DR: Here's a Christmas update for all of you... though it ain't a 'Light' and 'Fluffy' chapter. It's actually quite dark...
River: (*glaring at DR*)
DR: Look River, I've said sorry at least a dozen times now. I will fix things... eventually.
River: (*continues to glare*)
DR: *sighs* Fine. Anyway, as I said, this is a moderately 'Dark' chapter. And there are several nods to a famous book turned rock opera/musical. See if you can spot them all...
Chapter 19: Scent of Rebellion
The destruction of the town, with apparently no survivors, was the only thing people were talking about when Serenity docked with the skyplex that orbited one of the three gas giants in the system, only two days travel away. Thunderchild eased in close, slowly so as not to panic everyone too much. Achilles had directed the ships here on information Gregory Lee-Frye had told him regarding a resurgent Independent Faction.
The station itself was used as a relay point for the mines that dug deep beneath the ice locked surface of the moon for metals. In the early years it had bustled as prospectors used it as a jump off point, before coming back to try and stake a claim or be paid vast amounts of money for the location of their strikes. More often then not they came back empty handed and frostbitten, but some had struck it lucky.
Now though the primary mines were run by Blue Sun, who had set up landing pads on the surface, cutting out the need for the skyplex as the transfer point. The prospectors were also gone, as Blue Sun now held a monopoly on the mining rights of the small moon. The station would have been dismantled, if it had not managed to become a trade point.
Ships from the other moons often came here to trade with those from nearby planets. Passing freighters and liners sometimes docked to restock supplies.
The main users of the skyplex now though were the criminal underclass's, the underground rebels, and those wanting to remain beyond the reach of the law.
Mal walked through the dirty passageways, watching everyone he passed. Behind him Zoe and Jayne followed, both as keenly alert as he was.
Mal paused long enough to watch a news report about the destroyed town. He snorted to himself at the end when the reporter said there were no survivors of the sudden and unexpected meteor shower. While the second bit could be true, the bit about there being no survivors was an outright lie, since there were. Gregory and his wife had found a little over a dozen children, ranging between nine and twelve, who had been in the school when the disaster struck. After the first hit in town, the music teacher had directed them out and away from town, into the hills nearby. He'd been there with them rehearsing a forth-coming school play. Gregory had found them and the teacher hiding in a hallow in the hills close by. The children had been tired, tearful and dirty, but otherwise unharmed. The teacher however had suffered fatal burns to his back, and had been failing when the Lee-Frye's arrived. He'd managed to hold out until Mrs Lee Frye had led the children away, but then he'd died, speaking deliriously of green flashes raining from the sky.
As he weaved his way between stalls of barely legal good, Mal counted himself lucky that he'd managed to persuade the others to remain on the ship. The only one allowed off was Ghost, and that was because he could not only go invisible, but he could scare the bejezzus out of any of these lowlifes.
Finally he reached the tiny stall that Gregory had told Achilles about. He'd heard about it from an old fighter pilot friend who'd turned sometime smuggler, sometime escort for hire after the war. Unable or unwilling to settle down, he'd wandered the system, and as such had remained in contact with a number of other former independents. This stall was apparently run by one such former soldier.
Moving inside, Mal found a bench with a number of worthless nik-naks, some faded pictures hung on the wall, and a man slouched in his chair, apparently asleep. Looking around, Mal picked one of the various battered models that rested on the table.
"You'd better be thinking of buying that mister. Otherwise, set it down nice and slow." The voice came from underneath the tatty, wide rimmed hat the man wore low on his head.
Mal smiled ever so slightly as he looked the model over. "Just like I remember, though I have to admit I was away more partial to the 36GAF."
The man's head raised a bit. "Why's that mister? The gaf was an atmo slug, not a real fighter." His voice however was not threatening as it had before, but interested.
"Maybe to you flyboys, but to us cowboys they were our angels."
The man's head tipped back now, and Mal was shocked to realise that he knew the face. Back shortly before the infamous Battle of Serenity Valley, Mal's squad had been sent into a region of no man's land to extract a half dozen pilots who had ejected from stricken fighters. This man had been one of them. The most Mal could recall about him was the pale, white face that shivered even while unconscious, and the blood soaked wrappings around the right arm.
Now the man's face was a little less pale, with a short moustache of greying hair. Mal tried to fight the impulse, but he couldn't help but glance at the man's right arm. The sleeve was full, but Mal noted that he had his left hand placed over the right, and that there was some empty space there.
The former pilot looked him over slowly. "Malcolm Reynolds. Wondered when you'd resurface, after the amount of interest the Alliance has shown in you. From what we've heard, you've been a right bit of trouble for them for a while now."
"Trouble came to me. I just ran with it." Mal answered, setting the model back down.
"Ain't that the truth." The pilot smirked. "Nathaniel Peters. Now, what's a humble former pilot turned peddler do for you?" He waved towards a chair that sat opposite him with his left hand. As he did, his right was exposed to be a mechanical replacement, with a grasping tong, the tip of a narrow blade, and a short tube sticking out. From the size of it, Mal guessed it might be the barrel of a gun.
Nathaniel followed Mal's gaze. "Yea, it's a gun. Lost nearly the whole arm after punching out in that gorram mess of the Hera Counter Push. Living as I do in dangerous places like this, I figured I needed the edge, though I pray everyday that I won't need to use it." He brought a small silver cross on a chain up from under his shirt and pressed it against his forehead for a moment.
Mal shifted in his seat, uncomfortable with his open display of religion... the same religion that Mal had once believed, before his faith had been shattered in Serenity Valley. Along with many other things.
Clearing his throat, he cut to the chase. "I've heard talk about a new Independence Movement. Care to share?"
Nathaniel grinned. "It ain't just talk anymore Reynolds. We've been around since the War, but after that 'Miranda Broadcast', we've had some real ammo to go after those purple-bellied bastards with. The Alliance have never been able to control Hera completely, and the people are starting to ignore the Feds completely. So far we've not started fights, but we expect that we will, soon. Hell, if a fight looked in the offing, I'd haul ass over there and join up again."
"Nathaniel, you promised me you had quit." A woman's voice emerged from deeper into the alcove that contained Nathaniel's stall. The women who stepped out from behind a drape was a little younger, with long but straggly blond hair and a small frame. She looked at Nathaniel longingly.
"Flying's in my blood Beth." He turned to look at her. "Just like yours calls out to heal. Even them." He waved his hand to encompass the criminals and scum that filled the Skyplex outside the booth.
Mal decided to try and get things back on track. "You sure about that, fighting?"
Nathaniel nodded. "Definitely. The Alliance is getting desperate. Their lies carry less and less weight each day, and the people on both The Rim and the Mid Worlds are seeing things going to hell through mismanagement and ignorance by Alliance stooges. Pretty soon the people are going to start demanding local powers to deal with the problems, and the Alliance ain't going to give it to them. After that, things will escalate."
"You mean Alliance troops firing on civilians." Mal stated.
Nathaniel nodded slowly. "I suspect so."
Mal shook his head. "You really think you can win this time? Last time we got hammered, and look where we are now."
Nathaniel smiled sadly. "You can't kill a dream Mal, no matter what the stuck up Alliance thinks. There are more of us than before, and we have greater support than last time. This time, The Alliance can't send everything they've got at us, since they had to keep everywhere else under control. They move troops away from any planet, and the people will rise up." Nathaniel smiled triumphantly. He then snorted.
"Course, there are some within us prone to flights of fancy. A really good one I heard the other day tells of some kind of super ship, able to take out the whole Alliance single handily. And the crazy part is, it's crewed by Aliens." He laughed.
Mal chuckled with him, but not at the same thing. "Well, I can tell you that there are only three 'aliens' on that ship. Unless you count people born in distant star systems as aliens too."
Nathaniel looked at Mal liked he'd grown a second head. "Don't tell me you buy that silly tale! A single ship capable of taking out an entire fleet of ships? That's ridiculous! Impossible, more like!"
Mal was the one smiling now. "Had anyone told that story eighteen months ago, I'd be reacting just like you. But after what I've seen..."
Beth stepped up to stand next to her husband. "What are you hiding Mr Reynolds?" She asked slowly.
Mal smirked. "I think it's time you saw the impossible."
X-X-X-X-X-X
With a gentle grace, Wash eased Serenity about until they hung in space, the ships nose pointed just off the skyplex, towards empty space. The bulk of the skyplex hung off to the right, with the gas giant as a backdrop.
"Al'right Reynolds, what are we supposed to be seeing?" Nathaniel asked, arms crossed over his chest.
Mal just smiled. He'd checked the screens, and knew everything was perfectly set. He looked up out windows, and saw the tip of Thunderchild's prow. "That." He said, pointing.
"What are y..." Nathaniel trailed off as the Colonial ship came around from behind the Skyplex. His eyes widened in time with the increasing size of the arrowhead prow of the battlecruiser. Then as the lean neck slid past the leading end of the landing bay came into view... along with the dark mouths of the launch tubes that ran down the side of the flight pod. The broad, thick wing dominated the side view, the damage inflicted during the skirmish with the Alliance barely visible below the titanic megalaser turret. Just aft of the wings the central hull began to rise again, blending into the engines.
Once again, Mal was impressed with the ships clean lines and latent threat. It was a scary ship, not because of artful design flourishes or sinister markings. It didn't scare one though menace or fear. It was scary because it was purposeful, lean and clearly a warship.
There was also a beauty to it, in its lean grace and solid build. Bit like Zoe really, now that he thought about it, or Inara. There was not a wasted compartment or excess material anywhere on her.
Nathaniel breathed out slowly. "Now that's a warship." He then turned to Mal. "But I still don't see how she could beat an Alliance fleet by herself."
In reply, Mal turned to Wash. "I think we need to let these two have a guided tour."
Wash smirked and reached for the controls. A couple minutes later they were lining up on the battlecruisers alpha bay, a tiny orange slot on the rear of the port flight pod at this distance. Behind them the Skyplex was already falling behind as they left her local area. Mal had another cargo to drop off, to his old friend Monty. He'd called Nathaniel from Durrilon, one of the other moons of the gas giant. His ship had suffered a mechanical failure and there were no workshops on that moon capable of fixing the fault. He needed certain parts. Nathaniel had acquired the parts easily enough, it had been getting them to Monty that had been the sticking part. But with Mal here...
At that moment however Nathaniel was transfixed as they slowly moved in closer to the massive warship, the engines of which loomed overhead.
"We're going in there?" Beth asked quietly, one trembling hand pointed to the narrow looking slot that was slowly growing larger ahead.
Wash grinned. "We are indeed."
"But... there's no room..." She trailed off however as they flew into the bay serenely.
Nathaniel looked at the people they could see working in the bay, without pressure suits, on the sleek, delta winged tripled engine fighters that sat on their launch cradles. Then he glanced back at the yawning opening that they had just come through. "Okay. NOW I'm impressed."
X-X-X-X-X-X
A day later one of a number of smaller, independent cargo hauler was heading for the skyplex. The crew may only take honest work... but they didn't object to occasionally bringing some goods to the black market on the Skyplex and selling them off. They normally didn't buy anything, acting only as sellers, but every now and again they might need or want something. Having some goods to trade with was always useful.
Easing around the icy moon, the ships captain was thinking about potential profits, when his pilot called for his attention.
Ahead of them the Skyplex should have stood out before them, festooned as it was with dozens of neon advertisements for services and goods, legal and otherwise. Space around would have been home to normally a dozen small craft, ranging from fighters to smaller transports.
Now though, there was only twisted, broken wreckage...
X-X-X-X-X-X
Kaylee half skipped back to her bunk, humming. It had been a Good Day, as Mal would have said. Serenity was in tip-top shape, everything running smoothly. They'd ferried Nathenial and his wife Beth to Thunderchild, and Kaylee always had a thrill run down her spine when ever she stepped onto the mighty battlecruiser.
Her lips quirked into a larger smile as she passed the open hatch to Mal's bunk; the mummer of softly spoken words – one male and strong, the other soft and feminine – emerged from within.
Everyone on board recalled how Mal would barge into her shuttle whenever he wished. Now it was the other way round, with Inara visiting his bunk.
Kaylee also knew, and this caused her to smile, that Inara was spending the nights there now, ever since Persephone. Being an early riser, Kaylee had heard the sounds of her leaving in the early part of the 'day'.
As she climbed down the ladder into her own, Kaylee idly wondered if those two were lovers yet...
All thoughts about Mal and Inara died in her mind however when she saw the inside of her bunk. Sat in the middle of the bed was Simon, with a slim, dark haired figured clutching him, head buried in his chest. Even without seeing the face, she knew who it was.
"Oh sweetie..." Kaylee said as she sank onto the bed behind River. Reaching out, she wrapped her arms around the siblings. River's head moved a little, revealing her tear stained face and Simons soaked shirt. Kaylee looked up at Simon, a question in her eyes.
Wordlessly he passed to her a small reader. Taking in one hand, she shifted her attention to the screen. A few second later she gasped in shock, before dropping the reader and hugging River even tighter to her. Simon clutched them both, burying his face in Kaylee's own hair.
The reader landed softly on the bed, the screen with its dreadful words face up.
'Left ovary totally exhausted. Right ovary contains only half expected number of viable zygotes.
Chances of conception: less than 20% without intrusive IVF procedures being involved'