Bringing Down Dragons

On-Board Serenity Mal grabbed onto the back of Wash’s chair as his pilot jerked the controls yet again, sending Serenity into a nosedive and eliciting a string of curses from Zoe. “Language, dear,” Wash said simply, his calm tone a sharp contrast to the insanity of his flying. Mal couldn’t help but grin, but even as the smile cracked his lips, he saw the exhaust of yet another missile stream past them, and he remembered the seriousness of their situation. Over the ship-to-ship intercom, he could hear Destiny’s pilot Hesh yell out as the Reaver-filled Trans-U bore down on them, followed by Etris’s eternally calm voice issuing a series of orders. Mal then issued his own orders, and Wash adjusted his course to try to draw the Trans-U away from the other ship. The sky around them was filled with nearly a dozen other ships, all trying to evade the massive Reaver ship. The ground beneath them was littered with the burning carcasses of at least another dozen ships that hadn’t been as fortunate. As Mal watched, a missile from the Trans-U ripped through a ship to their starboard, a Magpie, like Monty’s. The Magpie listed to one side and began to fall, dropping only a few meters before it’s main engine exploded, taking the rest of the ship with it. Mal closed his eyes. No one deserved to be slaughtered like that. He grabbed the intercom mike and spoke briefly to Etris. Ignoring Wash’s glances, Mal laid out his plan. “Do it,” Mal said. Wash pushed the controls forward, and Serenity dove for the burning tarmac. On the radar screen, Mal could see Destiny following behind them, and then the large shape of the Trans-U. Apparently, out of all of their options, the Reavers had decided the pair of Firefly’s would be the juiciest treats. “Okay Wash,” Mal said, “let’s see if you are as good as you claim.” Wash looked shocked. “How could you ever doubt me?” He flicked a series of switches above his head. “Hold on tight!” he yelled out. * * * From an outside point of view, it was a brilliantly executed maneuver. Serenity dove in the lead, with Destiny following behind and just above. Put together as they were, the two Firefly’s effectively blocked any view that the Trans-U would have of the approaching terrain. All that the Reavers could see was the tail end of both ships. At Wash’s cue, Serenity pulled away hard to port, and Destiny pulled to starboard. Their respective engines screamed, their hull plating squealed, but they both held together to avoid plowing into the large rocky bluff on the north end of the landing tarmac. The smaller ships had the maneuverability to pull it off, but the larger, heavier Trans-U didn’t stand a chance. On the bridge, the Reaver pilot yanked back on the controls, but the bluff was too close: the Trans-U bottomed out on the rocks with the horrible sound of tearing metal. * * * The pain in his head was so intense, but Jayne fought to stay conscious. All he knew was that he had Inara in his arms, and he couldn’t let her go. Mal would kill him if he did. He couldn’t let Mal down again, he just couldn’t. He thought of Ariel, and of everything that had happened there. It had been the perfect plan, and he would have been rich. Hell, he probably would have been rich enough to buy Serenity right out from under Mal if he had wanted to. If it hadn’t been for that hwoon dahn Alliance Marshall, he would have gotten his money, too. The Marshall had just gotten greedy, wanted all the reward money for himself. I was greedy, too, Jayne thought. He had almost gotten exposed, too, but for some unknown reason, the Doc had believed that he had nothing to do with it, and that Jayne had been trying to save them instead of turning them in. Dumb luck. Of course, then River had started mumbling about “two by two, hands of blue”, and then the screams had started. They had gotten out of there really ruttin’ fast. Of course, he knew that they wouldn’t get out of this mess. He tried to push himself up a bit, and to his surprise, it was easier than it had been only a moment before. The fire in his head was diminishing, too. What in the good gorram? He heard a rumble, a sound separate from the explosions around them. He opened his eyes and looked up, and could hardly believe what he saw. * * * Up on the balcony, Ketter let out a stream of curses. No! Not when I’m so close! The Wand in his hand, the same Wand he had used on those useless Feds on Ariel, the same Wand that had ended that pathetic old woman on Whitefall, was failing him now in his moment of triumph. He closed his eyes and tried to focus, tried to push his mind through the Wand, the Wand that amplified his power. It wasn’t made to fail. He had perfected it himself. It wouldn’t work. No matter how hard he focused, it was almost like something, someone, was blocking his mind, preventing him from using the Wand at all. But who would be strong enough to do that? Anne might be able to, of course, but she wouldn’t, not to him. Not Volk, either. Then who? Me! Ketter spun around at the voice in his head and at a sudden rumble just in time to see the smiling face of River Tam, the fugitive, his prize, staring at him from the cockpit of the small shuttle that was barreling at him at a tremendous speed. He dropped the Wand and dove for the open doorway; but River Tam angled the shuttle, and the wingtip screamed at him, catching him in the side of the head and- * * * Togan grabbed onto one side of the doorway as he tried to pull himself into Destiny’s engine room. Hesh’s flying, while keeping them all alive, had thrown him out of the engine room twice. The latest time he had gone headfirst into the wall. If Gretta hadn’t been there to stop his momentum, he might have slid further down the hallway and slammed into something else. “Hurts, don’t it,” Gretta stated. Togan glared at her. “You’re the Doctor,” he hissed. “Why don’t I hit you over the head with a wrench and then you can give me all that medical mumbo jumbo of why they’re stars flashing in your eyes.” Gretta smiled and got a dreamy look on her face. “Oh, Togan, do you really see stars in my eyes?” Then she laughed. Togan grabbed a spanner wrench off of the floor. “Let’s find out,” he growled, only half in jest. Then he turned to the engine and crawled underneath it again. Hesh’s flying had succeeded in jamming one of Togan’s tools into the works, and he was having a hell of a time getting it out. “Give me that laser saw!” he yelled, sticking his hand out from under the engine. He hadn’t signed on to this gorram ship for things like this. Why, oh why hadn’t he left a long time ago? Oh, yeah. Because he couldn’t go home. “Saw,” Gretta said as she slapped the tool into his outstretched hand, bringing his mind back before he could start to reminisce. Togan hissed at her. “That stung!” “Wus.” * * * “Whatever Togan’s doing back there, it’s working!” Hesh yelled. For the past few minutes, he had slowly started losing control of the Firefly, but now he had full control again. “He knows his engines,” Etris replied. Destiny hovered over the north end of the tarmac, watching the Trans-U below and praying that the crash had taken the Reaver ship out of commission. Clustered around them were the seven other ships that the Reavers had failed to bring down. Seven, out of what, nearly thirty? “Liumang,” Hesh whispered through clenched teeth. They had took his bao bei from him before he had a chance to reconcile their different views of Inara, and before he could remind her just how much he loved…her… Elise… He felt a hand on his shoulder, and knew it belonged not to the Captain, but to the one person he would never expect to sympathize with him, much less with anyone else. He turned his head to see Rian looking down at him, a single tear tracing it’s way down her cheek. Etris’ wife, the “Ice Queen”, as stubborn and closed off as she was, was crying with him over Elise. “I’m so sorry, Hesh,” she said, her usually calm and ordered voice nearly cracking with emotion. Hesh nodded, and tried to blink the tears out of his eyes. “Xie xie ni,” he replied. Behind Rian, Etris moved forward, his arms out to hold his wife; but before he could, his eyes shot forward, and a horrified expression fell on his face. “Hesh!” he yelled, but before he could finish, Destiny rocked violently, throwing Rian to the ground. Etris dove to grab his wife, and Hesh spun around and stared out of the front windows. With a groan of metal, the Trans-U lifted off of the rocky bluff and slowly turned to face them, missiles firing. * * * Inara’s shuttle, piloted perfectly by River, made another pass overhead as the gathered Reavers looked at each other in confusion. Their twisted, bloody visages looked around, and it was all Jayne could do not to puke right then and there. Shooting them in rapid repetition was one thing; actually sitting there and staring at them for more than a few seconds was more than his stomach could handle. A few Reavers raised their rifles half-heartedly, but after some agitated roars, all of them turned and ran back into the flames that had seemingly birthed them before. “Wo bu dong,” Jayne said, as confused as the Reavers had looked. Beside him, Tark stirred. “What happened?” the merc asked. Jayne simply pointed as the shuttle settled into the grass in front of them, and Simon came running across to where they lay. “Wode ma!” he cried when he saw Inara in Jayne’s hands. “Is she…?” Jayne shook his head. He stood shakily and carried the Companion’s limp body into the shuttle, laying her on the bed. He turned and looked at Simon. “I…don’t let her die,” he mumbled. Simon looked at him oddly for a moment. Then the doc nodded and went to work on Inara. Behind them, Tark slowly walked into the shuttle, Elise’s lifeless body carefully cradled in his arms. Jayne watched as the merc carefully laid her body on Inara’s small couch. Tark knelt down beside her, and after a moment, Jayne realized that he was praying. To his own surprise, Jayne found himself whispering a prayer, too. Gorram Preacher’s rubbin’ off on me, he thought. Turning to Simon, Jayne watched as the doc carefully cut through Inara’s dress and exposed the bullet hole, right above her left breast. Simon grabbed a blanket and draped it across the companion, covering her out of respect while still leaving enough exposed to work with. The shuttle vibrated, and through the curtains, Jayne could see River piloting the shuttle again. Under normal circumstances, the thought of River flying anything would have worried him, but at the moment he was just grateful to be alive. * * * Serenity screamed in protest at the maneuvers Wash was putting her through, but the pilot knew that the ship would hold together. Only minutes before Wash had believed that the Reaver ship had been successfully disabled, but once again he was fighting to keep Serenity in one piece. “Mal?” he asked as yet another ship exploded outside the windows. Mal didn’t answer. That worried him. Mal always had a plan, even in the most hopeless situations. Out of the front windows, he could see the Trans-U, damaged as it was, still firing off what seemed like an endless barrage of missiles. Then he saw something that shot a bolt of pure terror straight through him: the magnetic grappler on the port side of the Trans-U was open and charged and flying through the air towards Serenity. Mal shouted, Zoe cried, Wash yanked the controls harder than he ever had before; but even as he did, he knew that there was no way that he could get Serenity out of there in time.