The instant Serenity entered the cloud layer, the lights aboard the ship began to flicker wildly. In the kitchen, all of the cooking appliances spat flaming sparks and died out. In the medical bay, the heart scanner River was hooked up to suddenly blinked off. Jayne dove for cover as several of his weapons, the ones using lasers or microchip-targeting systems, shot off a few rounds and then died. The mercenary peeked out from under his bed, where he had rolled to avoid the flying bullets. Up on the bridge, Wash licked his suddenly very dry lips and glanced at the control systems. Every single one was spasming in rhythm with the lights. With one final electric whine, everything shut down, plunging the crew into darkness.
"Hold on," Wash cried, pulling back on the steering column so that the ship leveled out, becoming parallel with the unseen ground below them…hopefully. The purplish blue ion clouds, flickering with electricity, raced by them at incredible speeds. More than once, lightning burst from the clouds to strike the hull, rocking the ship slightly. Finally, the clouds broke, and the trio in the cockpit found themselves falling thousands of meters towards the moon's surface. "Wash…" Mal said warningly. "I know, I know!" the pilot snapped back. "Just wait for it." Serenity plunged towards the ground at over two hundred miles an hour, with no way to impede their fall. "WASH…." The captain said again, backing away involuntarily, as if that could help somehow. In seconds, they'd all be nothing but pastes on the ground.
Suddenly, however, the ship began to slow, gradually but steadily. Wash had known what he was doing when he forced Serenity parallel with the ground. With more hull space fighting against the strong winds from below, the ship was falling much slower than if they had entered the atmosphere in anose dive. Now, as the atmosphere got thicker closer to the ground, the ship's speed was checked by the sheer force of the wind and air. "Buckle up." Wash said calmly. Mal and Zoe both glanced at the copilot's seat, then at each other. "Ladies first," Zoe said, quickly climbing into the seat. Mal swore under his breath and gripped the back of Wash's chair.
The final moments before Serenity landed seemed to last an eternity. Simon sat in the medbay, lashed tightly to the cot, holding River in his lap. Book gripped a handhold in the floor of the room outside, head bowed in fervent prayer. Jayne remained under his bed, waiting for the end of either the landing, or the ship and everyone aboard. Kaylee remained at the engine, though it had long since stopped moving, desperately trying to somehow restart it. And Inara sat calmly in her shuttle, having already accepted that whatever happened, would happen. When the ship finally landed, it was falling at a speed of nearly seventy five miles an hour. Its heated hull sliced through the snow like it was nothing, crashing and sliding along the moon below for a good five hundred feet before coming to a halt.
In the cockpit, Mal sat up from where he was thrown sprawling on the floor, rubbing the back of his head where it had hit the metal below. "Everyone alright?" he said in the total darkness of the ship, it's front end now buried in snow. After hearing an affirmative from both of his crew members, Mal stumbled to the door and reached for the flashlight he knew was there. Finding it, he flicked it on…only to find it wasn't working. "Gorram it," he muttered. In a few minutes, the dining area was filled with candles, providing a meager light to the place. All the crew was accounted for, with only a few cuts and bruises to show for the spectacular landing. "Alright," Mal said evenly from where he sat at the head of the table. "We should be close to the settlement here, so Jayne, Zoe, and myself will head out to find them before we all freeze to death. You all sit tight here till help arrives, understand?" Nods all around. Mal smiled. "Don't worry. We'll get you all out of here and into a nice warm bed in no time."
"Well," Mal said, backing away from the savage-looking settler wielding a rifle at him. "This isn't what I expected." He, Zoe, and Jayne were completely surrounded on all sides in the snowy tundra. The settlers cocked their weapons, fingers on triggers…