Disclaimers : Everything belongs to Joss, except for one character of my creation.

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“Sir, the place’ll be crawlin’ with Feds,” Zoë said, and Mal nodded. They were on the bridge after finally getting off Paquin and setting course for Zargon. Wash had them at full burn, eating up their fuel supply, but it was the only way to get there in a timely manner.

“You know they won’t let us park without searchin’ us,” Zoë went on.

“If they let us park at all,” Wash threw in. He still looked quite unhappy with the situation. Zoë merely seemed resigned.

Mal nodded again, lost in thought.

“Sir, we may want to leave the doc and his sister off somewhere along the way,” Zoë continued, attempting to get something out of Mal besides a nod.

“Yeah, seein’ as how they are fugitives, ” Wash emphasized.

Mal sighed. He was staring at the Cortex, watching yet another news wave from the prison.

“If things are as bad there as they look, we may need the doc,” he said, half to himself.

“Sir,” Zoë objected, “If they search us and find them, we may all end up inmates there ‘stead of just visitors.”

“Yeah, and I already made one more trip there’n I ever wanted to make.” It was Jayne stepping onto the bridge. “I got no intention of becomin’ a permanent resident.”

Mal looked up from the screen long enough to shoot him a dirty look.

“You coulda got off at Paquin.”

“I ain’t gettin’ off on Zargon, that’s for sure,” Jayne groused. “Me, I’m waitin’ on the ship.”

“You’ll do what needs to be done,” Mal told him. Jayne set his jaw and looked away.

“We can hide the doc and his sis in the hold behind the mule and pile crates in front of it,” Mal said. “They ain’t likely to go diggin’ deep—they got better things to do.”

Zoë looked at him like his hair was on fire.

“They’ll run out of air if we’re on that rock any time at all.”

Jayne grinned for the first time all day. “Then it’s a good plan.”

“Why don’t we talk to someo