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Test Su65ec!- $nduc#r 000-11^ - WaNe, 49#hry!


Chapter Five: Bastion

Mal peeked out the door, far enough back inside the facility that no one could see him. He saw a half-dozen men in black armor, moving around or standing watch outside the habitats. One was crouched beside the mule, looking into an open panel. All were armed.

"Okay," he said, leaning back. "I count six guys. Lot of ugly. All of 'em got longarms of one sort or another. No big machineguns."

"Do we have a plan?" Book asked.

Mal frowned and shrugged. The preacher nodded.

"Good enough, I suppose."

"Shoot 'em until they don't get back up," Mal said, hefting the continental cannon. "Let's bring some justice."

"Amen, Captain," Book said, and hefted his rifle.

They stepped out and opened fire.


She had recognized the sound of an incoming missile before the gate was shattered, and thus Zoë was up and moving as soon as the gate was blown apart. Mental maps of the layout of the abbey sprang to mind. There was a short entryway from the outer gate to the inner gate that would lead to the interior of the abbey. They had maybe twenty seconds at most before the attackers breached the courtyard and began working their way through the church grounds.

"Children, into the chapel!" Zoë barked, shouldering her weapon. Simon and Inara began to shoo the children toward the doors, and a pair of priests and some adults started grabbing kids and either carrying or pushing them toward the chapel itself. She heard cries and shouts from across the abbey, and knew that many of the adults and some of the children were scattered around the buildings.

She couldn't help them now. These children and the adults they could save were her priority. She kept her weapon covering the inner door leading to the courtyard as she backed away, and heard the children retreating into the chapel. Zoë backed into the open doorway.

The inner gate blew inward, and she knew the sound of a breaching charge. As splinters of wood flew about, she saw figures beyond, in dark armor with blood-red emblems. Her weapon shifted, and she sighted the first man to emerge through the smoke and flying splinters.

Her shotgun roared, and the man's head jerked back, a burst of red blossoming as the charged-shot tore into his face. He toppled backward, and then Zoë ducked through the door, slamming it shut.

"Down!" she yelled, and pulled down the priest who was closing the door.

A second later, gunfire ripped through the wood, flying over everyone's head.

Zoë scrambled for the nearest window, keeping low, and peeked out for a heartbeat.

Men in black armor over gray fatigues were pouring through the main door, at least ten of them, armed with assault rifles and shotguns. A couple of the mercenaries were firing their weapons at the doorway, clearly suppression fire.

Zoë sighted one, stilled her breath, and shot him in the throat. The charged shot punched through his neck and threw him off his feet.

She ducked back as the remaining shooter turned to fire on her window, and looked across the chapel. A half-dozen adults, a few priests, and a gaggle of maybe twenty children – most of the village's survivors – were hunkered down. Simon was checking for any injuries, while Inara was loading a bolt into her torque bow. She looked up to Zoë, and her expression told the veteran that she was going to take Zoë's lead.

"Larkin, Eads," she yelled at the two armed priests on the other side of the chapel. "Take the window on the east side." She looked to Inara. "Inara, that window on the west side, keep them from getting shots in at us." She crawled back to the window, drew a knife from her belt, and held it up. She checked the reflection in the knife, and saw two of the mercenaries crouched behind columns beneath one of the breezeways. They were covering the window, ready to fire if she exposed herself.

Zoë nodded, crawled to a different window, and rose. She leaned out just enough to get a shot and fired. The round missed her target, skipping off the stone beside his face, but he jerked back, flakes of stone stabbing into his flesh, and he dropped behind cover. Good enough.


Her dress was across the room, and while fighting naked was possible, it was also ill-advised. River grabbed the first clothes she could while Jayne stepped outside, grabbing Vera from where he left it leaning against the wall. He turned back to see her pulling on one Simon's white shirts while pulling up Mal's spare trousers. She was belting them with the sash, and held up her sword.

"Password, quickly," she said, and he grunted.

"Cortical electrodes," he said, and heard a peal of gunfire. "Hurry up girl, we gotta move!"

"I count twenty," she said, and then pushed past him, drawing her sword. "Coming through the main gate. Everyone's falling back inside the abbey."

"How we gonna run this?" he asked, and she frowned, before running down the hallway. He chased after her.

"Zoë is pulling everyone into the chapel," she said. "Simon and Inara with her." She paused. "Nineteen now."

"They'll surround it," Jayne said, and heard another burst of gunfire. "Move into the outer buildings first and clear 'em out."

"We stop them," River said, and Jayne nodded.

"They know we're here?" he asked, and she shook her head, which gave him a dark grin. "They ain't gonna see us coming."

Jayne Cobb hefted Vera and took the lead, with River trailing him in her mismatched man-clothes and sword in hand.


Mal didn't know much about the ins-and-outs of heavy weapons, but he'd fired plenty of them before. He knew that walking out into the open with a huge-as-hell machinegun and blazing away wasn't the brightest idea, but he also knew one other, equally important fact.

It was scary as hell.

He'd checked the cannon's ammunition before he'd stepped out, and saw each bullet was the size of his index and middle fingers put together. He understood that he was about to face some hellish recoil, and he braced himself as he stood up, shouldered the gigantic weapon, and cut loose with a ten-round burst.

There were six Talon mercenaries standing around the habitats outside, all of them crouched and wary, but not ready for an attack; they'd apparently expected four men could handle two lightly-armed drifters.

Mal's gunfire tore through one of them, making two cantaloupe-sized holes in the man's chest, before they ducked for cover, suddenly realizing they were under fire. The recoil from the cannon was incredible, hammering back Mal's arm. He could keep the sights on his target for the first couple of shots, but after that the weapon tracked upward, and the rest of his fire went wide. The captain's shoulder shrieked in pain as he pivoted and fired another burst on another of the mercenaries, but the man was diving behind the habitat, and the rounds struck harmlessly. Or rather, they struck quite harmfully to the habitat trailer, punching clean through the metal, but missed the mercenary.

The noise was insane, and Mal's ears began ringing as he fired the weapon. The last time he'd handled a gun that noisy was when he'd manned the anti-air cannons at Serenity Valley. Book stepped out of the doorway into the open air, but unlike Mal's wild, noisy avalanche of gunfire, he held his shots, breaking to the right. He kept his rifle high as Mal followed him, rattling off bursts of heavy fire from the battleship-sized machinegun. The two men moved toward the nearest habitat trailer while Mal kept the bad guys' heads down.

A Talon mercenary stepped around into view around the trailer they were running toward, on the right side. Book popped him with a single shot to the right kneecap, knocking man's leg out from under him. He fell sideways toward the trailer, and smacked his head against the wall.

Mal kept up the fire, spraying the other trailers and the men behind them. They kept behind cover, unwilling to expose themselves to more accurate fire from the gigantic cann-

It clicked and then went silent. The thunderblasts faded away, leaving only a very ominous silence.

Mal looked down at the gun like it had punched him in the gut.

"Oh, you treacherous sumbitch."

Talon mercenaries rose from cover, coming around the trailers with weapons raised. Mal didn't waste time trying to figure out whether the cannon had jammed or simply run out of ammunition. He threw the weapon aside and drew his pistol. He fired a couple of shots as he followed Book, more to remind the enemy that he could still kill them than to actually drop any of the mercenaries.

Book took the lead into the trailer, kicking in the door, and Mal was right behind him as the Talons opened up. Rounds screamed and howled off the metal and whuffed through the dirt as he ducked inside the relative safety of the trailer.

"That went about as well as we could expect," Mal said, as rounds hammered against the outside of the trailer.

"We stay in here, they'll pin us down," Book replied. Mal glanced around the interior of the trailer. It was one of the ones used as bunks, with a half-dozen small cubbyhole rooms for each staff member. There were two doors that led inside the trailer, and a ladder ran up one wall to a hatch on the roof.

"There's a blessing," Mal murmured. Book nodded as he saw what Mal meant. The trailers were about twice the height of a man, which meant it would be hard to look up on the rooftop – especially as the bad guys would be watching the doorways.

"I'll go up first," Mal started to say, when Book simply clambered up the ladder in his stead. Annoyed, Mal turned to cover the doors. Overhead, the Shepherd reached the top of the ladder and found a hatch, which he carefully opened. He peeked out the top.

"Hostiles on either side," he whispered. "Going for both entrance doors. One's helping the wounded man. No one's watching the roof."

Mal clambered up the ladder after him. He didn't need to say anything; both captain and preacher crawled out onto the rooftop as silently as they could. The metal was getting hot in the noon sunlight, but didn't burn through their gloves, making it uncomfortable instead of unbearable.

They had seconds until the Talons either breached and assaulted the trailer or simply tossed grenades inside and then waltzed in to clean up. Either way would end with them realizing their opponents had escaped.

No one was watching the far side of the trailer, and Mal and Book dropped down in the dirt, right as they heard the detonations of a pair of grenades. So much for the safety of being indoors.

The mule was parked about fifteen meters away, next to the Talons' transport, a much larger hovering transport with a covered rear. Their mule still looked serviceable; either the Talons hadn't had time to disable it or they hadn't considered it a priority.

Mal and Book dashed straight for the mule, with Mal trailing and watching their backs. They got within a few meters when the mercs emerged, and one of them spotted the escaping pair. Mal snapped his pistol up and fired a double-tap, hitting the first mercenary in the hip and shoulder. The rounds deflected off the man's armor, but spun him around enough to stagger him, and both Mal and Book made it to the mule without getting shot in the back.

Mal climbed up into the driver's seat while Book jumped into the rear passenger couch. Gunfire slashed toward them, bouncing off the metal frame. Book snapped up his rifle and fired, and this time the merc who Mal had staggered fell, clutching his leg.

The mule powered up to life, and Mal swung it around so the armored backside would be presented at their opponents, and they shot away over the scrub-covered badlands.

Mal exhaled a few seconds after they got away, and began to laugh. He looked back over at Book, and was about to speak, but stopped.

"What is it, Captain?" the Shepherd asked.

Mal quickly turned back, keeping his mouth shut. He wasn't going to say how close that was, and how lucky they were that they had gotten away. That was just begging for trouble.

Then a burst of rounds skipped off the side of the mule, making both men duck for cover.

The trio of Talons who were still in fighting shape were behind them, in their own transport, two of them firing away at their rear.

"Gorram it!" Mal yelled, gunning the engine. "I tried not to say anything! I learned a long time ago not to say anything!"


It was a short hallway about ten meters long, and wide enough that Jayne and a clone of himself could have passed through shoulder to shoulder. There was a wooden door at both ends, and a couple more on the inner wall that led to storage rooms.

The door at one end splintered inward as a booted foot slammed into it, working to kick it open. The Talon mercenary behind the door gave it another kick for good measure, knocking it all the way open, while behind him, three other men waited with rifles and shotguns. Standard breaching procedure was for the kicker to step back and let the breaching team enter, but procedure went out the window when three heavy armor-piercing rounds punched through the door and then the kicker's torso. He fell backward in a limp tangle of limbs.

Jayne, who was crouching in the storage room door farthest from the broken door, fired another quick burst through the door, hoping to catch another mercenary, but they had ducked behind the intervening wall. A second later, one of the mercenaries pointed his gun around the corner and opened up, spraying the hallway with fire. Bullets scored through gray masonry, launching clouds of dust and whipping splinters of stone. Jayne ducked behind cover himself.

The other two mercenaries stormed forward into the hallway the moment their compatriot finished firing. They moved as a professional team, one firing his shotgun while the other put down bursts of controlled fire on the door Jayne was standing behind. They stepped into the hallway, putting their backs to the wall opposite the side Jayne was hiding behind. The third stepped into the hallway after them, pulling a grenade from his belt.

Their eyes were locked on Jayne's position, so if he emerged they'd gun him down instantly. Their weapons were trained on Jayne's door, so killing him would take a single twitch of the trigger. They had a superior position, and alone, Jayne was dead.

The hallway was wide enough for Jayne to walk shoulder-to-shoulder with himself, which meant it was narrow enough.

River Tam, legs braced against the walls above the door and back flush with the ceiling, dropped down in the middle of the mercenaries.

There was no time for mercy. Laertes plunged into the back of the rearmost mercenary's neck, stabbing out through his throat. He jerked, spasming as the electrosword did its work, sending a pulse of lightning through his body. The flash and the burst from the sword caused the other two mercs to spin toward her, and by that time River was upon the next, tearing her sword free and slashing low.

The jian sliced through the next mercenary's unarmored leg, and the flash of lightning from the blade sent him jerking and twitching. He fired his weapon up into the air, punching holes in the wall and ceiling, and Laertes slashed up into a seam in the plate armor over his chest. Electricity shot through the mercenary's lungs and heart.

The last was raising his rifle, but he wasn't fast enough. River was tearing her blade free and was about to put it through the fourth man when Jayne popped out of cover, and popped the merc's head with two rounds from Vera. River jerked back from the spray of blood.

Jayne stepped out into the hallway, sweeping to make sure no one was sneaking up on them. River started wiping her face. Blood had splattered on her stolen clothes, and there was an acrid smell of burnt flesh hanging in the air. The electrified blade she was holding had some black patches where it had scorched the blood on its length.

"You okay girl?' Jayne asked, stopping beside her, keeping Vera leveled at the door. She blinked and nodded, left hand still working to wipe away the red droplets.

"Damned spot," she muttered under her breath.

"How many left?" Jayne asked.

"Thirteen," she replied immediately. "Bad number. Unlucky number. Four more outside, in vehicles."

"Probably a search team. They figure out there's more here than they 'spected, they'll come at us with everything they've got," Jayne muttered, and she nodded. He saw something in her face, a flicker of pain and disgust, but it faded and was replaced by that same cold glare that she'd gotten when she'd been about to slice up those Alliance soldiers.

"We have to kill them all," she said, voice cold, like a machine. Gorram it, that was creepy.

Creepy, but kind of cute.

"Let's get to it," he agreed.


It was getting hard to see outside. The mercenaries were putting regular shots through the windows every few seconds, forcing everyone to keep their heads down, and Zoë couldn't get a glimpse outside. Nor could anyone else, as the others were just hugging the walls behind cover, which was a bad sign. Zoë had been schooled in the importance of fire superiority during the war, and understood that once your opponent had you pinned down and unable to return fire, it was only a matter of time before he closed and finished the battle.

The others were scared. Inara and Simon were not soldiers, and though they'd seen plenty of combat with the rest of the crew, they weren't disciplined enough to return fire under these conditions. Hell, Zoë knew that if she showed her head, she'd be killed in seconds.

She felt something against her leg, and looked down, to see Katie curled up beside her, terror obvious in the girl's face. Zoë suddenly felt a flash of anger and determination when she looked down at the little girl, and rose just enough to give her a tiny glimpse outside.

The mercenaries were spread out around the chapel, taking cover behind the breezeway pillars. She counted at least eight, four of whom were shooting into the windows. The rest were gathering to the east of the chapel, and were reloading their weapons.

"Everyone, get ready," she ordered. "They're going to try to breach! Break in here on the east side!" She looked back. The two armed priests were praying quietly while holding their weapons. Inara had that calm expression and poise she bore in times of peril, with only her eyes giving away her fear as she crouched, bow loaded. Simon was all calm and business, but was busy making sure there were no injuries. Zoë knew she could count on him to fight like an animal if it came to it, but his skill and discipline were lacking.

She peeked out again, and a round nearly took her nose off. She ducked back, but she'd seen enough of the enemy to know what was about to happen.

"Here they come!" she yelled, crouch-walking to the east side of the chapel. She raised her weapon, and saw the priests readying their guns. Simon slid between the civilians and the side the mercenaries were going to come in through, while Inara crouched behind a pew, weapon leveled.

Zoë waited until she could feel the men outside, and then shoved her shotgun through the window and pulled the trigger.

Someone screamed, and gunfire erupted through the window, followed by yelling.

Then someone threw a flashbang into the chapel.

Zoë ducked and spun away, covering her head, and dropped behind a pew to hide her eyes from the flash. She braced herself, squeezed her eyes shut.

Light. Noise. Pain.

She shoved herself to her feet as her head exploded with agony, rolling through her ears. Bile rose up in her throat, and she wanted to puke, so intensely loud was the detonation. But she could see.

Dark shapes came through the window, only two meters away. One hit the floor, and raised his weapon. The mercenary fired, and there was a scream of pain, and flashes of light. The second hit the floor, weapon rising, and then a third came in through the window.

Zoë tried to raise her weapon, but it took her a heartbeat to realize that somewhere in all the disorientation, she'd dropped her shotgun. One of the mercs pointed his rifle at her.

An arrow lanced through the mercenary's throat. He jerked and fell backward.

Inara had Zoë's back, and the veteran shot forward, drawing the knife from her belt. The third mercenary was most of the way through the window when Zoë slammed her left hand into his jaw, hard enough to knock his head back and up, and then jammed her knife into his exposed throat. In the flash from the remaining Talon's firing weapon, she saw the soldier's surprise before she pulled the blade free and shoved him out the window.

The last mercenary must have sensed her, because he spun toward Zoë, rifle leveling at her. She hurled herself at him before he could fire.

He pulled the trigger, but his aim was off from spinning around so suddenly. Pain lanced through Zoë's right forearm, and she jerked, the knife falling from her fingers.

The mercenary spun sideways then, an arrow jamming into his bicep. His eyes widened in shock, and then Zoë body-checked him with her left shoulder, and they both went to the hardwood floor.


"Yep."

"Mm-hm."

The bridge of Serenity was silent, lacking even the thrumming of working engines. The Firefly was quiet and inactive in the docking bay. Kaylee was lying back in the co-pilot's chair, staring at the ceiling, while Wash was seated perfectly still, desperately trying to balance a palm tree on his head.

"Nothing going on," Kaylee whined. "Wish I was with the Cap'n. Or Simon."

"Uh-huh," Wash replied. A second later, the palm tree toppled off his head, and he leapt out of the chair, falling to his knees and letting out a melodramatic cry of anguish.

Kaylee sighed, and went back to being torturously bored.


A trio of mercenaries were sweeping through the east end of the abbey, opposite the side where their compatriots had met River and Jayne. They had already stepped over the corpses of two more priests and a pair of civilians, the former of whom had been armed. They kept constant radio contact with the rest of the team, but the fact that one of the fireteams was no longer reporting was a worrying sign.

Still, they kept to their assignment, which was to clear out this end of the building and provide a flanking position for the rest of the assault force.

They moved into the kitchens, and a gunshot came in close, ripping through the wall next to them. They turned as one well-trained unit, two men shooting the one who'd fired on them – another priest – while the other covered the rest of the room. As the priest fell, there came a sudden yell, a dozen voices, and then men and women rushed into the kitchen from all directions, wielding a number of improvised weapons.

The Talon soldiers opened fire. The first few villagers dropped almost immediately, but the rest piled in. Inside the kitchen, confines were tight and there was no room to maneuver. The mercenaries held down their triggers, and blood flew and bodies fell.

One of the mercs was grabbed from behind, and a knife stabbed wildly at his head and neck. He spun, throwing off the attacker, but was then hit in the temple with an improvised club. He fell, and the villagers fell upon him in turn. Another mercenary tried shooting his way clear and scrambled over a table. Arms grabbed his neck, shoulders, and legs, and he was brought down to the floor.

The last pushed his way free, only to get smashed across the face by Elder Pherson. The merc stumbled sideways, and the village leader scooped up the shotgun dropped by the fallen priest. He leveled it at the man as he stood, and shot him in the chest.

"That was for my goddamn village," he snarled, and shot the mercenary again.

Pherson turned and looked over the survivors from the ambush group. A dozen men and women had rushed into the room, and only five of them were still standing. Two more were badly wounded, one so horrible that it was unlikely he'd live, but they'd won.

They weren't going down without a fight, damn it.


They'd worked their way around the outer buildings of the abbey, and were moving through the gatehouse. No other mercenaries met them, but they'd passed a few bodies, which pissed Jayne off, and made River colder and more upset. They finished the sweep and were about to exit the gatehouse and into the courtyard when River jerked to a halt.

"Wait!" she hissed, grabbing Jayne's arm. If he'd wanted to, he could have kept going and likely dragged her behind him like loose bailing wire, but he came to a halt at the door. They could hear gunfire outside.

"They're about . . . to hurt – no, attack the . . . God-house . . . chapel," she said, words slow and halting. "Zoë and Simon and Inara need help."

"Can't let the others get away, though," Jayne said, and she nodded.

"I'll help Zoë," she said. "Won't see me coming." She paused, eyes unfocused. "Ten left. Eight in the courtyard, two here in the gatehouse, second floor." She frowned. "No, seven." There was an explosion. "No, now six. Five."

"I'll get them two in the gatehouse," he said. "You sneak around the courtyard, hit 'em from behind."

River nodded, clenching her sword, and then punched Jayne in the shoulder lightly.

"Don't be careful," she said, "Be scary and painful."

"Right," he replied, and they split apart, Jayne hurrying upstairs while River slid into the courtyard, keeping to the columns holding up the breezeways.

He pounded up the stairs, Vera at the ready. He knew why the bad guys were up there, and exactly where they would be. After all, Jayne had scouted the area like he'd been wanting to attack this place, and he knew the upstairs of the gatehouse had a couple of rooms with windows that gave perfect firing positions into the courtyard and the outer grounds around the gate.

Both mercenaries were in the storage room that looked into the courtyard. One was firing out the window while the other was covering his back, watching the doorway into the room. He'd heard footsteps approaching, and had probably expected another mercenary to be on the way up.

Jayne didn't let him recover from that error. He burst up the stairs and into the room with Vera at his shoulder, and by the time the Talon mercenary realized Jayne wasn't friendly, Vera had sent two heavy armor-piercing slugs through his chest. The other merc spun toward Jayne, but a shift a half-inch to the left and two more rounds dropped him before he'd turned halfway.

Jayne momentarily debated between whether to cover River from overhead or to deal with the mercs outside. After a second, he hurried to the other room. Girl could handle herself.

Jayne settled in at the window looking out over the grounds, and immediately saw the vehicles the bad guys had used to get there, parked about fifty meters from the gate on the grass. They were a pair of heavy hovering transports, each able to carry maybe a dozen men. There were two drivers, one for each vehicle, and they were standing beside their vehicles, weapons ready. Two more men were further back, standing maybe seventy-five meters from the entrance, carrying long-barreled rifles.

Jayne could guess who took out their sentries.

He debated who to kill. It was a fun little deductive game he played sometimes, figuring out who in a particular group of dangerous folks he'd need to kill first. The drivers could get their vehicles moving, but the snipers might be able to kill him right back.

Jayne grunted, settled in behind Vera's scope, and carefully held his breath. Two targets inside one hundred meters, two more inside fifty. He could get them, no trouble. He inhaled, exhaled, stilled his breath, and went perfectly rigid.

Blam. Blam.

Shift. Acquire targets. Adjust for movement.

Blam. Blam.

Jayne looked out, noted the lack of movement otherwise, and nodded.

Four black-armored figures lay dead in the dirt, and good riddance.


When a man diesor a woman, no need to be sexist – it leaves something.

Not a stain, or any mark that stood and left an impression. Such things were poetic notions left by people who never saw death with empathic eyes.

Death was an ending, but emotion from life hung in the air, abruptly cut off. It was like a song that ended with no warning, or a painting that ended in blankness, or a page of text that cut off mid-sentence.

There should have been something there but there wasn't, and death was always tinged with powerful emotion – anger, pain, terror, sadness, grief, disbelief, an amalgam of all of the above. That ending was a telltale marker, and every death had its own unique flavor of emotion, thought, perceptions, and impressions that all ended at once.

-his name is Willis Gardner. He is a corporal. He is trained in close combat and specializes in shotguns. He had been born on Greenleaf in the township of Randville, had two sisters before he'd left home to join a mercenary group after serving a stint in the militia. The job didn't appeal to him and he planned to leave after they got finished here and go home, and he can feel cold steel and an electric shock run through his neck right as a small, slender hand grips his chin and yanks it back and then he is bleeding and fire flies across his throat and his weapon falls from his hands and what is happening he's dying how is he dying-

When River Tam slit the mercenary's throat and his blood ran out over her forearm, she felt the entire torrent of shock and terror and humanityandpersonal history punching into her. It rolled and twisted over her as she stepped past him, and the weapon stalked along, not caring about the emotion, while the girl simply curled up and tried to keep afloat.

Maybe thirty seconds after she cut his aorta, the emotion cut off.

Blood poured off her fingers, hot and sticky and wet, while her eyes and her mind hunted down the next target.

we have to kill them all

More spots on her hands, more blood on her mind that wouldn't wash away.

The organic killing machine, the living weapon, continued on her way. She wanted to say it was just carrying her along, but it wasn't. Without the code-phrase, the weapon couldn't kill unless she let it kill.

She let it grab the next man by the hair, yank his head back, and bring Laertes across his throat.

-his name is Dortman Hargrove. He is a private. He was born on a different moon of Zeus. He specializes in vehicle maintenance. His mother is dead, his father is-


Bullets ripped into the backside of the mule, deforming and deflecting off the metal. Mal crouched low in the driver's spot while Book fired controlled, individual shots. The Captain was now very, very glad that he'd had the foresight to have Kaylee and Jayne weld armored plating onto the rear of the new mule.

"I count three," Book reported, ducking behind the backseat. He removed the rifle's magazine and checked it. "Down to half, then it's my pistol."

Mal grunted, checking the interior of the mule. He'd left his own rifle in the seat, and he dragged it up. It snagged on the second weapon he'd packed, more for good luck than any practical purpose, and he had to shake to get the strap loose. Book took the weapon as Mal held it up, nodding his thanks.

Mal kept the mule careening along through the rough, mountainous terrain, but he knew he couldn't evade their pursuers for long. The terrain was rocky but relatively flat, and in the direction he was headed – back toward the village, Mal noted – there was nothing but rolling hills studded with boulders for kilometers ahead.

"Stupid, stupid," Mal muttered. "Could have lost them in the canyons, instead we ran this way. Gorram stupid . . . ."

Book fired another pair of measured shots. Return fire was harsh and swift, a dozen bullets slamming into the backside of the mule. Book fired once more, and the incoming shots slackened.

"Two now," the priest reported. "One wounded." He stood up and then immediately dropped.

A heartbeat later, the pursuing transport rammed into the rear of the mule.

Book was pitched forward against the back of the passenger seat, but the old man kept his weapon pointed up in the air so it wouldn't accidentally fire. Mal swerved sideways out of reflex, and the Talon transport cut inside his turn to slam into the left flank of the mule. The driver was nearly neck-and-neck with Mal.

He glanced over, and ducked as the second mercenary in the back of the transport jabbed his shotgun toward the Captain and opened fire. A solid slug from the gun ripped through the point where Mal's head had been and punched through the passenger-side door. The Talon pumped the shotgun to fire another shell, and Mal jammed on the brakes. There was a squeal of metal on metal, and the bulky Talon transport tore out ahead of them.

Mal tore out his pistol, cursing under his breath as the big Talon vehicle whirled toward them, the shooter lining up another shot. He leveled the weapon, and Book rose beside him. Both men opened up, and the mercenary had to dive for cover. The driver, meanwhile, brought the heavy hovercraft around to face the mule, and jammed on the accelerator.

The transport roared up to speed and shot toward Mal and Book, a lumbering yet frighteningly fast battering ram. It was at least three times as heavy as the mule; if it rammed them, Mal knew it would smash them virtually flat. The sensible tactic was to turn and keep running, but Mal knew that would just let the bigger, heavier, and faster mercenary transport catch them again.

Instead, he accelerated straight toward them.

"Keep 'em pinned, preacher!" Mal yelled, and Book fired another couple of shots. He then dropped the spent rifle and pulled up the second one, and resumed firing as the two transports hurtled toward one another. He half-expected Book to say something about how insane this was, but the preacher just kept shooting. The Talon gunner dropped behind the seat, probably bracing himself.

Mal locked eyes with the Talon driver, who was grinning.

"Smile all you want," Mal whispered, and gave the mercenary a jaunty grin of his own. His left hand kept them steady, while his right reached across to the other weapon he'd stowed on the mule.

They careened in closer, and an eyeblink before the two vehicles would collide head-on, Mal swerved to the right. The Talon driver blinked as Mal brought the mule into a close pass, almost near enough to reach out and touch.

Then Mal raised his lucky sledgehammer and pounded the driver's face in.

The Talon transport whipped out of control as the driver's head snapped back, and both of the passengers were flung out of the vehicle. Mal swerved the mule around to a halt, and saw the mercenaries' vehicle flipping over, bodies tumbling along the dirt for a dozen, then two dozen meters. The overturned transport came to a final clattering halt about fifty meters from where they'd passed.

No one stirred, and the rocky badlands were silent save for the heavy breathing from Mal and Book and the whine of the mule's engine.

"You hit, Shepherd?" Mal asked after a moment.

"No," Book whispered, safeing the rifle and setting it aside. He lowered his head and whispered quietly under his breath while Mal put away his sledgehammer.

He waited for Book to finish praying for the dead men, and checked the mule's onboard map. He guessed they were about a kilometer west of the village's remains now. They needed to get back to the abbey. If the mercs were watching the village, they might be canvassing the surrounding area, and the abbey would draw them like flies to a carcass.

Mal looked up and around at the rolling badlands, suddenly feeling a mite paranoid. He watched for anyone else who could be approaching or keeping an eye on them, and saw a tree in the distance. It was an oddity, and caught his attention for a second, especially because he saw something else alongside it, hanging from the boughs.

Mal froze as he realized what he was looking at. He'd spent enough time on the Border and Rim, and he recognized the aftermath of a hanging.

"Shepherd," Mal said, once Book ended his prayer. "I think we may have someone else for you to speak words over."

A hanging on the Rim wasn't anything new, but out here, in these lands, and with what was happening right now, Mal knew it might be too relevant to ignore. They were out here to find clues as to what was going on, after all.

He brought the mule to bear on the distant tree and started toward it.


She punched him in the face, smashing his nose. The mercenary beneath Zoë snarled, and lashed back at her with his right hand, his other pinned by her side. She twisted aside from the blow, but it clipped her shoulder. He was bigger and stronger, and the blow shoved her back and up, just enough to get her weight off his other arm.

The mercenary's left hand shot up, drawing his knife and slashing it at her stomach.

Zoë lurched sideways off the Talon soldier as the knife cut toward her, and her hands lanced out. They caught the merc's arm at the wrist and the middle of his arm.

She twisted and wrenched with all of her strength, and the mercenary's wrist snapped backward. He let out a snarl of agony and the knife clattered to the floor.

Zoë scrambled back up onto her feet away from the mercenary, who was trying to get up himself. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Zoë was impressed by his ability to ignore pain, even as she kicked him in the face. He flopped back to the floor, and she kicked him again for good measure, this time in the temple. He went still, unconscious or dead, she couldn't tell.

Boots hit the floor behind her.

Another mercenary was coming through the window, with a friend right behind him.

Zoë didn't think. She snatched up the knife the last mercenary dropped and powered into the lead Talon soldier. The man's partner was most of the way through the window when an arrow slammed into his thigh, and a burst of gunfire hammered his torso, throwing him to the floor.

The remaining mercenary was expecting the charge and set his feet. When she slammed into him, he skidded backwards and snapped his weapon's butt up into Zoë's face. She ducked enough that the gunbutt just clipped her jaw, but the impact shoved her backward and left Zoë momentarily disoriented. He brought the rifle's stock down again, hammering her shoulder. Her left arm went completely numb, and Zoë dropped down to one knee.

Out the corner of her eye, Zoë saw Katie, curled up behind a pew and eyes wide with terror.

The girl's eyes sent cold rage through her, and gave Zoë a flash of clarity through the pain. She scrambled sideways before the man could kick her or smash her head in, and the knife swept out in a vicious thrust. Zoë buried the blade halfway into the mercenary's knee. He wrenched his leg away, howling and pulling the blade from her fingers.

She didn't give him the chance to recover, and leapt up after him. The mercenary spun back toward Zoë and was slammed off his feet. Her left arm was still numb, so she simply slammed it down onto the mercenary's weapon to keep it pinned while she tried to rip the knife free of his leg.

His head snapped forward, forehead impacting along her neck and collarbone, while his left arm swung up and hit her in the temple. Zoë was knocked sideways, and the mercenary shoved as hard as he could, throwing her off him. He rolled over on top of her, left hand slamming down onto her right shoulder and pinning her down, while he wrestled the assault rifle around to shoot her.

Zoë's fingers fumbled over the knife, slick with blood, and she yanked on the blade. The Talon soldier tensed up in agony, and she returned the favor by headbutting him, this time in the nose. He jerked back, and she wrenched the knife free of his leg. The Talon flopped backward, blood gushing from his leg, and his free arm flailed around to grab a pew.

The Talon started to stand, swinging his rifle toward Zoë as he rose on his good leg, towering over her.

He suddenly jerked, eyes rolling back into his head, and Zoë flung the knife into his neck. It didn't bury into his skin, but it slashed open his neck before tumbling aside. She heard the sound of metal sliding through flesh, and then the Talon soldier fell to the side, a deep blade wound in his back and the smell of charred flesh in the air. His weapon clattered to the floor beside her.

Someone else loomed up behind the mercenary, a long blade in hand. Zoë grabbed the dropped weapon and raised it, fear and anger and rage and that boiling maternal need to keep these children safe overriding reason and sense. She leveled the weapon at the figure towering overhead. Blood dripped and sizzled on the drawn sword.

"Zoë?"

She jerked, recognizing the soft, confused voice, and blinked.

The anger and fear and protectiveness remained, but she pushed it back. Zoe blinked, closed her eyes, and then inhaled. She held the breath for a couple of seconds before releasing it.

As she did so, she heard the quiet and the silence, save sobs and moans of pain. The noise of combat had passed.

She opened her eyes, and saw River standing over her, face dead in the center of Zoë's sights. Worry, confusion, and a fear etched across the girl's features, and she gripped her sword uncertainly.

A heartbeat passed.

Zoë lowered the rifle, shaking her head. Why the hell was she pointing a gun at River?

The weapon clattered to the floor beside her, and she looked back up at the girl. The fear had vanished, replaced by worry, and she was extending a hand toward Zoë. She took it, thanking River quietly for the rescue.

"There anymore?" Zoë asked, to which River shook her head.

"We had to kill them all," she whispered.

Zoë nodded, understanding, and looked across the chapel. Simon and Inara were with the civilians, Inara checking for injuries while Simon hurriedly tended to the wounds of one of the priests. The other lay still beside him, and his face was covered.

She tried to walk over to assist them, but River stopped her and gently guided her to sit in one of the pews. She settled down, hands shaking, her left arm tingling as sensation returned to it. River looked over Zoë once and nodded, evidently satisfied that she wasn't that badly hurt, and drifted away.

Zoë looked down to her stomach and touched it, feeling he child within, a baby that had come so close to being hurt or dying in the battle.

Was it worth risking the child she wanted to have with Wash?

A minute later, as Zoë pondered that question, she felt someone beside her, and looked up. Katie crawled into the pew beside her, and Zoë saw the fear faded, replaced by relief and shock.

She found herself reaching out and hugging the little girl to her side. Katie hugged against Zoë tightly and started quietly crying in relief. The battered veteran looked down at the girl as she hugged her and whispered to her that everything was safe now.


Mal stepped out of the mule, following Book as he approached the hanging corpse, and something struck him as very wrong.

The body was only a couple of days old. It hadn't yet begun to decay like it would have if it had been hanging there long. The dead man was young, maybe mid-twenties, with shaggy, lank hair and a long, weather-beaten coat. He looked uninjured, save for having a bad case of being dead, but Mal saw bloodstains on the coat. But most telling was his hands: they were unbound.

"Suicide," Book whispered. Mal nodded, and stopped to crouch. He thought he saw some tracks around the base of the tree, but they were old and erased by wind. He crouched and moved around the tree. He thought he saw a glint of metal in the brush around the tree's base.

"His hands," Book remarked, circling the corpse, expression sad but thoughtful. "There are defensive wounds on them. Bruises and cuts."

"I know why," Mal added, stepping back around the tree trunk. He held up a long, serrated knife, stained with blood. Book looked at the blade, and sucked in his breath. Even without comparing it, he knew.

The blade matched the wounds they'd seen on Forthill's body.

"Did this fella kill the preacher?" Mal asked.

"Looks an awful lot like it," Book agreed. "Unless someone planted that knife."

"This far out?" Mal asked. "Not likely."

"But the body isn't old," Book said. "Couple of days at most, which would put his death after the village was attacked."

Mal froze, and stared at Book for a moment, a sudden, cold realization running through him.

"Preacher, I think we've been acting stupid since we got here," he murmured. Book frowned.

"Pardon?" he asked.

"Shepherd," Mal said. "Why didn't we ask the folks here why your friend left the abbey in the first place?"

A long moment of silence struck the two men as they realized that.

"No one at the abbey even mentioned Jonathan after we told them why we were there," Book added quietly. He shared a long look with Mal, and the Captain nodded.

"Something is very un-rightful here," he whispered. "We're supposed to be smarter than this."

Book took a quick picture of the corpse, and despite Mal's annoyed misgivings about taking the time to do so, he cut down the dead man. He agreed that they had no time to bury the body, but the mule had some diesel fuel on hand, and a foul-smelling gasoline pyre would do. Book whispered over the dead man's body after Mal had checked the corpse for other clues, then they took the knife, cremated the corpse, and departed.

They didn't say it, but the two men silently agreed that they would keep what they found out here quiet until they knew what was really going on.


In the silence following the battle, Jayne hurried down the stairs to find River walking toward him out of the chapel. Blood splattered her clothes, her sword was still in hand, and she moved with the fluid grace of an athlete after long exercise, all limber motion with a glaze of sweat and heavy breathing.

It was horribly distracting.

The emotion in her eyes told him different, though.

She slid the sword into its sheath as she approached, and it locked in place.

"Everyone okay?" he asked. She nodded.

"Zoë is battered, but alive," she said. "Her baby is safe. Simon and Inara are not hurt." She paused, and pain flickered through her. "Sixteen people we were supposed to protect are dead."

Jayne exhaled, looking away, and tried not to feel bad about that. He failed; thinking of these folks brought back memories of the mudders.

"Damn," he finally whispered. "Any mercs still livin'?"

"One," she said. "Unconscious in the chapel."

Jayne nodded, and cracked his knuckles. She pursed her lips and looked away for a moment, and she suddenly looked horribly vulnerable.

Before he knew what he was doing, he reached out and touched her shoulder, and then his hand moved to her chin and lightly brushed her jaw. She jerked away at the unexpected touch on her face, and stared up at him.

"Uh, you okay?" he asked. She shuddered, met his eyes, and then shook her head.

"Spots," she hissed. "Spots on my arms and in my head." She turned and started to walk away. "Must clean."

He walked after her for a moment, but then stopped, scowling.

Gorrammit, he wasn't her brother or her father or her . . . well, definitely not that, and dammit, he wasn't anyone who should worry himself over her craziness.

Jayne grumbled, straightened his shoulders, and started for the chapel. He had a merc who needed to be trussed up and asked about.


Two hours after the last of the mercenaries were cleared away, Simon had finished treating the wounded and sorting the bodies. He limped across the abbey, leg hurting where it had been battered and stomped in the chaos of the battle. An overwhelming weariness weighed down his limbs,a nd all he wanted was to go to sleep - preferably in a bed with Kaylee.

But he had one last patient to check in on.

He heard the water running in the abbey's showers, and when he entered, the first thing he saw was a pile of bloodstained clothes: one of his button-up shirts, and a pair of Mal's trousers. Laertes sat atop the pile of clothes, sheathed and locked. Simon turned toward the stalls, and saw one of them was open.

River was within.

She was curled up in an upright ball, back to the wall, arms around her knees. Her skin was shriveling in the constant flow of water, and despite the steam, he could see she was shivering. River was still clad in her underwear, as if she was afraid to take them off.

"River?" he asked, stepping up beside the stall. He knew she hated bathrooms and showers, making this even stranger than usual.

She mumbled something, impossible to make out over the hiss of the shower.

Simon looked to the bloodstained clothes, and remembered the last time he'd seen her like this, after she'd killed Ott's crew. He understood, and fetched a towel, before reaching inside the shower to turn the water off.

She looked up at him as the metal squealed and the hot water ceased, still shivering, and nodded. She stood up shakily, took the offered towel, and gave him a small, appreciative smile.

They didn't need to say anything. Simon understood, and her smile thanked him without a word for still being her brother.


Inara was waiting when Mal and Book returned, the mule careening across the badlands and through the abbey grounds. They slowed when they saw the bodies Jayne had left in the field, and when they got out of the mule at the gate, they had their weapons in hand. However, they relaxed when she went out to meet them.

Inara resisted the urge to grab Mal and hug him as tightly as she could.

Mal's questions were worried, but predictable. The crew were okay, she told him. Many of the priests and civilians had been hurt, some killed. They'd seen off the entire Talon force, no escapees.

When Mal finally relaxed, she saw something else behind his expression. When they walked inside, he was looking back and forth, as if suspicious, but he said nothing.

Both Mal and Book had that haunted look in their eyes and that guarded body language. They had seen something out there, something they didn't want to share right now, and they were suspicious of a threat inside the abbey.

She walked with Mal, but didn't pry. He didn't want to talk about that they'd seen, not yet, but she would get it out of him when he was ready.

In the meantime, Inara knew what she would need to do. Mal and Book were suspicious of someone, and she would need to keep an eye out for them, even if hey didn't realize she knew.

But when he looked at her, she caught a glint in his eye, and a tiny bit of a smirk in his features, that told her he knew she knew, and he trusted her to know.

There was something more going on here, that much was clear, and they needed to find out what.


The bodies were removed, and the wounded were gathered in the chapel where they could be watched and tended. The uninjured stayed with them, and as the night wore on, MacCauliffie led a prayer and funeral for the dead. Even the slain Talons were given a proper service. They didn't have space or manpower to bury the dead, so they were left outside, lined up under tarps and blankets.

As the night wore on, everyone settled down to rest, as best they could - except Zoë, who maintained a silent, wary vigil. Her wounds were bandaged and she'd eaten and taken a couple of hours of sleep, but tonight, she remained wide awake as she stood guard over the sleeping children and adults. Candles and lamps light the interior of the chapel with soft orange and yellow light.

She sat in a pew, shotgun in hand, long rifle beside her on the floor, and with Katie sleeping, curled up beside her with her head on her lap. Zoë stroked the girl's hair, shotgun ready, as she waited for the sun to rise over Victoria.


-


Author's Notes: Been a while since I wrote a really action-heavy chapter, and this one took a lot out of me. There wa sa lot of material to cover. One thing I wanted to do that I haven't been able to thus far is show how absolutely deadly Zoe really can be.

Also, this chapter was originally intended to have River running around in Mal's longcoat, but that's just silly. :p

Until next chapter . . . .