Newsgroup: it.fan.tv.buffy
Titolo: Serenity Book: il primo capitolo

http://www.whedon.info/article.php3?id_article=10692
First Chapter Of The Serenity Book Online
From Simonsays.com - 2005-08-7th
SERENITY VALLEY, HERA
Sergeant Malcolm Reynolds’s life had reduced itself to the critical
imperative of running.
He pumped his legs as fast as he could through the uneven ground of
Serenity Valley, his boots slamming down onto the rocks and dirt. With a
determination born of faith and righteousness, he ignored the aching
muscles, the fingers that desperately wanted to relinquish their grip on
his weapon, and the bodies of so many of his fellow soldiers as he dashed
back to base camp. Not to mention the mortar fire lighting up the night sky
all around him.
"Base camp" was probably a more highfalutin name than the pile of sandbags
in the dirt deserved, but that was what they had. The tattered remains of
the Independent defense was headquartered there.
For five weeks, they had held the valley. Serenity Valley was the key to
Hera, and Hera was the key to the war. Whoever controlled this particular
ball of rock would be in position to do considerable damage to the other
side.
Doing damage was a notion Mal Reynolds could surely get behind.
He stumbled up the incline that led to base camp, throwing his arms down at
the last minute to cushion the impact as his body hit the ground. That, he
thought, could’ve been ugly. Might’ve split my lip or something.
It was a weak joke, but such were powerful funny when you were watching
Alliance aircraft mow down platoon after platoon after platoon.
To some extent, Mal was flattered by the attention. The Alliance calling in
air support meant that they took the Browncoats’ defense of Serenity Valley
seriously -- something they probably commenced to doing after a month had
passed without the Alliance taking Serenity in twenty-four hours like they
planned.
So they sent in more troops. And more air support.
As Mal watched, an Alliance skiff took down dozens of his people, plowing
through bodies like knives.
Stumbling into base camp, he wondered where the hell their own air support
was. The Alliance had been too clever by half, and made sure to target
officers instead of grunts. Mal wasn’t all sure, but it seemed fair to
certain that he was the highest-ranking Brown-coat left in this gorram
valley.
And still we’re holding it. He smiled. These Alliance folk were getting a
hard lesson in the power of positive thinking -- in this case, the people
were positive they didn’t need some government completely taking over their
lives. The Alliance was welcome to the central planets, but keep your
grubby mitts off our outer worlds, thank you so much. Once our air support
shows up, then you’ll really see what we can do. Until then, though, that
Alliance skiff out there was not going to let up until all the Browncoats
were dead.
He went straight for the corporal whose name
he could not remember, but who he called "Grin"
on account of how he never once smiled. Grin was from Sergeant DeLorenzo’s
platoon, until Sergeant DeLorenzo -- and three-quarters of his platoon --
were wiped out by the first Alliance airplane to show up.
At Mal’s questioning glance, Grin said, "Sergeant, Command says they’re
holding until they can assess our status."
Mal’s jaw fell open. "Our status is, we need some gorram air support. Now
get back online, tell ’em to get in here!" What is it about Command that
they must insist on having their heads firmly implanted in their rectums?
Even as Mal spoke, Zoë Alleyne leapt in from above. "That skiff is
shredding us, sir."
Zoë had been with Mal in the 57th from the beginning of the war, and it
hadn’t taken long for him to count on her as his right hand. Mal knew he
was a decent soldier, all things considered, but Zoë was brilliant. There
were times when Mal was convinced that, had Zoë been on the Alliance’s
side, this war would be over, and the Browncoats would be done for. And had
there been more like Zoë, he suspected that a lot more of his people would
be alive. As it was, only he, Zoë, Bendis, and McAvoy were left of the
original 57th, though he had inherited plenty of others, including the
entire company under Lieutenant Baker’s command, owing to Lieutenant Baker
lying dead with several dozen bullets in his chest not three meters from
where Mal was crouched down right present.
Grin was fixing Mal with his usual serious expression. "They won’t move
without a lieutenant’s authorization code, sir."
Firmly implanted in their gorram rectums. Mal ran over to Baker’s corpse,
muttered a quick prayer and apology -- Ben Baker wasn’t a bad sort for an
officer -- and ripped the ID patch off the lieutenant’s uniform arm. On the
underside was etched the man’s code.
Handing Grin the patch, Mal said, "Here -- here’s your code. You’re
Lieutenant Baker, congratulations on your promotion, now get me some air
support!"
Mal then gathered Zoë, McAvoy, Johannsen, Tedesco, and Bendis to his side.
Mal had put McAvoy in charge of one of the squads, which was made up
entirely of the remnants of fifteen other squads. Since the air support was
taking its good sweet time, they needed themselves a Plan B. Luckily, he’d
seen the makings of that plan down the hill a ways, since the Alliance had
been right neighborly enough to not blow up the GAG when they wiped out the
32nd.
To Johannsen and Tedesco: "Pull back just far enough to wedge ’em in here."
To McAvoy: "Get your squad to high ground, start pickin’ ’em off."
McAvoy nodded, but Zoë looked pissed. "High ground is death with that skiff
in the air," she said.
"That’s our job." He gave her a cheeky grin. "Thanks for volunteering."
Then he looked at the youngest member of the squad. "Bendis, give us some
cover fire -- we’re goin’ duck hunting."
Suddenly the entire base camp rattled and shook as mortar fire landed close
enough to send everyone sprawling. Without even thinking, Mal threw his
hands over his face to protect his eyes from the dust and dirt and shrapnel.
When he removed his arms, Johannsen lay dead in front of him. Bendis was
staring at the corpse, eyes wide, lips quivering, his hands gripping his
rifle so hard his knuckles were even whiter than his face.
Mal grabbed his shoulder. "You just focus!" He looked in turn at each of
the others. Tedesco didn’t look so hot, either, and McAvoy was biting down
on his lower lip so hard he was drawing blood. They’d come too far to start
giving up now. "The Alliance said they were just gonna waltz through
Serenity Valley, and we choked them with those words. We have done the
impossible and that makes us mighty." He smiled, hoping to give them the
confidence he felt, because Mal knew that soon this battle would be over
and they would be the victors. "Just a little while longer and our angels
will be soarin’ overhead raining fire on those arrogant cusses, so you
hold."
He looked Bendis right in the eye. "You hold!"
After a moment, he said, "Go!" McAvoy, Bendis, Tedesco, Zoë, and the others
all moved to ready their weapons.
As she reloaded her weapon, Zoë shot Mal a look. Mal had come to know --
and appreciate -- that as Zoë’s
I-know-you-want-us-to-feel-better-but-are-you-just-bullshitting-us?
expression. "You really think we can bring her down, sir?"
Mal grinned. "You even need to ask?"
His weapon already primed, Mal took a moment to pull the crucifix out from
under his shirt. Kissing it, he whispered a quick "Our Father." Mal wasn’t
arrogant enough to think of the Independence cause to be the same as the
way Christ defied the Romans, but he was also wise enough to see the
similarities. The Alliance swallowed planets with technology and rule of
law and conformity. Mal had nothing against technology, and rule of law
certainly had its place in the ’verse, but conformity was not a concept he
could get behind, any more than Christ could.
Prayer completed, Mal got to his feet. "Ready?"
"Always." Zoë was, of course, right behind him. God and Zoë were the only
two things in the ’verse Mal Reynolds had counted on, and neither one of
them had let him down yet.
The same could not be said for Bendis, who was not right behind Zoë. In
fact, he hadn’t moved a muscle since Mal told him to hold.
"Bendis!" Zoë bellowed in a voice that could command the stars to change
alignment.
But Bendis still didn’t move, even after two more yells from Zoë.
McAvoy had already moved off, and his people would be in position in five
minutes. They couldn’t afford to wait -- or to babysit Bendis. Mal nodded
to Zoë, who hauled herself and her weapon above the sandbags and started
laying down Bendis’s cover fire.
Mal ran out from behind the bags and started his run toward the GAG.
Ground-air guns were a handy weapon to have when faced with air strikes by
Alliance skiffs. The Alliance, however, knew that, and so made sure that
the soldiers assigned to the only GAG the Browncoats had in Serenity Valley
were their primary target. Mal’s goal was to get to it and take that gorram
skiff down before it picked off the entire damn company.
When he got to the rock-line -- Zoë, naturally, right behind him -- he
peered down to make sure that what he saw half an hour earlier still held
true. Sure enough, there was only one Alliance soldier guarding the GAG.
Mal wondered if it was overconfidence, or if it was just that their troops
were spread too thin. Then Mal decided he didn’t rightly care all that
much, long as it remained so.
Pausing to take aim at the soldier -- who at least had the good sense to be
under some cover -- Mal fired.
The Alliance soldier lay dead moments later.
Mal recollected something a shepherd had said to him round a year or so
back: The commandment was not "You will not kill," as it was often
mistranslated. It was, in fact, "You will not commit murder."
As far as Mal was concerned, though he’d killed many a person since this
war commenced, he’d yet to murder a single living soul.
He ran down to the GAG, Zoë staying behind to watch his back. Settling into
the shoulder harness, he activated the weapon -- thanking the good Lord
that the Alliance hadn’t actually sabotaged the thing -- and swiveled it up
and around toward the skiff that had been making their lives a ruttin’ hell
for the past hour.
The compglass lit up with targeting information. Mal let the computer do
its job, setting the GAG’s sights on the skiff and staying with it once the
target was acquired.
Then, when a low beep, barely audible over the shell fire all around him,
told him that the skiff was in range, he fired.
Two barrels loaded with two-hundred-caliber ammunition fired at full
strength into the skiff at Mal’s command, tearing through that flying
deathtrap as easily as the skiff’s own bullets went through Mal’s people.
Stepping out of the GAG, Mal whooped and cheered as the skiff went hurtling
down --
— right toward him on the ground.
Tzao-gao!
Turning, Mal ran as fast as he could, pumping his tired, aching legs as
hard as he could. ’Cause it would be right embarrassing to go to all that
trouble to shoot down the skiff and then get oneself crushed by its
flaming, descending hulk. That sort of thing could ruin a man’s day.
"Zoë!" he cried as he ran toward her. She whirled around to see a crazed
sergeant barreling right for her, a fiery skiff heading toward the ground
at a great rate right behind him.
Even as Mal grabbed her, she herself leapt to the ground, hoping to avoid
the wreck.
Mal felt the heat of the explosion on his back, and for a moment, he feared
his coat would catch fire.
Then the explosion started to die down. Mal rolled over on his back and
started laughing.
Zoë gave him her you’re-ruttin’-insane-sir look.
They ran back to base camp. Mal couldn’t stop laughing. We are going to
take this valley, we are going to take this rock, and we are going to win
this thing!
As they ran back behind the sandbags, Mal saw Bendis, who had yet to budge
from his spot. Zoë looked like she was going to spit at him. "Nice cover
fire!"
Mal, however, couldn’t bring himself to be angry. "Did you see that?" He
ran over to the radio. "Grin, what’s our status on -- ?"
Then he saw that Grin was lying down on the job. Not really his fault,
mind, seeing as he had a bullet hole where his left temple used to be,
Baker’s patch still clutched in his hand.
Looking away, Mal called for Zoë and pointed at the radio. She nodded and
ran over to Grin’s corpse, taking the headpiece out of his right ear.
Mal instead went over to Bendis, who looked like he had soiled himself a
dozen times over. "Hey, listen to me. Bendis." Gritting his teeth, he
yelled, "Look at me!" Bendis finally looked up at him. Mal saw considerable
fear in the boy’s eyes. "Listen -- we’re holding this valley no matter
what."
For the first time in what seemed like days, Bendis spoke, in a dull
monotone. "We’re gonna die."
"We’re not gonna die. We can’t die, Bendis, and you know why? Because we
are so very pretty." He grinned. "We are just too pretty for God to let us
die. Huh?" He grabbed Bendis’s chin. "Look at that chiseled jaw. Huh?
C’mon."
The beginnings of the possibility of a smile started to consider appearing
on Bendis’s face. But before Mal could commence to trying to cheer the boy
up further, the sound he’d been waiting all night for finally made itself
heard through the weapons fire.
Air support.
He couldn’t tell if it was one big ship or a whole passel of little ones,
and he didn’t rightly care. Looking up and grinning even wider, he said to
Bendis, "Well, if you won’t listen to me, listen to that." He looked at
Bendis. "Those are our angels, come to send the Alliance to the hot place."
Turning back toward the radio, he said, "Zoë, tell the 82nd -- "
"They’re not coming."
At first Mal assumed he heard wrong. Of course the 82nd’s coming, I can
hear them, they’re --
Then he heard it. The tone in Zoë’s voice. He recognized it on account of
Zoë not normally having much by way of a tone. On anyone else, it would’ve
just sounded like a monotone, but there were nuances to Zoë’s speaking
patterns that one learned to suss out if one got to spending enough time
with her.
And what Mal heard now was despair as deep as what he saw in Bendis’s eyes.
"Command says it’s too hot," Zoë said. "They’re pulling out. We’re to lay
down arms."
Lay down arms?
No. Mal refused to believe it. They were winning, gorramit, they were
beating back the Alliance, and God was on their side, and they were winning!
Besides, he heard the angels. "But what’s -- ?"
Then he realized.
Even though he knew he couldn’t bear to see it, he forced himself to stand
up and look over the sandbags. Bendis stood up next to him.
It wasn’t the 82nd he heard, though he had, in fact, heard angels. They
were the seven angels who heralded the end of the world.
"The first angel sounded his trumpet, and there came hail and fire mixed
with blood, and it was hurled down upon the earth. A third of the earth was
burned up, a third of the trees were burned up, and all the green grass was
burned up."
For all the weeks they’d been holding Serenity Valley, the sounds of battle
had become so much white noise to Mal. Now, though, it was like all his
senses were more acute than ever.
He smelled the acrid ozone of the bullets flying through the air, including
the one that struck Bendis in the chest, killing him instantly as he stood
next to Mal.
He felt the ground shake as the Alliance vessels’ thrusters slammed against
the ground to permit them a soft landing.
He tasted the bitter adrenaline combined with bile at the realization of
what was happening.
He heard Zoë say that the Independents were asking the Alliance for a
parley to discuss terms of surrender.
And he saw hail and fire being hurled down upon the earth, and mixing with
the blood of the people Mal Reynolds had called comrades.
Zoë had thought she had seen the worst possible ways to die.
She believed that the Alliance didn’t have the right to control all the
known worlds. The Alliance, naturally, had something to say about that, so
there was a war. Zoë had fought, going where they told her to, shooting
what they told her to shoot. That was what she did. Zoë had no illusions --
she was a follower. She was particular about who she chose to follow, mind,
but she knew her limitations. Unlike, say, Malcolm Reynolds, she had no
leadership skills.
But she had a fair portion of fighting skills, and she was sure to put them
all to good use against the Alliance.
She thought she had seen all the worst ways to die during the war.
That was before the fighting stopped.
It had been two weeks. A fortnight since Command said Serenity Valley was
"too hot" after they’d held it for so long. Fourteen days since they were
told to lay down arms.
Two weeks since they’d been left there to wait until the armistice was
signed.
Two weeks to watch people die.
There were no proper medical facilities on this part of Hera, and they had
no way to get to the places that did. No ships flew overhead while they
waited, no chatter came over the radio.
So people died. They died of wounds that got infected. They died of colds
that they might have shaken off in a day if they weren’t exposed and
exhausted and bleeding. They died when they fought over what little food
remained. They died when they decided eating their pistols was a better end
than waiting in Serenity Valley for hope that would not show itself.
For Zoë’s part, she dealt with it by shutting off her feelings. It was the
only way to surround yourself with suffering -- and also the only way to
inflict it on other people. It didn’t get to her because she refused to let
it.
Throughout it all, Sergeant Mal Reynolds kept the troops going as best he
could. Anyone else in charge, Zoë was sure they’d all be dead. But he
managed to keep everyone going, with jokes, with inspiration, with anything
he could throw at them.
Except, she noticed after the third day, for hope. The hope that he had
instilled in the troops from day one was gone. Had Zoë not been so
concerned with whether or not she’d starve to death, she might have
mentioned it. As it was, she was content to let him be.
On the fifteenth day, Kiri said, "I can hear something. Does anybody hear
that?"
Zoë refrained from answering that the only things she could hear were,
alternately, her stomach grumbling or Tedesco’s labored breathing as he
tried to gasp air with a chest that was riddled with bullet holes.
Sergeant Reynolds called out, "Corporal! Zoë! Signal flares!"
Struggling to rise, Zoë asked, "Whose colors?" As she forced her limbs to
crawl through the fatigue, the injury, the agony, she noticed that Tedesco
wasn’t breathing at all. That in fact he’d been dead for two days since
being shot in the face. So why did I think I was hearing his breathing?
Kiri said, "It’s a rescue ship, sir! They came!
They came...." Kiri sounded like she couldn’t believe it.
Zoë couldn’t believe that no one answered her question. "Whose colors are
they flying?" She also couldn’t get up. Her legs, on which she hadn’t
called often these past two days, had taken to that state of affairs and
simply refused to function.
And then, there was the sergeant, offering her a helping hand. There were
few things in the ’verse Zoë could count on. Malcolm Reynolds was one of
them.
"It don’t matter none," he said in a quiet voice. "One side or the other,
it makes no difference."
Zoë couldn’t believe her ears. If it didn’t make a difference, what had
they been fighting for?
Sergeant Reynolds turned to Kiri and Bourke, who was standing next to him.
"Both of you, pass the word. See who’s still with us." Then he bellowed,
"Look alive, people! We got medships en route! We need to prepare for
extraction!"
It took all Zoë’s willpower to keep from bursting out laughing.
"Extraction," indeed. Well, actually, it took no willpower, as she could
barely stand up, but still, the notion was crazy. They weren’t being
"extracted." You were extracted when you were being removed from an op that
was over. This -- this was just vultures picking over the bones to see if
there was any good meat left.
She rooted through a supply bag for the flare, then looked up at the sky.
The ships were starting to come into view now, but they were still pretty
much just specks against the clouds. Then she handed the sergeant the flare
and asked the question she was afraid to ask, yet had to: "Are those really
medships? Are we really getting out?"
He took the flare and said, "We are."
For the first time in two weeks, Zoë allowed herself to feel something:
relief. "Thank God." She let out a long breath, and even thought about the
possibility of smiling a little.
Sergeant Reynolds looked at her with as disgusted an expression as she’d
ever seen on his face. "God?" He lit the flare. "Whose colors he flyin’?"
Zoë shot him a look. He really has lost it.
Then she remembered the old saying about how there were no atheists in
foxholes. By the same token, there weren’t very many worshippers in charnel
houses, and that’s what Serenity Valley was. The dead outnumbered the
living by at least ten to one. Zoë had gotten so used to the odor of death
that she suspected that the inside of the medship -- and it was a medship,
she could see that now as it came closer -- would smell peculiar.
Either way, the war was finally over. And they lost.
-- 
Jolan Tru, Filippo "Hytok" Simone: l'oracolo sampdoriano di Sunnydale
La Casa degli Elfi - 
http://lacasadeglielfi.altervista.org/
Enclave del Dominio - S.N.S. Despiser - 
http://ildominio.altervista.org/

 First Chapter Of The Serenity Book Online
Figata!!!
Per essere piu' chiari (visto che 
buffy.nu
 guai) e' un capitolo della 
novelization del film, scritta da Keith R.A. Candido (un tizio 
simpatico, postava anche sul forum di firefly) tratta dalla 
sceneggiatura di Joss!
-- 
Laz - [
http://www.dimensionedelta.net
]
"If my calculations are correct, when this baby hits 88 miles per hour, 
you're gonna see some serious shit!" 

Per essere piu' chiari (visto che 
buffy.nu
 guai
Sei vecchio. :-P
Fai come le persone anziane che non riescono a parlare di euro e citano
ancora le lire, tu citi 
buffy.nu
 anzichè 
whedon.info
. <g>


 citano ancora le lire, tu citi 
buffy.nu
 anzichè 
whedon.info
. <g>
No e' che Buffy.nu e' piu' breve :-D
-- 
Laz - [
http://www.dimensionedelta.net
]
"You're all clear kid, now let's blow this thing and go home!" 

 
http://www.whedon.info/article.php3?id_article=10692
Ehi, ora l'ho letto ma... questa e' la battaglia di Serenity, e' 
l'inizio della serie TV, non del film! ^^;; Con tanto di stesse battute 
("We have done the impossible, and that makes us mighty"). Be', 
evidentemente allora nella novelization del film danno un po' di 
background, bene!
-- 
Laz - [
http://www.dimensionedelta.net
]
"Real love isn't brains children, it's blood. It's blood screaming 
inside you to work it's will." 

l'inizio della serie TV
Cioè, IMHO, la parte meno bella di tutto il telefilm.


 Cioč, IMHO, la parte meno bella di tutto il telefilm.
Non ti piace la battaglia di Serenity?! Riguardala... guarda quando lui 
si rende conto che NON vengono a prenderli e che chi sta scendendo e' 
l'Alleanza... guarda quella scena al rallentatore cui il soldato da 
parte a lui viene colpito e cade a terra... e' stupenda!!!
(O forse non ti piace perche' il soldato si chiama Bendis? :P)
-- 
Laz - [
http://www.dimensionedelta.net
]
"We all come in from the cold, we come down from the wire, and everybody 
warms themselves to a different fire" 

(O forse non ti piace perche' il soldato si chiama Bendis? :P
LOL, non arrivo a tanto. :)
Ma se a quel tizio facessero scrivere solo Alias... invece gliel'hanno
chiuso, pure. :-(
