If you like the story, please do let me know!

3.

Zoe ran for the bridge, with Mal and the new buyer close on her heels. They pounded onto the bridge together, and Wash asked “Okay, what now?”

“Lose the cops, and you can set me down anywhere,” the buyer suggested.

“Sure, let me just do that,” Wash said calmly. Zoe put a hand on his shoulder. He wouldn’t respond – his mind, his whole body was flying Serenity right now – but he’d know she was there. That was important to him. He’d told her so, in a less fraught moment – that it mattered to him to know she was there, and safe, even if there was nothing she could do.

The comm screen blinked to life, and the cruisers demanded insistently that Serenity put down. Wash silenced the comm and slowed the ship, descending.

“What are you doing?” Mal and the new buyer demanded.

“I’m losing the cops, like you asked,” Wash replied calmly.

He scanned the ground, looking for a likely spot, and finally found one that suited his purpose. The space was just large enough for Serenity to put down in, and Wash settled her squarely in the middle of it. Just in front of the little rocky patch where Wash set them down, the ground dropped steeply away; beyond that, foothills rose up in a rolling succession. All around, the forest cover prevented the cruisers from landing too close. Two of them set down in the nearest available empty spaces, while the third hovered above.

“Looks to me like you’re making us a sitting duck,” Mal said.

“Sit tight,” Wash told him. He grabbed the intercom and said “Best—sorry, Kaylee, I’m going to cut the thrusters but I want you to keep the main drive warm.”

The voice of their new mechanic, only aboard for a month, came quavering back over the intercom. “Okay.”

“I wouldn’t have tried this with Bester,” Wash said. “This new gal’s a lot better.”

People in uniform were disgorging from the two landed police cruisers, and approaching Serenity with drawn weapons. The cruiser