Finally! The next chapter is up for your enjoyment - or dislike!

Thanks to tamsibling and mal4prez for the beta.

Chapter 2 can be found http://www.fireflyfans.net/bluesun.aspx?bid=15072>; Here

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Chapter 3

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As much as Mal wasn’t inclined to give in to the uppity doctor, the captain couldn’t argue when the younger man asked him to dispose of the dead. Disease would run rampant through the living if the bodies were not buried, and so the people capable of digging graves did just that. Mal’d done it before – at Serenity Valley – and the memories that came flooding back as he worked were as unwelcome as the task he’d been given.

“Gonna be disease we don’t bury ‘em, sir.”

Sergeant Reynolds looked over the broken bodies of the men he had commanded – and those he didn’t. This latest battle had not been kind – to either side. “Yeah, and we don’t need anythin’ else killin’ us. ‘Nuff purplebellies for that.”

“Yes, Sir.”

Mal met Zoe’s eyes and nodded curtly. The hostile desolation surrounding his small company was enough to steal away what little hope he had of leaving this valley alive. He touched the crucifix at his neck and gave a silent prayer. Then turned and barked out quick orders, trying to get the dead buried without risking the few soldiers still living.

Mal worked beside Aaron and Jayne in a small clearing not far from the demolished buildings. Digging a mass grave was not that difficult a task. He’d done far harder things. But the grim defeat that covered the faces of everyone he saw was enough to stroke the fire burning in his gut into a full blown blaze. After a while he had to pause and turn away from the teary, determined faces of people burying their loved ones. He leaned on his shovel while he studied Simon’s trauma center and the surrounding camp – there were so few survivors in what had been a fair sized town.

But, he figured, they were lucky to have as many survivors as they did. He knew from experience that if the