Part Two

(Inara.)

I stepped through the shuttle hatch and went down the cross passage, not sure what I was looking for, or if I was simply trying to look like I wasn't looking for Mal. The poor boy had probably gone down into his bunk to actually grab some sleep, something that it seemed neither of us would grab much of while we were together in private. Because of that, and because it would probably attract a lot of attention if I were actually seen slipping down his hatch, as it were, I headed out into the cargo bay and headed down the metal stairs to the bay floor. That didn't really make me feel any better. I wasn't honestly sure how much of the big shiny equipment stacked up there was weaponry of various sorts, and how much was power generators or industrial computers or whatever, but my mind couldn't help but play over scenes that I'd seen in war vids when I watched them. This stuff was going to Hera, the planet on which Serenity Valley lay, so that they could once again stand up and defy the will and might of what was left of the Alliance. The very thought sent a chill through me somehow.

And yet, after all that we'd seen, I could hardly say that it was wrong for someone, some world, to be strong enough to stand up. I slipped quickly out of the rear passage out of cargo, and made my way past the glass walls of the infirmary. Hmm. Nobody around, nobody anywhere in sight, actually. I hadn't been planning on this, but why waste a good opportunity? I slipped into the room, opened up the shiny new medical database that Simon had picked up on our last swing through Ariel, tapped out a particular query on Hera and a few other likely locations. How many times have I done this since he swiped this on his way out of Saint Lucy's, after the Feds had caught them? Nine times I guess, not really that many. I'd have brought it back to my shuttle, or implanted a wireless link into it, if I hadn't been worried about being discovered. Nobody would really have understood why I wanted this information so much, especi