Title: The Boomerang Effect
Series: Bad Blood
Pairing: It's going to have a bit of all the canon, plus Rayne!
Rating: R (for Jayne torture)
Disclaimer: Let's just say my ego got a big boost if you think I'm good enough to have created 'em.
Author's Notes: I have a longer one at the end, read it if you feel the need. Oh yeah it's like 7,300 some odd words.
Important Note: If you didn't see me mention it on the last part cut off the very end of the last chapter. If you didn't read the part where Jayne blacks out go back and read the last few paragraphs. If you don't you are going to be all kinds of confused on this part.
Thanks as always goes to mik109 for being the best bridge maker ever, really that scene wouldn't be half as good as it is without you.
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His eyes slid open slowly, and he was greeted with the hazy sight of a large wall. Briefly he wondered how much he really did drink the night before; he had all the symptoms of his usual 'too much fun' type of night. His head was throbbing, and his whole body ached. It wasn't until he really looked at the wall next to him that he realized that he wasn't in the cozy bed of some whore, though that conclusion might have been made because of the cold hard floor he was sprawled out on more then the grimy wall.
Jayne looked around to discover he was cuffed and chained in an all too small room. The chains were attached to some kind of pulley system that ran up the ceiling as far as he could tell, and the room smelt a lot like that bar he had been in the day before.
It took him a few minutes to remember what had happened, but remember he did. Granted said memory was all kinds of fuzzy and didn't make a lick of sense. The girl'd been changin' after wakin' him up from a nice peaceful sleep, sayin' somethin' about him bein' found an' the next thing he knew everything had gone dark.
The grating of a large and heavy metal door opening snapped Jayne out of his thoughts. 'Bout damn time, he'd be able to figure out what'd happened. He rolled over and sat up, unable to stand mostly due to the lack of feeling in his lower half, which if he was being honest didn't bode too well for him.
"Jayne Cobb…you know I've spent a lot of time looking for you."
And all Jayne could think as he took in those words, and stared up into his captor's eyes, was that this boded even worse for him. "Wo shi yao si."
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Mal stormed down the hallway towards the mess, his mind set on finding his Doctor and getting things smoothed out. He might not like the way that last conversation went, but that didn't mean they didn't need the Doc's brain to help 'em fix their ship.
Mal found him standing in the doorway leading down into the cargo bay. He thought for a moment it was due to the lack of light in said cargo bay, but then again if Simon had really planned on makin' his way to the nether regions of the ship he woulda taken some form of light with him. That was his way after all, all logical and the like.
"Doctor."
"Don't ask me to be okay with what is going on, Captain." Simon stated coldly, still staring into the dark cargo bay. "Because no matter how many times you ask me to be," he turned to stare at the man behind him. "I won't be. I can't be."
"I got no qualms about that, Doc. You go ahead and keep on being not okay about it, but you help out while you keep bein' not okay." Mal answered, walking over to stand in the doorway along side him. "I got a ship needs serious work done on her, an' the sooner that gets done the sooner we go back to Harvest to pick up our wayward travelers."
Simon nodded dejectedly and turned to look back into the dark cargo bay.
"Jayne's a big, semi intelligent man an' he knows he ain't gettin' back on here without our little pilot. They're fine." Mal stated with a nonchalant shrug and lopsided grin.
"I hope you're right."
Mal nodded again, giving up on his original plan of cheering up his brilliant surgeon crewmember. Granted the whole point of that plan was created for the sole purpose of getting the doc to help Zoe fix the engine so he could watch from afar while he did his captainly things. He preferred to be kept busy doing the overabundance of nothing that was available without much of the ship's power on, or systems working for that matter because that was properly captainly.
"So…" Mal began in an attempt to end the semi-uncomfortable silence that had fallen between the two. "…I'm glad we had this talk." With that said, he shoved Simon up the hallway back toward the engine room.
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"Well, Jayne, I gotta say, this is a day I've been waiting a long time for."
"I'm sure you have." Jayne shot back, rolling his hands and wrists in their cuffs. Oh, hell, he was screwed. He was chained up in a room only god knows where at the foot of a man he'd stolen from. "You're a long way from your moon, Higgins. Can't be just for me…though if it is, I feel real special, might actually blush."
Jayne looked around the room and noticed neither hide nor hair of River. That meant that either she'd gotten away from them when they'd hit him or she was in a different room havin' who knows what done to her. Either way mentioning her would probably get her a whole lot more dead than just ignoring her.
"You should." Higgins shot back, the subtle amusement that had colored his voice only moments before completely gone. "Though I suppose you're right, it isn't just for you. You see, Cobb, you're one hell of a thorn in my side. Have been ever since you landed on my moon, and it would seem as though you've just gone and gotten yourself so screwed that there's not a hope in the 'Verse for you."
"What the hell does that mean? I ain't been on your crappy moon since you set Stitch Hessian on me that last time."
"Oh, yes, him. Colorful reunion as I heard it." Higgins gave Jayne a smile that made his skin itch just a little more than it had since the man'd walked into the room. "But be there or not, seems you just can't help but be an inspiration for those hwoon dans on my moon, Cobb."
Higgins walked over to a tall wooden table set up along the wall of the room. "Even after they found out there great "Hero of Canton" was really just a back stabbing son of a bitch that was only tryin' to save his own ass, they still adore you." Higgins shook his head and stopped toying with the metal laid out on the table next to him and turned back to Jayne.
"Now, what was it they said about you? Oh, yes, you taught them a lesson in life that if you want something you can't just wait for it to be given to you." He flashed another grin in Jayne's direction that caused the merc to flinch just a little. "Yeah, they told me that as they booted me off of my own gorram moon. You've been nothing but trouble to me Cobb, and now I've finally got you...I've been dreaming of this for a long time now."
Jayne weren't the type of man to scare easy, and he never would admit it even if it were the truth. So to say that he was scared out of his mind would be a lie, but to say Jayne was very deeply worried for his own safety would be correct and true.
The man that had spent the whole time standing a few feet behind Higgins looked between the pair in front of him. "Uh, sir…"
"What?" Higgins barked out, head snapping to the side so he could look at Mick.
"You told me to remind you to ask him about the other one."
"Oh, yes, how could I forget." Higgins turned to again look at Jayne. "I have to say, I find it odd that you'd be traveling with a woman."
"What woman?"
"The cute one." Mick added with a leer at what Jayne hoped was the mental image of someone not in the room.
"Skinny little thing, brown hair, big eye's. Mick's not wrong, she's damned cute, Cobb."
Jayne was facin' a dilemma, well another dilemma outside of the one where he was gonna get tortured to death. If'n they though the girl meant anything to him, they'd do all kinds of things to her to get at him. Then again, if they thought she was just some girl he'd picked up, they might not want a witness around so they would do whatever they wanted with her and then get rid of the body. Either way the girl was screwed, and he had no way to help her.
"I ain't travelin' with her."
"Like hell you ain't!"
Higgins held up his hand to quiet the man standing next to him. "See now, I don't believe you. My man here swears he saw you and her take on a whole gang of men at a local bar just yesterday."
"Now you're just talkin' crazy." Jayne scoffed, "What in the hell would a woman be doin' travelin' 'round with me let alone takin' out a bar full of men?"
"I'll figure out who she is, Cobb, and why she's with you. You can count on that." Higgins growled out angrily. "In fact, I think we should get started on that now. Do you know what the great thing about torturing a man until he squeals like a stuck pig for no reason other then revenge is, Cobb?" Higgins asked as he moved back over to the table. "It's the fact that you can't end it. There is nothing you can say to make me stop." He stated with another sickening smile
"You best kill me now, because torturing a man is just asking for him to find and kill you later."
"What makes you think you'll have a later?"
Jayne smirked. "'Cause I'm the good guy, an' there's always a later for the good guy."
Higgins laughed unpleasantly. "Think you've had too much of that Mudder's milk, Cobb. You've never been the good guy. No matter what my workers think, you don't have it in you."
Jayne's smirk never wavered. "Ain't seen me in a while, Higgins. 'Verse changes."
"No power in the 'verse could change you that much, Cobb. You are an incompetent thief and a backstabber. Nothing can change that."
Jayne sneered. He might not be quite a good guy yet, but he couldn't shake the image of the girl's face when she looked to him to save her. No one else knew where they were so he was going to have to be the one to rescue her this time, and rescuing the damsel in distress always made a man a good guy, even if only temporarily.
Righteously believing he had won the argument, Higgins nodded grimly before turning back to Mick. "Don't mess up his face. I want to be able to tell who it is when you're done." Higgins said over his shoulder to the man standing behind him as he stared down at Jayne.
"Why the hell would you want that?"
"Those fools love you, Cobb. You gave 'em hope, heart, the courage to use what few brains they've got. I figure if I go back to my moon with your mangled corpse it'll prove my point more than enough." Higgins said stalking back over to stand near the merc.
"Oh, yeah, and what point is that?" Jayne asked, his mind still on the mental image of his mangled corpse going anywhere anytime soon.
"No one takes anything from me…ever. Not my money, not my son, and sure as hell not my own gorram moon."
Jayne fought back the urge to laugh at the unfairness of his current situation. "In case you didn't know it, but I didn't take any of that…" Yeah sure he had tried, but that ain't the point. "I don't have your money. I don't have your ruttin' moon, and I sure as shit didn't take your son. Hell, I didn't even know you had one."
"No, but that fancy whore of yours did."
"My…" Jayne racked his brain; he was positive he didn't know any whores from Higgins moon. At least, he was mostly positive he didn't know any whores from Higgins moon. "Who?"
"That companion of yours. She tricked him, made him turn against me… me! His own father… and all for your worthless ass."
"Hell, she ain't mine, you dai mu niu yin jing." Jayne shouted back, Higgins would be blaming him for the end of Earth-that-was at the rate they were going, and it was beginning to make him antsy.
"Ah, Jayne, your attitude is one of the things I always hated about you. We'll have to see if we can fix that." Higgins stopped his rant and glared down at the mercenary. "I have nothing now, Cobb. All thanks to you and yours. I am going to be miserable for the rest of my life so I might as well get something out of it. I'll be able to look back at everything, and smile because you're dead. So remember, whatever happens to you in here, you deserve it."
Higgins took a moment to pause and just glare at the man that had ruined his life.
"Anything you have to say?" he asked his cold eyes boring down into Jayne.
"Fuck you," Jayne spat out at the smaller man.
Higgins eyes filled with fire, and he hauled back and punched Jayne. His head jerked to the other side as Higgins' fist connected.
Jayne slowly turned back to Higgins with a smirk. "You punch like a girl." Jayne figured it must've been from the lack of doing anything; bound to make a guy completely useless on his own. That and it would piss him off to say it. Hey, if he's getting blamed for every wrong in the man's life, he might as well get a few good insults in before he has his tongue cut off or vocal cords ripped out or whatever.
Higgins eyes went from burning with fire to completely cold and lifeless in no time flat.
He lashed out, kicking Jayne in the side over and over again until he fell over.
"I am going to kill you, you miserable piece of shit."
"The hell you are." Jayne choked out as he did one hell of a job of ignoring the burning in his side. He rolled over and off his side so he could glare up at Higgins. "You're going to do what you always do, run off and let someone else do the work for you."
Jayne pushed himself up into a kneeling position; arms cuffed in front of him, and grinned at Higgins. "If anyone's gonna kill me, it's gonna be him." He nodded his head towards the other man in the room. "It was never gonna be you."
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The gentle hum of an engine echoed under her cheek as she tried to open her eyes. The first thing that met them, once she had forced them open, was the metal wall she had been laid next too.
River lay, sprawled out, in the middle of a small room that shared far too many features with the storage locker she had become a regular inhabitant of on Serenity only a few months before. It wouldn't have been a surprise to know that it was actually just a storage locker on another ship if she was being honest.
She moaned softly as she tried to move, every muscle arguing with her as she did so.
"Hey…hey Sammus!" Jonus shouted over to his friend, who was currently sitting at a large table cleaning out his gun. "I think them drugs are wearin' off."
"Yeah?" Sammus laid his gun down and walked over to look through the window into the storage locker River was tied up in.
"Yeah, she's movin'." Jonus stated, eyes never leaving River.
"Move over!" Gunther pushed in next to Sammus blocking the window to anyone else's view. "She's real cute…"
"You ain't to touch her, Gunther. Higgins said ta keep our hands to ourselves and I aim to do so, less'n you don't wanna get paid as much as you wanna get dead."
"That ain't no fun." Gunther moped, moving away from the window and over to where Sammus had been cleaning his guns. He plopped himself down in the chair his cohort had recently been using and picked Jayne's gun up off of the table top. "What's the use in catchin' a cute little thing like that if'n we don't getta have any fun with her?"
Gunther rolled the gun around in his hands, checking over every last customized feature. "Hey, that guy we tracked down's got good taste. This gun is a beauty."
"I swear I seen her before." Jonus said, choosing to ignore his friend's current infatuation with their prisoner's weapon.
"Shut it."
Jonus leaned over to his companion, ignoring his demands entirely, eyes never leaving River's slight frame. "I swear it Sammus, I seen her before…somewhere."
"Would you shut up Jonus?" Sammus snapped back at him, turning to glare at the shorter man next to him. "I doubt you ever did see 'er before."
"Hell, yes, I have!" Jonus shot back turning to glare as well. "I'd never forget a girl looks like that..." He continued gesturing towards the door.
"Ya know, when ya bring it up she does look kinda familiar." Gunther offered as he looked up from his current task of dismantling Jayne's gun.
"Thank you!" Jonus turned back to stare into the room that held the girl in question.
"What's your name, sweetheart?" He shouted so she could hear him on the other side, through several inches of metal and glass that made up the door.
"She's probably just a whore!"
"Di yu ta shi!"
"Jonus' right Sammus," Gunther jumped in before the two men could start arguing again.
"You tellin' me you wouldn't remember seein' a whore looks like her?" He shook his head and waved his cleaning rag around wildly. "We been on that crappy farmin' planet for 'round a month and ain't a one of us' seen her walkin' about."
Sammus stared at the two men and shook his head. "It's a pretty big planet."
"It ain't that big."
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Simon had that lost, vacant look in his eyes and, if a person didn't know him well enough to know that he would never cry under the current circumstances, he looked to be near tears.
"Simon, it's going to be okay. Just…try again."
"Kaylee… I… I'm going to kill the ship. It's not even alive, but I'll find a way to kill it if I try again." He was still shaken up by her anguished cry when he had reached forward to remove the part he had thought she was talking about only to discover that what he had tried to do would have completely frozen the engine.
Kaylee sighed quietly and stared forlornly through the viewing screen to see her xiu dai trying to put her boa bei back together, and it was driving her nuts. She could hardly handle listening to Simon try to describe what parts of the engine were broken in the first place, let alone watch him try to hook up all of the pieces an' parts to get it fixed.
"Okay, now you see that? That's the grav boot. You hit that 'r fry it 'r anything you'll be bouncin' off the walls, and ya ain't gonna get a thing done."
"Right, so, no touching that." Simon nodded to himself.
"Right behind that's the main igniter switch."
"The main what?" Simon turned to stare confusedly into the Cortex view screen. "Who would put an ignition switch next to something as important as the artificial gravitation…"
"SIMON! Relax, you're 'bout to drive me around the bin, and I ain't even there. Hate to think what Zoe's thinkin'…Just relax, you're doing fine."
"No, I'm not… nothing about this day is even remotely fine." He slid down the wall of the engine room and rested his head in his hands. He was used to being a help in a crisis, but mechanical things were simply not his forte. He had never respected Kaylee more than he did at this very moment. "We've been doing this for over an hour, and I'm pretty sure I've just made it worse."
"Jayne didn't complain this much when I had to make him fix the mule."
"What?" Simon's head shot up at the sound of Zoe's voice from the doorway to the engine room. "Jayne? Jayne Jayne? He can fix things?"
"Yeah, and he don't complain half as much as you do." Zoe said as she walked over to stand in front of the view screen. "I got those wires Kaylee."
"Good, you'll need to use those to patch up that bunch of cables we talked about."
Zoe nodded as she crouched down next to the engine. She placed the cables on the floor between herself and Simon. "Start pullin' out all the burnt cables. They're gonna need to be replaced."
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Inara quietly shut the door behind her as she left Kaylee to help the others. After all, there was little she could do to help them without actually being on the ship. Inara began to walk down the large hallway that she had been led through to get to her room from the main hall.
"Inara." Lyssa called out, coming up behind the companion. "Out for a late night stroll?"
"Kaylee's busy directing the others in the finer ways of engine mechanics. There's little I can do to help fix the ship from here so I decided to leave her to her work." Inara answered with a gentle smile.
"It's better to leave the genius to her work than risk disrupting her right?"
"Exactly." Inara grinned as Lyssa came up beside her. "Lyssa, it really has been too long." She said, taking in the sight of her old friend.
"Yes, it has." Lyssa answered with a soft smile. Inara remembered that smile from years ago. It alone could help one feel completely safe and wanted. It could turn a whole world upside down or at the very least one's stomach. It was her gift; each companion had one, an act or expression that made them so valuable to the Guild and as Companions.
"You look as beautiful now as you did back then of course." Lyssa continued.
"You as well."
Lyssa turned and began to walk down one of the large hallways that made up the majority of the training house, Inara in step next to her. "One must keep up appearances, especially during these times."
Inara gave her a small puzzled look at the accusing tone of her voice. "What do you mean?"
"These are difficult times, Inara," Lyssa stopped walking and turned to her old friend, concern written plainly across her pale features. "Are you sure you should be holed up on some old, run down ship at the edge of civilized space?"
"Serenity is not rundown, nor is it old."
"No, comparatively speaking it's not, but that doesn't change the truth of the matter. They've stated so themselves; they want you back as you were before all of…well, everything."
Inara's shoulders tensed at the mention of the Guild. "Yes, but I can't forget everything as easily as they can."
"It would be best for all involved if you tried."
Inara suppressed the ever growing urge to groan loudly and throw her hands up in defeat. After all, she was with a very old friend, one which she would loath to loose her composure around. Instead she turned and walked, ever so gracefully, over to one of the large open windows that looked out over part of the gardens; they really did look ethereal as the rain gently began to fade into a light mist.
"Even if I could, Lyssa, I love Serenity." She tried to explain away the conversation. This was the last thing she had expected, let alone wanted, to be discussing in the middle of a hallway on the planet she was stranded on.
"Are you sure it's the ship you love?"
Inara spun around, shocked and scandalized at the accusation. "What, exactly, are you implying by that?"
Lyssa sighed quietly; something Inara had never seen her do. "Nothing, Inara, just be wary." The other companion said as she walked over to stand next to the window as well. "The Guild is being forced to move backwards thanks to all of this Miranda business." She fixed her eyes outside, noting the subtle tensing of Inara next to her at the mention of the planet that had held so many secrets from everyone, or perhaps it was the mentioning of the Guild by someone that knew of her history with them.
"They strove to expand our houses to every planet in the Universe and now they are being cut off from half of them…it's times like these Inara when women of your stature are needed most. If they want you to come back, they have ways of making you."
"Is that a…"
"Threat?" Lyssa cut her off. "No, it's simply a warning amongst friends. They know you are here Inara, and I fear the worse. This will not end well for anyone if sacrifices aren't made on everyone's part."
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The manacles around his wrists were cutting into his flesh, the dull edges of the rusted metal biting into him bringing stinging stabs of pain whenever he tried to move, and move he did. With each slap of wet leather against his even wetter back, Jayne jerked forward.
He hadn't yelled for a long time, an' he was more then a little proud at that, but there were just some things you couldn't not scream over. The worst of it was the fact that he knew they were just getting started.
Higgins had meant it when he said mangled corpse. There weren't gonna be a soul in the 'Verse that could tell you the body Higgins was brining back to his moon was that of Jayne Cobb, except for the fact that Higgins had kept his word an' his face had barely been touched.
The whip screamed down, plunging into his soft, and bleeding, back. He yelped, and tried to lean away. Telling himself for the millionth time to not to show his feelings, which was getting harder with every stroke. He clenched his teeth and blinked away his tears. Then the lash fell again, and again. Ribbons of skin trailed, and scraps of muscle hung raggedly in the tattered mess of blood that had become his back.
And he was screaming.
Jayne couldn't help it. Every jarring stroke tore another agonized cry from his burning body, each new contact hammered into his consciousness, until all that he could be sure of was that he hurt and that the man behind him was going to keep beating that fact into him until he was dead.
His vision blurred in a wash of red, and he was pretty damn positive he didn't want to know what exactly was causing the red either. Through the haze he could see the man that so desperately wanted him dead, or tortured to death more correctly. He'd expected Higgins would be laughing maniacally, shoulders heaving as he watched him suffering with glee, but he wasn't.
Higgins stood unmoving near the table at the side of the room with the same grim face that he had worn since Mick had started, and the lack of change in his expression was almost as maddening as the few seconds he had to wait between each slap of the whip.
With a small jerk of Higgins' head the whip stopped. Jayne panted heavily and leaned forward, putting his entire weight on his chained arms, stinging be damned, thankful for the small fact that he was still kneeling instead of standing.
"Who's the girl, Cobb?"
Jayne wanted to cry, or laugh he wasn't exactly sure which. He wanted to tell him, even if only briefly, and that meant Higgins had been right earlier. There ain't a power in the 'Verse that can change a man like him.
Higgins stepped forward, his face changing for the first time since the torturing began. "Cobb, I'm not asking again." He said evenly as he squatted in front of Jayne. "Who's the girl?"
He had to force the air to enter his lungs, and blink away the would be tears from his eyes. He might be beaten and bloody, but there weren't no way in hell this Chou wang ba dan was gonna see him tear up, even if it was only from the pain.
"Chi shi."
Higgins nodded before standing angrily. "Do whatever you want with him. I'm done here."
Mick gave Higgins a curt nod as he left the room. "Just you and me now, buddy." Mick said with a sick smile as he took a firm hold on the chains that held Jayne where he was. "Let's get this going."
Mick pulled down hard. The pulleys the chains were attached to squeaked as Jayne was slowly pulled to his feet. With a deep groan of pain, Jayne's body was pulled up farther away from the floor so he could only hang listlessly by his arms.
Jayne's entire body was tensed, awaiting the next blow, while his mind tried to figure out exactly what the next blow would be. The silence that had filled the room was almost as maddening as the wait for what would be next, maybe even more so then the wait.
Being a man piled high with strong self preservation instincts, he found it odd that the first thing that came to his mind as he waited, other than what fun dear ol' Mick had in store for him, was the girl, or more correctly, what they were doin' to her. Weren't exactly like he had an over abundance of chances to get away, not that he'd be able to do all that much rescuing in his current condition, but he couldn't shake the feeling like he oughta be doin' something to save her. After all, it was his turn.
The cold water hit him in the gut harder than any fist the ji wang ba dan had thrown at him yet. His entire body clenched as the cold water stung his heated skin and mixed with the blood in his back causing it to burn even more, which frankly speaking would have seemed like an impossibility to Jayne only the moment before.
"Water is an excellent conductor of electricity." Mick said in an eerily calm voice. One that reminded Jayne all too much of the Operative and his detached view of the death he was wreaking around him.
Jayne glared forward at the man grinning in front of him and promised himself that, if he got out of this, he would be killing him in the most painful way possible, him and his boss. It was just after he finished that thought that he noticed the wire sparking in Mick's hand.
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"I heard he tortured a fella by lettin' a goat lick the meat offa the man's feet once."
"A goat?"
Gunther nodded solemnly. "Goat tongue torture."
"There ain't no such thing." Jonus shot back, obviously unsettled by the metal image that Gunther had been painting.
"Sure there is, don't you know anything about torturin' a man? You start with their feet, furthest body part away from anything vital." Gunther nodded and looked back down to the gun that laid in pieces on the table in front of him. "You put the pain on 'em hard and fast down there, and you get days outta 'em."
"That Mick guy freaks me out. How can someone get their jollies offa torturin' a man to death?" Sammus shook his head, obvious disgust written on his features. "I'd rather just shoot 'em and have it done with."
"You won't get a lot of info outta a dead guy." Gunther noted, pointing an accusatory cleaning rag at Sammus.
"Won't get a guy I done wrong comin' after me if'n something bad happens though. Shootin' a guy is instant. BAM!" Sammus hit his hand down on the table to emphasize the sound, as well as his point. "They're dead." He shook his head again. "Torturing takes time, lots of time. Time that can lead to a rescue, or an escape, or all manner of bad things."
Another tortured scream echoed around the room, sending all of the men into instant silence.
"How long they been goin' at it?"
"Couple'a hours."
"When'd he start screamin'?"
"An hour or so into it." Sammus stated with a queasy and unsettled look on his face as he continued to stare down the hallway that lead to the room where the screaming was coming from. "Why?" When no answer came Sammus turned to stare at Jonus, who wore a similar expression. "Why Jonus?"
Jonus jumped slightly at the sound of another scream ripping through the hall. "I'm goin' to the bridge."
"What's his problem?" Gunther asked, eyes never leaving the parts of the gun he was cleaning.
"Hell if I know, maybe it's got something to do with a man gettin' tortured to death down the hall?" Sammus answered with a disgusted sneer. He shook his head in revulsion, and kicked Gunther under the table.
"Ow! Damn, what was that for?"
"Dumbass."
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River sat in the small storage locker straight and stiff. Her back was against the wall just out of sight from the window in the door. She hugged her knees up to her chest and breathed in deeply, fighting back the tears that were threatening to fall.
"44." She said quietly before she began to rock back and forth. She hummed softly until the sound of another tortured scream slid through the walls.
"45." She choked out. "29.46 divided by 45 is .65 times a minute." She muttered to herself as she continued to rock. "269.46 divided by 389 is .69 times a minute."
She took a long shuddering breath as she let her arms fall to her sides. Another scream broke through the silence. She wrapped her arms around her head in a futile attempt to block out the sound. "Oh, God, Jayne."
As another scream ripped through the walls, River's shoulders heaved, and she began to cry.
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Jonus slumped down in the pilot's chair as he stared out into the black. He spun around to stare at the door to the bridge as another scream hit him. He took a deep shaky breath as the sound faded away.
"Enough of this." He mumbled to himself as he spun his chair back around to face the console. He switched on the cortex screen and began flipping through the channels in a pointless attempt to find something worthwhile. "Over 500 dai channels and there ain't a thing on."
He stopped flipping through the channels and leaned back in his chair. Jonus growled deeply as he tried to rub some of the tension out of his neck. His eyes slid shut as the man on the screen went on about the apprehension of two groups of warring farmers on Harvest yesterday.
That's when it hit him. His eyes flew open, and he sat up straight as he pushed his seat closer to the console. Jonus began punching in a code to the Cortex.
The screen went black for a moment before a picture flickered to life. The picture was soon replaced by another, and another. The images continued to flicker across the screen until the one he had been looking for appeared.
"Niu zai ai shan yang nong fu!"
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"I ruttin' told you I'd seen her before!" Jonus announced proudly as he slapped a Cortex printout onto the table in front of his partners. "When I broke into those police systems on Harvest you remember, when I checked that bar brawl vid to make sure it was, Cobb? First thing that pops up on the system is the current wanted, startin' with the most dangerous an'…"
"An' the most expensive!" Gunther cut in staring down at the wanted poster Jonus had printed out. "Didya see how much their offerin' for her? Oh, River Tam, baby I love you…"
"What's she wanted for?" Sammus asked trying to catch a peek at the wanted poster Gunther was closely studying.
"Who cares?" Gunther asked dropping the poster back to the table. "Girl's worth over twice what Higgins was offerin' for Cobb."
"You're shittin' me."
Gunther pushed the poster over to Sammus with a wicked leer. "I ain't."
"I say we call up whoever wants her an' tell 'em where to meet us once we land." Jonus said excitedly.
"Higgins said we ain't to touch her."
"Sammus!" Gunther barked angrily. "Twice as much…" he complained in a whiny voice both of the other men could live with never hearing again.
"He was the biggest bounty we ever come by Sammus." Jonus joined in on the whining, if they couldn't convince him to turn the girl in maybe the two of 'em could annoy him into agreeing. "You can't seriously mean for us to just ignore…"
"I mean for us to do what we're gettin' paid for." Sammus stated standing up from the table angrily. "You two'd be best off doin' the same."
With that Sammus stomped out of the mess and down towards the passenger rooms.
The ship wasn't all that big, room enough for six men to live comfortably enough. It was compact and fully loaded, not only did it have room enough for stowin' prisoners and food for months but it was brimming with guns. Sweetest, an' cheapest, ship any bounty huntin' group could ever ask for.
As Sammus distractedly made his way to his room, Higgins did the same. The two came close to colliding with one another in the narrow corridor.
Sammus mumbled out an apology, deciding it was safer to stop moving all together than risk trying to move around Higgins and end up possibly crashing into the man again. He was a mite bit tetchy as it were. Didn't need to go 'round addin' fuel to his fire.
Higgins grunted unbecomingly and turned to continue his way to the room he was given for the duration of the trip.
"Uh, sir." Sammus called out, he couldn't shake the feeling that the other two were right. That River girl would get them all the cash they needed to do whatever they might want to do for a while, and men like them could imagine a lot given that kind of monetary support. "About the girl…"
"Do whatever you want with her." Higgins cut him off.
Sammus stared forward, awestruck at the luck those words held for him.
"Whoever she is he doesn't want me to know." Higgins explained, mistaking the look on Sammus' face with that of confusion instead of pure unadulterated joy. "An' I told him I wasn't going to ask again. So whatever you can think of, do it."
Sammus continued to stare, slack jawed, down the hallway as Higgins retreated to his room. Before the door quietly clicked shut, Sammus had spun around and stared to make his way back up to the mess.
The other two men were still seated around the table, angrily discussing the stupidity of letting something so valuable go to some old geezer that didn't know what he had.
Sammus burst into the room, a wide grin plastered to his face, as he looked to his partners. "Who the hell wants her?"
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"There!" Simon shouted excitedly as he plugged in the last wire. "That's the last one."
Zoe nodded and leaned out of the engine room door. "I think we've got it now sir!" She shouted up to the bridge where Mal sat at the controls.
"Okay! I'm turnin' her on!" He shouted back before he moved to bring his girl back to life. He reached up above his head and flipped the first two switches. He sighed deeply and squeezed his eyes shut. "Come on, baby." He whispered quietly before flipping the final switch.
The lights flickered for a moment before turning off completely. "What the hell!" He screamed at no one, and everyone, all at once.
"The system is just rebootin', Cap'n." Kaylee's calm voice cut in over the Cortex screen, which was a good sign seein' as how it didn't go off and all meant that they still had some power and, more importantly, access to the mind that could help 'em work that power into something else more useable if'n this plan didn't turn out right.
"Just give her a second." Kaylee added in an attempted to sooth everyone's frazzled nerves, including her own. It had taken hours to get the ship ready to reboot her systems, more'n two of which she would never have needed if she were the one doin' the fixin'. It wasn't like the others could help it; they just didn't know how to get 'er workin' again.
Fixin' the engine was a lot like fixin' a person she figured. Sometimes you just know what's wrong and how to fix it. Other times you gotta suss it out, an' its harder'n hell to suss out a problem that needs fixin' over the gorram Cortex.
"Any second now…" Oh, if the power didn't switch back on quick, Kaylee was 'bout to pop.
The Cortex screen flickered once before all of the lights turned back on. The console shone bright and true, as if it had never gone off in the first place.
Mal beamed down at the blinking lights before turning that charming grin to the view screen. "You're a gorram genius you know that, Kaylee?"
"Aw, shucks, Cap'n, wouldn'ta been able to do a thing if it weren't fer Zoe an' Simon."
"And they wouldn'ta been able to figure out their heads from their…" He faltered slightly at his choice for words. He waved his hand about indifferently, deciding that was all the description that he needed to give. "Other parts…" He faltered again slightly before deciding to just get on with it. "Without you. You did good." He smiled up at the screen again as the noise of Zoe and Simon makin' their way up to the bridge echoed down the hall behind him.
"Speakin' of good." Mal announced spinning away from the view screen to look at his would be mechanics. He stopped short of continuing his sentence at the sight of his tough solider second and prissy doctor covered in all manners of engine grease.
When Mal didn't say anything, but instead stared at the pair mouth hanging open just slightly, Simon cut in. "Everything is still working up here, right?"
"What? Yeah." Mal answered with a small shake of his head before spinning back around to face the steering wheel. "Everything's shiny. You two got everything lil' Kaylee told you to do done?"
"Everything's workin' as good as it's gonna in the engine." Zoe cut in, in an attempt to cut down the awkward silences that had become a recent habit of all those onboard the ship within the last few hours.
"Then let's get us back to Harvest We got ourselves some people to be pickin' up."
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Inara stood alone in the hallway, leaning up against one of the large pillars that framed the huge marble porch that came off of the training houses main room. The conversation she had just had with Lyssa still echoed in her mind.
Lyssa was right. If she didn't deal with the Guild soon there would be problems. Problems she didn't necessarily want to deal with, ever.
As she stood, lost in her thoughts, Kaylee came bouncing out into the main room. "I ain't ever been anywhere near as fancy as this." She stated, mostly to herself. "I mean, have you looked at the floors? They're all engraved an' painted an' stuff." Kaylee beamed over to Inara.
Inara stopped staring off at nothing and turned to her young friend. "It certainly is one of the finest crafted houses I've ever been in outside of the core." She smiled down at Kaylee, who did a little spin in the middle of the room. "How are things going with the repairs?"
Kaylee sighed heavily before she turned to Inara. "They took forever!" she grinned and moved towards the porch were Inara was still standing. "But they got it all fixed. Cap'n figures it won't be more'n a few hours 'fore they get back here an' pick us up."
"Good." Inara turned to look outside once again, deciding to once again put off what she should have dealt with years ago. "The sooner we're gone the less likely it will be that any of us can get into more trouble."
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"You have the girl in custody?"
"Yeah, we've got her." Sammus stated again, to the fifth person he'd talk to since wavin' the people that wanted the gorram girl. "We've got River Tam, in custody, unharmed, and we want to turn her in."
"Give us your coordinates…"
Gunther shouldered his way into the picture "What about the money?" he asked hurriedly.
"You'll receive payment once we pick up the girl." The man on the other side of the screen answered coolly. "We'll have several units meet you once you land. They'll take the girl from you and keep her in custody until we can extract her ourselves. At that time, we will transfer the credits to your accounts."
Sammus grinned widely at the screen. He turned and gave Jonus a short, quick nod. Jonus nodded back and punched in the landing spot. "Sending coordinates now."
TBC
Author's Note: This chapter was going to be a good deal longer then this, but after that last line from Inara I felt this was a good place to end it.
Also I would like to say that I feel Higgins is a completely underused villain. I don't know about you guys but if I were him I'd want Jayne's head on a platter.
I have to say this one was really hard to write. It's hard to write about doing terrible things to someone you really like, and I just love Jayne so torturing him was not fun. What was even less fun was the research I put into the torture stuff. I read so many fanfic's (all in different fandoms then our own) that were written so incredibly bad that I decided the true torture of the story was derived from reading it. It wasn't all a loss, there are some good ones out there, its just you have to push through so much crap to get to them it's almost not worth it. If anything this chapter has made me appreciate all of you so much more (because loving you all as much as I do wasn't enough) I can't remember the last time I read a truly crappy Rayne fic and for that I thank all of you profusely.
I've also got to say I had this story planned up until this point so whatever comes after this will be a surprise for everyone because I have no idea what I'm going to do next.
Oh yeah and the Goat Tongue torture is real.
