Part 1

There's a bump and a lurch felt through the entire Academy as Serenity docks, unwelcome. Claxons blare. In the main dining hall the Students stir and murmur, confusion more than ever writ large on their face. The Advanced Students in their special cafeteria have less of a reaction; the outside world matters less and less for them.

In the staff dining hall, the doctors, teaches and nurse exchange looks and outbursts of confusion and consternation themselves. Theories fly around; a meteorite, maybe, or an unexpected docking. Or something gone wrong with whatever madness the Doctor is up to. Only Dr. Sergio Lin actually bothers to leave the room.

In the Special Wing, the Doctor and the Graduates wait for their door. Whatever it is, the guards will take care of it.

It only takes a few of the Blue Hands to guard the dining halls, under normal circumstances, and the rest are here in the Security Lounge. It's a narrow space, with a sterile stink to it; some indefinable imprint of their inhabitancy. Crowded tonight; there're guests in town. The room is decorated with watercolor paintings, all turned upside down. When Serenity arrives, their heads all swivel as one in the direction it came from, and as one they stand and move towards the doors, drawing pistols and slim blue wands from their jackets. They meet Dr. Lin as they come out, and he confuses the situation with semi-hysterical and self-contradictory orders.

And at the docking point, the doors burst open, and with no further ado quite a lot of heavily armed people burst into the skyplex.

Things have begun.

Part 2

There's a stink of gunpowder in the air; too much for the Station's air recyclers to clear out. Blood, too. But things have gotten quiet, except for the rare moan from the blue-handed defenders. Whatever forces are left to protect the Academy have given up on breaking the seige and have fallen back, waiting for the attackers to come out.

Time's running out.

Part 3

From the bridge, the chaos below registers in packets of sound.

Voices. Thuds.

Gunshots.

Screaming.

It almost drowns out the steady beeping of the fuel gauge, which has picked up in intensity and frequency as the last of their reserves trickle away. 17.6% and falling fast: three more minutes until the point of no return.

Suddenly, there's a rumbling jolt that rocks the ship, and Zoe's voice crackling over the comm: "WASH, EVERYBODY'S ON THAT'S COMIN'! GET US OUT OF HERE!"

Even with the sharp, sickening twist of fear at the way she's phrased it, her husband doesn't need telling twice. Wash rattles off the main engine sequence and pounds an open hand on the thruster controls. Serenity wrenches backward and spins into a pirouette that, if not the most graceful manouever she's ever pulled, gets the job done; they shoot away into the black, engine lit a bright burning yellow, and behind them, in the walls of the Academy, the ominous rumbling continues.

It would be too easy if this were the end, though.

Which is why a second beeping begins to harmonize with the first, and why, on Wash's radar, three sleek military ships flicker into view.

Dark Tower / Firefly

Reckoning

Argument

It's Sunday morning at the Academy. No prayer service this morning, for those who believe, because of an unfortunate circumstance, but it's still Sunday morning.

A busy day.
The King is in the Tower, eating bread and honey
Today is the day the Doctor and the five Graduates leave the Academy; graduation day, and the satisfaction and triumph of the doctors and nurses is only soured a little bit by the eighty or so new Blue Hands wandering around the skyplex and eyeing everyone disquietingly.
The Breakers in the basement, making all the money
River (Anthy) Tam is chastised for story-telling, by the Doctor, and put to bed. She'll wake up in time to go through the door to End-World and on to the Court of the Crimson King; there's plenty of time. Best estimates say the door will open sometime around dinner.

The day goes by awkwardly; except for the canceled prayer service, Sunday is like any other day, and today is a bad day for classes; the students seem snappish, uncertain, riled up. Dr Lin puts the blame on River Tam and her fairy tales.

There's a surgery scheduled that afternoon, and it goes badly.

All bad days must eventually come to an end, at least, and this one wheels slowly on towards suppertime. Most of the nurses and doctors are able to put their feet up in Staff Dining, except for Dr Wing and his nurses, they of the failed surgery, working on paperwork, and for the few whose turn it is on the rota for preparing and serving dinner. One of the many disadvantages of the skyplex is that it's impossible to keep both security and non-essential staff. They tried it at first, but there was...

a lot of turnover.
Two by two
It's easier to think of it that way.
hands of blue
Most of the unrest is confined to the younger students, the lower Phases, and working there is a trial tonight. The nurses handing out the protein lumps (and watching the students flinch away and scream at the same food they eat every night) are envious of their colleagues who only have to watch the Advanced Students preparing microwave noodles and run the hot water taps for them. Those are in turn envious of the ones eating their own dinner.

In front of the door, the Graduates wait, without any supper, not caring. The Doctor waits with them, gloating over his prizes. He sends one of them to fetch River Tam.

The Blue Hands wait, too. For them, dinner comes once the Doctor leaves. They plan to eat well.
The Dixie Pig



In a few minutes none of this rather trivial existence here in the devar-tel, this hell for children, is going to matter.

Because on the far edge of the quadrant, a ship is approaching, carefully timed to slip in between the sweeps of Alliance pickets. It doesn't have any weapons, unless you count the people inside it. It's an old ship, but a classic model. Firefly.

Serenity comes to Illyria, and Hell follows after. This is the reckoning.

(no subject)

There are still murmurs and shifting and whispers in the cargo bay, after all is said and done. Guns have been put aside; now there are folks working on calming the students. Making sure they're all right. It's nearly time to put this next part of the plan into action.

Ted has explained to Sheemie what they have in mind -- now that the students have been mostly calmed thanks in some part to what Ted does, they need Sheemie to do what he does. To open a portal in space and time.

He turns to the group in the cargo bay and says quietly, "They wouldn't know how to take care of you at home. And even then...even then the Alliance could just come and find you again. We want to take you to Taos, New Mexico on Earth-that-Was, in the year 2005. There you can get better, and use your gifts for good things and not bad ones. You can be of use, and you're wanted, and you're loved. And I know just as much as you do that that's all we really need, guys like us. Somebody to want us and to love us."

His eyes might be a little bright and he has to clear his throat -- there's a student in the corner over by Susannah who's a dead ringer for Bobby Garfield. "Just guys like us."

Ted falls silent, and the cargo bay is utterly quiet.

He turns to Sheemie, and nods. "Now."

(no subject)

In a dark room, there is a door. On the other side of the door, it's mid-afternoon; on this side, it's early morning. Time between this world and that rarely runs in synch, and time on this side never runs smooth, anymore.

It's a mechanical door, not a magical one, and lights flicker and turbines grind as the ancient mechanism tries to access its counterpart. Finally, time here and there comes together, and the door lights up; gets a little more solid.

No one comes through. Their welcoming party is late (the train is broken down again, and they're walking, and cursing) and so are the new arrivals.

Time passes, and this is more accurate than you may think. If you think of the time here and the time there as two ships passing in the eternal night of todash space... well, they're drifting apart.

And then the door flies open and spills them out, the gunslinger, the wizard, the mad girl and the Rose Bride. The effects of such mechanical gateways are always nauseating in these days since the world moved on, and with the two doors nearly out of synch--and the destruction of the door they came through, almost simultaneous with their transmission--the effects are much much worse.

And before they can recover, the earthquake comes, the Beamquake, as time hitches forward and the life of Chloe's Beam runs out. They stumble, fall; sparks fly, and some of the monitors in the wall explode.

Darkness takes them all, and hours pass.

---

They awake in a place completely unfamiliar. It's somewhere inside a building, and it's dark...except for the ghostly light spilled out on the floor by television monitors. Thirty of them, a few shattered. Twenty-one show pictures that Roland Deschain might find familiar, if he had time to look.

Only there's not much time to take in the sights.

There's sound coming from outside the door.

"WELCOME TO ARC QUADRANT OUTPOST 16. THIS IS A MEDIUM SECURITY OUTPOST. PLEASE GIVE -- "

Roland stiffens; the voice sounds like that of Blaine the Mono, and he knows where Arc Quadrant Outpost 16 is --

"Ninety-nine, you sack of shit! Come on! Open the goddam door!"

"THANK YOU."

Roland has time to draw his gun. "Humans. Taheen. Mayhap can-toi. Expect them -- "

The door opens.

(no subject)

The sky is bright and blue and cloudless, here in New York City; have a nice wide shot to show off the skyline. Now we're tilting down (don't get seasick) to see the streets and the sidewalks, all crawling with cars and pedestrians. These are the arteries and the veins and the blood of this city. We're not at the heart. Not quite.

And there's a clot, over there: a taxi's stopped short in front of an angry blond-haired boy. We've seen him before. Same with the barking gold-eyed creature who's not quite a dog and not quite anything else from this 'verse.

Luckily, they're attracting enough attention that three people who weren't there a half-second ago go nearly unnoticed.