Parallel: United Front

Chapter 5: Ventura

Dayle whistled, eyes wide in amazement. "That is one large apartment."

Raines examined the odd ship. The hull was mostly bullet-like save for a head atop a slightly raised 'neck' which she guessed to be the cockpit. The remains of what looked to have been an engine or propulsion unit took up its entire rear, but it was beyond badly damaged. "Something about this craft seems familiar."

"You guys have never seen Firefly?" Arthur questioned, brow raised in surprise. He stepped past them, eyes wide in amazement. An excited laugh escaped his lips as he spun around to face them, arms raised wide, "Guys, this is a Firefly!"

Dayle snorted as he leaned in and whispered to Raines, "Did you know he was a nerd?"

Raines punched his shoulder as a retort. "Shut up."

Dee meanwhile, was surprised by Arthur's insight. "Yeah, it's a Firefly Class ship. How'd you know that?" Art made to speak, but she smacked her forehead, "Right, sure. You guys have your own world. Keep forgetting that." Dee looked up at the ship. "Name's Ventura. Been rebuilding her piece by piece for the past year." She motioned to them. "Come on, we go in through the cargo hold."

Arthur caught up to Dee's brisk pace. "Is she capable of space travel?"

"What?" Dee questioned with a laugh. "Space travel? What gave you that idea."

Arthur reddened, scratching the back of his head as he answered, "Well, a show I used to watch."

"Hmm," Dee considered, "It shouldn't be impossible," she said as they rounded the craft to its the front below its neck. "The hulls are designed to shield radiation and suffer damage from radiation storms." She took out a device from her pocket and pressed the sole button on it. They took steps away as the cargo door slowly dropped to the earth to form a ramp. "The engine's definitely too weak to break the earth's gravity though."

"Assuming we could boost the propulsion?" Raines asked. Arthur turned to her with a pleased smile. Dayle on the other hand, regarded her with a 'not you too' look. "What?" she protested. "It sounds interesting." She ignored Dayle's subsequent snort, then followed Dee and Arthur up the ramp.

"That might work," Dee guessed. "Would still need FTL drives or at least the Nexus' Fusion Cores. If that fails, there are Class7 monsters whose cores can create a similar effect. Hmm.. But then they are far more unstable. Would need metal capable of withstanding the pressure, not to talk of..." She suddenly stopped when she realized she'd been rambling. "Sorry bout that. I get carried away sometimes."

"Don't worry," Dayle soothed with a smirk as he took in the cargo bay. The hall itself was quite large, about 80-100 ft wide by 120-150 ft long. The craft's age showed on its damaged walls, tell-tale rust spread across several places. There was a door at the opposite wall, but Dee headed for a flight of stairs to the left that led to a catwalk which hung above the bay. "I like ramblers." Dayle suppressed a scream as Raines purposely stomped against his toe. He settled for a death glare which she gamely ignored.

Dee on the other hand, just snorted. "Point is, it's not impossible," she surmised as she led them up two flights of stairs." The Nexus recently developed FTL drives. If we can steal and study a couple of those, we might be able to create a couple of our own." They emerged at a corridor which lead to a narrow hallway.

Dayle frowned as they went left to what looked like a dining area. 'Looked'. There was so much junk scattered around it was hard to tell left from right. Only indication was the small kitchen to the left of the room and a lounge sofa fitted into an octagonal depression in the wall at the top left corner. "Why would the Nexus create FTL drives?"