Disclaimer: All recognizable characters, etc. belong not to me, but to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, and Fox, and no money is being made here. The story, however, is mine.

The trip from Osiris to Persephone was only supposed to take 11 hours with the grav assist I had going for me. Now, it’s taking the better part of two days. In case you couldn’t tell, cruisers ain’t the fastest things in the ‘verse. I did get to see places on a cruiser I hadn’t seen in a while though. Tobias was right in that he had connections. And believe me when I say that not much has changed in the past five years. And jen dao mei, the one place Tobias didn’t have access too was storage. Guess where my package was? Yep, storage. Oh, and guess where storage was? All the way across the ship from my dock. Talk about pain-in-the-ass. Not all was bad. Tobias was able to convince the pilot that bought him up to give him access to storage. Turns out he was a mechanic due in Persephone for a cushy Alliance job. But hey, never look a gift horse in the mouth. Getting into storage was now easy. Getting out and getting my package to Liberty was the tough part. Alright, it was kuang qi de. Suicide even. We got lucky. Not very, but it could be enough. I was invited up to the bridge with Tobias to observe operations. And they had just run into a dead carrier. I arrived just in time to hear an ops officer inform the captain. “…blew out a few months back. Lost all hands, but it was only run by a skeleton crew anyway.” The captain actually showed concern. “Damn shame. No point in checking for survivors?” A pilot interrupted. “Sir, there is a reading on that thing. Some residual heat.” The captain was looking over his shoulder. “Do a sweep.” The pilot indeed found something. “It’s a transport ship. Firefly class.” Then, the idiot ops officer piped up. “They still make those?” Now you see why I said idiot. The captain did know what was happening though. “Illegal salvage. Low-life vultures picking the flesh off the dead.” “Should we deploy gunships and bring her in?” The captain nodded. “Do it.” A few buttons were pressed, and in my head, I could see the exterior fighters lighting up being prepped for launch below the ship. But the pilot got something else. “Captain, I am picking up a distress signal 13 clicks ahead from a- sounds like a personnel carrier. Definitely a big ship, sir and she’s without power. Just as the captain was stuck between a rock and hard place himself, the split second he took to decide what to do allowed me to see a beautiful sight out the bridge’s window of the Firefly’s engine lighting up as it activated its Radion Pulse. Within a few seconds, it was moving away as fast as it could. The pilot saw it too. “They’re rabbitting sir.” Tobias whispered in my ear. “This is our opportunity.” I agreed fully. We got on the closest lift to the lowest section of the ship. As we were going down, I pulled out my comm. “Libby, get some charges set on the dock and prep the ship for getting away as fast as possible. They’re answering a distress signal nearby. Hopefully the confusion will be our ally.” With that being said, our mechanic was waiting for us at storage as planned. And just as we were about to wheel the big white box away, a trooper entered. He saw what we were doing and fired upon us. We were able to use the box for cover. Unfortunately, we weren’t allowed arms on the ship. Can you see our problem? Luckily, I had a trick up my sleeve. Not to mention a white hanky. I waved it so the trooper could see, and he stopped firing. I got up real slowly, and stared him in the eyes. “You don’t want to hurt us.” He looked hypnotized as he repeated. “I don’t want to hurt you.” I walked a little closer. “You never saw us.” “I never saw-” By then, I had grabbed his M-16 and shot him once right between the eyes. Tobias was stunned. “How the hell did you do that?” The mechanic had the right idea. He had already taken the box and was rolling it as fast as he could toward Liberty. About three quarters of the way there, and we hadn’t encountered any resistance. It seems like they were focused on rescuing that carrier. Then our resistance came. Two men with hands behind their back stood in our way. The one on the left spoke. “You three aren’t going any further.” “Go, you two,” I said as the men walked closer. Tobias and the mechanic took a left, and the men in my way didn’t seem interested in them. I already knew who they were. Blue Hands. One of them pulled out their signature weapon: a small rod-like device that fit snugly in a hand. But when he activated it, the two ends extended outward to reveal a bright, blue inside. It started humming. I knew what was next. “Oh come on, you guys already know that’s not gonna work on me. You built me too well.” It was an annoying sound. Normally, it hums to match the electromagnetic resonance of a human, causing the target to bleed from everywhere possible without actually cutting the victim. It’s not pretty. And that sound was very annoying! So I stared at the rod for a few seconds. The sound had almost vacuumed into the rod, and a split second later, exploded out. I think they heard it on the bridge, it was so loud. The Blue Hands were affected enough for me to put a bullet in each of them with my stolen gun. I ran as fast as I could back to my ship. There was a line of soldiers between me and the dock engaging in a shootout with Libby and Tobias. The mechanic was nowhere to be seen. I took a shot at one of the soldiers and missed. That tipped the small squad off about me, as two men diverted their fire my way. One of the bullets grazed my left shoulder, but not enough to inhibit my firing. I peered around the corner to see the squad advancing into Liberty’s cargo bay. All of a sudden, I heard firing from a larger machine gun. I advanced toward the airlock, peered into the cargo bay, and saw the mechanic sitting in my stormtank gunning down the Alliance squad with its machine gun. I stood back until everyone was gunned down. I was now able to enter my ship. I glanced at the mechanic. “Nice job, er-“ “William Daniels, captain. But my friends call me Bill.” “Where were you?” Tobias inquired. “Blue Hands,” I told them. Libby then came running to my side with that concerned “I know what happened” look. “Wo de ma, Eddie, you’re bleeding badly.” “I’ll live.” Holding my shoulder, I ran up the stars to the catwalk. “Libby, get those charges set and the bay locked down. Is the engine ready?” “Not quite.” But Bill stepped up. “I’ll get it ready. I’ve worked on Firefly engines before.” I was content now. I went up the stairs to the dining room and through the hallway to the bridge. I had the yoke in my hands ready to perform a tricky maneuver that my robot couldn’t possibly pull off no matter how well programmed she was. About a minute later, I got a comm from the engine room. “Captain, we’re ready here.” I pushed a button to comm the cargo bay. “Libby, are we ready?” She responded over the comm line. “Charges are set. Let’s blow this pop stand.” I hit a button on my right. You could hear the first split second of the explosion in the dock before the vacuum rushed in and nullified the sound. But by then, I was free. My side engines pushed me away from the dock, but I still had a jungle of other exterior-docked ships and docking lines to avoid. And any flip maneuver is too slow in this situation. I pulled a left around a couple fighters, a right at the pipes leading to a ship being refueled, and I went straight between a dock and the ship. In front of me were gunships that had just lit up. I flew under them. My rear view showed them launching and pursuing me. A couple fighters fired shots at me, but by then, I was clear. I aimed Liberty at Persephone (which was now visible as a small orb in my peripheral). “Now, Mr. Daniels!” I looked through the rear view yet again to see my engine turning and lighting up. Within five seconds, the Radion pulse had gone off, and I was flying fast towards Persephone. Libby and Tobias were now up on the bridge. Libby looked down at something. “Eddie, long-range says gunships are following us.” I could see those in my rear view with magnification. There were three gunships following us. “We should outrun them until we hit atmo.” Tobias stared at a red button on my console that kinda sticks out like a sore thumb. “What does this do?” he asked reaching for the button. I knocked his hand away. “Never push the red button! Now get you, Mr. Daniels, and the package onto the shuttle at the starboard. If Libby and I get shot down, I want you to get that girl to her brother at Eavesdown no matter what.” Tobias complied until he heard the last thing I said. “Wait, we’re transferring a human?” “Yes. Through cryo. So ingenious that they probably still haven’t discovered her missing on Osiris yet.”