Matthew Mitchell Reynolds

This story and all themes and ideas contained in said story are the sole ownership of J.L. Scott. Any copyright infringements can be prosecuted in a court of law.

To borrow a phrase: Firefly no mine...no money, no sue, please?

They all had restless nights. The two married couples found release for their anxieties, but the others were not as lucky. Simon was up all night with a babbling River. Kaylee and Inara spent a long while talking about the plan; Kaylee worrying and Inara trying to soothe her. The Shepherd, of course, was praying. They had all been briefed on their roles and were, mostly, prepared to use them.
They weren't sure the Alliance had accepted their ruse. The station was larger than they had expected, the usual exterior lights cut down so that they could only make out a hint of the shape.
"Make sure the signal's scratchy" Morgan had reminded Wash when they made first contact. Kaylee had done her best to simulate radiation damage and repair, but if the Alliance decided to try too hard, their highly sensitive equipment would probably detect the subterfuge. Morgan was counting on the haphazard laziness of over confidant guards on a secret space station where nothing much out of the ordinary ever happened. The odds that a lost ship would just happen to run into the secret base were extreme, as well, but she was also counting on the guards being fairly average and not really thinking about it. After all, they weren't so terribly off the beaten path.
They were hauled by tractor beam into a docking bay and a team of guards was placed at all exits. As per Morgan's orders, Mal, Jayne, Wash and the Shepherd were the only ones in the cargo bay to meet the team of Alliance dummies that insisted on boarding their ship.
The officer that accompanied them was young faced, good luck for the Serenity team. He had with him six other guards, and probably orders to search the ship.
"Captain Malcolm Renyolds?" the young man asked as their boots pounded over the cargo hold.
"That's me" Mal responded, nodding his head. He was flanked on either side by Wash and Jayne, and Book stood behind them. The team of six fanned out and the officer took a look around.
"Your cargo hold is rather bare, Captain" he said, not offering his name. Well, at least they had the arrogance factor running for them.
"We were on our way to pick up a cargo when we got hit by that radiation storm" Mal replied, glad that he could rattle off a seller or buyer's name, armed with Morgan's intricate lie.
"Our scans revealed 11 bio signatures" the officer told him, an eyebrow raised, awaiting an explanation as if it were some kind of border line law breaking to have 11 people on one's ship. It threw Mal, just a bit. Since when did the Alliance have bio scanners that could scan a ship? But Morgan had him prepared for anything.
"Well, there's me and my two brother here" he replied, careful to sound average and daunted by the 'grandeur' of the Alliance, "There's Wash and me's wives, my two girls, my son-in-law, and the old man here is Wash's father in law. Plus, our Companion, Inara"
"That's only ten" the officer pointed out. Mal had to think quick. Could they have a stow away?

At that moment, the raven decided to swoop over their heads, from one end of the cargo hold to the other, shrieking the whole time. Mal smiled ruefully.
"Must be the bird" he said, "Got stuck in here one day, my wife started feeding it, now it won't leave" The officer gave him a look like his ship was nothing but a barn. Mal had to check himself. Jayne was doing an excellent job of not talking, he could keep himself too. The officer sniffed at him.
"What is it you require, Captain Renyolds?" he asked.
"Well, the radiation storm hit us pretty bad" Mal started, "We got most the repairs done, but our nav board got fried. My daughter built us a new one, but the memory's all gone. Wife can't program it without star charts and the like" The officer rolled his eyes at the stupidity of the situation. Mal couldn't blame him for that. He kept triple redundancies of the nav information himself.
"I see" the officer droned, "Well, if you bring the thing to us, I'm sure we could download the needed information" With a few alterations, Mal thought. This was, after all, a secret base.
"Right. Be much obliged. Jayne, run down, get Molly" Mal order his "brother." Jayne gave him a confused look for a second.
"Molly, right" he said, figuring Morgan would know who he meant and took off to fetch her from the kitchen where the absent crew members were waiting. A few moments of silence passed before Jayne returned, Morgan following with a small chip board in her hand.
"What is that?" the officer asked immediately.
"It's the nave board" Wash replied, "Firefly's are kinda old" The officer rolled his eyes again.
"You had better come along" he said, "I doubt there's anyone here with experience in older ships" He said that scathingly too, as if he didn't much care for the people he was working for either. Another plus on Serenity's side.
"You don't mind if my brother here goes along, do ya?" Mal quickly asked, nodding at Jayne, "Don't like my women-folk off by themselves" The male superiority complex was Morgan's idea too. Alliance officials were rarely female. The officer merely nodded, turned and headed back to the space station. His guards surrounded Jayne and Morgan as they escorted them to a technician's lab.
As it happened, there weren't any technicians familiar with any kind of ship design on the station. The officer was forced to give Morgan limited computer access and then left she and Jayne with a single pair of guards. Once Morgan had even that little bit of access, she was able to hack into the whole system. It only took a moment for her to find her son's holding cells.
"He's not far" she whispered to Jayne, who was standing over her, watching, "There're only two guards. We could go for him now"
"Cap'n wouldn't like that" Jayne whispered back, "Best to stick to the plan. Your plan" Morgan frowned but knew he was right. The guards escorted them back to the ship. Wash reported to the station it would take an hour for the nav board to upload into the ship's memory before they could take off. Mal and Zoë had been waiting. As soon as Jayne and Morgan returned, they gathered their weapons and were ready to go blasting their way in. Morgan shook her head.
"No guns" she told them, "Sensors will pick them up" As the three disarmed, Simon emerged from the infirmary, a half dozen glass bottles in his hands.
"I just finished the last one" he said, handing her the bottles, "You think it'll be enough?"
"I'm hoping we won't have to use any of it" Morgan replied, putting the bottles into a satchel hanging from her shoulder. She caught the look Mal was giving her.
"You never did have any finesse" she told him, "All guns and grenades, messy death. There are better ways"
"What is all that stuff?" Jayne asked. Morgan smiled, almost sadistically.
"Cupcakes"

Their first challenge was getting into the station undetected. After Jayne had knocked the guards out, Morgan removed a section of paneling and went to work playing with the wires.
"What're you doing?" Mal hissed.
"Rerouting the power to the sensor net" she replied, "So there's a 30 second delay" She straightened up and replaced the panel, "That gives us 30 seconds to get through each grid" She didn't mention that getting out again would be a different story.
"Where'd you learn to do that?" Mal asked, surprised at yet another hidden talent.
"My grandfather McGyver taught me" Morgan answered.
"Weird name" Jayne commented. Morgan didn't reply. They waited four more seconds for the delay to take effect, then started running. For the first five grids, the halls were empty. That part of the station wasn't used often. In the sixth grid there were two technicians, doctors, walking towards them. Mal tensed, but Morgan walked right by them and they didn't blink.
The seventh grid held a security complex. The cells lay just beyond it. They took up posts outside the only door, two on each side.
"Jayne!" Morgan whispered, "How's your aim?"
"I ain't got a gun" Jayne reminded her.

"I meant your throwing arm. Mine sucks" She reached into her bag and pulled out one of those bottles and handed it to him, "This needs to get to about the middle of the room" Jayne looked at the thing for a moment, then stepped into the doorway and hurled it. There was time for one guard's cry of "Hey!" before the sound of bodies falling to the ground. Morgan held them back for a few seconds more before they entered. Zoë, Mal and Jayne surveyed the dozing guards.

"That was some cupcake, sir" Zoë said appreciatively. Morgan was already at a computer, unlocking the main cell door. Each cell would have it's own individual lock as well. Jayne was left behind to guard the guards while Mal, Morgan and Zoë went on. It was basically a long hallway. The cells were only about five feet wide each, with clear, plasma-plastic doors, and monitors above them.

"There are other children here" Zoë said as they hurried toward Matthew's cell. It was the fifth on the left.

"Mommy!" he shouted, scurrying from the corner he'd been huddled into the door. He was just as Morgan had described him, a spitting image of Malcolm. Tallish, but wiry, with shaggy brown hair and brown eyes, he even had his father's nose.

"Matthew!" Morgan shouted back, a hand on the glass, "Are you okay?"

"Yes" the boy replied, "I couldn't get away, there were too many guards and....Dad?" The little boy's eyes fixated upwards. Mal didn't know what to say exactly. "Is it really you?"

"Yeah" Mal replied, "It's really me. Hey, you're Aunt Zoe's here too" Mal pulled his friend into the boy's view She smiled, maybe a little nervously. Neither was used to children.

"Hi, Matthew" she said. The boy just stared up at them, heroes in his eyes.

"I told you they'd find us someday" Morgan said, "Now move away from the glass, honey" She pulled another bottle from her satchel and carefully unscrewed it. Mal and Zoë kept turning their heads this way and that, making sure no one was coming. Morgan sprayed the glass and there was an acrid smell as the chemical melted the plasma plastic, leaving a hole big enough for Matthew to climb through.

"Don't touch the edges" his mother warned as he emerged. "We need to get out of here" Malcolm said. There was no time for a joyous reunion now. Morgan lifted the boy to her hip and they quickly made their way back t the end of the hall.

"What about the others?" Zoë asked before they left. Morgan glanced back. She had already checked their monitors.

"Leave them" she said, "They're already gone"

"Where the helluv you been?" Jayne demanded when they reentered the security complex. He had one of the guard's gun in his hand.

"Matthew, this is Jayne" Mal introduced them, grabbing a couple more guns, "Jayne, this is my son" Jayne actually bothered to no at the boy, still in his mother's arms.

"So are getting out of here or not?" he then demanded.

"Ah, well, that poses a bit more of problem" Morgan replied. Malcolm rounded, but before he could say a thing, the sound of someone approaching stopped him. There were only two, so the first had 2 bullet holes in his head when he fell.

"Well" Morgan said, "There went our cover" Nobody replied as they hurried past the blue handed corpses and into the corridor. There were alarms going off and doors opening all down the corridor, white coated technicians poking their noses out. Guards erupted from a door two grids in front of them, blocking their escape. "Mal!" Morgan tossed her husband one of her bottles and he threw it. Instead of knocking the guards out, though, this one exploded. It was a small explosion, just enough to burn a few guards and throw the rest off. Mal, Zoë and Jayne let a rain bullets fly as the Serenity team rushed through the disoriented men. Running as fast as they cold, it was taking less than 30 seconds to get through each grid. They still had 2 more to go when one of the guards behind them got himself straightened out and fired.

"Ahh!"

"Morgan!" Mal had to run back to her. She was kneeling, Matthew had slipped to the floor. She pushed him towards his father.

"Take him" she ordered, "Go"

"I'm not leaving you" Mal told her, kneeling beside her. She rolled her eyes at him, but she was breathing hard.

"I wasn't offering to stay behind, Mal" she grunted.
"Sir!" Zoë yelled. She and Jayne had cleared a path to Serenity. Malcolm scooped his son up into his arms while Morgan used the wall to hoist herself back to her feet. She left a bloody print.
Zoë and Jayne led the way, Malcolm trying to protect Matthew with his own body. It was amazing how precious the small body felt in his arms.
"Mommy!" They were on Serenity's ramp, and the boy was struggling. Mal turned back. Morgan had stopped and was doing something in that open panel.
"Mal!" Inara was holding her arms out. He handed Matthew over and only barely heard her say,
"My name's Inara. I'm a friend of your mother's" as he bounded back across the bay to Morgan.
"What the hell are you doing?" he demanded.
"Have to...disable the tractor beam...or we'll never...get out of here" she replied. There was blood trickling from her mouth and her hands were shaking, she could barely stand. Suddenly, the lights went off and a computer voice said:
"Emergency systems engaged"
"That'll do" Morgan said. She took two steps and tumbled. Mal pulled her up and swung her legs over his arm. Zoë and Jayne covered him until the ramp pulled up behind him. He could feel the ship lift and left the escaping to Wash.
"Mommy!" Matthew shouted when he saw her laid out on the Doc's bed. Kaylee, River and the Shepherd had all come down too, and were now just staring.
"Just hold on, Sir" Zoë said, "Just hold on...."