Holly raced towards her fallen comrade, projectiles buzzing around her head like supersonic bees. Generally, in a situation of this kind, the last thing you do is move the victim, but with gunfire raining down on them, there was no choice. Holly grabbed the private by his epaulettes, hauling him behind a rusted-out delivery shuttle.

Chix had been out there a long time. He was grinning feebly. ‘You came for me, Cap. I knew you would.’

Holly tried to keep the worry from her voice. ‘Of course I came, Chix. Never leave a man behind.’

‘I knew you couldn’t resist me,’ he breathed. ‘I knew it.’ Then he closed his eyes. There was a lot of damage done here. Maybe too much.

Holly concentrated on the wound. Heal, she thought, and the magic welled up inside her like a million pins and needles. It spread through her arms and ran down to her fingers. She placed her hands on Verbil’s wound.

Blue sparks tingled from her fingers into the hole. The sparks played around the wound, repairing the scorched tissue and replicating spilt blood. The sprite’s breathing calmed, and a healthy green tinge started to return to his cheeks.

Holly sighed. Chix would be OK. He probably wouldn’t fly any more missions on that wing, but he would live. Holly laid the unconscious sprite on his side, careful not to put pressure on the injured wing. Now for the mysterious grey shapes. Holly upped the setting on her weapon to four and ran without hesitation towards the chute entrance.

On your very first day in the LEP Academy, a big hairy gnome, with a chest the size of a bull troll, pins each cadet to a wall and warns them never to run into an unsecured building during a firefight. He says this in a most insistent fashion. He repeats it every day until the maxim is etched on every cadet’s brain. Nevertheless, this was exactly what Captain Holly Short of the LEPrecon Unit proceeded to do.