The Approach.

[flybywash]

Illyria's nothing but a dull, marble-sized speck at forty thousand miles out. The Academy's not even visible. It's only through heat vid that Wash can pick it out: a pinkish smear against the grey, flickering as it bobs in and out of range of the sensors.

Click. Click. Click. He reaches to thumb the internal comm.

"Going to partial blackout in ten seconds," he murmurs, as if speaking quietly will help mask their approach. "Kaylee, get ready, shields'll be on in fifteen. Everybody else, make for the cargo bay."

It's not quite hitting the dartboard, but it's close enough. As Wash's hands progress over the console, everything that isn't necessary starts to darken. Primary lighting. Heat, down to just above fifty degrees Fahrenheit. Auxilary currents. The engines stay on, but only just; the thrusters flare briefly as Wash fires one last push, then dim to almost nothing.

Thirty-one thousand miles.

As he draws a breath, he reaches and flicks the switch all the way to his right. Serenity immediately starts humming in the same vaguely disconcerting way as before. Kaylee's soft, worried affirmation that the shields seem to be working like before gets a distracted nod before he turns all his attention to the windscreen.

Except...the yoke feels a little too tight, like the mechanism's gone dry. That isn't good. Wash frowns, pushes a hand through his hair and shakes his head to clear the shield-noise, which seems awfully loud all of a sudden. With his other hand, he gives the steering a barely perceptible nudge -- only now it's gone too loose and over-slick. At twenty-six thousand miles, Serenity veers off-course.

"Tāmāde," he swears under his breath as he makes a hasty correction. The Academy angles back into view, but when Wash scrubs at his forehead again, his fingers come away soaked in sweat.

In the reddish glow of the bridge's back-up lighting, it almost looks like blood.

He stares. It's so minor that it shouldn't faze him, but all of a sudden, it isn't a question of what-ifs anymore. It's Murphy's Law made manifest. Everything that can go wrong, will go wrong, he thinks, and soon, it's mounting into a frantic mantra.

Nineteen thousand.

Ain't just the steering that'll give out. The shields will fail. He'll miss the target. Zoe will die. He'll die. And what about the gunslingers? They're just men and women, they'll bleed like everyone else, they're damn good shots but the Alliance is better and even they won't be enough to save them.

No longer possibilities, but honest, terrifying truth.

Oh, God.

Thirteen. The station's large in their screens now.

Focus, gorrammit.

Except he can't. His hands are shaking so badly that he has to take them off the yoke before he knocks them too far off-course to recover. Breathe in, breathe out, except that only makes him feel like he's strangling (I shut off the air, he thinks frantically, I hit the wrong button and accidentaly shut off the air), and he has to squeeze his eyes closed and force his lungs into working with a far too conscious effort.

Then, through the hum of the shields and the blood in his own ears, he hears the sound of paper rustling.

And it hits him.

The key.

Quickly, Wash seizes the paper. It takes four tries to unfold it and another three to make his hands stop trembling long enough to read what's written there.

He drags in another harsh breath and says, as loudly and clearly as he can, "Opoponax."

Something snaps. For an instant, his fear's as solid and palpable as the paper...and then, just as suddenly, it puffs out like an ion cloud into nothing.

When Wash looks up this time, his eyes are calm, clear, and distant with focus. He exhales for a long, long while before crumpling the paper in his fist and taking the controls again. With extra care, he cuts the thrusters entirely and pulls back enough to slow their approach.

"Hitting their front door in four minutes," he says.

Mal's voice begins to trickle up -- not in reply, precisely, but as much of one as he'll get.

And exactly three and a half minutes after the captain finishes, there's a loud thud as Serenity makes contact. The airlock slides open. The ramp begins to lower.

Wash checks his own holster and swings down to the hold.

Comments

[swinging-cod.livejournal.com]

*Jayne's making a list, and checking it twice.

Ain't nobody being nice on that ruttin' skyplex. May as well pack Vera up and--

Jayne stands up, almost shivering, and goes to look for even more ammo, as if covering himself with everything he's got will make him feel better.

(Ain't got no--)

Panic slamming into his ribs like a bullet.

(Ain't got no--)

He can't breathe; he leans against the wall, eyes closed, flop sweat pouring off him.

(Ain't got no--)

He's gonna cry like a fuckin' girl, like a gorram ruttin' stupid girl

(Jayne's a girl's name)

ain't nothing nobody can do about this Academy, they're stupid to try, he should just go 'round the ship and pick 'em all off, make it quick, 'cause ain't no way they're coming back from this, yes, he should kill them all before they kill themselves--

SNAP.

Jayne blinks and opens his eyes.

What kinda gorram foolishness was that?

Breathing hard, he checks his armaments one more time and goes to the hold to wait.*

[faithful-slayer.livejournal.com]

Faith's calm.

Cleaning her gun, making sure it's going to work, holstering it with ease.

It's just a battle, it's just...

Crazy. Insane. The odds against them...the explosion, the ship's shields.

It's the end of the fucking world.

She should have asked Mel for the Scythe.

She should have brought the Vorpal Sword.

She should never have gotten involved in this crazy-ass...

Snap.

It's sudden, the calm, as sudden as the fear was, and she licks her lips, regaining the calm.

Apocalypse. Death. Carnage. Destruction.

Sounds like a party.

[key-youth-bert.livejournal.com]

This is it.

Cuthbert finishes reassembling his guns, holsters them with a motion s familiar and easy as breathing, and then turns to Susan, holding out his hands to her.

[sai_delgado]

She puts her hands in his and allows herself to be drawn close.

(a shadow on my heart)

Susan is shivering, a little.

[key-youth-bert.livejournal.com]

Cuthbert puts one arm around her as she shivers, pulling her a bit closer.

"I'll be back before you know it. It'll be--"

He pauses, throat suddenly tight. It'll be fine,, he wants to say, but why? Why lie to her?

Why pretend that this is anything but a fool's errand, noble, yes, but no less suicidal for all that?

His mouth is dry, and he finds himself clutching her with almost panicky tightness.

[sai_delgado]

She shakes her head, even as she puts both arms around him and holds him close.

(leaving leaving left alone again)

"Cuthbert--"

Don't leave me, she wants to say, barely biting back the words. Don't go -- there's naught but death waiting for thee, don't waste our time so.

(we both died for Roland and his Dark Tower)

[key-youth-bert.livejournal.com]

Ask me to stay and I will, he wants to tell her suddenly. Let the rest be damned.

It takes an effort to bite the words back.

You are a gunslinger of Gilead. His father's voice, now. Take hold of yourself!

Why? the panicked, doubting voice in his mind demands. We're all going to die here no matter how brave or cowardly we are, and isn't it enough that we've died for the Tower once?

He opens his mouth--

SNAP.

--and draws in a deep, gulping breath, and swallows hard, and eases his hold on her.

"It'll be fine, Susan."

[sai_delgado]

SNAP.

She takes a careful breath and then nods, looking up at him, and then goes on tiptoe to kiss him soundly.

"It will. Go safely, my dear, my love, and come back to me at the end. I'll be waiting for thee."

[key-youth-bert.livejournal.com]

He raises her left hand--her ring flashing briefly in the dim light--and kisses it.

"I love thee." He lowers her hand, and steps back. "And I'll see thee soon."

And with that, he heads to the cargo bay, to join the others.

[sai_delgado]

She watches him go until he's out of sight--

(go with my love)

--and then dashes along the corridor to join Kaylee in the engine room.

[badinlatin]

He'd never been this nervous.

Maybe he should've been in the War, but he hadn't been. He was friends with his fellow soldiers.

These folk are more than friends.

That is most likely the reason why when Mal begins to speak in front of everyone, he keeps his hand on his holster to prevent it from shaking.

[prydeful]

Run away. Phase. Go hide out in the black. Safer there than in the fucking ship or the academy. Phase away into nothing. You'll lose control. You'll take after daddy dearest, all of them, and wipe them all out.

Kitty closes her eyes and breathes, hands pressed flat against the wall.

Just breathe. You may as well breathe now cause you sure as hell won't be able to ever again pretty soon. Made a promise to get back to Edmund, and now you're going to break it and

A moment

Snap.

and it's time to go.

She opens her eyes and checks the belt hanging around her waist, filled with tiny, stinging, deadly knives, and feels the weight of the gun on her left hip.

Okay. This is okay, and so's she, and whatever the fuck brought the panic attack on is going to hurt.

Kitty takes in one last slow, even breath, and heads to the hold.

[young_tmriddle]

*His grip on his wand tightens.

One last time he allows himself to think of Door.

Battle. Now. Go.*

[book-moshi.livejournal.com]

Book is praying.

Or trying to pray.

For the first time in many years, he feels like a man yelling into the emptiness. Like he's talking to himself.

He tries to remember what to do, what to say in a time like this; the prayers and the words and the formulas.

Nothing comes.





And then it does, white wings and holy light, and the realization: that everything changes from now on.

Everything changes from now on.

He gets off his knees and gets a gun.

[shadowsusannah.livejournal.com]

She's got a ring.

A week since that wedding, under the trees and the good sun. Just about two years now, since the beach.

She turns the smooth ring on its rough cord in her fingers, and feels fear crawling in. She knows fear well, lived with it a long time, and as it always did then, it's bringing madness with it again.

Alone. She's all alone. Her dinh is enamoured of the crazy girl and those from her past have each other and she's all alone, no Eddie no Jake she can't do it alone, that kind of courage isn't in her, it isn't she can't can't can't--

Odetta, shut the fuck up. It's like a slap to the face, and the most shocking thing about is that Detta Walker doesn't sound angry, or cruel. Just contemptuous and tired. Bitch, you just shut up. This ain't your kind of shindig.

Her eyes narrow, sunlight on steel, and she puts the ring away and checks her ammo.

[gonna_live]

Simon's down with the others. Anything that needs to be said has been said.

Kaylee's in the engine room in her favorite pair of coveralls. If she's going to die, it's going to be comfortably.

And if she's not going to die, there's going to be work to do.

In her pocket is the little jade counter that Mr. Lyon gave her -- the reminder that one lost battle doesn't mean you lose the war. It's a symbol. A talisman.

Somebody else might call it a sigul.

Her fingers curl tightly around the small jade disc, and she takes a deep breath, and as she releases it Susan comes to join her.

Time to get to work.

Time to do the job.

[mr-brautigan.livejournal.com]

There's an image that Ted Brautigan is holding in his mind right now, and it is this:

Cool mountains and dry air. Low buildings. Paddocks, with the kind of fences that gunslingers can sit on, hooking their boots under the lowest rails. A place for students to go and rest and recover.

A place for Ted Brautigan to pay back what he's taken, maybe.

If he doesn't hold on to this, he has nothing.

[aj_crawley]

He's holstering his guns like the rest of them. Checking triggers and safeties and cartridges, and whether they'll pull comfortably out of their holsters when he needs them.

Lassiter at his hip, from Earth-that-was, just one more reminder of what it is he's going in to fight for, what it is he's held on to these past five hundred years.

Hands're shaking now, which is stupid, right? Stupid, stupid, Crowley, you got less reason to be scared than any of them, keep working on your guns.

Shoulder holsters, one, two, all in working order.

Not that it'll matter, Crowley, when it all comes down to it, because knowing your luck there'll be something that guns won't take down, and you'll be killed and you'll be more than killed, you'll be destroyed, you'll End -

Breath coming in short, panicked gasps.

Oh fuck, oh shit, if he'd only at least thought to maybe tell the angel -

Keep working on your fucking weapons, Crowley.

Gun, gun, gun, and then shaking fingers trace down over a sheath on his calf and he slips an ancient, ugly-looking length of black iron inside, until it reaches from his ankle to a little above his knee, and oho that's rich, Crawly, that's just too damn rich, you think that tyre iron will save anything, that it'll save you, or River, or, or Susan, or anyone? That it'll save the world? It's just an object.

SNAP.

Yes.

His fingers close reassuringly around the metal.

But it doesn't mean what you think.

[nitro-is-ace.livejournal.com]

One last check. Make sure everything's still connected, that you've got enough wires, that you haven't left the timers down in the kitchen. This'll the first time in a long time that she'll be in a fight with no real retreat if it all goes to hell, and it'd be horrific if she found out too late she's missing something important.

It is all going to go to hell, isn't it? She doesn't belong here, she's no gunslinger, this isn't even her universe. Fighting for a bunch of kids who may not want to be rescued and a mythical beam that might not be there in the first place. Probably isn't there.

She's still looking at the wires in her hands, neatly tied off into compact bundles, components to explosives that aren't her own, in the company of people who aren't of her world, heading towards a fight she has no part of, and terror's rising, she should run, run away, far away, out of the light and into the dark of the world before the sunrise...

Snap.

Her hand brushes the familiar canister of nitro at her belt.

That lot's going to get sorted out good and proper. She's no gunslinger.

She's a bloody pyro.

[ff-ambassador.livejournal.com]

*Inara kneels in front of the shrine in her shuttle, her eyes closed. A stick of incense burns slowly in front of her, guiding her thoughts and prayers to their proper destination.

She has never been a fighter, though she has the training. She fears what's to come, fears herself as a liability, and fears the blood and death she knows will occur.

Her hand drifts to the cross around her neck.

His idol.

She takes a deep cleansing breath and bows, her head resting for a moment on the floor, then rises and picks up the gun lying on the table next to her. She checks the safety and tucks it into her waistband, then heads towards the door to join the others in the hold, not looking back.*

[simon_doctor]

River leans against Simon, eyes on her knees, shoulders hunched. Silent.

There's a gun strapped to her waist. A six-shooter, heavy and competent-looking, and the gunbelt full of cartridges. It looks jarringly out of place; it looks natural.

Simon has one arm around her shoulders; his other hand grips the railing of the stairs they're sitting on. The others should be coming to the cargo bay soon.

She's pale. Frowning, tense -- and then breathing faster, fingers plucking at the fringe of her poncho, face tightening. "Simon--"

He looks at her. "What is it, mèimei?"

She's shaking her head, tiny movements back and forth and back and forth. More and more agitated.

He lets go of the railing -- with some difficulty; his muscles are ridiculously tense all of a sudden -- and reaches for her hand. "It's--"

And the words clot in his throat, because it is not okay.

"Simon--" She looks up at him, terror and heartbreak and crushing guilt making her look years older than her age. Nineteen today. "Simon, she's dead -- I don't want to die too, Simon. They killed her and they'll kill me, I don't want to--"

"No." It's a harsh croak, and he has to swallow hard before he can continue. "River, that is not going to happen --"

It's weak, even in his own ears, because he is suddenly convinced that that's exactly what will happen. The Academy knows they're coming. He can't fathom how it could possibly have taken him this long to realize it: the Academy knows they're coming. They've caught Anthy and pulled out what she knows, everything --

Or, no (and this realization is even more blinding) -- she's told them. That's why she went instead of River, not to save her but to inform on her, all a setup, she's been working for them all along --

River's crying now, hands clutching at her scalp, sobbing "Stick twenty knives in her head, needles blind the eyes, she can't breathe and they'll make it slow, Simon, I don't, I can't, I can't--"

He's shaking, badly, and it takes him three tries to stand up, and two to seize River's flailing hand. Back to Milliways, both of them, if he has to drag her there by her hair and sedate her like he threatened to do, River is not walking into this, not for that treacherous pōfù Anthy, Wash was right about her -- "Come on," he manages, trying to haul his sister to her feet, "come on, we're going --"

"I don't want to go, Simon, no, please, I don't--"

"--we're going where it's safe, River, we have to run --"

SNAP.

-- and he staggers, a little, as the horror swelling in his mind deflates, dwindles to a speck, vanishes.

River is staring at him, and then up at the high ceiling, pale and startled but no longer crying. "The clouds parted," she whispers.

And that's exactly what it feels like: thunderclouds pressing down, then suddenly gone.

He takes her hand again, in both of his, and hunkers down on the step next to her. "Are you all right, mèimei?"
Her face trembles, then smooths out. She nods, a little. Whispered: "I'm okay."

"We're okay," he echoes, quietly.

[righthandwoman.livejournal.com]

Zoe is in her and Wash's bunk, getting ready.

The last thing she does is to open a small, carved wooden box and look down at the key that rests in it. The key Mal gave her.

She can't wait to give it back. Zoe knows she could be a more than capable leader, if necessary, but Zoe Warren-Wasburne, Captain of Serenity, is not a woman she ever wants to meet.

You won't, a voice inside her whispers. You won't have to worry about that, ever, because your death is just as certain as Mal's. Might as well forget about this crazy suicide mission and head to the bridge, spend whatever time there is left with Wash before it all ends--

SNAP.

Zoe draws in a breath, and shakes her head as if to clear it. There's no time for that kind of self-doubt.

She snaps the box closed, sets it back on the desk, and heads to the cargo bay.