Alliance ~ Closed for The_PG

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The Firefly 'Verse

Firefly Chinese

Firefly Planets and Moons

River was semi-conscious before Simon touched the door to her little room beside Serenity's sick bay. Her eyes remained closed and she smiled as Simon's brilliance chased the blue sun away. Its hands reached out for her but they were too far away; too far and too slow. She laughed at them. Sometimes when she slept the hands of blue had her screaming. She waved them bye bye, standing on a golden beach, basking in the sunlight of Simon's love and protection.

"River."

Her eyes opened. He had caught the hand she had waved and a harsh metallic clicking sound suddenly had her fully conscious. Cuffed. She was cuffed to her bed. Her eyes lifted from her hand in his, seeking out his steady gaze.

"Two by two." She said softly, referring to his piercing blue eyes.

"Shh, no. They're gone now. You must have been dreaming." He told her, suddenly concerned, pulling her into an awkward embrace as he knelt by her bunk. River shook her head against his chest.

"They're never gone. They're right here. Every day, the first thing I see. First and last." Her voice was still soft and she was smiling.

"Maybe I should review your medicine. I was hoping you'd be sleeping without dreaming now." He fretted.

"Standby mode is ineffective. Inefficient. They are there but I am not and then when I wake up it's like I was never there at all. They can see me, even when I can't. It's not fair. Always looking, spying, testing. You never sleep either, one eye open, even less efficient. One by one... brown and blue suns... burning."

"River, you're awake now ok, it's over. I have a surprise for you." He smiled. "A nice one." Simon added hastily. "Today is your birthday, you're eighteen now."

River pulled herself out of his embrace and proffered her wrists. Simon uncuffed them.

"'Day' is a vestigial mode of time measurement based on solar cycles. It's not applicable." She rubbed her wrists and frowned at him.

"Well I got you a present and everyone wants to celebrate with you. Is cake applicable? You like cake."

"The endothermics are far too variable."

"You don't have to bake it. Kaylee already baked it."

"Then it's too late." River sighed heavily.

After Simon gave her some medicine, River washed and put on her long dark blue dress. Her wet hair hung down her back as she made her way to Serenity's galley. Everyone was there, including Simon. She knew they didn't want her. Jayne especially didn't want her there and Mal still insisted she was left cuffed inside a locked room when they all slept. Jayne had mended the T shirt she had slashed when she cut him once. The slash was clumsily strung closed with what looked like a bootlace and his dark blood still stained the logo. Blue sun, still better in red. He wasn't looking at her though, he was staring at the cake.

Kaylee was smiling brightest. She always did. River really wished Kaylee and Simon could understand one another as she understood them. Even now Kaylee was shooting him sidelong glances, seeking approval for the work she had done baking and making the kitchen look festive. She held out a small ceramic cup. River took it and sniffed at the clear contents. She turned to Simon.

"More medicine? It doesn't adhere to the paradigm." Birthday gifts shouldn't be medicine, even she knew that.

"Um... It's sake, rice wine." Kaylee explained, suddenly flustered in that way of hers. "Only a small one. Not that it matters out here in the black but, well you're legally old enough to drink now so... it's symbolic."

Simon was moving towards her to take the cup. River had never touched alcohol and she was suddenly curious. She knocked back the sake before he could take it. It was warm and seared her throat pleasantly. She held the cup out to Kaylee, to return it. Simon closed her hand around it and pushed it back towards her chest.

"Ok, I don't think you should have any more of that River. You haven't eaten and I've just given you medicine. You keep the cup anyway, it's traditional."

"The taste is unpleasant but I like the burn in my throat." She observed, examining the white glazed cup and the blue oriental handpainted flowers chased around it. "SiO2, a stoichiometric compound." River suddenly smiled at Kaylee. "Thank you." Now that she could bake, given the right equipment.

"Give her a few more of those and I'll teach her what else she's legally allowed to do." Jayne chuckled, leering at the birthday girl.

Simon swung around angrily, startling River, who had been genuinely curious to know what else she was suddenly considered by society to be mature enough to do. He strode towards Jayne, who just laughed at him. River laughed too, it was ridiculous to think that Simon could intimidate Jayne. Mal stepped between them, his light-hearted grin now a little strained.

"Don't you fret Simon, Jayne's got no ambition to be pitched out an airlock. Nobody here will let anything get out of hand." He turned to Jayne. "I suggest you go occupy that mouth of yours with some cake before I have Kaylee degrease it. River, do you want to cut your cake?"

"You're not gonna give her a knife Mal! There could be a full moon out there!" Jayne had suddenly lost his innate swagger and River was suddenly serious. She knew she did bad things now... sometimes. She knew it was no laughing matter that Jayne was scared of her. She regarded him levelly, trying to convey that she meant him no harm. River knew she wasn't succeeding though.

"Keep talking and I'll give her Vera." Zoe interjected, her smile as fake as the captain's as she held Jayne's gaze unflinchingly.

Simon cut the cake and gave River a slice.

"Cake for breakfast." He smiled encouragingly. River took a bite and returned his grin.

"You have chocolate frosting on your cheek."

Simon lifted a hand to wipe it away but River stopped him.

"No!" Everyone swung round so she lowered her voice to a murmur that only he could hear. "Kaylee wants that piece, I saw her looking."

One look at the crisp digital specs hovering in thin air was all that Mr. Malcolm needed. He brushed his hand through thin air, before remembering, with a slightly sickening smile that he needed to push a button to make the picture go away. That was odd, he thought with a bemused, but still sickly smile riveted across his deeply tanned and somewhat sharp features. Normally, he lived in today and did not forget the many simplicities that were involved in living in the new Verse, but today he forgot to push the button. Instead he'd tried to gather up the photograph to throw it away physically. An act nearly nobody had time for, nor any reason to use. Those kinds of print camera's were strictly for museum's and private collectors that spent hundreds of thousands of credits to find and purchase such artifacts from Old Earth.

Still amused at his own forgetfulness, Mr. Malcolm looked up a bit startled upon being called by Captain Ajax. The man was aptly named, and proportioned much like the ancient Greek Hero that had once thought to exist, "Uh, sir?" He interrupted, probably for the second or third time. While some would call it a weakness, or yell very aggressively at Mr. Malcolm for forgetting himself, he would quite simply assure them (with his blade if needed) that he only went into trances like this upon his ship. It wash the common voice of the common soldier that could not wake him from his... Trips, down the memory lanes.

The click of a blaster? It would be the last sound the owner heard before Mr. Malcolm's blade sliced his jugular vein in half. Both of his black eyes seemed to focus on Captain Ajax. However, it was rather clear that if you looked closely at Mr. Malcolm that his eyed did not entirely see everything. Sure, they noticed every minuscule movement in the room. Down to the pulse of the man's throat and disgusting bit of his lunch that was still clinging to a hair he missed in his shave that morning, but really... He just wasn't all there. No, he was there physically and even mentally, but emotionally... He had no emotions, or they were damaged beyond repair. Or perhaps they simply did not appear to those he was around on their level. Above or below their detection.

Either way, they seemed to not exist.

The memories were what destroyed them. Them, being so painful. Raping women only just old enough to understand what was happening to them, killing children that smiled at him, men were nothing more than weeds or plants. Mothers loosing their hearts as their children were destructed molecule by molecule in excruciating pain, screaming for them until their lungs simply evaporated. There was nothing Mr. Malcolm had not seen, and very few things he had not done.

The Alliance had placed far too much money and time into Mr. Malcolm to allow something as silly as emotions waist their effort. Somehow, in some way, they neutralized them. Destroying part of him, so that the rest good live without restraint or effort. Yet, whom besides the Creator of all things could truly destroy what had been created? So they existed. Still, sometimes bursting into our realm of visibility, but more often then not hiding from existence and giving the Alliance what it desired.

"What is it Captain Ajax, does Achillies press forth without thee?" The brute was puzzled, he knew naught of the origin of his name. These brawn, but not brain types sometimes drove Mr. Malcolm up a wall. Yet, they had their uses and there were plenty of them at hand, what with all the steroids that had been legalized for the Alliance use.

"Sir, we have a transmission incoming on your private channel."

"Ah, well... That is news, is it not? Very important I should say."

"Yes sir, sir."

"Have it sent to my quarters please... Soon, soon Ajax, we will have Lady Helen in our grasp!"

"Uh, yes, sir?"

With his own private, but hollow laugh Mr. Malcolm returned to his own private quarters upon the flagship of the Alliance Armada stationed in orbit about Athens. Their mission, up until this point, had been a rather simple one of observe and report. They had also been tasked with making sure that not too many Reaver ships made their way towards the core planets, for they were much more heavily concentrated in this part of the verse upon the Rim then anywhere else. Mr. Malcolm was a newly arrived member of the crew without name, or rank save for the fact that he was in charge of everyone. Even the Admiral of the fleet reported to him directly. Rumors spread on ships spread rapidly, and the pervading theory and rather astutely correct one was that he was an agent of the Council. A less heavily supported, but more openly talked about theory was that he was here as an adviser from HTech. The leading corporation in manpower. They had deep purses, and long strings. Often, they were allowed an adviser on Alliance craft in order to coordinate with their... Harvesting fleets.

"Councilmen..." Mr. Malcolm bowed quickly, paying only minimal respect in order to not upset the balance of things. If they unbalanced. Things went red.

"Operative... Twelve. So good of you to answer... I feel honored, but before you say anything else your mission has finally begun to show signs of coming together. She, has been spotted upon the border World of Beaumonde and as we speak is being sent a trigger that will undoubtedly lead her elsewhere... And we think... To you."

"Why is this?"

"That...! Does not concern you my boy, no, no indeed it does not. Your concern should only be destroying this... Property, the Council desires it gone, erased from the history of existence of the Verse. I've uploaded the information to your hand held with the encryption key twelve-cubed."

"Thank you." Mr. Malcolm, unlike the heroic Captain Ajax was far above and beyond the need to end all of his sentences with, sir. The fleshy old man upon his communique screen did not approve of this, but there was naught he could say. "I will put this information to good use, and you say she will be driven to me, but I do not understand this? Would it not be easier to trap her nearer the core world. Closer to our resources?"

"My dear boy, hehe, the Alliance has more resources in the Rim worlds then anyone would like to admit. Trust me, you will have limitless men, and unfathomable technology to track this motley crew. You will get them, and get them well."

"Yet I will need it all," Mr. Malcolm says calmly, "I will not make the same mistakes as all of my predecessors."

"No, no of this I am certain."

"You need not be."

"Why?"

"I am. Goodbye Councilmen."

The screen flickered to life in his hand. The picture of a black haired angel suddenly appeared across it, and Mr. Malcolm smiled. It was a sickeningly sweet smile. Like a boy who just ate too much candy, and is looking at the most delicious piece of chocolate left in the Verse. "Hello River... Hell.... Oh...."

This is your captain speaking, as you may have noticed by the turbulence, we have just hit atmo on Beaumonde. Inara, you are free to disengage your shuttle. Please ensure you have your fanciest glad rags on, cause I am ordering everyone 'cept Jayne to go party.

The comm clicked and was silent. A few moments later it clicked again. Behind the static an alarm was beeping.

Those of you who value your lives might want to strap your good selves to something right about now. My flighty pilot has burned all the fuel, so our landing may be a little... um... more eventful than usual.

River was lying on one of the walkways around the top of the hold. It was one of er favourite places, where she could observe people but usually not be seen or disturbed. Turnbulence rocked Serenity, lifting River into the air and dropping her back onto the metal ramp with a clatter. She laughed. Heavy booted feet strode over and stopped beneath her. Jayne glared up at her.

"You up there again?"

For a fraction of a moment River panicked that he couldn't see her, that she wasn't there at all. Jayne's eyes met hers though, telling her he was just asking stupid questions again. She scowled right back at him.

"Well you get up and get on out of here. Anything in this hold gets thrown too far one way or another and you'll get hurt. Understand?"

River declined to answer. The physics of the situation was obvious even to Jayne but that didn't mean she was going to let him patronise her. Nor was she about to stand up and let him see straight up her dress.

"Go on now. Don't make me fetch your brother."

River glared at him and then wriggled away commando style, keeping her body flat to the ramp and her dress down over her legs.

"Fuckin' fruitloop." She heard him mutter. River tottered through the juddering ship to the main lounge area and belted herself into a chair.

When she got to her little room the ship had landed Kaylee was there. Kaylee had red flowers in her hair and was wearing a sparkly halter top and heeled boots. Her face was also... kinda sparkly, around the eyes and on the lips. River regarded her.

"Ok birthday girl, time to pretty you up!" Kaylee announced. She made River change her grubby dress for a deep red one with flared sleeves. She had last worn it on a bank job Mal had taken her on, much to Simon's disgust. She had felt the presence of Reavers and saved the crew by getting them out in time. River didn't want to think about what she had seen in those Reavers' minds, so she didn't want to wear the dress but Kaylee was insistent. Soon River also had red flowers pinning her long dark curls away from her face.

"Inara gave me the flowers, she's sorry she's going to be working on your birthday. Ok, I think that'll do for you." Kaylee said. "If I put make-up on you boys will take an interest and I don't think that's a good idea."

"Boys don't wear make-up."

"Um... That's right, they don't." Kaylee smiled but River didn't comprehend what was funny.

Kaylee led River by the hand to where the rest of the crew were waiting to disembark. Simon seemed taken aback at River's appearance and smiled at her. Then he saw Kaylee but all he did was blush and look at the floor. River was so exasperated she wanted to slap him. Kaylee's hopeful face fell as Mal gave his last instructions.

"Ok, local time is early evening. Jayne, I want to come back to a re-fuelled ship and see if you can get the parts Kaylee wrote down for you. Wash!"

"Captain?"

"Would you have any notion of what fell off my ship when you crashed it into this rock?"

"Um... yes. We may need a couple more things. But Captain, I did not crash... I glided."

"You glided? Out of upper atmo, around half of Beaumonde, to hit the ground with a little more than optimum velocity and drag my ship on her belly to 'somewhere near' the city we should have docked at?"

"That sounds somewhat accurate. But we were supposed to refuel on Paquin. I told you-"

"Well you're with Jayne till you've got everything we need. See if you can get me a new pilot while you're at it."

Jayne was being penalised because he'd gotten into a bar brawl on Santo, where there last job had been pulled. Wash and Zoe moved towards Jayne but Mal called Zoe back.

"I need you with me when I meet Mingo and Fanty. You and your husband can have your date night after that, ok?"

"Aye Cap'n."

River went into the city with Simon and Kaylee. Simon had some medical supplies to acquire but was basically off duty. They were going to the bar that Mal and Zoe were heading for but they would pretend not to know them. River wanted to leave them alone together but there was no way Simon was going to leave her by herself. Then she had an idea as they walked through the brightly lit main street.

"It's a strange social convention, the consumption of beverages." That hadn't been what she wanted to say. River tried again. "The shiny areas, though the term is unacceptable. Nonsensical." No, that wasn't it either. "Simon noticed... the capillary vasodilation..." They were both staring at her now. With an extreme force of will, River boiled her internal monologue down into short phrases. "I can wait. In the bar. Mal and Zoe are there. I have eighteen solar cycles now."

Kaylee and Simon were both blushing now, which she took to be a good sign. Simon fussed and fretted for a few minutes and then gave River some credits.

"We'll only be fifteen minutes or so. Just get a drink and sit somewhere quiet, ok?"

"Ok." She smiled brightly and left them.

In the bar River began to get looked at and it disturbed her. The place was crowded and she couldn't see Mal and Zoe. River slipped between people until she was right at the bar, despite the fact customers were queuing three deep for drinks. The bartender asked her what she wanted and River found that she didn't know.

"Sake."

He placed a small ceramic bottle and cup in front of her. River handed over her credits, accepted her change and managed to leave without having to say anything else. There was nowhere she could sit but against the walls were shelves for drinks and River found a place to stand there. The people were all fascinating to her but she swiftly found that they didn't appreciate being observed. Music filled the vaulted room and she watched idly as advertisements played on a nearby screen. She poured herself a sake and sipped it cautiously.

An orange animated octopus flashed onto the screen, advertising some kind of candy bar. At first River thought it was funny, as octopi weren't known for their love of candy. Something about the animation became compelling though and her sake cup dropped to the floor unheeded as River watched, transfixed.

The octopus's body had become a planet, a planet full of dead people. There was no war, no screams or fighting. The planet had just... stopped turning somehow. Then in the octopus's mouth she saw different people, a small group but filled with rage, hatred and... lust. They fought one another but the things they did to one another and to the dead people on that planet... the ugliness and evil of their souls...

"Miranda." River whispered the word, her eyes clouded now with tears.

A man had moved into her personal space, to pick up her cup. River gripped his head and snapped it sideways, her eyes still on the screen as he fell to the ground. His friends tried to rescue him but she fought them off, punching and kicking on auto-pilot.

Reavers, she was surrounded by reavers!

Had she been more worldly, River would have had a better understanding of what went through people's minds when they were out drinking and socialising. It all disgusted her however, fuelling the white hot anger burning in her chest, the indiscriminate rage that kept the reavers moving every single moment of their lives, never sleeping, never even slowing down.

Everything seemed to be in slow motion now. River fought everyone who came near her with brutal and clinical precision, her body twisting, turning, kicking and punching as though performing an elaborate dance. Wrists were snapped, weapons fell to the floor, assailants began to pile up around her and still she never even paused for breath.

"Cap'n!"

Zoe's tone was urgent. Mal twisted around in the seat of his booth to see that a fight had broken out on the other side of the bar.

"Chùsheng xai-jiao de xiang huo!" [Animal fucking bastard.] "I told Jayne to stay with the gorram ship!"

"It ain't Jayne Sir. That there is River Tam."

A man fell to the ground, revealing River. Mal watched for a moment, incredulous, as the frail looking teenager continued to maim and kill indiscriminately. The women in the bar were standing well back but it was only a matter of time before tiny little River Tam got around to them. Her slim body moved with fluid grace beneath the thin fabric of her red dress, her dark curls whirled behind her, adorned with scarlet flowers. Her facial expression though, it was neutral, no not quite neutral, her look was one of heartbreaking sorrow. She had checked out. Something other than River was compelling her to kill everyone within radius using her bare hands. It was obvious too that her psychic ability was giving her the advantage. She moved to block attacks that even Mal didn't see coming, turned and struck people standing behind her as though she had eyes in the back of her head.

"Domestic trouble Mal?" Mingo enquired, standing up in unison with his twin brother so they could take in the scene.

"Not mine. Where the hell is Simon?" Mal kicked Mingo and Fanty's cut from their last job under the table towards them. Zoe was already up and running for the weapon drop by the front door. "I'm going to have to straighten this out but, don't worry boys because I swear, our next job will go like clockwork."

"We doubt it Mal." Fanty replied as Mingo retrieved a bag full of credits. "We don't need trouble like this. We won't be working with you again." The two guys beat a hasty retreat.

"You got your cut and you kept all four of your gorram hands clean!" Mal yelled at their backs. "Chur ni-duh!" [Screw you]

Zoe raised her shotgun and moved towards River. The bar was a mass of screams, cries and heavy dance music but she knew she made herself heard.

"River! River Tam! It's Zoe! River I want you to stop this! Stop now!"

She might as well not have spoken. River was engaged with a tall, muscular looking guy, who was wielding a metal bar that had once been a part of the furniture.

"Sir! Step away from her Sir!" Zoe took the safety off her weapon. The man hesitated and River struck, snatching his metal bar and striking him in the throat with it. He went down gasping, then convulsed and fell still.

Mal by this time had raced to the weapons drop but couldn't find the compartment containing his own. He spun the thing helplessly, trying to unlock boxes at random and failing. The bar was deserted now and the authorities would pile in at any moment. This was not good at all and likely to get much worse.

"River... It's Zoe. I don't want to hurt you. I'm your friend." The crazed girl was circling her and Zoe tried to keep calm, praying to whatever might be up there and listening that she wouldn't have to shoot... knowing that she would if it came right down to it. "Mal!"

"I can't find my gun! Do not engage unless you have no choice!"

"Wasn't going to Cap'n!"

Zoe's eyes widened as River ran towards her, her finger squeezed the trigger but before she put enough pressure on it to fire the shot, another voice rang out.

"Eta kuram na smekh!" [Это курам на смех = That's for chickens to laugh at.]

River collapsed at Zoe's feet as Simon raced towards them.

"But, sir, if you don't mind me asking, sir. Why would you want a piece of gao se like that?" Ajax's long stride and powerful muscles stopped moving in front of the piece of crap space ship that Mr. Malcolm had decided to, and indeed already bought. Unfortunately, Mr. Malcolm thought, his jaw did not stop moving with the rest of his massive, but well proportioned body. Without a word to him the inscrutable black man raised his hand held and punched in a few buttons, sending orders across thousands and thousands of miles of empty space for parts and mechanics to be brought to this location. They would be there inside of the hour. The 'gao se' old medium sized military transport that he'd bought with the smallest fraction of his Parliamentary allowance was actually perfect for his mission, though not precisely for the mission Parliament had given him, for that he could use one of the many Cruisers or Starships that were still hovering somewhere above Atmo. They could wipe out a tiny Firefly transport with 99% of their weapons disabled and only two crew members.

"This... gao se," The words sounded like nails across chalk whenever Mr. Malcolm spoke them, "Is actually rather beautiful. A word I do not care to know in that crass miss-matched language you pretend to know and use. It will be fast, robust, and maneuravable. It has little firepower, but the Firefly class has none to speak of, correct?"

"Yes sir!"

"Well then I shall only need to have the qualities as it, for I do not plan on destroying a ship when I only need destroy a girl. That upsets the balance of things. Upsetting the balance of things is never, ever, a good idea Captain Ajax. Remember those words, for I have spoken them more then once, and more then once they have come true."

"Yes sir."

"The Firefly is robust, rather maneuverable, but sluggish. So I will have the advantage with my speed. That is all I need for this case. You remember our orders Captain Ajax?"

"Yes sir, termination of subject River. Full deconstruction. No DNA traces."

"Precisely. And blowing up a ship is a rather imprecise form of destruction. While the odds are improbably for her to survive. The odds of a piece of her DNA surviving in explosion are astronomically higher than many, many other things. Including, but not limited to winning the lottery, escaping a black hole, and witnessing a supernova. All very rare you see. In any case I will be planet side for some hours, retrieving goods that I will need to employ in order to assure myself of victory. You stay here and allow only Veto Engineers on my ship. I shall return within the hour."

"Uhhh, yes sir."

Mr. Malcolm left without so much as a trace. Indeed, he wore thin black leather gloves to keep any and all fingerprints to himself. He wore no cologne and bathed in scent neutral soap, and he brushed his teeth with scent neutralizing paste that coated his teeth quite well and kept them particularly white. Walking quickly through the streets of this antiquated, but still rather modern town he made his way into the seedier parts where shadows ruled and voices hardly ever rose above a whisper. In order to DNA-Wipe a subject their entire body had to be decomposed, shredded per molecule, and the most effective ways to do this were with fire in excess of one thousand degrees. Prolonged exposure of course. Or deconstruction nano-bots (DNB's). Tiny robots that literally eat away DNA structure until it's existence is entirely... Fictional.

While the alliance had these firearms in it's arsenal the black markets had ones that worked infinitely better.

Dyton, in particular, had a ravishingly good black market. That was why he was here. And to get his ship. It didn't take long to find, buy (or take) the DNB's along with a suitable firing mechanism. A modified pistol-crossbow with glass vials that could contain the nano-bots because of the liquid coolant they were filled with. Once released into any different type of temperature the DNB's would become active.

It was fifty-nine minutes after he said he would return when he did, and both Captain Ajax and his ship were waiting. Mr. Malcolm raised a bottle of wine and hurled it against the hull of his ship, "For good luck. One can never have enough good luck Captain Ajax. Assemble my teams. We need to be on Miranda within the hour. Something has happened, our subject is moving, quickly. And so must we."

Mal regarded his crew. Everyone but Wash, who was laying stripes fleeing Beaumonde, was sat at the galley table. River was secured in a locked room and still unconscious. Mal had nearly told Simon to take his sister and get the hell off his ship but something had stopped him, he still didn't know what. Everyone was staring at him expectantly like they always did and Mal avoided their eyes for now. He still hadn't made up his mind whether or not to throw the Tams out into the black.

"What about Inara?" Kaylee's tone was insistent, a rare occurrence. Mal at least could answer that one.

"She's spending some extra time with her client. We couldn't wait for her and she's perfectly safe on Beaumonde. We'll go back for her when things have calmed down.

"When will that be?"

"I have no idea. Inara's a resourceful woman. She's got her shuttle and she's wealthier than all of us put together. She'll be fine and I can't worry about her right now, ok?"

"I can't believe you brought that psycho bitch back on this ship." Jayne grumbled mutinously.

Mal bit down on his irritability. He knew his crew needed this meeting and to ask questions but it was wasting time. Zoe had the patience he lacked though, her calm tones easing everyone else's worries. Mal had no idea what he had done right to deserve such a formidable second in command but he was thankful every day he lived. Zoe's presence kept him from being too hot headed and... well... stupid.

"We've had a chat with Mr Universe." She told Jayne, and everyone else. "We've seen the security footage from the bar. River was triggered by a subliminal message hidden in an advertisement."

"What the hell does that mean? We have to ground her and ban her from watching TV?" Jayne was, as usual, missing the point.

"It means the Alliance is trying to find her, make her do crazy shit to put her on their radar." Zoe shot Simon a sympathetic look as she continued. "It means she probably ain't even River any more." She looked to Mal, seeking his authority lest she speak out of turn. Mal turned to Simon.

"Why didn't you tell us she could go batshit? Why didn't you tell us she had a safe-phrase? I have been more than accommodating to you and your sister. I've turned down jobs on core worlds. Hell, I've turned down jobs on border planets to keep you out of the Alliance's sight. And what do you do? Leave her unsupervised in a bar on a border planet, right under the Alliance's gorram nose! Mr Universe said he wasn't the first to access that bar footage. The Alliance have already seen it. I might be stupid enough to risk my neck for you two but now I'm risking everybody on this ship and for the life of me, I can't remember why."

"I'm very sorry. I had no idea she was capable of anything like that. They told me at the Academy that she was unstable and that saying 'Eta kuram na smekh' would make her sleep if she got distressed or was a danger to herself. That's all I knew." Simon's hands were raised in a placatory gesture. Mal could see that his eyes were haunted. He would never be able to forget what his sister had done in that bar, the violence and the lives she had taken. River probably would have no memory of it at all.

"So what happens now?" Kaylee was regarding Simon with concern. Mal sighed heavily.

"Now, we have no new job from Fanty and Mingo. We have to put distance behind us, which means the yellow sun system. The only place I'm, prepared to land over there is Haven. Shepherd Book will welcome us and we can regroup over there." Mal regarded Simon. "Might be best for everyone if we leave Simon and River with Book. She'll be safe there and Book can keep everyone safe from her."

"I can't treat her effectively on a rim world. They won't have any of the drugs or equipment I need." Simon replied.

"Maybe I don't care about that." Mal hissed, losing patience. "Maybe all I care about is that she's not on this ship. Maybe you should consider yourself fortunate that you and your sister are alive and at liberty at all. We visit Haven regular, anything you want or need can be fetched in good time."

Simon didn't argue, he knew better. Mal wasn't finished though.

"She stays in her locked room and she stays cuffed, no exceptions. Haven is a few days ride away. If she leaves that room for any reason, my crew have a right to defend themselves against her. Seems to me the only defence against River when she's violent is a bullet or a blade. I cannot ask my crew not to use lethal force so you will make damn sure that doesn't happen. Do you understand me doctor?"

"Yes."

"Good. Why don't you take her some food and see which River's waking up?"

Simon rose and left. Jayne pulled a knife from his belt and started sharpening it.

"Gee, I sure hope little miss psycho doesn't get loose." He said sarcastically, with an evil grin. Mal raised en eyebrow.

"Jayne, if you should find that you can't defend yourself in a non-lethal way against a 90lb teenage girl, you're gonna find yourself unemployed. What good to me is a brainless thug who's scared of little girls?"

"I can lift stuff too."

"You can teach Kaylee and Wash how to shoot. Kaylee," Mal's voice dropped to a much softer tone, turning to her. "I know it's against your nature but you are going to be armed every minute River is still on board this ship. Call me selfish but I need my mechanic in one piece. You will not make yourself a martyr to that sick little girl, you understand me? If you have to, you will shoot her... with your eyes open... and you won't miss."

"Aye Cap'n." She replied, swallowing hard. Zoe however, was chuckling.

"You have my sympathy Jayne. I'd rather go a round with River Tam than teach Wash how to shoot. Tried that myself once. Wash nearly took his own foot off and the shock made him turn towards me. You think this parting in my hair is natural?"


Simon unlocked River's room and stepped cautiously inside. She was lying on the floor beneath her bunk, tethered to it by a cuff around her left wrist. He closed the door behind him and locked it. The key for her cuffs hung from a hook on the back of the door and Simon hung the room's key there as well.

"River, you awake? I brought you some food." He placed the tray on the floor within her reach. The meal was already cut into small pieces, the only piece of cutlery a plastic spoon. Concerned that she was unresponsive, Simon lay down on the floor to get a better look at her. River peeked at him from behind her hair.

"You think I don't know. I know. I know everything... too much. You should be a doctor and I should be River."

"You're not River?"

"I was... but I forgot. I remember everything else but I forgot her." River's visible eye filled with tears that splashed onto the floor. "I don't know who I am... I never know what I'm thinking... what I'm saying. You should let them shoot me."

"Nobody's going to shoot you. You're safe here."

"You can't hear them? Why am I the only one who can hear them?"

"River... will you come out from under there?"

"I remember, I remember what I did. Every time I close my eyes I see all those people... dying. The fighting... so much death. River's dead too and now there's just me and I don't know who she is! Please don't make me sleep again."

"You're not River, but you don't know who you are?" Simon asked cautiously. "What's your name?"

"Miranda. Miranda? Do you know who Miranda is? Maybe she knows."

"You're Miranda?"

River twisted the neck of her dress around so she could examine the label.

"Mother will know... Ross... I'm Ross... or polyester. That's a pretty name."

Simon drew her out from under the bed, pulling her gently into a sitting position.

"Well polyester needs to eat something before this gets cold."

A rather unflattering picture of Rear Admiral Jones hovered in the air only six inches from Mr. Malcolm's face. The gray haired, but still firm faced Admiral was arguing with what seemed to him to be a black wall of denial and implausibility. The Admiral was tracking the Serenity, and it's course had been set for Haven ever since leaving Beaumonde and to all forms of logic that meant the ship would be landing there sometime in the next half-hour. Only all forms of the Admiral's logic did not have the same amount of information that Mr. Malcolm possessed. His impassive face remained that way as he calmly explained that he was going to Miranda and the fleet was to await his return along the edge of space inhabited by Reavers. Of course, the Admiral would never admit that fear of the Reaver fleet was the reason he was arguing, and perhaps it was not forefront in his conscious mind, but it was there and very present upon his face and in the taste of his words. Nobody in their right mind waited on the edge of Reaver space. Not even a fleet of the Alliances best ships, especially not a fleet of the Alliances best ships. The battle that would undoubtedly occur was not cost-effective for the Alliance. Not in the least bit.

"Admiral... You have your orders from the Alliance, and you have your orders from me. They go hand in hand. Their orders are to obey mine, and mine are for you to park your fleet at a reasonably safe distance from the Reaver fleet on high alert. Should I need your help. You will conduct the first, of what soon is more than likely to become, a full fledged war upon the Reaver fleet. Do you understand me, Admiral Jones?"

"Yes. I understand your orders, but not the reasoning."

"Well... That is why I am in charge, and you are not. I understand what must be done, and how we will be going about doing that. You do not. If you knew, indeed, then you would be charge of this operation and not me. An operative of the Parliament."

The sudden lack of breathing from many of the crew members was noticeable both upon Mr. Malcolm's ship and upon the Alliance fleet vessel. Up until this point that had only been a rumor, but now it was simple fact. Parliament operatives were... Not to be trusted, or crossed. They were rumored to be psychic, or huma-bots, or even part Reavers themselves. Though those were all just simple rumors created by simple soldiers who knew no better. The Admiral knew. Operatives were simply the most highly trained, and most effective weapons that the Alliance had within it's control. They were shadowy, and powerful. A man's career could end swiftly by execution, or more lengthy ejection from the Alliance for arguing with an Operative.

"I understand you now.... T-thank you."

With that the transmission ended.

Turning to the rest of the crew with a smile, "Now... Aren't you fellow glad I had a few parts picked up? Engage the invisibility drivers, set our course for Miranda. Turn off all transmissions. Minimum operating power. Let's go people." Those last three words were needed, for every simple soldier in the entire vessel was simply staring at...

An Operative.

-

Jayne frowned as he tried to jam a clip into the simple M9.x pistol he was going to teach Wash to shoot with. It was a child's gun in his opinion, but the Captain seemed ta think that everyone carrying a shotgun or auto-repeater would be a little overkill. Jayne was one ta argue, an he had, as best he knew how... But Captain was Captain, and it didn't help that that Zoe was his lappy dog. "Shiiiiiiiit," He drawled as he suddenly realized that he was trying to bang the clip in backwards. He was probably a little more nervous than Wash, but he tried not to show it much harder, which made it more obvious. As much as he wanted to pay that psycho bitch back fer what she'd done to'im, he was scared to death that she'd put on another show like the one back in that bar. She'd kicked ass, and well.. He wasn't so sure that little repeaters would stop'er once she got ta ass kickin.

"Alright, now Wash. You see this little doo-hickey?"

"The button?"

"Yea, that little black one. That'd be the safety. When it's like this," Click, "It's on. You can't shoot it'tall. Look." Jayne pointed the gun at'im and squeezed hard. Nothin happened save Wash flyin to the floor fast as his twarny ass could take him.

"Watch where you pointin that thing! gan nin bei..."

"Hehe, c'mon pussy... Git up," Click, "When it's like this it fires."

This time he pointed at the bales of hay that they'd set up in the main hall. The loud noise against sent Wash to the floor, but in a much more dignified manner and he didn't quite go all the way down. He just crouched a bit. Jayne tossed him the pistol after turning the safety back on, "Aight. Now set ur legs like me, good, and squeeze the trigger once you point it at the hay. No, don't close yer eyes, and squeezed it. If'n ya pull it, it'll rise up. Good, squeeze. Damnit, turn the ai ya safety off first! Good, no shoot ya shitter, she's commin!"

The last word he yelled into Wash's ear. The results had Jayne rollin, and Wash turnin beat red in his face.

"Alrighty... Let's try this once, hehehe, again!"

River jolted awake. She hadn't really been asleep but the total boredom of being cuffed to her bed had sent her even further into her own little world. Nobody visited her but Simon and she was getting fed up of him clucking around her like a mother hen. Her wrists were both red from wearing the cuffs and her arms bore tiny puncture wounds from the medication Simon had been giving her. It made her sluggish and sleepy but she didn't dream. It had been some while since he last dosed her though, River felt lucid for a change. She sat on her bunk and listened as more gunshots echoed through the ship.

River blinked, then closed her eyes to look again at the image she'd seen. She could see the Yellow Sun solar system, all the planets and moons spinning gracefully. There was something beyond it though, something important and shrouded in shadow. The orange octopus filled her mind again, the planet that was a cemetery.

"Miranda."

More shots rang out and River flinched violently. She looked towards the locked door of her room where the handcuff keys were. Rising from the bunk, she pulled on it but it wouldn't move. River examined the cuff, which was around her left wrist today. Her left hand was slightly smaller and weaker than her right one. River pulled her fingers in and tried to wriggle her small hand out of the cuff. It looked like it might work if she tried hard enough. She picked up a tube of cream Simon had been using to treat the cuts and scrapes she had got during the bar fight. With the help of that and some determination, River simply pulled off her handcuff. The key to the room wasn't on the hook though, it was in the lock on the other side of the door. The ship's doors were all airtight, so there was no way she could get to the key. Above her though, was a system that circulated air around the ship. River climbed onto her bunk to yank a panel off of the ceiling, then climbed up inside.

It was simple enough to navigate her way through the vents to the bridge and when she got there River found it deserted. She dropped down into the room and immediately disabled the door leading to the hallway. It would definitely be bullet proof, if they did try to shoot her. River then sat down in Wash's pilot's chair and started familiarising herself with the ship's controls. She picked up a plastic dinosaur and examined it curiously before putting it to one side.

River was about done figuring out exactly where Miranda was and setting the ship on a new course when people started banging on the door. She felt the shift as Serenity altered her trajectory, though nothing could be discerned through the window. River didn't think they would realise they could get in through the air vents, in fact they probably wouldn't fit.

Finally, Jayne fired enough shots at the door's locking system to gain access and force it open. River moved quickly, standing behind the door as Jayne shoved it open. He came through it slowly, his pistol entering the room first, as River had known it would. She twisted his wrist and took the weapon from his hand, aiming and taking the safety off with lightening speed. By the time Jayne's face appeared around the door, River had the gun pointed right at him at point blank range. He grinned at her.

"Have to do better than that sweetheart, Wash just emptied that clip, I was only carrying it for show."

River fired a shot that whistled past his ear and ricocheted back across the room to embed itself in the wall.

"Worth a try." Jayne abruptly vanished. River could hear Simon shouting something but it was Mal who came through the door next, his hands raised.

"River... I'm sure you're a little ticked off about being kept in your room all this time but stuff like this is the reason why. I got nothing against you. We are your friends here. But you wave guns around like that, firing rounds off, well that's liable to test any friendship."

River regarded him neutrally.

"So, care to tell me where we're all off to now?"

She pointed at the console with her free hand.

"Miranda. We have to go to Miranda."

"Really? How about that. Mind if I take a look at the coordinates there?"

River stepped aside to let Mal approach the console, she kept her gun trained on him however. Simon approached her next.

"River, give me the gun please. You can't go shooting in here, not in this little room."

"There's nothing there but reaver space River." Mal said. "There's no planet called Miranda."

"It was a planet but it's not any more. The reavers took it."

Simon shot Mal a look that said he'd do better to play along with River for now. Mal moved away from the console and smiled warmly at her.

"Reaver space it is then. Should be quite a little vacation. Give Simon the gun now River... please."

River flipped the safety back on and handed the gun over. Simon took it awkwardly, as though expecting it to explode. He turned around and passed it back through the door to Jayne, but Jayne didn't take it. His finger was wedged inside the ear River had nearly blown off.

"Don't be giving me that right now, got a powerful urge to perforate your little whackjob." He growled. Jayne turned on his heel and left.


Mal took no chances with River this time. He put her in a storage closet that had no access to any other part of the ship and he cuffed her to the metal floor of the ship, making sure the cuff was tight around her wrist. River offered no resistance. Nothing was left in the closet with her except a mattress and a blanket. Mal locked the closet and then had Jayne stack some heavy storage crates against the door. One of the crew would be armed and sat outside her makeshift cell at all times.

Once again they all congregated in the galley for another discussion. Zoe had discovered that there was a planet called Miranda but that terraforming had failed to work there. It was listed as uninhabitable. Zoe thought the terraforming failure was a fabrication though, as she could find no news reports about it at the time it was supposed to have occurred.

"There's something there." Mal said. "Something the Alliance wants kept quiet. Well I'd like to find out what that is. If they've kept it that quiet for that long, it could well be something big enough to incite rebellion. There are more rim worlds than core planets. The Alliance might have the tech but they'd be sorely outnumbered if something pissed off enough of the people in the 'verse that they don't give a shit about."

"I don't care if it's got titties for land and beer for ocean, it's in reaver space. You'll never find out what's there 'cause we won't live to see it." Jayne insisted, getting fidgety in the way he did whenever reavers were mentioned.

"How much fuel we got?" Mal asked Wash.

"Plenty. Since you told me to be more economical I've done some of the most boring flying of my life."

"So we can go around most of the reavers, right? They're not going to scavenge the other side of Miranda because nothing ever goes there."

"True, but it's still a huge risk."

"Zoe?"

"I think it's well worth investigating Cap'n. Could be something of value there."

"Anyone got any objections?" Mal gazed round at his crew. "It'll be a bumpy ride but it could be the biggest job we've ever pulled."

"I ain't going into reaver space!" Jayne announced, slamming his hand down on the table.

"Anyone else?... Alright then, Miranda it is."

Waiting was... Waiting. There was no need to describe it with words other then itself. Before the alliance had fixed him, Mr. Malcolm would have been in physical pain from the amount of waiting he was doing, but now even the fact that it was his own doing did not bother him in the least bit. He'd arrived well ahead of schedule and done a little scouting on his own while his frightened crew remained behind under Captain Ajax's command upon his ship. Which had passed unscathed through Reaver space to the surprise and relief of many of the simple soldiers. His exploration had been quick, and easy. The dead did not disturb him. Nor did the facts behind them that he knew all too well by now. Having seen the recording and listened to the doctors report. Now that he knew where the crew of the Serenity would be drawn he had little else to do after scouting the entrances, exits, and various checkpoints that could, even minutely, play into the fight that would soon be upon him. Doubtlessly the Reavers would play some part in this, but it was Mr. Malcolm's plan that he and his team would be gone long before their arrival. Of course if things did crazy, he had an Alliance fleet in his back pocket, and though they would frown upon his bringing this war on them sooner then they wished, in the end they would submit to his logic.

One pattern that had always helped the old Mr. Malcolm in his waiting had carried over to the new Mr. Malcolm even if it wasn't necessarily effective anymore. He had taken to staring at the subject, the target, the objective, that was pictured in crystallized clarity upon his hand held device. River was no exception. Her angelic white skin and deep unsettling eyes gave him a sort of comfort each and every time he looked upon her face. Likewise; her flowing black hair gave rise to emotions that technically did not exist, but that he could feel flowing through his veins.

Carefully his imagination played through various scenarios. Her telepathic abilities would enable her to always be one step ahead of him if he had to think on the go, so in order to combat this advantage he would need to think-not during the entire exercise. His body simply needed to react rather then respond to his minds prodding. Mr. Malcolm had been trained for this for a brief while just before receiving his mission, but even at his best he could only slow himself down to two or three thoughts per minute during combat. It would help, but the field of fight would be surprisingly even for the first time in his long, and storied career.

As he imagined River's lithe, but entirely light body floating around him in a dazzling display of martial arts and the gun-Kata he couldn't help that at various times his much stronger form would capture her and pin her to the nearest metallic wall. It was then that the nonexistent emotion was strongest within him. Swelling his veins and releasing various chemicals that were not altogether displeasing with his blood flow. A rather carnal and indestructible part of his human nature was showing through; registering these emotions on a level both below and above those of the human norm.

Tilting his head to the side from his neck, Mr. Malcolm listened the resounding crackle with both pleasure a sick distaste.

"River... We will have much to discuss once I have you within my grasp... Perhaps you... Are what the Alliance needs, but, perhaps... You are what I need. What I've needed. What I... Wa- What I wanted, and I have not wanted anything that I could feel for many, many years... Yes, River, I am glad we will meet soon. Our paths were destined to cross longer before either of us were born. Perhaps it is fate, or the will of something larger then us, but it was not chance. Not after what was done to me, and after what has been done to you. No. Neither of us could avoid this after those things were done to us..."

The monologue ended as the Serenity floated down into deserted landing pad of the dead city.

Mr. Malcolm sunk quickly into the recesses of darkness amongst the tunnels. His cooling suit keeping the exothermic warmth produced by his body from showing up on any scanners. The coolness kept him from sweating, but nothing could keep his heart from speeding up ever sow slightly as excitement coursed through his limbs and muscles. It was finally time.

River listened as the crates were moved away from her door. This was an unscheduled visit, not a routine time for food or meds. She knew Simon had been heavily dosing her, making her sleep for most of the time and leaving her drowsy and apathetic when she woke. The meals and meds were the only way she could punctuate time and River had no idea how accurate her speculations were. The fireproof door and the crates muffled any talk outside her room, so she knew nothing except what Simon chose to tell her. The locks clicked back and his face appeared.

"River, you're awake." He smiled but he was holding another syringe. She scowled at him.

"You're not making me sleep again!"

"No, I'm not. Look, I didn't tell you this before because I needed you to stay here where you're safe but... we're about to land River, on Miranda."

"You're lying. You're taking me back and you should. You should have your life... once of us should be alive. Just put a bullet to me.... make everything stop."

"Never. Never even say that."

Simon knelt beside her, showing her the syringe. River noted without much interest that the contents were a new colour.

"I'm waking you up River, properly. Mal wants you to come with us to Miranda, because you brought us here. River, what have you seen? What do you know about Miranda? Why are we here?"

River screwed her face up and clutched her head as his questions lanced through parts of her mind that shouldn't be touched. Data swarmed in her head but it was intangible, she couldn't pin anything down and something deep within her was warning her not to try.

"Ask her!"

Simon pierced the flesh below her shoulder with his hypodermic, making sure the tip was lodged in her slender muscle tissue. He pulled back on the plunger slightly, making sure no blood came back to warn him that he was in a vein. Satisfied, he pressed the plunger and shot 5ml of pale green liquid into River. It would take 15 or 20 minutes to filter through the muscle tissue into her veins and circulate her system to her brain. River glared at him with her teeth bared, as though she wanted to snatch the needle and attack him with it. Simon moved swiftly away, leaving his sister cuffed to the floor. Jayne was in the doorway, armed with Vera.

"I just need you to monitor her for me while I go to the bridge." Simon explained. "She's been on quite a cocktail the last few days. If she becomes sick or passes out, get on the comm to me. If she just becomes more alert, see if she'll eat something. And please... put the gun down. If she sees it she will feel threatened and could get violent."

Jayne placed Vera on the floor beside the doorway, in his reach but out of her sight.

"And don't stand there hating her or thinking about shooting that gun." Simon added, his tone harder now. "River is a psychic. She will know if you mean her harm."

"So I have to stand here thinkin' 'bout fluffy little kittens?" Jayne growled disgustedly, squaring up to Simon, who refused to back away.

"She'll know you're lying. Think about something boring but plausible... like organising the hold."

Jayne rolled his eyes and Simon hurried away.


"First sign of Alliance trouble you get us the hell out of here Wash." Mal said. "I don't like that there's no welcome committee, if this place is as important to them as River thinks it is."

On the bridge Mal and Zoe were watching as Wash brought them into Miranda's atmo. The ship juddered violently because there wasn't supposed to be any atmo to speak of. Wash adjusted controls frantically. They were expecting an uninhabitable wasteland, a partially terraformed planet that they would need to wear suits for. Instead they found themselves flying over a functioning ecosystem with verdant looking land and blue ocean. As they got lower Wash flew them towards a beacon he had detected. They found themselves above a fully developed civilization, as advanced as any core planet.

Except that it was completely empty.

"Are we gonna need suits?" Mal asked.

"Negative Captain." Wash replied cheerfully. "The place is habitable and I've seen a bird."

"There's no people." Zoe observed. "Might be some kind of toxin or bioweapon. We wear suits."

Simon arrived and stared in amazement out of the front window.

"She was right. River was right about this place. Look at it."

"Simon, do you have any way of knowing if there's a toxin or something out there? The place looks shiny but there's nobody here. We haven't seen a soul."

Simon turned to Mal.

"Not from inside the ship. I can go out there in a suit and test the atmosphere once we're down... but I don't know how to put on one of those suits properly."

Simon blushed and Mal smiled. It was well known that Simon had a deep aversion to trusting his life to Serenity's careworn and complicated spacesuits.

"Guess you're going first then." He grinned. Simon's eyes widened in quiet panic and Zoe took pity on him.

"I'll help you suit up, make sure you don't put it on back to front."


River watched anxiously as Simon stepped out of the airlock onto Miranda. She had wanted to go with him but had been persuaded to wait with Jayne and Kaylee. Simon waved his scanner around. It was supposed to detect toxins on patients but Simon was confident it would work on Miranda's atmosphere. He walked around for a full ten minutes before he was satisfied, while Serenity's crew fidgeted and pulled faces at him. Finally he got back in the airlock and gave a thumbs up to indicate that it was safe to let him straight through. He stepped ito Serenity's hold and Zoe unclipped his helmet for him, lifting it off of his head.

"It's fine. There's nothing out there that I can detect."

Zoe turned to Jayne.

"How 'bout you go out there and breathe deep for me?"

"The hell I will! Send Her." He retorted, jerking a thumb in River's direction. "She's the only one wants to be here!"

River was getting quiet and introverted. She had a bad feelng about this place, now that they were here. A bad feeling.

"All dead."

"Sha gwa si san ba! [Retarded bitch!] Now she's having premonitions too. I'm staying right here!"

"Shiny. One less cut." Mal pointed out. He and Jayne glared at each other until Jayne inevitably backed down.

"Qingwa cào de liúmáng." River replied with quiet serenity. Simon turned to her incredeulously. Mal was already chuckling.

"That's not even proper Chinese River, what does it mean?" Simon asked.

"Frog-humping son of a bitch."

Once everyone was done laughing, Mal, Zoe, Jayne, Simon and River stepped out of the opened hold and onto Miranda.

Like the shadow that he was rumored to be Mr. Malcolm followed the loud, undisciplined, not-so-secret crew of the Serenity into the catacombs of the dead. They would fine the recording shortly, and while they were busy with it he sent a comm to his ship. Ajax was nervous. Reaver ships were in the area, and coming closer. After telling him to hold his position and trust the invisibility cloak, Mr. Malcolm realized that it would make sense. At first the Serenity's disguise had impressed him, but without his technology they still stood out like a sore thumb on this dead planet. Why would Reavers come here? Well, the Reavers wanted to know too!

With a soft smile Mr. Malcolm lost no confidence as he moved to cut off the retreat to the Serenity. Just as the recording finished he pushed the door shut, it closed with a hiss, and there was a second hissing soon after as he melded the doors together. The panic on the other side was laughable, but just as he predicted they decided upon finding another way out of the room and back to their ship. That would take them plenty of time, plenty of time for him to do some damage. Plenty of damage. As good as he was he knew that they had plenty of weapons, and there was always the chance of catching a stray bullet in a part of his body that was unarmored. Gliding through hallways and paths that mirrored the crews own, he came out ahead of them in a dark aside from the main path that they were taking.

Removing two of his black steel shurikens Mr. Malcolm took several deep, calming breaths, and cleared his mind as he waited. The moment the light haired, funny looking one came into view he moved. Throwing two with his one hand caused them to spin around each other, before thudding stolidly into the thigh of the man. His screams echoed loudly through the halls, but were quickly overwhelmed by something much more threatening.

Outside the Reavers had landed.

A miscalculation on his part, but based off faulty information. Ajax said they were approaching, not flying directly to this point, but it did not matter. Not yet. He could still get to River. He would even save her if he needed. Hurrying away from his vantage point he took cover on the second floor balcony over looking the landing site of the Reavers, right next to the Serenity. They had already explored the ship it seemed, and now the whole lot of their unwieldy selves were hurrying towards the building that contained Serenity's crew. Mr. Malcolm watched in silence as the crew burst forward from the building from a different door, just as the last Reaver darted in side, could they be that lucky? The answer was quickly, and clearly answered a second later. The answer was a resounding No.

The Reavers streamed back after the fleeing crew.

Two of the men were struggling with the one he'd injured. The women were all closer to the ship except for the dark skinned one. She and the captain started firing into the mass of Reavers as they attacked, but they were smart and continued to run. It was hopeless though. The Reavers quickly gained, and weren't firing because of their affinity for hand-to-hand massacres. It wasn't even combat. Mr. Malcolm sniffed, and was about to laugh when he saw River stop dead in her tracks. The rest stopped only after they realized she was halfway between them and the rapidly gaining Reavers. What happened next astounded everyone. The crew would be dumbstruck for days probably, and it only lasted a short while for Mr. Malcolm, but the Reavers incredulity would last only for seconds, as they began to drop like flies.

Now Mr. Malcolm smiled.

His dreams had come true, or so it seemed.

There was a graceful morbidity about the way River flowed from one blow into the next. Her slim hand grasped the overly large Bowie knife the stupid looking man had been carrying and she was using it with brutal effectiveness. First, slicing ones throat, and then thrusting it through the chest of another and using his falling weight to somersault between two more, slicing one of their legs as she ripped the blade from the fallen Reaver. However, there were quite many of them, and even as the last five were engaged with her nymph like form, one of the five had a clean shot at her unprotected back, and nearly took it. Nearly, because that was when Mr. Malcolm arrived. He landed lightly even after his two story fall, the sharp wakizashi from his back split the Reaver in half. The last four died from a flurry of blows from River. Ones neck snapped between her surprisingly strong thighs, another broken nose burst into it's brain from her palm, and the final two fell to a single slice from the sharp blade that cut a quarter of each of their throats.

There was then a mighty Clang, followed by silence.

Rivers blade met his own, and Mr. Malcolm held her gaze in silence as he eyes grew wide and her tiny body began to tremble.

"River! River, what's wrong, who is- Oh god!" Her brothers annoyingly high-pitched voice ended in a wail as River was thrown onto her back and skidded across the dusty sidewalk. She flipped onto her feet, but continued to tremble and mutter, "B-b-bad, bad man. No good. Baaaad."

"That's right River. I am a bad man. A very, very bad man."

Mr. Malcolm stepped closer, his eyes flickering to the Serenity that was preparing to rise and fleeing as a Reaver mother ship began to descend through atmo.

"And you will be coming with me."

River's bowie knife slammed into what she had assumed was another reaver. Her mind recoiled from his, traumatised and disturbed just by standing close to him. This man was far worse than reavers. This man epitomised what it truly meant to be evil. He threw her back onto the ground and River leaped to her feet. She could hear Serenity trying to get off the ground and she could hear Simon but neither of them mattered right now. The tall black stranger was smiling as she approached him.

"That's right River. I am a bad man. A very, very bad man."

And he knew what he was doing, knew she was psychic. He was bringing atrocities he had committed to the forefront of his mind, forcing her to see them and from his perspective. River watched helplessly as he made her walk through a church door and start slaying the women and children there, as he had done as part of some objective years ago. He was trying to put her off balance so she couldn't fight him.

The reavers, they were what they were. Their impulses were base, animalistic and wholly beyond their control. They were driven mad by their inability to rest or sleep and that madness drove them relentlessly into everything else. In many ways they were to be pitied.

But this man, this man had chosen what he was. He had walked his path freely and committed atrocities that would make a reaver vomit, often on a scale that no average human could even comprehend. The wealth, technology and power of the Alliance was always something to behold but might like that in the hands of a man like this one... it led to acts of violence and destruction on a scale even greater than that of Miranda, even greater than all the suffering perpetrated by all the reavers Miranda had spawned in the thirty years since the 'Pax' drug had been introduced to the atmosphere. That had been Miranda's dirty secret, revealed to the crew of Serenity on a recording. The Alliance had introduced a new 'pacifier' into the air, planning to quell any anger or rebellion, to make the people placid and compliant. That had been how the reavers were born, by The Alliance's misguided belief that humanity could be controlled and improved upon.

99% of the planet's population had become very peaceful indeed, ceasing to function altogether until they passed away. 1% had reacted badly to the drug and become the reavers, a feral 'race' that lived like animals. They raided human settlements but not for valuables. They took ships and other necessities but their real target was the people, fellow humans. Reavers tortured, raped, killed, flayed and cannibalised their victims, occasionally in that order. There was no safety for children, the elderly, nobody escaped them. They even cut and maimed themselves, fighting one another when there were no humans to attack. They functioned well as a pack, like hyenas, but were basically more animal than human.

Definitely more human however, than the man River was facing now. She lifted her weapon as they circled each other.

"River! Leave him! We have to go!"

Simon was yelling to be heard above the ship. River could hear without looking that Serenity was in the air and that another ship was approaching, probably this man's vessel.

"You go!"

She knew he wouldn't but she still told him to. Simon could never go back to his Alliance career. He needed her, she was his reason for living. He wouldn't cope with being a mediocre physician on a rim world if she died. River was tired of being his crusade though.

She hadn't taken her eyes off the Alliance man and she wouldn't. His shiny blue uniform made him look impressive, like a hero but she knew the truth.

"Your singularity will consume you... it will just keep gaining density."

She was comparing the evil he had perpetrated to a black hole within his soul but he just looked at her curiously.

"Density. Till you can't move or feel. Till you never move again."

She wasn't given to premonitions but River simply knew it to be true. He would die by his own hand one day.

River started moving before she had finished speaking and she could sense him moving too, without having to turn her head. River lunged straight towards him but dropped to her knees once his sword was raised. She had planned to thrust the knife up into his stomach but he evaded her. His sword arm was directly above her as she scrambled away though, so she kept her knife high and managed to slash his forearm open.

Once she was a few paces away from him, River turned around to see him gazing at the cut on his arm in total disbelief. He was remembering that he was mortal, that all the might of the Alliance and his own twisted belief in what he did would not prevent her from killing him if she possibly could. River did not care why he was here, he radiated evil and needed to be dead.

Instantly she was exploiting his hesitation, whirling towards him in a blur of glossy curls and steel.

[*Sigh* You're so much better at writing combat scenes than me.]

Mr. Malcolm recovered his focus as quickly as possible from the sharp bite of River Tam's blade. As much as he expected this to be a fight, he was still surprised when it happened, it was a clear mistake that he would not forgive himself of the next time he began his training. Within the split seconds he had before she struck again he focused all of his thoughts on the many horrible scenes he'd witnessed with cool tranquility, much like what the Alliance was trying to instill upon the people of Miranda. Well, they had found it. That was certain.

As their blades met he immediately noticed the lack of force behind River's blow, as he hardly had to resist her strike, thus her lightning quick second strike also met his blade and not the throbbing vein of his inner thigh. He psychic ability was both an advantage and disadvantage. For her body still physically reacted to every burnt, mutilated, and decomposing body that Mr. Malcolm had seen in his lifetime. Many created by his own hand. Yet at the same time he was being forced to fight defensively, for any and all of his strikes were met with the perfect counter-attack. Still, the physical weakness of her blows quickly led Mr. Malcolm to the knowledge that he would win. It would only be a matter of time that one of his overpowering attack knocked the blade from her hand, and then no manner of dodges would allow her to escape his oncoming wrath. Either this, or she would stray to close, so far she had been careful not to.

Yet, in the end it was not her physical weakness, their proximity, or even the images of death that undid River Tam. It was her psychic ability, yes.

However, the image was of her. The one that shocked her into paralysis and enabled Mr. Malcolm to bring a powerful backhand across her cheek, use his boot to force her face into the dusty cement, and slip a pair of magnetic wrist binds onto her slim wrist. They immediately went humming to life, and held her arms uselessly behind her back. Then Mr. Malcolm signaled his ship, and lifted her easily onto his shoulder before carrying her into the doorway that suddenly appeared in the middle of the city. It was really a spectacular effect, Mr. Malcolm approved of it immensely, as with the invisibility drive engaged when the door opened it looked like a door into the time rift had been opened. With a last glance at the Serenity, the door closed behind him softly and river was thrown onto the hard metallic grating of the ship face first. Splitting her lip and bruising her cheek.

"So," Mr. Malcolm said as he bent to brush his finger against her bloody lip and traced it across her tongue.

"Did you like what you saw?"

The image, of course, had been him. Naked, a sheen of glistening sweat covering his massive muscles and carefully cleaned skin. Underneath him River, her alabaster white also glistening with sweat, her eyes glassy with pleasure, her lips opened partially. Panting soft words of mewling approval as he fucked her steadily, his strong hands holding her slim hips as he pushed within her tight core with no resistance. Both of her tiny breasts were pointed with arousal, and a bright blush of pink covered her cheeks, throat, and chest. Her wet hair was all cascading down one shoulder sticking tightly to her salty skin. As he moved, she moaned and dug her tiny fingers into his ebony muscles.

The thought had come unbidden to Mr. Malcolm as those thoughts tended to during the fight. The moment he had caught a glimpse of her tight belly and tiny bellybutton, but it had ended the fight. That was a fact, and he hadn't even had to hurt her. The Alliance wouldn't care as her summary deconstruction was to commence as soon as they had confirmed her identity. They needed to get out of Reaver space before they could do that, so he could enjoy a little interrogation of his tiny captive.

"Well, did you?" He asked softly, as he leaned over and pressed a hand against her stomach, and began to trail it down.

She had been trying to cope with the images he threw at her, trying to let them wash over her, without being forced to focus on any particular one. It had almost been working until he had realised what she was doing. Then he threw an image at her that she couldn't ignore, one that was so vivid that she knew it was something he actually desired. He had had no attachment to the destruction and death he had shown her but the image of them together seared across her mind like flame, branding it there till she couldn't wish it away.

River forgot she was supposed to be fighting him. Her knife dropped from her hand and her hands went to clutch her head but never made it there. He kicked her to the ground and pinned her there, cuffing her wrists. River opened tear filled, dust choked eyes to see Simon staring in silent horror as she lay there defeated. With every fibre of her being she projected a message at her brother, pushing her way into his mind and echoing in his head.

"You tried, I know you tried but River is dead now. It's over. Don't look for her any more."

She didn't fight as she was carried to the bad man's ship. She was still being traumatised by that image. He had given it such life, dewing them with sweat, putting that moan into her mouth, making it look like she wanted him, animating them both. It was obscene. The man was a walking abomination, the most irredeemably evil creature she had ever encountered. The hands of blue weren't really people at all but this man was... or he used to be... and he was proud of the things he had done. He had medals and power and wealth as a direct result of those hideous crimes.

On a biological level River comprehended intercourse and reproduction. She had known how Simon and Kaylee felt about one another and even tried to help her brother overcome his crippling shyness. But River had never applied such a thing to herself before, not even theoretically. River found herself mentally paralysed by that disturbing scene, unable to erase it from her mind or think past it.

Then she hit the floor face first, busting her lip and rolling right over till she was on her back. River was dragged kicking and screaming into the here and now. Having tossed her to the floor like a rag doll, the tall Alliance man knelt beside her and cupped her chin gently as his thumb rolled over her bottom lip. His face was a mask, set with eyes that were trying to convey warmth but were belied by the violence of his thoughts... the sexual intent behind the violence of his thoughts.

"Did you like what you saw?"

She shook her head vigorously, trying to scoot away from him across the floor but he wouldn't let her. His huge hand came down on her stomach, bringing enough weight to bear to keep her on her back. The warm, melodic tones of his voice were obscene to her because his soul was so twisted and depraved. He wanted to do a lot more than just mount her, image after image fell from his mind into hers. They featured mostly standard sex acts but there was a pent up aggression behind them that terrified River, more than the images themselves did. There was almost a giddy childishness to it, though there was no innocence about him. River knew that Alliance men acted a certain way and followed rules. They didn't capture fugitives so they could beat and rape them on an airlock floor. This man was deviating from his brief, which was highly unusual.

"Well, did you?"

"No!"

His hand moved down past her stomach and River let it because his gaze went with it and because it meant she could bend at the waist. She brought her upper body up and forwards, curling it right over until she head-butted her assailant squarely in the groin. His semi-erect penis crumpled beneath her skull as he emitted a groan and she kept right on going to crush one of his testes against his powerful inner thigh. River scrambled out from under him before he could recover.

Then she was up and at the door mechanism, trying to get it open. She would rather die alone on this dead planet than let that evil creature have his way with her. She bent down and hit buttons at random with her nose, leaving a bloody kiss on the control panel as the door hissed open with none of the creaking and grumbling that Serenity's doors exhibited. River shot down the ramp that descended and ran as fast as she could with her hands behind her.

Serenity had gone, but she had expected that. More Reavers had landed, something she should have anticipated. They hadn't spotted her yet but she had mere seconds. The nearest building was too far away and was likely to be locked.

River made her calculations. She wanted to die, to free Simon and rid the universe of whatever they had turned her into. But not even River Tam was unhinged enough to run fill tilt into a pack of reavers with her hands cuffed... or was she? She turned back towards the Alliance ship, where the black man was slowly getting to his feet.

It was him or the reavers. The reavers would fight over her. She would be torn limb from limb in seconds and hopefully die just as quickly. River found that preferable to being slowly interrogated and defiled by that bad bad man.

She looked him straight in the eye, her expression now bubbling with the irrational euphoria that sometimes overcame the condemned. Whatever they had put inside her head, he would never get it out once the reavers were done.

She turned her back on him and ran straight towards what she fervently hoped would be a quick death. Unable to life her long skirt, she stumbled a little but her determination was clear.

"Ajax! I need my Pegasus, get this piece of shit moving!" The invisible piece-of-shit, never mind that it was his idea to pick something so sluggish and hard to maneuver in Atmo, began it's turn and rapidly picked up speed. As it did so, Mr. Malcolm carefully fitted himself with a harness and jump rope. The strong material would flex some as he reached the end, but it would not bounce him high up into the air again. With two deep breaths as his invisible ship hovered over the now ready-to-die River Tam he cleared his mind completely so that she could not see what was coming. Then he stepped out into the thin air and fell.

With accuracy that would please a hawk he fell just behind and a little to the side of River.

His powerful arms wrapped about her slim waist just as he heard his ship apply more power and begin lifting again.

The Reavers frustrated hands reached helplessly towards their easy meal as it was pulled up into the sky, and then simply vanished from their terrible eyes. Once inside the ship, Mr. Malcolm wasted no time in tossing River within the bring and locking the door. It was not an electronic lock, but the standard mechanical kind that simply not be picked, and neither was there a combination that could be guessed. Mr. Malcolm held the only key, after unstrapping himself, treating his wounds, and making sure their course was set he returned to Rivers cell. Standing well away and finally just sitting down to watch her. His hungry black eyes strove over her every feature, and though many would see her lack of breasts and haunting eyes as unseemly he simply revelled in her every feature.

No matter how hidden or incongruous River tried to make herself appear by curling into a ball he found each and every point of her delicious. Her small ass, mostly flat, but with just enough of a curve to try and pet. When that shifted away her skinny fingers, perfect to kiss, nibble, and suck. They were hidden quickly, and then the side of her neck blasted into his minds eyes. Perfect for licking.

"Haha, you liked that the thought of that one. You cannot hide it from me River Tam. Don't worry. We will be able to explore all of it quite soon, quite soon indeed..." For the rest of their flight out of Reaver space Mr. Malcolm contented himself with making her squirm, sweat, and blush by simply thinking. Very quickly he found himself wishing that all of his captives were psychic, for this was but child's play as he tortured Rivers mind with his own.

Suddenly he stood, unlocked the door to her cell, and swiftly punctured her taut butt cheek with a needle, "Need to make sure it is really River, but of that I have no doubt. Just a little while now, and we'll get started finding out exactly what you can do..." He left her in the locked cell, with an image of her thin lips stretched across his erect and slippery cock. Sucking it happily as she quivered in delight. He could hardly wait, as he began the process through all the official channels to conform her identity.

It took longer then he'd expected, and by the end he was rather frustrated.

A recurring question had appeared in his head. Why destroy River Tam?

They had video evidence, along with his own eyewitness, of her abilities upon Miranda. Why destroy her? What reason was there to destroy such a beautifully powerful weapon. Her experiment hadn't gone wrong, surely she was a little crazy, but Mr. Malcolm was sure that with a little training she could be made into his kind of crazy, and when he offered his idea to the Parliament they declined, vehemently declined. His decision was immediate and without hesitation. He ordered Ajax to steer him away from the Alliance Armada after ordering the Admiral to engage the Reavers. The full scale war against the Reavers would keep the Alliance busy enough for him to finish Rivers training. With this happy bit of news he returned to her cell.

"Well River, good news. I won't be deconstructing you for the foreseeable future. You're no longer Alliance property. You're my property, and we're going to finish where the blue hands left off, if that's okay with you?" Carefully he unlocked the gate and entered the cell with her. He sat next to her and carefully brushed her dark, tangled hair to the side, then with one hand holding her bound wrists down he leaned over to place a delicate kiss against the side of her neck.

"Mhmmm... We're going to have soo much fun."

River's little prison contained nothing. Had there been a bunk she would have scuttled beneath it. Had there been a blanket she would have thrown it over her. In the event, she was lucky her captor let her keep her loose, ragged clothes. River huddled in the corner of a cell that was less than 6ft square, trying to keep as much of her tucked away as possible.

At first he had sat there and conjured more images of them coupling; always with him above her, with possessive hands holding her down or tugging on her long hair. He always showed her enjoying these acts, though she could not conceive of how that was possible. Then he added other, more bizarre things to the mix, images of her suckling on his penis, of him somehow kissing her vagina and weirdest of all, of him putting his penis into her rectum, though in those scenes her expression was pained, as it would be. As with the scene he had thrown at her during their fight, he made everything vivid and animated every lascivious detail. River's breath began to come short and she became physically aware of her breasts and vagina as though they had become heavier.

"http://upload.wikimedia.org/math/0/6/b/06bf842713ed3afcf14dee6e26297276.png"

River repeated it over and over, the equation quantifying the degree to which a body's mass generates or is affected by a gravitational field.

"G is the universal constant of gravitation... 6.67×10−11 kg−1 m3 s−2."

Then the images began to become predictable and therefore easier for River to mentally swat aside. The 'bad man' as she had dubbed him in the absence of any other moniker, then settled into his game of focusing on the parts of her that he could actually see.

He started with her ear, picturing himself close beside her, licking and nibbling the lobe slowly before moving on the the sensitive flesh immediately behind it. River had visibly shuddered, hastily pulling her hair over it. Images of him violating her she could fight with total vehemence. But of him gently kissing her earlobe? Her mind rejected it but her body was... curious.

"No! Impossible. Newton's second law relates the force F exerted in a body of mass m to the body's acceleration, a... Additionally, mass relates a body's momentum p to its velocity v..."

In lifting her hand to pull her hair over her ear River had exposed a hard nipple pressing braless against the front of her top. The bad man turned his attention to suckling it through her clothing, closing his teeth around it gently. River's breasts suddenly throbbed, her vagina began leaking some kind of effluvia and it didn't take much of a psychic gift to know that her captor's big black penis was hard and aching... aching with more than sexual frustration thanks to her earlier attack on him but that was beside the point. It was functional, much to River's dismay.

"No! Turn it off! Mother says I'll get square eyes. Please! And the body's kinetic energy Ek to its velocity... In special relativity, relativistic mass is a formalism which accounts for relativistic effects by having the mass increase with velocity."

His attention went to her hands, lips, neck, throat, buttock, anywhere he he cared to focus. Then as a final insult, as River attempted to shroud her whole body in her long hair, he simply imagined standing over her and spraying ropes of semen over her dark curls.

"Totally contraindicative to conception! ...Since energy is dependent on reference frame (upon the observer) it is convenient to formulate the equations of physics in a way such that mass values are invariant (do not change) between observers, and so the equations are independent of the observer. For a single particle, this quantity is the rest mass; for a system of bound or unbound particles, this quantity is the invariant mass. The invariant mass m of a body is related to its energy E and the magnitude of its momentum p by http://upload.wikimedia.org/math/5/a/a/5aa6f7eaf387368775e6eb4045804ed7.png where c is the speed of light. Ah!"

The hypodermic punctured her skin as River huddled half catatonic in her corner. One eye stared up at him through her hair, welling with tears as the bad man tossed an image of her sucking him at River as he left.

Conception. This man wanted to impregnate her? To make her bear his child?

She huddled there, her mind now plagued by the softcore images he had made her see. Her heart raced and her breathing came in short hard sobs, fuelled by adrenaline. He was going to rape her, that much was certain. River lifted her skirt and collected a sample of the effluvia she was leaking on one fingertip, sniffing it experimentally. It made no sense to her but it kicked the war within her body up a gear as her vagina and breasts throbbed with an apparent need for a man that the rest of her utterly despised. River looked down and addressed her body.

"I can kill you. I can make us sleep." She snarled, livid that she wasn't even listening to herself.

But the threat was empty, for there was nothing in the cell with which River could end her life and she was far too scared to sleep. The bad man returned and River saw what he had been doing, saw the way he had defied his superiors and started a war just so he could isolate her. She began to comprehend how obsessed with her he was, like Simon and Kaylee only far more feral and aggressive. He loved her. He was infatuated. Did he know?

"Well River, good news. I won't be deconstructing you for the foreseeable future. You're no longer Alliance property. You're my property, and we're going to finish where the blue hands left off, if that's okay with you?"

"No! Put a bullet to me. I won't go back to that... to those... two by two!" River cowered in her corner, the fresh terror making her sexual organs just pulse harder. The bad man sat next to her and brushed her hair aside, while River shook and sobbed at the idea of being experimented on again. Now he was close to her she could smell the strong masculine tang of him, smell his arousal as he inhaled the raw terror bathing her own skin. The scent of him and the deep vibrancy of his voice added a new and palpable layer to all the images he had bombarded her with. River's swarming thoughts became overwhelmed. Her vagina suddenly felt... empty but not just empty... needy, needy for something that would fill it up."

He kissed the side of her neck gently, letting his tongue taste her quivering flesh, crowding her tensed body further into its corner.

"Mhmmm... We're going to have soo much fun."

The teasing kiss on her hypersensitive flesh and his breath on her ear broke the damm inside her, all the pent up arousal, hatred and fear. River Tam's slim body convulsed, clawing at the steel wall of her prison as she came for the first time in her young life, dousing her skirt with hot ejaculate as she screamed out in total incomprehension, shaking from head to foot long after the orgasm had subsided. The scent of her arousal was pungent in the small room, her stricken vagina still rippling and emitting even more of it.

River flushed a deep shade of scarlet, convinced that she had lost control of her bladder.

A deep chuckle escaped Mr. Malcolm's chest. It echoed through the tiny prison for a full minute, until River had nearly gotten rid of the blush that covered her angelical face. Then it ended, and silence descended upon the room save for her heavy breathing. Approval, lauding congratulations, immense satisfaction were all that flashed through Mr. Malcolm's mind. Purposefully confusing the tiny, inexperienced, and incredibly dangerous weapon that was sitting beside him in soaked panties and a puddle of her own sex juices. He leaned over and did not allow her to slink away, by placing a powerfully steady hand against her small face, he smiled in front of her face. It wasn't genuine, but that was a flaw in his design, not in thought. As easily as he could have thought about smiling, Mr. Malcolm knew that the physical presence, his in particular, was much more forceful.

"That was... Exceptional, River Tam. Do you know what happened?"

The question was carefully crafted, purposefully searching for her powerful intellect, and forcing it to concentrate on the much less academic study of the human nature, hers in particular.

As it began to work. Mr. Malcolm could see the wheels turning behind her magnificent, unseeing eyes, he took the opportunity to slide so that they were shoulder to shoulder. His hot breath brushing against her slick throat. Then he took both of his large arms and lifted her tiny frame on to him. She was still shaking like a leaf, but it was no longer purely panic. Instead it was a healthy dose of fear, but the larger portion was confusion and the raw physical nerves that were firing on all cylinders throughout her young body. He simply held River there, occasionally brushing his large fingers down her neck and across her shoulder.

When she began to stutter and answer him he simply chuckled again; right in her delectable little ear.

"River..." He breathed, "I don't care."

Then he kissed her again. This one was both heavy, and wet. His lips pressed firmly against the tense flesh on the side of her neck, his tongue lightly brushed against the fine hairs that stood up on edge, a deep exhale left his nose. Both of his hands were holding River firmly; wrapped about her arms. One wrapping over her right arm and sliding underneath her shirt where it rested lightly against her abdomen. Slowly sliding down due to 'gravity' and other still more subtle forces. The other was over her left arm, and in his giant hand he held Rivers tiny jaw. Keeping it turned just so that her neck appeared to his face at an angle; revealing the tendons in her neck, and the weakly sensitive spots that no other human had ever had the audacity to even imagine feeling. He also used it to keep her long hair from getting in his way, and as Mr. Malcolm worked slowly on her thin neck his pants were quickly becoming too tight.

River had sensed the growth in them, and her entire body had gone taut like a spring.

Mr. Malcolm, however, calmly spoke into her ear, "Not yet River... That is another lesson... Right now, you are learning how to relax, and answer my question from earlier. Do you know what happened to you? What really happened, for it is not some simple chemical reaction. I injected nothing into you that was not already there. You know this is the truth, but if it is... Then what? What made you cum for me?"

"That was... Exceptional, River Tam. Do you know what happened?"

He pulled her into his lap and River was too lost in her own thoughts to resist. The seizure she had just experienced had somehow robbed her of most of her strength, though her previous attempts to fight him and then kill herself had both left her exhausted before the bad man started playing mind games. For a long moment she was genuinely bewildered, till she dredged up what remained of her schoolgirl biology lessons. There had been teens in her old class who had dated, french kissing whenever they could and engaging in a level of tactility that made their older peers blush. River had ever met her equal, though to compare River to her captor would be beyond impossible, for neither could be quantified in any conventional way.

He held her still, with a gentle touch that would become instantly vice-like if she actually tried to move away. His fingers trailed down the now moist, sensitive skin at her neck and throat. Whether he was more enamoured of the beauty or fragility of that part of her anatomy could only be guessed at. River flinched like a startled doe, the continued stimulation hampering her thoughts.

"Not the bladder." She muttered, happy to keep her head turned away from his piercing gaze. "A sexual climax... psychosexual... you raped my mind."

"River... I don't care." He announced, kissing her neck and breathing against her skin, holding her tight against him still... down against where his penis pulsed hot and hard between his legs.

"River tensed and immediately his grip became heavier and more restrictive, silently warning her not to test him again. He spoke right into her ear, his voice humming against her skin, making her quiver again.

"Not yet River... That is another lesson... Right now, you are learning how to relax, and answer my question from earlier. Do you know what happened to you? What really happened, for it is not some simple chemical reaction. I injected nothing into you that was not already there. You know this is the truth, but if it is... Then what? What made you cum for me?"

Her face contorted and this time she did try to struggle, despite being handcuffed and totally physically spent.

"You're in my head. You have no right being in my head. Get out! Get out and leave! She doesn't want you... River hates you!"

She sagged against him reluctantly as she realised that squirming on him was not only futile but affecting the bad man in ways she'd rather not. His arousal began to blaze into a palpable aura once more as her wet skirt and panties, slipped about over the smooth fabric covering his crotch and her bare feet sought purchase on the riveted steel floor.

"I want Simon... I need Simon." She said plaintively, tears splashing down her face now. "Simon always knows what I'm thinking... always has medicine."

"Your brother?" A soft chuckle escaped Mr. Malcolm as an image of the two of them becoming romantically involved swept through his mind. Startling them both, in fact. Obviously it was not like that, but the thought was at least a little intriguing for the giant man holding River so conveniently in the palm of his hand. He filed it away for later. With a soothing touch he lightly kissed her neck again, his hand slid underneath the waistband of her skirt, and searched slowly for her moistening slit. It wasn't hard to find with all the water trails leading that way. A light patch of pubic hair interrupted the slow, but steady movement of his long fingers until they brushed against her aroused clitoris. The erect, wet piece of flesh bent, and then sprung back into place rapidly. Seemingly ready for more abuse, and desiring it. Of course she wanted it. Who knew what all of those treatments had done to her? At the very least they had made her a sexual trigger, a hair trigger, that was quite a good start.

"He had the wrong medicines River. Trying to suppress your abilities with chemicals is a criminal offense. The chemicals you need, are the ones that will expand and expound your abilities to their fullest. Perhaps this might even help? Get the blood flowing, and the juices moving again. Because truly River, you have been asleep for far too long."

By the time he'd finished speaking in her ear Mr. Malcolm had light moved his fingers into her tiny slit. Wet, soaking, oozing, dripping so much by this point that his wrists were almost immediately soaked and droplets began coating his forearm. The large digits split open her slit, and ran across her erect clitoris slowly. With a deep sigh he blew hot air across her neck, and kissed it softly.

Slowly he continued to work River up. Her soft whimpers and pathetic attempts to slip away.

"You're not going anywhere River, and neither am I."

Suddenly Mr. Malcolm brought an image that he had slowly been working on as he continued to work on her physical body. This time, there were three people. The two of them, and Simon. He was underneath River with a look that Mr. Malcolm was sure that River had never seen him wear in front of her. Pure desire, and angry pleasure at what he was doing. His hand perched lightly on her striking jaw; which was parted nearly halfway in a delighted gasp. Her tiny tits swayed ever so slightly, and her nipples were like hard pebbles. Behind and above her was Mr. Malcolm. His enormous body dwarfing both the smaller, paler ones beneath him, his hips moving slowly in and out of River while his one hand held her hips steady, and the other forced her to arch her back by pulling her hair.

Three light puffs of breath echoed through her mind.

"Your mind belongs to me River," It was impossible to tell whether the voice came from inside her head, or if he was speaking directly into her ear from behind. "All of it... Every inch.... Every molecule... Every thought... Every feeling, do you have those River? I don't. Feel."

A soft chuckle, "I do feel this though. It feels good."

Once again he gently kissed her upon her bare throat. Enjoying both it's smooth texture, and the tired muscles beneath that strained, but pitifully so. Deliciously so. His thick fingers carefully squeezed her erect clitoris. The other hand squeezed her small breast. His large hand didn't just cover it, but swallowed it whole. Mr. Malcolm squeezed it roughly, and pinched the very tip but not too roughly or two softly. It was just right. The image still burned brightly in both of their minds, three breaths, followed by three breaths, and a gentle moan. Her moan. And then a deep groan from Mr. Malcolm.

On a real and prescient level, River knew that this was all wrong. This man was Alliance and he was high up enough to start wars and know all about the Academy's 'hands of blue.' She could sense that he was still a little wary of her and there were moments when she knew she could have taken him by surprise and escaped him. But she would not escape this ship when they were no doubt days away from anywhere. This man had discovered how the Reavers came into being, just as she had, but still he remained loyal to the Alliance and its belief that humans could be upgraded. This man was evil... and yet...

She was simply no match for him. The Academy had never used any sexual means on her and Simon had always shielded her as much as possible from the world of adult relationships. River knew it was a biological imperative that drove sexual attraction, a primal urge to mate and reproduce. In truth she had never had enough patience with biology. The endless variables that organic matter and organisms represented - let alone supposedly sentient ones - just frustrated her. She had never comprehended Simon's attraction to medicine, not when the higher sciences freed the mind and made such perfect, poetic sense. There, laws were never broken. In medicine there were a thousand walking exceptions to every rule.

His touch on her tiny clit was expert and at the same time, River knew with a certainty that he had not done anything like this for a very long time. She did not comprehend his attraction to her. Captured as she was in his arms, River was truly at his mercy. She was built for speed and agility, neither of which could be achieved while his big dark arms held her too close to him for movement. When she bridled and fought him, his thick muscles coiled and tensed, hardening into granite around her. He was built so powerfully that the thought of coupling with him was terrifying. His huge penis pressed up against her with such total rigidity that it seemed to her more like a weapon than anything else. He seemed to relish the way she squirmed against it, the heat of her bewildered and innocent body as he coaxed her nerve endings into life. His breath and lips on her neck made her arch once more, moaning and shuddering in his arms.

"Your mind belongs to me River," It was impossible to tell whether the voice came from inside her head, or if he was speaking directly into her ear from behind. "All of it... Every inch.... Every molecule... Every thought... Every feeling, do you have those River? I don't. Feel... I do feel this though, this feels good."

Suddenly she held his gaze, staring knowingly into the void behind his eyes, her quivering body abruptly stilling for a moment.

"You do feel." She informed him simply. "You defied your superiors, sent men to their deaths against the Reavers and then you came here to claim me."

His lips parted but he said nothing, another extremely rare occurrence for the Alliance Operative.

"This is probably the most romantic thing you have ever done." River spoke with a wisdom that had nothing to do with her tender years. Then she smiled at him, right into his eyes, a knowing edge to the innocence of the expression. She knew who he was, even if he had forgotten... even if he had made himself forget. He could call his choices tactical ones, but he would be lying and he would know that she knew.

"You love me Benjamin... and it will kill you... kill you and free me." Her bright, optimistic smile faded into a pleading expression, one with which Simon would have been intimately familiar.

"Can you fix me, Benjamin? Can you fix us?"

He was lost in his own reverie though, squeezing her breasts and forcing her to focus on the fantasy of fucking both him and Simon. As any fantasy of fucking was purely abstract and hypothetical at this juncture, River elected to humour him. His touch on her was exquisite, almost enough to quiet the myriad thoughts flying around inside her skull. She pressed down tentatively against his fingers on her clit, shuddering as the sensation deepened. River found she had a wild urge to reciprocate... but nothing would induce her to explore the contours of his massive manhood. She wanted him to stop hiding behind his imagined porn films and actually connect with her.

River swatted the image of them with Simon from her mind, it would have been disturbing had she not already known how adept he was at conjuring such fantasies. River held his gaze as her small face moved towards his, her thin lips finally pressing against his full ones clumsily, trying to kiss him.

"This is probably the most romantic thing you have ever done."

The truth in those words made him flinch. She was, of course, exactly correct. Yet he could not comprehend the truth because of the truth he still believed. They told him he could not feel, and yet he was. How was that even remotely possible? The impossible logic twisted his advanced mind and threw him off for a moment. She felt it and responded by speaking more. Her questions pushed him forward, mechanically squeezing her breasts and teasing her clitoris. She reacted, but continued to speak. It was impossible to decide to shut her up or bring himself to accomplishing such a feat. He wanted to hear more, and he needed to hear more as well. Part of him simply knew it. Perhaps it was their psychic link. She could even be implanting the idea, Mr. Malcolm did not quite know the extent of her abilities. So he listened carefully, and fondled her lithe little body. Carrying on his plan as best he could.

"You love me Benjamin... and it will kill you... kill you and free me."

How could he be capable of the emotion to love when he could not even feel it? Things continued to not compute.

"Can you fix me, Benjamin? Can you fix us?"

Then she kissed him. It did not feel clumsy to Mr. Malcolm because he had never been kissed. He had kissed others for the sake of maintaining normality, it was even part of some outer Border World's cultures, but it had never been like that kiss. Suddenly the broadcast he was attempting failed. No longer was he trying to get River to see what he wanted her to see, or hear what he wanted her to hear. There was a moment where things were balanced and simple blackness was all that River would be able to see, but somehow, someway, the emotions began to show. Not as images, but as feelings. The feelings transmitted from Mr. Malcolm were far worse then the images. They were alien and far reaching. Complex piles of reasoning and bundling puzzles of depth that stretched on endlessly. Terror, agony, pain, darkness, hate, blackness, gray shades of death and decay flooded her mind at the highest spectrum of feeling, so high and so powerful it was like a drug that would simply overwhelm the rest of anybody.

In this way, because of the circuit between the two of them Mr. Malcolm realized what he felt for the first time. He did not feel them as a person, but more spiritually, as if another dimension now existed for him and he was in both places at once.

He did not shirk in fear, or tremble in anger. Rather his body felt warm, and powerful. His muscles swelled and the blood pumped powerfully through his dark and sweaty body. He felt more alive now then ever before; enjoying the terror and black hatred that he now realized he did indeed feel, but without his own knowing. All of this darkness and cold, felt to him like brightness and warmth. Which would exist on the opposite end of the spectrum for someone who felt this way about River Tam. She was right, he did love her, in a way he could understand. Unfortunately, she would be able to understand it too, and realize that what she suggested, 'saving' them both would be impossible with the spectrum so screwed up and disjointed. He could never feel the way he needed to in order to save himself, let alone her. Why would he if the blackness he considered love allowed him to enjoy this?

The revelation jump started Mr. Malcolm's strength. His powerful hands and fingers dug into River Tam's tiny little body. Ripping the reaction he wanted whether she reacted to the sudden revelation herself or not. Because of the powerful linkage he could feel the pleasure flooding through her system, the dropping objectivity and rapidly heightening subjectivity to the sensations at hand.

"Does that mean you love me too, River?" He asked suddenly. Shocking himself, just as likely as he'd shocked her with the question.

The torrent that was unleashed when she kissed him was nothing short of horrific, a tsunami of hatred, anger and violence that overwhelmed her for a moment that could have lasted hours, rendering her immobile and obliterating thought. The utter wrongness of the logic he applied to the universe at large was enough to make her weep. He was... broken. Shattered and irreparable. Was that what she looked like now, on the inside? How would she ever know?

He continued to manipulate her body but River's mind had disconnected from it. Her flesh still reacted but in a muted way that had nothing to do with her. He dug harder, gripping her with a strength that should have hurt, trying vainly to make her focus on his actions once more.

The aftershocks of his psychic outburst were still tormenting River even as he spoke to her, gazing into her stricken face as though he could see the scene being played out behind her eyes.

"Does that mean you love me too, River?"

Love him?

Love him?

"No!" River returned to her body with a jolt and was disgusted by the way it was reacting to this... monster. His malevolence had clawed its way into her mind, like reavers. Of course he wanted to destroy her, he just intended to toy with her first.

"You are evil." She said simply. River started vainly fighting him off again but only succeeded in squirming harder against his surging body and grasping hands.

That childish defensive mechanism was something Mr. Malcolm had dealt with before. Plenty of people; men, women, and children had told him that he was evil moments before they were deadened to the world. This time the outcome would be more then a little difference. Since River would still be alive in the seconds, minutes, hours, days, and possibly even months after uttering those words. But it was still the same because it shifted Mr. Malcolm's brain back into the normal hemisphere of it's operating. Where he truly had no emotions left to fog his sharp and overly active brain functions. The utter nothing led to the processes he enjoyed. Such as the release of pheromones and exotic blends of chemicals within his mind that would consume the rest of his body in pure and utter pleasure, and after such a... Mind opening, and surprising turn of events there was nothing his logical mind wanted more then a physical release of relief.

"Does it matter River Tam? The outcome will be the same whether my motivations were good, or evil. You will experience pain, pleasure, and I will get what I want. Won't I?"

Her tiny, surging body seemed to be bending away from hsi for several long moments before snapping back with rubber like quality into his arms. He chuckled, and breathed deeply; smelling her sex, the sweat, and the simple sent that defined River just like the one that defined him. A powerful shudder ran through Mr. Malcolm's large body and ended at the tip of his dick which surged up against the small of River's back, across her sweaty back before ending it's movement as did the rest of Mr. Malcolm.

Then he moved and the entire ton of his body changed. He'd dropped the quiet, tender, gnawing personality he had assumed and instead ripped the rags that were pathetically covering River's sensitive areas. He did not snap them off her body entirely, but just created gashes and holes where they were needed between her legs; front and back. As well as two small circles for her erect nipples to poke through the jagged holes of fabric. He spun her tiny body on his lap so that she was facing him, and eye level with his glowing yellow orbs.

With a powerful hand at the base of her skull squeezing the tendons in her neck, he forced her to look down between them at his throbbing organ, "You see that?" He asked, almost angrily.

"It is going inside of you.. You are going to watch, and you are going to like it." Carefully he pulled her skull up, so that her eyes looked into his, "No going asleep. No finding another place to hide. You know that I will follow you into any dimension you can think of River. There is no escaping with your mind, what your body cannot run from." A deep, pulsing laugh left Mr. Malcolm's lips, "Namely. Me."

With that he forced her skull down again, and with his other hand lifted her tiny frame until her slim pussy slit rested against his cock. The velvet lips were spread very slightly, and lubricated heavily. He slowly released his hold on River's sweaty body, and allowed it to slide down atop his. Her tiny fists beat him, but while they struck with force there was no coordination or accuracy; they did not aim for his throat, eyes, or neck as they should have. Instead they beat his massive shoulders, arms, and chest. He could hardly feel a thing. All of his nerves were concentrated anyways on the slowly spreading flesh atop his dick. The blooming flower was tightly fit. Snug. Slippery, but firmly resisting.

"You see? It was inevitable."

With a slight hunching of his hips, and a jerk of her shoulders Mr. Malcolm tore through River's virginity and planted his large organ deep inside of her vaginal channel. He felt every tear and every stretch as her unused muscles were suddenly in an onslaught by the large invader.

But even better, he felt every flicker of hell as it passed behind River's eyes.

With one hand still on her skull and the pressure points behind her neck, he used the other to brace them both as he stood, spun, and drove forward; as if he was going to run through the metallic hull of his own ship. They slammed into the metal with a dull thud; his hand protecting her skull from a nasty blow, and keeping her eyes lit with consciousness in the present as the full horror of her situation continued to finally dawn within her mind and show through the windows of her eyes.

"You're mine River, and I'm going to take you."

He pounded into her hard, sliding his dick slowly back, and shooting it forward with thick legs and massive force.

"Hard."