A deadly disease Months after Inara leaves Serenity, Mal and the crew finally learn the reason for her sudden departure: she is dying of a terminal illness. It is Kiehl s Myeloma, a form of cancer that s supposedly incurable, and Inara has very little time left. A disreputable scientist Through their shock and despair, rumors of a cure reach the crew. Expert Esau Weng is said to have developed a means to treat Inara s condition, but he has been disgraced and incarcerated for life on a notorious Alliance prison planet. An infamous prison On the planet of Atata, inmates are abandoned with no guards and left to survive as best they can. What s more, terraforming the planet did not take properly, so the world is a frozen wasteland. To save Inara, the Serenity crew must infiltrate the prison .