"...So my point, Captain Reynolds, is that I will not conduct my affairs like a criminal, no matter that they may... bend the law a little. If we are to be continuing this arrangement, I see no reason it can't be conducted as any honest business, in civilised fashion." Sir Warwick halted several feet from the big, secure gate to look enquiringly at Mal, awaiting his response.
The captain had his head to the ground and his lips moving fractionally, for the briefest of moments, as they'd sometimes do when he was considering. He raised his head, and quirked his mouth into a smile. "I'll freely admit, it ain't the way we're used to doing things - heck, that part you can probably tell - but I'm coming 'round to your point of view fast, Sir Warwick. Hell of a spread you put on, and I doubt it'll get you any objection from me and mine."
Kaylee managed to hold back a cheer and quick burst of applause, telling herself that was prob'ly the very nice wines and the after-dinner liquors talking. Cap'n hadn't hit anyone this time, so she could see it was her own clear duty not to do anything to embarrass them likewise. Falling over would probably count, she figured, and hung dutifully onto the captain's arm.
"You say you'll be on Persephone another two days for re-supplying?" Sir Warwick asked, clasping his hand to Mal's elbow, and the captain nodded. "Then I'll have my goods over to your ship the day after tomorrow, and I hope we can do business again, Captain Reynolds."
"'Mal'. And we surely will, Sir Warwick." The two men shook hands warmly.
"Are you sure you want to make your way back on foot?" their host asked, gesturing to a uniformed security man who stood by to open the gate - it slid aside real smooth and silent, proof that someone was keeping its mechanisms in tidy shape. "I can always have Edward bring the car back around."
Mal shook his head, wearing a contented little smile and maybe a bit too oblivious to how the rest of them might not feel so much like a long walk across town in the fading light with the food and drink still settling on them. "No. Ain't far - 'sides, little Kaylee here already near assaulted your driver on the way in, and that was sober. Best we walk."
"Hey! Mean ol' tyrant..." But Mal was grinning, and it was hard to be angry with the captain when he truly was happy, it being such a rare occurrence and all.
A round of parting nods exchanged, and then the gate was sliding closed behind them, cutting from view Sir Warwick and his pretty home and pretty chunk of the world, leaving them standing on a boring old street feeling out of place in their finery. Kaylee was aware of Inara's gold dress straining its seams. That warning about not eating too much hadn't held too much sway. Still, how could it have, with the dried up protein mixes they'd been living off the past weeks? Things were tighter than they'd been in a long time - since the time right before Simon first came on board, maybe.
But they were looking up.
Poor Simon, she thought, crestfallen again at the reminder. Left on Serenity to dine on the same old same old...
"We need more clients like that one," Zoe announced as they began to walk slowly down the street, hugging her arms over her chest to ward off the cold of Persephone's approaching night.
Wash relinquished her arm a moment while he took off his jacket and draped it across her shoulders. She smiled at him and they held each other close as they continued walking, and Wash backed her up after a moment, prodding Mal with, "She's right, you know, captain. Few more like him and we'd be on our way. Living in the lap of luxury... Now, just where do we find 'em?"
"Worth a few more swordfights even, I'd say," Zoe remarked with a wicked gleam of humour.
"If you're volunteerin' to be the one stuck full of holes next time," Mal said amicably.
"Oh, but you do the whole gallantry thing so nice." Kaylee swung on his arm. "And besides, it gives Inara another excuse to fuss over you, you know..." Her laughter died in her throat as she felt him tense. She might not have noticed if she hadn't been clinging to him so; the only outward sign he gave was a slight tightening of the lines around his mouth.
"I'm sure Inara has better things to do," he only said. And quieter, almost a mutter, "Paying clients, f'r example."
Kaylee punched his arm. "Now that's just mean. Would have thought, seeing as how she saved all our bacon not so long since, you'd find it even in your stony old heart to stop bein' so mean 'bout how she earns her livin'."
"I am not being mean," he protested; acres of wounded innocence. "Just making a statement of fact, is all. Inara's got better things to be doing than doctoring me, an' I got better things to be doing than getting stuck full of holes to need doctoring in the first place, and besides... Haven't I told you enough, that ain't happening again. Once. There was one swordfight. Not like I've ever made a habit of them nor ever will. Why is it everyone's so mad to be making an issue out of this?"
"Well, as social faux pas' go, it was a fairly spectacular one, Mal, " Wash put in, commiserating. "I - "
But the cap'n was squinting off into the distance, over toward a group of folks who'd just rounded a corner and were headed right their way.
Kaylee did a double-take. "Is that Jayne? Thought he weren't meant to come to join us."
"So it is." Mal dropped her arm and let his hand drift to the gun he wore at his hip, fine clothes or no. "Looks like... that's Badger with him? Hell." His steps sped up, and Kaylee necessarily got dragged along too, since she couldn't keep her balance alone. Behind her, Zoe and Wash had separated, though Zoe was smoothing her hands down her empty sides in frustration and looking as though she sore missed a gun of her own.
"Badger," Mal greeted loudly as they closed in. "Needed to talk to you - " He broke off, a cough catching at the back of his throat.
Kaylee blinked a moment, 'fore she saw what he'd seen too.
She hadn't noticed at once because the woman on Badger's arm didn't hold herself like River and didn't walk like River, a haughty confidence replacing that fuzzy distance and distraction the girl always had about her.
"What the niao shi de guay is going on here?" the captain demanded angrily, encapsulating the situation with his own particular brand of poetry.
One moment he was all set to haul Badger from whatever lame-brained, paranoid conclusion he'd gone and jumped to, the next a complete change of gear... his glare went straight to Jayne. "She don't leave the boat on Persephone." He jabbed a finger toward River.
"Ah. Captain Reynolds - " Badger began, smug.
River, swinging on the runt's arm in a fashion almost aping Kaylee, overrode him with a laugh and a smile. Her voice fair bubbled as she said, "I'm coming to the party. Look, I found an escort."
Mal ditched Kaylee on Wash's arm, figuring this here might be a situation to call on his full attention. "Dinner's finished, girl, and I can't say much for your taste - " He turned back on Jayne. "What... is River doing with Badger?" He hushed his voice, to no particular end. "This some feng le game?"
Jayne shuddered. "I sure hope so."
"Oy," Badger said, slapping at Mal's hand as he reached to pull River away. The move was backed by the swing of guns at either side. "Forget the gorram girl, Reynolds? She wanted to come... and it ain't no wonder, you keepin' her practically a prisoner in that tatty rustbucket. Reckon you could afford to ease up that military discipline o' yours on your crew, 'sarge'."
"Badger, you're an idiot. You have no idea - "
"And you're a gorram sneak. Thought you was above all that - a man of honour, right? - I did. Now you're going behind my back, trying to cut me out of a deal you wouldn't have been able to get near if it hadn't been for me."
"We've just been fine-tuning a few de - no, forget the damn deal." River there was standing in the middle of the gorram street while they were jawing. "We have to - "
"Not a chance. Fine-tuning? Likely bloody story. I'm guessing you found yourself another buyer out on one of them gorram moons at the arse end of the border that you like so much."
Mal was keenly aware of tempers getting no better and two guns still on him. He and Jayne were no closer to being in a position to draw without getting shot. River was still laughing on Badger's arm. "We were having dinner, Badger. You weren't invited on account of how Sir Warwick can't stand you. We ain't trying to cut you out of anything. You'll get your cut. Dong ma?"
"That's a..." Badger made a swift survey of the faces watching - of Kaylee, Wash and Zoe in their pretty formal dress, Kaylee barely standing - and his eyes widened slightly 'fore his anger did a quick turnabout. "You're having dinner with Sir Warwick now?"
"Seem to recall it was your doing in seeing to it I had me a social calendar in the first place." He glowered at River, who smiled innocently back, and wondered how gorram much did it take to get the point across to a girl supposed to be able to read minds that she wasn't precisely helping a situation. "I'll admit to a certain amount of surprise my own self, but I guess that's just the way the fellow's accustomed to doin' business, and who am I to argue with that? Hell, you getting me into that fancy ball probably gave him all kinds of twisted a first impression from the get-go. I barely recognise me like this." He tugged at a black lapel.
Going by Badger's face, the pint-sized crime lord was about ready to combust, but a flurry of conflicting expressions came up at the last with forced amiability. "Fine," he said carefully. "That's why I brought you into this, after all. Deal with Harrow. Good idea of mine. Knew he'd take a shine to you. Just you... make sure and keep me updated, all right? No more misunderstandings." A swift gesture saw the guns relaxed.
Mal had no intention of following suit just yet. "Hope you're not thinking of absconding with any of my crew," he said, looking pointedly at River.
"Wouldn't dream of it," Badger said. "Mind, it does strike me I promised the lady dinner. Wouldn't do to disappoint. I can be a gentleman, too, see?"
Kaylee drew in a breath. Zoe stepped forward. "You're going to have to live with a little disappointment yourself. She isn't going with you... Come on, River, honey." She held out her hand. River's smile finally faded as she stared down at it wordlessly.
"Now, hold up a moment here. What kind of a man do you take me for?" Badger growled. "I haven't been coercing this pretty thing in anything. I told you, she wanted to come. I ain't tried to get her to do anything unwilling."
"Runt's speakin' truth, Mal" Jayne muttered. "You think I'd stand by watching, otherwise?"
"...See? Even your ape agrees with me."
"It isn't that simple, Badger." Zoe didn't retreat the hand. "She can be..." She hesitated, seeing fury in River's eyes. "It's not safe for her to be outside the ship. And she gets confused, sometimes."
"Girl's stark starin' nuts on a good day," Jayne saw fit to translate. "You don't want her. Got me a fine few scars from her more ornery-crazy days."
"Mind that turning a blade on Jayne might be generally thought of as an indication of perfect sanity in some circles," Mal said, "But one thing he's got straight - she's not going with you. Need to get the girl back to the boat. Now. Way before now. Zoe - "
River sombrely let Zoe take her by the hand and wrapped her fingers around the older woman's smooth brown arm as she drew her in. Her body language completed its transition back to what passed for her sort of normal. Her eyes crept back to the startled and mayhap somewhat stricken Badger, and she told him seriously, "It was only a game. You really should go now... But it's all right, I already know you won't." Her eyes lifted and her head rolled back, body arching, nose pointing up to the darkened sky. "They're coming."
"Oh, crap," said Wash, starting to look around intently.
"Who's coming?" Mal demanded. "Alliance? River, are the feds coming?" He scowled at the shadows, drawing his gun.
"Doesn't matter," she said. "Too late."
"What?" asked Badger, thoroughly lost.
"Jayne," Zoe barked. He had the gun drawn from his boot in one hand, and... Mal didn't even know where he'd had hidden the smaller pistol he tossed into her waiting hands. She caught it easily as the shadows surged and sprouted men.
"Zoe... Wash!" Mal started to swear and realised there was no time; dragged Kaylee from Wash's arm instead. "You both go! Take her - " He pointed them at River. Kaylee couldn't stay upright, let alone run. He tried to angle his own body to protect her. Zoe, Wash and River were already in flight down the street.
"Captain - " Jayne was reaching with his empty arm, and Mal handed Kaylee over to his care.
Badger's men had drawn their weapons, but it seemed they weren't so sure whether they'd be firing them. The sight of Alliance uniforms maybe fazed them a mite. "What's going on?" Badger yelped. He recoiled, doused with blood as the first shots cut down an undecided henchman. That at least seemed to decide the other fairly firmly. Badger raised a red-spattered hand and stared at it, then furiously across at Mal. Swearing, he ducked to retrieve the dead man's gun and danced back to join them in the negligible cover of a nearby wall. "You brought Alliance trouble down on us?"
"No." The proximity of a shot passing close by his ear made his own decision to shoot to kill. Lawmen and the middle of a street on gorram Persephone be damned. "You did that yourself when you took that girl off my ship."
"Tol' you," Jayne grumbled from further down the wall. A shot sent chips of brick flying and drew a frightened noise from Kaylee.
"They're after the girl?" Badger swore at length.
"Never goes smooth," Mal murmured to himself, and snatched a glance across to the alley where Zoe and Wash had taken River. Needed to keep the feds from following after them, he figured. At the same time, he couldn't afford to go after them back to Serenity until he could be sure they'd lost all pursuit. There was still a chance she'd only been spotted out in the town and nobody could trace her back to the ship. And if that was true, they might make it out of this intact. Long as they didn't shed no blood to leave their DNA behind, it was too dark for the rest of them to have been readily identified. Though he might have to add Jayne to the list of crew confined to ship on planets with a big Alliance contingent. Badger... well, Badger was his own lookout.
He fired at a grey uniform across the street and then jerked his head up as a scream rent the air. It was a sound not quite sane - not the sharp, scared note of someone caught by horror or surprise, but a song that lifted and fell, faltered and broke.
"River - "
He came up shooting; tried to get out of cover and across the unprotected, too-wide street to follow Wash and Zoe. A hail of fire sent him crouching back down again. The guns the Alliance boys carried were hell of a lost faster and sharper than his own battered pistol. He was aware of Jayne similarly pinned down, Kaylee tucked behind him and trying to make herself real small.
Was too busy ducking to see all of what happened then. Was only aware of a sharp motion from Badger - another signal, directed to his remaining man - and then the henchman was laying down covering fire with a fancy powered rifle, and Badger was across the street, snatching the chance to direct a few ill-aimed shots back at the feds before he disappeared. Mal stood up and tried once more to follow, but there was a choked sound as the henchman took a laser shot through the throat, which left him three feet out of cover and scrambling back for his own safety in another hail of fire.
River's scream started the moment before a half-dozen feds sprouted from the shadows in front of them, and kept on going after. She wasn't looking at the feds - her gaze crawled around like it was the air itself telling her what was worth screaming about.
"This way!" Wash grabbed her shoulders and tugged her back the way they'd come, where another narrow street branched off. It floated banners and illuminated signs in Chinese down its length; voices and music spilled out to it from a pool hall and bar. Zoe followed, incongruous in her green dress as she laid down covering fire with the borrowed gun.
A couple of vagrants were staring. Wash finally stopped River's screams by planting his sweating palm over her mouth. Behind them, his wife cast her eye over the bar and the stores that were open, and shook her head very slightly. "We stand out too well right now to blend into the crowd, and this town, they'd as likely side with the Alliance. Just keep running."
"Nobody wants any trouble..." Wash murmured, and swore as he tried to guide the struggling girl down a quieter street and almost sent them down a dead end. "Why don't you lead?" he suggested, frustrated, pushing River ahead.
She faltered. "Can't see. Can't see - " Her hands raised, spread fingers webbing to veil her eyes.
"Ai ya!" He grabbed her hand again and tugged her onward, but the girl moved like her limbs were weighted with lead. They were headed into one of those parts of the town that only really came alive at night, and it was just starting to do just that. A shot skimmed past as they rounded a corner, turning a bystander's face into a mass of red. "Jesus - !" Wash craned his head wildly back over his shoulder to Zoe. "No!"
She lay on her back not six feet behind, the green dress draped 'round her fallen form like she'd been artfully arranged there.
River, under his arm, said, "She's not dead. That one took the death for her." Gazing forward toward the man with no face left.
Unheeding of the sounds of gunfire still going on, somewhere, Wash was by his wife's side and couldn't remember the steps in between. She had a bullet graze on the side of her head, but he couldn't find anything else, and she was alive - thank God, she was alive... How long she'd stay that way was looking the more troublesome part. He felt panic threatening to sweep him up, but River was behind him and Zoe's gun was lying by her outstretched hand. He picked it up.
Raising his head, still crouched down, he realised all the shooting wasn't just the feds in pursuit. They were nearer now, but they weren't even faced his way. Instead they were returning fire at someone behind them. Relief overtook him, and he aimed and pulled the trigger and watched the nearest figure fall with a certain detachment. He'd killed men before, on Niska's skyplex, armed with as much anger as he had now. The rest of the Alliance men took cover, under attack from two directions.
Wash glanced to the side distractedly as he saw River move. She had crawled to the corpse of the man he'd shot, and she traced her fingers over the dead face. The sight prompted a sickness in his stomach he really wasn't needing, on top of everything else. She didn't close the dead man's eyes. Wash fired again and the gun clicked hollowly. "River," he hissed, keeping hold of the weapon as if it wasn't empty, though he crouched down further. "River... his gun..." He reached an empty hand toward her, nodding encouragingly. The dead man's weapon lay inches from her fingers.
She blinked back at him. "No touching."
He could have strangled Mal. "That's not... captain wouldn't... Throw me the damn gun!"
She tipped her head and arched it slowly on her neck. "Cavalry's here," she said, with an odd smile.
He followed her gaze. Expecting to see Mal or Jayne or both, he was astounded by the sight of Badger toting his henchman's laser rifle with a certain enthusiastic ineptness.
"Trying to impress a girl," River explained seriously.
Wash gaped at her, and didn't realise he'd lowered his gun hand 'til a fed rifle clicked its threatening song a few feet away. He let the weapon fall from his fingers and raised both hands, standing carefully. "I'm unarmed!" He tried to avoid looking down at Zoe, hoping they'd figure her for dead. She'd have a better chance that way, from what they'd seen of the people who were hunting River.
A pair of handcuffs was snapped around his wrists, but their concentration focused mostly on River. She wasn't currently doing anything much, but there was a firearm inches from her fingers and maybe they had an inkling what she was supposed to be capable of doing with it. She stared around at them with her mouth hanging open until they'd crept close enough to haul her up and away from the gun. She started struggling as soon as they touched her. They weren't gentle trying to restraining her.
"Hey, you don't - " Wash began.
"Get off her," a voice snarled. One of the men holding the girl fell as a shot sounded. The other dragged her body out in front of his own.
Wash winced. Badger had emerged from cover and was levelling his gun at the remaining feds, but even Wash could see there were too many. Even if Badger's chief asset was always bluster, it wasn't going to work here.
"Shoot him - " began the one with lieutenant's markings, impatiently.
Almost the same instant, River cried out, in that bubbling voice and her odd facsimile of Badger's accent, "Simon! I knew you'd come for me!"
"Eh?" said Badger, which expressed Wash's thoughts fairly adequately, too.
The Alliance men exchanged glances. "The brother," the lieutenant said, nodding. "We take him alive if we can."
"What?" Badger gave a nervous laugh, and his eyes shifted 'round as if registering the specifics of his situation for the first time. He visibly counted the number of fed rifles pointed his way, gauging his very small chances. The gun fell from his own hands as he raised them. "I give up." He grimaced. "I... ah, I reckon what we have here might be a bit of a misunderstanding, people," he tried. "See, I really don't know these-"
"Simon," River chided with a smile.
His head jerked around frantically as a fed handcuffed him, coming finally back around to the girl. "This is a joke, right? Tell them-"
"I'd shut up now, Simon, if I were you," Wash said, nodding seriously and trying to catch the man's eye. Badger wasn't completely stupid. He gaped a moment, then subsided.
The sound of more shots being fired echoed from the direction they'd come. Mal and Jayne, Wash thought - hoped. But the Alliance lieutenant frowned nervously back that way, and made a quick survey of his depleted men before giving the order to pull out. "Bring them. It's important we secure the prisoners. If the clean-up team don't pull the rest in... well, they'll tell us who helped them sooner or later."
Wash carefully didn't look back toward Zoe, lying with the dead in the emptied street, as they were hustled away.
By the neon glow of Persephone's night, they could still see the feds making themselves scarce in the distance as they broke through into the street where all the shooting had been. Mal gunned down the last man of their own pursuit with his last bullet. He swore as he clicked open his gun to glare at its empty chambers, then stared grimly after the retreating feds and the familiar figures they were manhandling away.
"I'm all out," he said.
Jayne was low himself. He took in the mess of the street around them, three Alliance corpses and one dead bystander, and... "Oh, hey, Mal - Zoe." He scrambled over to her, not so quick as the captain, who it happened didn't have a Kaylee hanging around his waist.
"She's alive," Mal said, even as he took his hand from her neck and moved to the side of an Alliance man who assuredly wasn't. He ignored a discarded laser rifle in favour of a pistol still holstered at the fed's belt. Mal's eyes fixed again the distant figures almost out of view, drifted to Kaylee and Zoe, and then Jayne. "Jayne - you follow them. Don't be seen. I want to know where they're taken. Soon as you know, you come back to Serenity - but take care, seeing as we don't know for sure if they know about her. And don't you get followed back either, case they don't." He jammed the Alliance man's gun through his belt.
"Right." Jayne nodded, taking note which way the feds turned even while he unfurled Kaylee, depositing her on the ground by Zoe's still form. Girl was looking green, as much from all the drink as from all the death. No sooner she'd touched down then she emptied her stomach on the pavement. He nodded approval same time as wrinkling his nose - least she might be able to walk a bit better, now she'd rid herself of some of it. Though Inara wasn't going to be too happy 'bout the dress. "You'll be all right with these two? Feds'll be back, and likely more of 'em."
"I'll manage." Mal had already gathered Zoe into his arms, no small feat given Zoe was damn near as tall as he was and not exactly a lightweight. He strained visibly, straightening, and distractedly said to Kaylee, staggering two steps to butt her shoulder with his knee, "C'mon, girl. You gotta walk: can't pick you up as well. But hang onto me and we'll get there." The words stirred her to sluggish action, her fingers clawing handfuls of his pants as she practically climbed his body to get herself upright.
Mal looked back to Jayne, and past him to where the feds and their prisoners could no longer be seen. "Go."
