Sharon Keller and Anya nearly slammed into each other as they sprinted up to the hospital's main doors from opposite directions. Panting, they nodded wordlessly at each other and pushed through into the lobby.

"Who?" they demanded in chorus.

While the women looked sideways at each other, Nurse Vaughn answered, "I'm afraid it's your youngest, Lieutenant Stroud. The Chimera took a bite out of Private Stratton. They're bringing him in now."

On cue, the side doors flew open wide, admitting several soldiers and a cacophony of noise.

Jace was groaning through his clenched teeth, supported by his arms draped over Marcus and Baird's shoulders. The left front of Marcus's armor was dabbled with long drips of still-wet blood from the private's mangled hand. Marcus was shouting over his shoulder, "Keep a gun on that thing! Safety off!"

Following the Delta trio were no less than six men and women in full armor, two of them with Lancer muzzles jammed right up against the Chimera's stomach and chest, and the other four carrying it on a prison cot it had been strapped to with excessive amounts of duct tape.

Doctor Hayman hustled in as fast as her elderly body could manage, her keen eyes taking in the whole scene.

Seeing Jace on his feet and the Chimera on a stretcher, she went to the patient more likely to be critical. She shoved in between one of the gunners and a carrier, snapping, "Put that thing away!"

"Belay that," Anya said authoritatively.

"Excuse me?" Doc Hayman demanded as she leaned over the patient.

"Don't get too close to its face, Doctor. It's already bitten off part of Jayson's hand." Anya gave her a hard look, unmoved by the physician's personal code of ethics. "They've put the muzzle back on, but it could easily break free of those straps and strangle someone."

Marcus and Baird continued onward to get Jace situated in an examination room.

"Get that bleeding stopped!" the irritated doctor shouted at them unnecessarily.

Sharon followed Jace's group, and Anya stayed to look over the most immediate threat. The soldiers stood straighter when she approached.

"It's out cold, ma'am!" one practically shouted, his right arm twitching in its hold on the cot as though he wanted to salute. "We've strapped it down with all the duct tape we could find, ma'am!"

"Lower the volume a little, Private," Anya instructed.

"Yes, ma'am! I mean … yes, ma'am."

Anya ordered, "Doctor, do not remove that muzzle. We cannot afford for our best surgeon to lose a finger."

Hayman's hands froze on the buckle. She looked startled. "Lieutenant, the blood …"

"The blood is all Jayson's. I'll bet you an entire pack of those cigarettes you think I don't know about."

Anya hoped that was as hard as she'd have to remind the doctor of her authority today. It wouldn't do to have the COG's head physician embarrassed in front of six gossipy Gears. Hayman needed a certain amount of implied authority herself.

The doctor seemed to pick up on what Anya was trying to do. "Yes, ma'am," she snapped, saving face while still acknowledging Anya's authority as one of her commanders. "May I at least examine him for head wounds?"

"Certainly, doctor."

"How long has he been out?" Hayman demanded of the military policeman.

"About five minutes," he answered. "Carrying it was faster than waiting for a Packhorse."

"And how did he end up unconscious?" Hayman's arthritic fingers searched through the Chimera's white-blond hair for lumps and cuts.

"Sergeant Fenix headbutted it, ma'am."

The doctor growled, "Any particular reason for that?"

"It was trying to bite his neck open, ma'am. That's how Stratton lost a finger."

"I don't suppose anyone still has the finger?" She tapped experimentally on the large bruise developing between the Chimera's eyebrows.

"No, ma'am. Somebody stepped on it in the chaos. It's just a smear on the floor now."

"Damn." Hayman closed her eyes for a moment. Anya knew how much the doctor hated amputations. Both the surgical kind she performed herself, and the 'traumatic amputations' that happened on a battlefield.

She opened her eyes and began checking the Chimera's torso and limbs. "Which finger was it?"

"His left pinky, ma'am."

"Is he left-handed?"

"Uh, no, ma'am. At least, I've only seen him pull a trigger right-handed."

"Well, at least that's something." She straightened up as much as her age-bent back would allow. "Lieutenant, I need to see to this patient first. Stratton's not likely to bleed out from a missing finger, but this man has been unconscious from a blow to the head for at least five minutes. We both know that people only stay out this long in the movies without serious damage. He could have a brain bleed, or even a broken neck."

Anya was silent for a few moments. Finally she said, "Agreed. But I'm ordering Vaughn to give Stratton some morphine for the pain. I don't care how low on stocks we are."

"All right, Lieutenant. Please order these nice soldiers here to take their guns off the patient."

"No. Unless he's actually in the scanner, they will keep their weapons where they are. We cannot afford any more preventable injuries." She put special emphasis on 'preventable'.

Hayman sighed. "Fine." She said to the soldiers, "Follow me."

Anya nodded to the soldiers as they shuffled by, carrying the cot. "Vigilance, ladies and gentlemen."

"Sir, yes, sir!" they chanted.

The first thing she noticed upon entering Stratton's room was Baird and Sharon in the back, whispering to each other. Sharon was running both hands over one of Baird's as if reassuring herself that it hadn't been his finger that was bitten off.

'Well, that's new.'

The nurse was arranging items on a steel tray next to Jace's exam table.

"Vaughn. Morphine," she ordered briskly.

"Yes, ma'am," he replied, and left for the narcotics lockup.

Marcus was holding Jace's bandaged hand up above the level of the private's heart.
"Where's the doc?"

"Seeing to the Chimera. It's still unconscious. Must have been one hell of a headbutt."

Jace smiled weakly. "Hell, yeah. If there's one thing the sarge has got, it's a thick skull."

Marcus twitched an eyebrow at him. "Stratton, when you're healed up …" he mock-threatened.

Jace grinned more genuinely at the rare jokiness of his normally stoic NCO. "Arm-wrestling?" he suggested.

"Sure, kid."

"My good arm, though."

" 'Course. But the doc's going to make sure you could wrestle with both arms. No question."

Anya touched his shoulder gently. "We can't make you good as new, Jace. But you'll be back in rotation as soon as the doctor says you're healed."

A bit of the warm undertone came back to Jace's grayish skin. "Thanks, Lieutenant. It won't affect my aim, I promise."

"I have no doubt."

They heard Hoffman before they saw him, making demands of the nursing staff. Someone directed him to Jace's exam room.

Hoffman paused in the doorway with a stony expression on his face. Anya knew he had visited one too many soldiers in the hospital, and the younger they were, the harder Hoffman took it.

"How bad is it, Stratton?"

"Not as bad as it looks, Colonel," Jace answered, sounding much older than seventeen. "Only a pinky. I'll just have to raise a different finger while drinking tea from now on."

Hoffman gave him a short, appropriate chuckle. "I'll make sure teatime is included in your physical therapy, Private."

He turned his gaze to the rest of them. "What made it crack?"

"Marcus blew up its pet Brumak," Baird said.

"Is that right?"

"Yup."

"I can't believe I have to ask this, but: which blown-up Brumak are we talking about?"

Sharon laughed behind her hand. Anya gave her a small smile.

Marcus squinted in satisfaction. "The Lambent one from Jacinto, sir."

Vaughn came back with a vial of painkillers and Hoffman stepped aside to let him administer it.

"So it bit you, eh, Stratton?"

"Yes, sir."

"Tell me you weren't teasing it like a kid at the zoo."

Jace closed his eyes for a moment as the shot of morphine visibly lessened the pain.

"No, sir. It was trying to bite Marcus's neck. I grabbed its face to keep it away from him, and it bit me."

"How'd it get close enough to you to be a threat, sergeant?"

"It broke free of the chair, Colonel. Turns out they're stronger than they look. Maybe stronger than humans. And fast."

"Almost took my eye out with a piece of the chair," Baird put in.

"Wouldn't have stopped at your eye," Marcus rumbled over his shoulder. "He was aiming for your brain."

Sharon put a hand on Baird's stomach as if to shield him, then dropped it with a slight blush when she saw Hoffman and Anya watching.

"Colonel," Anya suggested, "I think a rework of the Chimera's cell is in order. Not quite so much open space."

"I like the way you think, Lieutenant. Baird, get it done."

"Yes, sir."

Sharon nudged Baird into a storage closet on their way out, coincidentally the same one Bernie and Cole had yanked him into a few weeks before.

She shut the door quietly. "I need to talk to you. Please don't be mad."

"Uh … have you met me?"

She poked him in the ribs. "I'm serious."

He took one of her hands and rubbed it. "My hands are fine. The Chimera's strapped down with fifty yards of duct tape and in another room with two armed guards," he said, repeating their whispered conversation from the exam room.

"No, it's … I passed by Daniel's room on the way here."

"Yeah?" That could mean any number of things, from war in general to how her daughter Grace had lost a hand during her gruesome death. Now that he thought about it, if she'd lived, Grace would be Daniel's age.

She looked up at him with a troubled expression. "I was thinking … maybe we shouldn't be trying to have kids right now."

"Ah." He used his thumb to smooth away the frown lines between her eyebrows. "You beat me to it."

Her face lightened a fraction. "Really?"

"Yeah." He wanted to pace the floor, but he also wanted to keep holding on to her, which resulted in an awkward two-step. "Hearing that Joey kid begging for help over the radio was … actually really upsetting. I couldn't help thinking if we'd had kids on schedule that it could have been them instead of Daniel and his friends."

"Yeah." She hugged him, head nestled on his chest.

"The Stalks are coming closer," Baird continued reluctantly. "Hoffman and Prescott are getting antsy. I think they're going to move the COG off Vectes soon. Nowhere on the mainland is safe, either, and a warship's a terrible place to raise a baby. So we should probably wait. You've gotten pregnant before on birth control, so this time it's my turn."

"Thanks," she said simply, and stood on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek. Her expression turned solemn. There was no end in sight to the Stalk or Lambent problem. Sera might never again be a safe place to raise children. Carmine was siring babies left and right, but the equation predicting what percentage of them would live to adulthood was one math problem that Baird didn't want to solve.

"So," he said in a brighter tone, "until you and I figure out a way to eradicate them all, we'll have to put the family plans on hold."

That lovely smile overtook her face. "Oh, we're going to wipe out the Lambent, are we?"

"Yeah, and we might as well do the Locust while we're at it."

"Is that right?" She squeezed his waist, looking up into his face with the adoring grin that he would never get tired of.

"Yup. The trick will be to stop ourselves before we go mad with power and also wipe out the Stranded, politicians, mosquitoes … and people who put diesel in Imulsion engines."

She shuddered appropriately. "You don't have to get so graphic, Damon."

He chuckled and kissed her forehead. "Meet you back at the shop to draw up alterations to the Chimera's cell."

"They put me in the amputations wing," Jace groused to Marcus, now that they were alone.

"You did lose a finger."

"Only a pinky. But now I've got to share a room with Daniel," he said with a curled lip, gesturing toward the ex-Gear's currently-empty bed.

"What's the problem?"

"He went AWOL and got a child killed," Jace whispered. "Might as well have shot the poor kid himself."

Marcus straightened up. "Is that what you think of me, Jace?"

"What?"

"Did you forget how I ended up in The Slab?"

Suddenly Marcus seemed bigger and more solid, like a larger-than-life marble statue of himself. The scar on his face from the attack dog seemed to deepen. Jace was reminded that the sergeant had survived four years in the most brutal maximum security prison on the continent.

"You tried to save your dad and forgot you had a piece of the Hammer's targeting laser in your belt," Jace offered cautiously.

"Yeah. I went AWOL and got over a thousand people killed, Gears and civilians both. Most of them were still teenagers."

"But that's … you were trying to save your dad, not setting off fireworks for fun. And you've redeemed yourself."

"I wasn't a fifteen-year-old boy who didn't know any better. I was a thirty-year-old veteran soldier who knew the COG defending that bridge depended on me doing my job, and I left anyway. I 'redeemed' myself because Hoffman allowed a highly-decorated war hero to break me out of prison, then decided to give me one more shot." He pointed toward the curtain separating them from the youngest Carmine's hospital bed. "If a full-grown man gets four years to atone and an undeserved chance to redeem himself, a child should get more than six days."

"I … I understand, Sarge."

"Good."

"I won't give him a hard time."

"I'll hold you to that."

"Yes, sir."

Marcus turned on his heel and left. Jace had the sinking feeling that he had blown his chance to have a soldier-to-soldier bonding moment with Marcus Fenix. It was a good bet that the sergeant didn't hand out many of those.

"You're such a shithead," he cursed himself.

"My ears are burning," Baird joked as he swaggered into the room.

"Oh, uh, hey. I was just talking to myself."

Baird leaned against the counter opposite Jace's bed. "Morphine'll do that to you." He cleared his throat. "Listen, kid, um … I'm sorry about your hand."

"Thanks."

"No, I mean I'm sorry I let that happen to your hand." The corporal looked genuinely uncomfortable. He'd been a lot more 'personable' – as Anya called it – in recent weeks, and Jace was pretty sure he knew why.

"What do you mean?"

Baird took in a reluctant breath. "I mean I should have been watching for something like that. I should have known the Chimera would be stronger than a human, and that it would break free of the chair if it got angry enough. I should have guessed. I should have had more precautions in place."

Jace smiled slightly. "As nice as that would have been, none of us saw it coming. Not me, the MP, Sarge, or you. 'Collective failure', isn't that what you called it? When a bunch of parts go bad at the same time?"

Baird looked like he was actually considering Jace's point of view. "Yeah, I mean … I guess." The corner of his mouth quirked up in a forced smile. "Would have been cooler if I'd guessed it first and dramatically saved everyone from Mr. Chompers. Then I could have rubbed it in your faces for the next few decades."

Jace laughed briefly. That was more like the Damon Baird he was used to. Then, looking down at the mass of bandages enveloping his partial hand, Jace asked softly, "You really think we're going to make it more than another year or two? 'Cuz that feels less and less likely."

"Sure I do. Sharon and I are working on some Polyp-popping technology, and if that works, then anything with infected Imulsion in it is fair game."

"You are? I mean, you have prototypes and shit?"

"Half-built, but yeah. In between fixing the COG machinery, we dick around doing the fun stuff." Baird almost seemed to blush for a moment. "So to speak. But listen, that's just between us Deltas. I don't want panicky civilians mobbing my shop looking for sci-fi weapons."

"Yeah, I get it. They can't miss what they never had."

"Exactly."

Jace thought to himself, 'Speaking of missing things you've never had …'

"Hey, Baird, uh …"

"Yeah?"

"Listen, you've been decent to me, and you're basically a stand-up kinda guy."

"Wow, I'm getting all sorts of compliments this week. And?"

"And that's why I feel like I gotta tell you …"

"Tell me what? Spit it out, Stratton."

Jace sighed regretfully. "She's got a fella."

"She?"

"Her. Sharon. Everybody can see you're sweet on her and I thought you should know. She's already got a guy. Probably one of her nomad buddies."

Baird didn't fly into an immediate rage, which surprised Jace. "Who told you this?"

"It's all over the base, man. I'm sorry."

"How do they know they're not just friends?" the corporal demanded.

Jace suppressed an eye-roll. "Sure, Baird. I bet he's sneaking in and out of her window at night to give her piano lessons."

Weirdly, Baird's face relaxed. "Oh, that guy. Yeah, I know about him."

"You do? Who is he? Nobody else could get a good look. He only comes at night."

The engineer waved his hand dismissively. "He's not a problem. Trust me."

"Why's he not a problem?"

"All right: he's one of Prescott's spies. The chairman thinks he's getting information from Sharon, but she's really just feeding them a bunch of bullshit that has them chasing their own tails. Nothing to worry about. That is also Delta-only information, by the way."

"Oh. Well." Jace felt ten times better that he wasn't delivering one of the worst kinds of news to a squadmate. "Awesome, I guess!"

"Thanks anyway, kid."

Baird found Hayman in a side room, sanitizing the instruments she'd used to operate on Jace's hand.

Hayman looked up briefly. "What do you want, Corporal?"

Baird got right to the point. "Doc, I need birth control."

"You need what?" She sounded distracted, continuing to sort and sanitize.

"Birth control. You know, anti-baby shields? Sonblock? The gamete equivalent of cheating at dodgeball?"

The old lady actually dropped her tools in surprise.

"For … for yourself?"

"Yes, for myself," he snapped. "What, you don't think –"

"That's not what I meant, Corporal," she said in a soothing voice. It was actually the nicest tone he'd ever heard out of the elderly surgeon. "I meant, you're looking for male birth control?"

"Yes." His hackles were starting to rise. "Why is that weird?"

"Typically, men who take birth control are doing it so they can sleep around without causing an unwanted pregnancy if a condom breaks." She looked him up and down with clinical assessment. "There are plenty of volunteers who want smart babies. If you're looking for purely physical release without the responsibility of parenthood, I could get you into the program. Or on the list for a vasectomy. It's not as uncomfortable as it sounds."

Baird felt his face grow hot with indignation. "I am not looking for 'physical release', you –" He bit back an insult and started again. "My fiancée has gotten pregnant before while on birth control, and we're not looking to have kids right now, so we need several weeks' worth of condoms and at least a year's worth of RAR-alpha blockers."

"Fiancée?" Her eyes went wide. "Fiancée?" She repeated the Kashkuri word for an engaged woman with a progressively higher pitch. It was a good thing this old hospital had solid walls, or someone might hear her.

"Yes!" he nearly shouted. "Why is that so hard to believe?"

"Not 'hard to believe', Corporal, just surprising. Bernie and I thought you were asexual."

He was stunned to silence for a few seconds. "You and Bernie discussed my sexual preferences? Why the hell would you do that?"

Hayman lifted an eyebrow. "When everybody assumes you're a gossiping old biddy anyway, why not have some fun with it?"

Baird had the same philosophy about being considered an asshole. "I actually kind of respect that. What made you two think I was ace?"

"You've never shown a single spark of interest in any man or woman in all the years I've known you. Not until … recently …" Hayman gasped, the truth dawning on her delighted face. "Oh, please tell me it's that nomad girl! She'd be perfect for you."

"Look, look, look," Baird shushed her, pleased that she thought it was a good match, and a little weirded out by her sudden enthusiasm. "If we could keep this under the heading of 'doctor-patient confidentiality', I'd appreciate it."

Hayman looked startled. "I'm the first one you've told? Not Cole or Bernie?"

Baird shuffled his feet, hands jammed in his pockets. "Yeah. It's … um … it's kind of going to surprise a lot of people, and we wanted a few weeks to ourselves before the rumor mill starts churning, you know? Clayton guessed, but swore himself to secrecy. Cole is terrible at keeping secrets, and Bernie hates hiding things from Hoffman."

"Oh!" she exclaimed in joy and threw her arms around his waist, pinning his arms to his sides. "This is wonderful! One of the Deltas is officially pairing off, and I'm the first to know! Mataki will be so jealous, that smug bitch!" She said it as if 'smug bitch' were a term of endearment.

"What is it with little old ladies and getting me a girlfriend?" Baird wondered out loud.

She had a grandmotherly smile as she took his face in her hands. It was creepy because he'd never, ever seen Doc Hayman smile before. She said, "Young man, you have made my day ten times better. Of course you can have as much birth control as you like, and of course I will not tell anyone. In fact, the longer you delay the announcement, the better. Then I can rub it in Bernie's face that I found out weeks before she did." Hayman actually cackled a little. That seemed more like the grizzled old surgeon he knew.

She turned to a cabinet with surprising speed and tapped in a code. Baird noticed the door label said: Hands off, Clayton!

The cabinet popped open and she pulled out a plastic tub of pill bottles. "Let's see, let's see. Four months of RAR-alpha blockers to unravel the little bastards before they can get anywhere near an egg, and a few weeks of condoms while you wait for the pills to kick in. Three dozen should do." She halted and looked at him speculatively. "Let's double that." Hayman tossed a few more handfuls of contraception into the nondescript bag that now held his prescription.

"Uh, wow. You have a very high opinion of me."

"Let's just say I remember being mid-thirties and on birth control."

"I'm going to pretend you didn't say that."

"Hush, or I'll tell you what Dom and Maria use."

"Okay, okay, I'm sorry! Please don't!" Baird held up his hands in total surrender.

Hayman chuckled as she placed the bag on the counter and stripped the label off the cabinet, scribbling a new one. "The pills do expire, so come back in a few months when we've made some more."

"Wait, wait, wait, don't write my name on that!" Baird squeaked in alarm. "People are nosy, and finding a cupboard full of birth control with my name on it –"

"I'm not writing your name on it, Corporal." Hayman showed him the strip of tape.

Reserved for the happy couple!

Baird had to clear the lump from his throat before speaking. "Thanks, Doc."

I got so caught up in making Gun Shy's timeline match canon that I stopped writing, so we're just going to wing it with what I remember from the games and books.