Serenity encounters a ruthlessly professional bounty hunter, Jubal Early, who will stop at nothing to retrieve River. But River, feeling unwelcome on the ship, takes a novel approach to escaping from the long arm of the Alliance.
A Companion-trained friend of Inara's who runs a brothel calls for help from Serenity when a local bigwig reveals his intentions to take "his" baby from the girl he impregnated.
A former Independence soldier who had served with Mal and Zoë returns in a dramatic manner, with a vicious Alliance officer chasing after him for some unusual smuggled goods.
Angered at Zoë's unshakable war connection to Mal, Wash demands a shot at a field assignment. Unfortunately, crime lord Niska chooses this moment to exact a brutal vengeance for Mal's failure to complete an earlier job.
After Serenity suffers a catastrophe that leaves her crew with only hours of oxygen, flashbacks show how Mal and Zoë acquired Serenity and assembled their motley band.
Returning to a planet where he ran into some serious trouble years ago, Jayne discovers that he's become a local folk legend. Mal decides to use this entertaining distraction to complete a job, but some unfinished business may derail his plans.
As an unexpected reward for an unpaid job, Mal finds himself married to a naïve, subservient young woman named Saffron. The crew are amused at his discomfort and Book lectures him on propriety, but things aren't as smoothly straightforward as they thought them to be.
Serenity is pulled in by a Tohoku-class cruiser while investigating a spaceship that was attacked by Reavers. Simon and River must hide to prevent capture, while something is wrong with the lone survivor of the attacked spaceship.