Part Two

(Inara.)

I stepped through the shuttle hatch and went down the cross passage, not sure what I was looking for, or if I was simply trying to look like I wasn't looking for Mal. The poor boy had probably gone down into his bunk to actually grab some sleep, something that it seemed neither of us would grab much of while we were together in private. Because of that, and because it would probably attract a lot of attention if I were actually seen slipping down his hatch, as it were, I headed out into the cargo bay and headed down the metal stairs to the bay floor. That didn't really make me feel any better. I wasn't honestly sure how much of the big shiny equipment stacked up there was weaponry of various sorts, and how much was power generators or industrial computers or whatever, but my mind couldn't help but play over scenes that I'd seen in war vids when I watched them. This stuff was going to Hera, the planet on which Serenity Valley lay, so that they could once again stand up and defy the will and might of what was left of the Alliance. The very thought sent a chill through me somehow.

And yet, after all that we'd seen, I could hardly say that it was wrong for someone, some world, to be strong enough to stand up. I slipped quickly out of the rear passage out of cargo, and made my way past the glass walls of the infirmary. Hmm. Nobody around, nobody anywhere in sight, actually. I hadn't been planning on this, but why waste a good opportunity? I slipped into the room, opened up the shiny new medical database that Simon had picked up on our last swing through Ariel, tapped out a particular query on Hera and a few other likely locations. How many times have I done this since he swiped this on his way out of Saint Lucy's, after the Feds had caught them? Nine times I guess, not really that many. I'd have brought it back to my shuttle, or implanted a wireless link into it, if I hadn't been worried about being discovered. Nobody would really have understood why I wanted this information so much, especially not Simon. It certainly wasn't what HE had picked it up for. Now that River was getting better, he didn't really need it for her sake, but I'd picked up that he'd gotten into the habit of consulting the databank on just about anything.

Okay, there were the results. Listening out for anyone approaching, I took a slim data pen out of the gown I was wearing and plugged it into the appropriate port for three seconds, and then wiped out every trace of what I had been doing - both in and on the database unit itself, and visibly around my person. Quick exit into the corridor again, up the stairs, not really looking where I was going - and who did I bump right into but Jayne. (Was so distracted that I couldn't even keep him from capping a quick squeeze in that moment of collision, or let him know that I knew it wasn't an 'accident'.) "Watch where you're going," I snapped, more or less out of habit.

To my surprise, Jayne Cobb didn't immediately react on the defensive and bring up the patently obvious fact that if there were somebody who hadn't been paying attention, it was me. Instead, he took a step back and flashed a surprisingly soulful smile for somebody who usually makes out like he could well not have one at all. "Listen, 'nara, I'm sorry about... about that earlier this morning, what I said about - about the vid of the riots. Didn't rightly occur to me until you'd left what an a... well, how you might take the sort of things I'd been sayin' about the fightin' back there. Lord knows I been through enough scuffles in my life, but if it was my home village that people were tearin' apart, and killin' each other in..."

"I hate to break it to you, but listening to this apology is upsetting me nearly as much as the original offense," I said with a touch of frost in my voice. "Listen - I appreciate the sentiment, and frankly I wasn't really expecting any better behaviour from you, Jayne. You get off lucky that way."

He shrugged awkwardly. "Is, umm - is there anything I could do to take your mind off of it?"

I had to avoid snorting in response to that. Between stealing secret passion time with Mal, and the thrill of literally stealing data out of Simon's medical files, I hadn't thought about Sihnon or the riots in hours - until Jayne himself had brought the subject up again. "Not - not really offhand. Have - have you ever been to Hera yourself?"

"Can't say that I have, no." And Jayne let out a bit of a sigh. "Not quite sure if we'll get a job that's up my alley there, but maybe that's okay. Normally I got antsy just sitting on my duff without a way to let off steam, but something's been a bit different about that ever since... well, since Mister Universe's moon." I nodded back at him. "By the way, been meanin' to say something about that."

"Yes?" What would this be?

"You handled yourself - and that Guild shooter contraption - real well against the Reavers and so on, when we all needed to count on each other, Inara. There was a moment there that it was only me an' you, holdin' the line, and I sortof feel like we have a bond because of that, I s'pose." He paused. "Of course, if River had made her move earlier, then maybe none of what the rest of us went through would have mattered for rat droppings, but..."

"Things had to unfold just right for her to realize what she was really capable of," I said slowly. "That's what I think, anyway. When she could see that she HAD to act to keep her brother safe, and her extended metaphorical family.as well, then she acted. Not before - and it was quite possible that somebody might have died before she got around to it." Thought about that a bit more. "And even once she dived through the blast doors, I don't think she was sure she could last against all of them Reavers - she was tryin' to get back inside, but they didn't let her."

"Yeah, I s'pose," Jayne admitted a bit vaguely.

"Well, getting back to something you were saying before, maybe there'll be some kind of tough work for you to get into on Hera - considering what the 'Verse is turning into."

"Just so long as they don't mean to be turnin' us all into soldiers," Jayne grumbled. "That may be Mal and Zoe's story, but it isn't mine, and I would leave if Mal tries to inveigle us all into the second Independent war."

"I don't think that's what he's got in mind," I admitted. "Maybe I'll need your help on Hera, actually. I've got an investigation assigned to me by the guild, and it sounds like a gig where I might need somebody tough and impressive to protect me while I ask questions."

"Hmm..." He thought about that. "This thing pay well?"

"The guild has always been more than willing to spend freely to protect the welfare of its members," I assured him. "I'm getting a hefty fee for looking into it, with bonuses for performance, and I'm sure that we can work out some sort of a cut."

"Alright, so how much do you know about the, um, the goal of the job?" Jayne asked, suddenly very interested. Hmm... I'd only thought of this because Mal *might* be too busy to tag along with me on Hera, but it'd be hard to get Jayne to give up his cut now. Well, maybe better off this way - it will keep the rest of the crew from thinking that Mal and I are inseperable since Boros, and Jayne might even be better for the job.

"There are two junior companions, Shaniss Wevell and Nonav Colrin, who haven't checked in with their home temple in two weeks," I said, leading the way to the break room. "The House mother got a letter from a small town judge six hundred miles away, saying that they were being held on suspicion for felony grand theft..."

-------------

Later in the evening, I was sitting up in the dining room, drinking a Xing Waoh Qeeq that I'd mixed up myself, using the last of Mal's Bao Mai, (he'd brought it over to the shuttle the day before,) and practicing some letterbrushing when Simon came in and sat at the foot of the dinner table. He didn't say anything for a long time, just made occasionally loud breathing noises. "Something on your mind, doctor?" I finally asked in quietly.

"Do - do you have much family back on Sihnon, Inara?"

"Umm...." Weird - it seemed like just yesterday when I was telling Mal about my family, how they'd contracted me into the guild so early that I could hardly remember them. But that was the sort of detail I didn't need to share with anyone but him - or maybe Kaylee, if she asked sweetly. "Nobody that I'm still very close to, if you mean blood kin."

"Right. What about friends, or colleages?"

This time I thought of the few ladies who I'd truly thought of as kindred souls, back in Temple Madrassas. "Yeah, a few. Are you actually trying to make me upset here, doctor? Because you might need to try harder."

"Umm... sorry. That wasn't the... have you managed to make contact with anybody..."

"I was able to reach the switchboard at my old temple," I told him softly. "Nobody there, and a very vague message put up for outsiders, But when I used my id number, I was able to get a more helpful recording with a few code phrases that would only mean anything to a trained Companion. Basically, the entire chapter was evacuated, and they've activated a signal to the temple computer to signify that they've all reached 'safety.'"

"Hmm." Simon seemed interested. "Any idea where they've gone? I mean, you don't need to say if it's something that shouldn't be told to an outsider, but I'm curious..."

"I have a few guesses, and they'll do with the telling here," I admitted. "Travelling through space would probably be too much of a risk immediately - but there are Guild-controlled retreats deep inside the countryside. Not really meant for this sort of thing, but they'll probably do okay if they went there. I've only been there once, for devotional training before I took my final vows."

"Okay, well, it's good to know that your friends are okay," Simon said, and sighed again. Finally something that should have been glaringly obvious to my trained people senses, if I'd really been paying any real attention to Simon, smacked me in the face.

"You've got bad news, about your parents, right Simon?"

"I guess it's pretty bad, yeah," he admitted. "Mother and Father are in protective custody with the Civil Security force, which I do find slightly ironic considering how much of a fit Father pitched when I found myself enjoying their hospitality. Mother will be released as soon as they're sure she won't be in danger from any misguided vigilantes, but Father - is being investigated and might have to face charges for his part in the Miranda Settlement project."

"His part in Miranda?" I exclaimed quietly, very shocked. "But... but what could he have possibly had to do with it? Is somebody framing him as a scapegoat?"

"I'm not sure," Simon said. "He does work with the terraforming commission, and before he went into administration he was reknowned as a civil and mechanical engineer. Just the sort of person who might have worked out a scheme to distribute a chemical agent through the air and water of an entire world."

"But still... they should be placing the responsibility with those who made the final decisions to implement the Pax on Miranda, not some engineer who worked out the details... and left his name on the documentation in the Commission office."

"Yeah, well." Simon shrugged. "I'm a bit worried about him, but there's nothing that I can do to help, especially since we're on a course that is going to take us well past Osiris and to a planet that's soon going to declare itself an enemy. Not to mention the fact that if there's anybody still looking for River, they'd probably have someone there by now, watching to see if either of us turn up for the trial. One way or another, Father got himself into this mess, and he's going to need to find some way out of it."

"I'm sure that he'll do just that," I said to Simon, and then realized a double meaning in what we just said. If Mister Tam got himself the death penalty, to take a worst-case scenario, that was 'a way' out of the mess that he was currently in, though not a promising or entirely un-messy one. "Okay, we need to talk about something else now."

"Sure," Simon said eagerly enough. "How are things going between you and our good captain?"

"Umm..." I certainly would never have expected Simon to be the one to ask straight out like that. "What makes you think that anything's going on between us?"

"Well, even though I'm still pretty clueless about this kind of thing, there are a few pieces of evidence that did present themselves," he said. "First off, you leave the ship for Paquin, after a truly remarkable series of shouting matches with Mal..."

"We weren't really arguing that much then," I argued. Or at least, that was the way it felt to me, that we'd gone past the point of fighting and just weren't saying much to each other at all.

Simon didn't offer a counterpoint. "That operative guy, when he wanted to find Mal, he went to YOU. And Mal came right to you once you sent him the wave, even though he knew that there was a trap waiting for him. Let's see, what else... right, Ares. It wasn't hard to figure out that Mal going with you wasn't just for keeping you safe - the two of you wanted to spend a little time together, maybe sort a few things out. And then the trip goes wrong, you crash land, have to walk cross country for days, and still haven't told us that much about what went on there."

"And you think that I'll tell you now?" Simon shrugged slightly. "Honestly, Simon - I'd sort of like to confide in you - but if I did, would you share what you'd learned with your new girlfriend?"

"Umm... probably yes."

"And Kaylee's a very good friend of mine. If I wanted her to know, then I'd have told her myself. Unfortunately, there are a few secrets that I just know Kaylee can't keep, and I really don't want the whole ship to know what I'm up to this time."

"Hmm... fair enough," he admitted. "Well, it was worth a try."

"Yeah. How about doing something else?" I pushed away the sheet of paper, which I hadn't added to since just after the conersation opened, and stuck the ink brush into the water pot. A few drops of ink had fallen onto the table, and I worried for a moment that they would stain, but all of the dark color came away when I wiped at them with a soft disposable cloth. "Do you play Xiangqi? I found a great little board in the Boros Capital City - been wandering around ever since leaving the school with a set of antique pieces but nothing to play them on."

"Xiangqi?" Simon repeated, as if he could hardly believe his ears for the excitement. "I... I feel I must give you fair warning. I am *amazingly* good at Xiangqi. Even after I finished my internship and a year into my residency, my name was whispered and feared where the Xiangqi team met and practiced at my old med school."

"Oh, lord." I deliberately rolled my eyes. "Well, you're still better to play against than nobody. Maybe I'll pick up a few good strategy tips." As I left to get the board and the flat circular pieces, I still gave myself at least a forty percent chance of beating Doctor Arrogant, since I had a few special weapons up my sleeve that I didn't think he'd be expecting.

-------------

(Kaylee.)

"Hello there," I said to the boy as he pored over his game board full of tiny flattened white and black marbles. "Sorry to bother you, but you and the battleground are both right on top of the hatch that I need to open up right now."

"Oh? Oh, of course, Miss," he said, picking the board up and carefully setting it back down off to the side, well clear of the hatch outline that could be seen on the floor. Then he picked up the marble bags in each hand, rising to his feet and backing out of the way himself. "Mind if I ask what you're going to do inside there?"

"Hmm... a bit of an unusual question, but I'll allow it," I joked, working the latch release and pulling the flat section of floor up and around on its hinges. "We're pushing the engines hard on this burn, and the pilot says that the engine is responding a bit hesitantly, so I thought I'd add a little bit of a cleanser to the main fuel lines. If we weren't committed to the slot, I'd ask for her to go newt-one, and then I could clean the lines by hand, but this'll do just as well in a pinch." Suiting action to word, I jumped down amid the exposed metal and plastic guts under the hatch and started to look for the right spot to drip something into the line. "You're Derek, right?"

"Yes, and you would be Kaylee?" I made an uh-huh noise. "River - mentioned you back on Boros, but the details weren't quite accurate..."

"Yeah, I remember," I said. The first time Derek saw River and I on the ship, he asked if I were her sister-in-law, which was definitely a bit of a shocker, though it's not quite an unpleasant notion. Bunkin' in with Simon was enough of a big step, though, and I don't think that either of us will be wanting to make it official for a good long while. "So, mind if I ask you a question this time?" I asked. Had found the drip feed by this point, and extracted the tiny vial of cleanser out of a pocket on the shoulder of my coveralls. Good thing a little bit of this stuff goes a long way.

"Oh, sure."

"Just what are you doing on this trip? I mean, I guess I was around your age when I up and shipped out on Serenity - I loved the look of her at first sight - great engines, and I wanted to see more of the 'Verse. But still, I missed my folks something fierce at first. Kinda still do. What's your story?"

"Hmm... well, the long one, with all of the family history and so on, could take a while to tell," he admitted. "But the short answer of why I'm going to Hera with a war on - they say that I'm some kind of prodigy with unconventional strategies, and so I'm going there in case my gift... comes in handy, I suppose. For the Independents."

"Hmm." I finished off the cleanser drip and considered that. "And that's why you're playing Go? Just keeping the prodigies sharp?"

"Something like that I suppose. I'm a big champion Go player, though I try not to get a swelled head about it or anything. Just sort of comes naturally. Playing both sides myself is never interesting of course."

"Just how much of a big champion? Like, in the top five players on Boros?"

"Definitely far and away the best, unless there's one who I haven't played," he said offhandedly. "I've done a few long distance matches against players on other planets who I'd say were more in my class, though it's harder to tell with the wave delays than playing against someone in the same room. The interesting thing is playing against AIVAS computer systems. They've got computer Go routines that can beat most human grandmasters now, and I played one of them in a series last winter. Beat it seven games out of twelve."

"Not bad," I admitted, going over to him - he'd sat back down with the board by this point. "Black on T twenty-four, down there."

"Hmm... really?" He made the move as I'd called it, and blinked in surprise as he saw how it changed the situation. "Interesting choice."

"Thanks," I said. "But just because you're good at games and stuff, why does anybody think that that gift will translate to interplanetary politics or war or anything?"

"I'm not too clear on that myself," he said. "There were a lot of people back home who would talk about it in terms of the adaptability of my cognitive processes - but it has to do with my style of play, and the fact that I never really learned traditional Go strategy, and a few other things that they worked out giving me tests and puzzles. The one thing that none of them could do for me, though, is teach me the rules that I'll need to know for treating the real world like a game. As soon as I learn the rules of a game, that's all it takes to start working out strategies, but..."

"Hmm... maybe you should talk to some of the crew," I said, trying not to smile too big. "Like the captain, and Zoe our first mate, and... and Mister Cobb. They're pretty good with the rules of some of the tougher parts of life, though I'm not sure how well they'll be able to explain them in your terms."

"Hmm... do you want to, I don't know, introduce me or something?" He set the board carefully aside somwhere that it wasn't likely to be tripped on or stepped in, and stood up again. "I mean, all three of those people - pretty much scare me."

"Well, you don't really need to be skeered of the Captin, or of Zoe most of the time." He shot a look as if wondering if I would comment on Jayne. I could have tried to figure out something clever, but didn't bother. "Let's go, no time like the present."

He came along, and it wasn't hard to figure out from the way noise was bouncin' around that something was happening in the dining room. This turned out to be a fast-paced and bitterly waged game of chinese chess, (Xiangqi, I think, is the proper word for it,) between Inara and Simon. Mal and Zoe were both sitting at the table and watching eagerly, Mal sitting on the same side as Inara but not right next to her, and Zoe standing. I hurried over to sit next to my man. "Who crossed the river?" someone called out from forward - it was our own River, of course. Maybe she'd been trying to keep track of the game play with her mind, and the two of us showin' up mucked that up, I'm not sure. The 'river' that she had mentioned, of course, was not really a reference to her own name, but the line halfway across a chinese chess board, which figures into the play a few ways, though when I tried to learn the game I was always a bit confused at why the footsoldiers got STRONGER by crossing a river, instead of maybe weaker. Oh well.

"Mei mei, I can't keep giving you a play by play," Simon called back, with something in his voice as if this wasn't the first time she'd asked a question like that. "It... oh, Inara, I do like this board, it has a lot of character, but I'd give a great deal for a computer sensing system so that River could throw up the action on one of the cockpit screens. Or even just record all of the moves for later."

"Maybe you'd better be concentrating on where we're going, instead of the Xiangqi, little one!" Mal called back towards the forward corridor.

"Mal, there's nothing we could possibly hit for at least another fifteen minutes. I'll check again in eleven."

"Interesting use of your advisors and your ministers, Miss Sera," Derek said to Inara. "Did you learn the the minister's dilemma from someone in the high society or civic executive of Sihnon?"

"How - how could you tell?" she said, blinking in surprise.

"I thought you said that you didn't learn the theory and the established strategy," I said. Of course, I didn't know the minister's dilemma from my little pinky finger, but it sounded like something that somebody who thought they were being very clever might name a particular move in a game like this.

"Not in Go," he said. "Or at least, not until very recently. With Xiangqi, a friend of my fathers wanted to see how it would affect my play style if I crammed on all of the available texts and theory before I tried playing myself. I don't think it worked terribly well - I'm okay, but not really world-class. On the other hand, I seem to have the weirdest tendency to make a game out of analyzing somebody else's style of play. Simon, you learned the basics from an adult when you were growing up - not your father I think, and really got serious when matching against other boys your age when you were eight or nine. Was there a lunchtime Xiangqi club at your school or something?"

"By the way, Mal," I put in, "Derek wants to talk to you about something that could help the Independents on Hera, and so on. About the rules of life - war and crime and that sort of thing."

"Talk to me?" Mal repeated a bit blankly. The play proper had stopped, with Inara and Simon both a bit surprised at what Derek had been saying.

"Derek, are you down there?" River hollered. "What is going on?"

"Nothing for you to worry about," I called back, trying to be helpful. "Go Simon! You're doing well... I think."

"I had better be," he muttered grumpily. "She's ahead by two games to one." He glared across the table at Inara. "I underestimated you the first time, I know it, but I won't make that mistake again."

"Oh." I hadn't realized that this wasn't the first match that they'd played. "Mal, any notion of how far they'll take this thing if we let them?"

"Wait a second," Mal shook his head, and pointed to Derek. "What do you mean about the rules of war and crime?"

"Just, the way stuff happens out here in the big wild 'Verse," I said. "Or maybe not here, if we're flying in towards the core already. Back where we came from, and where we're goin' to."

"You didn't grow up in the big wild 'verse?" Zoe asked Derek.

"Not... not really what I'm asking for," he mumbled. "I mean, I've lived in the real world, sure, but kind of a sheltered life still, with nice parents who've tried to keep me from violence or scheming..."

"How horrible for you..."

"Listen, can anybody talking about the rules of crime please go elsewhere?" Simon burst out. "It doesn't help my concentration here?"

"Sorry, I'll be quiet," Derek said. I looked up, and it was clear that even though we'd come looking for Mal and Zoe, (and Jayne,) to talk to, he was much more interested in watching the play of the chess board. Zoe seemed to me easily the least interested of all the people in the room, and I wondered if she'd leave, but didn't. A very heavy silence fell around all of us as Simon tried a desperate assault on Inara's castle, was turned back, and then struggled to defend his own general against an attack from Inara's chariot.

"Somebody could say something, you don't all have to sit silently and watch us," Inara mumbled casually as she moved her cannon up to support.

"Alright," Mal said, smiling and stretching out slightly. "My guess is that they'll probably keep it up until one person has a lead of two games. However long that takes."

-------------

"C'mon sweetie, try not to let it get you down or anything," I said later, slipping out of my coveralls down in our bunk. "I... I know that your med school rep was important to you, but Inara is just really good at things like this, and she's probably spent more time studying Xiangqi than you have. It fits into her line of work much better than yours, after all."

"Well, I suppose that depends on how you look at it," he muttered. "To me, a game like Xiangqi is a way to keep my brain sharp, to practice the sort of deductive and pattern-based thinking that is critical when I'm trying to identify a mysterious disease or determine the best way of saving somebody's life through surgery. For a companion - it's something that she can do to wile away the time with a paying client when they're tired of... other activities. Yeah, I get your point. Though I wouldn't have thought it would be so important that she be GOOD at playing, just willing to keep at it..."

"So she should just sit there and let the client beat her again and again so that he'd feel better?" I scoffed. "I don't think you appreciate what some of her business is like. Most of her favorites - they're not interested in some brainless little playtoy, they actually value the company of somebody with a keen mind to spend time with." And I shot him my best dangerously cute look. "Don't you think that it's better to be with somebody smart, somebody who won't humor you all the time?"

"Umm, err -" He seemed to struggle for options a moment, and then gave up. "Yes, of course, definitely."

"Good answer." I nestled close to him, my chest pressing against Simon's, and gave him a slow, tender kiss. "Are you cheered up now?"

"Humm - maybe I need just a little bit more good cheer spread around," he muttered, a playful smile on his face. I shook my head slightly, and then pushed him down on the bunk, landing on top of him. "Who's an eager kitten? I haven't even taken my shorts off yet."

"Leave that to me," I said, and proceeded to strip off all the clothes from him and I about as quickly as I could - which actually had some funny bits, because I did indeed get 'too eager' and nearly yanked one of the sleeves of his t-shirt off. But the awkwardness of that was easily passed by, and soon we were happily involved in the usual preliminaries of exploring each other's bodies and revving up for the main event.

Simon was 'going down to Londinium,' (and *very* good at it - that boy's fingers aren't the only parts of his body that know their way around... well, a woman's body I was going to say, though I'm not sure if that's all the point...) anyway, he was really getting into it, letting his hands clench into my bottom end, not too hard but just kind of a comfortable grip, and everything was feeling amazing, and I'm still not quite sure what came over me. Breath coming in gasps, I gasped out, "Tell me we're forever."

He didn't let it phase him immediately, but when I realized what I had said and apologized, he backed off and started to play with my upper front while trying to get his composure back. "Umm... okay, first off, is there anything you'd like to tell me about, well, about that sort of thing in general. I mean, I think I have a tendency to blurt out stuff like that in the middle of - of making love, or similar activities myself, and no matter how unfortunate the timing or how unlikely it might be that I'd say the same thing in any different situation, I mean what I say, well, almost always, and I would want you to treat it seriously, if ocnsiderately. On the other hand, if you have a tendency to say weird stuff in the middle and you'd WANT me to not pay attention or, I don't know, to just joke around..."

"I - umm, I'm really not sure," I said, reaching up to stroke Simon's neck, and letting my fingers trail down the sparse manly hairs on his chest. "It - well, it's not something that *has* happened to me before when I've been with a guy, and, well, considering that there've been a number of opportunities..."

"That's alright," he said. "I like... being in uncharted territory, making you say something that no other 'guy' ever has." And he kissed me, (which was fun if a bit odd, tasting my own scent in his lips,) and proceeded to mount up on me and start the real action without another comment. We were both still really ready for it, the slight strangeness not having made a dent in our eagerness, and I screamed out so loudly that I was worried that everybody else on the ship was going to start pounding on the hatch for us to keep it down.

"Okay, here's mine, just for this one," I said after it was all over. "I... that was something that I felt, and feel, but you don't have to say anything in response if you don't want to..."

"I, I feel the same way," Simon whispered into my ear. "I'm not sure that I can promise you forever, but I'm hoping for it too."

That thought made me smile. "Also, if I ever say somebody else's name when I'm with you, then I'm joking, one hundred percent, and you don't have to pay any attention to it."

He stared for a moment, and then burst out laughing, grabbing a pillow and smacking me playfully with it. "Can I get in on that clause too? Not that I expect it to happen, but since I've managed to find some way to make EVERY other mistake in the book with respect to you, then..."

"Don't worry about it," I told him seriously. "Just stay there and let me lie against you."

"Oh certainly, no problem with that," he said. "It's great for me too."

-------------

(Mal.)

"Captain, maybe you'd better come up here." The words somehow managed to cut through a very nice dream, leaving me frustrated and sprawled out on my mattress, hips bucking a bit against the fabric by habit. "Somebody sending a signal at us."

"Huh, River?" I managed to say. Of course, there wasn't likely to be anybody else at the controls getting a transmission at this point, but it wasn't something that I was used to since Wash's death. "Yeah, umm, just a moment." I threw on some clothes, reminded of the message from Inara that had led us over to the training house so that he could 'rescue' her from the Alliance Operative. "Okay, patch them through down here."

A stern older lady's face popped up onto the screen opposite my bed - framed by the blue and purple fabric of an alliance uniform at her collar and shoulders. Not that the uniform meant quite so much these days, but I was still far from eager to see it. "Hello, Captain Mal Reynolds of 'Serenity' speaking. How could I help?"

"Captain Reynolds. Your ship is entering a marked out convoy zone at unacceptably high speeds and a dangerous heading. You are hereby directed to burn hard away from the sun and in an ecliptic-spinward direction to avoid causing a serious accident. I am forwarding the specific course information to your pilot."

"Huh? Now wait a second." I knew what this meant even without seeing the course data. "We are on a very important courier mission, Officer whatever-the-hell-your-name-is, and cannot deviate far from course without losing our schedule. In any event, we certainly cannot assume a more traditional course without getting stranded, out of fuel in deep space. You have no authority, no right to dictate how a man like me can fly his ship, not any more. The Alliance is crumbling, and even before that started, you people never owned deep space."

"My apologies, Reynolds. In my *haste* to save innocent people making their way from Ariel to Beaumonde in cobbled-together escape ships, I have neglected the formalities," the old woman said, stiffly formal. "My name is Guinevere Roberts, Senior Commander of the sixth fleet, and I have been deputized with wide-reaching powers in this field of space because of the exigencies of the political situation." Then all trace of formality was gone, and she had murder in her eyes. "In other words, do NOT try my patience, Captain. I have the authority because somebody needs to take charge for the common good. If you do not comply, I will have you shot out of space."

"Wouldn't that just *increase* the danger to your poor refugees?" I muttered, and got a glare for my troubles. "Look, I see that the protected zone is marked out on your little diagram. We should be able to adjust course enough to give it a wide clearing and still make our trip and schedule. That is as MUCH as I can tell you, and if you want to start a fight over it..." I trailed off, uncertain if I could make a threat that wasn't a bluff in this situation.

"Captain Mal, you are TRYING my patience," Guinevere muttered, and the camera at her end zoomed out dramatically, showing the control board that she was sitting in front of, and letting her hover her finger over a big red button - the kind that people liked to tie into launching missiles. "If you do this, then you're not a pain in my own side directly, but what am I to think of you go and crash into somebody else's ship two million miles on?"

"We're not going to crash into anybody," Mal said evenly. "This ship might not look like much, but it's dependable, and my pilot knows her stuff."

"Alright. Then I suppose I will take a flyer on trusting you rather than going to the trouble of... well, I don't even have the time to get into everything I'd have to do if I wanted to make sure that you wouldn't be a danger to anybody. Would it be fair to say that you owe me a favor, Reynolds?"

"Hmm." Wasn't quite sure I saw it the same way, but this was the sort of situation where Inara would say a little diplomacy didn't hurt much. "Not sure if we'll cross paths again for you to collect on that favor, but..."

"Here's how we're going to play it, Reynolds," she continued. "You get your pilot to make that course correction good and quick, because she doesn't have much time, and you scribble off a John Doe and feed it into the comm system. You do have a visual scanner rigged into that, yes? Good. I'll take the printout over here and use that as your marker. I'm free to give or sell that, as I so choose, and if I find that you caused any kind of a crash on this 'courier run' of yours, anybody who happens to survive from your ship..."

"Yeah, I get the picture," I mumbled. "No fair copying the marker - this is *one* favor and no more." With that, I took the opportunity to leave Guinevere by scrambling up the hatch of my bunk and hurrying over to the cockpit. River confirmed that Serenity would be flying clear of the convoy zone, and feeling very foolish, I scribbled a signature on some scrap paper, (actually it was a printout with some figures on our course on it,) and transmitted that over to the Alliance ship. By the time the facsimile machine binged to report that the message had been confirm-received, we had already passed both ship and convoy zone, zooming past.

"I hope I'll be able to say that it was nice meeting you, Reynolds. Good flying, Serenity," came the commander's parting shot. With a soft groan, I decided to not even try a comeback and count my blessings that things hadn't gone any worse.

"You did the right thing, Mal," River whispered softly from the pilot's chair. "Know how you hate to do what somebody in a purple uniform tells you to, but - she wasn't entirely wrong. It's a risky thing that we're doing, especially at a time like this." She sighed. "And since it was my brilliant idea that partly got us into this in the first place, I'll help you redeem that marker if I can."

"Alright, we'll see," I said.

"Maybe you should go and poke your head into Inara's shuttle." River giggled softly. "If she's still sleeping, you can probably think up a fun way to wake her."

Oh, lordy. "Listen, if - if you've figured out anything about - about Inara and I, you have to keep it quiet for now."

"Come on, Kaylee would *love* to hear news like this!" River singsonged back quietly.

"Yes, but... but Inara doesn't want the whole ship to know, at least not yet - and if Kaylee gets told, you *know* that's going to happen very soon. I love that girl dearly, but a keeper of secrets she is not." I sighed. "Inara probably won't be jumping for joy that you've figured it out, though I suppose it was asking too much for either of us too keep it secret from you for long. But you can't tell anybody else yet, and not without my permission - got it?"

"Yes, captain, I understand." I sighed and headed off, wondering whether I really should visit Inara's shuttle once again. "And for the record - I think I was only guessing, until you told me. Heck of a way to keep the secret yourself, Captain."

I growled softly at her and headed for the port shuttle hatch.

TO BE CONTINUED...