Wings

Chapter Three

By Tyloric

***

Mal froze; he didn’t like that tone of voice. It spoke volumes: I know you don’t like me but I do know you need the work.

Why is it, he wondered bitterly, that we always seem to found ourselves in these situations? He wiggled his toes. You used to be lucky!

He took note of how Jayne stiffened in front of him. He made a guess that the mercenary shared his uneasiness. Mal’s first instinct was to get out of there; they had enough cash to get by for a few weeks now that Badger had actually paid them (even though it was quite a bit more than what they had settled on). But then the uncertainty caught up with him. Who knew, especially with Serenity’s current reputation, when they were going to be able to find another job? Work had been a mite scarce as of late.

Mal wondered when he had become the kind of man to question his judgment.

Breathing in deeply through his nose and swallowing his pride, he turned back to face the much smaller man.

“I’m listening,” he said after a second’s hesitation.

Badger’s mood had, quite literally, done a three-sixty. He was back to his normal delusions of being superior, though in this case they might have been justified. Mal hated the fact that this scrawny excuse for a man was able to hang anything over his head.

“Just some simple transport. We give you the goods, and you take them somewhere. Simple, eh?”

Alarms bells started going off in Mal’s head. Don’t ask what it is, don’t ask what it is, don’t ask what it is, “What’re the goods?” Damn!

Badger didn’t seem fazed, though. “Just some medical supplies.”

He heard—or rather, felt— Zoë shift next to him; she must have been having the same flashback he was. Memories of taking the Tams, the Sheppard, and that fed on board played through his mind like a capture on fast track. Medical supplies to Whitefall, he had said. He hadn’t been fooling anyone though, even if he didn’t know it at the time. Or maybe he did, and just wasn’t remembering it. Regardless, flashbacks.

H