On the ninth day of Christmas my true love gave to me nine ladies dancing

“Why hasn’t the prey slowed down?” demanded the man at the desk, his voice menacing.

“We shot him with the tranq, he went down straight away.” Nate protested, conveniently not mentioning how the big man had woken up too early.

“He should be slowed down by now then. Never takes more than a day. Instead he’s out there killing my valued customers. Two of those killed yesterday were Core folks, repeaters, worth lots of money to me. And the girl, your drawcard, where is she? Aside from the fight in the holding yard we’ve hardly seen her. People pay well to see pretty prey hunted.”

“We didn’t see him at all yesterday. Maybe there was some sort of delayed reaction or somethin’” Red could see that they were in trouble. It didn’t do to disappoint the man in charge that could result in death, their death. “We could go out ourselves, see what we can do,” he offered.

“Alright, I’ll have the shield lifted for long enough for you to fly to their last known location. You’ll take my men with you and report to me at all times. I’m warning you however, if you don’t rectify the situation, don’t come back.”

*******************************

Mal was listening to all the reports, tryin’ to absorb all the information.

“There’s a shield of some sort over the whole hunting ground. Means we can’t just fly in and rescue them.”

“Pity”

“The gates into the grounds are guarded electronically and physically, guards are tough too.”

“All the guests are confined to the landing area and the space around this facility.”

“I’ve been studying Jayne and Kaylee’s route” said the shepherd

“And found what?”

“They’re heading in this direction.”

“What’s that?” Mal was surprised

“They’re headed in this direction.” Repeated the shepherd “Perhaps in order to reach the boats, hijack one to get out of here.”

The captain hadn’t thought of that, didn’t know that Jayne would’ve. How would he even know which direction to go? Of course trackin