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Saturday is time for the Science Fiction Romance Brigade; click on the logo above for more snippets. This excerpt is from a WIP tentatively titled Both Sides Now. Roi is following Doc through a maze of hay bales in a cave.

Roi limped after him, the roughness of the floor increasingly painful to his bare feet. “In here,” Doc said finally, and gestured Roi through a gap in the piled bales.

Greenstick fracture. No problem to set, as long as the child could be kept quiet. But rape? She couldn’t have been more than ten, Roi thought angrily. Zhaim had clearly thought he was more effective than Roi had been. But the Confederation was built on trust, not on military might. If this was any sample of what Zhaim thought effective, he’d destroy the Confederation in a Human generation.

The little girl cowered back when Roi and Doc entered the room. The reaction of the woman nursing her was less overt, but Roi automatically moved out of the doorway, making sure she had a free route to escape.

The child needed treatment for more than her broken arm, but that would only make her mental condition worse. Better get her quieted down and sleeping now, get the arm set, and then find out what resources Doc might have.