Someone up there really doesn’t like me , Mal thought to himself as he watched the Alliance soldiers glancing at each other. First the Feds, and now Reavers … “We need to go. Now.” He wondered why he sounded tired.

“We’re not going anywhere.” Ubermann settled his feet.

“Didn’t you hear what the man said? Reavers are coming, you sha gua chun zi. ”

Ubermann glared. “That won’t do your case any good whatsoever.”

Mal held back the sigh just behind his lips, but said, “Zoe, shoot him.”

“Sir?”

“Mal,” Freya said warningly from her position on the old pew.

“He’s gonna get us killed,” Mal pointed out.

Ubermann scoffed. “There’s no such things as –“

He couldn’t finish the sentence as more than a dozen … things … ran through the gap in the wall, blood-curdling cries erupting from their throats, almost falling over each other in their haste to get at fresh meat.

Serenity’s crew opened up, and a moment later the soldiers managed to pull themselves together and start firing what should have been kill shots, but barely slowed them down. Unphased by their comrades falling, the Reavers used each body, dead or only disabled, as a shield, protecting themselves to some degree. One of them, faster than the rest, managed to dart forward and grab a Fed, his teeth ripping into the man’s neck until his head exploded from any number of bullets. The soldier scrabbled back on his heels to his group, his hand trying to stop the bleeding, thick redness dripping down his purple body armour.

“Mal!” Jayne shouted from the corridor entrance.

Mal half-turned, still firing, at least keeping the rest of Reavers back a little. “Jayne. Grenade?”

“One left.”

“Hit the wall.”

Jayne’s brows creased. “What?”

Mal pointed, down towards the base. “Hit … the … wall.”

River, pushed back by her husband into the darkness of the corridor to keep her out of sight of the Feds, nodded and slid an image into Jayne’s mind.

He grunted, understanding. Pulling the very last from hi