Simon returned from his second sweep of the ship. River continued to hide under the operating table.

"She's still close, Simon!" River said, breathlessly.

While Simon had come to trust what his sister had to say about most things, danger in particular, he had searched ever corner of the ship that he knew of twice. His sister's claims that Sepia was close to him and her was ludicrous, but, he had been sufficientlt spooked to search twice. Now that his own curiosity had been satisfied, he knew he needed to calm his sister.

"And, you're not sticking me with any needles today, Simon Tam!" came the angry cry from under the table.

"River, there's no one on this ship that isn't supposed to be here."

River looked at Simon quizzically.

"How can you say that. Everyone here was someone else before...somewhere else before. How do you know we're supposed to be here?"

Simon sighed and sat on the table above his sister.

"You're a real pill sometimes, you know that?"

"And, you're a real hypodermic sometimes."

* * *

Sepia Dobson listened to all this with some bemusement. The girl, River, was all but moony, it sounded like, but she had focused on Sepia, and that unnerved Sepia. She had dropped back very far from Serenity, and had plotted where it was going on its known trajectory. The Firefly wsa a fast ship, but only in full burn, as far as she had seen, and she didn't think they would be trying that in atmo.

* * *

Jayne grunted for the fifth time since Wash had started planetside. He appeared to be more than a little pleased with himself, as the closer they approached his directions, the more it looked like the rubble of a spaceship was visible.

Wash rolled his eyes and stayed steady on. Mal stood, stretched, and slapped Jayne on the back. Grinning, he told Zoe and Jayne to arm themselves and join him in the cargo hold.

In his sparse quarter, Shepherd Book was indeed praying, as he had been for several hour