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A hundred thousand people died horribly, and a planet almost suffered an extinction level event.

He wants to be surprised by this. Shocked, maybe, at the level of atrocity the government has inflicted on its people. Really he does, but after everything he's been through so far he can't muster up the disbelief.

Defensiveness, though, that's easy, right there at the surface.

"All I know, all we know, is what happened to River."

Not that he's going to lay it all out right now. She'd been insistent, had been sure, but his sister is also crazy and Simon still isn't inclined to trust unless he has to. And maybe he has to -- maybe letting go of his grip on the details will be enough to get this man and his crew to leave them alone.

The pause here is long and considering, Simon warring internally over how much to say, how to phrase it, how to get this situation back under control.

"I'm sure you've seen some of our files from before we were marked as fugitives. River was -- she is --" And that's not quite right, either. Not for this part of the story. "She was in a graduate program when she was fourteen and the Alliance approached us about a special school. One for someone with her talent, her genius..."

He is still tense. Still terrified.

"They took her away from us and tortured her for years before I was able to get her out. Whatever else you think we're involved in, we aren't."

Holden doesn't have siblings, but he does have family. It's not hard to imagine some fraction of the horror, here.

"I'm sorry that happened to you."

And he is, and Naomi isn't here to express the sentiment if he doesn't, and this story seems to be getting farther away from the protomolecule, which makes it easier to express sympathy. He has seen River, and he's seen the infected; she's not.

"Can you tell me anything else about what they were trying to do?"

Simon does know more, clearly. The real question isn't if he can, but if he will.

"I don't know."

A lie. Obvious in how his stance changes, his body tense now as it had been to start with. He tempers it with another truth, though.

"They cut into her brain, Captain Holden. Over and over again. Whatever they were trying to do, it was torture for her."

This is a good moment for River to poke her head in, right?

Right.

The door slides open and for a moment there's just hair, big eyes behind it, then the whole girl attached to it slips in and shuts it behind her. An almost exact imitation of her brother's entrance at the start of this conversation.

(For his part, Simon is already horrified and trying to usher her back out with a, "River no," that goes completely unheeded. When Mal hears about both the Tams being alone in a room with a man that's hunting them, he'll probably do a lot of cursing at a very high volume.)

"Simon, it's judicial. Has to be a witness."

It's only fair. She worried there might be punching.

An obvious lie, and Holden can't entirely blame him. Simon doesn't have any reason to trust them, besides Holden's promises of goodwill. And the talk of cutting into her brain draws out a frown, a memory of scientists on Thoth who'd been permanently altered so they couldn't feel empathy. Didn't care they were studying the awful deaths of a hundred thousand.

And then, this happens.

He watches the back and forth between the two, amused despite himself. No, his mind's already made up: they're getting any information left to get, then leaving these two alone.

The Tams can argue about her presence; he's not going to interrupt, okay, though if anyone looks his way they'll probably get an exaggerated shrug.

It's not much of an argument, really. Simon has his hands on her shoulders, gentle as he tries to get through to her.

("Mei mei, you can't be in here. We don't know--"

"I know."

"Yes, River, but please, you can't--")

Really, it's probably easy to see where most of his stress comes from in this moment. And also that they'd both have been caught ages ago if it weren't for the crew of Serenity. Even if Simon succeeded at being intimidating, the moment he has River in his sights it all drops in favor of taking care of her.

He does look back at Holden for a moment in the middle of this, and the shrug gets a frown of consternation. This is not going well.

They go on like that for a bit, Simon insisting and River staring back at him, wide-eyed and without a single second of appearing like she fully understands anything he's saying.

Then she turns to Holden.

"Your armor's too bright," said with a squint as her brother looks on, hands still on her as if that keeps her grounded, one on her shoulder and the other on her elbow. Doesn't really do much, but she doesn't move to shrug him off, either.

"They'll see it for miles."

Well, this is illuminating in its own way. If there were any question left about the siblings being dangerous (to the system or anything like that) or even being in on any major conspiracies. Holden doesn't mind being mostly ignored, but he is wondering how they're doing on that two hour limit when River speaks directly to him.

"Oh."

He'd missed her knight comparisons earlier, which is probably just as well since he'd be unsure and embarrassed about them.

"I'll work on that."

He...guesses??

It's a good impression for Holden to have, for their own safety.

Not exactly accurate when it comes to the girl standing in front of him. And where before she'd been precocious, childish and odd, her demeanor changes on a dime. Her eyes go unfocused for a moment as she looks Holden over, and she leans a little toward her brother's grip, trusting the support of it.

"Two by two."

Simon's face goes ashen, looks like maybe he'll be sick. If he was terrified before...

There is not a lot he fully understands about the things River says most of the time. But this? This he knows. This is what she'd said when they'd been captured on Ariel. This is what she'd said right before they'd heard the screams of the Alliance officers behind them.

"It doesn't matter what you'll do," and the look he gives Holden is one of a man cornered and angry. "You led them right to us."

River is still muttering her litany (two by two, hands of blue) as Simon ushers her out of the room and shouts for Mal.

"We need to run. They were followed."

Which is then followed by Serenity's captain bellowing curses in Chinese. Probably both at the realization that Simon and River were in there with Holden as well as, you know, the Alliance is coming. Probably also a little indignation at being given orders on his gorram boat.

If Holden had had any doubts -- or trouble following River's cryptic message and Simon's response -- there's not much time to nurture them. The ship rocks, abruptly, taking an impact, and he nearly falls head over heels as he follows the siblings out the door.

He reaches instinctively for a gun that he doesn't have (because diplomacy), snatches up his hand terminal instead. Comms aren't jammed yet, at least, thank God.

"Alex, what the hell is going on out there?"

Stealth tech, hoss.

Alex explains how the ship hadn't been visible even from space until a moment ago, then started firing on the Serenity. Then he adds what Holden already knew: that there's no time for him to get back to the Roci, and he'll have to ride the battle out from here.

He interrupts impatiently at this point, barks an order to fire on the attacking ship. (On it, Captain.) Because whatever defenses this ship has -- and there don't seem to be many -- the Rocinante is a state-of-the-art Martian warship, with a top-notch pilot at the helm.

If there's one thing the crew of the Roci will notice, beyond the rest of the chaos, it's that the new ship on the scene isn't aiming to destroy the Serenity, doesn't seem to pay any mind at all to them even when they do start shooting. Whoever they are, they want River Tam back alive, and each shot from the sleek Alliance interloper is strategic, meant to disable what little the Serenity has going for it.

Mainly, the engines.

They're in the cargo bay when the ship rocks again, Mal's shouting carrying down but not directed at them for the moment. It's all jargon, back and forth between him and Wash and Kaylee about how they need to go, how they can't, about how parts of the engine room are on fire now. The rest of the crew has their own places to be -- Inara getting her shuttle ready for a quick exit, Book helping in the engine room as best he can (and praying, probably), and Jayne and Zoe standing at the cargo bay doors with guns drawn for anything that tries to come through.

Jayne is grumbling to himself, vacillating between lamenting that they let Holden in at all and wondering if they can still claim the reward money on the Tams if they hail the new ship.

River isn't screaming. On some level, she knows it won't help any. On another, she knows it never did. On yet another, her throat is too closed up with fear to get more sound out than a keening whine as she pulls at her brother to bring him back and away from the doors.

"Simon, they'll come. They'll come and they reach inside --"

It's like words are just falling out of her mouth at this point, anxious and afraid, teary eyes trained with a laser focus on Simon, Holden's presence completely forgotten for the moment.

Everyone has their jobs, and Simon's is to get his sister to calm down. To soothe and protect.

His hands are at her shoulders, smoothing up and down her arms like she's a skittish horse he's trying to get into the stable. "Shh, mei mei, no one is going to take you anywhere. I promise."

He looks terrified, but his voice in this is steady. The moment River seems placated enough that she's not going to collapse from terror, he turns to Holden.

"You want to know about us so badly, get us out of this alive. I'll tell you everything I know. Just don't let them take her again."

"They won't," he promises, and it has nothing to do with what he's just been offered.

It wasn't so long ago that a protomolecule monster had been aboard the Roci, that Holden had nearly died with it, so his leg wobbles some in protest as he runs, gets his hands on a gun with every purpose of helping. It'll hold his weight, though, which is what matters.

Out in space, Alex continues to fire on the advancing ship, when another ship appears. This one does fire on the Roci, engages it in combat, because of course the Alliance had considered the possibility of a fight with the ship they tried to contract. Keeping it busy leaves the original ship free to keep up with the Serenity...and prepare to board it.

From above, Mal's voice bellows, "We need another hand up here!"

Jayne opts to be the one to go with a sneering crack about getting away from crazy as he bounds up the stairs to the catwalk and then beyond. He takes his gun with him, but tosses an extra clip to Holden as he leaves. Above them in the engine room, it's taking every bit of Kaylee's know-how to just keep life support running, to stop the whole mess of Serenity's heart from catching fire. Literally.

The thing is, there is more than one entrance to the cargo bay. The main doors are what Zoe has her gun aimed on, steady as a statue.

But there are doors below, too.

There's where River is staring now, eyes wide in horror but eerily still.

"We're going to bleed."

And that's when it happens.

Simon had noticed the hitch in Holden's step, but that's gonna be nothing compared to the pulse wave that comes at them all through Serenity's floor. It's an standard Alliance-issue sonic weapon, initially marketed to dispel crowds in a riot.

What it does here, though, is send a wave of sound and vibration up with a terribly loud but very dull whump as the vibration hits air and echos off itself against the curved hull. It also knocks them all off balance, the sensation traveling up their feet and into their bodies not unlike nails on a chalkboard multiplied by a hundred.

Zoe has to drop her gun to stay standing.

River lands right on her bottom, then proceeds to propel herself backwards until she's wedged between two huge crates.

Simon lands on his side near the weight bench.

The doors below them fly open right after, blue-gloved hands emerging attached to two pale and unenthused looking men.

The blast rattles his fucking bones, and he goes down with a shout. Drops his gun as well, hits the ground and narrowly avoids smashing his own face against the deck plating.

He can understand what happened almost as soon as it does -- tech like this is pretty standard issue in the Belt, too, for the same reasons -- using a concussive blast is a good idea, especially if they're looking to capture.

And they obviously are. Which is why that can't happen.

"Hey!" he says, trying to leverage his good leg back up to standing, because the less attention directed towards River the better. "Your people lied to us. This is a peaceful civilian craft, and you have no authority to be here, let alone initiate aggressions."

He doesn't actually think the blue-handed guys will care but, you know, he tried. Besides, River might be able to better hide if he serves as a distraction.

River is about as hidden as she's going to get, pressed between crates and cowering against them as she listens to what's going on around her.

The man with blue hands doesn't really pay him any attention. He does not care about regulations, and even if he did they wouldn't apply. This is a smuggling ship, unregistered and full of criminals. They are harboring known fugitives. Under the law, strictly speaking, the Alliance has every right to board and arrest every last one of them.

"You disappoint us, Captain Holden." The way he says it carries the implication that disappointing them is not a thing anyone gets to do twice.

But his focus isn't on that particular disappointment. The priority is the Tams, number one with a bullet. One of whom is in his line of sight as he advances.

"Simon Tam, you are--"

And that's when Zoe shoots him. A solid shotgun blast to the chest that... Rips away his shirt and doesn't do much else beyond revealing that the blue of his hands extends to the rest of his torso. He turns to her, mostly looking perturbed at the interruption.

Well, that's horrifying. Simon can see that it's more than just gear -- there are concave spaces on the chest that seem to go too far inward to not be some kind of body modification or cybernetic implant. But he doesn't any room to sympathize with what might be another of the Alliance's experiments.

He looks over and sees his sister, looks back and sees another pair of blue hands reaching up through the door, and he takes a weight from near the workbench and rushes forward.

Thankfully, he isn't seen as much of a threat. Simon is a doctor, smart and cunning but not prone to physical violence. At least not in the records the Alliance is known to have. The blue handed man is still looking at Zoe when Simon clocks him in the shoulder, hard enough to knock him back through the door and take the other man back down with him.

"Yeah," he says, "get in line."

The number of people he's disappointed don't start or end with the Alliance, and shady government organizations that torture kids are pretty low on his list of 'people he actually regrets disappointing.'

And then Zoe shoots the man, only to reveal him to be both bulletproof, and blue. Holden takes a good, long look, because the obvious thought is protomolecule. Because it flashes before his eyes, that thing he'd been trapped with in the cargo hold for hours, gaunt and monstrous and glowing blue, digging through the plating of his ship and sure to kill his crew.

(And under that, always, is the memory of Eros: is the reek of sick, and the cries of the dying, and glowing blue crystals scabbing over peoples' skin and spiderwebbing out of Julie Mao's mouth and eyes. It had swallowed a hundred thousand people, it had swallowed Miller, it had nearly burned Earth, and it just keeps coming back.)

It's Simon's sudden move that snaps him back to attention, and he scoops up his gun where he'd dropped it, barks a, "Simon, get the hell out of there!"

There won't be a clean shot until he does, and risking Simon isn't an option. He moves to follow, see if Simon needs any closer range backup.

He's already stumbling back when Holden shouts at him -- there's not much else he can do with a dumbbell when they've fallen back into their own ship. And it is a little true that he isn't used to doing violence.

Makes him uneasy, being the one to create an injury instead of treat it.

"We need to close the doors."

Below, the men are scrambling over each other to stand back up, to make their way back into Serenity.

(Zoe watches Holden go blank for a moment, and she knows that look. She's had it herself before, but she doesn't call any attention to it. Instead, she comms Wash and tells him about this new problem, asks for a lock override to keep them from coming back in once they've got the doors shut.)

"Get to the door controls," he says by way of agreement. Glancing at Zoe for confirmation, he adds, "We'll cover you."

If Zoe wants to suggest a better idea, though -- he's watching her for just that. This is a crisis situation, but it's not his ship, not enemies he's seen before, and he won't tell them what to do if there are alternatives.

It's a brief pause, and in the meantime he's ready to keep blasting at the doors to keep the blue handed men out as they close. With Zoe's help, if she agrees.

Edited 2019-11-16 17:15 (UTC)

There isn't a better idea to suggest, though she does get closer to the door. Close enough to fire two shots straight down. They might not do much but there's always the hope at least some of that buckshot will hit one of them in the head, beyond that terrible blue.

A lot happens at once.

The sound of River shrieking from her hiding place at the same time there's another rock to the ship, hit again from the outside. Simon hitting the buttons to close the doors that fold themselves into the floor as Wash comes over the comms and confirms he's running the lock overrides. Outside, the other Alliance ship that isn't really official Alliance is severely damaged and is now firing indiscriminately at both the Serenity and the Roci, determined to take at least one of them out entirely, and leaning heavily on that being the Serenity. Even if their co-conspirators in kidnapping and murder are still attached to the lower airlock.

Holden starts firing when she does, though there is a pause when the ship rocks again and he has to keep from stumbling. Under the adrenaline, the necessary focus to keep those blue men out, is a spike of worry. What the hell is going on out there in space? Alex and the rest of the crew are in the midst of their own battle (he's not there to help them), and they'd be doing everything in their power to keep any hits from landing on the Serenity.

The Roci is, as a point of fact, pretty banged up. But as Alex would say, she's a tough girl and she's seen worse. She's got a hell of a lot more fight in her. Once the not-an-Alliance ship starts firing at both vessels like that, Alex takes that as license to enter into more drastic measures. He takes the Roci into a high-g maneuver, essentially flipping the ship end over end to place themselves between the Serenity and the attacking ship, firing missiles to disable its gunnery or scare it off -- whichever comes first.

Lawrence Dobson was never particularly good at his job. Finding Simon Tam on Persephone right after he'd been put on the fugitive watch list had been luck, honestly. Luck, too, that he'd only lost an eye when Malcolm Reynold's shot him in the face. And whatever thin shred of luck he's been holding out on for the sake of revenge snaps.

He'd been intending to shoot Mal right back during all this. To board after the Alliance's newest operatives took the Tams and kill him slow for robbing him of his eye and leaving him on Whitefall to die.

Instead, the Roci is more equipped to fight back than he'd expected, and the ship they'd commissioned for him is in much further disrepair than he'd been told at the start. Things go wrong, and keep going wrong, and he does his best to take Serenity out with him, but--

Well.

The ship rocks again under their feet there in the cargo bay as Lawrence Dobson's ship explodes quietly out in space.

One problem solved?

Simon is a little more concerned with going over to River as Mal makes his way down to the catwalk. "You wanna tell your people to get that tick off our hide? Since you're so keen on helping us out now?" Captain to captain, it's as close to an order as he can give in his position. As it is, Serenity is a sitting duck, and the men in the ship below them are the last threat on the table, and ones much better eliminated than held off.

PICK YOUR POISON
PIC PROMPTS / TFLN / RANDOM SCENARIO
HAN SOLO velocities	BETTY MCRAE bombsheller	RIVER TAM subsulcus	RIVER TAM (AU) comprehender
SIMON TAM vest	BRIA THAREN exulted	NADINE CROSS bridaled	GU JUN-PYO toddler
available on special request: veronica sawyer, benjamin linus, imani, maria deluca, mushu, poseidon, niccolò machiavelli, malik al-sayf, chloe

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shitty bridge tag

lies and slander