's going to live, but I need to focus on Book."
There was movement at the infirmary's hatch, and Simon looked up, to see Inara and Kaylee at the entrance. For perhaps a second, he let the mixed look on Kaylee's face affect him: her joy at him being alive mixed with her horror at Book's wounds. He quashed them just as quickly.
"Inara, get me fifteen CC's of kalivarv, in a syringe," he ordered. She nodded and moved into the infirmary, heading for the drug cabinet.
"For River?" she asked, almost unnecessarily, and Simon nodded.
"Yes," he replied, and busied himself with Book's wounds. "Zoë, I'll need to go inside. Prep an anesthetic."
"On it," she replied. She his fingers worked to stem the bleeding and patch up the worst of the Shepherd's wounds, his mind worked quickly, evaluating the situation.
As injured as River was, that clinical part of his mind - the part the Captain had praised as his "criminal mastermind" brain - knew that if they were attacked by the Reavers again, they would need River in top form. And that was why Inara had a syringe filled with a universal counter-inhibitor to purge the paralytic in his sister's blood.
The only question was whether it would work in time.
"Done," Inara called back, and Simon spared a glance. Inara and Jayne were still in the room, the mercenary looming over River like a confused giant, while Inara floated beside the bed, pulling the empty syringe from River's arm.
"I need room," he said, and Inara nodded. She gently pushed Jayne's shoulder, and he looked up, almost annoyed, before Simon repeated himself, more forcefully. Jayne hesitated, and Simon knew he was reluctant to leave River in this state.
For some reason, Simon found that terribly distracting.
"Jayne, give the Doc room," came a call from the entrance, and the mercenary looked up. Mal stood at the hatch, and gestured quickly for him to leave, complete with his serious-angry-Captain glare. After another heartbeat, Jayne did so, followed a moment later by Inara.
"He gonna live, Doc?" Mal asked. Simon glanced over the wounds as he finished closing the worst injury.
"Yes," Simon replied after several seconds.
"I need Zoë," Mal continued. "Can you spare her?"
"No," Simon replied, not looking up. "I need an assistant, this is serious."
"Reavers are still after us, I need all my guns," Mal said. Simon hesitated for a heartbeat, his fingers still working as they addressed one of the rents in the Shepherd's chest.
"Leave me Inara," he said finally.
Zoë nodded and moved away, while Inara moved back into the infirmary to take her spot, pulling on a pair of gloves as approached the bed. As Zoë left, Simon paused, understanding exactly what Mal had just done.
He didn't have time to contemplate it, though. He immediately had Inara prep a fresh package of biofoam while he worked to remove a bullet lodged in the Shepherd's chest. Blood erupted from the wound, and he moved to seal the injury.
He could do this. He could save him. The only question was whether it would matter with the Reavers on their tails.
They clattered up onto the bridge, grabbing weapons as they walked through the mess. Zoë and Jayne were sliding pistols into holsters and sheathing blades, while Mal loaded his long rifle. He glanced behind them, to see Kaylee walking behind his gun hands, grabbing a couple of pistols, a mixture of determination and fear darkening her features.
Mal said nothing, instead moving up the corridor to the bridge. Wash's hands were gripping the controls, knuckles white as he weaved Serenity along on the best evasive course he could manage under the circumstances.
"How long we got, Wash?" Mal asked as he entered the bridge.
"A few minutes, at best," he replied. "I'm trying to shake 'em, but-"
"Let 'em close," Mal ordered.
"What?" four voices responded in near-unison.
"Let 'em close, and open the bottom cargo bay doors a hair. Not enough to open all the way, just make 'em look damaged or such," he continued.
"Sir, what the hell are you-" Zoë was saying.
"Jayne, Zoë, set up on the port side catwalk," Mal continued before they could get any more words in. "Get ready to run back inside on my signal. Rig the doors to lock closed behind you."
Eyes stared back at him from all directions, except for Wash, who was still trying to dodge the Reavers.
"Sir, is your brain missing?" Zoë asked, and he shook his head.
"No, but I got a plan," he replied. "And we need to get working on it now, not a lot of time otherwise."
"I'm sure I'm not the only one wondering what the Captain's brilliant plan is in this case," Wash piped in. "I'd like to hear it - and maybe even implement it - before I get nibbled on by Reavers, please."
"Okay," Mal said, nodding. "Wash, got those doors opened yet?"
"Just a sec," he replied, fiddling with the controls.
"Okay, here's what's going to happen . . . ." He quickly laid it out for them, and inside of a minute the looks of confusion turned to understanding. Jayne even grinned, seeming to find the idea amusing.
"What about Simon and River? Or Book and 'Nara?" Kaylee asked.
"Reavers bust in they'll be right on top of them," Zoë added, and Jayne's face screwed right back up at that.
"I'm sure as hell not leaving Simon, or Book or River," Kaylee added, and that determined look finally seemed to conquer her fear. "We can't move 'em, so we gotta keep 'em safe."
"Right," Mal said. "But this is our only shot. Kaylee, get the lower hatch leading down to the bottom decks secured. Zoë, set up with Kaylee and watch the Doc's back. Only need me an' Jayne to pull this off anyhow."
"Understood," she said, nodding. She didn't mention the unspoken addendum: they didn't need to unnecessarily risk her child in a firefight, either.
"Doors are locked in place, Mal," Wash added. "I'm leaking some atmo, too. They'll be on that like sharks and blood."
"Good. Let's get to it, people," Mal ordered, and they started to move out of the bridge. As they did so, Jayne frowned.
"The hell's a shark?" he asked to no one in particular.
As if answering him, Serenity shuddered, and a flash of panic entered Wash's voice.
"They just hit us! Magnetic grapple!"
"Everyone, get to your positions!" Mal shouted, and Jayne hopped to it, clutching Vera tightly in his mighty hands as he hurried toward the stairs.
Mal stood on the starboard catwalk over looking the bay, crouched behind the railing with his rifle in hand. He tensed, waiting, glad for the magnetic boots that kept him locked in place. He could feel the ship shuddering as the Reavers hauled it in.
"Wash, talk to me," Mal called over the radio.
"They're latching onto the bottom," the pilot reported, his voice a tiny bit more relieved than it had been before. "They're taking the bait."
"This gonna work?" Jayne asked, mimicking Mal on the opposite side of the bay. He stood in front of the door that ran up to Serenity's bridge, Vera balanced on the edge of the catwalk's railing.
"You ever known one of my plans not to?" Mal asked.
"You seriously want me to answer that?" Jayne replied.
"Bottom hatch locked," Zoë reported.
"Roger that. You an' Kaylee keep 'em clear if they don't take the bait."
"And if they don't?" Jayne asked.
"Then either I'll be disappointed in you, Jayne, or these will be very unusual Reavers."
"They're reeling us in," Wash reported. "Got a tube poking straight toward our belly. Captain, the imagery I'm seeing here is not conducive to either my or Zoë's future matrimonial happiness."
"Acknowledged. Turn off the cameras if you feel inadequate, Wash," Mal ordered.
"Oh, I'm not jealous in the slightest, its just-"
"You see any rocks you like out there?" Mal interrupted before they could get into an argument.
"A couple," the pilot replied. "Altering course. Get ready for impact in three."
"We'll have Reavers out our pi gu by then," Jayne muttered.
"Jayne," Zoë called over the radio. "Quit bitching. You'll scare the women."
Serenity shuddered again, and a deep thrumming sound filled the bay.
"They're latched," Wash reported. "They've already forced the bay doors open."
"Everyone, get ready," Mal said. "This is it."
Several seconds passed, they could hear noises "below" the ship, as the Reavers went to work on the doors in the center of the bay's floor. A spark of light shot up through the cracks.
"Wash, now."
The bay doors suddenly opened, swinging up and out, and a gaggle of Reavers who had been crammed into the airlock with welding tools was suddenly visible, looking around in momentary confusion.
Mal and Jayne opened up. Vera unloaded, thundering out high-caliber rounds, while Mal's smaller rifle thumped against his shoulder as he picked out targets. Reavers twisted, hissed, roared, and erupted as rounds punched through their mismatched armor and bodies. Jayne would have fired a grenade into the mass of the enemy, but the wiring for the bay's airlock was visible, and blowing that apart would have left the bay exposed to vacuum and thus unusable until they hit atmo.
The sudden casualties failed to dissuade the Reavers, however. In fact, the blood flying around them seemed to make them even more frenzied, and they leapt up out of the airlock, screaming and howling, the light reflecting off glistening skin and metal piercings.
At least four Reavers were dead by the time they scrambled up, and then discovered their next hurdle: Serenity's lack of gravity. The Reavers suddenly found themselves floundering in the air as they leapt up into the ship, and that made them easy targets for Mal and Jayne. The pair scythed fire across the bay, picking off several more Reavers. Mal paused to change magazines, and glanced across the room to where Jayne was crouched, to see an unusual grin on the mercenary's face. That gave him a moment's pause; Jayne was normally dead serious in combat, especially against Reavers.
Bullets rang off the catwalk, reminding Mal where his attention needed to stay. Reavers with rifles and machineguns were among the creatures boiling up into the bay, and were blazing away at Mal and Jayne. Though the pirates' aim wasn't anything spectacular, and was ruined by the fact that they were floating wildly around the bay in zero gravity, they were still hammering around Mal and Jayne all too closely.
Then, a couple of Reavers had managed to reach the walls or catwalks, and were grabbing on or kicking off.
"Fall back, Jayne!" Mal yelled, and started firing as he backed into the doorway behind him. The captain wasn't too sure whether he'd killed any more of the Reavers, but he knew it didn't matter. He stepped inside the stairwell leading up to the crew corridor, and then slammed the door shut. He threw the locking bar down.
"Jayne, you okay?"
"Yeah, cap'n," Jayne replied, and then there was another burst of gunfire over the radio. A couple seconds later, the door slammed shut on his end. "Locked and cocked."
"Zoë?"
"They're not even bothering the door on this end," she replied. A second later, the door in front of Mal began to hammer and ring as the Reavers began pounding on it.
"Can I hit it, Mal?" Wash asked over the radio.
"Give 'em a few seconds to all get in, Wash," Mal ordered, clattering up the stairs toward the bridge. A moment later, he was walking up into the cockpit, where Jayne was already waiting, still holding Vera and looking like the whole 'Verse owed him money.
"Jayne, any reason you lookin' so constipated?" Mal asked, and the mercenary looked, before shaking his head.
"Didn't get enough of 'em," he replied.
"You were enjoying that, I take it?" Mal asked, and the mercenary nodded grimly.
"Mal, I'm getting nervous with that many-" Wash piped in.
"Hit it," Mal replied, and Wash's fingers played over the controls.
Down in the cargo bay, as many as thirty Reavers were still alive, all that had managed to pile onto their ship when they'd learned of the escaping shuttle. The ship itself was practically empty now, with all but the vessel's pilots answering the call for meat and prey. They were just starting to bring up door-breaching equipment when another shudder ran through the bay, followed by the sudden wailing of alarms.
Down at the bottom of the bay, opposite the door Mal had taken, the main cargo bay doors opened to the Black.
From that point, physics took over. A few of the Reavers managed to grab onto catwalks, railings, or the netting binding the cargo in place before the sudden blast of escaping air lifted them up and hauled them toward the door with inexorable force. Many of the Reavers were still in mid-air when the doors opened, and were not so lucky.
The ones who found purchase held on while their comrades were sucked out of the bay and cast out into the Black. Within a matter of seconds, all the air had flown out of the cargo bay, and with it went the force dragging on the surviving Reavers, who were quickly discovering another issue: the lack of air in the chamber, and their equal lack of pressure suits.
Their hands scrabbled on the doors as they tried to force them open, gasping for breath and their vision slowly going dark. Neither Wash nor Mal, nor any of Serenity's crew were in any mood to give the insane creatures what they wanted. A very small number of Reavers managed to get back down to the floor of the bay and into the docking tube leading back to the safety of their own vessel.
"Wash, you got it?" Mal asked, and Wash grinned, gunning Serenity's engines.
The Reavers had barely gotten to the refuge of their own rickety, damaged vessel when Serenity flew over a large asteroid, dashing the pirate ship against its surface. The Firefly shuddered as the vessel was torn loose, the Reaver craft smashed to half its length.
The debris would drift for seventeen more hours before the victorious Hemmingway's gunships would finally locate and obliterate it. By that time, Serenity was long gone, her main engines repaired to working order and sending the battered but very alive Firefly to the nearest repair facility.
Wash exhaled, the breath escaping in a long, drawn out sigh of giddy relief, and he settled back into his chair.
"They're off us," he said. "We're good." Wash glanced back up toward Mal. "We're good, right?"
Mal replied by dropping into the copilot's chair, and letting it all go as he finally, gloriously relaxed.
"We're still flying, aren't we?" he asked, and Wash nodded. "Then we're very good."
-
Author's Notes: For the most terrifying creatures in the 'Verse, the Reavers never got the memo that space suits might be useful for boarding hostile ships where they can just pump out the atmosphere. But then, no one said Reavers were terribly sane, either, so....
For anyone wondering, a few minor things that happened in this chapter will be followed up on in the epilogue, as well as some of the other plot threads brought up over the course of this arc. But aside from that, all that's left of the Adrift arc is the epilogue.
Until next chapter . . . . .