Frame Story: Jack Tallis is infamous.

Back Story: Hoban Washburne is infamous.

“Jack Tallis is your uncle?” Mal asked, as he and Zoe came into the dining room. Kaylee, who had cooking duty, was already seated at the table with a plate of food; Wash was filling his plate from the pan on the stove. Mal sniffed: something with lots of garlic. They’d all be hitting the mint mouthwash later.

“Was my uncle,” Wash corrected.

“And you never mentioned it?” Mal grabbed a plate for himself. Looked like Kaylee had tried to stir-fry some of the canned vegetables with sliced protein, which had resulted in an unappetizing-looking vegetable mush with protein chunks. Well, some of his own efforts had looked, and likely tasted, even worse. Mal spooned some onto his plate. Next to him, Zoe took a plate for herself.

Wash shrugged, walking around to the table and taking a seat. “Didn’t want anybody to think I was trading on that to make my way.”

“Not the way you fly,” Mal said. “But we mighta got a few jobs out of it, if we’d known!”

“Now, see, that would have been the kind of thing I was trying to avoid,” Wash pointed out. “But we probably got a few jobs out of it anyway. Uncle Jack liked to take care of family, and he surely knew where I was.”

Mal sat across from Kaylee. Zoe took the seat next to Wash. Mal shook his head, disbelieving. “Jack Tallis. Jack Tallis’s nephew is my pilot.”

“Is he famous or something?” Kaylee asked. “I’ve never heard of him.”

“Infamous, more like,” Mal said. “Jack Tallis made his name as a gunrunner, long before the war. Back when the independent worlds was wasting their resources on little private wars. Tallis got rich and went legit – Tallis Transport is one of the largest non-Allied shipping firms, one of the few the Alliance never could seem to absorb or run out of business. Tallis had a reputation for ruthlessness, early on,” he glanced at Wash, who nodded.

“Wu du bu juhn fu,” Wash confirmed. “I got lots