Serenity was quiet, one of the quietest it had been since miranda. The Crew were taking a well earned rest, the alliance had recovered enough to release new Furgative Warrants for the Tams Capture, offering double the previous reward, so they were back to laying low.

Mal was sat in the pilots seat. As they reached cruise speed he shut off the engines and let momentum carry them towards Persephone conserving their dwindling fuel supplys, badger had called with a job, they'd been avoiding badger for a while as he'd pulled out of two other jobs at the last minute leaving them with hot goods, but as jobs were getting few and far between he'd accepted, he settled down, pulling his blanket around him.

Jayne was enjoying himself with the various whores from the outer rim planets as serenity was planetside more often than not trying to find work.

Simon and kaylee spent their free time getting to know one another, Mal was sure they knew each others bodies better than they knew their own by now. It helped in some ways as kaylee was happier than she had ever been and simon was abit more relaxed, but it had also nearly got them killed on many a job as kaylee was "servicing" simon instead of serenity.

Zoe was still the reliable soldier and first mate he'd always known, she'd withdrawn from the crew a bit and spent a lot of time on her own since wash di... but was still the first to react when a bad situation occured.

He and Inara were getting closer by the day and hadnt fought much. This disturbed him alot, not because he didnt like it, just that she was bringing in the only steady income at the moment, he wanted to ask her to stop but they couldn't afford it right now.

River had settled into her job as copilot so well he considered her the pilot, she spent almost all hours in the cockpit. After Miranda she had been fine for a while until new memories started surfacing, but she did her job and was very friendly except with Jayne, it was obvious she still didnt trust him after the Ariel incident. It had taken all mal's skills at negotiation to get River off the Bridge for a rest tonight but he'd managed it with a little help from Simon.

Lost in thought and starting to dose off, he nearly missed the vid feed alert, He shook himself awake and activated the screen but instead of a message from badger, the screen was split in two, the left side showing the all too familiar Maidenhead River fight, the right showing a relatively unfamiliar bar with a very similar scene unfolding. The room looked to be part of a much larger establishment, it was filled with disreputable foke, but Mal was only looking at the figure in the centre of the action it was a lad about the same age and height as River.

Mal checked the feed code, it was real alright, there been no tampering or recoding and the dates from both feeds matched.

Mal had to be sure so he viewed the fight from the start, the lad walked in through the door dressed in brown trousers, dark green vest shaped body armor, a short armed green cloak that reached just below his knees, dark brown leather bracers and a brown cowboy hat, he went up to the bar and in gruff voice ordered a drink.

A second later most of the screens were showing the weird Oatie bar advert, the lad looked up at the screen mal was watching from, the lads blue-green eyes had the same sort of far away glazed look rivers had had when she was triggered, when the advert ended he whispered something inaudiable, turned from the bar and dropped his hat and cloak next to a pillar, this revealed a blade strapped diagonally downwards across his back with the hilt just above his right hip and the tip at his left shoulder, it was obviously stolen as the sheath was strapped to his back with torn cloth.

As soon as the first strike fell the bar went into lock down, the doors out were bared by gates. Mal could see through to the other rooms, no one was paying any attention to the fight, it was obviously a common occurrence.

He was slower than river and more blows got through his defenses but his strikes sent people realing in pain, no-one got up when hit, Quickly everyone in the room relised the only way to survive was to take out the lad, after another 9 people were dropped, a punter drew a knife, Mal nearly shouted "NO" at the screen. "Gorram Idiot" mal whispered. The lad drew his sword in a fast arc severing the the mans arm at the elbow then finished him with a quick backwards slash while turning to face the people behind him.

The lads speed doubled with blade in hand, it was carnage, he was so adept one strike sent most victims to the floor while blood spewed from their wounds, the blade cut bone as easily as it cut flesh, Mal couldn't watch he'd seen severed limbs during the war but not so many in such a small space of time was almost unbearable. When the faint sounds of pain stopped, he looked back at the screen, the room was covered in blood, bodies littered the ground and only 2 punters remained they were on either side of the lad.

They charged, the lad dealt with them easily but the punter behind him landed a knock-out blow, with a metal rod, on the top of the lads head just as he was impaled through the chest with the sword.

The lad wavered on his feet began to fall but caught himself, his eyes went wide and he started mumbling, he was now close to enough to the screen for mal to hear.

His voice had changed, it wasn't Gruff and confident anymore, it was childish and timid. "No not again, He did this, He never sleeps, always in my mind, they put him there ... trapped in a bird cage, blue flames burning the soul ... NO, she cant see me like this, she'll hate me like at shaneed ..."

The lad was startled by something, he looked over towards the gates, leapt to his feet and scrambled over the bodies, grabed his hat and coat, which to Mal surprise had no blood on them, ran to the back wall and began cutting through the wall with his blade. It got wedged underneath just as a complete circle had been cut, the lad pushed but the slab didn't move.

He backed off for a run up and charged the wall, it gave way and shattered the blade, a moment later alliance troops poured through the gates.

The alliance troops gave chase, there was repeater fire and an alliance laser shot, then 2 explosions a second or two apart, fire bust out of the hole the screen changed to static.

Mal sat for a while pondering what he had just witnessed. "Another 'Tyen-sah' Project, thats all River needs" "Well She don't need to know right away" Mal said as he encrypted the vid feed and buried the memory deep down hoping river dig deep enough to find it for a while.

(Tyen-Sah ~ Goddamn)