This one is coming out fairly rough and unedited. I get kind of wrung out producing this sort of material, and didn't feel particular like going over it too much just yet. Oh, and sincerest apologies Miss Sarah, but I'm really going to have to claim "Wish I was the Moon Tonight" for Cafferty's song. I think I recall you associating it with Mal in Kaythryn's thread...

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"Here it comes. All cavalry groups, move to support on Perimeter Three." Miloslaw's voice crackled across the line. Cafferty opened his eyes, having dozed off a few minutes before in the seat of Matthews' hovercar. He had drifted off wondering how much word had gotten around about the massacre at Perimeter Seven. Miloslaw had gambled like crazy that the next area that got hit wouldn't just crumble rather than face fire from their own support. There'd two more probing attacks had hit during the night, neither as large as the first, and they'd managed to hold. Barely, but they'd held. He'd done what he could when Miloslaw had deployed them. The commander himself had entered the field in the last attack, taking his place on the wall with everyone else. There'd been some dangerous looks and muttered threats from the cavalrymen who knew what had happened, but nobody acted on their feelings. Yet. What Cafferty had come to understand from the way Miloslaw was directing things was that the man wasn't trying to just hold this ground. He wasn't just trying to drive the Reavers off, either. Miloslaw was using every trick in his vast arsenal to kill as many of them as he possibly could. He was trying to destroy the band that had assaulted the town. Matthews was tired, worn as everyone else. Blood painted the side of his face, from fragments that had sprayed outward when a sand-filled box had exploded next to him. The older man grabbed the comm and pressed the button. "Cavalry acknowledges." "How long was I out?" Cafferty asked. "Fifteen minutes." Matthews answered with a shrug. Veteran's reflex. Catch a nap when you got the chance. It had been one hell of a long night. As the older militiaman started rolling the vehicle, the battered remnants of the cavalry began trailing along behind him. They'd lost vehicles and horses during the night. They'd lost more militiamen than they'd lost rides, though, so it evened out. The Reavers weren't entirely what they were billed to be. Tough, cunning, insane, incredibly persistant, they were all those things in spades. What they weren't was suicidal madmen who came on in endless waves, regardless of losses. They were fully willing to die in droves, if it seemed like it would get them where they were going. If not, they were also fully willing to back off and try again somewhere else. That only made them worse to face. They held all the cards, and Cafferty didn't think they had the manpower to hold back a dedicated push. Jian-Ku and Kellerman were still out there, doing their part. Cafferty didn't even want to think about that. They were sitting in the midst of all these howling marauders, their only protection being stealth and skill. The mortar fired off again, a short burst. That had to be the last of the ammo. Right now, Cafferty figured he'd get out and start kissing the ground if every kiss got them another round of mortar ammo. The cavalry dismounted as they got close to the latest push. The first time these groups had moved up, a couple of the younger bucks had disregarded orders and tried to yee-haa their way into the fight. They weren't around anymore. Everyone else either already knew better or took the lesson real quick. Cafferty met Miloslaw as they worked their way through the field, moving from cover to cover. "Lost your horse, looks like," Cafferty said. He'd seen the former Pathfinder making his way along in the distance, on foot while the cavalry was dismounting. Miloslaw shrugged. "Got shot out from under me." "Where's Beth?" Cafferty asked, pointing at the master comm Miloslaw was toting for himself. "She got shot out from under me too." "Shit." "Right," Another shrug.

Militiamen were starting to trickle past them, some of them without weapons. That was always a bad sign. "We've got to get this fixed before it turns into a rout," Miloslaw yelled above the din. Cafferty nodded and they started moving forward. Miloslaw was brilliant at his job. Gathering around him the shattered remnants of the defense force and the battered cavalry, he started organizing the defense. The resistance started stiffening, trading land for time, making the Reavers pay for the ground they took. The crimson-red sun was starting to rise in the east and they were nearly back to the town proper when Miloslaw slapped Cafferty's helmet, then leaned close to yell in his ear. "The real cavalry's on the way. They've released the regulars to hit 'em. We have to hold this line!" Cafferty was busy dealing with a backshot cavalryman and simply nodded at him. "Can't feel my legs," the boy moaned. "Gonna be fine," Cafferty said to him. "Have you dancing in no time. Just sit tight." "Doc... DOC!" the kid suddenly yelled, his head up from the ground and looking behind Cafferty. In a movement inspired by equal parts of fear and experience, Cafferty whirled, rolling across the ground and groping for his shotgun. A Reaver staggered forward, entrails spilling from a slashed-open abdomen. In his hand he held an ancient flechette pistol, a model that Cafferty only recognized because the Browncoats had resorted to such antiques during the war. The weapon was already turning track him, and if the Reaver hadn't been slowed by what was going to be an eventually fatal wound, Cafferty would have died right there. As it was, he was barely able to grab the shotgun and keep rolling as deadly slivers sprayed the area he'd just been. He thumped into something solid, halting his momentum, and he shimmied himself upright, bringing the shotgun to his shoulder and squeezing the trigger. The Reaver staggered back as the short-range blast took him in the chest and neck, then turned and fell to the ground. Distractedly Cafferty's mind assessed that the shotgun was choked wide open for the pellets to disperse so rapidly over such a short range. It wasn't his weapon. He'd taken it off one of the corpses during another fight, figuring it would serve him better in this brutal close-range fighting than the rifle he had been carrying. Wasn't the first time he'd ever fired a weapon in combat. There had been desperate times, just trying to protect casualties under his care. There had been times when they just needed every weapon they could get on the line. It was the first time he knew for sure he'd killed a man, though. A savage thrill rode through him, because by god he was alive and the other bastard was dead. Gathering himself, he looked over at the boy he'd been working on. The boy's face was a bloody ruin. The Reaver must have fired a shot just as Cafferty was rolling away, aimed at his where he had crouched unsuspecting only a few moments before. "You rutting bastard!" Cafferty yelled, swinging the shotgun into line, racking the slide, and shooting the still-twitching corpse in the back. Methodically recharging the chamber, he fired another shot, and another, and another, and then the firing pin clicked on empty air. Mechanically, he reached into the ammo pouch and started feeding fresh shells into the tubular magazine. If Miloslaw hadn't made his way back around the shattered wall at that point, who knows what would have happened? Maybe Cafferty would have sat there and used up all his ammo in savage revenge on a dead body. "They're pulling their mobile elements out!" Miloslaw yelled, not even deigning to take note of the bloody drama scattered around the ground. Cafferty just stared at him. "Listen to me, dammit!" Miloslaw said, reaching down and jerking Cafferty to his feet with surprising strength. "What?" Cafferty said, numbly. "They've engaged the regulars with their autogyros! Those damn things are packing AVMs! They've got them pinned down along the road, and they're bringing their buggies up to support." AVM was the generic acronym for anti-vehicular missiles. The Alliance troops wouldn't have stood a chance if they were caught out in their personnel carriers in open country with a swarm of missiles raining down on them. They hadn't used the autogryos since the first day. Now their reasoning was evident. Top it all off, Miloslaw was finally losing his cool. There was an edge of fear, perhaps spiraling to panic. Cafferty suddenly grinned, feeling a wave of hysterical exultation come over him. "Hey, it's all good now. They're not coming after us anymore, right?" It wasn't exactly the most sensitive thing to say, with men wearing uniforms like his just down the road facing a new kind of hell. Miloslaw bared his teeth, anger replacing the fear in his eyes. "Damnit Cafferty, they're slaughtering our people out there!" Suddenly the earpiece in Cafferty's helmet crackled. "CAFF! Jian-Ku's hit! Hit bad! I need you out here!" The old hands had rigged themselves a private frequency on the helmet comms. Icy fear replaced the hysterical high that had come over Cafferty a moment before. He turned his back on Miloslaw, moving back to his kit and pulling the link up next to his mouth, dialing along the frequency wheel until it clicked on the private channel. "Talk to me, K-Dog. Where are you?" he said as he slung his pack on. "Down by the river's bend, I'll walk you in." came back the near-hysterical reply. "Hurry your ass up, dammit. I got the bleeding stopped, but this is no good. No good," his oldest friend repeated. "Keep cool, keep cool. I'm on the way." "Where the hell are you going, Cafferty!" Miloslaw bellowed. When Cafferty didn't answer, he jogged over and grabbed him. "What are you doing?" "Jian-Ku's hit. Gotta earn my pay." "We need you here!" Miloslaw screamed in his face. "They need me there. I'll be back as soon as I can." Cafferty answered. He had entered a strange place beyond fear and reason. "I think you've got a battle to run." He left the man behind without wasting any further thought on it. Behind him, Miloslaw cursed heartily and went back to work.

It was the sort of thing he would later look back on and wonder how he survived. The Reaver footsoldiers were pulling back in knots and clumps, drifting in the direction of the fight with the regulars. The utterly spent defenders couldn't do more than lay down a smattering of fire to encourage the retreat. Cafferty slid in between them, working from cover to cover methodically. There was a crackling rumble overhead as the Reaver ship lifted unexpectedly and used its atmospheric thrusters to move toward the Alliance post. That is damn pretty, he thought as he sheltered in a gully while a group of Reavers trudged past only a couple of meters away from him. The thrusters were sparkling in the clear air of a wonderfully sunny day, and it was as distracting to the Reavers as it was to him. If they hadn't been so distracted, they probably would have seen him. He waited until they were gone and resumed slithering across the war zone. "200 meters up, behind the old sage," Kellerman told him as he closed in. "Got a few of them down at the banks, but the ridge should shield you. Step light, brother." Cafferty double-clicked on the transmitter key to acknowledge and covered the last distance slowly and carefully. Wouldn't do to get killed just as he was arriving, after all. Hard to tell how long it took, but he finally crawled his way through the tall grass and made it. Kellerman wrapped an arm around Cafferty's neck and pulled him face-first into his broad chest. Ignoring the grenade lever that was painfully bending his nose sideways, he patted his Kellerman's back. "Knew you'd come, Caff. You always did, no matter how hot it was," Kellerman said as he let go. "I'm stupid that way," Cafferty replied pleasantly. He slid past the large man and looked at Jian-Ku. Her arm was shattered, pulped and unrecognizable. Even with full Alliance medical support, his guess was that it was going to have to be taken off. Down below the elbow, hopefully. She stared back at him, pale and shaking. "Told him not to make a fuss," she said, apologetically. "Know you're busy and all." "Never too busy for a friend, right?" he said as he examined the amateur tourniquet Kellerman had applied. Not bad, looked like his buddy still remembered his training. Pulling out his injector set, he coded in the sequences for anaesthetics and shock-preventatives. She might not be feeling the wound yet, but she probably would be soon. "K-Dog," he said, sensing his friend's eyes upon him. "You might want to keep your eyes out for those Reavers down the hill." "Huh? Yeah." Cafferty felt rather than heard his friend move back into a sentry position. When the time came to move, Cafferty was pondering how to get Jian-Ku down to town when Kellerman simply settled the matter by lifting her up like she was a doll. She looked like a doll, small and pale and barely hanging on the consciousness by sheer grit alone. Carefully, carefully they made their way back down. The Reavers had pulled out, near as they could tell. In the distance there was the rumble of heavy weapons fire. Maybe the post could hold off the Reavers. They sure as hell were welcome to them, Cafferty figured. The strange numbness was draining away, leaving him with a feeling of cold exhaustion. He'd ditched the shotgun somewhere on his trek out to the river, and as he noticed the ammo pouch still strapped around his waist, he tugged the strap loose and let it fall to the ground, expending just enough energy to step over it. There was, he noticed, a lot of wailing and commotion in town. It was only logical, what with a major battle having just been fought there, he supposed. The locals had started gathering their dead and wounded, piling the bodies and the injured in a grassy field. Spotting Yinna, sitting on the ground but alive and apparently intact, his heart lifted. She sat beside a pair of covered bodies, staring at them numbly. He started to move toward her, but was intercepted by Matthews. The militiaman was using a rifle for a crutch. "Miloslaw said to tell you that he's got anybody who can still move and was willing to go and try and save the regulars," he said. "Your leg?" Cafferty said, pointing. "Didn't look where I was jumping," Matthews said, waving it off with his free hand. "Blew the knee, ain't nothin' to what we got layin' around here." "I'll get on it," Cafferty assured him. "Be with you in a minute," he said, stepping past the other man. He crouched down beside Yinna. "You okay?" "Papa," she said simply, pointing at one of the sheet-covered bodies. "Alex," she continued, pointing at the other one. Alex was, had been, her brother. "Damn it," was all Cafferty could say, wrapping an arm around her shoulder. She leaned into him. They sat there for a moment, sharing the loss and the assurance that they were both still alive, before he spoke again. "We've got work to do here," he said as gently as he could. "Okay," she said, shifting around and sticking out a hand. Standing, he reached down and pulled her up.