Disclaimer – Everything either does belong to Joss or it should. I’m just borrowing his shiny ‘verse for a while.

The 21st Lancers belong to the British Army so I’m borrowing them too. I hope they don’t mind.

Special thanks to both CastIronJack and Artships for Beta-Reading.

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Serenity/Granite Gorge – Drifting – 2520AD

Kaylee’s voice came through the intercom. ‘You’ve got the engines Wash, but the inertial compensator isn’t running yet so don’t pull too many gees.’

‘Good work, Kaylee,’ Wash answered then flicked the intercom onto loudspeaker so it could be heard throughout the ship. ‘Brace for acceleration. I’m going to build up slowly so you get a chance to find your footing.’

The pilot turned to Mal, Zoe and River floating behind him, ‘You’d better strap into those chairs because with no artificial gravity the stern bulkheads are about to become the floor.’

‘Why can’t Kaylee get the gravity back?’ Mal asked.

‘We’re still running on batteries, so anything that uses power is juice we can’t put into the engines. Kaylee’s got her priorities straight,’ Wash told him, ‘Once we’re going she’ll get the inertial compensator going so we can accelerate harder, then after that, she’ll get the reactor going so we’ll have all the power we need for the luxuries like not using a wall as the floor.’

The pilot flicked on the intercom speakers again. ‘Zero-point-One gee acceleration and building in five, four, three, two, one…’

Wash powered up the engines.

Mal felt himself being pushed back in his chair very gently but it felt like someone was pressing more and more weight against his chest.

Down in the cargo bay, a few of the crew who were still floating, found themselves moving towards the rear bulkhead. Or rather, the rear bulkhead was actually moving towards them as the ship accelerated ahead, but their own inertia kept them in the same place. The acceleration was gentle enough that they hit the wall very slowly along with a mass of foodstuffs, plates, cutlery a