You Might Be One Of Us

Summary: How Zoë Lawson got the nickname Junior

When Mal's plans went wrong they went spectacularly wrong. He supposed after six months sailing with Serenity that he should be used to it. Mal would say something about things going smooth, call a job simple or worse, easy, and inevitably the job would be anything but.

Smooth didn't seem to happen around Mal. The man had the worse tā mā de luck in the 'verse. Not even Riddick, River or Floyd's expertise could make up for it. Seemed unbelievable but it had become a truism no one on Serenity argued with.

Take the situation they found themselves in now. Riddick growled low and nasty in his throat. Pinned down, twenty yards from Serenity. Floyd had taken an ugly wound to his upper arm, rendering his right useless. He had equal skill with his left but unfortunately not enough ammunition to cut all of the enemy down with his usual insouciance. Tiān shā de but River was a bad influence (or was it good) on his vocabulary. Three years ago he wouldn't have even had thought with a five-plat word like that.

River and Mal were behind a large lump of rock, First Mate Zoë had a wound to her belly that needed tending and Mal was seeing to her. (Everyone had taken to calling the First Mate by her title, or just First, just to differentiate between the adult Zoë and Floyd Lawton's teenage daughter Zoë. And there'd have been a time he wouldn't give a tián mì de xié 'è tā mā de if people knew who he was talking about or not. Something else he could put on River.) Of course they'd gotten a lucky shot in that slipped around First Zoë's body armory, or worse, pierced right through it. Though no one else's armor had given way, so the lucky shot was more likely.

He was pinned next to Floyd, behind the mule and thankful the damn thing was sturdy even if it had dropped out of the gorram air without tā mā de warning. Of course if the buyer hadn't tried to double cross them they wouldn't have had to take the money and run. Nothing like an ambush on the way back to the ship.

He could stand up, take fire and walk towards the gǒu niáng yǎng de shooting at them. Between his nature, size and the body armor he usually wore he could be on one group and doing some fairly serious slicing with shivs before he took more than a bullet or two. But if he did that then River would Read it and she'd get up and do the same gorram thing.

And body armor or not, she couldn't take as many bullets. So unless he could talk her out of it, without yelling across the field of battle, presenting himself as a dangerous distraction wouldn't work. The woman was just stubborn that way. Granted, in order to deal with him she had to have a mulish streak of her own, but at the moment it was tiān shā de in-tā mā de-convenient.

Irritating thing about the whole situation was if they had one more gun, they might be able to turn the tide. But Kaylee, Simon and little Zoë, Floyd's daughter, were the only folks on Serenity. River had insisted on coming on the job, and a damn good thing she had, since she'd been the one who'd sniffed out the double-cross and ambush. If she hadn't been there it might have worked. Or they'd be in the same situation but bloodier.

Two grown ass adults on the boat and neither of them could use a gun worth a damn. Yeah, once they'd all recovered from this job one of two things was gonna happen. Either Kaylee and Simon would learn to use guns, or someone with gun skills and a weapon of their very own would be staying with the tiān shā de ship. He really didn't want to think of what could happen if the gang had flanked them and taken the boat.

Jayne would've been on the ship with the two non-gun-wielding crew, or he'd have been on the job, with River or Riddick on the boat, but the man had gone to visit his kin and wasn't due back for another week. Which was yet another argument about why it would have been better for Serenity to just take the man to Deadwood and back rather than let him ship off. At least they'd have had another gun on their side. And there'd be no danger of anyone taking Serenity with Cobb on board. The man had serious thoughts on theft of a boat he (and all his stuff, labeled and everything) lived on. Very firmly against it happening. Would've been funny if they weren't in such a tā mā de mess right now.

Mal was taking careful shots at the group that had followed them in a cargo mule of their own, a big thing more suited for carrying bales of hay or cargo than people. It provided them considerable bulk and some height which was how Zoë (the First Mate, not to be confused with Zoë, Lawton's daughter) had gotten shot. That had been how Floyd ended up with a bullet in his arm too. They'd both need the Doc to get them sorted out once this was done.

Riddick considered his weapons and ammunition and was just about willing to bet on unleashing the Wrath when another shot rang out like a crack of thunder. And someone's body got thrown back a good three feet.

Thankfully it wasn't anyone they knew, one of the thugs that had tried to take both the goods and money, so it wasn't like he gave a good solid damn about them.

Another shot and he got enough to triangulate and figure the angle of the shooter. Someone had climbed out Serenity's upper airlock and was lying on the hull. Not that he could see who, lying flat as they were. The nose of the sniper rifle barely peeked over the curve of the ship.

A third shot, if the thugs were any good they'd figure out where the bullets that had taken out three of their comrades were coming from.

A fourth crack of thunder and apparently they were no good at tracking angles because thug number four lost his brains out the back of his skull and on the ground while peering around his cover to take a shot of his own. The reaction of the thugs was to haul themselves inside their cargo mule. With much kicking up of dust and spinning tires the mule flung backwards and careened off back the way it had come.

Riddick stood and moved towards River, Mal and Zoë. "Let's get her inside," He picked Zoë up bridal style.

"Who'n zài dìyù de dì qī guā yuē jī zhōng was shooting," Floyd wondered as he limped towards Serenity. Man must've caught a bullet in the leg or hip as well as his arm.

"I'm sure we'll find out," Mal shrugged. "Go on, get River to look at your arm, and send Kaylee out here to tell me whether or not this méi yòng mule needs shooting or repairs."

Simon was prepping the infirmary when Riddick brought First Zoë in. Kaylee had run out to help Mal with the mule. Neither of them smelt of gunpowder so they couldn't be the culprit with the sniper rifle.

And then little Zoë Lawson slipped into the lounge outside the infirmary and positively reeked of gunpowder. Riddick turned and looked at her, "He ain't gonna be happy you know."

Zoë nodded, "I know." Riddick let Simon hustle him out of the infirmary while River went in, pulling Floyd with her so she could do her work on his wounds while Simon saw to First Mate Zoë.

"So what were you thinking," Riddick sat and looked the girl in the eye.

"You aren't mad," She was no slouch at reading folks herself. Dark eyes looking fearlessly into his.

"Nope. But he will be. So work out your argument on me first," He shrugged.

"I heard the shooting. Kaylee and Simon were trying to figure out what they could do to help. Kaylee actually built a little bomb and was trying to rig it to a drone," Zoë explained. "Simon was helping her. But the drone couldn't fly the bomb, it was too heavy. When it fell the third time and Kaylee said she'd have to rewire it I went to the shuttle and got Daddy's sniper rifle. I've watched him so I knew how to load it. And how to carry it without hurting myself or anyone else. I got a box of his ammo and climbed up on top of the ship."

"Yeah, if you're gonna do that again you need to work on your position. I could see the rifle from where I was taking cover," Riddick told her matter-of-factly.

"But they wouldn't have been able to, not from where they were," Zoë reasoned back at him.

"Fair enough," He nodded. "What then?"

"I set it up on the tripod, got it loaded and settled in," She ticked off the steps on her fingers. "Daddy always says he breathes in when he's targeting and exhales as he pulls the trigger. The scope works real nice on his rifle, so it wasn't hard to find my targets. And then I shot for center mass, the way everyone is always saying that's where to aim, so even if my shot was off, I'd still hit them. The recoil didn't seem bad, but it still jolted me some."

He nodded, small as she was she'd have bruises on her shoulder and arm. "Well, if you can shoot the weapon, then you need to be ready to see the results," Riddick told her. He wasn't going to budge on this. No one should be able to aim and shoot a weapon and ignore the fact that it had brought down a human being. Guns and knives weren't toys and neither were the consequences of using them. He'd learned that at an early age and so would Little Zoë. "So we'll go out and see how well you aimed. You hit four of 'em, just judging by how many went flying backwards. That's a tā mā de powerful rifle."

Zoë nodded, obviously not thrilled with poking dead bodies but she took a deep breath and began to walk with him towards the bloody ground twenty to thirty yards from the boat.

She did pretty well. Only threw up once, and that was when she got a look at the guy whose brains she'd splattered all over the ground. "I had to aim for his head," She'd admitted. "He kept using the door of the mule as a shield."

Riddick nodded as he handed her a mug of water and had her rinse out her mouth, "If you can make the shot, a head shot is the way to go. People can't wear body armor on their face, as a general rule. It's just a smaller target."

Zoë nodded, "Yeah, it took me longer to get the shot."

"Yòng yí gè ā ěr dé wǎ kè cāo wǒ de liǎn Riddick," Floyd had been released from the infirmary and had that 'I had better not be hearing what I think I'm hearing' tone to his voice. "Tell me you aren't tutoring my daughter on the finer points of shooting."

"Well," Riddick rubbed his chin and pressed his palm between Zoë's spine. "Not precisely. Little Zoë here decided we needed some backup."

"Or did you not notice four of that gang being thrown backwards by a sniper rifle," River added, arching one eyebrow meaningfully.

"Oh I noticed all right." Floyd regarded his daughter, "Lemme get this straight. Against every rule I've ever laid down about you touching guns, you, Zoë Grace Lawson, my twelve-and-a-half-year-old daughter, took my sniper rifle, ammunition, and set up a perch on top of Serenity. And then you took down four thugs in less than five minutes."

Zoë nodded, tense and worried, "I could see you were bleeding. Mrs. Washburne was bleeding. You needed another gun."

"And that was your first thought," Floyd folded his arms, wincing slightly.

"No. But if I'd started shooting from the ramp then they'd start shooting into Serenity and Kaylee and Simon were in the bay trying to fly a bomb out on a drone to take out their mule," Zoë shook her head. "It was safer on top of Serenity. And the rifle had a scope to help with my aim."

"She's a natural Floyd," Riddick spoke up now that Zoë'd stated her position. "Only reason I saw her is I know how to figure shot angles. They never even saw her."

"That doesn't mean I want her taking up…" Floyd stopped, took a breath and exhaled slowly. "All right. Zoë. I appreciate the help. I know that Mal will appreciate the help when he hears about it. But I also know that he'll back me up when I say, no more guns, not unless one of us is teaching you. You were smart but you were also lucky. And our luck isn't so good that we can press it."

"I promise, unless it's a total emergency like this time, or someone on the crew is teaching me, I won't touch the guns," Zoë replied, nodding solemnly.

"Yeah, gimme some time to get used to this… but thank you baby, for the backup," Floyd sighed.

"Come on Junior," Riddick half smiled. "You and I are on kitchen duty remember? Let's get cleaned up and get to it."

River joined them on the steps, "Looks like you might be one of us." She remarked with a serenely mysterious smile as she gazed at the young girl.

Author's Note: So this was a little something that came up when I was writing the last little part of the series and I thought maybe all of you would enjoy it. I liked the idea of Deadshot's daughter being a pretty good shot herself. And of course River's line just fits right in with the whole theme of the series titles.

Chinese Translations:

tā mā de (fucking)

Tiān shā de (Goddamn)

tián mì de xié 'è tā mā de (sweet unholy fuck)

gǒu niáng yǎng de (son of a bitch)

zài dìyù de dì qī guā yuē jī zhōng (in the seventh sphincter of hell)

méi yòng (useless)

Yòng yí gè ā ěr dé wǎ kè cāo wǒ de liǎn (fuck me in the face with an aardvark)