I hope someone, somewhere is reading this…
Today, we got boarded by the Alliance.
River was muttering something about megalomaniacal proctologists crawling up somebody's butt with a microscope, but I kind of lost her after the third or fourth word; but I figured she wasn't too impressed with the state of affairs…
…Not that she has to hide anymore.
…And not that it didn't stop the Alliance Officer, who'd obviously attended the Simon Tam school of moral rectitude (I can use rectitude – the Shepherd was giving Mal another lecture on that special place - and he was using it as punctuation. So, when no one was looking, I asked him what it meant), give River an exceptionally long, hard - and one might say, lingering - look.
Of course, River couldn't leave it alone and spent the entire visit following Mr Alliance around threatening to kill him with her mind. I'm not too sure what Mr Alliance's preferred response was as Zoë was following River around – god alone knows someone has to – and was clearly indicating that, if Mr Alliance tried to respond to River's incredibly unsubtle intimations, it wouldn't be River's mind he'd have to worry about.
Mr Alliance had obviously learnt to leave well enough alone; either that or he'd heard about Zoë.
Anyway, Mr Alliance was visitin' due to an anonymous tipoff, the regional HQ had received, about a Firefly-class vessel smuggling drugs in the area.
Mal wasn't impressed.
Mal said of whole heap of extremely unflattering things about Badger's ostensible parentage, and probable sexual practices, before informing Mr Alliance that he was more than welcome – this bit said through clenched teeth – to search his boat, to see if he was carrying any merchandise of the type described.
Mr Alliance graciously declined the captain's offer, stating that Captain Reynolds was clearly a man of impeccable character and would, again, clearly, never stoop to pursuing such an illegal course of action as to actually traffic in illegal pharmaceutical merchandise.
Mal thanked Mr Alliance for his kind words and politely asked if he was able to provide any further assistance.
I was startin' to get a mite confused with all this politeness until I saw what the Captain, and Mr Alliance, had been able to see that I had not; a Companion heading, under full sail, in their direction – and Inara was all done up in her finest whore-wear and when she's fully constructed herself like that she' scarier than a whole fuckin' flotilla of Reavers.
Not to overstate matters, but Mal isn't gonna piss Inara off, cos' then he isn't going to get any.
Mr Alliance isn't going to piss off the Companion Guild because then he'd get his, sideways - with a coracle - from the Pointy-Headed Bosses at Alliance Command; because if they piss the guild off then they're not gonna get any.
Let's face it, sex makes the 'verse go round, and anyone who disagrees is in denial, or a professional virgin (or a doctor on board a Firefly).
So, both Mal, and Mr Alliance, swallowed their basic impulse to set the other on fire, and played nice.
It was pretty disappointing.