Warren Keffer groaned when he came out of hyperspace. He had miscalculated the exit, and ended up miles away from the station. "Computer, identify our location," he snapped.
"Current location is Sector 14," the Starfury's computer chirped back. Keffer cursed under his breath; he was in for it now. It would take him four hours to return to Babylon 5, where he would certainly be heavily chewed out for wasting so much time chasing something that might not exist. Plus, weird things had been known to happen in Sector 14, and he had no desire to stay any longer than necessary. He asked the computer to plot a course to the station, and it complied by pointing the ship in the right direction. Now all he had to do was go forward and wish he had a deck of cards.
Just then, a brilliant flash of white light erupted to his right. After it faded Keffer looked over and saw a ship the likes of which he had never seen before. It was round, squat, and ugly, and looked like it would fall apart any minute. Whatever it was, considering where they were Keffer didn't want anything to do with it and went back to following his course. But after a few seconds, he saw movement out of the corner of his eye and turned his Starfury around. The strange ship was following him. He had no choice now; the people back at the station wouldn't be too happy if he led a potentially hostile force right to them. "Computer, open channel to…whatever that thing is."
Mal was the first to wake up. He quickly shook Wash awake as well. "No mom, I don't want to go to school," he mumbled before snapping out of it. "Captain! Sir! What in hell was that?"
"Nothing good, that's for sure," said Mal as he pulled out the intercom. "Will all hands please report to the bridge?" he said, and a few seconds later Zoe and Book arrived. "Where's the others?" Mal asked.
Zoe replied, "Probably still unconscious. Whatever hit us did a number on all hands; I'm amazed the ship's still flying."
"Now what is that?" said Book, looking to the left. Everyone else followed his gaze to the strange X-shaped object just off their port.
"Never thought I'd see the day when you didn't know what was going on, Shepherd," said Mal. "Maybe it's a piece off some ship, we can sell for scrap. Let's bring it in."
Wash took Serenity toward the object, only for it to suddenly turn around, revealing a window with a person visible inside. "I…did not see that coming," said Wash before their wavescreen crackled to life.
"This is Lieutenant Warren Keffer of Earth Alliance to unidentified craft. Please identify yourselves."
Mal gave a barely perceptible nod to Wash before saying, "Yeah, see, we've been having some problems-" and at that moment Wash disabled the wavescreen's microphone. As Wash pantomimed trying to fix it, Mal asked, "So what do we do?"
Wash replied, "Well, he said Alliance, which isn't a good word around here."
Zoe added, "But he said Earth Alliance. As in Earth-That-Was. I've never heard it used that way before."
Mal looked to Book, who said, "I suggest we hear him out for now, at least until we have some idea of what's going on."
Mal again nodded to Wash who reattached the mike. Mal said to the man on the screen, "Sorry about that, happens from time to time. Now, I'm not too familiar with any "Earth" Alliance, you mind explaining that?"
Keffer looked surprised by the comment. "Oh, I guess you're a race we haven't made contact with yet. Sorry about that, you just looked so much like humans. Listen, I come from a station called Babylon 5 you might have heard of, that has all kinds of different species represented on it. They're always looking for more, so why don't you come along? What's the name of your species anyway?"
Mal, Wash, Zoe, and Book were all looking at each other flabbergasted through the whole speech. Mal got back on the com and said, "Not sure what you're talking about, we're all humans here. Ain't no other species intelligent enough to need representation, as far as I know."
Keffer looked even more surprised. "Oh. Maybe you're some kind of lost colony, like on that old Battlestar Galactica show. Boy, the Centauri said we were a lost colony of theirs, now I might have actually found one! Look, just follow me. It'll be about four hours." At this the wavescreen shut off.
"I don't like it, Mal," said Wash. "Ship that small, and look how slow its moving. It can't put up much of a fight."
"You never can tell," said Zoe. "Maybe there's some new technology that can give a ship like that enough firepower to vaporize us all. He sure didn't seem too worried about us."
Mal sighed. "She's right. We'd best do what he says for now. So, four hours. Anyone up for some hoops?"
