This chapter quotes the Oliver Wendell Holmes poem “Tear Her Tattered Ensign Down.” If you are at all familiar with the poem, you probably already know the context in which it will be used. Despite being fanfic, it was nonetheless a very difficult section for me to write… so prepare yourself.
9:42 A.M.
Wednesday, August 1st, 2018
Edwards AFB, California
The black Gulfstream came swooping in out of the sky and touched down on the Edwards runway like a menacing bird of prey. Slowing quickly to a stop, it turned and stopped in front of a hangar.
The hatch opened as a stairway was rolled up to the aircraft. Chuck, Casey, Sarah, and the crew of Serenity exited the aircraft. Colonel Tweedum stayed onboard the aircraft, since it wouldn’t be on the ground that long.
As they approached the hangar, its giant door rolled open into the ceiling – and there she was.
Serenity. She sat in the hangar, looking sad and forlorn. Her left turbine had been broken off in the crash – again – and sat next to the spaceship, looking like a forgotten leftover. There were noticeable fractures across the entire surface of the ship, and she was missing the landing feet on her right hand side.
Every window was gone. Scorch marks marred the aft of the ship, where the engines had flamed out after the ship was displaced from the 26th century. Mal’s heart was heavy as he looked at his beloved Serenity.
“She’ll be with you the rest of your life,” he had been told nine years before, when he bought her. And now, she was at the end of her road. There would be no repairing Serenity. It pained Mal, yet another loss. All the losses during the war didn’t begin to add up to Wash, Shepherd Book, and now his beloved Serenity.
“Is she safe to board?” Mal asked quietly.
“I’ve been told that she is,” Sarah replied. “The engineers have placed caution markers in the places where the ship is structurally unsound, but otherwise, you should be able to get around her no problem.”
“That being the case,” Mal said, “I’d like to ask that my crew and I be able to go onboard alone for a few minutes, to say good-bye.”
“Absolutely,” Sarah confirmed. “Take all the time you need.”
Mal, Zoe, Jayne, River, Simon, and Kaylee began to head toward the ship. They had crossed half the distance to the open cargo bay door when Mal stopped, looked at his crew, and turned around.
“Chuck,” he called. “Are you coming?”
Chuck looked surprised. “I thought you just wanted the crew.”
“You’re part of my crew,” Mal replied. “It may have only been for a little while, but you were part of the crew of Serenity.”
Looking at Casey and Sarah with a shrug, Chuck jogged across the hangar floor to catch up to the spaceship crew.
They entered the cargo bay. It looked strange, lit with floodlights like it was. Chuck looked to the right to see his old Herder – NRDHRD3, the old California license plate still read. It looked like the car’s anchors had broken when the ship crashed, and part of the passenger cabin had caved in.
Halfway across the cargo bay, Mal stopped. He stepped out in front of his crew and turned to face them. Reaching in his back pocket, he removed a small, black leather-bound book.
When Mal spoke, his voice was rough and thick with emotion. “I found this book at a little used bookstore in Phoenix,” he said quietly. “It’s a book of verse by Oliver Wendell Holmes. There’s a poem that he wrote when the United States government proposed breaking up the frigate USS Constitution, which as I understand it, is still afloat today?”
He looked at Chuck, who nodded.
“Nonetheless,” Mal continued, “this poem is appropriate to the occasion we are gathered for here today – the retirement of the Firefly class transport Serenity.”
Pausing a moment to compose himself, Mal opened the book, and using his finger to keep track of his place, began to read:
“Aye, tear her tattered ensign down! Long has it waved on high,
And many an eye has danced to see that banner in the sky;
Beneath it rang the battle-shout, and burst the cannon’s roar:
The meteor of the ocean air shall sweep the clouds no more!
Her deck, once red with heroes’ blood, where knelt the vanquished foe,
Where winds were hurrying o’er the flood, and waves were white below,
No more shall feel the victor’s tread, or know the conquered knee:
The harpies of the shore shall pluck the eagle of the sea!
O better that her shattered hulk should sink beneath the wave!
Her thunders shook the mighty deep, and there should be her grave:
Nail to the mast her holy flag, set every threadbare sail,
And giver her to the god of storms, the lightning and the gail!”
When Mal stopped reading, there was not a dry eye among the crew. Mal’s own cheeks were wet with the tears that had begun streaming down his face.
After a moment of silence, Mal spoke again. “Serenity has been a good ship,” he intoned. “She has had one wild career. We’ve lost some friends onboard her, and she has felt those losses.”
He looked up, trying to keep from breaking down in front of the crew. “We’ve said goodbye to Shepherd Book, we’ve said goodbye to Wash, and now we say goodbye to Serenity.
“She will fly no more, but…”
Mal’s voice got choked, as he forced out the final sentence. “She is a leaf on the wind... watch... watch how she... soars.”
As Mal used Wash’s final words to say goodbye to Serenity, he finally lost his composure, and unable to bear it any longer, quickly departed the ship through the cargo bay doors.
The rest of the crew wandered through the ship, touching a wall here, looking in a room there, saying goodbye to the ship they had called their home for years. River found herself in the control room, sitting in the pilot’s chair, Simon in the infirmary. Jayne and Zoe both went their separate ways.
Kaylee and Chuck entered the engine room, hand-in-hand. As they did so, Kaylee noticed that Chuck’s hand was shaking ever so slightly in her own. She looked at him, and noticed he was sweating.
“Are you alright, Chuck?” she asked, concern in her voice.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” he replied, his voice saying otherwise.
Kaylee’s eyes widened. “No, really,” she said. “Is it your heart?”
Chuck looked down at her, and a smile played across his face. “Well,” he said softly, “I guess you could say that.”
When Sarah found Mal, he was standing in an alcove of Serenity’s hull, his forehead pressed against the hull, his eyes closed. She walked up behind him, and gently wrapped her arms around his chest, hugging him from behind.
After a moment, he turned around, embracing her. He was quiet for a moment, and then said, “She’s like my own child.” His voice was hollow and he sounded like a man who had lost everything.
Sarah didn’t say anything, just continued to hold him. Every so often, a sob would rumble its way up through Mal’s chest and escape, but finally, he was still.
He took a deep breath, and let it out again. Backing away from Sarah a little, he looked her in the eyes, and said, “What’s going to happen to her?”
“Well,” Sarah replied, “she’ll be disassembled, and her parts will be taken to the Air Force technology center in Nevada. They’ll be studied, and hopefully we can use the technology to improve our-“
“No.”
His interruption took Sarah aback. “What?” she asked. “But, this can be so –“
“I said no,” Mal said firmly. “The United States might be all happiness and light right now, but eventually, it becomes part of the Alliance, and I will be damned if my ship helps that Godforsaken monstrosity in any way.”
By now, his arms had dropped away from Sarah, he had backed further away from her, and adopted a hostile posture. “Mal –“ she started, but was interrupted again before he could even speak.
“It’s my ship, Sarah,” he replied, a hard edge on his voice. “It’s my name on the title. She is not going to be torn apart and studied by your scientists. Can you handle that?”
“Mal,” Sarah pleaded with him, “I’m a United States intelligence officer. I can’t just let this –“
Mal cut her off again. “It’s not happening,” he snapped. “And if you can’t accept and understand that, then maybe it’s a bad idea for things to go any further between us.”
He stalked off, leaving Sarah standing under the ship by herself.
“Dammit,” she said softly. “God dammit all to hell.”
“I don’t understand,” Kaylee said. “What do you mean, ‘I guess you could say that’? Is it your heart or not?”
“Why don’t you take a seat for a moment,” Chuck said, guiding her to the jumpseat attached to the wall, next to where her hammock had been.
“Several years ago – for you, seven, for me, ten, so we’ll just say several – we were in this engine room as a Reaver ship parked above us. You told me to strap myself into that very seat you’re sitting in, just in case. I did so.
“A moment later, the Reaver ship dumped its trash, knocking Serenity on her ear. You flew across the engine room, and I just happened to be able to grab you. We ended up just inches from each other – and, well, it was all downhill from there.”
“Downhill?” Kaylee smirked.
“Well, you know what I mean,” Chuck replied with a laugh. “The thing is, I fell in love with you, and then when I left, I thought I was never going to see you again.
“Now, years later, you get dumped in my lap again, and we have a son. I am not letting this opportunity go to waste.”
Chuck slowly lowered himself down to one knee, reaching behind his back into the back pocket of his pants as he did so. Grasping the ring inside, he pulled it out and held it in his left hand.
Kaylee’s face was a picture of happy shock as Chuck took her left hand in his right hand and said, “Kaylee, you mean more than the world to me. You coming into my life, and then coming back again – there is nothing better that could’ve ever happened to me.
“I want to spend the rest of my life with you, and our son, as a family. Kaylee Frye… will you marry me?”
Kaylee tried to say, “Yes,” but suddenly found herself unable to speak as tears sprang unbidden to her eyes. A huge smile crossed her face, tears of joy spilling down her cheeks as she nodded emphatically.
Chuck smiled, then brought his left hand out from behind his back, and slipped the ring onto Kaylee’s ring finger. Her eyes widened when she saw the ring, and her right hand flew to her mouth.
“Oh my God,” she whispered. “It… it looks just like Serenity’s engine.”
“Yeah,” Chuck replied softly. “It’s a topaz, which I had shaped to look like her engine. The band itself… well, there was some titanium from Serenity’s hull that cracked off in the crash, and the band is made out of that.”
“My engagement ring is Serenity,” Kaylee said quietly, with wonder in her voice. Wrapping her arms around Chuck’s neck, she kissed him on the cheek, and then hugged him tightly.
“I love you, Chuck Bartowski.”
10:51 A.M.
The Gulfstream
In Flight over the Mohave Desert
Chuck and Kaylee had been planning to announce what had happened onboard Serenity once everybody was back on the Gulfstream, but Chuck immediately sensed that something wasn’t right between Sarah and Mal. In fact, he could tell that something was very wrong.
Kaylee too noticed that Sarah was sitting in the very tail of the plane, while Mal was as close to the cockpit as he could get. “What’s going on?” she asked Chuck.
“I don’t know,” he replied, “but I intend to find out.”
He tried Mal first. “Hey, Mal,” he said as he sat down.
Mal just grunted. “What’s going on?” Chuck asked, a serious tone in his voice.
“Nothing,” Mal replied crankily.
“Uh… are you sure?”
“Why don’t you go ask Sarah,” Mal quietly ordered Chuck.
“Ask her about what?” Chuck persisted.
Mal narrowed his eyes. “Just give her a message for me,” he snapped. “Tell her I will be gorram humped before I let the United States turn Serenity into any technology that the Alliance can use down the road.”
Chuck’s eyebrows went up. “Ooooh,” he breathed out. Standing up, he turned and marched toward the back of the plane, sitting down next to Sarah.
“What?” she asked shortly.
“You can’t let the Air Force dismantle and reverse engineer Serenity,” Chuck replied without preamble.
“What am I supposed to do, Chuck?” Sarah asked, looking up wearily. “I’m the Deputy Director for Intelligence of the Central Intelligence Agency. I can’t say, ‘No, you can’t have his ship!’”
“You’re not just the DDI,” Chuck said. “Mal loves you, and you are breaking his heart by doing this.”
“He told you all this, did he?” Sarah questioned him sarcastically.
“No,” Chuck replied. “However, it turns out that I have this funny tendency to observe subtleties and have my brain process them. I think that something called the Intersect may use this ability.”
Sarah sighed. “I really can’t do anything, though,” she said. “The team from Area 51 is already at Edwards. They’ll be heading out to the hangar in 15 minutes.”
Chuck sighed. Standing, he put his hands in his pockets, making his car keys jangle together. “I think you can do better than that, Sarah,” he said disappointedly. “I really – what?”
Sarah was staring wide-eyed at his pocket. “That’s it,” she whispered. She looked up at Chuck, the light bulb practically visible above her head. “That’s it!”
“What?” Chuck said. “What’s it?”
“The Herder,” she replied excitedly. “Your old Herder. Is it still on board Serenity?”
“Yes,” Chuck stated slowly, “but it’s pretty badly dam- wait a minute.”
He looked at her incredulously. “Are you planning on doing what I think you’re planning on doing?”
She didn’t answer him. She had bounced up and was headed toward the front of the plane. “Kaylee,” Sarah exclaimed as she approached her. “Do you have the remote control to the old Herder on you?”
Kaylee looked up. “Yeah,” she replied, an odd look on her face. Reaching for the chain around her neck, Kaylee pulled out the remote control she had worn as a pendant for years.
Sarah looked up at Chuck. “Chuck?” she said. “That’s your cue.”
As Sarah used the remote control attached to the wall to change the screen at the front of the cabin to a split shot showing the interior of the hangar Serenity was in and a satellite shot of the hangar, Chuck dialed the Nerd Herd corporate headquarters. “What exactly is going on?” Mal asked Sarah as he stood up.
Sarah shooshed him. “Nerd Herd, this is Anna,” came the voice of Anna Grimes. “If it needs fixin’, you need a Nerd!”
“Anna, it’s Chuck,” he said.
“What’s up, Chuck?”
Chuck groaned. “I hate it when you say that. But we’ll talk about it later. Right now I need the command console phone number for Herder 3.”
There was a pause on the line. When Anna finally spoke again, she said, “Chuck, Herder 3 was totaled eleven years ago. You were driving it at the time.”
“Doesn’t matter,” he replied. “I need the number. It should be in the archive.”
It took Anna a moment to find the number. When she finally found it, she read it off to him, and asked what was going on.
“I’ll explain later,” he said, hanging up. Letting go of the hook button on the airfone, he dialed the number for Herder 3’s command console, and put the phone on speaker.
It rang four times before finally answering. “Her-der Char-lie commmm-and con-sololole,” came a damaged sounding mechanical voice.
“Herder Charlie, this is Big Chief One,” Chuck said. “Authorization code 8675309.”
Casey rolled his eyes. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“Not my idea,” Chuck replied. “Long before my time.”
“Auth-or-i-i-i-za-tion accept-ed,” Herder 3 replied. “Stat-us of Herder Char-lie is as foll-ow-ows. Ca-bin da-mag-ed-ed bey-ond accept-ab-le lim-it-its. Pro-pul-sioon dam-aged bey-ond accept-ab-le lim-it-its. Frame is cra-cra-cracked in se-ven dif-fer-ent pla-aces. Her-der Char-lie is in-in-inop-er-ative.”
“Say status of self-destruct system,” Chuck said.
Several of the Serenity crew gasped. “Self-dest-ruct-uct sys-tem is on-on-line and op-er-ative.”
Thank you, Lazslo, Chuck thought to himself, thinking of the psychotic but brilliant kid who had designed the Herder for designing it so well. “Engage auto-destruct sequence.”
The could see that the eyes of all of the Serenity crew had gone wide – all except Mal’s, who was developing a look of acceptance on his face.
“Auth-or-i-i-i-za-tion code,” the Herder said.
“Eight One Eight Zelda Forty-Two,” Chuck said.
“Auth-or-i-i-i-za-tion code ac-cep-ted,” Herder 3 said. “Please de-fine ex-ec-u-tion lim-its.”
“Immediate execution on remote command.”
“Ac-cep-ted. A-wait-ing re-mote com-mand.”
Chuck hung up the phone, as Sarah turned and handed the remote control to Mal. They locked eyes, and he took the remote from her.
“Thank you,” he said.
Turning to the screen, he placed his thumb over the panic button on the Herder’s remote. Very gently, he depressed the button.
For a second, nothing happened. Then, a violently bright flare of orange light ripped Serenity apart. Kaylee started to cry as the interior hangar camera went to static.
On the overhead satellite image, they watched in dumbfoundedness and a little bit of awe as the roof of the hangar blew off, and the four walls exploded outward. A massive orange fireball erupted into the sky, large enough that it could be seen from the Gulfstream, nearly a hundred miles away.
Mal continued to stare at the screen, even as the fireball receded. The smoke obscured the satellite picture somewhat, but the huge expanse of charred ground left him no doubt.
Serenity was no more.
