River’s Run – Part 6

Mal had always known those pardons from the Alliance would only keep him out of trouble for a short while. He’d end up punching someone who said something about Inara or someone he knew and cared about would do something stupid and he’d have to bend and break the law to help them. But he always thought he’d have a little bit of peace. Guess around two weeks counts for a little bit, Mal thought, as he heard the words come from Flying Office Janice Flowers.

“I have to open that chamber.”

They were in the cargo bay of a Bluebird class freighter called the Rose, bit smaller than a Firefly, but newer and cleaner. There were only four crew members, the captain and three others, two men and a woman. The captain was old, almost as old as Book had been, was medium height, muscular and had a bald head with a fringe of white. The two other men were in their 20s, lean and tough looking, one Chinese, the other black, and Mal thought they’d be good in a scrap. The woman was as white as the captain, with short brown hair, in her 40s. She was the pilot and she was plain but not homely and was as tall as Zoe.

They were in as deep as trouble as Mal, Zoe, Wash, and Jayne if that officer opened the cyro-chamber and found fugitive River Tam inside. Making things worse were the fact that the crew was unarmed as was Jayne dressed in his Shepherd’s outfit, and Wash, who never carried a gun unless he was told to. That left Mal and Zoe’s guns against five Alliance troopers and the officer. Maybe the crew might take one or two out if they got surprise. Mal had no doubt they could take them down, but that left the little problem of being docked to the Alliance cruiser Saratoga. Even if they did manage to get away, the cruiser had fighters and missiles. He thought of bribing this officer, but she look like the honest type and that soldier who mentioned their orders certainly was. No, there was no escaping this one. No matter what he did in the next few minutes, they would truly join the criminal world once a