Earlier version beta'd by KrisEleven. Many thanks!

Translations: Are below.

Ta ma de hun dan—Mother-humping son of a bitch

Le-se—Garbage

Wang-ba dan de biao-zi—Whores of sons of bitches

Baobei—Sweetheart

Chapter 3—Switchover

The planet Three Hills, May of the year 2516

Jayne Cobb, king of the sniper rifle and known for his potency and prowess on every planet where he hit dirtside, preferred guns to people when all was said and done. A man could count on his weapon to be fair consistent, day in and day out, 'less he was careless and didn't repair her right. And one thing Jayne weren't was careless with his guns.

People weren't anywhere near that reliable.

"I told you he weren't to be trusted, Marco!" the indignant henchman shouted after his leader. "Didn't I tell him, Jayne?"

Jayne propped up his feet on a spare crate. "Hey, Bruno, ya don't want in on this, I'll have your share."

"What's there left to have in on, huh? Alferes sold us out, the ta ma de hun dan!" Bruno turned back to the door to the bridge, where Marco had vanished. "And I said he would, but you never listen to me, do you? If I told you once, I told you ten times—"

"Fifteen." Jayne drew one of his numerous knives and began picking his teeth.

Bruno paused in his ranting to shoot a look at his ally. "Fifteen what?"

"Ya told him fifteen times. Sixteen, countin' this one. Gonna make our ears fall off."

Bruno kicked the crate out from under Jayne's feet. "You keep hirin' cheap whores like the one you had last night, ears ain't the only thing as is gonna be fallin' off!"

"Ya just think that 'cause you kiss 'em on the mouth."

"Shut up, you two," came Marco's voice from the bridge. "I'm gettin' a wave here."

"Who cares? We ain't—"

Jayne threw his knife into the wall a foot from Bruno's ear. He leapt back and glared, but seemed to think better of any further lecturing. Jayne pulled out a second knife and began sharpening it. Bruno, having worn out his brains for the day coming up with Reasons Why Alferes Ain't To Be Trusted, stared sullenly into space.

After a few minutes had passed, Marco strolled back into the decrepit room that served as a kitchen for his crew. "Good news, boys. Looks like the double-crosser got double-crossed. 'Least, accordin' to him, that's what happened."

"Deserved it enough," Jayne grunted. "Ya got a point?"

"Point bein', he's willin' to let us take the goods back from those as crossed him. Told me who they are. Crew of some le-se Firefly."

"Won't end well," Bruno prophesied. "Nothin' to do with Alferes—"

Jayne interrupted. "Won't they be expectin' somethin' like this? Hid the goods somewhere?"

Marco grinned. "That's where you come in. Reckon you can make 'em say where they dropped 'em?"

Jayne reached over and wrenched his knife out of the wall. "Can do, boss."

OoOoO

Tracking the wang-ba dan de biao-zi they'd been passed over for didn't prove as easy as Jayne had expected, but that was more than made up for by the fact that they caught at least two of the crew by surprise—and from the looks of things, those were the ones in charge. At least, no one else appeared to be swooping down to the rescue.

"Well, looks like you boys got us right where you want us." The man in the brown coat seemed uncannily cheerful for being held at gunpoint. "It's the why I'm having trouble figuring out just now. Zoe?"

"More interested in the what happens next, sir."

"You cheated us!" Bruno couldn't keep his mouth shut. "Alferes was supposed to be holdin' those goods for us!"

"Well, we ain't got no say in how he conducts his business. Now, why don't we all just be reasonable here?"

"Reason?" Marco's tone betrayed his thoughts on the matter. "He's gonna talk to us about reason now."

"Yeah." Jayne snorted. "That's a joke."

The brown-coated man glanced at the woman beside him—Zoe, Jayne remembered. "Which one do you figure tracked us?"

"The ugly one, sir."

The man began nodding, then paused. "Could you be more specific?"

Jayne guessed he'd just been insulted, and these people were for sure not adequately afraid of him. He was ready to give as good as he got, but Marco beat him to it.

"Do we look reasonable to you?"

"Well," the man replied, "looks can be deceiving."

Jayne jumped in. "Not as deceivin' as a low-down, dirty..." He searched for the proper word. "Deceiver." Marco laughed.

"Well said," the man said seriously. "Wasn't that well said, Zoe?"

"Had a kind of poetry to it, sir," Zoe replied calmly.

Jayne was now certain he was being made fun of. "Ya want I should shoot 'em now, Marco?"

"Wait until they tell us where they put the stuff."

"That's a good idea," Jayne said approvingly, glancing from the brown-coated man to Zoe. "Good idea. Tell us where the stuff's at so I can shoot ya."

The man raised a hand. "Point of interest? Offering to shoot us might not work so well as an incentive as you might imagine." Jayne considered that. Man could have a point. "Anyway, we've hidden it. So, you kill us, you'll never find it."

"Found you easy enough," Jayne retorted.

"Yeah," the man said thoughtfully. "Yeah, you did, didn't you." He considered Jayne for a moment. "How much they paying you?"

Jayne blinked. "Huh?"

"I mean, let's say you did kill us. Or didn't. There could be torture. Whatever. But somehow you found the goods. What would your cut be?"

"Seven percent, straight off the top," Jayne informed him. Marco had made a point, when he'd hired Jayne, of pointing out that he didn't take out the costs of running their ship before paying his crew. People on a ship like this probably couldn't manage that much.

"Seven?" The man looked surprised. "Huh."

"What?"

"Hmm? Nothing. Not a thing. No, I just..." He glanced at Zoe. "That seem low to you?"

"It does, sir."

"That ain't low—"

Marco cut in. "Stop it!"

Jayne ignored him. "Seven percent's standard."

The man laughed, his eyes going to his colleague. "Okay, Zoe, I'm paying you too much."

"Why? What does she get?" Jayne demanded. If Marco's cheatin' me...

Said leader interrupted Jayne's thoughts. "Knock it off!"

"Look, forget I said anything," the man said soothingly. "I'm sure you're treated very well. You get all the perks...got your own room...No?"

Own room? Now there's a concept...

"You share a bunk?" the man demanded incredulously.

Jayne spared Bruno a look. "With that one." Bruno hastily raised his gun and tried to look intimidating.

"Really?"

"Jayne!" Marco looked ready to shoot. "This ain't funny!"

"Yeah, I ain't laughin.'"

"You move on over to our side," the man told him, "we'll not only show you where the stuff's at, we'll see to it you get your fair share. Not no sad seven."

Jayne didn't trust easy, but people smart enough to spin up a strategy like this at gunpoint were bound to come up with better plans than Marco, who created over-fancy heists one day, and got them caught for having outdated papers the next. And better plans meant more coin. "Private room?"

"Jayne!"

"Your own room. Full run of the kitchen. Whole shot."

So that le-se ship has a kitchen worth the mentioning, does it?

Marco's yammering interrupted him. "Jayne. I ain't askin'—"

Jayne shot him in the foot to rid himself of the distraction. "Shut up." He aimed the gun at Bruno, in case the man decided to prove he had more hair than brains. "How big a room?"

OoOoO

Turned out Jayne had no reason to regret his decision. 'Spite of what he'd implied, he and Marco and Bruno never woulda found the goods on their own. He'd kept Ella, the gun he carried, at the ready in case the man and Zoe had made up their minds to shoot him soon as he was away from the others, but as it happened, they seemed glad enough to have another pair of hands.

The man, who'd introduced himself to Jayne as Captain Malcolm Reynolds, directed Zoe and Jayne to help him store the crates in a hidden hatch of the Firefly, before going to the com on the wall. "Wash, take us out of the world." He turned to Jayne. "So, Jayne Cobb. See you know a good opportunity when you see one. Not a half-bad tracker, either. Presume you've got other skills, but we'll cover those later. Seeing as you haven't tried to shoot us yet—which is a habit you should cultivate, by the way—let's have you meet the rest of the crew. Zoe, where's Kaylee?"

"Believe she's in the engine room, sir. I'll go tell Wash not to crash the ship again." She climbed the stairs away from the cargo bay.

"She's jokin', right?" Jayne asked the captain, who was checking the hatch was secure. "Right?"

The captain straightened up and strode towards the stairs where Zoe had disappeared. "Come on up to the engine room. Our mechanic's in there. Best in the 'verse," he added with pride. The floor vibrated underneath them as the pilot, whoever he was, fired it up.

Jayne took in what he could see of the ship as he climbed the stairs after the captain. She looked like she wouldn't know new if it lived next door for ten years, but at least she seemed well cared for. He'd known captains who'd let a ship rust to pieces rather than take the trouble of cleaning and replacing the parts. Serenity, she was called, apparently. Name rang a bell, but he couldn't recall from where.

The captain paused at the door to the engine room. "Kaylee! Get yourself out here, there's someone you gotta meet."

Jayne peered through the door. There was the main engine, a maze and tangle of rotating parts, all humming gently and all beyond his comprehension. A pair of legs wearing green coveralls and boots were all he could see of the mechanic.

"Hold on just a sec." A hand emerged from under the engine and fumbled in an toolbox open next to her. "Got it." She withdrew a wrench and the arm disappeared again. A few moments later, a pink-cheeked face smudged with engine grease and topped with a messy knot of shiny brown hair emerged from beneath the mechanisms. "Hey, Captain, how'd it go? Didja make a new friend?" She beamed at Jayne. "Where're ya from?"

"He's joined up with us, right enough." The captain informed Kaylee as she grabbed a bemused Jayne's hand and shook it enthusiastically. "Being on the business end of a gun ain't how I usually start a friendship, but new experiences are broadening, or so they tell me."

"Gun?" Kaylee crinkled her forehead. "But ya said..."

The captain jerked a thumb at him. "Jayne here and his people tracked us down. He made the wise decision to hop on over to our side, get himself a raise."

"Damn straight." Jayne looked at her appreciatively. "Nice to meet ya, Miss Kaylee."

Kaylee grinned. "You too. Ever need anythin' fixed, I'm your girl." She turned to the captain. "I've done just 'bout all as can be done on the synchronizers. They'll hold a little longer, but repairin' 'em won't do. Gonna need new ones. I'm gettin' some weirdness off the port compression coil too."

"We'll see what we can do 'bout the synchronizers," the captain told her. "No way we can replace the compression coil for a good long while. Does it still work?"

"Yeah..."

"Then we keep it."

Kaylee sighed and crossed to a colorful hammock hung in one corner of the engine room. "Well, we'll be okay for now. Jayne, ya met Wash yet?"

"I'm just taking him up there now. See you at dinner, little Kaylee." The girl waved cheerily as the captain and Jayne exited the room.

Jayne lowered his voice as they tramped off towards the bridge. "So, ya ever tried her out in the hammock?"

The captain whipped back around to stare at Jayne. "You're new on this boat, so let me make one thing very clear to you. Kaylee ain't to be trifled with. I won't have you playing on her big heart just to get yourself some action. Get sexed all you want when you're on leave, but that's it."

"Don't know if the young lady would appreciate you meddlin' in her affairs."

The captain held Jayne's gaze. "My ship, my rules. I don't care how often you've been told that disobeying orders could end with you out an airlock—on this boat, it's for real. Kaylee ain't a joke to me, nor to anyone else here." He turned around and headed for the bridge. "Wash! Am I gonna see something as should be saved for the bunk?"

"I'm wounded, Mal," came an unfamiliar voice through the door. "We do retain some shred of civilization here." The two men crossed through the door.

Zoe was leaning against the console, beside a scruffy-looking blond-haired man, intensely focused on the piloting mechanisms. Set within reach were several plastic dinosaurs, as might have been picked up in a toy shop on any border planet. Jayne turned to Mal. "Ya got kids on this boat?"

"No. They're Wash's." Mal gestured at the blond man.

"Gets lonely on the bridge sometimes. That is, when one of our crew members hasn't decided to grace me with their company." Wash spun his chair around and caught sight of Jayne. "Zoe, love of my life, flower of my heart, who is the large and extremely suspicious-looking, and by that I mean extremely good-looking, new recruit?"

"Name's Jayne," Zoe replied briefly.

"As in Jane Austen?" Wash asked brightly. "Was your mother a fan?"

"What are you sayin' about my momma?"

Mal cut in. "Jayne, ain't nobody talking bad about your momma. Wash, who the hell is Jane Austen?"

"I'm just tellin' ya, little man—"

Wash winked. "I'm sure your mother is a fine woman. Besides...my wife can kill you with her big toe. Right, baobei?" He leaned over and pulled Zoe into his lap.

"Oh, I don't know, husband. It might take my whole foot."

Jayne folded his arms. "So they get some in the black and I don't?"

"You have working hands, don't you?" Mal disappeared back through the door. "C'mon, I'll show you the kitchen and your bunk." Jayne shook his head and followed.

In the black, June of the year 2516

A month or so with Serenity's crew, Jayne still had no reason to regret his decision, but he was gorram well maintaining his position that people weren't near as reliable as guns, even those as were tolerable 'cause they paid him or knew some good whore's tricks. Take Mal for an example—of the paying category, that is. (In Jayne's humble opinion, Mal's knowing good whore's tricks would be a gorram waste anyway, when it was clear as shiny Core glass the man hadn't gotten sexed in years, at least.) Sure, Mal delivered when it came to coin, but his mind had all kinds of weird twists and turns. Right now he was in a bear of a mood, due to having gotten himself shot by some old bird named Patience while they were planetside on Whitefall, and there weren't any definite way to make him cut it out.

"Can't ya help me get him laid?" Jayne demanded of Zoe as he dried the dinner dishes. He'd have tried to skive off if it had been anyone but the first mate, and he suspected that was why Kaylee had stuck them together on cleanup duty. "We hand over the goods from this job, there'll be coin to hire—"

Zoe pushed a just-rinsed plate into his hands. "Ain't going to happen, and if you try and push it, Captain will be even more bent out of shape, so leave it alone. Job stress gets to us all. Things will blow over soon."

"Yeah, well, he ain't got no call to take it out on us," Jayne grumbled. "Ain't like we've got naught to worry about our own selves. Ella needs a new firin' pin, and Masha could use some spare cartridges."

"Jayne, why ya always name your guns?" Kaylee was leaning in the doorway, face liberally smudged with grease—as Jayne had learned was usually the case with her. "I think it's real nice, but why ya do it?"

"Picked up the habit from an old sharpshooter back home." Jayne shrugged. "He said ya can't neglect somethin' you named, all personal-like. And if ya neglect your guns, you're liable to end up a lead-filled carcass."

"Same as if I didn't pay no mind to Serenity," Kaylee agreed.

Jayne grinned. "I heard how ya done come onboard this ship for the first time. Ya favor machines like that, ya might be able to figure how I feel about a good gun when—"

"Don't be finishing that sentence," Zoe advised, handing him the pot they'd used to cook today's version of protein glop. "I ain't wishful to hear. Key word in the phrase private lives is private."

Kaylee giggled. "'Cept when I got the spiel 'bout Wash havin' real steady hands, pilot and all. 'Course, I did ask."

"How'd this conversation get back to sex?" Zoe shook her head. "Right, Jayne's in the room."

"Just talkin' 'bout how we can get Mal to unwind a mite." Jayne stuck the pot in the cupboard. It weren't wiped all the way, but the thing could dry on the shelf. "Ya say no whorehouse, Zoe, are you volunteerin' to sex him up?"

"Marriage vows, you may have heard of 'em."

"Pretty words is still words. Ain't like Wash is holdin' a gun to your head."

Zoe raised an eyebrow as she passed him a bundle of wet chopsticks. "There's something to be said for keeping a promise, Jayne."

"Yeah." Kaylee sat in a kitchen chair, propping her feet on one of the rungs. "I mean, we're all crew. We ain't ought to go behind each other's backs."

"Sure, we're crew. Can't function 'less we're reliable, but no point in gettin' all mushy over it." Jayne dried the chopsticks. "It's coin as keeps us together, in the end, I reckon."

"Hmm." Zoe pulled the plug in the sink, letting the soapy water swirl down the drain. "Ain't much of a wonder you don't understand why the captain's been growling at us, then."

"Don't give much of a damn about the why, just so long as it don't go on too much longer." Jayne hung the dishcloth on the hook. "Things go any further downhill than they've been goin' lately, somethin's gonna snap on this boat afore long."

Note

The scene where Jayne decides to join the crew, as many fans will recognize, matches the flashback in Out of Gas. It was never quite clear to me how Jayne would have managed to retrieve any of his belongings from his old ship, after turning on his old crew, but hey, canon happens.