This is one that was inspired by my ficlet in the ff_Fridays (http://www.livejournal.com/community/ff_Friday) challenge. This week we were to write from the perspective of one of the guest stars or recurring characters. I chose to explore what the commander of the Alliance ship felt after his encounter with Mal and the Reaver wanna-be. I wrote the following snippet:

Questions

From Commander Harken’s personal diary

It was one of the strangest days in my life. I started the day sure that Reavers didn’t exist. Alliance had told me they were a story made up by the people on the Rim as an excuse for their illegal actions and I’d believed it. But today, one of them tried to kill me, so now I knew Alliance was wrong.

I’d been sure that people who fought for the Independents were evil and couldn’t be trusted. Alliance told me that and I’d believed it. But Malcolm Reynolds was a former Independent soldier and he’d saved my life. Even stranger, he’d had no real reason to. I’d had him arrested and threatened to take away his ship and he was even handcuffed. No one would have thought it odd if he hadn’t pulled the Reaver off me. None of my men were trying to help and they didn’t have any reason to hate me, but Malcolm Reynolds did. His war record suggested he was a good leader; the kind men follow into hell and back. His crew were obviously all very loyal, too. Hell, after this afternoon, I’d trust him at my back anytime. So now I knew Alliance was wrong about that too.

Alliance told me that all the ships out here on the rim were questionable, That they all ran illegal goods or were scavengers or slavers. I’d never questioned why that would be so. Alliance told me and I believed it. Now I wonder. Serenity was running on the wrong side of the law. They did have goods that they’d salvaged illegally from that ship. But they obviously weren’t getting real rich from illegal trade, so why were they doing it? And what would make respectable people like the Shepherd and the Companion stay on a ship like that? And the