THE TRIAL (06) Part (04)
Friday, August 19, 2011
The hearing reaches its conclusion, and Mal pays the penalty.
CATEGORY: FICTION TIMES READ: 4054 RATING: 10.0 (PG) SERIES: FIREFLY
THE TRIAL (06)
Part (04)
Follows . Precedes . The series so far: The hearing reaches its conclusion, and Mal pays the penalty. | * * * On Tuesday morning, the arraignment hearing re-convened. It was not the perfunctory laundry list of charges that had occurred on the previous Friday, but was more like a wrestling match, with two contenders and multiple rounds. Each side had certain advantages and weaknesses, and they began each round eyeing and circling each other, looking for the right moment to shoot for a take-down. All of it was done in a collegial way, as if they were all members of the same club: they’d battle it out in the courtroom, then laugh about it over drinks afterwards. “Melissa,” Harrow began, after informally greeting both lawyers, and formally acknowledging Mal, “it’s unusual to see you defending an accused slave trader. I’m wondering if you have anything to say.” “Only that my client, Captain Reynolds, is not a slave trader. He is opposed to slavery in all its forms. He finds it very painful to be accused of practicing what he abhors. He would like to read a statement.” Harrow indicated his assent, and Mal stood to read his prepared statement. “I was hired to transport a cargo of gravitational modifiers to 泥球 Ní Qiú.
I'd say I'd be looking forward to the expression on the prosecutors face when the people are freed and they all THANK Mal, but somehow I expect even more likely they're going to be vanished before their release.
And yet, hearing he's not going to be sentenced to 2,000 years in jail, Mal still gets gut punched over Inara seeing clients. On his behalf. Mal, you're an idiot.
"You can't take the sky from me!"
I too think Mal's reaction over Inara was an emotional one, he has a way of jumping to conclusions, especially with Inara, could take a long while to patch things up because Mal's not very forgiving. But, poor Inara, she’s going to get the cold shoulder at first and then his wrath…run and hide girl!
oh, the drama, good read
I am also glad that Mal is not going to jail for 2000 years. Although that would only have happened if he'd had to serve all the sentences consecutively, instead of concurrently. Still...
What will happen to the ex-slaves who were detained? We'll find out in the next story.
Mal does not know that Inara saw the clients in order to work the system on his behalf. His reaction was gut emotion. When he stops to think about it, he will begin to realize what he owes her, but he still has no idea of the details, and what he imagines of those details hurts him. He hears "dinner dance with Judge Advocate"--and imagines Inara in bed with the guy. We know what really happened there, but he doesn't. Not yet.
We will get to find out about the rest of the crew, fall-out, and repercussions of this event in upcoming stories.
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