“We ain’t killin’ these men,” Mal stated, “an’ if it ain’t too terrible much trouble, Zoe, is it all right if my second mate lives?”

His face still pressed into coarse, rocky, unforgiving dirt, Park began shaking. *What the *hell* kind of people are they?*

Zoe Alleyne Washburne finally set her rifle on the ground, followed by an emotional rush to Gabriel Davin. “How can a kid as young as you be so gorram smart?” she wondered as she hugged him, trying to squeeze back tears and failing.

A sad smile playing through his lips, Gabriel moved his mouth to Zoe’s ear and murmured, “I ain’t smart, Zoe. I just read a lot.”

Park thought that the man was trying to joke, and Zoe’s heart-breaking laughter, a mixture of sadness, relief, pain and joy, confirmed his suspicion. *These are people,* Park thought to himself. *They’re not monsters, they’re really people...*

The terrible noises shocked the narcotics officer half to death. So wrapped up in the intense drama playing before him was he, the Japanese man hadn’t even heard the twin Reaver vessels approaching until they were already upon the landing site. Twisting his head over his shoulder with such abruptness that he actually managed to pain his neck, Park shocked in a breath of the cool air as he watched his vessel being literally *shredded* by the pair of Reaver ships with primaeval, yet highly-effective magnetic grapplers.

“Get *inside!!!*” Davin screamed, grabbing Park by the left arm and *tossing* him, with no apparent effort, toward the starship. A sharp, excruciating pain exploded in his shoulder, shooting down his arm and spraying halfway through his chest, and Park knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that his arm had just been dislocated.

Davin began moving toward Brendt with salvation intent, but this was hampered by a large, flaming section of Park’s ship soaring groundward. It slammed into the dirt with incredible force, spraying everyone with humus. Brendt and Rustin were crushed and killed; this much, Park witnessed and knew for certain. As to the