Still not mine; still just messin' around.

*****

Mal stood shaking his head as Aldershot and Isabel Warrick departed.

“Cap, I think she’s sweet on you,” Jayne called. “’Course I’d sooner take a pair a pliers to bed than that coatrack.”

“Be shui, Jayne. Keep a civil tongue in your head,” Mal answered. “Kaylee, you got that whistler ready to go?”

“Yes, Captain, I do.”

“Jayne, Zoe, we ready?” Mal looked at Jayne and Zoe. They nodded.

“All right, Kaylee, let’s call these bad men home. We all clear about what happens when we land? Jayne, you take the shuttle and head for the hospital or whatever passes for one, in as obvious a way as you can, park it and start walking home brisk-like; you keep an eye on Serenity and follow our esteemed visitors in; Zoe and me’re ready when they show up. Dong ma?”

“Ma shong,” they all replied.

“Gowan, you’re sure you’re ready to be the bait?” Mal asked the boy.

“Yessir. I wander out onto the ramp lookin’ real sick as soon as it gets dark. I keep doin’ that until they grab me. I’m ready, sir, thank you.” Gowan answered

Wash set them down sweetly in slip 19. The shuttle departed immediately, after Wash waved the control tower on as public a channel as he could find, asking directions for the nearest hospital. Within an hour, Jayne called in on his comm link to say that he was watching Serenity from the next slip over.

After that, it was just a question of waiting. They expected that whoever Wing had sent would wait until well after dark, but they couldn’t be sure of that. Gowan went out regularly and staggered around artistically, coughing and wheezing loudly, but it wasn’t until almost midnight, Halcion time, that their visitors arrived.

Gowan was outside, breathing loudly, when two men walked out of the shadows and grabbed both his arms.

“Hidy, boy. Everything shiny?” Bothner asked him.

“Everybody’s pretty sick,” Gowan answered in a thready voice. “The mechanic and the pilot’re gone to the hospital.”

“Lovely, lovely. Can you open the