I do not own Star Trek 2009, Supernatural or Firefly.

The Serenity, Sulu decided, was a tough old bird but she'd definitely seen better days. Mismatched panels, sparking wires, scuffed and scarred from phaser and gun fire, the ship was at the point where she was almost alive, determination and never-say-die driven into her very rivets.

One day, Sulu swore, the fledgling Enterprise would have the same feel.

"Have you ever seen a ship like this, Sulu?" Sam asked, clearly searching his own memory for the specifications of the Serenity. As Sulu had thought, the Serenity didn't look like much, but when he stepped aboard, the ship hummed with the steady whine of a well-loved engine. Granted, the ship seemed held together with determination, spit and duct tape but as long as she got them to Starbase 3, he'd praise the Serenity to the skies if Captain Malcolm Reynolds so desired.

"Nope," Sulu replied absently, searching his prodigious knowledge of ships carefully. "I've never seen this ship's make before. It's definitely not Federation, Klingon, Romulan, Orion…" His voice trailed off thoughtfully. "It's reminiscent of early warp travel – almost as if – no, that's impossible."

"As if it came from another reality?" a soft voice asked airily. "Mal didn't tell you, did he."

The three Starfleet officers spun around in surprise. A brunette, pretty but more than a little flighty-looking smiled at them. "I'm River," she pronounced, almost as if an afterthought.

"Steer clear of that one, she's special," Captain Reynolds warned with the barest hint of humour in his voice as he breezed by, carrying the aura of a busy disembarking captain with ease. "We're taking off in ten minutes so strap in. Kaylee says our inertial dampeners are on the fritz again."

Sam looked like he was going to speak up but the tough coffee-skinned woman who seemed to be first mate drilled him with a glare fit to rival Dean's and the first officer meekly subsided. It seemed that this ship was fiercely independent and assistance from strangers wouldn't be welcome.

So the three Starfleet officers parked themselves in a corner and sat on their hands. It was a new experience for them – a pilot and two first officers, waiting idly for the ship to take off.

That was when the ship shuddered and someone up in the cockpit swore. "Looks like we didn't loose our tail after all," Sulu commented lowly as Serenity laboured upwards.

Sam stood up abruptly. "I'm going to help in Engineering," he asserted and disappeared into the tangled mess of piping encroaching on the hold's door.

The ship dipped alarmingly and the first officer reappeared, looking harried. "Any pilots in this motley crew?" she demanded. Sulu's hand shot up and she glanced up and down in an assessing glare. "You'll have to do. Move!"

Sulu found himself shoved into a dilapidated, confusing bridge and jammed into a pilot's seat. He scanned the controls quickly and barely had time to grasp the most basic understanding before the ship shook again and his co-pilot, the pretty River girl, swore like a sailor and the Serenity swung about.

Oh. The trader ship that had been chasing the Starfleet officers had found them. Well, then. Sulu hadn't yet met a ship he couldn't fly like he was born to it and Serenity was no exception.

Between him and the remarkably talented River, they scuttled away at Serenity's top speed before jumping to warp. "Where's Captain Reynolds?" Sulu asked as he glanced around, watching the first officer sit back in what might have been relief.

"He was taking care of the intruders who had beamed into the cargo bay. I've just heard that your green friend was pretty damn useful in a fist fight. Of course I told Mal River wasn't so good at piloting by herself just yet, but did he listen? Which is why I shanghaied you," the officer muttered, almost to himself. "At any rate, thanks for the help. The name's Zoe. You've met River."

"Hikaru Sulu," the pilot replied enthusiastically without thinking.

Zoe and River froze. "From the USS Enterprise? Starfleet?"

Oops.

Dean and Jo

"We are in shit."

"Thank you captain, that is an astute, revolutionary and astounding observation."

Dean shuffled around in his binders, glaring at the ceiling and ignoring his snippy subordinate, who was miserably prodding at a beautiful black eye. Oh yes, their captors had taken every single precaution in securing one of Starfleet's slipperiest captains and his security officer, probably courtesy of the mercenary Talbot.

Speak of the witch. She sauntered into the room with a satisfied smirk. "I suppose I forgot to tell you that I usually demand to be paid up front?"

"Yeah, you skipped that minor detail," Jo snarled from the darkest corner of the cell.

"Oh, my sincerest apologies. But you see, I was quite sincere about showing you the proof. I really do want to stop them – they intend to unite the entire Federation under one iron-fisted rule and I honestly can't have that. It would make my job non-existent. If everything is run by one central government and they're prepared to destroy entire planets to keep crime down, well then my life just isn't worth living."

Dean snorted. "Well isn't that a cute little speech but it still doesn't explain why the hell we're in cells and why you got us caught."

Talbot stared at him as if he were a simpleton. "Because if you're caught and they get the Impala, I still get paid. I'd steal from them but they've got all those lovely credits locked up behind a bio-matrix sensor and while I could probably crack it in a month or two, it's far more expedient to le them catch you. Trust me, I'll break you out once they think they've taken your cute little ship. She might get a little dinged in the process but we won't worry about the details."

"Assuming they find the Impala," Dean pointed out.

Talbot leaned up against the wall beside the door, supremely confident. "Oh, that won't be a problem. I tagged the Impala right before we left. She's blinking in space like a great big lighthouse. On an encrypted channel of course, even your band of merry geniuses won't notice."

That was when the door slid open again and the leader Starc sneered at Talbot knowingly. "Never trust a woman. That was a very interesting conversation, Bela." He backhanded her into the force field and when she collapsed from electric shock, flicked the screen down for a minute and rather brutally kicked her into the cell. "Not going to help her?" Starc asked when Dean didn't bat an eye.

"Nope," the Starfleet captain replied coolly. "She's a big girl, she knew what game she was playing. Found my ship yet?"

Starc grinned toothily. "We're still en-route. But my navigator tells me that we'll lose the trail somewhere near a nebula field. So I guess we're going to need you to lure her out. Guess that means I can't break your jaw, as much as I'd like to, you arrogant Federation pig."

"Pig," Dean rolled the word around in his mouth, vaguely insulted. "That's a unimaginative one. Why didn't you go for a little more gusto? And aren't you going to monologue about how your cause is just and there's no way we're going to escape?"

Starc's grin never faltered. "Do I look like an idiot? I know your reputation, Captain Dean Winchester. I will not give in to your idiotic diatribe. You will sit here under heavy guard and you will not make any attempt to subvert our cause because my most loyal man here," he slapped the shoulder of the burly bear that had been glaring at Dean for the past two hours, "has orders to shoot your pretty little security officer in the face if you even twitch the wrong way. And trust me, Gerick has no qualms about shooting a lady."

One look into the face of Gerick the steroid-obsessed bear and Dean knew he wouldn't be trying anything at all until Gerick no longer had a weapon within reach.

Great.

All Dean could do was sit on his hands and rely on Ash to be his usual paranoid self.

Enterprise

"Well, well, well," Kirk drawled in satisfaction. "Would you look at that. Little Gordon Walker running straight into suspicious company, deep in the Gamma quadrant."

Enterprise was hovering over a lost meteoroid bored through with tunnels. According to sensors, the meteoroid contained an entire base, shuttles hopping busily through space. It seemed that the masterminds behind the base had counted on the meteoroid's obscure location to hide it, especially considering that Kirk had to put his ship through two different asteroid fields following the ion trail.

"Kirk, this could be a trap," Gabriel interjected.

"Of course it's a trap," Kirk replied calmly. "That ion trail was wide, dense and as clear as day. Chekov, where's Walker headed?"

The Russian officer shook his head. "Ser, all I can tell you is dat he is inside de complex. Although it is wery strange dat Valker is de only human on the planet."

"Definitely a trap. And odd given that Walker's xenophobic." Kirk mused but finally came to the conclusion that all he could do was charge ahead and hope the whole thing didn't blow up in his face. "Gabriel, you and Bones are with me. Scotty, you have the conn."

"Aye capt'n," the engineer grumbled. "Can Ah stay down here and still have the conn?"

Kirk grinned and replied ruthlessly. "Nope, you can't. I know for a fact that the engines are fine. I need you up on the bridge."

There was a mournful "Aye capt'n," as Kirk strode towards the elevator. Away mission without Spock – this had better go off without a hitch or Kirk's first officer would wear his disapproving face for weeks. He alerted Bones and Cupcake to meet him in the transporter room for immediate beam out.

Kirk was beginning to think that Scotty's ability to drop his teams in the worst possible locations was some sort of warped gift. Sure enough, the away team materialized into the armoury of the little outpost, stocked with a motley collection of humanoid aliens, mercenaries, Kirk noted idly as he clamped a hand on Bones' collar and yanked him behind a set of lockers, laying down cover fire and hoping blindly that he didn't hit anything explosive. Getting blown to the high heavens would put a cramp in his style.

"Put down your weapons Kirk or I shoot my good friend Gabe here!" Walker shouted and Kirk cringed. Seriously? Was it too much to ask for the SIO to keep himself out of trouble? He poked his head around the corner and saw a resigned Gabriel with a phaser to his head, dull eyes meeting Kirk's with no hope.

Gabriel thought he'd leave the SIO to get killed? That was a real insult, one that smarted. The Enterprise crew might not like Gabriel but he was the best IO specimen they'd met yet. Kirk plucked Bones' phaser from his hand and slid both weapons across the floor to bump up against Gabriel's boots. Cupcake's phaser followed suit.

Sticking his hands up with resignation, Kirk eyed the former IO with contempt. "Oh, how far the righteous have fallen," he sneered. "Hobnobbing with lower life-forms, Walker? That must bounce your little xenophobic heart over salted glass shards."

As always, Walker's temper was notoriously short and the phaser left Gabriel's temple to swing in Kirk's direction. Thankfully, the SIO took his chance and slammed his head back into Walker's nose, leaving Kirk enough time to smash an elbow into the closest Orion's solar plexus and snatch up the phaser rifle, spattering fire and throwing the room into confusion.

Bones had put down three other men and Cupcake five when a stun beam clipped Kirk from behind and the world went black.

Impala

Ash was fretting in the captain's chair, highly uncomfortable in that position of power. They had half the story and no leads to help them get the rest of it. So far, half the story was as follows: two days ago, Delta 5-B was hit by a bug that ate most of their vegetation but left no lasting damage (relatively speaking). However, a short time later, PD-4503 was completely stripped bare. Bela Talbot had offered to show the Impala crew evidence of the plague and subsequently, Captain Winchester and Jo had vanished into thin air. Sam hadn't been heard from since he went off to PD-4503.

And according to the latest Starfleet communications, three more planets had been stripped of all life.

Now Ash had to make a decision – there was a chance that if the Impala came forward with the knowledge she had, they could make a significant dent in the insect plague, which was most certainly being used as a bioweapon. However, if they revealed themselves too soon, the masterminds might make alterations to the bug. And said masterminds could possibly have both Dean and Sam in their clutches and no one had heard from the Enterprise in hours.

How the hell did he get into these situations again? Ash indulged himself in a brief flight of fancy, a mental break as it were from the arduous job of saving the galaxy and his captain. If he had chosen prison time over joining Starfleet for that tiny little hacking venture (really, he still didn't understand why the quartermasters had gotten so pissed off, he was only boosting a few super-chips from Starfleet's most secure facility. Granted, said chips had the processing power to let Ash control most of the known Federation but still, it wasn't like he was going actually to do that) he would be out of prison and back to his old tricks.

He'd probably be dead by now, murdered by some client who wanted the guaranteed silence of the grave.

Okay! Saving the galaxy (again) really wasn't that bad!

"Ash," Castiel snapped his acting captain back to reality with an irritated growl.

Glancing up, Ash realized the decision had been made for him. See, there was this rather derelict trader headed on a direct heading for the Impala, despite the fact that she was hiding in a nebula cloud and only half her sensors were working due to Sam's genius. This meant that either the ship had been tagged by Talbot (highly likely) or Dean was onboard, piloting to the Impala's last known location and unable to contact them (which was probably linked to option one, now that he thought about it).

So did he sit here and play blind or come out and see he could assist his captain? "Cas, do we sit here like hidden ducks or do we go out and play?" he asked rhetorically, his mind already made up. The Impala never did well with inactivity. Even if he was pretty sure he was going to get his captain's ship all dinged up in some sort of trap.

"Why are you asking me?" the pilot snipped and Ash decided Castiel had been spending too much time with Sam.

"Forward at full impulse, red alert," Ash ordered crisply.

Dean and Jo

Held on the bridge at phaser-point, Dean groaned when the Impala slipped out of the nebula cloud. Ash, Ash, Ash, do as the captain says and not as the captain does!

"Aw, aren't they cute," Starc hissed. "Come out to play, curious as a helpless kitten."

Yeah well if Starc thought Captain Dean Winchester was going to just sit there like a great big lump and give that patronizing, stupid, begging speech in which the Impala would surrender just to save his captured ass, the leader had another thing coming. And if he thought the Impala was a claw-less kitten, so much the better.

He glanced back at Jo, who shrugged and Talbot, who looked positively livid, especially with that lovely purpling bruise across her cheek and chin. On the flip side, getting killed just to spite Starc was incredibly stupid and if Sam ever found out there'd be hell to pay.

How could he twist this shitty situation to his advantage?

Impala

Okay, so maybe he should have just stayed hidden in the nebula cloud, Ash mused, second-guessing himself. Damn it, numbers never screwed with him like people did!

Because right now, he was staring into the heated glare of one Captain Dean Winchester, obviously being held hostage by this big muscle-bound jackass with a pretty crazy glint in his eye.

"Hey Captain, how's it going?" Ash asked casually, hoping for some sort of sign.

"Oh you know, betrayed, kidnapped, the usual." Dean's voice was taut with tension and irritated as all hell.

Ash scowled. So Talbot had been playing them after all. Now he just had to wait for the captain to say something self-destructive and stupid, so he could disagree and then they'd do something really stupid and potentially Impala-destructive to catch the bastard currently threatening Dean and Jo.

"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 without a fight and let Starc's men onto the Impala."