Harry was very confused at what he was looking at from the catwalks above the cargo hold. He knew they were playing some kind of game or sport but it looked too much like one he knew so that could not possibly be what it was.
Simon and River were up there with him, the young girl obviously more interested in the game. "What are they playing?" River asked her brother for an explanation on the game and likely the intricate set of rules associated with it so she could memorize it for later.
At that moment Zoe shot the ball up so it went through the hanging hoop and every one on her team cheered. "It's called Queen's Ditch," Simon answered, his words making Harry's head perk up.
"Or it would be but they are clearly not playing by civilized rules." Sighing because he was a fan of the sport, but typically they had more hoops and spaces and some extra balls to throw around.
"How did it get started?" River wondered.
"Well Wash bet doing the dishes that he could beat Jayne, which roped in the others and they had a pick up," Simon explained thinking River wanted the now answer.
"No, I mean how did the game start?" River was utterly fascinated with this Queen's Ditch game the crew was playing but it seemed wrong.
"No one really knows," Simon shrugged as professionals of the sport didn't actually know where it originated from. It was just one of the few sports that managed to survive the move over from the Earth that Was.
Harry was really wanting to explain every aspect of this "Queen's Ditch" game to the crew but he knew that would only cause him problems for how he knew of its origin and that would be far too dangerous for him so he kept his mouth shut and instead focused on the gorgeous woman next to him.
"So what's your take on the game?" Harry inquired Inara's opinion on this travesty of a sport.
"Not my cup of tea really, but some of the players are nice to look at," Inara smiled as some of the top Queen's Ditch players were very handsome men and beautiful women.
Before Harry could open his mouth and possibly embarrass himself an alarm began to sound throughout the cargo hull putting an end to the game. "Proximity alert," Zoe mumbled.
"Oh my god, who's flying this thing?" Wash faked panic for a moment before chuckling. "Oh wait, that's me."
With the game ended Zoe, Mal and Wash headed up to the cockpit to check and see what tripped the sensors while Jayne tried to convince the observers to come down and take up the open spots on the team when the ship lurched. "Goram Idiot," Jayne snarled as he stormed up the stairs to go and wallop Wash for his bad driving, the rest of the crew choosing to follow along mostly to see what was up.
"Wu de ma," Wash whispered as he looked through the viewport at the sea of bodies floating in the black.
"Get me closer, enough to knock." Mal ordered as he wanted to know what in the fuck happened in this corner of the galaxy.
Meanwhile in the back of the group River was holding onto her brother tightly and muttering about ghosts.
As Serenity got closer to the scow Kaylee pointed out the viewport towards the back of the ship. "The port thrust is gone, that's what is causing it to spin like that. Ain't normal either, something did the damage. Thrusters don't just go away."
"So are you thinking that this ship was attacked?" Shepard inquired further.
The mechanic just shrugged. "I mean, it's possible, or it's just the engine exploded, but that wouldn't cause everyone on board to get shot out."
"Was there a distress beacon?" Mal asked.
Wash punched some buttons on the console and then turned to his captain. "Sorry Mal, nothing going."
"So what's it doing out here?" Zoe wondered.
"Settlers, you take a ship like that and slap some engines and mod the bird a bit and it'll push you to another planet on the rim." Wash answered as he had seen these types of ships in the sky before. Even flew a couple of them before for the families that had no idea how to get the damn things off the ground.
"Should we check for survivors?" Harry asked since he hoped that the bodies floating by the ship weren't everyone on board.
"I say we just keep our heads down and float on by." Jayne shook his head, unwilling to get involved in this.
Book didn't much care for that and joined in the conversation on Harry's side. "We should at least report this."
"To who? I doubt the Alliance is going to come racing out here to check on these upstanding taxpayers." Mal scoffed at the idea of anyone helping these people. "But what we can do is check for injuries," knowing that the more light-hearted crew would support that. "And if we don't find anyone then there's nothing wrong with seeing if there are some valuables we can appropriate for our troubles."
Jayne perked up at the idea of looting and the prospect of a payday was all it took to get onboard with searching the ship.
With Captain and Zoe heading over first Harry was waiting to hear orders from what was going on inside the derelict ship. That was until River started to freak out when the door opened and he went with Simon to the med bay to try and find out what was causing her to panic so much.
"The ghosts on the ship," River whimpered and held herself. "So much screaming, they don't stop screaming."
Simon reached out to his sister. "River, no one is screaming?" Questioning where River was hearing these noises from when Jayne came into the medbay loading a gun.
"Doc grab your medkit, Mal wants us over there on the double," Jayne informed everyone in the room.
Turning to Harry who was still with him. "Can you watch her while I'm gone, hopefully it won't be too long?" Seeing Harry nodded, Simon gathered what he needed and rushed out of the room.
Harry could hear Simon asking Jayne questions about possible survivors or injuries but not getting straight answers. After their voices were gone Harry turned his attention back to River who was still clutching her head. "River, what were the voices screaming?" Wondering just what she was hearing, if these were the surface thoughts of people still alive on the other ship then there must be a lot of injured people.
River's eyes looked up to stare at Harry's but they were unfocused, like they were trying to look past him. "Help us, they're killing us."
Harry sighed heavily. "Well that's not good," running a hand down his face. River suddenly rushing past him had him spinning on the floor. "Where are you going?!"
He passed by Inara and Shepherd as he chased down River in the halls, but damn if that girl wasn't fast and agile. This commotion resulted in the three following River to the airlock where she was tentatively reaching out to the other ship. "Sweetie," Inara softly said, trying to quietly approach River and bring her away from the hold.
Movement flittering just on the edge of his vision garnered Harry's attention. He carefully walked forward until he was close enough to see the pale almost see through shape float further into the ship. "Oh, screaming."
"What is it young man?" Shepherd questioned when he saw Harry acting almost as strange as the female Tam. In all his years of living he'd never met two more curious people, the girl seemed like an oddball at the best of times but Harry was different in a way he had never seen before, almost like he knew things but either couldn't or wouldn't say what they were.
"When reavers attack, do they have a tendency to carve out chunks of flesh from their victims?" Harry asked suddenly.
Book cleared his throat loudly because that was not a typical question nor one he wanted to answer given present company, but he would nonetheless. "Reavers try to cause as much harm as possible."
"Then I know what hit this ship and we should get out of here," Harry gulped as he rushed past River and deeper into the ship. "Don't let anyone else on the ship and whatever you do don't let anyone who isn't us off."
This many ghosts could only mean one thing to him.
It didn't take him long to find Captain Mal and Zoe in the ship after the ghosts pointed him in the right direction. He gave the specters a nod of thanks. "Cap," gripping the doorframe and doing his best not to recoil at the two guns pointed his way after startling the adults. "Whatever we do here, we need to do it fast. Reavers hit this ship and I don't want to be here if they decide to come back."
Mal raised an eyebrow at how his cook had come to this conclusion, not that he thought it was wrong, he had his suspicions already. But this was a declaration and not a guess.
A soft sound of liquid hitting the floor drew his attention upward. "Okay, we grab what's valuable and leave."
Before any of them could move a gunshot rang out deeper into the ship. "That was Jayne's gun," Zoe's eyes widened as she and Mal ran out of the room. While passing Harry she pushed her extra sidearm into his hands. Even if he couldn't hit a reaver with it, if it came to it, then Zoe figured he could at least grant himself a merciful death that the reavers wouldn't.
Wash's voice came over the intercom, "What's going on in there?"
Mal pressed a button on his com. "Wash get the ship ready we aren't staying long."
The group of three ran into Simon and Kaylee who had been working in the engine room. "We heard shooting and, aren't you supposed to be with River?"
"She's with Book and Inara, we need to go, reavers did this and Jayne's might have found them," Harry answered as he ran past the two following Mal and Zoe to try and get to Jayne, hopefully before something bad happened to him.
All five crew members burst into the mess hall to see Jayne sweeping his gun around the room, looking for something. "What'd you see?" Mal asked as everyone formed a circle so no one could sneak up on them and they had all obvious entrances covered.
"Didn't," Jayne spat out. "Came at me from behind. Big though, strong, think I might have hit him."
A rattling sound from behind the counter drew the attention of everyone who slowly started to move towards the noise. "Why the kid got a gun?" Jayne whispered to Zoe as he saw the shiny piece in the cook's hand.
"Figured even if he couldn't shoot a Reaver he at least deserved a bullet for himself," Zoe responded as she cocked the hammer on her revolver. Jayne just offered a small shrug because if it was reavers that were here, even he wasn't a cold enough bastard to deny someone a quick suicide rather than endure what those maniacs do to people.
Mal removing the cover on the vent he and everyone else saw a man who was cowering in fear. It caused them to pause as this didn't seem like the type of man who would try to attack someone like Jayne. Harry was starting to think that they might have found a survivor and the attacker was still out there when Mal lunged forward and clocked the guy on the head, knocking him out.
"Cap?!" Harry shouted in surprise that Mal just assaulted someone for no reason.
"Don't you fret none," Mal said sourly. "Just need him nice and compliant when we take him over, then we lock our door and get the hell out of here."
Harry helped Simon carry the unconscious and clearly injured man out of the derelict ship and into Serenity's sick bay while Shepard was busy arguing with the captain over being allowed to give the dead burial rights.
Once the man had been secured to the bed, Harry was pushed out of the room so Simon could work in a more sterile environment. That left him standing around without knowing quite what to do when he remembered that he still had Zoe's gun she had given him. And Harry didn't quite think that she would like it if he just held onto it without asking first, so he needed to track her down, but that meant going back onto the ship where she and Jayne were hauling out the Genseed.
He managed to find the pair in the cargo hold with the boxes. Pulling the gun from his waistband he offered it back to her grip first. "Hey uh Zoe, here's your gun back. Didn't need it after all I guess."
Zoe reached out and took the gun and returned it to its rightful holster. "Maybe one day kid, but for now just grab a box and help bring it in, least we can make something off of this tragedy."
Reluctantly Harry grabbed one of the crates, it just didn't feel right to loot the dead, but at least they were just taking the food stuff rather than personal belongings. When Harry returned to the derelict cargo hold he saw that Shepard Book had a blanket over the tops of the corpses that had been lowered to the ground. Harry noticed but didn't mention that these were the ones that weren't overly mutilated.
The crew stopped what they were doing to see Mal and Simon come out of the sick bay. "So, how's our patient?" Kaylee inquired as to the health of the man that had been pulled out of the ship.
Simon finished wiping his hands from dealing with his patient and then cleared his throat to give his prognosis. "Aside from borderline malnutrition, he's in remarkably good health."
"It's a relief then." Shepard Book said with a soft smile, seemingly happy that there was still some light in this darkness.
However it didn't seem that way to the captain. Mal just hitched up his pants and grumbled. "Which to my mind is unfortunate."
"That's not a very charitable attitude, Captain," Book chastised for such a dismal outlook.
"Charity would be putting a bullet in his brainpan," Mal scoffed before turning and shutting the doors to the infirmary. "No one goes in here. Nothing more we can do for him now, not after what he's seen."
Shocked at such a callous declaration, Inara stepped forward to argue. "Mal, that's far too cruel."
"Don't know how the kid knew." Stopping to point a finger at Harry. "But Reavers hit that ship, so we need to get what we can and then get out of here before they come back and we're still here."
Wash gulped nervously at what Mal said. "Tzao gao."
"How can you possibly know that?" Inara questioned just why Mal was already so convinced that the space boogeymen had been the cause of this atrocity. She hadn't seen what was on that ship but since they weren't letting her nor Kaylee on must have meant that it was bad.
Mal sighed as he moved into the galley to get his mug, if he was lucky there was still some coffee from earlier, something to help his nerves as they were screaming at him to get his ship as far away from the derelict as possible. Everyone took it as to follow him for an explanation.
Jayne however really didn't like the possibility of Reavers being the cause and started to get all jittery. "He don't - that's how. No way. It was that other fella, the one we ran into, like I said before, he went stir-crazy, killed the rest, then took a walk in space."
Now the sudden change in bravado made Kaylee question Jayne. "Just a second ago you said that…"
Whirling on the engineer, Jayne reinforced what he was saying, "Don't matter what I said. Reavers don't leave no survivors."
Mal after taking a sip from his mug cut into the conversation, "Strictly speaking, wouldn't say they did. It doesn't matter if we took him off the boat, it's where he's going to live from now on."
"Azkaban," Harry said silently, however without the hanging lull in the conversation the rest of the crew did hear him say something. "Uh sorry just. I kind of agree with Captain. My g-, I knew a guy who did time in prison. Wasn't even guilty, but after he got out there were times when I could tell he was back there. Some things you just don't leave behind and the worse they were, I'd say the more they took from you."
"Good head on your shoulders kid," Mal smiled without his eyes because at times he felt like he was back in the war.
"Well if we're all so gorram sure that Reaver are the ones that did this, pray tell me why we ain't fixin' to get out of here as fast as possible?" Jayne questioned why Mal hadn't just told Wash to disconnect them off the floating mausoleum and fly off.
"Cus we still have some more crates to get, we get those and then we're out of here," Mal instructed and then pointed to the door.
Grumbling to himself Jayne stomped out of the room knowing he had no excuse to not get a big payday the next time they could dump all the loot they had been moving so far. The big merc made sure to shove Harry along since there wasn't a need to be doing any cooking and no one really had an appetite after what they saw on the other ship.
While working on getting the crates Harry could see the ghosts floating about the ship. A constant reminder of what had happened here. "I'm sorry no one came for you. But you can go now. There's no reason to stay."
Once it seemed like all the crates that could be taken easily were wheeled out by Jayne Harry turned to leave with everyone else, when he noticed that one of the crates had been knocked away, likely by the commotion the Reavers caused but it gave him an idea. Even individually these were worth a bit of money, so quickly palming his wand, he shrunk the crate down to the size of a toy and stuck it in his pocket. He had to hurry to catch up to the others though because he always had that lingering worry that Captain Mal might just leave him behind.
When he returned to the cargo hold he saw that everyone else was talking amongst themselves when the proximity alarms blared. Of course with all the talk of Reavers it set everyone on edge and Mal had to order the rest of the crates stowed away in a smuggler's compartment.
A few short minutes and they had just fixed the cover back on the wall, Mal came hurrying down the steps and ordered them to pull all the crates right back out. "In about two minutes, this entire ship is going to be crawling with Alliance, we gotta make sure that we look shiny for them."
"No, we have to run," Simon argued.
"Run where? They are pulling us in," Mal hissed as he turned on Simon. "Jayne get everything out in the open. Make it obvious that we got nothing to hide."
"But we do?" Jayne nudged his head towards the doctor.
"Yeah, so Doc, go get your sister," Mal stated.
Stepping into the prevent an argument before it broke out. "Now hang on there young man, you should do as the captain says," Book suggested as he looked up at the ceiling.
Harry stood in the cargo hold with the rest of the crew and he could tell he wasn't the only nervous one when the alliance marines came onboard. Harry didn't have much interaction with the supposed law around the galaxy but he also didn't have much reason to want to bring their attention to him either. Now he was aboard a vessel which had a bit of a habit of doing certain things outside the law there was that ever hanging threat of getting caught.
Harry didn't really put up much of a resistance to the pat down by the marine who pulled out his wand from the pocket he kept it in. He could see the confusion on the man's face as to why it was something any person would want to keep on them. "I whittle. We all have our hobbies," Harry answered with a raised eyebrow. The alliance marine looked to the soldier next to him only to get a shrug in response before he gave it back to Harry because to the soldier it was just a stick.
His attention was drawn once he heard Captain Mal mention him and nod in his direction. "No kids here, cept well this one. Harry, you got any siblings we don't know about?"
"No captain, only child. My parents were murdered before they could have anymore. Did have a cousin though, fat tub of lard. Really unpleasant to be around," Harry commented, knowing that Mal was looking to keep the alliance on the verbal backfoot of the conversation all from the mischievous glint he could see in Mal's eye. And nobody liked talking about an orphan's dead family members.
He could see the commander pause for a moment to collect his thoughts before he coughed and turned away. On all accounts it looked like they would make out of this without anyone getting hauled in even if the crates would likely be confiscated, that was until one of the soldiers that had passed him earlier returned with a grim look on his face. It made Harry worry that something had happened to Simon or River.
"We will continue this conversation in a more official capacity," the commander ordered as his men started to move the crew off of Serenity. "I want every inch of this junker tossed."
Before he really knew what was going on Harry found himself separated from the rest of Serenity's crew and put into a cell, and one by one he saw different members be walked through the hall. All likely going to interrogation.
"I'm a little curious how an orphan ended up on a ship like this as the cook," the commander who introduced himself as Commander Harken inquired after Harry was sat down across from him at a table. "An odd ensemble really. And surprisingly you're the one with the least amount of documentation."
"Well I didn't really have much of a paper trail where I grew up," Harry shrugged off the probing question. "And I've been mostly going from ship to ship just trying to find a place to call home."
"And you found the Serenity?" Commander Harken asked.
"I know it seems strange, and not everything they do is nice, but it's not a nice place out here at times. But they are good people sir," Harry answered honestly.
"Oh really, so do good people do this?" Commander Harken asked as he showed a picture of the man his people had taken to his ship's medbay.
Harry quickly stood up in shock. "What no?! He… he wasn't like that when we brought him over, he was the only one we found and he definitely wasn't like that and I swear no one onboard did that to him."
"You're sure about that?" Commander Harken raised an eyebrow, he held back a smirk even if he knew that the youngest would be the easiest to motivate into talking.
"Yes, I helped bring him over and got him onto the bed before-," Harry paused and knew he couldn't say the ship's doctor doped him since the ship doesn't have a doctor on record and that would give up that they were in fact hiding something, or more specifically someones. So taking a breath and reseating himself. "There isn't a doctor on the ship so we have to take care of scrapes and bruises ourselves. And the captain keeps some stronger pain killers for more serious injuries and stitches, and I'm not sure it's all entirely on the up and up since I think you'd have to be a doctor to buy that stuff but, I'm glad that it is there, we've had a couple accidents in the past few weeks and apparently they know a bit on how to take care of wounds."
"So once we got the guy over and he was… you didn't see what happened on that ship sir. We only found it when one of their crew bumped into Captain Mal's ship," Harry sighed. "Sir it was Reavers."
"Ah the 'Reavers'," the captain air quoted. "Son, let me tell you that those stories are nothing but."
"I have to disagree, and even if you don't believe me when I tell you it was Reavers, you can't sit there and accuse us of doing this without believing that at least some men are capable of it. But I can promise you that none of Mal's crew are like that. They are good people, please."
"Well I think I got everything out of you that I could," Commander Harken smiled and nodded to the soldier who brought him back to his cell.
Harry just hoped that would be enough to not have them all locked up.
And a few hours later they were released, to the surprise of not just Harry, they were led back to Serenity where Mal was standing waiting for them. "So, what happened?" Harry nervously asked once the alliance started to head back to their own vessel.
"That survivor was anything but, he broke free and came back here, I guess me saving the Commander made him see my side of the argument," Mal smirked as the crew moved up to the cockpit to watch the alliance ship blow the derelict into space dust.
"Even saving the man's gorram life he couldn't let you keep the cargo," Jayne scoffed disparagingly.
"Wouldn't be proper," Mal shook his head, taking solace in the destruction of the attacked ship. "But I want to thank you all for keeping quiet, some more than others." Leveling a look at Wash.
"What?" the pilot questioned.
"Did you really have to give such graphic descriptions of your wife to the man?" Mal snarked, attempting to bring up the mood from learning that after all that work and near death they weren't going to see any profit from it. "But still he had some things to say about you though," Mal waggled a finger at Harry.
"Wha? I… me?" Harry questioned.
"You really think we're good people?" Mal chuckled heartily. "Preacher man here maybe, but come on, you at least gotta think Jayne's a bad man."
Harry realized that he was being put on the spot so he rubbed his arm. "Not really, sure he's rough but he's an alright bloke and good in a tussle." But knowing that the crew really were good people meant that Harry knew he needed to do something for them. "And well, they didn't exactly take all the crates."
"What are you talking about?" Zoe asked.
Harry scurried around the crew and out the door to unshrink the genseed crate. He came back in with it. "I sort of figured that when everyone busy getting Simon and River ready for their walk I would hide one of these in the hopes no one would notice. Just kind of in plain sight. It was how I almost walked past it when we got the last crate out."
"I don't think it would work again, it was a bit of a gamble but at least it's something right?" Harry offered a smile in the hopes the crew would take discovering Harry's little deception in good faith.
"Well I'll be, seems we're rubbing off on you squirt," Mal laughed as he looked at the crate. It wasn't a fortune by any means but it was definitely more than nothing.