Still dedicated to GreenAwesomeness. Unfortunately, she seems to be missing in action. If anyone sees her, let her know her story's up...?
Disclaimer: Still don't own Firefly and/or Star Trek 2009.
The crew of Serenity had watched, open-mouthed, as the unknown ship tried in vain to right itself before plowing into the ground. Granted, it was so large the impact couldn't have damaged too much on the upper levels, but anything that had made contact with the surface of Haven had basically disintegrated. As the cloud of dust settled, Mal examined the behemoth. Nothing seemed to be moving or making a sound.
"Think there was anyone on that wreck when it zapped outta nowhere?" Jayne asked, still in awe.
"Guess we should find out. I want all of you armed, 'cept Kaylee. You and Inara stay back on Serenity and protect the loot. Everyone else, we search that ship for survivors. If there ain't anybody on board, strip anything that looks even a mite valuable. Big, fancy ship like that, I expect everyone back with an armload," instructed Mal.
"Just be careful, Captain," Kaylee warned, "Ain't like no ship this 'verse ever saw."
On that grim note, the crew took up as many weapons as they could carry-Jayne, even more than that. The walk across the desert grew tenser with every step, as their destination still looked enormous and uninhabited, like some sort of mobile ghost town. The question at the forefront of everyone's thoughts still remained unanswered: where had it come from?
"Captain, those windows up there look panoramic. Pilot's seat," Zoe said.
"How do we get up there? It's probably a maze inside," asked Simon.
"We better figure it out. High up, minimal damage to the windows, guaranteed occupancy-best place to find survivors."
Upon reaching the base of the ship, it took little time for the team to find a newly-formed opening through which to enter. Dodging the broken electrical cables and picking through the debris, the crew made their way to a relatively intact hallway when they heard murmurs.
"Sounds like someone's still on board. And breathing."
Much more quietly, Mal and his crew followed the voices until they were clear.
"-Genius who didn't take mass into account?"
"Didn't occur to us, Captain! The mass of the black hole should have been so much greater that the difference would have been insignificant. But since the amount of red matter was so small, the difference made more of a...difference."
"We could've all been killed, Scotty!"
"Our engines just aren't capable of that kind of jump. Went into immediate shutdown for safety. There was no way I could have gotten them going in time to stop that landing."
"Well, now we don't know where the hell we are, and more importantly, when the hell we are."
"Time travel," River whispered. "That explains everything."
The rest of them sighed collectively. Mal signaled for them to move on in and tapped on the wall to announce his existence before stepping through the doorway to an enormous engine room. Occupying the room were about a hundred crew members in various colors of the same shirt. All of them looked ready to shoot Mal through the skull out of pure surprise.
"Hello there. Name's Malcolm Reynolds. I captain a fine vessel just over the way and I happened to notice your pretty bumpy landing, just wondering if you needed any help."
For a while everyone was speechless. Then one man who, judging by his voice, had taken part in the previous argument, spoke up. "I'm Captain Jim Kirk. Please do me the favor of not pretending I'm an idiot. For trespassing on and conspiring to rob the USS Enterprise, Federation law states that you are officially under arrest."
Mal arched an eyebrow. "What federation? You mean the Alliance?"
Captain Kirk threw a dirty look at one of his crew members. "Okay, Captain Reynolds. Tell us what year this is, and we won't take you and your poorly hidden tag team prisoner...yet."
Mal motioned for his five crew members to show themselves. They lined up behind him. "Twenty-five seventeen, since you asked nicely. You from the future? Somebody invented time traveling?"
"From the past," a new person approached them, but his appearance was more than a little unsettling. "We are from the year 2260."
"What's wrong with his ears?" Jayne blurted.
The man leveled his gaze. "I am a Vulcan." As if that explained everything.
"Sorry, Avulcan, but that don't tell us much," said Mal.
'Avulcan' looked at Captain Kirk. "It appears that Vulcans and humans lose contact some time in the next two hundred and fifty years."
"Vulcans? Plural? There are more of you?" demanded Zoe.
River covered her ears. "Everyone stop. Get on the same page. So much confusion."
"Alright. A small portion of my crew will meet with this part of your crew. We'll figure out where to go from here. In the meantime, tell the rest of your people this ship isn't to be stolen from. Sound okay?" asked Kirk.
"Well, since there are only two others, I don't think they'd try anything against your...planet."
"Two others?" asked the other argument participant with an accent not unlike Badger's. He smirked. "What do you captain, an escape pod?"
"Kaylee? We're gonna need you on this ship. No hostiles, just a real annoying engineer named Scotty."
"Copy that, Captain." Kaylee shrugged at Inara. "Can you hold on your own?"
"Of course, mei mei. No one out here to bother me. But you should take a gun with you."
"Ain't never shot one, don't think I ever will."
Inara handed her a pistol anyway. "At least scare anybody who gets in your way. Be careful."
Her walk over to the other spaceship was uneventful-a good thing, too, because she was far too distracted by the sleek and foreign design to notice whether anyone suspicious was approaching her. Even broken, the ship was beautiful. Nothing compared to her dear Serenity, of course, but still beautiful.
Zoe was waiting to show her where to go. She filled her in on the way. "They're accidental time travelers. Don't ask. A couple severely injured by the landing-Simon and the resident medic are on that. You're needed to help repair the ship. They need to get on their way-apparently there's a crisis back in their time that they need to help with. Only problem is, they don't have the means to time travel anymore. Oh, and they've got a few aliens on board."
Kaylee stopped in her tracks. "Aliens?"
"Yep. You should meet Mr. Spock. Simon's gonna look a hell of a lot more romantic after that."
Kaylee grinned uncomfortably. Despite trying to wrap her mind around aliens, she felt the familiar twinge of discomfort whenever Zoe talked about relationships. "But wait...you said they gotta go back. How come they got aliens in the past and we ain't got them now?"
"That's what we're trying to figure out."
"What is this, a revolver?" Kirk was examining one of Jayne's guns, oblivious to the vein that was pulsing in the big man's temple. "Don't they have better stuff in the future? This is primitive. Like we went back in time two hundred and fifty years instead."
"Captain," advised Dr. Wallace, "It clearly accomplishes its purpose. Please try to refrain from insulting our guest's prized possessions." She handed the revolver back to Jayne. "She's very well taken care of."
Jayne smirked. "Know your guns, huh? I like a lady with a little blood on her hands."
Carol suddenly got a lot less friendly. "On second thought, Captain..."
Kirk rolled his eyes. "If only you could read people like you read weapons. Mr. Cobb, the lady would like to tell you that your advances would be a lot more impressive if you had a decent gun. Like this one." Kirk pulled his out of his holster and pointed it at Jayne. "Make another move on my-uh, Dr. Wallace and I'll castrate you with this. I haven't forgotten you guys came on board to rob the place. I don't owe you any favors."
Jayne held up his hands. "Keep that laser thing away from me. Ain't that interested in Limpy here anyways."
"Why, you-" Kirk growled, but Carol held him back and Mal had finally noticed the scuffle.
"Well! Don't want y'all getting too acquainted with my gunman here. He ain't real pleasant company. My engineer's here, so your irritatin' little go se can tell her how to get started on repairs. As for Jayne-"
"Don't worry about me, Mal," Jayne replied slowly. The most beautiful woman he'd ever seen had just walked through the doorway to their impromptu conference room. "I got something to do."
"Captain," called Uhura. "I have the final damage report. We've suffered one major-"
"I been sufferin' since you walked in the door."
Everyone in the room turned to glare at him. Mal sighed. "Jayne, why don't you go see if Kaylee and Scotty need help down in the engine room?"
"Captain-"
"Now."
With Jayne gone, the agenda moved along much faster. "The damage isn't as extensive as I thought. We should be underway within a week if we have everyone down there helping. Excepting your crew, of course, Captain Reynolds. Not only do I not expect that kind of hospitality, I can't afford to have my spare parts stolen."
"You ever gonna let that go?"
"Captain, the fact remains that even with the Enterprise intact, we have no way of returning to our time," Spock pointed out.
"Yeah. I've been thinking about that." Kirk pulled up a holographic map centering on their location. "Just because humans aren't in contact with the rest of the universe doesn't mean the rest of the universe isn't there."
"You want to find Vulcan. Under the assumption that they will have some method of returning us to the past."
"It's the only chance we've got."
"Okay," Mal interjected. "This is crazy talk. If there were aliens out there, we'd know about it. Hell, we came to an entire other galaxy. How could we have missed little pointy-eared men flying around?"
All of them were silent for a while. The Enterprise crew didn't have any answers. The Serenity crew were afraid of theirs.
River voiced what her two superiors were thinking. "The Alliance isn't going to be happy to see us. Especially when we start asking for an explanation."