Big Damn Hero

29

After Stuart Deakins left, Mal examined every inch of his cell, searching for a way to escape. If he could find a weakness in a wall or a soft spot in the floor, maybe he could burrow his way out with his heels. He found nothing, just solid, bare rock. Then he tested the mesh door, applying pressure first with his shoulder, then with his feet from a seated position, legs straight out in front of him. He could budge it some, but not nearly as much as he would have liked. Not enough to give him hope that he could force the door out of its frame with brute strength or even bend it slightly out of true so as to create a gap he might wriggle through.

Accepting the futility of escape, he propped himself in the corner with his elbows bent, his fastened hands in the small of his back, his knees nestled against his chest. He dozed off a few times in this awkward position — he was exhausted — but kept snapping awake. Cramping in his shoulders wouldn’t let him rest for long. He eased out the discomfort as best he could but invariably it returned.

Approaching footfalls echoed down the tunnel. They sounded purposeful. Mal hoped it was Deakins again. Perhaps something of what Mal had said to him had filtered through to the reservoir of good which he was sure still resided in the man. Perhaps Deakins’s conscience had been fully awakened and he was even now coming to set Mal free.

No such luck. The new arrivals were David Zuburi, David’s wife Sonya, and the hatchet-faced woman from before.

“Howdy, David,” Mal said. “Sonya. And you…” He looked at Hatchet Face. “Well, I know you and I have met, but we haven’t been formally introduced.”

“This ain’t no social gathering,” she retorted. “But, for your information, my name’s Harriet Kyle.”

“Miss or Mrs.?”

She kicked him in the ribs. Her boots must have had steel toecaps because it hurt unreasonably.

In strained tones, Mal said, “I’ll take that as a check in the ‘neither of the above’ box.”

“Your trial’s starting,” David said. “Up on your feet.”

Mal struggled upright. “I thought we were waiting on some latecomers.”

“We still are,” Sonya said. “They’re en route and should be here soon, but Toby couldn’t hang on any longer. Nor could anyone else.”

The low tunnel ceiling seemed to press down on Mal’s sore shoulders as he walked between his guards back to the cavern. There, a banjo was playing and people were belting out the Independents’ battle hymn with all the zeal of a platoon of Browncoats after a victory.

The battle hymn had heartened Mal on many a hopeless-seeming night. On this occasion, his spirits were not lifted. The song seemed more like an accusation than a rallying cry.

David, Sonya, and Harriet escorted him through the crowd to the old, disused drilling rig and shoved him up the stairs. On the platform beside it, Toby Finn stood with his arms outstretched, almost as though he was conducting the music. Mal kept his face impassive, wondering all the while just how short and one-sided this “trial” was going to be.

“All right, Browncoats, simmer down,” Toby said, spying Mal and his escort. “The moment we’ve been waiting for is here.”

The group burst into cheers, raising their hands above their heads, high-fiving each other, applauding.

Mal looked for Stuart Deakins. Their gazes met. Deakins looked away.

Toby gestured for the Browncoats to be quiet, and eventually they wore themselves out. Then Mal’s former friend said, “I declare this trial open.”

A few stray hurrahs were quickly quashed. Aware that eyes were on him, Mal maintained his neutral expression, fixing it on like an iron mask.

“Here’s how this will work,” Toby said. “I will call witnesses and present evidence against the accused. And the accused will defend himself.” He slid a glance towards Mal. “Since no one volunteered to defend you.”

“What are the charges?” Mal asked.

“You are out of turn,” Toby snapped. “You will speak when you are invited to. Do you understand?”

Mal said nothing.

“I said, do you understand?”

“Oh hey, were you inviting me to speak?” said Mal. “I’m really not clear on the protocols. This is all new to me. Never had to defend myself in a trial before.”

That drew a few chuckles, most of them derisive but one or two amused. Toby narrowed his eyes and wagged a finger. Mal got the message: no playing to the gallery. Although if that would save his life, he’d do it, of course.

Toby cleared his throat. “Malcolm Reynolds, formerly of the 57th Overlanders, you come before this court facing four major charges. One: high treason against the Independent Planets. Two: murder. Three: sabotage during wartime. And four: collaboration with the enemy.” He counted off the alleged crimes on his fingers. “Three of the charges carry with them the penalty of death. The charge of sabotage carries with it the sentence of life imprisonment without possibility of parole.” He stared intently at Mal. “Do you understand these charges?”

Since arriving in the mine Mal had not been this physically close to Toby before, and as he held Toby’s gaze, he realized that his former friend was not simply much thinner than he remembered— he was sick. His eyes were bloodshot and his skin was sallow, his cheeks tinted gray. His brown coat hung loose on him. During those years that they had lost touch, what had happened to the strong, fearless fighter Mal had known? Or, for that matter, the puppy-eager youngster?

Mal realized that this was not the time for flippancy, not now. He needed to step up and tackle Toby head-on, meeting fire with fire, else he was doomed — doomed as a rat in a nest of rattlesnakes.

“I mean no disrespect, but I do not understand the charges at all,” he said. “This ain’t a true trial. Where’s the jury of my peers? Where’s the judge in robes? Don’t see none of those, just some jumped-up veteran spouting trumped-up charges and a roomful of folks who oughta know better lapping up his words like it’s mother’s milk. Listen to me, Tobias Finn, and listen good. We have history, you and I. We both know it. We both know we did things back on Shadow that neither of us is best proud of. I’m not referring to how we misbehaved and got up the noses of Sheriff Bundy, Deputy Crump and all those other stick-up-their-ass types in Seven Pines Pass. I don’t recollect any of that with anything but fondness; they were good times. It’s Jinny Adare I’m referring to specifically.”

Something sparked in Toby’s eyes, briefly there, then gone.

“And if it’s any consolation,” Mal said, “I’m sorry. Truly I am. It was never my intention for anyone to get hurt. Least of all you.”

Grimness tightened Toby’s face. “The charges have been read,” he said.

“Toby…”

“Shut up. I know, Mal. I know.”

“What do you know?”

“That you’re guilty. Guilty as sin.”

“That’s it? You know?”

“That’s all I need. It’s all any of us here needs.”

“Is it? ’Cause I look out over this gathering and I don’t see the same certainty on all of the faces.”

He could tell that Stu Deakins was harboring doubts, if the way Deakins couldn’t meet his eye was anything to go by, not to mention the benevolence he had shown back in the cell. And David Zuburi, who had earlier tried to restrain his wife from hurting Mal, was shuffling his feet. A couple of others seemed less firm in their resolve than the rest. It appeared that there were vigilantes here thinking for themselves and that not everyone was one hundred percent convinced of Mal’s guilt. This could yet evolve into a real trial, despite the presence of a hanging judge.

“Maybe if we just, y’know, hash this out,” Mal went on, “we might come to some resolution about how things happened from your point of view and from mine. I can’t help but think there has been a massive misunderstanding—”

“That is not how we are doing this,” Toby shouted, overriding him.

“Just kill him now!” shouted one of the onlookers. “We know—”

“You don’t know anything,” Mal shot back, “or I would not be standing here falsely accused. I would have given my life to our cause and there’s people here who can be in no doubt about that.” He found Deakins again and focused in on him. “And I don’t know what has happened in your life since to make you this hard-hearted and bitter, but I guarantee you killing me ain’t going to make you feel better.”

“You shut the hell up!” Sonya Zuburi shrieked at him. “Do not try to confuse us, Malcolm Reynolds. We have searched the ’verse for you and you will not escape justice.”

“Justice has not shaken hands with any of us,” Mal said. “In a just ’verse, we would have won.”

“You saw the Browncoats were going down at Serenity Valley, and you cut your losses and ran, Mal,” Toby said, seizing the reins of the conversation. “Like a rat off a sinking ship.”

“Huh? I never did anything of the kind.”

“You did!” Sonya shouted.

“I challenge you to prove even one iota of that statement to be true,” Mal said, and Toby smiled a sickly, sinister smile — the smile of a fanatic so convinced of his own righteousness that no power in the ’verse would dissuade him from it.

“Oh, I shall, I shall.” Toby waved a hand out at the crowd. “And you will understand, my fellow Browncoats, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that we’ve got the right man and we will be doing the right thing.”