Nothing In The 'Verse
Episode 62: Endgame

Take me out to the black
Tell them I ain't comin' back
Burn the land and boil the sea
You can't take the sky from me.

Fortune's Favour. Outbound from Osiris.

Danielle Grant sat in the captain's seat on the bridge of her ship, trying to absorb the revelation that her family and friends, anyone who had flown with her or sheltered them, might now be targeted by a deadly governmental assassin.

She dimly registered her eldest daughter stir in the pilot's chair before speaking. "Kaasan, we reached the outer markers," the pixie-haired brunette whispered, as if fearful to break the silence hovering thick over the bridge. "Where am I goin'?"

"Out there," Dani whispered back. "Just... just head into the Black."

Rain nodded worriedly. "Alright, I'll set a course for an empty bit of space."

"Jiejie, we need to act," a baritone voice sounded quietly from her right.

Turning slightly in her seat, still feeling dazed, Dani nodded to her brother. "Right."

She inhaled deeply, and on the exhale she banished any more paralyzing thoughts. Now was not the time to fall apart.

With an abrupt motion she leapt to her feet and began pacing furiously in the small space between the consoles. Rain kept an anxious eye on her while plotting their course, while Keith looked on calmly, his eyes filled with confidence in his captain and older sister.

After only a few seconds the lanky captain whirled around with a determined look. "We gotta get in touch with ev'ryone. Anyone who's ever sheltered us'r helped us out. All our family, ev'ryone who's been on board... All of 'em. Get 'em to go ta ground an' hide out somehow."

Keith nodded firmly and got up to change seats over to the console at the nav station. "I'm on it."

"I just hope we ain't too late..." Rain whispered again, this time with threads of fear lacing her words.

Jiangyin.

Mike Wilson was fairly satisfied with his life. He leaned up against the railing on the porch of his in-laws as he puffed on one of his obnoxiously smelly cigars and looked up into the star-filled night sky. Fairly satisfied, of course, except for the simple fact that he badly wished to take back the actions that led him to leave the Fortune's Favour and his family still on there.

Yes, his wife Julie was fairly adamant about leaving. She didn't feel safe on there, not after the possibility of being branded an outlaw ship was made real. In hindsight, of course, no such thing happened, and his sister-in-law Dani had managed to keep them a step ahead of any repercussions from the incident on Ariel.

Incident. He snorted to himself in disgust. That's what Julie called it, but it was simply a rescue of Dani's daughter Sara. Sure, she did some terrible things to get her back, but what wouldn't he or Julie do if it were Em or Kacy in that position?

His reasoning had fallen on deaf ears, and now he was left to have another thing to reflect back on with regret. He hadn't felt so involved, so alive, since the day he stepped off of that ship.

"Mike, you out here boy?" a gravelly voice called out.

He stirred slightly and turned his head. "Yeah, over here Pops," he replied genially as he reached up to scratch his bushy grey beard. He didn't mind his father-in-law too terribly, but it got to be a bit of a headache spending much time with his mother-in-law. Or rather, when his wife and her mother got together. They were far too alike and tended to butt heads more often than not.

Hank Edwards limped over and leaned against the same railing, groaning slightly. His leg had been acting up, and since his wife had taken ill he'd been sore-pressed to care for her by himself. Hence the frequent visits by the Wilsons.

"That there's one chou maniao (stinking horse piss) ofa cigar, son," the old man grunted.

"That it is," Mike grinned around it unrepentantly. He was about to reply further when he caught the slight gleam of metal off to his right. He turned, cautiously bringing his hand down to the old Moses Brother's revolver he kept strapped to his hip. "Pops, you expectin' company?"

Those were his last words as his world exploded and sharp pain lanced through his chest. He barely registered the report of the gunfire as he toppled onto his back, but he did hear the second shot and dimly noted the body that slumped to the ground next to him.

Mike could hardly maintain a coherent thought as he felt the life drain out of him and onto the rickety porch. Booted feet shook him as they ran by, and there were crashes and screams from inside the house before silence dropped over the night once more, broken only by the wheezing breath rattling in the hefty man's chest.

And then there was a shadow looming over him remorselessly. He desperately tried to reach for his gun again, but his mutinous limbs refused to listen. Instead, he watched with an odd sense of calm as the shadow raised a pistol to line up with his forehead.

Dani-girl, you best watch over my Em, was his last thought before everlasting darkness overtook him.

Beaumonde.

The row of abandoned warehouses looked deceptively vacant as usual, but the normalcy was shattered by the revving of engines from down the street. A pair of military ground trucks pulled up by an alleyway with a screech of brakes. Several soldiers in Alliance-issued blast armor filed out, the dim light glinting dully off of their purple-hued shells. They moved with precision and speed, quickly hauling a false dumpster out of the way to reveal a hidden reinforced door. With nimble, efficient movements, one of the soldiers unrolled a tube of explosives around the frame and inserted a detonator. The team stood back as it was set off and the door fell out with a dull clang.

They quickly rushed into the uncovered chamber as the officer in charge monitored their progress from inside one of the assault vehicles.

"First squad, guard the door and provide backup. Second squad, get the elevator open and rappel down," the officer ordered into the comm unit. "Move it people, they know we're here."

After a few tense minutes, he started to get reports back.

"First squad here, the room is empty. Targets have fled."

"Say again?" the officer asked incredulously. The area was under satellite surveillance, there was no way their quarry could have slipped away from them.

"I say again, sir, no sign of the targets. Room has been emptied, looks like they were in a hurry. No sign of how they got out."

The Alliance officer let out an irritated growl. His superiors were going to have a field day with this.

Osiris.

Tom sat in his darkened office, one eye on the camera monitors for the perimeter of his yard and the other on the progress bar for the file downloads. The former Browncoat ship's mechanic had been forewarned by the crew of the Fortune's Favour and had already gotten his wife and young child off to safety. Now he was trying to salvage what he could of his business, retrieving important data on both his financials and his activities with the New Resistance.

He tore his gaze away to once more check on his old but reliable Browncoat Service Pistol lying on top of his desk. He was hoping to get some advance notice of intruders, but if they did catch him unawares, he'd give them one diyu of a fight.

With about five minutes left on the downloading, he cocked his head to the side as he heard the approaching whine of repulsorlifts. Frowning, he grabbed his sidearm and walked over to the window. There shouldn't be any further arrivals today, and all of his personnel should already have cleared out by now...

Pulling aside the dirty curtain, he saw an ASREV hovering directly outside, pointing its nose straight at the office.

"Ai ya, huai le (shit on my head)," he murmured, just before the entire building blew up in a spectacular flash of heat and smoke.

Aberdeen.

It was late evening on Aberdeen, and most of the village surrounding O'Toole's Pub was darkened as the residents slept peacefully. That peace was about to be broken as several squads of Alliance soldiers rapidly spread out from the landing field.

They went from house to house, surrounding each target location but waiting until all were assembled and in position. Sergeant Sean Campbell led his squad towards their main objective, the large family pub located in the middle of the small community.

After a brief pause they received their orders and made their entry into the building, spreading out to search for targets. They were able to quickly ascertain, however, that the large building was empty of any occupants.

"Squad Seven reporting. No sign of any targets," Campbell reported into his comm. He stood by attentively as further negative reports came in from the other squads, until there was finally one successful hit.

"Squad Three," he heard over the comm. "Objective secure, three targets eliminated. Couple and small child."

Campbell closed his eyes briefly. This was one part of the job he hated with a passion, but it was the job he signed up for.

"Sarge, look here," interjected the corporal on the squad. The Alliance sergeant shook himself and walked back over to the front door, where a hand-printed sign had been tacked up. It indicated that the pub was closed indefinitely while they visited family off-planet.

Sergeant Campbell's mouth twitched in what might have been a smile, quickly suppressed. "Take the sign, report to command. We'll be right behind you."

"Sarge, we burning the place?" asked an overeager young private.

"Are you a special kind of bendan (idiot), Rogers?" the sergeant barked. The corporal grinned and headed out while he administered his dressing down. "Do you know what a fire here could do to the entire community?"

"But, Sarge, they're just a bunch of dumb xiang ba lao ([derogatory] hick/bumpkin) miners," protested the private, with more guts than he'd given him credit for. Just about the right amount of brains as I expected, though.

"Look into my eyes, Rogers. Did we get an order to burn the place down?"

"No, Sarge."

"Then, chwen (dumbass), should we be burning the place down?"

"Um, no, Sarge."

"Double-time it back to the landing field, Private. I want two laps around the perimeter, and if you're not done by the time we lift you will gorram well find another ride off-planet. Am I clear?"

"Yes, Sarge, crystal!" the unfortunate private replied before setting off at a jog.

The other two privates chuckled as they exited the pub behind Rogers. "He'll get it sooner or later, Sarge," laughed the more experienced of the two.

"That or get his gorram head blown off," Campbell grumbled.

Before following his squad out, he turned and briefly reminisced on a childhood spent in this very pub before he had left Aberdeen to join the Alliance military.

"I hope you stay in the clear, Robert O'Toole," he murmured before turning and walking through the doorway. After only a moment's hesitation, he turned once more to close the door securely behind him and then jogged back towards his waiting transport.

On a hill overlooking the town, three men lay in the darkness, sharing a single set of light-enhancing binoculars.

"Looks like they're moving out," Jacob O'Donnel commented, passing them along to his brother.

John took a look and nodded before handing them to the last of the three men. "Robert, I'm awful sorry 'bout Betty."

The elder O'Toole accepted the binoculars from his son-in-law and shook his head sadly. The trio of shots had rung out loud and clear through the stillness of the night. "She always had trouble making sense of what was plain in front of her face." He sighed, peering down at his pub, noting with relief that it seemed to be intact still. "At least we got everyone else into the caves back in the hills here."

"How long do we plan on waiting it out?" Jacob asked curiously.

"As long as it takes," Robert replied. "Until we hear from my Lori otherwise." He glanced over at his son-in-law John. "Don't be worrying about Feather, she's as safe as she can be on that ship. I know Danielle Grant, she'll move the 'Verse to protect any of her family."

John nodded as he scooted back down the hill before standing up. "I know, Robert. Still, my prayers are going out to them all."

"Me as well, John," Robert replied softly as he followed the brothers back to where his clan was waiting, hidden away in a vast cavernous system left behind when the mines there had played out. "Me as well."

Hera.

Alexis sighed to herself with an uncharacteristic trace of self-pity, staring up at the seemingly insurmountable obstacle in front of her. Normally she didn't mind living on the second floor of her apartment building, but after today she was about ready to just lay down at the foot of the steps and sleep right there.

"Gorram double-shifts," she grumbled to herself, slipping one shoe off to rub a sore and aching foot. She'd not gotten but an hour's reprieve in between, either. One waitress had called in sick, and another had quit to head back home to the family farm.

Sighing again, this time in resignation, she took her other shoe off and started up the steps barefoot, holding her footwear in her hand. What seemed like an hour actually only took a matter of minutes, but Alexis was counting the steps she would take until her head could hit her pillow.

Mmmm, I could really use a back rub 'bout now... or mebbe other kinds o' rubs... The buxom blonde giggled to herself at the thought of the two women who had somehow snuck their way into her usually carefree heart. She'd not even taken on any other lovers since she realized that she was thinking on the two of them all the time now. Redhead and brunette, the mix made her feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Right now, though, all she could do was miss them. She unlocked her door and stepped wearily into her kitchen, flinging her purse forward onto the small table there. After she closed and locked the door behind her, she only took another step in before she heard a strange click.

She furrowed her brows, listening for the sound to repeat.

Five seconds later her existence ended in an explosion of fire that took out the entire apartment building.

Bernadette.

"We need to replace the motivator on this old hovercar," Cory Bilkes noted absentmindedly.

"We have the credits," his wife Maribelle replied. "Why don't we get a new one that's, oh, I don't know, younger than our children?"

Cory snorted with amusement. "I like this one. It's broken in. Besides, there's no reason to replace it when I can keep it running just fine."

The blonde rolled her eyes. "Engineers," she snorted.

"We could get a shiny red one," L.T. piped up from the back of the vehicle.

"How about an aircar?" Junior asked excitedly next to his brother.

"See what you started?" Cory murmured.

Maribelle grinned at her husband. "I wouldn't mind an aircar."

Cory shook his head in exasperation and concentrated on the drive home. The family had just gotten back from a vacation over on the other side of the continent where Maribelle, Mike, and Beth had grown up. They had a pleasant time there as Maribelle revisited old haunts, some of them bittersweet with the memory of her deceased sister.

They were three blocks from their house, a moderate affair for the Core but on a decent-sized parcel of land, when the blonde doctor frowned, an itch forming in the back of her head. "Cory..." she began hesitantly.

"Hmm?" her husband inquired, making a left-hand turn onto their road.

"Cory, pull over," she suddenly said, urgently.

"What? Sweetie-"

"No, pull over, now!"

Cory did so, ignoring the sounds of blaring horns by those impatiently following them. They sat on the side of the road for a full minute, in sight of their house, while Maribelle stared off into the distance, becoming more and more agitated.

"It's all wrong," she finally whispered. "We have to go..."

"Go home? That's where we were heading," the redheaded engineer replied confusedly.

"No, we need to go away from here," Maribelle clarified. "Let's just... Let's go get something to eat, okay?"

Cory had spent a good number of years married to the woman sitting next to him, and had learned early on not to ignore her when she got this way. "Alright, hon," he said agreeably, and started to pull out to reverse their direction.

Before they could merge back onto the street, their house blew up.

Santo.

Evienne O'Toole was no stranger to suspicious circumstances. The towering, muscular blonde had been a merc for about ten years now and had gotten pretty gorram good at what she did. Specializing primarily in bodyguard assignments, she'd gathered a profitable list of clientele who actively requested her services, enough so that she could pick and choose who to work for at any given time.

If anybody noticed that the majority of those were related to, or perhaps were themselves, high-ranking Alliance military or political officials, it wasn't commented upon.

She walked a very fine line, doing her duties without fault while still keeping her eyes and ears discreetly open. She'd foiled two bombings, four kidnappings, and seven assassination attempts in her short career. She'd also gathered significant intel on Alliance operations, back-door dealings, and military movements, as well as a whole closetful of buried secrets.

Closely tied into several Independent cells, including some of the New Resistance variety, she was the perfect mole. Bodyguards were meant to be inconspicuous and yet ever-present. It did, however, cause her to keep a high degree of vigilance, perhaps even bordering on paranoia.

So when her usual crew of two other merc bodyguards on her shift suddenly changed personnel in the middle of a week-long job, her suspicions were immediately aroused.

The Amazonian merc walked in the middle and slightly ahead of the pair assigned to her shift, as was her usual position when she was serving in a supervisory capacity. So while she wasn't able to keep her eyes on them, her ears were listening intently for any sudden changes.

As the three mercs entered the hallway leading towards the job site, Evienne clearly heard the soft twin whisks of metal against leather signaling the drawing of their sidearms. She quickly pulled out a pair of razor-sharp stilettos from the sheaths on her vest and thrust them directly behind and slightly upward, skewering them both through the throat.

As the would-be assassins slumped to the ground, gurgling their last breath, she whirled around, searching for more targets. Finding none, the blonde crouched down and quickly cleaned off her blades before sheathing them and then drawing her own Ares sidearm. That done, she reached down to pull back the clothing of the nearest merc.

"Alliance-issued blast armor," she murmured to herself, unsurprised. Well, that's it then, I'm humped.

Fifteen minutes later saw her back on her small personal cutter-class ship. She sealed the hatchway behind her and began the engine startup sequence. While that was warming up, she entered the cockpit and reached below the console to remove the transponder there, replacing it with another one reserved for just such an occurrence.

Once she got green lights, she immediately blasted off of the landing pad at a slightly higher velocity than would be considered proper, much less safe. She broke atmo without further ado and set a course for the Rim. Her next action was to activate her Cortex unit to send off a Wave to the woman who had recruited her for their cause a few years ago.

"This is Evie, I've been targeted. And before you say it, yes you were right Bea, it was only a matter of time. Last I heard from the rumor mill you were embedded with Serenity. You think the famous Malcolm Reynolds could use an extra gun? Get back to me."

Fortune's Favour. Empty space. White Sun.

The crew of the Favour, save for their captain, clustered quietly around the dinner table, the silence only broken by the sounds of muted sobs and the rhythmic twirling of a butterfly knife. The ship was drifting in the Black, outside the normal shipping lanes but just close enough to reach a satellite for Cortex communications. Several of them had taken shifts in trying to reach people, and now they were waiting for word on events from that day. All they could do at this point was reflect somberly on both what they knew and what they didn't know.

Emily sat sniffling next to Kelly, the latter rubbing her back comfortingly. They had last gotten word about Mike and Julie, and Emily was despondent about the news of her parents' death. Lori as well was quietly weeping from hearing about her sister Betty.

Rain reached over to give her a reassuring yet awkward pat on the arm. The redhead looked up and smiled gratefully, but then looked down again, shaking her head. "Just can't believe none that she got her stubborn self kilt, along with her gorram husband an' baby."

Dani walked in shortly thereafter and sat down subduedly at the head of the table. Her eyes brimmed with unshed tears, and she had to clear her throat past the lump of emotion there to begin. "Some good news an' a bunch more bad news. Heard from the Bilkes, they're safe." A sigh of relief went around the table at the news. "Maribelle says they're stayin' with Cory's parents, they're ex-Alliance Navy, should be able to shelter 'em. I don' have a way to contact 'em again, told 'em it'd be safer that way fer now. Badger's on the run too, like a rat scurryin' down the sewers, an' he's none too pleased with us. We ain't likely to receive the likes of any help from 'im. Other news is from our old friend Patience back on Whitefall. Says a group of fishy-lookin' hundans came 'round askin' 'bout Rachel Adams. No idea how they'd gotten her name, but she sent 'em packin' and has Rachel an' 'er mom hidden away safe." She paused a beat. "But, they got Tom, destroyed his yard in the process. His wife and lil' one're safe, but that's yet 'nother haven closed to us."

She glanced around before taking her wife's hand and giving it a squeeze, holding on tightly. "Wo de ai, got word offa the Cortex local from Hera. Lexi's apartment got blown up. She ain't been seen."

Lori bowed her head and shuddered, fresh tears trickling down her cheeks to match those on Dani's.

The lanky captain wiped her face with the sleeve on her free arm. Ain't the time now. Mourn later. She resolutely turned towards the other end of the table while still clinging to her wife's hand like an anchor. "Kelly?"

"Jess and I were able to get in before most of our funds were frozen. I moved them to one main account of mine from an identity I never used previously." The former Agent looked around apologetically. "I couldn't get all of them. Sara and Emily, yours were locked up already, I'm sorry. I can't get them now, as hacking in would lead the trail back to us, but we'll do so later, alright? Once we can be sure it can't be backtraced."

Emily nodded slightly, still sniffling, while Sara didn't react at all. She sat in her seat, her chair pushed back slightly from the table, and continued to twirl her butterfly knife idly, an unreadable expression on her face.

"Sara?" Dani asked perceptively. "What's on yer mind, baobei?"

The diminutive brunette sighed and flipped her knife shut. "I shoulda killed 'er when I had the chance."

Dani shook her head firmly. "No use in recriminatin' yerself none. What's past is past, an' ya barely escaped from that fight alive." She paused, looking around the table again before standing up and leaning heavily against it. "We have to deal with what's in front of us, now."

"Are we goin' after the hundan (bastard) who did this?" came the question, demand really, from a totally unexpected source.

Dani looked up into Cali's determined and furious eyes, bloodshot from crying over the loss of her mentor and uncle. Never seen 'er so riled up 'fore. "Do we even know who that is?"

Kelly leaned forward. "I think we can figure it out."

"Okay," Dani replied, leaning forward as well. "Let's work out way back, then. There's gotta be clues in the past jobs we've done."

"Connect the dots together," Jess murmured.

"We could start with the last job on Aberdeen, saving the O'Donnel's," Kelly began slowly. "That Alliance representative, what was her name?"

"Um, Neela," Jess replied, racking her brain. "Neela Connor."

"I recognized something with her," the former Agent continued musingly. "The way she moved and held herself... She was more than just a liaison, I'm sure of it."

"No, that was her!" Dani interrupted. "Neela! She was the Operative back there on Osiris!"

"Wo cao," Lori breathed.

Sara nodded in agreement. "Knew she felt familiar. So she wuz there onna ground fer Aberdeen..."

"Could be how the O'Toole's were all targeted there," Keith interjected quietly.

Kelly nodded. "Right. It's known that Aberdeen is a frequent port of call for us, but we're still registered on Osiris, correct? So there had to be some way to tie us closely into those folk."

Keith cleared his throat as Kelly finished. "I've got one. The Jungle Run, and our mysterious benefactor. We never did get an identity, but that could have gathered significant knowledge of us."

"That's still buggin' ya, huh didi?" Dani snorted.

"It is," her brother replied firmly. "And my instincts are telling me something else. The whole setup? It was a test."

"Seriously? A test?" Sara inquired skeptically.

"To see how we worked," Lori mused, her bloodshot eyes finally dry as she pondered the situation with the rest. "Mebbe gear us up fer 'nother, bigger job?"

"Like the last one," Dani said softly. "Targetin' a member of Parliament. An' we declined it, but then when we tried ta stop it, that Neela woman shows up ta complete the job."

They collectively sat back again, contemplating the tangled web of circumstances and information assembled so far.

"Hey, here's 'nother one," Sara spoke up. "Back on Beaumonde, the first time when Kelly an' Em an' me went off-ship. The vid of us, well me really, gettin' inta that fight. It got copied an' then erased somehow, right?"

"Right," Kelly murmured. "Before I could get ahold of it. And the signature could easily been that of an Operative."

"Speaking of files," Keith rumbled. "What about the one that fried your handheld?"

Kelly nodded, the pieces beginning to fall into place in her head. "Again, yes, right when it got to the Parliamentary involvement, it self-destructed." She paused a beat. "I think we can be fairly sure at this point that we're dealing with a member of Parliament itself, not just some faceless bureaucrat. Someone very powerful. All the evidence points to that fact."

"Small things that add up," Rain commented quietly.

"Powerful..." Dani mused, her brows furrowed. Suddenly she sat up, startled. "Tai-kong suo-yo duh shing-chiou sai-jin wuh duh pee-goo (shove all the planets in the universe up my ass)!"

"Kaasan?" Sara asked worriedly.

Dani looked around at the others. "Martina."

"Oh, that hun dan gou niang yang de (bastard son of a bitch)," Lori breathed. "She talked 'bout 'er mysterious an' powerful lover who was targetin' 'er..."

Her wife nodded firmly. "I'll betcha that's when we landed on 'is radar," she said angrily.

Keith grunted in frustration. "We still don't have a name."

Emily finally spoke up. "When I talked with Kacy back on Hera, she said she'd been forced inta speakin' to some Alliance Intel officer, name of Cavendish, 'bout the crew. Thought mebbe it was just another background check. That mean anythin'?"

"Did you say Cavendish?" Kelly asked searchingly.

"Right, that's the name she said."

"I know that name," Jess said quietly, staring off into space. "Look him up, he's a member of parliament, just like we suspected."

"So, what, he's got a son or brother or somethin' in the Alliance Navy?" Dani asked as Kelly typed away furiously.

"Well, I recognize the name as well," Keith said, his eyebrows furrowed. "Thought he was an up-and-coming member, though, not all that powerful. At least, as of a few years ago."

"That seems to have changed," Kelly broke in, her voice strained. "He's much more powerful than that. In fact, he's been consolidating his power base." She tapped a few more keys. "He's sponsoring a bill to restructure the Parliament itself into a taller organizational structure."

"Taller?" Dani asked curiously.

Keith sighed and sat back, crossing his arms. "Right, Parliament is pretty flat right now as it's a voting body, most of the members are equal in influence and power. Taller would mean fewer people with more power over the rest. How much do you want to bet that he wants to be at the top of the new structure?"

"Does it say there?" Jess directed towards Kelly.

The blonde shook her head. "Not directly, no. But he seems to have been working behind the scenes more. His name is attached to numerous bills that have benefitted other people, that's how I can tell he's consolidating his support. I think when this bill goes through, and he wouldn't have put it through if he weren't assured of the votes, then that's when he'll make his play."

"It's still a lotta conjecture," Dani mused. "We ain't gots anythin' solid."

Kelly smiled broadly as she tapped some more keys. "Well, how about this then. Parliamentarian Cavendish does indeed have a son in the Alliance Navy, but he also has a daughter who dropped out of sight many years ago, vanishing from all records." She looked up. "Just like an Operative who, once they join, no longer exist."

"Gettin' there," Dani replied optimistically. "Now, if'n we had somethin'..."

"...Like a pic?" Kelly grinned, turning her handheld around. On it was a family portrait from perhaps fifteen years ago, showing an older couple with their two children, one boy and one girl. The woman was a statuesque blonde with piercing blue eyes, but the two children more closely resembled their father, with jet-black hair and matching eyes.

"Cao ni zuzong shiba dai (fuck your ancestors to the eighteenth generation)," Dani snarled at the girl in the pic. "Tha's her. Tha's Neela, or whatever 'er name is."

"Well, according to the pic, her real name is Nimona," Kelly said smugly.

"Not bad, Blue," Keith rumbled humorously.

"Eh, I still miss my old handheld," she replied modestly, "but I make do with what I have."

"Alright," Dani stated firmly, standing up. Her eyes roved around the table, picking out each of her crew members. Her brother Keith, steadfast and, she wasn't too proud to admit, the source of most of her strength and confidence. The former Spec Forces trooper was able to bring all of his quite significant tactical skills and experience to their group, keeping them alive and successful. His wife Jess, elegant and poised, the brains behind their transportation venture, keeping them in the black financially and able to find a cargo or job from the most obscure places, as well as a deadly asset to the ground team.

Emily smiled over at her confidently, her earlier bereavement passed now that they had a course of action to plan. Her niece had done wonders for her nu'er and was a valuable addition to any intended endeavor, lending a voice of reason and oftentimes unusual viewpoint. Kelly, one of her oldest friends before becoming an enemy and then back to her friend again after her redemption. Getting caught on a Core world would be a likely death sentence for her, but her eyes were full of acceptance, almost eagerness to carry out whatever plan they decided on.

Seated together as was their usual, Feather had clasped hands with Rain. They were obviously communicating with each other, lending comfort and support, but both seemed resolute. The auburn-haired mechanic had been a joy to have aboard and gave her eldest daughter an injection of confidence and buoyancy that surprised her at times, while Rain had evolved into a capable and skilled pilot.

Cali, of course, was Cali. Still acting like a flighty teenager at times, her careless exterior hid a sharp though labyrinthian mind that had a natural talent for mechanics and a way of dissecting situations in ways that others might overlook. Sitting next to her, Sara was flipping her butterfly knife idly again, seemingly indifferent to their predicament, but Dani knew she was far from such. She hid her inner turmoil and focused it into an anger that she would eventually unleash, finally having resolved the conflict between her dual personalities into something lethal but controlled when called upon.

And then there was her Lori. The woman who, amazingly enough, stood by her side with unwavering loyalty and love, and lifted her up to aspire to be the kind of person she saw her to be.

Dani was proud beyond measure not just of her girls, but of all her crew, for what they had accomplished together and what they had aspired to since becoming part of the Favour.

"We're an outlaw ship, now." Dani finally said quietly. "They started this. We c'n finish it. Let's start actin' like outlaws."

She glanced around the table once more to meet each person's gaze, the fierce blaze of anger in her eyes matching that from every member of her crew. "We end this. Now." She was acknowledged by silent nods all around.

"What do you have in mind?" Keith rumbled quietly, his arm still wrapped around his wife.

"We take the fight to the one who started it," Jess replied for her in a whisper.

Dani smiled wickedly. "Exactly. Let's go after the hundan who's fault this all is. An' mebbe," she glanced over at her middle daughter. "Just mebbe we'll get a shot at 'is Operative as well." Sara returned the smile with one of her own, filled with dark anticipation.

"So where should we hit him?" Kelly asked. 'His home is a closely-guarded secret, as are all Parliamentarians. Plus, it's likely to be in an apartment or condominium building, lots of opportunity for collateral damage..."

"We could hit him en route, to or from work," Keith mused.

"Nope," Dani said cheerily, popping the end consonant of the word. "Ain't goin' after 'im anywhere else but at 'is office."

"His office," Emily stated flatly. "You mean Parliament. As in, the seat of government for the Alliance."

Dani looked back smugly without answering as the other members of the crew exchanged dubious glances.

"Well... it'd be unexpected," Keith murmured.

"Dangerous," Jess added.

"It'd be that, yeah," Dani said confidently. "An' it'd take the whole of the crew ta pull it off, but I gots an idea of how we could do it. An' yer right, not a soul would expect it."

"That's 'cause it's feng li (crazy)," Feather muttered.

"Well, shen jing bing (insanity) seems ta be a specialty of ours," Rain commented offhandedly.

"Look, ain't gonna lie none, it's gonna be all this an' more," Dani said firmly. "I want y'all ta be sure 'bout this, 'cause there's a chance we might not all make it out alive."

"Well, wouldn't be a Favour mission otherwise," Keith said dryly.

"Seems to give us our best chance of success, having impending doom hanging over our heads," Jess said, matching her husband's dry tone.

Feather and Rain glanced at each other, quickly communicating mentally before coming to an agreement. "Y'know we're with ya, Kaasan," Feather spoke up.

"Ain't nothin' in the 'Verse we'd rather do," Rain smirked.

"Well, I c'n think ofa few," Cali protested mildly, "but 'long as I gets ta do somethin' an' not just sit on the ship, I'm in."

"Me too," Emily stated. "I needs ta pay some piyans (assholes) back fer my folks."

"With interest," Sara added darkly.

Kelly sighed humorously. "Well, you know I'm in, no matter what."

Dani glanced over Lori, who had not spoken yet, but received an irritated huff in reply. "Ya really gots ta ask me?" her freckled wife snarked.

The brunette smiled slightly in response before facing forward again. "Ain't plannin' on this bein' zu sha zhu yi (suicide), but make no mistake, it's gonna be dangerous as all get out," Dani said sternly. "I gots the feelin' the gorram Jungle Run was a cakewalk compared ta what we're gonna go up 'gainst."

"Then we make a plan, and a gorram good one," Kelly said calmly.

"I think, between the lot of us," Keith interjected, "that we can manage anything."

The lanky captain smiled more widely, then looked down at the table, gathering her thoughts. "Right. First off, we'll have several teams. Ground team, we're gonna be th' insertion as usual. Kelly c'n monitor an' control things from the Favour-"

"No."

Dani looked up, startled at the interruption. Her eldest daughter had stood up with her arms crossed in front of her and with as resolute an expression as she'd ever seen on her. "What?" she asked intelligently.

"I said, Aunt Kelly ain't gonna be in charge of the Favour none, 'cause she's gonna be with you."

Dani looked at her a bit askance. "Arya planning this op fer us now?"

Rain gave a little growl in the back of her throat. "You said it yerself, this's gonna be dangerous, an' mebbe some folk're gonna die. You take Aunt Kelly with ya so's it won't be you."

"Gorram right," Cali piped up, standing as well, an identical look of determination on her face. Without hesitation, Sara stood wordlessly in support of her sisters, giving Dani a nod.

The lanky captain stared over at Rain, a fierce feeling of pride almost overwhelming her. She rested her hip against the table's edge, blinking back tears. "Alright then, Third Officer. The ship'll be yers." She walked over to give her a tight hug. "An' ya best return it in the same condition I left 'er with ya."

"Only if'n you promise to come back, Capt'n," Rain whispered, returning the hug just as tightly.

The ten members of the Favour's crew spent the next few hours hammering out a plan. It started out as a nebulous thing, pounded roughly onto the anvil of Keith and Kelly's combined experience and doused with all of their collective and oftentimes unique input. Eventually they had something solid, and spent another hour working to make it a thing of finesse and deadly beauty.

Dani finished off her twelfth cup of tea (not that she'd been counting) and set it down firmly. "Alright, we gots what we needs ta do. Let's start makin' preparations, an' I wanna make sure we all gets the chance to double-check each other, yeah? Make sure we're solid on this, on what our jobs're gonna be."

She stood up to carry her cup over to the sink, but paused when she heard Feather clear her throat as the young mechanic stood up from her place next to Rain.

"'Fore we do any more, Capt'n, I gots a request."

Rain looked up at the auburn-haired beauty in surprise. "Arya blockin' me?" she asked quizzically.

Feather ginned back. "Blockin' somethin' fierce, an' it's givin' me a headache, so lemme talk." She gave Rain a wink, and then looked back at Dani, her head held high.

"I want ya to marry me an' Rain 'fore we do this."

Rain blinked, completely caught off-guard. She recovered quickly enough and turned to Dani with a smile. "Well, we are engaged an' all."

Dani laughed, the tension from earlier evaporating with her humor. "Alright then, we're gonna have a weddin' first, an' then we all get to be bad guys."

Fortune's Favour cargo bay.

It was an ancient tradition, dating far back into the history of Earth-That-Was, where the captain of a vessel had the authority to marry a consenting couple. It wasn't performed often, but the tradition was there. And it was one that the current captain of the old Firefly transport never imagined she'd be exercising.

Dani wished that captains had some sort of manual that came with the job, that way she'd have some sort of idea on what to say. Kelly had looked a few things up for her beforehand, but the lanky woman decided in the end that this was her daughter, and the best action to take, as her first wife had always advised her, was to follow her heart and do the speaking from there.

She stood with her back to the cargo doors and waited for the couple to be ready. Lori and Keith flanked the hatchway from the workshop, where the couple would be entering from by way of the lounge. Lori was asked to give Feather away as her only blood relative, while Keith agreed to do the same for Rain.

Eventually the pair entered and took the arms of Dani's brother and her wife. The pixie-haired brunette was dressed in one of the few dresses she owned, the same simple but nice short black dress with long flowy sleeves and low heels that she wore to her birthday party back on Aberdeen. Dani quietly reflected on how close the two had become since Feather boarded her ship a little over a year and a half ago.

For her part, the auburn-haired mechanic wore a beautiful mid-calf sheath dress in an emerald green. She had been worried that she didn't have shoes that matched, when Rain had humorously suggested she just go barefoot. Feather had liked the idea well enough that she did just that.

They didn't have any music playing and had just decided to keep it simple. That didn't stop Emily from quietly humming the old tune for a wedding march, until Dani shot her a mock glare. Her niece just beamed back an innocent smile.

Feather was followed by Cali, who was bouncing along in excitement at being her maiden of honor. She had dressed nicely enough in a clean brown skirt that Dani didn't even know she owned, as well as a nice blouse, but spoiled the effect slightly with the ever-present panda hat. Sara served Rain in the same capacity and her eyes glowed with happiness for her sister as she followed her wearing the simple yellow sundress from Dani and Lori's wedding.

The procession halted and Lori and Keith each leaned down to plant a kiss on the cheek of the ones they had escorted down. At some unseen signal they swapped and did the same for the other of the pair, which made Feather giggle. Smiling, they stepped back to join the rest of the crew, while Cali and Sara slid in to take their places.

Dani smiled warmly at the couple, and cleared her throat. Hope you c'n see this Beth. She blinked her eyes rapidly to dispel the shine gathering there. Ain't gonna get 'motional none yet, keep it t'gether... "Love is a beautiful thing," she began quietly. "It brings t'gether family, an' it makes new families. Love 'tween two folks, well that there is the most special of them all. If'n ya have each other, an' ya keep yer love alive an' thrivin', well, ain't nothin' in the 'Verse c'n stand 'gainst ya."

She glanced over at her wife, who was quietly weeping. In fact, Keith seemed to have the only dry eyes in the hold that day. "I been lucky enuff ta find myself two loves in my lifetime. Figured I was the luckiest girl alive up til now, but I think mebbe today I'm even luckier. I gets to see my eldest nu'er marry the woman she loves, an' I gets to marry another wonderful woman into my family, right where she belongs."

'Kay, I gots ta wrap this up 'fore I start bawlin'. "Feather Michelle O'Donnel, d'ya take this woman here ta be yer wife?"

"I do," Feather whispered, her lips trembling.

"An' Rain Carol Grant, d'ya take this woman ta be yer wife as well?"

"I do," Rain replied firmly, a look of pure bliss on her tear-streaked face.

"Well then, by the power invested in me by, well, me, I hereby pronounce y'all ta be married. Now get with the kissin', already."

The couple gave an identical snort of laughter before melding their lips together and wrapping their arms around each other. Applause and cheers erupted throughout the hold, and even Cali was ecstatically jumping up and down for joy.

Rain and Feather separated, grinning, and then turned to envelop Dani in a hug as well. She returned it while laughing happily. "We'll work somethin' out fer yer honeymoon," she murmured to the pair. "It's on me, alright?"

"Well, I happen ta know this really great transport service," Rain laughed as they stood back.

Dani smiled at the two as they walked over to be swamped by the rest of the crew.

Here's hopin' the next twenty-four hours go well enuff I c'n keep my word.

Parliamentary Backup Generator Compound.
Londinium. White Sun.

Samuel Clements was used to spot inspections. Being the head technician for a government-run facility in the Core, he lived and breathed the bureaucracy that such inspections were born from. This evening, though, he was surprised by the pair of inspectors, a dirty blonde and a brunette, that showed up in his office, and not just by the unusual lateness of the hour.

"Yeah, I know it's late," chattered the one small woman holding a clipboard. Her brown pigtailed braids flopped down behind her back, reaching her waist from under the uniform cap, as she strode through the generator complex, her steps rapid enough that Samuel had to scurry to keep up. "Ain't nothin' doin' onnit, though. Ruttin' data-pushers done double-booked us, so now we gots ta work overtime." She glanced over at the huffing technician. "Sorry 'bout keepin' ya later'n yer used to."

"Oh, it's no bother, really," Samuel panted. "Um, could we perhaps slow down a bit?"

"Sorry, huoban (buddy)!" she replied, slowing down only minutely. "Ferget folks can't keep up with me none when I gets excited." She raised her voice slightly. "Still with us, assistant?"

"Shi a (yes, affirmative), boss," panted the smaller but curvier woman who was trailing them. The short-haired woman with dark blond hair was lugging along a tool bag for entering into ducts if it were needed.

"So, I don't usually see inspectors this, well, young," the man began hesitantly.

"Oh sure, seems that way, but we been doin' this fer years now," the brunette replied carelessly. "Usually out onna Rim, but gots assigned here just a month ago. Seems a mite stricter hereabouts though." She looked over her shoulder, eyebrows raised. "Y'all c'n be a mite uptight in the Core, y'know?"

"I've heard that, yes," Samuel murmured. The brunette was rather cute and perky, an unusual sight at his place of work. "Um, I'd like to think I'm not so much. Uptight, that is."

"Well, good fer you!" she said cheerily as they entered into the control room. "So, where's all the folk who work here?"

"Oh, well, it's between shifts," he explained. "We monitor things remotely, but this room won't be occupied for another ten minutes or so."

"Perfect!" the young inspector cheered. "Give us the time ta be lookin' 'round so's they ain't gettin' underfoot. Now, assistant, you gots the control panels there, an' make sure ya check the wirin' this time, ya gots me?"

"Shi a, boss," the other woman replied again meekly as she set her toolbag down next to the center console.

"Now then, let's take a look up inna rafters, yeah? Here, gimme a boost," she instructed as she stood under the ceiling access panel.

"Oh, certainly," Samuel replied. He carefully neglected to mention the nearby ladder, preferring to make himself useful instead. He bent down with his hands cupped for the diminutive woman to step in and then stood up high when she did so.

He tried not to sweat unduly at the close proximity of the attractive woman. "Um, so, I didn't catch your name..."

"Oh, I didn' tell ya?" the pigtailed woman replied casually, her voice muffled by virtue of it being stuck up inside the ceiling. "Sorry 'bout that. It's, um, Sara."

Samuel smiled. Sara, what a pretty name. He turned slightly at a noise that sounded suspiciously like a snort of amusement from behind the control panel, but shrugged when it didn't repeat.

"So, Sara, do you have another appointment after this one? Or are you, er, perhaps free for the evening?"

He could have sworn there was another snort of laughter from behind the panel, louder this time, but it was covered up by an abrupt yelp as Sara banged her head from inside the access panel. She quickly withdrew, closing the panel behind her before jumping back down.

"Um, what wazzat?" she asked. Her cheeks had smudges of dirt on them, making her even more adorable in his eyes.

"I was, um... I was wondering if you were... were free after... this?" he stammered out.

Sara opened and closed her mouth wordlessly, her eyes wide and incredulous. Her assistant chose that time to extract from the panel and walk up, her eyes twinkling with humor and her face red from suppressed laughter.

"So, she's real flattered an' all, but she's already gots a date tonight," the assistant interjected.

"Oh," Samuel replied dejectedly, looking down at the floor. Sara smiled at her assistant gladly.

"Though mebbe y'all could exchange numbers, an' then mebbe she'll call ya later," the blonde amended mischieviously.

"Really? Okay, yes that's great, come on down to my office and I'll give you a card..."

He didn't see behind his back how Sara's face dissolved into a fierce scowl, nor that she mouthed "I will hurt you," to her assistant. The latter just winked at her, unperturbed.

They managed to finish up the inspection, going over the schematics of the facility with only a superficial thoroughness, before the two women bid him goodnight.

On their way out, the brunette started to growl like a ferocious kitten. "I can't believe ya did that ta me none," Cali complained. "Yer my cousin, s'posed ta be lookin' out fer me."

Emily laughed heartedly. "Oh I'm sorry baobei, that was just too funny... the look on 'is face, he wuz all moonstruck an' all..."

Cali sighed. "Yeah, okay, s'pose it wuz kinda funny."

"And you!" Emily exclaimed. "Sara? Really?"

"I panicked!" Cali protested as they climbed into their van, stolen from the inspector general maintenance lot after hours. "I fergot what it was s'posed ta be!"

Emily just laughed even harder as she slid into the passenger seat.

Cali chuckled back as she strapped in, then fished her comm unit out of her pocket and slipped it into her ear. "This is Six," she said. "Confirm deploy." She turned towards Emily and giggled. "I feel so ruttin' huaidan (badass) sayin' that."

"I know, right?" Emily giggled back.

She received a response from Rain after a brief pause. "Roger that, Six. En route, get your pigus to the rendezvous."

Cali rolled her eyes good-naturedly. "Yes, jiejie, on our way."

She pulled the groundvan out onto the road, heading towards the spaceport in the fading light.

Fortune's Favour. Inbound to Lake Londinium Landing Field.

Rain sat on the bridge of the Favour, having timed their approach to begin with Cali's call. Arya ready fer this, wo de ai?

Ready an' waitin', Capt'n.

Ain't Capt'n, I'm Third Officer.

Nope, Feather replied cheerfully from her post in the engine room. Yer rankin' officer, that makes ya Capt'n, since ya been left in charge.

Don' s'pose that means yer gonna follow my orders none?

Mmmm... nope.

Figured.

Finally ready to head in, Rain pulled the comm unit down. "Lake Londinium Landing Field Control, this's Firefly transport Gideon Brown requestin' clearance fer a spot onna south pads."

"Confirm request, Firefly transport. Please transmit authorization."

Sighing irritably at the unnecessary red tape, Rain punched a few keys to send their forged authorization for the specific landing field area they needed, rather than a randomly assigned pad.

"Authorization received. Landing beacon is Delta Eighty-Niner, repeat Delta Eight Zero Niner."

"Confirm beacon Delta Eight Zero Niner," Rain replied, adjusting her course accordingly. "Thanks fer the help, Control."

Alright, Feather-bear. Ready ta start with the random cuts in th' engine?

All set, I gots my hand on the regulator.

Right, give it a go.

Immediately the ship began to dip slightly only to rise back up again. It made her insides a little queasy at first before the gravity would kick back in, but she clenched her teeth resolutely and began to jink her path slightly in time with the dips.

"Firefly transport Gideon Brown, this is Lake Londinium Control. Your course had deviated."

Grinning, Rain picked the mike back up. "Roger that, Control, apologies but our thrusters are actin' a mite wonky on us. Our mechanic is workin' onnit, should be set 'fore we land."

Wonky? Feather laughed in her head. Izzat the technical term fer it?

Oh bi zui. I'm tryin' ta be convincin' here.

With another nudge she had the ship's course directly over where it needed to be, just outside what her original vector was but not enough to attract undue attention. Now their target area was directly in their path.

'Member, love, ya only gets one shot at this, Feather cautioned. Gotta make it work an' get it on target.

'Course I'm on target. I made the calculations, an' my calculations-

Are always right.

-are always right. Yeah, thanks, smartass. The sounds of both of their giggles carried clearly across their mental bond.

Yer so sexy when yer gettin' all serious, wife o' mine.

Rain laughed out loud. Keep it up, hot stuff, an' yer gonna get it fer sure tonight.

Oooohh, promise?

She snickered, but then sobered as she spied the timer counting down. Within a few seconds they were upon their target, and Rain quickly hit the switch to deploy an EMP mine from their rear launcher.

The large silvery object only had to fall a hundred meters, too close to the ground to show up on the radar. It plunged downward to crash through the roof of the central power plant for the block of the Parliament building.

They had set it to activate by timer, and eleven seconds after drop, which was one second after it hit the roof, it did so. All of the power on the block went out suddenly as the controls and unshielded electronics throughout the plant, easily within the electromagnetic blast radius, were irreparably fried.

Outside Parliament Building Two. Londinium.

Parliament actually consisted of two separate buildings. Parliament One was a massive dome that housed all of the representatives when it came time for discussions or voting. It was highly secure, with numerous checkpoints to keep the common rabble from interrupting those who had the Alliance's best interests at heart, or so they claimed.

The second building, Parliament Two, was a towering structure, slim against the skyline of Londinium like a jutting needle. Offices were arranged by seniority of service in Parliament. And as the members typically had lifelong terms, the shuffle towards the top was usually a slow affair.

The ground team were huddled together in the back of an unmarked delivery hovertruck across the street from the Parliamentary offices, save for Keith who sat casually in the driver's seat. "Standby," he murmured over his shoulder.

"See anythin' yet?" Dani asked tensely.

"If I saw anything, I wouldn't have told you to standby," Keith retorted humorously. "I would have said, let's go."

His sister snorted. "Yer sucha chwen (dumbass)," she muttered.

"Yao wo (bite me)," he laughed in return.

"Piyan (asshole)."

"Okay, seriously, stop," Sara snickered. "Ya'll are terrible."

"He started it," Dani mumbled.

"Did not."

"Did too."

"Ta ma de yuangu (for fucks sake)," Jess laughed.

Their banter was halted by the sight through the windshield of the traffic light ahead as it went dark along with the streetlights. Traffic around them ground to a halt, and one by one the buildings around them started to blink out as well.

"Parliament blacked out?" Jess asked tensely.

"For now..." Keith murmured. "Okay, they just flickered on again, backup generator online." He held up a small black remote, smirking. "And now back offline," he amended as he pressed the button.

Several kilometers away in the backup power plant complex, the thermal bomb that Emily planted behind the control panel did its job, incinerating the electronics and shorting out the entire system. The plant would go into emergency mode, but unfortunately the sprinkler system had been disabled by Cali up above in the ceiling, and the fire burned out the entire control room.

The Parliament building lost all power for good, save for battery-powered emergency lighting.

"Showtime," Keith grinned, gunning the engine and throwing it into gear.

The hovertruck sailed across the street, winding through the stopped vehicles, until it reached the front of the Parliament building. With a roar, it continued forward to crash straight into the lobby through the large glass front doors.

Immediately the side door was thrown open and Dani and Jess leaped out. The lanky brunette had her Ares pistol out in a classic firing stance, while the raven-haired beauty had her hands filled with her Beretta pistols. They quickly opened fire on the stunned security personnel that had been in the lobby, dropping all five of them.

"Clear!" Dani shouted, stepping forward to move away from the van.

The rest of the team filed out. Keith took point, covering the lobby, while Jess and Dani holstered their sidearms. Lori handed their long guns to them and then shouldered her own Callahan rifle, as Sara joined Keith with her custom Nova held at the ready.

Last out of the van was Kelly. The former Agent had a pair of black bags with her, and she walked over to the reception desk and placed them on the floor before crouching to unzip them. Working with sure hands she pulled out several pistols, submachine guns, magazine reloads, and microgrenades, and set them arrayed out on the counter.

"Alright, Seven, you've got the exit," Keith rumbled.

"Roger that, One, I'll keep the back door open." The small blonde woman picked up one of the submachine guns, a Skorpion model from Keith's collection, and racked the slide before placing it down. She lovingly picked up another one, longer but still compact. "I like this one," she grinned.

"That's my SIG Black Mamba," Keith retorted. "Be nice to it."

"Oh, I will," the former Agent smirked. "Promise I'll be gentle."

Keith grinned back as the others laughed, breaking up their nervousness. "I still want them all back when I return."

Kelly laughed and rolled her eyes. "Yes, One, I'll give you your toys back when I'm done."

The group of five headed down past the useless elevators to the sole stairwell in the slim tower. At one time there might have been some sort of fire code that would require multiple emergency exits, and such could be found throughout the Border and Rim, but here on the Core? The possibility of completely losing power was unheard-of. Until now, of course.

Keith shouldered the door open and poked his rifle upwards, searching for targets in the dim emergency lighting. "Clear," he whispered.

The others filed inside, starting up the stairs. Sara had the lead, followed by Dani and Keith, and then Lori and Jess bringing up the rear.

"This was the part I weren't lookin' forward to none," Dani grumbled.

"Sez the woman who planned the whole gorram thing," Lori snarked quietly.

"Heard that."

"Weren't tryin' ta be subtle-like none, wo de ai."

"Wen wo de pigu (kiss my ass)."

"If'n ya'd slow down a bit I could..."

"Just once," Keith sighed dramatically, sighting along his assault rifle up into the gloom ahead. "Just gorram once I'd like to have some sort of operational integrity once we actually started on an operation. You know, finesse. Just. Once."

"Hey now, I ruttin' bleed finesse," Dani snarked.

They had made it up three flights so far, and any comeback was derailed by the soldiers who barged into the stairwell from the next floor above them. The pair in front of the procession froze as they spied the armed and armored individuals heading their way, the ones behind them piling up with noises of complaint.

Their protests changed to panicked shouts as Sara quickly shot the first ones through the throat. Both Dani and Keith were but a split second behind her in opening fire as well.

The burly former Spec Forces trooper sent highly accurate short bursts of fire into the ranks of soldiers as they desperately tried to retreat back out of the stairwell. The armor-piercing bullets cleaved through their purple-hued armor as if it were aluminum siding on a rickety house.

Dani had loaded her Ares Devastator auto shotgun with AP slugs, and they tore horrific holes into the soldiers. A few of them passed right through to hit the ones behind them.

In short order there were bodies strewn along the stairs, and quiet again filled the vertical passageway.

"Let's move!" Keith barked, the need for further stealth discarded.

They rapidly but carefully picked their way past the previous slaughter and headed up another two flights. Soldiers would occasionally poke their heads out, searching for the source of the commotion, only to have fire rain up or down on their heads. Eventually their luck would run out, but for the time being the response was still disorganized.

That changed by the time they reached the eighth floor.

The door two flights down banged open and a mix of security personnel and armored soldiers filled the stairway, rapidly firing their assault rifles and handguns.

Jess and Lori were ready for them and answered the incoming fire with that of their own. They backed up as quickly as possible to follow behind the others, but it was impossible for them to completely avoid all of the bullets filling the area.

One spread found its mark, ripping into Jess. A trio of hits stabbed through her thigh and calf, others ricocheting off of her torso armor and the wall behind her as she moved along a landing in between levels.

Jess let out a scream of pain and collapsed against the wall, slumping to the floor and leaving a bloody smear behind her. "Ta ma de tyen-shia suoyo de run di gai sai (fuck everybody in the universe to death)!" she hissed out between clenched teeth as she dropped her Callahan and clutched her wounded leg with both hands.

Keith was quickly by her side as Lori and Dani took up flanking positions. The redheaded sniper sent bursts of highly accurate fire down to take out those incautious enough to poke their heads out into the stairwell, while Dani bent down to pull Jess's Callahan rifle back in. She abandoned her efforts after she noticed the rifle had taken several hits as well, shattering the magazine receiver and damaging the grenade launcher attachment as well as leaving a noticeable dent in the barrel.

Working with quick but sure hands, Keith had his wife bandaged up in no time. He pulled a smoother out of the first aid kit and gave her a hit of it, enough to dull the pain but not her senses overly.

"Five, stay with Three, alright?" Keith asked rather than ordered.

Lori nodded determinedly. "I'll take care of 'er, One," she promised firmly.

Dani sent another pair of rounds from her shotgun down the stairwell, the slugs catching one soldier in the shoulder and making him scream in pain while the second one smashed through another's helmet, killing him instantly. They were her last shells, and she was out of reloads, so she set it down next to the ruined Callahan and pulled out her Ares pistol. Scooting back, she turned to her wife and planted a fierce kiss on her lips. "No heroics, right?"

Lori grinned back. "Ain't a concern, wo de ai. 'Sides, it's you I gotta worry 'bout."

The lanky brunette gave a look of mock offense. "Hey, it's me!" With that she scurried up the steps to join Sara who was patiently guarding the door by the next level.

"Exactly," Lori sighed, setting up with her rifle to cover the stairway below them.

Keith leaned in to grab Jess in a tight but careful hug, nonetheless causing her to wince in pain. He gently placed his assault rifle in her hands along with all of his remaining clips.

"You come back alive to me, you hear?" she whispered fiercely, refusing to let the tears fall from her eyes. "We've still got to make ourselves a baby."

Keith grinned at her, full of confidence. "Nothing in the 'Verse will keep me from you, love," he replied warmly.

With a last kiss on her lips, he jumped back up and hurried after the other two.

Twelfth Floor Lobby.
Parliament Building Two. Londinium.

Fifteen sweating and nervous armed men waited in the lobby outside the stairwell. They were security guards, normally a nice plumb position as they rarely had to secure much there in the seat of political power for the Alliance. Today, though, they were earning their pay.

Or at least, they would have, were they not mere obstacles in the way of a set of very determined folk with a mind for violence tonight.

The door from the stairwell banged open suddenly and all of the men began rapidly firing their pistols, filling the space with a deadly barrage of bullets as they emptied their magazines, some letting out panicked yells. Had anyone actually been standing in the doorway, they would have been quite perforated.

Instead, a dull metal oblong canister came rolling out from around the corner and into the center of the mass of bodies, igniting with a brilliant flash. The concussive charge sent men flying backward, some into each other, and the elegant furniture and artwork into shattered pieces.

On the heels of the explosion, three figures slipped into the room. While the larger two had their handguns out, quickly placing precise bullets into the brainpans of any security personnel left alive, the smaller of the trio had a pair of knives out that she used with deadly efficiency. After a mere fifteen seconds the room was cleared.

"That the last of 'em?" Dani asked warily.

"Seems ta be," Sara replied, searching through the rubble and bodies.

Keith grunted, checking his pistol. "I've got three shots left. You?"

"Oh I'm out," Sara replied cheerfully, patting her pistol in its holster. "Ran dry some time ago."

"I've got... one in the chamber still," Dani commented as she slid her empty magazine out and then back in again with a snort of disgust. "Hopefully not too many in the next antechamber."

Keith sighed. "Should have taken a few more grenades from Kelly," he grumbled.

"Don' be like that," Dani smirked. "Ya know she's puttin' them ta good use. Should we pick up some of these gou se pistols?"

"Not yet, likely all empty now in any case," Keith said. "Let's see what we have left before we resort to leftovers."

The three stepped forward to flank the set of double-doors in front of them, cautiously pushing them open. Inside was a large, extravagantly-furnished waiting room. Besides numerous couches lining the walls, there was a large reception desk to the right, currently abandoned. In fact, the room was disturbingly empty.

They carefully crept forward into the room which rivaled the Favour's cargo hold in size. "This seem a mite too easy fer y'all?" Dani murmured cautiously.

All three whirled about as a side door opened. Out strode the Operative, still in her plain blue jumpsuit but a look of fierce determination in her eyes.

"Ya hadta say somethin'," Sara snarked out of the corner of her mouth.

"W'rin bu lai (things never go smooth)," Dani sighed. "'Course, wouldn't be us none if'n it did," she amended thoughtfully.

"I've been awaiting our rematch, Sara," the woman practically purred. She slipped her right hand out from behind her, and it was holding another razor-sharp blade in her hand. Sara noted that she seemed to have already had a thumb graft attached.

"Yep, wonders of Core medtech," Sara snickered. "Still hurt like a biao zi (bitch) I 'magine, yeah?"

The Operative didn't reply, but her good mood evaporated. "None of you will make it out of here alive. I guarantee it."

"Sorry, um, Nimona, was it?" Dani grinned roguishly. "We're kinda hard ta kill, if'n ya ain't noticed yet. Might take some effort."

The use of her real name caused the Operative to flinch, her eye ticking with the effort not to snarl and lunge to the attack immediately.

"Oooh, struck a nerve there Kaasan," Sara noted humorously.

"I will kill you first, Sara," the woman gritted out through clenched teeth. "And after you have watched me do so, I will eliminate the rest of you like the vermin you are."

"Vermin, huh?" Dani tried to stay nonchalant, but glanced worriedly at Sara, knowing she was still recovering from her earlier wounds. "Y'know, ya don' have to fight fair none."

Sara grinned wickedly. "Weren't plannin' on it." She turned her gaze over towards Keith. "Shall we?"

Keith returned her grin with a dark one of his own. "Why, wai sheng nu, it'd be my genuine pleasure."

Taking that as her cue, Dani turned and sprinted towards the door to the rear of the antechamber. Both Sara and Keith moved to separate from each other, but the Operative's first strike wasn't directed at either of them. Instead her left hand whipped forward to send a throwing knife hurtling at the lanky captain.

It hit her in the back of her left thigh with a meaty thunk. Dani grunted in pain but kept moving forward, shouldering into the door to lurch through and quickly closing it behind her.

"Shouldn'ta done that, biao zi," Sara snarled. "Now I'm gonna make this hurt."

The Operative smiled slowly, perhaps a little maniacally. "I'm not going to underestimate you again. Let's do this."

Stairwell.
Parliament Building Two. Londinium.

Lori sighted down her rifle. Towards the bottom of the stairwell there were a few incautious reinforcements making their way forward. And they needed a proper introduction to the current party in progress.

Her Callahan barked four times, echoing through the column of steel and concrete. The redheaded sniper quickly pulled back, and sure enough the soldiers on the next level down decided to try their luck again. Jess, flat on her belly next to her, was ready and waiting.

The raven-haired woman lay down a barrage of automatic fire from her husband's assault rifle, adroitly breaking up the attempted rush, the soldiers falling over themselves and their dead comrades to retreat back towards cover.

As Lori slapped a fresh magazine home, a silver cylinder shot upwards from the level below. Thinking quickly, she reached out with her left hand and swatted it mid-air to reverse its direction, then crouched back against the wall again.

After the flash grenade went off below them, bathing the pair of women in bright light and inflicting upon them a harsh ringing in their ears, Lori poked the snout of her rifle over once more. Her gun barked another three times before she swung back again.

"How many does that make for you?" Jess asked with forced casualness once the ringing subsided, her shallow breathing sounding slightly raspy from her position.

"Fourteen. You?"

"Twenty-one."

Lori snorted. "Gimme time, I'll catch up."

Jess gave a painful but subdued groan and set the assault rifle to the side so that she could stretch her wounded leg out. The grenade launcher attachment showed a steady red status light, as she'd exhausted its supply some time ago. "This is Three, anybody copy?" Their communications had been sporadic in the stairwell, and they had completely lost contact with the others who went further ahead.

There was a harsh screeching noise that came through before they could just barely hear Kelly's voice. "...here. How-" static hiss "-doing?"

"Hanging tight," Jess replied nonchalantly. "You going to have takeout ready for us when we get back, Seven?"

"Oh-" static hiss "-out a doubt. How-" static hiss "-bout sushi?"

"Sounds good. Hey, how many are you up to?"

There was no further response, though Jess repeated her question twice more. She sighed and gave up the effort for now.

Lori heard the faint scrape of a boot, and scooted over a meter to the left before leaning back over. Shots whizzed past her previous position, but her rifle barked four more times before she ducked back again.

"Sixteen," she commented with an air of indifference.

"With four shots?" Jess asked curiously.

"Double tap," the redhead smirked.

Jess rolled her eyes and grinned wanly, pulling the rifle back towards her as she scooted into position again. Neither woman commented on the slight red stain she left on the floor. She was as bandaged as she could be without cutting off the circulation to her leg or becoming completely immobile.

There was a few seconds of silence as the pair waited for the next rush. "Y'know they're gonna come back, right?" Lori queried softly.

"Oh, I know it," Jess replied just as quietly, inserting another fresh magazine into her husband's carbine. "The one thing we can always count on, as crazy as it gets, us Favour crew always come back."

"Right," Lori affirmed.

The two women lifted their rifles again as the sound of pounding boots reached their ears. Neither one voiced their concern that perhaps they were trying just as hard to convince themselves of that fact.

Twelfth Floor Lobby.
Parliament Building Two. Londinium.

Keith and Sara stood somewhat apart but within lunging range of the Operative. Each eyed the other, waiting for a twitch or eye movement to indicate an impending action.

The burly former trooper moved first, swinging his Ares pistol up in what he thought was blinding speed. Of course, for an Operative, it was almost languid. She took a quick step to the side, out of reach from a strike from Sara, and spun to knock his gun out of his hand with a stinging kick to his wrist. She quickly spun back, pulling another knife into her left hand as she did so, and ended up in a wary crouch. Sara had attempted to follow through, but pulled up at the last second to crouch defensively herself.

Keith briefly glanced over towards the couch that his gun had slid beneath, shaking his hand out, before shrugging and pulling his own combat knife out from behind his back. "Well, so much for the easy way," he smirked. Unlike the other two women, he stood with his left arm extended to ward off attacks and his knife hand close to his chest, his torso pivoted so that his right side was slightly away from his target.

The standoff ended as both Sara and Nimona launched simultaneously into deadly action, with a speed that Keith had difficulty tracking. It took him all of three seconds to realize he was in far over his head. The best he could hope for was to provide a useful distraction for Sara to get in closer, but if that was what it took, Keith resolved to do so.

He took a sidestep to try and flank the Operative, but the woman sent a flying kick out which staggered him back again. Sara spun low in front of him, trying to sweep her feet out. Keith managed to recover quickly and lunged forward to keep the other woman off balance.

The raven-haired woman leaped over Sara's leg and somersaulted backwards, slashing out with her blades. One of them barely whisked over Sara's hair while the other hit Keith's blade, sending a jolt through his arm and a sound of ringing metal through their impromptu combat arena.

The Operative landed gracefully, stabbing downwards where the small brunette had been, though she'd already started to tumble out of the way. Her roll coincidentally put her in a better flanking position, and Keith moved in close again to keep her occupied so that his niece could get a clear strike. Nimona slashed outwards without even looking, causing him to lean back slightly to avoid the slash, having already been warned by Sara about the armor-slicing capabilities of her blades.

He turned the action into a low spin, attempting to duplicate Sara's earlier foot-sweep. He'd done it a thousand times in sparring practice, not to mention actual hand-to-hand fighting. It was a close combat maneuver that was ingrained into him.

Unfortunately that was a weakness when going up against the deadly woman he was fighting.

She countered the move by hooking her own leg back and knocking him off-balance while still swinging her blades to intercept Sara's dual slices. Keith was momentarily stunned as he lay on his back, allowing Nimona to focus all of her attention on the other girl.

Were Sara in her peak form she could have given the Operative a decent fight, as was evidenced by the earlier altercation back on Osiris. Having an extra-sharp blade of her own would have somewhat tipped the balance in her favor. Now, however, she was still recovering from her wounds in that previous fight, and Nimona's sharp senses had already detected her slower movements, the way she favored her sides, and the slight tang of blood on the air that might have been from wounds beginning to reopen.

The Operative struck out rapidly, batting Sara's whirling blades away until she could plant a solid kick into her side. Just as Keith staggered to his feet, Sara went sailing backwards to skid to a halt on the floor, unmoving.

Keith's eyes widened, but he didn't have the time to even react as he found himself under a furious assault. The best he could do was continue to back up out of the range of those deadly blades while evading them, but he ran out of room in short order as his back hit the wall.

The raven-haired woman easily slipped inside Keith's defenses, thrusting upwards with a deft motion to impale Keith's right forearm against the panel behind him. He let out a snarl of pain as his fingers involuntarily flexed open, dropping his knife to the floor. Before he could twist his body any further or bring his other arm to bear, she had her other blade up and held between them. With a quick jerk, she pushed it into his chest, stopping only millimeters from his heart.

Keith stilled immediately, as the cold wash of fear spread through his veins like ice, pushing aside the pain for now. He could hardly dare to breathe with the blade so close to ending his life. His left hand was wrapped around the Operative's surprisingly strong arm that held the knife, though he didn't try to divert it. She had the angle and the leverage and could easily push it the rest of the way if he even flinched, and they both knew it.

"Well, Sergeant Major," Nimona said in a low mocking voice, less than a meter separating them, "I suppose I'll just have to take your life first then, won't I?"

Keith had any number of witty responses on the tip of his tongue, though unfortunately none of them really seemed relevant at that point. When he noticed a slight movement out of the corner of his eye he instead just smirked in the traditional Grant fashion.

Her eyebrows furrowed and she opened her mouth to speak again, but it was cut off with a breathy squeak. Her dark eyes got wide, and her grip on both blades loosened until her arms dropped to her sides. She staggered back a step before falling to her knees limply.

Standing behind her, looking like a fierce but ragged angel of death, was Sara.

Keith sighed in relief as the blade slipped out of his chest, and reached over to tug the other one out of his forearm. He sagged down to sit at the base of the wall, letting the knife fall to the floor as he yanked open his chest armor and then fumbled for medical patches.

The blade that Sara had taken from the Operative back on Osiris had cut through the rear of the woman's armor like it were flimsi. It entered just to the left of her spine, the fourth lumbar down. With a slight twist she ripped to the side and through it, causing Nimona to cough up a small rivulet of blood.

The brunette leaned over with one hand on the Operative's shoulder and brushed the woman's ear with her lips. "Abdominal aorta, my favorite spot," Sara purred, as the life slowly went out of Nimona's dark eyes. "Such a gusher."

Sara pulled the knife out the rest of the way and let the corpse fall gracelessly to the side.

Keith had managed to extract a sterile bandage from his pouch and slapped it over his oozing chest wound with his left hand, sealing it up tight and keeping pressure on it while staring numbly at his right forearm. It was dripping blood onto the floor steadily.

"I gots ya," Sara said gently, slipping another pair out of his first aid kit. She wrapped them around his forearm and pressed them together, earning an involuntary wince.

Keith glanced over at Sara's torso. Both sides were bleeding where the stitches had torn, but the one side that the Operative had landed the kick upon had a bloody patch in the shape of a footprint. "Need to get to you as well," he grunted.

"I c'n keep," she murmured. "Fer a few tics. Let's get yer bleedin' stopped first, yeah?"

Keith nodded wearily, and leaned his head back against the wall, closing his eyes and breathing deeply.

"That was close," he rumbled quietly.

"It was," she replied nonchalantly.

"Owe you my life, wai sheng nu (niece, sister's daughter)."

"Nah ya don' none. Ain't any more'n ya'd done fer me. S'what family's fer, right jiu jiu (uncle, mother's brother)?"

"That it is. Still." He opened his eyes then, looking right into hers. "Thank you, Sara."

The young woman smiled back. "Yer welcome, Uncle Keith. Why doncha thank me proper-like now an' get me patched up while we wait fer Kaasan ta get back."

Representative Cavendish's Office.
Parliament Building Two. Londinium.

Dani staggered down the hallway and through the next antechamber until she reached the pretentiously gilded office doors. With a grunt of effort she pushed the door open with her shoulder, peering inside. So far as she could make out, there was only one individual inside. He was silhouetted against the large floor-to-ceiling windows where distant lights provided the only illumination.

She limped further in as her eyes adjusted. She could make out the impeccably tailored suit that the man wore, even though his back was to her as he stared out across the night sky.

"It's even more beautiful with all the lights out," she heard him murmur.

Turning, he regarded Dani with black, empty eyes. "So we finally meet, Captain Grant. You know, it didn't have to be like this."

Dani barked out a laugh as she stopped in the middle of the office and yanked the blade out of the back of her leg, letting it fall to the carpet. "What, I s'pose this is where you tell me yer motivation, how all this's fer the greater good of th' Alliance? Try an' sway me to yer side with flowery words, appeal to my sense of nobility'r honor?"

As he opened his mouth to reply, she quickly drew her reliable Ares pistol and shot him clean through the right eye with her last round, causing a spray of blood to splatter against the window behind him. She looked on dispassionately as he slumped across his desk, blood seeping out to cover the surface.

"This ain't the vids," she said grimly as she holstered her sidearm. An' that's fer Lexi an' Mike an' all th' others, you ruttin' wang ba (son of a bitch).

Nodding to herself in satisfaction, she pulled out an EMP grenade she had reserved for this very purpose, set the timer for fifteen seconds, turned and limped back out, tossing the grenade behind her to roll under the desk and fry the electronics there once she departed. "Two here. It's done. Ready for extract."

Twelfth Floor Lobby.
Parliament Building Two. Londinium.

Dani had limped back to where Sara and Keith were huddled against each other, sitting upright but with the wall behind them for support. She grinned as she staggered over to them. "Willya lookit the lazy crew I done gots."

Sara glared up at her incredulously. "Lazy? Really Kaasan, ya wanna get started with me here?"

"Don't go too hard on her, baobei," Keith rumbled humorously. "She's always had a few screws loose in her accelerator core."

"Hey now, I resemble that comment," Dani said cheerfully as she slumped to the ground on the other side of her brother. "Spare a bandage fer yer xiong jiao (handsome hero) capt'n?"

Sara snorted out a laugh. "Yer inna good mood," she commented as she tossed a sterile patch from her medkit across Keith's torso.

Dani neatly snagged it out of the air. "Yep. Been a good end to a bad couple'a days. Be even better if'n we c'n collect ev'ryone an' hightail it outta here." She slid the foot of her wounded leg towards her so that her knee was in the air and then used her own knife to widen the hole behind her thigh. Once done, she sealed her wound up, not bothering to put pressure on it. If it leaked, well then, it leaked. She had places to be.

"Alright," Keith groaned as he lurched to his feet. "For the record, though, I have a hole in my chest."

"Really?" Dani asked curiously, her eyes glinting with humor. "S'pose it matches the one in yer head then, yeah?"

"Just for that you can get up on your own," Keith grumbled, reaching over for Sara with his good arm. His niece grinned up at him gratefully as she bounced to her feet, grimacing in pain afterwards at the sudden movement.

"Ya wound me, didi," the lanky captain snarked, rolling onto her knees and then staggering to her feet to follow the other two into the stairwell.

They quickly called down to make sure the others were still alive and to prevent them from getting shot at. Lori, by this point, had several grazes as well as a few holes from shrapnel, which Jess shared, but nothing serious. They were all patched up, and by the time the trio reached them, were ready and waiting to hike down the rest of they way.

It was a long and painful journey.

They had to practically climb over a few walls of corpses, but the less-wounded of the group pulled and pushed enough to clear a path for the rest. No more reinforcements arrived, and nobody else impeded their progress, almost as if the fight had completely gone out of them. They did have one frightened bureaucrat poke his head out into the stairwell as they reached that level, and it was only the extreme exhaustion of the ground team that prevented him from getting his head reflexively blown off. As it was, he simply let out a startled squawk and ducked back in, slamming the door closed.

"Seven, you copy?" Keith asked into the comm. They'd rigged up a sling for him to prevent his right arm from moving around and start bleeding all over the place again, though he could feel a trickle of blood leaking from his chest wound.

"Roger that, One, back door still open."

"We're almost to the bottom, don't shoot us when we exit. Got enough holes as it is."

With that Lori pushed her shoulder into the door and opened it. She was supporting Jess with one arm, and once through turned to allow Dani to take her other arm. Sara followed close behind, holding her arms around her chest tenderly, wincing in pain with each step. Keith came through last, careful not to hit his wounded arm against the doorframe.

The group stopped and looked at the scene in front of them incredulously.

Kelly was standing behind the reception desk still. The piles of bodies were stacked up past the level of the countertop, spilling out to fill and block the entire front of the lobby. The number of corpses were immeasurable, but the former Agent stood there calmly with a pistol in her hand pointed up at the ceiling, not a scratch on her as evidenced by the rotating blue and white lights from the military response team vehicles outside.

"Well," Jess finally commented weakly. "Good thing we're not going out the way we came."

"Wasn't too worried about blocking the front door," Kelly agreed. She slipped the pistol behind her back, bent down, and grabbed the handles of the two bags, considerably lighter now with the expenditure of most of the armaments. Standing back up, she gave them all a very Grant-like smirk. "Let's go, people."

"Yep, time ta be makin' tracks fer home," Dani grinned back.

They exited towards the rear of the building, through a door into the alleyway secured from entry after business hours. Kelly led the way as they walked, or limped, around the Parliament building and crossed the street behind to where their Mule was left in a normal parking space along the side of the road.

Lori leaned over as they reached their getaway vehicle. "Hey, looks like our time expired. We gots a ticket."

It started out as a giggle, but quickly dissolved into uproarious laughter as the stress from the last hour or so finally caught up to them. They managed to secure themselves and their belongings before Lori started the engine up, sailing off into the pitch-black night towards the starport and their home.

IAV Endeavor. En route to Athens. Georgia.

Petty Officer Kacy Wilson sat numbly on the edge of her bunk bed. Her eyes were red from the tears she'd been shedding, having reviewed the Wave from her sister yet again, informing her of their parent's demise. That, and of who was responsible.

"Cavendish," she muttered angrily under her breath, wiping away her tears furiously.

The main hundan (bastard) who orchestrated everything was dead by her gu ma's (aunt, father's sister) hand, his biao zi (bitch) progeny by her tang mei's (younger female cousin, father's side).

All that was left was Commander Cavendish of the Alliance Navy, untouchable by the crew of the Fortune's Favour.

"But not by me," she whispered to herself with a grim smile. "You need to know what happens when you ta ma de gen women (fuck with us), Commander."

Kacy was a comptech within the Alliance Navy, trained with government funding, but she'd picked up quite a bit more than that under the tutelage of certain less-than-scrupulous supervisors. While she wasn't nearly at the competency level of Kelly, she was a decent hacker in her own right.

She stood up to wash her face and then change into fresh service coveralls. Placing her cap firmly on her head, she irrevocably erased the message and then strode confidently through the maze of corridors towards her duty station.

It took her a good fifteen minutes to get to the monitoring room, but as always she was slightly early. The midshipman she was due to replace was waiting eagerly and hopped up as she strode in, relinquishing his chair for her.

As Kacy sat down, an olive-skinned brunette next to her glanced over in concern. "What are you doing?" she whispered.

"It's my shift, Jenny," Kacy whispered back as she logged into the system.

"But..." Jenny paused, glancing around. "Your parents..."

"I need to be doing something," the blonde woman replied firmly. "Not just sitting around."

Jenny nodded sympathetically, and gave her another look of concern before turning back to her own console.

It took Kacy all of a few minutes of work for Commander Cavendish of the Alliance Naval Intelligence Group to now become a Browncoat sympathizer, according to new information gleaned from the raids on the New Resistance cells. Apparently he was a traitor as well, planning on turning over Alliance munitions to the Independence movement. With a little creative effort, his career was now officially ruined, and he would likely end up before a firing squad to boot.

And, since it was all done within the Alliance military network, it took only a little extra effort to make the work done completely untraceable.

The blonde cracked her neck to each side and flexed her fingers. She pulled up her usual working screen to troubleshoot an annoying problem with the port regulators on the massive cruiser. It was fairly benign, but the power fluctuations were traced back to a software problem. Perusing what had been done already by her coworkers allowed her mind to wander.

She'd never been a firm believer in the Alliance. She was raised as a child of a former Browncoat, and had plenty of family members who had similar leanings. She'd managed to get into the Academy on her skills and potential alone, though her upbringing would always bar her from being an officer.

Kacy also knew there were others within the Alliance Navy, right on her cruiser in fact, who felt the same way. They glanced over their shoulders to make sure there were no officers in hearing range, sure, but they were just as bitterly despondent about the methods the Alliance used as any member of the New Resistance might have been. Especially after the Miranda incident. And speaking of other crew members of a like mind...

"Hey, Jenny," she whispered.

"Mmm?" the brunette petty officer responded quietly.

"You free after shift?"

The woman next to her gave an anticipatory and sultry grin. "Your bunk or mine?"

Outbound from Londinium. White Sun.

The crew had managed to rendezvous back with the Favour and get airborne again without further difficulty. Dani limped her way onto the bridge after getting Kelly to do a decent patch job on her leg. She'd made sure to first give Rain the order to lift, as she didn't want to wait for a planet-wide lockdown once their activities were discovered.

Once she was up there she eased her way into the chair with a grateful sigh. Rain looked over at her concernedly. "Ya get hurt, Kaasan?"

"Nothin' I can't handle none," the lanky captain grunted. "Seems we all took a beatin', 'xept fer Kelly o' course." She looked over her console, making sure their scanners were clear. "Tell ya what, plot us a course towards Kalidasa, but a roundabout way. We're in no hurry, an' I wanna stay outside the normal shipping lanes, yeah?"

"Gotcha," Rain replied, her eyebrows furrowed in concentration as she worked.

"An' then you an' Feather get some rack time. I gots first shift."

"Ya sure?" Rain asked, looking up after their course was set in.

"Yep," Dani replied softly. "I just wanna lil' time with my girl here."

"Alright, Kaasan," Rain murmured. She rose and leaned over to plant a kiss on her forehead before heading off of the bridge. Dani could overhear her conversation with Sara out in the hallway as she came back from getting herself patched up as well. The small brunette was telling her jiejie about the set of three knives she now owned, especially sharp and notably marked on the blades. Eventually she heard murmurs of goodnight from her three children and her daughter-in-law, and answered them in turn as they all headed down and closed their bunks behind them.

"Caliii," Sara's voice called out over the intercom from her bunk not two minutes later. "Why am I gettin' a Wave from some fella called Samuel, an' why izze askin' me fer a date? This's yer fault, ain't it?"

"I gots no idea, honest!" Cali's protestations of innocence was spoiled somewhat by the giggles that she could not contain.

"Caliope Grant, you get yer pigu over here an' 'xplain yerself!" Sara barked out. "Don' make me haul my wounded self over inta yer room, yer gonna regret it if'n I hafta!"

Dani reached up to flip a switch on the intercom. "Sara."

"Yeah, Kaasan?"

"Go to sleep. That goes fer ev'ryone, all of y'all get some rack time. We earned it today."

She didn't get any response, though she expected none. She had already sent Lori off to bed, and was pretty sure she'd started snoring the second her face hit the pillow. Keith and Jess were spending the night in the infirmary, as Jess's leg was too injured to lower her into the bunk just yet, and Keith needed to stay immobile to let his chest wound heal properly. Kelly would check in on the couple in a few hours, but Dani had told her and Emily to get some sleep as soon as they finished tending to the others.

After perhaps another twenty minutes there was a soft beep on the console indicating they were now moving away from the outbound Londinium shipping lanes. The scope was still clear, so there was nobody to see them slip away into the Black.

Relieved, she sat back to muse on the ramifications of the day's activities. For good or worse, they'd removed a major player in keeping the Alliance stable. She wasn't sure how she felt about that, as far as the big picture went. Was stability worth it if the one controlling things was the type of man Cavendish had been?

Dani snorted to herself. Obviously not, and in any case she was better off not trying to suss out the machinations of governments and planets. She was still flying, and that was the important part. For all she knew, war might be even closer on the horizon because of the recent leak of the Miranda disaster to the populace of the Alliance.

After only another minute's introspection she decided she was okay with that idea. Perhaps a little change was in order. There was a war fought a little over eight years ago on that very notion, and the idea had just as much merit now as it did then, perhaps even more so.

She sighed again, leaning her head back against her seat. For the time being they needed to stay away from the Core and stick to the Rim worlds for jobs. Who knew how actively they were being searched for? She made a mental note to ask Kelly and Keith to do some checking into that, it'd be nice to know how lightly they still needed to step. Also to know whether or not they could return to Aberdeen anytime soon.

Dani didn't want to change the name on the side of her ship as it felt almost like an affront on their home. Still, they might need to do so in the short run in case someone on a landing pad got a close look. She had an unused set of transponders to carefully manage, they should suffice to slip them in and out of ports without undue notice.

She smiled slightly to herself, resolving to stick with their current transponder that they used to escape from Londinium. She thought the name attached to it, Vengeance, was quite apt for the time being.

Though mebbe Remembrance might be a better fit...

Tears started to fill her eyes as she finally allowed herself to grieve for those who had been lost, now that the mission was over. Alexis, Mike and Julie, Tom, even Betty and her family. The shock of losing so many people who were close to her, so close together, left her emotions raw and ragged, and she spent the next half hour sobbing on the bridge until she had purged herself.

Yer crew's safe. Yer still flyin'. Ain't much more ta ask fer outta life at the moment.

She sniffled a few times and wiped her face with the hem of her shirt. Pausing, she sniffed suspiciously at it and realized she hadn't changed since returning from the mission. In fact, she was pretty gorram grungy and smelled like she'd dragged herself through the engine room of a Trans-U.

Hearing a soft noise from behind her, Dani turned to spy Rain walking onto the bridge, a soft smile on her face and dressed in clean shipboard clothes. Her black tee shirt read 'Sarcasm: Just Another Service I Offer.'

"Kaasan, go get ta bed," the pixie-haired murmured.

"I gots this, ya need yer sleep as well-"

"An' we got a good nap," Rain interrupted firmly as she sat in her usual chair. "We've been through a whole lot less than y'all have." She looked over at her console, somewhat embarrassed as she fiddled with the controls. "'Sides, I've been listenin' to ya, an' I know yer even more exhausted now. So, go get with yer wife, it'll make ya feel better."

Dani smiled at her eldest daughter, not ashamed in the slightest that her mourning had been overheard in a fashion. "An' what about yer own wife?"

"Present!" a cheery voice called out from the doorway. Feather entered, dressed in fresh shorts and tee shirt, her hands filled with a pair of mugs of what smelled like hot cocoa. The auburn-haired woman handed both of them to Rain before turning towards Dani and taking hold of her arm. "C'mon, Kaasan, let's get ya to yer bunk."

"Alright, baobei," Dani conceded, allowing her to pull her upright and steer her off of the bridge. Truth be told, she was feeling pretty well tuckered out, and wasn't as young as she'd been when she could fly back-to-back missions with hardly a rest in between.

She paused at the doorway, putting her weight on her good leg. "Thanks, Rain. Love you."

"Love you too, Kaasan," her nu'er smiled gently.

At the hatch to her room she sat down at the edge of it, similar to how she had done with her brother a few months back when she'd imbued far too much potent whiskey. "Hey, Feather," she murmured, feeling somewhat reminiscent.

"Hmm?" the woman in question murmured, leaning up against the bulkhead with her arms crossed, again in almost the same position as Keith had taken.

Dani paused, searching for the right words to express what she was feeling. "One of the best things that ever happened on this ship was yer joinin' it. Thanks, baobei, fer becomin' part of the family."

Feather gave a quiet but happy laugh as her face beamed with pleasure, though a few tears threatened to escape from the corners of her sky-blue eyes. "I'm th' one who should be thankin' ya," she whispered, leaning over to envelop her captain in a warm hug.

Without further ado, she helped Dani down the ladder and closed the hatch behind her to return to her new wife up on the bridge.

The lanky brunette stood at the bottom of the ladder, holding onto it for support as she took the weight off of her wounded leg again. She glanced over at the bed, and her heart fluttered a bit at the sight.

Usually when Lori went to bed before her, she ended up sprawled across the width of it on her stomach. Dani imagined that's just how she used to sleep when she'd been on her own.

Now, however, Lori was fast asleep but on her side and with her back to the wall, as if waiting for Dani to join her.

She smiled gently and began to strip her filthy clothes off of her, leaving them in the same pile as her wife's. Limping over towards the bed, she noted the numerous small bandages across her wife's freckled arms and face from the earlier fight. With a grateful sigh, she carefully lay down and eased herself back into Lori's soft and very naked body.

Her beautiful redheaded lover murmured something incoherent and wrapped her warm arms around her, enveloping her in a cocoon of love and safety.

Now I'm home, Dani thought to herself, already starting to drift towards sleep.

And there was nowhere in the 'Verse she'd rather be.

NOTES: So that's it, our story finally draws to a close. Almost a half-million words, three and a half years worth of story (since the Fortune's Favour was purchased), and 62 Episodes (72 chapters worth including intermissions) later, and it's time to bid them a bittersweet farewell. I love you all for sticking with me on this adventure. Hopefully I sent the crew of the Favour off with a bang worthy of their history. I might, if the notion takes me, write another one-shot or few in the future, but for now we'll say goodbye to Dani and the rest of her family.

Easter eggs abound in the last episode, but I'm not going to pick them out. I'll let y'all do so on your own, some are obvious, others not so much. Well, okay, maybe some hints? Look for some dialogue borrowed from or alluding to Resident Evil (the Red Queen), Star Wars (Han), and the Riddick series (from Richard B. Muthafuckin' Riddick himself, naturally).

I can imagine there might be some who would question why the Favour's new gun didn't really come into play. Now, I'm not saying I'm devious enough to introduce an entire plot contrivance as a red herring to keep folk guessing as to how the last episode might proceed... implying, yes, but not outright saying...

Much love and endearment to my Betas for being awesome and putting up with my chaotic publishing schedule: Live to anger the World, PandaAnimeLover, and KellyConnely.

I cannot say enough how much I appreciate all who have taken the time to leave me a review up to this point. Your words, encouragement, and even criticism lifted my heart up and are the reason I did this whole thing in the first place. I love you all: theradvlad, Fallyna, bladefax, Grazzit, Aww potatoes, and a few more from earlier on like schur655 and Mark Chilton, along with numerous anonymous folk. You guys rock my socks.

Many thanks to those of my family who let me play with their likeness (whether or not I actually got permission). And for those I killed off, it's nothing personal, I swear. Honest!

And finally, my heartfelt love and appreciation to the great Joss Whedon. I know I've said it throughout, but I cannot adequately express the joy I've gotten from the ability to play within this wonderful 'Verse that you created for all of us. I eagerly await whatever new venture you decide to pursue.

So what's next for me? There are a number of one-shots that I'm planning at some point, centered around some of the characters who could use a little more attention. As of now I'm thinking on Evie, Cali, Keith, and finally Nimona (the last one should prove to be interesting, I hope). Other than those, I have a few ideas running through my head, two of which could live here on FFN. One picks up many years in the future within the Firefly 'Verse (a little more than two decades after the BDM), with the next generation manning the bridge of Serenity. And another is a Resident Evil story with some OC in it mixing it up with the regulars, inspired by another fanfic I've read lately by the awesome Red Hope. Dunno which one I might start first, but follow me as an author if you're interested in any of them!

Stay shiny, and thanks for taking this journey through the 'Verse with me!