'He's In Fashion'

To the sound of a voice dragged over rough ground, Wash tapped his feet. He reclined in his flight chair, his bare feet upon the edge of the flight console. Aside from the deep throated blues music the only sound that greeted Mal as he entered the cockpit were the turning of glossy magazine pages and the occasional blip from the console. "Time was when a pilot sprang to attention when approached by his captain," said Mal, clipboard in hand. "Yeah, well times sure do change, don't they cap'n?" replied Wash, not bothering to look up. "Call that a moustache?" he added under his breath, staring at the page ten profile on Captain Pete. With deft cruelty Mal whacked Wash with the clipboard. "Ow!" "I pay you for your piloting skills, not for your fashion criticism. Put the 'Gentleman's Piloting Monthly' away and get cracking on the gorram programming; this sector requires four plane shifts before we hit New Wales." "Aha, ordinarily, yes. But look at this shiny new slip of equipment." Wash turned the music off and lazily swung his leg over to prod a little flat square of metal and glass console with his foot. "I thought that was a drinks tray," said Mal, eyeing it critically. "To the untrained eye. From a distance. Look more carefully. See the fine tracery of lines within the depths of the glass, the delicate ornate silver styling of the control toggles? Note the exquisite beauty of the sliding nav-discs, delicately poised on the refraction-glass surface... they are hollowed out to enable fresh data cylinders to be slotted in, meaning that..." "Where did you get it?" Mal interrupted Wash's enthusing. "The scrap yard." "And what does it do?" "Merely slide the control discs to manipulate the 3d map, line in your co-ordinates with the slide toggles and viola! You have an auto-pilot mapped out for the next four plane-shifts. State-of-the-art Nav-Pilot, and a pretty damn shiny one at that." "Call me old fashioned, Wash..." "You're old fashioned, Cap'n. Quit living in the past! Quit living in the past!" Wash implored mockingly. "Unless you want to eat clipboard again, I suggest you show some deference. Now, call me old fashioned Wash," and at this he waved the clipboard menacingly, "but I prefer the human touch. I don't trust some gadget..." "Lo," said Jayne, strolling into the cockpit with a hot cup of coffee. He pulled up a stool next to the console. "That the new edition of 'Gentleman's Piloting Monthly', Wash?" Jayne's hungry dog-eyes fell upon the magazine with a hunger that was embarrassing. Jayne had no concept of idle curiosity. "That it is, my bobble-hatted Labrador. It has a section on cravats." "Gorram cravats! Shiny!" cried Jayne, slamming his coffee cup down and making a grab for the magazine. Wash was too fast, however and held it out of reach, kicking him in the face ineffectually with his slippered feet. And then their stomachs fell into their mouths as the stars cascaded upwards and away beyond the glass. "Wash! What's happening?" Mal cried out, trying to regain his balance. "I don't know!" cried Wash. "It's as if the computer's trying to plot a dozen different courses at once. We're spinning out of control!" The ship growled and thrashed again, causing Wash to be thrown from the controls and out of his flight-chair, his chin hitting metal. Kaylee's voice crackled over the ship's comm with a menacing perkiness, "You're hurting my baby, Wash! I'd come up there and beat you senseless, but I'm sorta tangled in my hammock..." The ship jerked under their feet once again. This time Mal was pitched up against the glass. He saw the stars swim before his eyes, the faint strained vibrations of the ship's hull rippling through the glass. The violent thrashings of the engine core only just met his ears, but the faint noise screamed inside him. Behind him, anything loose tumbled from shelf and table. "Get the girl under gorram control, Wash!" he cried out. Jayne looked up in sudden panic towards Wash. "My mamma made me that coffee cup!" he swung around and ran to the dainty porcelain china cup. He grinned in satisfaction, barely noticing the heavy weather-sat unit detaching from the wall and sliding past him at a precious few inches of clearance. "She lives! This is the best gorram cup holder in the galaxy!" and with that triumphant cry Jayne reached for the cup and unscrewed it from the little silver nav-disc he had wedged it into. The maddening dance of stars swung into a steady clarity once again. Serenity glided back onto course. Wash clambered back into his flight chair and looked down upon the Nav-Pilot, now tarnished with the traces of sticky coffee. All he managed was a look of horror and a pained burble, "Woah..." "There's a scrap yard on New Wales, you can get rid of it there. And I hope that you're a better salesman than me, because I make a lousy liar," said Mal through gritted teeth, yanking the cable from the sticky console and ripping it from its mounting, "and I'm certainly not having this damn thing run my ship!" Wash looked crestfallen as Mal stormed out of the cockpit. Jayne picked up the discarded nav-pilot and slotted his coffee cup back into it and smiled with a simple pleasure. "Can I have it?"

End of Part One

Part Two Soon!

Thanks for reading!