The inspiration machine was on tonight, so here's the short-awaited sequel to The Other Side of Serenity. Viva la Browncoats.

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"Woman, pour me some more gorram beer."

Jian-Ku gave her husband a sidelong glance. Never a classic beauty to begin with, her nose had been broken in a long-ago brawl from the service days and never had been properly set, leaving it with a slight leftward orientation. It was her eyes that put most people off, though. When they settled down from their continual roaming and locked in on a person, it was unsettlingly like being under the crosshairs of the sniper rifle she'd carried back in the service.

"Try again. Woman, pour me some more gorram beer, what?" she said. There was an edge to her tone, not from their perpetual banter. Nobody in the booth had much reason to be excited about this auspicious occasion.

"Woman, pour me some more gorram beer because you're closer to the gorram pitcher." he retorted. A crooked grin passed over his weathered face, prematurely aged from exposure to harsh UV radiation he'd endured in the service. His fair blond hair was just starting to show gray streaks, also premature for a man barely past his thirty-second year.

Cafferty turned his attention away from the growing celebration going on near the bar to watch how this was going to play out. Jian-Ku bared her teeth and reached down, digging into his inner thigh with strong fingers further hardened by two years of hardscrabble farming. "When was the last time you told me you loved me, darling?"

Zip was staring straight ahead, eyes locked in the perpetually wide stare of a former benthamph addict. Typically, he'd started drinking in the morning before the usual weekend get-together. Cafferty, sensing the oncoming torrent that Zip was locally notorious for, elbowed him and nodded toward the growing drama. Kellerman squirmed and made 'ah ah ah' noises, finally relenting. "Light of my life, purtiest creature I've ever seen... ah... could y