I do not own Star Trek 2009, Supernatural or Firefly.
"Ash, if you don't surrender in ten minutes, they're going to kill Jo and I."
Typical. Ash took a deep breath to begin protesting Dean's order to fire anyways when Dean interrupted in dead earnest.
"I want you to surrender and let Starc's men onto the Impala."
Ash stared at his captain, catching the barest flicker of one eyelid.
Dean had a plan.
"Yes sir," he replied crisply. "Any further orders?"
Dean was abruptly elbowed out of the way and Ash was left staring at a new individual. "I am Starc," the stocky, muscular man with flat grey eyes said, as if that should mean something to Ash. "You will all beam over to our ship within the next five minutes and we will take the Impala from you. We are monitoring you on sensors and should you take any action to sabotage the ship, we will kill your captain."
Shit. Ash could have screwed with every major system on the Impala given thirty unwatched seconds. "Understood," he replied, feeling the acquiescence drawn from his throat with all the smoothness of shattered glass. "Lieutenant Castiel, broadcast ship-wide and order everyone to prepare for mass-beaming. No one gets left behind and no one tries anything stupid.
It was a credit to the trust every single crew member had for their captain. No one defied orders. Everyone materialized in the hold of the dingy cargo ship. "I do not understand," Castiel voiced in confusion, turning to his world-wise friend.
"I don't get it either, Cas."
Jo broke them out of the hold and led everyone up to the bridge in time to watch helplessly as the Impala jumped to warp.
Ash wheeled on Dean. Instead of a slumped, self-berating mess of a captain, Dean Winchester was muttering rapidly under his breath and typing code into the computer as fast as his fingers would run. "Ash, take nav. Cas, sit your ass down at that pilot's seat. Jo, get the crew dispersed. Bobby, I want this thing at her maximum five minutes ago. Move!"
Everyone scrambled to their posts.
The captain had a plan.
Serenity
Spock was assisting Captain Reynolds in clean up when said captain put a phaser to the back of his head. "Starfleet, eh?" Captain Reynolds said calmly. Spock slowly raised his hands. "Where's your friend? And don't lie to me, it's irritating."
"I do not know exactly," Spock replied honestly, "but I believe he was in engineering, offering his not inconsiderable assistance."
"Not any more," Sam interjected and Spock had to blink at the incongruity of a tiny woman holding a very impressive phaser rifle on a rather irritated Winchester. "Let me guess, Sulu got carried away?"
Captain Reynolds shrugged. "Pilots," was all he said, a wealth of information in that one short word. "Have any trouble with him, Kaylee?"
The pretty, grease-smeared girl shook her head, slapping Sam's shoulder companionably. "He was pretty good about the whole thing." Still, she kept the rifle trained on Sam with a level hand.
Clearly Sam's lack of resistance to a girl he could have easily overpowered earned him a few brownie points but not enough. Reynolds carefully turned so he could see both Starfleet officers. "So. What's really going on and why didn't you just call the bigwigs for a ride, since you're all intergalactic superheroes?"
Sam and Spock glanced at each other, prompting another nudge from Reynolds' phaser. "Again, no lies please."
"We cannot contact Starfleet Command because we do not know who we can trust," Spock began carefully. Sulu joined them, looking very pained as the pretty (tough) first officer had him wrapped around a rather interesting joint lock.
Sam took up the torch. "I'm sure you've heard about the dilemma facing Delta 5-B. We've been investigating and so far we've come across some rather explosive information that we need to see into the right hands. We were going to head straight to Starbase 3 ourselves, but as you've noticed, our new friends weren't willing to let us get away. Honestly, we didn't think they'd work that fast. It was supposed to be a simple run."
Captain Reynolds had only dropped his phaser after a slim, dark-haired man took his place, the new man far less comfortable with the weapon (a doctor?) and now the captain paced around to face his three captives. "And why the hell would you go to such lengths just for one measly planet?"
Sam and Sulu looked affronted. "One planet, maybe but that's millions of lives, each one valuable!" Sulu blurted. "And they've weaponized the virus. Right now, the virus simply destroys plant life. The planet should rebound in a season or so. But if this new strand gets out, they can reduce entire solar systems to balls of dead dust!"
Sam stared earnestly at the captain. "We just need a ride to Starbase 3. As far as we know, you've been involved in nothing illegal. Hell, we'll even recompense you damages to your ship. No one will know you took us on. The two of us can keep our mouths shut and we'll get Captain Kirk to scare silence into Sulu." The Japanese-American pilot gulped.
"So you'd tell your captain," Reynolds drawled.
Spock inclined his head. "Of course. However, both captains are trustworthy. Surely that is evident from their public actions."
"All their public actions tell me is that they're crazy."
The Starfleet officers couldn't argue with that point. There was a long, tense pause while everyone involved considered options and motives.
"We're not asking you to trust Starfleet," Sam said finally. "We're asking you to allow and help us to do our job, a burden we've personally taken on and accepted."
Captain Mal Reynolds stared searchingly at the three men in front of him. "Well?" he asked his crew. Several glances skipped around the motley assemblage of oddballs. No one seemed to have an opinion. Reynolds rolled his eyes. "River?" he asked wearily. "Anything…interesting to contribute?"
The pretty, air-headed girl floated up close to Sam, walking almost on her tip-toes. Sam blinked as she stretched up further and further, trying to get up on Sam's eye level. "Would it help if I crouched?" he volunteered.
"No," she replied thoughtfully and promptly ignored him, turning to Sulu who, to be perfectly honest, was looking a little freaked. Usually unflappable, this whole series of events was far, far out of his comfort zone. River tipped her head to one side before patting him on the shoulder like one would pat a puppy. "It's okay," she said with a sweet smile.
And finally she took a look at Spock, really looked before proposing a question that seemed to be composed entirely of numbers. Spock didn't skip a beat before rattling the answer back. River's eyes lit up and seemed to engage with reality, spilling out another long string of numbers and this time added in physics terminology. Back and forth, ping pong, like computers or maybe androids.
Sam of course, looked keenly interested, leaning over Spock's shoulder in curiosity as the dark-haired man let the gun's aim slip to the floor, also fascinated by the debate of sorts.
Sulu was left as the sole target of everyone else's stares. He shrugged. "Geeks," was the only answer he could come up with.
"And you're not one?" Reynolds shot back.
"I'm a pilot. We're our own special breed," Sulu parried, slowly starting to regain his footing in this Twilight Zone.
"I like them," River interrupted, drifting by under Sulu's nose.
"You like them," Reynolds repeated, incredulous.
River shrugged. "Help them."
"Help them?"
"Careful, sir. You're starting to sound like an echo," the first officer (Zoe, Sulu had heard the others call her) chided. "River has a point. They haven't threatened us and they haven't lied to us, not yet anyway. And we were trying to break that habit of deep-spacing anyone who pissed you off."
Captain Mal Reynolds eyed his wayward passengers with prejudice before sighing. "All right. But put my crew in shit like that again and I'll make an exception to the deep space rule."
Sam raised a hand. "What?" Reynolds asked wearily.
"If that's the case, you may as well put us out in a life pod now. We're uh…"
"We're trouble magnets, sir," Sulu finished boldly, firmly meeting Reynold's stare.
"Commander Sulu's vernacular is correct," Spock added. "Statistically speaking, the crews of either the Impala or the Enterprise experience on average 86.37% more conflict than any other Starfleet vessel currently in commission. We would most likely cause significant damage to your ship. However, we do require a ship. Leaving us in a life pod would indeed spare the Serenity but cause the deaths of millions." Spock arched an eyebrow. "The decision, of course, is yours."
The crew of the Serenity collectively stared at the strange individuals on board their ship save one, who poked the doctor in the arm and grinned at the captain.
"I told you we should help them."
Jim, Bones, Cupcake and Gabriel
"Ow."
"Sit still Jim, you took a real knock to the head."
"No shit, Bones."
"Feel like you've got Danubian belly dancers on the brain?"
"Thanks, Gabriel, for that lovely image."
"Always happy to help!"
Kirk finally decided it would be a good idea to open his eyes.
His battered away team slumped in various positions around the grimy brig. Cupcake was covering the door, Gabriel sat halfway between Kirk and Cupcake and Bones, as always, was poking at Jim's many boo-boos.
Kirk hissed and flinched his head away from Bones' hand. Okay, so they were more than boo-boos. "That's what you get for being captain. Instead of getting stunned like the rest of us, you get your cranium rattled," Bones said unsympathetically.
"Who the hell is running this joint?" Kirk demanded (complained), ignoring Bones' diatribe.
Bones and Gabriel rolled their eyes in tandem. "Someone who left Walker in charge. They're supposed to come back in about, oh, two hours by my calculations, given Walker said they'd be gone three," Gabriel volunteered.
"Excellent. Two hours to bust out of here. Come on Bond, help me out."
"Finally! Someone who appreciates the classics!" Gabriel grinned, sidling over. "What's the plan?" he asked in a very bad Scottish accent.
"First," Kirk began conspiratorially and Gabriel leaned in. "Don't ever do that in front of Scotty if you want to keep your skin intact. Second," he glanced over to Cupcake. "Yo, Cupcake. You still training with Winchester's little blonde bruiser?"
"Yes sir." A rather sly and wicked grin accompanied the standard response.
"Excellent. I assume you've got us a way out. Bones, any contact with Enterprise?"
"Sorry, Captain."
"All right-y then. Let's sum up our day, shall we? Impala's MIA, the science geeks are MIA, Enterprise is MIA, there's an evil virus killing all plant life in the hands of as of yet unknown individuals who are most likely under the control of a very high up Starfleet honcho whose motives are unknown. Did I miss anything?"
Thankfully, no one added anything.
"Actually," Cupcake began, pulling out a little doo-dad that Kirk vaguely recognized as Sam Winchester merchandise, "if this thing's right, there's a large, constant power surge just to our right. According to Sam – Commander Winchester's database, it could be any number of things, including a virus manufacturing lab."
Kirk cheerfully cracked his knuckles and rubbed his hands together, ignoring the deep throb at the base of his skull. "Excellent. Huddle up. You too, Gabriel. This is how it's going to go."
"Why do I get stuck with the meathead?" McCoy complained.
"Hey, I was the one who figured out where the virus lab was!"
McCoy rolled his eyes, patting plastic explosive into place. "No, Sam Winchester figured out where the virus lab was. You just turned on the doo-dad and waved it around."
"I had the presence of mind to bring the doo-dad."
McCoy paused in his demolition job. "True. And you managed to turn it on."
"Hey! I resent the implication that I'm just another jarhead! I'll have you know that I'm a Ph.D!"
"And you wrote your dissertation on the continuity of war tactics from Alexander the Great through the World Wars up to and including the first encounter with the Narada. I know. Still doesn't mean much." McCoy sniffed.
Cupcake jammed a timer into the plastic with a savage punch. "Just because it's not a hard science," he muttered, "and you happen to be a security officer, everybody's a critic."
McCoy smothered a grin. He was probably the only person on the Enterprise who knew they had a closet arts genius in their chief security officer. And Cupcake, bless his big ham hands, was just so easy to needle.
Supervisory Intelligence Officer Thomas Gabriel and Captain James Tiberius Kirk worked surprisingly well together. They slipped through corridors, avoided cameras and slunk into shadows without a single word exchanged. It helped that they had come to some sort of silent agreement – Kirk admitted Gabriel wasn't the scum of the earth for one bad decision and Gabriel allowed that Kirk was usually right when it came to anything Enterprise-related.
Kirk held up a hand and carefully peered around the corner. Two hours of wide-spread sabotage and mayhem was culminating in this one self-imposed mission.
Gordon Walker was going to be captured by Jim Kirk.
And then he was going to be interrogated by Thomas Gabriel.
Rolling his shoulders easily, Kirk focused forward. He was going to have the pleasure of kicking the shit out of the escapee while Gabriel tried to convince the computers to tell him the identity of the individual directing this whole mess.
Doors hissed open and Walker waved off the personal guards. He was paranoid and didn't want the untrustworthy alien mercenaries seeing his great big secrets. Said paranoia worked in their favour. Unsuspecting, Walker moved easily through the hallway, tapping away at a PADD.
With savage glee, Kirk clotheslined Walker, planted a knee in the former IO's diaphragm and finished it with a brutal uppercut.
Silently, the unconscious man slid to the floor.
"Remind me not to piss you off," Gabriel muttered as he picked up the PADD. Kirk cracked his knuckles happily, feeling lighter already.
"That felt good. Got the information yet?"
Gabriel scowled, alternating between the PADD and the room's computer. "Give me time." Kirk shrugged and dragged their prisoner over to a chair, effectively searching Walker and then zip-tying the man to the nines.
"Got it. Let's roll," Walker said just as the base shuddered under their feet. "Enterprise?" Walker asked hopefully and Kirk shook his head.
"Too small to be Enterprise."
"Captain! Come in Captain Kirk, Dr. McCoy!" Uhura's voice crackled over the comms they had found in their little destructive stroll.
"Uhura! What's going on up there?"
"Captain, someone's hijacked the Impala! She's firing on your position!"
Shit. He hauled Walker up over his shoulder. "Move your ass Gabriel or I'm leaving you here. If they took out the Winchesters, Enterprise is going to have her hands full."
"I'm insulted Kirk."
"Winchester?"
"Dude, they did not hijack my ship. I let them have it so I could tail the bastards."
"This is a secure channel, you jackass. You can't be flying a Starfleet ship, how the hell did you get on it?"
"Do you have to ask? It's Ash, dumbass. Hey, have you seen Sammy lately? I need his oversized brain."
"You and me both. Our first officers went missing shortly after they skipped away in the Galileo to study that dead planet. Took Sulu with them too." Kirk kicked a door open. "Uhura, tell me you can beam me out."
"Captain, that's impossible unless we destroy the Impala first and I'm being told by Captain Winchester we may need her firepower before this mission," the disdainful twist on the word 'mission' told Kirk exactly what Uhura thought about such crazy, half-wit 'missions' "is successfully concluded."
Kirk scowled, put his head down and ran for the shuttle bay. Cupcake and Bones were waiting. "Took you long enough," the doctor groused.
"Sorry, had a chat with Winchester on the way," Kirk replied, shoving their captive at a very receptive Cupcake. "Found your comm and your medkit."
"Captain, another free trader just entered our space. They say they've got our missing science officers with them."
"All right, who are they?"
"They say their name's the Serenity."
Serenity
"Shit, you weren't kidding about trouble magnets," Captain Call-me-Mal Reynolds whistled.
Sam nodded from the decrepit communication station. "Do you have beaming technology?" he asked and the pretty engineer Kaylee shook her head.
"Afraid not. Our universe's technology's really not compatible with transporters and I haven't been able to hook one up to the Serenity without…explosive side-effects. But we can sneak down and pick up whoever's on the surface!" She beamed at Sam, who grinned back, a comradeship of optimists forming.
"Oi, I'm the captain here," Mal complained.
Zoe raised an eyebrow. "Yes captain, you are. Commander Spock, would you like River and Sulu to take the ship down to the surface?"
Spock fiddled with the science station, which spit sparks and suddenly sprang to life. "That would be prudent, Commander Zoe. Captain Kirk and Dr. McCoy would benefit from our assistance."
With a nod from Mal, the Serenity swooped down to the space station's surface. Sam smacked the communications panel and managed to alert Captain Kirk to their presence.
"Captain Kirk says they're aboard Sulu, get out of here! They rigged the entire station to blow in five!" Sam snapped out and without waiting, Sulu sent Serenity screaming for open space.
"You lot don't believe in timers?" Mal asked as he swivelled about in his chair, deciding this whole captain-but-not-pilot thing was a bit of a lark and a power trip all rolled into one.
The space station exploded into a massive fireball just as Sam replied "It's best not to be in the vicinity of any explosive laid by Captain Kirk. His timers are never reliable. Something about messing with anyone who might try to disarm it."
Mal raised his eyebrows. "I think I could like this captain."
Zoe rolled her eyes and the three first officers exchanged a long-suffering sigh.
Dean
"Sam, is that you in the rust bucket?"
"Hey!" an unknown voice griped as Sam replied in the affirmative.
"Sammy, I need you on this ship dude. Any way to swing it?"
There was a burst of static and then Sam's voice cut back in. "It's Sam. And I think so. As long as Enterprise keeps the jackasses involved under control. Spock's going to stay here and I'm bringing Captain Reynolds with me. He wants to make sure he gets paid."
"He doesn't believe you, Sam?"
Sam sighed over the comm link. "He actually wants to make sure you're trustworthy. Something about being from another universe where the equivalent of Starfleet was a violent, cruel dictatorship."
Members of the displaced Impala crew exchanged wide-eyed, curious glances. "Another universe? Again?" Dean asked in interest.
Sam groaned. "Look, after this is all cleared up, you three captains can all sit down with lots of beer, get smashed and talk about how awesome you are."
Dean liked this sentiment and sat back, watching as a really tiny, really wobbly little shuttle sputtered its way over to the nameless trader Dean was occupying (so not keeping the thing, the captain's chair was awfully uncomfortable).
Sam banged open the lift door and strode onto the bridge a few minutes later, followed by a broad-shouldered, sandy-brown haired man in a long brown leather coat.
"Sammy!" Dean crowed, swivelling around with a grin.
His brother scowled at him impressively. "Sam. So, what happened?"
Dean grinned. "You first."
Sam's story was short, sweet and Dean figured he could like this Mal dude, who seemed pretty relaxed given a phaser-breathing Enterprise was only a few thousand kilometres away from his shield-less ship and trying not to beat the shit out of Dean's Impala.
So Dean started in on his side of the past several hours and tried to make it entertaining.
"You let them take the Impala?"
"Yes Sam, I let them take the Impala."
"Ash, arrest this man as an impostor." Ash didn't budge, grinning hugely despite Sam's very serious tone of voice. This was the best Winchester "explanation" the crew had seen in months. Sam was already a lovely hue of fuchsia as he struggled to keep from throttling his brother.
"What, what?" Dean squawked.
Sam glowered. "Either you're under mind control or you're an impostor because the real Dean Winchester would never ever let some ragtag group of douche bags steal his ship!"
"Wait, wait, wait, just hear me out!"
Sam crossed his arms and continued to glare in an impressively irritated manner.
"Look, I knew we could take the Impala back when they made the switch from ship to ship but then they'd clam up in the brig and we'd have no way of finding out where they came from. On the flip side, even if they found two or three tracking devices on the Impala, the chances of them finding every single tracker on a ship we know like the back of our hands is virtually nil, right?"
Sam tapped a foot. "That still doesn't explain how you knew they'd leave you the warp cores. They shouldn't have left you a way to follow them."
It was Dean's turn to be exasperated. "Geez Sammy, what do you take me for, an idiot? I borrowed the code from that little hacker program you and Ash were writing and adapted it to make them think they'd jettisoned the warp cores. Jo uploaded it into the computer while I was busy making an ass of myself. Then they took the Impala, beamed the important part of the Impala – my crew – over to the trader ship. After that it was a piece of cake to track the Impala. Get it?"
There was a moment in which Sam processed Dean's explanation. "That actually makes sense. Okay, I'll buy that."
"Good, because now I need to eliminate the vermin from my ship without damaging it and you get to come up with the plan."
"What, why me?"
"Because I'm the big brother and I say so. And you've been slacking off with space cowboys."
Sam gaped incredulously, suddenly comprehending why Dean was so demanding. "Oh now the truth comes out. You're pissed because I was hanging out with 'space cowboys' while you decided to let the enemy on the Impala! I'm sorry," he bowed with a frilly flourish, "that I was off trying to save the galaxy, got taken captive, had to talk my way out of it, came back to find out you'd give up the Impala AND you're currently out of ideas. I shall endeavour to do what you cannot because I'm the smart one."
Dean grinned. Pissing off Sam was always fun. "Hey, you've gotta have a purpose in life, right?" Sam ignored him until he chucked a PADD at his younger brother.
"Are they always like this?" Mal asked Ash over the bickering siblings as a highly indignant Sam started typing at his limited science station.
"Dude. Go with the flow." Ash gestured vaguely as Castiel stared straight ahead, ignoring the mayhem. "Otherwise your brain breaks."
"These are the people in charge of saving the universe. Have saved it several times in the past." Mal seemed a little edgy at the thought. "You're sure they're not idiots?"
"You haven't seen anything yet. Wait 'til you meet Captain Kirk. He's awesome. And bat-shit insane."
Mal mulled this over for a bit and took Ash's pithy advice. "You know, I think I like this universe."
Ash grinned wildly. "Live on the edge man! It rocks!"