Part 4
Simon had steered Jayne down to the infirmary, where he'd promised Mal he would both stitch up Jayne's wounds and give him a powerful tranquilizer. Mal, Inara, River, and Book all sat around the dining table, the second dead mouse laid out on a napkin.
"So what exactly is up with these mice?" Mal asked River.
"They destroy. That's their purpose," she answered.
"It's entirely possible that some entity – government or otherwise – developed these mice as a type of stealth weapon," Book said.
"Yeah, but why my ship?" Mal demanded.
"A test?" Inara speculated.
"Cap'n?" Kaylee stood at the entrance. In one hand, she carried the third rodent casualty. In the opposite arm, a cat curled snuggly against her ribcage. The cat jumped down, hopped up on the table and sat directly in front of Mal. It pursed its whiskers forward, curled its tail around its front paws, and watched him.
"What is this?" Mal demanded as Kaylee set the third mouse on the table beside him.
"Well," Book chuckled. "They say a cat may look at a king. As a captain, I suppose you rate a veritable stare."
"It killed this mouse that was hidin' out under the console," Kaylee explained. "Probably a good thing, too, seein' how much damage it'd already done."
"She," River corrected.
"What?" Kaylee asked.
"She. Hunts The Night is a female cat."
"That's her name?" Book asked.
"One of them," River tilted her head. "Some other people called her "dark cat"."
"I wonder what her third name is," Book mused.
She listened to the humming, gurgling noises the humans made. Perhaps they were not as stupid as the other ones she'd had to deal with. They did seem to have figured out that the Destroyers were her chosen enemy and should be theirs as well. The youngest female, rattlingly mad as a half-grown kitten, had the most intelligence by far. The eldest male was next, though rather far behind. The sunny female, however, was her favorite. She knew how to properly show her adoration, and she also appeared to appreciate the gifts of her enemies' corpses.
"Tell me we don't have to worry about these things breeding," Inara begged.
Mal shook his head. "Manifest said they were all male."
"Manifest didn't say they were insane killer mice," Book pointed out.
"Fine, I'll ask the doc to double check all the corpses we can bring in."
"Well, at least between River and Hunts The Night, we're down to half," Kaylee smiled.
At the mention of her name, the cat looked over at Kaylee, and her purr became a little louder. Then, though there was no noise that anyone else heard, both the cat and River cocked their heads, as though listening to a nearby sound. The cat trembled, and then took off full tilt for the companionway. Everyone else in the room abandoned chair and table to follow after.
Hunts The Night tore down the corridor, and hitting the stairs down to the cargo bay, leapt. Her body stretched out, and she perched precisely on the landing railing. River followed closest behind, dashing down the stairs and pausing just beside the cat, listening with that tilted head, empty expression she wore so often. Book and Mal stopped on the stairs above her. Inara and Kaylee stood behind them.
"What is it-" Mal started.
"SSSHHHHH!" River waved at him.
Hunts The Night leaned forward on the railing, her tail lashing back and forth, and her hind quarters rocking slightly from side to side. A silent growl shook her lean frame, and she glared with mad, golden eyes at a stack of cargo boxes in the far corner of the bay.
Inara leaned forward, squeezed Mal's arm, and pointed in the same direction.
"There," she said in a nearly silent whisper.
Her eyes must have been better than his, because at first, he couldn't see what she was pointing at. Then, it moved, a tiny whisker cleaning gesture that froze just as quickly again.
It was thirty feet at least, from the railing to the box, over a drop of ten. It knew they were there. There was no way they or the cat could make it down in time to keep that little vermin from running for an access panel.
"Cap'n," Kaylee breathed a quiet wail. "It's not a foot from the main hydraulics. We lose those, we won't be able to land properly."
"Book, 'Nara, let's ju-...where's the gorram cat?"
Hunts The Night didn't wait for anyone else's plan. Silent and swift as a shadow at moonrise, she had slipped down the stairs and was stalking the white mouse.
"Mei-mei," Mal announced loudly, "why don't we take a look at that control panel you were so fixated on last week."
"Huh?" she blinked as he took her arm and pulled her down the stairs.
"Just a regular old day, isn't it, Book? Fine day to go locate some of those staves we used in the last ball game and maybe the broom and mop from back of the supply locker."
"Right!" Book startled. "Fine day. I might just get one of those squirt bottles as well."
"Now, mei-mei, we're going to surround that go se varmint all casual-like without gettin' in the way of the cat. It does its job, and if it happens to drive that gorram mouse our way, we herd it right back to it."
"Her, Captain, she's a girl," Kaylee insisted.
"And I'll buy her a barrel of the stinkiest fish she can stand if she manages to get rid of those things before they hurt Serenity any further."
They spread out, Book returning to hand everyone something to clobber the mouse with.
"There are three left," Inara commented. "How long will it take to find them all?"
"I'm hopin' with Coughs Up Hairballs over there, we'll get 'em all in fair order," Mal answered.
"Cap'n!" Kaylee shot him a withering look.
River stayed on the landing above, keeping an eye on all the proceedings, while the others slowly crept toward the cargo boxes where the mouse sat. It stared at each in turn, which was fine with Mal, so long as they kept it from seeing the cat.
Hunts The Night was good, very good. With her tortoiseshell markings, she seemed to fade into shadow and panel pattern until she was nearly invisible. She jumped to the top of a nearby stack without disturbing any of the crates and stood a foot above and behind the mouse.
"Any second now," Mal warned, hefting the stave in his right hand.
Hunts The Night made her attack just as the mouse caught some hint of her, and the cargo bay exploded into violent melee.
"Kaylee, duck!"
Instead of a sensible mouse retreat to the nearest hole, the rodent made an attack of its own. Book was fast enough to pull Kaylee out of the way, but ended up in the line of fire himself. The mouse fastened itself to his shoulder and then tore straight for his neck. Inara reacted the fastest and most sensibly. Swinging her stave like a sword, she caught the mouse on the very tip and flipped it up into the air, leaving a rake of claw marks on Book's shirt and neck. Mal, unfortunately, was in the path of her backswing as she prepared to hit a vermin line drive, and he took the full force of it between the eyes. He fell on his seat, pulling Kaylee with him.
Hunts The Night rocketed through the fight, rebounding off Mal's head to intercept the mouse on its fall to the deck. Both Inara and Book went after the mouse at the same time, and both missed, but Book's strike with the broom grazed the cat and knocked her off trajectory. Instead of grabbing the mouse between her jaws and giving a lethal bite, she could only snap at it.
When both cat and mouse hit the floor, there was a moment of stillness, then the mouse took off for the far corner of the cargo bay, under the stairs where Jayne kept his workout equipment. Inara jumped for the mouse, but tripped on her dress and fell, hitting her chin hard enough to draw blood. Book tried throwing his broom like a spear but only succeeded in throwing Hunts The Night off her sprint. The mouse made it to the far wall and disappeared through the joint of two access panels, leaving the tortoiseshell cat to pace, lashing her tail in frustration.
It all happened so quickly that even though Wash, Zoe, and Simon ran as soon as they heard a ruckus, by the time they made it into the bay, they saw only the aftermath – Book bleeding and gripping his hair in frustration, Inara lying prone, dabbing at her skinned chin, Mal on his back, curled up around his busted nose, and Kaylee, the only one unscathed, sitting up, completely disheveled.
"Is there something you'd like to fill us in on, sir?" Zoe asked.
"Oh, sure," Wash huffed, "I get clawed by the Killer Mouse From Hell, and no one takes me seriously. Let that be a lesson to you."
"RRRRROOOOOOOOOOOWWWW!" Hunts The Night howled in frustration.
"Where'd the cat come from?" Simon asked.