title: Blessed Emptiness.

author: Rodlox.

genre: FIREFLY.

characters: Mal.

POV: Mal's.

summary: based upon something I once read that the creator of _FIREFLY_ said.

Blessed Emptiness.
by Rodlox.

Everyone's asleep, for once.

Everyone but me.

They're all getting along, for once.

For now.

Looking at those stars out ahead, remembering the rule of light-traveling...

A star blinks out, turning from Main Sequence to a big ember. The SERENITY's computers automatically tell me how close/far we are to there -- just enough distance that it actually dimmed centuries ago...back when -

Cloning technology turned out to be a dead end, and that was centuries ago.

There's enough people not to bother either way.

Artificial intelligence was a no-go, given how dumb some people could be... and the fact that nobody wants their ships or their whatevers to be talking back to them... or going on strike.

People can do that.

Save for people, there's nobody moving from planet to planet. Heck, nobody else lives on any planets.

There are no aliens.

There are no clones.

There are no robots.

Just Humanity clinking around in the vastness of space.

I like that.

It may be crowded at times... But at least it's a crowd I know.

Like Booker said to me once, space is a blessed emptiness.
~~~~.

end.