There were real doctors in the hastily erected MASH unit in Lisskin. Drop some Reavers on an Alliance post, and miracles can happen. Cafferty did more time playing nurse than doctor, and when he could he kept his eyes open to learn real, honest doctoring.

Keeping his eyes open after the fourth day was getting to be a real challenge. He had access to some particularly effective stimulants from the medical locker, but he didn't like the way they made his hands shake when combined with the dosages he'd already taken.

Jian-Ku's lower arm had been taken off, and Kellerman was inconsolable. His friend had thrown himself into clearing up the wreckage and was about to fall on his face from exhaustion himself.

The townsfolk had gotten off more lightly than the Alliance post. The base itself was a total loss, no survivors. Miloslaw's gathering a few militia together had allowed a scant number of regulars to escape the slaughter on the plain.

The most humbling part had been realizing how easily the Reavers could have rolled right over the town if they wanted.

"The post was their prime target," Miloslaw had told him later. "They just wanted to draw the defenders away from the walls. They don't think like us. They were willing to take a couple of hundred casualties or more in order to stage a diversion. I think that they wanted the whole area, post and town. But the town was just the icing on the cake."

Miloslaw looked like hell. He had done everything he could to defeat a superior opponent, only to be humbled by the fact that they could have come right in and killed every last person in Lisskin if they so desired.

He wasn't exactly popular with the locals, either. Some had remarked grudgingly that he had done what had to be done at the first battle, and that was about the best he'd get.

The Alliance had deployed a battalion of Marines to the area along with the medical unit. Typical enough, they had sent in the reinforcements long after they were needed, but the Marines were at least maki