"Sarge?”

“Yes, Zoe?” Mal grunted.

“You got something sticking out of your back,” she yelled, making herself heard through the thunder of artillery fire.

“Oh, never mind that,” replied Mal. “That’s just my new piercing, got it done the other day.”

“Well, it’s proving a little inconvenient, sir, it keeping you from walking and all,” she commented dryly.

“Sorry. Just my way of expressin’ my individuality,” replied Mal with a grin, his face contorting with pain at the slight movement.

Zoe rolled her eyes. Any retort would have been drowned out by the earth-shattering explosion of nearby mortar fire, and she merely crawled to Mal’s side to inspect the wound. After a few seconds, she took Mal’s hand gently in hers and shouted for the radio operator. “We need a medevac, now!”

Mal peered around at her uneasily. “Medevac and now ain’t terribly reassuring words to hear about yourself in the same sentence. You entirely certain that’s necessary, Corporal?”

Zoe raised her eyebrows as she withdrew the injector from her field kit and pressed it against Mal’s arm, giving him a heavy dose of pain meds. “Forgive me if I made the mistaken assumption you might want the use of your legs sometime in the future. That piece of shrapnel tore the hell out of your back, an’ it’s gonna take a lot more than a field hospital to put you back together again.”

“Fine,” muttered Mal, tightening his grip on her hand.

The radio operator ran up and crouched beside Mal. “Sir, we got orders to fall back, it’s too hot in here to hold and the Alliance has more air support on the way, they’ll wipe us out any minute now. Closest a medevac ship’ll land is about a quarter mile from here, but –“

“But hauling an injured man’ll slow you down an’ we’ll all die, that the gist of it?” asked Mal bluntly.

“Yes – sir,” said the young man uncertainly. Steadying his voice firmly, he said, “We ain’t gonna leave you, Sarge. We’ll get you out of here.”

“No, you ain’t,” said Mal firmly. “Take the men and fall back. Pir