Cowboys & Alliance : part 1

-------- The Wife of Frankenstein --------

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Malcolm Reynolds lay in his bunk pondering a thousand thoughts running through his brain. First was the secret he was keeping from his first-mate. Unknown to Zoe, after the battle that had taken place with the Alliance operative on that world of Mr. Universe, the captain had ventured back to the crushed shell of his mangled ship and found her to be empty of anybody, well…..maybe that should be expressed differently, void of any BODY. There was no Wash, and no Shepherd Book.

Actually, on Haven, in the case of strapping corpses to the framework of Serenity before their journey to Miranda, his crew had found enough bodies within the downed Alliance vessel so that none of their friends were needed as hood ornaments on Serenity. Damn that captain, he could be such an ass at times, anyway, their guise for making their way past Reaver territory complete, they had made a run for mysterious planet.

The figure of the preacher had been brought aboard just on the chance that they may be able to make their way to Persephone and back to the monastery, that was, if any of them survived.

Upon his return to his ship, the captain had found neither his pilot or the preacher man aboard, and he had no idea where they had gone or been taken. Against his better judgment he had whispered a little prayer hoping that they hadn’t been taken by the Reaver cannibals that had forced his vessel down on that high-tech world of Mr. Universe. Yet he had found evidence that those crazy madmen had been aboard his vessel. That was the secret he was keeping from Zoe. To tell her that her husband had possibly been taken by Reavers was information she didn’t need to know.

Now, the second thing that was bothering Mal was his continued harboring of Simon and River. The operative had spoken truthfully when he’d said he was uncertain if the powers that be would listen to his