Title: Familiar Faces
by Nopporn Wongrassamee
Summary: A series of Firefly crossover shorts wherein Mal and his crew run into some familiar faces.
Disclaimer: Everything belongs to their owners who I'm too lazy to look up and list.
Part 3. Gatekeeper
"What were you gorram thinking, boy?" Mal demanded as soon as he could get Simon alone. Given the nature of their "guests", that turned out to be the two of them on the bridge as Serenity was taking off.
It had started off as such a nice day. Their local contacts, the Dukes, were friendly and affable once business was out of the way. Despite the initial mishap, they had managed to get their whole cargo. Unfortunately, Simon had volunteered to go along with them. He then brought back… additional passengers.
"I don't know, Captain," Simon began.
"Don't know!" Mal exploded, but quietly so as not to be overheard outside the bridge. "You invited Feds on my boat! And not just any Feds, if those ain't a team of SpecOps soldiers, I'll eat my gun! I know you and your sis ain't fugitives no more, but that's no reason to go borrowing more trouble! Especially since our cargo ain't strictly legal to begin with."
"Honestly, Captain," Simon said earnestly. "I can't remember inviting them at all. My memory of recent events is somewhat fuzzy. I think I may be coming down with something."
"That's because you weren't Simon then," River said as she piloted Serenity out of the world. "But now you are Simon and what went wrong is now right."
"Right?" Mal said incredulously. "How is having Feds on my boat right?"
"The enemy of my enemy is my friend," River replied cryptically.
"REYNOLDS!" bellowed a voice not belonging to any crewmember before Mal could ask River what she meant. Mal turned to see the leader of the Alliance soldiers storming up into the bridge.
"Colonel O'Neill," Mal greeted with a smile that fooled no one. "What can I do for you?