“Okay, that was scary,” Hank said out loud as the shuddering died away beneath his feet.

Looking around anxiously, he was at least glad to see Serenity didn’t appear to be damaged in any way. “Not that I could do anything about it anyway,” he said out loud. “It’s not like I could run after anything might have fallen off.”

He realised he was talking to himself, and laughed shortly. “Great,” he added, shaking his head inside his suit. “Always knew I was crazy. Just goes to prove it.” Still, that juddering had unnerved him somewhat. “Much more of that and I’ll be needing to change my underwear when I get back,” he quipped. “And here I am, being all humorous, and no-one around to be impressed.”

Sighing heavily and fogging his faceplate for a moment, he continued on towards the array, trying hard not to think of all the things that could have caused his ship to judder like that.

-

Zoe watched as the tiny figure moved up the curve of the Firefly’s neck to the top. It paused, and appeared to crouch down.

“You be careful,” she murmured, too low for the children in the back of the shuttle to hear. “Just got you broken in. Don’t want to have to find someone new right now.” She absently toyed with the band on her finger.

Behind her Bethie and Ethan were staring at each other, but the little girl put her finger to her lips. Better Auntie Zoe didn’t know. No point in worrying her.

-

“I can’t do anything,” Kaylee admitted, wiping her greasy hands for the thousandth time on the piece of rag stuffed into her pocket. “Got no more control over that than over the lights.”

“Can’t you just cut it?” Freya asked. “Actually pull the circuits?”

“Wouldn’t help. This ain’t just a code been activated to stop you telling the doors to open. This is physical locks in place. Removing the circuit boards ain’t gonna make them undo.” She looked tense, unhappy. “Pretty much our only hope is that it’ll reset itself, like some of the other systems’ve done.”

“Not our hope I’m worrie