Wash whistled a cheery tune to himself to alleviate the boredom which accompanied interplanetary travel. They say you can navigate within a solar system through minute changes caused by viewing the distance between the stars from different angles.
Wash had never tried this himself.
Serenity continued its trajectory towards Persephone.
Wash continued his lonely vigil.
The stars continued to appear stationary.
Blip.
That was new.
What was the blip?
Wash looked down at the radar scanner.
Hmm. Nothing there.
That's odd.
It wouldn't just make a "blip" noise over nothing, would it?
Ah, it was probably nothing. It's a fairly old ship, there's bound to be the occasional-
Blip.
Again with the blip.
Is there something out there?
Wash looked out of the front viewing port in some vain attempt to see the source of the anomalous "blip".
He was greeted by a particularly dark section of space.
How space could be darker than it already was a mystery to him.
Anyways…
Uh…
Wash thought for a moment what could be causing the
Blip.
Malfunction? Another ship? What?
Wash watched the radar screen intently and waited for the "blip".
Blip.
The signal appeared very weak, almost ghostly, and yet it was huge, much bigger than the Serenity.
He looked out of the window again.
More space.
Just lots and lots of space, with very little in between.
Suddenly, an idea popped into Wash's head. What if he switched on the outside lights?
Wash flicked three switches as he tried desperately to remember which switch controlled the outboard lights.
Ah. That one.
Wash flicked the switch and was rewarded with a satisfying kzernnnnnnn noise as the lights flickered into life. His mission accomplished, Wash peeked out once again, and was rather surprised by what he saw.
If only he'd looked properly at the scanner scope, then he would've seen that the space immediately in front of the Serenity was curved.
Blip.
Out of the rippling space, something loomed.
Blip.
Blip.
Wash's eyes widened.
"!"
Blip. Blip. Blip.
He quickly swerved to avoid it.
Blip.
Too late.
Blip.
There was a horrible tearing noise.
The lights went out.
Everything went silent.
Wash thought he heard a faint "Mayday mayday this is Captain Montana of the Transport Vessel Tulip".
But he just assumed that he'd imagined it.