With dust thick in the air, Zoë winds the bandage around her bloodied hand as best she can. Her cellmate, sitting on the bunk behind her in this dark, dank hole, tells her she’s starting to get a bit of a reputation.

Zoë snorts. “Not a bad reputation to have.” The cellmate doesn’t look convinced.

“Three came this time. Next it’ll be four, then five. You’re good, but eventually the numbers’ll get you.”

Zoë snorts again. She won’t be here much longer, she says calmly. “I got friends coming for me.”

Her cellmate laughs. “We all got friends coming for us,” she chortles. Zoë ignores her.

“Not like these you don’t,” she whispers to herself.

On Serenity, the Alliance soldier isn’t looking too well. He’s still tied to his chair, but at least it’s upright again. Mal stands in front of him, pointing at a map on the holo. He asks — not for the first time — which one they want. But he doesn’t look at the soldier. He looks at River, who watches him as if he’s doing a dot‑to‑dot.

“This here?”

River shakes her head. “No.”

The soldier screams in horror and fear. “Get out of my head!”

Mal points to another desolate moon on the star chart. “This one?”

Sweat drips off the officer now, River’s probes too strong to fight. He bows his head in shame.

“That’s it,” River declares.

In the infirmary, Kaylee stands with Simon, watching over the young girl from the Academy.

“They done to her like they did with River?” she asks.

Simon nods. “And worse. River was lucky. She got out. This poor girl…”

River speaks from the doorway, eyes fixed on the newcomer. “She doesn’t even remember. They took all of her out. Put back what they wanted. She doesn’t even know she used to be a person.”

River’s frightening words seem to trigger something. The girl suddenly lunges in her bed, barely held by the restraints. She screams — high‑pitched, piercing — and River covers her ears as if she hears something no one else can. Simon fires a dart gun, and the screaming stops. The girl collapses back onto the bed, unconscious.

“You have to help her,” River begs. “You have to make her remember.”

Simon turns to her, sympathy on his face. “River, it’s not that simple.”

“You can do it,” she interrupts. “You’re smart, Simon. Top of the class.”

Simon smiles at his sister, pulls her forward, and kisses her forehead. Then he looks at the unconscious girl — remembers she’s a child — and makes his decision. He looks at Kaylee and River.

“I’ll try,” he says softly.

Later, the crew gathers in the kitchen. Mal issues orders.

“Just us two going in,” he says, meaning himself and the Operative. “Jayne’s injured and we need River at the helm.”

Jayne complains he can still shoot. Bea says she can help with her men, but Mal shakes his head. It’s just the two of them.

“The rock’s mostly uninhabited. We come around from the far side, no one should know we’re there.”

Inara points out that Zoë will need forewarning. Kaylee grins and says if River can get the ship low enough, she’ll let her know.

Mal moves off, orders given, but Bea follows him.

“Mal,” she says, puzzled. “I can help you. You should let me come.”

“Mind’s made up.”

Bea hesitates, then calls after him. “My father fought in the Unification War.”

Mal stops dead. Turns just enough to see her from the corner of his eye. She has his attention.

“He wrote me about you. Said you were gonna turn the tide. He laid down his life in Serenity Valley believing that you would win the war for them. I sought you out thinking the same.”

Mal bows his head but doesn’t turn fully. “War’s over,” he says.

“Could’ve fooled me,” she replies.

Mal turns, almost angry. “This job can’t go but one way. Turns out you’re beyond your depth, I ain’t gonna drag you back.”

“I understand the risks,” she promises. “And I understand what’s at stake. I came to fight. Let me.”

Mal studies her, then asks her father’s name.

“Li Quiang,” she says. Mal asks if she takes after him. She chuckles. “That’s what people say.”

Mal says nothing. He walks away, up the stairs toward the bridge, and calls back:

“All right. Be ready.”

Bea hides the relief — and the tear — that falls from her eye.

On the moon prison, Zoë lies on her bunk, eyes shut, trying to rest in the heat. A booming sound echoes outside, sending inmates to their windows. A burning rock — a meteor, by the look of it — falls into the atmosphere in the distance. Her cellmate asks what it is. Zoë doesn’t look, but she smiles.

“A firefly.”

The prisoners gather outside, staring into the distance. Zoë sees nothing at first, but her instincts insist it’s there.

Then she sees the sun glint — not off rock or sand, but metal.

She runs.

Guards notice her in the glare and plan to let her die in the heat, but one grabs his visor and stares out — just in time to see the hover‑mule racing toward Zoë.

“Prison break!” he screams.

Guards sprint toward her, but Jayne shoots them down from afar, proving he can still shoot. Another guard aims at Zoë, but her cellmate smashes a rock over his head.

“Go, Zoë,” she urges. “Go.”

More guards mount speeder bikes, gaining fast. Mal swings the Mule around and reaches for Zoë’s hand. She grabs it, tells him he took too long, and climbs aboard. The Mule accelerates now that its passenger is safe.

Jayne snipes where he can, but more bodies make clean shots harder. Mal yells over comms:

“Get back to the ship and come rescue us!”

His tone suggests Jayne should’ve thought of that already.

Bea fires a bullet past Mal, killing an enemy behind him.

“Glad you brought me?” she quips, standing back‑to‑back with him on the Mule despite its speed.

Alliance forces close in — until Serenity drops over the horizon, ramp extending. Mal thinks it’s going to be close.

The Mule screeches through a sharp turn to avoid gunfire, but makes it into the hold. River doesn’t wait for the bay to close before lifting off, leaving their Alliance prisoner behind on the desert floor.

As soon as the Mule stops, Zoë leaps off.

“Where is she?”

“She’s right here, Zoë,” Kaylee says.

Zoë turns — sees her baby — and scoops Emma into her arms. Tears stream down her face.

“That’s all right, little girl. That’s all right.”

Emma coos, and Zoë smiles.

On Theophrastus, the Operative prepares to leave the crew. Mal asks if the Alliance will come for them, but the Operative doubts it.

“If they are wise, and I believe they are, they’ll tell their superiors to leave you alone. But eventually, there will be someone new. There always is.”

He extends his hand. Mal surprises himself by being genuine when he shakes it.

“Goodbye, Mal,” the Operative says, walking off into the greenery.

In the infirmary, calm now, the rescued girl sits up.

“My name is Iris,” she tells the crew.

“Do you remember what they did to you?” River asks.

“I remember everything,” Iris says, horrified.

River bends to her level. “It’s not easy getting your brain back. Took me a long time before I got back to normal.”

Simon smiles. “Some might say she’s still on that journey.”

A look from River and Kaylee makes him apologise. Kaylee suggests Iris stay on Serenity.

“We’d have to check with Mal, but he’s a softy.”

“And he don’t scruple from bringin nut jobs aboard, as you can see,” Jayne adds, earning a smile from Inara.

Iris hesitates. “I’ve been locked up for so long. I want to be out in the world. And I want to make them pay for what they did to me.”

Bea offers her hand. “That lines up with my plans, if you’re looking for company.”

Inara suggests going through her old things to find Iris something better than a medical bodysuit. Zoë puts Emma to sleep in her bunk, then excuses herself.

Walking through the woods, sunshine overhead and a polite breeze in the air, the Operative moves quietly. He knows she’s there — he noticed her a while back. Eventually he stops.

Zoë steps forward, calm and steady. “That baby’s father died running from you and yours.”

The Operative says nothing. He sets his bag down.

Zoë watches him through bruised eyes. “Don’t matter if you helped save me. That’s a debt can’t be repaid.”

The Operative speaks in his same, emotionless tone. “No. It cannot.”

Zoë throws a gun at his feet. She won’t attack an unarmed man.

“I will defend myself,” he promises.

Zoë nods. “I’m countin on it.”

He slowly reaches down, picks up the gun. Once he has it, he turns — and Zoë draws.

In the cargo bay, Iris twirls in a bright red dress, sounding like a normal girl her age.

“I think I like it,” she says, while Inara searches for a hairpiece she knows is in there somewhere.

Iris asks what the clothes are for, and Jayne — blunt as ever — tells her Inara was a prostitute. Kaylee nudges him.

Mal watches as Zoë walks out of the woods and back aboard the ship. He continues looking out as she stands beside him, following his gaze.

“If you wanted to take Emma and settle down someplace far away from all this…” he begins, but Zoë interrupts.

“No, thank you. This is Emma’s home and, screwed up as they are, this is Emma’s family. What’s left of it.”

Iris laughs from the shuttle. Zoë adds, “Plus, you need me, sir.”

“Wouldn’t know what to do without you, truth be told,” Mal says. He asks if she’s okay, glancing toward the woods — the direction the Operative went.

“You all right?”

Zoë silently takes his hand. “Getting there, sir.”

They walk back up the ramp together, their next job unknown.

On the bridge, Mal’s arms wrapped around her, Inara watches the sun through the windows and smiles.

“You got her back,” she says. “What now?”

“Same as ever,” Mal tells her. “Take the sky. See where it leads.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Inara says, leaning closer. “Kaylee, fire up the engines.”

Nothing happens — not until Simon and Kaylee put each other down and get redressed. Mal ignores them and smiles. The crew ready, River checks her controls. Mal gives her the nod.

She lifts Serenity off the planet’s surface and toward the black, leaving leaves spinning in the air in their wake.