While the Serenity crew are at gun-point, Inara has persuaded the leader of the men to stand down. However, as a hysterical River flees the ship, the shooting starts.

Meantime – Mal and the LoveBot™ Sebastian are en-route to find Jossiah Bell and the missing Shepherd Book.

This story is set just prior to Those Left Behind. All credit to Joss and Brett.

part five – Wise Up.

Lancy had no chance to clear the gun from his holster and he died with the same aggrieved look he had been wearing since conceding his right of arrest to Inara.

His body span and fell from the difficult footing of the stairwell bounced off a crate and down hard onto the flooring of the deck.

Inara froze, shocked.

For the merest instant – so did the rest of the posse. Just for an instant. Long enough. One of Zoë’s arms snaked out – ripping the pistol from the belt of the man behind her. Her arm windmill-ed up catching the man under the jaw with the barrel and even as he staggered back, her arm had arced over and fired at the man in front of her.

The rest of the men had their guns out – one pointing at Wash – but Jayne took care of that. Simon threw himself sideways and ran for the barrels – a bullet caught his shoulder – he felt the sting – just a graze but it helped, he froze in his tracks. “Shoot me – the barrels go up, we all go up!”

One of the gun-men paused, cursing - and Zoë took his legs away with a brutal blow to the knees. She had thrown a spare pistol to Wash – and he caught it, twisting upright in an awkward movement but shooting as he did so. Shots went wild but they caught a metal crate, sparked furious and ricocheted close to another man, forcing him down. One of the remaining men had a clear shot but the battery on the electro-charge was flat – had to make do with throwing himself at Wash instead - the two went sprawling in an undignified heap.

Jayne meantime was following his gun down the stairwell nearest his position firing as he did so. Another posse member down – but the rest were out by n