First answer to the Crossover Challenge

[bktheirregular]

In answer to bonibaru's challenge.

Untitled

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Jayne stumbled through the forest, clutching Vera for dear life. He'd almost left his best gun behind; he'd actually grabbed Eloise from his gun rack instead, but then had had a second thought and left the silenced Koch in his bunk in favor of the big Callahan. Eloise was better for subtlety, but given how far things had gone wrong, Jayne was glad he'd opted for power instead of subtlety.

Jayne didn't do subtle well. Then again, God didn't seem to be doing subtle today, either.

First the dockyard platform where Garnett had his goods ready for Mal had been hit by Reavers; everyone had scattered, and Jayne had managed to get cut off by a blown bulkhead. Jayne still couldn't believe he'd told Mal to pack up Serenity and run for it - he blamed whatever that hundan Garnett had slipped into their drinks - but there it was. They'd escaped - Jayne had watched through a porthole, had seen Wash spin Serenity around like an interceptor and hard-burn for the trade lanes - and then it had just been Jayne and the gorram Reavers.

Then it had gotten worse.

Whoever the new arrivals had been, they didn't do subtle either. Then again, if you're flying a ship bigger than a rutting Core planet city, you don't need to be subtle either. Jayne would have bought a drink for the commander of that big-ass wedge-shaped ship if it hadn't been for the fact that they'd blown the platform sky-high along with the Reavers.

Jayne had barely had time to run for a lifeboat. He'd left behind his flask, his ration packets, and his favorite hat, but he'd kept a death-grip on Vera, and hadn't let go even after the boat had blasted from the disintegrating platform and burned its way to the planet's surface.

And he wasn't about to let his best gun go now. A man never knew what he'd come up against, out in the black.

He ran away as fast as he could from the lifeboat's crash site, not wanting to risk the chance that someone might track him down - whether it be Reavers, the big-ass ship, or the pie-plate ship that had been skittering around the fracas like a drunk moth looking for a flame. He didn't know what was in this forest, and he didn't care - nothing could be worse than the Reavers.

Except maybe for the seven-foot-tall sloth-like creature that jumped out of a tree two meters in front of him with a deep-throated "rrrrrraaaaaauuuuuugh!"

Jayne skidded to a stop, caught his foot on a root, and stumbled. Did this rutting planet have its own wildlife that nobody had ever bothered to mention? Or had this monstrosity been brought from the Earth-that-was?

He lost his footing, threw out his arms to break his fall, and realized too late that he'd done the one thing he'd sworn he'd never do.

He'd let go of Vera.

He gaped in horror as the big gun bounced along the dirt, coming to a stop right at the creature's feet. Then he actually gasped as the big hairball bent down and grabbed it.

"Keep your paws off of Vera, you walking fleatrap!" he hollered, as though the thing would actually understand a word he said.

The creature cocked its head, gave a derisive snort, and continued to look at Vera as though she were just a shiny toy. It grunted a couple of times, and fingered the rifle's safety.

Then another sound came from behind Jayne; maybe another creature, maybe just a settling branch.

Then his nose began to react. "What is that smell?" he hissed.

The creature perked up at that, almost as though it had understood. Then --

--it grabbed Vera's grip, yanked back the bolt, snapped the big gun into a sniper's stance, and fired. Once, twice, three times -- and from behind Jayne, an even more animalistic scream echoed into the treetops.

Jayne turned slowly, fearfully, and saw what the creature had been shooting at - a bear. Big, mean, less than four feet from Jayne, and with a cluster of three bullet holes between its eyes.

Jayne tentatively touched the bear's corpse with a toe. The creature leaned over and turned the bear over, then gave a growl of what sounded like relief. Jayne sighed with relief as well, and leaned back against a tree; he felt a lump at his hip, shifted to get out of the way of the knot in the tree, and discovered to his delight that it wasn't a knot after all, but the hip flask he hadn't lost on the docking platform after all.

He pulled out the flask and took a small gulp - it was the only booze on the planet that he knew of, and it would have to last - and the creature cocked its head again, looking at the flask in his hand.

"What? You want a drink?"

It growled again, and somehow Jayne understood it was saying "yes". It clicked Vera's safety and extended its paws, holding out the rifle. Jayne grabbed it and handed over the flask; the thing took it with a dainty grip, took a surprisingly small sip, and coughed, eyes widening.

"Good stuff, huh?"

"Grrnf."

He looked back at the bear. "Thanks."

A shuttle flew overhead; Jayne looked up, and to his relief, he recognized the markings of Inara's bird. The creature gave a questioning grunt; Jayne answered, "That's for me. A friend. You understand 'friend'?"

Another ship passed by over the treetops, a battered tub that looked like a flying saucer that had seen too many hard runs. "Rrrrrrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaauuuuuuuuugh," the creature bellowed, and was up in the treetops like a shot, heading after the saucer-ship. Jayne heard one more short roar, looked up, and had to make a quick grab to catch his flask as it came spinning down out of the trees.

bonibaru's requirements were here.

Comments

[neonhummingbird.livejournal.com]

< giggling > Jayne and Chewie, i love it! Nicely done; you give good inside-Jayne's head.

[bktheirregular]

It appears so. This fact scares me mightily.