Authors note - Sequal sort of to Patterns etched in Starlight, also Zoe and Washes backstories are pure speculation

The enigma that is Solomon Kane should not bring his mission to his workplace.

Considering that his workplace sometimes consisted of him looking over hours of Alliance intelligence and data, including useful tidbits from their Blue Sun allies it should not be that much trouble.

Then again the people he works for and with do not suspect, that among them walks the known Verse’s best and most unknown Data Merc in existence.

He was just another faithful worker for the Alliance like the rest of them.

Data Merc.

He disliked the term; still as a cover it was accurate. For the right price he traded in a commodity more precious then Platinum or gold. Knowledge, which was his leverage and his in with all walks of life. From the nobility to the bandit, the robber baron to the respected judge.

Knowledge was power, and you never could have enough of that could you?

Need to know what the Law knows about your illegal slaving operation? He was the man to call. Want to know if Internal Law where going to investigate you for corruption? Then he was your guardian angel.

There was a price of course, what set him apart from others in his trade was that coin did not interest him. He would pull markers on those who hired him, holding the debt as a bludgeoning tool. To get what he needed, what he knew must be done.

There was always a price for these things after all.

For a Prefect on a distant world it was agreeing to turn a blind eye to certain operations, for a Bandit and his thugs it was to ‘remove’ a particular problem.

They weren’t the only ones who paid, in some ways he paid as well. Corrupt Judges stayed corrupt thanks to his aide. Slavers took people away from their homes to die, broken on far off lands sweating blood and dying alone. Good people where sacrificed and the evil where protected from harm.

More blood spilled for a higher ideal, and Solomon Kane’s alter ego Dorian Lockwood knew that more would be shed.

It is currently eleven in the morning and Dorian is in his office, under ground at a top Alliance base. It is so secret it has no real name, but it exists. Just not really if anybody ever asked.

Like most Alliances offices it is efficient, smooth and top of the line. Decked in white and depressingly sterile the center of the office was dominated by a large wooden desk and computer console where he sat.

In fact the only color was his purple uniform and a screen on the near wall which had the rotating symbol of the Alliance.

Truth be told for a traitor to the Alliance Dorian was not much to look at. Short in his early forties he had an unremarkable face and narrow eyes. But behind his common brown eyes was an uncommon mind.

In this vortex of thought, plans where hatched and considered. Moves and counter moves where thought of in advance and somebody who considered himself a good man. Committed acts of betrayal and murder on a daily basis.

Then this was expected when you where the head of Alliance Intelligence.

Case in point, a Noblewoman by the name of Natasha Berkov.

A brilliant and compassionate noble woman who had discovered that Blue Sun had been running immoral and ethically repugnant experiments on children. How she managed to discover this Dorian did not know.

Lady Berkov like most outsiders thought that Dorian worked for Alliance Public relations, his cover when he was not in the office.

The irony did not escape him.

She had come to him because her friends had told her that he could help. That he was an honest and decent man. Honest and decent where hard to come by these days.

In doing so she signed her death warrant.

Dorian had placated her and promised to look into it. He played the shocked and outraged man so well, that she believed him. Three days later a team had retrieved any and all evidence she had possessed. Another team backtracked and plugged the leak.

With extreme and final prejudence.

Natasha was later found to have committed ‘suicide’. Courtesy of a wet work team who also left evidence that she was on drugs and little clues that would lead the law to believe that she was both anti-Alliance and a traitor.

The irony that one traitor setting up what was basically a patriot, well that didn’t escape him either.

But it had its desired effect, his bosses where very happy and it ingratiated him further with Blue Sun.

Just another bowl of blood he would rinse his hands in.

They had been many of those bowls, things he had sacrificed to get where he was. Friends, lovers, family where tossed into the fires of his ambitions. Reputations where ripped apart, lies and rumors where spread. All to get him where he needed to be, to do what he must.

Dorian was on a mission.

He was going to change the Alliance.

Of course he was not going to do it alone; the funny thing was the entity known as Solomon Kane was not just one man. He was several people in fact. Each in high positions and each monitoring and controlling various assets to do what must be done.

Some of them where former Independents, others where loyal Alliance. They had the resources and the will. They also had an objective.

To make the Alliance everything it should and could be. Dorian didn’t want to overthrow the government, he believed in it. He lost his son in the war and his wife in the aftermath. He believed that the Verse needed a central government, and that the Alliance could be that government.

Was it corrupt and flawed, where the powerful where involved how could it not be ?

But for humanity to stride forward it had to be united. Focused and determined, and a central goverment was key to that. But strength without compassion was tyranny, order without empathy was just ruling with an iron fist.

However a majority of the power that helped keep the Alliance in its elitisim mindscape was Blue Sun.

Sometimes, just thinking about them made his teeth clench.

Dorian knew that he would learn to control that, would have to think clearly and focus on the job. A slip, a grimace at the wrong time could expose him for what he was. But thinking of the men who killed his only son sometimes made him enraged.

He knew that Blue Sun didn’t know that he knew. That how during the war on a far off planet of Shadow, on Lt Alexander Lockwood had been trying to evac a town of civilians when they tested a new bio-weapon onsite. It had been very successful and Alliance Military where pleased.

The official story was that the brave Alliance Military used experimental viral agent to clean the area of hostile enemies.

At the time a deputy director of Intelligence he digged and searched and found the truth.

Most of his career Dorian had been efficient, cool and almost aloof. He had what he wanted, respect, position it should have been enough. He was not a magnificent father but he tried.

It hadn’t been good enough.

Thanks to Blue Sun he would never have a chance to try again.

Despite his governments role in this he stayed loyal. Spent more and more time at the office earning respect being noticed. That’s when he was contacted by the Underground who gave him a choice, make a difference.

Make the bastards at Blue Sun pay.

He didn’t even have to think about it. He became one of them, the highest of the order. They didn’t have an official name, and they where a complex network. Secretive working behind a veil learning more about Blue Sun and looking for any chance to strike.

He lost his wife during those years, he left her alone in her grief and one day she was gone. Lockwood missed her terribly but the path he walked on he walked alone. With each act done in the interests of the Alliance he gained more and more of their trust.

Every life ended by his decisions, every family broken or destroyed. It leads him deeper and deeper into the corridors of power. The Underground had the means but the question was the when.

The other problem was the unknown factor of Blue Sun, what was their agenda? What where their abilities ? How far would they go to protect said Agenda?

Sighing, Lockwood leaned back of his plush chair and stared at his screen. The information on it was hardly suspicious, just the necessary tools he needed to do his job. Despite the office being secure he preferred his home.

At home, it was triple shielded with random bug sweeps and the most sophisticated one man intelligence set up in existence. There he could move the pieces on the board, his assets and his pawns. Beings like Jubal Early and the Tam’s where moved on an intellectual board of universal politics.

The Tam’s.

The two of them had proven to be almost invaluable assets, one there he was determined to protect for know.

The scenario had been simple enough. The Underground had gotten Simon Tam’s sister out of one of Blue Suns special Academies. It had not been easy and they had lost an agent in the process, one of the Academies researchers whose name had been erased and proberly never to be remembered.

It was a good Scenario, use Simon and his sister River to bring Blue Sun out of the dark. Not to expose them, there where always ways to cover dirty deeds up. If anyone should know Dorian would.

No, the Tam’s would force Blue Sun to go after them. The Underground would monitor the chase and capture, sacrificing a loving brother and his mentally raped sister in order to learn just a little more what they where up against. Just another statistic, another disposable pawn to be sacrificed.

For the greater good, they would tell themselves. To make the Alliance a government a goverment of strength and compassion.

Dorian told himself that a lot.

Still didnt help him sleep at night.

Then the unexpected had happened, a Firefly class ship called Serenity.

Dorian had not expected this, that one Captain Malcolm Reynolds would show compassion to two Alliance fugitives. Then again considering the Brownout’s hatred of the Alliance it was not too much of a surprise. But Dorian files indicated that while he was a brave man, he was also a practical man as well..

An honorable man to be sure. Something Dorian no longer was and could be ever again.

Not that any files at Alliance Intelligence indicated this, all they had was last know whereabouts was on Persephone. Boarding a Firefly class vessel, fortunately there where about forty thousand of those in the dark. The term needle in a haystack came to mind.

No, the information on Serenity belonged to an Underground Database that was always on the move.

Reading the Database Dorian actually considered the possibility that Simon might be able to protect his sister after all. The crew of the Serenity was an interesting lot and there was no doubt to their skills.

On the Database where operatives observations and notes, details where picked up on the crew from sources here and there.

The skilled and loyal Solider Zoe, daughter of a large family that where enslaved on a mudder swamp. Now a trained fighter and second in command.

The hired Merc called Jayne Cobb. His operatives mentioned that oddly enough there was a statue of him in Compton. Also that he had tried to turn in the Tam siblings only to get his Pigu bitten off on the deal. He was a rough and crude sort of man but his combat skills where only matched by his aggression.

Little was know about the engineer however, she had no training according to her history. However an operative an Ensign assigned to Captain Harken who patrolled the deepest regions of the dark. Mentioned that she had a natural affinity for mechanics and quick witted tongue.

Apparently the operative met her once during an unfortunate encounter with what was left of a colony ship. Rumors that Reavers where involved and that the Serenity had been doing a little grave robbing was also mentioned.

He also mentioned that she was cute, had a bright smile and wore a teddy bear on her overalls.

Dorian put a mental note to get that operative to a woman quick.

The pilot was named Wash and had been on the Serenity longer then Jayne or the engineer. He seemed flippant but a somewhat honest man. Dorian wondered how honest he was to his wife and Captain.

Dorian suspected that Wash may have left out the part of how he was a fighter pilot for the Alliance during the Unification war. True he flew only one sortie and was shot down, in fact he spent the rest of the war in a Brown coat prison caml.

There was something about Shadow puppets being involved.

The companion Inara was another point of interest. Intelligence wise he did not know how she could be useful for the crew. She cared for them, that much was evident. Still one had to wonder what a temple priestess was doing so far out.

Two things had Dorian thinking that the siblings may have a chance to stay outside of Blue Suns hand

The first was Captain Reynolds, Sgt Malcolm Reynolds of Serenity Valley. Dorian understood what kind of darkness burned in that heart, the hate. It made him a survivor and that is the quality that would keep him alive.

Hopefully the Tam's as well.

It was that unbending will that kept him ahead of the hunters and keep him in the sky.

The second was ‘ Shepard Book.’

It was almost funny, on a ship full of people that history walked over. Was a man who made history. A legend walking among the common folk.

Dorian suspected that were it not for Simon and River the good ‘Book’ would have left the ship long ago. But here was a chance for redemption, salvation for a weary soul. When Dorian read that ‘he’ had joined the Southdown Abby he thought that ‘he’ had gone soft and senile in his old age.

Now he released that like him, the Shepard had grown tired of the weight on his shoulder. Of washing his hands in blood day after day and decided to seek something else.

Redemption.

Dorian now found he could understand that, even respect it.

With the Shepard onboard their chances increased. Not by a lot but just enough. Dorian pondered how ready would Book fall back on old ways to earn that redemption.

Thanks to the Tam’s flight the Underground gathered more information regarding Blue Suns hidden agenda. More information in one year then they had in ten.

That made the Serenity a very valuable asset indeed.

The Underground learned about the men in blue gloves. The use of ultrasonic weaponry on Alliance Federal agents even on their hunting patterns. They also learned that whatever their Plan River Tam was an essential piece of it.

This information disturbed Dorian and he considered having River killed. Instead he sent Jubal Early to run a test on the girl. The information had been…interesting.

For now Serenity, River Tam and the Shepard was his focus at the moment. They where his top assets and he kept a close eye. He had been informed that Blue Sun was sending out the Operative to go after the girl.

Dorian remembered him, always smiling a friendly smile but there was something about him that didn’t quite connect.

Now he was after the Tam’s.

Sighing Dorian contemplated his options, the Tam Scenario was forcing Blue Sun to take more desperate actions in the retrieval of River. This was something the Underground wanted, but the more Blue Sun intervened the chances increased that the Underground would also have to take action.

At this point exposure could be a disaster.

Early was still active, there were other assets he could tap into. The criminal overlord Pharaoh, he could even wave Niska their next location. Let the disgraced and shamed Russian kingpin take his vengeance on them.

That would solve the River problem nicely.

But he hesitated on that course of action. Honestly, he admired them a little. The crew and its captain, for what they accomplished. They where a family, mismatched and a little off center but family.

Sad thing was it was not the first family unit he had destroyed for the greater good.

Devil take his him they would not be the last.

Dorian decided to leave that decision for another day.

‘Sir?’

Director Dorian Lockwood pressed the intercom and his secretary’s image came over the screen.

‘ I have Director Talon Wu on the line for you.’

Wu was head of Blue Sun security and like him a professional. It was a weekly meeting where both of them played a game of snide remarks and verbal fencing. Finding what the other knew or thought he knew.

‘ Put him through.’

Walking around his desk he leaned against it, staring as his Blue Sun counterpart came onscreen with a false smile and those dammed blue Gloves.

‘ Greeting Dorian.’ False smile, measuring eyes.

‘Good morning Talon.’ Same expression, more of a gritting of teeth then a smile.

Dorian put the Serenity out of his mind. There where other pieces to be moved, other scenarios to play. Secrets to be shared and stolen, people to be protected and people to be destroyed.

In the game of manipulation, of truths and half truths.

All in the name of a better tomorrow.

In the memory of a dead son.

Director Dorian Lakewood played on.

The End