A/N- If anyone would be so kind as to help me with a question; is "Browncoat" (the resistance against the Alliance) one word or two words? And is it capitalized?

Chapter 4

Even though the loud voices from inside the saloon obscured any noise coming from outside, the three Browncoats took care to step lightly as they moved closer to the door.

Malcom held up three fingers; two; one.

The team burst through the door, each clutching a weapon and showing it around the room. "Everyone on the floor!" Jayne followed Malcom's order with one warning shot next to the bartender's head. The shot was followed by the sound of smashing glass and then an alarm.

"Oops." Jayne's eyes flickered around the room as Malcom cursed under his breath in Chinese.

"Sir; we have five minutes tops before the Alliance shows up." Zoe cut in as Mal moved to the vault. "If we abandon the job now we can get off this rock before..."

"All the more reason to get these stones out of the vault even faster." Malcom cut Zoe off and motioned with his gun for the bartender to open the vault.

Jayne stepped forward eagerly with Vira before the vault was even open to gather the gems, when the painfully familiar clicking sound of a gun reloading came from the door of the saloon.

There, an Alliance guard stood, with his gun pointed directly at Malcom's head.

Simon and Kaylee sat at the last fork in the tunnels that looked familiar to the both of them. They had reasoned that venturing further underground would only lessen their chances of getting out.

"I should have protected her better." Simon started the same monologue for the twenty-seventh time since they'd been in the tunnels. "If only I hadn't let River out of my sight. I shouldn't have let Jayne convince the Captain to use her as bait..."

"Worryin' about it isn't gonna bring us any closer to findin' her." Or getting out of these gorram tunnels. Kaylee added to herself.

"There's nothin' else we can do but wait. Besides," Kaylee rested her head on Simon's shoulder, "If I get hurt I got you to cure me."

"That would be a lot easier with my med kit." Simon said in a slightly annoyed tone, completely oblivious to Kaylee's attempt at a compliment.

Can I be any more obvious? Kaylee thought to herself. The doctor's normal cluelessness that she normally found cute was starting to really annoy her.

"Well, it ain't all bad..." Kaylee tried again; looking on the bright side of a situation, as normal.

"Yeah, my sister's running loose on a Central Planet, acting as bait for Alliance officials while we're stuck God knows how many feet underground, and the rest of the crew robs a vault." It was pretty obvious the situation was starting to get to Simon.

"Well sure... but, I couldn't think of anyone I'd rather be lost with." Kaylee could almost see the gears finally turning in Simon's head. Even in the almost pitch-black dark, she could sense his head inching closer toward hers.

Then they both jumped when a call came from the path to their right, "Hello? Is anybody down there?"

Kaylee only had time to mutter a short string of Chinese curses under her breath before the realization that one of the Alliance officials had found them washed over her. Then she remembered Simon was standing right next to her.

"I'll go up ahead; you stay out of sight." Kaylee whispered to Simon, before following the Alliance guard's voice up the right path.

"You know, the Alliance sent out a bulletin just this morning that said we should be on the lookout for some Browncoats who looted an Alliance vessel." The guard stepped forward into the saloon while Mal, Zoe, and Jayne holstered their guns and held up their hands.

Malcom's brain was already planning an escape route, when he saw a flash of blue out of the corner of his eye. Turning slowly to the front door, he saw River, her blue dress twirling in the wind, stepping toward the Alliance guard with a large crystal in her hand. Mal worked to keep a straight face, and attempted a motion with his head to tell River to run the other direction. The girl obviously didn't notice.

Then River raised the stone, and smashed it over the guard's head.

Her wide eyes followed the guard to the floor, then looked back up at the Captain and the dazed citizens on the floor of the saloon.

"A transparent crystal of tetrahedrally bonded carbon atoms that crystallizes into the diamond lattice which is a variation of the face centered cubic structure."* And then after a pause. "I never liked diamonds."

*- Quoted directly from the Wikipedia page on diamonds; I could never come up with that.