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Chapter Four: High Noon

Day and night cycles on moons orbiting gas giants were odd spectacles, to be certain. Starlight was strained during the nighttime of Victoria, as the gas giant Zeus blotted out most of sky when it was visible. During the daytime cycle, Zeus was still visible alongside the sun, casting double shadows with its reflected light. It made the daytime unusually bright, so when Mal was roused from bed in the uncomfortable little monastic cell he was bunking in, the shaft of daylight from the window nearly blinded him.

"God!"

"He certainly is present," Book remarked from the doorway. Mal blinked and looked up at the old priest through watery eyes. Questions as to who had roused him were solved.

"Is it morning yet?" Mal asked, and Book nodded patiently at the dumb question. "Okay, then. Guess it's time to move." He clambered up out of bed, clad only in his underthings.

"The mule is already prepared," Book added. "We can leave whenever you're ready."

"Down in a second," Mal assured him.

Twenty minutes later, Mal was dressed and had his coat on, not because of the weather but because of the way it covered the pair of sidearms he was wearing – his old antique pistol coupled with an automatic handgun he was keeping as a backup. The rest of the crew were still fighting their way out of bed when he made his way down to the kitchen and stole some fruit and most wondrous thing he'd tasted in a good, long while: fresh-cooked eggs.

"I ain't one for the Lord," Mal said, between bites, "but this might make me a believer."

The others were coming downstairs in various degrees of bleariness; Simon yawning and fresh, with River brighter and cheerier on a level that matched Kaylee. Jayne was his usual grouchy self whenever he woke up without a woman beside him. Zoë came in last, and she looked like she hadn't slept a wink. Several of the children were following her.

"You okay, Zoë?" Mal asked, to which she nodded. He thought he caught a grumble, but if she did, it was too quiet to tell what she was saying.

"Did you get any sleep last night?" he asked.

"Had to stand watch," she muttered, hunting for coffee.

"We had a good watch on the roof," Mal replied.

"Kids," she replied, gesturing to the children while hefting the coffeepot and pouring a mug of liquid awareness. Mal nodded after a moment, sparing a glance to her growing belly. He could guess why she was looking over the children.

"Get some sleep, then," he said. "I'll have Jayne keep an eye on the little ones."

"Sir," she said, looking up from her mug. "They were targeting the children. Why?"

"Don't know," Mal admitted. "I'm thinking we might find some clues at the village."

"You got theories?" she asked, to which Mal shook his head.

"Ain't gonna make a call until I know more," he replied.

After he finished eating, Mal headed toward the front of the abbey, meeting Book on the way. The Shepherd had changed clothes; though he still wore his priest's vest and collar, his clothes were otherwise more rugged and prepared for the road. Mal noted he wore a belt with a holstered pistol at his side, and that hefty machete he'd used before was wrapped up in a cloth bundle that he carried in his other hand.

Mal didn't say anything. The old Shepherd knew his trade, that much was for certain.

Inara was waiting for him by the mule. He knew she'd gotten just as much sleep as he had, because they'd both been pulling first shift on the night watch together. She didn't seem anywhere near as sleep-deprived as Mal did, though that was likely one of her Companion secrets.

"What's the occasion?" he asked as he and Book reached the mule. "Didn't catch you at breakfast."

"Just wanting to wish you luck," she said. "And hoping that you don't do anything exceptionally stupid."

Mal opened his mouth to object, but he didn't get anything to properly respond before the Shepherd cut in.

"That's usually Zoë's duty, to keep the Captain smart," Book remarked. "But I've got that responsibility today."

"See? Plenty of wisdom here," Mal assured Inara after a couple of seconds.

"Just . . ." she wavered for a moment. "We don't know what's out there. Be careful."

That wasn't the usual well-wishing Mal sometimes got. "Be careful" was a triteness, a hopeful line on a par with the usual stuff like "good luck" or "be safe." But this morning, there was more to it. She really did mean for him to take care, and she was right; there was danger out beyond the abbey's walls.

"I'll do my best," Mal assured her. "That's what I do."

She put a hand to his shoulder, fingers brushing his neck, and Mal came to a dead halt. He could smell the dusty wind, but the only thing he heard for a moment was his own heartbeat. Another couple of seconds passed, and he nodded his thanks to her.

Nothing else needed to be said.

A few minutes later, she'd returned to the shelter of the abbey, and Mal and Book were heading toward the village, the morning sun beating down on them. He pulled his goggles down over his face, and then activated his radio.

"Wash? You there?" Mal waited a couple of moments. "Wash? Kaylee? Ya'll read?"

"Yeah, Cap'n," Kaylee came in a moment afterward. "Something happening?"

"Found the church, looks like the survivors from the village took shelter there," he reported. He gave the rest of the rundown of what they'd found. Midway through, Wash arrived and he had to repeat the story for him.

"So, keep an eye on the Cortex and the local network," Mal said. "You get any news, call us up, dong ma?"

"Chu wa," Kaylee replied. "Nothing's happening over here. Wash is . . . oh, I don't know, something with the laundry and his dinosaurs. He's bored as hell."

"Ya'll are the lucky folks," he said. "I'd be happy to be bored right now."

He closed the link a few moments later. Silence fell over the mule for the next few minutes as they continued out into the mountainous badlands.

"If you didn't want trouble," Book called over the whine of the engine, "you wouldn't have needed to come."

"But I did," Mal replied. "So we're here."

"Thank you, Captain."

"Uh-huh."


A few minutes after Mal departed the dining room, Father MacCauliffie walked in, talking with Elder Pherson. The elder gave an unpleasant look at Serenity's crew as they sat together, eating and talking, which resulted in Jayne, Zoë, and River giving him equally unpleasant glares right back. The two men split apart a moment later, with MacCauliffie walking toward the crew.

"Good morning," he said, sitting down with them. "I apologize for the treatment thus far. These people are very wary."

"Yes, we're so suspicious," Simon replied, voice dry. "Helping them, healing their wounds and standing guard over them. If I didn't know better I'd say we were criminals."

Jayne muttered something under his breath, while Zoë smiled tiredly. Some of the children were laughing nearby, and her attention shifted toward them for a moment.

"They're doing well now," MacCauliffie added. "We didn't have a doctor, and they needed the treatment. Especially the children."

"I'm glad we were able to help," Simon said.

"Your work has been a blessing so far," the priest said with a genuine smile. "Myself and the rest of the brothers are glad to see you here."

"Is there anything else we can do?" Zoë asked. "Aside from bolstering the defenses?"

"Not really, no. We've got most of the machinery around here working well enough," MacCauliffie added. "So we have some measure of comforts around here. Basic showers, gas heating for cooking. We just need help keeping these folks safe."

"Showers," River echoed. Simon glanced at his sister, who was staring at her food thoughtfully. "Cleanliness is godliness. Dusty biome requires constant cleaning."

"More or less," MacCauliffie said, in that tone that folks who didn't know her usually had when River began babbling. "Water's hot, anyway, so if you want to use 'em, you're welcome to it. And anything else we got to offer."

"Thanks, Father," Zoë said. She glanced back towards the children and rose. "S'cuse me."

Simon watched her as she went over to the children, and started talking with them, a faint but warm smile on her face. He remembered what she'd told him about her worries about motherhood, and the maternal approach she was taking was convincing him she was a natural mother. Zoë stopped to focus on a dark-haired girl with a bandage on her upper arm, who Simon had seen Zoë with earlier. The girl was smiling now, unlike last night.

The doctor turned back to the table, and noted that River was distracted, looking away and out the window, or glancing at Jayne furtively, who was talking intently with the priest.

". . . . do some hunting, but most of the game is second-generation goats and such, after the terraforming," MacCauliffie was saying. "We've never shot at people before."

"No 'specting ya'll to, being holy folks and whatnot," Jayne replied. "I can show you some tricks to fighting, as opposed to just hunting."

"I'd be welcome to it," the priest replied, which made Simon frown. He'd known Book was a very militant Shepherd, but he was surprised at these priests' willingness to shed blood. Then again, they did live out on the Border, where danger was a fact of life. Maybe they were just more practical out here.

The priest and the mercenary rose and stepped outside a few minutes later, leaving Simon alone with River, who was still distracted and didn't answer any of his questions. She finally finished poking at her half-eaten breakfast and rose, wandering away, and he had to debate whether or not to follow her. Simon asked himself the same questions he'd been asking since Kaylee had lectured him on his treatment of his sister: whether he should leave her alone and let her take care of herself at the risk that she might get in trouble, or whether he should keep an eye on her, at the risk of smothering her.

He considered what he'd seen. She was distracted, but she'd been lucid and getting better over the last few months, and they were in a safe, isolated place. He trusted her too much to think that she would hurt anybody.

Simon nodded and rose, letting her wander. This wasn't something that he would solve by babying her, and he would be close by anyway. Instead, he headed back up to his room and fetched his medical kit; he had patients to look after.


The village was nestled inside a small valley and surrounded by a thin copse of second-generation post-terraforming foliage, mostly young trees and scrub. In the midday light, both Mal and Book could see even from a distance that the village had been ravaged. A dozen houses had been cored and gutted by fire, and even half a kilometer out Mal could see the riddled houses that had been savaged by automatic weaponry. The fog of war had hidden the worst of the destruction from the villagers as they had fled; they had said that only a few homes were destroyed, but from here Mal could tell the village had been hammered hard.

They stopped the mule well outside of town, and the two men scanned the area with their scopes. They didn't see any signs of movement or habitation, but that didn't mean anything. Mal made sure his pistols were loose in their holster, and double-checked the rifle he had at his side, by the driver's chair. Finally, the two men headed into the ruined town.

Mal absently noted the tracks of a couple of armored vehicles – Alliance armored personnel carriers, judging by the spacing and depth of the tires – along with plenty of footprints. If Jayne had been here, he might have told him more.

As they moved through the village, Mal could see corpses inside the ravaged homes, lying where they'd been shot. No effort had been made by the Alliance soldiers that passed through to inter or otherwise remove them. They'd apparently been too spooked to bother. There was a bad smell in the air, and Mal could see several corpses bloating in the heat.

He glanced to Book, and saw the glint of quiet, controlled anger in the old Shepherd's eyes.

"They said Jonathan's body was left on the rooftop of the sheriff's office," Book said quietly. "I want to take a look at it."

"Yeah, me too," Mal said. "You feelin' the need to speak some words over the dead, preacher?"

"Yes," Book whispered, voice tight. "Stop in the middle of town. I'll take care of easing the dead first."

Mal halted the mule in the middle of the village, and Book got out, Bible in hand. He knelt in the dust for a few seconds, moving his hands through the dirt and making the shape of a cruciform. He then bowed his head, and began speaking quietly.

Mal peered around, checking the houses as Book spoke his words. He saw the signs of a methodical slaughter, houses shot out with heavy weapons to force the survivors to flee and run into waiting guns. Other houses were riddled with bullets and laser burns. Mal peered inside these; the signs of gunfire indicated that the attackers had broken into and assaulted these homes. He peered inside, and frowned.

The houses that showed signs of being stormed and assaulted on foot also had bodies lying next to weapons, mostly rifles and shotguns. That didn't make sense; if there had been resistance, the houses normally would have been bombarded with heavy weapons, instead of sending troops inside into close combat.

Unless signs of resistance showed something valuable was in there. Like children, perhaps?

Mal frowned and stepped back outside, to find Book had finished his prayers. The Shepherd rose and walked toward him, and gestured to the sheriff's office. Wordlessly, they went inside. The dead deputy still lay behind the desk, hammered with solid slug and laser shots. They found the ladder the Alliance troops had used and climbed up onto the rooftop.

Forthill's body still lay on the edge of thro of, bloated by the midday heat. Book leaned over his old friend's corpse, closed his eyes, and whispered some words.

"He weren't killed by gunfire," Mal remarked, and Book nodded. "Throat was cut."

"Wasn't execution style, either," Book added absently, eyes closed. He gestured to the dead priest's hands, which were marked by several shallow cuts. Defensive wounds. "He died fighting."

"Body ain't as bloated, either," Mal added. "Not as much decomposition. Might've died a day or two after the others."

"Why would they use a knife or blade on him?" Book asked quietly. "They could have just shot him."

"Might have done it for kicks," Mal mused quietly. He checked the dead priest's pockets, but found nothing of interest on his body.

There was nothing else of note on the rooftop, so they headed back down and began searching the rest of the village. The sun was halfway toward its apex for Victoria's day cycle when they finished moving through the homes. Book's datapad had a built in camera, and he took captures of the homes and bodies. Though they saw plenty of devastation, there were no more clues as to what the Talon mercenaries had been after, beyond the complete lack of any children's bodies.

"Ruthless as this was, I don't think they'd have managed to not hit any kids," Book said quietly. "But there's no bodies from the children."

"You think they took their corpses?" Mal said, and felt a sickness rolling through his stomach. Both men shared a long, heavy look, and they both knew they were right.

"No other clues here," Mal said.

"What about the Blue Sun hydroponics lab?" Book asked. "Pherson said they went there after hitting the village."

"A mile or so thataway," Mal said, nodding south of the village. "Let's see if they got any recordings or something, might tell us what's going on."


The sun was rising in the sky when Jayne started his way back into the abbey. He'd given the priests some pointers on how to fight with a rifle, and he remembered the last time he'd helped train a bunch of folks in how to fight. The whores at Nandi's brothel had taken a lot longer to teach, because they'd never fired a gun before, but these priests knew how to shoot. All it took was some training in how to take cover and deal with intelligent opponents.

Still, that took most of the morning, and the holy men were heading back inside the abbey along with Jayne. He snatched some food – a couple of apples – for lunch, and started taking a walk around the abbey while the priests ate. He was walking along the inner wall, most of the way through the second apple, when River stepped out onto the breezeway in front of him.

Jayne jerked to a halt. The girl was right in front of him, a distracted look on her face, and she didn't acknowledge him until he grumbled at her in annoyance. Her head snapped up towards him, and the confusion became a cheery smile.

"Aha!" she said, smiling.

"Uh-huh?" he asked, crunching a chunk of the apple.

"Jayne, I need you to help me take a shower."

Jayne froze mid-crunch.

Um.

"Whu," he managed through the half-chewed apple.

"You. Me. Shower."

Those words made him think of a very pleasant dream he'd had once, and then of the last time he'd been on Persephone. She took a step closer, still grinning at him like the crazy teenager she was, and he hopped a step back defensively. He crunched, chewed, and swallowed far faster than the apple deserved.

"Girl, the hell are you on?" he demanded once his mouth was clear. The grin faltered and shrank, but it was still there.

"Sympathetic and comforting presence required during psychological treatment of personal phobias," she said, and then paused. She closed her eyes, lips moving as if counting something, and opened her eyes again. "Facing my fears. Need your help."

Jayne frowned, scowled, and muttered before responding.

"You're scared of taking a shower?" he asked. She nodded. "The hell you scared of taking a shower for?"

The smile disappeared, and she took a sharp breath, shuddering.

"In the . . . that place," she said, words halting. "Shower rooms. Cold and impersonal. Clean. Too clean, to wash away the blood." She stopped and turned, stepping out into the sunlight and looking up at the sky.

He knew why.

Jayne puzzled through that while she banished the ugly memories. He knew she hated the infirmary because it reminded her of that Academy. And from what she said . . . was the bathroom the same way for her? Come to think of it, he'd almost never seen her in the ship's bathroom, and she'd never used the shower in there.

"You don't like showers," he said. "Reminds you of where you were."

She'd stopped shuddering while in the sunlight, and she had her face turned skyward, eyes closed. River nodded at his words.

"How the hell you keep clean, then?" he asked, and she smiled.

"Sponge, soap, and pan of hot water," she said. "From Inara."

"Um."

That was a pleasant mental image, he wasn't going to deny.

She turned to look back at him, and he saw a pleading look in her eyes.

"Simon and Inara are busy," she said. "I want to take a shower somewhere that isn't sterile and familiar, but I want a mind that I feel safe around."

Jayne stared at her for a few moments, running those implications though his head. He knew they'd gotten to be more tolerable of each other after surviving hell together, but this was the first time in his memory that she'd told him he made her feel safe. It was a disconcerting notion. He didn't deny that he did care about her, the same way he cared about Kaylee or Inara or Zoë, but her responding in kind was unexpected.

Not to mention he'd be in a mountain of trouble if someone walked in on him in the same room as a naked River.

"Don't need to be in the same room," she said quickly. "Just . . . nearby."

"Oh," he said. "I can do that just fine." And it wasn't going to get him in trouble. Hopefully.

Of course, he could just tell her to be tough and deal with it, but dammit, she was giving him the pleading puppy-dog eyes, so Jayne relented.

"Alright, fine," he said, and she smiled again, before practically skipping back inside the building. Jayne grumbled and followed, crunching his apple, and wondering how the hell he could be unhappy and uncomfortable being in proximity to a girl taking off her clothes.


Jayne was prickly.

He stood outside the shower rooms, in a small bathroom area. A trio of shower stalls lined up next to the bathrooms. Jayne lingered in the hallway outside while she undressed. It was cool, but not cold, and clean, but not antiseptic.

-cold metal piping, chrome and steel, white tiles with white grout and white cement, hot water coming down, eyes watching-

She jerked even before she began undressing, and stumbled away from the shower stall. She put her hands on the wall-

-rough gray stone, built by solid hands for purposes of faith, belief, reason in conjunction with faith, for cleanliness was godliness and godliness was not a goal but a state of being yet-

She pushed herself off the stone, finding physical equilibrium on her own two feet. She looked around the bathroom, inhaling, and stepped toward the lockers where the others had stashed some of their clothes. Her fingers brushed one of Simon's shirts, and then Zoë's vest, the strength inside it pushing back, and then one of Jayne's spare trousers.

No. Don't need to think of Jayne's trousers now.

The emotions and associations of the textures and scents flooded in, caressing her with warmth, and River used that to chase away the memories. The prickly hovering outside came back, and Jayne's clear, bold thoughts

-why's the gorram girl taking so damn long to take a gorram shower?

made her feel better. They rolled in as she focused on them, battering aside the bad, oily and sticky fingers of tar and blood.

She moved back across the room, and pushed open the stall. She forced herself to step into the small, stony space, and put her fingers to cool steel. She started to turn the mechanism, and then paused.

She was still dressed.

Right. She flickered back outside and scanned the room, making sure no one was watching. Jayne was still outside, and still prickly, with the spikes tinged a bit by horn. Secured, she removed her dress and underthings, piling them neatly beside the lockers. Then, she placed Laertes next to the shower stall, where it would be easy to reach. She glanced about again, making sure no one was watching

-someone was always watching when she was naked-

and then stepped back inside. The mechanism turned, cool metal digging into her fingers, and she saw hotness and liquid in the steel and ceramic, and then

hot water!

She gasped in shock and a bit of pain. The water was hot, hotter than she remembered, hotter than they'd let it run up before, and it beat on her skin in a steady pulse of pressure and impact.

She let it hammer her, hot and solid and intense, and it felt . . . it felt . . . .

Clean. Clean, but not antiseptic.

She stepped in closer, letting the water beat and massage and cleanse her, run through her hair, over her skin, washing away the dust and worries and memories. It was

normal

River felt normal. She was just a girl, taking a shower, cleaning herself, with a friendly mind close that made her feel safe and secure and cared for.

There was a hotness in her eyes, and it had nothing to do with the heat or the water or the steam, and it had nothing to do with pain or loss or memory.

And she laughed. She laughed, she smiled, and salty water mixed with fresh hot water on her face.

River stood under the showerhead, and let it cleanse the darkness, if only for a little while.


The Blue Sun facility was a modest, mostly pre-fabricated structure built into a mountain wall a kilometer past the village. A half-dozen blocky, gray-brown pre-fab structures sat outside a circular door that led into the rock face. The structures looked like they could have been dropped off by an aircraft and dragged to where they sat, and appeared to be habitats. One looked like it had been a communications facility, but the external antennae were smashed and bent.

Mal brought the mule to a halt outside the ring of habitats, and he and Book stepped out, weapons in hand. There was nothing moving, not even the quiet hum of working generators. They advanced cautiously, sweeping the quiet, empty area. The sun and Zeus were high, but the angle was such that the cliff cast shade over the habitats. Despite the heavy hotness of midday, the area under the cliff itself was cooler, and Mal could guess why they chose this spot.

They checked the habitats one by one, finding a series of small bunks in most of them. The one Mal had marked as a communications building fit the bill, with an array of radios and other comms gear scattered across the tables and desks inside, but all of it had been smashed and gutted.

"Someone took an axe to all this gear," Book murmured, emerging from one of the rooms.

"How can you tell?" Mal asked.

Book hefted a large axe he'd found in the room in question. It was a wooden-handled, iron tool that was notched with age and use.

"Ah. Not standard gear around here," Mal mused. Book nodded.

"Not the kind of gear you'd find in the employ of mercenaries, either," the Shepherd said.

"Don't mean nothing," Mal added, frowning. "Might have just grabbed one from the village on the way over."

"Find anything?" Book asked, to which Mal shook his head.

"No bodies, no signs of conflict, aside from this room," he said. "Might be more clues inside the main building."

They stepped back out into the shade, which was retreating as the sun continued to rise. The circular door's control panel showed signs that it had been tampered with; someone had apparently tried to seal the door and then destroy the panel with an axe. The rents in the panel matched the axe that Book had found. Someone had come afterward, opened up the controls, and then run a bypass on the circuitry underneath.

"Mercs came afterward," Mal said, after examining the panel. He worked the wires underneath, and with a hiss, the door opened. "Whoever wrecked the communications tried to seal the door and keep anyone out by destroying the controls. Mercs came in and bypassed it."

"Looks like," Book agreed. They peered inside the doorway, to see a short corridor that connected to an entry room. Low-level emergency lighting was still on, but the escaping air held the stench of recent decay.

The entry room was a security station, complete with a desk, a low-level security door, and some camera monitors that were all out. A couple of gun racks were behind the desk, stripped of their contents, and there were bloodstains on the metal floor.

A corpse lay behind the desk.

He was dressed in a blue security uniform with the Blue Suns logo on the shoulder. He'd been gutted by some kind of bladed weapon, and his throat was ripped out. Dried blood covered his uniform. The body was old and locked in rigor-mortis, judging by the decay.

"That is definitely not the work of the mercs," Mal whispered.

"I'd put this body at . . . at least three weeks, maybe older," murmured Book. "Smell matches it."

"Gives us some kind of timeframe for what happened," the captain added.

They checked the security room, noting that anything of value had likely been stripped. Most of the equipment was destroyed by other heavy hand weapons, likely sledgehammers or axes.

The doorway beyond had also been bypassed, and led into a long, white corridor with a half-dozen doors, three on either side. The lighting was still working, which showed them the bloodstains and corpses that were scattered along the length of the passage. A couple were security, while the rest wore the kind of semi-rugged gear one would expect from well-supplied settlers. The employees working at this facility, apparently.

They were all killed with bladed or blunt weapons. Broken limbs and heavy, deep rents in their torsos were evident. There were a few bullet holes in the walls, where the guards had fired on whatever had attacked them. Mal saw blood splatters here and there that looked like they came from exit wounds, and closer examination showed some splatter on the floor that made him imagine bodies being dragged outside.

The side doors led to the hydroponics areas themselves, which were used as labs to test new plant-life in simulated atmosphere and dirt environments from the planet itself. They were automated rooms that looked like long, enclosed greenhouses. Neat rows of plants sat under bright lights, with small misters regularly hissing and spraying water onto them. Even having been left alone for weeks, the plants were still growing and bore large fruit and vegetables, some of which had broken off and fallen to the floor. The plants, genetically engineered for large yields, were overgrown due to lack of tending.

More bodies were scattered around the individual rooms, all dressed like employees. It looked like they had fled into the rooms and hid themselves, and had been hunted down one by one. They didn't find any new indicators as to what had happened.

As Book moved through one of the growing rooms, he stopped, noting one of the bodies. Something about the man seemed familiar, but he couldn't place it, probably because a long, heavy gash ran through the middle of his face. Coupled with the near month-long decay and it was hard to place the face. With a frown, the Shepherd took out his datapad and turned on the camera attachment, taking a picture of the body.

"Find anything?" Mal called.

"Not sure," Book replied, standing back up and putting the datapad away.

They finished checking the rest of the facility, including a couple of offices at the rear of the main corridor. The rooms were empty of bodies, though trashed just as viciously as the rest of the facilities. Someone had ransacked the offices and taken an axe or sledgehammer to all the furniture, leaving them a shattered mess.

"Nothing useful here," Mal called to Book, who was in the office on the opposite side of the hall, and started toward the door out of the office. "More questions than ans-"

Zip-click.

A gun barrel approximately the size of the universe hovered a few inches in front of his face as he stepped out the door.

Zip-cli-zip-zip-click-cli-zip-click.

Followed by a several more guns, wielded by a quartet of men in gray and black armor, with a blood-red emblem of a wing and talon on their breastplates.


The sun was near its apex, and Simon was making his rounds with Inara beside him. The villagers had scattered around the abbey after being confined inside for so long, and the Doctor was checking bandages and doing follow-ups for all the injuries in the church.

Inara thought it was odd to see the Doctor at work with a medical bag in one hand and a submachinegun slung underneath one shoulder. Simon was still getting used to being comfortable carrying a weapon around with him, and he knew it would take him a while to acclimatize to it.

The children were in the courtyard outside the chapel, with some of them trying to play. Some of the others were simply hugging close to their parents, and Inara understood why, but what surprised her was the number of children who were sitting close to Zoë. The veteran was sitting by the courtyard, keeping watch over the kids with her shotgun in hand. One of the children, a dark-haired little girl, was even dozing at Zoë's side.

"Did you get any sleep last night?" Inara asked her as she walked over, noting that the veteran was still as bleary-eyed as she'd been that morning. Zoë nodded.

"Got enough," she replied. "Volunteered to take first watch anyway, give the preachers and the men some time to rest."

"Maybe you should take a break now," she offered. "I can watch over the children, or get River and Jayne to guard them."

"Those two would be too busy being at each other's throats to watch anyone," Zoë replied with a thin smile. "I'm fine," she added, stiff refusal in her tone.

Inara hid her frown. She knew Zoë was tough and stalwart, but the veteran soldier was always practical and had never pushed herself into a foolish situation – with one exception. She remembered how Zoë had responded to Wash's injuries on Mr. Universe's moon, and how she'd calmly, silently waded into melee with an overwhelming number of foes.

The same icy, angry determination was present in her posture and expression now. She was being as obstinate as Mal.

The Companion could guess why. Zoë had never been the most maternal person, but when she did find someone she could care about – which included Serenity's crew – she could be hellishly vicious in protecting them, in her own calm manner. Maybe it was just the child growing inside of her, but she'd apparently taken to watching over these children the same way she watched over her crew.

Inara decided it would be better not to argue. Mal would be back soon, and he could probably order her to take a rest.

The little girl at Zoë's side stirred, looking up at Inara. She smiled at the girl, who smiled back, and then closed her eyes again. Inara looked away, up toward the sun in the sky, and sighed, thinking about the two who were out in the wilderness without any support.

"You worried about Mal again?" Zoë asked. Inara managed a quiet but strained laugh.

"Mal is always in trouble," she said. "I think he prefers it that way."

"He can take care of himself," Zoë said, confident. "Shepherd's got his back."


There were a lot of intelligent things one could say when confronted by swarthy, dangerous types in armor and with large, painful-looking weaponry pointed one's way.

". . . hi."

That wasn't one of them.

"Lose the gunbelt," snapped the leader, a heavyset man with a long beard that would horrify small children. He was obviously the leader of this group because he had the largest weapon, an assault rifle approximately the size of a battleship. Two other goons stood behind him, both equally ugly in their own unique ways. The last of the hideous quartet was stepping into the office opposite Mal, where Book was.

So, the plan was simple: string them along, and hope they got annoyed enough to make a mistake.

"Hm?" Mal asked. "Oh, this gunbelt? That's purely decorative."

"Don't be smart with me, boy," the leader said. "Hands up, and lose the gunbelt."

"Ah, there is a slight logistical problem with doing both of those-"

Zip-click.

"Hands up," Mal agreed, putting his hands in the air. He glanced down at his belt, and started shimmying his hips.

"What the hell are you doing?"

"Trying to get the gunbelt off without using my hands," he replied. "Kind of hard to do."

"Stop that," the man snarled. Mal did so.

"So, you guys are the Talons, huh?" Mal asked quickly, before the leader could continue.

"Quiet," he snapped. "We're the ones asking the questions here."

"And you're doing a very fine job of it," Mal agreed.

"You will be silent," the leader growled, shoving Das Gun in Mal's face. Mal nodded quickly, and went quiet.

"Now, who are you?" the leader snarled. "Where did you and your men come from?"

Mal stared back, and didn't speak.

"I asked you a question."

Mal raised his eyebrows, and then rolled his eyes.

"Answer me!"

Mal opened his mouth, and then mouthed the words You will be silent.

In response, the mercenary punched Mal in the face, knocking him off his feet.

"Enough games!" he snarled.

"Do you get all your threats from bad action movies?" Mal muttered under his breath, as the mountain-sized assault weapon was shoved into his face, the barrel large enough to comfortably seat his nose.

"Answer my question," the leader growled. "Where is the rest of your group?"

"Well, one is right behind you."

It was the leader's turn to roll his eyes.

"I'm not that stupid," he said.

Zip-click.

"In this case, it's quite justified," Shepherd Book said, pointing a pistol at the back of the mercenary's head.

The Talon commander looked like someone had thrown a hungry shark at his crotch. His eyes widened, and his head tilted a fraction toward the Shepherd, who stood behind him. In the corridor, both the man's thugs lay on the floor, uncomfortably unconscious.

"Drop the gun," Book ordered, his words like frozen nitrogen. The mercenary lowered his weapon, and tossed it aside, the clatter sounding like an avalanche. "Good. Now we-"

Mal kicked the bearded idiot in the danglies. The man keeled over, gasping in pain, and the captain scrambled to his feet. He bent down and grabbed the heavy weapon, feeling like he'd get a hernia just hefting it.

"Or," Book said, "We could fight like four-year-olds."

"I can bite his shin, too," Mal offered, holding the massive weapon on the mercenary. He wasn't sure how to use it, but he guessed that "pull the trigger" equaled "probably dead mercenary."

"Anyway, now it's our turn to ask the questions," Mal said, and then paused. He glanced to Book. "So . . . what do we ask him?"

"I will tell you nothing!" snarled the mercenary. Mal sighed.

"Oh, well then," he said, raising the planet-sized weapon with a barely-hidden grunt of effort.

"No, wait!" the mercenary squealed. "I . . . I don't know anything!"

"Well, let's test that hypothesis," Mal replied, pointing the weapon at the bearded moron's kneecap. "I want to see how loud this gun is, anyway."

The merc let out a high-pitched sound similar to a deflating tire, and scrambled back a little.

"How many men in your team?" Book asked.

"Ten!" the merc said. "The rest are outside! We told 'em to cover the entrance while we got you!"

"Weapons?" Mal asked.

"Shotguns and rifles," the merc replied quickly.

"What are you after these villagers for?" Book asked.

"I don't know."

"Oh," Mal said, leveling the cannon at the merc's leg. "I bet you'll know tons after we-"

"The kids!" he gasped. "I just know we're supposed to grab the kids! All of them!"

"Adults?" Book said, tone quiet and sharp and incredibly deadly.

"Kill them all," the mercenary admitted. "Recover all of the children, including any bodies we find."

Mal and Book shared a look between them. Including the bodies of any dead children?

"Why children?" Mal demanded.

"I don't know," the merc said. "I just follow orders, man."

Mal scowled at the man. "I'm following orders" was never a proper excuse for him; he'd shown that to the Alliance before.

"Where are the villagers now?" Book asked, on a hunch.

"Some church somewhere," the merc replied. "We were sent here to grab you guys and see if you knew what was happening."

"Has anyone else been to the church?" Book asked, to which the merc shrugged.

"No one's said anything about it," he replied. "We just found out today."

Book and Mal looked to one another again. If they knew where the abbey was, it was only a matter of time before they attacked. At least they apparently didn't know about Serenity's crew.

"If we wait much longer," Book said, "They'll come in after us. We need to get back."

"Agreed," Mal said, and drew his pistol. Before anyone could say anything, Mal shot the merc in the kneecap. He jerked, crying out in pain, while Mal spun and started walking out into the corridor. "I'll be keeping this gun!"

"Hun dan!" the mercenary said between gasps of pain.

"Very fine work, Preacher," Mal said, stepping over the unconscious bodies. He hadn't even seen Book at work until the last second, let alone heard him. The Shepherd could be downright scary when he wanted to be.

"You're noisiness was a blessing," Book replied, holstering his pistol and taking up an assault rifle from one of the downed Talon soldiers. Mal's rifle was still in the mule, so they'd have to make do with enemy weapons.

"Let's get the hell out of here," Mal rumbled, face hardening as he remembered the merc's words.

Children.

Hun dan.


There wasn't any shampoo, but that was fine. Hot water running through River's hair cleaned it more effectively than months and months of sponge baths. She'd lost track of the amount of time she spent under the warm massage of hot water, but she could taste impatience coming from Jayne's prickliness.

Prickliness translated into an amalgam of nervousness, anxiety, curiosity, and a little bit of embarrassment. After all, she'd asked him to stand watch over her while she did something he probably fantasized about with countless women before. It had to make him somewhat flustered.

As she stood under the shower, she let her mind be carried along the breeze. She saw Zoë and Inara, and myriad of children. Sadness, anger, confusion, and other emotions swirled around them, and she recoiled. The children were hurting too much. Too familiar. Simon did his work, clinical and detached yet quietly worried in that compartmentalized portion of his brain. The priests and villagers were weary, afraid, suspicious of the newcomers in spite of everything they'd done.

She frowned. They were idiots.

Her mind rolled outward, and her body made a deeply pleased sound at the hot, aquatic massage she was getting.

Two minds, up above, on the rooftop. Guards, sentries, wardens, watchmen, synonyms for protectiveness. One holy man, one not-so-holy man from the village, walking or standing and watchi-

They exploded.

Death, splattered blood, falling bodies rolling across tiles-

A dozen minds, two dozen, more, tinged with violent intentions, blood and greed and aggression, all sides, coming together, closing in predators sniffing and hunting and-

-snipers must eliminate sentries first prior to assault-

She screamed, and threw the door open. She tripped on her way out of the stall, but managed to keep from hitting the floor hard.

Violence and blood and evil and

Somewhere in there, she'd started curling into a ball, reflexively, but she forced herself to try to stand up and acclimate her mind. These minds were not Reavers. She had faced worse. The dark intentions were a shock, but

"I am functional," she breathed, pushing herself off the floor. "I am functional. I am-"

Jayne charged into the room, pistol in hand. She shook her head. Time was dilating in her mind; words were fumbling out of her lips. He came to a halt when he saw River crouched on the floor, naked and shivering despite the steam.

"Girl, what the he-"

"They're here!" River said. Jayne froze.

Then, halfway across the abbey, they heard the rush of an incoming missile, and then the gates exploded.


-


Author's Note: Well, the peace couldn't have lasted forever, now could it? :P

As I said before, what seems obvious in this arc isn't. And as I requested before, if you think you've figured it out, please don't spoil it for others. PM me and I'll tell you whether you're right or wrong.

Until next chapter....