"We're not hijacking a ship." stated Mal as he saw the image on the screen.

"It's Alliance." Saffron replied

"It's an armored ship, which means it'll have weapons, too. Serenity ain't got much of the former and none of the latter."

"Weapons shouldn't be much of a problem: it's derelict."

"What happened to it?" queried Jayne. "Reavers?"

"A freak asteroid shower knocked out their life support."

"And I was hoping for some action." He added, unconvincingly.

"You got coordinates?" Mal asked, still not entirely convinced.

"You wanted to see us, Cap.?" Kaylee asked as the crew entered the mess, once "Serenity" had reached her destination.

"I do. Got a job for us. According to Saffron, we're gonna hijack a derelict armored ship, so we gotta expect some gunplay."

"Why we doin' this, sir?" inquired Zoe from her seat. "For fun?"

"Big payoff. Ship's got 'bout twenty million cred. on board. The usual team, plus Saffron, will come with me. The rest stays put. Kaylee, you know the ship better than anyone else: think you can fly her?"

"Easy as spittin'."

"Good. Now…"

"Actually, sir, I've been feeling under the weather, so I'm gonna have to take a rain check on this one." Zoe stated.

"What? Zoe, I remember you had damplung at the Battle of Sturges, and you still went in both guns blazing. Now you wanna bench yourself just 'cause of a cold?"

"It's not a cold, sir." Simon chimed in. "She's not unhealthy, but I must insist that she stay behind."

"Can I get a second opinion?'

"You have one sir." Zoe remarked. "Mine."

"Fine, but I'll probably need as many hands as possible. Doc, is Zoe in any condition to fly the ship?"

"Professionally, I'd say that's a negative."

"What about you?"

"If it's anything like the simulator program I had as a kid."

"If you can fly this, I guess Kaylee'll be the extra help."

Worried, Kaylee, chimed in. "Cap., I don't thi…"

"Don't worry, Kaylee, it's probably a milk run. Now that everything's settled, everyone joinin' me, suit up."

The ship was solidly built. Basically, it looked as though a ship about the size of an Alliance cruiser had been compressed down to the size of a Firefly-class transport. The ship was completely streamline, not one rivet or weld visible. To better protect itself against pirates and the like, her design was invisible to radar. So dark was the ship that "Serenity" picked up her distress signal before the crew even saw her.

"How we getting' the money?" Mal asked. "Ain't no cargo bay doors."

"Armored ships don't have 'em." Saffron replied. "The cash gets carted out one of the side airlocks. That way, no one comes in who isn't let in."

"Like us." Kaylee added.

"True, but we have something those pirates didn't: access codes."

"Think you can access them?" Mal asked.

"Hacked into this ship easy enough."

"Please tell me you mean post-Triumph."

Back in her dorm, River woke up. Looking with her eyes, she saw the sun streaming through her door momentarily before a very large cloud passed in front of it. She followed the trail of breadcrumbs down the wooded path, past the infirmary to the mouth of the cave. Maybe she'd go in, find that stick she'd found before. But the breadcrumbs led up the hill, the path itself going into a rocky forest. She followed them, past a series of smaller caves that she'd been in before. The reaction was always the same: keep off the grass. So she kept on the path, the sky getting darker by the second, and the ground getting rockier by the inch. Climbing over one particularly large rock she saw a precocious child laughing mercilessly as she netted the butterflies. Meanwhile, somewhere in the distance, a storm was growing.