Serenity: New Beginnings

To James, on the anniversary of his 30th birthday. Thanks for the motivation for me to get off my butt and start writing. Or, actually, to get on my butt and start writing. Love, Carolyn

Chapter 1

There I was, savin’ the day again. Just surprised it was Zoe and not Mal who’d messed things up.

She can hold herself just fine in a fire fight, and she’s saved my skin a couple times, so don’t go telling anybody I said that.

But there we were, almost done with the job, new buyer, and it was a little tense. Always is dealing with new folk. Our reputation had pray-ceeded us, as Mal might say. Just one core-worlder (could tell by his shoes, just like the doc’s when he first came on board), and two guards. Could tell that the goons were relaxed, but the buyer was nervous as a Shepherd in a whorehouse. Beads of sweat on his forehead, and he kept going into his vest to look at his pocket watch, tryin’ to show off that he had a gun under there.

I figured, if fightin’ did break out, we could take ‘em. But it looked like there wouldn’t be the need.

“Pleasure doin’ business with you,” Mal said. The buyer and his goons moved aside to let us out the door.

Well that was easy, I thought to myself.

Things started to go wrong when Zoe retched all over the buyer.

He was so startled he let his trigger finger go, and blew a hole clean through his fancy shoes. His hired muscle started firin’ pretty soon after that.

I never thought someone throwin up would be good tactics, but since she was down on all fours, the bullets missed her completely.

“Zoe!”

That was Mal, rushing over to her. Mal was on her left, and I was on her right. I let Vera say a few words while Mal grabbed Zoe and dragged her back towards the table where we’d just completed the deal. Before he had a chance to, I kicked the table over to give us more cover. It was cover all right, but we were going the wrong way.

To top it all off, somehow, Mal had dropped the money. I picked it up with my f