River cringed. Pain, crushed dreams, hopes that would never come true. Torture. She kept staring at Eis. That’s all they could do. Stare. Staring was lame, River had decided. She wanted something that was impossible to have, mostly because her brother outsmarted her somehow. Gorram big brothers... “So...” Eis mumbled. River continued to glare. Wow. “So...” she replied, a look of almost disgust on her face. Serenity was on its way out of the solar system, and they were bored... very bored. Worse than a rainy day, as even then you can go outside. If they were to attempt that, they would more than getting wet underwear. They were a good month into the journey, and by now they knew every single dust mite that crawled in the cracks of Serenity. That’s sayin’ something now. “I want sex,” River stated as a matter of factly as she could. Eis blinked a couple times out of shock. “You know if we do that,” Eis recovered, “then something bad will doubtlessly happen while your brother’s dumb ass drug makes us incapable of moving. It’s a scientific fact. When the best fighters are out, some pirate with an algorithmic name will board the ship and drive everybody out of their minds. I like staying with my mind, thank you.” River nodded. She knew it was true. In fact, several people had already passed under the scope of Serenity. She had heard them. It was only the fact that she was ready for them that they didn’t board. “All hypothetical, of course,” Eis emptily assured himself. “Of course.”

***

“Almost there people!” Mal shouted down the quiet corridor. “Only one more week to go!” No reply told him that none of them were listening. Seven weeks on a relatively small spaceship was very... lengthy. Even Mal, who swore to himself he would never get tired of his beautiful boat, was getting a might bit twitchy. River and Eis had been calm before they had gotten out of the solar system, but now that they were almost there, the two teens seemed to wake up. Come alive... Start wanting to do tasks, projects, and other stuff... “Hello?” he yelled down the corridor one more time, hoping that someone had the nerve to at least shout back. A large puff of flour protruded from Jayne's room... “Bun tyen shung duh eedwayro,” Mal shouted into silent space. “What the hell is he doing in there?” Mal climbed stepped down from the bridge and quickly went to Jayne’s bunk. “Jayne, I’m thinkin’ I don’t wanna know, but what in the gorram hell r’ you doing?” Mal waited for a couple of seconds, but no clear answer. Just a bunch of quite whispers. When Mal opened up the bunk hatch all the way, he saw Jayne sleeping on his bed with the whole room covered in flour. “Oh juh jen sh guh kwai luh duh jean-jan, JAYNE!” Jayne jerked awake, coughed violently, and then looked around. Then looked up at Mal, who at the particular angle had a bright light outlining him. “I, I made it...” the heavy merc mumbled, and went down on his knee’s and started bowing to Mal. An eyebrow raised. “Jayne, as much as I like the new view of me, I would very much like to know why you and the rest of your room is covered in a good two pounds of flour.” Jayne stopped mid, bow, realized he wasn’t in heaven, and looked back at Mal. “Uh, I dunno.” was all he said. Mal walked away, and saw two sets of flour covered footprints heading down to the guest area. Ah.

***

Everything was quiet... too quiet. Serenity was within ten minutes of AFOUT and everyone was wondering the same thing: What the hell was for lunch. They hadn’t eaten yet, as the defenses of the planet were a good hour back. That’s when everybody held their breath. The cloak generator did good, though, and they got past the big menacing missile platforms just fine. Now was eatin time. Kinda like a last meal. Only... not. As they all chewed up the remainder reserved for the “to” trip, Mal stood up. “Ok people! We are about to do something nobody has ever done! That means you get paid twice as much on the next job!” a half hearted cheering came from everybody except Jayne, who was almost at tears. “And it also means, if we live, granite, that we will get Wash back!” Now there was loud and joyous cheering from everybody except Jayne, who gave a halfhearted punch in the air, nodded his head, and went back to eating. “And it will also be meanin’ that we do a good deed for Eis. This job is just full o’ perks, isn’t it? Now, we will be landing in about 20 minutes. We can’t wait out here any longer, else they might find us. Suit up everybody!” All left the kitchen except for Eis, River and Mal. They just kept staring at each other. “You guys gonna get anything on you?” Mal asked, growing nervous under the constant stare of the two most dangerous people on his boat. “Already have,” they both replied in unison. Mal raised his eyebrows. “Really? Mind tellin’ me wh-” He was cut off by the fact the both River and Eis have moved a very small amount and now were both armed to the teeth. River her favorite menacing Reaver-weapons in her hands and Eis had two long blades sticking out of his sleeves. Now Mal also noticed the heavy jackets the two were wearing, which were lumped in odd places. “Right then!”

***

Serenity entered atmosphere and stayed in the higher elevations that would offer more protection against radar and... other things. The shuttle launched off carrying seven people and a monkey- I mean Jayne, sorry- and slowly started to descend onto the planet. The sight that met them was astonishing. The whole planet looked like white bumps, boxes, and... bumps. They quickly realized the the planets surface was one big facility. “Damn...” Eis stuttered, realizing he had no clue where to go. He knew if they could find the right section, then he could navigate to the right entryway, but this was absurd. “FUCKFUCKFUCK!!!!” he screamed, losing all hope and breaking down. The crew turned to him at the harsh, earth that was curse. He realized he just said a VERY unused word. “Never got into the chinese thing...” he mumbled, then tried to regain his composure. Dignity too, but mostly composure. “Ok,” he mumbled, “I really have no clue where to go. I have the facility in my head, but not a map of the planet.” All eyes stared at him in disbelief. “I was thinking they would be, y’know, spread out more than... not spread out.” shrugged and almost started crying when River chimed in. “You do realize I know exactly where to go, right?” He slowly turned up to her in an even more "huh" look than ever. “Psychic,” she said in a more ‘Duh’ voice. *** The shuttle touched down. It was eerily quiet. They had been asked a code, which River also figured out, but that was the last transmission they had received. Mal set the auto pilot and the shuttle took off again, going back up into atmo. Mal motioned his hand forward and they all moved up to a door. Eis nodded, probed with his mind, and clicked the lock open. After they had gotten inside, Mal gave the boy lead. If someone where there to see it, it would have been a very strange sight. Six adults with particularly large guns following a young boy with only a heavy jacket and a girl following behind. “Stop,” River whispered. Eis felt static too. People. “Everybody get close to me!” he quietly shouted. They all huddled around him. Then, two doctors and a security guard came around the corner. “I swear, we heard a ship come down and take off,” one doctor was saying. The guard shook his head. They passed right by the raiders and continued through the door. “Shiny,” was all Mal said. *** “Almost there,” Eis mumbled, turning around yet another corner. It had been about half an hour of dodge and run navigating, and it was starting to wear on Mal’s nerves. They had guns. He voted for shoot and don’t get shot, but Eis said this was easier. They rounded one more bend and found themselves on a high catwalk that overlooked hundreds of scientists working at least 100 feet down below. On the other side of the chasm was a large, metal door. “Cooling room." Eis explained, nodding his head towards the door. "That’s where they keep the-” He stopped, trying to say it, but just couldn’t bring himself to it. Mal nodded, and then started walking out on the bridge. As they crossed, they could see people looking up, but seeing nothing to match the sounds that they heard, went back to work. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, they reached the door at the far end. “Here goes,” Eis stammered. He focused, opened the door as quietly as he could, and stepped inside. It was very cold. VERY cold. In fact, the little snot that Jayne had in his nose froze almost instantly. “How cold is it in here?” Mal asked, shivering. “-20 degrees Fahrenheit.” “Oh.” As they stepped in, it became apparent that it would be getting colder. Off to the side were parkas, which they all put on quickly. The room wasn’t that big, just very tall. There was an elevator and they could see through the grid floor that the levels went both up and down for some ways. “We are on the 25th level,” Eis explained. “She is on the 13th.” They went over to the lift and started the drop down. Notice the ‘drop’ of that sentence. “Gorram elevator!” Jayne growled after the seven seconds it took to descend 12 levels. “Need somethin’ more to hold on to ‘sides the roof.” “Over here!” Eis exclaimed, and started running away. Everyone followed, afraid what they might find. Eis turned a corner far ahead of them. When they finally got there, though, they found Eis kneeling and starring at a case. “Did we find her?” Mal asked, hopeful. Eis slowly shook his head. “No, we didn’t,” he said sadly. “They took her. This was Susan’s case, but it is empty.” They all stood, trying to grasp this. After about three minutes of silence, Mal spoke up. “Lets go find Wash.” *** The trip back across the catwalk was fairly uneventful. Besides the now very confused scientists, they were undetected. After another ten minutes of navigating, they found a strange wing of a hospital looking area. There was a very thick metal door guarding it, which was opened by a joint combination of Eis succeeding to get all but one lock, and River revealing that lock wasn’t closed in the first place. “Bums,” Mal mused. When they all walked in, they saw rows upon rows of cells. Everything was white. All the doors were solid, with the exception of a four foot square of barred glass. No one was escaping from the inside. “Wash will be this way,” Eis said, pointing to the right. Mal was worried though. “This is a prison complex. They are sure to have camera’s on every gorram inch of this place.” Eis nodded. “They do,” he said blandly. Then, after closing his eyes and furrowing his brow, there was a crack up above, and a kind of sparky sound. “Now they don’t.” So, they continued walking. Zoë was amazed at how many people where stored in the room. There had to be over 5,000 cells. “Not all people,” River breathed, looking up at the levels above. “Some drained of life, others too full.” Then, just before they got to “Washburne, Hoban” they came upon a “Washburne, Susan”. Eis stopped. “What the...” He looked inside and screamed. “SUSAN!!!” The crumpled figured inside turned around in a jolt. It was a beautiful young woman who had obviously been starved for the past five months. She came up to the glass and just stared at Eis. Eis was now trying to pry open the door with his mind. “River!” he yelped. She probed the area, finding the right code in a guards head. “AUCH,1F45S,” she recited. Eis typed it in as quickly as she talked and opened the door slowly. Susan had now moved to the back of the room thinking that they were going to blow the door down. River wondered what she would be thinking right now. She looked and looked for the thought pattern, but she couldn’t find it. All she could hear was- “NO!” she screamed at the top of her lungs, but it was too late. Eis had rushed at his long lost sister, and now there was a steel spike rammed all the way through his chest.

Aren’t I one for suspense? XD