“It’s Earth.”

Simon’s words hung in the air, the disbelief on all faces obvious, no one saying a word but just staring into space at the planet growing larger in the windows of the bridge, but still far off. Jayne was the first to break the silence.

“It can’t be,” he said in a tone of reference that none on the ship had ever heard come from the big merc before. And then there was a babble of voices that drown each other out as all sought to express what they felt.

“Huh,” from Mal and it was all he said for a long moment.

“That’s crazy,” came from Wash and he tried to give one of his sheepish grins, to make light of their situation, but no one was even looking at him so he turned back to his piloting.

Kaylee was looking at Simon and her words quickly followed Wash’s. “How do you know?”

“Ain’t no one ever seen Earth, not in…like 500 years!” Jayne added, before Simon could answer Kaylee.

“It’s…impossible!” from Inara right on the heels of Jayne’s words.

“Ah….,” started Simon but no one gave him a chance.

“Earth’s almost forty light years from our quadrant,” added Book. “We couldn’t have…no…Inara’s right. It’s impossible.”

“42.4 light years and no it’s not impossible,” River countered. “We’re here, aren’t we?”

Zoe was scanning and looking and she just turned to Simon. “It seems…familiar.”

Simon waited for them all to calm down and then they were all staring at him. He knew words would never do it so he reached on by Zoe’s control panel and logged onto the Cortex screen. But there was no Cortex, just static.

“Oh, right. No Cortex,” he said in a small voice.

“What? But that…” from Jayne and then understanding began to dawn.

Simon switched to the ship’s internal memory banks. “Let’s hope we have something on here.”

“Ain’t much, “said Zoe.

“Gorramn it, Doc, we can’t have gone clear cross the galaxy!” Jayne spewed out.

“Hey, give him a sec!” said Kaylee in defense of Simon. “Ain’t no Cortex, it’s gotta mean something’s screwy.” She looked to Simon to see if he noticed