WHOOSH!

TING!

"Yes!"

Jayne's loud, burly voice echoed through the cargo hold as the horseshoe found its target and wound its way around it and sliding to the ground with a loud tink, earning a polite round of applause from the small audience around him, prompting him to take a few bows, completely oblivious to the sarcastic undertone.

"It seems that the lord has finally shown mercy on your horseshoe skills," Shepard Book quipped with one two more horseshoes of his own resting on his wrist, patting Jayne's shoulder with his free hand.

Jayne simply waved off the Shepard's comment. "Nope, the Lord's got nothin' to do with this. All skill is what it is."

Book nodded and threw his horseshoe. It landed perfectly on the pole and spiraled back down to the floor, earning a genuine congratulatory clap from Kaylee and Inara, who are standing by the pole opposite of Book and Jayne, each with a Horseshoe of their own as well.

Book nodded appreciatively. "Thank you, ladies."

Jayne shook his head at Book but couldn't hide the smile growing on his features. "Yeah, yeah, that's all so gorram sweet and all, but I'm the master," Jayne said cockily, motioning to himself with his last horseshoe and taking another chew of his tobacco.

Rearing his hand back, he took two practice throws before letting the piece of metal go, miscalculating his shot drastically and sending it flying in the far right corner, clattering noisily to the floor, earning a loud chain of laughter from Kaylee, Inara and Book, as well as Simon and Wash, standing on the catwalk above and leaning on the railings and watching with rapt attention.

"Might wanna tell that to the horseshoe," Wash quipped, earning more laughter from the women down below.

Jayne spat out a large, tobacco filled loogie and wiped his chin in response.

"I highly doubt that Mal would appreciate that," Simon said apprehensively.

"What the Cap'n don't know won't hertcha ya know."

"By the way," Kaylee spoke up, "when did he say that he and Zoe would be back with that stolen li'l item for Badger? It's been a few hours now."

"Badger?" Simon asked, taken aback slightly. "That . . . homicidal maniac who kept us all hostage while Mal was getting ripped apart by that rich guy? That Badger?"

"That would be the one," Inara kindly cleared up, not even looking up at the two men spectating on the catwalks and rather focusing her attention on aiming the horseshoe at the small pole on the opposite side of the room. She tossed it, coming up just a few inches short, paying no mind to the immature cackling of Jayne.

"Why . . . Why is he even still affiliated with that guy?" Simon pressed on.

"I believe it is because, and this is the Captain's words," Book started as he aimed his horseshoe directly across, "If you got a job, I can do it. Don't much care what it is," Book finished, doing his best to imitate Mal's incorrect speech patterns but clearly struggling.

"Shepard's right," Wash elaborated. "We're smugglers. I don't think that we have the right to be picky about who our bosses are . . . no matter how homicidal he or she may or may not be."

Simon slackened his jaw and nodded in slight understanding, only for his face to twist back into confusion once again. But before he could question the pilot's logic any further, a loud popping and crackling sound came from Wash's waist followed by the slightly panicked tone of a feminine voice.

Wash picked up his walkie-talkie and put it to his mouth. "I'm here, my golden girl," Wash said unnecessarily calmly. He winced once the sound of his wife's loud voice, exemplified further by the crackling of the communicator.

"Wash! Get ready! Startup Serenity!"

Nodding in understanding, he clipped his walkie-talkie back to his waist and leaned over the railing.

"Alright kids, clear up," he ordered. "They're coming in hot! Kaylee, stand by the door, wait for my signal," he instructed further as he climbed the stairs up and out of the cargo hold, followed by a confused Simon.

The rest of the crew followed their instructions, picking up the horseshoe poles and placing them off to the sides. As Book, Inara and Kaylee passed by Jayne, they tossed him their horseshoes, leaving him perplexed and confused in the middle of the cargo hold.

"What in the Xi niu Gou shi am I supposed to do with these?"

"If I were you, I'd put them away," Kaylee remarked as she stood by the lever that opened the door.

Jayne rolled his eyes in response and threw them to the side and into an opened crate without even trying.

With that, Inara, Book and Jayne made their way up the ladder and onto the catwalk, out of the way of the oncoming hovercraft in time to hear the whirring noise of Wash starting Serenity's engines, followed immediately after by Wash's voice echoing out of the intercom.

"Alright, Kaylee. Open 'er up."

The young woman nodded and pulled the lever. On cue, red lights began to rotate and the alarm wailed as the door's hydraulics hissed in response as the door lowered itself outside, revealing the dry, warm and desolate desert outside, letting the sunshine spill in.

Almost immediately after the door touched the ground, distant revving noises were easily heard.

"What is that?" Inara questioned.

"If I were to guess," Book started, his silver hair now more prominent than ever in the sunlight, "I'd say that that is our dear Captain's uninvited guests."

Kaylee, her curiosity getting the better of her, peeked around the side to see a large plume of dust billowing off in the distance, and in the center of the dust cloud was a small black dot that got progressively bigger. She also took notice to the seven other black dots speeding behind the first dot.

Kaylee smiled. "That's our Cap'n."

Moments later, the small speck grew into the full-sized hovercraft that served as the new Mule, since the first one was destroyed while getting Mal and Wash back from Niska. Captain Malcolm Reynolds, dressed in his usual maroon shirt with tan suspenders and khakis stood with his back to his crew and his pistol drawn, pointed at the unwanted group of followers behind them.

Zoe sat in the driver's seat, clad in her leather jacket and dark red shirt along with her combat boots. She guided the Mule up the ramp and rocketed into the cargo hold. Almost immediately, she put on the brakes and halted the hovercraft.

Kaylee instinctively pushed up the lever again and the door began to rise off the ground, forcing the outraged crowd to slam on their brakes and skid to a halt just yards away from Serenity, which was now just taking off.

Above the roaring engines, Kaylee heard the faint shouts of dismay and anger from the crowd outside.

"Damn you, Reynolds!"

"Get out here yah coward!"

"That don't belong to you!"

SHTTHHHHMM

The door closed and all was silent for a moment save for the Mule, which was still hovering off of the floor by a few feet before Zoe switched it off, gently lowering it to the cold floor.

No one said anything for a good few moments, no one even moved. The only sensation any of them felt was their stomachs rising as the ship climbed into the atmo.

Finally, Mal turned and saw the three pairs of eyes looking down at him from atop the catwalks.

He shrugged. "Hey."

"Mal." Inara nodded.

"Captain." Book nodded as well.

"Yo." Jayne acknowledged.

"Howdy, Cap, Zoe," Kaylee greeted brightly. "How'd the thievin' go?"

"That, you may want to take up with your Captain," Zoe quipped, earning an offended guffaw from Mal.

"What? We finished the job, didn't we?"

Before they could argue any further, Wash's voice came over the intercom once again.

"Hey, you guys still alive? I didn't take off without you, did I?"

Zoe hopped off the Mule and took out her communicator from on her waist, raising it to her mouth. "We're here, Wash. Nicely done, babe."

"Good to hear. Alright passengers, this is your . . . extremely handsome pilot speaking. We're cruising at an altitude of fifty thousand feet and still climbing and we should reach the atmo in one minute. So sit back, enjoy the ride and we should reach Persephone by daybreak."

Zoe laughed in reply and put away her communicator, redirecting her attention to Mal, who was now climbing off of the Mule and landing right next to her, a chunky bag in his grip.

"What is it?" Kaylee asked excitedly, clasping her hands and making her way to Mal's side.

The captain smiled in response and opened the bag to reveal a foot and a half tall bronze statue of a certain religious figure that Mal didn't recognize.

"Ooh," Kaylee cooed. "Shiny. I didn't know Badger was the religious type. Maybe he and Shepard could get along," she half joked.

"Thanks, but I believe I'm good."

Mal closed the bag back up and motioned to Jayne, "Come on now, hurry up. Hoist the Mule back up."

Jayne rolled his eyes and muttered something undesirable under his breath as he made his way over to the controls on the other side of the catwalk. Pulling on the lever, the square, metal frame lowered itself from the ceiling slowly, prompting Kaylee to hop on the Mule and prepare to hook it up to the hoist.

Mal, turning away from his crew, made his way to the stairs and climbed up, nodding to Book and Inara in acknowledgment before stopping in his tracks, looking at Jayne, who was still at the hoist's control panel.

"And Jayne." Jayne looked in his direction. "Clean up that ruttin' spit, would ya? I'm trying to keep this ship presentable and I can't do that with Jayne DNA laying all about."

Jayne said nothing. Rather, he looked at his captain with perplexity as he climbed up the stairs and disappeared on the next level.

"Fay-Fay duh pee-yen."

As Mal walked up the stairs, he saw the golden light of the dining room washing in from above him. But the moment he placed both feet on the floor, he found a pair of glaring, angry eyes staring at him.

"I just got here, Doc. How's it I'm in trouble already?"

"You're still working for Badger?" The doctor asked irately.

"Well, 'working for' may be putting it too extreme. We're affiliated with him, I guess you could put it."

"I don't care how you put it! He's a maniac!"

Mal's nostrils flared at the sound of his rising tone. "You've been with us long enough to know that I don't appreciate that kind of tone on my boat, especially when it's directed to me. Now either you check yourself, or you and your sister can get off at the next stop."

He turned away from Simon and walked through the doorway and into the long hallway that lead to the cockpit, followed closely by Simon.

"He held us hostage, Mal! How can you still be even 'affiliated' with him?"

Mal turned on his heel and faced the doctor again. "Because he gave us a job. And given our position, I don't think we really have the option to be picky."

"That's what I was telling him earlier!" Wash's voice projected through the hallway.

Mal and Simon ignored him. "What if he were to come back?" Simon pressed, this time with more calm in his demeanor. "He could find out about River and I and there would be nothing to stop him from selling us out to the Alliance!"

"Now hold up just a moment," Mal cut him off. "You and I both know that if anything were to happen to you and your adorable baby sister, anything at all, I would be very, very heartbroken," he joked, earning an unappreciative glare from Simon. "You two are a part of my crew. There'd be no easy way I could replace either of you. I think that it would have to take someone who truly hates my entire gorram existence to take my medic away from me."

With that, he gave Simon a good-natured pat on the shoulder and turned away from him, walking toward the cockpit. "And there ain't no one I know who could hate me that much."

Meanwhile,

Hate filled his body, red flooded his field of vision, and rage almost replaced his very sanity.

The old man sat at his desk, looking out the window and into the vast emptiness of the 'verse. Looking out the window only fueled his anger even further. It reminded him that he was still out there laughing and boating about how he had gotten away from him twice now.

Not only once, but twice!

He was so close to having his head last time . . .

The mere thought of their last encounter almost made his blood pressure rise even more.

He wasn't going to make the same mistakes a second time.

Finally, the elderly man snapped back into reality and cleared his throat. He was so caught up in his vengeful thoughts that he had almost completely forgotten about the three people waiting for him behind him.

Swiveling a full one-eighty in his chair, he faced the small group with a wicked smile.

"Ah, szank you for coming," Niska greeted the three people.

The one on the far left was a shorter man, standing only about five and a half feet tall, but he was clad in mechanical armor with a wide array of blasters and other weapons on his belt. He had a metallic helmet on his head that covered up both sides of his head as well as the backside, leaving the front fully exposed.

The one in the middle was a woman around the same height as the man in armor. She had a white cloth covering her mouth, revealing only the bridge of her nose as well as her eyes which were almost hatefully halfway shut into slits and was loosely dressed in very formal fighting wear. She also had blonde hair that was pulled back into a bun. She carried no weapons with her.

The man on the right was the tallest. He stood at a staggering six-foot-seven and was darker skinned. The only thing he had on the upper half of his body were two black straps that crisscrossed over his chest and attached to his tan pants.

The three assassins stood, waiting for Niska's request.

"I've been told that when it comes to finding people, you szree are ze best in ze business. And so far . . . I'm not disappointed."

The three of them said nothing.

Niska stood up from his chair, reached into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled up mug shot of a man with brown hair and a face with well-sculpted features.

Niska smiled wickedly.

"Zis is Malcolm Reynolds."