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

* * *

Serenity/Granite Gorge – Going nowhere (Slowly) – 2520AD

With the Main Drive shut down you could depolarise the rear portholes on Granite Gorge to clear and watch the approaching vessel coming into dock with the stern airlock.

It was so dark it almost seemed to absorb the light around it but once it got close you could make out the sleek shape of the AI warship.

‘Ooh Shiny’ Kaylee commented ‘Well it’s anything but shiny but you know what I mean’

‘Looks a bit like a late model Frigate scaled down’ Wash said professionally over the intercom from Granites Bridge ‘Streamlined for atmospheric work and with limited radar reflective surfaces. Judging from the difficulty I’m having getting a decent lock with the Laser Rangefinder it must be coated with LAM as well as RAM’

‘Pardon?’ Simon asked.

‘RAM is Radar Absorbent Material, LAM is Light Absorbent’ Zoe told him ‘Military hardware only. Stops you getting a targeting lock’

‘Armament must be in internal bays’ Mal said ‘Jesus would you look at that thing’

As the AI got close it rotated and slid smoothly into position for docking. The front opened slightly to reveal a docking collar and the two vessels gracefully docked.

‘Nicely done Wash’ Mal told him over the intercom.

‘Haven’t touched a control since I turned off the drive’ Wash told him ‘I gave the command code told it to come into dock and it told me to let it do all the work. Speaks better than I do too’

‘Tell it to open its airlock and we’ll come aboard’ Mal told his Pilot.

‘I already did. And it tells me it already had. Watch out because it says it has no artificial gravity onboard. It also wonders how we got the codes’

‘It ain’t going to be a problem is it?’ Zoe asked

‘If the Blue Sun guy was telling the truth then it can’t overri