Continued from Part 1

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Three Hours Later, Serenity

The cargo bay was busy with movement as the crew prepared for the job. Kaylee eyed Jayne warily as he polished Vera; the sight of the weapon unnerved her. Especially knowing its ability to extinguish life with one pull of the trigger, that’s all it took, and a good aim of course. The scar on her belly gave a phantom pull of pain, remembering all too well how the bullet of the Alliance fed had ripped through. She frowned, not liking the dark thoughts. Kaylee preferred to see the good side of things, like how thankfully she was still alive from that long ago encounter. The dark thoughts sucked the life out of a person’s soul, like poison, slowly killing them. She seen it happened with her cousin Marty, who had fought in the war, forced to enlist with the Alliance in a draft. Well, to be truthful, she hadn’t seen, but she had overheard her folks talkin’ about it one day. She was to have been doin’ chores but had preferred to eavesdrop on the conversation, and swim in the river with Sam, the neighbor’s son, later on in the afternoon. Poor cousin Marty hadn’t been right in the head afterwards, locking himself away in the attic of her Aunt’s home; never talking to nobody. He had been dead for three days before anybody had found him, hangin’ by a pillar on the ceiling. Kaylee shuddered as a cold chill swept through her body; she glanced upwards to the catwalk. River watched the activities with a focused gaze, as if trying to figure out a complicated problem.

Kaylee smiled cheerfully in the poor girl’s direction, waving a greeting. But River frowned thoughtfully, the mechanic turned to see what had captured the girl’s attention. To her surprise it was Jayne, or better yet, it was Vera, which the mercenary had carefully placed on a nearby crate. Just as Kaylee was about to say that it was best for the older man to put the gun away, a voice that sent her heart a pitter patter spoke behind her. She turned around, beaming a smile in Simon Ta