TITLE: "FRIEND OR FOE"

SERIES: THE DICHOTOMY SERIES

CHAPTER: 7. Sequel to "FRIENDS YOU CHOOSE"

FANDOM: "FIREFLY"

AUTHOR: Alison M. DOBELL

PAIRING: Zoe/Tracy

RATING: PG-13

SUMMARY: "Mal and Zoe find their new life oddly

compromised by unseen circumstances. Meanwhile

Simon finds himself unable to break free of his need

to heal while Sally becomes suspicious of certain

people's motivations."

"FRIEND OR FOE"

A "Firefly" Story

Written by Alison M. DOBELL

* * * * *

It was not supposed to be like this. Young men full of excitement, adrenalin and hope. At first it was almost glorious, the rush, the feeling of invincibility. Nothing in the 'verse could stop them. Yet as the battles went on and the wall of honoured dead rose in the slick blood soaked mud in which they were entrenched, Monty Reynolds could feel something bright and beautiful he had carried inside slowly choke and fade. Friends and neighbours fought beside him, many cut down in their prime as they fought on. The rutting Alliance swarming in endless battalions, seemingly indefatigable. It had always been an unfair contest, the odds stacked against them. Most of the Independent soldiers were farmers and ranchers, able to handle a gun but never having fired one in anger against another human being.

While the Alliance were better equipped and more numerous only knowing the rightness of their cause kept the Independents strong, unyielding. Monty roared as so many of the 75th were mown down, ordnance exploding to the left and right of him. Billy Day crying out in defiance as he fired, running and weeping, deaf dumb and blind to the mechanised death raining down on him. Monty tried to pull him back but Billy was fleet of foot and Monty was bogged down in a slough of human remains and thick mud, his heart weeping because his eyes were dry of tears. Aghast at the horror of war he was