Author's notes:

If you're evil and you know it...your name is probably MechanicGirlKaylee.

I'm starting to make myself sad. Which is bad. A big damn rescue will happen soon, I hope. I have very little control over it.

This chapter is sponsored by the fact that I was upset most of this afternoon.

This started out as part of the "Your Song" series which I haven't updated in seventy billion years, and evolved into this on it's own. I felt kind of weird making up my own characters, but they're not Mary Sues (Marty Stus?) or anything like that, just necessary evils. Title is loosely derived from Ender's Game, because that's what inspired me.

Italics denote the alliance guys talking. (or, later, flashbacks)

'...' denotes thought, which is only necessary for our psychics.

Feed me! kaylee@kikiroxxorz.com

Pairings are: (Simon/Kaylee, Mal/Inara, Jayne/OC and River/OC) but they're not truly important to the plot. Except maybe the River/Adam dynamic. That's kind of important.

~*~

“We must hasten the procedure. They managed to reach out to the girl.” “Sir, wouldn’t that be an indication that perhaps we should be phasing out this procedure instead of phasing it in?” “What are you implying?” “This isn’t right, sir.” “The subjects are heavily sedated. When all goes according to protocol, the subjects lose the ability to differentiate between here and the rest of the world.” “But it rarely ever goes according to protocol, sir. Not this procedure.” “And this time, it will.”

~*~

Ainslee screamed. She screamed and fought and kicked and tugged on her own hair. If it worked one time, it would work another time, she reasoned. The smiling lady wasn’t smiling anymore. “Delcium. Twelve drop. Restrain her,” she said, gripping Ainslee’s arm. Ainslee kept screaming, nonsense words, little bits of conversations, stories, anything to confuse and distract them. She flipped herself over in the chair. “I will make a nice light snack of your flesh!” she yelled as the men with blue gloves turned her right side up. “I love you, Mommy,” she yelled as the filled a needle with clear liquid. “I love you, daddy,” she yelled as they positioned the needle at her vein. “Love you, Simon,” she yelled as they pushed it in. “Love...you…Xavier,” she murmured as she fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

~*~

“River…” Simon knelt down beside her chair. “No medicine,” River said firmly. “Ohh, Ainslee,” she moaned. “What about Ainslee?” Kaylee asked. “What did Ainslee say?” “They gave her too much.” “Too much what?” Simon prodded. “Twelve drop,” River sighed. Simon looked over at Adam. “Delcium,” Adam explained. “The paediatric dose is four drop, and the adult dose is eight. They gave Ainslee twelve.” Kaylee gasped. “But that’s three times what they’re s’posed to!” Tears threatened her eyes again. Simon stood up, stroking Kaylee’s hand. “I’m going to the infirmary, okay? I have a book that talks about the adverse effects of exceeding recommended dosages, and I’m pretty certain there’s a section on Delcium.” Adam knelt down next to River, trying to calm her down and Simon started towards the infirmary. Kaylee sat numbly in her chair as if she were the one on Delcium. ‘She thinks she’s no one,’ River thought. ‘She’s spent so much time being Mommy that she forgets who she was before.’ She leaned her head into Adam’s lap and finally started to cry.

~*~

“Deknol, Delcan, Delcium.” Simon ran his finger down the table of contents. “Delcium. Aha. ‘Exceeding the recommended dosage of this product can cause severe and immediate side effects including brain haemorrhage, coma, seizures and death.’” Simon slammed the book shut, letting it fall to the floor. He looked over one last time at the capture of his children on his desk, then stood up and stormed out of the infirmary, letting the door slam heavily behind him.