Edited , October 2021:

Altered the bushes a little... that's it.

• A/N:

Riddick's bounty, and connections, really help the crew in this chapter. Serenity gets all pimped out, and River becomes more sane, thanks to having better medication from the start.

However, all their problems are not solved. Don't think one good paycheck fixes everything, especially since they spend most of it.

They still need to take "Jobs" if they expect to survive. I'm just adding more jobs, due to Riddick's connections, and making it so River can actually help more.

Although don't think she is "cured", as she will still babble and be "not quite right". However she will be sane enough to be "functional", or at least a definition of it. Where she will actually work as an Apprentice onboard. And, of course, she may be a "bad ass assassin", but Mal will be hesitant to allow her in combat. Though he will "Make use" of the fact he knows she is a reader.

Simon also has more respect for the Captain, as he didn't have that blow out during their first meeting. However, as Simon learns more about the illegal things, the crew gets up to, he will have to come to terms with the fact this is the life he doomed him and his sister, to.

• Chapter 4 Part 2:

It had been a little over 2 and a half weeks, since the crew visited the Black Market. Over a month since they parked here... and the ship was finally finished. With all their belongings, and everything they had bought, nicely placed where the crew liked it. The scrappers had even embedded / bolted all the "new" furniture, the crew bought from the yard, into the ship. So it wouldn't move about, when they were planet side. It was a might lunch tossing, when the artificial gravity of the ship, interacted with real gravity...

Although Kaylee had bought new systems to help with that, it was still better to be safe then sorry. A loose table could be all kinds of danger, on a boat.

Meanwhile, Wash had added to the cockpit's set up. Having Upgraded sensors, and the controls. Through his, and Kaylee's efforts, They could now perform a lot of maneuvers, without need of making last minute adjustments to the ship's engine. It could now be done with the press of a button, or the turn of a knob.

The room also had a better communications set up... and a glass bookshelf, to keep Wash's dinosaur collection (which he planned to be expanding with his cut of Riddick's bounty). The ship now had the finest tactical equipment and scanners... of a few years ago. That hardly mattered to Mal, as it was still near enough to top of the line, in his opinion.

Wash had been showing the apprentices, and strangely Riddick, his new set up. That way, when they weren't in an emergency, others could pilot the ship. River seemed a natural, maybe even as good as Wash, and she had been acting less crazy, thanks to the meds Simon got her...

Apparently, River also had some kind of mental programming, and triggers, but the chemist that supplied the meds, also was able to work with the girl, to help her overcome those... which Mal was relieved... he had seen the girl sparring against Riddick, and didn't want to worry about her suddenly getting "Triggered" by the wrong phrase. Luckily, the Lord Pharmacist was able to give her some kind of drug induced therapy, to completely remove the programming...

Mal had, of course, heard about the Lord Pharmacist... but he never had the chance to meet him, before. The guy had been infamous, during the unification war, as their primary supplier of bioweapons. Although he also supplied most of the meds the Independents used.

It was great, having the man as the ship's own contact, to resupply their infirmary. Riddick's contact's were definitely paying off. Man even offered Mal a job, to get him supplies for his drugs. It was mostly just hunting for some plants, on border worlds... Although the part about stealing some chemicals, from any of the Alliance run research labs, did sound fun to Mal's ears.

Best yet, the man was in no hurry, as he contracted several ships for this job. He was just willing to pay Mal, for anything the crew might stumble on. So the crew had time to plan a heist of the research lab...

It was good to have a reliable source of income, as the Lord Pharmacist. As he was willing to pay, as often as the crew brought him supplies, with no deadlines.

Though they couldn't start on the job, until the ship was ready to set sail.

The engine room, was something Kaley insisted on upgrading. She bought all the best parts from the yard, then installed them herself... Mal put his foot down, as she wanted to spend the entire budget on the engine. So, instead, she had decided to use her own part of the bounty, for it.

Mal didn't even understand a quarter of what she was doing. His limits ended with, "We'll go faster, for longer, and even be more maneuverable, for less fuel." All of which sounded great, but Mal was more concerned with fixing, and improving, the hall.

The Scrappers also expanded the cargo bay, adding many new hiding places for the crew's smuggling jobs... and even a compartment, between the Ceiling and the floor of the kitchen... for the fugitives to hide, if they ever got borded by the Alliance. They even installed a larger Shuttle, parked on top of the ship. All this, Naturally, meant expanding the kitchen. It could now hold more furniture, and a few games.

Like a broken down arcade box, that the scrap yard workers managed to repair. Wash bought it, and had them bolt it into a corner. He offered to let anyone use it, "unless their name is Jayne", but insisted that was a joke when Jayne growled at him.

Jack topped Wash, by buying a holo-table she stumbled on, in the scrap yard. The scrappers fixed it up, and even showed her where to buy programs for it... which she went crazy over, and easily spent the rest of her share on those. Which caused Riddick to express his displeasure... to the girl's backside.

It was weird seeing a murderer of hundreds, hugging a child after giving her a spanking. Though She undoubtedly would have prefered if that hadn't all happened in front of the crew.

Mal, then assigned the girl extra chores, through his role as her Captain. He was supposed to be teaching the girl, that included how not to waste her entire cut on frivolous things. The occasional treat for yourself was one thing, but you couldn't afford to be so careless with money. Not when you didn't know when the next paycheck was coming.

Even if the girl did have a trust fund, she needed to be more careful with her coin. After all, she only got paid, from her trust, once a month, so what good would that do if she spent the whole thing in one go.

Though, Mal hated to admit, the Holo-table was pretty nice, and if she had stopped at buying that, and a handful of programs for it, no one would have cared... but no, the girl bought enough to have her own arcade.

That thing could now play near every type of table based game imaginable. Everything from pool to pingpong, even Air hockey and foosball. All played through Holograms...

She even got a "Target Range" program, that perfectly simulated the physics of bullets. That would be a particularly good training aid.

Though she didn't have any of the necessary props to use those programs. So each member of the crew ended up buying one of each, for themselves. They were all stored, in a new row of large lockers, each assigned to a different crewmen, set up in the sitting area of the mess.

Strangely the only one that didn't have a set, in her locker, was Jack. As Riddick refused to buy her them, claiming she should have bought those herself, instead of the 200 boardgames she bought for it (which thankfully didn't need any accessories). Or the one thousand "Dungeons and Dragons Campaign Settings" and "Expansion Packs" she got.

The gorham table was so advanced, it could actually generate miniature 3-D environments, on it's surface. That you could direct customizable Avatars, through the environments. The "campaigns" offered a bunch of "adventures" that the table's computer controlled... basically, they were overly complicated, holographic videogames... controlled by a mix of the computer stations, in each seat, and voice commands. Mal had caught Jayne using that function, with the girls and Wash... and occasionally Book played with them as well.

Mal hated to admit it, but that ruttin' thing would probably do wonders for ship's morale... and then Zoey told Mal that Wash spent a few thousand on videogames for his Arcade Box... which definitely wasn't setting a good example for the kid... but it wasn't like he spent his whole cut. Not even a tenth of it. Most of his money had gone into improving his cockpit. Much how Kaylee had spent her's, on the engine...

Mal would admit, though only in a sarcastic voice, even if he did mean it... it made him all fuzzy inside, that some of his crew were spending their own cut, on improvements to his boat... this was their home, as much as his own... even the Doctor, though new to the crew, had spent a good bit of money buying some high grade medical equipment, for the Infirmary... Though Mal got the feeling that was because the boy wasn't used to working with "Subpar" equipment.

Regardless, due to the sheer expansion of the hall, a new deck was added, on the top of the ship Leading to three massive rooms... with the rooms moved around a little, to accommodate it.

The mess was still at the top, while the engine room had been moved to the middle deck.

The middle room had a good 2 dozen passenger dorms. So the ship could actually get a bit more coin, transporting passengers... while the old Passenger dorms, near the infirmary, were cleared out.

Mal hadn't been sure what he was going to do with that newly added space... until Riddick and Jayne started buying gym equipment and moving it into there. As Zoey seemed to like the idea, Mal bought some exercise equipment of his own, as well as large training mats, for the crew to keep fit.

Due to the engine room, no longer being connected to the mess, this left room for a large, onboard, garden, in the back. The crew was coming to call the new room "The Greenhouse", and book was teaching the apprentices how to tend to it. The girls even painted the room green, as some bizarre joke. This room had rows of tables, with bushes growing in nutrient rich soil. The lighting in there, was all from UV lamps.

The food growing inside, was some fancy Alliance created plants. Though Mal made sure it was available for public use... the stuff tended to only grow on the ships of millionaires. Book had bought the bushes for the ship, from some of the black market dealers... and said it was just him keeping his side of the bargain for his rent agreement...

Mal didn't argue the point, even though he only asked the Shepard for a meal "as often as you pay rent"... and these bushes ripened within a week, not a month... and the sheer number of them meant they would never have to worry about food again... fresh food... every day... forever... that had endeared the Preacher to Mal, just a tiny bit. He didn't even care that was probably the intention. It was one hell of a gift for his crew... Though Mal had to pay for the onboard garden.

Most of the bushes were growing genetically modified berries.

Firstly, there were various kinds of proteins: chicken, pork, beef, and a few kinds of fish. One of each.

Then there were a large number of Berries, tasting like different kinds of fruits and vegetables, even various kinds of berries. Apple berries, and Orange berries, tomato berries, and classic blue berries, even perfectly ripe Strawberries. All looking like different colored grapes. Some even multi colored.

Next there were much taller bushes. All growing corn like cobs. Only these cobs grew raw rice instead of Corn.

Most were based on grains. Such as different kinds of rice. From white, yellow, Mexican, what have you. All tasting as if they were already seasoned.

Then other rice tasted like various kinds of pasta dishes. From regular noodles, chow mein, spaghetti, alfredo, and even lasagna. As well as a few hundreds of other pasta dishes.

There were even a few rice cobs, which tasted like pastries, or sweet breads: Cookies, cakes of all kinds, donuts, honey butter biscuits, Hawaiian bread, just everything imaginable, even pancakes.

Despite how complicated the flavors got, they all cooked like instant rice. Without being any messier then sticky white rice.

Then, there were the most valuable bushes of all. They were growing pea pods, but containing salt like crystals inside. Cable of being munched on, like candy, or dissolving instantly in water.

Even these Crystals came in various flavors. Such as Spicy, Sweet, Creamy, Tart, Tangy, Buttery, Sour, Honey, Sugary, Chocolatey, and of course Salty, as well as a few dozen more.

Together, a handful of berries, and a cob of "Rice" equaled the nutritional value (complete with minerals, vitamins, and proteins) of a well balanced meal. Ruttin' things didn't even have any chemicals in them, that the body couldn't absorb.

Preacher had done them a solid... even if Mal did have to pay for the room to store them.

As for crew accommodations? Riddick turned down sleeping in one of the shuttles. So instead, Mal added 2 more crew Quarters, in the neck of the ship. One for the Doctor, and one for Riddick.

It was split up into two floors, due to the expanded hall. With the bottom floor being made up of 2 small rooms. With a hallway, leading to the ladder to get down there. On the room above, was a small sitting room, a wash room... with a real water based shower and bath... Mal could only imagine how the crew was going to love those. Then there was a private laundry room, for each quarters, and a closet.

This was only possible, due to the larger water tank, and water Purifier, Mal bought. The water would now go on an infinite recycling system. To the point it was as clean as distilled water, while the tanks were always filled.

All waste, that the Purifier filtered out, was sterilized and disintegrated. Then sprinkled, as a type of ash based fertilizer, over the plants in the green house. The ship didn't even have a septic anymore. There was even a network of garbage chutes, which sent trash to the same place waste was disintegrated. There were small chutes in the kitchen, each quarters' sitting area, and an industrial size one in the cargo bay.

They would never have to go through the chore of dumping the septic, garbage, or refilling the water, ever again... although Mal assumed Kaylee would have her hands full on keeping up with the maintenance to these machines. Thankfully, once she got the apprentices trained up, they could help her with her work load.

Riddick had volunteered to help Kaylee with her duties. As the man admitted to being a jack of all trades, due to growing up in the slam, and apprenticing in the underworld, after he got out. The Butcher, that had given Riddick his mods, had also had the boy help out around their compound, after they got out... well, "broke out" was more like. So Riddick knew a little about everything. Not enough to make a career out of it, but enough to be the Assistant to Serenity's mechanic and pilot.

He appeared to want Jack to gain the same skills. So her learning from each of the crew, was appealing to him. Riddick seemed to be taking his role as "big brother" seriously, as he had bought the girl a lot of training gear, and even furniture, for his second bedroom he stuffed her in.

Meanwhile... Mal had no idea what he was going to do with his own second bedroom. He mostly had it because there was no way to give everyone else one, and not himself.

Zoey had been talking about wanting kids, since she married Wash. And now that Mal had a new public relations crewmen, and the quarters were big enough to support a family... Well Wash couldn't have any more excuses to hold off on kids.

Then the second bedrooms would give the apprentices more privacy, while keeping them near their kin. Which Mal had no doubt both the girls, and their brothers, would appreciate.

Jayne wanted to turn his second room, into a real armory... he actually wouldn't shut up about all the things he had bought from the scrappers. They had quite a few, untraceable, bullets they made from the various metals. Cheap, and high quality bullets, Riddick had assured. They also had a number of grenades, and knives, and even Gorham lasers.

Jayne was as excited as a kid in a candy store, about the high end weapons and decades worth of ammo he bought. Man even bought himself a ruttin' plasma rifle, though not as good as his favorite rifle, Vera. As the plasma would quickly fizzle out after going further then 120 feet, but it was a beast at that range. The thing didn't even need ammo. So long as you didn't overheat it, by firing too quickly, it could disintegrate anything it shot. Thing had a Gorham plasma based core, so it wouldn't even run out of batteries for at least a thousand years.

Mal finally decided to turn his own spare room into a library... he might not share it with many, but the gruff outlaw Captain did have a love of poetry and literature, from Earth-That-Was... he just hadn't been able to read any because there was no space for books on the ship... he didn't go crazy, but he did buy a good number of his old favorites.

He used to have a large collection... back on his home planet of Shadow... before the Alliance turned the world into a black rock... it was one of the first worlds lost in the war... he didn't count on how depressing it be to start reading again...

Regardless, thems the past... no point dwelling... an odd sentiment coming from someone who named their ship after the worse battle they ever fought in... their most crushing defeat. A battle that resulted in the Alliance absorbing all the independent planets, into one united government... that tried to crush every freedom out of every man and woman in the known Verse.

The one scrap of freedom left was the black of space, and Mal had set up shop. With his ship, his home.

Of course... the Black had it's own dangers.