Yeah, I bet you remember the disclaimer. Soundtrack: "Gold Digger" - Kayne West feat. Jamie Foxx.
"Now, this un here's CoosCoos," Abeni said, bringing the crew to the first stall in the stable. "CoosCoos, m'boy, you ready for some action?"
"Sure thing!" the space pony agreed. "What kinda action we talkin', Mistress?"
"Well, m'boy," Abeni informed him, "it'll be a bit o' a standoff. You ready fer that?"
"I'm fine with standoffs," the pony responded, "but you better ask the rest o' the group a'fore you go promisin' us away."
"Kaylee, lead CoosCoos out," Abeni requested. "I'll show the rest o' ya the rest o' the group."
In short order, each member of the crew had a space pony, a walking, talking, bullet-dodging, life-saving pony. Kaylee was on Abeni's favorite, CoosCoos. Mal was given a brown pony called Nancy. Zoë rode on a palomino called Red Heart. Wash was given White Swan, who was actually a black pony with nary a spot of white on him. For Jayne, Abeni had to bring out the biggest of her space ponies, a golden steed called Custard Pot. And for Simon, who had never been on a pony (or a space pony) before, Abeni brought her most trusted and gentle mare, Lamb's Eye.
"Uh… how do you get on?" Simon asked confusedly after the rest of the crew was mounted and ready to head for the point Mal had chosen for the standoff.
The rest of the crew laughed, but Abeni merely said, "Step tall in the stirrups, m'boy, and swing yer leg over!"
Simon did as she instructed, and Lamb's Eye said, "Hello, sweetheart." It was the first time anyone other than Kaylee or his parents had addressed Simon as "sweetheart," and he wasn't sure what to make of it, especially because it was from a pony. A talking pony.
"Let's head out," Mal said, once Abeni had hitched a wagon to Nancy so they could pull Miles along and the spy had been loaded. "Standoff point's bit outside the town."
"Good luck!" Abeni called as they were riding out.
"What's the plan, sir?" Zoë asked, riding alongside Mal.
"Get t' the standoff point, find some cover, wait fer the PRFO t' catch up with us."
"Any chance they'll forget about us?" Wash asked.
"Not a chance," Zoë answered her husband. "We're better off waitin' fer them t' find us and then fightin'. It'll give us the best chance t' get away clean."
"Spoken like a true warrior woman," Wash said, beaming with pride.
"She is a warrior, ain't she?" White Swan said in his joking way.
Simon was finding it hard to hang on. He was also finding the space ponies' voices a little odd, somewhat between giggling and a grating on the nerves. "You all right, sweetheart?" Lamb's Eye asked.
"Fine," Simon responded, trying not to fall off.
"We'll get on the trail soon and it'll be easier," Lamb's Eye assured him.
"Not a cowboy, Doc?" Mal called from ahead. "Never would have guessed!"
"No!" Simon yelled back.
They reached the point Mal had chosen. Mal dismounted from Nancy and went back to the wagon to assess the spy's condition. Miles was soaked with sweat, gripping the sides of the stretcher. His mouth was open in anguish. "What are you doing?" he demanded of Mal. "They are going to kill you!"
"Hopefully they'll kill you first," Mal answered. "I'm hopin' t' make a trade."
"Then you're stupider than I thought, Captain," the spy spit. "Anyone who's dealt with the PRFO knows they don't deal."
"I'm hopin' I'll be the first," Mal said, refusing to buy into the spy's panic. "After all, I do have this winnin' smile."
"Ain't he lovely," Jayne grumbled from his saddle. Custard Pot whickered softly, but it sounded to everyone gathered like a giggle.
"You check in with Nara?" Kaylee asked. "River doin' all right?"
"S'pose we can check," Wash replied, taking out his com unit. "Nara, you there?"
"What's wrong, Wash?" The Companion's voice crackled over the com link.
"Nothin' yet," Wash answered seriously.
"How's Crazy?" Jayne called.
"River is fine," Inara's calm, cool voice answered. "She's asleep, thanks to the doctor's medication."
There was a swift breeze in the bushes around the standoff point and those gathered there could hear the sound of an oncoming engine or two carried on the wind. "Gotta go, Nara," Wash said hurriedly. "Could be trouble."
"Be safe," Inara said faintly, and then Wash disconnected, tucking the unit into his vest pocket.
Moments later, two transports arrived at the standoff point. The ponies, used to greater calamity, didn't stampede as Simon was expecting them to do. Riding the transports were some of the ugliest men Simon had ever seen. And the ugliest of them all had to be the leader, Falstaff Rizzly.
"Malcolm Reynolds!" the leader yelled. "Glad t' see ya!"
"Wish I could say the same, Rizzly," Mal answered as the army members shut down their transports' engines.
"I'm hopin' you've had a chance t' think about m' offer."
"What offer was that?" Mal asked as though he had forgotten.
"Ya give me what doesn't belong t' ya," Rizzly replied quickly.
"More 'n glad t' do that," Mal said with a bright smile. "I'd also like t' be rid of this." He gestured at the wagon hitched to Nancy, and the spy contained therein.
"A spy?" Rizzly asked. "How… quaint."
"We're hopin' you'd like him."
"Like him?" Rizzly asked. "I love him. He's downright old-fashioned. What're ya askin' fer him?"
"Safe passage outa here," Mal shot back. "No fightin'. Much as I like fightin', I'd rather just trade ya the spy."
Rizzly appeared to consider the offer. Simon found he was holding his breath. At last Rizzly said, "Fine. On one condition."
"What's that?"
"The girl. We'd like t'… speak with her."
"Well now, that's gonna be a little difficult," Mal answered.
"Difficult?" Rizzly asked, seemingly having no comprehension of the word.
"Yer spy did somethin' t' our girl," Mal continued. "I'd absolutely love t' let ya have a right rousin' conversation with her, but he gave her a drug and it's right messed her up."
Rizzly furrowed his massive and scarred brow. "What kind o' drug, spy?" he demanded of Miles. He gripped Miles's shoulder, probably because that was the closest body part to him.
"It was… it was merely a Truth-Teller," Miles answered in between gasps of pain. Rizzly's grasp must have been something fierce. "It wasn't anything that would harm her, honest!"
"Wo de tian a," Simon muttered under his breath. He had heard about the Truth-Teller line of drugs back when he was working in the hospital. They were nothing if not experimental and highly dangerous, not to mention extremely expensive. Certain members of the police force (and others) used them to extract the truth from suspects or witnesses or torture victims. He hadn't heard of them working, ever, but he knew there was always a first time for everything. He had heard of them causing serious side effects in those who the drug was administered to. It could only be worse in River's case. Maybe the spy was right and she wouldn't survive the night. "Wo de ma."
Kaylee heard Simon's utterances and turned to look at him, a confused look on her face. He shook his head as if to say "Not right now" and turned back to watch the confrontation between Rizzly, Mal, and the spy.
"I didn't know she would go all crazy!" Miles was still pathetically pleading.
"Bi zui, spy," Rizzly ordered, knocking Miles in the face with his massive, scarred hand. "Ain't got no time t' hear bout how you messed with the one good thing that woulda come out o' this mission."
"How did ya not think she'd go crazy?" Jayne demanded from atop Custard Pot. "That gorram girl's more nutter than anybody else in the verse."
"You had no right t' give that girl anythin', ya hear me?" Rizzly shouted, almost in Miles's face. Wash flinched, obviously "feeling" for the spy, hideous traitor though he was. For one thing, Rizzly probably had really bad breath. "That girl was part o' my bargainin' chip!"
"Whoa now," Mal said, interrupting Rizzly's yell. "Yer bargainin' chip? Bargainin' fer what?"
Rizzly looked a mite embarrassed, if embarrassment was an emotion that could even register on his entirely too large face creased with the evidence of a hard life spent warring. "Uh… well, ya see… I sorta got a score t' settle with the Bugler Battalion."
"Ain't bringin' em a spy enough?" Mal asked.
"It was," Rizzly admitted a bit sheepishly. "Then they heard bout that girl o' yours, and they said if'n I was ever t', ya know, let bygones be water over the bridge, I had t' bring them the girl."
"Tzao-gao," Kaylee murmured, obviously not talking about Rizzly's mangled metaphors. Beneath her, CoosCoos shifted a bit impatiently as though sensing her quiet despair.
"Now, now, they don't want t' keep her none," Rizzly continued quickly. "They just want t' talk t' her. And I've got the screen t' wave them on, so we won't have t' trouble yers none."
"This talkin' yer talkin' bout, it involve any drugs?" Mal demanded.
Simon was staring at Mal in horror. The captain had to be, to steal a phrase from Jayne, out of his nutter head if he thought he could "lend" River out to anybody and get her back the same.
"No, they's clean as a whistle," Rizzly said.
Liar, Simon thought. Whoever this was obviously wanted something with River. Everybody always did.
"Honest, Cap'n, would I try t' cheat ya?"
"Only if you had something to gain," Mal shot back.
Rizzly held his palms up as if to say "Me?" and gestured at his men. "Did we come with weapons, honorable Cap'n?"
Mal had to grudgingly admit, "No," after looking at Rizzly's men, who were very obviously unarmed. He almost felt sorta bad about arming each member of his crew (yes, even Simon) to the teeth. He had almost relented when Jayne had asked to bring grenades along, but had come to his senses.
"Take us t' the girl, and we'll get what's ours and be off," Rizzly promised.
"And you'll take the spy with ya?" Mal asked. "And that'll be it for me n mine?"
"Of course, honorable Cap'n!" Rizzly said, as though he was surprised that Mal even had to ask.
"Lemme speak with my crew a minute," Mal said to Rizzly. He stepped behind the wagon and drew the reins of Kaylee and Jayne's ponies off to the side of the clearing, Wash, Simon, and Zoë following. From there he could plainly see all of their faces, which were in various states of concern. Simon was the most concerned, Mal could see that plainly. He was no doubt artfully and surgically dismembering Rizzly and his men one by one in his mind, as practice for later, if that would save his sister from these brutes. Kaylee was first concerned for Simon, Mal could tell, then herself, then River, then the rest of them. It made sense, in an odd way, Mal thought. Simon was obviously the weakest link in the group, and after all she'd been through that day, River was not in the "I'm a weapon and I'll kill whoever stands in my way" mode.
Jayne looked thuggish and brutish as he always did, but behind his tough façade was genuine worry, Mal knew, probably that they would get into a standoff with PRFO when he didn't have any grenades, and then of course for the rest of their survival and well-being.
Wash looked worried because he wasn't piloting anything, just riding a gorram talking space pony. Zoë didn't look worried, but then again she usually never looked worried. She was coolly and calmly waiting for her captain to tell her what to do, and then she would do it. She was the only one who met Mal's gaze as he drew the ponies into a circle.
"Listen here," Mal said, "wo mun wan leh."
"Yer not kiddin'," Jayne muttered.
"Now, we got some decidin' t' do," Mal continued, speaking quietly but deliberately. "What we're gonna do bout this."
"That's yer decision, sir," Zoë remarked from atop Red Heart.
"Yeah, but it's gonna affect all o' us," Mal answered, for the first time realizing how dangerous this situation was getting. A quick glance over his shoulder confirmed that Rizzly and his thugs were still staring at them. "And we gotta do it fast. Doc?"
"What?" Simon asked abruptly, as though he had been having another, more interesting conversation in another time and space.
"If we let them at her, is she gonna make it through?"
"And not kill em?" Jayne added quickly.
"I'm not seeing the 'bad' part of her killin' them," Wash said.
"I couldn't tell you, not after… not after that le-se spy drugged her with a Truth-Teller. She's apt to do anything, least of which is fall down dead, apparently," Simon answered truthfully.
Mal had been expecting a better answer, one more concise and filled with precise medical terms. At this his mind went a little blank. "Oh."
"Honorable sir?" one of the ponies said. Mal turned; it was Lamb's Eye, the oldest and gentlest. "If I may be permitted t' make a quick suggestion…"
Mal leaned forward, mostly to ignore Jayne's eye-rolling and as to not hear his comments ("We're letting a gorram pony give us orders!") but also to get the full effect of the pony's words. "Yes?"
"Well, honorable sir," Lamb's Eye continued, "havin' dealt with these men a'fore, I believe it would be best to give them zactly what they came fer. If they don't get it, they're gonna go wild on ya and yer crew… and I don't want that, honorable sir. I've… rather taken a shine t' ya."
"You've dealt with the PRFO a'fore?" Kaylee asked.
Lamb's Eye nodded, a gentle motion that threatened to throw Simon to the dusty ground. "That I have," she replied, but gave no further explanation.
"Well, here's the plan," Mal said. "Doc, you know that they will hurt River chu fei wo si le, you hear me? And I'm sure there's nothin' Jayne won't do t' protect his Crazy."
Jayne, done eye-rolling, assured Simon, "Yeah. I'll protect Crazy t' the ends o' the gorram verse 'n back." The crew gathered could hear no trace of sarcasm in his voice, which was very, very odd, given Jayne and his usual motives.
"That was oddly touchin' o' ya, Jayne," Kaylee said.
"Well, ruttin' hell! The girl's a ruttin' xiong can sha shou; don't think I wouldn't protect one o' them!"
Simon was forced into a smile he hadn't been expecting by Jayne's appropriately apt description of his sister. Kaylee was giggling next to him, even though it seemed to Mal's ears that giggling was not a good thing to do when brutes were staring you down.
"Here's the plan. We'll take them back t' Serenity. Put the whole gorram place on lock-down. They can have their talk with River, if she's awake."
"And if she's not, sir?" Zoë asked.
"Then we'll wait til she is." Mal was becoming surer of himself. "We'll keep her and the brutes in a room with Jayne n his guns."
Jayne nodded. He had heard "Jayne" and "guns" in the same sentence; everything was going to be all right.
"We'll let em talk t' her, figure out whatever they need figurin'. Then we'll give em the cargo they need, and they'll be gone." Mal finished his plan, looking straight on at each of the crew.
"You better radio Nara n let her know we's comin'," Kaylee said. "She won't want any surprises at the last minute." Her giggles had fallen away and she was looking rather pale. Mal noticed at the last moment before he turned away that there was a streak of grease running under her delicate ear.
"I will," Wash offered, bringing out his com unit and beginning to speak into it.
"We goin' on ponies, Cap'n?" Jayne asked.
Mal nodded. "Let's mount up n take these brutes back t' the ship, whaddya say?"
Jayne gave him a rare genuine smile and said, "Let's go." He tugged the reins and nudged Custard Pot back onto the trail leading back to Spake's Fault and Serenity.
Translations: wo de tian a: dear God in heaven
wo de ma: mother of God
bi zui: shut up
tzao-gao: oh crap
wo mun wan leh: we're in big trouble
le-se: garbage
chu fe wo si le: over my dead body
xiong can sha-shou: ass-kicking killer
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