Disclaimer : The characters are Joss, the writing isn't, but I hope you all enjoy anyway.

This is another repost. Multi-chapter work in progress, mostly action adventure, with hefty Mal/Inara undertones and some Simon/Kaylee and Zoe/Wash on the side. Post-movie, so spoiler warnings.

This prologue chapter is a little bit fluffy in places and may not be representative of the rest of the story.

Thanks to Platonist, Aliasse, GillianRose, Riona, and Anja for betaing on various chapters.

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Fourteen years ago, the great Alliance pacified an entire planet on accident, called it a terraforming failure, and decided they would prove just as capable stewards for the rest of the seventy or so worlds. Independent forces that rallied when governors were appointed to Shadow, Persephone, and Hera; didn't appreciate the core's high-handed manner. The resistance that was supposed last six months, if that, went on for five years of brutal combat before it was crushed, and only after Shadow was rendered uninhabitable.

After the war, bureaucracy and resentment from the Alliance-supporting core worlds towards the rebellious border and rim resulted in Parliament repeatedly denying settlers even the most basic humanitarian aid, regardless of whether they had supported Unification or not. Megacorporations such as Blue Sun stepped in to fill the demand, and where that was too expensive, the people turned to local traders and transport, who were quickly labeled smugglers, scavengers, thieves, and pirates by corporate interests.

The resulting slew of Alliance laws were generally ignored by these individuals, many of whom were veterans of the war, many of whom had never stopped wearing the eponymous brown coats of the Independents' faction.

Two such browncoats had tried to move on from the horrors of the war, from Serenity Valley, where the forces of the Independents had been decimated in one desperate last stand. They'd had mixed success - the ship they'd fixed up the