Summary

Summary taken from Dusk 'til Dawn

• First Aired - September 27th 2002
• Written & directed by Tim Minear

• Doug Sarvant (Commander Harken)
• Brandon Morgan (Survivor)

In the cargo room the crew are playing a ball game of sorts. River, Simon and Inara are watching from above. As they're playing the proximity alert goes off. Wash goes to check it out while the game continues. But not for long. It's a ship that set off the alert. Wash tries hailing the ship but there's no one home, River makes a comment about their being ghosts. It's a cargo hauler retro fitted to carry passengers. They decide to have a look on the ship, see if anyone's hurt or needs help. And also see if there's any cargo worth taking. Mal & Zoe go on the mystery ship first, just to scope things out. What they find stuns them. There's nothing there. No people, no sign of a struggle, but they do find a personal entry in the ship's log. On Serenity Jayne tells Simon to grab his stuff and to get kitted out, he's heading to the ghost ship with Jayne. Simon gets on the other ship, all kitted out in a suit, only it's a joke. There's no need for it, Jayne's idea. In the ship's personal log it says that the lifeboat was launched a week ago. Wash, Jayne, Zoe, Mal, Simon & Kaylee all set about picking the bones of the ship, see if there's anything they can salvage.

As Mal & Zoe go around the ship they find a bucket load of supplies. Mal says to get this stuff and leave the rest. As They go about getting this stuff Zoe mentions that not all the families would have been able to escape on the one lifeboat. Mal says they didn't escape. Mal orders everyone to get what they can and get off the ship. Jayne gets attacked in the galley. The crew get there only to find a rather small looking man, afraid and slightly out of his mind. Mal knocks him out in order to get him back to Serenity and patched up. Jayne immediately thinks this one survivor is in fact the killer of the rest of the passengers. As the lone survivor recoups Mal explains why no one is to go near him. The ship got her by Reavers. But Mal still insists on getting what they can off the other ship before they try and high tail it out of there before the Reavers come back, if they do. Just as they're ready to leave Kaylee finds a booby trap attached to the other ship, which the Reavers left. If Serenity tries to detach from the ship they'll both explode. Kaylee gets to work to try and bypass the booby trap. The proximity alarm goes off. The crew think it's the Reavers back, but it's not it's an Alliance cruiser.

Commander Harken orders everyone on board and starts a search of Serenity. The feds also bring aboard the survivor. Onboard each crew is questioned about who they are and what they're doing. Mal tries to convince the commander to destroy the other ship, for their benefit, but the commander doesn't want to destroy his evidence. The doctors on the Alliance cruiser are working on the survivor, but things get violent. Blood is splattered. Mal tries to explain to Harken about Reavers, but Harken doesn't believe anything he's saying. Meanwhile Serenity's getting searched and River & Simon are no where insight, on the ship, but they're outside, in suits. Just as the feds leave they get back onboard. Harken gets a visit from a soldier. It's the survivor. Harken orders Mal to the brig and is going to auction Serenity. But Mal tells him he knows a way of finding the survivor, he knows where to look. Mal leads the troops and Harken back onboard Serenity. He sees River & Simon and leads the feds away from them. Suddenly they're all attacked, by the lone survivor. He's massacred himself and made to look like a Reaver. He's about to kill Harken when Mal saves his life.

The cargo which Mal and co. did take was taken back from them, but they still have Serenity and are off, back flying.