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The contents of that box are still worth buying even if you have access to perishables.
Shirley Bennet captains and co-owns The Morning. Pooling her money with a creepy stranger in a junkyard was a bit of a desperate measure, but all things considered it was a bargain for a chance to jump start her dried, delicious, and delivered food business venture. Not to mention the semblance of freedom from the Alliance. Having served for the Independent Army during the Unification War, as well as fighting at the Battle of Serenity Valley, she had no desire to stick around the central planets as long as she had. Despite the semi-permanent pleasantude, and her avoidance of the subject of life before The Morning, her annual visits to unmarked graves in the Valley are telling enough for all members that these are more than just fallen comrades.
Forming the beginning of her band in that fateful junkyard was the first step towards beginning life all over again. Even while holding on to grudges, her faith was somehow reaffirmed such that if it wasn't for her coat, anyone might have mistaken her for a Shepherd. Shirley's crew is her family, and she will not hesitate to drop her voice and shoot away any threats in the face for them. Though the funds don't quite let her gratuitously pew pew pew without some hesitation however, so it's become the norm to reluctantly accept riskier financial pursuits to complement the official income...
"I am a leaf on the wind. —" "Leaves." "Leaves on the wind. Watch us soar."
Abed Nadir, The Morning's pilot, left home and his father's own delivery business to seek adventure and be like his favourite rugged space heroes from classical media. A chance visit to a junkyard allowed him to be roped up by a lonely Browncoat looking for crew. Despite the disappointing lack of comedic bickering over what ship to purchase, it was mutually decided that they both needed the Firefly sitting there in its charming glory that neither could afford. Abed, having nothing but the clothes on his back, had been counting on heroic pluck to activate some kind of deus ex machina.
Fortunately, contrivance remembered its lines in the form of a tasteless old man with money to spare. A trio of various demographic representatives was formed, and the quest to keep The Morning afly begun.
Although essentially being a delicious and dried food delivery boy was not much different than business his father had hoped Abed would take over, it was only one among many other experiences and diversions. Renting travel space to seedy drifter for extra cash; smuggling the odd good here for extra cash; fleeing Alliance patrol after earning questionable, but necessary, extra cash; renting out their emergency shuttle to a quirky Companion for extra cash, and also credibility. Abed was finally living his dream. He keeps a captain's log on behalf of everyone, even though he's not the captain, because Capt. Shirley just doesn't understand the need for a captain's log.
But Troy Barnes sure does. Troy was adopted aboard shortly after the Captain was grudgingly convinced to add cab service for shady travelers to their growing list of services in order to account for increasing expenditures (namely fuel to the outer planets). He certainly seemed far from shady, so Shirley was more than pleased to take him as a passenger. Goodness knows they must be doing something right if God was finally delivering unto them a decent if still suspiciously naive sweet boy. Oooh look at that! Abed made a friend. Awwww! He finally has someone to play his strange games with. That's nice ♥ Even the crotchety co-owner had taken a liking to the younger man, thinking of him as a sort of protege he could mold into a genius such as himself.
As it happened, Troy was running away from a perfectly planned and boring life on Beaumonde, and he hadn’t been traveling long before boarding The Morning. Not long after that, there was a brief scuttle with unpaying customers that left them escaping with a ship in need of immediate repair, whereupon it was soon discovered that Troy had an aptitude for being like a mechanical Jesus that could fix problems with a touch. This was a wonderful opportunity the Captain to evict their current engineer, Leonard, who everyone knew used up all the toilet paper when he wasn’t busy piping up with sassy quips at every opportune moment.
He and Abed host their own radio transmission show, Troy and Abed in The Morning in the morning.
"I call it Eartha."
Pierce Hawthorne. Co-owner of The Morning, and investor of Shirley's food delivery business. Heir to the ancient Hawthorne Wipes empire. No one really understands how or why he found himself in a junkyard, or how racist/sexist/classist/planetist jokes from the Ye Olde days are supposed to be funny, but he is accepted just the same even if it’s difficult at times.
In Pierce’s view, money helped him buy happiness and his friends/crewmates. Although he’s offered and willing to cover all the expenditures that arise, he doesn’t regret the stories he loves to recall incorrectly about the work they take on. As a businessman at heart though, and a want to see his friend succeed, Pierce has been trying to convince Shirley to extend her delivery service to the central planets. The hubs and ports being prime points they could hawk their legitimate goods and pick up more jobs.
Eventually the nagging worked, and The Morning is now ready to take on new passengers from anywhere, including those blissfully annoying classy planets and moons!
How not to draw attention to yourself.
Passengers like Britta Perry who seemed bent on looking and playing the part of the suspicious traveler. The captain was willing to overlook the particularly conspicuous surface since female company was hard to come by. Though the box was worrisome. Abed was the only one uninterested what was inside this woman's cargo (probably something boringly illegal like organs for transplant, or drugs of some kind), but he felt that watching the curiosity of his crewmates grow would be entertaining. Or perhaps there would be a twist to play out, and Britta revealed to be the trader of frozen vegetables she claimed she was.
Unfortunately, or fortunately if you ask Abed again, no one’s suspicions or claims were correct, and a run in with an over eager patrol stepping outside the law revealed that she was a fugitive charged with human trafficking. The charge also being erroneous as Britta was actually part of an underground space railroad, breaking someone out of a secret Alliance-run human testing facility.
As the someone would later say to her after abruptly awakening from cryo-stasis, “You unchang-ed me.”
Not that the patrolling officer’s ensign knew any of this at the time.
Official dress codes require hair to be pulled back. Taking advantage of low-ballers requires otherwise.
Once the ensign, Annie Edison, was aware of the circumstances, she may have purposefully knocked her superior out, and may have purposefully aided the escape of a wanted criminal, and maybe boarded the ship under the stress of disillusionment. Both the officer and ensign, off on their off-the-books mission, would be accounted as missing for several weeks.
As a former Alliance operative (regardless of junior rank), Annie had to earn Shirley's trust in order to stay aboard. Sympathetic and feeling responsible for the situation, Britta appealed for her. Abed suggests Annie's new calling to investigate her former employer might take a whole episode to focus on. Or a movie. While she would acknowledge her skills as an eventual point woman, It would take several months before the captain would admit Annie was crew.
Prior to official failure and introductions in the pilot episode, a noodle incident may have occurred offscreen.
Jeffrey Winger, also among the new passengers, might have gotten on the wrong ship. The Morning wasn’t his first choice, but dressed in an ill-fitting suit after a con gone wrong, and abandoned by his former crew, he didn't have many choices to head back home. Home being wherever he could find work.
After delivering a compelling speech uniting all passengers and crew in defense of fugitive Britta (in order to deflect attention from his own wanted status) Jeff was hired as The Morning’s public relations specialist. The title is not necessarily honorary as he is apt at pulling in available work when required by convincing possible employers that they would be frugal idiots to not hire their capable asses. Shirley’s dried pies don’t get a pitch though, much to her chagrin; he won’t admit it, but it’s because the pies (dries?) speak for themselves.
If not for the attention of the ship’s bona fide companion, who spends most of his time away in the rented shuttle, Jeff would say that this latest gig is perfect. And that’s only because it will grow into more than gig to him.