Why they called the short, scruffy man “Badger” had been a mystery to Shepherd Book, but when that gangster came aboard Serenity, with guns to young Kaylee’s head, he knew exactly why in his own mind: A badger is a ground dwelling animal, a bottom feeder, in a sense, and so was this Badger, using the lowest methods of coercion to achieve is ends.

But the time for mentally insulting this man has passed. Now, Badger’s goons patrol the cargo bay in a demeaning and irreverent sort of way. This ship was their home.

That thought troubled the Shepherd. And abbey or church had always been his home, and before that, well home wasn’t in his vocabulary before his abbey days, and Serenity was a transport vessel. In theory, it takes you from point A to point B. Book’s journey had a point A, but no real point B. In a way, point B was the ship itself. At first, he wasn’t so sure about this. He prayed and prayed, petitioning God for an answer concerning where point B was.

“God works in mysterious ways, brother,” the head shepherd of the Southdown Abbey had told him.

That was true, because the answer returned that Serenity was point B. Serenity was where he was meant to be. That was especially troubling concerning what he had witnessed within the first twenty-four hours of his arrival. Crime, theft, bigotry, even murder.

Book knew all too well that God doesn’t bless the faithful with easy lives, and after Whitefall, he knew there was more to come.

It scared him to think that. Already he had beaten a man senseless. That stirred up a part of the shepherd he never wanted to reenact again.

He waits in the cargo bay like the rest of the crew: quietly and without noise. He prays first.

"Lord, lead me to you words. Help me find the strength to persevere through adversity," He prays silently.

With that he lets God direct what he reads: He opens his bible and the pages fall open as if by chance to exactly what he needs to see: Psalm 23. He reads: “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want. He mak