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Destiny: The Director's Cut - 2
Friday, October 14, 2005

A repost of chapter 2. While en-route to Shadow, Etris reflects on his time in Serenity Valley, and one of the crew comes to realize why going to Shadow is a very bad idea.


CATEGORY: FICTION    TIMES READ: 3051    RATING: 10    SERIES: FIREFLY

Meeting Over an Open Fire

Serenity Valley Six Years Earlier When the explosions finally stopped, Lieutenant Etris Kurdian lifted his head and peered over the rock outcropping that he had ducked behind moments before the Alliance, his damn superiors, had started bombing the valley. The ching-wah tsao duh liou mahng of a Commander hadn’t even given the evacuation order before dropping balls of fire on Alliance and Independents alike. He had heard the screams, felt the heat wash over him, but by some miracle he had been left unscathed. The miracle, however, hadn’t been extended to the rest of the valley. Flame-eaten corpses lay strewn out as far as he could see, and the smell of death permeated the air. Bile came rushing up his throat, and he doubled over, vomiting. His entire unit, slaughtered, lay less than fifty yards away, killed by the same people they were fighting for. Bastards. When his stomach settled somewhat, he made his way down the rise, picking between bodies, looking for any survivors. At one point it was so bad he was moving detached body parts, searching out anyone who was still breathing. After nearly two hours, he confirmed his fear: everyone that had fought under his command was dead. All of them. He threw his head back and screamed. His insides felt as if they were tearing apart. He had fought long and hard for the Alliance against a foe that his superiors swore would destroy civilization if they weren’t stopped. He had faced seemingly insurmountable odds before and had walked out of them without a scratch. This would have been his biggest victory. His boost to a command post. But not now. Tears streamed down his face as he cursed the Alliance, cursed the Independents, cursed everyone he could think of. His future mattered nothing to him now, not after leading forty men and women to their deaths. Not to mention the countless others who lay dead in Serenity Valley. All those people dead, and for what? A cause that he now questioned? Was the threat really bad enough to deserve the slaughter of thousands? No one deserved that. He forced himself to relax. He needed to be in control now more than ever. He breathed deeply, his nose wrinkling at the horrid smell; then he pushed beyond the boundary of his unit and out into the valley. He made his way slowly, methodically, checking every body, Alliance and Independents alike. Purple-bellies and Browncoats. For a long while all he came across were still corpses, most so burned he couldn’t tell which side they had fought on. Parts of the field still burned, so he kept to the rim. Finally, he found someone still alive. The soldier was badly burned, and wore what used to be a uniform of the Independents. His hair was gone, burnt away along with part of his face. Etris dug the man out of the pile of corpses he rested in and checked the rest of his body. He nearly retched again: the soldier had no legs and only half of one arm. His chest was burnt, his ribs exposed; but despite all the logic that filled Etris’ head, the man was still alive. The soldier tried to speak, his dry tongue clacking in his mouth, so Kurdian bent down to listen. The man swallowed and his chest shuddered, his breath fading fast. “Speak, boy,” Etris said. With a voice that faded almost as soon as it spoke, the soldier whispered his last word, and it chilled Etris to the bone. “Why?” The pained eyes looked up into Kurdian’s and saw their last sight. The soldier’s breath faded, his body shuddered once more, and then he lay still. Etris reached down and closed the boy’s eyes. He whispered a prayer, just like his mother had taught him, and stood up again. Why? It was a damn good question, and he wasn’t sure anymore if he had the answer. “Hey!” The voice rang out behind him. He spun and saw a woman up ahead, looking in his direction and waving. He jogged over to her, grateful to find that someone beside him had survived. “We’re moving everyone alive up the hill,” she stated, gesturing to the soldier at her feet. “Can you help me?” Etris nodded, bending down to grab the soldier’s legs, thankfully finding them attached. The man moaned in pain, but he was still alive. He wore an Alliance uniform, but it was so burnt that only tatters of purple cloth remained. Etris’ own uniform was so muddy and torn that only his shoulder patch was still visible. He glanced at the woman. She was tall, dark and bruised, with a brown uniform that was as dirty as his. “Are you an Independent?” he asked the obvious. She nodded. “Zoe,” she stated simply. A Browncoat then, helping an Alliance soldier. Obviously not the monsters that Command made them out to be. Zoe looked him over. “Are you Alliance?” He looked down at the patch on his arm, the one he had proudly worn for so long. The symbol of the great Alliance that now merged into one with the face of the burnt soldier. He carefully shifted the man’s legs to one arm, and then reached across and ripped the patch from his uniform, throwing it as far as he could. “Not any more,” Etris answered. Behind him, unseen, the patch floated on the wind until it was swept up into the flames, where it began to burn. * * * En-Route to Shadow Now Captain Etris Kurdian sat on the bridge in the co-pilot’s seat, a cup of strong coffee in his good hand as he stared out the windows at the sky. A twinkle of lights flashed on the console in front of him and on the pilot’s console to his right, but other than that, the bridge was dark. The stars outside, as abundant as they were did nothing to brighten the room, which was fine with him. He preferred the dark sometimes, found it to be a better companion than the light. Darkness hid the ugly things, the scars and memories of scars; the light made everything too clear. He felt the hum of the engines rumbling through the deck plating, and it was a comfort to him. Something familiar to relax in, like a mother’s soft hug, or a father’s crushing one. A reassurance that no matter what came, no matter what changed, he would always have something to remind him that in the end everything would be okay. He looked down at his arm-the bandaged one-and smiled. Gretta had done a good job. He was finding more and more reasons to be grateful that Tark had fallen for her back on Osiris and that she had agreed to come on board Destiny. She was a damn good doctor, and God knows they needed one from time to time. They might be on an Alliance contract, but during those months in between their “official” jobs, they needed to make some extra cash one way or another, and sometimes those ways only came with the exchange of bullets. He thought about their job back on Florida Moon, back when their simpler times had gotten a lot harder really fast, back when his trust had been broken by someone he would have died for- “Hey, Cap.” Etris turned from his thoughts, put his memories aside. Behind him, Togan Hamrick walked through the doorway and onto the bridge. The engineer was wiping his hands of on a rag, and as usual, his hands were the only things on him covered in grease. Somehow he managed to keep his fair skin clean, no matter how hard he worked on the engine. He stood just above six feet tall, with brown hair that was so neat it drove Etris crazy. “So Harvey tells me our drop is on Shadow.” Togan spoke in the same crystal clear tone he always spoke in. He was smart as hell, and educated at the best schools in the core, but yet he had chosen to ship out with Etris for reasons that he still avoided explaining. “Harvey talks too much,” Etris replied. Togan chuckled. “That he does.” He finished cleaning his hands and shoved the rag into one of the many pockets on his jumpsuit. “So what’s the cargo?” “According to Patience, it’s mostly foodstuff, protein bars and the like.” “That’s a lot of protein in the hold right now. I saw them loading the stuff. Any clue how she got her hands on so much of it?” Etris shrugged. “I asked her about it, but I guess it’s a sore subject. She kept mumbling about some hwoon dahn named Reynolds.” He turned back to his coffee and drained the cup in one lone swallow. “I don’t think going to Shadow is such a good idea, Captain,” Togan said, his voice actually sounding unsure for once. “You remember hearing about what happened there.” Etris spoke without turning. “It’s been a long time since then, Togan. They’ve recovered pretty well, no thanks to the lack of help from the Alliance.” He set down the cup on the console. “There’s good people on that rock, and we’ve got a job to do anyway.” Togan said nothing in reply, and after a moment Etris heard him shuffle back out the door. The bridge was silent again. Was going to Shadow a bad idea? Maybe back during the war it would have been, but now? * * * Alone in their bunk, Tark and Gretta lay together in their bed amidst a tangle of sheets and sweaty appendages. The walls still echoed with their cries of passion, and Tark couldn’t help but to chuckle as he realized yet again that the walls did very little to insulate the sound. He could only imagine what Etris was thinking right about now. Tark lay back into his pillow, Gretta’s head resting on his chest, and he listened to the sounds of the ship. On one side of his bunk he could hear the muffled sound of yet another argument coming from Hesh and Elise’s quarters, something that seemed much too frequent these days, ever since Etris had taken on board that Companion. Tark himself had no problem with that particular profession, just as Hesh didn’t; but Elise seemed to have very strong feelings about a woman who uses her body to make her living. On the other side he could hear Rian tapping away at her Cortex link, hopefully trying to decode the Cypher Tark had given her. Footfalls sounded in the hallway above, and Tark could make out Togan’s rhythmic steps as the engineer walked aft from the Bridge. For someone who had never been in the military, Togan had the ordered steps of a veteran. Tark closed his eyes, letting his head settle down into the softness of his pillow, and willed sleep to wash over him. His only prayer was that for once everyone on board would have a restless sleep. * * * Harvey tossed and turned in his sleep, nightmares of Shadow racing through his brain. He sat bolt upright in his bed, sweat streaming down his face, and his memories came rushing back to him. Memories of Shadow, of the town where his Uncle once lived, and of the single event that had torn Shadow apart. “Tzao gao!” he cried, and he voiced the word that ripped through his nightmares: “Reavers!”

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