MONDO EXTRAS

"Zoe?" Mal turns her around. "Are you here?" She looks at him, solid, still as ground. "Do the job, sir." He searches her face. "You hold. Hold till I get back." She stares at him. He's not talking about the Reavers. Jayne: "Captain's right. Can't be thinking on revenge if we're gonna get through this." She scoffs. "Do you really think any of us are gonna get through this?" Hurt, Jayne hugs his gun to himself. "Well, I might?"

Mal takes off down the blast tunnel, up the elevator, into Mr. U's office. Sees him lying dead, huddled in the arms of his Lovebot. "No." His strength drops, his focus; he crouches to look into Mr. Universe's face. He stands, their deaths -- all of them, Reavers and Miranda and Wash and Kaylee -- on his hands.

The Lovebot speaks. "Mal. Guy killed me, Mal. He killed me with a sword. How weird is that? I got a short span here. They destroyed my equipment but I have a backup unit. Bottom of the complex, right over the generator. Hard to get to. I know they missed it." Mal smiles, touches his arm -- touching him in this moment of last-second salvation. Mal won't ever know that he was sold out, but that's the point -- for him, and for Book, and for Mr. Universe. Redemption, no matter what you've done. No matter how bad it got. That's the thing they can't stop. "They can never stop the signal."

The Reavers beat against the outer doors, with their bodies, their faces. River: "The Reavers. They are all made up of rage." Simon tries to comfort her. "I can't shut them up." But then, that's the point of them, isn't it? Jayne spits. "She picked a sweet bung of a time to go helpless on us." Zoe outlines the mission: "Jayne and I take the first wave. Nobody shoots unless they get past our fire." Kaylee cocks a gun at the door. Their faces against the grates along the ceiling, drooling and enraged. "I didn't plan on going out like this," she says to Simon, scared to death. Proud. "I think we did right, but..." He smiles sadly. "No. I never planned anything. I just wanted to keep River safe. Spent so much time on Serenity ignoring anything that I wanted for myself." She turns to him. "My one regret in all of this," he smiles, in that amazed and quiet way he has, "is never being with you." She smiles, gawky, adorable. "With me? You mean to say, as...sex?" He nods sadly: "I mean to say." She looks at him, at the door. She cocks her gun. "Hell with this. I'm gonna live." Fuck yeah! I feel you, girl. I'd go River on their asses.