- Hoban 'Wash' Washburn: This landing is gonna get pretty interesting.
- Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: Define "interesting".
- Hoban 'Wash' Washburn: [deadpan] Oh God, oh God, we're all going to die?
- The Operative: That girl will rain destruction down on you and your ship. She is an albatross, Captain.
- Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: Way I remember it, albatross was a ship's good luck, 'til some idiot killed it.
- Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: [to Inara] Yes, I've read a poem. Try not to faint.
- Dr. Simon Tam: In all that time on the ship... I've always regretted... not being with you.
- Kaylee Frye: With me? You mean to say as... sex?
- Dr. Simon Tam: I mean to say.
- Kaylee Frye: To Hell with this. I'm gonna live!
- Kaylee Frye: Goin' on a year now I ain't had nothin' twixt my nethers weren't run on batteries!
- Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: Oh, God! I can't *know* that!
- Jayne Cobb: I could stand to hear a little more.
- The Operative: Do you know what your sin is Mal?
- Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: Ah Hell... I'm a fan of all seven. But right now... I'm gonna have to go with wrath.
- [Mal suspects Inara is being forced to lure them into a trap]
- Kaylee Frye: But how can you be sure Inara don't just want to see you? Sometimes people have feelings. I'm referring here to people.
- Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: Y'all were watching I take it?
- Kaylee Frye: Yes?
- Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: Did you see us fight?
- Kaylee Frye: No.
- Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: Trap.
- Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: What in the hell happened back there?
- Hoban 'Wash' Washburn: Start with the part where Jayne gets knocked out by a 90-pound girl 'cause... I don't think that's ever getting old.
- Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: But it ain't all buttons and charts, little albatross. You know what the first rule of flying is? Well, I suppose you do, since you already know what I'm about to say.
- River Tam: I do. But I like to hear you say it.
- Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: Love. You can learn all the math in the 'Verse, but you take a boat in the air that you don't love, she'll shake you off just as sure as the turning of the worlds. Love keeps her in the air when she oughta fall down, tells you she's hurtin' 'fore she keens. Makes her a home.
- River Tam: Storm's getting worse.
- Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: We'll pass through it soon enough.
- Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: [RE: What they found on Miranda] This record here's about twelve years old. Parliament buried it and it stayed buried until River here dug it up. This is what they were afraid she knew. And they were right to fear. There's a universe of folk who're gonna know it, too. Someone *has to* speak for these people.
- [pause]
- Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: Y'all got on this boat for different reasons, but y'all come to the same place. So now I'm asking more of you than I have before. Maybe all. Sure as I know anything, I know this - they will try again. Maybe on another world, maybe on this very ground swept clean. A year from now, ten? They'll swing back to the belief that they can make people... better. And I do not hold to that. So no more runnin'. I aim to misbehave.
- The Operative: I'm sorry. If your quarry goes to ground, leave no ground to go to. You should have taken my offer. Or did you think none of this was your fault?
- Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: I don't murder children.
- The Operative: I do. If I have to.
- Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: Why? Do you even know why they sent you?
- The Operative: It's not my place to ask. I believe in something greater than myself. A better world. A world without sin.
- Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: So me and mine gotta lay down and die... so you can live in your better world?
- The Operative: I'm not going to live there. There's no place for me there... any more than there is for you. Malcolm... I'm a monster. What I do is evil. I have no illusions about it, but it must be done.
- [after the hovercraft makes a crash landing in the hanger of Serenity. Simon runs to his sister]
- Dr. Simon Tam: River?
- River Tam: I swallowed a bug.
- Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: Doctor, I'm takin' your sister under my protection here. If anything happens to her, anything at all, I swear to you, I will get very choked up. Honestly, there could be tears.
- Jayne Cobb: We're gonna explode? I don't wanna explode!
- Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: Jayne, how many weapons you plan on bringing? You only got the two arms.
- Jayne Cobb: I just get excitable as to choice- like to have my options open.
- Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: I don't plan on any shooting taking place during this job.
- Jayne Cobb: Well, what you plan and what takes place ain't ever exactly been similar.
- Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: No grenades.
- [Jayne groans]
- Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: No grenades!
- Zoë: We crashin' again?
- Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: Go talk to your husband. Is the mule prepped?
- Zoë: Good to go sir. Just loading her up. Are those grenades?
- Jayne Cobb: Cap'n doesn't want them.
- Zoë: We're robbing the place, we're not occupying it.
- Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: [on the ship's intercom] This is the captain. We have a little problem with our entry sequence, so we may experience some slight turbulence and then - explode.
- Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: I'll take the shuttle in closer. Zoe, ship is yours. Remember, if anything happens to me, or you don't hear from me within the hour... you take this ship and you come and you rescue me.
- Zoë: What? And risk my ship?
- Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: I mean it. It's cold out there. I don't wanna get left.
- Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: Do you want to run this ship?
- Jayne Cobb: Yes!
- Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: [caught off guard] Well... you can't...
- The Operative: Are you willing to die for your beliefs?
- Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: I am...
- [they draw. Mal fires first, and the Operative is forced to take cover]
- Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: 'Course, that ain't exactly plan A.
- Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: I've staked my crew's life on the theory that you're a person, actual and whole, and if I'm wrong, you'd best shoot me now...
- [River cocks the gun she is pointing at Mal]
- Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: Or we could talk more.
- The Operative: [Speaking on the bridge of his ship] You should have let me see her, Captain. We should have done this as men - not with fire.
- [Serenity emerges from the clouds...]
- The Operative: Vessel in range, lock on.
- [... and heads straight for the Alliance ships...]
- The Operative: [smirks] Bastard's not even changing course.
- [... followed by a swarm of Reaver vessels emerging from the clouds! The Operative freezes]
- Alliance Pilot: Sir...?
- The Operative: Target the Reavers... Target the Reavers! Target everyone!
- [shouts]
- The Operative: Somebody, *fire*!
- Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: I know she meant to kill me 'fore the Doc put her to sleep, which how exactly does that work anyhow?
- Dr. Simon Tam: Safeword. The people who helped me break River out - they had intel that River and the other subjects were being embedded with behavioral conditioning. They taught me a safeword, in case... something happened.
- Kaylee Frye: Not sure I get it.
- Dr. Simon Tam: A phrase that's encoded in her brain, that makes her fall asleep. If I speak the words, "Eta...
- Jayne Cobb: Well don't say it!
- Zoë: It only works on her, Jayne.
- Jayne Cobb: Oh... Well, now I know that.
- Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: You think she'll hold together?
- Zoë: She's torn up plenty, but she'll fly true.
- Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: Could be bumpy.
- Zoë: Always is.
- River Tam: You take care of me, Simon. You've always taken care of me. My turn.
- [she dives through the closing doors, grabs the medikit, and throws it to Simon just before the doors close]
- Zoë: Do you know what the definition of a hero is? Someone who gets other people killed. You can look it up later.
- Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: Kaylee, what in the sphincter of hell are you playing at? We got the primary buffer panel coming right...
- Kaylee Frye: Everything's shiny, Cap'n. Not to fret.
- Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: You told me those entry couplings would hold for another week!
- Kaylee Frye: That was six months ago, Cap'n.
- Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: My ship don't crash. If she crashes, you crashed her.
- Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: [shouting down into the vault] We're coming down to empty the vault now!
- Vault Guard: [calling back up] You'll have to give me your authorization password!
- [Jayne fires a burst from his automatic rifle]
- Vault Guard: Uh... okay!
- Zoë: Do you really think any of us is gonna get through this?
- [looks at the other crew members struggling with their guns]
- Jayne Cobb: Well, I might.
- Jayne Cobb: I won't get et! You shoot me if they take me!
- [Mal aims pistol squarely at Jayne]
- Jayne Cobb: Well, don't shoot me first!
- Inara Serra: Mal, what are you doing here?
- Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: You invited me.
- Inara Serra: I never thought for a second you'd be stupid enough to come!
- Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: Well, that makes you a tease.
- Young River: People don't like to be meddled with. We tell them what to do, what to think, don't run, don't walk. We're in their homes and in their heads and we haven't the right. We're meddlesome.
- Dr. Caron: These are just a few of the images we've recorded. And you can see, it wasn't what we thought. There's been no war here and no terraforming event. The environment is stable. It's the Pax. The G-23 Paxilon Hydrochlorate that we added to the air processors. It was supposed to calm the population, weed out aggression. Well, it works. The people here stopped fighting. And then they stopped everything else. They stopped going to work, they stopped breeding, talking, eating. There's 30 million people here, and they all just let themselves die.
- Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: Just get us on the ground!
- Hoban 'Wash' Washburn: That part'll happen pretty definitely.
- Zoë: So... trap?
- Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: Trap.
- Zoë: We goin' in?
- Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: Ain't but a few hours out.
- Hoban 'Wash' Washburn: Yeah, but... remember the part where it's a trap?
- The Operative: I want to resolve this like civilized men. I'm not threatening you. I'm unarmed.
- Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: Good.
- [pulls gun and shoots Operative in the chest, knocking him into the wall, grabs Inara and gets ready to leave]
- The Operative: [grabs Mal from behind] I am, however, wearing full body armor. I am not a moron!
- River Tam: [seeing visions of dead bodies on Miranda] Run-tse duh shang-dee, ching dai-wuhtzo... make them stop! They're everywhere. Every city, every... every house, every room; they're all inside me! I can hear them all and they're saying... NOTHING! GET UP! Please, get up! Wuo-shang mayer, maysheen byen shr-to. Please God, make me a stone.
- Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: It's of interest to me how much you seem to know about that world.
- Shepherd Book: I wasn't born a shepherd, Mal.
- Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: You have to tell me about that sometime.
- Shepherd Book: [pause] No, I don't.
- Jayne Cobb: Ain't logical. Cuttin' on his own face, rapin' and murdering - Hell, I'll kill a man in a fair fight... or if I think he's gonna start a fair fight, or if he bothers me, or if there's a woman, or if I'm gettin' paid - mostly only when I'm gettin' paid. But these Reavers... last ten years they show up like the bogeyman from stories. Eating people alive? Where's that get fun?
- The Operative: I already know you will not see reason.
- Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: The Alliance wanted to show me reason, they shouldn't have sent an assassin.
- The Operative: I have a warship in deep orbit, Captain. We locked onto Serenity's pulse beacon the moment you hit atmo. I can speak a word and send a missile to that exact location inside of three minutes.
- Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: You do that, you'd best make peace with your dear and fluffy lord.
- [Mal tosses mechanism at the Operative]
- The Operative: [catching the mechanism] Pulse beacon.
- [Deleted scene]
- The Operative: Serenity... you lost everything in that battle. Everything you had, everything you were. How did you go on?
- Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: If you're still standing there when that engine starts, you never will figure it out.
- Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: [the Operative has politely asked Mal to return River] You have to open with payment.
- The Operative: That is a trap. I offer money, you'll play the man of honor and take umbrage; I ask you to do what is right and you'll play the brigand. I have no stomach for games.
- Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: I look to be bored by many more sermons before you slip. Just don't move.
- Shepherd Book: Can't order me around, boy. I'm not one of your crew.
- Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: Yes, you are.
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