Author's Notes:

This started out as part of the "Your Song" series which I haven't updated in seventy billion years, and evolved into this on it's own. I felt kind of weird making up my own characters, but they're not Mary Sues (Marty Stus?) or anything like that, just necessary evils. Title is loosely derived from Ender's Game, because that's what inspired me.

Italics denote the alliance guys talking. (or, later, flashbacks)

'...' denotes thought, which is only necessary for our psychics.

Feed me! kaylee@kikiroxxorz.com

Pairings are: (Simon/Kaylee, Mal/Inara, Jayne/OC and River/OC) but they're not truly important to the plot. Except maybe the River/Adam dynamic. That's kind of important.

~*~

“How did you get in here?” the agent demanded.

“Aw, hell.” Jayne cocked the gun. “Gettin’ in here’s the easy part. Simon’s havin’ a hell of a time tryna get into the buildin’, though.”

“This is an authorized area of the Academy!” the agent said indignantly. “There’s security at every entrance!”

“Them security buggers’re pretty easy ta convince with a li’l help from my gal Vera here.” He looked down at the weapon lovingly. “So hows ‘bout you avoid an unple…a nasty li’l scene with ‘er and let the kid come with me.” He gestured down at Simon, who was staring up at Vera with almost unsettling interest.

“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” the agent said. “Why don’t you put that gun down before I have to call in reinforcement.” He emphasized the last word, hand on his communication unit.

Jayne snorted. “I got me some of them reinforcement things, too,” he said as the agent fell to the ground. Jayne picked Simon up and rushed, fast as he could, out the gate.

~*~

The feds caught them immediately outside the gate. “Jayne Cobb?” one said, gripping and cuffing Jayne’s wrists. Jayne grunted. “You’re under arrest.”

A shot rang out, and the smaller fed turned around to find a very surprised Simon holding a gun that was almost comically huge in comparison to his tiny body.

“You can put me in jail,” he said