I

"Don't leave without me!"

Kaylee Frye raced through the ship, bounced down the loading ramp, and took off across the repair yard. Her heart was already racing just from excitement, so she had to pull up short to catch her breath before she was even halfway to where the old Wren Class transport was grounded. Just as well, anyhow. She had to do some quick thinking.

She couldn't believe her luck. Ship's mechanic! And on a good, solid 03 Firefly, too. That would make things easier. With Daddy, anyhow. But Mama, though...

She found herself breaking into a trot, having to hold herself back, breathe regular. That captain, now. He seemed real nice, and he'd offered her the job right quick when she'd figured out the problem with his reg couple. Like that was any kind of trick! She could've done as much when she was ten. Raised to it, you could say, what with Daddy running this little repair station on this dinky little moon since she couldn't remember when. And to think, if she hadn't took up with that cute mechanic, she never would have gone on board, and if the cap -- Mal, that's what Bester'd called him -- if he hadn't come along right at that moment, why, she might have been stuck here till the whole 'verse froze up!

And she might easily have never took up with him at all. That huan mate on the Wren had caught her eye first, and it was only when Bester'd offered to show her his engine room that she'd gone with him. And that had cost him his job, she thought, giggling. At least, it would, if she could only talk her folks into letting her go.

They just had to let her go!

There sure weren't nothin' on this moon to keep her. The boys here were nothin' but dirt poor country hicks, and she knowed 'em all close as brothers. She wasn't going to marry any of them, nohow. About all there was to look forward to was helpin' her Daddy run the yard until he got too old to do it anymore. But out there...

Out there in the black...

Well, out there, who knew what could happen to a girl!