Takes place midway through the series—long before the BDM. Disclaimer: I don’t own the verse, I just fly there, and I don’t make no coin from it. Chinese is blatantly stolen from the show because let’s face it, I don’t speak Chinese. -------------------------------------------------

“We got a plan here, sir?” Zoe asked, standing on the bridge. Her hand was resting on Wash’s shoulder as Mal bounded up the steps into the doorway. “You and I take the shuttle down and get coordinates for the pickup from our contact on Lakai. We’ll call the coordinates up to Serenity. Wash, you bring the boat down and pick us n’ the cargo up and we’ll be off this rock, easy peasy.” “Easy, sir?” was Zoe’s comment. “What?” “Just sayin’, sir. Easy ain’t a term to describe how our jobs usually go.” “Well, maybe we’ve had a few not go smooth, but…” “Oh, well, you know, aside from the gun fights, the sword fights, the people trying to get lit on fire, kidnappings, Reavers, cross-dressing captains, Alliance…” Wash cut in philosophically “Wash, just can it and get ready to bring Serenity down. Zoe, meet me in the spare shuttle. Dong ma?” Mall huffed before storming off the bridge. As Zoe turned to follow, Wash caught her hand in his. “All joking aside, be careful, bao bei.” The grin had slipped from his face to be replaced with a look of genuine concern. He was already beginning to worry—she could see it in his eyes—and they hadn’t even left Serenity yet. Zoe squeezed Wash’s hand and smiled. “I’m always careful, husband. And you never know, this job could be the one that goes to plan.” Wash snorted with involuntary laughter as Zoe headed toward the shuttle. ------------------------------------------------- “That’s a mighty fine dress for lounging about the ship,” Mal remarked to Inara as he passed her on the way to the shuttle. “Didn’t think there’d be many up to your standards on a backwater moon like this.” “Acutally, there are some beautiful estates on the southern continent. This seems to be one of the increasingly rare occasions when you and I can both profit,” Inara replied. “Well, as long as my perfectly legitimate business enterprise doesn’t interfere with your whoring…” Inara shot Mal a look that could have fried lead before stalking off to her own shuttle. “Hide and seek is a game for children,” came a voice from behind him. Mal spun around in surprise to see River walking away barefoot down the corridor. He blew out a breath. “Gorram girl surely does sneak about,” he muttered to himself as he continued toward the spare shuttle. ------------------------------------------------- Mal had to admit, Zoe did have a point Didn’t seem to matter what the job was, where it was located, or who was involved, nothing ever did seem to go smooth. But now, when the job was actually for once going as planned, he found himself experiencing a certain unease. Wating for the proverbial other shoe to drop. The meeting with their contact had gone perfectly. Words were exchanged; bullets were not. Although the cargo was hidden in heavy woods, Serenity had landed on a clear hilltop some half-mile from the pickup coordinates, and Mal, Zoe, and Jayne had found the cargo and loaded it on the mule without a hitch. Smooth as things were apparently going, though, hard experience had made Mal a firm believer in Murphy’s law. He was itching to be off this rock before something took the opportunity to go wrong. He caught himself fingering his gun in its holster and shook his head to clear his brain. Ain’t no need to be getting’ jumpy, he told himself. Just do the job. “Zoe, take the mule back to Serenity. Jayne and I’ll walk back—it’ll save making two trips. With just the one passenger, we can get all this on in one load and be done with it.” Besides, it was a pleasant enough day and the ship wasn’t far off. “See you back at the ship, sir.” Zoe ook off on the mule, its tires kickin gup some of the brown leaves that were piled deep on the ground. Truth be told, it was kinda nice to be out in the woods on such a day. Sunny, the autumn air cool with just a bit of bite prophesying the coming winter. Nearly all the trees had shed their leaves, and the deep leaf litter crunched beneath their boots as they walked back to the ship. Of course, the leaves on the ground also made it impossible to move with any degree of stealth. The crew back at the ship a half-mile away could probably hear the racket they were making. Not that there was anyone around to notice or care, but it was always better to be careful. Catching his hand edging toward the comforting grip of his gun again, Mal picked up his pace. Jayne followed close behind. “We got a buyer for this cargo, Mal, or have we picked up another pile of gou shi we can’t fence?” “Now why is it that everybody’s makin’ a fuss…” Mal turned toward Jayne just in time to see the big mercenary trip over something buried under the leaves and fall flat on his face. Any response he might have made to Jayne’s question dissolved into laughter at the sight of his hired muscle sprawled on the ground. “Gao yang zhong de gu yang!” Jayne swore in Chinese as he pushed himself upright. Halfway between a kneel and a crouch, he froze. “Mal, that don’t look like no kinda log I ever seen.” A thin, pale lower leg attached to a bare foot stuck up above the leaf litter. It was mottled with cuts and old bruises. Pushing the leaves aside, the two men unearthed the body of a young woman, perhaps in her late twenties, lying facedown in the leaves. She wore a ragged, bloody shirt and a pair of brown pants that were too large and had been torn in several places. Her dark hair had been cut short, but it was also ragged, as if it had been pulled into a ponytail and then roughly hacked off. Two bullet holes were visible in her lower back to the left of her spine. Fresh blood seeped from them into her already-saturated shirt. Jayne leaned over the woman, feeling her neck for a pulse, placing his ear close to her face to find the sound or touch of breath from her lips. “Mal, she’s alive. Breath’s slow n’ shallow, but it’s there.” “Ta ma duh.” Mal paused briefly, considering, but there was really no choice to make. Leaving a living, wounded, helpless woman out here in the wilderness to die was not something Malcolm Reynolds could live with doing. “Take her with us. Doc can have a look at her when we get back to the ship.” As the two men carefully rolled the woman onto her back, her face came into full view for the first time. A long cut ran from her temple to her upper lip on one side of her pale face. “Ai ya, I’ll carry her, Jayne,” he said abruptly, shunting the larger man aside as he gathered the woman up in his arms and stood. “Let’s get back to Serenity.” Jayne said nothing—just rose and followed Mal toward the ship. But he had seen, that was for sure. He might be a lummox, but he wasn’t stupid, and he didn’t get to be one of the best trackers in the verse by being unobservant. He’d seen the cap’s face when they’d turned that girl over, and he’d noticed how quick Mal had been to scoop her up. That weren’t just shock at how the girl had been treated—the cap recognized her. Mal knew who she was—Jayne’d be damned if it weren’t so.