Mal stood on a bustling city street with Jayne and Wash, watching the shuttle dissapear in the distance. He pulled out a sheaf of papers, handing sets to Wash and Jayne. They took the ID badges accompanying them and clipped them to their jumpsuits before walking into a large hangar with "Veritas Armoured Transport" emblazoned in red letters over the entrance.

"New to the route?" asked the woman sitting behind a pane of bulletproof glass in the reception area, scanning their paperwork.

"Hope not," grunted Jayne, looking around him in disgust.

"Pullin' overtime," explained Mal. "Cody here's a little disgruntled 'cause he's missin' the games."

The woman behind the desk passed their papers back to them along with an access badge and buzzed open the door to the hangar. They entered and quickly made their way to a small armoured transport ship near the back of the building. Wash passed the badge over the door of the ship and led the others inside, sitting down at the helm. He took a moment to study the controls; the ship was modern and fully equipped with functions Serenity could only dream of.

Jayne peered over his shoulder and pointed at a small joystick. "Them's lasers?" he asked.

Wash sighed. "Yes, Jayne, they're lasers. And if you leave them alone, Mal will let you shoot them at something once we're done with the job."

"No he won't!" protested Mal from the back seat. "He won't be payin' you, either, unless we get going and finish this."

Wash eased the ship into the air, carefully piloting her out of the hangar and into a free traffic path above the city. The fifteen-minute journey passed silently, with Wash concentrating intently and Jayne surveying the ship's more lethal functions with fascination. When they reached their destination, Wash eased the ship down to a docking port on the roof of a large warehouse. He pressed a comm button on the helm of the ship. "Veritas Armoured pickup," he announced.

"Copy that, transmit your identification," a voice replied. All three of them held their identification badges up to a scanner mounted to a camera above the front window of the ship, and a minute later they heard a rumbling beneath them and a green light began flashing on the helm. Wash hit a small button marked "Pickup bay open/close," and a door in the belly of the ship slid open. A wheeled pallet loaded with large crates was raised into the ship on a hydraulic lift, and Mal and Jayne grabbed the sides of it and dragged it onto the floor.

Wash hit the botton again and the door closed. He waited as Mal and Jayne strapped down their new cargo, then steered the ship back into the air with a sigh of relief. "Whee-ow. Mal, did I ever tell you I sprout grey hairs every time I get involved in one of your little missions?"

"Not like anyone's gonna notice," Mal retorted.

"Take it easy on the pilot, now." Wash considered for a split second and then gave into temptation, banking the ship suddenly to the right, throwing the pair behind them from their seats.

"Gwai-gwai long duh dong, Wash, keep your mind on the gorram job!" Mal bellowed, the authority in his voice somewhat contradicted by the fact that he was upside down on the floor, dangling by one foot caught in the seatbelt he should have been wearing. Jayne scrampled to his feet and helped free Mal, and the two of them sat back in their seats, surruptitiously buckling their restraints.

They flew for just under thirty minutes before landing in a large patch of hardened dirt in the far corner of a vast junkyard on the outskirts of the city. Wash lowered the rear door of the ship, and the three men shoved the pallet out onto the ground. Together, they loaded the crate into the back of a barely functional van and Wash drove them rapidly away from the junkyard.

"Uh...Mal?" said Jayne a couple of minutes into the journey.

"What?"

"Is that roadblock with the really big guns up there part of your plan?"

Mal leaned forward and peered out the window, confirming Jayne's observation. "Not - entirely."

Wash glanced at Mal, trying to keep the fear from his face. "What do you say we turn around and run away really fast?"

Mal nodded, but as Wash began to spin the wheel, they heard a loud explosion behind them and looked back to see police vehicles closing in from all sides. Wash stopped the van and looked back. "Mal?" he asked quietly, his face pale.

"We got no chance, Wash," Mal said, placing his hand gently on Wash's shoulder to steady him. "Jayne, guns down."