Not mine, and I promise not to break them. Much.

****

By the time the dockmaster’s shuttle arrived, the cargo hold and its contents were ready for inspection. Every horse’s coat gleamed; the bedding was clean and raked into elegant windrows; the tack boxes squared away. Mal had even put on a clean shirt.

The dockmaster entered the cargo bay first, nodding pleasantly to Mal and taking his proffered hand in a firm grip. He was followed by a woman who looked to be in her late twenties. She was slightly above average height, with a lanky build and thin, square shoulders. She was wearing black riding pants tucked into high boots almost as creased and battered as Mal’s own, although with a better polish job; a crisp white shirt was tucked into the pants. Smooth oval face, straight high nose, complexion the pale ivory-tan of a bantam hen egg, dark eyes with dark lashes and brows. Her sandy red hair was drawn straight back from her face into a waist-length braid nearly as big around as a man’s wrist. The braid was twitching behind her as she strode into the cargo bay.

She took a quick look at the horses standing patiently in their stalls.

“Well, they don’t look as bad as I had feared.” Turning to Mal, she thrust her hand out to him, and he took it bemusedly. He was a little surprised to find it as calloused as his own. “Captain Reynolds. So what’s your story? My father said you left Persephone well over three weeks ago, for a trip that shouldn’t have taken more than twelve or fourteen days. You’re late, Captain Reynolds.”

“Miss Warrick – I think I can explain our tardiness to your satisfaction. We had some equipment do us wrong,” Mal saw no need to go into the specifics of whose equipment had done the wrong-doing, “and we had to set down for more’n a week to deal with it. While we were down, we unloaded the horses and kept them exercised and sheltered. I’m here to tell you they took no hurt durin’ the delay.”

“Who exercised them, might I ask?”

“I did, ma’am.”

“You did?”

“I was raised do