Merry Christmas!
I don't know whether to call this a Christmas present or a dreadful tease: It's the opening sequence for The Four Winds, which is my current long Firefly fic project. Post-movie, post-Wish I Was Somebody Else, so it includes both Wash and This Cat. Behind the cut, for anyone who has an interest. Remember, nobody's making you read it (it's nice and long). You don't have to click below (one of Our Heroes may die!). I'm not twisting your arm (it may be months before I finish this thing).
Don't click here:
Suspended in space, the tiny ship appeared almost immobile against the vast backdrop of stars. She was moving, of course; like the delicate nocturnal insect for which she was named, the firefly's abdomen glowed red-gold against the darkness all around her. Had there been anyone to see it, that faint glimmer would have told them that this ship was under power; this insignificant creature of the night yet lived.
But there was no one to see. So there was no one to notice when, in a movement only a careful observer would have caught, the ship began to yaw from her previous course.
Aboard the ship, the scale of things was different. Save for the clear paneled windscreen that fronted the bridge, and some smaller windows set into the top of the firefly's hull, there were no endless vistas here. Everywhere were human-scale enclosures of gunmetal gray: bulkheads and deckplates, inner hull, treads and risers, hatches, handholds. Here was sound: the quiet throb of the engine, the creaks of the ship's structure, the hiss of forced air. Here was atmosphere, pressurized and breathable, a mix of oxygen and nitrogen and the exhalations of eight human beings, one cat, and the infinitesimal molecules that gave her the scent of home -- grease and burnt tofu; coffee and ozone; incense and cologne.
Inside the ship, everything was smaller -- and there were observers here, too, although most of them were sleeping in the dull ship's night. But the ship was their world, and they felt her motion in their bones.
The pilot, more closely attuned to the motion of the ship than the others, felt it first and most strongly. He opened his eyes, wondering what had awakened him, and raising his head from the pillow just enough to disturb the ginger cat who lay asleep in the hollow of his back. The cat's movement, in turn, jostled the narrow bunk just enough to rouse the pilot's wife, who lay alongside him.
"Wash?" she murmured, reaching out to lay a hand on his bare shoulder. When she touched him, she discovered that he was struggling onto his elbows, and she woke even more fully. "What's wrong?"
"Dunno," he said, snapping on the reading light above their bunk. Squinting against the sudden illumination, Zoe studied her husband's profile. His blonde hair was touseled and spiky; his pale face seamed with red welts left by the wrinkles in the pillowcase. His body was taut, his blue-eyed gaze vacant -- he was trying to hear and feel the problem, not see it.
It had to be the ship. If it had been the crew, or some other threat, Zoe would have wakened first. That was what she was attuned to -- people. It was her job, as first mate, to keep the people on the ship functioning smoothly, the way it was her husband's job to keep the ship itself heading in the right direction, in one piece. But Zoe's gaze went distant, too, as she listened, because a problem with the ship could mean a problem with the crew.
Unable to determine anything while lying in their bunk, Wash threw off the blankets and swung his legs over the side, pulling on a pair of pants. At that moment, the ship lurched, pitching Wash forward off the bunk. He caught himself on the ladder that led up from the bunk to the foredeck corridor. A few unsecured items from the shelf above the bunk fell onto Zoe's head.
Grimly, Wash hauled himself up the ladder and headed for the bridge. Behind him, Zoe reached over the side of the bed and grabbed her clothing off the floor.
Across the corridor, the captain's head emerged from the hatchway of his bunk. Bleary-eyed and stubble-faced, Mal Reynolds shouted after his pilot, "Wash? What's up?"
But Wash didn't reply, pounding barefoot up the steps onto the bridge. Shaking his head, Mal turned toward the ship's stern and caught sight of Serenity's mechanic scrambling up from her own bunk. "Kaylee?" he called to the tawny-haired young woman. "What's going on?"
She stopped, standing just outside her bunk. She was still buttoning her work coverall. "Well, now, how am I supposed to know that, Captain, when I ain't even had a chance to look yet?"
"Go look, then," Mal ordered irritably, and Kaylee jogged off in the direction of the engine room. As she disappeared aft, Simon Tam's dark head poked up through the hatch of her bunk.
"Where's River?" he asked, but before Mal could snap "You better find her!" the ship lurched again, tossing Simon back down into Kaylee's bunk. Mal threw himself against the ship's motion, clinging to the ladder and avoiding the same fate.
From the bridge, Mal heard Wash give a shout, and knew that the pilot had found Simon's sister. "River!" Wash called. "What are you doing?"
Across the corridor, Zoe came up the ladder from her own bunk. Her dark curls hung loose around her face and down her back, but she was otherwise fully dressed, in a black tank top and brown leather pants, tall boots, and her gun belt. With barely a glance at Mal, she started for the bridge.
On the bridge, Wash had found River standing in front of the pilot's console, weeping. Her dark hair hung long and unkempt around her pale face. Her appearance was striking to Wash; when River had first come aboard, she had worn her hair dirty, her clothes mismatched and askew. After Miranda, though, she'd changed. Cleaned up, calmed down, seemed more normal and less like the troubled, damaged girl Simon had rescued from the Alliance and brought to relative safety here at the fringe of the 'verse.
Now, she looked once again like that troubled child.
She was touching keys on the pilot's console, randomly, as though she didn't know exactly what she wanted to do -- more strangeness. River knew how to fly Serenity, and often shared the duty with Wash. As she moved, she bumped the yoke, causing the ship to lurch again, which had the dual effect of throwing Wash into the hatchway, and letting him know that she had disabled the autopilot he'd set before going to bed.
"No no no," she murmured hysterically. "Don't go there don't go no no no."
Wash dragged himself back to his feet, calling out to the girl: "River! What are you doing?"
She rounded on him, snarling. "I won't let you take us there! Traitor! You'll get us all killed!"
Before Wash could formulate a reply to her raving, she moved, spinning in a roundhouse kick that caught him in the sternum and slammed him into the bulkhead. He sat stunned, the breath knocked out of him, watching helplessly as she came toward him. There was murder in her eyes, but Wash couldn't move.
Zoe appeared in the hatchway, and River turned on her. Wash wanted to shout a warning, but still couldn't catch his breath. It wasn't needed, though; Zoe stood calmly in the doorway, and said something that made no sense to her dazed husband: "Etta kooram nah smech."
River crumpled softly to the deckplates, like a dropped handkerchief.
Zoe stepped over the girl and knelt in front of Wash, her dark eyes full of concern. "Bao bei, are you all right?"
Wash gasped, pulling in a ragged breath of air that made his chest ache. He managed a nod, and Zoe helped him to his feet.
Mal came through the doorway then, with Simon right behind. The doctor went directly to his sister, pressing two fingers against her neck and pulling up her eyelids to check her pupils.
"She's asleep," Zoe said. "I used the safe word."
Simon shot her a venomous look. "Why?" he demanded. The crew of Serenity were Simon and River's only family, and they all generally felt that it was wrong to use the conditioning that had been done to her by force, without consent, against her -- Simon most strongly of all.
"She attacked Wash," Zoe said. "I thought it was better than shooting her."
"Are you all right?" Simon asked Wash, leaving his sister asleep on the floor. River's conditioning had included unarmed combat, and Simon had seen the damage she could inflict. They all had.
Wash was rubbing his chest, but waved Simon off. "I'm fine." He went to the pilot's console, where Mal was examining the displays.
"She changed our course," Mal observed unhappily.
"Gee, ya think?" Wash replied, flopping heavily into the pilot's chair. He checked his readouts. "She's turned us completely around."
"Well, turn us back!" Mal ordered. "We got to make this meeting. Can't afford to be late."
Wash nodded and put his fingers on the keys, undoing River's course alteration. "She was saying something about getting us all killed, by the way," he said. River was a reader; psychic. Even when she was crazy, it wouldn't do to completely ignore her warnings.
"Could be," Mal said grimly. "Where we're headed ain't exactly a safe place."
"What in the tien shao duh is going on in here?" The deep bass grumbling filtered in from the foredeck corridor, preceding Jayne Cobb's considerable mass onto the bridge. The big mercenary stomped through the hatchway, still griping. "Ship's jerking around, people yelling, how's a man supposed to sleep in a situation like that?" He took in the tableau of River in the floor with Simon kneeling next to her, and Mal and Zoe standing to either side of Wash in the pilot's chair, and jumped to the most obvious conclusion: "Girl's gone nuts again, ain't she?"
Simon glowered up at him. "Mal," Jayne said, his tone gone wheedling, "we ain't gonna go through this all over again, are we? I thought she was better."
"We don't know what's happened yet," Mal began. "No need to --"
"Wash?" Zoe said, laying a hand on her husband's shoulder. "What's wrong?"
The pilot had leaned forward, head down, clutching his console so hard with his left hand that his knuckles had gone white. His right hand was pressed against his breastbone, and his face was twisted in a grimace of pain. "Wash!" Zoe cried, catching him as he collapsed and lowering him to the deckplates.
Simon was instantly on his feet. "Get him to the med bay now!" he ordered.
"I'll do it," Jayne said, shouldering past the doctor and Mal to sling the pilot unceremoniously over his shoulder. He drew Simon and Zoe in his wake as he stomped aft, leaving Mal alone with River on the bridge.
Mal knelt next to the girl, brushing her hair back from her face and laying a hand along her cheek. "Well, little albatross," he said, "We been here before, I guess, but I sure didn't think we'd be here again so soon." Then, just as he had done in the Maidenhead, he slipped one arm beneath her neck and the other beneath her knees, lifting her gently, and carrying her away.
**
Don't click here:
Suspended in space, the tiny ship appeared almost immobile against the vast backdrop of stars. She was moving, of course; like the delicate nocturnal insect for which she was named, the firefly's abdomen glowed red-gold against the darkness all around her. Had there been anyone to see it, that faint glimmer would have told them that this ship was under power; this insignificant creature of the night yet lived.
But there was no one to see. So there was no one to notice when, in a movement only a careful observer would have caught, the ship began to yaw from her previous course.
Aboard the ship, the scale of things was different. Save for the clear paneled windscreen that fronted the bridge, and some smaller windows set into the top of the firefly's hull, there were no endless vistas here. Everywhere were human-scale enclosures of gunmetal gray: bulkheads and deckplates, inner hull, treads and risers, hatches, handholds. Here was sound: the quiet throb of the engine, the creaks of the ship's structure, the hiss of forced air. Here was atmosphere, pressurized and breathable, a mix of oxygen and nitrogen and the exhalations of eight human beings, one cat, and the infinitesimal molecules that gave her the scent of home -- grease and burnt tofu; coffee and ozone; incense and cologne.
Inside the ship, everything was smaller -- and there were observers here, too, although most of them were sleeping in the dull ship's night. But the ship was their world, and they felt her motion in their bones.
The pilot, more closely attuned to the motion of the ship than the others, felt it first and most strongly. He opened his eyes, wondering what had awakened him, and raising his head from the pillow just enough to disturb the ginger cat who lay asleep in the hollow of his back. The cat's movement, in turn, jostled the narrow bunk just enough to rouse the pilot's wife, who lay alongside him.
"Wash?" she murmured, reaching out to lay a hand on his bare shoulder. When she touched him, she discovered that he was struggling onto his elbows, and she woke even more fully. "What's wrong?"
"Dunno," he said, snapping on the reading light above their bunk. Squinting against the sudden illumination, Zoe studied her husband's profile. His blonde hair was touseled and spiky; his pale face seamed with red welts left by the wrinkles in the pillowcase. His body was taut, his blue-eyed gaze vacant -- he was trying to hear and feel the problem, not see it.
It had to be the ship. If it had been the crew, or some other threat, Zoe would have wakened first. That was what she was attuned to -- people. It was her job, as first mate, to keep the people on the ship functioning smoothly, the way it was her husband's job to keep the ship itself heading in the right direction, in one piece. But Zoe's gaze went distant, too, as she listened, because a problem with the ship could mean a problem with the crew.
Unable to determine anything while lying in their bunk, Wash threw off the blankets and swung his legs over the side, pulling on a pair of pants. At that moment, the ship lurched, pitching Wash forward off the bunk. He caught himself on the ladder that led up from the bunk to the foredeck corridor. A few unsecured items from the shelf above the bunk fell onto Zoe's head.
Grimly, Wash hauled himself up the ladder and headed for the bridge. Behind him, Zoe reached over the side of the bed and grabbed her clothing off the floor.
Across the corridor, the captain's head emerged from the hatchway of his bunk. Bleary-eyed and stubble-faced, Mal Reynolds shouted after his pilot, "Wash? What's up?"
But Wash didn't reply, pounding barefoot up the steps onto the bridge. Shaking his head, Mal turned toward the ship's stern and caught sight of Serenity's mechanic scrambling up from her own bunk. "Kaylee?" he called to the tawny-haired young woman. "What's going on?"
She stopped, standing just outside her bunk. She was still buttoning her work coverall. "Well, now, how am I supposed to know that, Captain, when I ain't even had a chance to look yet?"
"Go look, then," Mal ordered irritably, and Kaylee jogged off in the direction of the engine room. As she disappeared aft, Simon Tam's dark head poked up through the hatch of her bunk.
"Where's River?" he asked, but before Mal could snap "You better find her!" the ship lurched again, tossing Simon back down into Kaylee's bunk. Mal threw himself against the ship's motion, clinging to the ladder and avoiding the same fate.
From the bridge, Mal heard Wash give a shout, and knew that the pilot had found Simon's sister. "River!" Wash called. "What are you doing?"
Across the corridor, Zoe came up the ladder from her own bunk. Her dark curls hung loose around her face and down her back, but she was otherwise fully dressed, in a black tank top and brown leather pants, tall boots, and her gun belt. With barely a glance at Mal, she started for the bridge.
On the bridge, Wash had found River standing in front of the pilot's console, weeping. Her dark hair hung long and unkempt around her pale face. Her appearance was striking to Wash; when River had first come aboard, she had worn her hair dirty, her clothes mismatched and askew. After Miranda, though, she'd changed. Cleaned up, calmed down, seemed more normal and less like the troubled, damaged girl Simon had rescued from the Alliance and brought to relative safety here at the fringe of the 'verse.
Now, she looked once again like that troubled child.
She was touching keys on the pilot's console, randomly, as though she didn't know exactly what she wanted to do -- more strangeness. River knew how to fly Serenity, and often shared the duty with Wash. As she moved, she bumped the yoke, causing the ship to lurch again, which had the dual effect of throwing Wash into the hatchway, and letting him know that she had disabled the autopilot he'd set before going to bed.
"No no no," she murmured hysterically. "Don't go there don't go no no no."
Wash dragged himself back to his feet, calling out to the girl: "River! What are you doing?"
She rounded on him, snarling. "I won't let you take us there! Traitor! You'll get us all killed!"
Before Wash could formulate a reply to her raving, she moved, spinning in a roundhouse kick that caught him in the sternum and slammed him into the bulkhead. He sat stunned, the breath knocked out of him, watching helplessly as she came toward him. There was murder in her eyes, but Wash couldn't move.
Zoe appeared in the hatchway, and River turned on her. Wash wanted to shout a warning, but still couldn't catch his breath. It wasn't needed, though; Zoe stood calmly in the doorway, and said something that made no sense to her dazed husband: "Etta kooram nah smech."
River crumpled softly to the deckplates, like a dropped handkerchief.
Zoe stepped over the girl and knelt in front of Wash, her dark eyes full of concern. "Bao bei, are you all right?"
Wash gasped, pulling in a ragged breath of air that made his chest ache. He managed a nod, and Zoe helped him to his feet.
Mal came through the doorway then, with Simon right behind. The doctor went directly to his sister, pressing two fingers against her neck and pulling up her eyelids to check her pupils.
"She's asleep," Zoe said. "I used the safe word."
Simon shot her a venomous look. "Why?" he demanded. The crew of Serenity were Simon and River's only family, and they all generally felt that it was wrong to use the conditioning that had been done to her by force, without consent, against her -- Simon most strongly of all.
"She attacked Wash," Zoe said. "I thought it was better than shooting her."
"Are you all right?" Simon asked Wash, leaving his sister asleep on the floor. River's conditioning had included unarmed combat, and Simon had seen the damage she could inflict. They all had.
Wash was rubbing his chest, but waved Simon off. "I'm fine." He went to the pilot's console, where Mal was examining the displays.
"She changed our course," Mal observed unhappily.
"Gee, ya think?" Wash replied, flopping heavily into the pilot's chair. He checked his readouts. "She's turned us completely around."
"Well, turn us back!" Mal ordered. "We got to make this meeting. Can't afford to be late."
Wash nodded and put his fingers on the keys, undoing River's course alteration. "She was saying something about getting us all killed, by the way," he said. River was a reader; psychic. Even when she was crazy, it wouldn't do to completely ignore her warnings.
"Could be," Mal said grimly. "Where we're headed ain't exactly a safe place."
"What in the tien shao duh is going on in here?" The deep bass grumbling filtered in from the foredeck corridor, preceding Jayne Cobb's considerable mass onto the bridge. The big mercenary stomped through the hatchway, still griping. "Ship's jerking around, people yelling, how's a man supposed to sleep in a situation like that?" He took in the tableau of River in the floor with Simon kneeling next to her, and Mal and Zoe standing to either side of Wash in the pilot's chair, and jumped to the most obvious conclusion: "Girl's gone nuts again, ain't she?"
Simon glowered up at him. "Mal," Jayne said, his tone gone wheedling, "we ain't gonna go through this all over again, are we? I thought she was better."
"We don't know what's happened yet," Mal began. "No need to --"
"Wash?" Zoe said, laying a hand on her husband's shoulder. "What's wrong?"
The pilot had leaned forward, head down, clutching his console so hard with his left hand that his knuckles had gone white. His right hand was pressed against his breastbone, and his face was twisted in a grimace of pain. "Wash!" Zoe cried, catching him as he collapsed and lowering him to the deckplates.
Simon was instantly on his feet. "Get him to the med bay now!" he ordered.
"I'll do it," Jayne said, shouldering past the doctor and Mal to sling the pilot unceremoniously over his shoulder. He drew Simon and Zoe in his wake as he stomped aft, leaving Mal alone with River on the bridge.
Mal knelt next to the girl, brushing her hair back from her face and laying a hand along her cheek. "Well, little albatross," he said, "We been here before, I guess, but I sure didn't think we'd be here again so soon." Then, just as he had done in the Maidenhead, he slipped one arm beneath her neck and the other beneath her knees, lifting her gently, and carrying her away.
**