Joss is Boss. The girls are mine.
A dozen or so feds swarmed into the cargo bay, followed by Sergeant Banning, who swaggered along behind as though boarding his own ship. He surveyed the crew ranged in front of him with a sneer, not failing to notice the brownish hues the Captain and another crewmember wore. He made a point of staring around the cargo bay with obvious contempt before nodding to his purple clad colleagues.
"Search it."
They headed off in all directions, weapons ready. Banning strutted up to the Captain, who stood in front of the others, papers in hand. Trying to look down his nose at the considerably taller man, Banning snatched the papers out of his hands.
"What a heap of fei-oo you have here," he said conversationally, glancing through the papers, and ignoring the cry of outrage from a female crewmember.
"These are a little out of date, uh, Captain." He continued, utilising the exact same annunciation of the title as Badger had.
"They are?" replied the Browncoat, taking them back and looking at them. "We aint had to use em for so long, I guess getting' em renewed slipped my mind. I'll get em done on the next planet we get to."
Dumbass hick thought Banning.
"You do that," he said aloud, before looking round in surprise at the clamour coming from the walk way above.
"Take your hands off of me, neen hen boo-tee-tyeh duh nan-shung!" a woman's voice yelled, causing the crew to stare at each other panic stricken.
"Sir!" called a male voice, presumably addressing Banning. "We found someone, sir. In one of the crew bunks." The fed came down the stairs, propelling Nova before him with one hand gripping her arm. The first thing to strike the watchers was that she appeared to be stark naked, wrapped only in the sheet from Mal's bed. He forced her across the bay to stand with the crew, her hand holding the sheet in place, a sulky expression clouding her face. Jayne stared at her, bug eyed.
"Why're you nekkid?" he asked.
"Why're you breathing?" she snarled back, glaring up at him.
"Bee-jway!" Banning ordered them, turning on Mal. "Captain, I specifically requested that all crew members congregate in the cargo bay."
"I aint crew." Nova told him, staring at him with distaste. "I'm just his whore." She gestured at Mal, who tried to look as if he already knew this.
"Nevertheless, all personnel on board should have reported here. If there's anyone else we don't know about, we will find them."
In the shuttle, two feds rifled through Inara's stuff, creating a mess. Above their heads, Taariq held her breath, willing her feet not to slip on the cold metal. She closed her eyes tight and sent out a silent plea to any divine force that might be listening. Don't move the drapes; don't move the drapes…
"What about the drapes?" Fed number one asked her partner.
PLEASE don't move the drapes!
"Nah, don't bother. No one could hide there. We'll check the other shuttle." The feds clattered out, and Taariq released her breath, almost crying with relief, and steeled herself to wait for Inara to come and give her the all clear.
Kaige, it turned out, could breathe, but she too held her breath as she listened to the slightly muffled sounds of feds searching Jayne's bunk. Leaning her head against the wall she was backed against, she tried to take deep, claming, silent breaths, sure that even through the rack and all the guns the alliance lackeys would hear her heart pounding. As the feds began to discuss any hiding places they might have missed, it hit her just how bizarre the situation was, and she began to giggle, immediately clamping a hand to her full lips, trying to stifle the sound. Trying to picture where the others where hidden, she was beginning to find the situation hilarious, and tears streamed down her face from behind her rectangular glasses as she closed her eyes, desperately attempting to stop laughing, mindful not only of the telltale noise, but of how much oxygen was available in the tiny space. Eventually, she calmed down, hearing the sound of boots retreating up the ladder. Leaning her head back once again, she took a deep breath and wiped her eyes, worry for her friends and sister creeping back in.
Far above the Captain and the Sergeant, warm under the tarpaulin of the new hover mule, Taban and Simon lay quietly, hoping upon hope that no one would think to look for stowaways here. Taban found her mind slipping, wrapping her in a cozy bubble of denial as it so often did. She smiled in the darkness, and began to think of songs she wanted to learn on her guitar. Simon found himself hoping that the feds wouldn't even notice the mule. At least it had stopped swaying he could forget he was suspended so high above a solid metal hull. Unbidden, Mal's voice floated through his head; One of you is gonna fall, and die, and I'm not cleaning it up! He closed his eyes tight and thought of Kaylee so far below, probably lecturing some feds on detailed mechanical systems, and of River, snug below Kaylee's favourite system of all.
Snug, River decided, was the word. She was exactly five feet eight, and that made her exactly one sixteenth of an inch shorter than the hole, which was dark and warm and smelled like the grease that had irrevocably permeated Kaylee's coveralls. River was content here. She fit, a square peg in a square hole, comforted by the constant steady rumble of Serenity. River heard boots approaching, Alliance issue, size eleven. One, two, three… She smiled excitedly, remembering Simon's eighth birthday party. Remembered crawling under her parents' bed, stomach tingling in trepidation and anticipation…Ninety-nine, One-hundred! The boots were nearer, almost above her…Ready or not…and there were more than one pair, seeking and searching…Here I come!
Head nestled on a cluster of wires, Ebony stretched out and closed her eyes. The far off rumble of the engine, combined with a gentle humming that seemed to surround her was surreally comforting, oddly reminiscent of the power plant near one of her many childhood homes. Anxiety was creeping through her, but so was sleep, on Allen, it was past midnight, and the crawlspace was definitely more comfortable than where she'd been sleeping these past few months. She sighed, and found herself drifting away.
Translations: fei-oo - junk
neen hen boo-tee-tyeh duh nan-shung - you inconsiderate schoolboys
bee-jway - shut up