PART THREE

*

They say

The odds are stacked against us

But that can't hold us back

We will be relentless

There's a voice they're gonna hear

A voice so loud and clear

So let them say we can't do it

Give us a mountain and we're gonna move it.. cause..

We can, do the impossible

We have the power in our hands

And we won't stop

Cause we've got

To make a difference in this life

With one voice, one heart

Two hands, we can

*

[Leeann Rimes – We Can]

*

[Jenneth is to be visualised as Lucy Lawless, close to 'Xena' looks. Todd Lawless is the late and much missed Kevin 'Ares' Smith]

From the musings of Malcolm Reynolds

*

Adelei Niska. Gorram, this wasn't easy the last two times. There's a scar around one of my ears that's telling me so and places of well-remembered pain in my chest. Need to think and think hard. Gotta have a plan and a couple of back-ups, 'cos that Niska bastard is sneaky, devious and all kinds of nasty. Plus he's got Kaylee and if she's talked by now he'll realise we're hot on his heels. I'll put the big Niska problem in the back of the brain pan for a moment and freewheel. Something will come to me.

*

Summer is here on Beltane, same of sorts up there on Venice. Can't use the big freeze they have to our advantage. Funny how the seasons vary across the 'verse. Newhall, Jayne's home planet, has Summertide, Rains and Tornado seasons. No Winter to speak of on the great plains between the mountains. Children tend to be either conceived or born at Summertide, because they fall about nine Earth months apart. It's the time when all of the children on Newhall are reckoned to be a year older. Being that we've been gone from Earth-that-was a long time and are looking at a whole different bunch of stars, including Sol way off in the distance, it's hard to tell, but Summertide on Newhall has definite resonances with Beltane and Maytime, from what I've heard. The astrologers have gone nuts over the new constellations and calculations since we arrived in the 'verse, but Summerti