He was alone. His blue-gloved hands balling into fists as he calmly walked down the corridor leading to the engine room. His patience had been tested to the fullest, and his temper was beginning to slowly burst out from his normally calm and cool exterior. His black polished dress shoes echoed slightly as he continued to walk down the corridor; his stone cold eyes piercing through every knook and kranny of the surrounding area.

"Enough. This is all so very pointless. You know you cannot win, and yet you persist to play this game of hide and seek. Heh. Irony I guess. You play while your friends are tortured. The large dumb one is on deaths' door right now."

The man stopped. He slowly turned around, only to see the petite figure of River Tam standing five-yards behind him.

"I know...." She said with a deep concentrated look on her face. "I know he's hurt. I can feel his pain. But he will not die. The heroine of the story is always victorious and fruitful. The hero dies sometimes. He usually sacrafices himself in a selfless act. But not the heroince. She's too good."

She smiled quantly as she stared upward at the tall man approaching her. River kept her hands behind her back. She had nothing in them. No weapon, no tricks. She had been hiding all this time because she knew that eventually one of the agents would go looking for her, and she felt it was time to end this; and if she was to pull it off, she would need to be rid of the main obstacle.

"Well miss Tam." The agent lifted his right hand up to straighten his glove. "You think you can honestly beat me." He reached into his left pocket and pulled out a small tub-like device.

River quickly reached in and locked her right thumb inbetween the index and middle finger of the agent and grasped his hand with hers.

" *Quan jou ji yu-in* The heroine never thinks, she always knows." River pressed her thumb down inbetween the middle and index knuckles and lifted the rest of his hand with hers, painfully seperating the knuckles further away from one-another.

The agent dropped the tub like device. However, the pain didn't seem to phase him as he went in to do an inside sweep with his right shin. His shin met hers with great speed and sent the heroine into the air. As she fell she kicked out her right foot and planted her heel into the agents left knee cap right when her back hit the grated floor. The petite young woman followed with another kick directly to the agents jaw as he kneeled down from her kick.

"You are proving quite an annoyance miss Tam." The agent said as he pushed himself back up off the floor.

"No matter how hard the ox swats at the fly with its' tail, it can never kill it." She remarked with a bit of a smirk on her face.

The agent advanced foward with a roundhouse kick, to River's left knee, from his right foot; followed by a side kick to her gut with his left foot.

"Silly man." She said as she turned in towards the agent, avoiding his first thigh kick. "Always wanting what he can't have." As she had turned in she brought up her left arm, catching his left sidekick. She delivered a three-set combo of right elbows to the man's abdomen, and the proceeded to break his left ankle with her right heel.

The agent went to stand back up. He grabbed the railing as he began to fall back to his knees. "If you're trying to hurt me, you'll most undoubtly fail. We do not feel pain."

River cocked her head to the left as she looked at him. "Two by two, hands in blue. You hurt this ship, you hurt her crew." River ran towards the agent. As he went to stand back up River fliped foward above him; grabbing his chin with both her hands as went over him. As she came down behind him she heard a loud crack and pop as the agents neck and esaphogause both broke. She let go before landing on her bare feet.

"Two by two, hands in blue." She turned around to watch the man fall backward onto the gratted floor. "A man as scary as you ought to know better than to pester litt'le girls like ya do." She said as she crossed her arms and flaunted her brilliant british accent. ********* Back down in the hangar Inara, Kaylee, and Jayne were still tied up to one of the posts under the left stair-well. Jayne's condition had worsened as infection from his broken arm and numerouse wounds began to set in.

"Jayne......Jayne..." Inara's calm voice called out to the fallen muscle man. " *Shing du chow*, he's getting worse."

"Inara, do you reckon' they've found River?" Asked Kaylee.

"No *mei-mei*. If that agent had, he'd be parading her right now. I just hope that she got out to get Mal and the other's."

The seven soilder's had been converging toward the end of the hangar near the main bay-doors. Muttled talk amongst themselves had taken their attention away from their captives.

"So man. What did yer old lady have to say when you told'er about that other woman yer a'see'in" One of the soilder's asked another.

"Pfft. She got so angry, I thought she was going to cut of my *wen-shea* there in the kitchin. But I told her. I said, woman! You had better respect me for the man I am. Or else!"

Another soilder chimmed in. "Or else what? You were gonna fall on your knees and beg for your gorram life?"

While the soilder's talked and joked amongst themselves, River began to descend down the stair way. She moved quickly but almost completly silently as she made her way behind the other's.

"River? River you've got to get out. Get Mal and the other's before those agents find you." Inara whispered.

River seemed to ignore Inara's warnings. Instead she looked around and found a small wire cutter laying on a crate to the left of her. She grabbed it and began to cut Inara loose. "Why do you think they wear blue gloves?" River aske while cutting loose Inara's restraints. "I mean, it's a really bad fashion statement. Kinda fruity to."

"Yo...you killed him River?" Kaylee whispered as she kept her eyes on the soilder's.

"When it comes to my crew, no power in the verse can stop me. I must say though, you people take a lot of looking after."

River finished freeing Inara and Kaylee, and began to cut loose Jayne's leg and hand restraints when one of the soilder's went back into the hanger to use the can. Literrally.

"Oh, god them guys are someth..... hey, how did you get fre.............."

The young soilder hadn't seen River cutting loose the other's until he was about to relieve himself. Sadly for him it was too late. River ran up to him as fast as she could, covered his mouth with her left hand, then unsheathed the soilder's combat knife from his leg and jabbed the blade into his left lung via-the opening in his armor near his armpit. The soilder couldn't make a sound. River let him drop and took both his sub-machine gun, and his side-arm; then quickly ran to the other's.

"FREEZE!!" Shouted a soilder. River had just made to the other's when one of the soilder's decided to see what was taking his buddy so long to pee.

"Hands in the air!" Ordered another soilder. Soon all of the remaining six soilder's had formed around them.

River dropped the two fire-arms and looked over to Inara and Kaylee. She would have little problem dealing with these men, but, it would mean the other's getting hurt.

"Keep those hands in the AIR!" One of the guards shouted as he inched towards them.

Another soilder was trying to contact the agent via-his ear piece. "He's not responding."

"He's probally dead. I'd say she killed him."

A smirk fell over the face of the soilder walking towards River and the other's. "Well, we've got no choice. These prisoner's revolted, no one in charge to tell us not to kill'em."

"What about the Blue Sun?"

"Pfft. Ain't my worry. Let brass deal with them."

The soilders' finger began to squeeze on the trigger of his sub-machine gun. His aim was dead at River. The other guards took aim as well. Inara and Kaylee closed their eyes as they waited, what appeared to be, their impending demise when all of a sudden a barrage of bullet fire shoots out from underneath River. Three soilder's are taken out; and before the other three can react River picks up the side-arm she had dropped and lays the other three to rest.

"Jayne!" Shouts Kaylee as he kneels down to help up.

"What goin' on?" Jayne mutters as he slowly comes to his feet, only to stumble backward against a crate.

Inara rushes over to help Kaylee. She takes the machine gun that Jayne was holding and places it on the floor. "Jayne.. Jayne.. Look at me." Inara places her right hand on his forehead. "Oh god. He's burning up with a fever, we need to get him to the infermary."

The three women stop for a second and look at each other, as if to say *Ok and how?* The sheer luck that the machine gun River dropped when the soilder's came back in just happened to fall in front of Jayne was a miracle in itself. But, getting the one-ton man up the stairs and into the infermary would take more miracles than the verse had.

As Inara and Kaylee began placing themselves under Jayne's arms to help him up, River walked up to him with a puzzled look on her face. "Even the brilliant heroine needs a dumb lug to bail her out. Why?"

Jayne opened his dazed eyes and looked around at Inara and Kaylee then back to River. "To much tasty here to be a'waistin'. Besides..........I...I knew you couldn't kill me with yer brain.. he..hehe..hehehe" Jayne soon slumped and fell flat to the floor; almost dragging Inara and Kayle down with him.

"He's barely breathin'." Said Kaylee as tears began to well in her jewel like eyes.

"Come one Jayne.. Wake up!" Inara shouted as she kneeled down next to Jayne, smaking him in the face.

"Jayne's still a girls name.........." Chimmed in River as she watched.

************************************

"So... When does the torturin' start? Oh oh! Do I get that shiney knife stabbed in my rectum? 'Cause ya know, that actually kinda tickles."

Mal sarcastically joked as he sat in white walled room. The room itself was twenty-four by twenty-four square feet. It had a long narrow chrome table with a variey of torture devices set neatly on top of it. The lighting was florescent and very bright.

"Oh Captain. Reynolds. We want you to talk, but, we're not going to torture you." Spoke another blue-gloved agent.

"Gorram! Then just what the *diyu* am I doin' here in this piece of *gosa* jail.? I was lookin' foward to all the pokey's and prodey's ya'll were gonna give me."

"You see captain. We want you to talk, but, we know you can take all the pain in the world, and not say a word. We imagine your crew is just as strong willed. So, instead of hurting you, we're going to hurt her, and let you watch until you talk. And if she dies, then we have Mr. Tam to hurt after her. And if that doesn't work, I'm sure we can find an interesting way of hurting that companion you have on your..............Boat, is that what you call it?"

The agent clapped his gloved hands and a guard brought in a hand cuffed Zoe. She was sat in another chair three-yards to the left of Mal.

The agent picked up a razor backed hand saw while the guard restriained Zoe to the chair. "So, captain. Shall we begin?"