All the usual disclaimers. I'm just keeping these characters who don't belong to me exercised. I promise not to permanently lame any of them.

****

“Mal, I just checked the spore counts. We can move back into Serenity,” Simon told Mal at breakfast three days later. “The water isn’t completely clear but as long as we don’t take any showers we’ll be fine. I think we may need some disinfectant to completely clear the water lines, but they’re considerably less contaminated.”

“Well, that is some good news.” Mal answered. “Let’s get to it. Why don’t we start by moving Zoe and Gowan back on board. Wash, can you get your bunk set up?”

“I can and I will. I want my wife back in my bed. I’m tired of sleeping on the floor next to her bed like a spaniel,” Wash answered.

“Kaylee, are we ready to go?”

“Yessir. I went all over her yesterday, Cap’n. She’s looking real pretty,” Kaylee answered.

“Get your stuff moved back on then. And keep runnin’ water through those lines, under as much pressure as you can manage.”

“Simon, how’s Zoe?” Mal asked.

“She’s recovering nicely, but I presume you want to know when she can carry a gun. I don’t know – not tomorrow,” Simon said.

“I don’t need her to be able to carry a gun tomorrow, just in two weeks when we hit Halcion. I’d like to not have our welcoming committee hit back too hard,” Mal said.

“I can’t promise that, but she’s certainly recovering,” Simon said.

“That’s a start,” Mal responded.

The crew busied themselves reloading Serenity with all their clean, well-aired belongings. Serenity herself was remarkably clean and fuller of fresh air than she had been since Mal bought her.

By the end of the day nearly everything was back on Serenity, leaving only the horses and their gear to be loaded the next morning. The crew ate dinner outside, enjoying the fine evening and the fire.

“Too bad my wife almost has to die for us to get a vacation like this,” Wash said.

“You call this a vacation? A vacation’s got whorehouses and whisky. This place ain’t got nothing but those gorram horses,” Jayne said.

“It is true, there is no naked beach,” answered Wash.

“Oh – I almost forgot,” Kaylee said.

“You found a naked beach and forgot to tell us? How could you?” Wash said.

“No, I didn’t find a naked beach but I did find a big bathtub. Simon sayin’ about showers this mornin’ made me think about how to get one good bath before we left. So I poked around in these buildings and I found one.”

“A bathtub?” Zoe sounded incredulous.

“It’s not exactly a bathtub, more a big tank, but it’ll hold water, and we got plenty, so if somebody will help drag it out anybody who wants c’n have a bath. Serenity’s so clean, seems like we oughta be, too.” Kaylee said.

“Wife, do you want a bath?” Wash asked.

“I surely don’t want a shower,” Zoe answered.

“Lead me to this tub,” Wash said. ***

Henry Exline watched the crew move things back on the Firefly and came to a decision.

*** Mal took a last walk around the paddock that evening. It was all manner of comforting to have everybody back on Serenity; safer all around. It was time to get these nags delivered and deliver a little message to Atherton Wing. Time to move on. Mal walked on to the fire pit and sat down on the ground, back propped against an abandoned Alliance crate, legs stretched out before him. Peculiar thing, having Lieutenant Exline show up. He’d been a good officer, Mal thought, there was nothing wrong with him, even at Bada Mir, that a week’s leave wouldn’t have cured. ‘Course, there weren’t any week-long leaves going then, you just had to take whatever little breath of rest you could. Well, their little breath of rest was over. Time to go to bed, tomorrow was another day, with, no doubt, its own evil.

Mal walked up the ramp into Serenity and into the shadowed cargo bay. One of the shadows was a little more substantial than just the absence of light. Mal closed the ramp doors and started toward his bunk. The shadow stayed where it was.

The last-thing walk revealed a ship in perfect condition: clean, well-organized, ready to go. The galley was immaculate, re-organized, the table lamp square in the middle of the mess table. On the bridge, Wash’s dinosaurs were arrayed as always. Mal stood a moment looking out. He could see sky, but it was somehow not the same sky as it was when it was all around you, not just above you.

Mal walked back down into the cargo bay and stood thinking about how best to arrange things when they brought the horses back on tomorrow. Now that he knew them better he had a better sense of which ones should be in adjacent stalls and which ones needed to be as far from each other as possible. “Highflyer and Birdy c’n go here,” he thought, “I think Lightskirt and Working Girl should be as far from each other …” That incomplete thought was the last thing that crossed his mind before he hit the metal grates like a sack of feed dropped off the back of a mule.

“You just lie there, Reynolds, and take a little rest,” said Exline to the prone body as he tied Mal’s hands together behind his back.

Exline rolled Mal’s unconscious body out of the middle of the cargo bay. He could have used his hands to roll him, but his feet seemed more appropriate to Exline. Now that Mal was taken care of, Exline intended to sit tight and see who showed up next. It didn’t really matter who it was, although he would prefer it weren’t that big gunhand; whoever he caught would be the corn thrown on the ground to catch the rest of Mal’s chickens.

Exline figured the galley was the best place to wait – someone was sure to appear eventually and likely to be alone. He had determined while he watched the crew that the only two who traveled together were the light-haired man and Zoe Alleyne – although he guessed she wasn’t Zoe Alleyn any more, she must Zoe Somebody Else. He had to admit he was glad that he wasn’t facing Zoe and the gunhand – Zoe had been a formidable shot. But whatever was wrong with her meant she wouldn’t put up much of a fight, even if she appeared with her man. The two dark-haired ones were worthless, he figured, and that other girl didn’t look like a fighter, either, and the boy was sick. The old man was a shepherd and that was all anyone needed to know; and the other woman appeared to be a Companion, although what in the nine circles of hell a Companion was doing on Reynolds’s beat-up boat was a mystery. She wouldn’t be any problem, either.

***

River couldn’t sleep. In some ways it felt safer to be on Serenity again, but in others it was a reminder of what it meant to be a fugitive. Maybe she would just walk around a little, get a drink of water. She had promised Simon she wouldn’t leave the ship but maybe she could see the horses in their field from the bridge.

No, the angle was wrong. She couldn’t see the horses. Well, water, then.

The arm that grabbed her was skinny and very strong and ended in a long knife.

“Go ahead, girl, scream the place down. That’ll bring ‘em running.” Exline was elated. If could have chosen who to grab, this tiny dark-haired girl would have been his first choice.

Simon appeared first.

“Evening. Take a seat there,” Exline gestured to a row of seven chairs he had arranged. They faced a single chair set out by itself and all were positioned so that Exline could see the chairs and cover the door at the same time. “Go ahead, I don’t plan to hurt this girl right now unless you are uncooperative. So co-operate, please, and have a seat.” Exline’s voice was pleasant and uninflected. He might have been asking Simon to take a seat as he waited for a table in a restaurant.

Kaylee’s footsteps hurried toward the galley. Exline was ready when she arrived, the knife pressed firmly against River’s throat and the gun in his other hand pointed at the doorway where she appeared. “How do you do, ma’am. Would you be kind enough to call your big dog and invite him down here. And ask him to come unarmed, please, unless he wants to find all of you already dead.”

Kaylee covered her mouth with her hands and made as though to run. “Unh, huh, girl, do not think of running or I will shoot that man there,” Exline said. “Come on in, please, and call -- Jayne, is it? Tell him to come unarmed or I will shoot you and to come quickly and quietly or I will shoot both of you. Tell him to bring Zoe Alleyne and her man, and the shepherd and that other woman, too.”

Kaylee did as Exline requested. “Jayne, please get up and come to the galley. That Lieutenant Exline is here and he says not to bring any guns or anything, because if you do he will … he will shoot us. He says bring Zoe and Wash and Inara and Shepherd Book, too.” Kaylee’s voice was nearly as thready as Zoe’s had been at her sickest but apparently Jayne heard her.

“Daxiang baozhashi de laduzi! I’m comin’!”

Exline positioned himself so that he could use River as a shield, just in case Jayne elected to ignore the instructions. Covering the door with his gun, knife still pressed against River’s throat. She was silent and still, eyes closed, her arms pinned to her sides by Exline.

Inara, Book, Jayne, Zoe and Wash appeared in the door. Any thought Jayne might have had of rushing the door ended when he saw how Exline had positioned himself. Jayne might have been willing to sacrifice River, but it was not clear that doing so would improve their position. Also, Mal had made it clear on Ariel that sacrificing a Tam was not a winning proposition on Serenity.

Exline gestured to the chairs. “Sit, please. It may be a long evening, so do sit.”

“What are we doin’ here?” Zoe asked. Her speaking voice had recovered its warm, rich timbre, even though walking from her bunk had left her breathless. She was once again second in command.

“We’re waiting for the Captain to join us,” said Exline.

“And then what?” asked Zoe.

“We will have a conversation I have been waiting to have since Bada Mir,” Exline answered.

They sat in silence, waiting.

“He shouldn’t be too long in coming,” said Exline conversationally. “I didn’t hit him that hard, although standing up with your hands tied behind your back is difficult.”

“Lieutenant Exline, what is this about?” Zoe asked again.

“It has to do with a judgement Sergeant Reynolds put on me. I’d like him to know what that judgement feels like. But we’ll wait for him,” Exline said.

It was nearly half an hour later when they began to hear staggering steps.

“Go ahead, call him,” ordered Exline. “You, Zoe, call him.”

“Captain, we’re in the galley,” called Zoe. “Be careful, sir.”

Mal appeared in the doorway, leaning against it in an awful parody of his usual hipshot attitude.

“What in nine circles of hell is this?” he said, clearly struggling to keep his balance and his wits.

“Hello, sergeant. Do take the last seat,” Exline said.

“I haven’t been a sergeant in a long time, sir,” said Mal.

“No, but it is your behavior as a sergeant that is on the table tonight. Sit, please.”

“I’d ruther stand,” said Mal.

“Suit yourself. You may find sitting will be easier later. Reynolds, when we were at Bada Mir you sent me away from my platoon, my platoon that was then entirely annihilated by the Alliance. But I wasn’t there when the Alliance came – not to help my men and not to die with them, because you decided I was a coward. This time, you get to see your men, and women, too, of course, dead and know that you were not there to help them.”

“I never decided you were a coward, Lieutenant. I never thought you were a coward, never, not anywhere I ever spend time with you. Not at Bada Mir, not anywhere. Do you remember what really happened at Bada Mir? Do you remember trying to walk out into that mortar fire? Do you remember? Do you remember?” Mal’s voice was not loud but it was certain.

“I stopped you from walkin’ into the mortar fire. If I had thought for an instant that you weren’t fit to lead your men I wouldn’ta stopped you – I’d a pushed you,” Mal said.

“What I remember is you trumping up some reason to separate me from my platoon, sending me away with Riggs,” Exline said.

“I did try to get you to go away with Riggs but not because I thought you were a coward; I sent you because I thought you were a good officer who needed five minutes breathin’ space. Space to get yourself together so you could go back to bein’ a good officer,” Mal said.

“Mal’s telling the truth, sir,” said Zoe. “He coulda let you walk out into that mortar fire that night but he didn’t. He grabbed you and held on tight, didn’t let you out of his sight for nearly three days, until you and Riggs headed out to headquarters. You think every officer killed in a firefight was killed by an Alliance bullet? Plenty a bad officers died in firefights and it was a good thing nobody could tell where the bullet came from.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Exline was dismissive. “My men died without me, Reynolds, and yours will, too.”

“Will that bring your men back, sir?” Zoe asked.

“No, but I think it only fair that Malcolm Reynolds spend the rest of his interfering life knowing that men that he was responsible for died,” said Exline.

“Do you think he doesn’t already know that?” said Zoe. “Do you think that a night passes that he doesn’t have nightmares about dead men? Maybe you are a coward, that you would take your revenge this way.”

“Enough, Zoe,” Mal said.

“No, sir, it is not enough. I told Kaylee yesterday afternoon that Exline wasn’t a coward, that you had never thought he was a coward. He kept you alive,” Zoe said to Exline, “he kept you from walkin’ into that mortar fire in the middle of the night, he kept you right beside him for three days and then arranged for you to get just a minute of peace. ‘S not Mal’s fault that the Alliance got to your men before you could. And if you’d been there, what would you have done? Not a damn thing, cause there was nothin’ to be done. Don’t you remember what we used to say: Walk as far as you can and when you can’t walk any farther, crawl, and when you can’t crawl, find somebody to carry you. Mal carried you, you ben tiansheng de yidui rou.” Zoe’s breath nearly ran out before she reached the end of her speech, leaving her dragging air into her lungs on the last words.

“Lieutenant Exline, if you are gonna shoot anyone it should be me. These are innocent people, none of ‘em but Zoe was even there at Bada Mir. Go ahead, if you think I treated you unfairly, judged you unfairly, caused the death of your men, I’m the one to be shot. Not them,” Mal said. “I don’t know how to state it any clearer or plainer, I thought you were a good officer, I thought it was dangerous to move that platoon when we didn’t know what the Alliance was hidin’. If I’da thought you were a quitter or a coward I would have let you kill yourself. We couldn’t afford to lose good officers, I didn’t wanna see one lose himself. What do you think those men you lost at Bara Mir would think of you for doin’ this? What do you think –“

Mal’s words were interrupted by an otherworldly howling, shrieking scream from River’s limp body. River’s scream gave Jayne the opportunity he had been waiting for; he sprang at Exline with everything he had while Exline was distracted by River. At the same time Mal ran at Exline. A single shot; three bodies hit the floor.

*end of part 11*