TITLE: "THE FIEREY PIT"

SERIES: THE DEVIL'S CAULDRON

CHAPTER: 43. Sequel to "THE GORRAM PLAN"

FANDOM: "FIREFLY"

AUTHOR: Alison M. DOBELL

PAIRING: Zoe/Wash Kaylee/Simon Mal/Inara

SUMMARY: "Ryan McFarlane runs into trouble on

Titan Station, meanwhile Badger is gettng more and

more panicked. Mal's plan begins to take shape but

Monty is far from happy about it."

"THE FIERY PIT"

A "Firefly" Story

Written by Alison M. DOBELL

* * * * *

He hated this but it was not as if he could complain. Folk who stepped out of line had a habit of disappearing very quickly, never to be seen again. He had heard rumours. Nasty, eerie, creepifying rumours about what happened to anyone creating even the hint of a stir. If they had been taken away and quietly executed it would have kinder than what was their rumoured fate. Test subjects in some mind bending and truly horrific experiments. Ryan McFarlane did not want to find out first hand what had happened to them.

The furnace was a shock the first time you saw it. Here, in the middle of this frozen wasteland at the ass-end of the gorram 'verse, in the last place you would expect to see something like this Yet this was not natural, far from it. There was no volcanic activity on Titan Station so how had they managed to create the angry, heat ravaged maw of the depths of *diyu* and then build a rutting prison complex around it?

A glare from a guard had him moving more quickly, his heartbeat hammering at the clumsy slip. He could not afford to wool gather, had to keep his gorram wits about him. The line moved up, shovels in hand. One by one they carefully scooped up the dust and added it to the cauldron hanging over the fiery pit. For a moment, just a fraction of a second, Ryan thought something had glittered and stirred in the dust as he tipped his shovel. He blinked. Nothing. What the *guai* was the matter with him?