Firefly/Battlestar Galactica Crossover fic: Illogical, Improbable, but True (PG)
Title: Illogical, Improbable, but True
Characters/Fandom: Firefly/Battlestar Galactica (Kara, Helo, Sharon, Lt. Emmitt (Sweetness) Jones, Mal, Simon, Jayne, Kaylee, Wash, Inara).
Rating: PG
Words: About 4300
Summary: On the ninth jump, something else goes wrong.
Notes: Set before Serenity (Firefly universe), but after Book has left the ship; set during BSG eps 2.19-2.20. AU. I couldn't tell who Starbuck's co-pilot was in the Raptor to Caprica (and couldn't find the info, either), so I guessed it might be Sweetness.
Disclaimer: Clearly I claim no ownership to the Battlestar Galactica or Firefly 'verse or its characters; nor am I making money from this fic writing thing.
On the ninth jump, something else goes wrong. They jump into empty space, and the rest of the SAR team is gone.
"Frak!" Kara glances back at Sharon and then Helo. "Where are we?"
Helo shrugs. "I can't get a fix on our location." He looks at Sharon too, but her expression is blank, unknowing and uncaring.
Kara turns to Sweetness. "What's the problem?"
"I don't know, Starbuck," she says, frowning, flicking switches. "Everything checks out - we should be with the others."
"Frak," Kara says again, louder. "Can we -" still meet the rest of the team? Fix it? She's about to ask when every control goes dead, and the interior lights blink out. The emergency lights kick in, casting everything in a dim, frustrating orange.
This isn't how it's supposed to be.
*
Helo tries, Kara tries, and frak, maybe even Sharon tries, but in the end, there's nothing they can do. The main controls are gone, the Raptor's out of commission, and they don't even have enough back-up power to find a planet, much less limp to it.
She sets the emergency beacon, and they take stock of the supplies. They've got enough food and water for three days, and the food can be stretched out a little longer, if they're careful. There's nothing they can do about the water. The Raptor doesn't even have any fluid recycling facilities.
"They can do it without us," Helo says, twenty-seven hours in. "Maybe they already have."
Maybe. It's possible that they made the last jump without Sharon's guidance. But even if they had, Kara had wanted to be there, wanted to see Anders again. She'd wanted to arrive in a blaze of glory, pull him out and laugh about it afterwards.
Thirty-two hours in, she threatens to shoot one of the marines if he suggests spacing Sharon again. His argument makes sense - one less body, more water for the rest of them - but Kara's not in the mood for the load of shit that will bring. Helo would go ballistic, and they could all end up spaced in the struggle.
Fifty-seven hours in, she wakes up with a start, disoriented and annoyed. "What -" and then she hears it. It's faint, but it's there.
" - need help? - repeat, we're getting an unknown signal. Do you need help?"
It could be a Raptor sent out to look for them. Or maybe it's another refugee ship, alone but still flying. It could be Cylons, but even if it is, they're dead anyway. It's not much of a decision.
She licks her lips carefully, tries to get some moisture into her mouth. "We're dead in the water," she says over the emergency channel, and then remembers protocol. "Raptor One, call sign Starbuck, five personnel." Her voice sounds rusty, broken. "And we've got a Cylon aboard." She knows Helo's glaring at her, but whoever it is deserves to know. And if it is the Cylons out there, it might keep them from shooting the Raptor out of the sky.
The voice, still faint, says, "We're twenty minutes out from your position."
Kara wonders who it is, and if they have news of the rescue team.
And when she sees the ship, she wonders again where the frak they've ended up.
*
Simon meets the crew of the strange ship with his medical kit in one hand. He isn't sure what to expect, but any drifting ship can't mean healthy people. He nods at Mal, who's standing nearby, tense, but he deliberately ignores Jayne and Zoe. They're positioned off to either side of the cargo bay, their guns cocked and ready.
Four exit the ship almost immediately, and one by one, Simon checks them over. They're suffering from mild dehydration, nothing serious. More worrisome is that they appear to be mentally exhausted yet twitchy. He needs to know more about their situation, but they could be suffering from battle fatigue or something similar. It bears watching.
Otherwise, they look healthy enough.
The last two out of the shuttle make him frown, particularly the way the woman leans heavily on the man's arm. Her own arm has a shunt in it, the skin around it bruised and tender looking. Her cheeks are hollow, her eyes listless.
She obviously needs more care. Glancing at Mal - who nods almost imperceptibly - he gestures to them and says, "Come with me."
The two heavily armed men - marines, they'd said - immediately lurch to attention and try to follow them. Simon just glares, tells them to rest, and eventually ends up having to lock them out of the infirmary. For the thousandth time since he's been part of the crew, he's glad of the heavy doors and the sturdy lock.
Turning to the couple, he looks them over carefully. They're wary, unhappy, and unwilling to let each other go. Simon has seen this kind of thing before - traumatized accident victims, or people too long on the run from something they can't voice.
He sees it in the mirror, on particularly bad days.
So he smiles his most professional smile, and says to the woman, "Why don't you lie down Miss - ?"
"Sharon," says the man, and then identifies himself as Helo. Sharon settles on the infirmary bed, and Simon looks over her arm, removing the shunt and bandaging the area without asking what happened. There's no good reason he can think of to have such a large shunt in that position - especially when it looks as though it hooks into something that isn't medical. She barely flinches throughout the procedure, even though he knows it must hurt.
He hooks up a rehydration and nutrient IV. Gently, he draws blood, starts on standard tests, does a proper scan, and then says, surprised, "You've recently had a child."
There's a pause before Helo answers. "Yes."
"It was a difficult birth." It's not a question. A difficult birth - one with significant blood loss - might explain Sharon's hollow cheeks. Maybe the shunt made everything worse, somehow.
"Yes."
Judging from her lack of affect, he suspects the child didn't survive the birth. "And the child?"
"Died," Sharon says, the first words she's spoken. "Or was killed. Depends on who you listen to." Helo's hand tightens around hers, and they look at each other, the loss almost palpable.
Simon shuts his eyes against their grief, and tries not to think about who would kill a newborn. After a moment, he turns to read the results of the blood tests. The readings make little sense. "This is wrong." He turns back to them, and Helo's mouth is set in a thin line. "What happened to her? These results - they can't be right." There are proteins, substances, in her blood that shouldn't be there, and he wonders if his equipment is contaminated.
It wouldn't be the first time.
But the way they glance at each other tells him it's not contamination. His suspicion is automatic - new Alliance experiments. That might explain the goons outside. Maybe they're watching over precious cargo. "Have you two been taken by the Parliament?" He drops his voice and leans in towards them. "Because our Captain fought for Independence. If you need help, he'll do it just for the satisfaction of spacing those two outside." Even as he says it, he's slightly shocked at how ruthless he sounds, how casually he suggests killing two men.
But Helo just shakes his head and says, "I haven't heard of any Alliance."
That seems almost impossible, but Simon ignores it for a moment. "Then these test results - ?"
"She's a Cylon." Helo's tone is hushed, resigned. Maybe even defeated. "Don't you know? They look like us, all right? They look like us now."
"Cylon?"
Sharon turns her head towards him, and starts talking in precise words.
Simon listens.
When she stops speaking, he looks away, looks up at the high window. River is staring through it, down at them.
She looks terrified.
*
"I can't believe -" Kaylee points at the relay, and Wash just leans in, nodding vigorously.
"I know! This is unlike anything -"
It's like nothing either of them has ever seen. Even though Wash trained in all sorts of ships, and Kaylee saw lots of different tech back when she was working with her folks, this is all new. This ship's got some real nice ideas, some maybe Kaylee can rig to work with Serenity, even. But sometimes Kaylee has to shake her head at what she sees. Whoever built this ship went for too complicated.
"See here -" the whole section could be cut to bits, rerouted into two simpler groupings. "I'm just gonna cut this out -"
"You sure?"
"Yep! It's gummed up, is all. And it's just 'cause it's too complicated."
Wash shrugs and grins at her. "I'll be up there." He gestures at the cockpit. "Something's wacky with the nav programming. At least, as far as I can tell from the way they do things. Now you've got some of the back-up power working, I'm going to see what I can do."
"Have fun!"
"You too."
Ain't like she's not going to have fun. It's not everyday a girl gets a new ship to play with, especially one so shiny.
*
Jayne ain't never met a woman like this one. Maybe kinda, the way Zoe is, but this one is like Zoe on a real weird day. Maybe she's a little like the Zoe Mal knew in the war.
'Starbuck,' she said her name was when she first came on board. Jayne had snorted that the name on a sexy woman was just asking for jokes of the dirty persuasion. She hadn't looked real kindly to his say so, and made that real clear, later on. Jayne hadn't taken the tussle too hard - hell, it'd been the best gorram fun he'd had since Mal had set them out on this long-ass, roundabout route.
Now, he's sitting next to Starbuck in the cargo bay, even though it ain't like she asked him to keep her company. She's set on watching Wash and Kaylee have a field day over her fancy ship tech. Ship's weird - ain't Alliance, or even old, ain't like anything Jayne's ever seen before.
Though, he ain't ever spent too much time looking at ships. Guns, now that's different, and Starbuck wears a real shiny looking one at her hip. His fingers itch to get at it, but he figures if he tried it'd lead to another tussle. Not that he's set against a tussle in particular, but Mal's already twitchy with these folk being on board.
"You wanna spot me?" he asks, gesturing at his weights. Maybe Wash and Kaylee are talking a mile a minute at each other, but looking at some little ship ain't Jayne's idea of a good time.
"Not really," she says. She looks real cranky, and Jayne's pretty sure this time it ain't his fault. So he tries again.
"Wanna play cards?" Maybe he can win himself that gun.
This time she actually looks at him. "Got some?"
He has to teach her how to play, but she catches on real quick. In half an hour, she's already won two of his cigars, and she's puffing away on one of them. Jayne's half tempted to quit playing, because these are the real thing, and he ain't interested in losing them all.
But then again, if he quits playing, she might leave. And it's been a while since he got to spend some friendly time with a woman who looks like this.
Might not be sex, but at least she's easy on the eyes.
*
Emmitt listens to the soft, groomed words that sound like something straight from the dazzling lights of Caprican high society.
Inara also looks like she was born in bright places, full of sunshine and luster and beauty. She's wearing a dress that Emmitt could only ever dream about owning, especially these days. Emmitt itches to touch the material, to feel something fine and beautiful under her fingers. But something about Inara says look, don't touch. So instead, she tries to focus on Inara's telling of the history of the frakked-up place where they've ended up.
The history makes no sense. Earth-that-was, dozens of colonies, Alliance, no Cylons. It sounds like a child's storybook.
No Cylons. "So, what do you run from? What does your Fleet protect you from?"
Inara looks momentarily askance. "Fleet? Ah, you mean the Alliance. Well. Smugglers. Crime. Agitators." She sounds only vaguely convinced.
Agitators, dissenters. She wonders if they're like Tom Zarek, out here, and how many support the dissenters. "Without the threat of the Cylons, your lives must be so easy."
Inara simply smiles and refills Emmitt's teacup calmly. Emmitt feels like a different person, sitting here with Inara. They all need to spend time with her - especially Starbuck, who is starting to wear on everyone's nerves. Inara might get her to settle down, quit bitching. Inara might calm that half-wild look in her eyes.
"So easy," she says again, "so lucky." It sounds so uncomplicated, this life without Cylons in a universe of colonies teeming with life and love and people.
Inara hesitates, and says, "There are also the Reavers." Her hand shakes slightly at the word.
"Reavers?"
*
As far as Mal's concerned, the faster these people get off his ship, the better. The one in charge, Starbuck, keeps pushing his people, and she's twitchy in a way that makes him feel twitchy right back. She's shaping up to be a regular pain in his ass, and he's got enough of those already. And it's not just Starbuck. Her people are taking up too much space, and eating up food like they've been stuck in a bolt-hole for months. Then again, from what he's heard about where they're coming from, maybe they have.
Not that he's sure he ought to believe the story, even with the odd tech, and Simon's medical reports. Still, he's never seen people eat protein mash like it's a gorram gourmet meal.
Ducking his head inside their shuttle, he yells, "Kaylee!"
"Don't gotta yell, Cap, I'm right here."
Yeah, he can see that well enough. Seems like some days, all he sees of Kaylee is her feet sticking out from somewhere, or her back as she's bent over some part he doesn't even know the name of. "You getting anywhere with this stuff?" He raps at the hull.
"Yep! Things are shiny, Cap! Lots of gummy bits here, and I don't know who's been looking after this ship, but I'm giving it a real good seeing to now. Wash was working on the nav stuff, but he's gone off, said he needed to talk to one of them about how stuff works. Think he picked the one in the infirmary."
"The robot?" And he's supposed to take that part of the story seriously? Because he ain't never seen a robot like that. He's heard there're 'bots out there, look real lifelike, but they don't act it. They sure as hell don't take up space in his gorram infirmary, making the doctor look a mix of professionally worried and personally nervous.
"Nope! The other one, Helo, on account of how Simon don't like his patients bugged. I think maybe Helo and the robot are married or something." Her head pops up from under the console. "Ain't that sweet? He knows she ain't human, and her people killed a bunch of his, but he still loves her." Kaylee's grin is wide. "Now, that's real nice, people putting aside those differences."
Yeah, well from what Mal's heard, it ain't quite that simple. Love never gave much more besides pain and hurt and disappointment, and he'd bet his spare shuttle that it ain't going to be any different for them two.
"Ain't it such a story, Cap? Means maybe them who're both human, but from different places, can maybe work things out too." She grins at him for a moment more, and then ducks back to her work.
Mal ain't stupid enough to miss who she's talking about, and he sure as hell ain't stupid enough to let her know that. Instead he says, "Just keep working. These folk give me the creeps."
She waggles one foot at him, and he takes that for his signal to get out.
*
Logically, River knows it's highly improbable that the newcomers are in the 'verse. And logically, she knows it's even less likely that they'll be able to return to where they should be.
But she can't deny the truth of their presence. And the 'verse isn't always logical.
"Tiny pinpricks," she'd said to Mal after they'd picked up the distress call. She'd tried hard to make him understand, "they don't just appear. It isn't right. They shouldn't be here. Poking holes, it's wrong, they're wrong, it's all wrong!"
He hadn't understood, no matter how loud she'd screamed. None of them had understood, she hadn't been able to find the right words. And now, all River can do is listen, feel, absorb the memories and emotions of the newcomers.
It's too much. Usually when everything builds up, River goes to one of her hideaways. They're small and quiet, just like her special hidey-holes from childhood, even if they are less comfortable.
But now Serenity's loud, too full, and even her secret places are overflowing with the clamour of unrecognizable thoughts and fears. River knows they minds of Serenity's crew well. She meets and cherishes their worries and dreams like they're old friends. But the memories the new people carry with them are too much - images of worlds ending, people dying, running, fear, running, hunger, more deaths, worry, worry, worry, killing, running more.
The feelings of loss are overpowering, and the love - missing lovers, mourned parents, dead children - is even worse.
The Cylon is the least chaotic of all of the new passengers, but her thoughts are the most terrifying. Model Eight remembers the destruction too, but to her it was a triumph, a cleansing that left her at peace. She's focused, convinced that she's logical, but her linear thoughts are mixed up with bursts of irrationalities.
She feels love and purpose.
"Not safe," River whispers to herself as she lingers outside the infirmary, listening to Eight's patterns. Logic and power and focus and outbursts. It's not safe, not for the ship, not for the crew, not for the Cylon.
Because maybe Eight mourns her dead baby, but deep inside, River can sense the new babies waiting to be fertilized, born, raised. River envisions these children growing up, moving, spreading across the 'verse, building new models, better versions, spreading a particular order. And eventually, each planet, every moon, falls before their beliefs, leaving nothing but burning buildings and graying ground.
"Wrong, wrong, wrong, overflow, too much broken logic," she mutters to herself, wandering away from the infirmary. The Cylon and her wrong logic have to go away, go back. They all need to go fast, faster than Kaylee and Wash can fix the ship.
So at night, when Kaylee and Wash are sleeping, as the guards doze, River sneaks into the cargo bay and works on the ship. She does everything she can to hurry their departure along, even if logically, she knows it's highly improbable that their leaving will be successful.
Sometimes logic isn't all there is.
*
"Just the two of us," Helo says to Sharon. Dr. Tam has left them alone again, and he doesn't even leave a guard outside the door. "Just like we agreed."
She looks up at him. "I know."
"We could leave the others." He can't believe that he's seriously considering it, suggesting it. But it seems almost too perfect - a place where they've never heard of Cylons. A place where people seem to be able to fade into the background. "Steal a shuttle. Or ask for passage to the nearest planet. We could stay here. Find work. Make a life."
Her eyes close, and it's a long time before she says, "No."
"Sharon -"
"Helo, do you really want to leave them? Your people?"
Yeah, he wants to say, in a heartbeat. But instead he asks, "What are we to them? Just one more fighter, and one more traitor."
"No," she says again, turning her face away from him.
He doesn't understand her, some days. This could be what they're looking for, a way out without returning to the Cylons. "Sharon -" he starts to say. But before he can continue, Dr. Tam steps through the door, already asking questions.
*
It takes them five of their days to fix the Raptor, but it feels like months. Kara's fought the urge to punch at bulkheads, drink too much, get into fights with everyone she sees, and yell at these people to work better, faster, with more precision. Gods what she wouldn't give to have had the Chief with them.
It would've been nice if Helo had taken his head out of his ass for two frakking minutes too. Juust so she could vent to someone who wasn't apt to try spacing her, steal her guns, talk a mile a minute to her about overly cheerful things, or bitch about prisoner security protocol.
After the one fight with the mercenary - and frak, he'd been asking for it - she'd managed to keep herself together. Focus, she'd told herself, focus. This isn't a pilot's bar where she can frak with the heads of everyone around her. She can't predict what these people will do, and she isn't the top gun here.
And when the repairs are pronounced done, she manages to keep it gracious with Captain Reynolds. "Thank you."
He shrugs. "Ain't me you should be thanking. Kaylee and Wash did it, and little River says whatever it was that brought you out here will take you back. Said it in a kinda poem, mind you, but it's my experience that even her poems ought to be listened to. If you can stand it." He pauses. "From what you said, doesn't seem like there's much for you to go back for. We can drop you at a colony, if you want. Tech like yours'll get you some coin, help set you up."
Somehow, she can't imagine living this way, running from the government, or eking out a marginal living on a distant colony. She'd spent time looking over the history of this place, and it seems like it has its own nightmares. "We have people waiting for us. They need us."
But she wonders if he's made the same offer to Helo and Sharon, and if they're tempted to stay. Not that she'll let them - she'll drag Sharon to the Raptor by her hair, if she has to. Cylons frakking up one set of human colonies is enough.
"I guess you do." There's doubt in his tone, and she's sure he doesn't believe their story. Frak, she wouldn't believe it herself, if she didn't know better. "So. Whenever you're ready."
She grins at him, her jaw clenched. "I've been ready for days." It is appropriate to offer payment? They have nothing that this man might want, aside from the Raptor itself, and he's never voiced an interest.
He holds out his hand. "Can't say I'll miss you and your people." But his mouth quirks up in one corner.
"Well, we appreciate the help anyway." His grip is warm and solid. She can't help grinning at him. She knows the mix of honourable and ornery too well. He would give the Admiral a run for his money. And President Roslin - that could be one hell of a showdown.
"And we appreciate how many of them damn cigars you won off Jayne. They ain't real popular on a long journey, 'specially since our air recycler ain't up to snuff these days."
She nods, watching Sweetness and the marines get inside. Helo and Sharon are next, the doctor giving last-minute instructions that Helo listens to intently.
After they launch, Kara looks out to the stars. The ship - Serenity - waits in the distance while they prep for jump, and momentarily, it looks almost beautiful against the darkness.
*
Inside the Raptor, Sharon watches the curve of Helo's back as he bends over the console. The shunt is back in her arm, and half-way through the prep, she knows the jump is going to be successful. They'll return to the eighth jump point, and from there make their way back to Galactica.
There's no point in going to Caprica. If the SAR mission wasn't successful, they're too late to help now.
But the importance of that mission - for getting trust from the humans, for binding Helo closer to her - pales in comparison to what's she's learned.
She's long known of the possibility of parallel universes, of course. Why would God be content with creating only one reality? The Cylons have never believed theirs is the only outcome. Some of the models are occupied with investigating the possibility of entering other universes, of watching human development - or non-development - elsewhere.
But as far as she knows, experiments have never accomplished anything, have never moved beyond the theoretical. Now it's different. In Sharon's blood, there's physical proof. The memory of what happened - of whatever brought them here - is stored in her molecules.
She has to get back and find a way to transmit a sample to the others. One of the models will decipher it - probably the Elevens, they're particularly good at puzzles - and then it will only be a matter of time before they're able to find a way to come back here.
"You OK?" Helo's frowning at her, and it seems like years since she's seen him smiling. She's not even sure she misses his smiles, or if she ever really wanted them directed at her.
"Yeah," she says, nodding slightly and dredging up a half-smile. "I'm fine." But she's better than fine. The others will be pleased. Expansion - and cleansing - has always been a central part of the plan.
End.
Characters/Fandom: Firefly/Battlestar Galactica (Kara, Helo, Sharon, Lt. Emmitt (Sweetness) Jones, Mal, Simon, Jayne, Kaylee, Wash, Inara).
Rating: PG
Words: About 4300
Summary: On the ninth jump, something else goes wrong.
Notes: Set before Serenity (Firefly universe), but after Book has left the ship; set during BSG eps 2.19-2.20. AU. I couldn't tell who Starbuck's co-pilot was in the Raptor to Caprica (and couldn't find the info, either), so I guessed it might be Sweetness.
Disclaimer: Clearly I claim no ownership to the Battlestar Galactica or Firefly 'verse or its characters; nor am I making money from this fic writing thing.
On the ninth jump, something else goes wrong. They jump into empty space, and the rest of the SAR team is gone.
"Frak!" Kara glances back at Sharon and then Helo. "Where are we?"
Helo shrugs. "I can't get a fix on our location." He looks at Sharon too, but her expression is blank, unknowing and uncaring.
Kara turns to Sweetness. "What's the problem?"
"I don't know, Starbuck," she says, frowning, flicking switches. "Everything checks out - we should be with the others."
"Frak," Kara says again, louder. "Can we -" still meet the rest of the team? Fix it? She's about to ask when every control goes dead, and the interior lights blink out. The emergency lights kick in, casting everything in a dim, frustrating orange.
This isn't how it's supposed to be.
*
Helo tries, Kara tries, and frak, maybe even Sharon tries, but in the end, there's nothing they can do. The main controls are gone, the Raptor's out of commission, and they don't even have enough back-up power to find a planet, much less limp to it.
She sets the emergency beacon, and they take stock of the supplies. They've got enough food and water for three days, and the food can be stretched out a little longer, if they're careful. There's nothing they can do about the water. The Raptor doesn't even have any fluid recycling facilities.
"They can do it without us," Helo says, twenty-seven hours in. "Maybe they already have."
Maybe. It's possible that they made the last jump without Sharon's guidance. But even if they had, Kara had wanted to be there, wanted to see Anders again. She'd wanted to arrive in a blaze of glory, pull him out and laugh about it afterwards.
Thirty-two hours in, she threatens to shoot one of the marines if he suggests spacing Sharon again. His argument makes sense - one less body, more water for the rest of them - but Kara's not in the mood for the load of shit that will bring. Helo would go ballistic, and they could all end up spaced in the struggle.
Fifty-seven hours in, she wakes up with a start, disoriented and annoyed. "What -" and then she hears it. It's faint, but it's there.
" - need help? - repeat, we're getting an unknown signal. Do you need help?"
It could be a Raptor sent out to look for them. Or maybe it's another refugee ship, alone but still flying. It could be Cylons, but even if it is, they're dead anyway. It's not much of a decision.
She licks her lips carefully, tries to get some moisture into her mouth. "We're dead in the water," she says over the emergency channel, and then remembers protocol. "Raptor One, call sign Starbuck, five personnel." Her voice sounds rusty, broken. "And we've got a Cylon aboard." She knows Helo's glaring at her, but whoever it is deserves to know. And if it is the Cylons out there, it might keep them from shooting the Raptor out of the sky.
The voice, still faint, says, "We're twenty minutes out from your position."
Kara wonders who it is, and if they have news of the rescue team.
And when she sees the ship, she wonders again where the frak they've ended up.
*
Simon meets the crew of the strange ship with his medical kit in one hand. He isn't sure what to expect, but any drifting ship can't mean healthy people. He nods at Mal, who's standing nearby, tense, but he deliberately ignores Jayne and Zoe. They're positioned off to either side of the cargo bay, their guns cocked and ready.
Four exit the ship almost immediately, and one by one, Simon checks them over. They're suffering from mild dehydration, nothing serious. More worrisome is that they appear to be mentally exhausted yet twitchy. He needs to know more about their situation, but they could be suffering from battle fatigue or something similar. It bears watching.
Otherwise, they look healthy enough.
The last two out of the shuttle make him frown, particularly the way the woman leans heavily on the man's arm. Her own arm has a shunt in it, the skin around it bruised and tender looking. Her cheeks are hollow, her eyes listless.
She obviously needs more care. Glancing at Mal - who nods almost imperceptibly - he gestures to them and says, "Come with me."
The two heavily armed men - marines, they'd said - immediately lurch to attention and try to follow them. Simon just glares, tells them to rest, and eventually ends up having to lock them out of the infirmary. For the thousandth time since he's been part of the crew, he's glad of the heavy doors and the sturdy lock.
Turning to the couple, he looks them over carefully. They're wary, unhappy, and unwilling to let each other go. Simon has seen this kind of thing before - traumatized accident victims, or people too long on the run from something they can't voice.
He sees it in the mirror, on particularly bad days.
So he smiles his most professional smile, and says to the woman, "Why don't you lie down Miss - ?"
"Sharon," says the man, and then identifies himself as Helo. Sharon settles on the infirmary bed, and Simon looks over her arm, removing the shunt and bandaging the area without asking what happened. There's no good reason he can think of to have such a large shunt in that position - especially when it looks as though it hooks into something that isn't medical. She barely flinches throughout the procedure, even though he knows it must hurt.
He hooks up a rehydration and nutrient IV. Gently, he draws blood, starts on standard tests, does a proper scan, and then says, surprised, "You've recently had a child."
There's a pause before Helo answers. "Yes."
"It was a difficult birth." It's not a question. A difficult birth - one with significant blood loss - might explain Sharon's hollow cheeks. Maybe the shunt made everything worse, somehow.
"Yes."
Judging from her lack of affect, he suspects the child didn't survive the birth. "And the child?"
"Died," Sharon says, the first words she's spoken. "Or was killed. Depends on who you listen to." Helo's hand tightens around hers, and they look at each other, the loss almost palpable.
Simon shuts his eyes against their grief, and tries not to think about who would kill a newborn. After a moment, he turns to read the results of the blood tests. The readings make little sense. "This is wrong." He turns back to them, and Helo's mouth is set in a thin line. "What happened to her? These results - they can't be right." There are proteins, substances, in her blood that shouldn't be there, and he wonders if his equipment is contaminated.
It wouldn't be the first time.
But the way they glance at each other tells him it's not contamination. His suspicion is automatic - new Alliance experiments. That might explain the goons outside. Maybe they're watching over precious cargo. "Have you two been taken by the Parliament?" He drops his voice and leans in towards them. "Because our Captain fought for Independence. If you need help, he'll do it just for the satisfaction of spacing those two outside." Even as he says it, he's slightly shocked at how ruthless he sounds, how casually he suggests killing two men.
But Helo just shakes his head and says, "I haven't heard of any Alliance."
That seems almost impossible, but Simon ignores it for a moment. "Then these test results - ?"
"She's a Cylon." Helo's tone is hushed, resigned. Maybe even defeated. "Don't you know? They look like us, all right? They look like us now."
"Cylon?"
Sharon turns her head towards him, and starts talking in precise words.
Simon listens.
When she stops speaking, he looks away, looks up at the high window. River is staring through it, down at them.
She looks terrified.
*
"I can't believe -" Kaylee points at the relay, and Wash just leans in, nodding vigorously.
"I know! This is unlike anything -"
It's like nothing either of them has ever seen. Even though Wash trained in all sorts of ships, and Kaylee saw lots of different tech back when she was working with her folks, this is all new. This ship's got some real nice ideas, some maybe Kaylee can rig to work with Serenity, even. But sometimes Kaylee has to shake her head at what she sees. Whoever built this ship went for too complicated.
"See here -" the whole section could be cut to bits, rerouted into two simpler groupings. "I'm just gonna cut this out -"
"You sure?"
"Yep! It's gummed up, is all. And it's just 'cause it's too complicated."
Wash shrugs and grins at her. "I'll be up there." He gestures at the cockpit. "Something's wacky with the nav programming. At least, as far as I can tell from the way they do things. Now you've got some of the back-up power working, I'm going to see what I can do."
"Have fun!"
"You too."
Ain't like she's not going to have fun. It's not everyday a girl gets a new ship to play with, especially one so shiny.
*
Jayne ain't never met a woman like this one. Maybe kinda, the way Zoe is, but this one is like Zoe on a real weird day. Maybe she's a little like the Zoe Mal knew in the war.
'Starbuck,' she said her name was when she first came on board. Jayne had snorted that the name on a sexy woman was just asking for jokes of the dirty persuasion. She hadn't looked real kindly to his say so, and made that real clear, later on. Jayne hadn't taken the tussle too hard - hell, it'd been the best gorram fun he'd had since Mal had set them out on this long-ass, roundabout route.
Now, he's sitting next to Starbuck in the cargo bay, even though it ain't like she asked him to keep her company. She's set on watching Wash and Kaylee have a field day over her fancy ship tech. Ship's weird - ain't Alliance, or even old, ain't like anything Jayne's ever seen before.
Though, he ain't ever spent too much time looking at ships. Guns, now that's different, and Starbuck wears a real shiny looking one at her hip. His fingers itch to get at it, but he figures if he tried it'd lead to another tussle. Not that he's set against a tussle in particular, but Mal's already twitchy with these folk being on board.
"You wanna spot me?" he asks, gesturing at his weights. Maybe Wash and Kaylee are talking a mile a minute at each other, but looking at some little ship ain't Jayne's idea of a good time.
"Not really," she says. She looks real cranky, and Jayne's pretty sure this time it ain't his fault. So he tries again.
"Wanna play cards?" Maybe he can win himself that gun.
This time she actually looks at him. "Got some?"
He has to teach her how to play, but she catches on real quick. In half an hour, she's already won two of his cigars, and she's puffing away on one of them. Jayne's half tempted to quit playing, because these are the real thing, and he ain't interested in losing them all.
But then again, if he quits playing, she might leave. And it's been a while since he got to spend some friendly time with a woman who looks like this.
Might not be sex, but at least she's easy on the eyes.
*
Emmitt listens to the soft, groomed words that sound like something straight from the dazzling lights of Caprican high society.
Inara also looks like she was born in bright places, full of sunshine and luster and beauty. She's wearing a dress that Emmitt could only ever dream about owning, especially these days. Emmitt itches to touch the material, to feel something fine and beautiful under her fingers. But something about Inara says look, don't touch. So instead, she tries to focus on Inara's telling of the history of the frakked-up place where they've ended up.
The history makes no sense. Earth-that-was, dozens of colonies, Alliance, no Cylons. It sounds like a child's storybook.
No Cylons. "So, what do you run from? What does your Fleet protect you from?"
Inara looks momentarily askance. "Fleet? Ah, you mean the Alliance. Well. Smugglers. Crime. Agitators." She sounds only vaguely convinced.
Agitators, dissenters. She wonders if they're like Tom Zarek, out here, and how many support the dissenters. "Without the threat of the Cylons, your lives must be so easy."
Inara simply smiles and refills Emmitt's teacup calmly. Emmitt feels like a different person, sitting here with Inara. They all need to spend time with her - especially Starbuck, who is starting to wear on everyone's nerves. Inara might get her to settle down, quit bitching. Inara might calm that half-wild look in her eyes.
"So easy," she says again, "so lucky." It sounds so uncomplicated, this life without Cylons in a universe of colonies teeming with life and love and people.
Inara hesitates, and says, "There are also the Reavers." Her hand shakes slightly at the word.
"Reavers?"
*
As far as Mal's concerned, the faster these people get off his ship, the better. The one in charge, Starbuck, keeps pushing his people, and she's twitchy in a way that makes him feel twitchy right back. She's shaping up to be a regular pain in his ass, and he's got enough of those already. And it's not just Starbuck. Her people are taking up too much space, and eating up food like they've been stuck in a bolt-hole for months. Then again, from what he's heard about where they're coming from, maybe they have.
Not that he's sure he ought to believe the story, even with the odd tech, and Simon's medical reports. Still, he's never seen people eat protein mash like it's a gorram gourmet meal.
Ducking his head inside their shuttle, he yells, "Kaylee!"
"Don't gotta yell, Cap, I'm right here."
Yeah, he can see that well enough. Seems like some days, all he sees of Kaylee is her feet sticking out from somewhere, or her back as she's bent over some part he doesn't even know the name of. "You getting anywhere with this stuff?" He raps at the hull.
"Yep! Things are shiny, Cap! Lots of gummy bits here, and I don't know who's been looking after this ship, but I'm giving it a real good seeing to now. Wash was working on the nav stuff, but he's gone off, said he needed to talk to one of them about how stuff works. Think he picked the one in the infirmary."
"The robot?" And he's supposed to take that part of the story seriously? Because he ain't never seen a robot like that. He's heard there're 'bots out there, look real lifelike, but they don't act it. They sure as hell don't take up space in his gorram infirmary, making the doctor look a mix of professionally worried and personally nervous.
"Nope! The other one, Helo, on account of how Simon don't like his patients bugged. I think maybe Helo and the robot are married or something." Her head pops up from under the console. "Ain't that sweet? He knows she ain't human, and her people killed a bunch of his, but he still loves her." Kaylee's grin is wide. "Now, that's real nice, people putting aside those differences."
Yeah, well from what Mal's heard, it ain't quite that simple. Love never gave much more besides pain and hurt and disappointment, and he'd bet his spare shuttle that it ain't going to be any different for them two.
"Ain't it such a story, Cap? Means maybe them who're both human, but from different places, can maybe work things out too." She grins at him for a moment more, and then ducks back to her work.
Mal ain't stupid enough to miss who she's talking about, and he sure as hell ain't stupid enough to let her know that. Instead he says, "Just keep working. These folk give me the creeps."
She waggles one foot at him, and he takes that for his signal to get out.
*
Logically, River knows it's highly improbable that the newcomers are in the 'verse. And logically, she knows it's even less likely that they'll be able to return to where they should be.
But she can't deny the truth of their presence. And the 'verse isn't always logical.
"Tiny pinpricks," she'd said to Mal after they'd picked up the distress call. She'd tried hard to make him understand, "they don't just appear. It isn't right. They shouldn't be here. Poking holes, it's wrong, they're wrong, it's all wrong!"
He hadn't understood, no matter how loud she'd screamed. None of them had understood, she hadn't been able to find the right words. And now, all River can do is listen, feel, absorb the memories and emotions of the newcomers.
It's too much. Usually when everything builds up, River goes to one of her hideaways. They're small and quiet, just like her special hidey-holes from childhood, even if they are less comfortable.
But now Serenity's loud, too full, and even her secret places are overflowing with the clamour of unrecognizable thoughts and fears. River knows they minds of Serenity's crew well. She meets and cherishes their worries and dreams like they're old friends. But the memories the new people carry with them are too much - images of worlds ending, people dying, running, fear, running, hunger, more deaths, worry, worry, worry, killing, running more.
The feelings of loss are overpowering, and the love - missing lovers, mourned parents, dead children - is even worse.
The Cylon is the least chaotic of all of the new passengers, but her thoughts are the most terrifying. Model Eight remembers the destruction too, but to her it was a triumph, a cleansing that left her at peace. She's focused, convinced that she's logical, but her linear thoughts are mixed up with bursts of irrationalities.
She feels love and purpose.
"Not safe," River whispers to herself as she lingers outside the infirmary, listening to Eight's patterns. Logic and power and focus and outbursts. It's not safe, not for the ship, not for the crew, not for the Cylon.
Because maybe Eight mourns her dead baby, but deep inside, River can sense the new babies waiting to be fertilized, born, raised. River envisions these children growing up, moving, spreading across the 'verse, building new models, better versions, spreading a particular order. And eventually, each planet, every moon, falls before their beliefs, leaving nothing but burning buildings and graying ground.
"Wrong, wrong, wrong, overflow, too much broken logic," she mutters to herself, wandering away from the infirmary. The Cylon and her wrong logic have to go away, go back. They all need to go fast, faster than Kaylee and Wash can fix the ship.
So at night, when Kaylee and Wash are sleeping, as the guards doze, River sneaks into the cargo bay and works on the ship. She does everything she can to hurry their departure along, even if logically, she knows it's highly improbable that their leaving will be successful.
Sometimes logic isn't all there is.
*
"Just the two of us," Helo says to Sharon. Dr. Tam has left them alone again, and he doesn't even leave a guard outside the door. "Just like we agreed."
She looks up at him. "I know."
"We could leave the others." He can't believe that he's seriously considering it, suggesting it. But it seems almost too perfect - a place where they've never heard of Cylons. A place where people seem to be able to fade into the background. "Steal a shuttle. Or ask for passage to the nearest planet. We could stay here. Find work. Make a life."
Her eyes close, and it's a long time before she says, "No."
"Sharon -"
"Helo, do you really want to leave them? Your people?"
Yeah, he wants to say, in a heartbeat. But instead he asks, "What are we to them? Just one more fighter, and one more traitor."
"No," she says again, turning her face away from him.
He doesn't understand her, some days. This could be what they're looking for, a way out without returning to the Cylons. "Sharon -" he starts to say. But before he can continue, Dr. Tam steps through the door, already asking questions.
*
It takes them five of their days to fix the Raptor, but it feels like months. Kara's fought the urge to punch at bulkheads, drink too much, get into fights with everyone she sees, and yell at these people to work better, faster, with more precision. Gods what she wouldn't give to have had the Chief with them.
It would've been nice if Helo had taken his head out of his ass for two frakking minutes too. Juust so she could vent to someone who wasn't apt to try spacing her, steal her guns, talk a mile a minute to her about overly cheerful things, or bitch about prisoner security protocol.
After the one fight with the mercenary - and frak, he'd been asking for it - she'd managed to keep herself together. Focus, she'd told herself, focus. This isn't a pilot's bar where she can frak with the heads of everyone around her. She can't predict what these people will do, and she isn't the top gun here.
And when the repairs are pronounced done, she manages to keep it gracious with Captain Reynolds. "Thank you."
He shrugs. "Ain't me you should be thanking. Kaylee and Wash did it, and little River says whatever it was that brought you out here will take you back. Said it in a kinda poem, mind you, but it's my experience that even her poems ought to be listened to. If you can stand it." He pauses. "From what you said, doesn't seem like there's much for you to go back for. We can drop you at a colony, if you want. Tech like yours'll get you some coin, help set you up."
Somehow, she can't imagine living this way, running from the government, or eking out a marginal living on a distant colony. She'd spent time looking over the history of this place, and it seems like it has its own nightmares. "We have people waiting for us. They need us."
But she wonders if he's made the same offer to Helo and Sharon, and if they're tempted to stay. Not that she'll let them - she'll drag Sharon to the Raptor by her hair, if she has to. Cylons frakking up one set of human colonies is enough.
"I guess you do." There's doubt in his tone, and she's sure he doesn't believe their story. Frak, she wouldn't believe it herself, if she didn't know better. "So. Whenever you're ready."
She grins at him, her jaw clenched. "I've been ready for days." It is appropriate to offer payment? They have nothing that this man might want, aside from the Raptor itself, and he's never voiced an interest.
He holds out his hand. "Can't say I'll miss you and your people." But his mouth quirks up in one corner.
"Well, we appreciate the help anyway." His grip is warm and solid. She can't help grinning at him. She knows the mix of honourable and ornery too well. He would give the Admiral a run for his money. And President Roslin - that could be one hell of a showdown.
"And we appreciate how many of them damn cigars you won off Jayne. They ain't real popular on a long journey, 'specially since our air recycler ain't up to snuff these days."
She nods, watching Sweetness and the marines get inside. Helo and Sharon are next, the doctor giving last-minute instructions that Helo listens to intently.
After they launch, Kara looks out to the stars. The ship - Serenity - waits in the distance while they prep for jump, and momentarily, it looks almost beautiful against the darkness.
*
Inside the Raptor, Sharon watches the curve of Helo's back as he bends over the console. The shunt is back in her arm, and half-way through the prep, she knows the jump is going to be successful. They'll return to the eighth jump point, and from there make their way back to Galactica.
There's no point in going to Caprica. If the SAR mission wasn't successful, they're too late to help now.
But the importance of that mission - for getting trust from the humans, for binding Helo closer to her - pales in comparison to what's she's learned.
She's long known of the possibility of parallel universes, of course. Why would God be content with creating only one reality? The Cylons have never believed theirs is the only outcome. Some of the models are occupied with investigating the possibility of entering other universes, of watching human development - or non-development - elsewhere.
But as far as she knows, experiments have never accomplished anything, have never moved beyond the theoretical. Now it's different. In Sharon's blood, there's physical proof. The memory of what happened - of whatever brought them here - is stored in her molecules.
She has to get back and find a way to transmit a sample to the others. One of the models will decipher it - probably the Elevens, they're particularly good at puzzles - and then it will only be a matter of time before they're able to find a way to come back here.
"You OK?" Helo's frowning at her, and it seems like years since she's seen him smiling. She's not even sure she misses his smiles, or if she ever really wanted them directed at her.
"Yeah," she says, nodding slightly and dredging up a half-smile. "I'm fine." But she's better than fine. The others will be pleased. Expansion - and cleansing - has always been a central part of the plan.
End.