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

Coda

-

“Everyone is going to have a share in this chore,” Malcolm said as he distributed the feed in the area James had set up for the hens. They were also going to have their share in cleaning up their droppings, cleaning the birds if they get dirty, as well as harvesting the eggs. Considering how long they may keep them the doctor was going to have to stock up on medicine for the birds. He had wondered how long it was going to take before Kaylee decides to give them names.

“Come and get it,” Malcolm called out. “You should all be grateful that I am not letting Jayne cooking you up and eating all of you.”

Two of the chickens always stayed back, hiding in their hutches when Mal came to feed them, they were the two white chickens. The one that came to Mal had glossy reddish brown plumage and every time Mal fed them it would come closer and closer. “You seem to be the friendly one.”

“Do you have a new girlfriend captain?” Katy climbed down the metal staircase.

“She isn’t eating out of my hand, not yet.” He chose to not look up at her. “Any word from your ship?”

“I gave them a holler, but nothing,” she leaned against the railing. “Too many Alliance ships are around and they received the memo to look out for the Evangelion.”

“I could loan you the other shuttle, just need for a memo on which rock you leave her on.”

“I have to set up a meeting-“

The ship shuddered, causing Mal to spill some of the seed and the red chicken to go running back to his hutch.

“What the hell was that?” Mal asked.

“Beats me,” Katy said. “This ship is yours.”

Mal ran to the intercom speaker. “Zoë, River, what was that?”

“Alliance vessel,” River explained. “They locked onto Serenity.”

“Don’t allow them inside.”

“Can’t, their system is overriding our program,” River explained.

“Katy hide,” he turned to where the pirate captain was, only to find out she had already hid.

The airlock opened slowly and Mal stared into one of the entrances of an Alliance ship where several high-ranking officers stood waiting, one of them was Lieutenant-Commander Horton.

“It seems we meet again, Captain Reynolds,” Horton’s tone was anything but friendly.

“Lieutenant-Commander right?” Mal raised his fingers.

“As I have said before I am not here to discuss rank.”

“I haven’t sent out any distress signals recently.”

“This is about the recent discovery of the Eros settlers,” Horton crossed her arms. “I want every member of your crew front and center.”

Mal nodded and pressed the intercom button. “We got company folk, and they want to meet everyone, better get down here as fast as you can.” He turned back to the officer. “Might take my mechanic a bit of time, she has to make sure the ship is safe.”

“Perfectly understandable,” Horton nodded.

Inara was the first to arrive; she stepped out of her shuttle and slowly climbed down the stairs. Simon and Zoë had entered around the same time Inara had stepped off the bottom step. River, James, and Jayne arrived around the same time, and remained on the catwalk, and Mal was right; Kaylee was the last to step into the area.

“This is your entire crew?” Horton raised her eyebrows.

“Technically she aint part of my crew,” Mal pointed at Inara. “She is with the Companion guild, but as for the rest?” He nodded.

“What is going on?” Zoë asked.

“That is what I would like to know,” He turned back to Horton. “May I inquire what is the purpose of this visit?”

“We have come across an old friend of yours, a Captain Daisy Fong. She and her crew and held the ones responsible for the Eros tragedy and were treating the settlers as the best as they could, however considering how many crew members she had in ratio to the terrorists it is highly unlikely they took care of them by themselves.”

“We may have lent a hand or two,” Mal shrugged and smiled at those who had also fought.

“This is also a small crew, and several of the former settlers had identified people we have recognized as crew members from different pirate ships.”

“There were a lot of people fighting on our side.”

“So you wouldn’t have any idea of how several former Independent fighters grouped up and decided to act as vigilantes.”

“Maybe if you done your job we wouldn’t have to,” Jayne said.

“Bi zui,” Mal pointed at him. “He does have a bit of a point, if you listened to Cynthia Driscoll years ago you would have nipped it in the bud back then.”

“We are not above admitting that we have made mistakes,” Horton’s posture relaxed. “And we do want to thank you and Miss Driscoll for bringing everyone’s attention to the fact and I personally have to tell you that was a sweet and admirable task, bringing the youngest Driscoll sibling to Beaumonde to be reunited with her family.” She smiled. “That does go against protocol, but I will let that slide. I am human after all.”

“ Of course,” Mal felt a little bit of respect for her. “I do appreciate the gratitude.”

“This isn’t the main purpose of this visit,” she approached Mal. “There are rumors you have a certain pirate aboard.”

“Impossible,” Mal shook his head. “I am not exactly fond of em, they tend to be annoying, not too mention the attacked my ship.”

“You wouldn’t mind if we did a sweep throughout your ship then?”

“Go a head,” Mal wasn’t sure where Katy had hid herself but he trusted that she knew what she was doing, hopefully.”

“Annoying?” The lid to one of the silver crates slid off and Katy stood up. “I can’t remember the last time I was this insulted.”

“What the hell?” Mal turned around. He had trusted Katy to do the smart thing, and this wasn’t the smart thing.

“How did we pick up a stowaway?” James asked.

“Jayne, didn’t I tell you to do a security check?” Mal pointed at his hired gun.

Jayne blinked. “I thought I checked that crate, she weren’t there before.”

“Well she is here now.”

“Whadya know,” Horton smirked as she approached Katy. “Looks like we finally caught Katy Chalmers.”

“Captain,” Katy corrected. “That would be Captain Katy Chalmers if you please.”

“Well I don’t please,” Horton lost her smirk. “However we are pleased to have finally caught you.”

“Yes you have caught the notorious pirate,” Katy flipped her hair with her hand. “Even though said pirate fought against the terrorists, said pirate helped save several innocent people who were tortured.”

“That maybe true, however one act of heroics cannot clean up the pile of acts caused by such a criminal.”

“It is enough to condemn them?” James looked like he had seen a ghost.

“I don’t think they are going to hang her,” Mal said.

“Of course not,” Horton grabbed Katy by the wrist. “They only have gallows on some of the poorer border planets, and I doubt any jury will give her a death sentence, just keep her locked up for a long time.”

“That is if you can catch me,” Katy wrenched her wrist free and before anyone could go for their guns she slipped behind Mal and grabbed him by the back of the neck. “Now don’t do any funny business.” Mal felt the sharp tip of a blade against his throat.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Horton said, but she let her arms go slack any way.

“Listen to me captain Reynolds,” Katy’s voice was loud enough for everyone to hear. “There is a lighter and an incense stick in my pocket. I want you to light it and hand it to me.”

Mal carefully reached into her pockets. He was right and she did have a plan. He grabbed what indeed felt like a stick of incense and a lighter. “I hope you aint implying my ship smells funny.”

“I’m just giving you a bit of an order,” the edge of the blade was pressed in further.

“I aint going to argue,” Mal held out the stick in front of him and lit it. “Now what?”

“I’ll take it,” Katy grabbed it from him. “I hope you will remember this day, because you re going to look back on it and laugh.” She tossed the stick towards Horton.

Horton jumped back and the incense landed a few feet from her. “What were you trying to accomplish?”

“My escape,” Katy smiled.

“That is not incense,” Inara said.

“Duck,” Mal shouted and crouched down as the flash bomb went off. He heard gasps from the catwalk above and the chickens panicking as well as the familiar sound of the small explosion. When he opened his eyes all he could see was smoke, jasmine scented smoke, but it was still smoke.

“What the hell was that?” Horton asked as she tried to wave the smoke away. “And where is Chalmers?”

Mal heard the familiar clang of the shuttle door being slammed shut and looked up.

“Hey,” Jayne raced along the catwalk and paused at the secondary shuttle’s door. “Open up.” He pounded his fists against the door. “You made the whole cargo bay smell like Inara’s shuttle.” He continued to pound despite the familiar sound of a shuttle taking off was heard.

“Took my shuttle,” Mal shook his head. “Gorram pirate snuck onto my boat, took me hostage, sent off a flash bomb, scared my chickens and took my shuttle.”

“Fire at any shuttle leaving the ship,” Horton gave the command into her transmitter as the last of the smoke faded away. “Can’t?” She furrowed her brow, “What do you mean you can’t?”

“What happened?” Mal asked.

“Captain Chalmers had rigged up a timed virus, locked up all the weapons for at least five minutes. They are trying to get through it now.”

“Can’t you go after her? I want my shuttle back.”

“We don’t have much choice,” Horton pointed back to the entrance. “Everyone, back aboard the Enforcer.”

“Try not to hurt my shuttle too much,” Mal called after. “We’ll keep in contact.” He waited until the last soldier had left before he closed the air lock. He was right after all, Katy did have a plan and it was one of the most cunning plans he had seen executed.

-

Mal slurped up the last of the noodles off his plate with the aid of his chopsticks. Inara had been the one to cook once again, and as always her meal was a culinary masterpiece. Kaylee had offered to provide the dessert.

“You inject them with something that makes them fall asleep, before their hearts stop?” James asked before he took another sip of tea.

“They are injected, gassed, or frozen,” Zoë explained. “The more backwater planets have gallows and firing squads, some planets like Beaumonde have electric chairs.”

“An electric chair?” James asked. “They plug in this chair and the electricity kills the condemned?”

“A quick zap and an eternal nap,” River added.

“Why are we talking about this?” Kaylee asked as she brought out a cake. “We shouldn’t be discussing gruesome stuff, this is a victory dinner and we should be talking about happy stuff.” She set the cake down in the middle of the table. “I used real flour this time, and sugar, and some eggs.”

“Actual cake,” Jayne smiled. “That is victory food, can we open the whisky?” He cast a hopeful glance towards Mal.

“I guess we can have one small glass each.” Mal shrugged.

“Simon is also making some coffee,” Kaylee said. “He says it is the special coffee.”

“He told me about the Blue mountain coffee he bought with his own money,” Inara explained.

“We certainly are living the good life,” Mal sat back. “Once we get our shuttle back we will be heading to Santo.”

“I am still in awe over Captain Chalmers,” James said. “How did she know an Alliance vessel was about to lock onto our ship?”

“Or know when to set it off,” Mal never could figure that part out. “Are you going to shed some light on that fact, Darlin?”

“I made it,” River said. “Actually I didn’t. Wash made it, he showed me how. It was a year ago. I wanted to watch him fly, and he showed me how. I just had it timed.” She smiled at Zoë.

“He always knew how to hump their ships,” Zoë said as she stood up and helped Kaylee cut the cake.

“It was clever of her to know which of Inara’s incense was the exactly the right kind,” Mal said. “Even I have hard time figuring out which is a flash bomb in disguise.”

“She didn’t steal anything,” Inara said. “I gave it to her, although she did specifically ask for one that could create a smoke screen after it went off.”

“Okay,” Mal placed his hand on the table. “I hate being left in the dark like that. The next time you wanna help someone find a way to get off my boat, you let me on the plans.”

“Katy didn’t know,” River said. “Spur of the moment.”

“I’m also not a member of your crew,” Inara reminded him.

“Fine, just cut me a big piece of that cake.”

“What are your plans for Santo, sir?” Zoë asked as she placed a piece of cake on a plate.

“My plan is to see your folks, play some pool, and maybe get myself a new Bruce, the commodore needs some one to accompany him when he plays.” not everyone aboard knew what he meant, but the smiles from James, River and Zoë was enough.

-

The End