By request, for horatiofrog: a double bill (I just posted ch. 10).

11. Have to say I was kinda wondering that myself.

On the bridge, Mal sat in the co-pilot’s chair staring at River – or rather, staring in River’s direction; it wasn’t actually River he was looking at. Zoe came onto the bridge and noted his pensive expression.

“Something on your mind, sir?”

Mal shifted in his seat, but his gaze remained distant. “Seem a little odd to you, the way that toothless fellow just told us what we wanted to know?”

“Now you mention it, sir, it does.”

Mal blinked, his gaze returning to the present, and looked at Zoe. “I’m thinking, if I were in his position, had some timely information somebody else wanted, I might at least ask what that information was worth to him.”

Zoe considered. “Maybe he’d already been paid to pass that information along?”

Mal nodded, his jaw set in a hard line. “Tell us what we want to hear – Wash is alive, he’s right in this spot not too far away – and by the way, you best go rushing off after him, ‘cause he might not be alive much longer.”

“Trap,” Zoe said, and Mal grunted agreement. “You think Wash is even there?”

“He’s there,” River said, and they both looked at her. She shrugged, her dark hair falling forward to shadow her face. “It’s . . . Wash was never really gone, not even when we thought he was dead,” she said. “But I didn’t know that’s what I knew until I found the archive. Now I know it. It’s easier to put a finger on. When you said Haven, I knew it was right.”

“Girl. You’re spooky,” Mal said.

“I frighten myself,” River acknowledged.

“So we can’t go charging straight on in to Haven. Alliance is likely waiting,” Mal said, returning to the business at hand. He drummed his fingers on the console, thinking. “We can’t get close enough to check the situation without them seeing us.”

“They’ll certainly have a better sensor array than we do,” Zoe said.

“So we don’t have any way to know what’s waiting.”

“The Reavers