Big Trouble for a man called Wash
Disclaimer: We all know who owns the 'verse. Not me.
"So, you're sure about this Wash?"
"Pretty sure Captain."
"Pretty is a word I like to hear applied to women and horses Wash, not to my boat," said Mal.
"Pretty is a word rarely applied to your boat," said Zoe, "Sir."
Mal ignored his second in command. He stared at the processor screen in the panel before him. He felt his heart beat a little harder. He hated technology. When it worked – then fine – it could be ignored; but when things went wrong – then he hated it with a passion he usually reserved for politicians and oil-men. Tech made him feel stupid. It was just boxes with buttons on top until it stopped working when it instantly became an indictment of his lack of education. And when it came to boxes full of tech that ran life-support then that indictment became an out-and-out threat. It held a gun to his helpless head. He didn't like that feeling. It made him angry. And while anger was a good emotion to experience in a bar-room brawl it left technology unimpressed. How could you make a box respond to threats?
"Okay. I think I'm ready to give this a go," said Wash climbing out from under the panel.
"Just tell me exactly what it is that you're intendin' to do to my boat first."
"In Captain-Dummy talk?" said Wash.
"Only Kaylee gets to make that joke Wash," said Zoe, "Best make it Captain-Retarded talk. Sir."
"Gorram-it Zoe this is serious! Ain't you got better things to be at?" said Mal.
"No sir. No I do not." Zoe didn't move from where she was perched on a cargo crate.
Wash began to explain. "Okay, essentially what you have here is nothing more than an upgrade. Computer system that ran boat - old and bad. New system – shiny and better and not as likely to dump our oxygen and asphyxiate us in our sleep."
"So we just have to switch the old one off. Disconnect it from the main-frame and start up the new one?" said Mal.
"Exactamundo."
"But we can't start up the new one until the old one has been removed. Can't run the two together just to be safe?"
"Afraid not. Bit like women, only room for one at a time," said Wash.
"Unlike men," said Zoe.
Mal and Wash turned to look at her and she smiled inscrutably back at them.
"So there won't be any problems?" said Mal to Wash.
Zoe laughed.
"Well no. There shouldn't be." Wash spoke under his breath as he sat down at the screen, "If we had a Captain that had seen fit to spring enough coin to buy a legit operating system."
"What was that?" said Mal.
"What you three up to?" said Jayne walking across the cargo-bay from his weights bench to the corner where they were working. He slung a dirty towel around his neck and hung his hands off the ends waiting for an answer. None came.
"Okay, I'm isolating the power systems and ramping them down," said Wash.
A deep, pulsing hum that emanated from the engines began to fade, slowly diminishing to an imperceptible level. The miniscule chamber of light and warmth that was swaddled by Serenity's walls coasted through the gargantuan depths of space on momentum only.
"Okay. Navigation… Internal articulating motors… Communications… Inertia-absorbers… Thermal-regulators… Gravity-plating…" Wash spoke quietly as he went down through the old operating system tier by tier methodically switching off the ship. Metallic clangs could be heard echoing through the boat as mechanical doors shut, struts retracted and reactors disengaged. Room by room Serenity went dark until the only illumination came from the panel in front of Wash.
"Earnestly," said Jayne, "What are you three up to?"
An enormous crash followed by a diminishing chugging sound rocked Serenity as something massive and forgotten within her depths went offline for what sounded like the last time.
"Whoa!" said Wash, "What the Hell was that?"
Mal felt his body turn weightless and he carefully reached out and took hold of the mule to steady himself. The two-tonne vehicle began to rise into the air.
"Wash!" he said unable to prevent a tremor of anxiety permeating his voice.
"It's shiny Captain," said Wash under his breath as he turned his floating body in mid-air and pulled himself back under the panel, "I got it under control… all under control."
Mal, Zoe and Jayne held their breath in the complete dark and tried not to move while their pilot worked. There was the sound of tinkering and things being clicked together. A minute later the sound of a switch being flicked one way and then back the other way came from under the panel. The switch sound happened again a few times in rapid succession. The discouraging sound of Wash sucking on his bottom lip came to their ears.
"Okay," said Wash from under the panel, "No need to panic but, Mal, do you know how to construct a rudimentary lathe?"