The Battle of Serenity Valley

Years earlier.

The war had gone on for too long.

Even though the Browncoats were losing numbers, they were a tenacious bunch and the Alliance continued to suffer casualty after casualty. They just couldn’t break the opposition’s hold on the valley. And so the Special Ops Unit was brought in to “break the Browncoats’ back”

Among the unit were two men that would soon find themselves in another battle on Boros. Safe and Jack.

When their unit landed, there was just one pocket of resistance left, but they were proving themselves to be a formidable one. Still, there was hope. The troop their unit had been assigned to had just captured an insurgent, believed to be one of the Browncoats’ officers. And, as far as the unit’s CO was concerned, they’d been handed the key to winning the war. He would break the soldier, no matter what it took.

It seemed that over time, he’d taken a particular dislike to the Browncoats’ movement, more than was reasonable. He’d decided that he, and he alone, would question the prisoner. It was as if had something to prove.

It went beyond duty. It was personal. The other members of the unit didn’t respect their CO, but they respected each other. And so, when the CO’s intentions became apparent, they turned to the one they trusted most of all – Safe.

By the time Safe had reached his commanding officer, the prisoner had been beaten to within an inch of his life. Safe had got there just before his superior delivered the final blow.

“Get out of the way Captain,” the CO said, just as the rest of his unit arrived to see Safe standing between their CO and the beaten prisoner. “I asked that man a question and he refused to answer.” The C.O. hollered.

“Touch that man again and I guarantee it will be the last breath you draw.” Safe said.

Whilst a few of the men had already had questions concerning the Alliances motives in this war, they were trained not to question.

Safe, however, like Jack had grown to admire the Browncoats. And, despite the CO’s insistence, it was clear the prisoner was no valued soldier, he was just another regular Joe fighting for his cause.

“Stand down Captain,” The C.O. ordered, his hand on his holstered sidearm. “On this backwater planet, I am Judge, jury and, may I remind you, your superior officer.” The man glared at Safe. “So I say again, STAND DOWN, or I will gun you down like the dog you are.”

Safe stood silent, unflinching, and the ready positions of the men around him demonstrated that they too had chosen a side. Chain of command be damned, they were backing their captain.

Taking in the scene, the CO bit his lip. “Have it your way Captain.” Then he drew his gun.

What happened next caught the unit by surprise. They hadn’t even seen Safe draw his own gun, but suddenly it was there in his hand. When the last of the gunshots’ echoes had faded, the C.O. was lying on his back on the ground staring at the sky above as Alliance attack craft screamed by, a startled look on his face and a large hole in his forehead.

--

Jack paused from telling the story, taking another pull from his mug, emptying it. Safe picks up the story from there, "While most of what Jack said is true, he does tend to embellish."

"That air attack was the final straw. The last of the Browncoat resistance were captured. We never saw what happened to them... woulda like to have met that man.." Safe pauses lost in thought.

"Anyway, word musta got around. The Alliance high ups didn't take kindly to one of their C.O.s being... retired. He musta been well connected 'cause soon after that, men from our unit started turnin' up dead. We've been on the run ever since. We're the last ones left. I had heard that one of the men had holed up here."

“And that’s why things have blown up… quite literally, since you’ve got here?” Citizen pushed.

“Well I guess there’s a bit more to it,” Safe answered, relaying more recent events including their run in with the scarred man.

Throughout Safe and Jack's story, Bobbie sits at the table, watching them with wide eyes and a mouth making a tiny little "o". When they are finished, she says, "Oooooh! So you guys are like some kind of war heroes!"

Bride7 shrugs. "Or war criminals!"

Bobbie’s brow furrows as she considers this. "Oh, well, that would be less good, I guess." She perks up and smiles. "But still exciting!"

"Heroes or criminals, either way we're marked men." Safe says. "And that makes any what deal with us targets too."

For a moment all is quiet.

Then Bobbie perks up. “Well, Mister Safe, we can help you look for your missing friend. We’ve got plenty of weapons here in this pack, and JC taught me how to shoot.”

She rummages around in the pack. “Oooooh! We got some grenades here, too, so we can blow plenty of stuff up. Then when we’re done, we can all go back home to the Sereni-Tree.”

At Bobbie’s obvious delight at having grenades, Jack grins and moves his chair closer to hers.

Whilst the young woman smiles and starts to flirt with him waving the grenade around as she does so. Her sister, sighing, snatches the grenade, and returns it to the pack.

Then, turning to Citizen, Bride7 asks, “What’s your part in all of this?”

“Citzen here was trying to offer us a job…” Safe starts, before picking up on what the young woman’s sister had said. “You both spent some time on the Tree,” he says, referring to the huge spacecraft he had briefly called home. “How well do you know Serenity? She’s connected to this somehow…”

“How do you figure?” Bride7 asks before her sister interrupts…

“Oh, I know Serenity pretty well,” Bobbie says, twirling her finger in strands of her hair. “We were there when she came aboard the Sereni-Tree at Black Diamond. She’s nice. She’s pretty. She made a garden in the cargo bay. And she has pretty wings. But they aren’t butterfly wings. They’re angel wings…”

“Why do you ask?” Bride7 jumps in, interrupting Bobbie this time.

“From what I can gather,” Safe answers, “there’s bad blood between her and the Scar man.”

The two women look on blankly, and so Safe continues.

“The way I see it, the Alliance didn’t blow up our shuttle. Why would they? There’s nothing for them to gain from it. Scar man on the other hand, would be looking to make a statement. He seemed to know the shuttle ‘cause he was waiting for us when we arrived, but we were not who he was expecting. He was waiting for Serenity. We embarrassed him then ditched him.”

“His plan worked. It got the attention of the Alliance and they are now swarming the area. It won’t be long ‘til they figure out we’re here. All he has to do is sit back and wait for us to get caught… or wait for the Alliance to flush us out and follow us back to Serenity.”

Bobbie sat upright, seemingly now invested. “Wait,” she snapped. “Somebody blew up the General Grant? But.. But.. It was part of a set!”

Bride7 glared at her sister. She could be so embarrassing at times.

Safe took another swig of his drink. "So there it is. If you still want to help, you'll be marked too." Turning to Citizen he adds, "We could use your knowledge of this planet and your connections. And if you've got a gift for talking your way out of a situation, well that’s a subtlety we are in short supply of." Safe looks meaningfully at Jack.

The door opens and Flechette pokes her head in. “Mr. Citizen, Ami just got back with them clothes you were wantin’.” The door opens wider to reveal Ami; arm’s piled high with clothes.

“Alliance is going door to door asking questions” Ami says “They were at the antique book store up the street, you know, Versa’s.” Ami says to Flechette. “Nice lady what runs that place, good stuff there too.”

Flechette waves her hand at Ami “Not now Ami, we’ve got more ‘portant things to worry about.” She turns to Safe “I overheard you talking about a girl with angel wings. Would that be Serenity?”

Safe sits up. “You know her?”

Flechette nods. “She was here a spell ago. Part of a terraforming team. Spent a lot of time here.” Flechette turns to Citizen, “Find Needy. She spent plenty of time with him. He’ll know more ‘bout her. Plus, he’s got connections. His line of “work” affords him that pleasure.”

“Needy?” Safe says, looking at Citizen.

“Companion,” Citizen answers. “Better known than most around here, and not necessarily for the right reasons.”

“Can he be trusted?” Safe asks.

Citizen shrugs, “Companions have a code. That’s more than we can say for some.”

“Now get dressed and git movin’.” Flechetter orders. “You don’t have much time.”

Ami hands out the clothes. Everything showed signs that it was meticulously chosen for each person. As Ami hands Safe his clothes, he nods and flashes a smile. Ami blushes in response, and gets on with handing the others theirs.

Safe catches himself grinning. He likes these women. Flechette has that no nonsense pioneer spirit that he finds engaging and Ami… Safe shakes his head. He can’t afford to let himself go there, not now…

As Bride7 looks at the clothese she’s been given, she catches sight of her sister looking incredibly puzzled.

“What is it?” she asks despairingly.

“Needy? Needy is on the Sereni-Tree too. At least, he was for a while. Hmmmm… Maybe he left with The Head and flew off in the Destiny’s Shadow.” Bobbie examines the dress offered by Ami, holding it up to herself and looking in a full-length mirror. She seems to decide that she likes the dress. “Oh, and Needy is a boy whore,” she adds.

Bride7 smiles as she continues to file her nails. “And just how would you know THAT?”

Bobbie gets flustered and her face turns red. “Uh, because… Well, he… Ummm…” Bride7 chuckles.

Flechette eyes Bobbie disapprovingly. “Because Needy makes no secret of his profession… to those who have need of his services!”

Bobbie’s face grows redder, and she pretends to study the stitching on her new dress.

--

The sound of Alliance boots came stamping to a halt outside the shop as the trap door to the sewer slammed shut above them.

And just as before, Citizen led the group through the vast tunnel network, only now they also had Ami and Flechette in tow.

--

Back at the terminal, a man in a sharp gray suit and dark glasses strides purposefully up to the Alliance temporary base in the empty hanger, hands tucked seemingly nonchalantly in his pockets.

“Captain, a moment of your time please?”

The Captain looks up from his notes, clearly annoyed at the interruption. Upon laying eyes on the man in the suit, captain’s expression of annoyance melts off his face. He swallows nervously. “How can I help you?”

“How is your investigation going?” Every word the man speaks is slow and precisely enunciated.

Glad for the opportunity to shift the man’s attention from himself the captain turns and barks “Johnson, Chen! Report!”

The two soldiers run in and stand at attention, eyes flicking nervously between the captain and the man in gray.

Chen steps forward, “Sir! We are still going through the wreckage. Still no idea what caused the blast but we did find the registration for the shuttle.” Chen holds out a clipboard to the captain.

“The Sereni-Tree…hmmm, where have I heard that before…?” The captain mutters trying to remember. “Johnson, any luck with the terminal master?”

“Yes sir! We obtained this footage from the security cameras.” Johnson hands the vid card to the captain.

“Good work Johnson” The vid card plays a 2 minute loop showing Safe and Jack as they enter the terminal from the hangar. “Have a search set-up for these men.”

“All ready done captain.”

The man in gray reaches out a gloved hand and takes the vid card from the captain.

“Tell your men to stop their search and go to this address.” The man in gray writes the address on a piece of paper, folds it precisely in half, and hands it to the captain. “THIS is where they are going."

"Have your men wait outside the building." the man in gray ordered. His voice, while not raised, left no room for argument. "WE will handle it from there.”

A cold sweat trickles down the captain’s spine raising the hairs on the back of his neck as he hesitantly takes the paper from the gray man.

While the gloves themselves were no cause for concern; it was the color of the gloves…

--

“Are we here?” Bride7 asked as the group reached a large metal door. It looked like it could withstand a Nuclear explosion, and had several large ‘danger: high voltage’ signs plastered across its surface.

Citizen began unlocking various locks with keys and swipe cards. “Just need to pick-up a few things first,” he said as a retinal scanner folded out of the wall. The door finally hissed open as he continued. “Can never be too careful these days.” He shrugged.

Citizen stepped through the entrance and let the group fan in behind him. “Welcome,” he said as Bride7 began to have what can only be described as a religious experience. “to my Armoury.

Bobbie makes happy cooing noises and claps her hands together. Then she dashes in, like a child on Christmas morning running to her presents. "Oh, I'll have one of these, and one of those, and this is always useful..."

“Whoa,” Bride7 says in awe, looking around, before turning to Citizen. "Good armory!"

His reverie is cut short by Jack shouldering past. Safe glances over his shoulder to Flechette and Ami, two more innocent bystanders being roped into his war. His conscience prickled at him.

Shaking it off, he investigates the retinal scanner and heavy door. “Is there any point in my asking how you came to lay your hands on such high-tech Alliance hardware? Not that I‘m complainin’ mind you…” Safe says, seeing Citizen in a new light.

“Mine!” Bobbie calls out, interrupting him. She was holding a matching pair of Desert Eagles and wore a huge smile. She loads them both and sights down the barrel of first one, then the other, getting the feel of each weapon. She stocks up on ammunition for the pistols.

Whilst Bobbie collects a few other choice items from Citizen’s armory, Safe ponders how he’s going to pay Citizen for any of this. He and Jack had used up a lot of ammo at Arkham and were running low.

"So, what's the plan?” Bobbie says, continuing to voice every stray thought that entered her head. “We're going to need a ship or a shuttle to get out off this rock. And why did you guys come to Boros in the first place? Something about a lost friend?"

"First things first" Safe says. "We ain’t gonna get very far with our little friend tracking our every move, don’t imagine we’ll make it off-world with the Alliance presence being what it is.”

Safe looks at Citizen. “Lets find this Needy fellow. Maybe he can clear things up." Their guide nodded at the captain. “Companion house ain’t far from here, I don’t imagine it’ll be difficult to get there unimpeded”

“Thanks,” Safe said. Moments later, he was expressing more appreciation when he presented his pile of supplies to Citizen: a box of clips for 9mm handgun; 2 boxes of bullets for his Colt Peacemaker; a box of marble explosives with remote; and a sniper rifle with high powered scope and ammo.

"Still don't know how you laid hands on all this, but I'm mighty appreciative of it. What do I owe you?"

Citizen slips his new-found pistol into a shoulder holster, before letting his coat fall back in to place.

"Payment can wait.” He answered simply. Then, clearly working things over in his head, he added, “Alliance may think they run this place but this is my gorram town, and they don't get this worked up unless there's something in it for 'em." Turning to Safe, he grins. “I’m smelling potential profit off this.”

He heaved up a black briefcase and a grenade belt. "So we find this Needy fella an' go from there."

Safe nods and spots Jack getting friendly with Bobbie. "Jack, stop playin' Romeo and get a move on! No way of knowin' how long 'til the Alliance finds that trapdoor and I don't want to be trapped down here when they do."

Bobbie gives Jack a quick kiss and whispers "Later." Then she urges him back toward Safe.

Fully stocked, Citizen closes up his armory and the group disappear with him back into the tunnel