As the ship was powering up to break atmo Iean gave a small prayer in Chinese to the grave thrusters. He sat on the stairs and held on to the rail calmly. He watched to ensure the bay door closed and the seal light came on. Iean went from the loading deck to the kitchen. Grabbing a cup of water he walked out to his room to the side of medical second level. closing the door behind him he took a few steps to water the Bonsai tree on the desk. he sat the cup down and took out a book to read. Things looked to be interesting with the new group. He would need new verses to inspire courage in the others.

As Iean read he tried not to focus on the vibrations of the hull or the fight between natural gravity and the artificial gravity. Space travel was better to the shepherd the thought of natural gravity and his Tai chi training taught Iean how forces could tear something apart. The academy training reaffirmed this with numbers. Most hull stress was created during the exit of a planets take off. Fireflies weren't exactly cutting edge of tech in the sky. They were easy to repair even if the mechanic was only half awake. It was the main reason they sold so well. Iean would check on the rest during chow.

The woman pursed her lips, silently praying to Buddha or Got that these unscheduled stops wouldn't become a habit. "Well, no mei mei. I was actually hoping to do some shopping. Maybe buy a hat. Just thought you might like to come with." She reached out and wrapped her fingers around the young girl's wrist. "But now you have to go race into the black. Just try not to fly like you stole this ship every launch, hey? I'll see you at dinner." With those words the Companion let go and smiled at Hannah getting along with the newcomer. She watched them scurry off and was only briefly concerned that their bond was building almost exclusively over their fondness for stuff that blows up.

The hacker stopped for the briefest of courtesies that Chang'e was momentarily shocked. He's usually a deaf mute around her. "And Richard is fond of you, Benson. Although Garry frightens him I think." He left without answering. It was progress for the quiet man. She watched the hangar bay doors close with a wistful gaze and wondered at what she was walking away from here. She then turned on her heel and walked through the hangar, up onto the ladder, and into the kitchen. She caught the preacher in passing and offered a polite nod.

She fished a tin kettle out of a neatly stacked arrangement of plates and began to go through the motions of boiling tea leaves and water to make the nectar that makes life worth living.

April chuckled and bowed to the companion with mock formality. "Alright, Daije, I'll take her out gentle for you. See you around." With that, she scrambled off down the ship, hurrying to her chair in the cockpit. She reached the bridge quickly, taking care to sidestep the piles of junk and knick-knacks she had left scattered across her space, before leaping into the seat and buckling herself in.

Throwing a comm headset around her ears, April spoke quickly while beginning the launch sequence, eager to be flying again. Truth be told, she felt more comfortable piloting or driving something than she did on her own two feet - too long on the ground and she started to feel restless. Her uncle'd always said the girl should have had wheels instead of legs - that didn't sound so bad to her.

"Alright everyone, this is your pilot speaking. It's a beautiful day here in Bumfucknowhere, shame we have to be departing so soon. Sit back, enjoy the ride, and let April take you places."

She moved a joystick and felt the engines respond, closing her eyes as the ship roared to life. "Ohhhhhhhhh yeah. Cyrek, you're a grease monkey, but you're a damn good one. Initiating take-off, stand by to break atmo."

It was a gentle takeoff... as takeoffs by April Cooper went. The ship moved horizontally at first, picking up speed as it did so... until April yanked back on the stick and the ship went almost vertical, hurtling up towards the atmosphere. "Wooooooo! Heart of Gold, on the road again!"

Benson was sitting on his bed, completely unsecured, with his admin desk resting against his legs and his fingers dancing across the screen. The diagnostics check that was infinitely running during power-up and take-off had a slight bug in it, and he had to surf the code and fix the problem.

Garry was occupying himself- itself, actually, but Benson charitably assigned it a gender for the sake of allusion- by trying to hack into his admin desk with its limited capacity. Each time the small somewhat aware artificial intelligence came close to breaking through the admin desk's firewalls, a small light blinked on the desk- and Benson quickly sent a small virus to Benson, giving the advanced firewalls time to repair themselves and shore themselves back up, while Garry suddenly acted like a dog for a minute as the AI counterhacked the virus he sent.

It was the only thing that brought a small smile to Benson's face, not since he'd first joined the crew months ago.

Then the ship abruptly started rising, and he shifted his attention back to the admin desk, wondering why April didn't do her usual address-the-crew. And, of course, his diagnostics had shut down several non-critical systems, such as the intercom.

Then he pitched off the bed and smacked into the floor, as the ship suddenly jerked about, destabilizing Benson's careful and precarious position on the edge of his bed- right in the middle of the room, too, since he didn't like being too close to walls.

He sat up, rubbed his head, and then decided that he needed to do something. His mother always told him to go out and do something, after all. As if he ever actually listened to her. Several moments of careful contemplation later, Benny decided it wouldn't hurt, sent a counter-virus to eliminate his surprisingly resilient dog program that was affecting Garry, gave the short follow me whistle- before exiting his room, Garry scurrying placidly behind him.

He passed anyone in the corridor with not a word, just a glance at their eyes, a glance at their attire, before he continued on- the equal of another's enthusiastic "Hello!" He passed by in his usual quiet, stoic self, making his way to the bridge. Once he walked through the door, he stepped carefully, casually over all April's junk, hardly glancing at it- he had long since memorized the placement of it all, and April had long since stopped really doing anything with the junk blocking the doorway, and made for the chair on the opposite side of the cockpit, sitting down, plugging his admin desk into the console, and then just staring out into the void, as April tried her best to tear apart the ship fly in a straight line to find and use the best escape trajectory possible.

He sat in his chair [subtly buckling himself in] and brought his feet up to rest on the edge of the seat, admin desk again on his knees and legs. But he didn't work on the ship's systems- his eyes seemed to reflect that he was watching much more than just the empty black, that he was seeing things that no one else could. Of course, an active imagination brought that- he was seeing nothing more than memories and different, alternate ideas on how things could have gone, from his death to a flourishing life planetside, rather than in the sky.

Then he turned his eyes on the young April, and asked, "What do you see, out there?"

Hannah helped Silas get his things into the grav locker, inputting the lock code just as the cargo hatch began to close. She grinned—she loved takeoff. Up in the black, nothing ever really felt fast like it did when they were breaking the atmosphere.

"Here, Mister Fairbanks," she said as the cargo hold pressurized for liftoff. "Buckle up." She grabbed the 'buckles' in question from a tangle hanging on a hook at the side of the hold—in reality, just heavy-duty bungee cords. She held one out to him, and clipped another to the buckle of her own belt—not exactly safe, or all that secure, but it would stop her from getting thrown across the room, at least. Honestly, the only other ship Hannah had ever been on, she'd traveled in a crate—this seemed perfectly safe to her.

And a good thing too—April took off with her usual flair, and Hannah cheered as her feet flew out from underneath her. She was suspended for a moment by the bungee cord tethered to the back of her belt, and then the artificial gravity asserted itself and her feet came crashing back to the deck. Unhooking the cord with the air of long practice, she smoothly stuck out hands and feet from her position to one side of the hold to catch crates and barrels rolling. When she had to resort to ducking and catching a falling sheaf of documents on her back, she started whistling again, rolling them back to their proper places.

When she was done, Hannah dusted off her hands and turned back to Silas with a bright smile. "And that's liftoff!" she said cheerfully. "Care to take the tour? There's really not much to see, but it's good to know where you eat, yknow?"

The crew had gotten things in order quickly, which pleased the crew boss; now they could get on their way. What didn't please her so much was that she heard no announcement over the com saying anything about a take off and she heard the ship power up to do just that. "What in bloody hell, she knows to announce a take off before she powers up!" the captain exclaimed.

Captain had taken a detour to the cargo bay to secure a few things at the last minute and was just making her way up the stairs to the main deck of the ship when the ship started to take off without warning. Grabbing the railing of the stairs quickly with one hand and locking a foot under a stair she leaned against the railing and braced herself. The initial thrust pulled her back slightly but she managed to hold her footing as they broke atmo. Taking another cigarette out she lit it and made her way angrily towards the cockpit.

Taking a long pull as the gravity force returned to normal, Captain continued on her way. Walking through the kitchen area she took long strides until she reached the bridge.

"Where in the hell was the Gorram announcement so people can brace themselves?" Captain snapped as she held the cigarette between her lips and placed a hand on the edge of the console as she entered in a few things. The course had be rerouted to take them a bit further out than the direct route that had been planned but she had good reason for the course change.

"Reaver attack," she said as she pointed to the center of their previous course. "Longer travel time is better than dead," she added as she pushed the smoke out of her lungs and between her teeth. "Still, stay alert. No auto pilot this trip."

April still had a broad, idiot grin plastered on her face as the ship broke atmo, the rush and clattering of friction giving way to pure, smooth inertia. Not a bad take-off, if she dared say so herself.

The door opened behind her, and in came Benson the quiet and his little pet robot. He was in her part of the ship pretty often, doing... whatever it was he did (which was not to say she didn't respect his work - more, she didn't understand it). He was usually silent, though, which is why the girl actually jumped a little when he said something to her. "What do you see, out there?"

April peered out into the blackness. "I... dunno? Space? Darkness? Adventure? The true frontier? The thing I'm gonna still be staring at when yall get to go to sleep?" She glanced over to him. "Why? What do you see out there?"

The quiet conversation was cut off when the captain burst into the room, cursing up a storm about April's alleged lack of take-off announcement. "Your hearing must be going, Cap'n," the pilot shot back. "Announcement came through loud and clear." She began to fiddle with a panel off to the side of the cockpit. "Here, let me show you on the log aaaand fuck me sideways, intercom's down." The girl sighed. "Well, let's hope nobody broke nothing."

Though she didn't let on, a chill went down her spine at the captain's second order. Better late than dead. Better dead than Reavers. This was going to be a long flight.

Benson stared at April the pilot, face dropping into a slightly more impassive and blank than it had been before- even though before, it had been only barely pleasant. But instead of turning away or responding, like another person would do, he just stared blankly at her for several moments, waiting for the captain and the pilot's communication to end. Then he shifted attention to the captain, and said, "The intercom was offline because of a faulty diagnostics program. I'm restarting it with another section of code to prevent it from shutting off other noncritical systems."

Then he paused for a moment, and said slightly more human-like- you know, with emotion- "Besides, captain, it'll keep you on your toes." He turned back to April and answered her right after, without any moment for interjection on either of the two other people's part. "When I look into the void, I see possibilities. Had I not joined this crew, I would be dead right now. Just a fact, really. Had I joined a different crew- one of the other two ships rather than this one- I'd either be dead or in a crew with elements that are far worse than ourselves. The void is my escape- my prison. It's everyone else's escape and prison, too, because we're all stuck here with physics and such to limit ourselves, with only minimal research going into truly ground-breaking things like quantum physics- which, mind you, could be the difference between weeks and months of time to get between interplanetary space, to days and hours. Simply observing a Kyoopy (Which, when he pronouces it, sounds very much like "Q" and then "P") particle can change its properties and state- and that particle can be in multiple places at once, so simply looking at something could tell someone on the opposite side of the continent, planet, or even across the system about whether or not that person is looking at it. And that's scratching the surface- one could create a device to use these entangled particles to create an instant communications device that can transmit across any amount of space without fail, because there is no signal, there is nothing to be interfered with- it's just-"

Then Benson, who in the middle of his rather passionate, rushed speech, froze, staring wide-eyed at his audience of two with a very rare show of expression- that is, passion, surprise, shock, and confusion. Then the moment passed, and his face closed down again, emotion wiping off of it as he sat back down and hugged his legs, looking anywhere but the captain and pilot, almost expecting to be punished or reprimanded, expecting something negative. Garry, in his programmed wisdom, climbed back onto his owner's knee, and called out the time. In a very obviously pre-programmed voice, Garry the mechanical spider screamed in a loud, manly voice, "IT IS SIX. FORTY. THREEEEE!" A short pause followed, about two or three seconds, before the recording said, "THAAAANK YOOU!"

Then the small spider's faceplates extended as far away from each other, pleased with itself.

Captain rolled her eyes slightly and shook her head, the ash of her cigarette falling to the grated floor as she crossed her arms over her chest. "You didn't think to check the gorram com before you took off?" she said as she narrowed her eyes. "I swear woman, if anything is damaged I'm going to set up a picnic for the Reavers with you as the main course," she hissed before her attention was drawn to Benny and his little speech. Tilting her head to the side she just stared at him blankly, not exactly sure what to say and waiting for him to finished.

"Riiiight... Well next time you want to take the com down you need to let people know before you do!" she snapped before turning on her heels and walking towards the exit of the bridge. Stopping at the door frame she looked back over towards them and shook her head before continuing on her way, muttering something about being too old for this shit. Heading through the ship she made her way back towards the engine room to make sure nothing happened down there during take off and to head off Cyrek if he decided to go rip April a new one for the take off without warning. Granted right then she wouldn't blame him for wanting to nor stop him but she would direct him towards Benny instead of April this time.

Hannah showed Silas the majority of the ship with the same cheerfulness she showed everything else, chattering constantly and throwing in anecdotes about the various places they visited. Finally, though, she showed him his quarters—not much of one, more like a narrow space between bulkheads with a bunk and a tiny locker.

"Showers are down the hall, cold water only if we even have that," she went on as she ushered Silas inside, ticking points off on her fingers. "You saw the mess hall, we kind of...make our own grub, I don't think we have a cook yet. If you want some of my leftovers , though, you're welcome to them. And...I guess stay out of the bridge unless the Cap wants you there? That sounds good, right?" After frowning at nothing for a moment, trying to remember if there was anything else important, she smiled and clapped the gunsmith on the shoulder. "And that's that. Comm me if you've got questions!"

With that, she left him to it, heading up to the bridge. Since Incident #1 and #2 in the cargo hold, she wasn't allowed down there when they were off-planet, so she usually spent her time in a quiet corner of the bridge—there wasn't nearly enough space in her quarters to fiddle around properly, and she only brought her stuff out into the mess hall when she was absolutely sure no one else was on board. Call her paranoid.

When Hannah actually reached the bridge, she paused in the hatch unnoticed, and she was glad she did. She'd never heard Benson say that many words at once, period—much less look so passionate about them. When his little speech was finished, she was staring at him wide-eyed, hands clasped under her chin with a look that could only be described as star-struck. He cut himself off, though, and she inched forward before dropping into an empty chair.

"I didn't know about QP particles," she said into the silence, folding her legs under her and propping her elbows on her knees. When Garry responded with the time, she smiled, leaning over to gently pet the little mechanical arachnid on one of his larger plates as the Captain stormed out. "I think space is the last great roll of the die," she said simply, propping her chin on a fist, because Benny had asked a question and she'd never been shy about speaking her mind. "You either get sucked out to die in vacuum, or visit strange new worlds and seek out new lifeforms. It really is all it's cracked up to be."

Hannah smiled, face instantly becoming less serious and more her usual open expression, and gave Garry one last pat before grinning at Benson. "At least we found the Heart of Gold, right? Also, if any of you find a small metal sphere with a blue light on it stuck in a console somewhere up here, please don't touch it."

April muttered as the captain left, "It's Reaver threats, now? Someone needs some alone time."

The pilot listened to Benson's lengthy reply in silence, an expression of confusion steadily growing on her face. When he was finished she turned to address him. "The fuck is a qyoopy particle?" However, when she saw him curled up in a ball, his face a mask of horror, her tone softened. "Hey, easy chief. It's all good. Good to know you can actually talk, yeah? I'm glad you picked this ship too." She smiled and turned back to the controls, giggling slightly at the robotic announcement. "Heh. Thanks, little partner, I was sorta wonderin." Her expression grew flat again. "But seriously, tell me next time you fuck the ship over."

Hannah arrived then and plopped down in a seat, and April spared the girl a warm smile. She didn't really understand the vacant demolitionist, but she could appreciate her endless cheeriness and penchant for breaking things. At least someone appreciated the work she did flying the ship. April listened to the girl's response and nodded, brows furrowed.

She let out a great breath and spoke. "Gee. Chance, prison, potentials... I don't really think about things like that. But if I had to say... I reckon I'd say space is freedom. You can go anywhere, do anything you want, see anything you want. It's a... a chance for a new start, for all of us. A place we can go where nobody can tell us what to think or do or say. Where we can... live the way we was meant to. Free and easy, without big governments and judges and captains getting their dicks in our business, fuckin' things up for all of us." She paused. "Not makin' sense, am I?"

Being in the black made Iean a little more introspective. He entered his room to find a book about Buddhism. He then went to the hold and sat on the gang plank facing the hold. Reading helped to pass the time during the long trips. The heart of gold was a good design. The ways that the walls in the hold where the center of the ships frame work made Iean believe that his thoughts would spread to the rest of the compartments like a heart pushes blood. The book was one of his favorites. He read the others too, but the simplicity of Buddhism was what helped Iean believe in the good of others.

After a good long while Iean closed the book. He used the teachings more to himself then others. It helped center him. To focus less on the quiet vibration of the engine pushing him further into the black. This was Iean's time. The time to watch the other people sharing the space and learn from them what he could about their personalities and styles. Iean would sit quietly and listen to the voices around him. Not just the crew but the engineer who built these ships. There was a story in each rivet and weld. The creativity of the pioneering spirit was written in this ship. He was never the type to push belief on others but when the situation warranted his attention then he would apply the lesson. Standing to stretch his legs he started to do some yoga.

Captain stopped in her tracks, a faint smell of burning wafting to her senses causing her heart beat to quicken and her breath to stop. Pale eyes froze as her pupils dialated.

"Gorram," she muttered as she sprang from her spot, boots falling heavy on the cat walk, echoing through the ship as she ran. Down the steps in a single leap before darting to the next cat walk. Then it a happened, a thunderous vibrated tore through the ship and Captain was flung from the cat walk, catching a railing and dangling twenty feet in the air above the cargo bay area. The alarm started blarring through the Heart of Gold.

Swinging precariously she pulled a foot up and pressed it to the side of the metal floor and pulled herself back up. Wiping the blood from her lip she ran towards the engine room, the main stabilizer on fire as th room filled with smoke.

"April!!! Land this Gorram ship now! Engine is on fire!" she screamed into the com before grabbing the fire extinguisher and trying to put the flames out.

The ship shook and he was bashed against the railing. "I just prayed over that engine before we left." He shook his head after being knocked around. Getting to his feet and watching the Captain swing back to safety Iean rushed up the stairs. When he smelled smoke from the environmental's he rushed to the emergency fire extinguisher. Running to the rear he tried to insure the fire wouldn't spread. Iean hoped no one was back there.

Pressing the comms he shouted. "Is anyone in the engine room? We got fire!" He was going to learn more of this ships emergency shut offs if he lived through this. As he waited he said a silent prayer in the hopes no one was back there.

Lying down on the dusty ground, a man in a suit. Other people would know very well who he was, one of the political figures of the Alliance. Heaving a heavy sigh, the man reached for his upper back, pulling off some skin. Peeling over his head, a rubbery mask with hair like follicles stuck in it and perfect features of the political figure came off. With the mask off, a man with unusual green hair was seen. It was the master of disguise, Rune. Still lying down, and taking in a deep breath, "Well, pissed off the residents here plenty with this guy" he thought aloud. "Now then, what to ..."

His attention turned to a flaming ball of fire in the sky. Squinting his eyes to get a better view, it seemed to be a ship, on fire. "Hm... maybe I could use this as a chance to leave." Rune said to himself, getting up. Heading back to a hotel he had rented out, he found his usual mask. The look of an older man, with black hair and a thinner face. His face does not become thinner upon wearing the mask, it was just that the features gave the illusion of a thin face. Adjusting, and massaging his facial muscles, he smiled, frowned and did various facial expressions, making sure the mask was moving evenly, and with precision. Everything was looking fine.

Instead of his usual suit, Rune decided to wear the spare mechanic clothes he had for another job.

Given that the ship he had seen looked like it was on fire and not just burning in atmo, it was probably the easiest way to sneak in, without being charged to board. Taking a book out, he quickly studied up on engines and ships. Hopefully it isn't anything that I can't handle he thought, grabbing some spare tools in a toolbox he had, heading out towards the approximate landing site of the ship. Hopefully they have a capable pilot that could actually land the gorram thing

April's eye spasmed as she saw the emergency notification begin to flash red on her console. "Oh for fuck's fucking FUCK!" she shouted into the intercom as she banked back into the atmosphere. The engine sputtered and flared out as the ship descended, sending it tilting awkwardly to the side. "Cyrus! I am going to WHIP your ASS for this!"

An orange fireball appeared around the speeding ship as it nosedived towards the ground, engines still dying loudly. April had just managed to straighten the ship to a slower descent when another massive kick sent it diving again.

The ground of the planet was getting closer now, the ship's descent speeding up. April yanked back hard in an attempt to level out, well aware that she might be blowing the rest of the engines as she did so. Fuck it, better stuck than dead... probably.

"Minus two minutes to landing, Heart of Gold! All yall belt the fuck onto something, this is gonna suuuuuuuuuck!" April pulled the ship back and sent the rear forward at the same time, leveling the ship out into a rapid downward glide. The dusty ground was quite visible now. "Twenty seconds. Fifteen seconds. Ten seconds. Five seconds. BRACE!"

The ship made contact with the earth and ground to a halt, digging a long rut in the dirt. Not a great landing, but they were in one piece - which, in that kind of situation, was about as much as could be hoped for.

April rose out the chair and fell into one of her piles of junk that had been sprayed all over by the landing. She rubbed a black eye where a particularly heavy memento from her home had flown into her face and groaned. "... Fuck me."

Hannah had been sitting quietly, but a curious look crossed her face and she raised her head, eyes narrowing as her nose wrinkled. She sniffed, turning her head towards the entrance to the 'pit and tilting her head to the side.

"Do y'all smell smoke, or...?"

Her question was cut off as the ship shuddered, the cockpit doused in red lights as alarms started to blare. Hannah gaped for a moment, then leaped to her feet, stumbling as the deck jerked under her feet again. Without a word to April or Benson, she bolted out of the bridge on a beeline for the cargo hold.

The engine was on fire, yes, that was bad. The engine fire reaching her crates full of explosives...yeah, that would be worse.

Unfortunately, when April's shouts to belt in came over the intercom, Hannah had just managed to reach the hold. Her eyes widened and she dived for the railing of the catwalks—just in time, too. Her feet left the ground as the Heart of Gold crashlanded, and she gave a rather undignified squeak as her arms wrapped around the railing. She hung on for dear life as the metal underneath her feet shook like the ship itself was coming apart. Hannah narrowly avoided being thrown to the hold itself, ten feet down, only by executing a twisting maneuver and throwing herself back onto the catwalk. Unfortunately, she could also feel the moment her ankle twisted under her and gave alarmingly.

"Scheisse—" she hissed, grabbing her foot out of reflex as the ship finally dragged to a halt. Biting down hard on her lip, she hauled herself to her feet to the nearest intercom, watching the (so far undamaged) door from the cargo hold to the engine room warily.

"What the heck just happened? Anybody?" she demanded, leaning against the wall and having to stretch up just to reach the speaker on the wall, other foot raised gingerly in the air.

Benson just stared at the rest of the people in the bridge. Fire? That's... not good. Good thing it can't be caused by a program malfunction... actually, it can. Ben was slightly nervous at this thought, wondering if, perhaps, his programming was not as good as he thought it was, and a flaw somehow made the engine malfunction. But he didn't do anything that related to the engine's systems; he only set up firewalls and control programs to control what orders the engine receives... which could, in theory, also cause a malfunction. Anything could cause a malfunction.

Malfunctions was a horrible word. Benson wished it didn't exist.

So Benson the technician spent the first half of the free fall to the planet's surface in a sort of zoned-out state, deciding whether or not it was good or bad to have the word malfunction. The word malfunction does, after all, have a bit of a negative connotative meaning. But then again, if they didn't have the word malfunction, what if there was a word- that Benson didn't know- that was even worse than malfunction, and was used more often?

Then Benson realized, with growing terror, that the great flat thing that was once round in the view windows (which now filled the view windows) was very, very close, in relative. That is to say, it sunk in that they were falling, and that gravity was bringing them down, and something went wrong with the engines.

Speaking of which, why is the engine in the very back of the ship? The engines should be in the... engines, where the thrusters are, so that they can produce thrust. But what if it were the reactor, and the thrusters were those EM drives that were really prominent around the time that the Fireflies were still used? No, EM drives were silents; these engines were very clearly fuel-burners.

Then Garry jumped on Benson's face, the ship jerked, lurched, and everything went dark as Benson jerked forward, held tight only by the seat's harness, and hit a console in front of him. Garry went flying, hit the view windows, and his hard, domed back shattered, leaving Garry as a broken mess, his 'spine' severed. The little bot was completely dead, with its motherboard broken in half, a shard of the dome straight through it, lying on the floor at the very tip of the nose of the bridge.

Captain rushed to Ieans side, trying to douse the flames. “Tain Xiao De! Cyrek is supposed to be back here but I haven’t seen that grubby hide since before take off,” she yelled as the flames were doused.

“Jian Ta De Gul! I will gut that man if I find him! He’s supposed to make sure that this doesn’t happen!” Captain snarled as she tossed the extinguisher to the side; grabbing a bench as she braced herself. Hearing Aprils call go out over the com she cringed inwardly.

“Gorram, hold on preacher!” she yelled as they touched down, her body jutting forward but her grip holding true. She ended up spilling out on her back with her hand still clutched to the metal underside of the work table.

“April, shut down the engines and vent the ship! We need to clear this smoke out! Benson, run play back, find out what happened!” she yelled into the com as she stumbled over to it. “The engine caught on fire Hannah, don’t have a gorram clue as to why. Your explosives secured? Last thing we need is them to get hot right now, shove them into the cool storage for now!” she commanded before sinking down the wall and grasping her arm. A large gash went over her bicep as she tried to stop the bleeding.

“Preacher, you okay?”

Seeing the ship crash, Rune started a fast job to hasten his pace to the crash/land site. Since he wasn't too far from the crash, he reached it in minutes. A plume of dust/dirt clouded the area, with black smoke rising from the ship. A fire? he thought to himself, as he approached the ship. From the looks of it, the ship was a Firefly. It wasn't his area of expertise, not that any of this was, but he had enough knowledge about the Firefly series from the book he had just read. He should be able to apply most of it, did it many times before for other jobs.

Approaching the ship, Rune walked towards the cargo bay entry. The ship had left a trail, which was black, indicating that the ship was burning in atmo as it crashed. He wasn't going to be able to touch the ship until it had cooled off, so he wasn't going to be able to open it. "Hello, anyone still alive?" he called out waiting for a reply. "Looks like you could use some help. If someone is still alive, mind opening up the door?" Rune continued.

He waited, hoping for a reply or the door to open.