Disclaimer: The crew and most of the folk in this are not mine; I just have the pleasure of writing about them and playing is someone else’s world.

To the powers that be, please get the Firefly flying as soon as you can we miss her and her crew very much.

A duet in three parts…..

Happens sometime after objects in space.

________________________________________________

“Sometimes when they get as bad as this, its kinder just to end them. You have to think of the quality of their lives….”

An alliance doctor somewhere in the verse….

Prologue

The Mag Lev pulls into the station with a giant’s gasp, it settles for a moment, and then the doors pull back into the floor, and humanity in all of its many forms barrel out into the station.

There are men pushing their way through the crowd, women leading small crying children who in turn lead rag poppets or even small animals, and aristos, who are preceded by servants or porters all filling the station eager to be on their way to the huge city that soars around them.

Driscoll is the very example of a core world’s metropolis, it bustles with people all in a hurry to be busy, or at least appear so. The crowd surges forward and the station within the span of several seconds begins to clear.

Your eyes catch the man as he leaves the Mag Lev’s first class compartments, and why shouldn’t they? He is beautiful, tall and straight with amber colored hair and eyes the color of new plums from the Earth that was.

He is dressed to his station, in a lavender day coat, and he sports a silver cane that almost no one knows conceals a single shot derringer. He collects his one case and strides toward a nearby exit tunnel. Strange, you think, a gentleman this fine not having a porter or a slave for his fetch and carry. Still, some like to do for themselves, but usually they aren’t those that dress in day coats and carry fine canes.

This man has been paid a great deal of money to come to Driscoll, a great deal of money to finish a job that was started on Persephone. This man you see is very good at what he does, watch how he walks, strong and light like a great cat or a wolf. Look how he carries his case, like it was nothing at all, but you know it has to weigh at least 20 pounds Alliance standard gravity. This man is a hunter, a killer, someone who relishes chasing things and bearing them to the ground, someone who enjoys the taste of the kill and the odd feeling one gets after taking a life.

The crowd prodded by ancient programming moves unconsciously out of his way as he heads down the exit tunnels for the land shuttles that wait in front of the station.

So taken with the well-dressed predator you almost miss the smaller man that falls in three or four steps behind him. He is young and whip thin, with a wild look in his dark almond eyes. The crowds do not part for him, and he has to jump around porters and travelers to keep up with the well-dressed shark that glides confidently in front of him. The boy is someone you can miss in plain sight, gentle faced with short shaggy dark hair he just doesn’t register at all as he moves through the crowds, but you watch him, keep him in your view, because he is special and just as dangerous a hunter as the wolf he follows….

Alcuma Train Station: Driscol, on the Planet Verdant….

Riael Morgan moved without any hurry toward the land shuttle stop, he loved the feel of big cities; he loved their bustle, and the carnival of smells and sounds that surrounded him. It wasn’t that rim worlds weren’t quaint, but after two months of flitting from one to another their charm had worn very thin.

The job was not supposed to take so damn long, Wing had told him that she would be easy to find, a companion of her quality would stand out like a star in the plainness of the rim worlds. Yet all he had found was rumor, she was on Oboruos, she was on Stanya and then on the Lem Skyplex, but it was always in the past tense, never long enough for him to get a good track.

No companion flitted around like this one did, she had no repeat clients, she made no appearances at any of the temples or houses of the richer rim worlds, and she only seemed to appear in the core once in a blue moon. Riael was beginning to believe that she wasn’t a companion at all. That the dark eyed beauty was an alliance spook visiting the rim looking for pockets of descent, and rebellion among the settlers.

That would mean that Malcolm Reynolds was an Alliance spook, and that Riael knew was not true.

“I want you to cut the whore’s face good,” Atherton Wing slurred, he was pretty once, with two dark eyes and a vid hero’s good looks. The rumor was that he refused medical attention for a dueling scar he received at the hand of Malcolm Reynolds, that he was too ashamed to be seen by his doctor after an off world bumpkin bested him at his own sport. The rumor had also said, that a nasty infection found its way into the wound, and that by the time a doctor did get to him it had claimed his eye and part of his upper lip.

The man wore a patch over his right eye now, and the surgery scars to his cheek and lips made his words soft and clumsy. Riael wondered how much hate a man could have to hire someone like him from his hospital bed. Matters like this were usually done in the quiet of a tavern, or in the back room of a manor house, not around doctors and nurses putting a man back together.

“It was a deal, and that rutting piece of Go-sa did this to me” Atherton continued his voice feverish, his one eye glaring wildly. “I want you to kill this man for me sir, kill him and spoil that harlot’s face so she is so ugly…” his voice cracked then and and Atherton let a soft sob slip before he laid back in the jungle of machines and sensors, “that no one would want her ever again.”

The sum that Atherton forwarded to his account assured that he would do his best, although Riael wondered why. The smuggler was obvious, man needs to revenge the loss of an eye, but the companion? Just because she had him black marked on the companion’s client roster? There were cheaper ways to wet ones wick, core worlds and rim worlds had unregistered companions by the dozens, it wasn’t that hard to find relief. This Atherton Wing was a fool, but his foolish money spent as well as a wise man’s so Riael chased a firefly transport named Serenity, and a beauty named Inara from rim world to rim world, from rumor to rumor.

Riael passed a public fresher and stopped, although he hated to use public utilities, the ride from the space port was a long one and he had used worse out on the rim. He tapped his credit chip against the door panel and quickly went inside, the room lit sensing his movements and it smelled of humanity and the horrible tang of disinfectant. Not as bad as a rim outhouse he thinks, puts the cane down by his leg and unzips one handed.

“Sorry mister.,” a soft voice jolting Riael comes from just behind him. He spins to see a boy in a core cheap suit with a bad haircut and a nervous look. “I thought this one was unoccupied.”

“Well its not! You just go find another one!” and he is surprised at the sound of panic in his own voice. This wasn’t right, the boy had come into the fresher on purpose.

The intruder begins to turns and then takes a step toward him, an odd smile crossing his face. He moves clumsily, the cheapsuit’s plastic feet squishing on the tile floor.

“Well since I’m here,” the boy’s smile grew a bit brighter, “can I carry your bag? “

If he had any doubts, Riael now knew he was in a core world. The catamites on the rim at least pretended to be a bit demure. This one was striding up to him like the fresher was his own private temple, and he was the prime companion in the company.

“No thank…” and that’s all he got out before the boy moved. He let his body find its natural talents as he began to block the flurry of punches and kicks that a boy this age just couldn’t be throwing.

“Sorry mister,” and the boy’s voice was clear and gentle, as if he was sitting in a parlour or an academy class room as the first of his blows slipped past Riael’s blocks and struck him in the chest with an impossible explosion of pain.

He spun under another torrent of kicks, and caught the boy under one arm with a hammer blow, the boy grunted and pulled away, and Riael thought he could finish him with a follow up punch. However the boy’s retreat was just a feint, and Riael caught a savage kick in the face that turned the world red and sent him sliding over the stinking tile floor.

He lunged for the cane and another blow smashed into the side of his head and sent him spinning toward the wall. This couldn’t be happening, not to him, not with all his training. He sent a back kick into the boys midriff, sending the smaller figure crashing to the floor, and snatched the cane from where it lay.

“That is quite enough!” Riael shouted his breath ragged, and he pointed the business end of the cane gun at the fallen boy. Suddenly the world changed, one moment the boy looked up at him with uncomprehending eyes crumpled on the floor, and the next the small figured blurred and flew off the floor like it was on wires. Riael tried to squeeze the cane’s hidden trigger and found the weapon wrenched out of his grip.

“Like I said mister,” the boy’s voice not changing from its odd gentle lilt. “I am real sorry.” Riael bounced off the wall arm extended, hand held tight like a blade, trying to catch the boy in the throat. He did not even hear the small sharp bark of the cane’s hidden gun, but found himself slammed back into the wall and sliding down it. Blood splashing out between his fingers.

“Its nothing personal sir,” the boys eyes showed nothing, not malice or accomplishment as he went through Riaels pockets, “I just need her is all, I can’t let you hurt her sir, cause I need her.” He had heard this hundreds of times from hundreds of victims, trying to justify what they had done, why they were going to die by his hand.

Riael tried to say something as the boy pocketed his credit chip and dropped the cane by his side. He picked up the small case with a bit of effort. This was insane, Riael thought, to die in a fresher after all he had been through. The boy turned and walked carefully toward the door with the walk of someone who was off balanced by a heavy load carried on one side.

“Sorry,” and this time his face echoed his words, the dark eyes sad and concerned. “I just can’t let you hurt her, there is too much music left you see…to much of the concert I still have to write…” He looked down at Riael as if he was going to say something more and then turned and left the fresher.

The world roared at Riael and the lights in the fresher started to fade as the boy closed the door behind him, this was insane, no one dies like this. He tried to stand and the ground became rubbery and warm, the room spun and the hard tile floor slammed up into his face, he barely felt it.

Okay, he thought, just a little lie down here, get my strength and then I go and kick that boy’s ass all the way to New Stanhope, nothing to worry about, just a little lie down in this filthy fresher, no one dies this way just a little lie down, nothing to worry about….

The Woodwinds

He really has no name he can remember, but he is young, perhaps they will still give him one. The case is very heavy, and he knows he has to ditch it and leave the station before the marshals come. The music roars in his ears, and he knows he has to get somewhere private before it overwhelms him.

He pulls the loud man’s credit chip from his pocket as he crosses the station to another fresher. He taps the doorplate, enters and then locks the door behind him. The loud man didn’t even do that, not that it would have stopped him, but the man being so loud and all should have been able to at least taken that precaution.

The boy looks at the lock plate on the case, pulls a probe from the cheapsuit’s hip pocket and snaps the lock open with absolutely no trouble at all. He finds a number of fine shirts, wool trousers, and even some fine stockings, but the case was wrong, this was not the case of a loud man. He could still the hear the cymbals and discordant horns of the man as he touched the clothing. This was a quiet case, a case of flutes and violins, harmony not the cacophony of the man he left laying on the floor in the other fresher.

His hands search the case for the noise, and finds a small envelope hidden in the lining. He opens it and emptys a cortex chip and a hard photo into his hand. Its the photo that is making the noise, and he studies it very carefully. The woman in the picture is beautiful, with soft cat eyes and a smile that has the grace of a queen. Long soft dark hair cascades down to her shoulders, he remembers someone with dark hair so long ago.

There is a great deal of music there he thinks as he runs his hand over the smooth photo. All he would have to do was to find a way to get it out. They would want him to get the music, if he could just get the last pieces then he could complete it. He is sweating, and beginning to get the shakes, the pills he took to keep the music away are wearing off.

A smile pulls at his face and he begins stripping off the cheapsuit, the music will lead him to her. He wads up the cheap suit and tosses it into the recycler, his hands are shaking now and his mouth his dry.

He would find her for them, find her and complete the piece, put the notes on paper so that he would not have to hear them again and again and again. Then he could rest, close his eyes, maybe even sleep. The music swells in his ears as he puts on the loud man’s clothing. It rushes through him and sprays out of his mouth. He tries to hold it back, but the melody forces itself out into the air making his teeth vibrate as it forces the words from him. He looks guiltily down at the hard photo, she was so beautiful, this dark eyed woman with the beautiful smile.

“Two by two, and fast they will come, two by two, blue from pinky to thumb…”

He looks down at the hard picture again, all he would have to do is find her and they would stop the music. Stop the pain, and the horrible repetition, let him complete the piece and go on. The guilt fades, and the smile is now tight on his face.

“Two by two and fast they will come, two by two, blue from pinky to thumb…..”