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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Chapter 2

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Alliance Facility, Location Unknown:

Off in a far corner of the complex that housed River Tam, a lone transcription clerk looked over the scribbled notes that she was to enter into the system.

Scratching her head over some of the erratic writing, she failed to notice her own clerical error, a simple spelling mistake that, for some reason, her own computer system had been re-designed to overlook.

Redesigned, mind you, by the same genius whose notes the clerk was transcribing.

River Tam had noticed that within the last three months, any messages this particular clerk transcribed had failed to correct a simple series of letters. The faint, delighted squeal in the hallway between two clerks about an engagement revealed the reason.

It had struck River's whimsy to use the addition of the clerk's new engagement ring, which caused her to double the letter 'o' whenever she made certain entries, to her own advantage.

Knowing the little clerk's ordinary typing skills, River had, meticulous piece by meticulous piece, built an incredible worm virus (unnoticed by all who had seen the pieces) that would, in two months time, attack all communications system on Londonium and render them useless for forty-eight hours.

While the Alliance would see this as an attack from rebel forces, the loss of supplies during that sensitive period would guarantee the loss of the planet Hera, and signal the end of the war.

A small salute to her brother would free them both from the heel of the Alliance for all time.

So it was that, by design, and the weight of a stone, when the little clerk typed the letters 'bob' it always came out 'boob'.

Only fitting, Rive