Author's Note: Thank you to everyone who stuck with our brave crew through a grim Chapter 5. Things are about to start looking up, I promise. Scroll-over titles added for those who want to see Chinese translations and Shakespeare references! Reviews and constructive criticism are truly appreciated.

Mal was ready to tear someone apart. Preferably bare-handed. Preferably that dog-humping lunatic Callum. But his fuse, never very long in any case, had just about reached the powder keg and he was feeling mighty unparticular at that moment.

Several hours had passed since Callum's za jiao wave. They'd searched the bar, searched the town, then returned to trash the bar good and proper. Jayne had threatened the proprietor with everything from Ginnylee, the jaunty little switchblade, to Vera, the meanest son-of-a-bitch gun known to mankind. But the woman swore on the eyes of her children (whom Jayne had also helpfully brought into the 'conversation') that she had no idea who'd kidnapped Zoe and the others, nor where they'd gone.

"Here," she cried desperately, tossing a sack of coins towards Mal. "Take the money. That's everything they paid me and all else I got besides." She threw up her hands defensively. "Don't know no more. Can't tell what I don't know. Take the money. Take my gal!" she gushed hysterically, grabbing her oldest, who was maybe 15, by the shoulders and giving her a shove in Mal's direction. "T' replace your women. She can do for you like whatever they done."

Jayne leered approvingly at the shivering slip of a girl, and turned a hopeful eye towards Mal. But Mal's scowl only deepened in disgust. There must be a special hell for mothers like this. He grabbed the money and stalked off.

"C'mon, Jayne. Ain't no more t' be done here," he called over his shoulder. "And leave the girl!"

Clearly disappointed, but not particularly surprised, Jayne obeyed. Mal was a man just didn't know how to enjoy the good things life threw his way.

"Where to?"

"Don't know," replied Mal. "Callum said we were going back to Serenity Valley, but I don't reckon he'd actually want to go back to that wasteland any more'n anyone else who came out alive. No," Mal continued, scanning the horizon. "They're somewhere nearby, I can feel it."

As he looked in the distance he saw, on the edge of town, a mule headed straight for them. When he realized who was behind the wheel, his wrath was all-consuming. Mere death wasn't good enough for Callum. Mal didn't believe in God, but he was drinking buddies with the devil. Between the two of them, they'd think of something better.

"So why's this ol' Alliance colonel so hell-bent against ya he'd lie 'bout killin' Wash and torturin' Kaylee an' all the rest'a that go-se dway?" Jayne shouted above the roar of the wind.

Mal was a taut string ready to snap. It had taken Kaylee about three hours to find her way back to town, and they'd need at least two more to reach the abandoned hospital, even with Mal tearing up the dirt like it had done him personal offense.

Kaylee turned her eyes towards him as well, timid but curious. "He said you 'n Zoe was war criminals." And much to Mal's consternation, he saw his mei mei, the most trusting soul in the 'verse, looking a little afraid of him. You're gonna burn for this, Callum.

Mal frowned, angry at the question, even angrier at them for asking it. "He was at Serenity Valley. Whole unit died and he was crippled. Blames me, an' I guess blames Zoe, too." Yeah, thought Mal. That'll do for explanations. Jayne didn't really care one way nor t'other, and Kaylee… Well, that'll do for now.

"Okay, Wash, my bright-eyed boy. What would our handsome hero do next?"

The asylum was huge, and it had taken a while to get oriented. The kitchen turned out to be located on the far side of a long, rectangular building. Wash wandered cautiously, first through the dining hall, then a series of day rooms, operating theaters and nurses' stations, before finding his way to the building's main entrance at the other end. "A great place for ghosts," he thought, more than once.

Like with most people, hospitals made Wash nervous. And that was just places for regular sick people, and old folks who smelled funny. But it became apparent once he found the cell blocks that this place had been designed for the not-altogether-all-together crowd, wards for everyone from the mildly cuckoo to the violently insane. Guard posts at each end of every corridor. Didn't matter that it had all clearly been abandoned for some time. Wash's ample imagination filled in unscrupulous doctors, heartless orderlies, kindly but powerless nurses, ungrateful nephews committing poor Aunt Agatha for the inheritance. And every abused patient became Zoe, and every sinister villain embodied the voice he'd heard in the cellar.

Moving to the second floor of the building, he stopped abruptly on the landing and ducked down low. Voices up ahead along the corridor. Two? Three? And the bastards were laughing!

So,

- Step one: Reconnoiter evil lair. Check.

- Step two: Locate bad guys. Done.

- Step three: Kick the shit out of aforementioned bad guys. Yeah, that'll be the day!

So,

- Step three: Lure bad guys away from damsel in distress.

Hmm.... The place was built to keep people in, right? So they'd have perimeter alerts for if someone tried to escape. More Kaylee's area of expertise, but he might be able to set them off from here, presuming all the guard posts were linked to the central alarm system. It'd be an older system, judging by the age of the building, which was good, 'cause that wiring was actually easier to navigate. At least for Wash, who'd rarely had the luxury of working with the latest model of, well, pretty much anything.

He winced a bit as he glanced up at the intense fluorescent lights. For sure the building still had power. Hopefully the rest of the facility did, too. Just had to plot a flight plan from the landing to the nearest guard post, and hope none of the planets, er, people changed their orbit suddenly.

Zoe was lying on the ground. It was nighttime and hard to make out shapes. She could hear Callum's voice, floating somewhere not far off. "…begged you … murder… pinned … too late..."

Late. Yes, it was getting late, and she was so tired. Everything ached, and it was so, so cold here. It was always cold at night in Serenity Valley. Four days now, four days since the cease fire. No medicine, no supplies, barely any water and nothing edible to speak of. The smell of blood and death everywhere. And they weren't coming, neither the reinforcements nor the medships. Her turn to guard the POWs. Callum talking, making his gorram arrogant Alliance demands. He wanted to see the Sergeant.

She…she should say no. Won't do no good. Mal's lost near 120 grunts since the cease fire, won't be in no mood to humor some piece of Alliance luh-suh about twelve more. Ten more, she corrected herself. Two had died that morning. But she felt sorry for them, down there in that pit. Wrong way for a soldier - for a human being - to die. Helplessly, by inches.

And suddenly terror gripped her. She was the one in the pit. Alone. And it kept getting bigger and deeper, and she couldn't move at all. The blackness was swallowing her whole. The stench, overwhelming. And no one was coming.

Gonna die here. The certainty of it broke her heart, but she knew she had to be brave, had to stay strong. Mal had never seen her less than brave, and he was counting on her....

Far off, she heard sirens blaring. Incoming! Brace for impact.

End Chapter 5.