AUTHOR'S NOTE
I have no idea how long "The Adventures on Space Mexico" are going to be. I had a handful of ideas I wanted to put to story, and it may be two more chapters. Enjoy.
Zoe and Simon were playing a game of Tall Card in the dining/lounge area. At first, neither understood what the sound they heard was. After the split second of initial confusion, they realized River was screaming. They'd heard her scream before, but never like this. River usually screamed like a scared little girl, panicking and gibbering about whatever she felt that her teammates couldn't. This was one, long, continuous shriek. River sounded like she was screaming herself to death. Simon remembered almost being burned at the stake for witchcraft with River once. He'd never wondered, but now knew, what his baby sister would have sounded like had the fire been lit.
River's scream led Zoe and Simon into the cargo bay, where River was standing in the middle of the floor and seemed to be swatting invisible flies out of the air. Wild swings with either hand set her hair and flower dress to flapping. Recoiling from something, River fell backwards, finally stopping her scream. Instead of falling directly onto her backside, she turned her fall into a roll out of reflex. She completed her roll with her hands and knees down, staring blankly at the floor, gasping to catch her breath.
"River!" Simon shouted, appearing at her side. "What's happening? What do you see?"
"There all gonna die," River said in a haunted far away voice. Snapping out of her funk, she looked Simon in the eye and said, "Everyone's going to burn!" She looked terrified. Simon felt a chill run down his spine as he heard the note of hopelessness in River's voice.
"What do you-" Simon started. He didn't get to finish. River jumped up from the floor and took off, not listening.
Zoe and Simon looked at each other momentarily before following suit and running after River.
River's head start and adrenaline caused her to leave them behind in short order. She headed straight for Jayne's bunk. Ripping the blanket off of the wall over his bed, she took stock of his armory. She was going to need a lot of bullets.
"River, honey, what are you doing?" Zoe gasped as River climbed back out of Jayne's quarters.
Zoe and Simon both stood speechless at what they saw. River was wearing a utility belt with the only G style handgun in Jayne's arsenal hanging from her right leg. The belt was loaded down with several rifle magazines and a pair of butterfly swords in a large, leather pouch on her left hip. In her arms, she held a mini-14 with an abnormally large drum magazine holding one hundred rounds. Almost as an afterthought, a backpack was slung on her shoulders. She should have looked like a child putting on her parent's clothes, but the scared/determined look in her face stopped that illusion short.
"So... we should gear up?" Zoe asked, trying to guess what River was up to. Either she just strapped as much firepower as she could to her small frame, or she really thought she was going to need all of it.
"Now," River said. Time was short.
.
Mal, comfortably full of the best food and drink in the Verse, was the first to notice something was wrong. "What's with the mutt?" he asked Victor.
"Snow?" Victor asked, looking under the table, where the large puppy was hiding. "I don't know." His ears looked like they were trying to lay flat, but kept swiveling out. "I think he hears something he don't like."
"We should think about leaving, anyways," Kaylee said. "I'm sure the others want time off the ship, too, now that the meet was successful." She noticed the men at the table were all tensing up. Mal, Jayne, and Victor were sitting perfectly still, trying to hear whatever it was that was bothering the puppy.
"Sumpin's not right," Jayne told Kaylee. "It's like-"
"It's too quiet," Victor finished. "It's barely sundown and were in a busy town. It should be noisy. We should be hearing music and voices in the background."
A faint scream could be heard in the distance, startling even the normal patrons of the restaurant.
"Not those kinds of voices," Victor said in an exasperated voice. "Horrified screaming is hardly step in the right direc-"
"Shut up," Mal said in a low, flat voice. Something bad was happening. He just didn't know what. He had no desire to put up with Victor's mouth right now.
"Shutting up, sir," Victor said without finishing his thought.
Mal put a small, gold coin on the table alongside the two Victor had already placed. He hadn't been sure if Victor was trying to pay for everything or he'd been trying to impress the pretty waitress, but he wasn't about to let a member of his crew pay for his meal. "Let's go see what's what."
Jayne looked back and forth across the restaurant. From their position outside, he could see through the windows. The inside of the building was packed. Not a single person looked like they knew what was happening. No one was panicked, but even the vague sense of unease in this many people, most of whom were the locals, was a bad sign. "You want to head towards whatever's going on?" he asked. "We don't need to go sticking our nose in the locals' business. I say we git while the gittin's good. It's not like the folks here can't take care of themselves."
As they left the restaurant, Victor spoke in a low whisper, so as not to draw attention to his violation of the Captain's last order. "Where's your sense of adventure?" he asked, grinning from ear to ear. "There could be a hanging going on!"
Jayne liked Victor. The man lifted weights, fought, and drank like a champion. Sometimes, however, he could be just as freaky as the reader girl. "Exactly!" he snapped. "I don't wanna get caught up innit. Five necks hang just as easy as one or two."
The four people and the dog made their way into the street, a hard packed dirt road. There was no foot traffic. Mal stood directly in the center of the street, Kaylee standing too close with Jayne and Victor automatically fanning out a little. Mal looked to his left and his right. On the right, a short man with tan skin, dark hair, and dark eyes came around the corner of a building.
"Hey, there!" Mal called, glad to see someone was still around. "Do you know what's going on?"
The man turned at the sound of Mal's voice and started walking towards him.
"Hablas Ingeles?" Mal asked. After that got no reaction, "Habla en absoluto?"
The man had closed half the distance and started sprinting right at Mal. His face was fixed into a snarl. Growling wordlessly, he lunged with both hands at Mal's throat. Mal was already on edge and didn't hesitate. He stepped into the attacker with a chop to the neck, effectively clothes-lining the man. His opponent went backwards, heels over head, slamming the back of his head on the ground. The blow knocked him unconscious. At least Mal thought he was unconscious.
"What are you two doing?" Mal asked after he turned around. Jayne had his pistol with the large, round front sight post out and was pointing it, one handed, at the man on the ground. Victor had his sword out above his head with both hands on the hilt, ready to bring it slamming down.
Jayne and Victor both looked at each other. Looking back at Mal, they said in unison, "What?"
"I think the Cap got 'em," Kaylee said, dryly. Both men lowered their weapons, but neither reholstered.
"Is that a Reaver?" Jayne demanded. Something about the wordless snarl and attack had triggered his memories, but the man on the ground didn't look like a Reaver. His flesh was unmarked, but...
"What is it with you and Reavers?" Victor asked in what was almost a scoff. He'd never run into them in his career as a company man, but he'd met plenty of people who had and lived to tell the tale. If a Reaver encounter was survivable, what's the big deal? Victor knelt next to the unconscious man. "He's still alive," he said, placing his hand on the man's belly. He was breathing deeply. He checked the man's eyes. "His eyes are red. Ruptured blood vessels."
"Was that my doin?" Mal asked.
"No," Victor said. He paused. "Maybe? I dunno. Sometimes vessels rupture. It's a thing."
"Thanks for clearin' that up," Jayne said, shaking his head in disappointment.
"Dammit, man, I'm a swordfighter, not a doctor!"
Mal, Jayne, Zoe, and even Snow looked at Victor quizzically.
"Nothing. Nothing. I get nothing!" Victor said, stomping his foot in disbelief. "Forget you guys."
"Uh, guys," Kaylee said, looking up the street. "I think we should go."
About twenty more men were walking toward them with blank faces. Seeing Mal and the others, their aimless wandering shifted to a determined march, then an all out sprint, just like their friend.
"Run," Mal said, drawing and fanning the hammer on the Dragon with blinding speed. Five of the new Reavers went down before almost instantly. "Run!" he shouted.
"Too late," Victor said as the rest bore down on them. He stepped into the fray, drawing the bulk of the attention to himself. His sword flashed out, every strike bringing a new target down. Mal and Jayne fanned out to either side and shot down as many as they could. All told, it only took a few seconds to get them all.
"Well this is just great," Jayne growled. "The town watch comes along, they're gonna think we killed a bunch of people for no reason."
"They just kept attacking," Victor said, looking at the bodies on the ground. "They didn't even think to give up or try a little strategy." He frowned at the scene, like a puzzle he couldn't quite figure out. "Weird. What were they trying to accomplish?"
"Move!" Mal snapped as a new wave started up the street. This time, there were better than fifty Reavers. Instead of meandering slowly at first, they were screaming in rage and running straight at Mal and the others. Kaylee was frozen in fear, not moving until Mal grabbed her by the shoulder of her coveralls and dragged her the first several feet. Jayne and Victor brought up the rear, occasionally turning to put down the fastest runners.
"Hey," Victor said, grinning, trying to get Jayne's attention after a lull in the attackers.
"What?!" Jayne demanded. He found Victor's good spirits in the face of getting eaten a little irritating, to say the least.
"At least it's not raining," Victor said.
As if on cue, the clouds that had been building up finally gave way to heavy rain, all at once. Victor buttoned the top three buttons on his firemen's coat, leaving the bottom half open so he could get to his weapon's sheathe.
"Ni ta ma de," Jayne replied bitterly.
This was going to be a long night.
.
The town was in flames. River, Zoe, and Simon were greeted to the smell of smoke and the screams of the dying. Inara had been elected to stay behind by virtue of not getting ready to leave fast enough.
Leaving the docking bay area and heading deeper into town, River's stomach turned at the sight of a fresh, red eyed Reaver hunched over a woman, ripping her intestines out with his teeth. River put stock to shoulder and fired, sending the Reaver's brains splattering out into the street.
"That was a Reaver, wasn't it?" Zoe asked. "What are they doing this far in-"
"They're new," River said. "She made them."
"Who?" Simon asked, confused. He had a backpack style med kit on his back and small submachine gun in his hands. Jayne had given him basic drills on Serenity and he'd fired live rounds on few occasions, but he was still lamenting his lack of practice right now.
"The Reaver Queen," River said, eyes haunted as the three kept walking.
"Her parents made a terrible choice," Simon said, trying in vain to lighten the mood. He was referring to the somewhat unusual name, of course.
"The same mistake ours did," River said, not referring to the same thing.
River did her best to navigate the maze of adobe buildings without encountering more Reavers. It didn't work. Their queen could sense her and kept sending larger and larger waves at her. River didn't mind shooting Reavers. Their violent urges and blind hate burned against her mind. Killing them made the feeling go away. At one turn in the road, River, Zoe, and Simon came face-to-face with a large group. They were getting smarter. This batch had found weapons. The Reavers seemed just as partial to carrying a bludgeon, blade, or firearm. If anything, random items like wrenches and pipes were favored. They were easy to find and didn't detract from time spent killing.
River opened fire. She wasn't sure what caliber bullet her rifle fired, but Jayne had picked it for knockdown power. Each bullet ripped the head off another red eyed, rabid monster charging at her and her friends. Zoe picked up the spares, taking down the few Reavers who had firearms with well placed shots from her mare's leg.
As the wave advanced, River began to realize she wasn't able place her targets quickly enough. The recoil from the rifle, while not enough to be painful, was increasing the time it took to aim. Rather than waste bullets, River dropped the rifle and went in, face first.
Her short swords swung out, complimenting her steel reinforced boots in devastating her opponents. She wove her way in and out of her targets, cutting, kicking, and dodging various blows. Where she couldn't easily take down one opponent, she simply moved on to another target, allowing Zoe to assist.
Finally, standing in a pile of bodies, most of which were still twitching or bleeding profusely, she shook the blood off her butterfly swords and placed them back in their sheathe.
Simon stared, frozen in place. He'd seen his sister dance as a child, and had been saved by her abilities on Miranda, but he'd never gotten the chance to watch his baby sister cut loose like that. It was beautiful and scary at the same time, like old educational videos of cheetahs running down their prey.
River caught Simon's eye as she retrieved her rifle. She didn't like the way Simon was looking at her. She could feel his awe mixed with fear. At least Zoe was accepting. She took River's abilities with a cool, professional attitude, not unlike how she took everything else the Verse threw at her. In her mind, if River could do these things, River could do these things and that's all there was to it.
"Let's keep moving," River said. "It's going to start raining heavily in four seconds."
The three kept walking at a fast pace as the rains started to pour.
.
Kaylee was scared. She'd gotten separated from the others when a particularly large crowd of Reavers had swarmed them. Mal's parting words had been "Get to Serenity!" before he also had to turn and run. While Mal, Jayne, and Victor had the option of luring their mindless pursuers into better positions, Kaylee was unarmed. Luckily (or perhaps it was a deliberate choice) the three men had made as much noise as possible, before the four split up, causing the majority of the Reavers to follow them. Kaylee had managed to lose her pursuers in the twists and turns of smaller streets, but now she was faced with a new problem. She was lost.
Kaylee opened the door to the nearest large building. Locking it behind her, she turned and was greeted with the sight of a machine shop of some kind. Smiling, in spite of the situation, she took in the room. A large speeder, obviously in need of repair, sat in the middle of the room. On the shelves lining the walls were small engines, weed eaters, and generators. Walking around the speeder, Kaylee spotted a grav generator and a macro battery as well. The battery was a two foot by two foot cube, and probably powered the speeder.
"Shiny," Kaylee said, smiling. Then she remembered why she was here. She began to search for anything that could be used as a weapon.
.
Victor sat down on the steps of what appeared to be an apartment building. The steps were recessed into the building, offering some protection from the pouring rain. His sword was back at his hip and he held a black, polymer semiauto pistol he'd drawn from somewhere in his coat. The blade to his sword had gone dull after a new wave of Reavers had found him. He'd stopped counting how many he'd killed around fifty. He was tired and out of breath. He also realized why people hated Reavers so much. He'd chopped the arms off the first few only to have them keep attacking with their teeth. One of the Reavers had gotten a lucky stab to his left shoulder with a pointy stick, right where the muscle met the neck with what, at the time, appeared to be a broken off broom handle. Angry at his own lack of attention, Victor went into one of his blind rages and chopped the whole lot of them up into pieces, taking a chunk out wherever he could.
Now, his blade was dull, he was exhausted, and his shoulder was hurt and bleeding. The small hole in the bullet resistant nanowire sewn into his coat was going to take time to fix. Several minutes at least. Maybe that wasn't too long, but that was still minutes longer than it would have taken had he not taken a stick to the shoulder.
He knew the momentary lapse in attackers wasn't going to last, and he really wasn't looking forward to the next round. He pulled his vial of powdered coca extract out of his pocket and took a dose.
"Well, Snow," he said, replacing the vial. "I think I'll let you take the next ones, huh?"
Snow sat, panting. While large, he was still just a puppy and running alongside Victor was the most exercise he'd gotten at the same time, ever.
"I mean, what good are you anyway?" he asked, rubbing the puppy's ears. The little guy had actually been quite helpful. His growling and barking at the Reavers caused them to bend over to grab him, giving Victor the ability to bring his sword into play with no resistance. Victor made a mental note to start training the dog properly the next chance he got.
Snow yawned.
"None of that," Victor said, sternly. He stood. His stomach was full of Mexican food and tequila, aggravated further by the cigar he'd smoked. The sudden burst of physical activity wasn't helping either. "Tell you what. We'll just go around the rest of them."
Snow seemed to like that idea.
.
Jayne didn't like these new Reavers. Truth be told, he didn't like any Reavers, but these new ones with the red eyes were especially troublesome. They were like ants. Most Reavers are like rabid dogs, but these new ones were like ants. Two or three of them would go out ahead of the group, then the rest would come crashing down. He didn't like the idea of Reavers planning things. More important, Reavers don't talk, so how were they telling each other where Jayne was?
Jayne spotted the mechanic shop, having narrowly avoided a batch of Reavers. He didn't have enough ammo on him to stop and deal with them all. He wasn't sure what had happened to Kaylee, but a garage seemed as likely a spot as any for her to be. The light was on in the place. At the very least, Jayne could warn whoever was in there what was going on outside. Maybe there'd be a pretty girl who'd want to spend some alone time with her handsome rescuer.
Never mind, Jayne thought, seeing a lone Reaver go into the garage. He sprinted the rest of the way to the door and burst in just in time to see Kaylee holding the Reaver at bay, swinging a large wrench. Her "attacks" probably would have been more effective had her eyes been open.
Jayne drew and fired in one smooth motion, sending Reaver brains flying. Kaylee either didn't hear, or didn't know what she'd heard because she kept swinging her wrench at the empty air.
"Quitcher messin around," Jayne growled at Kaylee.
"Jayne?" she asked, opening her eyes. She looked down at the Reaver.
"You got 'em," Jayne said. "Now come on."
.
Mal had ordered his crew to get back on Serenity. He had other plans, however. He ran his way through the town, gathering up survivors as best he could, organizing a response to the swarms of Reavers. He'd ran into some donsmen along the way and was now leading about twenty armed men throught the streets, eliminating Reavers whenever they were dumb enough to rush his current "army".
Mal talked with the donsmen and quickly established a basic plan. At every house that had people in it, one of the groups followers would knock on the door. After alerting whoever was home, the residents would grab their guns. If there were small children at home, the orders were to stay home and make as little noise as possible. If not, the residents would join the posse and help put down Reavers and put out fires.
Mal kept his input to a minimum and let the donsmen give all the orders. People don't like being told what to do in their own homes, especially from outsiders. Even so, he intended to stick around until the Reavers were dealt with. Maybe he'd even be able to find out what the hell these new ones were and where they came from.
.
The Reaver Queen was most displeased. She could see through her Reavers' eyes the town was yet to be fully set aflame. Also, she'd been met with armed resistance from a large number of men seemingly led by the Browncoat.
Standing atop one of the taller buildings, she could see her fires twinkling out like stars in the distance. She sighed deeply and tisked to herself. This just wouldn't do at all. She'd severely underestimated her opponents. All her brains and education just didn't hold up in the face of experience. The Reaver Queen was not too proud to admit that to herself. Her enemy had used the lay out of the town itself to their advantage and recruited help in the face of overwhelming odds. That was fine. It made her inevitable victory all the more exciting.
She had one last thing to take care of before she turned the rest of her pets loose. One of her siblings was looking for her.
.
River, Zoe, and Simon worked their way through the city to Mal's location, barrels out and ready. Zoe was a little uneasy moving through hostile territory with the only intel coming from a reader's subconscious mind, but River had never led them wrong before. After the last wave of Reavers, they'd yet to encounter any more.
River stopped suddenly in the middle of the road. "This isn't going to work," she said.
Simon spoke up. "We're doing fine so far."
"The Captain has organized a response team," River said, eyes wide and far away. "The Queen is mad she lost her pawns."
"We don't know what your talking about River," Zoe said patiently. River's spaced out way of speaking could be troublesome, but Zoe knew it was best to try and keep up.
"She's talking about me," a voice said from behind them.
Zoe and Simon spun and raised their weapons. They were facing about a dozen Reavers and a tall, Chinese woman in black. These Reavers were the "smart" ones. Each had a firearm of some kind. River took her own time turning to face her enemy. She could see everything, even without her eyes.
"Hello, Stacy," River said, keeping her own rifle pointed at the ground. "It's been a long time."
"You know this person?" Simon asked.
The woman in black placed a hand over her heart in a fake gesture of pain. "River, I'm hurt. You never mentioned me to your friends?"
"You look like you've been keeping busy," River said, trying to buy time. She didn't want to fight one of her old classmates. She wasn't sure she could win.
"Oh, I have," the woman said. She spread her arms in a wide and expansive gesture. "I got myself a new job and a new title. I spend my days enforcing the will of our great leaders."
"Your leaders," River corrected. Just a little longer.
The woman scoffed. "Oh please River. Just because you ran away from home doesn't make you any less a daughter of the Alliance than me."
"So you expect us to believe the government signed off on you burning a productive, friendly community to the ground?"
The Reaver Queen, the young woman River had called Stacy, smiled impishly. She looked, momentarily, like a girl who'd been caught pulling a prank. In the pouring rain, with Reavers flanking her on either side, the sight was... unpleasant to say the least. "Oh, you're just too smart for me, girlfriend!" she said, laughing. Even her laugh sounded wrong, somehow. "I was going to bring them the body of Malcolm Reynolds. You know... be proactive, move up in the world."
Any time now. "And the fires and civilian casualties?" River asked, hoping the effort of keeping control of her Reavers kept the other woman from digging into her mind.
The Reaver Queen shrugged and sighed. "Oh... you know what they say. All work and no play..."
The conversation was mercifully ended with a barrage of pistol shots from the Reavers' nine o'clock position. Three Reavers went down before the whole party had even registered what was happening. Zoe and Simon opened fire as well, prioritizing the armed Reavers as targets. River didn't. She fired at the woman.
The Reaver Queen loosed her control of her minions to focus on River. She could feel where River was shooting as she made haste toward the nearest building. That helped her avoid the worst of the attack, but River kept firing, putting three bullets into her target. The Reaver queen was no ordinary target and kept going, diving through the force field window and escaping.
The Reavers down, Zoe made to run after the Queen, but River called on her to stop.
"She's trying to lure us into a trap," River said. "I injured her, so she won't come back anytime soon. We should just be grateful for now."
Zoe didn't like the idea of letting a wounded enemy escape, but she liked the idea of walking into a trap even less. She set about collecting the Reavers' handguns and stuffing them into River's backpack.
Victor and Snow walked out of the ambush position. Snow looked like he'd just climbed out of a pool. Victor was grinning his stupid grin. Simon momentarily wished he had a fireman's coat. The one Victor was wearing looked waterproof.
"And what took you so long?" River demanded, frowning in disappointment.
"Don't start with me, woman," Victor said, his grin not even fading. "You have no idea the traffic I had to get through to get here." He turned to take in Zoe and Simon. "You guys look like you're having a rough night."
"I've had better," Zoe confirmed.
"Where's Kaylee?" Simon asked.
Victor considered for a second. He looked up one side of the street. Then, he looked down another side of the street. Finally, he spun in a slow circle. He finished by shrugging and said, "I dunno."
Simon dropped his SMG, letting it hang from his shoulder by the strap. He grabbed Victor by the coat and got face-to-face with him snarling, "You think this is a joke? She could be dead right now!"
Victor rolled his eyes like a petulant teenager. "Everything is joke, bro. That's what makes things serious."
Simon roared and swung a fist at Victor's face as hard as he could. Victor leaned his head into the punch, taking the blow to his forehead. Foreheads tend to be much thicker than knuckles and Simon recoiled, clutching his hand to his chest.
"This isn't helping!" River snapped.
Victor was snickering to himself. He was impressed. Simon knew who he was dealing with but still lost his cool and attacked. It seemed even the nicest guys tend to get a little crazy when their women's lives were on the line. I like this guy, Victor thought.
Zoe chimed in, "Simon, God knows I understand how you feel, but your sister's right. It's time to soldier up."
"The Captain's orders were to return to the ship," Victor said.
"River," Zoe said. "Can you lead us to the Captain?"
"Easily," River said.
"You've got new orders now," Zoe said. "We're going to find the Captain."
Victor looked in the direction of the ship he couldn't see from the street he was on. Fires, screams, and death did not wait in that direction. A lukewarm shower and his bed did. Also he had an open cut in an awkward place, meaning the man he just had a mild disagreement with would have to clean the wound and stitch him up.
Victor turned back to Zoe. "Why not? You're the hottest date I've had in a long time."
Zoe smirked. "Sorry, but I only like funny, good looking men."
"Ouch," Victor said, clutching his chest. "You hit harder than the Doc."