shatterverse | (no subject)

All around the ship, the alarms were ringing. The engines whirred as the Firefly class transport ship started to pull closer to the planets atmo. With struggling hands the pilot tried his best to pull the boat up as it zoomed closer to the desert below. "ZOE! the captain yelled out knowing by now his second-in-command should have managed her way to the bridge. "Zoe, this ain't th' time t' be sleepin in exactly!"

Gritting his teeth the pilot reached a hand up for the mic for the comm systerm. "Kaylee! What th' hell is goin on down there! Get the engine started back now!" Static greeted him. Static that shouldn't have been there.

Under his breath Mal Reynolds cursed in Mandarin doing his best to guide his ship, Serenity, over the settlement that they just so happened to buzz below. The thrusters groaned, spitting smoke before completely dying. In his mind he was already cursing down a list of people and parts that were going to be havin' a little talkin' to once things were settled- if they made it. "Liú kŏushuĭ de biăozi hé hóuzi de bèn érzi," he growled under his breath as a moment of time passed where the ship just glided closer to the ground before the scraping sound of metal on earth rocked the boat back and forth.

Then silenced passed. Good quiet silence from the ship as smoke continued to raise from the now dead thrusters. It wasn't pretty to say the least, but the hull was still in tact. After a quick check and finding the ship empty the slightly wobbly-legged pilot exited from hatch on the rear loading dock, glancing back toward the settlement then back to his ship. "Āiyā!" he muttered before sinking to his backside on the ground.

Welcome to the not!verse, Mal.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"If you're anything like my pilot you won't want to leave your ship behind," Dinah tells him, then turns her face away, fingers touching her earlobe lightly; or rather, the bird shaped earrings on that earlobe.

"Oracle? Can you see if Shay can come down here? I have a job for him."

A short while later, Shay gets a message, and there's a rather bright flash of blue flame from a spot near Dinah and Mal, before Shay practically bounds over.

Mal gets a very speculative look. He seems new.

"Need me to take something somewhere?"

"This," Dinah says, taking in Serenity with a hand sweep, "belongs to Mal, here, and she needs repair. Think we could 'port her over to the Cooper Farm so the mechanics can have a look?"

It doesn't occur to her that Mal might be surprised by random teleporters.

Why yes he is very surprised. See how his eyebrows seem to climb up his brow enough for a pretty decent WTF?! face? He's good at them. Really. Raising both hands, Mal slightly points in Shay's general direction. "Either something more serious than I thought happened on my boat or I'm dead, cause, you know, people don' just... pop.. outta thin air."

Giving Dinah a quick sidelong glance he actually considered the idea of offering her an arm for pinching.

"Right, different universes."

At least now she gives him a sympathetic wince. "Shay's a teleporter. He can get your ship to the next country."

"It'll be waiting for you at the Cooper Farm. If," he pauses, mid-unlocking the shackles around his wrist, "that's not a problem? It's not a problem, right? You love the teleporting, it's - it's very exciting. With the blue. Right? Right?"

Mal just stands there looking between Shay and Dinah. "If it gets Serenity where I can work on her then right about now I don't mind it at all." Touching at his brow again where the blood was finally starting to dry he winced. "And an ice pack or somethin' would do nice 'bout now as well."

"Thanks," she says to Shay, and steps back, gesturing Mal to her own plane. "We have basic medical equipment on the Aerie One. It'll only be a couple of hours before we get to the farm."

Shay beams, wandering towards the ship. There's a brief murmur of 'shiny' before both the ship and Shay vanish.

Thankfully Mal didn't wince to much as Serenity vanished into nowhere. Well, not exactly nowhere, just where ever this farm place was at. Letting out a held breath he looked back toward Dinah and nodded his head following her toward her own plane.

"Where is this farm place at anyway?"

"About a thousand miles northeast," she says, allowing some sympathy at seeing his ship vanish. "but Lady Blackhawk's an amazing pilot, it'll fly by."

The plane is smartly equipped, and comfortable: a blonde pilot salutes them from the cockpit and Dinah opens a cupboard to produce a first aid kit. "Let's get that cleaned up."

The plane is nice. Different. Sort of like the ones that were used around the Core for planet-side travel. When the pilot salutes he gives a little one back half distracted glancing about the ship. It's not until Dinah speaks up again that his attention is finally grabbed.

"Oh. Yeah." Reaching a hand up he lightly touched the spot along his brow that was cut open. It wasn't a bad cut just that head wounds always seemed to bleed the most of anything.

She judges him capable of cleaning himself up, so simply produces the appropriate cotton swabs, antiseptic and a mirror.

"Do you want something to drink? Eat? We're fully stocked."

Finding a place to sit and prop the mirror up, he started to fiddle with the kit a little. Needless to say when Mal opened it up he couldn't help but chuckle slightly. "No I'm fine. We may not eat good out in the black, but can't complain to much about protein bars."

Simon would quite possibly be laughing at him as he carefully cleans and examines the cut. It would be sore for a couple of days, possibly bruise, but it wasn't the worse that Mal would ever have in his life. "So," he starts again as he works, "how long you been here?"

Protein bars sound like the kind of things Shiva would make her eat. Yuck. Dinah helps herself to an apple.

"Over a year," is the answer. "Still waiting for some superpower to turn up with the way home, but we've been keeping busy."

Mal's hands stop for a second, head turning away from the mirror to look back at Dinah. "Superpower?" A wry little smile crossed his face. "Serenity may not be a big ship, but she could carry her weight and all that want to board her. Anyone try to actually fly away from here?"

That's a cute smile, Dinah has to admit.

She shakes her head, trying to figure out how to explain this.

"I don't know what you'd find," she says, "but I doubt you'd find anything like the planets you know. The problem isn't spatial distance, it's dimensional."

For what it's worth, she doesn't understand the physics, and it's obvious. She just has a hang of the basics.

"It there is a way here, there has t' be a way out. Always a loophole somewhere that aloows the smallest of things to get by." As cute as the smile might be there is an air of mischief behind it. This man was willing to give anything a shot at least once.

Turning back toward the mirror he winced a little as he went back to work. "Tell you what. We patch Serenity up, find a crew, and we'll do a little experimentin' and see what we find."

"Works for me," Dinah says. "I hope our mechanics can help."

Mal chuckled softly, finishing up and taking one last look. Yep. That was gonna leave a mark. "Something most likely just came lose, or broke, or something. Don't think it will be that hard to find and fix." Or it could be considering how he knew very little about actually fixing his own ship. Kaylee was the genious when it came to fixing anything.

"Good," Dinah says. "I haven't been up there in a while. Honestly I kind of miss the view."