As Serenity started its landing on Persephone, a signal came through from the surface. Not taking her eyes off the various sensors at the pilot's station River reached over and hit the button to accept the signal. She glanced at the screen just long enough to see who it was and returned her attention to landing the ship. "Hello, Badger," she said, not looking at the screen. "Well if it isn't my favorite girl in this system." he responded. "I'm sure you say that to all the girls." she said, mostly ignoring him. He had been flirting with her in one form or another since they had first met. "I'm about to hit the atmosphere, so if you have something to say, make it quick." "Sure. Tell your Captain to come see me. I got a job for him." "Oh. Is he going to get stabbed so that he can move cows again?" Badger immediately went on the defensive. "Look, I was just the guy that found the contact and arranged - meeting. It --- my--- he----" The signal cut out as the ship entered dense enough atmosphere for the ship's speed to generate enough heat to garble all radio transmissions to and from the ship. Mal entered the bridge from the crew cabin area and saw the screen with a "call ended" screen on it. "We got a call?" He grabbed on to the co-pilot console as the ship vibrated from the entry turbulence. "Badger. Said he had a job for you. Hopefully it's more fun than getting stabbed and hauling cattle." "Well, I wouldn't be too picky about moving livestock, but the 'getting stabbed' part wasn't exactly fun." The ship had shed enough speed for them to be subsonic now, and the heat dissipated enough for the radio to clear up, so River activated the radio. "Eavesdown Docks, this is the Firefly Transport 'Serenity' requesting permission to land." A few seconds later a man's voice came over the radio. "Firefly transport 'Serenity', you are cleared for landing at pad 94." "Pad 94, acknowledged." she said, then ended the call. The Captain activated the internal comms. "Attention everyone. We will be landing at the Eavesdown docks in approximately 15 minutes. All passengers, please be packed and ready to depart as soon as we land. Thank you." When they decided to pick up passengers at that last drift, Inara had arranged to do some business of her own on Persephone, so she would be leaving for a day or so as well. Plenty long enough to find out what Badger wanted and refuel before she got back. --- The job seemed easy enough, and the take good enough that the Captain had no problem accepting. The mark was a club on Persephone owned by a retired Alliance Captain. It was a middle class lounge style bar, the kind of place respectable Alliance officers and business people would go to relax after a long, hard day of telling other people what to do. It was the kind of place that would dislike Serenity's crew simply because of their politics. The plan was simple enough, though. The club was running a "Battle of the Bands" contest this weekend to find new talent to perform there, with the winner being guaranteed at least 10 Saturday nights over the next year. Some of the crew had entered as "Mourning Serenity", a low-key band which wouldn't draw suspicion when their "Manager" Malcolm Reynolds started wondering around the club asking questions. Badger had informed them that the owner kept a safe in his office that held over ten thousand platinum every night, the club's income, which badger would split with them 50/50, and the contest would likely double that. "Mourning Serenity?" said the stage manager to the crew gathered there to be part of the band. "You're on next." "Thank you." said Mal, then gave them a brief pep talk, perhaps taking his "manager" job a bit too seriously. Once they were on stage, though, he made his way off the stage and over to the bar near the office. They had got a brief look at the security the night before when they had went through the tryouts. There were a few extra bouncers, but other than that they shouldn't have any problems getting the manager away from the office after things died down. He was a bit of a womanizer, and could easily be distracted. From the stage, River spoke. "This song is dedicated to our manager, who brought us together and is helping us make our dreams come true." After a few seconds of music at the beginning of the song, she began to [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wof_mvcB0YA]sing[/url], distracting the club-goers and staff long enough for Mal and the others to begin the plan. [hr] We will basically be picking up Firefly where it left off. Three months have passed since the "Miranda Incident" and the Alliance has started to crack down on anti-government "radicals" and Independence sympathizers. I'd prefer to only control NPCs, but will control unclaimed crew if I need to. River's telepathy will be limited to surface thoughts and feelings. We'll be Serenity's crew, maybe with a few additions. I would prefer that these additions be characters that we've seen before, but OCs will be accepted if they feel like they'd fit in well and are well written. I labeled this "episode 1" so that when/if we finish it we can continue the RP with a new plot tied to this one, and change players if need be. [h3]Taken Characters:[/h3] Malcolm Reynolds: Zoe Washburn: Kaylinette Lee Fry: River Tam: Simon Tam: Jayne Cobb: Inara Sera: (Maybe isn't crew, or is with a customer currently) New Crew 1: (NPC from the show) New Crew 2: (NPC from the show or OC) New Crew 3: (NPC from the show or OC)