Jayne is still standing there as River tells them to run for the second time. This time, she manages to shout it.

“Run from what?” Jayne says, looking at her like she’s crazy. But seconds later, Jayne Cobb realises he ain’t never seen crazy before — not like this. The girl who’s exited the tube has charged at River in what seems like three seconds flat, and toppled her over, sending them both flying into instrument trays and consoles alike.

The girl, with no effort whatsoever, grabs a scalpel as it flails through the air and catches it in the tips of her fingers. Then she launches it in a different direction, which flies between Bea and Jayne and embeds itself in Mal’s throat. Jayne yells his name but can’t look back. The girl swings, kicks Jayne between his legs, and brings him to his knees. She turns and, without hesitation, hits Bea with her own rifle, sending her careening.

As Mal struggles to move, the girl goes behind Jayne and casually lifts his arm up. Mal tells Bea to flee, and then the girl, with no qualms or mercy, breaks Jayne’s arm backwards. The merc screams.

Mal draws his gun and tells Bea again to leave. But before he can even fire, the girl punches him flat in the nose, and his world goes dark.

In the dark, Mal can hear him plain. Telling him what to do. How to signal. He knows the voice. It’s Wash.

“Everything’s set and ready.”

“Good.”

He shows Mal something else on the bridge console. It’s a big red button. Mal looks at him for a moment, not getting it.

“I linked the nav. systems of both shuttles into the helm.” He taps the top of the button. “When your miracle gets here, you just pound this button once. It’ll call back both shuttles.”

And then Wash is gone. It’s just hours ago and the sun is shining. They’re parked. Kaylee is on the bridge. Inara too.

“What’s it you want exactly?”

“I want this dismounted,” Mal says, tapping the red button on the console. “I want it rigged so if need be, it’ll bring Serenity to our location. Think you could manage that?”

“Sure, Cap’n,” Kaylee nods. “You expectin’ trouble?”

Mal smiles at her. “Pretty much always, and I’m seldom wrong. Get to it. Won’t be long in the city.”

Then his brain floats forward again, this time not so far. To the meet in the city, with the New Resistance. A big giant of a man had let them in. He’d gone quiet as a church mouse as soon as he laid eyes on Mal.

“This is a real honour, Captain Reynolds, sir, truly,” the giant says, though Mal thinks now that he’s more of a bear. “You’re an inspiration to all of us. Reading accounts of your battles is what—”

Mal interrupts the man, telling him enough. He really doesn’t like the praise or the effect his mere presence is having with these folk. And he’s barely through the door.

“We’re in need of assistance,” he had told them. “I don’t make a habit of asking for handouts and we’ll pay you back. I can’t promise as to when, so my word’ll have to hold you till that day comes, but it will come.”

The giant tries to interrupt him but then waits until the Captain has said his piece, no matter how uncomfortable everyone can tell he is saying it. He turns to Mal when he stops.

“Anything. Just tell me what you need.”

That was easy, he had thought at the time. Maybe too easy. But sure enough they got him a shuttle and people who were willing and ready to fight. He told them Plan B, just in case Plan A went sideways a little. Even though, as he told them all, he weren’t particularly keen on it. The crowd understood. And then Jayne turns to him from his left.

“Mal?”

“Mal, GORRAM IT! WAKE UP!”

Jayne yells his name, but Mal isn’t moving. The blade is still sticking out of the side of his neck, blood slithering down his skin and drying on his face already. But eventually, Mal moves. First he rolls onto his side and inches his hand towards his neck.

He feels the blade and winces slightly, gritting his teeth. He looks over and sees the girl — the wild one — punch River to the floor, and now the wincing is replaced by his heart pounding. Anger at what has happened to his people.

He reaches into his coat and brings out a device. The big red button. He slams his hand down on it as hard as he can.

On the lawn outside, the Operative is down but not beaten. As his commander calls him rusty, the Operative looks up at him, not bothering to wipe the blood from his mouth.

“This is your final opportunity. Surrender,” he says calmly.

The commander sneers. He’ll take his chances. He parries toward the other man, who sidesteps him and swings his blade in one fluid motion as he moves, in a figure eight.

The commander’s head splits apart as his brain falls to the ground. His body soon follows. The Operative looks down at his fallen foe and shakes his head, saddened.

“That was not a good death.”

As Bea comes running out of the building and towards him, the female officer gets up out of her chair. She’s not angry. She’s not nervous. She just walks towards the exit of the shuttle and calmly walks down the ramp onto the lawn, and begins to stride, with precision, towards the Operative. The Operative stops in his tracks when he sees her.

“Dear God,” he whispers.

Bea turns in the woman’s direction, asks who she is. The Operative tells her to lay her gun down. Bea tells him no.

He then physically grabs her hand and forces it to her side, his gaze not leaving the woman once.

“Lay down your arms and there’s a chance you’ll live,” he almost whispers at her. “Trust me.”

Inside, the girl is still battling River, and it’s not moving either which way. Jayne watches them as Mal starts pouring through drawers and cabinets, finally finding a syringe he recognises, labelled correctly. He throws it in River’s direction. She catches the syringe and, without any pause, plunges the needle into her opponent’s chest.

Outside, the female officer has Bea and the Operative on their knees. She asks how they’d like this to end.

“Honourably,” suggests the Operative.

The woman coldly nods. “As you wish.”

He picks up his blade and stands to move, but security officers from the Alliance are backing up the female officer now.

“Aww, hell,” the guard says, listening to his ear device.

“What is it?” the officer asks, without turning around.

“Browncoats,” he tells her, somewhat hesitantly.

On the far side of the field, without stopping or slowing down, Serenity descends, opening the ramp and letting hundreds of New Resistance fighters out of the cargo bay. The Alliance soldiers immediately open fire, but the warning came too late. The brave Resistance smash through their lines.

The female officer doesn’t move until she’s surrounded. Then, without emotion, without even changing the look on her face, she cuts a swath through everyone — Browncoat and Alliance alike — and simply strides through the crowd, leaving carnage in her wake. The Operative watches as she leaves to her goal, just as Mal and the rest are fleeing the building, the unconscious girl in his arms.

They look weary and tired. Mal and Jayne both have blood on their faces. River’s nose looks broken. The girl is maybe sixteen, seventeen years old. The crowd separates as Mal carries her towards Serenity. He tells the Resistance men to rig the Alliance ships with explosives and to grab their leader.

“He’s coming with us,” Mal says, anger dripping from his voice.

Later, onboard and in the infirmary, Simon checks over the girl. An injured River, on the mend, not bothered about herself, doesn’t leave the bedside. Inara stitches Mal’s neck.

In the cargo bay, strapped to a chair, the Alliance officer laughs in Bea’s face when he’s told Mal will decide his fate.

“Mal Reynolds isn’t your leader,” he tells her. “I am.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You know what the biggest advantage is for enemies of the Alliance? The Alliance wears uniforms. We operate in concert. If you want to hurt us, you know where to strike.” He makes sure his voice is louder now, the smile on his face visible to all in the bay. “You can’t do much damage. Haphazard and weak as you generally gorram are. But at least you know where to aim your attack. Not like that for us. You’re all scattered. Scurrying around, no rhyme, no reason… tough to predict. That’s your advantage right there,” he says, looking straight at Bea again. “Disorganisation. But you gave it up. Your one strategic advantage, and you gave it up.”

He glares at her, the smile twisting.

She takes a step back from him, determined not to give in and punch him in his stupid face, but then he says something that makes her heart skip a beat.

“The New Resistance. Catchy name. Helluva logo. You swarmed like flies. Where’d you think all that money was coming from?”

Bea turns immediately, shouts an order. “Try and raise any NR outpost you can. Tell them to get the hell out of—”

The officer interrupts. “I called it in hours ago.” He takes delight as Bea realises he’s telling the truth, and the realisation makes her bow her head in grief. “I assure you that this is all that’s left of the ‘New Resistance’.”

He almost chuckles, but maybe realises that ain’t the best he could do right now when the crowd separates and Mal walks towards the officer.

“We’ll have to do something about that as well,” he says.

“How do you mean?”

“I’d made up my mind,” Mal tells him. “To steer clear of the Alliance. Make my living out where I wouldn’t be bothered and wouldn’t be bothering neither. But you won’t seem to let me live that way.”

He sighs deeply and loudly and then steps towards the officer.

“Every time I try to walk away, you come following. Well, from now on, you choose to chase me, I’m gonna turn and meet you head on. Be honest, I’m developing a taste for it.”

He then puts his face real close to the officer’s.

“We will set right what you’ve done to these people.”

With that, he kicks the officer in the chest, sending him and the chair flailing to the deck.

“But first,” Mal tells him, “you’re gonna tell us where Zoë Washburne is being held.”

“I’m not going to say anything to you,” the man chuckles. He’s defiant to the last, Mal can see. But as he leans over the Alliance man, he’s grinning. The officer looks worried now for the first time.

“Don’t say anything,” Mal says. “Think it.”

Then the officer’s face goes pale and his eyes grow wide with horror.

Mal smiles at his reaction and ushers an angry River forward.

“We got a psychic on board,” Mal tells him with a grin…