It's been a little while, I know, but I ain't done with this, not nearly. With the aforementioned crashlanding, the ship is about as down as its going to get. Two familiar faces show up, three if you count Bester, and one of them sticks around. Also, more River-speak (Fun!), ramblings, a fella named Skunk, and a birthday.

Because of the way things are going, it seems like there's only going to be two episodes a week for a while. Hectic, I'm sure you understand. Whatever, I digress.

Serenity is the property of Joss and Mutant Enemy. Lucky bastards.

Feedback: As much as is humanly possible.

Do The Job, Get Paid

"What the hell was that?"

Anne glanced his way from where he was standing, braced with one arm against the gunner's seat and the other to the console. It wasn't a pretty sound. Hell, it was downright unsettling.

"I think," she said, her face tight and her voice tense, "that was the last of our fuel flyin' out the back of our asses."

Jacob threw a glance to her. "The la... what?" Anne didn't answer him, staring hard at the approaching surf. Rapidly approaching, truth be known painfully clearly. She was muttering in that way she often did, a long, continuous string of Mandarin profanities that could be taken down and used to incite battles in lieu of a declaration of war. Which meant that the situation was grim.

"Is this ship supposed to be tossing like this?" Casher's voice sounded from the kitchen.

"Might want to be strapping in, big boy," Anne shouted back, her arms quaking on the controls as she fought to keep Legacy level. "I swear, honey, we shoulda just dropped her out the airlock before we hit atmo."

"Can't do that," he said, as the last of the ocean finally slipped underneath him and gave way to the even less forgiving dirt of the island they were taking to landing on. If luck was with them. "She didn't do us any real harm."

"I'm surprised you didn't put a bullet to her, since she was after your precious Syl," Anne said testily.

"We still on that?" Jacob said flatly. His wi