Kaylee’s Lament

Part Twenty Six

“How bad off are you?” Mal said into the pickup. From the monitor, the face of Duncan MacKlintock stared back, face contorted with worry and eyes filled with grim determination. He was wearing a spacesuit – that was a bad sign – but the helmet was off, so Mal knew the damage wasn’t extensive enough to depressurize the ship. “We’re pretty bad off,” Duncan said, conversationally. “They came outa nowhere, like they knew we’d be here. They came in fast, didn’t give us enough warnin' to scoot. Devon’s doin’ a pretty good job keepin’ them at bay, but it ain’t like they're goin’ anywhere. Eventually, they’ll hit us with a mag cable, fry our ‘lectronics, and pop our atmo.” “’Can’t let that happen,” Mal said with a shake of his head. “I’m open to suggestions,” Duncan said. The problem was that the Sky Hawk’s usual method of escape from predators involved seeing them before they saw you. The bigger the ship, the bigger the nav footprint, the easier to detect. And if they didn’t know where you were then you could get away in a hurry before they were in range. If a ship knew right where you were, though, and it had enough legs, it could get on you before you had a chance to get away. Devon was a good enough pilot to evade capture for a while, but a pirate ship usually had multiple ways of bringing down its victim. You couldn’t dodge all of them. Not forever. Eventually, the weapon would zig when you zagged and it would find a target. Unless you could shoot back and discourage that kind of behavior, it was only a matter of time before they brought you down. “Can you shoot back?” Mal asked, a sinking feeling in his stomach. “Do I look like a warship? Biggest thing in my armory are a couple anti-armor rockets and a heavy machine gun. We already threw the few anti-personnel mines we had at’em. Didn’t do diddley. Y’all get away from here while he’s got a bead on us.” “That ain’t gonna happen, Duncan,” Mal said, frowning. “I ain’t gonna let you get took an account of you doing us the courtesy of meeting us here.” “Ain’t your fault. Could’ve happened anywhere.” “How long does Devon think he can hold out?” Duncan conferred off screen for a while, then returned. “Ain’t sure, but probably another forty-five minutes or so.” “Give me five t’think about it, I’ll call you back.” Duncan didn’t waste time on goodbyes. He cut the connection and went back to trying to save his ship. Mal exhaled sharply. Wash looked up at him, fear in his eyes. “If we get too much closer, he’ll eat us for dessert,” the pilot warned him. “Slow up a might, I wanna think this out.” “Think fast, Cap, we may want to kwai chur hun-rien duh di fahng soon.” “I’m thinkin’, I’m thinkin’.” While he was thinking, Zoe, Kaylee, Jayne, and River all slipped in to see what was going on. Wash explained the situation in grim terms, and everyone had a time trying to think of a way out. “Cap, maybe this isn’t a good time to bring this up again, but it occurs to me that right about now would be an outstanding time to use the weapons we’ve discussed. It might be helpful, you think?” “You’re right,” agreed Mal. “This isn’t a good time to bring that up.” “Take a big ass laser or a big ass missile to slow down their . . .” Jayne said, groping for words. “Big asses?” Zoe supplied. “Yeah!” “That’s a pretty big ship. How big, Wash?” “I don’t know, looks like an old . . . could it be a Conway? Could be, a Conway with the cooling fins removed. Old planetary patrol ship, lots of legs. Lots of room for fire power, too. Great ship for picking up smugglers. Or victims, I guess. Two mag cables. I think it’s carryin’ – a D214?” River’s voice began reciting, low at first, then with increased volume and heavily punctuated syllables. “Conway Sun Dragon class medium patrol vessel, high rated dual cores, quadralineal lift and thrust units, unified command and control systems, specializes in interdict and quarantine duties, made by Conway Interstellar Shipyards, translunar division, manufactured under contract between 2475 and 2488. Continued spec sales well into 2491. After market parts were manufactured until 2501. One hundred and four were sold. Crew compliment total is 122. Eighteen command and control staff, including—” “River,” Mal said, trying to get her attention. But when River was on a roll, she rarely stopped unless someone tried mightily to intervene. “River, River, River RIVER!” Finally, she stopped. Mal grabbed her by the shoulders. “Armament?” he ventured. “Two twenty megawatt flexireflect-tuned lasers standard. Often retrofitted with Qing-class anti-ship short ranged missiles. Magnetic cable interdiction system. Designed for hostile boarding, crew compliment for up to sixty marines—” “—which means at least ninety pirates. Okay. They got guns. We ain’t got guns. They got cables. We ain’t got cables. They got missiles, maybe. Don’t know yet.” “Uh, yeah we do. They just fired one at Duncan!” Wash called out. Everyone crowded the telemetry monitor to witness the missile’s trajectory between the big blue dot and the smaller yellow dot. The red missile came close, closer, merged briefly with the small yellow dot and appeared again on the other side. A collective sigh of relief filled the room. “OK,” Mal continued. “They got missiles. They got a mess o’ pirates, we got . . . I think we all know what we got. We got – we really got nothing!” “I could throw rocks,” Wash offered. “Maybe tease them a little? Talk about how their mommy didn’t love them and—” “Productive, Wash, productive!” Mal reminded him sharply. “Shutting up, sir.” “Wise ass. Okay, can’t throw rocks . . . how ‘bout rockets? Wash, you an’ Kaylee liberated a bunch o’ ordinance back on Set, didn’t you? Anything there we can use?” “Cap, you know a way to convert three crates of mortar rounds into something that will cut through the hull armor, you let me know.” “I can’t see how we could do that in . . . well, in the next hour,” Zoe said. “Could Kaylee do it?” Mal asked. Wash shrugged. “Probably not, Sir,” Zoe said. “Look, those things were designed as light infantry support, not ship-to-ship armor piercing. Duncan already threw some mines at the bastard. If those won’t work . . .” “Keep it in the back of your mind. We need to pull one more rabbit out of our collective hat. What else we got?” There was silence, except for River humming tunelessly. She had told Mal in the past how much she enjoyed the acoustics on the bridge. Finally, Mal could take it no more. “Y’all go wander around, look at stores, look at loot, see what you can come up with. Be back here in ten.” Jayne and Zoe nodded. River remained. Mal didn’t ask her to look – it was usually best not to try to move River unless absolutely necessary. As long as Wash wasn’t annoyed, she could stay here until she took root. “Wash, you think we could bird-dog that thing?” “What?” “Could we dive at the Conway, kinda feint, get it’s attention, get it to follow us?” “It ain’t a stubborn bull, Mal, it’s a warship with a competent commander. Probably a good one. Pirate or not, a man’s legal status is not indicator of his skill and abilities.” He thought for a moment, then gestured to himself. “Case in point.” “Still, could we annoy them enough to change course?” “It’s possible . . .” “I’ll take possible over the alternative. Not that that’s ever really stopped me.” “Cap, I don’t think your thinking of it like they are.” “What?” “Cap, calm down, just listen. You’re thinking about this like an infantry sergeant – and a damn good one, but there ain’t a gorram hill anywhere around here for you to take. You can’t just feint and figure he’s gonna chase you, okay? This is space war, and that’s fundamentally different. That captain over there isn’t thinking about who is annoying him. He’s a businessman, and he’s looking at profit-loss indices and cost-benefit analysis – and, of course, fire control solutions. We zoom in there, buzz the bridge, get his attention – and he looks at the Sky Hawk and sees easy money. Who do you go after? The biggest, fattest chicken in orbit, that’s who. He can take care of our scrawny asses when he’s done, if we’re stupid enough to hang around. But he’s already scented blood, and he’s not gonna give up the chase until he has a kill.” “You know an awful lot about pirates,” Mal said evenly. “I read a lot, and I owned an eyepatch. Gives you some perspective. Quit taking such a romantic view. He’s a businessman, that’s all. He’s going to go for the most profit for the least amount of hassle.” “What about . . . could we buy him off?” “Buy him off? Can we do that?” “He’s a pirate, Wash. I think he’s beyond the moral challenge of accepting a bribe. Like you said, he’s a businessman. Offer him all the cash we have on hand. It’s gotta come to . . . well, a lot, after we got paid in shiny new Fed notes, and a free ride back to the Rim to boot. We could offer it to them to leave the MacKlintocks alone.” “Mal, what’s to prevent them from saying, ‘thanks for the offer, but when we eat up your ship we’re gonna get it anyway.’ Or even abide by their agreement.” “Pirates don’t have some sort of code they abide by? To keep to their agreements and such?” “Pirate code? Pirate code? Mal, these are the worst kind of scum! Two steps from Reavers! Most of the thugs on that ship couldn’t spell ‘code’! Sure – when they’re dealing with each other, or their fences, or other business partners. Even then their loyalty is just a might shakier than, say, Jayne’s. And to the pirates, that tub over there is golden. Everyone knows Duncan has it loaded with swag. You’d have to make them an offer so big that . . .” “. . . so big?” “No . . . Mal, no . . . not after what we all went through. NO!” “It’s their lives,” Mal said, flatly. “It’s worth a little cargo.” “MAL! It’d take ALL the cargo – and all the cash – and, shoot, why not just throw in Serenity too? ‘Cause that’s what it would take.” When he saw the stubborn resolve on Mal’s face he reached up and grabbed the intercom mike. “That’s it, I’m tellin’ Mom! “Attention, Travelers, this is your pilot. Will all command crew please report to the bridge for search party detail? The Captain seems to have lost his gorram mind.” He hung up. Mal shot him a dark look. Wash returned one of his own. “I got ruttin’ shot at for that loot,” he muttered. “I worked hard for it – we all did. And they won’t deal anyway.” “How do you know? How do you know unless we try?” “Because, Mal, they are PIRATES! They cheat! They steal! They pillage and plunder and rifle and loot! They kidnap and ravage and don’t give a hoot MAL! PIRATES! You aren’t gonna trade our loot to the pirates!” “Who’s gonna trade the loot to the pirates?” asked Zoe as she came in. “Mal is.” “Okay.” “Okay? Woman, have you lost your gorram mind, too?” “If Mal says it’s the only way.” She turned to him and looked him dead in the eye. “Is it the only way? The only sorry, miserable, half-baked, half-cocked most ill conceived plan you can come up with?” Mal paused. “Y’know, I don’t hear any other ill-conceived plans,” he said, defensively. “I’m working on it,” Zoe said, flatly. “Why can’t we run at them? Y’know, buzz their bridge, get their attention, draw them away.” “Zoe,” Mal said, shaking his head sadly. “This ain’t a stubborn bull, it’s a warship with a competent commander,” he reproved. Wash shot him an evil glare. Mal shrugged. “We gotta approach this from a different perspective than we’re used to, quit thinkin’ like gorram infantry sergeants.” “Wow, sir, that was brilliant and inspirational,” Wash said dryly. “Maybe if we mooned them as we buzzed them?” offered Zoe. “You think that’d piss ‘em off enough to chase us?” “I’m sure it would be terrifying,” Mal remarked. “But not likely to be effective.” There was more silence as their thoughts raced. “What about the Alliance?” Zoe said suddenly. “Don’t they have an obligation to protect honest folk from thieves?” “Nearest Alliance patrol vessel is about a week and a half away. I checked.” “Anyone else?” “Who else has warships? That’s what it’s gonna take to scare that thing away.” There was another long pause. “What if,” Wash said slowly, “what if they didn’t know that the nearest Alliance patrol was a week away?” “What if you explained what the hell you’re talkin’ about.” “Just bear with me,” Wash said, thinking furiously. “Okay, how do you know that an Alliance ship is hailing you?” “The warning shot?” “Mal, think. You see an Alliance patrol. Someone hails you. You get on screen. What do you see?” “Some uniformed idiot with a bad haircut and a burning desire to piss me off,” Mal answered. “Yeah,” Wash said, snapping his fingers. “Kind of like a certain General Edmonton we all know and love.” He waited a moment before he continued. “Let me spell it out: we pull a special edition crybaby, with a wave relay and an Alliance military signature. Throw in enough EM disturbance to make him think that the ship is cloaked, undetectable, and it might just be enough to scare him off.” “That’s . . . that’s not a bad notion,” admitted Mal. “Haven’t disposed of that uniform yet. Could try it out.” “Problem,” Zoe interjected. “Of course, had to be,” Mal muttered. “What?” “Background. You can be every inch a General. But you’re still standing on the deck of a tramp freighter. Hardly somethin’ that inspires terror,” Zoe pointed out. “You just had to ruin it, didn’t you?” Wash accused her. “First decent plan I have . . .” “Wait up, now,” Mal said, putting up his hand. “What does the interior of an Alliance patrol ship look like?” “Just a bunch of consoles and bad haircuts,” supplied Zoe. “Well, we got us a bunch o’ consoles in the hold right now. All that medical equipment. They won’t be likely to tell what the buttons say. Wash, can you put a temporary pick up in the hold?” “Yeah,” Wash said, encouragingly. “Yeah, I surely could. I should be able to—” “Do it. Zoe, fetch my purplebelly uniform from the pile. I’m gonna get my mustache plastered back on and we reconvene in the hold in five. We do this right, we scare those liou coe shway duh biao-tze huh hoe-tze duh bun ur-tze to the other side o’ the verse.” Everyone scattered to do their task – everyone but River, who was standing and staring and humming. When the last one left, she looked up into the naked face of the Black through the viewport. “It won’t work,” she whispered.

*

*

* Fifteen minutes later, Kaylee put the hastily-modified crybaby into the dorsal airlock, dogged the hatch, and programmed an emergency dump that blew the lock, the atmo inside, and the coffee can out into the Black. Jayne had opened one of the sealed cargo crates containing equipment (one of the two chemical microlabs Simon had ordered) and revealed an impressive looking control panel. Wash had set up a portable pickup in the cargo bay, then bolted back up to the bridge. Mal had gotten into his Alliance officer’s uniform, selected a captain’s insignia from the collection that Magnifique had supplied with the uniform, and had glued his cheesy mustache back into place. “This ain’t gonna work,” Jayne said, doubtfully. “Less you got a missile stuffed up your ass you ain’t informed me of, I’d say it’s the best notion we got,” Mal growled. He was trying to get into character as a typically annoying Alliance officer. “Still ain’t gonna work,” he muttered as he took a position out of camera range. “Got the code key from their transponder!” Wash yelled a moment later over the intercom. “Ready to connect!” Mal took a deep breath. “Do it,” he said into the intercom mike. A moment later, the sallow face of an older Chinese man in a well-fitted red silk tunic, embroidered with gold dragons and the Tong’s logo, filled the tiny monitor. “Unidentified vessel,” Mal intoned as flatly as he could. “Cut your engines and heave to!” “Who the hell are you?” the pirate captain asked, seemingly bored. “I am Captain Edmonton, of the Alliance patrol vessel Defender. We have been tracking your movement, and received a distress call from . . . a Captain McCormick? He says you are pursuing him with the intention of piracy and illegal slaving. I order you to stand down.” Mal put a certain amount of menace in his voice. “What are you running, there, a OP-70?” the man asked, mildly interested. “That is none of your concern! Cut your engines and heave to at once!” “It’s funny, I ain’t pickin’ up no signal for you on the nav. Why is that?” “We are cloaked,” Mal answered steadily. “Now cut your engines and heave to!” “You’re cloaked? In an OP-70? I don’t think so. Power requirements are too great. You couldn’t run a decent ECM regime with that little reactor.” “We are not in an OP-70,” Mal said, thinking furiously. “We’re in a CA-21 Pegasus,” he bluffed. He had seem them before, long, lethal looking things, used in deep space assault missions. A search and destroy craft. He didn’t know anything more about it than that.” “So you have Titan reactors. Yeah, you could pull a cloak with that,” he conceded. He paused, thinking of something. “But they’d hafta pull those big 30 megawatt lasers off, replace ‘em with 20s or 15s. Even Titans couldn’t pull a cloak and heavy ordinance.” “We make out just fine,” assured Mal. “Our Titans are top of the line. But that isn’t the issue at hand. Cut your engines and heave to at once.” “Nah,” the pirate said, nonchalantly. “If you don’t, I’ll have my gunnery officer fire a shot across your bow.” “Go ahead.” “You will risk the destruction of your crew and ship?” “Yeah, think I will. ‘Cause I don’t know what your game is, Captain, but you ain’t in a Pegasus. If you were, you’d know that the CA-21 can’t handle Titan reactors – not enough interior cooling for ‘em. Plus, a Peg doesn’t run with 30s, they run with two 20s and three 10s, plus two batteries of Phalanx anti-ship missiles. And a Swathcutter magnetic missile system, for taking smugglers and slavers alive. “Know how I know? I was an XO on an Alliance boat for six years – ‘till I made this career move. On top o’ that, you didn’t give your authorization code reference when you demanded I heave to, which is required by Alliance regs – any first year crewman knows that. Plus, a Peg doesn’t have a gunnery officer. There are three ordinance crews, all of whom are commanded by the ship’s XO. So you are either the dumbest cadet what ever made Captain, or you’re pretending to be. You don’t get to be a man in my position unless you’re smart enough to trust your gut. Either way I think I’ll take my chances, pluck this juicy chicken outa the sky, and then if you’re still hangin’ about I’ll root around, find you, and then we’ll see just how you handle this mythical boat o’ yours.” He disconnected without a further word. “That didn’t go real well,” Jayne pointed out. “The Devil got one this time,” Mal said, unbuttoning his collar and pulling off the mustache. “Huh?” “Details,” muttered Mal, starting back up towards the bridge. “Secure this cargo, Jayne. I’ve gotta go tell Duncan that we’re fresh outa notions.” “You want me to fire a shot across their bow now?” the mercenary called after him. It took a significant amount of control to keep from dropping the man where he stood.

*

*

*

“That’s it, Duncan, ain’t got no more. Tried our best bluff. He called.” “That’s the way of it,” Duncan agreed sadly. “What about shuttles? Life pods? You could ditch on Trinity.” “Nah, they’d scoop us up with that second damn cable,” Duncan said. “Devon says he can hold ‘em for another twenty minutes or so, but he’s runnin’ out o’ moves.” “Keep flyin’. My other plan was to buzz their bridge, try to lure ‘em away. But after talkin’ to the captain of that monster, don’t think he’d go for it.” “Keep flyin’, Mal. Don’t worry ‘bout us. They’ll try to board, and we won’t go quiet. Got everyone armed to th’teeth and in fortified locations. They’ll still take us, but we gonna make it the most expensive prize they ever got!” and with that he ended the transmission. “We can’t jus sit here and watch this,” Mal said, fuming in impotent rage. There’s gotta be a way. There’s always a way. This ain’t just Bad Luck. This is . . . an obstacle, and I done got passed more o’ them in my life than most folk ever see.” He considered every option. They could buzz and try to use their jets to burn the pirate, but he doubted that would do a gorram thing. Too much armor on it. Maybe have Jayne pop into the airlock with Vera, take potshots at the viewports, try to depressurize the pirate? Another unlikely scenario. That was the problem. Nothing they had could even phase that thing. Unless . . . “Hey, Wash, what if we pumped feedback into the nav antennae? A whole lot of feedback? Enough to jam their guidance computers for a while?” “If they were a civilian job, I’d say it’d be worth a shot. But that’s a military craft. Every system they have is shielded for heavy nuclear rad, cosmic rad, and every other kinda rad. You’d have to set off a bomb inside it, and even then you wouldn’t touch most of the systems. I was thinking of something like that, but there’s no way.” “Tired of hearin’ that.” “I’m pretty gorram tired of sayin’ it!” They lapsed into silence again, staring constantly at the telemetry moniter, watching the dots chase each other. Subterfuge didn’t work. Subtle tricks wouldn’t work. Stealth was pretty useless here. There was a distressing lack of ship-to-ship munitions aboard. There was a distressing lack of rabbit in the hat. Check, check, check, check. They couldn’t do it. They couldn’t save the MacKlintocks. They would be dead or captured. The women would be raped – it was customary – and the men beaten. The kids . . . Mal didn’t even want to think about it. He started sinking into a depression. No one else was on the bridge except for Wash and River. He stripped off the nasty Purplebelly uniform and started putting his own shirt back on, when he caught sight of River’s expression. A smug little grin. “You just bein’ crazy at the moment, or you got an observation?” “You have really nice pecs,” she said, and Mal thought he caught a hint of a blush on her cheeks. “That ain’t real productive. But thanks! Nothin’ like a little self-esteem boost when you’re about to watch good friends get slaughtered.” River rolled her eyes and sighed, as if he had overlooked something obvious. Mal was instantly attentive. He knew Good Luck – or a crazy super-genius with a predilection for precision mayhem, hard to tell the difference sometimes – when he saw it. “River Tam,” he called, approaching her slowly. “River. You know how to do it. You solved it already, haven’t you? I can see it – don’t turn your face from me, girl, I seen it. You can’t hide that look, not from me. Spill it. Now. We ain’t got a lot of time. Just tell me what to do to save them. They’re you’re friends too – tell me, River. I know you got the right notion in that pretty little horror of a head, so spill it. Now.” He grabbed her shoulders gently but firmly, and River’s eyes looked at his hands, all the way back up to his face. “Tell me,” he insisted, not realizing that Jayne, Zoe, and Kaylee had all come back into the bridge, probably wondering if anything they did had worked. “River. Just do the math,” he pleaded.

*

*

*

There she was, on the bridge. Standing, feeling the frenetic dance of human minds against the serene backdrop of the stars – her stars. Her sky. But the minds, the tangled skeins of thought and emotion, were in crisis. Mal was the focus. He was emotive. She knew why. She understood – but did not completely comprehend. She mentally shrugged and went on, went in, to what Mal was doing. Thinking. What Mal was thinking. Not the words, the stern directives and exclamations and polite sounding data itself, but the back beat. The emotional content of his thoughts which was the intriguing thing right now. He was running through a kaleidoscopic crescendo of sensation, the emotions that had names – fear, worry, excitement, dread, sorrow, panic, despair, hope – and many that were nameless in English, Chinese, or any of the other languages she knew. Emotions so subtle and ephemeral that, like the heaviest of elements, they existed but for a moment between heartbeats. Most people wouldn’t even notice them, classify them as emotion, because they weren’t there long enough to notice. But the subtle ones, they were the interesting ones, because they were the conduit to the dark places, where the profound and potent things lived. The events, both grand and subtle, that gave form to a human mind. The hammer blows that forged the soul. The arena in a person where God and the Devil fought their battles, day by day, hour by hour, second by second. This was what River found fascinating. As lovely as dancing. To know a person, to truly know a person, she knew now, was to be intimate with this most guarded of sanctuaries. There were two ways to get there. One was in extremis, witnessing a life-changing event while it happens, as if the door to that sanctuary was open for just a moment as it collected another. The other was in the shadows of someone’s mind, the ghosts that flashed between the thoughts. Mal was particularly interesting right now. She could see the shadows, as if they were horses, and she could ride them down to that dark dark place. What was happening now was triggering thousands of smaller memories, and she could crawl through them even as he was speaking the next word. It was easy. Time moved differently here. That one. Sorrow. That was an intriguing one, especially in this man. And eddying off of it like mist from a pond was the ride she sought. She encountered it. She found out where it lived. Start with Duncan, his wives, his children, living a happy life on his ship of love, warm and comfortable and safe and free. See them hear them smell the ship’s atmo taste that liquid sunlight Duncan kept in the engine room the joke about the Companion, the Reaver and the Buddhist Monk the laughter, the burning of the liquor in his throat the taste of brandy from a hip flask that was cold on his fingers in the snow but warmed his belly like a fire he hands it back to Zoe and she drinks and smiles that smile that means she’s glad she made it one more day when so many friends have not hiding behind the rubble of the city waiting for next wave of mortars a drink between blasts getting blasted between bombs getting bombed between fights here it comes here it comes a seeker stay still stay still stay absolutely gorram still there it is stay still it’s passing stay still is Zoe moving stay still don’t even breath stay still is that a noise stay still don’t even move your eyeballs make your blood slow down in your veins that was a noise stay still is that Zoe stay still it’s not Zoe stay still it’s someone stay still it’s Fu stay still had to pee stay still don’t scream at her stay still Zoe stay still want to scream such a good kid stay still out of decoys stay still hear the hum stay still such a good kid stay still pretty girl stay still very smart stay still good soldier stay still she’s moving Oh God stay still Oh God stay still don’t move don’t scream stay still good soldier feel the brandy hit your stomach stay still hear the stomach growl at the assault stay still good kid stay still good soldier Oh God good soldier stay still good kid Oh God she’s hit good kid Oh God we can move again Oh God can’t move Oh God in Heaven can’t move there’s her head Oh God there’s her head Oh God good soldier Oh God loyal daughter Oh God patriotic freedom loving Oh God so sorry for your loss Oh God her head Oh God dear Ms. Fu Oh God good soldier Oh God please don’t let her die Oh God the eyes oh God the eyes Oh God the eyes are milky Oh God the fur around them is matted Oh God the smell is putrid Oh God it’s dead Oh God the eyes Oh God the mangled body Oh God the long ears chewed by rats so sorry Oh God poor rabbit Oh God why God why poor dead rabbit Oh God the smell Oh God the bodies Oh God the bodies of soldiers so sorry Oh God the bodies of friends Oh God the bodies of families Oh God the bodies of Duncan and Devon Oh God and Tinker with a gun in his hand Oh God so sorry they will take Rowan Oh God and Winnie and Althea dead their eyes Oh God and the children Oh God and Owen and Morrigan and Hayden and Oh God Oh God Oh God

“River. Just do the math,” he pleaded.

She broke from her reverie in another man’s misery. She had an Assignment. Do the math. That’s what they called it now. She was good at math. And this was physics, her passion. Math was concept. Physics was math written in reality, the manifestation of math. Problem: Vessel A moving at speed X is being chased by Vessel B at speed Y, while Vessel C at speed Z looks on in horror and despair and wants desperately to save Vessel A but has no means to defeat Vessel B. Axiom: Vessel B is superior in every way to Vessels A and C. Axiom: Vessels A and C have no way to strike at Vessel B. Axiom: Vessel B can intercept and contend with any explosion or em-based solution that Vessels A and C were able to produce. That left . . . kinetics. The solution was obvious. Force. Basic physics. Equals Mass. Newton could have done it. Times Acceleration. The signature of God on the ‘verse.

“F=ma,” River said instantly, her eyes suddenly boring holes into Mal’s. “What?” Mal asked. “F=ma,” River repeated, trying to see if he could figure it out. “Did she just spell ‘fema’?” asked Jayne. “It’s an equation,” supplied Zoe, puzzled but hopeful. “Did she say what I think she did?” asked Wash. “River?” Mal asked. “F=ma,” River said, with a touch of exasperation. “Force equals mass,” and here she looked at him intensely, “times acceleration,” and with that she glanced at Kaylee for the barest of moments. “Figure it out. I won’t tell you again.” Mal continued to stare at her. She could hear the conclusions ticking away inside his head. She didn’t even have to lead him further. He was a smart man, as men go. Just impetuous, addicted to excitement, and stubborn beyond reason. Click. Click. Click. “Wash,” Mal said, not taking his eyes from River. “Wash, set a course.” “We buggin’ out?” he asked, his voice a mixture of relief and despair. “No. We don’t let our friends get put down like that. Set a course for the pirate.” “For the pirate? We gonna buzz their bridge?” “No. Set a collision course. Target their reactor. Which ever spot you think will make the biggest boom.”