Five and a half months earlier

It was slow work.

The heat was close to unbearable, and the dry and arid desert sand not the easiest to work with. Sometimes it seemed to Jayne like the more he dug, the more dirt rushed back into the hole again. He could spend the whole morning digging and produce no more than a single, shallow grave.

At times the whole endeavor seemed pointless. What good would it do these people now, anyhow? And yet he knew it had to be done. Book would have wanted it. Book would have expected it.

But the job was tough, it was horrible, gruesome – and he was more or less left alone with the task of getting it done. The captain and the doc were still recovering from their near fatal injuries, Zoë was caught up in her own grief, and he couldn't exactly ask the girls to help him out. They'd seen and done enough already.

Hell, it should've have fallen to the gorram purplebellies! They should be here, cleaning up their own mess. But those ruttin' cowards, those babykillers, were long gone.

Then again, maybe it should be him? Perhaps it was best this way? Doing something was better than doing nothing, anyways. And as long as his hands were busy, his mind didn't have to be.

Only it was.

He stood up, dropped the shovel and pulled off his hat to wipe the sweat off his brow. Then he looked at the hole at his feet. It wasn't big. But big enough for one of the little ones.

He bit his lip.

Those were the hardest.

He glanced back at Serenity. She was parked a good distance from the settlement. From where he stood she almost looked like a derelict. Lifeless, soulless… like the rest of this gorram place. He saw none of the others. They didn't venture outside the ship much. Just Zoë, and where she went he had no idea.

He walked over to the long line of bodies that took up most of the main market square, each carefully wrapped up in cloth or tarp. They didn't smell too bad