Here we go, on to part three. This madness is spiraling out of control, and I do believe it's giving birth to a whole ongoing storyline. We'll see. I'm figuring on at least one and probably two more stories in the line, and all commentary and thoughts are welcome. Thanks for all the positive response that's come in so far. --------------------------------------

Cafferty barely managed to yank the pliers back before the man snapped his jaws shut with a convulsive yelp. "More 'shine?" he said, offering up the bottle of homebrew. He'd never claim it was good product, but it was his most plentiful anaesthetic, coming from the still in back of his office/apartment. His patient nodded fervently and seized the bottle like a drowning man would a life preserver. Knowing Hicks, it wasn't just the pain of a busted tooth that encouraged him to take another hearty pull from the bottle. The man was known far and wide for his capacious ability to hold massive quantities of alcohol, regardless of quality. "What I was sayin', doc," continued his friend Edwards, standing to the side of the table with his hat furled in his hands "You gave that Allie-cat a good lick, yesterday, hell of a good shot if I do say so myself, and I done kicked in more'n a few men's chests betwixt here and Pasquale. Thing of it is, if'n they wanna make a thing of it, I'll step right up and say it was me that done it. Hell, it ain't no thing. Worst they could do is toss me in the Hole, and me and Hicksie done so much time down there that we're acquainted with all the roaches on a first name basis, feels more like home than my bunk down at the communal." Cafferty looked at him, stunned. This was the closest thing, hell, it was the first good thing he'd ever really gotten around here, outside of his circle of veterans. At best, he got cold politeness, even when he'd gotten the Merino family through that nasty breach-birth four months ago. Talk about flying by the seat of your pants... "I..." he said, then closed his mouth and thought for a minute. "That's a hell of a thing to offer, Ed. But I can't go around having another man take one for something I did." By the twinkle in Edwards eyes, he saw that he'd said just the right thing, spoken the exact words that would carry the most weight for the man. "That's sure fine of ya, doc. I ain't doubtin' your brass, so to speak. But 'twixt you and me, this town needs a doc more than it needs me, hear what I'm sayin'? They could come down harsh, on account of this bein' regular troops and so on." Cafferty turned back to Hicks, who seemed satisfied with his 'dosage' now. He picked up the pliers again, speaking over his shoulder to Edwards. "Telling me how bad it is ain't going to convince me that I should let you take account for what I've done. You ready, Hicks?" he said. Hicks nodded, opened his mouth and closed his eyes. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Edwards studiously turning to look away. The pair were just this side of being cut-throat bandits, known for being rough characters in a town full of what Cafferty considered to be rough characters. But pulling a tooth was just too much for Edwards' tender sensibilities. Cafferty smothered a grin at the notion. If he had a problem with yanking teeth around these parts, he'd probably lose at least fifteen percent of his business. "Okay, think about Yinna Davens." he said cheerfully. Hicks got a blissful look on his face, a common expression for menfolk in the area when her name came up. She had grown up enough to be considered 'husband-high' around these parts, a beautiful girl with alluring Asiatic eyes contrasting the slight reddish tint of her hair. In one smooth motion, he dipped the pliers in, his other hand doing what it could to hold Hicks' lower jaw open. Getting the best grip he could on the shattered bicuspid, he gave it a good yank and miracle of all miracles, it came out clean. Hicks howled like he'd just been bayonetted and flopped on the table, hands flying to his mouth. Blood dribbled down his chin as he shook his head and moaned. "All done there, doc?" Edwards asked nervously. "Done." "Now about what I was sayin'..." "No."

As they settled up the money, Hicks pulled him close and said in his gravelly voice "Thought all you Alliance boys was pussies, doc. Said it often enough, 'round where you could hear, too. I figured the only reason you boys won was 'cause you had more pussies than we had pricks to fill 'em up. But you ain't none of that. You hold your head high around this town, and any that want say anything other'n, you let me an' Ed know 'bout it, we'll fix 'em up right pretty. Hear me?" Cafferty tilted his head and repressed a bizarre urge to giggle. It wasn't just the rough, rustic language, so different from Ariel, but how fast things changed in the span of a single day. He grinned, exhaled, and nodded. Words just weren't coming right now. Hicks shook his shoulder, slapped his back, then made for the door. After squaring his accounts with the latest business, he reflected on the day's customers so far. The brawl had been over so quickly that it hadn't been the cash bonanza he had expected. A couple of stitch jobs, one broken arm, and other than that most everyone had gotten away with just scrapes and bruises. Except of course for the Alliance troopers, but even barring his role in yesterday's affair, they weren't likely to be bringing business to him. He'd take what he'd gotten from Edwards and Hicks over a fat deposit in the bank any day, for that matter. The latest copy of Frontier Medicine had come in the mail early. It was only about three months behind, which wasn't bad. He was a compulsive reader of the journal, even if some of the more technical details they discussed were a bit over his head. The best parts were the Q&A section, which he'd sent a couple of questions in to himself (even got one answered) and the Hippocrates on the High Frontier backpage section, by the famous Lisa Geathrow. Every article she wrote contained both a useful and often amusing story of her practice along with something useful for people like him, practicing their arts with a bare minimum of tools and formal training. He sometimes wondered how many lives she'd saved with her column. He'd done his first appendectomy with a copy of her article on the topic laying next to him. A groan from the back announced that Zip was returning to the land of the living. He'd come to sometime after the brawl, found himself some more liquor and promptly put himself back under. He stayed in the backroom of the office, sleeping on the couch. It had been the easiest solution for the problem he faced. Whenever Zip got his disability pittance from the Alliance, he would promptly drink up as much of it as he could, and then get the rest lifted off of him while he slept either in the gutter or the rat-infested communal. Cafferty decided to take it on himself to at least give the ex-pilot a chance to keep some of his money around. Long enough to buy more booze, of course. Cafferty stepped through the open doorway and settled into his broken swivel-chair, carefully pivoting it toward the wall so it wouldn't dump him on his head. Zip rolled of the couch with a thump, moaning loudly. "Hurts." he announced, his first coherent syllables of the day. "Yeah." Cafferty said. Truth was, he was really at the end of his rope with Zip. He was killing himself with the booze, spending what money he had and then begging for what drinks he could, and when he couldn't get them, he'd start having withdrawal symptoms. Cafferty had no clue how to work him through withdrawal, and that was assuming he could even convince Zip to stop. So far, he'd had no luck. Kellerman and Jian-Ku had urged him to get tough, and God only knew that Cafferty had tried. But everything rolled off of Zip. Arguments, enticements, outright pleading, none of it got through the fog of self-pity. It was down to the one thing he couldn't do, one thing that neither Kellerman or Jian-Ku would suggest. He couldn't throw the pilot out and walk away, because the Jaegers did not leave a man behind. To him, Zip was every trooper who'd ever been lost because of some fuckup, somewhere. His friend from training, who'd had his chute tangle during a qualification drop. The shuttle collision that had wiped out half of Mike company, forty light years away from any fighting. The military machine ground up people in more ways than just exposing their tender flesh to the worst capabilities of the enemy. Going up front to read his journal rather than watch Zip bounce off walls as he fumbled his way to the privy was not the same as abandoning him. It was just getting away long enough to maintain some semblance of sanity. He dropped his magazine when he saw Miloslaw standing inside the doorway. How the hell did he get through the door without ringing the bell? Miloslaw grinned at him and plopped down on the battered front office sofa. "Good news, Cafferty," he said without preamble. "No heat off that little show yesterday. No official heat, anyway." stressing the word 'official.' Cafferty settled in on the edge of his desk. "No official heat? So those bastards will just bust more heads than usual, and now they've got us on their shitlist along with everyone else in town." "Could be, could be. Say, is that coffee I see?" Miloslaw got up and headed for the pot. "Colder than the Deep Dark. Made it this morning." Cafferty said. "I've drunk worse. Need to wet the old whistle. Anyway, seems that our lieutenant has his own problems. Namely, fraternizing with enlisted men. Drinking with enlisted men. Getting vulgar-ass drunk with enlisted men and brawling with enlisted men." Miloslaw said with a nasty bit of relish in his tone. He poured himself a cup of coffee, then waved the pot at Cafferty with an inquisitive look. "No thanks. You mean they're actually enforcing those rules now? I mean, for them as well as us, well, them enlisted types?" He asked, puzzled. "Oh hell yes. Lieutenant PX is now officially on the deep, dark, wrong side of the promotion board. He wasn't exactly sitting on a sterling war record to begin with. Way I hear it, six months from now, he's going to be getting his retirement papers. Maybe, just maybe, he'll take his plot here. Not likely, though. He'll probably hitch his ride back to Chandele or some other Core World." Maybe it was just Cafferty's imagination, but there seemed to be a certain disgust in the way Miloslaw said the words 'Core World.' Then again, Cafferty himself had a certain resentment for those who'd sat behind while he and his fought and bled. Last leave he'd had, he learned in a hurry that Ariel was no home for him. They just weren't his people anymore. So who were his people? Maybe the locals could be, if more of them were thinking like Edwards and Hicks. Definitely, he had Kellerman, Jian-Ku and... and... He looked at Miloslaw. "Need to ask you a question." he said, suddenly. "Can't promise an honest answer." said Miloslaw, taking another sip of the stone-cold coffee. "But I'll try for an interesting one." Cafferty ignored the sarcasm. "Who the hell are you, what did you do during the war, what's your pipeline back to the local garrison, and why did you bail so quickly after the fight?" Miloslaw put down the cup, his features growing blank. Looking slightly past Cafferty, he spoke softly. "Are you sure those are questions you want to ask?" Cafferty told himself that he'd seen the worst there was to see at Kappa Hill, Serenity Valley, the Garivald plains, and as Kellerman put it "Just about every other gorram terrain feature in the 'verse worthy of sticking a name on." He'd been scared most of the time, and flat-out terrified for the rest of it. But he'd held firm, he hadn't let his brothers and sisters down. After all that, why the hell did these two men, between that Reynolds character yesterday, and his 'friend' Miloslaw, just make him want to dig a fresh foxhole and pull it back over his head? You can only die once, though you can make a pretty miserable process of it, he told himself silently. "Yeah. No more Mr. Mysterious, or get the hell out of my office." Fortunately, sitting on his desk meant that he didn't have to worry about his knees failing spontaneously. Miloslaw looked past them, then bored into him with a fiercely intense gaze. Suddenly, unexpectedly, he laughed. "I like you, Cafferty. I really do. You know how to keep your mouth shut, for one thing." He rolled up his sleeve, baring the tattoo. A grinning skull stared out at Cafferty. "You know what this means. I saw it in your eyes when you gave me that shot." "Pathfinders." Cafferty answered. He knew damn little about the organization, though. Mostly barracks rumors, and everyone knew just how accurate those were. "You knew it, and you didn't tell the others. So, you want to know, and I haven't talked to anyone in a long damn time." Miloslaw turned around, and tilted his head to the side. "We are Death from On High," he said, obviously intoning a memorized speech. "We are the Eyes and Ears, the First to Draw Blood. Pathfinders Lead the Way." Turning back to Cafferty, he nodded his head upward. "Know what that is?" Cafferty shrugged. "Unit motto?" The 13th Jaegers had their own impressive-sounding credo too. Miloslaw laughed. "Besides being ripped off from several different elite-type outfits ranging all the way back to Earth-That-Was, it's a load of fucking horseshit, drilled into your head from day one so when your knees are knocking and you're swearing that no way in hell you'll get into another drop capsule for the rest of your gorram life, when you look down, that bit of bullshit will be looking right back at you. Literally. They write it on the floor of our shuttles." "You're kidding." "Yeah, I am. That's the interesting answer part." Miloslaw grew sober again. "You drop qualified, I know. I got a look at all your records a while back. So you know how bad it is to get into a flat spin." Cafferty nodded. It was the worst, most uncontrollable position a person could get in, although modern equipment did make it more recoverable. "Coming off an orbital drop. You start out on a ballistic insertion course, outside the atmosphere, on a shuttle coming in slick. One damn thing they got right, we never had a single shuttle get picked up during an insertion. Give the devil his due, hmm? Anyway, you tip over the top of atmo and start your long fall down. You've got a five-centimeter thick sheet underneath your feet that ablates and takes off most of the heat. Still gets a fair piece warm, though. After you're past using that, it's all up to you to operate your gear. The biggest killer is to do the flat spin. At the speed you're coming down," Miloslaw traced a line from his forehead to his chest as he spoke "The blood evacuates from your extremities in roughly one second. Dead before you know it. I never had any dreams about any man or woman I ever killed, like they talk about. When I dream, I dream I'm coming down, and I lose it, and it's over. Makes for a quick dream, and then I damn well can't get back to sleep for the rest of the night." Cafferty stared, not saying anything. Even a polite affirmation seemed out of place. "And that's what grandpa did during the war," Miloslaw said. "Now, about the local garrison? Well, technically I'm still on active reserve. They don't much care to let people they've invested so much in training cut loose on them. On the other hand, and I told my CO as much... the only way they ever get me back into a drop pod is to shoot me in the gorram head and stuff me in feet first. So we have a polite fiction, where if they have to do a callup, well, here I am. And if they called up for anything else, I will be there." "I see." said Cafferty, somewhat rattled despite Miloslaw's apparent good humor. "You know, it actually feels good to talk about it. I think I'm violating some sort of regulations, somewhere and somehow. And that always makes my day." "Won't it come back on you, from yesterday?" "That? I doubt it. And if it does, it'll be worth it. We all hate REMFs like Lieutenant PX, right? And you don't get into the Pathfinders if you don't like a good fight now and then." Miloslaw smiled, then shook his head. "Anyway, I just stopped in to talk. A little. Not a lot. I've got a ranch to tend to. I don't have to tell you to keep this under your hat." "You just did." "So I did." Miloslaw started to walk toward the door. Cafferty bounced up. "Hey! Why did you jump out so quickly after the fight?" "I didn't think much good could come of me seeing good old Mal again." "Mal? You mean Reynolds?" A whole new mystery now. "Your astute and rapid perceptions always amaze me, Cafferty." "How do you know him?" Cafferty was irritated and puzzled. Just when he thought he'd gotten his answers, Miloslaw threw him for another loop. "Hey, you can't have all the good stories at once. A man's got to have some secrets." With that Miloslaw slipped through the door, at least jangling the bells tied to it this time.