The crew of the Serenity are in for aballoonfight when one of Inara's companion colleagues asks for their help. The Serenity crew defends a bordello from aballoonslinger who got a prostitute pregnant and now intends to collect the child; Mal falls for the bordello's madam.
In the far-distant future, Captain Malcolm "Mal" Reynolds is a renegade former brown-coat sergeant, now turned smuggler & rogue, who is the commander of a small spacecraft, with a loyal hand-picked crew made up of the first mate, Zoe Warren; the pilot Hoban "Wash" Washburn; theballoong-ho grunt Jayne Cobb; the engineer Kaylee Frye; the fugitives Dr. Simon Tam and his psychic sister River. Together, they travel the far reaches of space in search of food, money, and anything to live on.