CHAPTER ONE
Six Years Passed
Mal had thought he had hit an all-time low when he took that job to steal a box of rare candied apples from an orphanage. Now he realized he had thought wrong. Currently hanging upside down in the inky blackness of space, Mal faced the destroyed derelict transport that was carrying the goods he was now trying to pilfer. The problem? There was nobody there to stop him. Everybody on board this wreck was undoubtedly dead.
So I’ve moved from stealing candy from children to stealing protein from the dead, Mal thought bitterly, eying the sealed entry to where the cases should be,
I’m a real good guy.It had been almost six years since the Independents had lost to the Alliance. Those six years had felt like a lifetime. It had started out rough. Naturally, the Browncoats had been despised and stereotyped against for a good long while. After a bit, though, the resentment towards them had started to die down, so Mal found it easier to move about freely. It took him several years, but with a little clever bargaining the Sergeant had become Captain of a small, reputable (though in horrible shape) Firefly-classed spaceship he named Serenity.
Mal glanced behind him at the two people floating in space with him. Zoë had followed him far; there was no doubt about that. Six years later, she was still his right-hand-woman. She was also still as fearsome as ever, and he respected her for that. She had been his strength, and he was never regretful that she had decided to come along on his quest for freedom.
The other was a man who had been on his crew for the least amount of time. Jayne Cobb was a rough, tough hired hand who had proved himself in a pinch more than a few times. Of course, that didn’t mean Mal trusted him. Hell, he didn’t trust the man much at all. He always kept an eye out, making sure there was nothing that made Jayne think twice about working for him.
Mal clicked on his com unit, his voice resonating within the three helmets, “Vault’s sealed. I’m gonna boil it. Jayne, hand me the sticky.”
Jayne nodded, slowly drifting over towards Mal, his hand outstretched with some sort of gun clasped in it. It was small, a hand-gun, but it was also intricate and looked as though it could fall apart if anything was actually shot from it. It was a good thing the gun wasn’t made for combat.
Mal carefully steadied the gun, pressing a button and making it outstretch slightly. With as steady a hand that he could muster, Mal squeezed the trigger and started trailing the nozzle along a portion of the door. A trail of some sort of gooey substance followed, probably something like glue. A wire was weaved in the middle, insulated from the cold, oxygen-deprived region of space. Mal was never really sure how it worked, and never questioned it; the fact that it did work was really all that mattered. Tracing the gun all the way around and back, Mal placed a ticker heater on the side of the derelict’s door, pressing a button once and pushing himself back once he saw the red light start to flash. The heater quickly burned a thing wire-shaped hole through the door, charring the edges back. The section blasted open, whatever air that was remaining on the inside blowing it out.
“Full pressure,” Zoë assessed, “The goods must be intact.” Jayne and Mal floated towards it, opening it together with a muscled tug and flashing a light into the small compartment. Several crates were illuminated.
Intact indeed.“Okay,” Mal nodded, “We get these goods, and we’re off this wreck and back on the ship. No worries. We’re lookin’ good.”
Suddenly the voice of another floated down into his head. Hoban Washburne sounded slightly worried, which meant it was probably something big since it took a lot to make the pilot loose his nerve: “Captain, we’ve got an incoming Alliance cruiser bearing right down on us.”
* * *
Hoban Washburne hated waiting for jobs to end. He was always worried his wife would get hurt. He liked to pass the time, but it took him a while to find a good way how. He figured it was a good thing he was creative. Or maybe the word was eccentric? He supposed it didn’t really matter. He had found a way, and he was glad to say it was very,
very amusing.
“Everything looks good from here,” Wash told himself, his eyes scanning over the control panel as he reached out and grabbed two of the plastic dinosaurs on it – a stegosaurus and tyrannosaurus rex he appropriately dubbed Steggy and Rexy in turn. He took Steggy, and started to speak, “Yes... yes. This is a fertile land, and we will thrive.” He grinned to himself. The cockpit was the dinosaurs’ home, after all. “We shall rule over this land, and we shall call it...” Wash paused, his brain working, “... This Land.”
Okay, so maybe he wasn’t always creative. But he tried. That had to be enough. Turning his attention to Rexy, he changed the tone of his voice, attempting to make it sound like a snarling dinosaur, “I think we should call it your
grave!”
Steggy didn’t like the sound of that. He gave an incredulous cry, “Ah! Curse your sudden yet... inevitable betrayal!”
Rexy was feeling the power that flowed through his veins, “Har har har! Mine is an evil laugh! Now die!” The tyrannosaur made for Steggy’s throat, sinking his plastic teeth into it. Steggy’s cries of pain slowly got weaker.
“Oh,
God, no! Oh, dear God in heaven...”
Wash’s play was cut short, however, when a sudden blaring noise filled the ship. A red light above him started to flash, and Wash hurriedly brushed away a few of his smaller toys to glance at a screen. He didn’t like what he saw.
An Alliance cruiser, a large ship that was the size of a small city, was passing by, within close enough distance to do a sweep of the derelict and find them.
“Oh, you motherless son of a b***h,” Wash reached for the com unit about his head, “Captain, we’ve got an incoming Alliance cruiser bearing right down on us.”
* * *
Mal cursed in Chinese, “
Tah mah de.” He made a mental note to thank Wash for once again spoiling his dream of one of his missions actually going smooth. Quickly he questioned, “Have they spotted us?”
Wash sounded distracted, “I can’t tell if-“ Mal cut him off, getting slightly frustrated. A straight answer would do nicely right about now.
“Have they
hailed us?”
“If they’re here for the salvage, we’re humped,” Jayne decided to voice his opinion then.
“If they find us at all we’re humped,” Zoë countered, “Thieving ain’t exactly-“
Jayne spoke at the same time, “I don’t like this-“
Mal shushed them both, “
Bi zui! Wash, shut it down now. Everything but the air.” Wash didn’t respond, so Mal and gave a significant look to Zoë and Jayne.
“Get moving.”
The three of them began working, moving through the crates to find the ones they wanted and make sure everything was there. As Zoë and Jayne worked through the crates, Mal spoke to Wash again, “Where’s the crybaby?”
Wash answered almost immediately, “Right where we left her. You want her to cry?”
Mal thought about that for a second before he shook his head to himself, “No, not yet. Are they slowing down?” He glanced at the mammoth ship towering over them naught but a few miles away – which, in space, was not far at all.
“That’s a neg... They don’t seem to be interested in us,” Wash told him, “We
should be eating wake in a minute or two.
Mal knew it was never that easy. “None the less, they do a heat probe, tell me.”
They had about thirty seconds before Wash’s voice drifted in again, “
Ai ya! Hoo ay lay! Captain, we’re humped!”
* * *
Wash knew the Captain wouldn’t be happy about the cruiser. Not a jot. It had all been going so well, too. The order to go dark was all the incentive the pilot needed before flipping the com unit to the engine room of the ship, speaking clearly into it, “Kaylee, go to blackout, we’re being buzzed!”
The voice of a young girl quickly responded, “
Shoo ah, we’re going dark.” Within seconds, everything on the ship that wasn’t necessary was shut off. Wash sat in his chair, gripping the edge of the display panel and watching intently for any change.
At first, it almost seemed as though they were in the clear. The ship was passing them by as if they weren’t even there.
Leave it to the Alliance to pass by a wrecked ship, Wash mused.
That was when the message popped up on the screen; Hailed by Alliance Cruiser Dortmunder. Wash frowned,
Or not. Once again reaching for his com unit, Wash spoke: “Captain, we’re humped!”
Wash was telling Kaylee to fire Serenity back up and doing some re-booting of his own before Mal even had the chance to tell him.
* * *
Mal hissed slightly before ordering, “Prep the ship. Now.” He gave his attention back to Zoë and Jayne, his voice commanding, “We move these in double time.”
They worked quickly, grabbing as many crates as they could. As soon as they had them, the three pushed themselves back towards the ship.
* * *
Kaywinnit Lee Frye was doing her second favourite thing in the world: reclining on the hammock she had set up in her engine room, humming to herself while re-reading one of her most beloved childhood books. She would have been working on the engine still, but she’d been touching her up for the last two hours, and she knew Serenity was in decent shape – at least until they could get a new compression coil
(or, she mused,
convince the captain to actually get
a new one). Her face was smudged in engine grease at the particular moment, but she didn’t care – not a bit. In fact, she thought it gave her a bit of personality most girls didn’t have.
Unlike Wash, Kaylee didn’t get worried very easily. She was a very carefree person who knew the Captain and Zoë could handle both themselves and Jayne; however, when she heard a blaring siren echoing over the ship, she began to get a mite uneasy. Placing her book down, Kaylee swung her legs off the hammock and stood up, waiting for Wash’s voice to enter into the room. It didn’t take long.
“Kaylee,” the pilot’s voice echoed in the enclosed area, “Go to black. We’re bein’ buzzed.”
Kaylee nodded, jogging the short distance to the light switches, affirming, “
Shoo ah. We’re goin’ dark.” Hastily, she flipped two of the switches before bouncing over to stand on top of the engine, pulling down the last lever and finding herself suddenly immersed in darkness. She blinked once, trying and failing to get her bearings.
“Okay, now I can’t get down....”
She stayed there, anxiously, as she waited for any further word from Wash. Several moments in the reclusive darkness passed before Wash’s voice rang out again, in a tone that told her to hurry, “Kaylee, fire her up!”
Kaylee Frye was more than glad to do just that.
* * *
The Alliance Cruiser I.A.V. Dortmunder was a grand ship, one of the largest the Alliance owned. It was sleek and high-classed, its many different levels lined with windows for the most optimum viewing of the tranquil space around them. The Anglo-Sino Alliance flag was painted on the side.
On the bridge, the Captain of the ship approached one of the workers casually, his eyes taking in the destroyed derelict not but a few clicks away. “So, what am I looking at?”
The Alliance Ensign glanced back at him, typing in a few commands on the computer to enlarge the image, “It’s a carrier, blew out a few months back. No survivors, but it was only run by a skeleton crew anyway.”
“Damn shame,” the Captain spoke, though it didn’t sound at all like he meant it. In fact, he sounded slightly bored. “No point in checking for survivors?”
The Ensign shook his head, “Nah, the locals swept it right after.”
The Captain nodded it himself, contemplating for a moment before removing his hat and motioning for the others on the bridge to do the same. Hitting the com button – one much more fancy than the simple radio the crew of Serenity had – he spoke into it, “Crew, a moment of respect, if you please. We’re passing a graveyard.”
As the cruiser started to sweep past the derelict, another employee motioned for the Captain’s attention, “Sir, there is a reading on that thing. Some residual heat.”
The Captain furrowed his brow.
Oh? Nodding stiffly, he ordered, “Do a sweep.”
A scanner popped up on the screen, moving from the front of the derelict to the back. A light, hasty beeping erupted then, the monitor highlighting a section of the ship and zooming in, the ship of a Firefly-class ship.
* * *
Mal, Jayne and Zoë quickly found themselves nearing the cargo bay airlock of the ship. Inconspicuous against the large derelict, the Firefly-class spaceship started to power up. Mal couldn’t help but smile in the madness as Serenity came back to life.
He just hoped they could get out in time.
As Serenity dislodged herself from the derelict, the three thieves dragged the crates into the airlock. Mal dropped his crate as soon as the doors closed behind him, not wasting anytime before he shouted out, “Wash, we’re on.
Go!”
* * *
“It’s... a transport ship,” The man said, “Firefly class.”
The Ensign snorted, “They still
make those?”
The Captain sighed, “It’s an illegal salvage. Lowlife vultures picking the flesh off the dead.”
The Ensign nodded in understanding, following protocol when he suggested, “Do you want to deploy the gun ships, bring her in?”
* * *
As Serenity prepared to make her getaway, Mal spoke into his com, “
Cry baby cry.”
Wash responded almost instantly, “
Make your mother sigh. Engaging the crybaby.”
Out in the blackness of space, a small canister blipped to life. Etched on the side in black marker were the words “crybaby #6.”
* * *
The man who had scanned the ship spoke up again then, “Captain, I’m just now getting a distress signal, thirteen clicks ahead... It... it sounds like a personnel carrier.” He tried to pull a picture up on the screen, but it was too far out, “Well, it’s definitely a big ship, Sir,
and without power.”
The Captain quickly shot his gaze on the Firefly.
* * *
Wash gripped the handles of Serenity, a smirk on his face, “Kaylee, you ready for full burn?”
“Jus’ a sec....” Kaylee’s voice drifted in, slightly distracted, “... okay, ready!”
Wash flipped three switches above his head, “Hang on, travelers.”
In the cargo bay, Jayne Cobb smirked as he removed his space helmet, his gaze locked on the cruiser outside the window, “Let’s moon ‘em!”
* * *
Th Captain of the I.A.V. Dortmunder watched as the unnamed Firefly class’s tail end lit up, illuminating the space around it as its engine flared up in the ship’s namesake and disappeared into the black of space within seconds.
The Captain sighed, “Our gun ships would never get back to us in time... all right,” he made up his mind, “Let’s go help these people. But, put out a bulletin on the Cortex, and flag Interpol: a firefly with possible stolen goods on board.”
As he walked away, he muttered to himself, “Maybe
someone will step on those roaches.”
* * *
Jayne grinned to himself as he shook off his space garb and started pushing the crates from the air lock to the cargo bay as Wash spoke, “We look shiny, Captain. They are not, repeat, not coming about.”
Jayne might not have been on this ship for very long, but over the time he had been he had gained a certain amount of respect for the pilot’s flying abilities. That man could weave a thread with this ship.
Zoë sighed as she pulled her helmet off, tossing her head slightly in an attempt to un-mat her hair, “Close one.”
Jayne snorted, “Anyone you walk away from, right?” he asked, “Long as these crates aren’t empty, I call this one a win.”
The Captain spoke up then, “Right.” Jayne didn’t look up, so he missed the look of darkness in Mal’s gaze.
With a resigned look, he simply said, “We win.”
**Chinese Translations**
Tah mah de - F*** me blind!
Bi zui - Shut up!
Ai ya! Hoo ay lay! Damn! S*** on my head!
Shoo ah - Affirmative.
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