Disclaimer: anything recognizable is property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, etc. The story and its original characters, however, are mine. Also, I had to take some creative liberties, but only on stuff not explained in the series. I also used my own translator for the Mandarin, so it may be off (although it's still comical). Feedback (good or bad) is of course welcome. On to the story: “Okay, processor: check. Mainboard relays: check. E-mag relays: check. Signal transceiver: check.” I was staring at a skinny 3-foot tall cylinder in the bridge with a lot of electronics pouring out of it. “Let’s fire it up.” When I flicked a switch, the cylinder lit up. The beeping indicated it was booting. Then, it spoke in a unisexual voice. “Ship’s power: 100%. Auxiliary power: 100%. Engine is operating at highest possible efficiency. Estimated time to Beylix: four hours and twenty-two minutes.” “De-yu shi! It works!” “Query unrecognized. Please input again.” Every time it said a word, the lights flickered. I inputted again. “Huh… okay, upload all historical archives. Oh, and input targeting data for my new torpedo rack.” “Please specify: historical archives from The Cortex, or historical archives from this ship?” “Oh god, ship’s archives.” I left the bridge mumbling to myself. “It’s the only one with actual truth in it.” I sat down to a datapad in the dining room. On it was the beginnings of a letter. I continued it. - Dear Serra Ng, A lot has happened since we met on Ariel, and I’m sorry I haven’t kept in touch. I’ll start with the good news: I just kicked off the Liberty Avatar project. It’s working nicely. I pulled a nice job about a month ago to get the parts, and in my spare time, managed to complete a working prototype. It’s helping with my, well, condition. - I set it down. I couldn’t think of anything else to say at the moment. My mind started to drift back to nine months ago, when I was still on that cruiser.

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“YOU HIT THE NERVE, YOU IDIOT!” Libby was in my room trying to get the bullet out of the back of the knee. “The bullet fused to a small wire in one of your nerves due to the heat generated by the friction. An easy fix, and that should be the only painful part. Sydney here has the only matching blood type, so I pulled a small, unused nerve from her and already threaded the wire into it.” I stared at the bullet she just pulled. “Shiny.” “Yeah, and painful.” Sydney was holding her wrist which was wrapped up due to Libby’s procedure. “Well, thanks for the donation.” I lied back down and let Libby finish. “Anything on The Cortex about Planetia?” Libby was now inserting and fusing the new nerve in my knee. “On the Alliance channels, nothing. It’ll probably be denied to hell. Unofficially though, reports from ships leaving in this general direction say Alliance troops absolutely dominated the station and killed the people in station ops. That was the I.A.V. Cortez we saw, and it was fully loaded. They didn’t stand a chance.” I couldn’t help feeling guilty about the whole incident. After all, it started as a chase after me. “It's one less place for us to run to. Ten credits says a Blue Sun franchise will be put there by the end of the month.” Pausing a few seconds, I turned to my pilot. “Now, about you pick pocketing that gun extremely unseen…” Sydney was hesitant to answer me. “Another thing I learned to help me live. In retrospect, I’m not so proud of it. But the skill comes in handy.” Libby had just finished patching the knee. “I’m afraid to ask what other skills you have.” “Look,” she replied somberly, “I only did certain stuff to get by on what little I had.” “Say no more.” I could finally stand. “I’ve done some pretty desperate things myself to get by. Hell, I built Libby.” “Yao ni di she tou,” Libby said, packing the tools she used to fix me. “I’ll remember that next time you need a medic.” “In all seriousness:” I checked to make sure the door was closed and lowered my voice. “You two are the only two I’m 100% sure didn’t sabotage the ship. Syd, I want you armed at all times, and don’t let your guard down. Starting tomorrow, I’m teaching you to shoot in the cargo bay at 1300.” “And you’re positive it’s sabotage?” Libby backed me on this. “Yeah, someone had to do this. And had to know how the engine works.” “Not necessarily. They only need to know what to pull.” I sat back down so I wouldn’t tear up my leg. “The problem is, I read their minds. If they had done it, I should know it. And already logically eliminating you two, it has to be one of those three. And I can’t read their minds.” I heard Libby say something lightly. “Ai ya, he’s going into one of those psychic genius moments.” As they backed off, I started muttering out loud. “Couldn’t have been the robot. Couldn’t have been the pilot. Only two that have been physically disproved. Gunner, mechanic, scientist: all minds checked out. Something is not right. I’m… lost…”