Week Three

"There's got to be something else to do on this little circus of a planet," Melany complained, shaking out her dark red hair impatiently. "What do you think, Kaylee?"

I just sort of grunted in response. Melany's relentless pursuit of 'fun' in all of its forms could get a bit - well, relentless. But more than that, I was eager to get back to Serenity and my new crew, to join in whatever thrilling heroics that we were sharing. Zoe, however, had made it pretty clear that my services and presence were not ready until the ship was ready to leave Paquin again, and she would make a point of calling me back to duty.

Nobody but me realized how caught in the middle of this caper I was. Mal, Zoe, and Wash had been hired to steal a tiny grain of Dubnium away from Paquin's largest circus corporation, bankrolled by one of the core worlds. Melany's sugar daddy, (was that unfair? He was a rich boyfriend who was bankrolling her own attempts to get rich quick,) was co-ordinating a special security team hired to catch any burglars making a try for the Dubnium. Neither my new crew nor my old friend's good friend realized that the other was involved in the same thing.

At least I didn't feel any indecision in my loyalties. If Melany herself had been more involved in the security deal it might have been different, but... I liked Barret, the boyfriend, fine, but couldn't care less whether he failed on any particular job he took on. And the 'Serenity' gang - I was one of them, no matter that I wasn't with them at the moment. So I'd been warned of a danger to the mission, and had to find some way to thwart it by myself... without knowing anything about the plans for their theft, and being told precious little about the security detail. Aiyah Tyen-ah.

"Kaylee, are you even listening to me?" Melany put in. "I've asked you twice now just how insufferably boring you think this hover-bus countryside tour would be."

"Probably pretty bad," I said. "They don't seem to have much scenery around here different from what we both remember back home." Melany nodded. "Maybe we could drop in on Barret's project again? I'm sorry, I just love all of that video monitoring and recording stuff."

"Oh, lord," Melany sighed in exactly that same tone that she usually used when whatever something I had said seemed particularly cruel and unnatural to her. "Do you want to jump careers from mechanics to security or something? I think Barret's starting to get that notion."

"Well, it's interesting, but... no, I prefer Serenity's engines," I admitted. "Just... they aren't doing much at the moment and I'm not supposed to spend the layover reworking them in the spaceport, so..."

"Hmm." Melany considered again. "Well, maybe the three-ring will be worth a visit after all. I think that they're almost ready for the big premiere and all, so there'll be final rehearsals and all to see. Maybe I'll get a chance to ride one of those pretty pastel blue Londinium horses."

"Okay, sure," I said. "When can we head out?"

"You're going to go dressed like that?" Melany asked, and I looked down at the simple white cotton shirt and olive-green shorts I had on. "Well, yeah, I guess for pestering the security folks, it'll do. I need something a bit fancier."

"Don't dress up all the way to the nines if you're thinkin' of horse riding," I suggested.

"Oh, yeah, right. Okay." She finished the last breakfast pastry that had been delivered by room service, ruffled in a suitcase, and picked out a black sweater and tight pants that looked to me like they'd be okay for riding. (Not from experience - I'm more a mule girl than a horsey fan, as it were,) and disappeared into the can to change.

As soon as she was gone, I was a little surprised to find myself hurrying over to the Cortex terminal and logging in through an anonymizer so that there'd be no trace of what I did on Melany's system. I *had* to warn somebody at Serenity of the danger, and out of the choices available, Wash seemed the most likely to take me serious and not over-react. I sent out a quick message outlining what little I knew of the extra security and told him how to route a reply back through so that Barret and Melany wouldn't get a trace of it, if he had any questions to ask or suggestions for what action I could try to take.

Just seconds after I'd sent the message off, Melany came back in, looking very styly in her new outfit, and asked me to hurry up if we were going to go. "What were you doing?" she asked as I turned the Cortex screen off.

Hump me! I should've reset the unit so that there wouldn't be any trace of my privacy routines the next time it was used - but now there was no chance to do it without lookin' suspicious. "Just lookin' for any info about your horses, but I couldn't see anything quick."

"Huh. The layout looked a little funny," Melany said, but she shrugged and turned to the door first. I stabbed at the reset button and followed out. Way too lucky for my karma.

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I let Melany stay at the jumping ground and pester the horse groom to her heart's content, and only spared one moment's attention to the pretty blue and green coats that had probably bred true for generations, after some bio whiz-boy had first whipped some specimens up in a tube. Made tracks over to the nearest security station - none of the special guys watching over the Dubnium were here, of course, but Barret had introduced me around the day before yesterday and between that recommendation and a bit of natural charm, I was able to find out where they were and what was up today.

That was about as much success as I had for the day though, and after hanging around for two hours and a bit more, I ended up going back to look for Melany. There was only so many questions I could ask without losing that quality of innocence that I needed to keep up. If only I knew what was important, but... well, we'd sort that out. They'd had no trouble so far, which was reassuring. Maybe the gang wouldn't need my help, or maybe I could be around when they made their move and see what I had to do then.

Melany was sitting at a table in the refreshments tent, talking with a girl who seemed a bit older than us. "Hey, Melany, are you bored with your horses already?" I asked, coming over to stand in front of the third and empty chair.

"Not bored, but saddlesore," Melany laughed, dropping one hand down as if to run it over her rear end, though she couldn't really touch those parts of her butt while she was sitting down on them. "And quite pleased to be."

"Okay I guess," I said. "An' who's your friend?" I'd been surprised to see her with a female - either a guy companion, (who might or might not be Barret,) or enjoying a snack alone would have seemed much more likely.

"Oh, right. Inara, this is Kaylee Frye, a good friend of mine from back home. Kayle - Inara Serra, registered companion from Sihnon. Barret's an... old friend of Inara's. We met a few wees ago back on Ariel, and I guess from hearing us talk about the big Circus, she decided that it would be worth her while in coming."

"It's more of a coincidence, really," Inara replied in a rich and throaty Sihnon accent. "Was approached by a fascinating man with an offer to be his escort to Paquin for a week and a half. It's just the kind of commission that I was looking for recently, so... here I am."

"Interesting," I said. Wasn't quite sure what I thought of the Companion's guild in general - hadn't seen or heard much of them first-hand on Three Hills, and the things that I'd heard grownups saying about them seemed petty and narrow. (Of course, boys my age usually couldn't get enough of the idea of a beautiful Companion as a fantasy object, even when they had a pretty and eager local girl eager to have some fun, but that was something that I'd resigned myself to.) Inara seemed friendly, exotic, and mysterious in equal measure - with dark brown curly hair bound up on top of her head in a slightly overdone elaborate twist, and wearing a richly patterned purple and white wraparound kimono with a checkerboard pattern of letters that seemed to include more than three alphabets, only two of which I'd ever seen. The fabric managed to cling to and conceal her body at the same time, as far as I could see, which was just a bit shy of waist level. Somehow, no matter what the terms of the deal might be, I could certainly see any number of rich men paying well for the privileges of her company.

"So, umm... what's next for you after this?" I asked. "Back to the Core worlds?"

"No, actually, I'm meaning to find some passage further out, or at least stay reasonably far into the border lands," Inara said, animated by interest in the subject. "I *have* to see some of Persephone, of course, the architecture is supposed to be lovely. And I have an old friend who's running an - independent establishment of her own, now... way out on Eta."

"Really?" Melany asked. "A companion?"

"Not anymore. Actually, it's not a story that I should spread around so freely. How do you like Paquin yourself so far, Melany?" Inara smiled gently at her and waited for the reply.

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'A special security detachment? Why didn't you message me sooner, Kaylee? We're ready to move tomorrow morning, but this could be important. Using the cortex or communicators isn't safe enough for ongoing conversation, and we can't let them guess what's happening. Can you get back to Serenity, just before the port closes up at 2200? Mal knows, and he's going to tell Zoe. Good luck. Wash.'

Oh, great. Well, at least I was going to get to hear something from my new friends - my new crew. If even mild and joking Wash had brought up the idea that I should have mentioned this sooner, then Mal or Zoe might rant and rave. But that didn't matter so much. After dinner with Melany, (Barret didn't join us, but our performing friends from that first night did, and I let myself get flirted at by Petherr without really caring enough to send him any clear signals back. Maybe that made me seem like a mystery girl. I rigged the communicator to go off in the middle of drinks, went out into the street to 'take' the call, and came back in telling Melany and Petherr that I'd been summoned back for a 2200 curfew at my ship.

"That sounds odd. Are you leaving again in the morning, so soon?" Melany asked.

"No, I just think... they've found something that needs doing in the engine, or maybe we've got cargo to haul up. Early morning start, and if I'm there for curfew they know I'll be rested and ready to work, instead of a morning call when I might have been out partying all night."

"Okay... well, I hope that we'll be able to meet up before you do weigh anchor," Melany said, hugging me. "And - a goodnight toast, but nothing too strong on account of having to work in the morning."

"Oh, we've got time for more than a goodnight toast," Petherr's friend put in. Terric, I think his name was. "It''s hardly 2030 yet."

So we went out to 'paint the town' once more, and having told my big fib to get me back to Serenity without arousing any suspicion, I actually started to put the heist caper and everything else out of my mind. For the first time since that first night, (which was still a little drenched with beer and spirits,) I just enjoyed spending time with Melany and the boys. Before dropping me off at the hotel to pack up my few things, Petherr gave me a goodnight kiss that made me regret that I probably wouldn't be seeing him again. He was a sweet and mischievous young man, if a little too quiet.

The spaceport was definitely starting to shut down as I approached, my chrono reading 2158 local time. I wondered for a moment if they ever sealed the landing rectangle entirely, or forbade ships from taking off in the middle of the night - there was nothing overhead that could stop one, after all.

The hatch to the ship opened at my request silently. Nobody in the cargo bay, or the downstairs lounge. I found the three of them talking animatedly around the kitchen table, paper sketches between them.

"Nice that you could meet us, Kaylee," Mal said. "Sorry if you felt that you weren't welcome around here on account of one night of too much drinking. Ain't a one here who would hold that against you, I'm pretty sure." He shot a fairly serious look over at Zoe. "Probably we all thought that you'd just be eager to enjoy the hospitality of a nice safe port town, especially with old friends of yours about."

"Yes, sir," I muttered, stepping up. "It was good to see Melany, and all... but when I signed on, it wasn't just to be take care of the engines. I'm one of the crew, whatever that means."

"It doesn't mean that you should share in our crimes," Zoe said firmly. "I'm not even wild that we're letting Wash try his hand at the crime, but he did insist often enough, and we needed a hand. Now it seems that you're also indispensable to the heist?"

"I... I don't know," I said. "Just luck that I found out that Barret Thomas was organizing an extra security detail for this Dubnium stuff. As it happens, I'm on the inside, and maybe that's of use to you. Whatever that means - information that I can get, sabotage I might perform, or just the warning that this loot is too hot and you should give up the job."

"I don't think that anyone's speaking of pulling out so far," Mal said. "The way things usually work in this sort of job is... a contact tells us about a promising item, and expects some of the proceeds as their agent's fee. If we take their info, case the joint, and then scram - they want some other sort of a fee."

"Well, let's start by sketching out the situation, as far as we know it," Wash suggested. "Then Kaylee will know if she's already found out anything relevant. The Dubnium was produced at an Alliance experimental fusion facility near Greenleaf, and it was ferried out here on a light courier ship along with some other expensive supplies for the big Circus. Right now, it's being kept under a computerized lock seal in the Walnut building, and there are nine guards watching over it. But tomorrow evening, it's got to be taken out so it can be used as the catalyst for some fireworks display..."

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And we talked on late into the night, so I was glad that I didn't hae to actually work on the engines or cargo in the morning, although it didn't sound like I'd be able to just laze around half the day either. as I went down to my bunk and got ready for bed, the oddest thought hit me about that Companion lady, Inara - Wash said that Mal wanted to rent out one of the shuttles to a 'roving professional', and Inara said that she wanted to see more of the outer worlds. Was that a match that could work out? I wasn't sure. A Companion was certainly a far cry from a prospector or field scientist or whatever.

I stayed aboard ship for most of the morning, just because I'd said that I'd have work to do today, and it would seem strange to be back on the town too early. Plus, even though time was critical, I wasn't sure where I could find Barret until lunchtime, and the fact that he'd probably be seperated from Melany was a bonus. So I started going over the notes and trying to make plans of my own.

My part in the plan was two-fold. One, I needed to find out who would be maintaining physical observation of the Dubnium as it travelled from the store building to the circus grounds. From what I'd heard and Mal's experience in such things, that would probably be just one or two of the special team - they didn't have a lot of manpower, and one would probably be out as an remote scout in each direction: rear, both flanks, and probably two forward. Zoe was sure that they'd be able to avoid these scouts once they knew what to look for, and they'd already made plans for the regular guards physically escorting the shipment.

The second thing that I needed to get was the electronic codes that would be controlling the surveillance and communications net. Barret would have them in a data pen or something similar on his person, and somehow I had to find some way to make a copy without letting him notice. Nothing to it, huh?

"Oh, hello there Kaylee," Barret said when he spotted me coming across the cafe towards his table. "Did your boss let you out for lunch already?"

"Yeah, I've got a break until 1400, actually," I said him, and gestured to the two empty chairs at the table with food in front of them. "Is Melany around here somewhere, or... friends of yours."

"Not Melany, no, she's off at a concert in the park or something like that," Barret said negligently. I guess his fling with Melany probably wouldn't last too long if he worried about keeping track of her too closely. "But... oh, here they are. Inara, Richoc."

"Kaylee, how wonderful to see you again," Inara said in that gorgeous voice of hers.

"Yes, so pleased," I said, and turned to the man - he had dusty brown skin, was a bit on the tall side and definitely as skinny as a tension wire... well, you know what I mean. Somehow, something seemed a bit threatening, or at least formidable, about his stance. "Is this your - current client?"

"Yes - Kaylee Frye, Richoc Whitter."

After meeting you and Melany yesterday, Inara told Richoc that they just *had* to meet me for lunch today," Barret said, gesturing the two of them to their seats. "What about you, Kaylee? Can you eat with us?"

"I... there doesn't seem to be a great amount of room free," I muttered, thinking of yesterday when it had been Melany and Inara at a similar table, with a third chair free for me. Now there was no available seat at all.

"Nonsense," Barret said expansively, and borrowed a chair from a nearby table myself, and moving his own place setting and Richoc's around so that there was room for me. I felt a little embarrassed about the fuss, but allowed the whole deal, because I really *did* need to spend some time with Barret, though I wasn't sure how much I'd be able to accomplish with Inara and Richoc around, and sitting next to Barret might give me an opportunity later on. I kept quiet at first, though, aside from placing an order for a sparkling cherry drink and some lemon tarts. And by watching and listening, I learned a LOT.

First off, it almost sounded like Inara and Richoc were working together to gently elicit information out of Barret, much better than I could possibly have done it. Their questions were focusing around the delivery to the circus, not the trip from the building to the circus, but I was able to put in a few questions of my own, just sounding like I was following the conversation with interest. My good luck that they wanted to know about Barret's work too, I guess, the job that had brought him to Paquin.

Around the time that I thought I had the info I'd need, but wasn't sure if I could still ask for clarification on one or two points, Inara finished her own questioning. Richoc was away from the table, and I looked around, finally finding him at the little jukebox console. A rich instrumental filled the place as he brought drinks back to the table. Barret looked around, as if he wasn't sure where the music had come from. Why had Richoc taken drinks by the jukebox, I had to wonder. Would have been better to go set the music first, and THEN go visit the bar, I'd have thought. Or... or just flagged down a waiter, as we'd been doing the whole time...

Unless he wanted to disguise the fact that he'd started the music. I wasn't sure why that notion came to me.

"Oh, I love this song," Inara said, getting up, and extending her hand to Barret. "Just one dance, for old time's sake?"

"Umm... there isn't really a dance floor," Barret pointed out. "Oh, come on, anything but those sad manga eyes. Alright, one song."

I watched, bemused again, as the two of them danced, while Richoc watched them every so often. As the music wound down, something started to occur to me, and I set the communicator to go off again. Excusing myself when it rang, I stayed a few tables away and muttered into the mouthpiece, while watching what happened.

Inara and Barret came back to the table. Richoc immediately led Barret away for something else - looked like they were going away to watch an acrobatic group performing outside the storefront. Alone at the table, Inara... pulled out two data pens and a copier, and started to discretely put them into use, not realizing that she was being covertly observed by me.

Lords of Sihnon above! Inara was... she'd gotten to my target ahead of me. She'd purloined the data pen while dancing with Barret, and now Richoc was distracting Barret, hoping to keep him from realizing that the pen was temporarily missing, and preventing him from happening upon Inara as she did the dirty deed. They had to be in it together. And from the questions they'd been asking - they were hoping to grab something at the circus. Had to be the Dubnium - Barret's team wasn't concerning themselves with anything else.

But - but I was on to them, and I didn't think that Inara suspected me. And I knew that if Mal's plan went off right, he'd get the grain while Inara and Richoc were still waiting for it to arrive. I could still get all this to work!

I had to time my move carefully, and wait until *just* after the copy was done. "Hey, Inara!" Surprised, she immediately stashed the pens and the copier underneath her napkin - I hardly even saw it move. Nice and smooth. "That was Melany - she's going to be here in a few minutes."

Okay, there it was. Melany's arrival would change the whole situation, I had to believe. (It was the best thing I could come up with on the moment.) She had to warn Richoc, and she needed to get Barret's pen back to him as soon as possible. But... but I thought that she wouldn't try to take the whole bundle, it'd be noticed too much. Yes, there she went, I couldn't see anything in her hand, but the bundle of the copier could still sort of make out beneath the cloth napkin. I nodded when she excused herself, held my breath, and looked. Yes. I grabbed the data pen and immediately headed for the back door. They'd HAVE to know that I'd taken it, and I didn't want to stick around and give either of them a chance to take it back. Maybe Barret still wouldn't realize anything was odd, even with my disappearance and Melany's failure to show up. As I hurried down the alleyway, I wondered if Inara would make a second try to copy the original pen.

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I stayed in the ship the rest of the day, actually tinkering with the engines because it made me feel better. Nobody had asked about how I'd gotten the info and the pen, (which wasn't even the same color as the one I'd been given to make MY copy on, so I couldn't have swapped them.) And I decided not to mention Inara or warn the crew that there might be another pair of thieves after the same prize as them.

I'm not sure why I was silent this time. I'd only just met Inara yesterday, and though I'd liked her in the way you sometimes like a stranger, that was different from the kind of loyalty I'd usually need to cover for her. Maybe I just didn't want to mention yet more unexpected info about this particular caper.

Why had Inara been involved? Was this really what Richoc had 'hired' her for, as an accomplice thief more than a paramour? Was she really... no, I had to believe that if she hadn't really been in the Guild, Barret and Melany would have known. But... just what sort of things did Guild companions hire out for?

I felt a little disappointed about missing the circus after all the buildup, but there was really no good way to make sure I'd be safely aboard Serenity when the time came to lift off other than to stay here from the start. And I was pretty sure that the planned fireworks, at least, would be a washout.

Wash got in around 2015, and immediately called me to help him warm up the engines and check that Serenity was all set for a quick liftoff.

"Was there trouble?" I called back over the intercom once things looked to be mostly ready. I'd managed to gather that Wash's part in the plan had been played out in the Cortex room of a contact they had here on Paquin, that he'd used the codes from the data pen to get into Barret's system, monitoring the movement of the target parcel that way, and staying in touch with Mal and Zoe through scrambled communicators. When the key moment had come, he was supposed to use the illicit access to sow confusion among Barret's security people, and then kill the whole system for as long as he could manage. I'd have liked to join in on that stuff, but Mal had pointed out that they'd already risked some by introducing Wash to the contact - his face could be described to the authorities if the interference was traced that far. There wasn't any reason to risk my good name as well, and I had reluctantly agreed to that.

"A bit of excitement, yeah," Wash agreed softly. "Your foaf Barret changed the plan around a bit, so maybe he suspected that you'd been questioning him. Nothing too bad, not when I could overhear him through his own system. Mal and Zoe weren't caught well out of position, is the main thing. But after they'd got it... this dark guy tried to snag the box with a retractable grapple of some sort, and nearly got away with it. Zoe - she shot him, and I don't really know more, except that they're almost back now."

"Okay, well... better than either her or Mal getting shot," I put in, and Wash sort of grunted in agreement.

And it was only a few minutes later that I heard a door signal. "Must be them," I said. "Wonder why they didn't code themselves in."

"Check it first," Wash warned, and that made me rethink things. Sure enough, when I checked the monitor, it wasn't our good captain and first mate, but two unfamiliar men in dark purple uniforms.

"What's going on?" I asked through the outside intercom, even though I had a good guess.

"Athens Altar security, ma'am. We are in pursuit of a fugitive from the law, and we have reason to believe he might have stowed away aboard this ship."

Oh, yeah RIGHT. But what could I do about this? Mal and Zoe *would* be getting back soon, and I wasn't sure that they would be on the bounce enough to deal with these guys themselves. And the only things that I could think of as possible weapons or traps to use against them were here inside the ship. Let them in? But if I didn't do something else SOON, they'd be trying to force their way in...

There was a faint zinging sound, and I realized that both of the men on the monitor were reacting to something else. One of them had blood tricking from his head, but it appeared to be only a glancing shot. A flesh wound in the head from a rifle? Well, I suppose that anything was possible. Felt a little guilty about relaxing somewhat. Someone else was dealing with them. I just hoped that it was Mal and Zoe, not Richoc.

It was. The other guard was shot much more seriously, and I opened the door just when Mal signalled me so that the two of them could slip in with the little box that presumably held a single grain of Dubnium. I didn't even think to ask either of them before calling out, "They're on board, Wash! Hit it!!" The door hadn't closed before we rose into the air, and the surviving Athens guard shot through into the cargo bay, but he didn't hit anybody, and we flew away.

"Well, not too bad an escapade," Mal muttered, and I realized that he was bleeding a little again - not a gunshot this time, but a slice on his jaw like he'd been slashed with a pocket knife. Zoe was limping and holding one hand to her body near the waist.

"You're both hurt," I pointed out. "Should we land somewhere to get you patched up, like before?"

"Not a chance," Mal said. "Neither of us are too bad, and there'll be someone following before too long. Speaking of..."

"Yeah, boss," Wash's voice came from a nearby grille, and I realized that maybe I hadn't even had to shout for him. "We've already got a little Spirene class cruiser lifting off from the field - might just be going our way, or she might have something to say to - well, to all of us I guess. And there's a few Alliance boys up in higher orbit that I don't like the look of."

"You can get us through, Wash?" Zoe asked, confidently.

"You hired yourself the best pilot on this side of the 'Verse, darling. I am a leaf on the wind, watch how I soar."

"Whatever that means," Mal grumbled.

"But... but we can't have them following us the whole way," I muttered. "And we can't outrun them, if it comes to that, can we?"

"Not to worry, Kaylee," Wash replied. "Once we're well out of orbit, I'll head off on a different course, and we'll go down to minimum power. It'll be hard enough for them to calculate just what our heading is and trace it over a few hours. Then we do a few adjustment burns - they won't spot us from the energy we use, and we slide over to a trajectory that they won't be looking for us on."

"Great," Mal said, smiling weakly.

"Shiny," I agreed. "Come on, Zoe - let's get you to the infirmary. Just how bad is that hit below your stomach?"

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In an hour, it was pretty clear that we were all going to be okay, though I still didn't like the idea of Mal and Zoe getting into such dangerous situations without a better medic aboard. Zoe was the best of us, on account of having advanced army first aid training, but there was only so far her experience could go when she was the one who'd been shot.

But we'd patched her up, and I'd sewn Mal up following her directions, and Wash had reported in that he didn't see anyone following us.

"What about someone using the same tricks as us?" I asked, when I came up to visit him in the cockpit. "Powering down, trying to stay hidden?"

"But why would they hide if they're the ones chasing us?" Wash asked, but after only a moment the obvious answer occured to him. "Because as long as we can see them on our tail, we'll keep making evasive maneuvers, and one of them may actually let us lose ourselves. If we don't realize... well, I'll keep pulling a few little surprises anyway."

"Sounds good," I said, smiling. "Listen, I... I'm going to tell Mal and Zoe this too - there was another guy having lunch with Barret when I found him - asking questions and so on. I think that he might have been the one who tried to snatch the prize - and who cut on Mal." He'd already confirmed that he'd gotten the knife wound from the 'mysterious dark stranger.' "I should have said something about that before, huh?"

"Maybe," Wash said. "Not sure if it makes a big difference."

Mal confirmed the idea that my latest evasion had been negligible, though he did insist that I should tell him anything I knew that could be important for a job, and that he'd think of something I could do if he was being too stubborn to listen. I still didn't bring up Inara or her involvement to any of them, for what reasons I couldn't say.

"Okay, so where are we off to next?" I asked. "Anywhere exciting?"

"Ezra is always a rush through the veins," Mal muttered. "Just hope that the little tyrant running the landing control station has mellowed out a bit - or that you've found a regulation in the manual text that'll help us out, Wash."

"No, not yet, though we'll probably find something," Wash said, not sounding too eager or certain.

"Landing regulations?" I asked, uncertain.

"A lot of places try to deny suspected lowlifes and smugglers out of their ports," Mal explained with a grin. "But the Alliance being what it is, they generally can't just say 'Oh, I don't like your haircut Mal' and deny the clearance. They have to publish the rules that they use to make the distinctions, and so if we can find a loophole in the rules we can get down - until they close the loop, that is." He sighed. "What I'd give for some qualification that would let us go anywhere at all, no matter what they tried - a regulation that they couldn't change."

"Oh, you know the only one of those that I've ever found," Wash shot back. "You just don't want to go through with it."

"I *can't* use that trick just for wanting it," Mal shot back, though he sounded a bit pleased over the fact.

"Wait a second, what am I missing?" I asked. "What's the trick?"

"Companion passenger," Wash explained. "Companion's guild has huge pull over the whole 'verse, and they DON'T like not being able to make their appointments. So just about anywhere, if there's a Companion aboard, you'll be able to land no matter what the other regulations say."

"Even if she doesn't have an appointment?" I asked.

Wash nodded. "I don't think I've seen one that limits the kind of business a Companion might need to have on their world - it's blanket privilege."

"But by the same token, what Companion would ever book extended passage on a ship like this?" Mal asked uncertainly.

"You could rent out that shuttle to a one, maybe," I suggested. "Would that count for the regulations? Then she'd have a bit of her own mobility as well as transport between far worlds."

"Maybe, yeah," Wash said. "I'm not sure how subleasing short-range shuttles is generally treated - we've never had a renter."

"Still would never happen," Mal insisted, but he sounded a bit less definite than before. Of course, it probably wouldn't ever come to anything. I had no idea where Inara was headed, and even if we did meet up again, she'd probably know that I'd swiped her data pen. Maybe she'd even clue in that I knew the people who had beaten Richoc to the Dubnium. Or maybe if that was just a business deal for her, she wouldn't hold it against me. Did she get bonus pay for a successful theft?

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Given how energetic and vigorous she usually was, it shouldn't have surprised me so much that Zoe bounced back pretty quickly from the two bullet holes that she'd taken from Paquin guards. As we sped off silently through the black towards our next destination, the lights were usually dim or off and all ship's systems were kept to minimal use, so as to make us as faint a target as possible for anybody coming space for us. The whole business was no end of creepy.

I did notice a definite shift in Zoe's attitude towards Wash during this time, a marked improvement from the sort of weary disdain she'd treated him with around the time that I first signed on. Maybe Wash's performance during the heist, even if he'd been back at the contact's house instead of out in the field of real danger, had impressed her somewhat. And Wash could definitely sense the thaw too, and was enjoying it probably a bit out of proportion. Took me a while to figure out that one, and then it came together - Wash was sweet on Zoe, had been for a while, and even the cheerfulness I'd know before had been him bearing up silently under the weight of her obvious, silent disapproval.

I wondered what would happen next between the two of them, but felt it was definitely best not to meddle this time. Read some; Mal had quite a collection of old fantasy softbacks and graphic novels - Fracas, Angel of the night, Z warriors and that kind of thing. (Wished that I'd managed to get Firefly transport manuals in printed form, so that I could pore over them while the Cortex was offline.)

And of course, there were more games with the rest of the crew, double-up, and chore poker, (for there were ALWAYS chores to take care of on a ship like anywhere else, and gambling them seemed to make the necessity more fun.) But still, there were times that the others weren't available - with Wash carefully watching Serenity's controls, Mal and Zoe together discussing their strategy for meeting the client or buyter, (I wasn't quite clear on which, or if they were two different people,) once we got to where we were going. As I prowled through the dim or unlit corridors, I started to wish that there was someone my own age, (or younger,) who I could have fun with. As juvenile as it sounded, Serenity could be a great setting for hide and seek.

On the fourth day out from Paquin, we had our closest scare. Not from any ship that could possibly have been following us, but an Alliance patrol destroyer that might have gotten the warning to search for a ship of thieves on their way from Paquin to Ezra. Wash had me cut all of the ship's power, including the life support and the lights, and Zoe came to fetch me up to the cockpit with a little battery-powered flash so that I could see what was going on, and be with the others as they watched.

"How close are we going to come, Wash?" Mal asked after about a moment.

Wash actually drew a few diagrams and did some figuring on a slider stick. "I make it something like twenty miles."

"That doesn't sound so bad," I muttered, but then wondered if I sounded like a naive landlubber. Distances were different in space, and if...

"It's not horrible," Zoe muttered. "Not like there's any danger of bumping into them, or of someone looking out a porthole and spotting us I think. But we'll be showing up on their radar clear enough, and just strongly enough that somebody might get suspicious. Radar won't say for sure that we're not a lump of rock whizzing its way by, but if they care enough to try training a telescope on the co-ordinates that the radar reports, they'd probably see that our shape is too regular, that we have to be a man-made object."

"Uh-oh," I muttered.

"The better news," Wash put in, "is that we happen to more or less fit in with a loosely spread cluster of fairly reflective, metal-ore asteroids that are big enough to be ships of one sort or another. I know this, because I was bored enough to check most of them to be sure that they weren't really ships following us."

"Wait a second," Mal put in. "We don't have our radar on, so how did YOU find these rocks?"

"Mostly echoes off other people's radar, including the Alliance ship before I realized what it was," Wash said. "The point is, I don't expect that even an Alliance crew will keep checking each and every radar signal when most of them are natural objects."

"No," Zoe said a little uncertainly. "Not unless they REALLY wanted us... which I don't think they would, just for the Dubnium."

"Still, we need to be ready to take an evasive if on the off chance we do get spotted," Mal said. "Which suggests that somebody should be back in the engine room."

"I'll do it," I said. "My job. You can just holler to turn it on if need be."

"You don't have to be back there all alone," Mal said. "Now that I know what the score is, no reason I need to stay here all alone."

"You'd keep me company?" I said, charmed at the gesture. After a few quick words to Zoe, he took the light and offered it to me.

"So, umm..." I wanted to ask the captain something about himself, but wasn't sure what. All I knew about his past was a bit about the war, and somehow I didn't feel brave enough to ask about that. "Where did you grow up, yourself?"

"Shadow," he said simply enough. "Momma and my uncle owned a cattle ranch."

"Ohh." Shadow had been destroyed in the war, I had heard that. It was the only inhabited world that had ever been devastated so much. Nobody could live there now. Had Mal Reynolds already been off fighting in some other battle when his homeland had been blasted, or had he lived through those times, been evacuated by some other Independent world, and joined up for the army in search of payback?

"Don't feel so bad for bringing it up," Mal said, but he didn't volunteer anything else or tell me that I could ask further. "What about you, what's your family like, Kaylee? Do you miss them much?"

"Not as much as you'd think," I replied truly, because more and more I was starting to feel that he, Zoe, and Wash were just as much family to me as the ones who I had grown up with. "Let's see... Mama's a sweet lady, but stern too. You'd like her, maybe..."

TO BE CONTINUED...