Mal sprinted up onto the flight deck, Zoe and Jayne having preceded him there. "What is it? The feds?" He immediately asked out of concern for their carried illicit cargo.

Wash shook his head, an uncertain look on his face, "nah, it doesn't bear an alliance signature. In fact, it doesn't bear any signature, it's just there, and it's huge, very huge."

Mal took a look at the impending vessel on the sensors, revealing it's length and width to be three times as large as that of the massive Tohoku-class Alliance cruisers they were used to dealing with in their travels across the rim worlds. "fuhn pi, wo wu shin wo dah yan jing!" Mal whispered, captivated by the sheer size of the unknown ship.

"it's not Reavers, that's for sure" Wash took another look at sensors, "the ship's engines are like nothing I've seen, but they're surely operating with core containment, although I am picking up trace amounts of radiation scattered across the ship."

"Dangerous?" Zoe asked, her hand resting itself on Wash's shoulder, where it was found by Wash's own hand.

Wash shook his head again, "not seemingly, no. It's fading away pretty quickly, but I'm guessing the radiation would've hit it's peak sometime...oh, near when it first appeared 5 minutes ago?" He hesitantly suggested. The looks of mild surprise cast didn't go unnoticed by the pilot, "yeah, River isn't the only one who knows how to do math, you know!" He said in his own defense.

"I was under the impression everyone aboard could do some mathematics" Zoe reassured her husband, "except maybe Jayne." She added, earning a hardly repressed scowl from Jayne himself.

Jayne thankfully remained silent on the subject, "want me to shoot 'em?" he asked, turning his head towards the captain, who was just over the verge of getting over his shock.

Mal shook his head, "ain't nothin they done, whoever these mo min chi meoware, not even sure we could outrun it, what with how big that things gettin' in my window." He said, one nagging question still fresh in his mind. "What the hell is that thing anyway?"

"Destiny" a small voice said, drawing each pair of eyes to the figure in the doorway, her own eyes fixated on the approaching ship in the window, "very old, very wise," she began "very kind, very lonely" she leaned her head against the frame, smiling nostalgically.

Mal looked back at River, "little girl, you know who these strange folk are?"

River kept staring for several moments, entranced by the view, "Destiny. That's all I hear" she said, to the dismay of Mal, "oldest ship in the 'verse, so alone, and nothing else"

"Is there anything over there we should be worryin' about?" Mal asked impatiently, wanting an answer in advance, rather than finding out too late.

River said nothing for several moments, working hard to not announce the fear that was clearly shown in her wide eyes. "I don't know" she finally said, not exactly lending any serenity to any of the present crew as the large unknown ship filled more and more of the window.

Mal's mind brushed over that memory as he and Zoe, followed by Jayne carefully walked into the large room, guns drawn. They had analyzed the small amount of air aboard the strange vessel, having awkwardly docked, and found it to be breathable. Not only that, but given the size of the ship it was likely they could go around a week without spacesuits, although that didn't help the air conditioning of the ship itself.

Zoe looked in awe at something at the far end, though she was unsure why she should've been. "Sir" she said, drawing Mal's attention to the object. As they had walked through the ship, lights had come on around them, and as Mal looked, four separate lights activated simultaneously, revealing a giant dark metal ring, with symbols etched or engraved along the inside. Periodically were several triangular-shaped objects along the outer edge ring, flanked with extruding small rectangles on the sides like the symbol for a military badge.

Mal couldn't put his finger on it, but something told him that this metal ring was important in some way, that it served a purpose, even though he hadn't a bai rih mohn idea what it could be. "Either o' you two have a clue what this is?" He asked, already knowing the answer.

"No idea, sir" Zoe replied, taking her eyes off the ring

"Does it matter?" Jayne asked in his normal apathetic attitude, "ain't nothin' but a gorram metal ring, why should we be dwellin' on it when there's other stuff to be found?"

Mal did his best to ignore Jayne's remark, futile as it may have been "al'right, we're not here to sightsee, this place is huge"

"Anything in particular we lookin' for, sir?" Zoe asked, focusing on Mal, who shook his head in uncertainty.

"Not sure what we could find in this hella-huge hunk o' metal. A storeroom in general would be nice" He looked around the room, deciding where to go next, when they heard running footsteps coming from the nearby entrance, as if something was about to burst into the ring room.

The three spun around, guns raised, as Simon dashed in, out of breath, and froze at the sight of Mal, Zoe and Jayne, who quickly put their weapons down in annoyance. Jayne growled at him "what the hell are you doin'?" he demanded, still suffering an adrenaline rush from the minute scare Simon unwittingly gave a moment ago.

Simon, still out of breath from his run, managed to find the words to respond, 'River, she...she ran off, I-"

Mal let loose a Chinese curse of his own to express his further annoyance "zhen dao mei" he looked up in exasperation, then down at Simon, "you're supposed to have your sister under control!"

Simon looked at him defensively, "she ran off! It's not like I can outrun her!"

Mal took a step towards the young doctor, their gazes locked together in defiant eye contact, "we are on a strange ship where we have no idea what might be on here, I don't rightly think this is an entirely safe place for your sister, dohn-luh-mah?" Mal turned, wanting to find the doctor's crazy little sister before she found something, or- god forbid- something found her.

"River seemed to know" Simon said, stopping Mal in his tracks, "she stepped across the threshold, nearly collapsed, and then had this look on her face like all of a sudden...she knew"

Mal sighed, not worrying as much now that he knew River apparently had some idea what she was getting into, "alright, doc, let's find your sister"

Speeding through the halls of the ancient exploratory vessel, giving into her natural inclination to run, River felt truly free for the first time in her life.

Serenity had been peaceful for her from the moment she awoke onboard, not many people aboard, plenty of metaphorical room for her tattered psyche as she sensed all that went on. Every feeling, every deception, every thought, was all within her range of vision. Not like this ship, however. Not like Destiny.

Destiny was different, more than Serenity ever was for her. Sure, Destiny harbored the minds of over a hundred people, their bodies dormant, though their minds exceedingly active. On Serenity such a thing would've been hell, but it seemed the massive size of the mysterious ship somehow gave River some breathing room.

The Stargate had been inactive for hundreds of years. River wanted to remind it of what it was, the magnificent looking glass that led to adventure, but there was no time for that now. Destiny was sleeping, as it had done for hundreds of years. However, that was just dozing off compared to the billions of years it had slept before.

"Destiny is sleeping" River said to herself, the ship being the only listener as she stopped in front of a horizontally rectangular door, larger than the common doors, bearing three circles of varying sizes, the largest of which lying on the line dividing the differently shaded halves of the door. "Time to wake up"