"Wormholes? Shiny." or "Chuck Versus The Wormhole"
Disclaimer: I don't own any material contained within this story. All copyrighted content remains the property of the person, people, or organization that holds the copyright. This story is solely for fun.
AN: This is my first foray into Chuck fan fiction, and I'm not all that experienced with Firefly fanfiction either. So I'm not sure if I can really pull this off, but I figured no harm in trying, right? Please let me know what you think. Any honest, constructive feedback (positive or negative) is appreciated.
Chapter 1: The Setup
Smoke filled the medium sized room that was Serenity's cockpit, and the stench of fried circuits was thick in the air. Wash coughed as he waved his hand back and forth, attempting to clear the smoke from the space in front of his face. Of course such actions did little good since the entire room was filled with smoke.
Fortunately for the ship's pilot, the captain soon appeared on the scene. The cockpit door was pulled open, allowing the smoke to disperse throughout the space ship's main compartment; and with several sharp inhales, Wash started to catch his breath. However, as relieved as the pilot was to discover he would not be suffocating, his joy was dampened by the knowledge that Mal would not be pleased by what had happened to his ship. And Wash was right.
"What's going on?" the captain asked. "Ship's been shaking like a condemned man staring at the gallows."
"I don't know, Mal," the pilot replied. "Serenity was flying along, smooth as you please, when all of a sudden..." Wash paused as he tried to think of the words to describe what he'd just seen.
"All of a sudden what?" Mal prompted, his tone tinged with impatience.
"Well, I don't know; this big, blue hole in space swallowed up the ship."
"Big, blue hole in space?"
"Yup."
Malcolm Reynolds eyed his pilot strangely. "You been hitting the sake?"
"You think I'm drunk?!" Wash could hardly believe Mal would accuse him of such a thing. He'd never fly drunk.
"You start talking about blue holes in space and the thought does come to mind, yes."
"He's not drunk," River cut in suddenly appearing from nowhere. "We've crossed the Einstein-Rosen bridge."
"The Einstein- what?"
Kaylee and Simon entered the room next -- Simon first, following his sister, and Kaylee second, following him. "River, I saw you running down the corridor; are you okay?" the doctor asked as he began a cursory examination of his sister. To Simon's relief he didn't find any fresh cuts, scrapes or bruises, and it seemed that River hadn't been injured during the turbulence.
"Where are we?" Kaylee asked as she noticed a planet outside the cockpit's window. Moving closer to the window and focusing on the planet, the mechanic noticed something familiar about the shape of the continents. "Is... is that Earth?" she continued with abated breath.
Chuck was standing behind the Nerd Herd counter when a woman walked up to him. "Excuse me, do you work here?"
The answer to that question was so obvious that another person might have replied condescendingly – with a response like, "Oh, no. I'm really a millionaire, Wall Street lawyer, and I just dress up in a Buy More uniform and stand behind this counter for the fun of it. I find it a relaxing way to spend the weekend."
But Chuck was a nice guy, and that kind of sarcastic and insulting response never even crossed his mind. "Yes, I do," he answered with a smile. "How can I help you?"
"Well, I was in here last week, and I bought a copy of Halo 2 for my son's birthday. But when he tries to play it on his laptop," – as the woman spoke she raised said laptop, which she'd been holding in her right hand, and set it down on the counter – "it just runs so slow. I think something's wrong with it."
"Okay, let's take a look." Chuck lifted the lid of the laptop, booted it up, found the Halo 2 disk already in the disk drive and started the game. He then discovered that it was indeed running very slowly. However, a quick look at the laptop's system specs told him why. The laptop only had one GB of RAM – the absolute minimum required to run the game. Consequently, the laptop's hardware was being taxed to it's limits and therefore it wasn't preforming very well.
"Alright, it looks like you don't have enough RAM to properly run this game."
It was obvious from the woman's expression that she didn't have the slightest idea what Chuck was talking about. Even still, the 'nice guy', Buy More employee's smile never wavered. He simply switched from describing the problem to suggesting solutions. "But we can increase the laptop's RAM."
"Oh... How much will that cost?"
"Around a hundred dollars, but then the Laptop will be able to run this game... and everything else on it will be faster too."
The woman hesitated for a moment, but then she agreed. She left the laptop and her contact information, thanked Chuck for his help and then headed out of the store. And Chuck turned around and set the laptop on top of a pile of others that they needed to upgrade or fix.
As Chuck stood up and turned back around to face the counter, he was startled to find Casey standing there, looming over him. Chuck gasped involuntarily, but calmed once his brain registered that it was one of his handlers/body guards and so he wasn't in any immediate danger from the NSA trained killer.
"Casey, would you please stop sneaking up on me like that?"
"Aw, did I frighten you, Chuck?" the assassin asked in a condescending tone.
"Yes, actually," Chuck replied.
"Well too bad. Sarah called and said that she wants us to meet her at the Castle. Seems we've got a mission."
"Well, guys and gals," Mal began as his crew gathered around him. "Time for a little of the good, the bad and the ugly. We've apparently slipped through some kind of wormhole... thing-"
"Crossed the Einstein-Rosen bridge," River cut in, her voice a neutral monotone.
"Yeah... Anyway, as I'm sure Kaylee's already mentioned to some of you, that big, blue 'gem' that we're floating around is Earth. But, it's not our Earth."
"Er, what do you mean 'it's not our Earth'?" Jayne asked, obviously unhappy with the somewhat cryptic statement.
"What he means is it's Earth-that-was. According to our scans the planet below us is pre-migration, pre-interplanetary travel, pre-everything," Wash explained.
Jayne's brow furled. "Hog-wash."
"No, he's right. The tempo has switched, and the stars have spun their eternal dance backwards," River confirmed, though exactly what she meant by this, no one was sure.
"Okay," Inara responded. "So the bad news is that we've been thrown through time and space... and I'm assuming have no idea how to get back?"
"No," Mal replied, "That would be the ugly news."
"If that's the ugly news, then what's the bad news, Sir?" Zoe asked.
Mal opened his mouth to reply, but Wash beat him to it. "Oh, that would be that our orbit's decaying, travel through the wormhole fried our guidance controls, and if we can't get them fixed up within seven hours, we're going to have to abandon Serenity... or, you know, turn into crispy, little pieces as the ship burns up on reentry," the pilot answered his wife's question in a faux care-free tone.
"Shiny," Jayne cut in sarcastically. "So we're not only lost in the past; we're going to be stuck here?"
"Now wait a minute, Jayne," Shepard Book responded, "The captain said that there was good news too."
"Right you are, Preacher," Mal replied, "Kaylee and Wash have made a list of the components we need to fix the guidance system, and luckily our scanners have located some early Earth rocket bases that should have them all. So, Wash flies Zoe, Jayne and I down in one of the shuttles. We pull a quick snatch and grab then hightail it back up here and fix up Serenity's guidance system," he continued with forced optimism.
Within their secret base Chuck, Sarah and Casey stared at a display screen depicting the layout of a classified missile base in the deserts of Arizona. "And this is what we believe the Ring is after," the voice of Brigadier General Diane Beckman informed as the display zoomed in on an underground silo.
"I don't understand. Why this rocket instead of all the others?" Sarah asked.
But before General Beckman had a chance to answer, Chuck's eyes contracted and a series of images quickly flashed before them. "It's a Cobalt bomb, a planet killer, theoretically capable of destroying all life on Earth." The human Intersect shook his head, his eyes returning to normal. "General, why would we build such a thing?" he asked in shock.
"For the same reason the Ring wants to steal it – MAD, Mutual Assured Destruction. If the enemy knows that if you're defeated, you can launch a weapon that also destroys them, they'll stay at bay."
"So the Ring wants this as an insurance policy?" Casey asked.
"I suppose that means we're making them nervous... I guess that's good news," Sarah added, trying to find the silver lining in their current situation.
Casey just grunted in reply.
"Not to sound... less than confident, General, but isn't this a little out of our league?" Chuck questioned. "I mean there's only three of us. Wouldn't it make more sense to surround the rocket with a platoon of Marines or something?"
"That's not necessary. The base is already locked down tight, and there are fail safes in place that blast that rocket off into deep space if we lose control of the facility. The Ring won't try a direct assault. But we think one of their agents has infiltrated the team stationed there... or their security detail.
"And that's where you come in, Team Bartowski. We need the Intersect to find the Ring spy. So we're sending you in undercover to see if Chuck 'flashes' on anyone."
The General stopped and leaned forward, her demeanor somehow becoming even more serious. "And, Chuck, flash on someone," she ordered, "because if you don't, we're all in danger of Nuclear Armageddon."
Shifting back into her previous posture, the General finished, "The fate of the world rests on your shoulders, Team Bartowski." And with that, the main view screen went dark, and Chuck gulped, trying hard to swallow the lump that had formed at the back of his throat.
Well, I hope you all enjoyed. Please drop a review and let me know what you thought. Thanks.
Have a good day, and God bless.
Metropolis Kid.