Serenity was on the drift. Her captain, Mal Reynolds, was not happy about this.
"Hey, Wash, any luck yet?"
The red-headed pilot looked up from his dinosaurs and looked over at the com. "No."
"Damn. Cargo's gonna be late."
Wash shrugged philosophically. "Happens when you have to make six unplanned detours to avoid Alliance patrols." He turned around in his chair. "Could be worse."
That it could. There was a significant difference between having empty fuel cells and having a vital component on the engine suddenly blow with no replacements. They weren't going anywhere, true, but they had heat and air and nothing had exploded. And after that time, they had never gone so far away from traveled routes that it was practically an impossibility that a distress call would be picked up. All they had to do was wait.
Mal hated waiting. "Lemme know when someone calls."
"Righto." Wash turned back around and resumed playing with his dinosaurs. Near as Mal could tell, he was reenacting some ancient children's movie.
Mal wandered into the kitchen. Most of the crew tended to gravitate there when there wasn't anything else to do. Zoe was sitting at the table, reading a book. "Any luck, sir?"
"Not yet. Somebody'll come by. Where's everyone else?"
"Kaylee's down in the engine room tryin' to figure a way to jury rig a fuel cell. Jayne and Book were working out, last I saw. Simon seems to have decided to make himself scarce."
"Probably for the best." Mal wasn't the only one who got antsy when they weren't moving, and Jayne didn't have nearly as much self control. And it would be just as well if they could avoid having to have Simon patch anybody up when there weren't no call for it. Especially if it was likely that he'd have to patch himself up. "What about Doc's sister?"
"Over in Inara's shuttle."
"Well, maybe she can keep her out of too much trouble."
"Hope so, sir."
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"Captain."
"Nng."
"Captain."
Jeyra Locke growled something into her pillow best left untranslated. She turned over and pulled the pillow over her head.
"Captain, we are receiving a distress signal, and Marcus wishes to know how to procede."
Locke thought about hurling her pillow at the offending console. But then her pillow would be all the way across the room, and Athena probably wouldn't get the point anyway. "I'll be up in a minute."
It took her a little longer. "What's up, boy?"
Her first mate looked at the console. "Looks to be a transport ship. Distress message says their fuel cells are bottomed out."
Locke looked at the screen. "Hn. Firefly class, haven't seen one of those in a while. Have they picked us up on their scanners yet?"
Marcus snorted. "Pft. Are you kidding? We could be fifteen feet from their hull and the only way they would pick us up is if someone happened to look out the window."
"Jus' checking. Athena, you scanned them yet?"
Athena's console screen glowed briefly. "Still in progress, captain. I'm picking up nine crew, both shuttles still on board, life support fully functional, no discernible mechanical difficulties beyond depleted fuel cells..."
"What about weapons?"
"Scanning… Nothing heavier than a large personal weapon. No assault weapons or artillery."
Locke considered. "Well, couldn't hurt to offer a hand, I suppose." She turned on the com. "Transport ship Serenity, please respond."
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The com crackled to life. "Transport ship Serenity, please respond."
Wash quickly put his dinosaurs down and picked up the com. "This is Serenity."
"We are responding to a distress call." The video display was very, very twitchy. It kept jumping and rolling. Wash figured that they must be out at the extreme end of com range.
"Glad to hear it. We're tired of sitting here." He reeled of the coordinates. "What's your estimated arrival time?"
The woman on the other end paused, and seemed confused. "Nani? … Oh." He saw her turn around and yell over her shoulder. "Stitch, turn the goddamned chameleon off." There was a muffled response, and suddenly the picture stopped rolling. Not only that, but a ship suddenly appeared on his instruments, less than five hundred yards away.
The sound of Wash falling out of his chair and yelping in Chinese could be heard in the kitchen. Mal came running, and Zoe wasn't far behind him. "What is it?"
"Sorry, Mal, just a little startled. Actually, a lot startled. Ship seems to have popped out of the black. Literally."
Mal blinked, and turned blankly to look at the console. The com was on, and a slightly befuddled woman was on the other end. "Serenity, are you there?"
Mal sat down. "We're here."
"Where's the other guy?"
Mal glanced over at Wash. "He's just a mite confused, I think."
"I apologize for startling him; we forgot to turn off cloaking before we hailed you."
Warning bells went off in Mal's head, but he didn't show it. Ships with cloaking were rarely good. "I'm Captain Reynolds."
The woman nodded. "I'm Captain Locke. If you don't object, I'll come over and see if we have the equipment to recharge your fuel cells. If we can't, we'll be happy to give you a tow."
"I could just get my mechanic in here; she knows what manner of fuel cells we got."
The other captain shrugged. "I wouldn't know anything about the matter, is the thing. And I don't think she could tell me what I need to look at."
Mal considered it for a moment. She didn't really seem to be a threat, but he'd learned the hard way that appearances were deceiving. "No offense meant, but I'm not sure I'm comfortable about that."
"Don't blame you; there's craziness in this 'verse. Would you feel better if I came alone, and unarmed?"
"…" Mal was astounded. "I think that'd be pretty stupid; I mean, we could all be violent psychos, for all you know."
"Bah. I don't mind getting' shot, and anyway, I don't think you'd wanna upset my crew that much."
Mal thought. "I… guess that sounds reasonable."
"Yay. We'll be attaching to your airlock in a couple minutes, then." The com clicked off.
Mal turned to look at Zoe and Wash. Finally, he managed, "What the hell was all of that!"
"It's a cat. Or a ghost." River was in the door way, and none of them was really surprised that they hadn't noticed her. "A ghost cat." She smiled, and seemed satisfied with that pronouncement.
Mal frowned. It seemed to him that the last time she had said anything about ghosts, there had been Reavers, and that was pretty much something he'd rather avoid. He hit the intercom. "This is the captain. Another ship has hailed us, and their captain wants to board to get a look at our fuel cells. We have been offered fuel or a tow. However, I'm not entirely comfortable with this. Jayne and Kaylee, meet her at the airlock. I'd appreciate it if one of you had a weapon, but be polite."
He paused, and looked at River. "Doc, get up here."
Simon poked his head in less than a minute later. "Yes?"
"As I said, we're about to get boarded, and I have little to no idea what these people are like. Might be best if you and your sister make yourselves scarce."
Simon paled. "Uh… is this going to involve space suits?"
Mal grinned. "I don't think we need to do anything that drastic, just keep out of sight."
"Right."