“Well, look who fin’ly decided to show up,” called the man riding the lead horse. He was a large fellow, both tall and heavy. The layer of fat he had accumulated around his midsection did little to disguise the powerful muscles that lay underneath, and his black hat pulled down low over his eyes only added to his imposing figure. The day was cloudy but there was a glare, and Zoe could see the light reflected from the man’s twin pistols and the guns of the four men fanned out behind him. Her eyes narrowed, assessing. Five against three and the enemy held the advantage of the lay of the land. Malachi’s ground was rocky and treeless, the terrain unforgiving, but the boulders and hills around them still offered cover for potential reinforcements. Serenity offered protection behind them and the crates holding the cargo stood on the flat stretch of ground between the three of them and the horsemen—still, at this juncture, it seemed that the likelihood of getting out of here far outweighed the likelihood of getting out of here with cash in their pockets. She glanced over at Jayne. The big mercenary was standing ready, attention grimly focused on the men approaching them. Zoe let her hands snake back and rest on her hips, inconspicuously close to her weapon, the better to be prepared without appearing overtly aggressive. “Had a bit of a delay. Couldn’t be avoided,” Mal replied smoothly. “Still, here’s your cargo, all there and intact. So if you’ll pay us the nine hundred and fifty we agreed on, we’ll be outta your way and you can go ‘bout your business. No problem.” “No problem? Not from what we’ve heard. Seems you folks screwed around and got yer ship flagged on the way here. An’ betwixt that an’ the bein’ late, I’m gonna say we’ve earned ourselves a mighty fine discount.” One of the men in the group fiddled nervously with the brim of his hat as their leader spoke. “Just how big a discount are you gentlemen suggestin’?” Mal’s voice was still calm, but Zoe could hear the edge of steel that was beginning to creep into it. She eased to her right a little, giving herself a better line of fire on the leader, should she need it. “I’m gonna say about a nine-fifty discount,” answered the leader, a mirthless sneer spreading across his face. Zoe noted hands drifting toward guns amongst the group before them. She let her own hand settle down on the grip of her mare’s leg. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Jayne fingering his own weapon. Even the Captain had subtly tucked his coat back behind the butt of his revolver. “Now I ain’t lookin’ for a fight, but there’s some fine people here who deserve to get paid for the work they’ve done. Cargo’s present and accounted for, and that flag doesn’t in no way lead back to you. Now if you fellas was to negotiate a reasonable price, I’d be willin’ to talk, but don’t think for a minute me and mine’s gonna be walking outta here and leavin’ these goods for you free of charge.” The leader’s head tipped to one side, his eyes narrow. “No, sonny, with that attitude I don’t think ya’ll are gonna be walkin’ out of here at all.” The crack of a pistol shot sounded—and then mayhem took over. Zoe dove behind the nearest crate, using it as cover as she fired up at the men who sat unprotected on horseback. Three fell, but she couldn’t tell if it was her gun, Mal’s, or Jayne’s that had brought them down. She heard Jayne grunt to her left, but couldn’t tell if he was injured or if it was just the strain of trying to stay behind the crates and fire accurately at the same time. A fourth—Zoe identified him as the man she had mentally named Fidgety, the man who had been playing with his hat—had turned his horse and belted back the direction he had come as hard as his horse would go. Could be Fidgety was just a coward, but Zoe figured it was more likely he’d gone for reinforcements. “Seems you’ve lost your backup,” Mal shouted from where he lay, propped on his elbows in the dirt, reloading. “You wanna go ahead and pay us now, we won’t hold it against you.” The man responded by pushing his already-nervous mount closer to the stack of crates while raising his pistol, trying to get a clear shot. Zoe fired off another round, meaning to end this game, but cursed under her breath as the shot went wide. She hardly ever missed, and this was not the time to be changing her track record. The shot was not entirely wasted, though, as the sound caused the panicked horse to suddenly rear, eyes rolling. One hand fumbling with his pistol and a little off balance as he tried to control his horse, the man tried and failed to grab the saddle horn and ended up sailing off the animal’s back to land heavily on one shoulder on the rocky ground. That was all the time Zoe needed. She rose and cut around the side of the stack of crates all in one fluid motion, stopping with her mare’s leg pressed squarely against the man’s temple, as the horse wheeled and dashed away, reins dragging behind it. “I think this man owes us some money, sir,” she said evenly as she cocked the gun. “Believe the lady’s right. Are you gonna give us our due, or am I gonna let her add a couple new holes to your skull?” The man wheezed a little in response, looking somewhat less imposing lying on the ground at Zoe’s mercy, his bald head gleaming as his hat lay ten feet away. He showed his empty hands—he had dropped his guns in his fall from the horse—then reached inside his vest for his pouch of money. He tossed the pouch to Mal, who caught it neatly. “I do the job, I get paid. Less trouble for all of us if you remember that.” As Zoe uncocked and lowered her gun, the man rose, shaking, to his feet, and began backing slowly in the direction his horse had run. Mal, Zoe, and Jayne backed up onto Serenity’s ramp as it slowly raised upward and closed. Zoe kept her gun out and her eyes on the shaking man until the doors were closed. It was better not to give him an opening to act on any bad ideas. “Coulda loaded that cargo back up, sold it somewhere else ‘n made double the profit,” Jayne remarked sourly, holding his hand against the place where a round had grazed his neck. “Nothin’ that little pissant coulda done ‘bout it.” “Ain’t that kind of thieves, Jayne,” Mal replied, climbing the steps to the catwalk and disappearing down the hallway. _________________________________________________ Stephanie had been sitting up in the bed in one of the passenger rooms reading a book when she felt Serenity land on Malachi. She hadn’t said anything to Simon about the fact that she was nearly climbing out of her skin with the need to move, to do something, to get out of this seemingly increasingly tiny room. She still had a constant, nagging distrust of the doctor that wouldn’t quite go away, no matter what Mal said about him only wanting to help her recover. She’d been in too many rooms like that infirmary with too many men who moved and spoke like Simon did. Nonetheless, when Simon had come in to check her bandages that morning, he’d brought a small stack of books with him. “My sister enjoyed these. I thought they might help keep your mind off things,” he’d said, leaving them on the table by the head of the bed. And oddly enough, he had been right. The books, which told the tale of a professional gunman seeking a tower in a slowly decaying world, had been absorbing, pulling her into the story and keeping her occupied for hours. Odd that such an overprotective brother would allow the disturbed girl to read such dark and even, in places, chilling books, but maybe River found comfort in this kind of fantasy world. And Stephanie got the impression that the doctor was running out of ways to help his sister—perhaps any kind of comfort would do. The fictitious gunman had just caught up with the mysterious cloaked man he was chasing when she heard the first of the shots ring out outside the ship. Her first, automatic, involuntary response was to drop to the lowest place in the room, notwithstanding the fact that while she had regained some movement in her lower body, her legs were not yet strong enough to support her weight. What she succeeded in doing was to gracelessly fling herself out of the bed and onto the metal floor, in the process bashing her elbow and shin against the night table and the leg of the bed, respectively. She found herself lying on her stomach facing the night table, mentally berating herself. Surely by now she should be able to tell whether or not gunfire was close enough to necessitate taking cover. Her thoughts flew to Mal, hoping he was the one doing the shooting, not the one being shot at, although bullets tended to fly both ways out here on the rim. She used her hands to raise her upper body and tried to hitch her knees up underneath herself, but to no avail. Her body just wasn’t strong enough to push her weight up off the floor. Panting with exertion, she dropped back to the floor, letting the cold deck plating soothe her face. After a moment, she rolled over on her back. Maybe it would be easier this way. The door to her room stood partway open, and she could hear the grinding of metal on metal from the cargo bay as the ramp came up and the big doors slid closed. Voices were calling back and forth—Mal, Jayne, Wash shouting over the con to find out if everyone was on board and ready to go. Relief poured through her veins at the sound of Zoe’s voice—“All here, no casualties”—but even so, she hoped that the chaos would hold out long enough that she could lever herself back up onto the bed before anyone stopped by to check on her. She couldn’t explain the position she was in to anyone except Mal or maybe Zoe, and she really, really wasn’t inclined to try. Stephanie felt the ship lift and the deck beneath her legs stop vibrating as the ship left the restraints of atmosphere for the smooth, frictionless expanse of the black. She managed to manoeuvre herself around such that she was in a more or less sitting position with her back to the bed frame. Palms down against the frame, she tried to push herself up to the mattress with her arms, but her lower body was just so much dead weight. She looked up to hear bootsteps in the corridor. “Hi, Stephanie, how’re ya… oh honey, are you ok?” Kaylee’s head had appeared around the doorframe, followed by the rest of her coveralled body when she saw Stephanie lying on the floor. “Yeah, I’m fine,” she said, trying ridiculously to sound nonchalant as she pushed back a strand of hair that had gotten caught in the corner of her mouth. “Just fell out of bed, is all.” “Want me ta go get Simon? Whoo, that’s quite a bruise ya got yourself there…” Kaylee knelt next to Stephanie and touched her index finger lightly to the already-darkening circle of greenish-black that was spreading over Stephanie’s elbow. Stephanie hissed involuntarily in pain at the touch, then pulled her elbow back in toward her body, forcing an awkward smile. The mechanic’s eyebrows rose a little, and Stephanie wasn’t quite sure Kaylee believed the bit about falling out of bed, but Kaylee didn’t press the issue. “No, no need to drag the doctor in here. Could you just…” Again with the uncomfortable smile, and an absent wave toward the bed. “Could you just help me out a little here?” It took some shifting and juggling of limbs, but together they managed to get Stephanie into a semi-standing position supporting most of her weight on her hands on the mattress behind her and lift her legs up after her. Kaylee plopped down on the edge of the mattress and tucked a strand of hair back into her ponytail. “Whew. You sure you don’t want Simon ta look at that?” Kaylee gestured toward Stephanie’s bruised arm. “No, it’s fine. Made it through lots worse—it’ll heal.” “Oh! Almost forgot!” Kaylee sprang to her feet and trotted for the door. “I’ll be right back!” she called over her shoulder as she disappeared. Stephanie had just found her spot again in her book when Kaylee reappeared, holding a brown paper sack, folded over at the top. She sat back down on the edge of the bed and handed Stephanie the sack. “I got ‘em at the docks on Lakai, but with all the confusion and keepin’ Serenity happy on that long burn here, I just about forgot about ‘em.” She looked at Stephanie, who was turning the package over in her hands and looking at it in a bemused sort of way. “Well, ain’tcha gonna open it?” Stephanie grinned and dumped the contents of the bag onto her lap. Out spilled a white long-sleeved shirt decorated with tiny pink flowers and a pair of blue flip-flops. “Just thought ya might like a couplea things of your own, is all,” Kaylee added, looking toward the door. “Had a little saved up from the last job and… well, I hope it fits.” Kaylee stood up, wiping her hands on her grease-smudged coveralls and looking disconcerted and a little disappointed at Stephanie’s silence. “It’s lovely, Kaylee. Really, it is,” Stephanie’s voice stopped Kaylee just as she was turning to leave. “I’m sure it…” the older woman paused, running her hands over the material of the shirt, then looked Kaylee in the eye. “Thank you.” The raw sincerity in Stephanie’s voice brought a smile back to Kaylee’s face that was like the sun breaking through a layer of clouds. “Oh, it wasn’t nothin’. Cap’n!” Kaylee called out to the corridor, where Mal was passing by. “Next time we set down, we really need a new gauge for the pressure synchronizer. Old one ain’t accurate no more, and if that thing goes…” Kaylee wandered off down the hallway after Mal, describing the horrifying events likely to transpire if they didn’t get the part she needed. Stephanie looked down at the gifts in her lap, a half-smile still playing on her face. Kaylee was wrong about one thing—what she’d done was far more than nothing. Stephanie lay on the bed lost in thought. Had she really been isolated from anyone possessing a shred of humanity for so long that flip-flops, of all things, could bring tears to her eyes? When Kaylee trotted back down the corridor fifteen minutes later, she peeked in to see Stephanie immersed in her book with the flip-flops on her feet and the shirt still spread out on her lap. Kaylee’s smile broadened a little bit, and she skipped off toward the engine room to rig a temporary fix for that pressure gauge, humming to herself as she went.