Mal jumped the steps to the bridge and felt his breath catch in his throat as he stared out of the window, hand reaching out to lean on the back of the pilot’s chair. “What the hell’s that?”

“Didn’t even see it coming until the alarm went off. Nearly hit the damn thing ‘fore I could get the lights on it,” Hank admitted. “Look.” He switched off the external spots. “See? Or rather, don‘t see?”

“Bring ‘em back up,” Mal ordered, a thread of ice creeping down his spine even as he felt the rest of the crew come up behind him.

“Scary, ain’t it?” Hank said as he complied, and the ship hanging in space in front of them became visible again.

Mostly.

Where the Firefly’s illumination reached it directly, they could see hull plating, metal seams, odd patches of deeper black that could possibly be windows, but beyond that, where the ambient light should have at least reflected and picked up corners and created shadows was … virtually nothing. Just a cold blank area with no stars. Only by swinging the lights across it were they able to even guess at its shape – a fat cigar, like the ones in the smuggler’s hold, but with no protruding features.

Zoe was holding her breath, staring out. “Alliance?” she asked softly.

“There’s no markings I can see,” Hank said, his voice equally hushed. “No indication who she is, where she came from … She‘s just … there.”

“Beacon?” Mal didn’t mean to sound peremptory, but it came out that way.

The pilot shook his head. “Nothing. I been hailing too, once I got over my fright, but there’s no answer.”

“How come we can’t see her properly?” Kaylee asked, moving up next to her husband.

“There’s rare metals that soak up light,” Simon said unexpectedly. “We studied them at MedAcad since most of them are toxic.“ He pursed his lips. “Although to find enough to cover an entire ship that size … it would be prohibitively expensive. Even if you could avoid poisoning the crew.”

“Maybe it’s some kind of -”

“Kaylee, we don’t need to know how they do it,”