Am I to be hanged, drawn and quartered for not posting for months and months? I probably deserve it, eh? Ah well. Let me know if this chapter keeps with the feel of the rest of the story- I want to make sure I've stayed consistent over all this time.

-StarDrop ;)

Chapter 5

They sailed slowly through the black.

Mal had reached a compromise with his recalcitrant crew. How to get them to leave the relaxation and real food to be found upon Whitefall? He suggested that they take as much food as they could carry aboard the ship and get their gorram rear ends on the boat, already, or they were going to be left behind.

Now they were on a lazy, careful sort of course towards Kerry, set carefully by Mal so that they would have as long as possible to enjoy the food before having to leave it behind for the dusty plane of the most frightening planet they'd been on since Miranda. The crew was rarely seen nowadays, because for once there was very little to do. There were no Alliance ships around the area, there didn't seem to be any mechanical troubles, and pretty much everyone had approved the course he had set.

So, he hadn't seen a hair of any of his crew for at least twenty-four hours, which he had spent in the cockpit- but he knew exactly where they were and how they were feeling. Most of them were in their rooms, with the exception of Kaylee who would not leave the fresh fruit alone. Without even talking to them, Mal knew that every one of the crew was filled to the brim with unease and disquiet.

He honestly couldn't blame them.

He himself was very worried about the return to Kerry. He'd hoped that at least Simon, River and Kaylee would stay behind, simply to protect themselves, but like the naïve, loyal idiots they were they'd all immediately agreed to go with him.

Exactly what was it that made him so nervous about the little dust ball that Kerry was? It wasn't the planet itself, because basically every planet that wasn't at the core was exactly like it. It was something about the way the people had been killed- all at once, and with no signs of any trauma? It rang bells in Mal's mind, but the familiarity of it couldn't be brought to words. It was on the tip of his tongue.

"Um… Mal, are you busy?"

The voice he had least expected to hear sounded behind him, at the door to the cockpit. He turned and looked Inara in the eyes. "Not really, why? Is there a problem?"

It was a dumb thing to say, he told himself, mentally smacking himself upside the head as she turned away hesitatingly. "No… it's not really a problem, per se… never mind. Sorry to bother you-"

"No!" She turned back at his loud exclamation with a startled look, and he amended his outburst by saying, "Go ahead. It's okay, y'all can tell me what you want to say. I'm listening."

She nodded, her dark hair swinging. Her hips swayed as she stepped forward and- focus, Mal, he reminded himself sternly.

"I just thought... well… it's going to be dangerous, isn't it?" She stumbled slightly over her words, like she'd prepared them in her mind a moment earlier and revised them when she said them. "It's going to be dangerous to go back to that planet."

He nodded, wondering what she was driving at. "It's gonna be risky, I know, but what do you want me to do about it?"

She looked at the floor, fluttering her eyelashes slightly, although he assumed that it was unintentional. "It's just that I'm- I'm not going to be much help down there, so I just figured that it would be best if I stayed on the ship, that's all. Of course, if you want me to go with you-"

Oh. He understood now. She was scared, and rightfully so. He was dragging the crew into something that even he didn't quite understand yet. "No, you can stay on the boat if ya want to. I ain't going to stop you. I ain't going to stop anyone who wants to stay behind, either. But…" he realized that this could work in his favor. "Why don't you suggest it to Simon and Kaylee- and probably moonbrain too- that they stay behind with you? I don't think that they'd be much help. Well, River maybe, but Simon will go with her if she goes and Kaylee will go with him."

Inara nodded quickly. It was apparent that she'd thought the same thing. "So that leaves you with Jayne and Zoe. That doesn't seem like much against something that can wipe out a whole village."

"It's enough. It's been enough before."

Inara looked concerned, but she didn't object as he walked away, leaving the cockpit and her behind.

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He was approached later, by another person who he wouldn't expect would want to talk to him at a time like this- indeed, River normally wasn't the kind to talk much to anyone at all.

"You're worried about us. Why?"

He wasn't sure what to say to her. "Well, not worried about you, in particular. I know ya can handle yourself, at least when you're not being all crazy-like. But what about your brother? What about Kaylee?"

River's eyes were mesmerizingly deep, like dark wells without end. She stared into his eyes, and he could almost feel her reading his thoughts. He waited for her to finish, knowing that he wouldn't have to explain his feelings if she just went and found out what they were anyways.

Finally, she nodded. "If that's the way it has to be. He's so overprotective."

It took him a moment to realize she was talking about Simon, and by then she was gone. It was a strange sort of conversation, and Mal was so preoccupied by exactly what she'd meant that he had to go and eat one of Patience's strawberries to settle his mind.

{}{}{}{}{}

"Is that it?"

"That's it, all right."

He and Zoe were standing in the cockpit, staring out the windows at a small, distant yellow spot that shone brighter than the stars behind it. Kerry looked nonthreatening, and indeed it was. But something or someone on that planet was a murderer. It was all turning out like one of the drama stories that Kaylee read.

"So, we have to land where we were before?"

"In the interest of safety, we should stay far away from the village." He stared at the gradually growing circle that they intended to land upon. The village would be facing away from the planet's star at this time, and so they'd arrive at nighttime. He'd already decided that they weren't moving from the ship until the sun rose.

Zoe nodded slowly. "This should be fun."

Mal looked at her out of the corner of his eye. He was getting something from her, something she wasn't saying. It took him only a moment to decipher what she meant. She was worried too, and not just because of the bodies.

"Ya feel it too, huh?"

"At first I thought it was just Alliance go-se, but it's something else. Someone we've encountered before, sir, and we aren't going to enjoy encountering them again. But I don't know who."

"I understand the feeling." The planet was close now, the dark side of it looming near, and he seized the controls.

"This is your captain speaking," he said over the comm system, "We are beginning our descent over Kerry. Please fasten your seatbelts and put down all your beverages, 'cause we're goin' in for the landing."

Not really a cliffhanger, because I figured I'd be nice. This isn't the ending I'd intended to write, and believe me you'd have hated me if I'd kept my original idea- it was the meanest cliffie ever to be written.

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