Disclaimer – Everything either does belong to Joss or it should. I’m just borrowing his shiny ‘verse for a while.

The 21st Lancers belong to the British Army so I’m borrowing them too. I hope they don’t mind

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Serenity & Granite Gorge – Grounded on Virginia – 2520AD

Mal wandered down Serenity’s ramp and took a look around. It was starting to snow but fairly gently and it wasn’t interfering with business at all. Apparently it had been pretty fierce the day before they arrived and was quite thick on the landing field except for immediately around the two ships where the engines had burned a clearing.

They had landed next to a small city on a plateau in Virginias Northern Uplands which was large enough to have decent trade and some small industrial operations but wasn’t garrisoned at all. Most of the deals had been done over the radio from orbit and it wasn’t going to be a long stay.

The children were playing in the snow watched by their father who wasn’t really in a fit state for loading supplies. They didn’t get to spend much time off the ship and the chance to run around and throw snowballs at each other was too much to miss, Mal hadn’t wanted to let them off the ship but the look on Claire-Marie’s face had quickly forced him to relent.

Zoe yelled “duck” and Mal instantly obeyed, years of fighting alongside her having honed his reflexes to obey her advice.

He was reaching for his pistol when a snowball sailed over him in a trajectory which would have hit him on the side of the head otherwise. Mal turned to see Zoe watching from higher on the ramp grinning and pointing at Cally a few yards from the ship who was trying not to look suspicious but failing miserably with her hands behind her back and looking elsewhere.

Inara was supervising the supplies being loaded on Granite. They had purchased so much the local merchants had agreed to provide a work-crew to speed up the process and half a dozen labourers were stacking crates in the cargo hold. The size of the Tranc