A/N: I want to take a moment and thank everyone who read this. Due to the fact that I apparently posted it just as the bots went down, it was days before I could see if anyone was looking at it. Needless to say it was a little nerve wracking.

I want to especially thank the two who reviewed; ryebread, whom I know from the Kim Possible thread and RionaErie with whom I have started a very enjoyable correspondence. Other reviews are welcome of course including ones that have constructive criticism. Believe me when I say that I got several of those when getting started on the KP thread, I paid grave attention to them, and I like to think that they definitely improved the product.

So here we go again, I hope it meets your approval.

Chapter Two – Discovery

Qing Long was at its zenith when they reached the wreck, its heat coming in hard through the comparatively thin atmosphere of the moon. Added to the discomfort of the planets climate was the smoke and stench from both the charred wreak and burned scrub. It was probably fortunate that New Omaha was an arid world for the desert plants of its surface had resisted spreading the flames of the wreck beyond where the flammable contents from the ship itself had come to rest. What had burned among the scrub died out fairly quickly as long as it wasn't in contact with hot parts and debris from the wreck itself. What remained smoldered with almost perpetual determination.

Mal, Kaylee and Simon stood in a tight group together, all of them wrinkling their noses at the all too telling odors coming from the smoldering wreckage as Jayne turned the mule around to go back to the boat for Zoe and Book. Mal and Kaylee eyed where they would start looking while Simon once again contemplated his own feelings about being 'in thick with thieves'. He knew that there was absolutely no chance for any of the small ship's crew to be alive so his presence at the site wasn't really necessary. But he told himself that there was enough of a possibility that someone from Serenity might get hurt while they stripped this charred corpse of a ship. Inside he knew that it was his worry for Kaylee, who would be right in the middle of the attempt that had caused him to come along . . . and it was her small smiles and sidelong glances in his direction that told him that she knew it. That was good enough for him.

When everyone was set, they made ready to go in among the wreckage. Kaylee, swallowing against the nausea that crept around the back of her throat despite the breathing mask; which along with thick gloves, a heavy leather welding apron, knee pads and hair wrapped in a wet towel, all of which was meant to protect her from the hazmat of fried plastics/circuits and boiled hydraulics, had to crawl into the collapsed rear area of the forward section of the hull (the largest remaining single surviving intact piece) in an attempt to salvage anything useful.

She had to take great care while doing so. When one combined the heat of the desert day put against the situation inside of the wreck with its places of intense heat from various overloaded/destroyed components, there was the very real possibility of calamity for anyone venturing inside as the 'heat from the desert' could mask the 'heat from overloaded/destroyed components'. Under such circumstances, Kaylee could come too close to something really hot and damaging without realizing it until too late, risking a debilitating burn. There was also the problem with the crushed/ripped/mangled structure of the ship itself which was why Kaylee was being watched by both Jayne and Simon as well as being tied to a recovery tether. The Merc and the Doctor were squatted down in front of the hole in the hull she had disappeared into listening as her 'spotters' should she encounter trouble.

At the same time, Zoe and Shepherd Book worked 'forward' together from where Jayne and Simon waited at the rear of the forward section of the wreck. Like Kaylee and her spotters, they were using oxygen against the stench. Neither one of them had much hope of finding anything useful but there was always hope that; as far as Zoe was concerned, maybe they would find the Captain's money chest or something similar that could have survived and for the Shepherd, there might be the remains of one of the crew over which he could say what needed to be said.

Mal was trolling back through the debris field looking for intact, untwisted/burned metal or parts that they could resell for scrap. He had little hope of finding too much that wasn't distorted beyond recognition considering the way they had seen the thing bounce but it was something that had to be checked.

He knew that he was also looking for 'something else'. He personally would have preferred going through the forward section of the wreck himself but he was too big and Kaylee was smaller. But he knew that the Engineer would be focused on . . . engineers stuff. He was looking for clues, an idea, an explanation as for what and why.

He knew that there wasn't much time, that he was pushing his luck more than a man had a right to ask.

Mal wanted the search done within two hours. Before coming out to the wreck site, Kaylee had brought Serenity back to life in order for Wash to have full sensors to watch their backs and be ready to scramble if something 'unfortunate' showed up. Hopefully there would be enough time for them all to get back and Wash to get away without anybody shooting at anybody (meaning him and his ship).

Pushing his luck more than a man had a right to ask.

Mal had followed the debris trail back better than a mile finding only a dozen or so parts/scraps worth bringing the mule over in order for them to be dragged out of the dirt and from there back to the ship. It was actually more than he had expected but still far less than he had hoped. He'd marked them with the stakes that he had brought along and was trudging back toward the wreck with his eyes still on the ground before and to the sides of his path but with little hope of finding anything more than he already had.

About halfway back, he stopped to remove his canteen, his old Browncoat reflexes automatically scanning the country to either side of him as he did so. Far off to his left was the smoldering remains of what was probably some kind of generator. There had been several things of the like off to either side of the crash path but as he wasn't wearing any hazmat gear he was avoiding them. Glancing off to the other side—

Mal did a double take—

He then started off the path, working his way through the scrub. A tall thicket of that same scrub had blocked his view of what he had just seen when he had been originally working down the path and if he hadn't stopped where he had to drink, he doubted that he would have seen it through a break in the thicket as he returned up it.

It took all of a couple of dozen steps to confirm what he had first thought. The dented but mostly intact form of an escape pod was nestled in among the thicket of scrub. When Mal got close enough he hesitated. He had no way of knowing if the pods solid fuel rockets or explosive separation charges had gone off so there was a danger that one or all of those could become downright nasty at any time under any condition considering how they must have been mistreated.

But if the interior of the pod was intact, there would be things well worth salvaging

A half an hour later, he was back with Zoe, Book, Jayne and Simon, the five of them standing back a safe distance as Kaylee gingerly approached the thing. She was holding a portable diagnostic panel out in front of her as if she intended to fling it up to protect her face if things started to suddenly go. Mal had told her that he would handle the initial approach but she had insisted that as the Engineer, that was her job.

Kaylee had come up to the pod without any problems, carefully reaching out to plug a contact into the umbilical port, thankful for the fact that the pod had come to rest with the port facing upward and accessible rather than pointing down into the ground or something. That accomplished, she went down on her knees, using her proximity to the body of the pod as protection as she quickly ran a scan through her panel. A frown visible to all came over her face.

"What is it?" Mal called.

"The charges and motors were all disabled before the pod was thrown clear of the ship," Kaylee yelled back, the wonder as why anyone would do such a thing plain in her voice. "What could they have been thinking? No one would have been able to use this pod to escape in."

Mal, Zoe, and Jayne exchanged looks. They all knew that someone might have done such a thing if the pod was being used for storage of something that someone on the ship might have wanted hidden away, the ejection charges and escape motors being disabled to remove the chance of the pod being accidently launched off, all the hidden cargo aboard it going with it.

What kind of contraband might this pod contain?

Mal was already stepping over. "Is everything else safe with it?" he asked as he reached out to grab hand holds enabling him to start to clamber up onto it.

"Near as I can tell," Kaylee answered as she looked up at her Captain. "It doesn't appear as if any of the pods systems were activated or used other than the crash systems which worked automatically when the pod was thrown clear of the ship."

Mal nodded, Kaylee's answer being another indication in his mind that the pod was just being used for storage. Once he was on top (again it was fortunate that the pods hatch was pointed 'up' toward the sky), he started to work on the manual dogs to get the hatch open. "Let's just hope that there's somethin inside worth these guys' ship and lives," he muttered to himself as he worked the stubborn closures.

There was a 'shump', a blast of air pressure as the outside air rushed into the lower pressured pod as the hatch started to open on its manual springs. Mal stood up and back out of the way, hand resting on his gun by habit. He knew that the pod had to be empty if none of its systems were on line but survival habits died hard—

As the hatch came open, the end of it passing in front of his face, his eyes already starting to look at the inside as the daylight spilled into it—

Then he realized that the first thing he saw was a leg covered with blood.

"Whoa," came from his lips as he took an involuntary step back—

Which left him rocking atop of the pod as he almost lost his balance on its uneven surface.

"Captain?" came Zoe's voice in instant concern even as she and all of those with her started to move forward as one—

The hatch was all the way open now, Mal's eyes trying to make sense of what they were seeing—

But that took only a moment. All he could see what what appeared to be the bloody leg and what looked like a mass of long, flung about dark hair coming out from under a pile of thrown about bins and boxes so it took a moment for his brain to put the picture into a recognizable reference. The leg looked . . . female . . . but that was only an impression for in was partially surrounded by a torn bloody pants leg that had probably covered it prior to the crash.

There was blood on the hair as well.

The other thing that took Mal a moment to fathom—

After all, it had been a good fourteen hours since they had seen the ship shot down . . . in that time, the blood of anyone who had been injured during that time should have dried and turned dark—

Mal realized that now that the hatch was open and the pressures equal, he could smell the blood. The blood Mal was seeing was red and fresh . . . that meant that whoever was under all that jumbled stuff was still bleeding, that despite the crash and all the time that had passed and the desert heat in the sealed pod—

The person—the woman . . . was alive—

"Doctor," Mal barked without another thought.

Zoe and Book were there as well, helping the physician and his equipment up before they too clambered up. With their assistance, Simon and Mal were able to gingerly work their way down into the pod on each side of the figure. From there they started moving some of the refuse and wreckage covering the form aside.

Mal's thoughts in the meantime were racing around worse than a herd of wild stallions. He wanted to think that he was just interested in getting whoever this woman was aside so that he could look for whatever other contraband was hidden in the pod. He couldn't quite get his mind wrapped about why someone would be hidden in a powered down, off-line pod that was set up to prevent escape from the ship being pursued.

Unless—

Could the woman have been a passenger? Could it have been that she had climbed into the pod without knowing that it wasn't functioning? If that was the case, it was only by the luck of the greatest gambler that the pod she had sought refuge in had been flung aside during the crash . . . and the fact that she was still bleeding and somehow alive after all that and the time that had passed; Book might call such a thing a miracle but being that Mal didn't believe in such things, it only made his thoughts go that much more chaotic. Being that the Captain of the Serenity had a naturally nasty suspicious mind, the fact that he could not come up with any acceptable explanation for all the things that were wrong with the various trains of thought running through him only fueled the growing feeling within him that they just might be in over their heads.

Mal reached down, grabbing a long cargo carton that had covered most of the woman's body, starting to lever it up out of the way. As he did so, Simon, who was making impatient/ questioning motions with his hands even as he ducked under the carton that Mal was moving informed one and all, "the pods safety devices deployed as they were suppose too but with all this fie wu in here they couldn't do their job right. " He got his shoulder under part of the carton to help push it up. "Still, that's probably the reason why she's mostly intact but—" he pulled some other stuff away from her lower parts as Mal got the carton all the way clear.

"Her ankles are tied," Mal heard Simon grunt, now that the woman was mostly visible. Simon gently pulled at her as Mal handed out the carton . . . a moment passing by before the physician added, "her hands are tied . . . and their tied behind her back. This woman was a captive."

That . . . caused whatever Mal had been thinking went right out of the window as more urgent priorities came to the fore. All he managed to mutter was a heartfelt "gorram" as Simon worked to pull a good chunk of the hair up and away from the woman's body.

There was another large wound on the woman's forehead. It had been bleeding as all head wounds did so most of her face was concealed under a mask of blood. But with the majority of the debris cleared away, the fact that she was breathing could be clearly seen.

Which meant that Mal has to make a decision.

He did. He wasn't happy about it . . . but—

"Leave her be," Mal ordered Simon, suddenly coming upright and starting to reach up to pull himself out of the pod. "We've got to get movin."

"Wha—?" Simon managed to get out of his mouth.

"There's way too many things that a man can't figure out goin on right now," Mal told them all firmly as he got himself up to stand on the pod next to the hatch. He flicked his finger up at the sky, "there hasn't been a concentration of cruisers like what we've seen in these parts since the war. The fact that they're sitting dark like an ambush and a blockade, the fact that they've got smaller ships that have been patrollin this moon even though there's nothin here to patrol." He shook his head conveying his worry and inability to understand. "I know that I was the one to bring us over her but now I can see that we're askin for more trouble than a herd of sick cattle." He gestured at the bloody form. "I was thinkin that there might have been some of that stolen tech that we heard about in Silverhold or the mass of data that someone got away with from Sihnon. But a person, a captive . . . with that much Alliance muscle lookin for her—" He turned and reached for the carton that was still in Book's hands. "Let's put that back in Shepherd. Get up outta there Doctor. We're gonna pile everything back in like it was and close her up again. Try to make like we were never here."

"But that's crazy!" Simon exclaimed. "This woman is alive! We can't just leave her!"

"Oh yes we can," Mal shot back. "How am I gonna explain her if we get stopped tryin to get away from this moon. We can't put her in a suit and hide her outside on the hull like we can you and your sister Doctor. And if the Feds are lookin for someone, someone kidnapped, maybe from them, you know what'll happen if we get boarded? They'll search every corner and hole. I can't take that chance."

"Does that mean sir . . . " Zoe quietly put in, her eyes locked hard on her Captain, "that you intend to dump all our other . . . less that legal cargo as well?"

Mal's head jerked at her suggestion which allowed Zoe to press the statement home with, "I mean, if you think it's so likely that we're going to be stopped and boarded and searched . . . don't you think that we ought to take all the precautions that we can . . . sir."

Mal's mouth opened as his mental gears ground about trying to find another tack to take—

"Hey!" Jayne snapped from where he was standing on the ground next to Kaylee, "Mal's right. We don't need another passenger that could get us all in a fix. Finish checking inside for anything we can sell and let's get outta here." He glanced down next to him to see a glaring Kaylee burning her eyes into him. Jayne felt himself flush under her gaze and he mumbled, "well, we surein don't need another strange female on board do we . . . I don't want anyone tryin to cut me again."

Book had his eyes on Mal with the same hard intensity that Zoe did. But his tone was softer, more reasonable. "What you saying is wrong Captain . . . and you know it. We cannot abandon someone injured and incapable of helping themselves. Like it or not, she is now our responsibility."

"Not if I say she's not," Mal snapped back into the preachers face.

Simon clenched up his whole body. "That you should have thought of before you called me in here." He pointed down at the partially uncovered figure underneath him. "I don't have any idea why this woman is still alive considering how long she's been here, the conditions inside of the pod and how much blood she's lost . . . but she is! And now that I'm here, I'm not going to abandon her."

"Then you'll be here by yourself." Mal said in a quiet, stern tone. His first impulse was to remove the problem entirely by pulling his gun and shooting the figure—

The . . . bloody, helpless figure that he really didn't know was a friend, an enemy . . . or even a helpless hostage from something entirely different that the Alliance ship knew nothing about.

Then Mal felt a . . . retraining hand on his shoulder. He knew that feel all too well. So he didn't even bother to turn and look at Book. He did look at Zoe who was across from him—

And saw her eyes burning right back at him, silently telling him don't you dare.

Mal . . . wasn't happy in the least. He was the Captain. He was trying to think of all of their welfare as well. He looked down at Kaylee who was looking up at him—

With eyes as big around as saucers, eyes pleading for him not to do it.

"Ain't nothin good gonna come from this," he muttered as he moved to lower himself back down into the pod.

Mal was now downright angry . . . and even angrier about the fact that he couldn't really show just how angry he was.

Cause everything else going on at the moment was just too downright confusing for him.

He and Simon had managed to get the unknown woman uncovered. It had been hard to get an initial impression due to all the debris covering her plus all the blood, but they were finally able to tell that the woman had been dressed in some kind of dark overall/jumpsuit type thing somewhat similar to the ones Kaylee wore but of a fabric which Mal didn't recognize.

As they worked over the unconscious woman, it looked more and more to Mal as if she had just been thrown into the pod hogtied and left just as is for there was no sign that there had ever been an attempt to strap her in to one of the seats or otherwise restrain her body. A quantity of other objects, containers, and items had been thrown in with her. Mal and his people could guess from their own experiences running from hostile ships that the last hour of the woman's time inside the pod had been . . . less than pleasant. The frantic maneuvering which had ultimately ended in the ship being struck by fire from the cruiser and the subsequent crash would have been brutal aboard the ship. But for the woman, being that the pods systems had been intentionally shut down, it had been very likely that there had been no internal gravity compensation within the pod for all that violent maneuvering.

The end result was that the inside of the pod had turned into something very much like a shaker full of sharp glass. Once Simon had cut away the remaining parts of the woman's clothing, you could see that there wasn't a hands width of her body that didn't have some kind of cut, abrasion or bruise on it. Several of them were very deep but most were merely ugly. The bloody leg that Mal had initially seen was actually bleeding from a compound fracture in that leg, the jagged portion of the bone protruding out through the skin just below the knee had prevented the blood from completely coagulating over the period of time since the crash. The woman's lower torso also had an ugly twist to it. Simon ventured that the lower part of her legs had become at some point become caught on some interior part of the pod, holding them in place while the top part of her body thrashed about. Apparently her head had been wrapped in her own hair and therefore somewhat more protected but the wound on the forehead and the already visible swelling and bruising to the rest of her face showed that it hadn't been protection enough.

As they worked, Book remarked that the fact that the pod was so full of other 'stuff' may have been what had saved the woman. Even with the injuries received from all the sharp edges, the fact that the pod had been so completely clogged with all sorts of items might have actually reduced the amount the woman had been thrown around. Then when the pod was automatically blown free from the ship right before the actual impact with the desert floor, the crash systems deployed making the pod even more cramped. Book guessed that between the two circumstances, the woman had survived the unsurvivable.

Ultimately, Simon with help from all of them, got the woman splinted and immobilized, taking care of her back and neck of course. In doing so, they were all able to see through all the blood and bruising that she was a fair skinned woman, probably in her mid-thirties. She was big as in tall, probably as tall as Zoe was and wherever they felt her torso and limbs as they moved her about, things were rock solid like an athlete. Mal tired to ignore the fact that . . . she had a rather substantial chest, more than revealed through her shredded clothing. He cast his feeling back to his days as a Browncoat sergeant and how he dealt with wounded members of his unit who just happened to be female.

While he did that, Simon, as he worked on all the visible injuries and took precautions against all the possible invisible ones, also had to deal with all the hair. It was thick, dark brown shiny silky stuff where it wasn't clogged with blood or debris. It seemed to be almost as long as the woman was. Much of it had become tangled in debris and structure within the pod. Despite his obvious reluctance to do so, Simon ruthlessly cut away the trapped ends while working to free her.

Finally, they pulled the woman out on the stretcher that Jayne had run back to Serenity for. Jayne's face had . . . become exceedingly interested when he first saw her as Simon, Book and himself lifted her up, out and down even though Simon and Zoe had done their best to get the woman properly covered with a blanket.

They then headed back to the boat on the mule, Jayne driving with Mal and Simon perched on the trailer holding the stretcher. Upon reaching Serenity, Mal and Jayne carried the stretcher aft to the Infirmary. There Mal left Simon and with Jayne returned to the crash site. Book returned to the boat on the next load but the rest of them Mal drove hard back at the site for his was determined to try to make something out of the mess the situation had become by harvesting all of the scavenged parts, components, and metal that they had found just as quickly as they could.

Even as he knew that he was pushing their luck far, far beyond anything anyone had a right to expect.

They spent nearly three hours, the entire remainder of New Omaha's day in doing so. Dusk falling as Jayne drove the last load into the Cargo Bay. Mal hit the button to raise the ramp and close the Cargo Bay doors even as he directed Zoe to get the mule stowed and check to make sure that everything they had brought aboard was properly secured for space. He then told Wash and Kaylee via the intercom to be prepared for takeoff as soon as Zoe indicated the ship was ready.

It was then that with more than a certain amount of reluctance, he started up aft of the Cargo Bay through the hatch in toward the Infirmary.

Mal reached the level, stepping in and stopping.

Book, Inara and River were standing together in front of the closed infirmary doors. Book looked as if he was in deep prayer. Inara looked . . . stoic. River was staring with that piercing look she came up with at times, the tip of one finger was in her mouth being firmly bit. Taking this as an indication that things were not going well in the infirmary, Mal moved as quietly as he could to a point where he could see inside.

To see Simon, smeared with gore from head to toes, standing off next to the bed. In the bed was the woman—

Mal was glad that the soundproofed doors were closed. Mal's eyes clenched on the scene, once again not quite fathoming what it was that they were telling him. It looked as if Simon had placed a double set of restraints on the woman and even these she was pushing to their limits. Her whole body was in the throes of some of the most powerful seizures that Mal had ever seen. They surpassed his memories of those who were worked on by the field medics with no anesthesia. They even surpassed the withdrawal seizures that he had seen while in that hospital after his kidney wound where the only bed available for him had been in the addicts ward. The woman's body was convulsing so hard that blood was literally spitting from the few wounds that Simon had yet to bandage due to the massive muscle contractions.

At that moment, like a puppet with cut strings . . . the woman suddenly stopped flailing. Mal's eyes went to the monitor on the wall behind Simon—

Flatline. The woman was dead. Mal saw Simon move in on the body and start to quickly do things.

Mal knew that Simon had to do what he had to do. But for simplicities sake, he hoped that she was dead . . . something he felt with a sense of guilty relief. With the woman dead, they could dispose of the evidence and get away to safer space. He knew what he was thinking was for most folks wrong. But he had his ship and his people to worry about. And this woman could be nothing but trouble.

What he was trying not to think about . . . was that he was glad the woman was dead because no one should suffer the way she had to be with seizures of that kind.

Mal then noticed . . . Simon wasn't trying to kick start her heart like he had expected. Mal could see that at some point he had stuck a breathing tube down the woman's throat and her naked, bloody torso was covered with sensor pads but Simon was not initiating the heart starter. Simon was definitely doing something to her, Mal could see an IV (which looked as if it was triple taped in place) as well as traction casts on both legs/ankles . . . it appeared as if Simon was at this moment trying to get the woman properly bandaged but he wasn't trying to do a restart—

Then the monitor behind Simon which was in Mal's line of sight . . . the flatline suddenly kicked up . . . jumped. In moments a rhythm was reestablished—

Even as Simon jumped back out of the way for the seizures came back with renewed vengeance.

"What is going on?" Mal asked himself.

Apparently he said it loud enough for Inara to hear him. She gave him a very unkind look (which told Mal that someone had told Inara that he had fought against bringing the woman aboard . . . even if it was his ship) before saying, "her heart has been stopping on the order of every five to ten minutes." The Companion then looked back into the Infirmary saying with what sounded like a thankful voice, "which is an improvement for it when the seizures first started, her heart was stopping almost every other minute."

Inara took in a deep breath, then continued in that tight, challenging tone that Mal knew was directed at him even if Inara's eyes were elsewhere. "But the heart stoppages have never been longer than a minute. Which may or may not be a blessing. Her seizures are so violent that the only time Simon can do useful work on her is when she is . . . 'dead'." Now Inara's eyes came back to Mal, burning into him in accusation. "But even then . . . despite the many, many times this woman's heart has stopped . . . Simon has never been the one to restart it. She is doing it. She is restarting her own heart with what has to be her will and her will alone . . . with maybe with some of God's (Inara gave a nod to the praying Shepherd) help." Even though he wasn't looking at her, Mal could feel Inara's glare as she said, "this woman . . . whoever she is . . . is fighting to live with everything in her—"

Mal heard unspoken in Inara's voice and you would have left her to die.

Mal got a sour taste in his mouth. His internal voice moved into an I told you so mode. If nothing else changed, this was enough to tell him that he had acquired another problem that was going to totally screw his life up.

Mal's mouth opened as he started to say something to Inara—

"You'd better get up here Mal," came Wash's strained voice over the ships speaker.