Disclaimer: anything recognizable is property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, etc. The story is mine though. I had to take a couple creative liberties, but only on things never explained in the series. I also used my own translator for the Manderin, so it may not be perfect (although either way, it is comical).

As according to plan we were sucked through a hatch and into what looked like the auxiliary maintenance room. We sat tight in our shuttle sitting on the floor, waiting for the pumps to engage. But there is always a time when you realize that thing you’re waiting to come never does. It was a half hour when we knew the pumps weren’t coming on any time soon. “We can’t swim in this.” Bill was in back frantically searching the computer for something that may help us. “We need those pumps on.” “Where physically are they,” I asked him. “It doesn’t matter”, he responded. “The whole base is on lockdown.” “Lad, you also have a shotgun on this thing, don’t you?” I started at him for a second. “I agree fully. The locks are all electronic. A shotgun blast should be more then enough to blow them open, letting the water short-circuit the lock opening the door.” “Lad,” Tobias aimed at me, “I wish you’d let me speak my own thoughts.” Bill butted in. “And even if that does work, we’ll flood half the station.” “Duh,” I told them. “We just make sure we don’t flood the half Serra’s in. Now, where are the pumps situated?” Bill brought up the schematics again. “Central maintenance, direct center of the base. The pumps themselves are one level lower, and they run to the auxiliary maintenance rooms where secondary pumps are. That’s what we were hoping to get up, but the main pumps, by laws of mechanics, override the not-working secondary pumps, which should allow us to get out of this thing and mount a rescue. Any questions?” “Yeah, uh-” I cut Tobias off. “Yeah, we got it. Any routes planned?” “Where are they holding her?” Tobias inquired. “And how do we know they haven’t killed her yet?” “We don’t.” I looked at the map. “I’m prettymuch reduced to a gut feeling at this point. There.” I pointed something out on the map. “We can take this route without flooding that sector.” I fingered a route out on the map. “One more thing, boss.” “What’s that, Bill?” “How do we know the shuttle will fit through all those doors?” I pulled a file up on the computer. “Government mandates on Ariel state that all facilities underwater must have their bulkheads with doors that go five meters long and three meters high. We can fit through easy. And this is a research station. You know how scientists like to have their interior walls made of a special material to keep something either in or out. So the rest of the walls should be pretty destroyable.” Tobias grabbed the control rod for the G-Gun. “I figure we’ll be needing this.” I ignored him for the moment and sat down to fly this bird. Or swim this fish, I suppose. Whichever is more accurate at this point. Anyhow, I powered up and aimed the shuttle at the nearest door. I pulled a trigger. That sent a small ripple through the water as the shotgun pellets nailed the electronic lock. You could see it light up, fizzle, then slowly open the door. “Say, this may actually work. Bill, could you send me the route to my nav comp?” “Sending.” “Lad, when do I get to blow something up?” Tobias was itching to fire off the G-Gun. Again ignoring him, we followed the map to the next bulkhead. Keep in mind that every time we opened a door, water rushed in ahead of us. We were essentially still a fish. Anyhow, another trigger pulled, another shotgun blast at a lock, another door opened. Now we were on a level with research labs. “Say, Tobias, can you give me a spread at that wall?” Tobias obliged and sent a few spins of G-Gun rounds in a nice spread against the wall ahead of us. “Lad, it’s not blowing up.” “You made it spring a leak. Just one hit and-” “Uh oh.” Bill knew what was happening. “Tobias, you may want to hang on.” “Why lad?” I pushed on the throttle letting the main engines slam us into the wall, making it shatter. Tobias flew, and I could tell that he was wishing he had taken Bill’s earlier advice. Bill laughed. “Brings new meaning to ‘jia shi xing jiao’.” Tobias stood up and stared down Bill. “Dai yi ge zhi dao yi ge.” “He does have you there. Tobias, get back on the G-Gun. We’re one bulkhead away.” Which was true. Finding it wasn’t that difficult either, what with most of the labs in this area destroyed due to flooding. Hey, another hit on the Alliance and their loyal taxpayers. Unfortunately, we were finding floating bodies every so often as we moved through the sector. They were mostly Federal Security though, so I didn’t feel so guilty. We finally reached the last bulkhead. I fired another shotgun blast at the lock, and it opened. We flowed through into the massive maintenance room nearly at the core of the facility. “So, when do the pumps activate?” “Should be-” The whirring of the pumps cut Bill off. “Now.” The pumps were pumping like crazy, and we could slowly see the water recede until a about a minute later, the maintenance bay was dry. In fact, I’d assume that within a couple minutes, most of what we just came through would be dry. That being a moot point, we were finally able to open the shuttle door. Bill raced to the nearest console in the maintenance bay. “We got lucky boss. No security alarms were ever activated. Looks like your friend is two levels above us, same sector.” “Good. Bill, you man the ship. Tobias, arm me up.” Tobias reached into the ship, and pulled out an array of guns. “What’s your pleasure?” I took my belt full of Peacemakers, while Tobias took two Winchesters and plenty of ammo. Bill was arming up too, with the M-16 on his back and a Beretta on his side. I went to a door and opened it. Tobias and I went through while Bill waived to us and closed the shuttle door.