Disclaimer: I don't own Firefly or Star Trek.
After Wash's death, Zoe had been so alone. Her military mentality kept her going no matter what the tragedy, but at night she'd look over at the empty spot next to her on the bed and let the tears flow. The minute she'd found out she was pregnant, though, it had felt as though a little sunshine had poked through the cloud above her head. Their little girl looked more like her than him, but Zoe still saw him in the way she laughed.
On her first birthday, Zoe had given her daughter the smallest gun she could find-unloaded, of course. She'd taught her how to hold it and the baby had figured out the safety all by herself. "Our little girl's going to be a sharpshooter, Wash. I can feel it," Zoe had told the imaginary man beside her. Then she had noticed Jayne, who'd just walked onto the bridge, look at her with alarm. She'd made a mental note not to talk to Wash out loud. But she made no promises about guns.
It had actually inspired Jayne's nickname for her daughter, which Mal had also begun using: "gun-totin'-little-animal's-gonna-kill-us-all." She didn't have a real name, yet. Zoe'd never determined what Wash would have wanted, despite thinking over it for weeks on end. Thus, the girl had reached age one responding to 'baby,' 'sweetheart,' and 'gun-totin'-little-animal's-gonna-kill-us-all.'
'Sweetheart' was Kaylee's nickname for her. No one got along with her better than Kaylee, who usually babysat her while her mom was out doing a job. Generally, her baby was sound asleep by the time she came back. This time, Kaylee had put the girl down for a nap just minutes before Zoe had returned, and Zoe knew she would wake up wondering why no one but Inara was on the ship with her. It was high time they headed back.
Unfortunately, Mal had other ideas.
"They just hid the rest of the 'verse? How's that even possible?" He was pacing back and forth. "I guess no one leaves the galaxy 'cause of..." He cleared his throat and looked away from Zoe. "...But how'd they get all the humans out here without them noticing the other planets?"
"Don't forget," Spock added, "Humans and several other species were allies. Yet there is no evidence that relationship ever existed. Stories should have been passed down through the generations. Vulcans, in particular, helped reestablish normalcy on Earth after the so-called World War III."
"Not all that much. They freaked out," interjected Kirk.
"Vulcans do not 'freak out'. Regardless, our help would not be so easily erased from human memory, as well as other noteworthy events."
"We need answers," Mal concluded. "And River's right. The only place capable of keeping a secret that big is Alliance headquarters. So that's where we're headed."
"Why us, Mal?" Zoe asked quietly. "When we get involved in something bigger than us, there are casualties."
It was a direct challenge to his authority; she hadn't even bothered to call him Captain. She still had someone to lose, and this was a cause that she didn't believe in. Mal refused to give up another chance to weaken the Alliance's hold on the 'verse, but the Miranda incident had caused enough uproar on the central planets to force the Alliance to relinquish their control on most of the outer planets, lest more Reavers were created closer to home. Mal just didn't know when to stop.
"This could be it, Zoe. This could destroy them, hiding this from us. What if it's some kinda threat? What's our defense, the Reavers? Or what if they got something that could cure some disease-"
"You're just graspin' at straws. We ain't got no reason to go out there. If you'll pardon me," she said, turning toward the door, "I got a daughter to get back to."
Lieutenant Nyota Uhura had been waiting for her orders from Kirk for over twenty minutes. Every time she spoke up, someone interrupted her-an obnoxious pig trying to hit on her, one of two deranged captains trying to stir up a fight, or a rather bold first officer. She didn't so much mind the last one, but she gave up anyways. Once she got back to her station, she turned and began speaking with the man she knew had followed her.
"No one's considering what we do if we don't find an alien race willing to help us get home."
"Agreed. Do you have an alternate proposal?" Spock asked.
"Do you know anything about producing red matter?" She immediately regretted it. "I'm sorry. I just-that's the only way I know how to time travel."
"Regardless, our arrival is temporally unpredictable."
She leaned against her station's dashboard. "We all know what'll happen if we don't go back to facilitate communication between New Vulcan and the Federation." She touched his cheek. "Talk to me, Spock. I know this has to be hard for you."
Sulu sighed heavily. "You guys are aware I'm still here, right?" Uhura threw him a dirty look. "I wouldn't have said anything, but there's a ship heading our way."
"Warp drive. Warp drive." Kaylee couldn't get over how strange that sounded. A ship traveling faster than the speed of light. How was it possible? "Can I see it?"
"Well, you can look at the outside, but there's too much radiation for you to actually see the warp drive," Scotty explained. "I can't believe you don't have these in the future. All the work I did on it-gone!"
"You invented these things?" Kaylee asked him, eyes wide with admiration.
"No. I didn't have anything to do with their invention but I manipulate them pretty well. In the last five years I've been able to determine the conditions at the arrival end before the actual arrival-you know, we've had our nose covered in debris enough time for this to be a problem-you have no idea what I'm talking about."
"No, but it sounds amazin'. This whole ship is just amazin'."
"She's alright," Scott said fondly. "This is a five year old model-the new ones are brilliant. But as long as I'm on the Enterprise she'll chug along for a hundred more years."
"That's my plan with Serenity."
"Oh yeah, the escape pod. And here's the medical bay. Severe damage to the port side, unfortunately." Scott hit a panel on the wall and opened the door to reveal McCoy and Simon fixing up the wounded crew. Bones pulled a needle through a man's eyebrow, finishing up the last stitch, and then cut it and turned his medical scanner on Kaylee.
"Another injured?"
"No, she's an engineer, I'm showing her-"
"Just pregnant. She can wait," Bones muttered and stuck a syringe of painkilling fluid into his patient's neck. Then he realized the room had fallen silent aside from the occasional screams of pain. Simon stopped in the middle of setting another man's shoulder and stared at Kaylee. "Oops."
"Pregnant?" asked Simon.
She looked just as stunned. "I...I didn't know."
"FINISH THE SHOULDER!" Simon's patient yelled.
Simon hurriedly did as he asked and then turned back to his girlfriend. Before he could open his mouth, the Enterprise captain's voice boomed through the medical bay. "This is Captain Kirk speaking. We've detected a government ship that, according to...recent intelligence, may be hostile. We will assume this is the case until further notice. All crew assemble to battle stations and prepare to fire if ordered."
"That's us, Bones!" Scotty piped up. "As much as I'd like to watch this lovely soap opera unfold, I think we should leave them alone, huh?" They hustled the patients out, leaving Simon and Kaylee in a very awkward silence.
Simon had so many things running through his mind. He had no way of controlling what would come out first and he knew Kaylee was waiting for him to say something and she looked so surprised he had no idea what what she was thinking and they were supposed to be preparing for battle and why couldn't someone just give him time to find words...
"Am I...the father?"
Kaylee slapped him.
"That's an Alliance ship," Mal confirmed. "And they probably ain't comin' to welcome you to this century."
"How did they get here so fast if you guys don't have warp?" asked Kirk.
"Mostly the Alliance pulled outta these regions, but they still send around patrols so the idiots that support 'em out on the fringes feel safe. And I guess someone let that ship know that a giant lump of metal appeared out of nowhere."
"Captain," said River. "Zoe is still walking back to Serenity. She's in plain view of that ship."
"Does that matter?" asked Dr. Wallace.
Mal pulled pulled his gun and checked that the safety was off. "We ain't exactly best buds with the Alliance. Top of the wanted list, maybe. We best get ready for a fight."
"Wait," said Kirk. "If we help you fight off this ship-and any other Alliance vessels we happen to encounter-then you help us find the Vulcans. Is that a deal?"
"Captain, I think you know I was comin' anyways. You better make that deal with my first officer, assumin' she don't get shot before we get down there. Can you buzz Jayne and let him know to meet us outside?"
Kirk nodded. "Go. I'll follow you out once I get my crew together. Carol, I need Spock here. I want Sulu to have command of the ship while we're gone. Then I want you to train phasers on the Alliance ship and wait for my signal."
"Aye, Captain."
Zoe was already engaging the ship on her own, but wasn't doing much damage. She had virtually no cover and while she was a good shot, the ship was too far for her to do any damage. Her main objective was to lead it away from Serenity.
As the ship fired, the sand exploded around her, obscuring her sight. At least the sand dampened the noise of the impact, allowing her to hear Mal alerting her that she had backup. Jayne, reluctantly choosing a bazooka over Vera, stumbled back a few steps as he launched it at the incoming vessel. It hit the hull and left quite a large dent. "Cover me!" yelled Jayne. "Gotta reload!"
Mal jumped in front of him and let lose a magazine of bullets. The ship was close enough to the ground to land, so some of the bullets pinged off the nose but didn't find any soft spots. Jayne, ready for another shot, waited for Mal to finish and then switched positions with him. After his second launch, men came pouring out of the ship. River jumped into action, memorizing their positions, calculating their trajectories, and then firing with deadly accuracy.
Kirk, Spock, and Uhura arrived just in time to witness River's unbelievable attack. They knew better than to ask questions during a battle, and immediately set their sights on the ship itself. Their phasers combined with Jayne's intermittent missiles soon reduced the ship to a smoking pile of scrap metal, and nary a survivor in sight.
"Zoe, Jayne and I'll search the wreck for prisoners. You got cover fire?" Mal asked Kirk. Kirk nodded at his team and they trained their guns on what once had been a ship. River stayed behind, which worried them slightly, but she gave them a sweet smile and aimed at the wreckage as well.
"We shoulda turned and ran when we saw that thing come outta the sky, Mal," Zoe said once they were out of earshot. "We did good laying low for the past few months. Now the Alliance is onto us again. Plus we just destroyed a ship and its crew, and we're harboring...whatever those aliens are."
"Listen to yourself, Zoe. You lost all your fight after Wash died."
They hadn't had this conversation yet, and Zoe wasn't about to start it in front of a very awkward Jayne. "It ain't about fight. It's about reason. We got what we were fighting for. The Alliance's letting go of the outer planets. And now I have a daughter-" She looked away. "Wash didn't even wanna bring a child into this world. He knew running around with you would be too dangerous for a kid."
"So what're you saying? You quittin'? You done?"
"I ain't saying that. I'm saying you're lost without a goal and you'll make up a new one just to keep yourself going, even if it gets the rest of us killed."
Mal stopped in his tracks. "You say that again, Zoe."
"I mean it."
A vein was throbbing in his temple. "You know-you know I do anything for my crew."
"Well then do us a favor and back outta this while you still can."
"Uh, I hate to interrupt this chat, but we got some dead people to dig up," Jayne reminded them.
"Yeah, Jayne, you and I got dead people to dig up. Zoe is going back to the ship-or should I just call it a nursery now? Is that the operation I'm runnin'?" Zoe merely walked away, signaling to the Enterprise crew that she was taking a detour.
"Bound to crack at some point," Jayne commented. "Women."
"No survivors," Jayne said when they met back with Kirk. "But we got a couple Identicards off some of the guys. Always come in handy."
"Okay. So what's the plan from here?" asked Kirk.
"We need to get to Alliance headquarters on the central planets and find information on Earth-that-was and its allies."
"We will require your ship," said Spock. "We do not have time to repair the Enterprise and then set off, as I imagine more Alliance ships are on their way. But without a warp drive, the journey could take days."
"The Enterprise could meet us there once it's fixed," Mal suggested.
"Don't you want us to come with you?"
"A small team. Leave your engineer here to fix the ship."
"Okay. Spock, I want you, Uhura, Sulu and Wallace with me. Leave Chekov here to help Scotty. We're taking a trip."
"Well, time travelers," said Mal, "Let's get you aboard Serenity."