Gorram buffer panel. Serenity had been tore apart plenty, but she was back in the air. She would fly true. Zoë knew that.
So long as pieces didn't keep flying off the gorram ship.
Since Mal was in the pilot seat (a fact that she was refusing to let tug at her heartstrings), that made it Zoë's job to track down the ship's bubbly mechanic and find out what had happened.
"Kaylie!" she called, moving through the ship, movements on automatic as Serenity strained against the currents during liftoff. "What in the tian xiao de is going on--"
Her words cut off abruptly. Between one step and another, everything had changed. The sounds of Serenity, the feel of the air, the impact of her feet on the grating. Zoë didn't know if she could trust what her eyes were telling her. She could see a busy street. Planet-side. And, with the buildings, this wasn't any planet on the outer rims.
There was a sudden voice and movement behind her. "Cutter's gonna kill me for this." Zoë spun, her rifle in her hands as she made the turn, and aimed the weapon at the man with the contraption she wasn't even going to try and identify right now.
"You wanna think nice and slow about moving," she said. "And you wanna take some extra time to consider where the leng we are, and just how I ended up here."