Author's Notes:

Author's notes: This started out as part of the "Your Song" series which I haven't updated in seventy billion years, and evolved into this on it's own. I felt kind of weird making up my own characters, but they're not Mary Sues (Marty Stus?) or anything like that, just necessary evils. Title is loosely derived from Ender's Game, because that's what inspired me.

Italics denote the alliance guys talking. (or, later, flashbacks)

'...' denotes thought, which is only necessary for our psychics.

Feed me! kaylee@kikiroxxorz.com

Pairings are: (Simon/Kaylee, Mal/Inara, Jayne/OC and River/OC) but they're not truly important to the plot.

~*~

“The subjects have arrived in one piece, I see.” “Though I thought I might lose a digit or two in the struggle, they’re here. Simon and Ainslee Tam will now be known as ATAM89775316 and STAM31657798. They’re being taken to the showers as we speak, and then for a formal psychiatric evaluation once they lose consciousness. We are keeping them separate up to, and, depending on their respective eval results, including their inauguration into the program.” “Sir, are you sure this is the right thing to do? The subjects aren’t even seven years old, sir, and look at this capture. They have family who love them and are probably looking for them right now. I’m not sure this is…” “Let me see that capture.” The agent studied it. “Give us six weeks,” he said slowly, “and those children will have never existed.”

~*~

‘These aren’t like the showers at home,’ Simon thought sleepily, trying to hold onto awareness just a moment longer. Showers at home. He could fuzzily recall himself, Ainslee and Xavier plopped together as babies in a giant tub in the cargo bay, of Ainslee dancing around the little shower room, waiting for her turn, of the warm ridge of his mother’s stomach like an umbrella. “Mommy, where are you?” he asked quietly before collapsing into a little heap on the cement floor, tears stuck in his tightly closed eyes.

~*~

Simon was on fire. “Where are my children?” he demanded. “Where in the hell are Simon and Ainslee?” He looked down on instinct and saw River and Kaylee crumpled on the floor. “Oh God,” he breathed. “Inara, what happened?” Inara had known Simon for nearly ten years, and not once had she seen him cry. But he was crying then as Inara told him about the Alliance taking the most precious things in the world, his children, away. “Why won’t they leave us alone?” he demanded, punching the wall directly in front of him. “Gorramit! I thought they’d be safe! I thought they’d grow up and be happy and…damn it, Inara!” He looked down at River and Kaylee. “I’ll have to sedate them to get them back to Serenity,” he said softly. Kaylee lifted her head. “Nuh-uh,” she said quietly. Simon knelt down next to her. “Why not, bao bei?” he asked, determined to keep his voice calm. Kaylee took a sharp breath. “I’m pregnant.”

~*~

Mal and Simon paced the cargo bay. “Pregnant?” Mal said in disbelief. Simon nodded grimly. “Fourteen weeks. Though I suppose that it shouldn’t come as much of a shock, considering. But, Mal, the matter at hand is much bigger than--” “I don’t think there could be a bigger matter than another baby on this boat right now! Kaylee ain’t in no state to take care of one, and neither are you! There’s no resources to be found and…” Mal’s rant was abruptly cut off by Simon’s fist making contact with his jaw. “My children are missing, sir. They are alone, scared, and, judging by the state of the other two psychic victims of the Alliance on this boat, probably being tortured into oblivion. My wife’s pregnancy is not the matter we should be worried about. Getting my children back home where they should be—where they deserve to be—is. Before it’s too late.” Mal blinked a few times. “That’s what I meant,” he muttered, walking away. “Meet us in the dining area in ten minutes, doctor. Bring Kaylee.”

~*~

“We need to get them out of there,” Adam muttered. “No…kidding.” Mal snorted. “Why do you think we’re sitting here?” Adam gave him one of his looks, the one that reminded Mal particularly of River. “I’ve been to the Academy, Mal. They’ve been there…probably two hours now. Depending on what their methods are like now, they’re being examined in one of two ways. Either they’ve got them in separate rooms in separate buildings, locked in, to study them for psychic activity and brain activity, or they knocked them out with a powerful sedative, either in the form of a shower or in the form of an injection so that they could study their subconscious. Then, depending on which areas they scored highest in, they’ll be taken to another part of the complex, where there’ll be more experiments, more tests…and training. In other words, they’re the Alliance’s personal science projects. If they’re awake now, which they very well might be, they’re most likely entirely alone. Have Ainslee and Simon ever spent a night separated, Kaylee?” Kaylee shook her head. “So they’re alone, for the first time in their entire lives, in a brand new, scary place that they didn’t even want to go in the first place, after being examined like bugs. They’ve probably been told that their parents don’t love them anymore, that there’s no use crying over them because they’re not crying over you--” This earned a whimper from Kaylee. “—Which we know isn’t true, but they’ll make it true. Since I’m going to wager it’ll take us at least a month to get through to them, they probably won’t recognize us anymore. They’ve just introduced a new form of “experimentation”, which involves simulating dementia and removing all of the subject’s memories, and it wouldn’t surprise me if they decide to use it on Simon and Ainslee, being that they’re so upset about not being with their parents. So by the time we get there, they will have no recollection of ever meeting us, and it’s possible, depending on the severity, that their memories will not be recoverable.” Mal stared at Adam. “So…how do we do it, then?” Jayne banged his fist on the table. “I’ll bring Vera,” he announced. “Them Alliance bastards won’t know what’s comin’!” Frankie touched Jayne’s shoulder. “I don’t think violence is actually going to be the answer this time, Jayne.” “Why not?” Jayne asked. “They used violence to take the kids, I might as well use violence to take ‘em back.” “You can’t just waltz into an Alliance-owned facility wielding a giant gun, Jayne.” Jayne muttered something that sounded suspiciously like ‘watch me’, but was quiet. Adam turned to Simon. “Do you still have that uniform you stole?” he asked, grinning in a way that thoroughly creepified Mal.