Disclaimer: Characters do not belong to me. Until Joss's movie comes out, I'm just entertaining myself and others.

Not Beta-ed, all mistakes are mine.

I will note that I don't have any military experience -- tried to keep everything general though. Almost done now!

Summary: Everyone except River and Kaylee are at the kidnapper/vigilante's camp and the trial is about to start.

Ch 4

Chinese

Shide - yes

Zhuzui – quiet, shut up.

ta-ma-de hwu dan – mother humping son of a bitch

***

Nate rubbed his face tiredly and decided it was probably time to wake Mayli. The men were getting restless about the possibility that the settlement might call the feds in and were eager to be rid of the preacher and the rest of Serenity's crew. He'd watched their interactions carefully when he could and he was beginning to think that it would be difficult for Mayli to get all of these people to agree to condemn their friend. The short man didn't appear to hold grudges while the Companion was impossible to fully predict. Neither of them appeared to have ever experienced anything that would cause them to fully sympathize with Mayli's anger.

Of course, if you only glanced at Mayli in passing, you'd never imagine what she was capable either. When he'd found her in the wreckage of her home nine years ago, Mayli had just turned twenty and looked all of fourteen. At least until you looked at her eyes, he thought. That haunted look had been the reason he'd requested permission to stay on Temburong when the unit his med team was attached to received orders to leave. Since there had been so many injured and very few doctors or healers had survived, his commander had agreed grudgingly that their unit could spare a lowly medic. Mayli had been confused when he told her he'd left the Independents. All of the enlisted people she had seen had either been idealistic or angry. She decided in turns that he was either a co