Almost as soon as they had established that they were stuck with their new guest indefinitely, a klaxon sounded throughout the ship. Mal clenched his teeth and cursed under his breath.

"What now…?" he asked. He pointed a finger at Jayne. "You stay here, and you keep an eye on that thing. If it moves, I wanna hear about it."

"What? Why do I have to keep an eye on it!" he asked plaintively, and with perhaps a slight hint of fear.

"Cause you're the one with the grand plan of throwin' it out of the airlock, so you can be the one to save our hides when we figure out how to get power back into the cargo bay," said Mal in a no-nonsense tone of voice, marching up the corridor. "I mean it Jayne – if it breathes, I wanna hear about it," and then he was gone up the stairs.

With his absence, the common area took on a sudden malevolence. Jayne leaned against the bulkhead, slightly uneasy about being left alone down with the creature. Everything suddenly seemed oppressive and, despite the klaxon, too quiet. Then, curiosity overcame his agitation and he peered slowly through the window to the cargo bay.

"Does it breath?" he whispered to himself. But the creature was nowhere to be seen.

"What the hell is goin' on?" barked Mal.

"You wanna list?" murmured Kaylee as she hurried past him, only to disappear under the pilot's console almost immediately afterwards.

"Yes, if it isn't too much trouble," said Mal, except he wasn't joking.

Zoe straightened by where she operated the nav console. "We've got an electrical fire that started in the dorsal cluster, we're drifitn' towards a moon, the Alliance is on our tail and we got a dead body in the mess with a little nasty sittin' in the cargo bay."

Mal raised his hand at Zoe, as if it would stem the tide of calamities coming from her mouth. "The body's in the cargo bay with the dead guy now. Explain each of those points."

"In small words, if possible," muttered Inara, but a look from Mal silenced her – now clearly wasn't the time.

"The fire? Probably after effects of whatever that monster leaked into the ship. It's what caused the alarm. As for the moon," and she turned to point at the screen to emphasise. On it, a small dot represented Serenity and a larger blob of colour signified the presence of a planetoid. "When we shut down the engines, we didn't thrust back in the opposite direction to stop us. We've been driftin' since, and we're gettin' pulled into this moon's gravity well. Then, the Alliance put out a warrant for our capture for a very large sum of money, and the last two points I think you're okay with."

"Can't we slow down?"

"No cap'n, we'd need both engines to do that properly. The way we are, we'd just end up driftin' more towards the moon if we fired the other engine."

"How long before we hit atmo of this moon?" demanded Mal.

Zoe shrugged, looking almost completely unfazed by these newest developments. "Hard to say. We've got a few hours, but past that I can't be sure."

"Okay. Someone get down to that dorsal cluster, put out that fire. Last thing we need after all we been through is to choke to death on some smoke."

Kaylee and Inara exchanged a hesitant glance, and after a few seconds Mal realised that no one was rushing to fulfil his order. His expression hardened and he drew a breath to crack down on those assembled on the bridge, but Zoe caught him in the nick of time.

"I'll go. Be right back sir," she said, and left. Mal took in the slightly abashed remaining two women.

"It's locked up in the cargo bay," he said, attempting to be reassuring. "You don't have to be afraid of it anymore."

Kaylee looked at him evenly. "If it's all the same to you, cap'n, I think I'll stick with bein' scared witless. Not that I can help it."

Mal shook his head slightly, dismissing the course of the conversation. "Any more luck on those files?"

She nodded and gestured towards where River still sat, almost happily decoding the classified reports. "River's makin' good progress with 'em."

"Update me."

"Well, there's nothin' on how to kill them 'cept somethin' we know and somethin' we don't have. Says they killed the first one by blowin' it out the airlock, then they killed a nest of 'em by nukin' it."

He nodded. "Okay, brings us back to gettin' power to the cargo bay. You reckon you can rig somethin' up?"

She pursed her lips and pondered the problem, staring out – literally – into space.

"I don't see how," she said finally. "That cluster regulated all of the power for those systems. If I rigged somethin' up that fed power straight into the bay, it'd probably blow something up and then there'd be no chance of getting' power back. They kinda design those clusters to never break. There's not much in buildin' a new one, save for buyin' one outright."

"See what you can do," said Mal, suddenly very aware of the restrictions moving in around them. "We need to get power back in that cargo bay. I don't care how you do it, but it needs to be done. You fix that cluster, we take care of two of our problems; we get rid of our new friend and we escape that moon's gravity. That only leaves the Alliance, and you can leave that for me to worry about."

Kaylee nodded, still looking despondent, but Mal couldn't think of anything else to say. Instead, he squeezed her shoulder and gave her as reassuring a look as he could manage.

"We're gonna get through this."

The look she gave him spoke volumes, but obviously the mechanical cogs that must be inside Kaylee's head were still whirring as she did.

"I think…I think I can solve our gravity issue," she said, frowning slightly.

"Go on," said Mal, afraid that saying anything else might disrupt whatever thought pattern she was having.

"We can just swing her around," she said. "If we reverse course, then the engine'll be pointin' in the other direction. It'll swing us away from the moon."

Mal felt slightly cheated, expecting a more complex solution to the problem. "Will that work?"

"Yeah," said Kaylee, becoming more animated each second she spent thinking about it. "I mean, we'll have to fire the engine as low as we can get it, but we'll turn around before we crash."

"Won't that take us closer to the moon?"

"Yeah, but that's why we burn the engine real slow. By the time we get anywhere, we'll be all turned around and we can fire it up full."

Seeing no obvious, fatal drawbacks and more importantly, no viable alternatives to this plan, Mal nodded assertively. "Make it happen," he said.

"This is incredible," muttered Simon.

The medical readouts were telling him things that he could only have dreamed about. A creature with an exoskeleton that looked as tough as diamond, concentrated acid for blood and the most bizarre reproductive cycle he had ever seen in another species.

In the first instance, something that size should collapse in on itself with an exoskeleton, but the creature – he refused to use the term 'alien' – seemed quite robust last he saw. Similarly, with such a fluid inside it, it should liquidate itself but the exoskeleton somehow contained it. And finally, there seemed to be two separate creatures; the first Andrews' crew encountered in the crate, and the second was trapped in the cargo bay.

He frowned. What if there was something past the stage they had seen? That was something they hadn't considered. And where did these eggs come from? Simon wished he had a sample of the first creature, to see how exactly it implanted the second creature into a host. And more than that, he wished to see the environment that spawned such an evolution of animal. Surely it would be more feasible for the first creature to gestate, like a cocoon, and give birth to the second itself?

Simon abruptly stood from the readout, and passed a weary hand over his eyes. He was getting too absorbed in this. He could suppose until Doomsday, but the fact remained that his first priority was to figure out how to safely kill it. No other factor could distract him from his work.

But…the way it had hissed at him in the mess. It almost seemed like it was…aware, somehow. He knew it was ridiculous, but the chill that had rippled down his spine when the creature…well, it seemed like it had been looking at him. Right at him. And for a being without eyes, or any other visible sensory organs for that matter, that was quite an accomplishment.

The way River had reacted to it was strange, to say the least. She said…something about it talking to her without saying anything. Maybe this was why she had been acting so strangely these past few days. Maybe the creature was having some kind of latent psychic effect on her. He resolved to talk to her about it later. He frowned, reconsidering. Maybe it would be better if he asked Inara to speak with her. The Companion might have a better chance of reaching what River was really thinking through this program of meditation she had started.

A faint rustling behind him interrupted his thoughts. His eyes widened, and he whirled around, expecting to be met with flashing teeth and claws.

"Quit bein' so jumpy, Doc," said Jayne. Simon sighed and the tension floated from his body.

"Don't creep up behind me, then," he returned, and Jayne just dismissed his words with an uncaring expression.

"Found a way to kill it yet?"

Simon all but glared at Jayne. "Not yet. And my research will proceed faster without any distractions."

"Oh, don't mind me," said the unwelcome guest, and Simon snorted.

"I try not to." He paused for a moment, realising something. "Aren't you supposed to be keeping an eye on…it?"

Jayne shrugged, stepping fully into the infirmary. "It ain't goin' nowhere. It's gone where I can't see it anymore. Way I figure it, Kaylee'll have the power back up 'fore you can spit and we'll just crack open the bay."

"That's less than reassuring."

"It's how it is, Doc. Best get used to it."

"Well, I'll leave you to philosophise while I continue with my research." He sat down at the display monitor, but Jayne failed to take the hint. He looked up at the intruder of his privacy. "In separate habitats from each other?" Still nothing. "Get out."

"Alright Doc, keep your britches on…"

Several hours passed while the crew worked in nervous anxiety, expecting something awful to jump out at them from a dark corner, or for another klaxon to sound. Their energy was wasted; Serenity drifted closer to the moon, the Alliance closed in on them, and the research bore no further mysteries. The ship moved around slowly to face the opposing direction, but the quiet that had descended on Serenity was more than enough to unnerve.

Finally it was broken when some small fragment of code appeared on Kaylee's screen, sent to her by River. The engineer bolted excitedly to the doorway of the bridge and hollered for the others to join her.

Mal bolted up the stairs, through the mess and onto the bridge in record time, Zoe right behind him. He spent several seconds scanning the bridge with his eyes, trying to figure out what was wrong, but Kaylee just grabbed his arm and led him to the display.

He visibly deflated as he allowed her to drag him. "Gorram it, Kaylee, I nearly died back there."

"You won't be disappointed, Cap'n," she said. She tapped the screen. "I found somethin' that might help us out finally."

"What is it? What about the engines?"

"Oh, we're nearly turned around, give her a few more minutes. But this," she tapped the screen, "Is what I got all excited about."

A mugshot glared from the screen at Mal, greasy blonde hair perched above piercing blue eyes. The man's craggy features made him look a little like an ape, but something in the his expression alluded to a sinister intelligence. In all, Mal got the distinct impression that he would rather not run into this man, whoever he was.

"Who is he?" asked Zoe, echoing Mal's thoughts. "I don't see a name." She was right; most of the fields on the profile were blank, and upon closer examination the ones that were filled in were approximate guesses; age, between thirty five and forty; height, approx six feet; etcetera.

"Don't know," said Kaylee proudly. Mal eyed her inquisitively, not needing to ask the question for she elaborated without. "And neither do Blue Sun. There's a whole section of this file devoted to him, and they don't even have a name for him."

"An Operative?" asked Zoe, her eyebrows raising. Kaylee nodded.

"Looks like."

"What's an Operative doing wrapped up in all of this?" asked Mal mostly to nobody, for he was already processing the answer in his mind. The Alliance was evidently more aware than they were letting on about the entire business with the crate, and must have assigned one of their men to keep an eye on the situation.

"No idea, but ain't that the point?" responded Kaylee. "Probably not even he knows his real reason for bein' there."

"Why does Blue Sun have a file on him?" asked Zoe.

"To watch the watcher," said River, not looking up from her work. Her statement caused those present to skip a few seconds as they subconsciously assessed River's words, to establish them as either crazy talk or valid statement.

"They must be involved somehow." Kaylee was the first to speak.

"Well, isn't this good news?" Mal asked sarcastically, folding his arms pensively.

"Not especially," said Inara from across the bridge. "Remember how you looked after your last encounter with an Operative?"

"Hey, I kicked his ass."

"You also had three broken ribs and a concussion."

"Well…yeah, but you didn't see the other guy."

"How does this help us?" asked Zoe, cutting off the exchange before it degenerated.

"We got a face to track down now," said Mal. "Shame we got nothin' else with it, but it's a start."

Kaylee had moved away and was busily working the console at the rear of the bridge. "Well, none of that'll matter if we crash into this moon. Gettin' ready to fire the engine up full. I need to be in the engine room."

Mal nodded. "Zoe, go with her. Might be more work than one pair of hands can do."

Neither woman acknowledged the real reason he didn't want Kaylee in the engine room on her own.

Mal stepped closer to Inara, who was busying herself with some task that surely must be important to be attracting so much of her attention.

"So…uh, how are you farin'?"

River spoke calmly from her console. "I can feel it clawing at what's left of my sanity."

There was a moment of stunned silence before Mal said anything.

"Well, that was creepy."

"What do you mean, River?" asked Inara, genuinely concerned. She had seen a glimpse into River's mind, and what she had seen there wasn't pretty. For River to be as composed as she normally was, she had discovered, was a miracle. Anything threatening that was not a good thing.

The Companion knelt next to River's chair, and the girl's liquid brown eyes seemed to drink up Inara's soul as she met her gaze.

"It's nothing I can read. I carry the thoughts and minds of all I meet inside me. But the Void has no thoughts. Yet I can feel it inside of me." She spoke in short, clipped sentences in a soft, sedated voice, as if she were voicing how it felt to fall asleep. She gazed to the deck, apparently exhausted by this exchange.

Inara looked worriedly to Mal, who could only return the look. He wanted to help River, but this was more the Companion's area of expertise than his own. He'd probably just make the damned situation worse anyway.

"We're finished back here," called Kaylee from the intercom, and Mal took the pilot's chair. The atmosphere of the moon was starting to burn around the ship. It was a good job they were facing the other direction, because if Mal had to look at the surface of the moon so up close, it might effect his performance. They were cutting this one close.

"Ready to burn when you are," he replied.

"You've got a go from us."

"Okay then, thrusting in five, four, three, two…one…"

He engaged what was left of the ship's engines, and Serenity lurched forward, upsetting the balance of the artificial gravity for a moment. He could feel the ship straining against its momentum, trying to break free of the force that its own engines had created.

Simon looked up while the ship shuddered, and then relaxed when he realised it was all part of the plan to escape the gravity of the moon they were rapidly approaching.

Jayne snorted and sat up in the chair just outside, shaking his head and blinking repeatedly. Simon's jaw dropped open as he stood and moved to the doorway.

"What were you…were you asleep?"

"What? No! I was, uh, restin' my eyes," said Jayne, jumping up from the chair. Then he gathered his wits about him enough to immediately abandon the pitifully thin defence and launch a counterattack. "You could'a woke me up."

Simon almost physically recoiled, so aghast he was at Jayne's actions.

"I forgot you were even out there!"

Jayne shrugged, as if the matter were settled. "Well then, I hope you can learn from this."

Simon blinked, incredulous. "What…? No! I've been researching! What have you been doing? Who's been keeping an eye on the cargo bay?"

Jayne seemed to have forgotten his original task, and reality hit him when Simon spoke. He ran from the common area and up the stairs to the cargo bay door. He pressed his face to the glass and something massive and black sprang from his view up onto the gangway. His eyes grew wide in his head.

"What in the good gorram…?"

"How we doin', cap'n?"

"Give it a few more minutes. We're still driftin'."

Inara smiled faintly, allowing herself a small amount of optimism to leak through the anxiety. Certainly, there were obstacles on the ship, and that small, white circle on the horizon was an Alliance cruiser rushing towards them, but as she had been taught as a girl; take one problem at a time, and no more. Worrying about everything at once was counter-productive. Their immediate task was to escape this moon's gravity, and they were on the threshold of accomplishing that.

She squeezed River's shoulder reassuringly, trying to force her good feeling onto the girl over whatever mental link she made with other people, but she didn't respond to it. Positively.

"There's a darkness coming," she said quietly, still staring at the deck. Mal turned in the pilot's chair and smirked at her.

"Always is, li'l albatross." He turned back, taking in the view of the stars that reached out endlessly before him. "But as always, we're gonna stay one step ahead of it, or meet it head on; beat it at its own game. Remember when the Alliance tried it? We took that signal and shoved it up their…"

And then the power died.

"Oh. Right. Darkness."

Next on Void

"…What do you mean…'gone'?"

Thanks to MAndrews, WilliamD-000 and Tyramir for your reviews. I really appreciate it, guys!