Disclaimer – Everything either does belong to Joss or it should. I’m just borrowing his shiny ‘verse for a while.

The 21st Lancers belong to the British Army so I’m borrowing them too. I hope they don’t mind .

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‘Black rain, Thor’s Hammer, Steel Hail, there were plenty of euphemisms for Kinetic Energy weapons bombardments, I always liked “Rods from the Gods” myself, but when you came right down to it, it was just some son-of-a-bitch clubbing you over the head with big lumps of metal dropped from orbit. If you’re going to fight a ground war you need orbital superiority, or at the very least you need to be able to stop them from getting it. Never give up the high ground.’

Excerpt from “Death or Glory Girl” by Captain Claire Hart. Hera Press 2530AD

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INS Charybdis – Underway – 2521AD

‘What the hell is going on’ Mal yelled over the sirens.

Zoe observed the Navy crewmen who had been in the ships rec-room watching an old movie the Serenity crew had bought with them, sprinting out of the room, ‘Action stations I’d think.’

‘Reavers?’ Inara asked concerned.

Mal turned to her. ‘Attacking this rutting great thing in a couple of worn out transports, or a couple of dozen worn out transports?’ he said. ‘Even they ain’t that crazy.’

‘Alliance maybe?’

‘If it is then they’re in for a bad day I’m thinking’ Mal replied as the sirens stopped.

The lights started flickering madly and folk music started to play from the ships internal speaker system.

‘Now what the hell is going on?’ Mal asked rhetorically.

A crewman tore into the room out of breath. ‘Captain Deckers complements Sir’ she gasped at Mal. She had clearly just been running flat out for quite a distance. ‘The Captain requests your presence on the Bridge immediately.’

‘What gives?’ Mal asked her standing up. ‘Why didn’t he just call me on the intercom?’

The crewman looked at Mal. ‘One of the engineers really rutted something up’ she said simply and started running back whence