As
most of Serenity's crew play a chaotic kind of basketball in the cargo hold, a proximity alarm sounds. After a brief mock-panic
attack, Wash
heads to the bridge to find a tumbling spacecraft, and is startled by a body colliding with his view port. The rest of the
crew arrive to see what's up. River hangs back just outside the bridge door, whispering to herself that it's "ghosts."
The
spaceship turns out to be a short-range scow converted to a one-shot settler transport to the "Outer Planets". Book encourages
the crew to lend assistance, while Jayne wants to depart, imagining that the dead spacewalker killed everyone else and went
for a joywalk. Mal decides to check out the derelict; if there's no one to help, Serenity may still benefit from any abandoned
supplies. No one expects the Alliance to help even if called.
When
Jayne tricks the vacuum-phobic Simon into donning a spacesuit and joining the crew on the transport — which, to Simon's
embarrassment, turns out to be pressurized — Mal takes advantage of his and the others' presence to send them off in
teams to explore the ship, while he and Zoë head to a section that he suspects holds the real valuables. They find some valuable
supplies supplies, when River comes and shows them mutilated passengers hanged in the darkness below the ceiling. As Mal sees
them, he orders everyone to get to the engine room, but Jayne is hit from behind by an unseen attacker, whom Jayne shoots
blindly. When Mal finds the wounded man hiding behind an air grate, Simon mocks Jayne's exaggerated description of his attacker.
As
Simon treats the wild man, Mal announces that he must be the lone survivor of a "Reaver" attack. Book tries to offer some
hope for the man's recovery, but Mal and Jayne suggest he hasn't a clue about the nature of Reavers. Mal says, "Reavers ain't
men — or they forgot how to be", and goes on to explain how facing the nothing at the "edge of the galaxy" dehumanized
them. But he allows Book and Simon to return to the transport to cut them down (with Jayne's help) and give them a modest
ceremony. Mal's beneficence is actually a means to get rid of them while Kaylee tackles the removal of a Reaver booby trap
that attached itself to Serenity when they docked earlier.
Once
the derelict's cargo is aboard, Serenity moves to leave, only to be stopped by an Alliance
cruiser. When the Feds board the Firefly-class ship, they find Mal and his six crew and passengers innocently awaiting them,
the retrieved cargo plainly in sight to avoid accusations of theft. Alliance Commander Harken pointedly accuses them of harbouring
two fugitives, who are nowhere in sight, but Mal denies this, subtly implying complete unawareness of the fugitives. The commander,
un-fooled, orders their detainment for questioning.
As
the Feds search Serenity for the Tams and smuggled cargo, and tend to the survivor, Commander Harken interviews each member
of the crew individually. He deferentially questions respected Companion Inara, but plays hardball with the rest of the crew.
Zoë responds tersely about her marriage to Wash, claiming that they're "private
people", but Wash unwittingly undermines her by raving about his wife's many
attractions. Kaylee lays into the commander's earlier quip about Serenity being a "junker" by ranting about the poor design
of Alliance cruisers. Jayne simply stares silently at Harken in his turn. Book
phlegmatically deflects the commander's questions. While the interviews proceed, the Feds are shown ransacking the Firefly's
dining room, while just outside its window, the space suited Tams cling to Serenity's hull. Simon is clearly terrified, but
River is enraptured by the experience.
Interviewing
Mal, the young and ambitious Commander Harken accuses Mal of attacking the settler ship, which Mal points out is foolish considering
that they rescued and treated the only survivor. But the commander reveals that the man's tongue has been split, implying
that Mal had tortured him. Mal, however, sees a different meaning in this action — that the hapless survivor is becoming
a Reaver himself. Harken treats Mal's tale of "darkness you can't even imagine" as poetic nonsense designed to help Mal elude
prison.
As
Harken prepares to confine Mal for future prosecution, his lieutenant informs him that the survivor has viciously killed the
Alliance medical personnel attending to him and is at large. Mal convinces Harken
that he knows where the madman will go — back into Serenity — and that Mal is his best chance of avoiding more
bloodshed. Leading the commander and his Feds into the ship's dining area, Mal spots Simon and River, who have re-boarded
the ship, hiding around a corner. Suddenly the survivor, bearing metal ware facial piercings ("desecrating his flesh", as
Mal put it earlier), bloodily bashes one of the soldiers. As he claws at the blood-spattered Harken, Mal uses his still-cuffed
hands to break the neck of the nascent Reaver.
Serenity
undocks from the cruiser, ship and crew intact, but without the cargo — "couldn't let us profit… wouldn't be civilized"
— and the cruiser destroys the derelict, just as Mal had originally advised.
