Finally, Diana comes out of her trance, although she still has a strange look on her face. “Captain, we have an invitation. And I don’t think we can afford to turn it down.”

“It seems that there’s a planet further out in the Black called “Oasis”, and the communications device in Derrial’s room is connected to it. The residents are a very different group of people, having nothing to do with anyone in the ‘Verse except the Book family. And they are very interested in meeting us! Apparently Derrial had been there many years ago, and updated the communications link.”

“And for reasons they did not explain, Oasis is extremely curious about Inara.”

When Mal asks, “Where is Oasis?” Diana drops back into her uncommunicative state.

As Mal and Zoë begin to look for Oasis on the strange maps they found, Simon calls over from Serenity; “I don’t understand even half of what River is saying, but apparently it’s a series of formulas describing near-light drive. As best as I can interpret her physics, somehow Revelation is capable of over 99.8% of the speed of light, and Serenity can be modified to do that as well! All Fireflies using the Trace Compression Block can!

Kaylee, who has been sitting back only half listening, suddenly gets it! She jumps to her feet, “Shi a! (Yes!)” and races back to the Revelation’s engine room.

Mal stands up, saying, “Well, this’s all-fired interesting stuff, but if we can’t find Oasis, it don’t mean much. What have we got, Zoë?” They dive deeper into the maps and papers on the bridge…

Soon Simon arrives with a sane River, ready to go. She now knows how to make Serenity travel at near–light speed; “And it won’t take long to set it up – the links to the necessary modifications have always been a part of the Firefly design, although later manufacturers had no idea why they were in the blueprints.”

Mal says, “Well, Kaylee is already down in the engine room, trying to under -” Before Mal has finished, River is gone… “Sure saves a powerful lot of time, having the crew run off before even getting the orders… Well, now that River’s upright again, Simon maybe you could go take a look at Diana.”

Simon turns to go, saying, “No problem. I’m on my way. But you will note that at least I was polite enough to let you finish your sentence.”

It’s not long until Kaylee and River are back. River now knows what the strange parts do: “The engine can be set for quick initial acceleration and limited speed, the way we’ve always had it set in our ‘Verse, or for very slow initial acceleration which increases until you reach near-light speed, as would be necessary for long interstellar distances.”

Mal snorts; “So you’re telling me that most anybody could travel outside our own ‘Verse anytime, and somebody’s been holding back on that information? Sounds like the Alliance didn’t want nobody to leave.”

Kaylee nods, “That seems about right, Cap’n. Can’t see no reason it couldn’t have been done all along. Set up right, it’s an easy switch.”

Mal, thinks upon it all for a moment, then asks, “How long do you think it would take you to change Sereni - ” … “Ai ya! (Damn!) I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that!”

It takes another half hour, but finally Simon and a recovered Diana arrive on the bridge. Diana begins, “I now have quite a bit of information about Oasis, and I can tell you exactly how to get there!”

But Mal’s ahead of her; “Zoë and I just figgered out the paperwork, and got the basics of this navigation system – it’s already programmed for Oasis. It’s nearly four light years away. A long trip...”

But Diana now knows much more: “It seems that we Books have a particular purpose. Inside each of us is an event recorder analyzing our every action, then downloading important events back to Revelation, which forwards the information to Oasis. It also explains why all of us have an urge to travel, to try new occupations and places. We’re not supposed to be aware of it at all, as it would affect what we do, but we’re each walking experiments in how life works in the ‘Verse!”

Diana pauses, and then says; “But I learned much more – so much I can hardly believe it myself…”

She has no time to go into details… Before she can start, the scavenger returns, and this time it knows exactly where Serenity is! Time is up!

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The Gleaner fires on them, and it’s obvious Serenity can’t run in time – for one thing, they’re still tied to the dead-in-space Revelation. But they can’t just sit either! They have no weapons!

Everyone gathers in Serenity’s bridge to hatch a plan, or at least to watch the scavenger’s approach…

It’s time for Jayne to live his dream; “Mal, we only got one way – let’s fire up that Gorram armed shuttle – One good burst of fire from somewhere they’re not expectin’ and them uglies will be high-tailin’ it for the far edge of the ring!”

Mal’s still not certain; “How do we know any of that stuff still operates? Or that we’ll know how to fire it if it does? Don’t much like the idea of sittin’ out in the Black somewhere not able to do nothing as they pound my ship.”

But Jayne isn’t about to give up that easily; “How is that worse than sitting in here doin’ nuthin’ while they pound us all? Time to see if we can’t run ‘em off.”

Mal has to admit Jayne has a point for once; “Well, maybe you’re right. But I want a backup plan… Zoë, Jayne and I will try to distract them buzzards. You get Kaylee and whoever she thinks she needs to get Serenity ready to go, and have the rest of the crew grab anything as looks useful from that ship – if we can back them off for a bit, maybe we can make a break for it.”

Mal sits down in the pilot’s seat; “Looks like it should be easy to fly - same basic controls as our own shuttles. I’ll see if I can get this thing started, you see what you can do with those guns -” Jayne’s already ’way ahead of him, and the first test round fires before Mal can finish the sentence. “Shiny… I’m going to have to start talkin’ faster.”

The shuttle starts and launches easily, and they have soon spotted the enemy. They move in, and Jayne fires a cannon, which turns out to be even more powerful than he expected, ripping two top panels off the ship.

It doesn’t take long until Mal has discovered that the shuttle is far more maneuverable than his bigger enemy, and as he comes around quickly, Jayne fires a rocket which hits near the back, obviously in a fuel tank, as a massive fire starts. The scavengers return their fire, but shoot wildly…

Mal realizes they have no good idea where the little shuttle is – it must be cloaked like the old ship! Now feeling somewhat safer, Mal moves closer, and one good volley from Jayne’s cannon disables the scavenger’s prime weapon – one more, and the main maneuvering thruster is out of action.

The scavenger, damaged, weapons weakened, and still with no idea where the enemy is, has no choice but to high-tail it out of there!

Mal and Jayne return to Serenity to find its cargo hold full of a mishmash of strange parts.

Since the scavengers have been driven off, there’s a bit of time to discuss what comes next. As everyone gathers around the dinner table, Mal says; “Anybody pick up anythin’ that will give us some idea where we should go from here?”

Diana jumps in; “I don’t know exactly what we should do, but I have some news that might make a difference: The Parliament’s Inner Circle is very afraid of Oasis! It has technology far in advance of the Alliance, and the Circle is concerned that if Oasis wanted to take over, either militarily or economically, the Alliance would face the same fate as any other technologically backward race.”

“As best I can tell, the Books are the ‘Verse’s only link to Oasis. The Inner Circle does not understand our purpose, nor why we travel the ‘Verse, but they’re afraid to interfere, and so have given us Ident cards with such extreme clearance that no one will ever block our way.”

Kaylee is a bit confused; “Diana, how could Oasis talk to you? It’s four light years away! No Wave could get here that fast.”

“We didn’t exactly talk – the information was sent some time ago, and has been sitting in Revelation’s communicator, waiting for somebody to activate it.”

The group is unsettled by the story, and Mal says, “Are you sure of all that? If it’s true, those people sound as if they could be a big help to us.”

Diana nods; “Yes, I‘m sure – but there’s more - Oasis was originally a stepping stone from Earth to our ‘Verse!”

There’s stunned silence, so Diana continues; “I don’t know many details, but it seems that we could learn much about the early days of colonization if we went there!”

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

While they discuss this amazing information, and try to decide if it makes any difference as to what they should do next, the problem is solved for them.

The ship intercom comes alive again: “Attention all ships in the Scrap Belt including Serenity. This is patrol cruiser IAV Ticonderoga. We have recorded several illegal weapons discharges in this sector, and all involved will be arrested. It will go better for you if you come forward voluntarily.” It’s obvious that the cruiser does not know exactly where they are, but is heading toward the general area of the battle – they WILL be found!

Worse, the cruiser has mentioned Serenity by name! With that wavecast, they know the last door is closed. There is nowhere left for them in the ‘Verse.

With no real choice, Mal quickly decides that they need to leave, and the only destination they know out in the Deep Black is Oasis. “Kaylee, can we hook up the near-light drive? Looks like runnin’ is our only option!”

Kaylee is up and on her way; “No problem Cap’n, it’s all set to go. Just gotta throw the switch…” One more second, and she’s out of sight down the hallway.

As he watches papers and dust settle from her sudden departure, Mal mutters; “I got out the whole sentence that time… Must be gettin’ faster.”

Jayne is back on the subject of his newfound love: “Mal, if we’re headin’ out into somewhere we ain’t never been before, we should get us some real firepower. Can we swap out Inara’s flyin’ bordello for somethin’ useful, like that armed shuttle?”

Inara jumps to her feet: “You want to steal my home? That I have been paying rent on for years? Cai bu shi! (No way!)”

Mal has been impressed with the value of a shuttle with real firepower, but a vision of Inara on the warpath flashes through his mind; “Jayne, the shuttle’s a good idea, but let’s swap it for our second one.”

As Inara settles back, still looking daggers at Jayne, Mal adds, “Zoë, you and Jayne make the swap, River and I will sort out the directions. The rest of you, see what you can do to stop all that Fei wu (Junk) from flying all over the cargo bay!”

Mal and River copy the data lifted from Revelation into Serenity’s Nav system, then lay in a course for Oasis as everyone else ties the cargo down – as soon as Zoë announces the new shuttle is locked into its bay, they blast off!

Well, not really – the acceleration is even worse than they thought it would be. And worse again, the new power modifications leave a brilliant trail behind them, and soon the Alliance cruiser is on their track.

Mal settles into the copilot seat as River steers the ship as near as she can directly away from the cruiser; “River, I’d suggest we go to full burn. We seem to have a fairly large slice of trouble riding in on us.”

River doesn’t even look up, concentrating on the instruments; “Better start pushing then. That’s all there is. There’s nothing else to burn.”

The whole crew gathers to watch the chase - Tensions mount faster than their speed. With all eyes on the Cruiser, nobody but River’s actually watching where they’re going. The Cruiser fires, burning an outer panel on the port thruster.

Finally, Serenity is moving faster than it ever has before... Ticonderoga, normally much faster, is no longer gaining – in fact, it begins to fall back.

It fires one last volley which misses, then suddenly it turns away, and they’re safe...

In the middle of the Deep Black!