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Take your people and go.
You would have done the same.
We can already see I haven't. Now get the hell off my ship.
Billy isn't entirely sure why they leave when the stranded captain tells them to.
It ain't like he has a squad of armed men behind him. Besides, Jesse's good with the quick draw on her gun, having perfected a quick swing around, but Billy supposes that in the end, the other captain does have the gun in his hand, and it is aimed at their own captain, and that finger is clearly twitching on the trigger.
"You don't know what that kind of man is capable of," the captain tells them the instant that the airlock seals again. "Cornered and injured and all that. Sorta like an animal when he gets to that point. Dangerous."
They get back up to the bridge and bring the ship around so they can have a better view of the dead Firefly.
"We'll wait," the captain says. "He ain't gonna be breathing for much longer. Wait half an hour. By then he'll be good and dead and we'll start working on the airlock override and see if we can’t fix that thing up like he said."
Within a few minutes, the dead ship suddenly turns on. Its back half starts to glow and the windows of the bridge light up, the whole thing coming to life like nothing ever happened to it.
"I'll be damned," Jesse says after a whistle. "Hunk of junk really does work."
"How'd he get back up to the engine room on that wound?" Billy asks. Everyone else shrugs like it isn't important.
"That thing could get us a good payout if we trade it in on Hera," Stern says. "A working Firefly model ain't cheap."
"He won't be up and about for much longer," the captain murmurs. "Just half an hour to be sure, to account for counterfeit organs or implants."
With that, they settle in for the wait. Jesse leaves the bridge, heading back to the punching bag in the cargo bay. Stern puts his feet up on the control panel and starts playing with his cube puzzle; he's been working on this one for almost half a year and Billy is not convinced it will ever be solved. Billy just stays where he is, sitting in the copilot seat while the captain watches the Firefly.
"We need to get the hell out of here," the captain says suddenly, staring out of one of the bridge windows. Billy and Stern both scramble to their feet to join him, the cube puzzle going clattering to the floor. There's a little craft flying towards them, a short range shuttle, from what Billy can tell. It docks smoothly in its empty slot on the side of the Firefly and Stern scrambles to get back into pilot mode.
They leave that ship in their wake, passing another tiny shuttle that must dock in the slot on the other side.
And then they try not to think about it after that.
Billy manages to not think about it for a few months before they dock on Santos for a quick pit stop. He leaves the ramp and there's a Firefly series 3 at the docks. Billy feels his heart beat faster, but keeps himself together. There are other Fireflies in the skies, despite how outdated they are. It doesn't mean anything.
Billy tells himself that it isn't anything right up until he's sitting in the bar next to the captain and finds that he's looking across the dark room at a very familiar man in a blue shirt and suspenders.
Maybe Billy is spiraling, but he doesn't think it's unreasonable to be terrified. What kind of man can fix his ship on a wound like that? What kind of medical supplies were on that shuttle when it flew back to him? Billy certainly hadn't seen anything particularly state of the art when he'd done his sweep of the ship.
The crew he's with is not soothing Billy's fears. There's a statuesque woman in leathers and combat boots who has two guns on her, minimum, and a hulking man in a graphic tee that's straining to hold itself together around biceps that are as big as Billy's head. Besides the two crew members who are visibly armed, Billy has never seen anyone who works on a smuggler ship and keeps his shirt so eerily white and crisp, or a woman who wears silk gowns in dive bars without worrying about standing out or getting the hem dirty. Billy tears his eyes away from the Shepherd with the bulging pecs to look back at the captain.
He's staring right back at Billy.
You don't recognize us, Billy thinks desperately. You don't you don't you don't and you won't say anything to your crew, please…
Billy is not so lucky.
That night, he crawls back to the ship with a bloody nose and light wallet. The captain is worse off, with a bone poking through the skin on his arm, and they have to take Jesse with them to the docks' chop shop of a doctor just so she can hold him down for the bone resetting. Honestly, Billy supposes he's just glad that no one on the crew had come up with the idea of shooting both of them in the gut. It's a small comfort, but at least they're still alive.