Disclaimer: Joss, Fox, Universal Own em’. (Except for Allan and the kids. they're mine) I’m just playing. No money being made.

-

This story takes place nine years after Serenity (BDM) and has the established couples of Simon/Kaylee, Mal/Inara, Zoë/Allan and Jayne/River. Takes place five years post “The Bash”

-

A/N: New story arc. Set five years after “The Bash”

-

Woonsocket's gone MIA so this is un-beta'd No worries once she gets the edited version back I'll fix what's broke.

-

Relics

-

Chapter Three

-

EES Kansas, October third, 2114:

Captain Sylvia Marsh lay back on her bunk, staring at the ceiling. Absently, her hands moved to her still flat stomach. While on the bridge, she had to be Captain. In her quarters she could be a woman. Silent tears ran down her face. Not just for the lives lost in the collision, but two lives in particular. Her unborn child and that child's father, Kansas' Chief Engineer.

They had kept the affair secret. It wasn't good for morale to have two senior officers in a relationship. That was the catch 22. Kansas was supposed to be a generation ship. Everyone on board who was not already married was supposed to find a mate and have children.

Derick was a good man. The kind of man the crew looked up to. Not because he was an officer but because of who he was.

Derick was in the primary engine room when they had collided with the comet fragment.

Sylvia wiped her tears away. Derick was gone. In three months, she and her unborn child would be joining him in death. There was simply no way to she could think of to salvage the situation.

A knock at her door snapped the Captain back to reality. Sniffling, she tried to compose herself. She rose from her bunk and opened the cabin door. Outside stood her first officer, George Tashima.

“You got a minute Captain?”

“Come in George.”

As soon as the door closed, the first officer looked at his Captain, “You okay, Sylvia?”

“I'm fine George,” she replied, her tone of voice not conveying the me