Chapter 8: Supply Run

Qin aide wo de ma. Who’da thunk that leaving Serenity to go pick up cargo would be considered a peaceful break? Mal mused as he and Zoe left Serenity to go to the address Lou Hiao wong had given them. So far the day had been horrible, it couldn’t get any worse then it already was. Caroline had woken him up in the middle of the night with nightmares about the Alliance taking her away. Then there had been the now daily fight at breakfast over the grey niu shi; which had ended up with Caroline in tears. She was still sitting at the table with a bowl of very cold protein porridge. Inara had returned late from her engagement; and was sleeping so Mal was left to try and brush Caroline’s hair. That whole hairbrush and comb thing was really complicated. It had been yet another big mistake; Kaylee finished the job while giving him mean looks. He didn’t mean to pull the little one’s hair and make her cry.

He walked out of the galley, came across River in the passage. She took one look at him and promptly started ranting about “hands of blue, two by two.” When Caroline heard River screaming she sprinted towards her. And as soon as she saw that Simon was loading a syringe; she wigged out and attacked Simon. It was the infirmary all over again, took the better part of an hour to get everyone calmed down. Mal was trying to grab hold of Caroline and calm her down. Simon was trying to calm River down, give her a soother, and rebound from an attack from a vicious little Caroline kitten – complete with claws. Thank goodness for the Shepard, he stepped in and helped with River while Kaylee and Mal calmed Caroline. The day couldn’t get much worse. Well, it could rain. Or it could snow. That would be the icing on the cake; hell freezing over. It was the summer season on Boros, and that meant three months of dry hot sun and no rain. Not like the summer back on Shadow, Mal reminisced for a minute about summers back on Shadow. They were warm; but, not unbearably hot like Boros. At lea