River whimpered as she headed into the galley. “No time to plan,” she said, staring at the large amount of weaponry onto the table and trying to ignore the tendrils of pain seeping into her bones. “Time is gone. Passed. Now only time is to save.”

“Moonbrain?” Jayne asked gently.

She looked up at him, her dark eyes huge. “Hurting. Need to save.”

He understood. He always understood her now, and he briefly put his arm around her. Her surrogate parents, her best friend … it made her control on her ability to talk coherently a little sloppy. He squeezed tenderly before picking up his grenades strap and shrugging awkwardly into it.

Zoe looked at River then at the ex-mercenary. “Bad?”

“Yep.” Jayne didn’t need to elaborate.

“Then we go in.” Dillon picked up one of the handguns and expertly checked the ammo clip.

“They’ll be expecting us,” Zoe said, impressed by his ease.

“Yeah, but that’s the point,” Jayne growled, attempting to fix the small explosives across his chest using the only two fingers on each hand still nominally working, all the while biting back on the pain surging up his arms. “They know we’d be stupid to do it, so they won’t be ready for it.”

“That’s convoluted logic, my friend,” Dillon pointed out.

“Don’t care what kinda logic it is. Just common sense.” He fumbled, and one of the grenades fell towards the floor. There was a collective holding of breath, waiting to see if it went off. Then River’s hand was there, catching it just before it hit the deck. “Thanks, moonbrain,” he whispered as everyone let out a sigh of relief.

“You’re welcome.” She finished for him, making sure they were all the right way round, and ready to pull.

“You can’t go.” This was Simon.

“What?” The big man whirled on him. “You tellin’ me I can’t –“

“You can hardly hold a gun, let alone fire it.”

Jayne glared at him. “I’ll pull the rutting trigger with my teeth if I have to. Just dose me up enough.”

Simon was about to argue, but Zoe interrupted. “Doctor. We need