Mal dreaming...

It's the black again. No stars, though. Just...nothing. Which pisses Mal off.

We're gonna die.

Bendis? What the gorram - Bendis, you here?

No response. Not that Mal expected one, but he would have liked it.

After his mind moved on from trying to find his dead war buddy, there is a pinprick of light that zooms toward Mal's face, almost bowling him over.

The first thing he smells is the gunpowder. Then the blood. Always the gunpowder first; Mal thinks if it weren't for the gunpowder waking his nose up the blood wouldn't smell so bad.

Where is this? Everyone's moving so fast that Mal can't even make out if this is Hera or Ita, or any one o' the 5 or so planets and moons he fought campaigns on.

He can't see Zoe anywhere.

Gun flying out of his holster, Mal ducks behind sandbags to block himself from the volley coming in over the fancy steel barriers the Alliance battalion had erected in an unbelievably short time. Oh, how Mal wishes he had some of those grenades Mal knows Jayne keeps near the head of his bunk.

Jayne? Who the hell's Jayne?

Cannon-fire; Mal rolls away from it briskly, straightening himself to peer over the bags for an assessment of the situation. More cannon-fire. Great. Moving again, Mal stops when he hits someone.

"What's our statu--" The soldier next to Mal doesn't have any status except dead. And the status of his head being blown off.