Once again my thanks to Archer for his wonderfully quick and insightful beta read.

These characters belong to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy. No infringement of their rights is intended. Please do not archive without permission. Please do feel free to critique or comment.

CHAPTER 6—The Katana Maru

Chinese Glossary

Dong ma [Understand]

go-se [dog crap]

PRESENT DAY

Fortunately for Mal’s peace of mind, once the Rose of Absalom was underway the first thing Tanaka did was to pull three heavy tomes out of his duffle. He handed them to Mal, saying “We got four days until we make landfall on Verbena. Might as well make the most of it. I’m loaning you these. When we get back to Persephone you’ll want to get copies for yourself.”

Mal took the well thumbed books and read the titles from their spines, Lee’s Handbook of Space Navigation and Ship Management; Economies and Cultures of the Settled Worlds; and Alliance Code of Regulations for the Transportation, Import and Export of Goods

“Well this is powerful lot of reading to do in four days.” He said with an inquiring look.

“I don’t expect you’ll be able to get through any of them, but you need to start getting familiar with them. Treat these here like Holy Writ. I’ve been carrying Lee’s Ship Management since flight school. It the best book ever written on the basics. It’s clear, readable and well indexed. Start with Chapter Five, the first four are on navigation, you’ll be hiring a pilot so you can come back to those later.”

“Chapter Five. Okay, and the others?”

“The Alliance Code ya gotta know, it’ll tell you what to avoid, what to refuse outright, and what you need to hide when you can’t avoid or refuse it. It’ll tell you how risky the cargo is and lets you figure your prices accordingly.” He smiled wolfishly. Mal got the distinct impression that Mike Tanaka didn’t refuse much. “The good news is that one’s free, just gotta go into any customs of