"Wash? What the hell are you doing to my ship?"
At the helm, the pilot had abandoned his navigation equipment in favour of leaning over the controls and peering out into the starry expanse ahead of them.
Mal fought the urge to roll his eyes. His hand was dripping blood; he'd cut himself on his own razor when the ship lurched sideways. "What, d'ya see a pretty bird or something? And where-" he turned to the open door "-the hell is my ship's damn medic!"
"You oughta take a look at this, Captain," was the faint, amazed reply.
Mal took a deep breath before he marched up to the cockpit windows. "All I see is black. An' don't get me wrong, that's a thing a beauty. But it ain't all that different from what we see every day. It certainly don't make my ship-"
Wash cut him off by pointing up-up to the very edge of the glass overhead. A flicker of light danced just out of sight-like an aurora.
But auroras and light shows didn't happen in space.
Mal pursed his lips. "There's a reason you're not just turning my girl around so's we can actually see what's going on up there, right?"
"Steering's out," Wash answered airily, pulling the wheel hard to the left. Serenity didn't answer. "Nav, com- everything is."
"But all the lights are on. Some of 'em are green."
"Strange, isn't it?" Wash sat down, but kept his eyes on the flares-transfixed with whatever was happening just above their ship.
"Are you moonbrained now? Wash, this is- Zoë!" Mal slammed his good hand down on the com to radio his first lieutenant before he remembered what his pilot had said about everything having been disabled. "ZOË!" he hollered at the open gangway. "Your husband's lost his gorram head up here! Jen mei nai-shing duh fwo-tzoo, where the hell are my crew?"
"Somebody better get their ass up here!" He shouted as marched past Serenity's control units and into the open space under the long, sloping windows to get a better look. A deluge of colour splashed against the grating as he ducked and twisted, angling his head to get a better look at his so-called sky.
They say when a man gazes long into the Abyss, that same Abyss stares right the hell back into him.
Mal looked up, the top of his head pressed against the window as he stared up into the brilliant, glittering abyss overhead. Colours he'd never seen before-that he'd never even imagined-leapt out at him. Some danced like fire, some jumped from point to point like lightning, and some just stayed there all stagnant like, watching him. And behind it all, buried deep in that bright tear in the big, black universe, was the bluest blue there'd ever been.
It was sky blue. Not the skies he'd seen, not his sky; it was nothing that had ever existed in any world he'd known. It was the original blue - the blue that had been there at the birth of everything.
And that blue had his ship by her shiny tail. Serenity bucked, and Mal tipped sideways. He tried to catch himself, to steady himself on the windows, but his bleeding hand only slid along the warm glass. Not warm - hot. Blazing hot - hot enough to make the red streak he'd left as he was tossed to the ground sizzle and pop like oil in a pan. It flashed orange, yellow, green - every colour surrounded him, and his ship, and pulled them helplessly into that giant rip in the very fabric of space.
And then everything went dark.