Since We Found Serenity (A Firefly Fanfiction)

Chapter 6: X Marks The Spot

Mal shook his head. "There's no cause for that yet, and I don't want any trouble where there doesn't need to be. Just keep studying it, see if anything comes up."

Simon nodded. "Of course."

"Captain!" Zoe appeared in the doorway, out of breath and eyes alight. "You're going to want to see this."

Captain Reynolds and Simon shared a glance and followed the first mate.

In the cockpit, Kaylee stood next to River as the young woman busily entered a course for the ship to follow. In Kaylee's hand was the globe—but now it had a thin trail illuminated along its surface on one side, and a wide blinking dot some distance away.

"Where the hell did that come from?" Mal cried, taking the globe and examining the glowing portions.

"I was just tinkering with it," Kaylee admitted. "Zoe said you couldn't get it to do anything, but it was obviously intended to turn on, so I kept trying different things till one of them worked."

Mal turned the globe over in his hands. "So now what do we do with it?"

Zoe gestured to the young copilot still busily entering coordinates. "River says it's a map."

Mal leaned over to her, getting the globe in different light to maybe reveal something else. "A map? Really?"

River tilted her head and began to sing, "X marks the spot, a circle and a dot; one, two, three, four, five, six, seven—Zap!" She punched the program button as she said the last word, and the Serenity shuddered to life.

Mal glanced to Simon—a common reaction from the crew whenever River said something they didn't understand.

Simon only shrugged. "It's a nursery game we used to play, tickling the pressure points along the spine." He gestured toward the globe.

In Mal's hands, the thin glowing thread began pulsing, stretching longer as they progressed. A dot appeared at the end, surrounded by a pulsing circle. On the far side of the globe, an X marked the projected destination.

Mal moved over to the main console and checked the flight path River had entered. "Janus?" He saw the planet at the destination coordinates. "That's pretty damn near the Core!"

"Course it is!" Jayne grumbled from the doorway as Lief dashed under his elbow toward Zoe. "We found the gorram thing with Alliance data—wouldn't it make sense for it to take us around Allied planets?"

Mal frowned. "Yeah... But why?"

"Guess we'll find out when we get there," Zoe murmured, running her fingers through her son's wiry hair. He stared up at Kaylee with a sleepy expression.

"You're real pretty," he murmured softly.

Kaylee blushed, and Zoe gathered the young boy in her arms to carry him out.

The young mechanic fidgeted with her long, dark skirt as she moved toward her husband. They kissed, and she muttered something about checking the "aft thrusters."

Jayne caught this, and his face twisted in a naughty smirk as he watched the couple leave. Hairs prickled on the back of his neck, and he whirled around.

River had slipped from her chair and now stood behind him. She seemed to be staring at the Tams as well.

She tilted her head to one side. "They are different," she murmured.

Jayne snorted. "Of course they are; it's been a long time. We've all changed." He chuckled. "What do you think they're going back there to make babies?"

River didn't seem to get the joke. "Kaylee has no room for a baby; she is carrying nothing."

Jayne squinted at the young girl. "I can see that she isn't carrying anything; why would you—"

"Nothing isn't the same as not anything," River chided him. "There is nothing where a baby should be." She turned back to fix her gaze on the swirling skirt. "The absence of a baby, the opposite—like antimatter is the opposite of matter, yet it is capable of occupying the same space as matter. Kaylee has an anti-baby." She smiled as if she had made a joke of her own.

Jayne's face scrunched in a frown. "I don't get you," he muttered, stomping away.

Mal glanced at River when she slipped back into her chair.

"X marks the spot, huh?"

She sat silently, watching the open space coast by.

Mal tried again. "What do you suppose will happen when we get to Janus?"

River's only response was to sing the rhyme again.

"One, two, three, four, five, six, seven—Zap!"