Chapter 5, short but sweet... in which our Big Damn Heroes find themselves in yet another apparently inescapable situation. When will they learn!

5

“Mal!” Inara said anxiously into the ‘com. “Mal, listen. River’s having one of her feelings – she says you’ve all got to get out, now. Something about it not being what you think. Mal, are you receiving this?”

“Mal ain’t linked up, ‘Nara.” Zoe apparently was. Even under the signal’s distortion, her voice sounded strange: kind of rattled. “He’s takin’ a call.”

“A call? From whom?”

“Niska.”

“ Niska ? Adelai Niska?” Inara exclaimed. Shaken, she stared at River, who was still gripping her head and keening softly. “ Run-tse duh fwo-tzoo ching bao-yo wuomun … that explains it. What’s going on?”

“Beats me,” came the reply. That was Jayne, with thunder in his voice. “Find out soon enough, I guess.”

There was a clattering in the hallway and then Simon was there in the cockpit with them – arms encircling his sister’s shoulders, asking her to look at him, asking her what was the matter. He seemed almost more stricken than she.

River met his worried gaze. “Someone’s been here before,” she said, nibbling on her lower lip. “Not real people – spiders. We’re flies, stuck in a web.”

Seconds later, an unexpected sound reached their ears. The distant whirring of a closing airlock door.

-------------------------------------------

“And who can I see there with you?”

The old man was in a comfortable office of some kind; he was seated in a high-backed chair, and there was a small plant just visible behind him. Above his head, the word TELEFONIX glowed on the handheld’s display.

“Ah, of course, Mr Cobb, the mercenary, killer of many of my best staff. And Zoe Washburne, also – your loyal second, Mr Reynolds. I hear of her husband’s death. Such sad news, yes. Even more so that I did not get to kill him myself.”

Mal glanced sidelong at Zoe and Jayne, who were crowded in beside him, starin’ at the screen, both of ‘em wearin’ the same di