Captain Doctor

By

KMS

kmspider@aol.com

http://hometown.aol.com/kmspider/myhomepage/index.html

Summary: AU—instead of losing the Battle of Serenity, the Independents won, extending the course of the war. Takes place around the same time as the series, six years after the First Battle of Serenity on Hera.

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Prologue

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Alliance Facility, Location Unknown:

Light years away from the smell of gunpowder or the agonies of war, a young girl sits in a white room surrounded by tactical information for a planet called Hera. Maps, armament, troop movement, the complement of men; lists with individual names of personnel currently stationed there. Even a list of names of the opposition believed to be currently sharing the war-torn planet.

The room has one wall made of mirrors. On the other side sit two very similar men, both gaunt, both with a very sterile air about them. They are watching over the young woman as she pours over the raw data, awaiting her latest report. Recommendations for the Alliance Commander-in-Chief on how best to win this war once and for all.

Back inside the room, the girl smiles to herself, hiding it behind her unruly mass of dark hair. The strange men with blue hands have made a mistake, and it’s one they haven’t realized that they’ve made yet.

Time to start moving pieces of the puzzle around. Lining them up like billiard balls, one knocking into the next, until the eight ball is sunk and the game is over.

As much as they think they are using her to their own purposes, she is using them.

But she must be oh-so-subtle. No dinosaurs to spring on the Alliance. More like mice. Or tiny insects. Butterflies still in their cocoons. For now she must maneuver the meeting of minds. This person needs to meet that person, who in turn helps that person.

On the outside of it, her recommendations make perfect strategic sense. Of course, these troops are needed at that spot, but the pattern is intrinsically flawed. There is a t