Hoban Petherton Bough-Washburn--Wash for short, and, with a name like his, for damn good reason--surveyed the scene in front of him dubiously. He fingered his moustache, taking in the inadequacy of the ship's steering, the antiquity of the nonfunctioning dials and lights scattered across the indicator panel, the stripped, fraying wires hanging like wilted garlands from the cockpit cieling... Wash couldn't even identify what some of the stuff on the board was there for--the big red button, for instance. Was it the panic button? Did it activate the ejector seat, or was it just there for beaming up crewmembers? Tugging slightly on his moustache now, his mouth twitching, he poked his head under the controls. The first thought that crossed his mind was that he was not taking this job. Words could not describe the disaster that met his gaze in the under-panel gloom. It looked like someone had bought an Assemble Your Own Nav Con set, and then lost the directions.

Nope. This Reynolds--Captain Reynolds--had that Browncoat veteran look to him, sorta angular and tetchy, but he seemed like a nice enough guy, if one got past the whole "criminal" aspect of his lifestyle, and he was sailing a Firefly--or would be, if the ship wasn't in such disastrous repair--a fact which, before Wash had seen the situation in the cockpit, had been enough of a recommendation to get him as excited as a little school girl preparing for her first date with the captain of the rugby team. A schoolgirl with a penis, in his case. And a mustache.

Truth be told, Wash just wanted out of New Calcutta. His boss, Sondra Tanaka, was...well, things had gotten complicated. Not to mention that after a colorful incident he'd happened to witness during a recent cargo drop on Balboa, Wash just didn't feel as comfortable around her incredibly violent yakuza underlings as he had in the old days. Sondra wasn't about to hurt him...or, well, that was a bit complicated too. It wasn't, he decided on saying to himself, as though he were in danger. I