Getting back into the shuttle was a deal more difficult than Wash would have thought it would be. He certainly didn't remember getting out of the shuttle being so difficult. But then, last time, he'd only been worried about himself. Now he had to worry about not only what might happen to him, but what might happen to a child he hadn't even known about, then. The damned torpedo had a lot more snags, this time. And Jayne... well, Jayne was just beyond unbearable.

"Get a leg over, little man," Jayne said, as Wash struggled around the torpedo. Wash, breathless from the effort, could make no retort. But then Jayne emphasized the imperative by grabbing Wash's trailing boot and giving it a forceful shove. Wash flailed, felt the suit catch, felt it let go, reached desperately to check and found the suit intact; by then he was heels-over-head in the pilot's seat.

"Watch it!" he groused, as he struggled to right himself.

Jayne wedged himself in next to the torpedo with a snort of derision. "Gotcha there, didn't I?"

Wash fastened his belts and started his pre-launch checks. Everything looked good; everything powered up. He felt the engines come to life beneath his fingers. In moments, they were off the ground, heading for home. Slowly. The shuttle strained against the torpedo's weight.

"Thing's blinking," Jayne commented from the back of the shuttle, his voice tinny inside Wash's helmet.

"What's blinking?" Wash asked.

"This thing," Jayne said, "This torpedo thing. The cargo. 'S blinking. Just all of a sudden lit up like Christmas."

That didn't sound good. That just didn't sound good at all. "Can you make it stop blinking?" Wash asked.

"Don't know why it started blinking in the first place," Jayne insisted.

Wash thought about his suit catching, as Jayne hoisted him over the torpedo. And then coming free, undamaged. Had they tripped something? Activated something? Flipped a switch somewhere that they shouldn't have?

No way could Wash spare the time or attention to try to fix wha