Sergeant Dye sat with his elbows on his desk and his face buried in his hands, trying to settle his stomach and chase away the guilt that was gnawing at him.

He's an Independent war criminal. He deserves it.

His mind shifted to his son's picture on the shelf, staring out with the confidence of a young man who had no idea he would die after only a week in the field. His sister, crying hysterically in grief the day an Independent strike took the life of her five-year-old daughter.

~~~~~

Mal woke up gasping for breath, flailing to stop himself from falling, but he was immobile and staring into blackness. Lying on a cement floor between a poured concrete bed and a wall, his wrists and ankles shackled and attached to each other by a short chain.

"I try to run this place with compassion and humanity."

"Fellow named Lee. Not overly charitable towards Independent war criminals."

Did he want me to accept my trial quietly, so that – no. Not if I know any damn thing about reading people. Lee could be unnerving, but Mal could see no malice in him, no inclination towards Machiavellian mind games. Trust your instincts. He didn't order this.

He took a deep breath and forced himself to ignore the pain and discomfort. He reminded himself of what it had felt like lying in another cell in agony, bones broken and shoulders dislocated, and decided that he was in fact merely uncomfortable at the moment. This don’t hurt in the least. Been in bar fights left me in a lot worse shape, an’ I walked away from those with a grin on my face.

He took another deep breath. Walked out to a warm home and meds and folk that coddled me an’ laughed, not chained up in an Alliance dungeon.

He remembered sitting in a cell in a far more innocent place and time, the one at the local magistrate’s office on Shadow at the grand age of sixteen. He’d gotten a little drunk and fearless, and one thing leading to another, he decided to walk into the local bar and have him