Dark Tower / Firefly

[walk_ins]

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.

Comments

Part 1

[walk_ins]

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

[walk_ins]

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 fallen.

Time's running out.

Part 3

[walk_ins]

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.