Murphy's Law - Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Joss owns Firefly and everything else in the rootin' tootin' 'Verse. Orion (who were bought out by MGM) own the other part of this story.

Description: Set after the movie. After 500 years in a cryo-container, he who serves the public trust, protects the innocent and upholds the law somehow finds his way onto Serenity.

Note: Not that great writing for characters so if any of them seem a little 'off' then my bad.

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Captain Malcom Reynolds was reading the latest warrant for the capture of River and Simon Tam. The price on their heads had lowered conciderably, it once was 200,000 credits but now it's been lowered to 5,000 - for both. Not worth the time of any bounty hunter, so Mal had no reason to fear a repeat of the Jubal Early incident. Due to the events on Miranda most of those responsible for it were bound by law and sentenced to a year for every person who died on the planet, including those who became Reavers. In total that being 30,000,000 years. Not many in the government were left who knew of the experiments on River Tam, even fewer knew the reasons behind them.

Mal sat back in the pilots chair taking a sip of his coffee when the cortex screen began flashing indicating an incoming call. Sitting up he saw an all too fimilar face.

"Sir Warrick Harrow, what a pleasure to see you again." It was indeed a pleasure, of all the people Serenity and her crew had dealt with over the years Sir Warrick Harrow was one of the few truely honest people they'd smuggled for.

"Captain Reynolds I heard you were on your way to Persephone and wondered if you're in need of work." The twinkle in his eye indicated to Mal that this was going to be a big job, pleanty illigal and extremely profitable.

"Well we're meant to be meetin' up with Badger to unload our current fully 'legal' cargo here. I'm sure after we're done dealin' with that bottom feedin' sewer rat we'll be pleanty ready to do business with you Sir."

"Thank you Captain....oh also I must inform you of Atherton Wing." This got Mal's attention spiking. It'd been a year since Mal's duel with 'Ath' and from the tone of Sir Warrick's voice there was some trouble brewing. "It seems that recently he's regained some standing in certain social circles. Although not as powerful as he once was he's built a small personal guard who have orders to capture the Captain of a Firefly class transport ship."

"Holding a bit of a grudge does he?" Mal was slightly amused about this news. Atherton Wing was nothing compared to other's he's dealt with like Niska and the Operative. "I'm wondering Sir how serious do you think Ath is?"

"You're not taking this seriously Captain? Atherton Wing is not one to be taken lightlighy."

"With all due respect Sir, compared to the types we've been dealin' with over the last year, ol' Ath ain't nothin' but a fly in my....umm..."

"Ointment?"

"Yeah that'll be the word I'm lookin' for. Anyway, don't you worry none 'bout me, we'll see you in a few hours."

Once Mal had settled back into his seat he took a sip of his now cold coffee, when quietly walking up into the bridge in her nightgown River stood behind Mal and said.

"Shouldn't under estimate Wing."

"Gorramit girl!! Don't go sneaking up on a man like that, you might get yourself...um....well...you might end up killing a man as he pulls his weapon on you!"

Ever since Miranda River had been clearer in both thought and speech, much to the relief of the crew who could now have more than a half decent conversation with her on any subject, except sex of course the crew usualy backed away from the subject...well almost the whole crew.

"I wouldn't kill you Captain....unless you annoy me that is."

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Kaylee was working in the Engine room, but she wasn't working on the engine oh no. She was working on something that needed even more love and attention.

"Ohhhh Simon...don't stop...." Well who said she couldn't have the love and attention back? Just as Kaylee was nearing her release who should walk in but Captain Malcom 'ship-board-relationships-always-lead-to-trouble' Reynolds.

"Kaylee I need to go ove......I will never sleep again..."

Just as Mal was about to leave both Kaylee and Simon bounced around the engine room picking up various articles of clothing that had been thrown around in those many moments of passion they tended to have nowadays.

"Sorry cap'n we was just talkin' and then...you know how it is...it gets hot in here and when I'm hot I..."

"I REALLY don't need to hear this!"

Simon was just pulling up on his shirt when he noticed that standing behind Mal was his sweet innocent sister.

"River!! What are you doing up? You should be in bed!"

Mal turned a full 180 degrees only to come face to face with the young reader. This was turning into all kinds of uncomfortable far too quickly for Mal liking, not to say he was liking any part of what was going on.

"I'm not the only one who should be in bed....boob!" She looked at Kaylee. "I'm leaving him in your hands now, I've looked after him long enough. He needs.....a real woman's looking after."

"Ughh...sure River sweety" and with that River was gone and dancing her way up the steps with the kind of grace that would have made any companion jealous. "So...Cap'n what can I do ya for?"

Mal, still in a semi-state of shock just looked at Kaylee barely registering the words coming out of her mouth. "Oh! Yeah well...how the repairs on the 'milo-whats-ya-ma-kigger' coming along?"

"You mean the Milosophiter Coil?"

"Yeah that thing, how it coming" Mal never was good with engines, infact anything technical was often met with a confused and 'me-captain-me-no-know-big-words' kinda look.

"Oh I fixed that hours ago! But I think we need to buy a new one anyway, this one's liable to break again soon and we don't want to repeat what happened with the compression coil now do we?" Mal sure as hell didn't want to repeat what happened with the compression coil, he'd only just gotten over the sting in his pride from having the wool pulled over his eyes by some scavangers.

"Right we...good...I'll see to getting a new one. In the mean time I'm off to see to other captainey duties, like checking up on our resident who....companion."

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"Jayne! Gorramit Jayne where the hell are ya!?" Mal was fuming, it was Jayne's turn to clean out the sceptic tank and he'd been putting it off for a few days now. Mal being the understanding type was now charging down into the galley to find Jayne helping himself to some of River's home cooked soup. The girl was a genius and could do everything better than anyone else....even cook. "Jayne!! Get your fingers out of that pot and go clean out the sceptic tank...NOW!!"

"Awww come on Mal, you know I did it last time when Kaylee got sick and missed her turn!"

"Jayne...what you do out of the kindness of your heart don't mean squat on my boat, you stick to the time table I set, dong ma?."

With a grunt and a look that could paralize cute little puppies Jayne left to clean out the sceptic tank. This was often the routine with the whole crew when it came to this particular chore, except of course Zoe she'd simply say 'Yes sir' and have it done within an hour. As Mal was about to follow Jayne to make sure he did his duty instead of about turn back to his bunk the comm activated.

"Captain Daddy, we're coming up on Persephone. We'll be hitting atmo in five minutes...oh and don't worry about Jayne he'll clean the sceptic tank out....or I'll kill him with my brain!"

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The meeting with Sir Warrick Harrow had gone smoother than they could have ever hoped for, Badger didn't even pop by to declare his claim in the transaction not that he had any claim, the dirty little toe rag.

"Mal I wanna get me some trim, so I'll see ya on the boat tomorrow."

"Not so fast Jayne, we're not staying that long. As soon as the ship is re-fueled we're leaving. No but's, if's, maybe's or C'mon Mal's"

"Awww but C'mon Mal! I ain't gotten me no trim in weeks!" Mal just glared at Jayne and the big man shut up. As they were walking Jayne kepy giving Zoe that lusty glare of his that he got when he'd gone too long without female companionship. "Wha 'bout you Zo? You ain't had any in some time....what you say we..."

Before he could even finish that sentence Jayne was face down in the dirty with the barrel of Zoe's gun pressed firmly against the back of his skull.

"If you EVER make a comment like that again I will end you so fast that you'll need a week to catch up with the fact you're dead!" Zoe never let her emotions get the better of her but the thought of sleeping with anyone but her dearly departed husband was enough to drive the woman into a fit of rage so powerful that it was damn near a miricle that Jayne was still breathing. Without saying another word Zoe holstered her weapon and left Jayne to comtemplate if he should have his mouth sown shut or not. Of course typical Jayne he never picked up on the message, just grunted and released a string of curse words and muttered something about that time of the month.

Mal really didn't need this, his first mate was usualy the one that kept him from shooting Jayne and as amusing as it would be to watch Jayne get turned all corpsafied like he needed the brute to help him haul the conciderably large cargo into Serenity.

"So may I ask what the illigal cargo of the day is?" Asked Dr Simon Tam, who noticed that whatever it was wasn't going to fit into any of the smuggling holes he'd previouly been privy to.

"Well Doc, we're not too sure, infact not even Sir Warrick was too sure of what this is. All we know is that it's some kind o' sealed cointainer from Earth-That-Was." Mal patted the container as if to say 'don't worry we've dealt with bigger and rarer cargo'.

"Earth-That-Was!? Then whatever this is it should be worth a fortune. Do you want me to dope Jayne just incase he decided to kill us all in our sleep and sell it for himself."

"No thanks Doc, I feel safe enough leavin' Jayne free to roam the ship at night...besides he don't know how to fly the gorram boat." This fact didn't really ease Simon at all due to the fact that Jayne never showed the ability to think more than one step ahead of where he currently was. He may kill the crew and then realise he's one pilot and engineer short of a flyable ship.

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It had been three days since they'd taken on this cargo to be transported from Persephone to Greenleaf where Sir Warrick has a storage facility for this most valuble cargo. It'll be another three weeks before they reach the planet but thanks to some intervention by a certain sash wearing Lord they won't have to worry about the Alliance as the official reason for their voyage being they're transporting an important dignitary of some sort to an important meeting on Greenleaf. They even had the transmission protocol that allowed them to pass inspection without being borded, which Mal was loving by the way.

River waltzed into the cargo bay and looked at the container with sad eyes. "So lonely, needs to wake up now." Being the super genius that she is she figured out the combination sequence to unlocking the container. She was very impressed by the lock itself, she rarely ever came across a problem that challenged her and it seemd that the people of Earth-That-Was were a lot smarter than most people give them credit for.

"What ya doin' there lil' albatross?" Mal was doing his usual rounds checking to make sure everyone was asleep and that Jayne wasn't raiding the galley for some late night snacking.

"Needs to wake up!" For some reason after all this time since Maranda she'd suddenly gone all criptic again, and as usual when she was criptic Mal had no idea what she was talking about.

"Ughh...everyone's asleep no need to be wakin' any of em up...especially not Jayne you know how that man gets grumpy if he don't get his beauty....well his anger sleep." River rolled her eyes at Mal and that usualy meant he was either being an idiot or was miles off from what she meant....but usualy it meant both.

"Not them, HIM!" she was pointing at the container and now Mal was all kinds of confused and worried. Sir Warrick didn't say anything about this being live cargo, infact he didn't say what this cargo was at all. Probably didn't know himself. All he knew was that it had been in his family since they'd settled on Persephone from Earth-That-Was.

As the Captain was running all kinds of possibilities in his head as to what could be inside River had finally deactivated the final lock.

"There...problem solved." She stepped back and watched as the container opened slowly, a siren began playing loudly that awoke the rest of the crew and they all began fumbling into the cargo hold to see what was going on.

"What in the good Gorram is goin' on!? I'm tryin' to get some shut eye and I get the gose scared outta me by this noise!" Jayne was obviously not a happy bunny, he'd brought Vera out with him as proof that his dreaming of fine women giving him all the trim he wanted was the highlight of his day, and now it had been taken from him.

Zoe was standing preparing to draw her weapon at any moment, no telling what was going to go down now that River had opened this thing but knowing the girl wasn't as crazy as she was before she was more concerned about Jayne blowing a hole in the hull. "Sir? Should we be concerned right about now, there's no telling what's in there."

"Don't worry Zo, our lil' Albatross ain't willingly put us in danger before so there's no need to worry....for now." Mal was confident that River knew what she was doing but he was worried about one thing, Sir Warrick wasn't going to be pleased, not one little bit!

The doors continued to open but got stuck half way, obviously the external mechanisms had rusted over the last five hundred years but from the cryo atmosphere within the container he was sure that whatever or whoever was inside was in one piece. Just as Mal was gonna order Kaylee to fetch something help pry open the doors two large metal hands appeard from within the container and grabbed hold of the doors pushing both open with such force that they visably bent when they couldn't go any further.

Everyone could now see the contents of the container standing infront of them, all 6ft 11" of him. As he stepped out from the container each footfall created a heavy clunk as metal met metal.

"chou ma niao. What the hell is that!?" Jayne raised Vera ready to blow whatever the hell this thing was away. Mal sensing there was gonna be trouble if Jayne didn't stow his weapon had to say it quick.

"Jayne, hang it up...we don't want to...umm...upset...it."

"Him not 'it'" River corrected as Mal just kept staring at thier cargo.

"What the gorram is it? River?" Mal wanted to know, he didn't like surprises, especially surprises in the shape of cargo that ended up walking out of it's own container. But then suddenly he spoke.

"Crime Prevention Unit - 001. Robocop. Listing prime directives. Serve the public trust, protect the innocent, uphold the law." Those final three words caused Mal to cringe a little. It was bad enough having the Alliance knocking on his door, but to have a machine that did the same work was something else that didn't bring any comfort. This was going to be one very interesting day.