One good day

By Charlotte Summers

* * *

Chapter four “Ten Percent of Something”

* * *

“Well, this is just shiny,” Mal said dryly.

Frankly, he’d expected a simple drop-off after which he’d be on his merry with a big damn pay check and without the goods the Alliance were looking for. He hadn’t expected meeting up with Dumar, giving him the goods, and then hear Dumar wasn’t planning on paying up.

Mal smiled pleasantly at the form of Dumar (for some reason he didn’t appear physically as Mal had expected him to be: he was in fact in real life quite a bit shorter than imagined, but scarily more muscled than Mal would’ve liked).

“Might I ask how come one of us is suddenly not holding his end of the deal?”

“Captain Reynolds, I’m not backing out of the deal,” Dumar said without humor, standing broad. “I’m simply announcing there was no deal to begin with. Or at least, not on my part. I’m afraid you have been double-crossed. My sincerest apologies. But it seems ridiculous to me I have to pay petty thieves like you for bringing me what is mine, just because the Alliance had decided to keep an eye on me. I thank you, for delivering me my things,” Dumar said pleasantly, “And I assure you, everyone can walk away from this unharmed. But you’re not getting paid.”

“That a fact?” Mal nodded, suppressing his anger.

“That is a fact,” Dumar confirmed.

“And you’ll just let us walk freely, unharmed, if we just leave your goods and go?”

“That too, is a fact.”

“And how exactly were you sure me and mine are just going to accept and leave?” Mal asked the buyer, tilting his head slightly toward Jayne, who already threateningly had one hand placed over the gun in the holster on his hip.

Dumar sat down in his leather chair. “I have insurance.”

“And what might that be…?” Zoe asked with a low, dangerous voice.

The corners of Dumar’s mouth twitched. “A bunch of men holding ‘yours’ and your ship hostage.”

* * *

“Well, this is just shiny,” Bela muttered under her breath.

She, Kaylee, Wash, Simon and River were all in the cargo bay, sitting on top of some crates. They were confronted by six of Dumar’s men and at least ten guns. Bela leaned in on Kaylee, who was holding onto Bela’s arm tightly in fear as she watched the men and their guns, and she whispered in the mechanic’s ear, “Got any plans?”

Kaylee was too terrified to answer, but Wash spoke for her. “Oh yeah,” he said, looking at the six guys, and he pointed at his head, narrowing his eyes. “I got a plan all worked out, right here in my head. Any moment now I’m about to jump into action. I’m thinking I’ll take that right one out first… then the large one with no hair…”

His voice trailed off as he went on a bit, talking more to air than the others.

Kaylee finally found the voice to speak. “What do you think they’s talking about?” she asked Bela, looking at two of the men who had been eyeing her and Bela suspiciously for a while now.

“I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure it’s-”

“Trouble,” River suddenly whispered, her big dark eyes widening.

“You,” the strong voice of one of the duo sounded. “Get up.”

Bela had already opened her mouth to fire back a reply, when she realized the guy wasn’t pointing at her, but rather at Kaylee. The girl’s face turned pale in an instant and she squeezed Bela’s arm even tighter.

Bela raised her eyebrows. “Unless you got a problem need fixing in the engine room, she ain’t going anywhere.”

“I guess we ain’t making ourselves clear,” the second guy said, both of them taking out a gun and pointing. The second one grabbed Kaylee by the arm and roughly pulled her up. Simon and Bela followed instantly, the latter’s jaw set with anger.

The guy holding Kaylee touched her hair. “I think me and the miss is gonna be havin’ a lil’ fun.”

Kaylee whimpered in fear and looked at the others, pleading. This one movement caused Simon, despite River’s sounds of distress in response to the situation, to take a threatening step forward, wearing a grim look of determination. “Let her go.”

Wash had risen by now as well, though he was backing up a bit after he got a gun pointed at his face. Bela reached out an arm to stop Simon from possibly attacking any of them getting himself killed in an uncontrolled act of anger.

“I think you heard the man,” Bela said calmly, despite the gun pointed at her heart. “Let the girl go.”

The guy in front of her moved his thumb and released the safety on the gun. “And I think you ain’t getting the position you’re in,” he said, his upper lip curling, showing his teeth.

A moment of pure helplessness became almost touchable at this moment, when a single tear rolled down Kaylee’s cheek. Then, Bela’s spoke, and her voice was low and contained such threat Wash felt the hairs in his neck stand on end.

“Listen, you liou coe shway duh biao-tze huh hoe-tze fuh ur-tze - you’re all particularly ugly men and apparently not blessed with an exceptionally high IQ, and I’m sure a lot of people’ll find y’all real threatening looking, with your guns and your-”

A loud bang sounded, Kaylee and River screamed, and Wash shrunk a bit. Bela felt her heart thumping faster than ever, but remained calm on the outside and looked at the guy at her left who’d just fired a bullet into the wall. He now pointed the gun at her.

“Shut up, or the next one’ll hit your pretty face.”

Bela thoughtfully bit her lip and jerked her head at the man in front of her. “Take it you’re the big important leader, huh.”

“You could say that.”

“Thought so.”

In a blur, her foot hit him square in the face; the sick sound of his nose breaking vibrated through the cargo bay; Bela had her hands on his gun; pressed said gun to his temple; his second gun she pulled out of the holster on his hip and pointed at the guy bothering Kaylee; and it all happened so fast none of the crew or Dumar’s men had figured out what exactly had just gone down, until she spoke.

“Gentlemen?” Bela blew a loose strand of hair out of her face. “I think this is your cue to drop your weapons.”

* * *

“So we have a deal, then?” Dumar asked from his leather chair, leaning back, feet on the desk, his fingers linked.

Mal swallowed. “You order your men the hell of my ship and away from my crew, and we’ll take off, leaving your stinkin’ contraband. No harm done.”

Dumar quickly smiled. “We have a deal.”

With his hand balled into a fist, trembling with anger, Mal watched how Dumar reached for a radio, and talked into it.

“Deal’s made, stand down.”

In response, only static came from the radio. Dumar glanced at the trio and looked annoyed. Mal and Zoe exchanged looks.

“Meltzer, do you copy? Deal’s been made. Stand down.”

Static. Dumar seemed a little uneasy.

“Meltzer, you shu ma nyaow, pick up the damn radio!”

A crackling sound, a click. Then a voice. Female.

“Mr. Dumar?”

“Wh- Bela?” Mal muttered to Jayne, who looked just as surprised as him.

“I think ‘Meltzer’ won’t be talking into any damn radio any time soon on account of a broken nose – oh, that, and because he’s lying unconscious somewhere in the desert outside of New Dunsmuir. Remind me, you was somewhere on the outer rim of this town, right? Abandoned kind of place?”

Dumar turned as red as a strawberry and seemed to tremble with anger. “Who the hell are you and what have you-”

“Yeah bla, bla, bla. Listen up, you shiong-muh duh duang-ren. I know about your little plan, and the holding us hostage worked pretty nicely –I for one was pleasantly surprised to notice your minions had real guns ‘nd all – but one lil’ flaw: your plan don’t work so nicely when you ain’t got no men conscious or not tied up to hold us hostage. So, here’s the new deal.”

Bela spoke rapidly and while Zoe still seemed swapped off her feet with disbelief, Jayne looked amused and appreciative, and Mal simply dropped his shoulders and ran a hand through his air, trying to come up with any possible way that would make this day get any weirder.

Dumar swallowed and looked at the radio in his hand as if it were about to bite him.

“We ain’t no low-life like you, you’ll get to keep your goods, don’t fret. But you’re gonna let these fine people in front of you go, with their pay check – plus ten percent,” Bela added, as if it had only just crossed her mind. “Unless you’re looking to be very much none alive any time soon.”

“Really?” Dumar barked into the radio, almost forgetting about the other people actually in the room. “Can you come up with an even more unfounded threat?”

There was a short silence.

“Mr. Dumar. One small piece of advice from an old crook, just like you: don’t locate your headquarters too far out on the rim, from the civilized world. You see, it’ll give a ship plenty of space to approach you without attracting too much attention.”

“What the-”

“Look out your window?”

Last thing Dumar saw were the amused and smug faces of Mal, Zoe and Jayne, before he turned around and spotted just outside the window a large Firefly transport ship hovering right next to his mansion.

“I ain’t scared of your threats!” Dumar yelled at the radio. “What, are y’all gonna throw things at me? A Firefly transport ship don’t hold no guns!”

“No, these ships don’t. But the woman and two men in your company do hold guns, and I bet by now, they’re probably holding them pointed at your face.”

Dumar’s shoulders dropped. Slowly, he turned around, and was not in the least bit surprised when he faced three guns.

Mal smiled. “So, about that ten percent…”