'Checkmate.'
The ship flew. Mal had always attributed spaceships to actual ships, comparing their movements to those of boats, yet this spaceship actually flew. It felt like the first time you ever left atmo, the exhilarating rush of adrenaline as you realised that for the first time in your life, you were truly free. It could, of course, all be contributed to the speed of the ship. It didn't really do gravity, as such. The ship focused on speed, rather than comfort, and Mal respected that. It just felt weird when you could bound up steps five at a time without any effort. He'd sent Kaylee to the engine room, just to see what made these things tick. He hoped she'd be shiny down there. Didn't know what ran the ship, or how it worked. Just did.
Kaylee was mesmerised by the object in front of her. A big, spherical metal casket that seemed to pulse. She swore she saw the metal quiver, like water in a stormy sea. It was quite eerie.
'Well, here,' Nikolai told her in his thick Russian accent, 'Is the Core.' Kaylee looked around the room, and saw that there was nothing else in there. No coolant tanks, no engine, no anything. Just the casket, and lots of heavy metal plating. Big pipes lead from the Core, appearing to absorb the energy emanating from it.
'How does it work?' Kaylee asked, staring in wonder. Nikolai laughed.
'No clue.' Kaylee turned to him, quite worried.
'You don't know!' She asked.
'Yeah.' He replied, quite embarrassed, 'Trust me,' he said, seeing her expression, 'If it doesn't work, you can't fix it.'
'What? What if something went wrong?' Nikolai chuckled.
'Wrong? Girl, if something went wrong with it, you'd never have time to care.' He stopped laughing. 'You'd either be floating around, dead in space, or just plain dead.' Kaylee hoped he was kidding.
Belle sat in the Captain's seat, watching the world. She couldn't believe the Captain. She had much more important things to do than help civilians, and she knew it. But the Captain did wake her up- well, she thought, that handsome young doctor had. But still, they had awoken her, so they at least deserved some help with the ship her ex had apparently trashed. After that, though, she was leaving them. She needed to find an ATLAS mothership, something with communication codes. If she couldn't contact ATLAS, Belle thought, she didn't know what she would do. She sighed. As she did so, the computer pinged, and revealed to her that it had finished downloading the updated cortex. Without any real purpose, she looked over the law enforcement section, until she found something that interested her. Bounty Hunting. Hmm. Weapons, fast ship, loyal and deadly crew, yeah, why not? She pressed the link, and the console analysed her request, sending her all the latest warrants. She scrolled down, looking for something not too hard, but well paying to start her off. She paused when she came to an entry that deeply puzzled her.
THE CREW OF SERENITY
WANTED FOR CLASSIFIED CRIMES
REWARD 5,000,000,000 SQUARE
Serenity…where had she seen that name before?
She opened up the file, and gasped in shock when she saw the profiles. The highest price fetched was on the head of their Captain, Mal. Next highest were on the heads of that River girl and her recently-engaged brother, Simon. Belle grinned, saving the link into her favourites file. It was definitely a good contingency plan if everything went pear-shaped.
Below deck, Jayne was loading up Vera. Gorram Jack, gettin' us mixed up in all this, he thought. Wish it were all over. That Jack had badly hurt the doc, and poor Kaylee. He gripped Vera harder, his knuckles turning white. Son of a bitch never just left well alone, he thought, thinking of Simon. He pro'bly distracted Kaylee, gettin' a last kiss or such. He both hated and respected the good Doctor. On the one hand, he'd come into their lives like a bad dream, him and his moonbrained sister of his, River. Harder to get jobs, avoiding Alliance so much. Even turnin' down legal ones, just to keep 'em safe. On the other hand, Jayne contemplated, he'd patched him up good on several occasions, he'd saved Zoe and Kaylee's lives in his time, thought, Jayne reasoned, it were his fault they got caused in the first place. However, Jayne couldn't deny that in the past year, Simon and Kaylee had stepped up their relationship a notch, started ruttin' all over the place. Not only that, though, Simon treated her real nice. One time, he'd cooked her a dinner all by himself. A good dinner, at that. He'd taken her out on the more pleasant planets, and treated her to a nice meal or two. Also, when they needed Simon to come through for them, he did so. He weren't no coward, though not much of a fighter. Maybe, he thought, Simon won't be too bad for Kaylee after all. He looked down at his belt, checking items. Ammo, check. Pistol, check. Knife, check. Other knife, check…
Kaylee walked up the stairs, prancing in low gravity. She felt so happy, so joyous. At the top, she bumped straight into Simon. Smiling, she grabbed him by the collar, and gave him a big, wet kiss. He picked her up, and she wrapped her arms around his neck, her legs around his waist.
'Hello to you too.' Simon said, cheerfully.
'Oh, it's just now every time I see you, I just wanna take a big bite outta ya.' Kaylee told him. 'Failing that, just a snog will do me fine.' She stroked his chest. 'You thinkin' what I'm thinkin'? She asked him.
'Might be.' He grinned mischievously.
'Ever done it in low-gravity?' She said.
'Nope.'
'Wanna?'
Jack's head was spinning. That damn guard had tried one of those namby-pamby sonic guns on him. Jack preferred his own personal brand of high-tech weapons, but decided against it in favour of smashing his head in on the wall. Still, he thought as he made his way along the corridor, it made his brain hurt. He stopped, remembering his directions, smashing open the wall on his left. He saw what he wanted. Unfortunately, a seven story drop to the street wanted otherwise. He looked down, then at his target, judging difference. He ran back up the corridor, turning round at the end, and taking out his favourite toy. He braced himself, pulling on his helmet. Jack ran up the corridor, and at the hole in the wall, spun around without stopping, firing down at the opposite wall. There was a blinding light, and he was flung as if out of a cannon. He looked down at the street below. Such tiny people, he thought, as he smashed into the window. Ow. That hadn't helped his head at all.
He hit the ground rolling, shooting the man standing there in shock square in the head, blood splattering the wall behind him. Jack saw what he needed. A map, notes, written in an inexplicable language. Well, thought Jack, now to get the decoder, and without a second thought he attached a grappling hook to the windowsill and abseiled down the side of the building. Waiting halfway down, Jack waited for the right moment before leaping, hitting the hovercar that was flying by. He smashed open the rear windscreen, swinging himself in, breaking the driver's neck and pushing him out. As he sat down in the dead man's chair, he thought about himself. He hadn't noticed who these people stopping him were, what buildings they were in or who they worked for, what nationality or race they were or anything. The only reason he chose Serenity is that it had the right engine, and that psychic had provided a worthwhile distraction for the crew while he went about his duties. Still, he'd felt something probing his mind the night before he arrived. It was, peculiar, as if someone was scooping out his mind, examining it, then putting it back exactly how they found it. Maybe she learnt something, although it would probably be messed up, perhaps in the wrong time frame. That girl had definitely seen something, however. Maybe later, Jack thought as he hit the accelerator, he should take up the task of finding out what.
