And then it went all f***ing Stargate
Title: is redacted to save my flist from getting into trouble at work
Fandoms: Generation Kill/Firefly
Rating: PG-13, or maybe R, for language. You know Ray.
Word count: 3,300ish.
Disclaimer: Yeah, not mine. I just play here. Based on the TV shows. You know the drill.
Summary: "Ray, don't touch that-" *ZAP* The boys find themselves lost in an alternate universe where spacecowboys make break the rules. Thanks to their_darkness for the prompt :D
A/N: This started as comment-fic here <- total thread pimpage, btw but quickly got out of hand. There might be more.
"Ray, don't touch that -"
*ZAP*
"Dude, what the fuck just happened?"
"Goddamn it, Ray, I told you not to touch that thing."
Ray's expression is one of extremely fucking hurt feelings. Sadly, it's pitch fucking black in here and he can't see dick, so presumably even Brad and his superhuman Iceman powers can't see him either. Turns out NVGs are only any use if you put them on before the power gets cut.
"Where are we?" Trombley asks.
"Trombley, be quiet," says Brad automatically, somewhere to Ray's right.
"I can smell diesel," Walt says. Ray sniffs, and he's not sure it's diesel, but he's not sure it isn't, either.
"Nobody fire anything," Brad says, and Ray's about to remind him that they're fucking Marines and they know better than to light shit up when there's fuel vapor in the air, but then he thinks about Trombley, and there's really no telling what that psycho motherfucker's going to do from one moment to the next. Ray remembers this one time during a training exercise when Trombley's boot got caught in the webbing on the humvee's roof, and-
-somewhere in the middle of Ray's inner monologue, the lights finally flicker on, and at about the same time, a small orange warning light goes on in Ray's brain as he registers that the weight of his M4A1 is missing from his shoulder, and it's like he's suddenly naked or something. Shit.
"Our guns are gone," Brad says quietly, like it's not a really huge fucking deal.
They're in what looks like a cargo hold, and they're so exposed that Ray might as well pull down his fucking pants and stick his grandma's best bone china under his stones, serve them right up with fries and a dollop of fucking ketchup. Screwby.
There's no-one else here, though, so that's nice.
Ray looks at Brad.
Brad looks at Ray.
Ray mouths Where the fuck are we?
Brad gives him a look that's virtually identical to most of the other looks Brad gives him, just a little wider around the eyes - but Ray's been rolling with Brad long enough to know this means How the fuck should I know?
"Use your fucking Iceman powers, asshole," Ray mutters.
Brad gives him the other kind of look.
"Are we in H&S's supply truck?"
"Shut up, Trombley," and it takes Ray a second to realize that he and Brad said it aloud at the exact same time, and isn't that too fucking gay for words.
Walt seems okay, though he's got that tight look that means he's not happy, but Ray's not too worried about that. He glances behind him at Rolling Stone, who hasn't said shit so far. The expression on Rolling Stone's face suggests he's basically a packet of Charms away from totally unspooling. Fuckin' A, Reporter - though at least he's quiet about it; Ray has to respect that.
Brad gestures them forward in the same moment as training kicks in and Ray and Walt line themselves up to take the stairs, Trombley bringing up the rear behind Rolling Stone.
"Might want to hold your positions a minute," comes a man's voice from somewhere above. "There's folks as might not take kindly to strangers in their cargo hold, all uninvited."
A small part of Ray's brain wants to step out and say "Uncle Hank?", but he squashes that motherfucker right down, because Uncle Hank's been dead from lung cancer for twelve years, and wherever they are right now, Ray's pretty fucking sure it's not heaven. Man, if this is heaven, Ray's grandma is gonna shit a fucking brick.
"Figure I've got them, sir," Ray hears from somewhere above them, but they're all reconning the shit out this place, and Ray still can't see anyone.
"Stay frosty," Brad says quietly, under his breath.
Roger that, homes.
"You want me to waste 'em, Mal?"
"Jayne, maybe best I find out whether our guests mean us harm before we deliver them into the next world."
Ray hears a grunt. Jane? Seriously? In Ray's opinion, Jane needs to cut the hell down on the 'roids and Ripped Fuel. Seriously, Ray's met Recon Marines who sounded less butch. Fuck, he hopes the pussy in Heaven tastes better than it sounds.
And then there's movement above them on his two, and a man steps into view, and Ray's hands badly want to aim and fire, but there is no gun, and this fucking sucks, man.
Another movement on his seven and there's a woman there holding a gun a lot like the one Great Granddaddy Person used to have hanging over the fire. And at this point they might be in Wild West fucking Central for all Ray can tell, but from the way that chick's holding the rifle, Ray knows she knows how to use it.
He figures this must be Jane. She doesn't look butch, man. She looks fucking hot. And also sorta pissy. Ray totally doesn't mind if chicks want to tote guns and look all pissy so long as they also put out; Ray's personal prime directive is very clear on that last point.
"Sir?" she says, but she says it in a proper woman's voice, so maybe Jane, who by this point Ray's pretty certain is some seven foot tall chick with tats and a serious fucking facial hair problem, is somewhere else up there, in all probability gnawing on a grenade.
"We're unarmed," Brad calls. He lifts his hands, eyes urging the others to do the same. "We're unarmed."
Ray sighs, lifting his hands behind his head. Today sucks like nineteen different kinds of rancid donkey cock already.
"My crew will see to that," the man says. He nods down towards the cargo bay where Bravo Two Alpha is standing, hands behinds its heads, feeling really fucking sheepish. "Zoe, Jayne."
There's the quiet clanking of boots on metal as the woman - Ray figures this must be Zoe, then; he kissed a chick called Zoe once, but then he pulled her hair and she ran inside and wouldn't play with him any more. They were seven - comes down the stairs, gun levelled.
Initial recon confirms that this chick is definitely smoking hot - and Ray has little doubt that she'll shoot his ass if he moves.
He still winks at her, though. She stares right through him. Fuck that hot, pissy, coldhearted bitch, man. Ray is so over her already.
Ray swivels just a little bit at the sound of feet behind him and sees a guy who looks a lot like a Neanderthal wearing a bright yellow t-shirt and camo pants and carrying the biggest gun Ray's ever seen that wasn't attached to Walt, or a tank, or both.
This is Jane? Holy shit, homes. Ray's hit plenty of strange in his time, or at least read about it, or at least heard some guy brag about reading about it, but he knows pussy when he sees it, and this ain't it. This dude is all man, all the fucking time, and he's got the stones to tote a girl's name. Hell, he probably does gnaw on grenades. Probably doesn't even bother putting hot sauce on them first.
"They're unarmed, sir."
"Like I said," Brad says, and there's a hint of tetchiness there that Ray's learned to notice, or at least deliberately ignore, usually just before Brad turns the pissiness all the way up to eleven. "So if your crew will just put down their weapons, maybe we can talk about this."
"Well, now," the man in charge says, conversationally, leaning on the rail. "I guess we do have us something to talk about, since you and your strangely-attired friends have snuck yourselves on board my ship."
"We didn't sneak‚" Trombley starts, until Ray and Walt pretty much simultaneously clap their hands over his mouth. Ray is still digesting the news. We're on a ship? What the fuck, homes? He looks over at Brad; even the Iceman looks a little stunned, and that's when Ray knows for sure that they are A-1, premium-grade fucked.
"How'd you get in?" their captor interrogates. "We weren't but five minutes offloading our cargo at Blackfry, and we'd someone in the cargo hold 'most all that time."
Blackfry? Ray doesn't even know where that is. It fucking sounds like an operation codename, though. Maybe these guys are like some secret Delta Force shit. Except the uniforms - the uniforms are way off. But then, maybe that's why Delta's all so fucking secretive all the time, like if anyone found out they liked dressing up in cowboy costumes, the Pentagon would eighty-six their funding like that. Ray is fucking onto Delta, man.
"Unknown," Brad says. "We were on maneuvers when Corporal Person found a strange device. I believe that Corporal Person," and here Brad gives Ray a look that says I'm writing this up, "then activated said device, which appears to have brought us here."
"Hey dude, I didn't know it was going to send us to fucking Narnia, okay?"
"Shut up, Ray."
He shuts up.
"Hey, who are you, anyway?" Trombley asks.
The man looks amused. "Malcolm Reynolds, ship's captain. And you would be ...?"
"Sergeant Colbert, First Recon Battalion," Brad cuts in, before Trombley can answer.
"Sergeant," Reynolds says. "Huh."
Ray is working on a theory that the captain, who totally isn't his Uncle Hank except when Ray closes his eyes, which he isn't doing, because that's exactly what these cocksuckers want him to do - the captain isn't too bright.
There's the click of a rifle on his eight, and it sounds really fucking close to Ray's head.
Maybe it's also possible that this captain is one smart motherfucker who has surrounded himself with really, really fine pussy that also likes to shoot Marines.
"Don't look like any Alliance I've ever seen, sir."
"Funny-lookin' uniforms," comes a growl from Ray's three.
Reynolds comes down the stairs, his mouth in a thin line. "Who else knows you're here?"
"Dude, we don't even know where the fuck 'here' is," Ray says, which probably doesn't count as his finest negotiation speech ever, but fuck it, Marines make do. He catches Walt staring at him, and shrugs. What?
"Sir, this story about a device? Rings more than a little hollow, you don't mind my saying."
Ray agrees with hot, pissy chick, because he has to admit that if things were the other way around, he'd totally call bullshit - seriously, this is one gay-ass Star Trek plot they're in. This is Deep Space Nine levels of gay.
"Well, there's no denying that's so," Reynolds says, with a small smile. "Though Alliance might've seen fit to come armed."
"I say we space 'em," says the man called Jane, with a grin that reminds Ray way too much of Trombley.
"Jayne, your manners need tendin'." Reynolds says. He looks at them all. "How 'bout you people tell us some more about yourselves, and maybe we'll figure whether or not you're Alliance, or perhaps, turns out we don't like you, at least worth sellin' for parts. You-" he points at Rolling Stone. "Who are you?"
"I'm, uh, Evan Wright. I'm a journalist. Writer." Props to Reporter, his voice barely even shakes.
"So let's see if I have the measure of this," Reynolds says. "A writer named Wright."
"Uh, yes. Sir," Rolling Stone adds, quickly.
"He wrote Beaver Hunt," Trombley adds.
Reynolds blinks. "Can't say as I've heard of it."
Great, Ray thinks. Now this guy's gonna fucking waste us. Nice going, Trombley, you psycho goatfucker.
Reynolds scratches his nose. "But could be we're a little off the pulse of things, out here on the rim." He looks at Rolling Stone. "Happens maybe you could be useful, we find ourselves on some backwoods planet in need of somethin' to eat."
Now it's Ray's turn to blink, waiting for his brain to catch up.
"It's not that kind of beav-" Trombley starts, at the same moment that Brad says,
"Captain Reynolds, what my retarded team members are trying and failing to communicate to you is that we have no goddamn idea how we came to be on your ship, but if you'll just put us off at the next port, we'll be on our way, with no hard feelings."
"Well, Sergeant, much as I appreciate your candor, you'll no doubt forgive us for bein' a mite tetchy, having no understanding of how you've come to be here on Serenity."
Brad nods. "
"Your ship's called Serenity?" Ray silently prays that Reporter isn't getting out his fucking notebook. Although if their weapons are all gone, maybe the capricious fucknut gods who took those took Reporter's weapons, too. Not that Ray particularly believes in said capricious fucknut gods, but it's a lot easier to deal with this kind of thing if you buy into all that deus ex machina shit.
Reynolds nods. "Named after the Battle of Serenity Valley," he says, as though that fucking explains everything. And Ray hears a challenge in it, too, like and what are you going to do about it? though he's sure as shit got no idea what Reynolds is talking about.
"We have no fucking idea what that is," Brad says, after a moment.
"Son, you may be a giant among your people, but what kind of fei fei de pi yan backwoods planet are you from?"
What planet? Ray hopes the captain is just being metaphorical. He starts wondering about the quantities of Ripped Fuel he's ingested over the last forty-eight hours. Fuck, maybe this was the really good shit and he should have strung it out a bit longer, or at least cut it with Nescafé.
Also, Reynolds seems to have some fucked-up Chinese version of Tourettes. Like, what's up with that.
"Earth," Brad says, with such a straight face that Ray sort of hopes one of the hatches will open and Klingons will come out and declare war or some shit like that.
"Huh," Reynolds says.
"Captain, if I may," comes a rich voice from behind Ray, and he does turn a little bit to see, but not so much that anyone's going to take his head off with any kind of weapon. And this is just getting a little too fucked up even for Ray, because now there's a fucking pastor on board?
"I've heard tell of wormholes in space," the pastor says, "that would suck a man clean through and out the other side, into who knows where. I don't believe these boys are fabricating their story, and if you don't mind, I'd like to ask them about it."
Reynolds' face has seen its own huh and raised it huh. "Shepherd, you're saying these men are from Earth That Was?"
The old man smiles. "I'm saying, Captain, that perhaps we should take the time to find out before venting their bodies into space." He raises an eyebrow at Ray. "It's awfully cold out there."
"Now, no-one's venting anyone," Reynolds says firmly.
The man called Jane gives a disappointed-sounding grunt.
*
The inside of the ship's seriously retro, like someone's been watching too much Yellow Submarine, or maybe Thunderbirds or something.
They get to what Ray figures must be the bridge, and there's some ginger dude sitting there at a console. Ray notices that there are also some little plastic dinosaurs and shit, and seriously, they let kids on the bridge? What the fuck kind of loose-ass outfit is this?
The guy in the chair spins around and smiles. "Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the flight deck. Our cruising altitude today will be, uh, pretty high, with patches of planetary orbit and the occasional landing."
Ray's thinking their altitude's not the only thing that's high.
"This is Wash, Serenity's pilot," Reynolds says, and Ray can dig this, that they let Chess Club here pilot this thing from inside his own personal stratosphere. Ray's personal manifesto holds that driving or piloting any kind of vehicle for longer than a couple of hours basically mandates the ingestion of exogenous substances. Better driving through chemistry, homes.
"Wash, meet our new passengers. Sergeant Colbert, Corporal Person-"
"-Ray," Ray interjects.
"-Corporal Hasser, Mister Wright, and, uh, Corporal Trumpet."
"Trombley."
"Right," Reynolds says.
Wash smiles faintly. "Uh, Mal, not to be all bei gong she ying, but where the di yu did they come from?"
"Earth," Reynolds says, like he's daring Wash to say something.
Wash's eyes dart from Reynolds to Brad to Ray and back to Reynolds again. "Shiny," he says, uncertainly.
Reynolds turns to leave. "We should be docking at Starcrest in a couple of days, so I'll show you the rest of the ship and you can make yourselves comfortable. Afraid we don't have bunks for all of you, but-"
"Uh, where's the sea?" Trombley asks.
Everyone stares out of the window.
"Trombley, you asshat," Ray says, "It's just nighttime."
"I beg to differ, Ray," says Brad. "There's no fucking horizon. Just stars."
Everyone squints.
Brad gives them an odd look that's part smile and part something Ray can't even fucking begin to define. "Gentlemen, I believe we are officially the first Marines in space."
"We're on a fucking spaceship?" Ray squeaks.
"Fuck me," Walt mutters.
"Far out," says Rolling Stone admiringly, jaw hanging open in a crazy smile like a fucking dope fiend. He turns to Brad. "This is a hazing, right?"
Ray's half expecting Brad to clap Rolling Stone on the shoulder and say "Had you there, Reporter," but there's no way Brad keeps something this big from Ray. No fucking way. And anyway, Brad does nothing of the sort - he just looks at Rolling Stone with this slow grin on his face like Jenna Jameson just jumped out of a birthday cake wearing nothing but frosting.
"Isn't Captain Schwetje going to be pissed when we don't RTB?" Trombley asks.
Fucking Trombley, man.
Fandoms: Generation Kill/Firefly
Rating: PG-13, or maybe R, for language. You know Ray.
Word count: 3,300ish.
Disclaimer: Yeah, not mine. I just play here. Based on the TV shows. You know the drill.
Summary: "Ray, don't touch that-" *ZAP* The boys find themselves lost in an alternate universe where spacecowboys make break the rules. Thanks to their_darkness for the prompt :D
A/N: This started as comment-fic here <- total thread pimpage, btw but quickly got out of hand. There might be more.
"Ray, don't touch that -"
*ZAP*
"Dude, what the fuck just happened?"
"Goddamn it, Ray, I told you not to touch that thing."
Ray's expression is one of extremely fucking hurt feelings. Sadly, it's pitch fucking black in here and he can't see dick, so presumably even Brad and his superhuman Iceman powers can't see him either. Turns out NVGs are only any use if you put them on before the power gets cut.
"Where are we?" Trombley asks.
"Trombley, be quiet," says Brad automatically, somewhere to Ray's right.
"I can smell diesel," Walt says. Ray sniffs, and he's not sure it's diesel, but he's not sure it isn't, either.
"Nobody fire anything," Brad says, and Ray's about to remind him that they're fucking Marines and they know better than to light shit up when there's fuel vapor in the air, but then he thinks about Trombley, and there's really no telling what that psycho motherfucker's going to do from one moment to the next. Ray remembers this one time during a training exercise when Trombley's boot got caught in the webbing on the humvee's roof, and-
-somewhere in the middle of Ray's inner monologue, the lights finally flicker on, and at about the same time, a small orange warning light goes on in Ray's brain as he registers that the weight of his M4A1 is missing from his shoulder, and it's like he's suddenly naked or something. Shit.
"Our guns are gone," Brad says quietly, like it's not a really huge fucking deal.
They're in what looks like a cargo hold, and they're so exposed that Ray might as well pull down his fucking pants and stick his grandma's best bone china under his stones, serve them right up with fries and a dollop of fucking ketchup. Screwby.
There's no-one else here, though, so that's nice.
Ray looks at Brad.
Brad looks at Ray.
Ray mouths Where the fuck are we?
Brad gives him a look that's virtually identical to most of the other looks Brad gives him, just a little wider around the eyes - but Ray's been rolling with Brad long enough to know this means How the fuck should I know?
"Use your fucking Iceman powers, asshole," Ray mutters.
Brad gives him the other kind of look.
"Are we in H&S's supply truck?"
"Shut up, Trombley," and it takes Ray a second to realize that he and Brad said it aloud at the exact same time, and isn't that too fucking gay for words.
Walt seems okay, though he's got that tight look that means he's not happy, but Ray's not too worried about that. He glances behind him at Rolling Stone, who hasn't said shit so far. The expression on Rolling Stone's face suggests he's basically a packet of Charms away from totally unspooling. Fuckin' A, Reporter - though at least he's quiet about it; Ray has to respect that.
Brad gestures them forward in the same moment as training kicks in and Ray and Walt line themselves up to take the stairs, Trombley bringing up the rear behind Rolling Stone.
"Might want to hold your positions a minute," comes a man's voice from somewhere above. "There's folks as might not take kindly to strangers in their cargo hold, all uninvited."
A small part of Ray's brain wants to step out and say "Uncle Hank?", but he squashes that motherfucker right down, because Uncle Hank's been dead from lung cancer for twelve years, and wherever they are right now, Ray's pretty fucking sure it's not heaven. Man, if this is heaven, Ray's grandma is gonna shit a fucking brick.
"Figure I've got them, sir," Ray hears from somewhere above them, but they're all reconning the shit out this place, and Ray still can't see anyone.
"Stay frosty," Brad says quietly, under his breath.
Roger that, homes.
"You want me to waste 'em, Mal?"
"Jayne, maybe best I find out whether our guests mean us harm before we deliver them into the next world."
Ray hears a grunt. Jane? Seriously? In Ray's opinion, Jane needs to cut the hell down on the 'roids and Ripped Fuel. Seriously, Ray's met Recon Marines who sounded less butch. Fuck, he hopes the pussy in Heaven tastes better than it sounds.
And then there's movement above them on his two, and a man steps into view, and Ray's hands badly want to aim and fire, but there is no gun, and this fucking sucks, man.
Another movement on his seven and there's a woman there holding a gun a lot like the one Great Granddaddy Person used to have hanging over the fire. And at this point they might be in Wild West fucking Central for all Ray can tell, but from the way that chick's holding the rifle, Ray knows she knows how to use it.
He figures this must be Jane. She doesn't look butch, man. She looks fucking hot. And also sorta pissy. Ray totally doesn't mind if chicks want to tote guns and look all pissy so long as they also put out; Ray's personal prime directive is very clear on that last point.
"Sir?" she says, but she says it in a proper woman's voice, so maybe Jane, who by this point Ray's pretty certain is some seven foot tall chick with tats and a serious fucking facial hair problem, is somewhere else up there, in all probability gnawing on a grenade.
"We're unarmed," Brad calls. He lifts his hands, eyes urging the others to do the same. "We're unarmed."
Ray sighs, lifting his hands behind his head. Today sucks like nineteen different kinds of rancid donkey cock already.
"My crew will see to that," the man says. He nods down towards the cargo bay where Bravo Two Alpha is standing, hands behinds its heads, feeling really fucking sheepish. "Zoe, Jayne."
There's the quiet clanking of boots on metal as the woman - Ray figures this must be Zoe, then; he kissed a chick called Zoe once, but then he pulled her hair and she ran inside and wouldn't play with him any more. They were seven - comes down the stairs, gun levelled.
Initial recon confirms that this chick is definitely smoking hot - and Ray has little doubt that she'll shoot his ass if he moves.
He still winks at her, though. She stares right through him. Fuck that hot, pissy, coldhearted bitch, man. Ray is so over her already.
Ray swivels just a little bit at the sound of feet behind him and sees a guy who looks a lot like a Neanderthal wearing a bright yellow t-shirt and camo pants and carrying the biggest gun Ray's ever seen that wasn't attached to Walt, or a tank, or both.
This is Jane? Holy shit, homes. Ray's hit plenty of strange in his time, or at least read about it, or at least heard some guy brag about reading about it, but he knows pussy when he sees it, and this ain't it. This dude is all man, all the fucking time, and he's got the stones to tote a girl's name. Hell, he probably does gnaw on grenades. Probably doesn't even bother putting hot sauce on them first.
"They're unarmed, sir."
"Like I said," Brad says, and there's a hint of tetchiness there that Ray's learned to notice, or at least deliberately ignore, usually just before Brad turns the pissiness all the way up to eleven. "So if your crew will just put down their weapons, maybe we can talk about this."
"Well, now," the man in charge says, conversationally, leaning on the rail. "I guess we do have us something to talk about, since you and your strangely-attired friends have snuck yourselves on board my ship."
"We didn't sneak‚" Trombley starts, until Ray and Walt pretty much simultaneously clap their hands over his mouth. Ray is still digesting the news. We're on a ship? What the fuck, homes? He looks over at Brad; even the Iceman looks a little stunned, and that's when Ray knows for sure that they are A-1, premium-grade fucked.
"How'd you get in?" their captor interrogates. "We weren't but five minutes offloading our cargo at Blackfry, and we'd someone in the cargo hold 'most all that time."
Blackfry? Ray doesn't even know where that is. It fucking sounds like an operation codename, though. Maybe these guys are like some secret Delta Force shit. Except the uniforms - the uniforms are way off. But then, maybe that's why Delta's all so fucking secretive all the time, like if anyone found out they liked dressing up in cowboy costumes, the Pentagon would eighty-six their funding like that. Ray is fucking onto Delta, man.
"Unknown," Brad says. "We were on maneuvers when Corporal Person found a strange device. I believe that Corporal Person," and here Brad gives Ray a look that says I'm writing this up, "then activated said device, which appears to have brought us here."
"Hey dude, I didn't know it was going to send us to fucking Narnia, okay?"
"Shut up, Ray."
He shuts up.
"Hey, who are you, anyway?" Trombley asks.
The man looks amused. "Malcolm Reynolds, ship's captain. And you would be ...?"
"Sergeant Colbert, First Recon Battalion," Brad cuts in, before Trombley can answer.
"Sergeant," Reynolds says. "Huh."
Ray is working on a theory that the captain, who totally isn't his Uncle Hank except when Ray closes his eyes, which he isn't doing, because that's exactly what these cocksuckers want him to do - the captain isn't too bright.
There's the click of a rifle on his eight, and it sounds really fucking close to Ray's head.
Maybe it's also possible that this captain is one smart motherfucker who has surrounded himself with really, really fine pussy that also likes to shoot Marines.
"Don't look like any Alliance I've ever seen, sir."
"Funny-lookin' uniforms," comes a growl from Ray's three.
Reynolds comes down the stairs, his mouth in a thin line. "Who else knows you're here?"
"Dude, we don't even know where the fuck 'here' is," Ray says, which probably doesn't count as his finest negotiation speech ever, but fuck it, Marines make do. He catches Walt staring at him, and shrugs. What?
"Sir, this story about a device? Rings more than a little hollow, you don't mind my saying."
Ray agrees with hot, pissy chick, because he has to admit that if things were the other way around, he'd totally call bullshit - seriously, this is one gay-ass Star Trek plot they're in. This is Deep Space Nine levels of gay.
"Well, there's no denying that's so," Reynolds says, with a small smile. "Though Alliance might've seen fit to come armed."
"I say we space 'em," says the man called Jane, with a grin that reminds Ray way too much of Trombley.
"Jayne, your manners need tendin'." Reynolds says. He looks at them all. "How 'bout you people tell us some more about yourselves, and maybe we'll figure whether or not you're Alliance, or perhaps, turns out we don't like you, at least worth sellin' for parts. You-" he points at Rolling Stone. "Who are you?"
"I'm, uh, Evan Wright. I'm a journalist. Writer." Props to Reporter, his voice barely even shakes.
"So let's see if I have the measure of this," Reynolds says. "A writer named Wright."
"Uh, yes. Sir," Rolling Stone adds, quickly.
"He wrote Beaver Hunt," Trombley adds.
Reynolds blinks. "Can't say as I've heard of it."
Great, Ray thinks. Now this guy's gonna fucking waste us. Nice going, Trombley, you psycho goatfucker.
Reynolds scratches his nose. "But could be we're a little off the pulse of things, out here on the rim." He looks at Rolling Stone. "Happens maybe you could be useful, we find ourselves on some backwoods planet in need of somethin' to eat."
Now it's Ray's turn to blink, waiting for his brain to catch up.
"It's not that kind of beav-" Trombley starts, at the same moment that Brad says,
"Captain Reynolds, what my retarded team members are trying and failing to communicate to you is that we have no goddamn idea how we came to be on your ship, but if you'll just put us off at the next port, we'll be on our way, with no hard feelings."
"Well, Sergeant, much as I appreciate your candor, you'll no doubt forgive us for bein' a mite tetchy, having no understanding of how you've come to be here on Serenity."
Brad nods. "
"Your ship's called Serenity?" Ray silently prays that Reporter isn't getting out his fucking notebook. Although if their weapons are all gone, maybe the capricious fucknut gods who took those took Reporter's weapons, too. Not that Ray particularly believes in said capricious fucknut gods, but it's a lot easier to deal with this kind of thing if you buy into all that deus ex machina shit.
Reynolds nods. "Named after the Battle of Serenity Valley," he says, as though that fucking explains everything. And Ray hears a challenge in it, too, like and what are you going to do about it? though he's sure as shit got no idea what Reynolds is talking about.
"We have no fucking idea what that is," Brad says, after a moment.
"Son, you may be a giant among your people, but what kind of fei fei de pi yan backwoods planet are you from?"
What planet? Ray hopes the captain is just being metaphorical. He starts wondering about the quantities of Ripped Fuel he's ingested over the last forty-eight hours. Fuck, maybe this was the really good shit and he should have strung it out a bit longer, or at least cut it with Nescafé.
Also, Reynolds seems to have some fucked-up Chinese version of Tourettes. Like, what's up with that.
"Earth," Brad says, with such a straight face that Ray sort of hopes one of the hatches will open and Klingons will come out and declare war or some shit like that.
"Huh," Reynolds says.
"Captain, if I may," comes a rich voice from behind Ray, and he does turn a little bit to see, but not so much that anyone's going to take his head off with any kind of weapon. And this is just getting a little too fucked up even for Ray, because now there's a fucking pastor on board?
"I've heard tell of wormholes in space," the pastor says, "that would suck a man clean through and out the other side, into who knows where. I don't believe these boys are fabricating their story, and if you don't mind, I'd like to ask them about it."
Reynolds' face has seen its own huh and raised it huh. "Shepherd, you're saying these men are from Earth That Was?"
The old man smiles. "I'm saying, Captain, that perhaps we should take the time to find out before venting their bodies into space." He raises an eyebrow at Ray. "It's awfully cold out there."
"Now, no-one's venting anyone," Reynolds says firmly.
The man called Jane gives a disappointed-sounding grunt.
*
The inside of the ship's seriously retro, like someone's been watching too much Yellow Submarine, or maybe Thunderbirds or something.
They get to what Ray figures must be the bridge, and there's some ginger dude sitting there at a console. Ray notices that there are also some little plastic dinosaurs and shit, and seriously, they let kids on the bridge? What the fuck kind of loose-ass outfit is this?
The guy in the chair spins around and smiles. "Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the flight deck. Our cruising altitude today will be, uh, pretty high, with patches of planetary orbit and the occasional landing."
Ray's thinking their altitude's not the only thing that's high.
"This is Wash, Serenity's pilot," Reynolds says, and Ray can dig this, that they let Chess Club here pilot this thing from inside his own personal stratosphere. Ray's personal manifesto holds that driving or piloting any kind of vehicle for longer than a couple of hours basically mandates the ingestion of exogenous substances. Better driving through chemistry, homes.
"Wash, meet our new passengers. Sergeant Colbert, Corporal Person-"
"-Ray," Ray interjects.
"-Corporal Hasser, Mister Wright, and, uh, Corporal Trumpet."
"Trombley."
"Right," Reynolds says.
Wash smiles faintly. "Uh, Mal, not to be all bei gong she ying, but where the di yu did they come from?"
"Earth," Reynolds says, like he's daring Wash to say something.
Wash's eyes dart from Reynolds to Brad to Ray and back to Reynolds again. "Shiny," he says, uncertainly.
Reynolds turns to leave. "We should be docking at Starcrest in a couple of days, so I'll show you the rest of the ship and you can make yourselves comfortable. Afraid we don't have bunks for all of you, but-"
"Uh, where's the sea?" Trombley asks.
Everyone stares out of the window.
"Trombley, you asshat," Ray says, "It's just nighttime."
"I beg to differ, Ray," says Brad. "There's no fucking horizon. Just stars."
Everyone squints.
Brad gives them an odd look that's part smile and part something Ray can't even fucking begin to define. "Gentlemen, I believe we are officially the first Marines in space."
"We're on a fucking spaceship?" Ray squeaks.
"Fuck me," Walt mutters.
"Far out," says Rolling Stone admiringly, jaw hanging open in a crazy smile like a fucking dope fiend. He turns to Brad. "This is a hazing, right?"
Ray's half expecting Brad to clap Rolling Stone on the shoulder and say "Had you there, Reporter," but there's no way Brad keeps something this big from Ray. No fucking way. And anyway, Brad does nothing of the sort - he just looks at Rolling Stone with this slow grin on his face like Jenna Jameson just jumped out of a birthday cake wearing nothing but frosting.
"Isn't Captain Schwetje going to be pissed when we don't RTB?" Trombley asks.
Fucking Trombley, man.