ACT ONE

Fire burned through her.

It was a liquid pain that seared through her stomach with each ragged breath she took, a pain that scorched away coherence and thought each time she shifted under the imprisoning weight. Gritting her teeth against the waves of agony that pulsed through her, she strained to move the column of fallen metal that pinned her in place; muscles honed by nearly two decades of military service struggled in vain against the unyielding steel. Numbness crept into her lower extremities and, though she was not a trained physician, she knew what that meant.

Anita Karanja was dying.

Around her, she could hear the cries and whimpers of the dying and wounded, could smell the distinctive stench of seared flesh and smoke and death, could feel the gentle spray of fire suppression systems upon her face as they fought the flames. It wasn't unfamiliar to her; as she recovered consciousness in the moments after the blast, her first thought was that she was back on Mars, following one of the more extreme 'Free Mars Now' demonstrations. The moment passed quickly, however, as memory flooded back and pain thudded through her.

Commodore Archer was safe, that much she knew. In the seconds after the explosion that consumed Lieutenant Li and the bomber, Karanja had seen the commodore knock a dark-skinnned Boomer to safety with a well-timed body-check that carried them both out of the immediate danger area. Lieutenant Reynolds' voice had been the last thing she heard before darkness and pain consumed her; the lieutenant had sounded calm and collected despite the chaos, and she felt a flicker of amusement at the sudden image that flashed through her mind of him issuing orders wearing nothing but his boots. She'd been looking forward to teasing him about his earlier nudity, eagerly anticipating his flush of embarrassment, but now it didn't look as if she'd get the chance. She regretted that.

She regretted a lot of things, actually.

"Gunny?" The voice of PO1 Mitchell snapped her drifting thoughts back to her current situation and she grunted in response. Even doing that much sent a stab of pain through her body, and she winced; his warm hands touched her neck, seeking the pulse point. "Stay still, Gunny," Mitchell said, his voice calm. Despite herself, Anita felt a smile touch her lips at the thought of the petty officer calm: he was easily the most hotheaded member of First Squad. "Doc's on his way," Mitchell continued, "so you just hold on, okay?"

"Report," she rasped, her words nearly unintelligible. Once more, fire swept through her, pain so intense that she momentarily lost the train of Mitchell's words.

"...and you're trapped under a girder of some kind," he was saying and Karanja would have frowned if she could. "There's blood all over the place and..."

"The mission," she tried to snarl but it came out slurred and soft.

"The ell-tee took command of Second Squad," Mitchell said quickly in response, his hand now on her shoulder, his touch oddly comforting. "He left Chief Gray to coordinate with you and got the commodore clear." Mentally, Anita saluted Reynolds for that; his ability to stay focused on the mission, no matter what, was one of the lieutenant's strongest points. She hoped he got the ambassador out as well. Mitchell continued, his grip on her shoulder tightening. "First Squad is conducting rescue ops now." Despite the dire circumstances, she felt a surge of pride that her team was already helping people. It also now made sense why Reynolds had left behind the more experienced First Squad; one of his first orders of business when he assumed command was to make sure that every member of the Roughnecks was a trained medic. The lieutenant had even gone so far as to acquire an actual corpsman in the form of PO2 Simons; 'Doc' to the team, Simons was a qualified nurse and often found himself aiding Phlox in emergency surgeries. Second Squad, having just arrived on Endeavour, had only started their training with the Denobulan doctor and would be of negligible use in an actual real-world situation like this one. "Phlox is on his way, Gunny," Mitchell finished, his words clearly meant to be soothing.

Her mind drifted as he spoke and she fought against an overwhelming sense of fatigue that tried to overwhelm her. It helped that the pain had begun to lessen, slowly fading to a dull ache that merely amplified her lassitude; Karanja knew that she should be concerned, knew that she needed to fight the exhaustion, but simply couldn't find the strength or the motivation. Memory flitted through her awareness, recollections of past experiences both good and bad. She remembered the swelling pride within her breast at MACO Boot Camp graduation, felt once more the crushing despair when her fiancee Johnny died, and recalled with sharp amusement the sight of a naked Lieutenant Reynolds glaring at Commander Eisler.

Voices pierced the mental fog, distant and hollow, and she struggled to focus on them, fighting to push aside the regrets of the past and the memories of a man ten years dead.

"...clipped the femoral artery," a female voice was saying. Anita tried to place the voice, but couldn't. "There's nothing I can do, Mitch. Frankly, it's amazing she's still alive with the amount of blood she's already lost." Consciousness wavered once more as Karanja realized the unknown voice was talking about her. Looks like I'll be seeing Johnny sooner than I expected, Anita thought to herself sadly.

"Where the hell is Phlox?" Mitchell demanded, his words coming out loud and angry. If she'd had the energy, Karanja would have smiled then: that was the Petty Officer 1st Class Mitchell that she knew.

"He's trying to save a three-year old," the unidentified female replied, still perfectly calm. "I'm sorry, Petty Officer, but she's already gone."

"What can I do?" a subdued-sounding Mitchell asked and Anita tried to open her eyes, tried to tell him that it was okay, but her strength was gone. The numbness spread into her torso and arms, and she felt sudden fear surge up within her.

"Make her comfortable," the female said from an impossibly vast distance. Karanja felt Mitchell's hand on her shoulder again and she tried to speak, trying to reassure him. His words floated to her ears.

"Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name." Once more, amusement trickled through her; she'd always suspected Mitchell was a religious guy and wondered why he had felt the need to hide it. She felt him take her hand.

And then she was gone.