Part 2
I fought the violent spin, my muscles screaming as I yanked the glider’s control toggles. The razor-sharp cliffs of Kestrel Gorge rushed up to meet me in the dark. At the absolute last second, I caught an updraft, barely clearing a jagged spire of ice by inches. The stealth fabric of my suit absorbed the enemy’s radar pings as I glided silently down into the abyss, finally touching down in knee-deep snow at the base of the towering concrete fortress.
The cold was absolute, but the fire in my chest kept me moving. I detached the glider, buried it under the snow, and drew my suppressed sidearm. Above me, the fortress loomed like a mechanical beast, bristling with searchlights and thermal drones. Kestrel Gorge was supposed to be impassable; that was my only advantage. They weren’t looking down. I scaled the frozen exterior wall using magnetic grapples, pulling myself up to a massive steel ventilation grate.
Getting inside was just the beginning. The ductwork was a labyrinth of spinning fans and laser tripwires. I had to time my movements perfectly, sliding through gaps with mere seconds to spare. Finally, I kicked open a secondary vent and dropped silently onto the catwalk of the fortress’s main server room. The air here was warm, humming with the sound of massive processors. Below me, a lone guard in heavy tactical gear was patrolling the floor.
I didn’t hesitate. I dropped from the catwalk, landing squarely on his shoulders. The physical impact drove him to the floor. Before he could cry out, I locked my arm around his throat in a brutal chokehold, cutting off his air supply until he went limp. I dragged his unconscious body behind a server rack and sprinted toward the main terminal.
This was the primary objective: retrieve the stolen defense network data. I jammed my decryption drive into the console, my fingers flying across the glowing keyboard. A progress bar popped up on the screen, downloading the stolen files back into my possession. But as the system unlocked, something caught my eye—a hidden folder, buried deep in the server’s root directory, labeled with a familiar military encryption code.
My blood ran cold. I opened the file. It was a communication log dated exactly seventy-two hours ago. The enemy hadn’t just stumbled upon Echo Squad. They had been given the exact coordinates, patrol routes, and radio frequencies of the unit. It was a deliberate, calculated ambush. I pulled up the authorization signature that transmitted the data, expecting to see a hacked proxy server. Instead, a biometric footprint flashed on the screen.
It was Colonel Miller’s security clearance.
A wave of pure, unfiltered rage washed over me. Miller hadn’t just argued against rescuing Echo Squad—he was the one who put them in the slaughterhouse to begin with. He sold out forty American soldiers to cover up some treasonous deal, and he wanted them dead so they could never talk. I yanked my drive from the console, securing the evidence inside my vest. The rescue mission had just become a hunt.
I slipped out of the server room, descending deeper into the bowels of the fortress toward the holding cells. The damp, metallic smell of blood and sweat hit me before I even saw them. Through the reinforced glass of a maximum-security block, I saw Captain Reynolds. He was battered, his face bruised and bloody, chained to a pipe alongside the exhausted remnants of Echo Squad.
I approached the electronic keypad of the cell door, pulling out a localized EMP device to blow the lock. But just as my thumb pressed the trigger, the entire corridor flashed a blinding, strobe-light red. A deafening siren ripped through the facility.
They knew I was here.
The heavy steel doors at the end of the cellblock hissed open, and the heavy, rhythmic thud of combat boots echoed down the hall. A heavily armed enemy quick-reaction force was pouring into the corridor, assault rifles raised. I was completely exposed, trapped between an armored kill squad and the locked cell of the men I came to save.
Part 3
I smashed the EMP device against the electronic lock. The keypad sparked, smoked, and the heavy magnetic seal on the cell door disengaged with a loud clank. I kicked the door open, sliding into the cell just as a hail of bullets tore through the space where I’d been standing a second before. Sparks rained down from the ceiling as the glass shattered inward.
“Hayes?” Reynolds coughed, squinting through a swollen eye as he saw me crouched in the smoke.
“Get up, Captain,” I ordered, drawing my combat knife and slicing through his zip-ties. I tossed him my spare sidearm. “We’re leaving. Now.”
The forty men of Echo Squad were battered and starving, but the moment they saw an American uniform, the fight returned to their eyes. I quickly freed the rest of them, handing out whatever weapons we could scavenge from the guards I’d dropped on my way down.
“There’s a drainage tunnel directly beneath this block,” I yelled over the deafening blare of the sirens. “It leads out to the gorge river! Move!”
Reynolds took point, leading his limping men toward the subterranean hatch. I stayed at the rear, laying down suppressive fire with a captured assault rifle. The enemy mercenaries were swarming the cellblock, pushing us hard. The tunnel was dark, slick with freezing water and slime, echoing with the chaotic roar of gunfire.
“They’re too fast!” Reynolds shouted from up ahead as we reached the massive iron grate leading out to the freezing river. “They’re going to catch the wounded!”
“Get them through the grate!” I screamed back. “I’ll buy you time!”
“Valerie, no!” Reynolds yelled, but I was already turning back. I stopped at a narrow chokepoint in the tunnel, pulling a brick of C4 from my tactical webbing. The heavy boots of the vanguard mercenaries splashed through the water toward me. I didn’t have time to wire it cleanly.
The first mercenary rounded the corner, rifle raised. I lunged forward, grabbing the hot barrel of his gun and redirecting it upward as it fired. I drove my elbow into his face mask, hearing the sickening crunch of cartilage, then spun him around, using him as a human shield as his partner opened fire. I kicked the second man hard in the kneecap, sending him splashing into the filthy water, and slammed the C4 onto the load-bearing concrete pillar of the tunnel.
I set the timer for ten seconds.
“Move!” I screamed at Reynolds, diving backward toward the grate. I hit the freezing water of the river just as the timer hit zero.
The explosion was biblical. The shockwave picked me up and threw me out into the gorge, a massive fireball erupting from the tunnel behind me as thousands of tons of rock and concrete collapsed, burying the enemy squad and sealing the exit permanently. I dragged myself onto the snowy riverbank, gasping for air, where Reynolds and the rest of Echo Squad were already signaling the emergency extraction choppers that could finally lock onto our flares without the fortress’s radar interference.
Ten hours later, the doors to the Sector 7 command center flew open. I didn’t knock. I marched straight through the room, soaked in dried mud, blood, and freezing water. The entire command staff froze. General Vance’s jaw dropped.
Colonel Miller turned pale, his eyes darting to the door as if looking for a ghost. “Captain Hayes… you… you’re alive.”
I didn’t say a word. I walked directly up to him, grabbed him by the collar of his pristine uniform, and slammed him backward onto the tactical table. The holographic map shattered into digital static.
“Hayes! What the hell are you doing?” Vance roared.
Miller panicked and reached for his sidearm. My reaction was violent and instantaneous. I trapped his wrist, twisted it sharply until he screamed, and disarmed him, tossing his weapon across the room. I reached into my vest, pulled out the stolen hard drive, and slammed it down onto Miller’s chest.
“Mission accomplished, General,” I said, breathing heavily, keeping Miller pinned by his throat. “I got the data network back. And I brought back Echo Squad. But I also found something else on their servers. The biometric signature of the man who sold our boys out to the enemy.”
Vance looked at the drive, then down at Miller’s terrified, sweating face. The realization hit the General like a physical blow.
“Take this traitorous son of a bitch out of my sight,” Vance whispered, his voice trembling with fury.
Two military police officers rushed forward, dragging a screaming, cursing Miller off the table and slapping handcuffs on his wrists. I stood up straight, adjusting my torn uniform, and looked at General Vance. He gave me a slow, deeply respectful salute. I returned it. No one gets left behind. Not on my watch.
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