Out of Gas

By Joel “Horovits” Salomon,

based on the screenplay by Tim Minear.

CHAPTER ONE

SERENITY FLOATED THOUGH BLACK SPACE, engines silent, lit only by emergency reserve power. Adrift.

Alone in the cargo bay, Captain Malcolm Reynolds let himself collapse to the floor with a thud. He could hear the salesman’s voice in his head, “A real beauty, ain’t she?” Mal grinned weakly at the memory as he lay on the grill-work floor. He could hear the fellow’s voice in his head. “You buy this ship, treat her proper, she’ll be with ya for the rest of your life.” Zoe had something to say about that hadn’t she.…

* * *

The airlock doors opened with a loud clang and bright daylight poured in, illuminating the cargo bay. Malcolm Reynolds and Zoe Alleyne stepped aboard and looked around the empty, dusty room. Mal watched for his former Corporal’s reaction. Waited. Finally broke the silence. “Well?” he asked.

Zoe gave the ship another good long look before answering. “You paid money for this, sir? On purpose?”

She had to be sarcastic. “Wha— Come on. Seriously, Zoe. Whaddya think?”

“Honestly, sir, I think you were robbed.”

So not sarcastic, then. “Robbed? What, no. What do you mean?”

“Sir, it's a piece of fèiwù.”

“Fèiwù?” She had no call to be calling the ship junk when she’d barely seen it! “Okay, so she won’t win any beauty contests, that’s true enough. But she is solid.” He was using the salesman’s pitch on her, he realized; if it sold him, it should sell her too. “Ship like this, be with ya ’til the day you die.”

“Because it’s a deathtrap.”

“That’s not— You are very much lacking in imagination,” Mal sputtered.

“I imagine that’s so, sir.” She sirred him as respectfully as if he was still Sergeant Reynolds and she Corporal Alleyne, but Zoe could squeeze a lot of sarcasm into that word.

“C’mon,” he said, leading the way. “You ain’t even seen most of it.” He hadn’t really thought he could talk past her, and it was time to give up the attempt and let the ship do