Eidolon Postings

Chapter 7
Fire sputtered among the wreckage in the road, barely enough to make out ruined walls and architectural shells. The clear sky seemed to be siphoning the heat from the desert into the black, and crouching behind the makeshift barricades was shivering misery.

One of the two teens, tall, thin, and swarthy, crossed his arms and pulled his tan linen robe tighter. He shifted, trying to hold in some warmth and to find some position against the junk pile that wouldn't give him tetanus. His brown eyes were staring, short black hair hidden by keffiyeh. "Have they gone?" He muttered out of the side of his mouth, gritting his teeth.

The other peeked out over the top of their cover, looking like his companion but for a broader nose, firmer jaw, and stockier build. A few deadly crimson beams sought them out, and his partner dragged him back down. "Ittakil al Allah!" he yelled, "Go away! I need to piss and I want to sleep!"

Renewed laserfire answered him. "You forgot hungry," his friend observed wearily.

A flurry of bombs and shuttles had descended on the cityscape hours ago, timed to the second that the Georgian sun dropped below the horizon. Like clockwork, colouring everything twilight purple.

The space port had been entirely cleared, except, it seemed, for them. Once the invaders secured the area, they started building, scurrying around to set up some of the largest mounted guns either of them had ever seen. Glittering black-scaled cables radiated from the complicated-looking newtech like a forest of vile trees taking root.

"You think your little brother found a way through?" The outfit patrolling the streets were numerous, well-trained, and well-armed.

Some strange cross between wistful, proud, and grim, bitter memories of slavery and helplessness raged behind the cheeky reply. "Just fine. Niska's best greaseman, years of experience, and the ghabi haiwan don't have half a brain between them."

The quieter of the two had his doubts; if the tiny boy was as good as claimed for sneaking and getting in and out of tight places, why had he never escaped? But then their little scout was sidling up beside them, panting from exertion and adrenalin. The eleven year old was almost skeletally thin and dressed in rags. "Hey Roach," his brother greeted, "found us an out?"

The answer, as ever, the boy simply padded away silently instead, and they followed.

From its very earliest days, New Jerusalem had centered around the activity of its docks, major roads growing outward like a spider web, radiating in lines and everything tightly packed together. After sneaking away from the junk pile and making their way through a maze of evacuated homes and blocky sand-coloured buildings, their pathfinder lead them up onto the rooftops.

Now and then, the lightning flare of a flashbomb from the streets below and to the sides warned of new prisoners, and prompted them onwards, over, under, through. Down into the back alleys, into fluttering white sheets hung on a clothesline.

A couple bullets tore through the linen, barely missing them, followed by a carbine attached to a blonde foreigner in an indigo choli and lehnga, her midrift bare except for gossamer and her hair pulled back except for bangs. She stared at them, then sighed and lowered the gun barrel. "Inside. Now."

Her twin sister in green ushered them through a doorway off to their side. The shop within was part lounge and part general store; a cushion scattered sitting area for business, surrounded by shelves stacked with strange, glittering wares pawned from off-worlders, with patterned woven fabrics and rugs for sale covering wood-and-paper paneling.

A small girl behind the counter looked up, her almond eyes widening and chin-length black bob-cut swishing as she ran off into the kitchens to fetch their boss.

The woman who emerged after a short time was a giant of local colour, head scarf and smoky narrowed eyes and a rounded, matronly face and body. Despite her apparent love of food, she looked like she could break anyone who crossed her in half. She was equally suited for her ankle-length skirt and apron as well as the professional looking waistcoat she wore over both, and her overpowering perfume, mixed with the smell of cooking spices that seemed to hang around her, permeated the store and declared it hers.

She dropped into the largest of her velveteen chairs without ceremony and flicked one bangled wrist for them to join her, picking up an ornate glass pipe with her other hand. "Busy out there tonight," she commented, her low voice more casual than the topic would suggest, and she took and released a thoughtful puff of smoke. "And only rumours and speculation about who exactly all my refugees are running from."

"Shoshenk, it has to be," grumbled one of the blondes, "He and his Niska loyalists are harassing everyone, trying to reestablish their crumbling empire."

The larger woman's shook her head, silencing with a look before they heard another tirade. "He's ambitious enough," she conceded, "but the slavers couldn't shut down the docks like this if they wanted to. This is someone else." The boss returned her attention to the three boys. "So, any ideas?"

- - - - -
Deep in the Burnham Quadrant, furthest planet out in the Blue Sun system, one wouldn't expect to find such a brilliant, glittering, civilized world. Blue Sun the company had invested in its eponymous solar system for almost as long as there had been terraforming activities, and here was their crown jewel, a place where their executives could retire with their families, little known and unaffected by the politics of the Core, which also made it perfect for their research and development divisions. Anyone who came here could be certain of being able to find a job, land, and a home, if they managed to hear about it first.

As close as the planet was to the helioformed brown dwarf it orbited (in fact the very first to undergo such a procedure, also courtesy of Blue Sun), the light was almost harsh, ten times the brightness of the sun from Earth-that-Was. Stark shadows, and at the same time, no where to hide. For anyone who had never lived there, it took some time for the eyes to adjust.

His communications officer kept blinking distractingly, eyes watering whenever he looked out from the bridge of their sleek, top of the line Iskellian patrol boat. The brown-haired captain wasn't sure if it was the light bothering the man's paler eyes, or if the man was concerned for his family. The power grid had shut down some time ago, shortly before Alliance command had called for a complete quarantine, and since they had come down to investigate, they had heard nothing. No local chatter, no response even from the teams they had sent out. No noise, from a city of millions, in the middle of the day.

He wondered about his own parents and his brother, then quickly pushed the thought aside, not entirely sure whether he wanted to know. They just needed to hear back from Dr. Caron. The woman had set out taking his few remaining men with her, her coppery hair shining in the sun. Full of her usual spunky determination and a smile just for him to quiet his objections, certain she knew just what was going on. Something about suspecting a leak from the chemical plant, and once she shut it down, everything would be fine.

And he had believed her, because she had never been wrong before, and because he needed to believe her. Because there had been something very sad, and very final in the way she had told him to expect them back in a few hours.

"Someone's coming!" His officer sat up eagerly, the growing sense of disquiet and despair that had been hanging around them dissipating as he looked out and saw them. Three men, uniformed and in standard-issue armor, with assault rifles.

"Looks like they've encountered some trouble," he replied, noticing their ripped clothing. Why hadn't they made contact before? Well, he supposed he couldn't complain, finally they might be able to find out what the hell was going on. "Let's give them a hand, Ray," he ordered, already heading down the steps from the bridge, stopping by his sparsely decorated office to fetch his gun while his subordinate grabbed a commpack from the lockers by the console.

Down the stairs past the top airlocks, down the ramp to the cargo bay, into the open. The soldiers ran up, panting. All three of them looked almost wild. Something was wrong, and the captain's hand went to his holster.

"They've gone crazy!" One of them shouted. "All of them! First nothing, then they turned on each other!"

"So much screaming," whispered the guy in the back, twitching, looking from side to side, looking for some threat he could no longer see, staring blankly.

The other soldier was clutching his head with one hand in confusion, unable to comprehend. "They just… What they saw, they just snapped or something… Oh god. What happened here? What happened to everybody?"

"What about Dr. Caron?" the captain demanded, "Is she all right?"

"Dead, dead. She has to be," answered the first soldier.

"So many bodies!" screamed the most shaken of the three, a knife suddenly in his hand, whirling, cutting, stabbing, even as the other two immediately rounded on him. Panicking, their shots missed erratically and the other man pounced, enraged, roaring. Right for the jugular, teeth and claws, tackling the communications officer before his former comrades had even fallen to the ground, his face a bloody mess.

He fired once, as the madman turned from the third corpse, once more when his would-be attacker didn't even slow down, and the captain stepped back, hit the panel for the outer airlock, gun still trained on the cannibal as he leapt. The doors slammed home, the berserker still straining to reach him even while being slowly crushed. Another shot, directly through the helmet, and this time the man went limp.

The captain waited in the darkness, avoiding the one interrupted shaft of silver white light shining like an interrogation, waited for his heartbeat to slow, to be sure the crazed murderer wasn't going to start moving again, to see if the other men would.

He gathered himself, stepped back out and checked them, pulled them off the ramp, the red streaks the only colour in the landscape of black, white, and grey. Only hours before, these men had lives, a past and a future that was more than the dust of a dying world.

The task. Grief and sympathy were dangerous gates to self-pity. The captain recovered the communication officer's headset, crackling with static, then frowned and increased the volume. He amended his assessment: inhuman shrieks definitely weren't static. And the several more nearby that replied didn't sound like a welcoming party.

He double checked that the blastdoors were securely closed before retreating to the bridge, punched in the start-up sequence and set the com station to broadcast all channels. "This is Miranda Orbital Patrol, number 3263827. If anyone out there is NOT a blood-thirsty psychopath, please respond." Were it not for the desperation underlining the request, it might have been comical.

The voices from the headset stopped for a brief, unsettling moment, then came back louder, accompanied by the sound of distant ship engines and thousands of tiny blips appearing on his radar.

- - - - -
Rubble crunched under dull black boots, a lonely noise amid distant shouts, familiar in its criticism of the utter waste of combat. Found another one, someone shouted. Half buried, unconscious, still breathing.

Not that it would do the poor bastard much good.

The heavy clomp of a platoon leader approached, gear clinking with every footfall. The naval officer straightened, his grey double-breasted mao uniform worn and tired looking compared to the much younger man's new helmet and armor and eager, earnest expression. Nine years of peace, and all they had to lead the ground forces were fresh faced recruits straight from officer's training. But then, they didn't need veterans for this.

"East perimeter secure," the soldier announced.

He nodded, at the same time monitoring the technicians working on the other half of deployment activity with disinterest. "Reinforcements will relieve your shift at dawn, after which report with your men to the main air-strip to bring your prisoners back to the Ratched. See that your area remains secure until then."

The soldier hesitated, uncertain whether he was dismissed without being told so. "Sir? How long are we going to be on Ezra?"

"How much resistance have you encountered?" the captain of the Tohoku-Class Cruiser asked.

"Minimal, sir." The marine sounded disappointed.

He shrugged. "Then you have your answer. Excuse me, lieutenant. We have peace to restore and a rebellion to end." The man saluted and left him to contemplate the ruins around him. And lucky us, he thought, sarcastically, it's too late for either.

Chapter 8
Too quiet. Now Finagle's Law must intervene, deus ex machina with infernal engines and guns materializing out of the nothing. Then let there be light, but it must be dug up, it hides in a palace in a cave over the horizon, afraid to look on the misdeeds of the early hours.

He may understand better than anyone of misfortune and the curse of breath. Doesn't dare to exhale, though it won't prevent the loss. Cradled in darkness, his heartbeat so loud it might leak out his ears. The yells and shouts of a final murmur thunder around him in the dead silence. A large shadow moved cat-like across the tiny sliver of light, the one crack in his fortress. Nowhere to go, no matter how much he curls in on himself, all boxed in. Drops stained a pristine white carpet and sharpened steel rasped harshly back into place before the muffled bootsteps finally went away.

Even when the others came, cleaning up and arranging, he didn't emerge. He knew this game, he'd been playing before. But this wasn't for fun now, he didn't know these people in their suits and with their bags and chemicals that made his tear ducts sting. They took the face in the mirror with them, took nobility and innocence. A voice that whispered then called his name lifted him out of the cubbyhole and held him like something precious, but there was only cold comfort and fear in her familiar blue eyes.

Those eyes darken to the blackness of space, and the stars go out. History repetitious, the snake bites its tail without seeming to recognize the pain. Three little sisters, a tall one with dried blood stained into her skin. Marching steadily forward, before her eyes she would hold steady the image of what she wanted but will not turn to embrace. She won't look at the echo waiting behind her for fear the memory will disappear.

Delight has a flavour like strawberries, but they are tasted on stolen time. Pretend to not crave them in the open when they grow so near the fresh graves. Fruit is best if it is forbidden.

And don't cough. Fear for family is nothing to be embarrassed about, no matter how distant they seem. Strength and muscle and a little coin in a letter goes a long way. Did it for them, became the beast they needed even after being chased away. Now it's time to hunt, and afterwards to feast in the bounty and vice and secretly keep everything going a little longer. Indulgence keeps the instincts honed. To soften is to die.

She saw them, all of them. Comforting familiar presences and feelings pressed into her, kept out the noise, the knowing. Old fears, keeping out the new. No longer overwhelmed, she was separate from them, padded between them in a celadon hospital gown and leggings.

This detestable gorge, this womb of death, ready to swallow her and choke her with aseptic perfume. Push aside the curtains. Clean and sterile. Steady beeping of monitors and the whirr of overhanging scanners. The apothecary consented, didn't even charge the full forty ducats. His flawed poison took a higher price instead. They pushed needles into her skin until she couldn't remember forever, until screaming was her past and future. Poor living corse, clos'd in a dead man's tomb.

She heard it all in the stony passage. Speaking in riddles and seeing their forgotten nightmares.

There was whimpering when she fled.

- - - - -
Zoë had watched an awful lot of sunrises recently. Back in the war, there'd never been time for it. Always camp to break, or some futzing to do with six months expired fire jelly that didn't heat rations evenly, or shrapnel to dodge.

As the sun inched up over the grassy plain and the sky went through a parade of pastel colours, sometimes she had crazy thoughts that she might miss all that. All the stubborn would-be couple drama made her want to smack Inara's head into the captain's and lock the two of them in one of the shuttles together. It'd be a fair turn, considering the accidental help Mal had been for Wash and herself.

Those early years on Serenity, they'd had a different mechanic, barely more than a boy and miles away from Kaylee's skill. Bester's brain most likely had been completely sun-addled from that beach hut they'd pulled him out of, but once he was gone, the only targets Mal and Wash had for their prank war were each other. She wasn't sure how it had started, but she was pretty clear on how it ended: a night of drinking, a shaved moustache, an angry and hungover Wash in the morning complaining to her about their psychotic captain, yelling, then… Well, more arguments, but mostly to hide the heavy breathing and the other yells.

"Zoë?" She might have wondered if the companion had taken classes on how to call a person's name if Inara hadn't sounded so uncertain. Zoë blinked away the gathering memories and looked down from her perch on the mule at a knee-length floral riot. One of Kaylee's outfits. Too bad, would've been interesting to see the captain's reaction if Inara had come out actually wearing the carefully folded bundle of leather she was hugging so close.

She felt a smirk pull at her lips and an eyebrow as she watched Inara take in their surroundings apprehensively. "Welcome to Ezra. Sleep well?"

Their cryobox mail frowned slightly, all big, dark, troubled eyes. "Apparently." Gentle sympathy broke through the clouds as the other curly haired woman studied her, sitting out by herself. "And you?"

Zoë took a breath against the sudden tightening in her chest. "I try. Gets lonely though," she admitted, and understanding passed between them. She let her eyes drift away, beyond the glowing heavens.

"You're not alone," Inara reminded her gently, and smiled with a wistful kind of encouragement, reaching out to squeeze solace into one of her hands.

She'd disliked their renter at first. The captain needed his wits about him, especially since his second in command always had her questions whether he had any wits to begin with. She needed him to bring her home safe to Wash. Neither of them ever thought that it might be the other way around too.

But even more, they needed the money, and considering all the jewelry and Sihnon silks it seemed the courtesan could more than afford the full asking price. Didn't take any vaunted Alliance education or Academy training to figure out why the captain had given her a twenty-five percent discount. Didn't help that Kaylee and Wash had been so impressed with her, either.

So it had been easy, for a while, to dismiss her as some kōngxīnlǎodà yínfù just slumming it with them. Until she saw the worry in Inara's eyes, whenever they left for some crime; until she came to understand most of those riches were gifts, and that the certified companion was struggling as much as they were to find work out on the Rim. She'd started to wonder, who was this woman who so fascinated the captain, who could steer him back on course when it seemed no one else could. When Inara had been gone, she'd seen some of Mal's misery return from back before they'd purchased Serenity, back when he thought he had no life or future ahead of him and that everyone in the universe could go to hell for all he cared.

Inara had stood with them to send the Miranda broadwave, had sat by her during the hard nights when she couldn't keep the grief at bay and patting circles on her back. Yet today, it grated. This silk stocking, pretending like she knew a thing about death and loss, like she'd dug graves to bury the broken bodies and pieces of men and women she'd fought beside. What gorramn good would it do to see her husband again in another life if neither of them were the same person and couldn't remember? Wash couldn't ever come back, he was gone. Yet here was Inara, and here Inara was still bickering and fighting the inevitable and wasting time. She'd been on the bridge when Mal had gotten the message, had seen him die a little more. When the captain finally got himself shot, what then? So long, see you next time?

"Where is Mal, by the way?" Inara asked, suddenly remembering the coat she was carrying, bringing her hand back to stroke the tanned leather absently, "I would have thought he'd be out here with you." Her lips curved up in amusement. "He's not hiding from me in the backseat, is he?"

"He's avoiding you," Serenity's first mate confirmed bluntly. The wrested pain and regret wasn't near satisfying as expected when Inara's smile fell, and Zoë took pity on her waving vaguely towards Mal's general direction. "He went off that way to find his gun and wake Jayne up."

Inara winced, shivering slightly from the cold morning air. "I hope the two aren't related."

"The day is young," Zoë replied wryly, idly pulling her sawn-off and checking the magazine, then shoving the forty-four home. "Gonna be fetching the shuttles back to Serenity, 'spect Captain'll want you flying if River's too unsettled."

"Which is looking more'n more likely," Mal joined in as he approached, dropping a parcel onto the backseat, then leaning against the side of the mule, arms crossed. "Made some kind of ruckus in the parsonage over breakfast."

Jayne stomped over to the ground cart to secure their supplies, unaccountably eager to get under way and wolfing down the last of a protein bar. River trailed behind the man and immediately began undoing everything. A worrisome memory a year and a half old surfaced, involving Jiangyin hill folk, witchcraft, and torches. "Loudish?"

"These are uncommonly tolerant folk," he answered, "but let's not impose on their hospitality much longer." Uh huh. Zoë had no doubts his hurry was more to do with his local popularity and the ration of jokes waiting for him than the villagers. He scanned over Inara, taking in her new fashion and her bare legs, sliding from her ankles up to her ruffled hem before catching himself. "Zoë? You seen…?"

His first mate took his holster from the seat beside her and tossed it to him. "Left it with your coat," she answered, "Inara found it."

He frowned, then shrugged and wordlessly slung his gun belt around his hips, missing the sharp glance, the slight headshake in response. No problem, just in case. "Kaylee?" he asked, once mollified that his side arm was secure. Zoë merely raised an eyebrow, and he sighed in irritation. "Tā shí jiàng yào nòng shāng… Really don't want to see her unshucked. Someone go flush out the rabbits."

"Hey, I'll do it," Jayne piped up, mustering a not-quite-sincere innocent look from around a crate and altogether too interested.

"Doc'll be naked too, Jayne," the captain shot over his shoulder, exasperated.

"Make Zoëy do it," the lout immediately changed his mind, and went back to fighting with River over their packages. The girl threw something that sounded breakable with a loud crash.

Mal shook his head helplessly and his second in command snorted a laugh. "Just leave that for now," he ordered, "We need Kaylee to check the shuttle engines, and we're bringing 'em back here to load up anyway." The other man grumbled something at River then lumbered off, presumably to go scavenge some more food. "And knock it off with that sleep phrase!" Mal called after the merc, "Gonna scramble the girl's brains again or something, getting it wrong all the time." Jayne threw his hands up and stomped down the stairs into the commons building and out of sight.

Now, a dilemma. The corporal watched her sergeant with detached patience. Mal was being too pigheaded to speak to Inara after their fight, couldn't send her away to look for his mechanic any more than he could actually work up the nerve to talk to her. But the longer he was in her presence, the more likely he was to embarrass himself, and the more he delayed, the greater chance of being teased.

Zoë received a scathing glare from him, warning her that he knew what she was thinking. Cleared his throat, looked away. "Inara. Feel up to s'more abduction? Don't even need a club, and it's for a good cause."

She looked pleased he'd finally spoken to her, and only slightly disappointed it had taken so long. "What, annoying Simon?" she grinned, amused.

"That's a good cause!" he defended, "it enrichens the 'verse with humour, that's downright charitable!"

"I'm sure it is," Inara hummed with merry skepticism. Her expression turned sincere. "I don't mind," she told him, a concession of some sort. They gazed at each other a moment or two, long enough for Zoë to feel a twinge of nostalgia, then the captain grunted some kind of acceptance and made to climb up into the mule. Inara hesitated. "Mal?"

He glanced at her, halfway between the ground and the carriage, then his eyes dropped to his coat in her arms. "You hang onto that for now. Keep you warm." She beamed at his unspoken apology, and he pulled himself up past Zoë into the driver's seat.

Zoë watched the other woman walk away, catching her turning to look back at them now and then. "And in about an hour or so," the more practical of the two browncoats commented, "she'll be keeping warm in ninety degree summer weather." He glowered at her, which she countered placidly, until finally he grumbled and crossed his arms, glaring at the dash instead.

"You know," he said, "someday, you're gonna be wrong about somethin', and I'll have all these years a practice from you on how to give a body a hard time."

"Glad you've been listening, sir," Zoë replied, and they fell into an amicable silence while they waited for the others.

Chapter 9
She followed the quiet murmurs through the excavated halls, trailing her hand along the sandy walls and trying to settle her feelings. Not thinking about Mal was best, not thinking about the fluttering that resulted whenever something like civility passed between them. That wouldn't last, it never did.

Unfortunately, without any other distraction, her anxiety from when she had woken up returned. Her dreams the night before had been troubled, a product of unfamiliar surroundings. She forced some confidence into her steps, focused on her teachings, the sensuality of her heightened senses, the feeling of the earth under her fingers. She had never been afraid of the dark and she certainly wasn't about to start now.

"Kaylee?" she called, and the two voices went quiet for a moment that her nerves drummed up again. The muttering started anew, and she was able to catch something that sounded like 'don't go, stay' and 'cant, cap'n already formed a search party.' Some fabric rustled, one of the two gave a low groan, and they fell quiet again for a suspicious amount of time. "Méi méi?" she tried again, uncertain.

"Be right out!" her friend finally answered, and Inara had a fairly good idea that she had interrupted something she hadn't wanted to. Regardless, Kaylee skipped out into the hallway with no complaints and her usual sunniness, pulling up one of the straps of her coveralls. "Ain't doin' engine diagnostics on an empty stomach," she announced, tugging at Inara's arm.

A short trip revealing that the tunnels underneath the sandstone domes on the surface were all connected, and they emerged into a large hall under a vaulted ceiling, lit by eyelets carved geometrically into the cupola. This was where all the villagers were, Inara realized, bustling around intricately woven rugs laid across the floor for sitting and a buffet of homemade bread and cereal grains out on what appeared to normally serve as an altar.

With the air of a young companion-in-training preparing for her first lesson in self defense, Kaylee put up her hair in a work style, armed herself with her most cheerful weapon, then joined the fray. Eventually, her smile won her a place next to an ancient looking woman in impressively embroidered robes, the two of them chatting like routine as they gathered up their breakfast. They kept casting speculative glances her direction that made Inara wonder just what they might be discussing. A stuttering young man noticed her and offered her his place by them.

"Gramma Hani says you oughta get something for the captain," the girl suggested, offering a small brick of pressed millet. She was barely audible over the ambient noise, but lowered her voice obligingly when Inara waved her down. "Won't come here himself, and then he can't stay mad."

Oh weeping Buddha, Kaylee had found an ally for her matchmaking efforts. Inara felt herself shake her head, even as she realized what pure optimism had missed. Had he looked thinner, more ragged than usual? Mal didn't do misery half way. "He'll just think that I want something from him," Inara sighed. "That I'm using my wiles on him, whatever that means."

"Means he's just bein' bossy," the mechanic answered, rolling her eyes at the man. "Back for my first few when I got on, used to call him 'Skipper.' He'd yell somethin' fierce about it, then he started calling me méi méi. Said it was payback, but we both knew better." She grinned, and shook the protein treat at Inara encouragingly. "Gotta keep at him, but he likes you. I can tell."

Inara smiled kindly and didn't have the heart to argue. From what she had heard, Mal had become more tolerant of Kaylee's shows of affection less than the result of persistence and more because he had reduced her to tears on several occasions.

The quinoa bar thankfully returned to its pile and Kaylee gathered up her armful to head out to the mule, leaving Inara within reach of the table. She began to contemplate her own breakfast, when she realized Kaylee's aged friend was still watching her.

"You must be Inara." A creaking salutation, but warm and not unpleasant. Inara had little time to worry about what conditions her name had been mentioned to the matriarch under as the woman continued. "She's a good child, she means well."

"She's a dear," the companion agreed affectionately, and with something like wistfulness. "If her dreams ever came true, we'd only have to dread the day they ended." Inara picked up one of the bars, lingered for a moment over a second.

When she pulled her hand away still empty, the old woman was looking up at the ceiling, her eyes distant with memory. "My husband was much like your captain. We married in this very temple," she reminisced, and swept her hand across the array of little buildings beyond the sandstone interior. "We assisted in carving out most of the homes in Jordan, saw an entire generation grow up."

They watched the morning activity, the preparations for heading out into the pasture, the murmur of conversation of the chores and wedding gossip from the night before. "My husband just wanted us all safe. He had his share of charities and troubles, he'd lost his family to fighting when he was young, couldn't say no to either after."

Yes, unless something changed, that would be Mal someday, shot down because he was too noble for a thief, too bitter to stop fighting his old battles. She had touched on the thought more than she liked, in times when she was worried he wouldn't come back, when she burned incense and prayed to channel guān yīn to his aid.

She wanted to save him from self destruction, so much that it was like resisting the pull of a dying star and tearing into pieces, like wanting to throw herself into the abyss after him. A futile gesture, it would destroy them both, if she wasn't the very instrument to hasten him along to that fate.

"He's still here," Grandmother Hani affirmed - I know, Inara almost replied, but for the distraction of a few children nudging their way around her to get at the food on the table. "The life we shared didn't end. It's all around us, in what we built together. He's never really left me."

Then the old woman smiled mistily and apologized for her ramblings, and Inara made her decision. "Not at all, thank you," she answered politely, distractedly. "I should go."

- - - - -
His right hand might be calm as a summers morning, but watching time waste and the grasslands sway under the warming sun was rapidly damaging his. What was taking so gorramn long? If he found out Inara had waited around while Kaylee gave the doc a special see-you-later, he was going to make them walk.

It was Zoë who first spotted anyone, as usual – saved his life more times than he could count that way – and she alerted him with a hard nudge and a nod that betrayed some impatience of her own. He rose from the leather upholstery, and so did his voice, and he wrapped his fists around the mule carriage railing.

"I wanted gone fifteen minutes ago, you two stop to powder your noses... or... Hey." Both of the girls came bearing an impressive bundle of vittles and an unimpressed look for his temper. About then, his body reminded him that he hadnt had much to eat the night before, or even the past few weeks. "Bring anything for me?" he asked, trying to get a better look at the food they were carrying.

His méi méi just scoffed at him, though it was more of a laugh, and stood on tip-toes to push her plunder into the back seat before climbing up after. She tucked in almost immediately, goading and feigning innocence, grinning like a pink Cheshire Cat as she chewed.

He was calculating the distance to lunge at the pile and make off with whatever he could when Zoë cleared her throat. "Sir."

Oh. Right. Elegant as she was, Inara wasn't going to be able to get herself into the mule wearing that dress she'd borrowed, not without putting on a show. He hoped Kaylee remembered to supply their guest some bloomers and swiftly quashed the contrary vote, glancing over the side and down.

Two dark pools under long lashes captured him, looking up at him, guarded, like she'd just been thinking on the same thing. She shifted everything under one arm, raised one dainty hand to fit in his as he helped her up the first step and steadied her as she ascended the rest. Her eyes were on him the entire time.

She stopped when she reached him, on that last ledge, close enough that her shoulder was brushing against his side. He should let her go, drop her hand and step aside so she could take her seat, but he'd forgotten how to move. Her gaze flicked down to his fingers, back up in confusion and curiosity. He felt his first mate and mechanic watching intently.

Mal tried to force some levity. "Whoa there. You have to pay the toll now, and I'm hungry."

Her lips parted to release an annoyed breath, then she smiled back, a bit too sweetly. "I think you've found your true calling. Do we need to find a bridge for you to crawl under and some small children for you to scare?" She pushed him aside, pulling her hand free to thrust his folded up coat and something edible at him as she took her seat. Zoë just shook her head and throttled up to take them out of town.

- - - - -
She'd just managed to get Kaylee to stop giggling when they came to a stop; the fans propelling the hovermule would no longer be able to muffle their voices from an obnoxious captain who would find their conversation far too interesting. The scenery had changed around them, from wide open grassy plains humming with insects baking as the sun warmed to a sandy wash, carved through the middle of a hanging rock garden.

And no less hot even for the shade and mist dripping from the hardy ferns. Oh, she had a headache. Climate control, she encouraged herself faintly. The shuttles have climate control. Oddly, there were no shuttles in their immediate proximity, but Mal seemed to be disembarking, and she stood to follow.

He was talking, shrugging on his coat despite the heat, saying something to Zoë about suitable boots, something to Kaylee, defending why they hadn't left the shuttles on the plains. Easy pickings for other scavengers and thieves. Had to hide them, up in the mountains.

Up past... That? That steep rock fall blocking off the rest of the gully? She stared up at it, the path seeming to get longer as she looked, seeming to tunnel against and through and over the cliff walls slick with spring water. He said her name, like from a distance, then again, and she turned her head and moved instinctively towards the sound.

She didn't remember falling, or him catching her.

When consciousness returned she was in a very dark place, the oppressive gloom weighing down on her like a leaden blanket, deadening her senses and smothering her. She felt paralyzed, terrified, wanted to scream but she couldn't.

Kaylees voice broke through the waking nightmare, shaken and worried. "Is she gonna be all right?"

The relief that blossomed through her broke the spell, and she gasped, and felt a pair of warm hands around hers, helping her to sit up, as they had helped her into the carriage of the mule. She gulped down air, trying to calm herself and her racing heart beat. "I'm all right," she murmured automatically, vaguely aware she was repeating herself over and over. "I'm fine."

"What happened?" His voice, no nonsense.

"Ah-" She cast her thoughts back, to the dizziness she felt before. No, please no. Anything but that. She quickly thought up another explanation. "Just the heat," she supplied, shrugging one shoulder and feigning embarrassment. She could see them better now, Kaylee beaming at her, all fears immediately assuaged.

Mal was smiling as well, though thinly and not nearly so trusting. "Well, there's a trifle. Kaylee, go an' finish up your diagnostic. I got this handled."

Like a dash of sunshine, the mechanic scampered off to her duties. "Shí a! Chàng rĕ, captain!" she chirped.

As Kaylee disappeared through the hatch nearby into a mass of fluttering green leaves, Inara finally had enough light to recognize the inside of one of Serenity's shuttles. More specifically, this was her old shuttle, now empty but for a bowl of incense and a familiar tattered old army blanket beside it.

Mal stood also, and began rummaging around in the refresher station. He emerged with a glass of water for her, and sat down across from her, watching her with something like an accusation.

"Speaking of handling, please tell me you didn't carry me here," she responded in kind, her voice and expression flat.

Another not-smile. "Almost fractured my other shoulder. This going to be some kind of habit? Falling on me?"

"You wish," she purred, taunting, then took a sip of her drink. Actually, she was a little thirsty. That was nice of him. She didn't want him to be nice. She didn't want him hurting himself because of her. "I was perfectly capable of walking here on my own, so next time, I'd appreciate a little less presumption. Also if you wouldn't parade me around naked in front of total strangers..."

He shifted and glared, all pretenses at playfulness gone. "What was I s'posed to do?" he argued. "You show up outta nowhere-"

"You could keep your hands to yourself-"

"You were unconscious-"

"Oh, great excuse-"

"You needed help-"

"No, Mal," she snapped back. "You needed! You needed to feel like a hero, and you needed to be in control!" She felt her eyes start to sting, and pushed back the tears furiously. "But you don't get to leave me behind, and then act like you care-"

"Act!" he was pure outrage now. "Let's talk about acting!"

"-Like you have any sort of privilege!" she finished.

The dust settled between them. Mal went quiet, his gaze falling to the floor, away from her.

After a long silence, he spoke again, low. "Three weeks ago," he explained, "I got a wave from Ariel, some core world medical institute. Canned response form someone filled out on their lunchbreak." He slowly forced himself to meet her eyes. "They said you were dead."

Then he looked away again, so impossibly zhĕn lĕng qīn hán stoic. She reached for his hand for the second time in only a few hours, but he was rolling to his feet to switch on the cortex terminal, the same she had used so many times to distract herself from him.

Her personal cortex access and accounts. She should be angry about that, but in the face of his admission, her will to fight with him had dissolved. And there was something wrong about the notification, something beyond the apparent, so she stood as well, wanting to see for herself.

They didn't get past the log-in. "Ni tā mā de," Mal swore, and she paled as he turned and marched out of the shuttle, his coat swishing behind him. "Kaylee! We gotta go, mă shàng!"

Chapter 10
The first breath of air was the worst, like coming to life only to drown again, choking on water still in the lungs. The amniotic seal popped and the last of the fluid drained away.

"Lucy? Are you all right?" She fell forward bonelessly out of the cell and caught herself on the curved barrier, still sputtering and bedraggled. Cho was hovering over her, his almond eyes wide under black a black fringe of bangs.

She smiled up at him. "Better than," she answered, and started wringing out coils of copper hair, dripping a puddle at her feet onto the brightly lit pristine white floor. "Except for the last part, that was actually somewhat relaxing."

He shook his head, the perfect image of amused skepticism. "Pì huà."

"No really," she insisted, reaching for her white coat and shoving her hands through the sleeves. "Like sensory deprivation therapy or something." The hiss of hydraulics as a security door slid open and shut drew her attention back to the floor level, and she sighed, rolling her eyes. "Speaking of which, here come The Machines."

Cho leaned out, frowning in dislike down at the two blonde men. "Think I'll take my chances in there."

"Wha-" she spun back, but he was already making his escape. "You can't just leave me to deal with them! They're creepy!" she objected. Creepy nothing. They were cold, calculating, expressionless, and their arrival aboard the I.A.V. Ratched had generally made everyone uneasy, even the captain. Identical black suits… And why did they have to wear gloves all the time, anyway?

He smirked and climbed into the capsule. "Bet I can last longer than you did." He crossed his arms, daring her.

She narrowed blue eyes, then slapped the controls. He grinned, membrane closing again around the opening and backlights flicking on as the fluid began bubbling around his ankles. "You still have to check out that virtual reality simulator I downloaded from the cortex," she grumbled. He couldn't hear her anyway, just waved, as the breathable liquid slowly lifted his feet from the floor and rose up over his head.

"Doctor Alair. This section of the containment area is restricted."

Agent Brown and Jones. She turned towards them sharply. "There's something wrong with this pod," she informed them, pointing over her shoulder. "I'd like to have maintenance check it over."

The two men looked at each other. "Glitch?" asked one. Agent Jones, perhaps, not that it mattered.

"I'll ask headquarters," replied his counterpart. "Sialia's been slipping."

A beeping noise interrupted them, and she checked her handheld. Bluebirds sing. Neurons spark. The two agents receded into insignificance. "Excuse me," she brushed by them, "another shipment of the new test drugs has arrived."

Dr. Alair floated by the pods lining the walkway, several levels of them stacked on top of each other, most occupied by inmates deemed too dangerous for social integration, sentenced to permanent hibernation. She didn't look at any of them, as though unaware of them. Lucy studied each of their faces, curious and piteous, wondering if they could dream.

- - - - -
"Landlock." Zoë was matter of fact as ever in defiance of the gravity of the situation.

Jayne took a lean against the mule. Plenty of worry gathered around the captain and first mate for the chatter, and none of it worth listening to. What they were was stuck and more stuck and spinning their wheels was going to get them nowhere fast, seeing how their ride didn't have any.

Heat around them was the kind sapped at a man until his only option was to find some shade and lay down. Even the grass was all nodding and flies were buzzing lazy-like. Only advantage here was the Doc looking all mouse-eyed and even that was losing its appeal. "But… How did they find us?" the kid asked. Jayne didn't like the wary glance sent his way.

"They didn't," the captain cut in flatly, like a breeze stirred then died. The man had been haunting around Inara like a damn schoolboy to help her down from her seat, only she was having none of that.

Well, so long as that was settled, but for good measure, Jayne gave the boy a sneer. Uppity xiăo guī tóu frowned back, then Mal caught the doctor's eye, nodded towards the curly haired distraction – see to her.

"Called an Antlion," Zoë explained. "Back when the Alliance first tried to declare the Rim and Border colonies, they offered charitable aid to sweeten the deal. Only thing is, they wanted us to pay for it – in resources, land, labour, and taxes." They were starting to head underground now, which suited him just fine. Didn't go too far, though, and he claimed some wall for himself just away from the direct heat, spitting distance from outside. "No one wanted the supplies, Alliance wouldn't take 'em back, so the three main Independent worlds had themselves a great big bonfire. This was how they retaliated. Martial law, governors, and this."

He didn't see what this had to do with them being stuck, and snorted. "Don't sound scary."

River started jabbering. "Worm execution. Can't fly away. Catches you in its teeth and drags you – "

"Still don't sound scary," Jayne snapped. She ignored him and trailed after the petticoat and her brother down the tunnels.

"But that shuts down everything, don't it?" Kaylee wondered. Oh hell. He didn't mind so much the zháo mo mechanic talk, what with all he heard from his pa's factory work and all. She was one of the few people he'd ever met didn't generally annoy him that he hadn't paid first. Last gorramn thing he wanted to hear was her awing and jawing over Mal's latest luck-gone-wrong.

"Everything ain't purple," the former dust devil concurred. "Nav systems, local cortex, infects a node and just spreads. Took out most of our air support whenever we got hit, forced us to use radio."

Wasn't any looks, not even any of that silent talking between the two browncoats. Nope. Something they weren't telling him. "That all?"

Now something tense, the soldier asking for a go ahead. "Only ever been used planet-wide once," Zoë added reluctantly. "Just around the start of the war, before they were trying bombardment."

He took a moment to think that over. Nothing. "So?" They all stared back at him, blank, the Kaylee smiled at him like some poor stray wasn't housebroken, and Zoë's chin kind of lifted like he'd just told her he'd found a landmine. Mal just started to walk away, done with him. He was getting tired of all the attitude he got, everyone always looking down on him. Why didn't he get out yesterday, or even weeks ago, while he still could? "What's the plan, anyhow? Stay here 'til they find us?"

The captain stopped and tried to stare him down. "No," Mal said. "We stay, there's a good chance Serenity gets impounded. And by staying, we put these folks at risk. I won't see them punished for their kindness." They all thought on another safe haven for a moment, then he continued walking away, líng zi coat doing that swishy thing. "Get packing."

- - - - -
The single eyelet in the makeshift guest room and clinic hadn't allowed enough light for an examination, but even with the oil lamp Inara thought everything was still very dark. River had curled up beside her, grim and silent, while Simon balanced her hands on top of his, resisting while she pressed down.

Dear Simon. He was exactly her client type – kind, sensitive, thoughtful, undemanding, smart, witty, not annoying… If she ever had the option, she might have married a man like him, who she could share the burden of her secret with, who would help her face what was coming, who could be strong for her. Someone who would be her good friend and associate, who she would care for long after their engagement. Someone who wouldn't abandon her to die alone, like her father had left her mother. But it was different now. She could only imagine one man anymore, and she hated that her heart had so foolishly and selfishly decided on someone who was already so broken.

"You seem to be all right for now," the doctor finally pronounced, and pulled up the bedside ottoman. "No tremors. But without running a scan, I can't tell for certain how far you've progressed, or how fast."

She knew what that meant. The companion had taken a nursing course during training in case a client ever suffered a heart attack or stroke during an engagement, and so she knew a very little about medicine. They needed a neuroimager. Core technology.

Simon squeezed her hands sympathetically, full of apology. "Kaylee tells me the infirmary is a mess, but very little was actually broken in the crash. I do still have some of your medicine stored aboard Serenity, if it comes to that." He shrugged, then smiled. "And if you ever want to play dead, which comes up more than you might expect out here, it's very useful when combined with byphodine."

She frowned. "You didn't hit another hospital while I was away, did you?" She missed everything the last time, for which she was grateful, as the heist was almost a complete disaster.

"Not yet," Simon answered, struggling himself with the ethics of betraying an institution dedicated to helping the sick and injured. He had told her before that the job had been worth it for his sister, and the hospital resupplied before anyone even noticed, but he hoped that they would never try that again. "But then, you never can tell what insanity the captain might get mixed up in next."

"They're called plans," Mal objected, pushing aside the curtain. "Never do seem to stay that way, though." He was watching her, and seemed to find her exasperated eyeroll at his intrusion some reassurance that she was indeed feeling better. Then he looked at their hands, still joined, and something bitter flashed across his features before he could hide it again. "Well. If the two of you wanted alone time, could've just asked."

Simon dropped her hand and shifted, genuinely uncomfortable. He made to excuse himself. "I'll just…"

"Belay that," Mal interrupted, ignoring Inara's glare and taking up his hands-on-gunbelt captain's announcement stance. "Got more for you to hear. Seems an Alliance cruiser has gone and parked itself in orbit. Prison ship, former POW camp called the Ratched, or 'the Wretched' by those with more'n a passing familiarity. I'd say you just call it 'Bad News.'" He gave them a hard look. "You three are staying here while we reconnoiter, as long as it takes. Can't risk you and your sister, doc, and I still don't know if anyone's on the lookout for you, ambassador. So you're going to get plenty of time to spend together."

He pushed aside the drapery with some violence, leaving her to follow him. Well, she certainly wasn't feeling dizzy anymore. She caught up without any mishaps; Mal had been stopped by Zoë, who looked only slightly less defiant than she had once, on Haven. "Sir. Ain't her fault we're in this mess."

A pause. "No," he agreed, and Inara remembered his sadness and bitterness around the dinner table, almost a month ago.

"It was Niska," the darker soldier continued, but her eyes were like sparking flint, fixed on him with barely restrained accusation. "Just like it was the Alliance killed my husband. What they do, on that ship up there, makes me want to go in and torch that city to the ground as a mercy." And then the unthinkable: Zoë hesitated. "But them and Kaylee," she gestured towards the room behind him, "they ain't seen war. Not like us."

Mal crossed his arms, mirroring her defiance. "We're flying blinder than usual here, Zoë. We've got to see what's coming at us."

The widow looked away, struggling with her grief, but far from finished. "He was right," Zoë said finally. "All this violence, it's only gotten us one thing. I wanted to leave today. Too peaceful, I thought. Have to get busy dying again. Like a damn fool."

His voice was harsh, impatient. "Stay then. I don't have time for this."

The moment that passed almost seemed to reel from the shock, but Zoë merely stood taller, hardening into stone. "Is that an order? Sir?" Her voice was like ice.

Almost ten years, counting on his second in command to back him up, and now this. Inara felt her heart pound in her throat. "Mal." He was still staring his first mate down. "I want to go with you." Let me be your anchor.

He finally acknowledged her offer, sighed and shook his head. River was just visible past the veil, watching them. "See what I mean about the plans?" he asked her.

"Yúbèn gŏudàn de pì yăn," the teenager grumbled back moodily.

"Mal, I know someone who can tell us what's happening," Inara explained patiently. "I have money, I have contacts, I even have an insurance policy I took out on Serenity, and I can talk to the Alliance to get us out of here."

His gaze burned into her, sizing her up. "Whole lotta good that does when you've been reported dead." He left her standing in the hallway without another word, but she exchanged a look with Zoë and she realized, belatedly, that he hadn't said no.

Chapter 11
At around eight in the evening, the yellow sun was low enough in the sky such that travel wasn't sure heat-stroke. Also made the garden before them look like some kind of Eden; expensive fèng huáng genmod birds set loose amid cinnamon, roses, and local citrus in bloom. Pathways lined with mistsprayers, winding around fountains and other impractical desert water works. Everything neat and orderly despite frenzied workers bringing in tables and hanging lanterns.

And between them and fortune, a gate covered in enough precious to make the greediest devil jealous, solid gold humming with enough electricity to send any thieves right to their waiting jaws.

"Okay then," Captain Reynolds clapped his hands, rousing his two crew members from their splendor induced trances. "Let's break it." His mechanic made a Kaylee noise and happily scurried over to the crumbly sandstone wall to listen for wires, eager to play with a new toy. Jayne moved to help. Compared to the riches in front of them, his crew looked raggamuffin, out of place. He felt a sort of pride at the thought.

"Mal!" Shock, dismay, then indignance from Inara. It was worth it, the teasing, to see her all flustered and huffy, one hand planted on her hip and her spirited dark eyes flashing at him. She'd put her curls up in some kind of twist as a defense against the wind, a few strands had escaped anyway. "This is completely unnecessary. The councilor is a client of mine and a friend. Could you act like a civilized human being for once?"

No matter how many times she reminded him, it still stung. He blamed the borrowed dress, the dark wisps drifting around to the emphasis of her long neck. Made it too easy to imagine a different life, that she might belong out here. "I am being civil!" he argued, kept the hurt out of it. Mostly. "This is just a little honest burglary to get us in." He stabbed a thumb over at the gate. "Unnecessary would be stealin' that bit of shiny off its hinges."

Then again, the posts weren't set too deep. If he hooked up the mule...

Ow! She pinched him! He glared at the miffy woman. "Not while it's electrified, please. Or ever." Inara's voice dipped low with distaste, and she met his scowl with an unimpressed expression.

Kaylee hesitated, looking between them, then gave a nervous smile. "No can do, Cap'n. Got a line runnin' from here," she pointed to the ground, traced some pattern, "to here, and more lines over there. Buncha circuits with their own return, and probably a SWER with backup generators." Couldn't even begin to process that, and she hastened to explain. "Means we snip one, still got others to supply power."

"So we take them out too," he told her, shrugging, what's the problem?

Inara scoffed gracefully. Somehow. "Or-" she corrected haughtily, striding over to the panel by the gate. "I could ask the head housekeeper to buzz us in."

His mercenary frowned, a keen and skeptical glint to his narrowed eyes that belied the usual dull confusion on his face. "Where's the money in that?"

The look she shot their brute was even more disapproving and annoyed, which Mal took some satisfaction from. Whatever he might be, at least he wasn't as bad as Jayne. She stepped up, pressed the intercom, and they waited.

Sure was taking a while. Kaylee had plunked down cross legged and was playing with her tawny hair, combing out the tangles with her little fingers, and Inara saw fit to help. The big man watched the girls, reached out his paws like he was tempted to join in; the captain put a stop to that with a hard look, half warning and half disbelief. Finally a section of the wall opened up to reveal a vidscreen. Grit crumbled from the sandstone shutters as they slid aside, almost like they'd been charmed by their ambassador.

And in turn, the companion was warmly greeted, and the housekeeper or whoever was glad to tell her that the councilor and maybe-would-be governor was busy preparing a welcome party for the Alliance officials. Inara quickly identified herself, to which she was kindly informed that the councilor had ended subscription for their engagements, and that her services were no longer necessary.

It was a few seconds after the feed cut out. Jayne was getting angry, muttering curses and insults at the wall the screen had disappeared behind again, where Inara was still staring, her smile slapped from her face, crashed and burned somewhere in the dust around her dainty feet. She hadn't moved, not even when Kaylee started a diatribe that turned into comforting chatter, tugging at the hem of the dress from her seat on the ground.

He hated them, her clients. To them, she was no more than a service, a pretty thing with two long legs they bought and owned for a night as a slave to their wants and comforts. And this was how they treated her, or worse. They'd take everything from her and give nothing back. Mal felt his teeth grind together, his hands clench.

- - - - -
She was a little stunned at first, something which she imagined the captain would, at any moment, make some cruel joke about. But, no. This wasn't about his antiquated ideas. When a client decided to stop seeing their companion, it was cause for celebration, a graduation to their next phase in life. The rejection was unexpected, yes, but if she had helped Judice return to her husband and son with their engagement, then she should be glad.

Her surprise was inappropriate. She should have discovered the councilor's marital status during the screening process. Then there would have been no infidelity, the Guild would simply have refunded any subscription fee. Instead, she had broken guild law, imposed on a client's home, and had almost shamed the councilor. Worse, she had begged for help, had asked the councilor to risk life and family and go up against Adelai Niska. No wonder that her reception would be so cold. And yet, she was upset, and disappointed, and wanted very much to call again and demand to be allowed in.

So acute was her distress, she didn't hear the mule, only the impact it made when it crashed through the wall.

The cloud was already dissipating, the powder settling on his coat, and as he stood, half out of the chassis when he saw her and stopped, she couldn't bring herself to feel angry. She wasn't quite sure what she felt, what her eyes were telling him; some mix of relief that he hadn't broken his neck, and weary acceptance for his exasperating brand of problem solving, and maybe a hint of gratitude, for his misguided attempts at gallantry. He nodded to her as she looked up at him at the start of the rubble, then glanced past her towards his crew, slower and more uncertain in their approach, and tipped his brown head towards the gathering crowd. Jayne quickened his pace, waving Kaylee back.

Some of the workers stepped aside to permit the Councilor, dressed in shimmering purple silk cinched tight at the waist, a matching shawl wrapped around her wrists, her blonde hair styled high on her head. "What is going on here?" She sounded impatient and annoyed, and made Mal's hand drop down to the pistol at his side, still just concealed.

Inara climbed onto the debris and pushed her way past him, in the little gap between the hovercraft and the rock. "Let me talk," she whispered to him, not quite pleading. He was still angry, and while she knew he didn't hit women, not unless they were armed (a concession against his nature that she was certain the war had forced into him), his mouth could do just as much damage. He thankfully complied and hung back, still looming over her protectively and ready to draw.

She stepped down into the circle and held herself with as much self-respect as she could manage, considering the circumstances. Councilor Judice Larrol frowned as she recognized her, then sighed. "I see." She addressed the foreman, a sun-baked, scrawny, frenzied local man holding a clip board. "I'll handle this. Get them unloading the other shipment." The man started shouting, dispersing the crowd.

"I'm sorry, councilor, to intrude like this," Inara apologized, feeling her cheeks flush in embarrassment. "You remember Captain Malcolm Reynolds?"

She narrowed his eyes at him. "Of course," she replied, clearly less than delighted to find him standing amid her damaged property. Her tone suggested that she also found this entirely consistent with her impression of him, and that his presence explained everything. "Is this a show of appreciation for the medical equipment I loaned you?"

Inara's blush deepened, and she stiffened her spine, resisting the impulse to rub at her arms self-consciously. "I'm afraid the captain can be somewhat overzealous on my behalf." She tried not to think of why they'd needed the dermal mender, what Niska, that sadistic yāoxié, had done to Mal the last time they'd been on Ezra. "I'll pay. Bill my guild accounts for any expenses, I'll cover everything," she promised.

"Not the only overzealous one," Councilor Larrol commented, renewing a line of speculation they had discussed before. Her focus intensified. "Since you're here, I can only assume you're trying to get through the Alliance barricade. Where is your ship? Docked in New Jerusalem?" Inara nodded, relieved to be off the subject of her relationship with the captain. The imperious blonde turned on him. "I am preparing for a soirée tomorrow evening. I expect you here at nine a.m. tomorrow morning. You will take an order slip to the local quarry, then you will come back here and fix my fence."

This was why Judice was the Governor aspirant.

The demand caught Mal off guard, and for a precious few moments he gaped at her, silent and dumbfounded. "Now, wait a minute," he started, the anger creeping back into his voice.

"In return," the councilor continued, louder, "I will get clearance for your shuttles to land here and then return to your ship. So long as you have my authorization, you will not be subject to inspection." He quieted again, working through the plan, how to best take advantage of the offer. She was studying him. "The Alliance is looking for you, captain. They believe you're the cause of this unrest and that you're fomenting a rebellion."

"Ridiculous," Inara objected, "Serenity crashed, and he was injured. He's barely been able to move for three weeks."

The councilor was unmoved by the argument. "Be that as it may, you did kill Niska, correct?" He didn't answer, but the line of his mouth thinned in confirmation. "Indirectly, they're not wrong. Niska's men are fighting among themselves, and there are many who would like to see them all dead, who hail you as a hero."

He leaned back, returning her scrutiny over crossed arms. "If that's how you feel, why help? Why not call the Ratched right now, turn us all in?"

Judice sighed. "Because you killed that bastard," she answered, dismissing them so that she could return to oversee the preparation activities.

They watched her give off another flurry of orders as she left them, and Jayne whistled, admiring the plunging line of her open-backed gown. "Hey, can she be our new captain?"

"Ooh," Kaylee seconded, also smitten with the councilor's dress, but for more wholesome reasons. The little tomboy considered her current commander then their other prospect thoughtfully, then gave a nod. "Yep, she's prettier."

"Your old captain is still alive," Inara pointed out, amused by their antics. Out of everything else, Mal looked most offended at 'old.'

The mercenary seemed to be liking this idea altogether too much, but Kaylee grinned reassuringly, an entirely different option in mind. "Ain't a problem, he can still be cabin boy."

"Well, let's hold off on the mutiny for a while," the captain suggested, strangely at ease with their impending treachery. He vaulted himself back into the mule. "Still need to find our way into New Jerusalem. Those shuttles return to Serenity and port control thinks no one's home, we're gonna get company real fast."

"You gotta plan?" Jayne asked, dubiously.

He nodded, worrisomely confident. "You drive."

- - - - -
One thing he had learned in his long career resisting and ducking the encroach of the Alliance, the moment any authority started telling people to do this or that, folks could always be counted on to find a way to disobey. Commanding a handful of soldiers, someone always bit into the gorramn apples. On his boat apparently his no fraternizing rule was blown to hell. And as for finding himself with a cruiser overhead and a blockade around the city with the docks yonder side, all he had to do was drive around the walls to the worst part of town, and trust in the ingenuity of the criminal mind to provide a way. And they had a variety of grenades to add in the explosion parts. They couldn't go wrong.

Inara broke into his musings. "This is the worst idea you've ever had, Mal."

Now, that was harsh, and uncalled for. Well, of course she would complain. She never appreciated his keen strategems. "You don't even know all the ideas I ever had." He shrugged, though probably she couldn't tell. "'sides, it's worked before."

She shook her head at him, like the lesser creature he was. Maybe she had forgotten her training, her companion graces and how to soothe egos with pretty talk. Not that he could afford any of it in the first place. "I'm afraid to ask how often you've done this. Twice is enough, really."

Jayne snorted a laugh. "One of them times a fellah was gonna bed 'im." Had a broad and unsavoury smile, recalling that misadventure.

This was the one downside to the veil. Wearing a glorified blanket seemed to make his crew forget that he was still impressive and commanding underneath it. He tried to ignore how Kaylee was squirming with man-to-man imagining delight. "Maybe next time I should get pretend-hitched to the doc. Not a big fan of chin whiskers." There. That put a end to it. "You see anything?"

They returned to their stake-out, and after some time passed, the air stirred a little, sending the desert night's chill through them. Their tracker's head jerked up in surprise, then he pointed. There it was, a passage concealed by hologram, stones shimmering around the edges, windblown sand interfering with the display. Only one thing left to do: barge in.

He probably should have expected it. Cramped alley between a couple of adobe huts, four guards armed to the teeth, many of them wearing multiple bandoleers, and the poor wretches off to the side, dressed in rags and bound together with chains, the empty look of abject misery and filth all over them. The slavers were staring at them, surprised by their sudden appearance, their guns were coming up, and Kaylee was starting to make frightened noises, the kind he'd hoped to never hear from her again.

Drive, Jayne. Drive. Go now. Go already, you bái mù chuíxián de jiunáng fàndài...

The mercenary stood up, gave a look around. "So... Yeah," he rumbled. "Got a few more for ya. Where'dya want 'em?"

Cào ni zuzōng shíbā dài. Jayne was climbing down from the mule, and the gunmen were coming closer to get a better look, still wary. Now they had to see this farce through. He glanced at Inara, she had already discreetly palmed a couple of flashbangs even as she was trying, quietly, to keep Kaylee calm. He tore his eyes away again, not wanting them to catch on, but damned if the look they'd held in those spare seconds hadn't cut right through him.

One of the guards pulled him down for a better look, a lean dirty blond spacer gone local, apparently suspicious. They were leaving the girls alone. Good. Keep the attention away from them, he could do that. Got right up in his face, smell thick with sweat and blood and the unnameable. None of his people had showered for near a month either, sure, but the man had breath that could gag the dead. Spirits alone said the man ought to be fallen over. Looked him up and down, and across the shoulders, and sneered, showing blackened teeth. "I think may be this is the worst looking burqa I have ever seen."

Three more of them, locals by their looks, had climbed into the mule. Young, maybe former slaves themselves, graduated into the ranks of their keepers after having known nothing else in their lives. The closest one looked overly nonchalant. "That would be because he is a man," he told the slaver. "Doesn't matter, yeah? If he's pretty someone will want him, and if not, we can sell him for the labor. We'll take them around front."

The slaver just frowned at the boy. "El khara dah? And who are you, you ibn himar?"

Mal couldn't quite process what happened next. All three of the kids froze, then one of them started yelling, "Jalla, jalla!" and the mule sped away recklessly, clipping a few buildings and merchant stands as it went. With Inara and Kaylee still in the backseat, holding on desperately.

He stared after them, pulling open the long gash he'd cut in the cloth to see through and pushing back his makeshift hood. "Did they just steal my mule?"

Jayne was backing towards him. "Uh, Mal?"

They did. "They just stole my mule!" He waved at the trail of destruction they'd left. "My gorramn mule, and now they're gonna wreck it!"

The whining charge of a few automated and sonic rifles told him he had much bigger problems.

Chapter 12
For those who would serve the Alliance, peace and stability are the foundations of order, just as vital as food, air, water, shelter and medical care. One cannot endure without the other. An absence of order is a disturbance, and interferes with the basic necessities of life.

Order obligates control, and so were created the parliament, the judiciary, the military, the very Alliance itself. The Alliance exists in the service of all citizens of the 'verse, and by extension, all humankind.

To do the greatest amount of good for the greatest amount of people, it is therefore essential to maintain this order at any cost, to protect the security and safety of the interests of the government. For services rendered in return, all citizens ultimately owe their loyalty to the Alliance. Their loyalty must be tested, and become stronger by the testing, never weaker, never broken, lest they become a danger to those they serve.

There will always be another test, and failure means death. Those who would betray the Alliance had rejected life, and must be made to reflect this.

He could recite it effortlessly. They all could.

This was what it was to be an Operative, one of the men and women who gave their lives and very identities for the Alliance. To exist outside the rule of law, the last line of defense between order and chaos, with only the command of parliament to save them from falling to the other side.

Was it what the young prospective was thinking as he stepped down the stairs into the circle of moonlight? As they watched each other, from across the flat expanse that would become their arena, salted by blood? Was he thinking about how he had failed his mission, the man he'd been sent to kill to prove his allegiance dead by another's hand? Was he wondering why the man who was his real test had the same face, the same skin, the same voice?

It was silent. Not even the parting of air marked the curve of their blades, a shadow dance, each already gone when the deadly steel passed through where they had been. They had the same moves, the same knowledge. A pattern of neurons nurtured the same way, grown and not trained.

All but for one very important memory.

Pain flared in his side, just above his hip. His younger self didn't even smile in triumph at drawing first blood as he pressed the advantage, the katana sinking deeper into his abdomen. This was only how it was supposed to go, only what was inevitable.

The headbutt had surprised him, he remembered, even though the first man to use the move against him was unskilled, more of a tavern brawler and also the only person to ever best an Operative. This time, it broke his nose, and as he doubled over, the follow up punch to the chest broke his sternum.

He pulled the sword out in one smooth motion, to accompany the upward thrown elbow that this time shattered his jaw and sent him sprawling. A few seconds, the last time, had almost lost the fight for the other man, but an Operative was fluid, with no wasted time or motion. He brought his other hand up to the hilt, and stabbed downwards.

- - - - -
"Reynolds," the slaver grinned, blowing rotten, vodka-pickled breath through bad teeth while the three flunkies hung back hesitantly.

Two torches sputtered. Not for the captain anyway - his shine was long gone - and not Jayne, because there were matchsticks that were brighter. But them, the girls, chased by the night or radiant from it.

Without light, all things returned to the darkness, that dead nothing place the poets eloquated about after the bombs dropped and the world was void. "That's me," Mal answered. He'd seen it, knew it, was it, had let too much of it in. And to hell with that. He wasn't about to let the darkness take Kaylee and Inara, too. Not after what he'd gone through already, not after he thought he'd lost them.

"You wear the name proudly," the man appraised, stepping back to clear the line of fire. Something foreign and pretentious and befitting the bleached hair slipped into his local accent. "You shouldn't."

Jayne lowered his head and his voice, throwing a look around the alley and sizing up the four rifles arrayed against them. "So... Now what?"

Couldn't decide if that was snark or a genuine request. There was an odd note of calm surety and complete trust in the question, as though the other man was depending on him for a plan to get them away alive. He preferred the former take, too many ghosts of soldiers in the other. "Workin' on it," the captain muttered distractedly, hands raised nonchalantly, still cloaked from boots to neck.

"You come here, you kill, you steal, and they call you hero." The slaver's wolfish smile had fallen away, thankfully, for something openly hostile. "Come here and mess up my home. How many dead, Reynolds? How many because of you?"

"Why?" the former sergeant growled. "You writin' a bio? Or are these a rare breed of immortals you're running?"

Serenity's mercenary just looked confused, but the slaver erupted, getting more of a whiff of the insult than a taste. "I'm the law on this world, or was until you brought that goat-humping fleet down on us!"

The sonic rifles. Gou shi. The Alliance only started using them after the war, switching over to non-lethal tech to keep folks in line. These were standard issue, even.

Gorramn. Fed.

Not the first time he'd faced one, Mal reminded himself. Not the first time his crew had been held at gun point, and against worse odds. Six men came for revenge one time, Jayne had boasted, and now the whole damn 'verse had it in for the rest of them. Just had to keep their heads and make an opportunity. Make them angry, agitate a mistake. Fact that they weren't dead already was a positive.

Then the bastard gave an order and they were raising the kayos, and Mal changed his mind. Given the choice, he would've preferred a bullet. Non-lethal tech still hit like a sledge hammer and felt like a concussion.

The wave knocked him off his feet, almost into the line of ragged slaves cowering to the side, who scattered and parted as best they could shackled together. Into the stone wall of the narrow alley, and he staggered against it, propped himself up on unsteady legs.

Jayne also dropped hard, but bounced back up, neck bulging, roaring like an angry bull and charging the dumb kid who'd hit him. This time, the boss brought his gun up.

The captain was cursing himself, overridding his leaden arms with pure adrenalin, thinking the lummox had got himself killed, thinking he was about to lose another one. His hand fell on an empty ankle chain hanging from the links strung between the workers. The cold metal lashed out, slithering through the air, catching the flickering torchfire before biting into the slaver's jaw with a painful crack.

Jayne's flattened guard gurgled around the boot that had him pinned down by the throat. A better man might've had pity for boys weren't soldiers.

The alley held its breath to watch, but the slaver boss wasn't getting up after that, not if Mal had has druthers. He moved, leveraged himself away from the wall as the world spun, shunting away the pain that stabbed between his eyes as he scooped up the Fed's loose rifle. Before they knew it, it was two guns on two guns instead of just a shǎguā in a dress and a yī duī ròu without enough brains for a sonic hit to jostle.

Then the crowd surged forward to have their say in the standoff, emboldened by the prospect of freedom. Click click clickety click. The unwary guard frantically squeezed the trigger as they grabbed him, his empty chamber recycling uselessly. Probably the last insult in the boy's short life, the ultimate betrayal from an employer who didn't trust him with a loaded gun, lest their blond boss end up fragged or their merchandise get damaged. All for show, to keep their victims in line. The boy struggled, dropping his weapon to claw at the chain around his neck.

The last guard, after a moment of reflection, shot a kayo at his friend to spare him, then raised his hands. But too late, the mercenary returned fire, and the low hum of the other sonic rifle hit him and knocked the final boy cold.

Mal waved at the few empty chains in the slave lines. "Truss 'em up," he ordered.

Jayne grinned unpleasantly, hauled the kid he had been standing on up. "No, no, wait!" the kid choked out, begging. "He said... He'll kill our families-!"

"Niska's dead," Mal asserted, only vaguely aware of the objection, cut short by the dull thump. He was having himself a staring match with the dots peppering his eyesight, but just past them, he saw the slaves truly for the first time, their eyes wide as they cowered back. All of them marked for trade, the women and children marked different than most of the men. The flare of anger he felt this time was for them.

He remembered the unconscious slaver laying at his feet, and raised the assault rifle. "And fair soon this piece a space trash won't be able to touch 'em, either."

A trio of quick bursts emptied into the slaver boss. Looked a little like one of Inara's clients, actually, the one from Alliance special ops that sucker-punched him, took him into custody, and tried to beat a confession of terrorism out of him for a couple hours. Probably the goddawful hair. For certain the slaver was uglier. Kind of face a couple bullet holes could only improve, really. Just one more life snuffed out by his hand.

Something shifted by his ankle, and he found Jayne searching the body already. "Couldn't even let the body cool a little?" he thought, annoyed. He'd seen dead men blown near in half, who'd come back alive when someone went for their rations.

Then the mercenary handed him a key chain, shrugging uncomfortably. "What? You were gonna ask for 'em anyway, weren'tcha?"

The darkness lifted a little. Every now and then, Mal was glad Jayne Cobb was on his crew. He nodded, something like thanks. "Right."

The big man grunted, looking like the kayo was catching up to him. "Found his wallet, too." The mercenary bent back over, not sick enough to stop looting.

Kind of wished there weren't two of him at the moment. The last gorramn thing Mal wanted to see doubled was Jayne's ass.

"Right," he repeated, more to himself, and tossed the keys to the slaves, to one who had a mistrustful, determined expression. He put his captain voice on. "Gonna be someone come lookin' any time now, and it's best they find this place empty. Any of you know a safe house in the city, you get those irons off and you head there straightaway, soon as you're clear."

A thought occurred to him, and he frowned. Why were they even out here, in this back alley with only four guns on them, and not somewhere more secure?

"Hey, listen," Jayne said, head cocked to the side like a dog. "You hear that?"

The sound of distant overland transports, with another delivery or maybe a pickup. Just the thing if someone wanted to cram in lots of people and didn't care much about comfort, and on the outer planets, a favourite for this kind of business.

"I remember," murmured River, unearthly from somewhere near his elbow. They both jumped. No, she wasn't there. She better not be there.

After some looking he found it, a small comm device, crackled loud enough to be heard from the small bulge it made from the inside pocket of his coat. "What?" he asked.

"It was when she was wandering in childhood gardens, and you were between everything. And nothing. Drinking the black." Her voice had that misty, clouded quality it took on when she was having a bad day. "Your feet were up on the console. The words wouldn't go straight. I couldn't make them."

He exchanged a look with Jayne, who spun a finger around an ear, and started making preparations for their ambush. "We got trouble riding up on us, so..."

"I remember," she continued, insistent. "You think you're already dead. You're not."

Well, if that was all... "Thanks for the reminder," he told her impatiently.

"Because both of you are going to die. Soon. You went through the gate." He could imagine her piercing eyes, distant, seeing what couldn't be seen. "Kaylee has thought about Simon thirty-three times since she left. Simon has thought of her twice." Scorn, near ranting now. "And neither of you will admit it, and she's running out of time."

He felt something icy quench his veins, and River paused, as though listening.

"Have to go. Zoe and Simon are having a baby."

The comm clicked once, and went silent. Mal stared at it, holding it out away from him, hand outstretched, palm up, as far as possible. "What the hell?" Jayne blurted, eyes wide.

God's wrath rumbled closer on sand-treaded wheels. Another shared look, and they scrambled into position.

Great chapter and hard-nosed. love the insights into the Operative mindset and background and your use of memory. Juggling the characters is no mean feat but nothing gets dropped when you cut from one scene to another, in fact i like how themes and ideas run like threads throughout, e.g. River picking up again on memory. Your voices for Mal and the others (well, River here, but in general) are still really convincing.

i know most of my reading of your chapters comes out in my thread questions but i thought i'd shove one in here for a change!

There's quite a lot of Mal/Inara in this story, more possibly than anything else and I imagine that it probably starts to eventually get ridiculous. But I try to give every character a little moment in the spotlight, and little scenes with interactions between characters that weren't seen to interact too much.

As a Mal/Inara junkie, I would like to assert that there is no such thing as an excessive amount of M/I and furthermore that said amount of M/I in your story in no way starts to get ridiculous. I could easily (happily) handle more!

Wanted to say, I have a Zoe section next chapter, and I'm making some nods to Wytch's story about Zoe as a youngster and GR's story about Wash the flyboy.

i look forward to the read.

Makes to much sense to not try to weave it into the story. Slightly different takes, but there will be some core ideas there that might be identifiable.

sorry, it's getting a little late tonight to post more chapters. I was helping at my brothers house today, yesterday I basically procrastinated too long. but tomorrow I think I might post more chapters. Hope the posting pace is okay with everyone. I want to catch up with the chapters I have up now, so I'm hurrying these early parts.

Chapter 13
Normally, he would have been looking after his sister. She had been upset about the crew leaving, and finally had calmed down enough only minutes before to insist they go outside, some sort of claustrophobic whim having taken hold of her. For him to deny her anything that might be some relief for her distress was unthinkable.

The outpost was quiet, a few villagers standing around chatting, gathering wayward children or watching their play indulgently, but most had already retired into the tunnels under the domiciles for the night.

Day and night, they all took turns watching their flocks or staying behind with the children. The rotation of shifts was comfortable, even routine, and sometimes he could almost forget that even here, they carried guns everywhere no matter what the job.

He hadn't thought of the others much, his attention needed as a doctor and brother. Now he was reminded acutely. Bovine, River had proclaimed, peering oddly, unfathomable and knowing. He'd decided not to ask, and his poor Ophelia had danced off after - or perhaps with - the fireflies that had emerged from the tall grass. Some sort of ballet, solemn as a temple dance, that only she knew. Dressed in bleached linen, she glowed in the cold moonlight nearly as much as her partners, a ghostly mirror to them as she meandered, then bowed low every few steps in an arabesque.

Zoë was left a radio instead of rue. After overhearing River's transmission, the soldier had sharpened into an intensely focused state. She reminded him of the tiger banners hung all over Capital City four years ago on yuándàn.

"Sir?" she hailed. Some small amount of concern broke through her stoicism. Hadn't she been arguing with the captain earlier? She didn't forgive easily; Niska's fate, both times storming his complex was an example of her wrath. Yet Mal seemed a special exemption, or perhaps the deference was just professionalism.

No answer. Simon climbed to his feet. "What's going on?"

"Radio silence," Zoë answered humourlessly. Her eyes, dark and fierce in her stone carved face said the rest - or worse.

She held a simmering anger, at the yúmùnǎoké captain, for rushing heedlessly into danger. Or for leaving her behind. Or at a brother and sister, for needing her protection. At herself? Maybe all of it. Sometimes he wondered if she blamed River and himself for everything that had happened. Other times, he knew that she did.

"They haven't been caught by the Alliance, have they?" he asked. They would have to leave, quickly. If they hurried, maybe they could think of some way to save them. Before Jayne sold them out. Or, what if they tortured them? He used to think the Alliance was above such brutality. But if they thought Ezra was in open rebellion... He imagined Mal, Jayne, and even Inara might be able to withstand torture. Not Kaylee.

Zoë sighed, some of her frustration escaping as she exhaled. "Captain's never had stealth and subtlety for his strong points. Likes to confront things head on," she said, her observation sounding tired. "And I think he's got the kind of girl trouble with him he'd do anything to impress."

"Even risk their lives?" Alarming, but Simon wouldn't have put it past the captain either, and found Zoë's assessment all too consistent with his own.

Her hand floated up and over to rest her stomach, some not too distant memory playing behind her eyelids. "Person can risk a lot, they care enough. Ain't always thinkin' straight when we steal sisters from Alliance doctors, or stay on a deathtrap with the husband 'cause a friend's in a bad way."

Her fingers clenched against her leather vest; now that he was looking, it wasn't cinched as tight as usual. "When are you going to tell him?" His casual question got a not-so-casual reaction, her head jolting up and around. Off her look, he clarified, stumbling. "The captain. That you're... pregnant?"

Her blank stare didn't change and Simon once again marveled at how well he could misread a situation. "Doc," she said slowly, "You callin' me fat?"

"Ah, no. Of course not," he backpeddled, very much aware of how she towered over him and could probably break him in half. "I only said you were expecting, you haven't gained any noticeable weight yet." Zoë's expression was still unreadable, but untold emotions were still flickering through her eyes too fast to follow. He realized it suddenly. "You didn't know."

She was quiet for some time, until he thought he had offended her again. Then she spoke, low and deep. "We'd been talkin' on it some time, even both of us settin' aside our cuts for a nest egg. After the Reavers almost got us on Lilac, it shook us both. He agreed we could try for a baby, I agreed we would leave Serenity when we got to Beaumonde." Both of her hands were clutched around her stomach now, like holding back the pain of an ulcer, or like she'd swallowed one of Jayne's grenades. "Ain't had any sickness."

Simon tried for soothing, the faked optimism he had never quite perfected on his rounds around the trauma ward. "Not everyone does." Beaumonde, that would be about four months. "I don't have any pregnancy tests, but this far along I might be able to hear a heartbeat."

Her gaze dropped, focusing her attention inward, as though she could hear her growing child within her if she listened. "I must've missed, didn't even notice the signs." A tremor of anger and self disgust stabbed through her voice. "Didn't even notice."

He felt confused, and a little uneasy, not sure what was happening here. This was good news, wasn't it? Was she going to punch him for telling her? "You were distracted," he tried.

"Gǒupì," she dismissed sharply, the no-nonsense corporal. "Weren't dead, either." He wasn't quite able to hide his wince at the hardness he heard, and was grateful when Zoë's radio emitted a crackle of static, amazed at the military efficiency with which she could switch to business. "Captain."

The response was a few moments coming. "Inara got us an in." Well, at least they were all okay. "Shuttle clearance, tomorrow. Lookin' at an oh-seven departure. Be ready."

The comm device went silent again, nothing said about the danger Mal had mentioned earlier. He could see Zoë, torn between her past and her future again, trying to decide, and could also see the moment when she gave in and her loyalty won out. He suspected this wouldn't always be the case. "Best gather your sister and whatever you're taking tonight," Serenity's first mate suggested.

The reminder drew his attention back to something very important, more so because of the absence. He startled; the grassland was suddenly empty and the fireflies were now very alone. "River?"

Chapter 14
"Sir!"

A marine pushed through the olive canvas flaps of the field tent, used for a temporary sleeping arrangement for the ground forces. Belatedly, the young man realized his mistake, as the captain rolled over on his cot and propped himself up on his elbow with a tired expression.

The young lieutenant, as though sensing his imminent demotion, came to an abrupt halt and saluted. "Permission to speak, sir!" Remarkably, he didn't think to alter the volume of his near shout.

The captain dragged himself upright, he hadn't been sleeping anyway. Really, the interruption was almost welcome, replaying as he was memories of reinforcing barriers, and laser fire, and women crying over the charred corpses of men who, just moments before, had been shouting at the security forces in an unfamiliar tongue. "Clearly your message is urgent enough it can't wait until morning," he replied dryly. He hoped. "At ease."

"Yessir." But the lieutenant didn't relax; if anything, the boy looked ready for a dressing down, like a drill sergeant from basic training might swoop down on him at any moment. He remembered this soldier now from the night before; despite the action earlier in the day, despite the vague resemblance of the open-faced helmet to a samurai warrior of old, the new-minted officer's armor still had its factory polish. "Kurtz VMO-3 reporting in from patrol on the east airstrip." The captain waved the boy on. "They were ambushed, sir."

Not unexpected, and he could see how it might have happened. Reduced visibility, and his men were all green, overeager and out looking for glory. They'd simply seen an opportunity to chase after. He sighed. "How many?" he asked, reaching under the cot for his folded grey trousers and mao jacket.

"Four casualties, two dead." Half the squad. "And they took the roller."

His mind stumbled over the news, taking a few moments to attempt to process the information before giving up. Rollers were their heavy armor, anti-infantry functioning as artillery, a mobile bunker for up to five soldiers, and in urban combat, a decent battering ram. To take one while it was fully armed and operational required both gumption and a lapse in sanity.

Reynolds, he realized. They'd heard the rumours, of course, every native they'd questioned earlier who they could understand had some story to tell.

He remembered the screams, the greasy smoke and the smell of ashes that would haunt him until the day he died. Never again, he swore. "Put a hold on the patrols at night, and have all patrol groups coordinate with air support in the future." They'd have to try to recover the roller in the morning.

The junior officer gave an affirmative, then stood by as he double-timed pulling on his uniform over his sleep pants and shirt, as though he needed a escort to the infirmary to assess the damage himself. The boy was completely unaware and had no conception of how dangerous their quarry was. More than ten years since that fateful day, the captain had hunted down Reavers and potentials under the guise of the Alliance Anti-Insurgency Force.

He knew what a desperate man looked like, and what they were capable of.

- - - -
Mal's got some kind of deathwish. Was the only thing Jayne could think of, way the man ran ass on fire into bad business and losing battles. Something about the war knocked them screwy, both Mal and Zoe, seeing she was feng le to follow.

Jayne leaned out the side of the transport, firing off a few quick bursts of think-twice-about-chasing-us from the rifle he'd took. There they were, barreling down some alleyway, walls too close for comfort and mowing down the wreckage those snot-nosed brats left when they gone and snatched the mule. Just his luck Mal tries to hijack them a ride from the slavers, ends up there's an entire gorramn convoy to take issue.

He missed wide, the snake-rattle of automatics gunning for them, their tires squealing like a stuck pig. Near got clipped from some of the bullets ringing off the metal around his head and he pulled back. Hun dan. His legs still weren't under him proper from taking that kayo hit. As a merc, he knew about job risks, but some of the free-doings he got up to with this crew just didn't figure right, in particular the kind what a man meets his own breakfast twice. "Hey!" he hollered, "the wuyazui girl gonna be right 'boutcha dying, you can't keep 'er steady!"

"You wanna drive?" Mal shouted back, not looking. Jayne gritted his teeth. What Mal wanted was obvious; Jayne had seen enough barfights started when a man thought some woman was his, or wanted her for his, even when she said no like Inara, and Kaylee was Mal's little sis like crazy was Simon's. Didn't matter they weren't blood, Mal did for them like they were. Jayne liked having some pretty around to look at himself, so long as they didn't take a knife to him, and so what he wanted was to get to his grenades in their mules without getting himself splattered. Better yet he'd like to lay down until his headache was gone away and not get shot for it, but weren't either happening.

Girls were going to owe him when they found them. Pay him back or pay for it, he didn't much care which, and he wouldn't say no to a fresh cooked meal either. Maybe they could get the captain some too, man was so wound up Jayne thought they might fall off.

The transport swerved again, this time purposeful into the cloth cover of a sales booth, and he heard someone yell in surprise, stuck his head out in time to see a bundled up slaver go rolling out behind them. Also came face-to-face with a one man boarding party, and Jayne made quick work of tossing the other man to the ground, saw another outrunner pulling up, doing what they did best.

Mal just started on a new string of curses at the water way the slavers had chased them to. That was it, then, they were trapped. Bridge was blown up, stoneworks black and pitted, fallen in the middle. Didn't slow the captain down any. They lurched forward, up and over. Landed hard not even seconds later, sprawled him on the floor like one too many hits of the hootch. They skidded, screeching, finally came to a stop and settled back onto their wheels.

He couldn't hear any more engines, no more gunshots. Just the dark and the sound of their own breathing. He stayed down for a few, not sure. "We do it? They're gone?"

The captain was staring out the windshield, tense. "Think the tāmā de Alliance tank might have a say in that." Huh? Jayne scrambled up, trying to see for himself over the dash.

"They aren't Alliance," said a girl come up front from the back. They looked; teens, but small for her age, black fringe around her face. She was grinning, toothy, her narrow eyes less than friendly. "And this is our turf."

- - - -
The darkened alley was riddled with death; bullet holes in the sandbrick walls, blood cooled around the blanched overseer, and their boss, coolly surveying the four guards and two drivers responsible for the mess and his missing chattel. His fingers drummed a funeral march against his crossed arms. Folsen had been a drunk and a beast, mad with power, but useful for weapon procurement.

His ten other mercenaries had an arsenal aimed at the unlucky six, and a twenty platinum bet that the short one would squeal. "Let me understand this," he began, endeavoring for complete calm. "I have Alliance breathing down my neck, my pet Federal Marshal has been killed, and you just lost the new merchandise, that I already have a buyer for."

Presentation was everything, and contrary to popular opinion, crime paid plenty. With Niska out of the picture and the old man's playboy son off gallivanting around the core, Shoshenk was the only one left in the organization with close access to the docks and in any position to keep business running as usual. Unfortunately, the other splinter cells disagreed, but the Syndicate would bring them to heel.

He'd forgotten his people, they all said, terrorizing his homeworld, had greed too big for his eyes. Called him Niska's shadow for his swarthy looks and suits. He saw the envy, buried under the hate. Out here, wealth was the difference between have and have not, freedom and slavery. Himself and them, these worthless buffoons. He shook his head, smoothed down his slicked back hair. "I can't decide which is worse, that according to your stories, none of you could take down two unarmed men -" he spit them with a hard glare - "Or, more likely, this was some ill-conceived plot to steal my slaves from me, and you couldn't even get that right."

They stayed quiet, cowed, but for the short one, also apparently the stupid one. "It was him," the boy insisted, still trying to defend himself, "Reynolds and his crew."

"It doesn't matter," Shoshenk snapped. Incompetence perhaps was marginally better than treachery, but in the long run had the same result. Both were a waste of his perfectly good credits.

Niska would have tortured him, but so long as he had an Alliance cruiser hanging over him in orbit, he wasn't going to put one foot out of line. The core worlds so loved their stories about human rights, ignorant as they were that large scale corporate operations, terraformers, and even the Alliance itself were all big players in the slave trade. He'd already contributed some muscle to the occupation, helping set up barricades and basic improvements for the solders' base camp, but he wasn't so foolish as to make himself a target.

Unfortunately, killing his own men was also a waste of resources, tempting as it was to set an example. "Clearly you're worthless as guards, but one way or another, you will get me my money back," he decided. "Perhaps your Captain Reynolds will save you."

- - - -
Hope was the bigger danger; back then, morale was the battle, more so even than the Alliance or seekers and squad killers. So long as there was still hope, a soldier could still keep moving, keep fighting, keep breathing.

The real world was full of creeping gas that killed them screaming and disease that crusted over the tongue and eyes. Pus leaking from limbs blown off. Corpses of men and women they stacked waist high for cover. They'd crawled elbows and knees through six inches of muck and blood, eaten the maggots off the dead and called it rice because to stop was to give up, and to give up was to die.

He'd tried to keep it at bay, spouted from the fat book like it would save him and his men, and it was only when the angels he'd called hadn't been theirs sent them all to fiery hell, when false hope finally betrayed him, that he surrendered and let despair in.

Even then, he learned that there wasn't so much a man could lose that he couldn't lose more. Here he was now, with lifetimes of regret for them who ended premature, for Wash and Zoe, Kaylee and Simon, for the Shepherd, and even Jayne.

And Inara, he could pour his heart out and fill an ocean with things unsaid. Things he couldn't ever say, not when they were nearly out of air, not even to say goodbye on some godforsaken moon; things he whispered in her ear, arms wrapped around her when he was dreaming, that scraped him raw when he was awake.

Mal could hear their captors, maybe ten of them, milling around, keeping the slaves in one place and them away from the slaves. He was kneeling, a gun at the back of his neck, Jayne laid out on the ground next to him, snoring from a direct hit from one of their own stolen sonic rifles. And their chances were growing dimmer by the moment.

Jayne snorted abruptly and went quiet a few moments while his memories caught up to the present. Mal didn't envy him much, actually getting knocked out from a kayo felt worse than just getting hit by one, what with the longer exposure time for it. "M' I dead?" There was something nervous in the question, almost a tremble.

Jayne conscious wasn't much of an improvement over unconscious. "Couldn't talk if you were," Mal pointed out.

The mercenary mulled this over, taking too long by far, then spoke again. "Mal? Can't see anything."

"We've been blindfolded," he explained tiredly. "The girl and her friends took us captive."

"Oh yeah. Qīngliàngjí ruo guǐ suckered me," Jayne growled. "You see her anywhere? Need to smack her one."

Mal wasn't sure which part to address, that the odds by weapon number weren't in Jayne's favour or his wounded pride, or that them being blindfolded meant he couldn't see either. Instead, he tried to remember what he was still paying Jayne for. To his credit, the man had helped bust them into a city under Alliance lockdown and hadn't complained too loud when they were fending off gunfire and those outrunners. So why his hired muscle couldn't handle ninety pound girls, psychic assassin or not, Mal couldn't understand for the life of him.

Truth be told, Mal didn't know how many more people he could take losing. Even though the man was lewd to the women, antagonized his doctor, and had table manners this side of appetite-ruining, the lummox had a place on his crew. Still. "Jayne," he said flatly, "if you get us both killed tonight, I'm takin' it outta your next paycheck."

Jayne grumbled a bit, then seemed to listen for something. "Hey, there's another mule comin'," the tracker announced.

He heard the hovercraft approaching soon after, pulled up with some whispering, then a few light footsteps as someone crossed the distance to stand behind him. They tugged at his shirt collar, and he sighed, got to his feet and spread his arms. They'd checked him over for concealed weapons once already, removed his piss-poor cover and coat, but he supposed they were just being thorough.

Speaking of which, what the hell where they doing? This was no pat down, it was all slow and lingering, soft hands moving over him and deft fingers and... They were touching his belt. Why were they touching his belt? He tensed. Were they going to strip him down? Was he being sold off right now? This was what stud horses at market felt like.

Then the blindfold was ripped away, revealed those familiar unreadable doe-eyes. "Wǒ zǔzōng shíbā dài huànyǒu xīnjīsāi!" He had to look away, clench his own eyes shut against the onslaught of the fire licking across his skin, along the path she'd traced. He grew annoyed, his only defense. "Yāo húnǚ, you are evil," he huffed, and scowled at her, because her carefully blank expression had grown into a slow smile. "You are pure evil, and so not funny," he insisted, and Inara grinned, too gracious to laugh at him outright.

"Am not!" Jayne objected.

She looked over at the annoyance then back. "Aside from the heartattack, then, you're both fine?" Hard to stay angry with her when she sounded like that, like she was still trying to reassure herself, and she'd just been making sure he was real and all there.

He crossed his arms, tried for as curt and brusque as possible. There was pride at stake here. "Kaylee?"

She merely splayed an elegant hand towards the mule, and there Kaylee was, and not having near as much success containing herself. The girl managed to wave at him. "Hey Cap'n!" That was as much of a greeting as she could handle, before she toppled sideways into the seat, giggling like the little space monkey she was.

Great. He shook his head, relief finally catching up to him and sapping his energy. "Just so you know, that ain't how you do a frisking. S'posed to be quick, and aloof, and..." He struggled for the right word. "And not so friendly. The longer you take, the more chance you give for someone to turn on you."

Jayne had pulled his blindfold up away from one of his eyes. "Wait, you got frisked? How come I don't get frisked?"

There was some mischief about her, a way she sharpened, somehow, as for the kill. She shrugged a shoulder, bare for the dress she'd borrowed from Kaylee. "Next time I'll use a pair of handcuffs," she suggested, blithe, flippant, all wanton innocence as she chalked up another point in their ongoing battle. Oh, she did so not play fair. "Those three boys talked to their boss about arranging some kind of apology for us. We have rooms waiting, if you're interested." Her nose wrinkled, and she reached out and pushed him away. "And baths. Unless you'd like to revisit that mutiny idea."

He could see Zoë, torn between her past and her future again, trying to decide, and could also see the moment when she gave in and her loyalty won out.

beautifully phrased in/out.

that whole scene (re; the baby) is so tense.

I was trying to do a more nuanced take on how Zoe finds out. I think this would REMIND Zoe of her losses, and now she has to figure out a way to deal with something she'd wanted, and still wants, but which will make her life more complicated and there's also now mixed feelings everywhere. So it's not angry denial or bliss, but a lot of things. Joss doesn't make things easy for any of his characters.

Chapter 15
She'd gotten a big hug from the captain meant he'd been worried, the hair ruffle hello as he climbed up over into the driver's seat. Then was Inara, captain being gallant again and another of those moments passing between him and her friend that made her squirm in delight. They were all sweet and teasing, and she always liked them like that.

Next up was Jayne, like he was too manly for all the fuss, but he grudgingly wrapped his arms right back around her, like usual, and she reflexively swatted his hands away when his hands started drifting too southward, like usual. She smiled up at him. It was all so familiar and right they were together again, and she could just burst she was so relieved.

The truce didn't last long, especially when they came up on the big worship house they were told they could stay, smack in the center of a cobbled courtyard surrounded on all sides by a bazaar with colourful streamers everywhere. It looked shiny to Kaylee, the same stone made to look like marble, carved into swirling shapes and patterns. A dark, almost still hologram pool wavered at the base of the monument to reflect the glow of some flood lights, the only electricity she'd seen in the city so far.

Jayne had been a little wary, started ignoring the church for all he was worth, but Captain hadn't been happy at all, bickering with Inara even as he helped her down to the ground again.

Kaylee frowned, worrying her lip. Last mule they'd had, puttered like the harvester someone'd thrown the engine back together from. It'd been Wash's most of all, she remembered with a pang, him playing with it like a toy, like he did Serenity sometimes. They'd set it on fire, the first time when they'd went up against Niska. She never could get it to start up after that.

The hover-mule had been hard earned, them having to cooperate with that xiāfà huǐfù Saffron, then when they'd had trouble finding a buyer for the take.

Machines were just like people, wasn't a one in all the turning worlds worked the same. She liked to understand what made them tick, hear them tell their stories. Make things right when they were broke and keep them humming. And sometimes they were temperamental, and if you didn't treat them right, they didn't work right again. "Can't we just ask the preachers if they'll watch our stuff?" she not-quite-pleaded.

Captain glanced over at her, had that grim, bitter look didn't hold much esteem for strangers or the 'verse in general. "Kaylee," he ordered, not-quite-patiently.

Inara took that moment to walk away from their argument, off to go talk to a couple of holy men in brown robes been eyeing them since they'd pulled up. Was smart to build a rapport with the folks putting them up for the night, her being so nice and mannerly and a companion like she was.

Finally, Kaylee got out her tools, not too eager though, Captain just waiting long enough to see her give in. He nodded, and went to join the other conversation. Couldn't quite let Inara out of his sight just yet, had to keep her close, Kaylee knew. She snorted a little laugh. Captain Meanie. They all saw right through him.

She sighed then, no more putting it off, then gave the hovermule an apologetic pat. "Jayne?"

He'd been thinking about something, had been doing that lots more lately. "Need in?"

"Yep," she answered, and he lumbered on over, picked her up like she didn't weigh a thing so she could pop the side panel and wriggle into the mule's heart.

Wasn't anyone ever really alone, she thought, quickly rerouting the g-line and disconnecting the propulsion. Not even Jayne; heck, she'd taken some time just talking to him when he first got on Serenity six months before Simon was more than a figment out of her kissy books. Not much else to do, Wash and Zoe were google-eyed over each other, and captain was swai but anyone who got into those tightpants deserved a medal far as Kaylee was concerned. Anyhow. She was the first to ever hear about his family, and even before then she thought there was more to Jayne than the brute he tried to be.

She tugged the power cell and the alternator loose, switched them for the spares threw sparks she kept in the space under the backseat, then wired them up to the ignition so any hot-wiring would make a scene like the engine was bad.

Sometimes she wondered if Jayne saw more into their talks than she did. He never said anything and he wasn't one to talk about his feelings, but the way he snapped at Simon or looked at her seemed, dunno, like he was waiting for something.

She reached for the dampeners, pulled them open to get at the Honnecourt Capacitors and disable the grav screening. The space she was in was just big enough for two, she realized. First night since the Alliance med-ship released them after everything that she didn't have Simon. Well, she thought, starting to crawl back out, what with how worried Captain was about the purple bellies recognizing him and Inara, she better ought to tell him. Besides, wasn't no-one going to steal the mule before she got to try it now.

- - - - -
Gorramn lights. Like the builders thought they could capture some divine glory. They were too bright for him, and he wanted back on Serenity, sailing the black looking for work and living off the sweat of his brow.

A cross was just a symbol, one that'd lost any meaning to him a while back. Turned out the heavenly host flew Alliance standards, and he'd been forgotten in trenches laid out like graves. Like the world had ended and the rapture come and gone, left him behind for the torments of hell. He hadn't been able to cast away his old silver crucifix, so instead he hid it in a velvet box and tried to replace it with a steel one what flew. Later, when he still felt empty, he'd found other symbols, living ones to help fill the hole.

Zoë saw it. Why she'd seen fit to poke the wound, he couldn't figure. He knew what she'd lost, just the same as her. Knew the urge to keep going even as you bled out, because it was all you could do.

But sometimes, like now, when those still with him and breathing were all accounted for, he thought maybe he could live with this, maybe this was all he needed. Made him think of other things, like Zoë had felt with Wash, normally too out of reach to entertain. Of not having to fight anymore, lose anymore, run anymore. A life under the open sky, long gone, a normal life like the one he'd known. Swaying grasses, horses and cattle, wooden fences and houses. Family.

He hadn't lost anyone else tonight. That would keep him going, a while longer. Provided that Someone Else up there didn't have their say.

"Marhaban. Captain Reynolds, I presume?" One of the priests stepped forward, an older man with a grizzled beard.

Now that was odd. Pretty woman like Inara, and it looked almost like they'd been outright ignoring her, even the young acolyte attending them. She slipped a hand into the crook of his arm, causing him no small confusion, and gave him a smile that hid some frustration. He got the message, though. Play along.

Too bad the shepherd wasn't here. He remembered the conversations he'd overheard with Inara about Buddhism, with Jayne about Jayneism, Zoe and Wash about married life and parenthood. Book was a rare man of faith wasn't too particular about which, and though he'd never rightly appreciated those insights when the shepherd was still alive, he missed them now.

Mal took the outstretched hand, shook. "You'd be right. What c'n I do for you?"

The priest waved him off. "Later, later. Mama Tauwati would like to talk to you, but later. Now, you must be dusty and weary from your travels." The man glanced at Inara, seemingly for the first time. "Are they yours? They are not unchaperoned?"

He felt Inara stiffen by his side, and something about the question put him on edge. Some worlds still followed old holy law, well, with religious devotion, and he was fair sure this was one of those things that could end with a stoning. "They're mine," Mal answered quickly - did he mean wives? "Well, the little one back there, we're not, we're more kin," he corrected, stumbling.

"I can see the resemblance. Truly, you are a blessed man," the old man praised.

Inara was pinching his bicep now. Hard. He forced a smile. "And moreso everyday."

"All finished!" Kaylee reported, cheerfully unaware of all the awkward and painful she and Jayne had blundered into. At least now the interruption took the conversation a turn away from his wedded bliss. He finally pulled his arm away from Inara's attentions while the priests were distracted, buffing out the injured spot and giving her a wounded look. She ignored him. Tama de, woman, was she trying to amputate him or something?

The priests gave the girls some lengths of fabric to cover up with, and led them down through a series of vaults, deeper underground, until he had half a notion they'd just bury them in the catacombs.

He was the last into the little antechamber, and stopped short as a blast of steam washed over him. Springs bubbled from fountains along the plastered walls, dripping onto tile mosaics in blue and what looked like real gold, draining down to a stone slab in the center raised over smoldering coals. Above them, the domed ceiling opened to a skylight with a clear view of the stars.

Kaylee was as ever outspoken in her enthusiasm. "This'll be just like skinnydippin'!" she cheered - just how had she gotten her clothes off so fast? - and Mal suddenly wished he'd been listening to the long historical tour the priests had given them. At least this wasn't the first time his crew had to see him in the altogether, he supposed.

He looked elsewhere on purpose and saw Jayne, leering, realized Inara hadn't moved beyond the doorway either. "Jayne!" he hollered, "You keep lookin' an' I'll blind you!" The barbarian grumbled and began stowing his shirt in the dry caches provided. "You and Kaylee get yourselves settled first," Mal offered Inara apologetically, "we'll follow after you give us the all clear, and I'll keep him from botherin' you girls too much."

Inara didn't look his way, kept her face hidden by her veil of soft black curls. "Thank you." Still she didn't move.

He frowned. Something else then, and he figured it probably had to do with him. Fine then, she could be that way. "What? What's wrong?" he demanded, "You body shy or somethin'?" She whirled at him, her eyes furious and her face colouring even in the faint light, then strode away with not near her usual grace. "How is that even possible?" he called after her. She just shot him another glare over her shoulder, slipped the straps of her dress from her shoulders to pool at her feet, and wrapped herself up in her towel before he could admire the view.

- - - - -
She remembered sitting by this window before, trying not to think about the other time; the fear, the uncertainty, unfamiliar people and surroundings as she was taken. Staring out into the darkness watching for Mal. Just an hour or so ago, she'd been praying that she would have the chance to see him again, rather than wishing she was outside with Kaylee and Jayne, watching for trouble, instead of in here with him.

Body shy. Mal had accused her of being body shy. Her! Oh, but the captain, hypocrite that he was, could pretend to be completely fine with nudity and get by on pure bluster and bravado, but she, he had to tease her with something so, so, nonsensical! She had experience, nearly a hundred clients had seen her over her career. She was always astounded to find how insulting Mal could be, how obnoxious...

How completely and unmistakeably right. Her reflection blushed again at the memory.

She needed to stop thinking about this, she was here to read the meeting and their contacts, determine if they had any ulterior motives. Once she couldn't feel her cheeks burn any longer, she turned away from the view of the empty street to take in the store.

The set up was homely, shelves and rugs and some wood paneling made to imitate the inside of a traditional yurt arranged around a seating area to discuss business, velvet chairs and pillows and a chaise longue. This, of course, was a front to hide the black market activity that funded and supplied the members of Ezra's anti-slavery resistance, the Bûmelerze.

Seated, or perhaps more accurately, filling the largest armchair was a singularly impressive woman in a head scarf and sandals, a business vest and jacket stretched around her middle over the voluminous skirts of her local dress. In a fair fight, Inara thought Mama Tauwati might have an advantage over the captain just by sheer size, but had been an attentive hostess when Inara and Kaylee had been waiting for Mal and Jayne to be found, and lived up to her nickname by offering them both biscuits and tea.

The captain and the shopkeep were studying each other, as they exchanged introductions and pleasantries, and both seemed to decide they were ready for business. Inara was certain Boss Tauwati was a long lost relative of Serenity's first mate; she had the same manner of collected calm, the same fierce protectiveness.

"Captain Reynolds, I have a job for you and your crew," the larger woman said, and leaned forward, lacing plump fingers together. "Councilor Larrol is having an invitational. The garrison officers will be there, and it's the perfect opportunity to find out what they're planning."

What had her friend gotten herself into? Inara wandered over to Mal, still refusing to look at him, and settled against his armrest. "And it's also an invitational, meaning, invitations. You won't be able to get through security."

"Not everyone will have one." Boss Tauwati's broad lips stretched into a frown. "Unless she has extended a warm welcome to the fresh batch of help she's bringing in."

Mal tensed. "Slaves. You're wanting to send us in disguised as slaves." He frowned in suspicion. "And just how're you gonna make 'em talk?"

Thanks to the night's events, Inara knew more than she wanted to about Ezra's shadiest business, had overheard enough conversation. She hoped it was all wrong, that her friend was innocent, but out here on the rim, she had learned how different things were than in the core.

Inara saw Mama Tauwati's attention turn to her in answer, met Mal's glance when he looked over. His eyes hardened, and he shook his head furiously at the imposing woman. "No. Appreciate what you've done for us, but we got our own Alliance problems." He couldn't leave fast enough, the reminder sharp and terrible.

She understood. Had the kindness of these strangers only been for an advantage? Had they intended to use her all along, give her over to something she hadn't chosen, to a man she knew nothing about?

Someone who wasn't Mal. She'd even started imagining him when she was with clients. Her preoccupation had only gotten worse after Nandi, and then at the training house, so much so that she hadn't taken any appointments for months.

I am a companion, Inara reminded herself. Mal's opinion would never change, and her life was about helping people. She took a steadying breath, resigned and ready, her head bowed. "And if I agree?" Her voice sounded small.

The captain slowed, and she wasn't sure if she had imagined him whisper her name, or a curse. Perhaps both. The other woman appraised her, keen scrutiny from under heavy eye shadow, decided she approved. "We'll help you release the landlock on your ship, and we can get the last of the parts for your repairs." There was something almost like a smile on her neutral features. "Your mechanic has been working with some of my boys. We can get what you need."

Mal didn't react to the offer, his focus only on her, his expression guarded but his eyes striking blue and stricken. "I can't ask this from you," he told her, roughly.

Inara rolled her own eyes before she could stop herself. "But you can put yourself in danger without a second thought," she scoffed. "This isn't asking."

"And this ain't like your sessions with all your rules," he retorted. "What you do sure as hell ain't any of my business, but to let you go off into the hands of some lecherous Zhū Bājiè won't say no, who'll take every liberty because he thinks he good as owns you?" He rumbled low, almost a growl. "There ain't enough platinum in all the stars and all the planets'd make that worth it."

She sighed. "This is what I do, Mal." She remembered a parade of clients throughout her career, the heartache she kept hidden when the fantasy ended. She cared too much, she couldn't help but care, no matter what the Guild taught. Weariness chased her frustration from her breath. "Let me help you."

Anger blazed cold in his eyes. He didn't answer, just crossed his arms and leaned back against the doorframe. Challenging, defiant.

Mama Tauwati was watching their entire exchange, only a single arched eyebrow to communicate what she was thinking. In another life, on another world, she could have been an incredible companion. "You will, of course, be able to decide just how involved you want to get. It's possible you'll only need to serve a few drinks."

Mal stomped back over, looming. "Also possible it's gonna get real complicated real fast, so if we're doin' this, I'm takin' no chances. This goes bad, which it's like to, I'm pulling you out ready or not." Inara couldn't bear to look at him, but she could feel his intense gaze, and could hear the strain in his voice. "I'm not leavin' you again."

- - - - -
River could hear, like echoes, a pebble dropped and waves on the shore. Worry and then the sound, overlapping, louder and softer depending on interference, silent sometimes but she heard anyway. Always hunting, take her out and them to put her back.

Forsworn by Apollo, Asclepius, Hygieia and Panacea. Do no harm. Bad needles and good needles and they blended sometimes. Monsters stealing into her mind to cast their shadows, imprinted outlines, ashes on the ruins of a city. Shelled. Had they been human once? She couldn't remember. The form was the same but the function was wrong.

She curled up and held on. It was all she could do. "Calm now," she whispered. The words formed something true and she didn't (couldn't) let go. Calm. For now.

Simon found her, looked in on her, and decided she was asleep. He settled nearby, in a spot where he could watch over her. She stayed with him until he dozed off, then spent the rest of the night flitting between dreams.

Chapter 16
Dust and sand. She blinked and there was grit in her eyes, she ate and there was more Ezra soil in the bowel blistering local cuisine than there was Ezra culture. Pvt. Haverson couldn't imagine why anyone would live in the capital city, let alone build there; despite being feed by a major river, canals everywhere, they were still in the middle of a shài hàn zào desert wasteland.

Josie was just glad it wasn't hot yet. The temperature around here was dòng yáo; if it didn't feel like a blast furnace, it was freezing, and the difference between day and night was more than merely aesthetic. Morning was the only respite between the two extremes, and didn't last near long enough.

Sometimes she thought she'd really like to punch out the genius who'd decided on black and purple for their standard issue tactical armour suits. Or, heck, whoever was managing the shift schedule around here; they'd been trained by the best, but three days without sleep was pushing it and sometimes she had this nagging feeling like she was forgetting something important, and couldn't bring herself to care. At least the electronics in her helmet were helping keep her alert, otherwise she'd probably be konked out right here and heading for disciplinary action.

She leaned back against the sandbag barricade, Iskellian-15 at rest against her shoulder. Another farmer passed between her and her partner on guard duty, leading what was probably a pack animal under the baggage but looked like two enormous bundles with four legs. "How many donkeys do these people have?" Mick asked, and Josie had to agree. Smelled like there was already more than enough manure in this beige hovel hellhole.

A line of grungy and foul-smelling misery had already formed hours before, promising only to get worse as the morning warmed and tempers heated. Just a few more hours, Josie told herself. One of the aristocrats in the area was putting on some big evening affair for the troops, and the officers had decided to shuffle everyone through in shifts under the pretense of providing security detail. Really, it was mostly an excuse for some relaxation. None of them honestly had any taste for the upper class conception of entertainment or cuisine, but far be it for any of them to complain.

Next was a hovermule, beat-up, used, and utilitarian, goldenrod with a cargo grappler attachment on the front like it had been swiped from a loading dock somewhere. Ancient though it was, it still looked more advanced than most of the transportation they'd seen. It was something of a marvel that the vehicle hadn't been stolen and stripped; clearly neither the brawny driver or petite passenger were local.

Though cheerful enough, the girl and her coveralls seemed to be in a desperate state. The man was even more scruffy and inordinately pleased about something, in a way that belied his unkempt facial hair, his rumpled jacket over a dirty muscle tee.

"Name, business, and Ident-card," Josie requested, already bored.

"Cap'n Rob Harbatkin," he declared, with particular emphasis on his title. The man actually puffed out his chest and jabbed himself with a thumb, and Josie thought he was probably in violation of a customs restriction on ego. "Got some work out on some lady's homestead having a fancy to-do."

Him and every other untrustworthy spacer from the docks, seemed like; Councilor Larrol had stopped at no expense for her party. The Ident-card cleared and she passed it back. "Ship?"

The girl grinned; Kaywinnet Lee Frye, according to her card. "Serenity, she's an aught-three Firefly. Best out there you'll ever see," she claimed.

Aught-threes weren't even in production anymore, hadn't been for decades even, so Josie imagined that was both fairly accurate and not at all the ringing endorsement of the ship's condition that the girl thought it was. She frowned at her datascreen, something about the name tickled her memory. There it was, an alert out on a Firefly class B cargo ship. "Step away from the vehicle!" she called out, and Mick obligingly raised his own IS-15 rifle.

Frye looked terrified, the deer in headlights look of someone who wasn't used to being at gunpoint, but Harbatkin just snorted. "Aw hell, not this again," he complained, but both complied and began to climb down from their seats. "Don'tcha all know there might maybe be more'n one Serenity out there?"

Another glance at the datascreen. Registered: Capt. Malcolm Reynolds. She scrolled down; sure enough, there was a second entry, only registered to a Capt. Robert Harbatkin. "Oh hell," she cursed, echoing the sentiment.

"They have us chasing after the wrong ship?" Mick guessed.

"Looks like," Josie confirmed tiredly. She shrugged at Harbatkin, who looked annoyingly smug, but nothing else offense worthy. "Sorry, but I still have to search you for contraband," she explained, and he just grunted and crossed his arms.

She looked for any signs of sabotage, then popped the access panel and reached into the machine. Her hand encountered something unexpectedly soft, and didn't give away immediately when she tugged. She pulled harder, and a quilt came free as something heavy fell over with a clunk. She frowned, checked, no, nothing sewn into the seams. Further investigation found some spare engine parts were the culprit, packed in with a few more blankets. Eventually she touched the metal framework of the hovermule and shoved it all back in, slightly disappointed. "Bah. At least C Company found something. Hey Mick, you hear about the missing roller? Got dumped in a sewage canal or something."

He shook his head in disbelief. "Apparently Baker about had a fit. Where'd they even get all that paint?"

"We good here?" the spacer asked, beginning to sound impatient.

Josie waved him off. "Yeah, yeah. Get going." A fight broke out down the line as two groups jostled for position, and she was already running towards them as the two drove away.

- - - -
The yōu líng followed them, curious spirits rippling along the mirrors as they passed, whispering about new arrivals at terminal two, announcing the new flavour of Blue Sun cola. Her heart beat raced in excitement and apprehension, and she didn't look at the ghosts, because in the stories, that was when they would grab you, and you would be lost. Her slippered feet skipped over the tiles, careful to step only on the narrow line the color of rich wood instead of the deceitful pale tiles that meant death.

She held Chevalier, velvet and white, close in one arm, her other hand held by her māma, who looked back often, to make sure she was there. "Hurry, xiăo xĭ què, keep up," māma encouraged, and she smiled back. They rarely were ever allowed outside together, because Honoured Father was always displeased with them and kept them shut away in the tower, where everything was rich and nicely decorated but very cold.

They ducked between two scarlet red pillars, and she stopped sort at her reflection as it stared back at her, wide-eyes dark, shadowed by the twilight world beyond. Her reflection had her hair pulled back by two ribbons into midnight ringlets, wore a long-sleeved hànfú shān robe embroidered with gold butterflies and flowers so violet it matched the dusk.

This was the guardian of the gateway míng dào, she decided. Chevalier, as ever, was very brave, and foolhardy. He whispered to her in her own voice, pitched low, that he would chase the images away. He tossed his long mane and tail and his plush silver horn and hooves tapped at the glass, his beaded black eyes glared into the eyes of his double. But the guardian remained, so he returned, abashed, back to her arms.

Her māma was standing at the high window, very elegant in a cream embellished sari, gazing out into the evening and waiting.

She would have to outsmart the guardian herself. She had a clever idea then and closed her eyes, until a glow against her eyelids made her open them again. She couldn't see her reflection for the light, and watched, amazed, admiring the long neck, the blazing tail of the gleaming white firebird that alighted on the ground outside before them. The Chinese word for "Spirit" was inscribed on the side in red.

The bay doors were already open for them, gold light spilling out warm and welcoming, rather like the man who appeared from the burning heart to greet them. She wasn't fooled; he might look vaguely Sihonese, maybe darker from travel, but surely a firebird in disguise would try to look as human as possible. "Anise!" he cried. He picked up māma in a hug that lifted her from the ground, and she watched, wondering if they would fly away into the wind. She gazed up at him uncertainly, hugging Chevalier closer as he reluctantly let māma go, and she grabbed a fistful of her māma's dress for good measure. "I'm so sorry. Will you be all right?"

Māma reached down for her hand again and squeezed. "We will now." She sounded so tired, everyday moreso. It frightened her. Māma shook her head, her own curls bouncing. "I should have left years ago," she murmured wistfully, an admission, then finally met his eyes, her face pained but determined, softening into gratitude. "Thank you for coming."

"Always." His expression was resolute, but kind and concerned, and maybe something more. "Where will you go?" What were they talking about? She frowned.

"The Guild," māma asserted. He nodded, resigned and understanding. "My sister offered to let me stay in my old dorm room at House Madrassa. It'll be good for her, to be around girls her age, and Vihara can look after her."

She hid again, peering out from behind her mother's skirt when he looked down at her, studying her with a friendly skepticism. "She's much bigger now than in the captures."

Her māma laughed indulgently, an actual laugh. "Little girls tend to do that."

She began to feel more confident, reassured by māma's smile. She inched out, her own curiosity getting the better of her as he crouched down to her eye level, and she suddenly thought he seemed familiar, even though they hadn't ever met before. He was nice, really, and she thought she might like him, even if he was a firebird in disguise. "Have you ever been to the stars?" he asked.

- - - -
From the very first, Serenity had been more than just a metal hull. A firefly was a symbol; of illumination, of the soul of a person, of life and fragility. Fireflies drifting over a battlefield soothed away pain with beauty, represented hopes for a new beginning. Their light drew love from far away, and, encircling, could bring two people together.

For Inara, a Firefly was a ferry, carrying her spirit home to friends and family, that had given her both the stars and the life she had known with the Guild. She'd never forgotten, and that glimpse of the wider system from the bridge that day, black and sparkling and normally muted by the lights of the great cities, had awakened in her a longing to learn how to fly herself.

Perhaps that was what had compelled her that day to walk down the dusty lane at the Eavesdown Docks on Persephone after she'd left Sihnon. She knew it was silly to keep looking for a ship from almost twenty-five years before, most likely sold many times over or lost in the sea of space. But the transport she'd taken out here was legally bound to the core and border, and that wasn't far enough for her, not with everything washed away and feeling like she hadn't even had the chance to live yet.

The captain and the first mate had been off on business that day, leaving the mechanic and pilot to look for passengers. They had set some chairs and drinks out in front of the loading ramp, and Wash had been entertaining Kaylee with his absurd jokes, weaving his hands around in an approximation of an elaborate atmospheric chase. He'd lived up to those boasts, and then some, even if they caught up to him in the end.

Inara had been enchanted right away, and they had been happy to talk to her and answer her questions, even obligingly agreeing to show her the ship when she asked. Somehow, despite the years of dirt accumulated, the modifications made by various owners through the years, she'd known. She found the drawings she and her mother had made under the helm controls; a stick figure unicorn, and chinese calligraphy. "Fú shòu mián cháng."

After a few moments fighting back the tears, she stood and apologized to her new friends, still blinking rapidly, still smiling, assuring away their concerns for her. She then remembered the two empty shuttles from the tour they'd given her, and formed a plan to rent one. And inquired when the captain would return. She hadn't anticipated how complicated everything would become after that.

As the engine rumbled into motion, the propulsion propellers reverberating under the floor to either side of their hiding spot, Inara relaxed and felt Mal let out a long breath of his own. They were packed in behind the blankets and a metal compartment their industrious little mechanic had added in, she on her side and half on top of him, her head pillowed by his shoulder, his arm carefully around her waist. The mule was decidedly not soundproof or windproof, so they'd both been able to hear the Alliance sentry give up her search. They hadn't been found.

He hadn't spoken to her at all since their argument; rather, he'd left it to Kaylee to explain his lingering concerns that someone might be looking for her. Her friend had enjoyed teasing her with the solution they'd come up with to sneak them both out of the city, but never would Inara have imagined they were actually serious. One positive had come out of their fight, however. Mal's insistence this morning on pretending she didn't exist had helped significantly when they had to squeeze together.

Now that the danger had passed, however, everything had gone back to being very awkward. Mal shifted, like he was about to say something, finally, and she tilted her chin up, trying to see him.

Despite his anger, he'd stayed up all night in a chair, guarding them and they room they all had to share, worrying but doing his best to act disinterested. Now his eyes were closed, lashes fanned out over his cheekbones, his breathing soft. Peaceful. Inara studied him for a long moment, resisting the urge to reach up and feel the soft strands of brown hair splayed across his forehead, then sighed and settled back against him. She watched her fingers, resting on his chest, rising and falling, and eventually her own night of tossing and turning caught up with her.

- - - -
Simon felt like he'd only been asleep for a few minutes before he'd been prodded by his insistent little sister. "You have to help her," River told him, frowning at his bleary early morning stupidity as he rolled away from her, wanting a few more hours with Kaylee. There was a rather obvious problem with this plan of action. "You're a gorramn doctor."

The alarming statement woke him up fully, just in time to hear the engine of reaction thrusters pass overhead, but no, the 'her' in question was the formerly docile and apparently very pregnant donkey he'd found River curled up with. As was now customary for his life, there were complications; the donkey was in labour, straining, and the - colt? calf? newborn? - animal was coming out hooves first.

Zoë soon found them, but rather than asking him to report for whatever task the captain had in mind, she took in the situation, then moved to assist him by holding the mother's hind legs down. The labour was too far along to turn the animal around, which would be a problematic in any case with the mother laying on its side. All he could do was help the head, shoulders, and hips along. After quite a lot of braying, near-miss kicking, and pulling, both animals were resting and doing well, as far as he could tell. "It's a donkey," he joked weakly.

"A boy," River corrected, completely fascinated. Zoë seemed scarcely less interested, contemplative as they watched the miniature donkey attempt to stand and nurse for the first time, it's fur drying and little more than a gray puff ball on long ungainly legs.

Simon smiled more genuinely at his sister. "What's his name?"

She grinned back mischievously. "Simon."

The captain interrupted before he had a chance to object. "Zoë!" They could hear him cursing, stomping around outside searching for them.

That was a nice moment that was ruined. A hint of something almost vulnerable in the first mate's expression disappeared instantly behind a neutral mask, her dark eyes hardened and bronze face statuesque. "Right here, sir."

Mal's boots and coat came into view, but he stopped on the stairs just outside, ducking his head to look into the burrowed manger from under the archway. "Need your help loading, if you forgot." He straightened to leave, paused, then stooped down again to give them a second look. "You three been havin' a hayfight or some'n down here?"

Simon hurriedly brushed the offending straw from his hair, but Zoë took a more direct approach. Coolly, she scooped up a handful of grass to lob at the captain, who dodged to the side and down a few more steps. Mostly.

"That's for the animals," Mal disapproved.

Zoë was shaking out her crimped sienna mane. "And?"

"Funny." He held up a hand for a truce, asking for an explanation. "Well?"

"Doctorin' for the settlement," Zoë answered, glancing over at the two donkeys. They observed the peaceful scene for a moment longer, then the captain grunted thoughtfully and headed back up the stairs, and they followed obediently.

Kaylee launched herself from the mule and across the grassy expanse when she spotted him, calling his name and almost tackling him. Her amber-brown hair seemed almost golden in this light flowing around her shoulders, and and she looked, smelled, and felt soft and sweet. Mal rolled his eyes and ignored them, continuing on with Zoë to join Jayne in his attempts to secure their supplies to the ground trailer. Inara was looking on from one of the shuttles, seemingly keeping her distance and avoiding the captain.

Simon saw River tense beside him, then run at the crew. "River," he called, but Kaylee reached up and turned his face back to her, catching his mouth in a surprise kiss. A warm fog melted over his thoughts like sunlight or perhaps too much rice wine, but for one: a sudden clarity, a realization that he'd missed her even though she'd only been away for one night.

"Leave her be," Kaylee murmured, her lips lingering, brushing against his. "She's not more'n a few feet away." He couldn't argue with that logic, and was about to continue indulging when the captain cleared his throat at them pointedly. They startled, and Kaylee pulled away to glare at the interloper around him. "Xìng zāi yāo huò bào jūn," she shouted.

Simon, for his part, had seen River staring at them, and flashed back to that time she'd watched them in the engine room. A change of subject was in order. "How was the city?"

Kaylee turned back to him and shrugged, patting his arm apologetically. "Went okay. Getting in was scary, but that turned out. Cap'n and 'Nara are fightin' again, though. Won't let her go to a party." She frowned over at the shuttle. "They even wasted a perfectly good love nest I found them, not talkin' or anything," she complained. The captain knocked something over behind them, and she nodded, satisfied by the effect of her retaliation. "Been quiet around here?"

"I wouldn't say that," he answered. "I slept in a barn and delivered a newborn." She looked impressed, and he liked it when her hazel eyes sparkled like that. "A donkey, breech birth," he clarified, feeling like he had some right to brag. "Hooves first."

She blinked at him, in a way that reminded him he was from the core, then smiled consolingly. He heard snickers from the crew. "Simon," she said gently, "They're supposed to do that."

Mal walked past them, lugging the container he'd dropped around to the other side of their pile. "Might make a proper Rim doctor outta you yet, son," he deadpanned.

Jayne couldn't contain himself, doubling over and hooting with laughter. Simon bristled. He was extremely tired of being the punchline simply because he was still technically the newest member of the crew; he endured the jokes only because they didn't stem from any real dislike anymore, and because, besides Jayne, they kept his sister out of it. "I'm honoured, really," he replied, injecting as much sarcasm in his voice as he could manage.

He reached out to River, intending to maneuver her away before the insensitive troglodyte could start. She didn't seem aware of any of them now, fingers fidgeting and clasping together as she murmured to herself.

Kaylee huffed at the others, offended on his behalf. "Let's go back to Serenity," she suggested, and wrapped her arm around his waist. "They're about done here and Inara said she'd fly us back." A smile. "Maybe I can help some with the barn thing," she offered, her voice turning flirtatious, quiet, so only he would hear. "There's these baths in town, and I betcha I could get us both in. They let us share." She enticingly left the rest unsaid.

"What -" he started to ask her to elaborate anyway, but a thought occurred to him. "Wait, everyone? Even Jayne?" He struggled to make sense of the disturbing idea. Two words that simply did not belong together in a sentence: Jayne and hygiene. "You had a bath... with Jayne?"

Her face fell, hurt and confused. "You don't want to go with me?"

Mercifully, Inara came to his rescue, descending from the hatch to welcome them. "Oh, mèi mèi, of course he does. Provided, I imagine, that Jayne isn't there." There was amusement in her voice, but she was gentle as she helped River into the shuttle. "Though I can't imagine he'd be interested in joining you so soon after his last bath. We nearly had to pull him in."

"Definitely," Simon agreed, "a bath would be much better if it were only the two of us." He nodded his thanks for the save. Inara was wearing an exotic looking dress in chiffon plum he hadn't seen before swirling around her feet. He wondered about it, he knew they hadn't had time to go back to Serenity first. He suspected everyone wanted a change of clothing about now, but Inara didn't exactly have anything else to wear considering the way she had arrived. Perhaps Kaylee had asked someone in town, or maybe even the captain, who tended to be overly attentive in regards to Inara's concerns.

Kaylee looked relieved, and contrite. "Sorry. I don't go meanin' to kick up a bother. Just sometimes I almost expect you to look down on me," she admitted. She laughed at herself. "Kinda see where you're comin' from, though, least no one I know ever seen you naked." He sensed Inara stiffen, trapped here now with their secret bare between them. A worry crept into Kaylee's eyes when he didn't, couldn't answer. "No one I know ever seen you naked, right?" she repeated, insistently. He couldn't look at her, and she glanced over at Inara, and understood. "Oh no," she whispered, horrified, backing away. "No, no, no no no."

"Kaylee -" the companion started, trying, lifting a hand to reassure her, but she turned on her heels and ran.

He tried to chase after her, and Inara followed. They were confronted by the crew's suspicious, reproachful eyes already on them the moment they stepped out, except for Mal, who just looked irritated. "I don't have time for this," he told them, exasperated. "Inara, get him out of here."

There was something resigned in her expression, and she nodded mechanically, and pulled Simon back inside. He heard Jayne scoff, derisively. "Always knew he was a jackass."

A few people hated that last chapter.

Chapter 17
He had gotten onto the base with not much difficulty, and his request for transport to the Georgia system to rendezvous with the Ratched was approved and assigned in only a few moments. Confirming his itinerary with the pilot was equally brief. He was glad for the lack of scrutiny; it was to be expected, given his claims and their verification, but he preferred his anonymity. As such, he found the provided spartan cot more than welcome.

Now he had a few days to review his source material. The recording had been in his possession a number of months, more of a curiosity than anything else. A souvenir from his last mission, that had helped him come to terms with all that had happened. Snapshots of a life he might have lived, mistakes he might have made from the eyes of the man who had experienced them.

He wondered now if he had ever really believed in anything. He felt as though he had, and then had felt the loss of that belief. What he did, he told himself, he did for all humankind. Had it ever been more than indoctrination? He was sure it had been, but his actions and the orders he had followed spoke differently.

Since then he had learned morality knew no side but mercy, which had its own brutality. He studied how the man had infiltrated the ranks of military service, the careful balancing act he had maintained between the Alliance and his rebellious browncoat wearing contacts. Had seen the man set up by his own superiors with an impossible operation, supposedly meant to end a war before it began, but really intended to pour fuel on the fire.

The I.A.V. Alexander had burned, because the members of Parliament were desperate enough to hide the deaths of thirty million people with four thousand. He remembered his own time aboard a cruiser, and how that had turned out, and considered the package he had obtained. Perhaps the third time.

So he sat in the darkness of his quarters, surrounded itself by the black of space, and turned on the light.

- - - - -
From the very first, she knew Simon Tam to be a sweet young man, intelligent and mild-mannered, carrying himself with the dignity expected of his family. She had just been through some troubles of her own at the time, and had been easing herself into her client database again. He was exceedingly earnest in wanting to listen to her recount her ordeal, and she had thought him very gentlemanly for his concern. She had demurred, of course, but at his insistence she had mentioned perhaps a few things she remembered. In all honesty, her memory of the event was fuzzy, and she mostly recalled how frightened she had been.

Whatever she had said, it was sufficient for Simon, and she hadn't heard from him until nearly a year later, when by coincidence they were both visiting Persephone. He had contacted her, and had been very interested in hearing about her life and particularly her new living arrangements, which she described in glowing terms.

She hadn't expected to see him as a passenger on Serenity, and then a Federal Marshal tracking him had shot Kaylee, and everything had taken a turn for the worse. Mal had been against the boy from the start, and after that was about ready to throw the doctor and his newly revealed sister off the ship for any excuse he could.

After she docked the shuttle with Serenity's airlock, Inara swiveled in the pilot's chair to check on Simon. He was where she had left him when they'd taken off, seated on the floor, back to the bare metal bulkheads, almost as though he had slid down into the position. River was kneeling next to him, her arms around him, and Inara was concerned his anxiety might be upsetting the poor girl.

He looked up at and noticed her watching him. "I'm still waiting to see Mal's fist coming at my face." Even now, when everything might change, she felt the same compassion as she did before. "I hurt his mèi mèi, and in his twisted mind he'll think I've taken advantage of you."

She sat up in her chair, straight, with a posture not unlike a House Priestess correcting a student. "Mal is very loyal," she told him, "he wouldn't abandon you for something like this." Simon looked unconvinced, and she felt a further need to defend the man, partially aware of how she must sound. Her teachers would have thought she was delusional. "He's taken you back on before," she reminded him, "and in his own way, he's fond of River." The boy didn't look any more optimistic, and she began to understand. "But that's not what you're worried about."

He sighed, hung his head, and said one word. "Kaylee." He ran a hand through his dark hair. "She made me nervous at first, I didn't want anyone looking too closely and finding River. But I liked her," he admitted. "It was hard for me to show, as you're well aware. But I was flattered, really." He smiled at her weakly. "I gave up pretty much everything I'd known to get River out of that place. Finding you on Serenity was a relief, and I'm grateful, because thanks to you, it felt like my old life wasn't so far away. But Kaylee..." He looked thoughtful. "Kaylee helped me feel comfortable with where I am now. I've thought maybe I might be able to make a new life, out here."

She could sympathize; sometimes, sipping a pink shaker while the others played pool, strolling around the edge of a celebration, or looking out over the cargo bay with a glass of engine wine, she even managed to forget for a while herself.

He tried to get up, River still holding on. "I have to go talk to her."

Inara felt a flash of alarm at his conviction. "Oh, Simon, no. She's with Mal at the Councilor's estate by now. You'll be caught."

The little psychic agreed, pulling him back down like an anchor. "Don't go," she muttered.

For a moment, she could see the struggle as his blue eyes lowered. Then he hugged his sister, nodding, ever the doting brother, and when he smiled, there wasn't any regret in his expression. "I'm right here. I've got you." He helped her to her shoeless feet, and Inara heard his unasked question when he glanced back over.

She smiled back. "I'll explain everything to Kaylee, don't worry," she assured him, and in a flurry of wild hair, suddenly found River wrapped around her waist. The girl was trembling, as if holding back some great torrent, and Inara thought she might be crying. "River?"

The girl held on for several long moments, somehow tighter, enough to nearly force the air from her lungs, and when she pulled away, almost reluctantly, Inara was glad to see her bright beaming face. "Don't be scared," River reassured her, and grabbed Simon's hand and dragged him out of the shuttle. Inara stared after the inscrutable genius for a few moments, confused, then sat at the console and transmitted her authorization code to port control.

- - - - -
Maybe the brute was escaped from the councilor woman's menagerie. Not her most impressive animal, he supposed, unless you had an admiration for that of the slow and ponderous in brains and size. And then there was the beast his mercenary was gaping at, whiskered jaw working in his confusion and heavy brows furrowed. "Bet I could drop it from here," he assessed, "them tusks gotta be worth something."

"Hard to miss an elephant, Jayne," Mal grunted, pulling another broken fence stone loose. His shoulder was starting to hurt. Again. "Ya'll gonna lend me a hand with this or what?" He tossed the rubble aside.

Zoë studied him, arms crossed, lean and leaning against the wall he was fixing. The shadows of the leaves shifting over her skin gave her the look of a jungle cat. "We talkin' that one or the one we're ignoring?" she asked, and, he noticed, didn't start helping. Even injured he didn't get any respect. "Sir," she added at his look.

He squinted over at their mule where Kaylee was hiding out, sulking at their lush surroundings. Hard to blame her, really. In his younger days, a formal garden was an orchard, almost wild. Grass up to his knees, warm morning sunlight before the afternoon storms, and boughs laden with blooms of apples and cherries later to swell into full, bittersweet red fruit. Here, there wasn't a branch, stone, or flower out of place, the air heavy with rose and something like chai.

Grateful as he was for the shade, the show of wealth made him uneasy. Reminded him of the elaborate grounds and incense filled halls of a temple training house, secluded above waterfalls and green tropical wilderness.

A shrug, and he swiped the back of his wrist across his brow. He was really glad he'd thought to stow his shirt. "Don't care to know," Mal answered, and picked up his shovel again, meaning to get back to work.

Didn't pay any mind to the growing hum as the shuttle arrived, a ladybug circling the Councilor's landing pad, a pirouette dipping into a curtsy. Not to the lady of the craft herself alighting from the ingress, nor the look over she gave them, searching.

He heard Jayne's uncompliments, and from long experience, knew Zoë was raising that eyebrow. All right, so part of him was curious. The part that didn't know any better. That wouldn't learn despite every conspired attempt of the 'verse at education. Any secret that involved the doctor and Inara, he had his own worries just what he might confirm. "They'll sort it out," he amended, jabbing the spade at another crack in the wall.

Inara's eyes lingered on him for an inexplicable moment before she moved off to find Kaylee.

The plan was that she was supposed to blend in, but he was pretty sure that was some kind of joke. The girls in attendance he'd seen flitting here and there with trays and party favours, he could tell they'd been selected for show, made up and garbed to distract the soldiers. Not any of it was right, not what they were offered up for, not how most of them were too young by far.

And she was dressed as they were. Some get-up in milky white, insubstantial as a cloud, her midrift invitingly bare. A swath of the thinnest fabric cradled her, swirling with crystalline patterns that hinted more than concealed, matching the beaded band of her skirt. There was a slit in the sarong running up the side of her leg, all the way to that tantalizing spangle low around her hips. Flimsy looking, like for the better to take a handful of any of it and tear it right off her.

Knowing as always, Zoë intruded on his thoughts as they spiraled down into worser what ifs. She held out a field radio out to him, patiently, a match for the one still in his coat.

- - - - -
The gardens had been prettied up for the party with little twinkle lights and lantern orbs, like a courtly dance in bright jewel colours. Emerald and ruby, sapphire and gold, even some coral and pearl, with diamond dew-drops from the mist beaded on leaves. Elegant birds and glittery trimmed coattails of butterflies, dancing between perfumed blossoms like layered dresses.

Kaylee wondered if the Tam estate on Osirius might be just such a vision. Like an oasis, only with about as much place for her as a desert; outside, looking in.

Her lips thinned at the approach of soft-soled footsteps; not Zoe, and Simon would never let River near Alliance, not even to patch things up. She felt the companion pause by her side and refused to look.

"I'm sorry. It was one night, before Serenity." Couldn't even believe she was trying to cop a plea, and more incredible, she continued. "I should have said something."

Then Inara reached out to her, like she still had some claim to friendship. Kaylee shrugged her off, glaring over the dash. The woman hovered prettily, just like if she actually was sincere, but finally got her snub. She was a real reader, that one.

"I'm so sorry," she murmured. "I never meant to hurt you." She nearly collided with the captain as she turned away. A furtive exchange and something else passed between them, changed hands.

He climbed up next to her and rummaged around for his shirt, then Kaylee found him taking his ease against the console next to her. "Zoë and Jayne are gonna scope the perimeter. You want to go with them or you want to apprise me why I got an unhappy mechanic?"

She just didn't know what to say, what she could tell him. She'd seen the captain hurting once or twice and sometimes even though he was walking and talking, she wasn't sure if he was really okay. "You ever seen how sometimes two things seem like they should fit together, but then they don't?" she asked, hitching on the last word.

He looked uneasy. "This about engine parts?"

This was why she usually talked to Inara, Captain had a tendency to prude up like an old woman at church. She shook her head, she wasn't even thinking about the companion. "No, those fit fine," she answered, spiritless, remembered how it was. "More like having the wrong male-to-female adapter." She hurried on, insistent, before he could protest. "What I mean is, core and rim."

That was nice of him, he was trying not to look too relieved. "You an' Simon," he guessed, trying for consolation.

"You 'n 'Nara, too," she offered, awkwardly.

There was a flicker of something in his eyes, quickly buried. "What'd he do this time?" he prompted instead, not about to dwell on any other point.

She used to get so mad at him, dancing around the subject and not the fun kind either, but she let him dodge it this time. "You ever think maybe Simon 'n 'Nara might be a good match for each other?"

A long pause, like he was hesitating. "It's crossed my mind." He nodded slowly. "So, the two of them. Can't say I'm surprised, him in and out of her shuttle all the time."

So not just the once, then. Had everyone known? No, probably just him and his busy body ways, keeping secrets all the time. "But you never... Even when she was gone..." she stumbled, then forced it out. "You never said a word."

The captain sighed at her."Don't change anything." There was a bitterness in his face, in his voice. "You're fighting a losing battle with that one. Don't see but for what was left behind, and wasn't like you were helping any. You pushed away, lashed out, shacked up with someone else. That ain't any way to get attention, no incentive for someone to want you." Lower now, all inwards with guilt and anger. "You got no one to blame but yourself."

Oh God. He wasn't talking at her anymore, but what if Simon really had gone to Inara because of her? She wavered, she had to get away. "I - I think maybe I do wanna go with Zoë and Jayne," she told him.

For a while she wasn't sure if he'd even heard her, but eventually he nodded, more of a jerk. "Maybe find a circuit box in case we need to cut this soiree short." She watched him uncertainly. "And be careful out there. There's bad men about."

Yeah, she thought maybe she'd found two already. He settled in the driver seat, a radio piece perched above his ear, and she decided he wasn't any business of hers.

Chapter 18
Inara prided herself on her ability to feel at home in any situation, from the Sihnon New Year's Ball in the Palace of the Eternal Thousand Lotus Petals to the dark corner of unnamed bars out on the border and rim. Perhaps her time on Serenity had changed her; surely she had admired more majestic and extravagant decor in the riches of her homeworld, the shining lights and culture of the core.

Yet the lavish display of wealth for the welcoming reception seemed ostentatious to her. The interior of the Councilor's estate was Londinium style, a neo-Victorian with expensive pastel prints and imported wood carving. To further divorce this world from the reality outside, baroque colonnades clashed with the arabic arcades of the exterior, and armed security guards patrolled the hallways. Amid all of this: bondage, indenture, excesses of wealth of the worst kind.

There was the Councilor out on the terrace, in a conservative black dress with blond hair styled high and adorned in pearls to stand out from the white gossamer of her attendants. There was a brown-haired marine in navy greys with two silver rank bars on his sleeves, the apparent leader of the taskforce assigned to Ezra, bringing with him civilization through suppressive artillery fire.

What might her other clients have hidden? How common were functions for the military like this catered by slave girls? How many others were there, silent and invisible and suffering? Two of the students during her stay at the Training House had been raped by Alliance soldiers from an otherwise reputable core regiment. Her call for help had been answered by the Operative, who had threatened more of the same if she refused to cooperate.

That a crime of this magnitude could happen with any degree of regularity was almost unthinkable, and thoroughly unacceptable.

She had agreed to the dangers of this infiltration hoping to find some way to help. Her decision wasn't about Mal, much as he wanted to believe she was just being contrary. When he couldn't dissuade her, he had insisted that he accompany her, despite any warrants for his arrest or garrisons, and she couldn't decide if he was being chivalrous or extra annoying. Ultimately they had compromised and she was now walking around with a hidden radio and his voice in her ear like a devil on her shoulder.

Thankfully he hadn't spoken yet, and probably wouldn't for the risk of discovery. His silent company would have been comforting if she wasn't worried about Kaylee, about whether Mal's reticence was awkward or stony disapproval. Even his breathing was distracting. She could almost feel him behind her, a soft exhalation over her skin, right there against her neck.

A shout broke through Inara's thoughts, high and warbling in the manner of Chinese Opera. "Enough of this tedious work, which fritters away the patience of the audience!" She heard laughter answer the outcry, and glanced from the east-wing balcony down towards the soldiers seated in the councilor's garden.

Judith had spared no expense on her party; an elephant had been outfitted with a covered houdah carriage to ferry arriving guests across the grounds from their transports, and she had hired a troupe of Paquin performers specializing in classic theatre from Earth-That-Was for the evening's diversion. It seemed to be a fairly effective tactic so far. Most of the attention was on the colourfully lit stage that had somehow been folded out of a modified shuttle, rather than on herself and the servants. Inara wondered how long the respite would last.

The stage director bowed to everyone in attendance, choir girls and dancers warming up behind him, trailing silk streamers from elaborate costumes. He was a positively ancient looking man, gnarled and hunched in resplendent emerald robes with a long white mustache and bejeweled cane. "Let me most reverently salute the honorable gentlemen and ladies," he called out to the local high society clustered around the balustrade with their simmer wine, "and announce our intention to produce a drama called The Little Clay Cart."

He continued on to thank his host, the councilor Judith Larrol and her family, as well as her esteemed guests, Captain Teram Baker of the I.A.V. Ratched and the men and women of the 503rd. In the midst of the polite applause, Inara heard her sentry exhale sharply. "There's a companion in this show gets strangled by an evil duke."

She blinked, surprised to hear him talking to her almost as much as his choice of conversation. "You've seen this play before?" she asked, curious, and honestly somewhat impressed. Another facet of Malcolm Reynolds, another mystery to puzzle over; his obvious education, insight, and occasional unexpected and startling refinement. And yet, she thought, with some mixture of exasperated affection, only he could see a melodrama about a pauper and his courtesan paramour and take it as a commentary on the dangers of her profession.

Of course, he assumed she was being critical. "And ruin your low opinion of my schooling? Can't have that." She could imagine his satiric smile, decidedly unfriendly, and then subsequently abandoned to gravity. "But I do know a message when I hear one. Keep your eyes open," he cautioned.

Mal was more right than he realized. A shiver of anxiety crept up her spine at the famous introduction: "So here King Shudraka the tale imparts - Of love's pure festival in these two hearts - Of prudent acts, a lawsuit's wrong and hate - A rascal's nature, and the course of fate."

No one seemed to have noticed their conversation, not even the plain clothed and rough looking private security stationed around the building. She gathered a tray of drained wine glasses to bus inside, feeling overexposed. She was more grateful than ever to the Guild, not just for the protection, but the traditional period of training she spent assigned to her house and teachers as a handmaiden.

The other girls from the rings had somewhat harder earned experience. Even in the Councilor's household, there was little comfort to be found from the dreary servant's quarters in the basement, ragged blankets and cots and rat-eaten mattresses arranged around bare grey walls. Some of the girls would not hold eye contact, others had a blank, distant stare, and the most damaged, the youngest in particular, recoiled and cried at the slightest touch. She could see the bite of shackles on their wrists and ankles. She knew what had caused the star-shaped marks over their hearts.

Her hands shook in anger as she set down her tray and plunged the goblets into the sudsy water of the metal dishwashing basin, as she retrieved fresh goblets and a bottle of spirits to take back upstairs. She forced a placid smile back on as she mingled with the party, refilling drinks and observing how all the servants were routinely ignored except for glaring and verbal abuse. In the background, a courtier and the duke Sansthānaka were chasing Vasantasenā, demanding her services.

A crowd had gathered around the Councilor and her guest; merchants concerned about the impact of the blockade on business and admirers of the soldiers seeking marriage as a way off world into core society.

"Nice old Mr. Niska has done business with my family for years, he always had the sweetest peppermints for me. I do hope you catch that Malcolm Reynolds," a pouting debutante in honeyed ringlets and a periwinkle gown declared. Inara couldn't quite place the disconcerting adjective with the torture-happy monster Mal had protected Kaylee from.

Judith just smiled with a knowing condescension. "The man won't be able to hide for long, dear."

Her mind was buzzing with a horrible sense of betrayal as she retreated to an empty space along the banister to think. Judith already knew the Alliance was looking for Mal, and it almost sounded like his capture was the primary condition to lift the travel embargo. Councilor Larrol had always been ambitious, and by helping capture a high profile target she would make governor almost certainly. And there had to be others, looking for a reward or simply for convenience.

The girls were hostages and she was the bait. It was happening all over again. "Women? I kill hundreds of them," Sansthānaka boasted from the stage.

She felt the exact moment Mal's already well-formed suspicions became concrete certainty. "Don't," she pleaded, even as she heard him firing up the shuttle engines for a fly-by and some daring getaway, cursing as he struggled with the start up sequence as usual. She'd leap from the balcony to his waiting arms, and then they'd be killed by close range laser-fire. "The crew needs you Mal." Her eyes searched the other landing pad off in the darkness and wanted it to be only the deepening starlight making her feel so wistful.

"The crew has Zoë," he answered, with a finality that caught her breath. Why did he have to be so reckless, so careless with his own life? It frightened her, but she couldn't ignore what it meant.

She had thought he had been acting, hiding his hurt - or trying - like always, the big tough soldier with the sensitive soul. A courtesan was friend to every youth, as common as a road-side flower. Her body has a price in truth, her beauty has a dower. She thought he would never forgive her.

All that mattered to him really was her safety. Not the past, not her profession. Just her.

They'd pushed each other away, foolishly trying to protect each other was unkind words neither meant nor believed. A swordfight at dawn, a desperate defense against an Operative. She'd offered her life for his. He'd faced death for her.

If she had to take on an army to keep him from harm, then so be it.

When one of the guards posted nearby pulled her inside with an unpleasant grin, calling her a slave and spouting nonsense about knowing her place and serving her masters, the thug almost withered under her glare. She threw his hands off with a snap and knocked his head against the wall with a high kick, her skirts billowing around her legs like the radiance of a mandala.

For a moment she felt something very near pity as she studied the unconscious man where he laid, crumpled in the space behind a column. She heard her friend Sheydra's voice, teasing but also reproachful, that her training and control were slipping, that she thought and acted too much like Mal.

She was only doing what was right. Besides, she'd always had a little bit of spirit, and it was satisfying sometimes to just let loose or even get herself into and out of trouble. If the slavers had some plans for a waylay, well then. High time to get unruly.

the play's the thing wherein we'll catch - well, whole mess of things; Inara on self discovery, may not be as adaptable as she thinks...? The detail about the treatment out on the Training Moon seems familiar i may have read this before or you mentioned it in a thread conversation, either way plausible if cruel; i can never be certain how much The Operative would have a spurious code to adhere to, unlike Early who would definitely threaten and/or (allow) abuse in the same position. The detail on the settings are great 'Londinium style'. i really should have gone there in my fics but i never did. Don't think i went to any of the main worlds bar Sihnon.
So many threads.
Why did people get hostile to the Simon chapter???
Ok, i'm absorbing as much and as fast as possible and apologies if my feedback is corny or superficial or just - dumb.
i really enjoy being in the middle of a fic, in a writer's individual 'verse and reading in all directions. Though i suppose i should be scribbing really, heh heh.
*gleeful and lazy*

I do my best to not depower characters and I try to avoid scenarios that make our Firefly ladies look weak or incapable. I think Inara is kinda excellent, whatever her strengths are, just as the other characters are also impressive, if having different methods and techniques. In my story, I try to give everyone a little chance to shine in the spotlight, though I also do my best to show that they aren't perfect.

I actually took the tidbits about abuse and threats towards the students from Joss' first version of the Serenity script. I kept it in because I think Inara is not someone who would break down and willingly be bait unless other lives were at stake. After all, we have to factor in how Inara is sometimes herself self-sacrificing, possibly because of what she knows about her life expectancy.

Plus I figure that the Operative's "code" at the time was "whatever is in service to the greater good as relayed to him by his superiors." If he has to beat up some little girls or bomb an entire mining settlement children and all, he'd do it.

They didn't like the implication that Simon was a one-time client of Inara before either of them found Serenity.

Also, I imagine Londinium style to be kind of a futuristic neo-Victorian style, particularly stuff like The Crystal Palace, but government buildings stealing the look of the House of Parliament. Little bit of the baroque, bold designs and contrasts, big staircases and spaces and in homes florid and intricate. It works because it's Londinium. The Councilor's Estate on Ezra is definitely not.

Chapter 19
The array lit up like Christmas when Captain Reynolds got the ignition sequence right, then immediately stuttered off. He tried all the toggles again, insulting the zá zhǒng wáng bā dàn machine, the factory line that birthed it, the wǎng fù xián zhū shǒu of a father donated the seed, to no effect.

"Chù -sheng!" he ground out, slapping his palm into the control panel, then sagged against it. He couldn't hear her anymore. Radio cut out, or more like she'd switched off just to spite him. No more goddamn banter, not even some flippancy about his performance with the shuttle. Just... "Tā māde," he cursed, pushing down the part of him certain that she was dead long enough to think.

The shuttle had not just suddenly developed a will of its own refusing to start up. Another landlock maybe, courtesy of Inara's good friend, and not the official kind that came flashing over the Cortex trumpets and claxons blaring. Something transmitting from this estate they could shut down. Kaylee would have a work-around, have to wait for them to get back before they could take off anyhow, which meant he was going on foot. Couldn't fly out to her, he sure as hell could bring her back.

She'd be expecting the shuttle so he'd find her either on the roof or out on the terrace. Satisfied with his plan, he shrugged on his trustworthy coat - risk though it was, no way he was going without it - then checked his side-arm, shoved it back into his holster, and dusted out.

- - - -
Zoë crouched down, deep brown eyes scanning the landscape and not for the flowers, just a routine habit to occupy her time while her thoughts wandered. The ever-alert tension, always ready for action, was something that was part of her, an undercurrent running beneath her conscious thoughts that she couldn't ever turn off.

There was some armed security about twenty yards down the garden pathway, shifting and jangling gear giving away a telling lack of discipline as they stood on guard. Not Alliance, no, she could pick out one of them in her sleep. The man hadn't the foggiest notion anyone was nearby, thanks to the night and the leafy growth between them, but even if he'd eaten a frilly fern seed and turned invisible, Zoë would've known. She always did. There were times Mal used to tell the new recruits that her abilities bordered on the nigh supernatural, and sometimes she wondered if he believed it himself. She let them have their ideas about her; if it comforted the mind to know she was out there somewhere, slitting throats, then at least that was something real they could hold on to.

Strange, the number of times they'd been on watch together like this, sergeant and corporal, and later on Serenity's bridge looking out at the stippled black. They'd spent so much time operating on the same wavelength, only to find themselves in such different places now, him in the shuttle with Inara, her out here. With a dead husband and a child that would never know a father, and a girl heartbroke over a shǎ guā doctor.

She glanced back her, working mechanically at an open circuit box off a substation, the usual joy of getting to play with something and ply her trade muted. It was hard to stay angry with Kaylee, and it tugged on her more than it should but she couldn't stand watching them all just keep losing.

Her hand ran self-consciously over the slight bulge at her middle.

They'd given Inara long enough, time for them all to get. "Now," Zoë directed, and Kaylee threw the breaker, which obliged with a crackle of electricity. On the other side of the estate, the lights darkened to a nervous murmur of party guests. The other woman would know it was them, and have enough sense to take advantage of the situation.

As they crept back to the shuttle, the former soldier put out her arm and stopped Kaylee, warning her with a look to keep hush. She drew her mare's leg and cast a quick look inside, then a longer one. With a long sigh, she stood up fully and waved the other girl in.

Kaylee surveyed the cabin, like the captain might jump out from behind a bolt or nail to surprise them. She eventually returned her attention to Zoë, her expression confused and curious. An explosion rocked the night air some distance away from the direction of the manor. Well, that was one mystery solved. Only inevitable, she supposed, and locked her her exasperation at the captain and Inara down behind a flick of hard eyes and a grim look.

There were few times that Zoë had her loyalty and sense of duty tested, or torn between two courses of action. Sometimes, when it was personal, couldn't blame a body for acting only in the way to be expected of them. When something was theirs, beyond the chain of command. She had chosen Wash over Mal when she could, and never regretted it. Ultimately there was an understanding, that she did what she had to do sometimes, and it was for her alone.

Mal had made his choices, same as her, and just like on Niska's skyplex that time, when she'd had to walk away from him, she knew what he expected of her. To take care of the crew and everything else. One here and two back with the ship, and Jayne nowhere to be found but plenty sure he was off with the hovermule. Two off in the mansion in sure danger, and her acutely aware of a second heartbeat. It was up to them.

- - - -
They'd caught her soon after they found the first guard. Seven of them, mercenaries who had broken the Jayne Cobb standards of excellence in the worst ways possible. Verminous, grubby, hirsute, porcine, and all of them capable of even more unwholesome countenance. They surrounded her and caught hold of her upper arm, as though she couldn't merely shrug them off, then, more seriously, thrust the muzzle of an automatic rifle against her temple.

Forcing her to move, occasionally jostling her to demonstrate their masculinity and smirking with cruel merriment, they escorted her from the polished decor of the upper hall into the bare stone wall-space of the servants passages. Despite the danger she held herself with as much dignity as possible, careful to keep her own smile off her face.

Of course they were underestimating her. She had happened upon the coat room for the celebration first, which also happened to include weapons confiscated from some of the soldiers.

Then they pushed her through an open panel, wainscotted in imported oak, and her confidence diminished considerably at the first sight of the business man in the room beyond, apparently waiting for her. Very smooth he looked, yet grim; especially because of the knife he was holding on a small child, the girl on tip toes to accommodate her arm pulled to a severe height, fingers clenched into her wrist. Her dark skin looked bruised and lacerated, breath wheezing from her throat, and her wide eyes were terribly unfocused and lost. She hung limply from her captor's grip, like an abused doll.

His well-tailored suit clashed with his dangerously calculating expression, the coarse dressings the councilor had chosen for the room. An insult, she realized; everything around him was torn apart, from the canopy bed to the broken glass on the floor in retaliation. "This is all the they could manage?" he wondered, a voice like rich wine soured. A breeze billowed through the curtains, sweet garden air that carried a slight chill with it. She found herself trying to move to the girl, to help and comfort somehow, and was rudely dragged back to reality by one of the mercenaries. The man, his eyes narrowing, pressed the knife harder against his hostage's neck. "No, that's close enough, I think."

One of his brutes swept the companion's black waves from her shoulders and smelled her, burying his whiskered face into the side of her neck and chuckling when she finally managed to twist away. The tallest mercenary tugged her arm hard towards him, almost wrenching it. "Where do you want her?" he asked gruffly, his attention straying to the mattress.

Their boss rolled his eyes. "Yes, I should bed the would-be-assassin. This is why I didn't hire any of you for your advice." Assassin? The other men laughed as she started to struggle. He appraised her. "I do, however, pay you to kill people," he commented, matter of fact, and their amusement took on a more menacing edge. "Pity the Alliance are here, we have to be on our best behaviour. We can only discipline our workers." He lifted the little girl higher, and she whimpered in pain. "Accidents do happen, though."

Inara quickly calmed herself. He was just trying to get under her skin, toy with her before he followed through on his threat. She stood up to him, resolute and with folded arms and an implacable glare.

He frowned at her in disbelief. "What's this? No impassioned speech for the downtrodden? No desperate plea, 'Oh, please save the children, take me instead'? No list of grievances, about how I killed your family and sold your virginity?" He waited a few moments more, then shrugged and snapped his fingers at his thugs.

The lights cut out, and Inara knew better than to think it was coincidence. Blessed Kaylee! She was going to hug that girl and buy her chocolate covered strawberries every day for the rest of her life.

Confused, the seven guards let her go, like bloodhounds already searching for a new, different threat. "You are the assassin, aren't you?" their boss inquired, sounding less certain, perhaps for the only time in his entire life. She took advantage of the darkness, primed the concussive device she had hidden under her tongue, and expelled at the slaver her full anger and contempt.

It bounced at his feet, cracked open, and between her and them a brilliance exploded, with wrath like the glare of lightning even through her eyelids, ringing with thunder, like a storm of sunlight. She heard the cries of the girl under their screams and yells and ran for her, rushing amid the clouded splendour to gather her up then turn into the wind for the open window.

"No, but I am," a young, high voice called out behind her, leaping down from some concealment into the fray.

- - - -
Gavril flew from the cloth canopy, like the sweep of an eagle's wings and vengeful slashing talons, stabbing downwards with his knives. Even with the help of gravity he couldn't put much force behind the blows, but with the hatred he carried for this man, this tormentor, he hoped he could make up for their difference in size.

He could barely remember a time before his captivity, a bright spot of peace and tranquility, now replaced by the horsewhip scars down his bare back. He'd had a family, once, a mother, a father, sisters. Under the lash, family was what you could make of it, who you could get to look out for you. Always was the terrible threat of loss, of overwork, starvation, dying in torture or being sold off one-by-one. To cope, they resorted to teasing each other, made light of the hell, made up nicknames so they could forget they were each once a person with another life.

And as the light from the flashbang waned, and he saw the wicked calm face of Shoshenk, he saw that same cold emotionless monster watching every rise and fall of the scourge, every electric shock that ripped through his small frame. And he gritted his teeth so hard that one of his molars chipped, and raised his knives again.

Shoshenk gazed down at him a moment, a tiny terror that had suddenly appeared before him, then reached up, over his shoulder, to feel the rivulet down his back, and stare at his red hands. His yla'an bloodstained hands.

They had taught him to be fast; where he could not get by as a slave he learned how thieve on the side. To sneak and hide, and he was good at it, enough that the old bastard used him now and then for his dirty work.

His speed worked for him now. Before Shoshenk could recover, he was on him again, kicking off a knee for leverage, stabbing more, more still into the torso of the slaver boss, staining that so important suit, trying to do as much damage as possible.

Shoshenk, not a strong man or a big man, was still able to send him flying into the floor with a backhand. He willed himself to his feet again, and Shoshenk surged forward, one hand around his throat and crushing him to the unforgiving wall behind him. "They sent a pup to kill me? It was better when I thought they sent a woman."

He still had one knife in his hand, and he drove it into that rotten black heart as deep as he could. For a long moment, the snarl remained on Shoshenk's face, menacing, and he let out a hiss, blood rising to his mouth, even as his arms when slack and they slid to the ground. Gavril kicked him off and stood, triumphant over the body. "That was for my brothers," he said, sure they would be proud of him.

Almost from a distance, he heard the retort of gun fire, felt the searing pain along his spine. It occurred to him, with sudden clarity, that he was about to die. He hadn't lived for very long, had spent most of it not knowing freedom. Now he would never run on the grasslands around his home village again, never have rough house again with Arim or Ras, or play around on the rooftops and make himself a nuisance for the priests.

His only regret was he could only give his life once. He grabbed the single grenade from his belt, and pulled the pin. "And this," he shouted, "is for-!"

"The Bûmelerze," River finished. She blinked and another soul found its way to Serenity, guided by the dark eyes of the three fairy queens. The roar of the fallen lions faded. Everything was quiet and still.

She could hear the people sing.