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Firefly: Deleted Scenes
Ficlet 4: A Ship Would Bring You Work
By Gamera Obscura
"A ship would bring you work. A gun would help you keep it. A Captain's job was simple: Find a crew, find a job, keep flying."
-Shepherd Derrial Book - Intro
It had been over four years since the war had ended, and Mal was still on Boros. He sat in a booth in a bar that catered to former Browncoats, but the bar was mostly empty today. Many of the former POWs had signed onto various ships, and headed out towards the Rim. Monty was already out in the 'Verse, chasing his dreams, along with Renshaw and countless others. While in the camp, he had intended to sell his land on Shadow, only to learn that in the last year of the war, the Alliance had carpet-bombed it with fusion weapons, and left it a smoking, radioactive waste. Since then, he had been robbing banks and armored cars with other former Browncoats, and recently he had been chasing a dream of his own. There was still work to be done, but this was the most important part.
Zoe Alleyne entered the establishment and began to scan the tables, booths, and bar before making eye contact with Mal, and approaching his booth. She stood in front of him, the tension between them palpable.
"Sarge," she said simply, without emotion.
"Sit down, Zoe. We have a lot to talk about."
Zoe sat down opposite Mal and waved for a waitress. As Mal sipped from a bottle of cider, Zoe ordered some mulled wine.
Once they were alone again, Mal sighed. "It's been a while, Zoe."
"It has, sir."
"I have a business proposition for you, but before that, I need to know: Are you finished with the Dust Devils?"
Zoe grimaced. "I am, sir."
"Are you sure?" Mal asked, seriously.
"Yes, sir. I haven't been to a cell meeting in over a year. I'm done. I've had my fill of revenge, and none of it ever made a gorram bit of difference, anyway. The Alliance is here, and they're here to stay. Ain't nothing I can do to change that."
"Good," Mal said. "You know I took a beating for you over your affiliation with them."
"A beating, sir?"
"Yeah. Alliance operative beat my pigu from Jianying to Greenleaf and back again, thinking I was the one behind the bombings. He couldn't prove anything, but he knew a member of the 57th was involved, so he figured it was me, and made sure I paid for it. I didn't give you up."
"I see. Thank you. And… I'm sorry." Zoe regarded her wine as the waitress delivered it, then picked up the mug and took a sip.
"What have you been doing with yourself?" Mal took another sip of his cider.
"Working in a factory, spot-welding and soldering. It's deadly dull work, but it pays the bills. You?"
"You know, life of crime," he said. "Pulled a few heists, saved up some money, woulda sold my ranch on Shadow if I could, but the Alliance put paid to that possibility. Actually, that's all part of why I asked you here today. Finish your wine; I got something I gotta show you."
O-O-O
The pair exited the bar and got onto a four-wheel off-roader with an alcohol engine that Mal had bought used. He called it the "Mule", and they drove out of the city and through the countryside toward a long stretch of prairie filled with derelict and used spacecraft, mostly transports, most of which were decades old.
Mal drove them through the lot, past ship after ship, before coming to a transport with a boxy bottom, a bridge extending out on the front of the top of the craft, and a bulb for a tail. "It's a Firefly," Mal said, and pulled the Mule to a halt in front of a ramp at the base of the ship. Zoe got off as well, and joined Mal at the top of the ramp, whereupon he pushed the inner airlock doors apart; the ship obviously had no power. "She's an ought-three, the best they ever made," he said.
Zoe noted that in addition to lying on top of the boxy protrusion on the bottom of the ship, the vessel had four landing struts, like bendable legs, each ending in a "foot" that rested upon the ground. Judging from the sand that had half covered the foot nearest to her, the craft had obviously not moved in years.
"She's also at least forty years old, sir," Zoe said with concern.
He finished pushing the doors apart and led her into the cargo bay. "Well?" he asked.
Zoe looked at the empty cargo bay and the network of catwalks that framed it. "You paid money for this, sir? On purpose?"
Mal was a little taken aback. "Wha- come on, seriously, Zoe, what do you think?"
"Honestly, sir, I think you got robbed."
"Robbed?" Mal was clearly offended. "Wha? What do you mean?"
"It's a piece of fei-oo," Zoe said.
"Fei-oo," Mal repeated. "O- Okay, she won't be winning any beauty contests anytime soon, but she is solid. Ship like this… be with you 'till the day you die," he said as the pair wandered deeper into the cargo hold.
Zoe turned toward Mal. "Because it's a death trap."
"That's not… You are very much lacking in imagination."
The pair continued their wandering, "I imagine that's so, sir."
"Come on, you haven't even seen most of it; let me show you the rest. And- and try to see past what she is, and onto what she can be." Mal led her towards the back of the hold, towards the bulkhead to the common area, the passenger dorms, and the infirmary.
"What's that, sir?" Zoe asked.
"Freedom, is what," Mal answered.
"I meant, what's that?" Zoe repeated, nodding at a pile of dried feces on the floor.
"Oh, yeah, just step around that. Think something musta been living in here." Mal said, almost apologetically. "Tell ya, Zoe, we get a mechanic, get her up and running again, hire a good pilot, maybe a cook, live like real people. Small crew, them as feel the need to be free, take jobs as they come, they never have to be under the heel of nobody ever again. No matter how far the arm of the Alliance might get, we'll just get ourselves a little further."
"Get her running again," Zoe said with a smirk.
"Yeah," Mal said.
"So not runnin' now?" she asked.
"Not so much, but she will. I already know what I'm gonna call her. I got a name all picked out," Mal said as the pair stepped through the bulkhead to the aft section of the lower deck.
"What's that?" Zoe asked.
"Serenity," Mal said proudly. "Our defiant stand in the face of the monolithic, dictatorial Alliance. You would be my first officer, and as such would get fifteen percent of everything we earned, skimmed right off the top."
Zoe considered for a long moment, then smiled. "I like it. The name, I mean. It's fitting."
Mal proceeded to show Zoe around the ship, , including the kitchen and the bridge, before ending in the bunk that would be Zoe's if she took the job. She marveled at the space, once she had climbed down the ladder and into the room. "This is bigger than my apartment in New Jakarta," she said.
"Your own, private room. We've got enough bunks for you, me, a pilot, and a mechanic. Then we have passenger dorms for eight, so we can take on passengers as we move around the 'Verse, and then two shuttles. I was thinking, once we get up and running, we could even rent one of them out to a trader or somethin'."
"You've obviously given this a lot of thought, sir," said Zoe, sitting down on the bed. "This is surprisingly comfortable."
"I've given it even more thought than you think, Zoe," Mal said. "Monty told me that Fireflies are ideal for smugglin'; they have nooks and crannies everywhere, and I figure that we can use as least one of them as a contraband hold. You and I could even take on jobs as hired guns, so our training in the military won't go to waste. And best of all, we can get the hell off of Boros, and get back out into the 'Verse." He paused for a long moment. "So, what do you say?"
Zoe got off of the bed and stood, stepping over to Mal. "You had me at 'Serenity', sir." She held out her hand.
Mal took her hand and shook it. "It's gonna be fun, Zoe. You'll see. We'll make a decent living, and thumb our noses at the Alliance every chance we get."
O-O-O
Meanwhile, on Osiris, Simon Tam regarded his father, an expression of rage barely hidden.
"I've had my doubts about the Academy, Simon, ever since River's letters stopped coming, but your assertion that she's being hurt there… There's nothing that I can do without jeopardizing my position."
Simon's stunned face was tinged with ridicule. "You care more about your position than you do your own daughter?" he asked with incredulity.
"I suppose you'd rather I raise a stink and risk my job on the Board? Then your mother and I would be out on the streets and we still wouldn't have River back." His face was stoic, emotionless. It was as if, to him, River was already dead.
"I'm going to request that I be allowed to visit her," Simon said. "We'll see if anything comes of that."
"You do that, Simon, but I warn you not to make too many waves."
Simon waved the letters he had just received from River in front of his father's face. "Her life is in danger. You might not be willing to lift a finger to save her, but I am. I'll do whatever it takes to get her out of that place," he said defiantly.
O-O-O
In the Academy, River Tam sat across a balding doctor who was conducting a therapy session. Her long hair was disheveled and she was unwashed as she sat across from Doctor Whedon in her hospital gown.
"You're very quiet today," said Doctor Whedon. "How did your session with Doctor Matthias go?"
River didn't look at the Doctor. Instead, she looked down at her lap, before looking up at the two-way mirror behind him, where she knew other doctors and perhaps even the Alliance brass were watching her. "He gave me a mission," she said after a long moment.
"Really?" Doctor Whedon said after a pause. "Did he tell you your mission out loud, or did you just 'hear' it?"
River stared at the table between them as Doctor Whedon held a pen above a sheaf of blank paper. "He played hide-and-seek with me," she said.
"Doctor Matthias?" Whedon asked.
"My brother," River said without hesitation, almost interrupting Whedon. "He's a Doctor. He thinks he can find me, but I am deep down… And I do not make… a sound."
Doctor Whedon ignored most of this. "River, what mission did Doctor Matthias give you?" he asked.
"I can't tell you," she said.
"You can tell me anything, you know that."
"Can't," she said. "So… I'll have to write it down." She held her hand open above the table, waiting for Doctor Whedon to give her his pen.
Whedon held out the pen for her, and she took it, then leapt to her feet and jammed it into his throat, severing a major artery. The Doctor gurgled as blood poured down his shirt, and struggled to dislodge the pen from his neck. He managed to pull it out and dropped it onto the table, then collapsed to the floor, dead.
River suddenly pressed her face and bloody hand against the mirror behind Whedon's body. "I can see you," she said to whoever was on the other side, and smiled.
(Author's Note: Part of this Ficlet can be found verbatim at the beginning of Episode 8: "Out of Gas". The scene between Simon and his father is a re-imagining of an actual deleted scene from Episode 5: "Safe", and the closing scene with River is verbatim from "The R. Tam Sessions", a web series developed as a promotional release for the film "Serenity". The doctor in the video is Joss Whedon, Firefly's creator, with Alan Tudyk ("Wash") doing the voice. Finally, Mal's "beating" at the hands of an Alliance operative who believed he was with the Dust Devils is documented in the comics.)
(Next Time: The Little Engine That Could - With the engine finally online thanks to ship's mechanic Bester, the crew prepares to leave for their first job, and the ship's maiden voyage.)