Hello everyone! It's been a good long while since I've written here, but I've begun writing again (to spite my coworker). Serene Destiny I have no idea where it would go, and Agents of Interest requires a massive rewrite, but I had the idea for a story, that I only touched upon, but imagined how one crucial scene would go, and just had to write it. Granted, it won't be for a while, but for now...enjoy.

Waking up, however seamless it could be, was never quick. Over the course of human history, many attempted to defy sleep, in keeping mental pace from it or chasing it from their minds, but sleep always won. Exhaustion always triumphed. As annoying or hated as it could be, it was necessary to all, human or otherwise. The human body, like any other body, needed rest, the brain most especially. It was unavoidable.

Waking was always taken at it's own pace. If you got up, attained alertness, attempted to cheat it, you'd fail. It would persist, as long as it wanted. If one embraced it, however, as Corsair had unwillingly done, it was far gentler. All that registered was a haze as the darkness of sleep clung futilely, slowly letting go. Then, the senses began working. The air was acrid, the mouth dry, sharp noises in the ears, and finally, the eyes opened to a new darkness, the kind peppered with spots of light in every direction that did nothing to abate the surrounding black. Corsair sat in his one person jumpship, looking at the stars.

He coughed, realizing the smoke in the air. The source was a small console fire on the roof of the cockpit, and Corsair patted it out hurriedly. How long had he been out? He surveyed the cockpit, ruined as it was (but still intact), as a small tetrahedral object materialized before him.

"Finally!" His Ghost replied, rims spinning gently. "You've been out for about half an hour. Last I checked, you had a concussion and several broken ribs." A bright beam of light from the Ghost's eye scanned over Corsair's body briefly, "Seems to be fully healed now. That jump took a lot out of both of us, it seems." He said, floating back an inch or two.

"Yeah, feels great," Corsair grumbled, albeit feeling relatively fine, "I take it you put out a distress call, Gale?" He narrowed his eyes. If he'd been asleep for as long as Gale implied, help should've come by now; he didn't need to be a warlock to know that. Hell, Epsilon would've been right behind him. Corsair had expected when the NES drive test went wrong at first to wake up in the tower, or at least solid ground.

Epsilon-5, his fellow fireteam member, had come to him with a new drive core Dead Orbit had been working on, wanting to make nice with New Monarchy before asking for one of their own endeavors (A fact Epsilon was not supposed to have told Corsair, but seemed happy to share regardless. Friendship overrode political boundaries most of the time). Dead Orbit had wanted results, not just for the test, and had chosen Corsair to approach. Corsair, Epsilon, and their titan, Zinara, had torn the heart out of the black garden and murdered a hive god, which made them celebrities, and it was only natural for Dead Orbit to utilize those bonds.

The test had gone well, until the tail of an unforeseen solar flare had affected the warp corridor, sending Corsair off at unprecedented speed. Epsilon had said something over comms about gravitational displacement, or distortion, Corsair hadn't really been paying attention, instead focusing on not being blown into a million little pieces. When the warp corridor finally broken down, he;d been thrown from the deceleration. The size of the cockpit, and the integrity of the plexiglass, had ensured his own personal flight was a short one.

Gale hesitated, "I have but...we've traveled several million light years, Guardian." He admitted, "Beyond our solar system, and then some."

Corsair frowned, letting that sink in, "and I presume our fancy new warp drive is operating in pristine condition?" He mused, taking a glance at The Visible Hand out of the window. Several pieces, and if Corsair guessed, an engine had been torn away, the pieces somewhere back along their route give or take a thousand light years...or two.

"Very funny," Gale mused, scanning the burnt out controls of the craft, "It's burned out completely. Even if it weren't, it'd take decades to get home."

"We have time," he smirked, trying to make light of the situation by pulling Gale's metaphorical leg. He couldn't imagine his friends' faces in 50 years, claiming the drive test to be a complete success, but only once.

Gale gave his best equivalence of an eye roll, impressive as he had only one, "That's if it was working. We have one working engine, half the ship is missing, we're leaking fuel-"

Corsair took this opportunity to cut in, "You're tenser than usual," he looked Gale straight on, "What's the biggest issue right now?" He asked, trying to get his loyal friend on track. Sometimes he could ramble.

"Oh," Gale said, not missing a beat, "you're about to run out of oxygen and die in the vastness of space."

Corsair paused, blinking at the news. "So," he said after a moment's contemplation, "a Dead Orbit fanatic's wet dream come true."

"I'm sure Epsilon would enjoy this immensely," Gale chirped nonchalantly, "probably helps he doesn't have to breathe." Corsair's helmet vanished onto him, "your armor should have an hour or two of air. I'll depressurize the ship to spare what little we have." With that, he vanished into thin air, Corsair feeling his movements slow in response to the new lack of atmosphere.

"Alright." Corsair said, "let's keep broadcasting our distress beacon, can't hurt." He pulled the cockpit release lever, letting zero-g take him, "in the meantime, let's fix what we can."

Corsair had been in many stressful situations. He was only 27 years old, but that time was spent as a Guardian, which was hardly idle. He'd traveled all across the solar system, fought countless enemies, faced down true darkness, cheating death all the while, either by skill or by Light.

Out of all that, including the black garden, Crota, and his Swarm, this had to be the most stressed he had ever been.

Sure, there were plenty of times he had nearly died, but this was different. The ship's CO2 filtration system was limping, even after repairs. Gale estimated they had around 8 hours of oxygen left, unless they somehow acquired the parts to build a completely new life support system. The engine had some parts they could use, but a scan from Gale told them taking it apart in zero gravity could blow up the entire ship...or rather, what was left of it.

Every other time he was in danger, Corsair had something he could do, but ultimately, he was at the mercy of the universe. If a ship didn't pass by (something possible, but highly unlikely), Corsair would die. Sure, Gale would resurrect him, but only for him to asphyxiate and die once again. It wasn't only an exercise in futility, dying over and over on his way home, but it was something Corsair definitely wasn't looking forward to.

As he attempted to at least get the one engine running before his timely demises, Gale chirped into activity within his helmet. "Corsair!" He said, "I'm picking up a transmission!"

"Seriously?" Corsair lost his grip on the wing almost immediately, only just managing to get it back, "And here I thought the Traveler's Light didn't shine out here." The arrival of a ship was lucky. If they weren't hostile, they'd help. If they were hostile, he'd try to negotiate before killing them all and taking their ship. Their mistake for trying to pick on a Guardian with the foreverness of space as an alternative. He would take the latter, if it guaranteed a lasting survival.

"I'll patch it in now," Gale chirped. Again, Corsair glanced around the blackness, attempting to spy their would-be rescuer.

"-epeat, unidentified ship, this is the transport ship Serenity. Do you read?" A man's voice came through in clear english, surprising Corsair. Was Dead Orbit out this far and didn't tell anyone? "Our captain wants to make sure you're alive, before...you know. If you're there. At all. In this deep and utter vastness of-"

"Gale, open comms. Yes!" Corsair said, "this is the New Monarchy ship Visible Hand, we're alive!" He said, letting out a breath of relief.

"Oh, thank God!" The voice on the other end exclaimed. "We're about ten minutes out from your location, and we couldn't be sure you weren't a space serial killer, or, you know, dead."

Corsair had to smile at that. He honestly had been dead not too long ago. "I don't know, it sure felt like it for a while there. I have enough air to last, Serenity, Corsair out" He said, Gale chirping again as the connection cut out.

"Guardian..." Gale piped up, "I've made contact with their ship's mainframe during your conversation, and it seems they're not from the city." Corsair had relaxed for the moment, slipping his arm around some part of the ship to hold himself in place. No use wasting energy. The fuel line was patched, some important pieces were accounted for. If not for the oxygen, he'd be content to drift back to Earth himself.

"Considering how far out we are? I figured that."

"They also seem to be human."

"I figured that, too." Nevertheless, it had gotten Corsair's attention. "Humans? Out here?" He asked, slightly incredulous in his tone.

"Their history is publicly available. What used to be called an internet, they now call a cortex, for some reason. I guess because it sounds cool." Gale hovered by Corsair's face, right outside the helmet, "from what I can tell, American and Chinese spacecraft left Earth after a great cataclysm of some kind, they don't say what, and set out to terraform new worlds and settle there"

"Well, we're already in a Dead Orbit fanatic's wet dream come true, why not?" He muttered to himself, "didn't others do the same thing, got hit by the Darkness, and became the Awoken?"

"They did. Apparently these people did the same. As I said, mostly American and Chinese ships. Both cultures have unified completely, though there was a war 5 years ago between the Anglo-sino alliance and the independents. It's funny, they were fighting over the expansion of government power," Gale explained ending in an almost teasing tone of voice. Corsair had joined up with New Monarchy shortly after the black garden. Expansion of government power, though they didn't like to tout it too much, was their thing.

"And how did that go?" He asked, mentally timing Serenity's arrival. New Monarchy had a small section devoted to first contact scenarios, though with the various alien races in Sol, they were hardly referred to. One of the lesser executors had made a small addendum, 'if it doesn't shoot at you, for the love of the Traveler, don't shoot at it'. While lacking in verbal finesse, it had proved too agreeable to get rid of.

"The Alliance had the support of the core worlds." Gale said, "industry, money, influence...to say the Alliance had the better hand is an understatement. The Independents practically didn't have a hand at all. A few manufacturing centers and infrastructure, but nothing significant enough to matter."

Corsair nodded, "so, three guesses who declared war," he thought to himself.

"The cortex says the Independents made their declaration first, and I'm inclined to believe them. Their declaration involves quite a few grievances that would cause riots in the city."

"This all sounds rather straightforward, if you ask me." Corsair said, finally spotting movement in the blackness, pulling his Scathelocke auto rifle out of his inventory. "Well, there's our ride." He said, looking down the scope. It'd be better if he had a sniper rifle, but he never used them. To the others in the tower, it was simply not his style. To him and Zinara, it was because he was the absolute worst shot. "No weapons I can see, looks to be pretty small."

The ship itself was about twice the width of a standard jumpship, and three times as long. The entire thing was gray, with the exception of the back, which was bright yellow. The whole thing looked like a Firefly. "I mean, it is a Firefly-class transport, I guess it's aptly named." Gale said, when Corsair remarked on it.

The voice came back into Corsair's ear, "Serenity on approach. We have you in sight, Visible Hand. We can...oh, you're outside." He said, with a hint of mild surprise.

Gale had vanished already, as he'd learned to do at a moment's notice in combat. "Had to do some repairs," Corsair waved to the man, "open your airlock, we can discuss the salvage of my ship," he said, seeing the pilot in the window wave back.

"Copy that," the man said, "half of it looks to be missing, though. It really worth keeping?" he asked as a ramp on the front of the ship began to lower.

"Unfortunately, it's not mine." Corsair pushed off from his ship, drifting towards the open door, and the fresh oxygen beyond, and he felt his Scathelocke vanish into his inventory. "Corsair out."

His boots hit the ramp directly, magnetically connecting, Gale chirping to life in his helmet, "so how exactly are we going to play this? I don't suppose we can introduce ourselves as a noble Guardian from Earth, and his Ghost"

Corsair thought a moment while he took a few steps up to the inner door, tapping it three times. "Not at first," He said as the ramp began to rise behind him. "This is a first contact situation, but we know nothing about these people. We can do some recon before we tell them who we are. For now, I'm a stranded traveler whose ship was blown to pieces, working for a humanitarian agency known as New Monarchy. Would that be suspicious?" He asked as he heard the ramp click shut, then a new thought occurred to him. "Gale, we can't use transmat in front of these people. Can my helmet be removed manually?"

Gale actually sighed through his helmet's speakers, "your armor already does. Every Guardian's does. No one ever actually does it manually." He said with a slightly resentful tone.

"Oh." Corsair felt the awkwardness, but was cut off from any further comments as the inner door opened.

Three figures stood before him. The one in the lead was obviously the captain of the ship. He wore a gun on his hip, hands clear of it, but something told Corsair they'd be ready to move at a moment's notice. The others, a man and a woman, held an auto rifle and a small shotgun, respectively. They held their guns openly, albeit at ease due to numbers and arms. The unspoken deference to the captain was thick enough to cut with a knife, at least from the woman. The man was a bit harder to read.

The man Corsair suspected as the captain also stood in the center, in front of the two. Always a dead giveaway.

Corsair reached up, quickly finding the seam in his helmet, and pulled gently. It took a light tug, but it disengaged relatively quickly. He lifted his helmet off his head for what seemed like the first time, as it was, and let it fall to his side.

Corsair took pride in his appearance when he could. The benefit of having a helmet being transmatted on constantly was that he never got helmet hair, a fact that would likely change with his new circumstances. His skin was light, and his eyes were blue, like the sky covered by a thin sheen of clouds. His hair was light brown, and short, and he stood close to 6 feet tall, just enough to look the captain in the eye.

After an awkward moment of silence, Corsair decided to break it, "thank you," he said, then extended a hand, "Corsair."

"Captain Malcolm Reynolds," came the stern reply as he took Corsair's hand, in a startlingly familiar voice, "welcome aboard the Serenity, Mr...Corsair," he said, slightly uncertain about the name, but Corsair couldn't care less. His mood was morphing back and forth from curiosity to mild shock.

"J-just Corsair is fine," he stammered out quickly, and the captain must've sensed his unease by the expression on his face, "I'm sorry," Corsair managed, "but your voice is...exactly the same as one of my bosses."

Reynolds raised his eyebrows, mildly shocked at the idea, more surprise than offense. "Huh," He said, a suitable response, "that a fact?" He asked, clearly not sure how to react to that. His companions were exchanging confused glances, and Corsair didn't blame them.

"It is," he replied, "could you say the words, 'get me out of this tower'?" He asked, probably going off topic, but it was too insane to not address.

"Erm..." Reynolds hesitated. It was probably nowhere near the list of things he thought he'd be dealing with today when he woke up this morning. "Get me out of this tower?' He said, with a bit of reluctance.

Corsair couldn't believe what he was hearing. It had been slow, it had been reluctant, without any of his energy behind it, but it was a dead ringer for the famous hunter Cayde-6. "okay, this? This is insane. It's probably the oxygen deprivation."

"Got a brother we don't know about, sir?" The woman to Reynolds' left spoke up, her tone lacking in emotion as she regarded Corsair. The entire way she stood and analyzed things screamed military.

Unfortunately, her words just made it worse. His eyes widened further, "no way." He said, more to himself than any of the others in front of him. After another moment, he caught onto the room's confusion. "You're not going to believe this. She sounds exactly like my other boss." Corsair had to take a step back. The trio were still looking at him as if he was crazy, but he stopped caring. He turned to the man on Reynolds' right. "Alright, so if this is three for three, I will go ahead and shoot myself now. Say something, please." He said tentatively, not sure if he wanted to be right or wrong.

The man sneered at him in a way that dismissed him while looking right at him, "I ain't your boss, pretty boy." He said in a gruff, uncultured voice, the polar opposite of commander Zavala. "'Less of course you want me to be." He said with a grin.

Corsair was unimpressed. "Evidently not." He said, not breaking eye contact, and thankful he was wrong. He honestly would've shot himself if he found out these three were the voices of the Vanguard leaders. One was a weird coincidence, two was suspicious, three was the part where you started running.

A moment passed before the captain coughed into his hand, "these here are my crew members, Zoe and Jayne." He gestured to reach one respectively, obviously trying to move past the exchange. "We're currently on our way to Boros, with a detour past Whitefall. We can let you off at either one, though Boros might be more your type." He crossed his arms, "dohn luh ma?"

Corsair blinked at the Chinese, careful not to ask any questions that would give him away. "Boros is fine," he decided, "I'll have to contact my superiors, apprise them of my situation. Would it be possible to take my ship with us, captain?" He asked, holding his arms behind him as he stood up a little straighter. It didn't matter how long he'd be here, he was not leaving a New Monarchy prototype out in the middle of nowhere for anyone to find.

Jayne scoffed, "looked like a wreck to me. Wash said it ain't even yours." He had lowered his gun, as had Zoe, but she'd holstered hers entirely, while Jayne kept his in hand. Something told Corsair that guns were the man's main skill set.

"Jayne, your mouth is moving, might wanna look to that." Zoe countered. Mal hadn't introduced her as his second in command, but she clearly was. Reynolds had more than her loyalty, he had her respect.

"To answer your question," Corsair butted in before Jayne could shoot back, "this ship is special, to put it simply. It has valuable prototype technology, first of...well, third of it's kind, but the first that actually worked."

"Seeing as how half your ship's missing," Reynolds shrugged, "I'd be a mite disagreeable on that."

Corsair gave him a look, then continue, "failed prototypes are still valuable. If you were to help return it, with my good recommendation..." he looked between the three of you, "I suspect my superiors would make it worth your while."

Finally, it seemed he spoke a language the captain understood, his entire figure relaxing as he saw the opportunity of the situation. "Well in that case," He said, giving a charming (if slightly overt) smile, "who am I to stand in the way of scientific progress?" he offered his hand, and Corsair took it. "You have a deal, mist...uh, Corsair."

"Thank you captain." Corsair smiled back, "if you have spacesuits, we can get to work immediately."