Browncoat Knight

I don't own Firefly or Star Wars. They belong to Joss Whedon and George Lucas respectively.

Chapter I: Complications

"She's suffering complications."

Captain Malcolm Reynolds leveled a fearsome glare at his new ship's doctor. "I seem to recall you tellin' me that Kaylee was making a full recovery, Doctor."

Simon Tam stiffened his stance, practically screaming how insulted he was without a word. "Then perhaps you shouldn't have had your mercenary hauling her about the ship like a sack of potatoes."

"If he didn't go doing that then we'd all of us be Reaver meat, Doctor… Including your sister. Is that what you want?"

The doctor relaxed into a forlorn expression. "No, Captain, of course not. But perhaps you can understand that my diagnosis did not take an unscheduled visit from the Reavers into account." The sarcasm in his tone was biting.

Mal's expression went from anger to faint embarrassment in one easy jump. "All right, Doctor. You're right about that. I can't rightly blame you for circumstances beyond any of our control. Now then… How long am I going to be without my mechanic?"

"A month."

"Jiàn tā de guǐ! You've gotta be kidding me."

Simon sighed. "Unfortunately, Captain, that's how long it will be before Kaylee regains her full capacity to act as your mechanic, with all of the implicit stretching, bending and such that the position requires."

Mal huffed in frustration. As much as he wanted to rail against the doctor for his prediction, he knew that the boy would not be likely to lie to him with both Simon's life and his sister's basically sitting in Mal's hands. "Alright, Doctor. You do the best you can to speed Lil Kaylee's recovery as much as you can. In the meanwhile, I've gotta find us a temp to fill in for her for a while.

"Malcolm Reynolds, you old son of a gun. Look at you…"

Mal grinned boyishly at his old war buddy on the cortex screen. "Monty, I've gotta be honest. That soup-catcher of yours gets scarier every time I see you."

The behemoth of a man roared with laughter, proudly stroking the beard that was his pride and joy. "Well you're just gonna have to live with it, Mal. Ol' Monty don't shave his beard off for nobody. Now what can I do ya for?"

Mal's smile faded slightly as they came to the business at hand. "Actually, I was hoping you might point me in the direction of some trustworthy help. I'm in need of a mechanic, you see…"

Monty's bushy brows shot up in no small amount of shock. "You givin' that Kaylee girl the brush, Mal? That don't seem like you at all."

Mal shook his head firmly in reply. "Nothing like that, Monty. Kaylee's still the apple of my eye. We ran into a bit of trouble with our last transport. One of our passengers turned out to be a rather trigger-happy fed. Luckily for us, another of our passengers was a doctor, or we might be fitting the poor girl for a halo. As it is, I'm gonna need a temp to fill in around here for the better part of a month, minimum. Not a one of my crew is really qualified to pick up her duties."

The look on Monty's face absolutely redefined ugly. "You gonna need any help makin' sure that fed don't cause that sweet little girl no more harm, Mal?" It was a fact of the universe that Kaylee just spoke to something in virtually every man she met. Every last one of them either fell head over heels or came over all paternal on her. Monty, like Mal, was one of the latter breed.

Mal smirked nastily in response. "The fed is currently on Whitefall with a pretty little hole in his head, Monty. He won't be causin' Kaylee no more harm."

"Good," came the unsympathetic reply. Monty, like Mal, was a trained soldier who had fought in the war for independence. The idea of shooting a man who had shot one of his and then leaving him for dead did not bother him as much as it might some. "So you're gonna need a temporary mechanic, eh Mal? You still sailin' in that Firefly o' yours?"

"That's right."

Monty stroked his beard, thoughtfully. "Ain't too many that have the skills you want that ain't already in a crew, Mal. Still fewer that would work for a browncoat. You offerin' only temp work makes the pickings pretty slim. Most of them that would take that job don't know a grav boot from navsat. You might want to look into a fulltime hand. The prospects are better."

"I've got no need for a fulltime mechanic, Monty. I've already got a great one. I just need a temp." Mal allowed a hint of his frustration to leak through. He was well aware that decent mechanics that were willing to hire on for such a short term were few and far between, and he certainly didn't want another clown like Bester messing up all of Kaylee's work."

A light suddenly seemed to come on in Monty's eye as he hauled himself to his feet with a triumphant shout. "I might just have what you need, Mal. I've got a man who's looking for a shot as a fulltime shuttle pilot and hired hand…"

"I need a mechanic, Monty. Shuttle pilots and hired hands are nice but they don't fix my ship…"

"Yeah, but this one will. He's a real ace with small craft and downright scary with a blade, Mal, but he's also a pretty solid mechanic. He's not up at Kaylee's level, o' course, but no one really is…"

Mal's eyes narrowed suspiciously. It sounded really good. That only left the question of what was wrong with the guy. "He's trustworthy?"

Monty offered an ugly grin. "As trustworthy as they come, Mal. He's a former Browncoat. He was with the 181st Angels at the Battle of Sturges…"

Mal's eyes widened. "There wasn't any survivors of the Battle of Sturges, Monty. You know that."

The ugly grin widened. "Oh there was one, Mal. No one really knows how he survived. His fighter was found with next to no power a week after the battle. No one was more shocked than they were when he woke up a week later and actually tried to fight his way clear." Monty's voice was positively dripping smugness. "He kept them Alliance buggers right busy trying to keep him a POW for the rest o' the war. I've met the lad, Mal. He's good as they come. He'll temp for your mechanic if you can offer him a fulltime position when the job is done."

Mal chewed on his lip for a long moment. "All right, Monty. I'll at least give him a look-see. What's his name and where can I find him?"

"You can find him in the pit races on New Mexico. As for his name… It's Solo… Anakin Solo."

Don't fear, folks… How Anakin came to be here will be clarified later. Please note that this is Anakin Solo, son of Leia and Han, not Anakin Skywalker, son of Shmi and 'there was no father'.

Jasper