The Ratched was calm at first, slowly stirring as though from a strange dream. Mass confusion and chaos quickly followed. They were handling the crisis well. Updates poured in from planet-side and over the intercoms to the bridge, asking for orders. A hold position was issued while the more immediate concerns were dealt with and the staging area was reclaimed.

He felt oddly detached himself, his memories of the past few days a blur. He remembered Miranda, the crew of Serenity, fighting an Operative, but he could not recall how he was now on an Alliance Cruiser. Why was he here?

There was something confused, he knew - a sense of two distinct lives he had somehow witnessed, and even more as a double agent with the browncoats and the military. Lies and secrets, information he shouldn't know. There was something important and elusive about students of the Academy, but more important, he needed to use his security clearance to get away, and get down the elevator to the hangar. He had an Operative's identification, and he would use that instead of his own.

The repair team he'd recruited nodded to him, and with a powerful sense of unease, he held a katana blade he both knew and didn't, and stepped out from the lift. He needed to find Serenity , he knew, and also felt the urge to pray.

- - - - -

After several tense minutes watching the proximity readings, Zoë reclined back from her fading adrenalin rush into the embrace of frayed cushions and upholstery. The green-lit black spires of the I.A.V. Ratched sank around the curvature of the horizon behind them as they settled into orbit. Nothing had launched after them, near as she could tell. No pursuit. Too damn close , she thought. They were always skirting the edge of disaster. At least they hadn't lost anyone this time, but it was a near miss.

Even so. They were safe, but for how long? Bunch of surprises in just a few days, and she still wasn't even sure what had just happened. That was a liability big