They say that sometimes, when you're in a near death situation, or when you think you're about to die, time slows down. It almost comes to a crawl, and you can see everything in amazing clarity.

I had never believed that. I thought it was a big load of superstitious hooey. Time doesn't change – it's constant!

I had never believed it – up until a few minutes ago.

You see, as soon as I realized that Logan knew we were waiting out there, in the black, Captain McManus brought the Cristóbal Colón online, and we followed Serenity into the atmosphere of the planet Paquin.

We had a full battery of laser cannons at our disposal. Serenity had nothing to protect her except for titanium body armor.

Captain McManus ordered the gunners to open fire on Serenity, over my objections. It looked as though the crew of that little Firefly were well and truly screwed.

"Serenity," Captain McManus had called over the radio, "this is the Alliance cruiser Cristóbal Colón. You are instructed to land immediately."

I knew that if Logan was at the wheel, that would never happen. And sure enough, a moment later, a voice came back from Serenity.

"Cruiser Cristóbal Colón, your laser fire has sent our navigation system into plumb loco mode. We are a little bit broken at the moment."

I heard the Operative speak, almost as if he was talking to himself. "Mal… what are you playing at?" he said, quietly.

Captain McManus called back to Serenity. "Serenity, prepare for tractor beam. We'll pull you into the shuttle bay."

"Thanks, but no!" we heard Captain Reynolds reply, and then the audio channel was shut off. A moment later, the laser cannons fell silent, and then we saw why, as Serenity swooped up directly in front of our nose.

"What exactly is he doing?" Captain McManus asked rhetorically. It was quiet on the bridge for a moment, and then, we saw it.

The glow on Serenity's tail, the telltale sign of a K64 spacedrive engaging. "Oh my GOD," McManus breathed.

And that brings us to right now. Time seems to have slowed down, almost stops. I'm looking out the windshield at the glow on the tail. Cringing at what is about to happen, I check my restraints, and see Wallace and Weevil doing the same.

Then it happens. Serenity's spacedrive goes into full burn. The blast from it ignites a ten mile wide ball of oxygen and nitrogen, which we are very much within.

Captain McManus just barely has time to scream, "ALL HANDS, BRACE FOR IMPACT!" into the intercom before the shockwave hits us. The burning tidal wave crashes on the nose of the Cristóbal Colón with all the force of the fist of God. The ship violently tilts nose down. The lights go dark.

Cristóbal Colón has lost power. Without power, we have no way to stay airborne. The cruiser begins to dive nose downward, picking up speed as we go.

I see the Operative lose his grip on the rail he's standing by. He tumbles to the front of the bridge. There is a sickening crack as he hits his head against the wall, and then he is still. Very still.

I am struggling to stay conscious. The G forces are practically unbearable. My vision is beginning to tunnel, a sure sign of impending unconsciousness.

Suddenly, the helmsman shouts that he has regained limited thruster control. He brings the nose of the cruiser up, but I fear that it is too little, too late.

Though we are decelerating, impact on the surface of the sea is imminent. The water rushes up toward us, and then the nose pierces its surface –

Logan watched, jaw clenched, as the Cristóbal Colón crashed into the surface of the ocean. An enormous plume of water shot skyward, obscuring any further view Logan had of the Alliance cruiser.

That's when Serenity pulled backward, until Logan's only view through the windshield was of the sky. Mal glanced over at Logan, and then reached for the intercom microphone.

"River, that was a beautiful piece of flyin'. Kaylee, well done. I need you two to get us to Fort Jellico, post haste. We need to unload them yappin' creatures and get a move on."

Mal Reynolds hung up the microphone. "Logan."

There was no response. "LOGAN."

Logan took a deep breath. "Yes… Captain?" He spat out the word like a filthy imprecation.

"I need you to get workin' on the pilot's station, figure out what in the hell happened under there."

Logan clenched his fists, and finally, turned to face Mal. "Yes, sir. I'll get right on that."

Mal caught the bitterness, the sarcasm in Logan's voice. "I didn't have any choice, Logan," Mal told him. "They would've blown us out of the sky."

Logan's eyes narrowed. "Respectfully, SIR, you had EVERY choice. If River was able to fly the ship from engineering, she could easily have flown us away from the situation. But instead, you chose to take the coward's way out. You got into a position where the cruiser couldn't hit us, and you sucker punched them."

Mal's face went from being apologetic to looking as if it had been carved from ice. "You're goddamn right I sucker punched them," he snarled. "That's the only way to deal with the Alliance sometimes."

He took a step toward Logan. He was close enough to smell the coppery tinge of the blood drying on Logan's face. "Now GET TO WORK."

Mal whirled and stormed out of the cockpit. Behind him, Logan stood for a moment, doing nothing. At last, he stepped behind the pilot's station and pulled off the rear panel, trying to make some sense of the mess within.

"Damage report!"

"Flooding… forward decks breached… power slowly coming online…"

"Are we flyable?"

"We can fly sir, but we are not spaceworthy."

"Can we get to a shipyard?"

"We need to worry about getting this thing out of the ocean first, sir."

"What about him?"

"He's dead, sir."

I slowly float back to the realm of consciousness. As my eyes flicker open, I see that the bridge is bathed in a curious mixture of red emergency lights from within and daylight streaming in from outside. Captain McManus is standing, and the deck is tilted at an odd angle.

Shaking the cobwebs from my head, I unstrap myself. I see that Weevil and Wallace are already awake, and are helping administer first aid.

That's when I see the crumpled body of the Operative. That must've been the "him" that Captain McManus was talking about. His head is tilted at an odd angle, his eyes open in surprise.

Oddly enough, I don't feel any particular regret about his death. Maybe if he'd been less of a douchebag.

I open my mouth to talk, but find that it is dry. Licking my lips, I force my mouth to make my tongue wet. "Captain McManus?"

"Ah! Operative Mars! You're awake."

"What's the situation?"

McManus doesn't look happy. "We suffered some serious upper hull damage from the shockwave created by the Firefly. As I'm sure you're aware, we crashed in the Nordic Ocean, which caused serious flooding on some of the lower decks.

"We've got the ship coming back online now. According to damage reports, we can apparently fly, but this cruiser won't be going back into space until she's undergone extensive repair."

I shake my head. I can't believe this happened. Logan must not have been flying the ship. He never would've allowed this to happen. "Casualties?"

McManus shakes his head. "We got extraordinarily lucky," he tells me. "We've got a dozen crew missing, and for the moment, we're assuming they're dead. We've got about fifty serious injuries, and somewhere in the neighborhood of two hundred minor injuries. However, the only confirmed death we have is the Operative there."

I shake my head. "Concrete proof that pride goes before the fall," I say, surprising even myself with my cynicism.

I sigh. This is not going like it's supposed to. "Alright, Captain McManus," I continue. "I need to be able to pursue that Firefly."

"Very well," he replies. He steps back to the command station, and presses a button. "McManus to Shuttle Bay One. Prepare Neptune One for launch as soon as we have power back."

"Uh, bridge, this is Shuttle Bay One. Neptune One was totaled in the crash."

I close my eyes and do my best not to start cursing. Well, that's just fantastic.

"Is there anything else down there that Operative Mars would be able to use?"

"Yes, sir. One of the Saturn class long-range attack shuttles appears to be operable. It's got a scratch on the side from where Neptune One scraped against it during the crash, but that appears to simply be cosmetic."

"How soon can Operative Mars and her associates launch?"

"Not until after we're airborne, sir. The bay doors are underwater right at the moment."

I sigh again. This is frustrating me. "Very well," Captain McManus replies. "While we're waiting, get that shuttle ready for liftoff."

"Yes, sir."

By the time Serenity landed at Fort Jellico, Logan had managed to restore power to the pilot's station. He was still working on getting the computer back online – that seemed to be a slightly trickier proposition.

As they were touching down, Mal came into the cockpit. "Logan," he said, "I need you to stay here with the ship."

Translation: I don't trust you to not shoot me in the back, Logan thought. "Not a problem, Captain," he said.

"Good," Mal said. He turned to go, but didn't leave. After a moment, he turned back to Logan.

"Listen," he said. "I don't know if you think I got some measure of enjoyment out of knockin' down that cruiser, but I didn't. People probably died there. A lot of them were probably kids. I don't take no pleasure in killin' kids."

Logan didn't say anything, just buried his head in the console and resumed work.

Mal turned again, and left this time. A few minutes later, Logan heard the sound of footsteps coming toward the cockpit – but it was somebody smaller, lighter.

"Logan?"

It was Kaylee. "Yeah?" he asked from under the console.

"Are you okay?"

Logan sighed. Pushing his body out of the console, he slid across the floor. Turning over, he got up to his knees, and looked at Kaylee.

He blew out his breath. "My friend was on that cruiser," he finally said.

Kaylee nodded. "I… know," she replied quietly.

To say Logan was shocked would've been an understatement. "You KNEW?!" he asked.

She nodded again. "River told me when she came down."

Logan's eyes narrowed, and he shook his head in disbelief. "So you're telling me that you KNEW that she was on that ship, and you STILL pushed the button."

Kaylee looked at the deck. "Yeah."

It was all Logan could do to not explode. "WHAT THE FUCK, KAYLEE?!"

When she looked back up at him, he could tell that he had pissed her off. She had fire in her eyes. She planted her hands on her hips, and said, "I had an ORDER from my CAPTAIN, Logan!"

He opened his mouth to speak, but Kaylee wasn't done. "Oh, and BY THE WAY, thanks for thinkin' of ME, down in the engine room, with laser bolts flyin' everywhere, and things blowin' up, and sparks flyin'! Thanks for checkin' on ME, to make sure that I was okay!"

The words hit home, and Logan realized what he had done. This wasn't her fault. "Kaylee…"

"No, don't you DARE 'Kaylee' me!" she growled. "It's pretty darn clear that I'll never be able to measure up to your precious Veronica, Logan."

"Oh, REALLY," Logan shot back, laughing in disbelief. "So that's what this is about? Your feelings of inferiority?!"

Kaylee looked ready to commit murder. "Well, MAYBE if the first thing out of your trash chute hadn't been to accuse me of tryin' to kill her, and MAYBE if you'd given a good goddamn about me, I wouldn't've felt like that!"

Logan threw his hands up in the air, and started to speak again, but Kaylee cut him off. "You know what, don't even," she hissed. "Why don't you just go gun hoe-tze bee dio-se."

And with that, she stormed out of the cockpit. "Shit," Logan breathed.

The Mule hovered over a Fort Jellico city street, headed back toward Serenity. The beagle pups had been delivered, and the crew had been paid. Zoe piloted the Mule, while Jayne sat on the lockbox containing the cash.

Mal and River kept a lookout for anybody who might have had dishonorable intentions toward Serenity's crew, but Paquin was a fairly civilized moon – the crimes were few and far between.

As they approached the old Firefly, though, Mal heard a rather disquieting rumble. He looked at the buildings around him in alarm, and realized that they were shaking. Then, a shadow began to fall over the street.

He looked up – and his eyes went wide as he recognized the unmistakable shape of an Alliance cruiser. A very badly damaged Alliance cruiser, at that.

"Aw, lao tyen yeh," he breathed as the identification markings came into view. No question about it, right there in bold white print – Union of Allied Planets, MKV Cristóbal Colón.

"Alright, Zoe, we're in deep shit," he said. "Get us back to the ship, right now."

"Yes, sir!" Zoe replied. She pushed the throttle to the stop, doubling the Mule's speed in a heartbeat.

Logan had finally gotten the pilot's station online. He was running it through a diagnostic cycle when the intercom crackled to life.

"Look alive, Logan!" he heard. It was Mal Reynolds. "We're comin' in hot! Your favorite Alliance cruiser and mine apparently has recovered enough that they're bringin' her in for a landing here. We're gonna need to get the hell out of here as quick as possible!"

Logan's breath caught in his throat. The Cristóbal Colón had survived the crash?!

He hit the intercom button. "Yes, sir!" he said, feeling like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders.

A moment later, he felt more than heard the thump of the Mule locking into place in the hold below. Then he heard the distinctive whine of the outer cargo ramp closing. "Go, Logan, go!"

Logan hit the button to engage the jets, and Serenity jerked upward. The transport was maybe ten feet off the ground when a volley of laser cannon shot in front of her nose.

A warning shot, Logan thought. He halted Serenity's ascent, but kept her hovering.

Much to his dismay, though, the attacker was far more maneuverable than the cruiser had been earlier. As he watched, a Saturn-class attack shuttle swung around to face Serenity.

"Serenity, this is attack shuttle Neptune Two. You will land immediately and shut down, or I will blow your asses out of the sky."

Logan's face split into a huge grin as he heard her voice. He was about to reply when Mal came running into the cockpit. "What the hell's goin' on, Logan?"

"Well, Captain, there's a pissed-off Parliamentary Operative in that shuttle directly in front of us, and she just told me that if we don't land, she's gonna wax our asses."

Mal shook his head. "Well, I guess we don't really have a choice, do we?"

I'm quickly finding that I'm a very big fan of the Saturn-class attack shuttle. It flies smoothly and handles a lot better than my old shuttle.

And lo and behold, there's Serenity. It looks like she's about to lift off from Fort Jellico.

I don't think so.

I fire a laser cannon volley just over her cockpit, where the pilot will be sure to see it. "Yo, V, cool it with the guns," Weevil warns me from the back.

The irony of that statement coming from his mouth is highly amusing.

I swing the shuttle around in front of the Firefly-class transport, and key my microphone. "Serenity, this is attack shuttle Neptune Two. You will land immediately and shut down, or I will blow your asses out of the sky."

There's no reply for a moment, but when it finally comes, it takes my breath away.

"Stand down, bobcat! We've got no desire to get dead."

Logan laughs over the radio. There's a momentary pause, and then he adds, "Besides… I can't begin to tell you how happy I am that you're alive."

gun hoe-tze bee dio-se - go throw shit with the other monkeys
lao tyen yeh - Jesus Christ