Inara tapped her foot impatiently as she waited for Mal and Jayne to shed their sewage-covered bio suits. "I'm guessing Dusty's man on the inside failed to mention the heavy security around the Star," she smirked.

"Reckon you're right on that," Mal agreed. "What are we up against?"

"Keycard locks, a very burly security guard, and a tri-combination safe," Inara informed him. "But since I have this," she smiled pulling a keycard from her cleavage, "your first hurdle will be pie."

"Security guard oughta be just as easy," Jayne put in. "Don't care how big he is, Mindy'll take him down the same as she would anyone else." He patted the gun concealed under his arm.

"So we're left with the combination locks," Mal frowned. "Jayne an' me ain't neither one of us got a head for numbers. We're humped."

"Not so," Inara said, smiling wider. "I had Wash hack into the power grid. On my signal, he's going to cause a surge, which will short out the locks and cause an outage. While Philips and his guests are distracted, you two make a clean getaway. Well, not very clean," she said, wrinkling her nose.

"Ain't Philips gonna notice yer gone?" Jayne asked.

"He thinks I'm in the powder room, though I imagine he'll be concerned for my welfare fairly soon. I'll head back now. You've got fifteen minutes to get to the safe before I buzz Wash, and then probably five to ten minutes before power is restored. And Mal?"

"Yeah?"

"Be careful."

~*~

"You were rather a long time in the ladies'," Philips commented between dances. "I was beginning to fear you'd fallen in."

How charming. "I'm afraid I'm not feeling terribly well," Inara lied, placing a hand on her stomach and willing herself to look pale, or at least green around the gills. "I may have to excuse myself and return to my shuttle. Alone," she added. "Your credits will of course be refunded in full, with my sincerest apologies."

"Certainly not," he said, looking quite disappointed. "I wouldn't hear of it. Perhaps another time?" he asked, hopefully.

"Of course," she fibbed, glancing at the grandfather clock behind him. She pressed the button cleverly concealed on the back of her ruby pendant, and the ballroom lights brightened, nearly blinding her, before darkness fell over the party-goers. Hurry, she thought. Please, god, let them be safe.

The ballroom was abuzz with the din of Philips' confused and frightened guests. "Inara, dear," Philips asked from somewhere off to his left. "Are you quite all right?"

"Certainly," she replied.

"Stay right where you are; I must see to the power failure. I'll return presently."

~*~

"Cao ni zu zong shi ba dai!" Jayne cursed, collapsing against the wall, holding his stomach to staunch the bleeding. The guard didn't reply, as Mal had put a neat little hole right between his eyes.

"Let's get this thing, and go," Mal said, opening the safe, and tucking the nearly-95 carat diamond into his pocket. "Can you walk?"

"I can gorram try," Jayne groaned, "but I ain't makin' no promises." His legs crumpled under his weight almost instantly, and he was out cold.

"Jayne!" Mal hissed, shaking him."Je shr shuh muh lan dong shi?" he spat, turning Jayne and grabbing his ankles. "This is gonna leave a trail leadin' right to us. And you weigh a gorram ton!" The comm unit in his pocket crackled to life.

"Mal," Wash said. "There's a service elevator three doors down on the left that should get you safely to the laundry room."

"Elevator ain't gonna work with no power," Mal said, blinking as the lights flickered and then stayed on. "Oh."

"You gotta hurry," Wash told him.

Mal grimaced. "Jayne's hit, I can't barely haul him."

"Ta ma de," Wash swore. "I'll meet you outside the back exit with shuttle two, but you really have to move."

"Bring the doc," Mal advised. "It don't look good."

~*~

"Somethin' go wrong?" Kaylee asked, watching Simon throw supplies into his bag.

"Jayne's been gut-shot," Simon said tersely. "I don't even know if I'll get to him in time."

"She begged him not to go!" River wailed. "Begged, pleaded, down on her knees, but he was still so angry!"

"Mei-mei, what's goin' on, sweetie?" Kaylee asked her, gently. She did her best to mask her own fear.

"Please," River begged Simon. "Please, you have to fix it! You have to put the pieces together, or the whole will be lost, and the girl will lose herself!"

"I will," he promised. "I'm not sure why you're so concerned, but I'll do everything I can for him." He took off for shuttle two at a run.

"River," Kaylee said softly. "There somthin' you wanna tell me?"

"He's the only one who understands her," River cried. "She's lost without him to put her back together, and she - I - I can feel him fading, and I can't stop it, can't fix him, can't save him!" She fell to her knees, and Kaylee knelt before her and took the younger woman into her arms.

"It'll be okay, sweetie," she soothed. "Simon's gonna make it better."

~*~

"Can't this thing go any faster?" Simon asked impatiently.

"Yes," Wash said sarcastically. "Unless you want to survive the trip."

"Fine, sorry," Simon muttered. "It's just that a stomach wound -"

"I know," Wash interrupted, willing the younger man to just shut up already and let him drive in peace. "Remember how you walked me through patching up your gut wound? I get the cruciality." He looked over and laughed out loud when he realized Simon was pouting. "What's your problem?"

"River," Simon answered. "I don't know what's gotten into her."

Wash resisted the base urge to make a crude comment. "Oh? Why?"

"She was begging me to save Jayne. She was in tears! She didn't cry when I got shot."

"No, she just went ape and killed two hundred plus Reavers."

"Since when does she care so much about a man who tried to turn us in to the feds?" Simon crossed his arms. "I've half a mind to let him die, only I promised River I'd do everything I could for him."

"And then there's that pesky Hippocratic Oath," Wash reminded him. "Okay, we're there. You wait here, I'll help Mal get him out and load him up."

"I'll set up for triage."

"Yeah. What you said."

Wash found Mal and Jayne fairly easily; their bloodstained clothes stood out among the starched white linen scheme of the laundry room. Mal had Jayne by the ankles. "Grab the other end," he grunted to Wash, who slid his hands under Jayne's arms.

"Christ, he weighs a ton!"

"Preachin' to the converted, Wash," Mal snorted. "Let's get this show on the road."

"The bullet went straight through," Simon told him. "But his blood pressure's dropping and his pulse is going crazy. He's going into hypovolemic shock."

"Captain dummy talk, doc," Mal reminded him.

"He's lost too much blood. He needs an immediate transfusion."

Mal nodded, already rolling up a sleeve.

"No," Simon said, stopping him. "It has to be me. We're both B negative. You're O positive"

The Mandarin: Cao ni zu zong shi ba dai! - F*** the 18 generations of your ancestors! Je shr shuh muh lan dong shi? - What kind of rotten thing is this? Mei-mei - sister