The Guitar Of Yet Another Mission Is About To Go Awry plays as we pan up out of the wreck of this space station up to Serenity, where Wash tells them all that everything looks fine from where he's sitting. Joss -- I mean, "Wash" -- plays with some toy dinosaurs. The stegosaurus pretends to claim some fertile land for them, but then the tyrannosaur betrays him. You just can't trust tyrannosaurs. Should have gone with the ankylosaurus. They're too stupid to cause any trouble. Wash's play is interrupted by some alarms warning him that the plot is approaching.

Back at the space station, the hatch blows away (silently) and they open the door to find three intact containers. As they're considering their treasure, Wash pipes in on their communicators to warn them all that an Alliance cruiser is on the way. Mal mutters something in Chinese ("Have I ever told you all how much I love UPN? I watch it every night.") and asks Wash if they've spotted them yet. It doesn't seem like they have. They all worry that they'll get "humped" if the Alliance finds them. No, you'll get "humped" if the folks on the forums find you. You'll get "arrested" if the Alliance finds you. Mal orders Wash to shut everything on the ship down except for life support. As Wash starts shutting things down, he calls out to Kaylee on her communicator, telling her that they're shutting everything down. Kaylee runs into the engine room and does her part in flipping switches.

A giant Alliance city ship approaches slowly. Captioning reveals that the name of the cruiser is the Dortmunder, which sounds like it should be the name of a troll in a Harry Potter book. Inside, the head Alliance bellboy asks a minion for some exposition. The space station that our antiheroes are raiding is actually a carrier that "blew out" some time back and everybody died. Head Bellboy wonders if they should bother checking for survivors. The NYPD Blue Gritty-Cam has been upgraded by NASA for space travel, and treats us to several jittery, in-and-out-of-focus shots back and forth between the various ships. The antiheroes think the Alliance hasn't noticed them. But then one of the bellboys picks up some heat signatures. Head Bellboy orders a scanner sweep. Wash detects it, and warns Mal. Mal orders them to fire the ship back up and prepare to get the heck out of there as he, Zoe, and Jayne bring the cargo back to the ship. The Alliance finally detects Serenity. Head Bellboy calls the crew "lowlife vultures, picking the flesh off the dead." I guess I should call that aftshadowing, since it sort of refers to the future events of "Bushwhacked," which has already taken place. Or something like that. Head Bellboy orders them to use gunships to bring Serenity and its crew in.