Firefly - Away and Back Again

by: Smorgy

Part 1: What was that?

Even though these are not my own characters, and belong to Joss and Co. I couldn’t wait until Firefly comes back to hear new stories! Anyway, based on feedback I’ll post… or not the rest of the story. Also any suggestions for my writing are appreciated.

Begins as BDM ends.

-------------------------------------------------- Mal and River are sitting on Serenity’s bridge as River prepares for her first flight. She looks out the window in front of her and sees the torrential downpour, but feels one of her many burdens slide off her conscious like the water hitting the downward sloping pane she views. As they lift off she feels something different.

At first it is her clairvoyance of Mal’s impending speech, “Love. You can learn all the math in the 'verse, but you take a boat in the air that you don't love, she'll throw you off just as sure as the turn of the worlds. Love keeps her in the air when she ought to fall down, tells you she's hurting before she keels, makes her a home.” But all too soon she knows that was but a blip in what was to come, she pulls her knees to her chest and feels with her soul but tells with her tongue, “The storm’s getting worse.”

Serenity and her crew break through a layer of nimbus and sees the light of the sun reflecting off the cloud’s tops, but then the dark of the universe’s horizon speckled with blinking stars.

“What was that?” Mal asks Serenity, sincerely expecting a response.

A piece of the ship had ripped from the rear buffer panel and hurtled off into space.

“Cap’n we gotta go back, that piece knocked against Serenity’s engine, bumped the rotation all out of whack”, Kaley’s voice spoke from the intercom above River and Mal.

Mal’s face turned irked and contorted as when his smooth plans just don’t go as such. “This wasn’t even a plan and its already goin’ awry!” He says to River. Flipping the com to address the crew, “Seems as though we got some parts jumpin’ off this wonderful boat, seems ya can’t never trust those purple-belly mechanics to do their welding and whatever they do between imposing their will and getting in folk’s way. We are gonna get down quickly and back out afore a wink.”

Down in the hold, Jayne slammed his knife down into one of the crates he had just stored the tools for fixin’ and muttered, “’Hey Jayne, store those tools away’, ‘Jayne break out those tools’ Ruddin’ cap’n always barkin at me to move these stupid crates, can’t never just leave em out, cause I know they ain’t stayin away.”

The rest of the crew moved from their peace in the common room and exchanged glances of knowing. Their faces were mostly the same except Zoe’s had a tinge of pain as she had just buried her beloved husband not twelve hours ago, the thought of returning to that gorram moon broke her will, just a little.

“Mal, he’s down there. They are down there,” River felt it strongly now, and her body showed it.

“No worry, little miss, you killed ‘em all, remember?”

The control panel buzzed alerting Mal of a message. With a quick reach he clicked the button, nothing. One more whack, this time a bit harder and the console gave him the news, a video feed.

The Operative’s bloody face, a gash across his forehead and his entire left eye swollen shut gave Mal a little pleasure, but concerned as he was headed to that place that was about to give him this message. “Mal, it seems the Alliance wasn’t quite done, with me. My men… my men turned…,” he gasped as if his lungs rattled, his breaths numbered, now in the tens.

“Your face looks a little… not good. You been bobbing for space monkeys in a barrel?”

--------------------------------------------------

Sitting very still, The Operative centered himself on a rocky outcropping overlooking both the now ownerless station that once belonged to Mr. Universe, and the ship he was to become lost forever on. It was a peaceful setting, even for him. His mind was clear, and he felt good, good for having his back broken a little over a day earlier. He admired Mal, for his firm belief and seeming lack thereof, for his ability to hold a fierce grudge, but not become a raging maniac, a different kind of monk.

From behind a satellite dish that took him the better part of 5 minutes to get around he heard the tromping of the alliance troops he commanded. Their tromping was aggressive, not as if they were coming to him, but coming for him. His hand moved from the top of his knees to his sheathed blade as he folded his toes under his resting body and stood slowly. After a deep breath he sprinted to an electricity panel commanding the communications nearby and peaked from the far side of it. Over the rocky terrain he saw the heads of twenty or twenty five men split in half, heading to each side of the dish, their black assault rifles drawn to their shoulders.

“I thought I would have had more time,” his mouth lipped faintly. Half of the Operative’s men were moments from reaching his previous place of meditation. The others covering them from several sparse but massive boulders a few hundred paces back. The forward company split even further, as 3 men rounded the large box a shimmering katana flew out of its sheath. The first stroke an upward slice at the soldier’s exposed face, severing his bone and instantly dropping the man to the floor. His weapon continued on its path and turned toward the earth for his second victim. Last of the men, afore he was slain, shouted in horror as the spatter hit him in a warm, wet, spray. The rest of the forward grunts flowed around the edge, many to experience the same expert death as those before them, all but one. His rifle already at the ready, and his finger way past that, he fired blindly around the corner, his bullets thrashing the now corpses of his comrades.

One bullet tore into the calf of The Operative, just one. His face did not change, and his body did not flinch, but he felt a sensation, a foreign one. His foundation, the base he had built his life on had crumbled, there was no world without sin, but he, left with his skill, his training found a piece of life he had never known before. He felt pain for the first time in near thirty-eight years, conditioned by drugs starting moments after he left his mother’s womb. Snapping back into the moment, he peered around the edge to be met with a swarm of bullets, and knew this way would be impossible. He turned and saw a horizon of the valley below, and ran toward it, partly sliding, partly falling, but all the while a single pace from completely tumbling down its side. Regaining his balance as he neared the landing zone he could now easily reach his ship.

The rest of the Alliance ships gone, though there were few to being with, in this small port. What mostly caught his eye was a new ship docked on the outskirts of the landing pad, on the edge of the desert, one he had only seen once. It belonged to the Blue Sun group, he could tell by its markings on the front. And beside the men who had been ordered to slay him following behind and The Operative himself, there were only 6 men left alive.

The ground was sporadically littered with clusters of crewmen and mechanics from the Alliance vessel, in pools of blood.

“What is this?” The Operative could not fathom what had happened, but was through to his core uneasy about it. Four men in white smocks, two in fine black suits, all with blue gloves carried a stretcher with a freshly dirt-stained coffin to a tent setup outside of their vehicle.

He ran inside and waited just a few moments until the soldiers caught up to him to repeat the slaughter as he had before. Only this time they were prepared, and he was injured.

The sergeant major in charge of the group, Bob Lee held his hand up with a clinched fist, signaling his men to stop. “His blood, there. He is around this corner,” he whispered into his headset. He threw a smoke grenade and waved the troops forward.

Easily dispatching the first few, The Operative soon became overrun by the fresh and newly furious soldiers. Another bullet tore into his right bicep, and the butt of a rifle to his face. Bob Lee, one man and The Operative remained. From his back, a desperate yet still precise swing sliced off the footman’s hand, the twitch forcing his fingers down on the trigger. Several shots into The Operative’s body armor and one colliding into the sergeant’s gun left both men disarmed; In more ways than one.

The sergeant pounced on The Operative, slamming any body part near enough into him. The Operative’s body twitched and convulsed as he tried to protect himself from the flailing madman above him. For the first time ever he cried out in pain as a head-butt broke his eye socket. He reached into his boot and pulled out a big damn knife, thrusting it into insane soldier’s back and finally spine. His body ailing and weak, he pulled himself up to slouching and reached for his transmitter. “I’ve got to reach Malcolm, he deserves this much after all he’s lost because of me.”

End Part 1