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"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.

Whoops. Destroying it hadn't really been the intent, but Alex isn't entirely sorry, all things considered. He'll be even less so when he hears about the horrific experimenting on kids.

Holden straightens to match Mal's gaze as the other captain comes up to him, eyes narrowing at the order. Because -- let's be honest, that's essentially what it is. There's a brief moment where he considers refusing, out of recalcitrance and wanting to find a better way than just killing those men. But they don't seem to be entirely human anymore, and maybe...

He lifts his hand terminal, gives Alex the order.

Are you sure about that?

"Just do it."

Copy that.

The Roci fires, and it's easy enough to knock the ship off of Serenity's hull. It wasn't in good shape, either. Honestly, none of the smaller vessels in this system can quite match the Roci in firepower. That's reserved for Alliance gunships, large enough to dwarf these three (previously four) and certainly not about to involve themselves in this little spat.

(Not yet. The Tams are a delicate matter. The fewer who know details, the better.)

It blows a little less bombastically as the other -- a release of pressure from the airlock still open on their end that crumples the hull in some sections and blows out the windows in others as the decompression travels throughout.

River is coaxed out of her hiding place by her brother, moving slow and small, terror lingering at the edges as the rest trickle in to the cargo bay and Mal stomps his way down from the catwalk.

One by one, as they realize the danger is gone, they come down. Inara first, checking to make sure things are safe and going straight to Kaylee once she comes in, a little singed and covered in grease and soot. Book and Jayne look a little worse for wear but not hurt. Wash, too, makes a beeline for his wife -- he ought to be on the bridge, really, but the ship isn't moving right now so it's not like it needs to be steered.

It's tense and silent for a few moments before Kaylee pipes up with, "We lost engine thrust, but systems're still runnin' for life support. Gonna take time to get to the rest of 'em, but..."

She pauses awkwardly and looks around, keenly aware of how Mal is stalking right toward Holden. "We do gots time, right?"

Mal is not a happy man on most days, lately. As he makes his way down, his eyes only briefly leave Holden's. A challenge, maybe, or a force of will. He spares a glance at his feet as he gets down the steps, and over at where Simon has his sister clinging to him -- but that is particularly brief. Doesn't need to be reminded of that mess.

"So, Doc, heard you've been making deals for yourself on my ship," said as he steps up to Holden, all acidic faked casualness, and Simon's face goes stony and impassive. This is the other shoe dropping, and he's surprised he hasn't been punched yet, or that Mal hasn't drawn his gun on Holden, who he's now staring down like he's the one who tried to kill them all.

"Yes, I suppose I did."

He knows the request that comes next: That they all get to hear whatever it is Simon has to say, and so Holden gets to invite his own crew.

Being honest, Holden doesn't give the slightest damn about Mal's bad mood.

It's true that the Roci had accidentally led the Alliance here, and he's genuinely sorry for that, but there's a lot more at stake now than the Tam's problems. There's the genetic modifications the Alliance is engaging in, there's the possibility of another government finding out about and coveting (and having? he hopes not, goddamn) the protomolecule. There's the matter of his own crew's safety and whatever state this battle has left the ship in, and the fact that they're now enemies of the Alliance. They'll be targeted, too, and no one from their own system is going to lift a finger to help them with this. There's the fact that he's been played, and somehow ended up in the middle of another fucking mess.

But at that comment, he turns towards Simon and takes a half-step in his direction. Someone whose comfort he does care about here, right now.

"No," Holden says, firmly. Then he looks back at Mal. "No. He owes me nothing."

Simon's expression doesn't change, steely and tense even as Mal moves to step between him and Holden.

"Then he owes it to me." If incidentally whatever it is trickles back to Holden, then so be it. But Mal is pissed. "Near a year now we can't get half the jobs we need to get by, and this ain't the first time keeping these two on almost cost us people on my crew." It is not lost on any of them that this could've ended very badly, with or without the Roci there helping them. It's the closest call they've had since Jubal Early, and by far the most destructive to the ship since the last time it got sabotaged by Mal's fake wife.

It is not lost on Simon that there is now a distinction between himself and River and crew. There hadn't been, once upon a time. It had been nice then.

"I told you I'd tell you what I know." His grip tightens a little around River, but otherwise his face is still. "I didn't mean to imply it would be just you."

As if apologizing for semantics choices when literally under fire is going to save this situation.

Edited 2019-11-16 21:43 (UTC)

Right at this moment, Holden's hand terminal crackles to life.

"Captain? What's your status? Hey, Captain? Hoss? Hoss!"

This is only going to escalate if Holden doesn't...pick up.....

That does seem to, um, take most of them by surprise. A bit of the tension in the cargo bay bleeds away. Kaylee even manages a short, surprised laugh, probably borne mostly of shock and fading adrenaline.

Mal just looks annoyed, and motions dismissively for Holden to answer.

Truthfully, he would've answered with or without Mal's approval, but he'd been as surprised as anyone else when it started going off.

"Alex, I'm fine," he answers, interrupting the pilot mid-word. "We're done here," said as much to his crew as this one, "so ready the Roci for me to reboard."

Edited 2019-11-16 21:57 (UTC)

That's where Mal sneers.

"Leaving so soon? Surprised you ain't Alliance after all. Act like 'em enough."

Holden had not, actually, turned off the line on his hand terminal. So it's Amos's offended voice that filters through.

"The hell's he mean by that?"

"Amos," Holden says quellingly, before looking back at Mal. "If you need help with repairs -- "

"I'll take care of that," Naomi interrupts, completing Holden's sentiment. "I can see some of the damage from out here. Nothing I can't handle."

"You heard her. But after that, I'm taking my crew home."

Kaylee shouts out a thank you and Mal just looks increasingly annoyed. Mostly that he has one less thing he can hold against this man who has unintentionally nearly gotten them all killed. Holden certainly isn't the first to hold that distinction, and Mal manages to be on friendly terms with them, but...

The crew starts to murmur to each other around them. Jayne complaining as usual, Kaylee excited to meet new people, Inara speaking up to remind Mal that she does still need to be dropped off at the temple whenever they've finished with this--

"Ain't the only one leaving, then."

It's not a direct threat, not a direct promise to leave the Tams with Inara when they drop her off to fend for themselves. Book has already told him his intentions to stay on Haven after they bring Inara to her own destination, but there's a clear enough implication to the rest of the crew as he stomps off to fume elsewhere.

Certainly clear enough to Simon and River.

Whatever relief Simon's posture had gained after the fighting was done is gone, he's all tense again as the crew looks between each other and River looks at Mal and making a small sound of distress as he goes that Simon tries to sooth with, "We'll be okay, mei mei, it's okay."

It's Wash that chimes in to break the tension as Inara breaks away to follow Mal and probably make the argument worse. "He didn't mean that. I mean, he probably didn't mean it." Which gets Zoe giving him a look.

Edited 2019-11-17 23:38 (UTC)

What happens is this: Holden offers the Tams shelter aboard the Roci.

There's no complaint from the crew, not verbally, and nearly all of them would've done the same thing. The exception is Amos, but he's also learned to trust Holden's judgement. Alex welcomes them in his warm, fatherly way, cooks for them; Naomi treats River with gentleness and respect; and Prax offers them kindness in his soft, unassuming way. Amos accepts them as current, temporary fixtures on the ship, and treats them accordingly, neither warm nor cold.

Simon brings up the promise of explanations again, if for this crew, and they let him.

(Let, not force.)

The parting from Serenity had been tense, a hundred different arguments just under the surface between the crew the Tams end up having to leave behind. Tearful as they disembarked to the Roci, in some parts -- mostly Kaylee's, being honest, and a bit from River as they all hugged out their goodbyes -- and Simon still isn't sure this was the best decision.

Better than wandering on their own in Alliance territory, though. That's what he keeps telling himself as this new crew gathers around to hear him speak. River is elsewhere, sleeping (he hopes) through this dredging up of the relevant and painful past she avoids.

This is a talk he's given before, always to near strangers, always in an effort to better help his sister. It's unsettlingly easy to retread, a story he knows by rote. Still, he stands at the head of a table, tense and uncomfortable, hands clasped behind his back to hide any tremor, the whiteness of his knuckles whenever he tenses.

"Before I start, you need to understand that River wasn't always like this. When we were kids, she-- She was correcting my spelling by the time she was three. Correcting my textbooks not long after. And I graduated from MedAcad in the top three percent of my class at eighteen." He considers for a moment making the distinction between gifted and gift, and opts not to, instead pressing forward. "She managed to be the smartest person in the room, whether it came to dance or language or physics. She learned everything as easily as you or I learned how to breathe."

He shifts his stance a little, moves to cross his arms across his chest.

"When she was fourteen doing her first graduate courses, the government approached us about a school. It had the most challenging program, promised to let her learn as much as she wanted without having to slow down for her other classmates. The caveat was that there were no visitors allowed on the campus. But River wanted to go, so our parents signed the papers and she left."

There's a moment of quiet, then. The memory of it hitting him a little harder, along with the realization of just how far they've gone since then. Simon wipes a hand across his mouth before tucking it back against his elbow. "It took a few months before I realized the letters she was sending me were coded. Simple enough to crack, but still well hidden from any censors her letters had to have gone through. And straight to the point.

"They just said, 'They're hurting us, get me out.'"

He pauses there to let it settle over this new crew, looks around and waits for a reaction outside of the normal disgust or horror. He sees none, and so he goes on.

"Our parents didn't care, so I used what money I had to find people that would help me. It took two years, and in that time she had... Gotten worse." Easy enough for them to figure out just what that means. "I had to pose as an Alliance officer to get in and be shown around. They showed her off as a psychic in their new defense program, achieved by cutting into her brain, altering the way she perceives things -- her ability to control what she perceives."

Simon's mouth twists into a bitter frown, grim and uncomfortable.

"After I got her out, we ended up on Serenity and have been on the run since. We were both marked as fugitives, and our parents disowned us, so it wasn't like we had anywhere else to go."

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