They’d landed here because Kaylee had wanted to make some minor repairs to Serenity’s fuel feed system.

Although the way she’d put it was, “Cap’n, if we don’t put down now, we’re gonna explode into a billion itty bitty pieces, and I won’t be able to put her back together again.”

Hank had immediately changed course and set the Firefly down on this moon.

"How come you didn't fix it on Phoros?" Mal wanted to know.

"Because it weren't broken on Phoros," his mechanic said brightly.

“How long d’you need?” He watched her taking off all sorts of important looking parts from his engine.

“Won’t know until I see what the problem is, Cap’n.”

“I thought you said it was minor!”

“I didn’t want to worry you.”

“You also said we could blow up.”

She looked at him. “Cap’n, unless you plan on helping, and I don’t reckon you do, can you just leave me to get on with it?”

“Fine,” Mal said. “You just …” He waved a hand at the heart of his ship. “… get on with it.”

“ Xie xie , Cap’n,” Kaylee said with a grin and returned to her work.

“So we gonna explode?” Jayne asked as Mal stepped into the galley. “I don’t wanna explode.”

“Not today,” Mal assured him.

“Good. Got things I wanna do before that happens. Lot of skirt out there.”

“I ain’t even gonna dignify that with an answer,” Mal said, pouring a coffee and sitting down, although he did have a mental flash of Jayne and a queue of women stretching all the way to the horizon. He shuddered slightly as he sat down. Freya gave him a quick smile as if she could read his uncomfortableness off the back of his brain, which she probably could. He smiled back.

“So am I going to get to Persephone in time for my appointments?” Inara asked.

Mal looked down the table at her. “Better ask our genius mechanic,” he advised. “Although with the way she was taking us apart, I think you’d be wise to make your apologies.”

“This is the third time this month I’ve had to cancel clients,” Inara said with a trace of asperity in her voice.

“