Simon’s heart turned to ice when he woke to hear the captain’s voice alerting the crew over the comm, only to be jerked across the spectrum to warm anger when he heard the reason. Reavers? This was a cruel joke.

He wondered darkly if Mal had Tam blood in his veins, recalling how River used to joke in just the same manner. She had seldom had nightmares, so he had believed her when she had come running into his room crying frightenedly: “Simon, it’s time to leave, we have to go! They’re here! They’ll break in!” The cortex had warned citizens of Osiris to beware of a gang on the loose, and so Simon had followed her, not asking until they were halfway out of the house what they were running from. And of course, she had turned with her wide brown eyes as innocent as a kitten’s, and whispered: “Reavers!” Then as she giggled and in his frustration he had chased her through the house, she continued to taunt him by not screaming and waking their parents so she could be rebuked.

But he thought it was not wise to leave the comm message at that. Just to be sure, he came out of his room to see Zoe looking dead serious. Not for the first time that day, he found himself thinking This is not my best day ever.

It was like having one’s worst fears confirmed—if Reavers were worse than your beloved government torturing your sister, which he was not sure was true.

Running back to the infirmary, Simon made sure River had not yet woken, and found the Shepherd standing with his head bowed and Bible clasped to his chest by Kaylee. Feeling suddenly ashamed that even a Shepherd out of the world for years recognized the non-fairytale and very real danger of the Reavers, Simon made a silent oath to cure his naïveté by any means possible. It would only be a deathtrap out here.

But as his mind fully processed Zoe’s words, Simon felt his heartbeat quicken rapidly. No, no, that wouldn’t do. Think about surgery, think about medicine, think about what drugs he had that would finish them before the Reavers got to—no, no, no