The rating goes up for this chapter and beyond to M.

Jayne and Mal burst through Jacob's cabin door, and almost immediately after they appeared a trooper from the base around them yelled, "There they are!"

A few shots from Vera and the trooper had dived behind some nearby cover, but the alert had been sounded. Every soldier in the area was headed their way.

"Don't you feel bad 'bout shootin' at your old army?" yelled Jayne over the weapons fire, and Mal squeezed off a few rounds before replying.

"Nah – they started it."

"Over there!" called Jayne, and the two men ran, almost back to back sideways, to a hover vehicle that was ticking over close to the row of cabins. A not inconsiderable gang of Independents had gathered, all firing at the wanted men, and Mal and Jayne just avoided being shot to ribbons before they landed on the vehicle, similar to the Serenity's own mule, using it as cover.

"Fire it up!" barked Mal, and Jayne floored the mule to full acceleration. They sped away from the compound.

Mal tried to speak into his comms unit, but after several tries he sighed in disgust and discarded it. This whole situation was becoming quite tiresome.

"They're jamming us," he informed Jayne.

"Where to?"

"We need to find Kaylee and Simon. Swing us by Serenity, so Zoe knows trouble is about."

"We stoppin'?"

"No, I figure she'll guess trouble is about from the sound of gunfire chasing us riding hell for leather in a stolen mule."

"Gotcha."

"Try and focus your mind," murmured Inara, sitting cross legged on the floor of her shuttle. "Let all of your surface thoughts float out, leaving the emptiness."

"But I'm afraid. I don't like the dark," said River, sitting opposite. Her eyes were closed, but her eyes flitted from side to side beneath the closed lids. She trembled slightly.

"Shh, it's okay. They are only thoughts. They exist only in your brain. They can't hurt you."

But for River, whose limbic system had been forcibly extracted during the horrific scientific experiments forced upon her, her thoughts were a constant assault on her senses. Memories that were years old, when in the focus of her concentration, seemed as real when they replayed in her mind as when they had actually happened. River grew up in a nice part of a nice world, but unfortunately her own memories were not the only thing that shook her up. She possessed the memories of potentially everyone she came into contact with due to her status as a psychic.

She whimpered again, but tried her best to comply with what Inara was saying. When a brain as intelligent and powerful as River's existed, it was difficult to power down under the most normal of circumstances. Now, she was trying her best and it still wasn't working. Inara suspected it might be impossible, but wanted to carry on trying.

"Whatever you see in your mind's eye isn't there. It's just a ghost; a phantom of something that has happened and since passed. It can no longer affect you."

River smiled, but Inara wasn't sure if it was to do with her words or with something she was seeing. Her expression turned after a few moments.

"It's not mine…"

Inara could guess what she meant. "I know they're not yours, sweetie. I can't imagine what it's like for you to carry around the memories of other people…but the same as your own, they can't hurt you or make you do anything."

"The butcher…the butcher and the children…"

This time at a loss, the Companion decided to allow River some time to try and focus despite the constant assault on her mind. She leaned and lit some more incense.

"I couldn't read…I couldn't get the readings…"

"The readings Simon asked you to get?" she asked, thinking of the most recent example of River and readings. "That wasn't your fault, River, the container had a scrambler built into it. Why…do you know what's inside the crate?"

The girl looked as if she was about to say something, but then thought better of it and closed her mouth. She sighed.

"Nothing was there…hollow, it hungered to be filled. I can't see!" she cried out softly, and Inara decided that perhaps they had done enough for one day. She took River's hand, and she opened her eyes.

"I hope what I'm doing helps you River. If you can use what I'm saying to focus your mind more, then maybe you can learn to live with the way your mind works."

The girl smiled meekly. Inara helped her to stand.

"Thank you." She thought and then added almost as an aside, "I have good manners."

Inara smiled and nodded. River cut quite the young, dashing figure. If she hadn't ran into this unfortunate business with the Alliance, she could have been anything she wanted to be – and Inara didn't doubt that an exceptional Companion was among those things, although she suspected Simon would have something to say about that particular thought. "Yes you do, River. We'll make a lady of you yet."

Which was when the klaxon sounded, and Inara ran to the doorway of the shuttle.

"Uhm…stay here, River," she said distractedly, and then ran to the comm to hear from Zoe what the hell was happening.

River was frowning though, taking no heed of what the Companion was saying. She closed her eyes, concentrating, as Inara had just taught her.

"It's…" she whispered. Through the maelstrom of thoughts, memories and feelings that made up the inside of her head, something was moving. So small as to be otherwise unnoticed. A void between the rushing gales of the larger pieces of River's mind. An absence of thought.

"…It's here…"

As Mal, Jayne and Jacob were walking into the Independent officer's cabin, Kaylee and Simon were already halfway to the town, looking forward to trying to catch a meal. They ambled along together, hand in hand, talking nonsense. Small groups of soldiers were constantly passing them, marching in formation, but they allowed themselves to be overtaken, choosing instead to exercise their civilian right to stroll.

But their discussion was halted mid-sentence at the warning klaxon that echoed across the plain they had just walked across from the Independent command post.

"What's that?" asked Kaylee, confused. The soldiers, although tatty in presentation, and lacking the uniformity of a properly organised army, scrambled with great efficiency, some continuing to the town and some returning to the command post.

Simon took Kaylee's arm, and they stepped back to allow one of the squads past them.

"What's going on, Simon?"

"I'm not sure," said the doctor. A group of soldiers were discussing something fervently between themselves, and one turned and pointed aggressively in their direction. They became the scrutiny of several armed men, and Simon snapped his gaze away from them.

"Uhm…I think we should head back to the ship now." Nervously, Kaylee nodded agreement and they started heading back, away from the path.

"Excuse me!" called a voice behind them, and Simon just squeezed Kaylee's hand.

"Just keep going," he said, but the voice dogged them persistently until it was right behind them.

"Excuse me," it repeated, and Simon turned to face it. He received a clenched fist in the jaw, and staggered back onto the floor. Kaylee cried out in indignation, but she received the back of the soldier's hand. Simon roared in anger and was instantly up, trying to attack the grunt, but his squad mates quickly restrained the less physically imposing surgeon.

The original soldier grabbed Kaylee and dragged her in front of Simon. "This one yours?" he leered, and Simon spat at him. Kaylee's eyes widened in surprise at the extremely un-Simon-like act. "Thought so," continued the thug. A sonic boom reverberated around the field they stood in, and several of the squad looked uneasily at the sky. "We've got orders to bring you in. But I'm thinkin'…what's a little roughin' up gonna hurt?"

He laughed coarsely and started to drag Kaylee towards a small brush of vegetation. She kicked at his shin, but his body armour deflected the attack.

"Get off me!" she screamed, but to no avail. Simon was howling unintelligibly, struggling against the gang of brutes holding him down, but they were too strong for him. The brilliance of the day seemed perverse now, the sun shining happily down on the traumatised couple.

"Make sure you get her necklace!" called one of his accomplices.

The trooper holding Kaylee reached the brush, and turned to address his cohorts, pointing at Simon.

"Make sure that one watc…" he stopped mid-sentence, eyes widening in fear, and his face exploded into a gunshot wound.

The stolen mule roared to a stop behind the surprised Independents, and Mal leaped from the front, landing in front of the next senior soldier and pressing the barrel of his gun right to his forehead. Jayne towered above them ominously, holding his very big gun aimed at the rest of the group.

Mal's eyes seemed to almost physically burn with unholy fury. "You have five seconds to leave my sight, or I will end you."

The trooper took the first of his seconds to quiver, and then ran from Mal down towards the path, followed closely by his compatriots. Simon gathered Kaylee in his arms, and she started to sob in relief. Mal let them stand for a moment, but then attracted their attention.

"We need to leave," he said quietly.

"Thank you," said Simon, and Mal nodded in acceptance.

The tranquil moment was ruined when an enormous vessel erupted over the skyline, raining fire down upon the settlement nearby and heading right their way. Anti-air embankments were firing back, but the ship's defences were holding. Kaylee's comm unit started bleating for attention, and Mal pinched it from Kaylee's overalls.

"Hers works…" he muttered, and activated the unit. "Go ahead."

It was Zoe. "We've got to leave, now. That thing is headed right for us."

"Agreed. We'll be back in a few -"

"No sir – we need to leave right now. We'll circle back 'round and pick you up. That thing will blast us to pieces in seconds if it gets in range. There's no way you'll beat it."

Mal sized up the distance between Serenity and the new cruiser, and deemed that Zoe was correct. "Alright. I'll get you on the wireless to tell you where we're at."

"Roger that."

Back in the distance, the small Firefly transport blasted its engines and took off from the landing platform. Mal waited as long as checking it was in the air okay, before climbing back onto their stolen mule.

"All aboard!" he called, and the three members of his crew still on the surface of Hera scrambled to join him, barely landing in their seats before Mal had fired up the small engine mounted to the back of the vehicle.

The cruiser was firing on the soldiers running along the road, creating a wall of fire that was incinerating the fleeing Independents en masse. It blasted overhead, luckily reserving its firepower for the command post, leaving the last stretch of road, which the mule floated above, untouched.

It fired on the compound, obliterating the rows of cabins Mal and Jayne had until recently inhabited.

"So long, Jacob," was the only response Mal elicited, and then turned the mule away from the compound, so they would skirt around it. A massive turret set up on a hillside just away from the compound hit the cruiser and fire started billowing from its belly. It listed badly to port, and then crashed violently into the earth below. It exploded into flames, engulfing a section of the command post.

Mal scanned the skies for Serenity, but he couldn't see the smaller craft. Zoe must have taken them away immediately. At least, he hoped so. Gunfire and explosions wreaked havoc with their ears.

"Where are we going?" called Simon. Mal turned to address him.

"A hospital complex. It'll be on the road on the way to the next town over."

"Oh. Wait. You don't know where it is?"

"No, not as such."

"Uh…what?" said Simon.

"This compound seems to be standard Independent layout. It should be to the east."

A number of smaller vessels were manoeuvring over the skyline of the next town, harpoon cables reaching down from them. Mal glowered at the Reaver ships, but was thankful that they weren't this far over yet.

A small group of buildings rose up quickly before them, and Mal braked gently so they soared to a stop just before the first one. He smirked at Simon. "Y'see?"

The metal support next to his head sparked with a bullet impact, and they scrambled off the mule, using it for cover. Jayne fired Vera back at the small group of Independents guarding the hospital, and after a few – shockingly brief – exchanges of fire, they were free to enter the complex unharassed.

"What is this place?" asked Kaylee, her voice echoing emptily on the inside corridor of the building. Mal took a fearless step forward, and they all fell into line behind him.

"I told ya. It's a hospital complex."

"Why are we here?"

"To find Harvey's crew and get the hell out of here. You know the crate that nobody knows what's inside? Well, turns out all of Harvey's crew aren't quite dead yet, and if anyone knows what's in it, they do."

The power had been cut to the facility, so the lights were out. Their shadows shone onto the wall at different intervals when bombs exploded nearby. Mal secretly hoped that the mule would still be there when they walked back out, but didn't share his anxiety with the others.

He led them into different rooms along the corridor they were walking along, but they were all empty. Finally, they reached the end of the passageway to be greeted with a massive, closed, impenetrable looking door. Mal sized it up.

"Huh. Kaylee, can you do anythin' with this?" he asked.

"Sure can, cap'n," she said, and walked to the door. She touched it with both of her hands, murmured to it softly, took its handle and it swung open almost effortlessly. Mal gaped.

"What did you do?"

She smirked. "Magic."

"That wasn't no magic," Jayne scoffed. "Own up!"

"Fine," she said, rolling her eyes. "It's a Bergner 5000, it keeps closed by an electromagnet. If there's no electricity, there can't be an electromagnet! It was always open."

"Huh," said Jayne, looking perplexed. "So that's what 'electromagnet' means."

"Let's carry on?" suggested Mal, and they stepped inside the not-locked room.

Within lay a heavily sophisticated med-lab, which would have looked doubly impressive had the power been supplied to the building. Simon's eyes widened in appreciation at all of the medical instruments that now surrounded him. Mal's eyes, however, were drawn to the four beds that the lab housed, specifically the three that held human bodies.

One of whom was Mal's old friend, Harvey.

"He's alive," murmured Kaylee. Mal moved forward to check his pulse. It was weak, but it was still there.

"Doctor, check the -" he started, but nearly exited his own skin when Harvey's hand grabbed his.

"Mal," croaked the occupier of the med-lab.

"Harvey?" came the reply. "Quickly, let's get him up."

"He might not be stable enough to move…"

"I don't care about that, we need to get out of here."

"This don't feel right, Mal," said Jayne.

"I don't care if it feels right…"

"What if whatever he's carrying is contagious?" asked Simon.

"It isn't. Do you see any protective suits in here?"

"Do you see anyone else alive in here?" pointed out Kaylee, but Mal pointedly ignored her comment.

"This isn't a discussion," he snapped. "Get this man outta that bed, and up on his feet. Kaylee, grab those discs, they might have scanner data on 'em."

"My crew…" muttered Harvey. Mal shook his head.

"I'm takin' you, and that's it. Let's move like we got a purpose, people!"

The other two members of Harvey's crew didn't stir from their slumber. Mal and the others froze as a very loud crash rumbled from the top of the building.

"What was that?" whispered Kaylee, as if the sound of her voice would upset whatever it was up there, but Mal remained silent for a few moments longer, taking in the noises vibrating from the roof. Finally he said one word.

"Reavers."

This electrocuted the crew into action, hoisting Harvey onto Jayne and Simon's shoulders, the two men carrying the third between them. Mal charged out of the lab door, the sound of footsteps getting ever nearer from above.

"Zoe!" he barked into his comm unit. There was a brief pause, and then the reply.

"Sir?"

"We're in a small complex east of the command post. Pick us up outside, preferably five minutes ago."

"That's not gonna be -"

"Just do it, or we're all dead!"

There was no further response.

"Quickly!" screamed Kaylee as they reached the entrance to the building, and Mal turned to see what had scared her so badly.

Reavers were spilling out of the stairwell, howling inhumanely, running towards them. Mal took in one second of that sight, and did the only thing he could do.

"Zoe!!" he shouted into the comm, but there was no reply. He turned and followed Kaylee out to the mule, when artificial light bathed them all from above. He looked up to see the sight of Serenity coming in to land gracefully.

"Move!" he cried unnecessarily. As the cargo ramp lowered, Mal was the last person on board. Jayne and Simon dumped Harvey to the deck, who stirred slightly as they let him go.

His arrival didn't bear very well on one crew member in particular.

"No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO!" wailed River in a terrible voice that chilled Mal's blood.

Hysterical, River ran from the new arrival and the assembled crew in the cargo bay – and off the ship.

"RIVER!" shouted Simon, and he sprinted after her as the Reavers burst through the main entrance to the hospital complex.

"Simon!" screamed Kaylee, running after the doctor.

"Gorram it – Kaylee!" called Mal, heading after the engineer.

Simon caught up to his sister, and all but grappled her to the ground. She squirmed and screamed for him to let her go, but the surgeon held fast, and together with Kaylee and Mal once they had caught up, managed to barely subdue River.

Tears were streaming down her face, and she was wailing her heart out. "Don't make me do it, Simon, I can't be near him!"

"River!" cried Simon desperately, grabbing her by the shoulders. "I don't know what's wrong, but we have to leave right now! Focus, like Inara said she'd teach you!"

The Companion's name was possibly the luckiest thing Simon had ever spoken, because River seemed to get a grip of herself and took in her surroundings, most notably the Reavers sweeping right towards them.

"We should go!" she cried, and Mal couldn't even think of an appropriate thing to say. Instead, he swept the others along and they boarded Serenity just ahead of the Reaver horde.

"Go!" screamed Inara into the comm, and Zoe started to initiate the take off sequence.

Jayne opened fire on the berserk, flesh-eating humans, joined very quickly by Mal, and anyone else who could find a gun.

The Reavers were cut down in their dozens, but such was their number that the ones they did dispatch were like a field losing a few blades of grass.

The ship had just cleared the ground when the Reavers swarmed underneath, and never one to take any chances, Jayne hung from the cargo ramp and fired indiscriminately into the crowd below them.

His eyes widened. The Reavers were clawing over one another, using each other as a platform to try and reach the escaping ship. The mound of Reavers grew taller and taller and for a moment it looked as if they would be high enough to jump up and climb onto the ship, but Zoe punched the engines and they soared away from the cannibals.

Inara pressed the control that would close the ramp, and the crew, for the most part exhausted, sank back and allowed themselves to take stock.

Not Mal. He started issuing orders as soon as the ramp had clunked shut. He activated the comms unit for the benefit of Zoe in the cockpit.

"Jayne, secure Harvey in the Infirmary – Doctor, take a look at him, try and figure out what's wrong with him. Inara, take River to your shuttle, try and calm her down. Kaylee, I imagine Zoe will be needin' you soon when we break orbit. There's a fleet of Reavers, Independents and Alliance between us and the black, let's not breath easy 'til we get there."

The small crowd of people lifted themselves wearily to their feet, but carried out their instructions without complaint. They all knew that they fulfilled a role in a larger whole, and if any of them failed in their assignment, they could doom the rest to failure. And failure when Reavers are chasing you meant something worse than death.

Mal stomped up and onto the bridge, not allowing himself to think about what might happen if that failure occurred, let alone his feelings of betrayal, and barked for a status report.

"Just like you said in the hold, sir, Reavers, Alliance and Independents, all fightin' amongst themselves."

"Well let's see if we can't slip through the net. Try and skim around the heaviest of the fighting."

"That's a given, sir."

The ship bounced suddenly, rocked by a piece of debris that Serenity impacted.

"Oh and uh…try not to hit anything," said Mal.

"Also a given," she said, shooting a look at him. I'm not my husband, it said, But I'm going to fly this bucket as best I can, and you've got to accept that, because I'm all you've got. And you'll damned well like it. Sir.

Mal nodded and let her be. Wash would have been open to such arguably unconstructive criticism while he flew, but his widow was considerably less tolerant to backseat driving. Of course, if she crashed the ship into something, he would spend whatever afterlife they all would share taunting her about it, but for now he had to trust in her ability.

And if all else failed, he knew a few tricks for flying buckets himself.

"Kaylee!" he called over the intercom. "Give us everything she's got!"

"Aye, cap'n," was the somewhat hurried response. Mal took a seat in the co-pilots chair.

Almost without warning, they skirted the edge of the combat zone. There weren't a great many ships in orbit, however it was enough to make it register as a fierce battle.

Reaver ships dotted around the larger Alliance cruisers, of which there were two. A third vessel of similar type was exchanging fire with its fellows, indicating it was the cruiser that had defected to the Independents that Jacob had mentioned. Several smaller Independent corvettes flanked the cruiser, and the skies swarmed with fighters.

Zoe was taking them on a course that would completely avoid the Alliance ships, but that would draw them dangerously close to the Independent fleet.

"Everybody hang on to something," announced Zoe, her face a mask of grim concentration. She was handling the controls as if they were a force to be subdued, rather than an instrument to be utilised. The ship was responding as such. Another piece of debris impacted the hull, and Zoe muttered something under her breath.

An alarm beeped on Mal's console, and after a moment he turned to address Zoe. "A wing of fighters is hot on our six," he informed.

Although she appeared to pay him zero attention, he knew that she had heard him. At least, he hoped she had.

Suddenly the deck lurched beneath him, and even Mal's stomach of steel fought to be released from the confines of his body. He clenched his teeth as the view in front of him swept down, to include the sight of a fourth cruiser beneath them. The small Firefly was headed right for it.

"Zoe?" called Mal, but she didn't respond. The hull of the cruiser filled the window in front of him, and at the last moment Zoe tugged back on the controls, bringing Serenity on a course that brought it along the much larger ship.

Gun emplacements burst from their armoured turrets all around the ship, and the vessel juddered so violently that Mal was convinced their starboard engine had been ripped off, but a quick diagnostic informed him everything was fine.

A massive burst of energy impacted the cruiser ahead of them, and the ensuing explosion erupted from the hull like a tidal wave of flame. Veering to port, Serenity avoided being engulfed by a large margin, but this forced them deeper into the melee intensifying all around them. A quick check of the scanner showed that about half of the fighter wing chasing them had been taken out by Zoe's manoeuvre, but they were still being pursued.

"Watch out for that…!" called Mal, but bit his lip halfway through his outburst. Nevertheless, something metallic clanged against the small transport, and a sideways glance from Zoe was enough incitement for Mal to keep his mouth shut. It wasn't like him to be subdued by a member of his crew, but under the present circumstances he was trying to make an exception. Any distraction he made to Zoe increased the chance she would crash into something, and that wouldn't be fun for anybody. He was just having trouble subduing his inner meddler.

"There," he said, pointing towards a gap opening up in the carnage around them, and as it was a sensible suggestion, Zoe steered the ship in that direction. A Reaver ship blasted in front of them, leaving a trail of plasma in its wake. Just as they were about to reach the hole in the fleet, a burst of weapons fire rattled across Serenity, and Zoe had to pull the nose of the vessel right up in order to evade the fire.

A large metallic object directly above them masked the black.

"Cruiser. Cruiser!" exclaimed Mal. Zoe pulled sideways, and Serenity responded by turning to starboard. They were flying underneath the Alliance cruiser now, still being pursued by that gorram fighter wing.

A look sideways revealed a gleam in his first mate's eyes, and Mal frowned.

"What are you…? Oh, no, whatever it is, don't do it!"

"I'm gonna get us out of this, sir," she replied. "Whether you like it or not."

Mal did the equivalent of shutting his eyes and praying; he grabbed the intercom and spoke to the ship. "Grab onto somethin', Zoe has something special planned and I don't think it's gonna be steady flying."

Serenity's unwilling pilot continued in the starboard dive, plunging the ship towards the fourth cruiser.

"I hope you're not doing what I think you're doing," said Mal cautiously, but Zoe didn't respond. "Oh, no," he said as the cruiser filled the port in front of him, and an uneasy feeling filled his belly.

"Oh yes," whispered Zoe. Just as the cruiser was so close you could reach out and touch it, the Firefly transport blazed through the hole that had been blown through the cruiser just moments before. Fire, smoke and liquid metal obscured the view, but Zoe navigated the through the exposed innards of the massive vessel with previously unimaginable ease. The sensor board blinked four times, and the fighter wing, unable to keep up, had been eliminated behind them, impacting against the innards of the cruiser around them. A few more moments, and the small transport ship blasted through the last haze of smoke, revealing the comforting sight of free and empty blackness ahead of them.

A few of the cruiser's cannons from its belly fired at them, but the weapons were designed for blowing holes in larger ships, and as such the high calibre rounds were relatively slow, and were easily evaded. The Independents, Alliance and Reavers, all obviously too busy with each other to pay a small cargo ship any heed, quickly forgot about Serenity, and a few moments after they escaped the range of the fourth cruiser's weapons, they appeared to be home free.

Mal let loose a breath of relief, and forcibly uncurled his hands from around the arms of the co-pilots chair. He stood and moved round to behind Zoe, not saying a word.

After a few more moments, she said it for him.

"A leaf I may not be, but that was damned good flying."

He squeezed her shoulder reassuringly, and she seemed to warm to the physical motion.

"Good job," he said quietly, and that was all the encouragement she needed.

"Where to?" she asked, all business again, withdrawing back into her shell of cool disconnection.

"Just keep us going into the black. The further from that fleet, the better. Anything comes up behind us, you shout real loud on the intercom."

"And you?"

"I'm gonna go question our old buddy. Time to find out what the hell's goin' on."

Next on Void

"So how about it, Harvey? Why don't you tell us exactly what happened after you dropped in to see us."

Thanks to MAndrews and moondreamer1 for your reviews! Also, I've just realised how to use rulers, so paragraph spacing should be a lot smoother after this point.