A/N: 'single quotation marks' are used to denote thoughts. "double quotation marks" are for speech. The dates used in the codex are from the firefly wikia database.

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Western Flank, Serenity Valley, Planet Hera

A single blade of grass wavered in the light breeze, bravely withstanding the assault of brown grit that covered much of the landscape. All around it, small craters and dark smudges pockmarked the once fertile and loose soil. Now, track marks and footprints covered the land, alongside the scattered piles of ejected bullet shells and blackened shrapnel. There were bodies, hundreds of them, and an even greater number of body parts, unclaimed and rotting in the warm Hera sun.

Down from the heavens a shadow was cast upon the blade of grass, stealing from it the vital warmth of the sun, and buffeting it with the force of a tempest. The grass endured, its roots dug deep within the earth of Hera, clinging with frantic desperation to ride out this storm. There was a shake, a tremor that loosened nearby soil and sent a storm of debris into the air. The lonely blade, its back bent low, endured.

There was a second tremor, weaker by magnitudes, but closer by several inches. There was a third, a fourth, a fifth, and then an overlapping avalanche of quakes that came rumbling towards the collapsed grass. A solid object landed a mere inch to the left of the plant, sending a shockwave that knocked over the recovering blade, and then an earthquake was upon it, threatening to shake the earth out from underneath its roots.

The avalanche passed, leaving the grass battered and crushed, its weak form flittering at the whim of the wind that continued to descend upon it. There was a sharp whine, followed by loud clanking and croaking before a sudden displacement of air, and the dark shadow became all-encompassing. There was a soft crunch, not that anyone would have heard, and the spine of the grass was finally broken. It had become just another casualty of war, another dead body on a battlef