Disclaimer: Sadly I do not own any of these wonderful characters, or even the setting and world of Firefly. They all belong to Fox/Universal and Joss Whedon.

James Norrington and related belongs to Disney, Gore and Ted and Terry.

Setting: Takes place right after Down the Aisle

Pairings: Kaylee/Simon, Mal/Inara

Can’t Stop the Music

Chapter 20: Polka

-

Mal had been in similar situations before, usually the other folk did not believe the cover story he gave them, or they may believe it and still didn’t like him, either case might be the reason here. The other time he had faced such a standoff was when we went for his usual drink on Unification Day.

“Well,” the blond man grunted.

“Who is the big ugly one talking too?” another man asked. He we as not wearing a brown coat, but his appeared to have been hand made like the others. His dark hair was cut short and his face sported a full beard. “You should shoot him first.”

“You aint shooting my brother,” Mal said while he stared at Jayne, his hired gun was still chatting with Zoë, playing the part of the older brother. “I know he ain’t much to look at, and there is not much in his head, but I will not allow you to spill any of his blood.”

“You are not in any position to determine what you can and can’t do,” the blond man said while the others nodded and grunted. The other brown coat bared his teeth, crooked and tan in color. “Tell me where you got your coat, you Alliance fed pansy.”

“As I remember that is not the way you talk to your commanding officers, private,” Mal had enough. It was not bad enough these once proud soldiers had allowed their brown coats to get in such a state; they had to insult Mal in such a manner.

“Who the hell do you think you are, Alliance dog?”

“I have no love for those purple belly’s,” Mal narrowed his eyes. “And you pay me great insult by comparing myself to them. I am former sergeant Malcolm Reynolds of the 23^rd Overlanders brigade.”

“You were one of us?” the blond man lowered his gun.

“I heard of that group,” the other Browncoat said. “They were also called the Balls and Bonnets brigade.”

“Bayonet,” Mal corrected and turned to stare at Jayne when the larger man had burst into laughter.

“Bonnet brigade,” Jayne said between chuckles. “That’s funny.”

“You better stop laughing or I will tell mama.”

“You were a former Independent Sergeant,” the blond man smiled his teeth were surprisingly cleaner than the other soldier’s. “I am Dune. Lieutenant Dune Holloway.”

“Lieutenant?” Mal saluted. “I didn’t quite know what your rank was. I am a bit sorry about that.” He couldn’t tell them the truth, about how disappointed he was they had taken into the slave trade, could have been the ones responsible for what happened to Cyn and the other settlers, and how they would allow their coats to become like that.

“You don’t have to fret about that Sergeant,” Dune said. “Rick and I were both in the Toes First brigade.” He nodded towards the other Browncoat.

“I remember them,” Mal nodded. He remembered watching them march while he assisted with the training of several new recruits.

“Was he in the war?” Rick pointed at Jayne.

“Hell no,” Jayne shook his head.

“Mama knew his attitude would of landed him in a heap of trouble with superior officers,” Mal answered.

“Is that why your mama like you better?” Rick asked.

Jayne scowled. “Hey.”

“Only we talk about mama in that way,” Mal said.

“Sorry if we crossed the line,” Dune shrugged. He had long placed his gun back into his holster. The rest of his posse had also put their weapons away. “Why don’t we show you around?”

“We would like that,” Mal said. They can look around and learn the truth.

-

Waiting was never a tiring task for James, causing what Zoë had called a ruckus, that was something he didn’t want to be a part of, even if it meant for the greater good. He had lost counts of how many tavern fights he had started while on that island, Tortuga, and while the people milling about, everyone with a strange expression on their face while they kept on asking what was going on, it was still chaotic compared to how everyone was a few minutes earlier.

He knew everyone’s focus was on the newly freed slaves. Once word had got out, and there had been confirmation made at the one part of the post office that took care of waves, everyone bustled around to help them. Some people had offered to loan them their washrooms, while others loaned better clothing. One of the local dress shop owners was willing to give away one his cheapest gowns for free. Other people had brought them food.

“How does everything look?” Zoë had turned off her transmitter.

“Like they are getting their lives back,” James answered as he continued to remove the thick peel from his orange. It was one of the rewards given to him and Zoë for bringing focus to the former settlers. They received a whole basket of oranges, a bottle of whiskey, two bags of sugar, a quilt, a bag of flour, and three chickens. He had done the noble thing and refused at first, but the people had insisted and Zoë accepted.

“Sounds good,” she stared at the clucking chickens. “They are also gifts?”

James nodded. “They are the latest gift.” He had no idea what his captain would say about such a reward, although he had a feeling Captain Reynolds wasn’t going to like it.

“The captain isn’t going to like this.”

“I had a feeling he wasn’t.”

“We’ll probably find some place to sell em, until then we can enjoy their eggs.”

“It had been a while since I have dined on fresh eggs,” James smiled at the idea. In fact it had been a while since he had actual eggs, everything was protein packet this and artificial that. “What news have you received?”

“Jayne said he and Mal might have found where those bad coats have holed themselves up.” She selected one of the oranges from the basket. “They came across two men wearing the more famous part of our old uniform.

“It would be foolish for them to notify the Alliance, considering where they are.”

“The captain may have done some foolish things in the past,” Zoë tossed the orange in the air and caught it. “And sometimes they have nearly gotten himself killed. But he never would do something like that, intentionally.”

“From what I have seen by far, that does sound like him.”

“That is why I notified them,” Zoë sat down next to him. “I am curious, where did you learn to talk like that, like the captain?”

“I have been practicing,” James had wondered when she was going to ask. “He did quite a well job mimicking my accent once and I decided to return the favor. I practiced in my cabin, in front of a mirror and River did give me some pointers.”

“She is pretty good at that.”

“There are a lot of things she does quite well,” he removed the last of the peel. “I do not know if that is nature, or because of what they had done to her.”

“According to her brother it is natural, but then again he might be boastful about it.”

James shrugged. He couldn’t think of the right kind of answer and instead removed a section from his orange and bit into it.

-

Mal had thought the tour would have been quite short, seeing as how there were not many houses from what he seen, only about a bakers dozen, and that didn’t count the few barns woodsheds. He had seen a few gardens, and several pale golden fields.

“We don’t just raise cattle here,” Dune explained as he led Mal and Jayne around their settlement. “We don’t have a lot of slaves to sell or trade, we only did that one time because the crops were weak one year.”

“Is that cornberry?” Jayne pointed to one of the rectangular patches of gold.

“We pretty much have four primary sources of income,” Dune counted on his fingers. “Cattle, cornberry, chickens, and turnips.” He held out his arms. “These are our cornberry fields.”

“It has been a bit of while since we had cornberry flour,” Mal commented. He had held a few of the stalks of the grain. He remembered the story of how they came to be, some group of botanical geneticists tried to make a hybrid of corn and wheat and they had turned out to be quite successful. The grain turned out to have most of the nutrients found in wheat and had a sweet corn like flavor. The flour was good and many cooks have cut up the stalks and use them in salads, soups, and side dishes and even made a breakfast cereal similar to oatmeal and grits.

“My wife makes the best chowder,” Dune nodded. “And Rick can makes some pretty good fritters.”

“We are going to get some fritters?” Jayne asked in a hopeful tone.

“Pretty much ‘pends on how long you will all be stayin’ here,” Rick said. “We usually prep food ‘round the start of sunset.”

“Do you trade or sell your imports?” Mal asked. He did not remove his eyes from the field and wondered if the people harvesting the grains were actual part of Dune’s settlers or former Alliance colonists turned slaves.

“Both,” Dune answered. “It depends on what folk down there are willing to trade. We get protein from our fowl, cattle and we fish in the lake, but sometimes we crave ham and sausage. We also need the other kind of flours, plus sugar, other veggies and fruits, as well as cotton and wool.”

“What made you decide to settle on this bit of real-estate?”

“Farther away from the ass lions the better.” Rick said

“Ass lions,” Jayne chuckled. “That is a good one.”

“It is pretty much what they are,” Dune said as they turned away from the cornberry fields. “Even the ones that didn’t fight in the war, those that supported them. They are just as bad.”

“Hmmm,” Mal grunted. He did not like the direction this was going. He had several people who supported unification, and a handful was aboard his ship. “I know they pretty much stay away from this part of the ‘verse.” That was one of the things the Alliance did that burned him. They fought so hard to have all the planets under their sway, yet they hardly try to provide for any of them, and the farther the planet or moon was then the more remote they tend to be.

“What we looking at now?” Jayne asked as they neared fields lined with leafy greens.

“Our turnips,” Rick beamed. “We have the best turnips ever, they are the biggest, fattest, most juiciest turnips in on this rock. At least that is what the folk down there say.”

“How big are we saying?” Jayne asked.

“They are bigger than your head,” Rick said as he slid off his horse. “We hafta show our guests how big our turnips can get.” He pointed to one of the men working the fields. “Hey you, hand me of them turnips.”

“Eh, er,” the man nodded. He was extremely thin and had his head shaved, and was dressed in rags that were in worse shape than the other’s clothing. “Her ooh guh.” He handed Rick a large turnip.

“You see,” Rick held up the vegetable in triumph. “What do you say?”

“Pretty impressive,” Mal nodded. His eyes were not on the turnip, but on the slaves behind Rick. He could see several children digging away at the crop.

“What is wrong with that guy?” Jayne pointed to the slave. “Is he ‘tarded or something?”

“Our slaves are brighter than most,” Rick chuckled until Dune gave him a look.

“Then why he talk like that?”

“Had his tongue removed,” Dune explained.

“You had all their tongues removed?” Mal pointed towards the children.

“Just the adults, the children’s spirits have and are still being broken.”

“Why weren’t the adult’s spirits broken when they were children?”

Dune shrugged. “Because when we got them they were not children.”

“When did you get them?” Mal felt and urge to go for his gun. “You said you had to sell some of them because times got a bit lean. Did you buy them when you all first settled here?”

“We got them when they tried to take our original land,” Dune tapped his chin. “We got a whole planet for our own selves, even got to terra form it when those ass lions came. They thought they were going to take our own Ceres away from us, give it a new name, but we didn’t bend.”

“You fought them off?” Mal felt his hands clenching. His hunch turned out to be right. These were the same bastards who forced Apollo into slavery.

Dune shook his head and kept his smile. “Nope, we killed some of them though.”

“I thought they were alliance soldiers,” Mal used every bit of willpower to keep from strike Dune in the jaw.

“They were settlers, working for the Alliance.”

“Where are the rest of em?” Jayne asked. “You said you only killed some of them.”

“Some of them are over there,” Rick pointed at the slaves tending to the turnips.

“I also take it some of them are in the fields,” Mal waited for Dune to nod before he decked him right across the jaw.

-

Oranges were a delightful treat, and not only were they sweet and flavorful, but healthy and a good way to prevent scurvy while sailing around in the Caribbean, they were more preferred than lemons and limes, which also were supplied. James placed the last section of his orange into his mouth and slowly chewed, reveling in the juice that filled his mouth while he stared his fingers. One of the few problems with oranges was their juice made everything sticky and he wished for a damp rag to wash his hands.

“It has been a while since I got to enjoy an orange,” Zoë said as removed another section from her fruit. “Now you glad I made you accept them?”

“I am,” he watched as she used her knife to cut the section into bite-sized pieces. “I am a bit curious as to why you are cutting up your orange.”

“Bit of story,” Zoë spat out another seed. “Short version is the Captain and I seen some of our own soldiers loose their heads cause they bit into apples that had small grenades in them.”

“Brutal battle strategy,” James commented. He turned to the mountainside. “I wonder how long they are going to stay up there?” He stared at his hands again, wondering if he was going to have to suck the sticky juice off his fingers when he heard the sound of engines overhead.

“I don’t think they will be up their too long,” Zoë stared up. “Looks like the call has been answered.”

James also looked up to see several shuttles land in various places in the town.

-

Mal felt the warm and sticky blood on his knuckles as he pulled his arm back. He hadn’t struck Dune hard enough to cause the man to fall of his horse, but it was enough to spill blood and give the other yokels enough incentive to aim their guns at him.

“Mal, the hell,” Dune grabbed onto his noise and uttered a string of various Chinese swear words.

“These are not market slaves,” Mal glared at him. “These were innocent people.”

“Innocent?” Dune blinked. “These are the people who took our lives away from us.”

“They are not the Alliance.”

“Yes they are,” Rick said. “They are the ones who we fought. They took what should be ours.”

“Don’t look like soldiers,” Jayne said. “Most of em is too scrawny.”

“I have already said they work for the Alliance. They are bad enough.”

“They didn’t do anything to you or me. They were asked by the Alliance to settle a new planet.”

“It was our planet first,” Dune removed his own gun from the holster and pointed it at Mal. “Was ours and we were not going to let them take it from us.”

“Then why did you leave?” Jayne asked. “Did you guys get scared off?”

“And why did you take them with you?” Mal was not intimidated by the presence of the weapons. “Why the children?”

Dune didn’t answer him. He just blinked while Mal could hear the sound of several people running up to them.

“Go ahead,” Mal said through clenched teeth. “That wasn’t our mama but my first mate, another Browncoat who is also disgusted with you as I am.” He heard weapons being cocked. “She is already alerting the Alliance as we speak, or as I speak, seeing as you are no longer talking.”

“Mal,” Jayne said.

“What?” Mal turned around and nearly felt his jaw drop. Several Alliance soldiers had surrounded them.