DR: Good news and bad news people. First the Good news: The job I started three months ago, well I've made it through the probation period! I am now set till xmas!

Hermione: Well done!

DR: The bad news is that, I got the job. Therefore I won't be having any more time to write this than I've had for the last three months.

Harry: That's no so good...

DR: But don't worry, I'm not abandoning this! Now, we have some Achilles/Athena fluff, and a look in on the Alliance Govenment...

Chapter 5: Councils of Peace & War

Achilles looked up as the hatch hissed open, and a smile creased his face as Athena stepped in. Her eyes met his, and they shared a burning look of passion, locked in their own little world for a moment. Then the rest of the world reared its head, and they both put their passions to one side.

"Thank you all for attending." Achilles started as he looked around the modest oval table. The Thunderchild didn't have the huge council chambers that the larger battlestars did; she was built only to lead fleets, not host the council. Still, they had everything they needed.

"As you know, we had hoped to not engage the Alliance in an open fight just yet. Sadly, the reality is that we've already had to demonstrate our superiority to them."

"They'll be back Colonel." Mal leaned forward in his seat as he spoke. "They'll want what you have, and will go to any length to get it."

Achilles nodded. "I suspected as much. None the less, I hope our little skirmish has at least convinced them to back off for the moment. So we are going to proceed with the original plan."

He quickly hit a button before him, and the screen behind him lit up and displayed a map of the System they were in. It showed, in exacting detail, the position of every planet and moon orbiting the three stars. Athena leaned back in her seat as she looked over the vast number of planetoids displayed.

'They weren't kidding when they said "dozens" of planets!' After a moment to digest the sheer volume of worlds, she looked closely at the arrangement.

In the centre of the display was a blue giant star, with nearly three dozen planets orbiting around it. A couple appeared to be gas giants, totally unsuitable for supporting human life. Most of the worlds also had at least a couple of moons orbiting them.

Further out were a pair of smaller, yellow dwarf type stars. They appeared to be either passing one another, or were locked in each others gravity well and were orbiting the blue star together as twins. In a loose halo around those two were another couple of dozen worlds, with a mass of smaller moons scattered with them. Some were decent sized bodies, others were little more than over-sized asteroids. Even further out were a couple of small, out of the way planets that orbited the entire system. 'No wonder they haven't pushed out of this system. There's more than enough space here for the Colonies several times over.'

"As we discussed before they made the transit, the Rosetta and the Phoenix will do a sweep through the outer sections of the system." As Achilles spoke white lines began to trace paths around the central planets orbits, weaving between the outer planet cluster before looping around and returning to their starting point. "I'll take the Thunderchild and follow Captain Reynolds into the outer planets." A single, slightly thicker line in blue cut a more direct path towards the outer planet cluster.

Achilles turned his chair to face Mal. "Captain Reynolds, do you have anything to add?"

Mal nodded as he stood up. "Yeah. Try to avoid this area." He traced an empty expanse with his finger on the screen, close to one of the outer rim planets. "This planet here is Miranda, the source of the Reavers. This whole area is where they mainly gather, sending out raiding parties every so often. I suspect you could handle yourselves against them, but I wouldn't go looking for trouble.

"Also here and here…" He tapped the screen over two central worlds. "…are the Alliances capital worlds. It's likely that they'll have a lot of ships sitting around those two worlds."

"Thank you Captain." Achilles replied as Mal retook his seat. He leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table as he interlaced his fingers. "Let me blunt people…"

"Since when are you ever anything else?" Athena cut in, a smile on her face. Achilles smiled back as the others gathered around the table chuckled. Achilles had already gained a reputation for being direct and to the point. His smile towards Athena however, conveyed his feelings for her.

"Yes… anyway. We're walking into a potential minefield here. That Alliance Cruiser we tore up should hopefully give them the message not to mess with us. However, I want everyone to remain alert. Whatever you do don't provoke conflict if you can avoid it. However, you are fully authorised to defend yourselves if attacked. And no matter what you see or hear, we're not here to topple the government… unless they provoke us. I don't what to be accused of starting another war."

The meeting went on for several more minutes, before Achilles nodded. "Okay everyone, I think that covers every thing. Captain Athena, would you stay a moment please?"

As they filed out the other captains, Mal included, had small smiles on their faces. They all had a good idea as to what was about to happen.

Sure enough, the hatch had barely closed before Achilles found himself with Athena sitting sideways on his lap, her lips pressed against his own. Never mind that just that morning they had woken up together in each others arms in the house that they had moved into almost a year ago.

After a couple of minutes their heads moved apart, and Achilles looked into her shining eyes. "Stocking up or something?" He teased.

"Or something." She smiled down at him for a long moment. Then her smile dropped as she sighed. "You took a big risk you know…"

He did know. Earlier on he had been asked why he had not had his ships energy shields raised during the clash with the Alliance Cruiser. The plasma based weapon system they carried could have been a devastating weapon; it had the potential. Their missiles were laughable, but Mal and his crew had mentioned in passing other, more worrying high-energy weapons.

Achilles had responded by saying that he wanted to keep their true technological advantage hidden for now, the show of power for the cruiser not-withstanding. In Mal's words, he wanted to keep a few 'tricks up his sleeve'. The energy shields were one of the items he hoped to keep under wraps for the time being.

He didn't say anything to Athena in reply, just hugged her to him a little tighter. Relenting, Athena allowed him to draw them together. It was a situation they had found themselves in a lot recently, and she had relished it every time. The thought of not being able to do this for some time, maybe months, sent a chill running up her spine.

After gently laying a kiss on her exposed neck he muzzled her. "You take care of yourself you hear? While I pray that they won't dare try anything, I fear that the Alliance will try to take on one of our smaller ships, believing them to be weaker than this one. I know I can't ask you to, but please, try to avoid a fight. I'd never forgive myself if something happened…"

Touched by his concern, Athena pressed a finger to his lips, silencing him. "I promise to be careful." She smiled warmly down at him. "And while we're on the subject, you take care of yourself. No more charging head first into suicidal battles for you." In her eyes, he could still see the reflection of the horror she had experienced when he'd challenged those three Base Ships.

That sight stopped Achilles from making any kind of flippant, jovial reply, like he might have done with Apollo or Starbuck, or even Sheba. Instead he looked her square in the eye. "You have my word." He told her softly.

X-X-X-X-X-X

As far as the majority of the people in the system knew, the Government ran the Alliance from Osiris, the capital planet, the first planet colonized and symbolically the third from the systems Primary. The best of nearly everything was there, the best hospitals, schools, academies and cities. Many companies had been based there, before being bought out by Blue Sun. And even they had a massive Headquarters complex in one of the most prestigious regions.

But what was not known was that the government buildings, the great meeting halls and parliamentary structures, were all a sham. Fake. Lower level officials filled the offices and the representatives of the planets were gathered there, but the real decision makers, the cabinet, were not. Nor were the board of directors for Blue Sun.

In reality these two groups were almost one and the same. Of the twelve men and women who sat on the cabinet, seven were on the Blue Sun Board of Directors. So it was not surprising that Blue Sun supplied every government need, from ships and guns to liquor and sweets. Similarly Blue Sun controlled nearly every factory or outlet in the system, and got exempt from all taxation laws for their 'services', legal or otherwise.

The Cabinet actually lived and worked from a small moon that orbited Osiris. The moon itself was a bit of an oddity, as it was so far out that it was all but invisible to the naked eye from the planet's surface, even before mankind arrived. Around it was a cluster of smaller asteroids and rocks, some as small as cars, others nearly the size of mountains. The theory put forward by astronomers, back when the colony ships first arrived, was that the moon and its surrounding rocks could have become another moon, but the gravitational field was too weak to bring them together enough to do so. So now the moon sat within a localised field of rocks. The perfect hiding place… or fortress.

For this moon was a fortress. Blue Sun workers, nearly all indentured and thus paid nothing and driven to exhaustion, had hollowed out the moon, mining out thousands of tons of raw ore. After the miners came more workers, building a vast network of labs, offices and barracks. Closer to the surface the construction was more… military, with a sinister purpose.

Outside the moon, the very asteroids themselves had been turned into a veritable minefield of concealed weapon emplacements, hidden docking stations and deadly traps. No attacker who tried to force his into the heart of the cluster would make it without horrendous losses.

Deep in the heart of the complex the cabinet were sat at their table, watching the report made by the soon to be former-Commander Lefcourt. He'd made his report direct to the Chief of Staff, the director of all the Alliances military operations. Even before seeing the full, complete report the order had been passed down the chain. Lefcourt's days were numbered in single digits. He just didn't know it yet.

Normally lit only in dim light, the Cabinet were at this moment plunged into almost complete darkness, lit only by the hologram that displayed the full, exacting and horrifying report of the Dominator's encounter with the unknown ship known only as Thunderchild.

At first there had been scoffs of derision for the ships layout and look. It was heavy, industrial. No smooth shapes or protective sheath of armour covered it's exposed, patch work hull. To those men and women, it looked slow, lumbering and ugly. Almost equal derision was directed at this 'Colonel Achilles', who appeared to be a stubborn fool, challenging one of the Alliance's mighty cruisers. Only one member of the Cabinet had become worried, the Culture Minister. She had been trained to understand people, to gauge their moods and personality. And everything she was getting off Achilles was worrying.

Then the shooting started. And the lumbering and ugly brick turned out to be a fire spitting block of death.

The Chief of Staff watched in slack jaw horror – and a grudging respect – as the hostile swatted their Gunships away like flies, picking off missiles with ease. The two plasma bolt hits were watched intently, but when they were revealed to have done almost nothing it was a bitter pill.

And then the ship had returned fire, and promptly ripped the Dominator apart, without even trying, with just two shots. He'd already known the extent of the damage, but to see just how easily the other ship had done that much damage, and so quickly… it gave a whole new meaning to the phrase 'brown trousers time'.

During the last few seconds of the report, he looked away from it and towards his fellow cabinet members. While they were only lit by the glow of the hologram, the shock, horror and outrage were clear on all their faces, in varying quantities. The only one who was completely hidden was the President. The Chief of Staff had never actually seen the man's face, not clearly at any rate.

For a long moment after the report nobody spoke. Then the Minister of Public Concern spoke, his gravely voice filled with acid. "General, what of the fate of this… coward? And his crew?"

"Commander Lefcourt's execution is scheduled for Thursday morning."

"Three days? Why the delay?"

"It'll take that long for his ship to reach the marshalling point where we can arrest him." The General answered simply.

"Lord, we cannot let this information get out." The reedy Minister of Truth spoke rapidly, his thin voice rising even higher. "Our standing with the people is still weakened by the revelation of Miranda and the Reavers. If word of this ship gets out…"

"It will not get out." The Presidents voice was like glacial ice, unforgivably cold and totally impossible to resist. "No matter what, we must not loose control now. Everything is almost ready. If things were to plunge into chaos now, all we have worked for will be lost forever. Minister, dispatch one of our Nightbringer's to rendezvous with the Dominator."

"Orders?" The Minister of Security asked, without a trace of trepidation or concern.

"Total destruction. No survivors. We can not let news of these new ships reach the people. Do you understand me?"

"Yes sir."

"As for you General…" The President rounded on the Chief of Staff, who was looking equally sick and horrified that his people were just going to be slaughtered by one of their own. "…You are to capture one of those smaller ships." He pointed one near skeletal finger at the now still holo, directed at one of the smaller ships that had entered the local area behind the much larger ship. "The Minister of Espionage will release some of his toys for your deployment." The Presidents tone brooked no argument… from either man.

"Yes sir."

"Whatever happens from now on, understand this: If these ships, their crews, are allowed contact with the people, then we must eradicate any and all who come into contact with them. I want the main ship followed by a Nightbringer, with orders to destroy any ship or colony that they stop at and ensure that any corruption or dissent they foster is burned away. If word gets out, it will be on your heads. Do you understand me?"

"Yes sir!"

DR: Is everyone creeped out now? Good, that's what I was hoping for. Next time, we rejoin Serenity for meal time, and (with a little luck) their arrival on the first port of call...

Harry: And don't forget to review! (Goes back to making out with Hermione)