Out of the Black
A Battlestar Galactica/Firefly Crossover
Chapter Two
The meeting with the political vultures left Roslin feeling like a picked over carcass; in fact she felt quite relieved, on the shuttle ride over to Serenity, that she would be judged by people who were not inflated, self-righteous so-called representatives of the people. Hours of yelling, swearing, and threats both thinly veiled and not concealed at all. Some vague plan to split up the ships, send one at a time to some planet, and get their people settled was finally struck. It was a plan that would take months, months sure to be filled with more yelling, swearing, and threats. Roslin's head throbbed at the mere thought of it.
The ride was shorter than she had thought it would be, that or her thoughts had been far too consuming, because she was suddenly aware of a light jolt as the shuttle docked on the port side and locked into place. She took a steeling breath and glanced around at the familiar faces that had come to the ship- Bill, Lee, Chief, Kara.
"Ladies and Gentlemen," Mal announced, "Welcome to Serenity."
He opened the hatch and led his guests out onto the catwalk and up a flight of stairs to a large mess hall, which seemed almost familial in its arrangement. Very much unlike the mess hall aboard Galactica made even more familial by the presence of an older man, dark skinned and grey haired, engaged in conversation at the table in the center of the room with a wispy girl with long dark hair. Settled in a chair off to the side of the room a man, with the overall bearing of a gorilla, sat, ankle crossed over his knee as he polished a very large gun.
"Jayne, Book, we've got company," the captain announced. Not that he had needed to announce it; they'd drawn the focus of everyone as they'd entered the room. Mal nodded towards the gorilla man in the corner, "That there is Jayne, hired mercenary. Don't look him in the eyes, he takes it as a challenge."
"Very funny," Jayne sneered, and resumed polishing the weapon.
The grey haired man rose from the table and crossed to the group, "This here is Shepherd Book."
"A man of the cloth," Roslin observed, "I have a feeling we will have a lot to talk about," She replied, holding out her hand, "Laura Roslin."
Book grasped her hand in a firm shake, "A pleasure to meet you." He then turned his gaze towards her company. "I see we have many distinguished people with us today."
The motions of introduction were carried out; only to be interrupted for a moment when they realized the dark haired girl had risen from her chair and was circling Kara was an intense gaze and an amused smile. Jayne announced that River had a case of the crazies, something she took an offense to. Before the situation could spiral out of hand, Mal ushered his guests towards the bridge.
---
There was a kind of light about Kara's face from the moment they reached the bridge it could even be described as a glow as she absorbed everything and listened eagerly to the pilot, Wash, as he introduced himself and beamed proudly about the fact that he was married to Zoë. After a few moments of conversation, Kara waved the others on, telling them to continue to tour the ship without her. "Once a pilot, always a pilot." Lee whispered in her ear before slipping from the room with the others.
"Captain Kara Thrace." She introduced herself. "I'm the CAG on Galactica."
"CAG?" Wash asked raising an eyebrow.
"Commander of the Air Group…" she prompted, however this didn't clarify it for him, "Head… pilot… person." She replied, his face burst into smile as, for him, some kind of instant fellow pilot bond had formed and he dove directly into exploring this newfound connection.
"So how did you get into flying?" he asked.
She lowered herself into the co-pilot's chair, "Well, I used to be an athlete," she started, indulging in the bond and slightly surprised that she was opening up this way. She turned her gaze out to the stars and the fleet visible beyond them. "I made my way into the Fleet Academy on a sports scholarship, and I, uh, broke my leg." Her face puckered at the sour memory. "Couldn't play anymore, and that's about the time that I really found my calling, flying, and went on to flight school from there. What about you?"
Wash reclined in his chair with a nostalgic smile on his face, "I was born on a planet with pollution so thick you couldn't even see the stars. I decided to become a pilot so that I could finally see the sky." He sat forward a bit with a smirk on his face, "I graduated second in my class." He bounced his eyebrows.
The playful competitive spirit bubbled up in Kara quite quickly, she matched his posture and smirk, "They say I'm the greatest fighter pilot to ever get in the cockpit." She paused and in some moment of realization, every bit of her cockiness slipped away. "I guess that's over now too… going into hiding… settling…"
Wash shook his head, "No way. You always have the sky. No one can take that away from you."
She sat back, taking a moment to survey the buttons, the readouts. In a voice full of hushed wonder she spoke. "How do you fly this thing?"
---
She was a ball of pure fury in a pink shirt and grease stained jumpsuit. How dare Mal bring someone else aboard to look at the engines, the ship was her girl and she wasn't about to have anyone else lay their grubby hands all over her. The tirade went on for a good few minutes before she caught the Chief in her sights. There was something, something she couldn't quite place, but something that intrigued her nonetheless, and offered to show him how Serenity worked, but mostly as a guise til she could figure out what it was about him that was so intriguing.
"Kaywinnet Lee Frye," she introduced herself, once the others had left. "Call me Kaylee."
"Kaylee…" he repeated to himself, in a moment of darkness, "My late wife… her name was Cally."
Kaylee grinned, "That's all well and good but I still don't know your name."
"Tyrol… Galen Tyrol." He asked, taken aback slightly by her grin. "So, wanna show me around?"
---
There was something about her, just the ease of her nature and the passion with which she spoke about every little detail about the ship. Every little component was cared for and revered, she spoke with such affection for every inhabitant of the engine room, and finished in a rant about those, some curse word he could not understand, who dared to call the ship a piece of junk. Before he knew it two whole hours had passed.
"If you want to see some junk," He said with a smile, "You should come over to the Galactica sometime. Most of our equipment is more than 50 years old. Our Vipers are five models outdated, it's a hell of a time keeping them flying."
"Must be fun." She replied dreamily.
A light laugh pushed its way forward. "I don't know if I'd call it fun. But it's a labor of love… What?" He asked noticing the pensive gaze that seemed to tear right through him.
"I think I finally figured it out," Kaylee said with a triumphant smirk. "I know just what you are."
"What do you mean?"
"I knew there was something different about you the second I saw you, but I couldn't figure out why. Then you started talking about labors of love, and when I'm down here alone with Serenity, I was just thinking that she lets me know what's wrong with her so I can fix her. Machines have a way of talkin' to me," she beamed, "And you, Mr. Tyrol, are definitely some kind of machine."
He was stunned. The truth had been nothing but a horror to anyone else, but here this woman was beaming with pride and almost joy that she had discovered this about him. A glow of wonder was all about her, which only urged him to speak. "Cylon… my race… we're called Cylons. I only actually found out what I was about six months ago."
"Cylon," she replied trying out the new word on her tongue. Something about the way she said it took the edge away from the word. "Shiny!" A beat passed. "So, can I come over to Galactica sometime and take a look around your engine room?"
"Yeah," he said, a rush of relief running through him. "I really want to show you the FTL drives, see what you think. It doesn't look like you have that technology aboard Galactica."
"FTL?"
"Faster than light," he clarified and smiled as her face burst into a wide grin.
"Sounds like a date, mister."
---
"Down through here we have the cargo bay," Mal said, feeling entirely too much like he was leading people through a museum.
Lee surveyed the room. "That's a lot of storage space. This is a transport ship, what exactly do you transport, Captain?"
"Odds 'n' ends," he replied. "We do odd jobs for people with jobs that need doin'." The sentence was incredibly final, and no one wasn't quite up to challenging him at this juncture.
Through another door, Mal led them into the infirmary. A doctor- Captain Reynolds introduced him as Simon- was busy going through an inventory of some kind, and seemed none too pleased to have a group of strangers brought into his workspace.
"And yes, he's always like this." Mal said the moment that Simon had gone back to his work.
"I am not deaf, you know," he snapped back at the Captain, and for the first time he took a moment to actually look at the people accompanying Reynolds. His eyes fell on Roslin. "Medullary carcinoma?" he asked.
A grave smile appeared on her face. "Something like that, Doctor. If you'd like the details, I do have my medical records with Doctor Cottle back on Galactica..."
Simon ushered her to take a seat, but she looked back at the Adamas with some slight apprehension. Bill stepped forward, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder and Lee stayed a few paces back, giving a slight nod. Taking a hard swallow, she followed the doctor and took a seat.
"What treatments have you been receiving?" he asked, digging up a drawer in search of a notepad.
"Well," she thought it would be best to leave out the blood of a half-cylon baby as part of the cure, "I have been undergoing a series of doloxan treatments, as well as taking chamalla extract."
The doctor stopped his search and turned to the woman with a bemused expression covering his features. "I'm beginning to think I'm only going to need your diagnostic records."
"Why is that?"
"I am completely unaware of any of those treatments," he replied, voice tinted with shame.
Adama was the only one to speak. "It's only to be expected. Medicine from another end of the universe, after all." He turned towards her. "It means there are different treatments, ones that might even be more effective. Isn't that right, Doctor?" She could see it in his eyes, that as much as he knew how tired she was he was still going to be selfish today.
"Yes. It will be a lot of work, creating an entirely new treatment plan; but if you would allow me, and I do hope you will, I would find it a privilege to take you on as a patient. It beats spending my time bandaging up some of the apes around this ship."
She sat in silence collecting her thoughts, which whirled in circles; life was happening at such a rapid pace. Life was happening. "Well… this is a time of new beginnings."