Mal would like it to be known that this time the job going south was not his fault. He'd been hired to smuggle five women and their protector off a restricted Rim planet. Nobody had said anything about outrunning war parties or wide-eyed, feng le maniacs with shotguns. Or letting any said feng le maniacs onto the ship. In the end it had come down to two choices: take off with the maniac on board or have his ship torn apart by some jumped up warlord.
Now one of the women they'd been hired to smuggle out was in the infirmary while Simon worked frantically to remove the two bullets she'd taken to the torso before she bled out, River was flying the ship, and Mal and his client were staring down the barrel of the feng le maniac's shotgun. The maniac was at least four inches shorter than Mal, stocky, dirty, and had a gorram metal muzzle on his face with a length of broken chain trailing down his back. He looked feral. He also seemed completely unconcerned by the fact that both Zoe and Jayne had guns trained on him. Their client, a steely woman with a mechanical arm who had introduced herself as Furiosa, was standing between the madman and the four uninjured women in her care. Her eyes were sharp, like she was searching for the smallest opening to make her move. It was a standoff, and Mal had the distinct and unpleasant feeling that he was about to get shot again.
"They're not here." Mal wasn't sure if he felt more like groaning or rejoicing at the lilting sound of River's voice. Apparently she wasn't flying the ship anymore, which hopefully meant that they were a safe distance into the black. Out of the corner of his eye, Mal caught sight of her as she drifted across the cargo hold on silent feet. "There's no blue in Serenity's heart – only brown." For the first time, the maniac's grip on his gun shivered ever so slightly and then steadied again.
"Stay," River abruptly ordered, pointing an accusing finger at Furiosa without glancing in her direction. A hint of shock flickered across the woman's face, and she shifted her weight almost imperceptibly back on her feet. River was still weaving her way slowly towards the maniac. "Not going to take you back." The maniac growled at her and took a half step back, his shoulders pressing into a stack of crates. "No more red thieves." She paused and tilted her head to one side. Then she turned to an empty patch of air to the maniac's left and snapped, "Be quiet!" This time the maniac's eyes didn't just widen in shock – the barrel of his gun drooped several inches. River turned back to him and nodded. "Yes. About ten years after you." The gun drooped further still. "No more hands of blue. No more red thieves." River was only a few feet away from him now. She stopped. Tilted her head again as if listening. "Don't have to run anymore." She leaned forward, her voice soft as a whisper, yet seeming to reach every corner of the hold, "Put down the gun, Max."
The gun clattered to the ground.
A/N: Thanks for reading! Originally I found myself wondering, "Wouldn't it be interesting if Mad Max and Firefly were in the same universe? After all, in Firefly 'the Earth got used up.' Maybe Max and the others are some of the people who got left behind on 'Earth-That-Was.'" And somehow that idea turned into this instead. I might write another chapter or two of this story - we'll see.