Incursion

Chapter 30-2: Outcome

The truck I was riding in suddenly braked, nearly throwing me out of my seat and against the younger girl to my left. A few surprised yelps broke out in the cargo bed as several of the civilians collided with each other, thanks to the sudden stopping of the vehicle.

Mere moments after my brain put together that something was wrong, I heard it: a stream of high-speed gunfire in the distance, coming from something more destructive than an automatic rifle. Somewhere amidst the cacophony of screaming rounds was the rapid beating of rotors.

The two soldiers sitting at the mouth of the cargo bed dropped the truck’s tailgate and got out on the tarmac. The first to step out barked at us prisoners to stay inside the truck. A second later, I heard shouting from outside, from other soldiers:

“Enemy helo!”

“Damn it, airborne hostiles!”

“Secure the cargo—”

“Mobilize the Strykers!”

I peeled off the hood of my light jacket as the civilians with me in the cargo bay all began to panic at the sounds of gunfire outside. Perhaps they had only heard active firing issued as warnings before, and never as part of actual hostile engagements.

“What’s going on?”

“Oh god, I don’t want to die—”

“We gotta get out of while we—”

“Shhh… it’s okay, I’m here—”

The younger passengers seemed the most distressed by the commotion outside. The children all either started clinging to each other, or weeping, or both.

I got up off the bench and knelt in front of the five-year-old boy sitting across the cargo bed from me. He was bawling and none of the others around him seemed calm enough to see to him.

I placed my hand on his head and began to stroke his dark hair. “Hey. Hey, it’s going to be okay. I’m right here. What’s your name?”

His crying tapered off a little, even as the gunfire outside and the shouting of soldiers outside continued in full force. His wet, red eyes found mine.

“Wha…?” he mumbled, hiccupping.

I smiled at him. “My name is Chrissy. What’s yours?”

“M-Mickey,” he replied, his voice sounding slightly less tremulous as I ruffled his hair gently.

“It’s nice to meet you, Mickey. Listen, you’re going to be fine. Trust me, okay? But I need you to do something for me, too.”

I reached lower to wipe away the tears that had streaked down his cheeks. His weeping seemed to stop practically when I dried his cheeks with my gloved fingers. His brown eyes sought mine as if my eyes were the sun in a stark black space.

“Do you know my mum and dad?” he asked, fortunately choosing to focus on me instead of the chaos outside.

“I’m afraid not, Mickey.” I kept smiling at him. “But if you can be brave for me, I promise I’ll get you to your mum and dad. Can you be brave for me, Mickey?”

The boy took over wiping the rest of his tears away. He pursed his lips tightly. They still trembled, but his response belied his apparent fear.

“I’ll try,” he said.

I squeezed his shoulder gently. “Great. Thanks, Mickey.”

I paused to look out the back of the cargo bed. I was sitting roughly halfway to the cab of the truck. Around me were almost twenty other civilians.

From the chatter I managed to catch just now, it seemed that there was an assault taking place here in Calgary International Airport. Whoever was attacking had apparently flown in.

There was no one else in Calgary who could mount any offensive except for Shadow Team and the CSOR personnel. It had to be them. If not them, then the Canadian Army reinforcements that we were expecting later today.

Either way, I needed to do something. I had spent nearly the entire journey from Haven to here trying to come up with a plan to get these civilians to safety, but kept coming up short. Now, something was happening fast and I needed to find a way to capitalize on it.

I patted the waistband of my pants, feeling for the compact pistol I had tucked at the small of my back. I’d ditched most of my combat gear earlier so I could pass for one of the civilians, so my firepower was limited. I’d managed to hitch a ride with the convoy thanks to this, but now that an attack was underway, I felt vastly outgunned. All I had on me right now was one Glock and two extra magazines.

I looked back up into Mickey’s eyes. “Mickey, I need you to stay here, okay?”

“W-Where are you going?” he stammered, fear once again beginning to show on his face.

“I’m going to find us a way out of here. Wait here, okay?”

“O-Okay…”

I patted him on the shoulder and rose to a half-upright position, then made my way most the other prisoners and peered out the back of the cargo bed.

The Humvees and the light armoured vehicle that were serving as the rear guard for the convoy all this time were no longer behind this final transport truck. I could hear the rattle of fifty-cals and the booming of LAV cannons towards the front of the convoy, several vehicles to the west.

Seeing no foot soldiers guarding the back of this truck, I gingerly dropped the tailgate and jumped out. Once my feet were on the tarmac, I peered out from the back right of the truck to survey the area to the west, where all the gunfire was coming from.

About three hundred metres away, to the front of the convoy, were the blazing remains of one V-22 Osprey. Another two Ospreys were wheels down next to the wreckage, still intact. I could make out about six uniformed and armed soldiers close to the open ramps of the still functional aircraft. They appeared to be dressed differently from the US Army soldiers and were pointing toward the destroyed Osprey.

Northstar troops.

Fifty metres ahead, two Humvees and the other LAV had formed a defensive barrier, and several foot soldiers took cover behind the vehicles. They were not firing at anything, so the gunfire I was hearing must’ve been coming from further away.

The wrist brace I wore underneath my sleeve vibrated again. I lifted my sleeve up and saw the same three numbers that tried to reach me earlier: 0-5-7.

I tapped on the receive icon and pulled out my earpiece from my jacket pocket to put it back in my ear.

The first thing I heard when the channel opened up was heavy fire in the background. There was also a lot of men yelling beneath the sound of guns discharging.

“Knight?” I said through the earpiece’s mic. “Knight, come in. It’s Angel.”

“CHRISSY!” A loud, female voice I instantly recognized as Genel’s spoke back over the line. “Thank God you’re still alive. We’re trying to push toward – KNIGHT, MORE CONTACTS, ELEVEN O’CLOCK! – toward your position, but there’s a shitload of them!”

“Was that you guys flying in on a chopper?” I asked, keeping my eyes on the US Army soldiers in front of the lead transport truck.

“Yeah, that’s us.”

“How’d you find me?”

“Remotely accessed my TACPAD to force a reboot, which—”

I almost slapped my hand to my forehead. “—knocked it out of lockdown mode, and made me trackable. But it isn’t supposed to be accessible like that. How’d you do it?”

“I Frankenstein’d my TACPAD long ago, just in case. Long story. I’m the tech wizard here, remember?”

“Right. Yeah.”

“Anyway, we’ve got glaring concerns. There’s too many of them in our way. We’re trying to reach you, but we’re pinned down. Anything you can do on your end?”

I counted the number of US Army infantry still guarding the convoy from the front. There had to be at least six on foot, while two were still on the Humvees’ mounted turrets. I couldn’t tell how many were inside the LAV, but since the Stryker’s engines were still rumbling, it was safe to guess that there were at least two more soldiers still inside: the driver and the gunner.

The gunfire in the background on Genel’s end did not abate. I ducked back behind cover.

“There’s too many of them still here with the trucks for me to take alone,” I reported to Genel. “Six on foot, two Humvees, and one LAV. I can’t engage, or the civvies will get caught in the middle.”

“Damn it,” Genel almost shouted back as I heard bullets pinging off metal somewhere close to her position. “Josh and Jacobs are trying to give us cover from the bird, but they can’t get close or that LAV on us will down the chopper. Think, Chrissy! Can you get yourself and everyone else out of there, away from all the fighting?”

I gritted my teeth and looked around for ideas. All the fighting was coming from the west and northwest. I looked toward the south and east for any temporary fallback positions.

There was a cluster of three hangars for smaller aircraft to the southeast, about two hundred metres away. Nothing but open ground lay between the trucks and those hangars, but those buildings were the only ones around within reasonable distance.

I tapped my earpiece again. “There are some aircraft hangars about a couple hundred metres to the southeast. I can try to lead the civilians there.”

Genel didn’t respond immediately. I heard a larger caliber gun fire shots close to her mic, then her urgent voice returned.

“All right, do it! Knight and I will try to keep the enemy focused on us for as long as possible. We’ll send over King and Reid to meet you ASAP. They’re securing land transportation as we speak. Can you mark the hangars on your TACPAD?”

“I can. Hang on.”

I pulled up the GPS feature on Genel’s TACPAD, located the cluster of buildings on the map, and placed a waypoint on them before transmitting the data to Ian’s TACPAD.

“Sent,” I said.

“Got the position, Chrissy. We can’t help you from here. I’m sorry. You’ve got to do this on your own. Can you do it?”

“I’ll make it work. Is it just you and King’s team? No Canadian military backup?”

“Nope, just the six of us. Not to belabour the obvious, but we’re outnumbered.”

“…Okay. I’ll get right on this.”

“Good luck. Stay safe.”

I turned back to the occupants of the third transport truck and raised my voice. “Excuse me! Excuse me, please, can I get your attention over here?”

The wailing of the children and the weeping of even some of the more mature civilians took a couple of tries for me to speak over. Eventually, I managed to get everyone’s eyes on me.

“We’re going to need to run,” I told everyone in a clear voice. “There are some aircraft hangars to the southeast where we can take cover until help arrives for us. Okay? I want you all to head there, as fast as you all—”

“Who are you?” one of the older passengers demanded from closer to the cab of the truck.

“My name is Chrissy. I’m with the Canadian military. I stowed away on this truck trying to find a way to help. Look, that doesn’t matter. I need all of you to exit this truck now, and head over there—” I pointed toward the hangars to help orient the frightened passengers. “—and wait for my friends to arrive. We’ll get you out of this.”

“But what if they shoot us?” a teenage boy said uncertainly from closer to the tailgate, to my right.

“We’ll all be all right if we run, as fast as we can, toward the buildings over there,” I said in my most assuring voice. “We need to be quick and quiet. They’re distracted by all the fighting, but that won’t last long. Now, I want everyone who’s bigger and older to carry the little ones with them. No one gets left behind. Everyone got that?”

There was barely any confident response to my impromptu pep talk.

“Come on!” I said more forcefully, clapping my hands together once, which visibly startled some of the already restless prisoners. “EVERYONE, LET’S MOVE, MOVE, MOVE! WE STAY HERE, WE’RE ALL DONE FOR! COME ON!”

Thankfully, my drill sergeant impression managed to get the closest civilians off their seats, which prompted most everyone further back to do the same.

“Grab the children!” I barked as the first two or three passengers disembarked. “Don’t forget the kids! I said, help the kids!”

At my urging, some of the civilians in their late teens and twenties scooped up the smaller children and took their hands, then made their way out of the cargo bed.

I quickly took a peek toward the front of the convoy to make sure the soldiers were all still looking the other way, then pushed at the two nearest prisoners and pointed toward the dark shapes of the airplane hangars to the southeast.

“Go! GO, GO, GO! RUN! DON’T LOOK BACK! Don’t drop the little ones! Get over there and stay out of sight!” I instructed them. The ragtag bunch of scared, confused civilians hauled ass toward the hangars in the distance, some of them carrying younger ones in their arms or on their backs.

“Chrissy!” came a frail voice from behind me.

I whipped around to find Mickey at the mouth of the cargo bed, looking close to tears again. Three prisoners – two young adults and one teenager – blew past him and ran after the last of the fleeing prisoners headed for the hangars.

I didn’t even have time to yell at them for leaving Mickey behind. Everyone was scared, and I had to understand that. I held out my arms to the last brave passenger on this truck.

“Come on, Mickey,” I said as I grabbed hold of his armpits and lifted him off the truck. “I’ve got you. I’m not leaving you. Come on.”

I placed him on the tarmac first, then crouched with my back to him. “Hop on. I’ll carry you. We’ll go faster if you ride on my back.”

Mickey obeyed, wrapping his thin arms around my neck as I grabbed hold of his legs and pinned them to my sides.

“Hang on tight,” I told him, to which he hugged me more so.

I took off at a half-jog, half-sprint toward the hangars. I almost expected some rounds to cut me down during my retreat, but halfway to my destination, I took comfort that only a stitch in my side constituted the pain I was feeling as I took step after step toward the now growing hangars.

Eventually, I reached the nearest hangar, where everyone else on my truck was sitting or on their knees and fighting for breath. I let Mickey off my back, patted him on the head, and called out, “Is everyone okay?”

Several voices answered back in the affirmative.

“Everyone, stay here and wait for help to arrive! I promise, help is on the way! Canadian military is coming to get you out of this airport to a safe place.”

I took a few seconds to collect my breath myself before turning back around to head back to the other two trucks. I was almost at another sprint when I felt my body dragging something latched on to my hand.

I looked back and found Mickey now squeezing my hand, tears starting to run down his cheeks once more.

“Please stay here, Chrissy,” he pleaded, sobbing. “Stay here with me.”

I quickly knelt in front of him and grasped his shoulders firmly. I smiled at him again.

“I need to go help the others on the trucks, too,” I told him with as much patience I could muster. “There are a bunch of… other Mickey’s who still need help. Do you understand?”

“I’m sorry,” he sniffed, lowering his face as if in shame. “I’m scared. I’m not brave, I’m just scared…”

“Hey, hey,” I said soothingly, cradling his chin in my thumb and forefinger, lifting his face so I could look in his watery eyes. “It’s okay to be scared, Mickey. Look, I have a secret to tell you. Just you. Can I trust you won’t tell anyone, Mickey?”

“W-What…?”

“My secret is… I’m scared, too. A lot of the time. I’ve cried and wanted nothing more than for others to stay with me too, to keep me safe,” I said, still giving him my smile. “Right now, I’m still scared. Just as much as you.”

“Y-You are?” the boy asked, plainly skeptical of what I was saying.

“Of course!” I gave a wholehearted nod. “I’m terrified, right here, right now. But you can be brave even when you’re scared, Mickey. You can be both. And I have to be both. Because if I can’t be brave too, many people are going to get hurt. I need to be brave because I can help them if I try. And I don’t want other people to get hurt. Do you understand?”

“I think so. I think…”

I pulled him to me and wrapped the boy in a warm hug. “Thank you, Mickey. You keep this secret between us, okay? I trust you. Can you wait here and be brave a little longer?”

“I’ll… I’ll do my best, Chrissy,” Mickey mumbled close to my ear.

“Good man,” I said, drawing away from him. “You’re my brave little soldier. I’m counting on you. I want you to wait here for my friends. Their names are King and Reid. They’re going to get you to your mum and dad. Okay?”

“Okay.” The boy nodded, wiping his face again.

I glanced in the direction of the remaining transport trucks, then back at the boy.

“Well, here I go,” I told him, standing back up. “Remember, stay here and wait. Be brave. Understand?”

“Yes. Yes, Chrissy,” he answered back with impressive promptness for someone his age.

“Thank you, Mickey.”

With that, I took at a sprint back toward the transport trucks, doing my best to ignore the pain in my side that reignited with my rapid movement.

Halfway to the trucks, I saw shapes of people disembarking from the trucks and being herded toward the remaining VTOLs. The soldiers who’d remained with the convoy had begun moving the remaining prisoners toward the Ospreys that could still fly.

I drew the pistol from the waistband of my cargo pants and tapped my earpiece.

“Archer, this is Angel. Be advised: I’ve cleared one truck and left the prisoners at the hangars, but the US Army and Northstar are starting to move the rest to the VTOLs. Can you assist?”

“Still trying to get past all these guys, Chrissy—” she said over the gunfire in the background.

I kept running but prepared my sidearm. The prisoners of the first truck were already halfway to the aircraft with their rotors already turning in anticipation for takeoff.

I finally reached the back of the last empty truck and peered out to aim at one of the four soldiers escorting the occupants of the lead truck away from me.

It was no use; the soldiers were all walking out of the handgun’s effective range. Taking a shot from my current position would run the risk of hitting one of the prisoners instead. Not to mention, my move would alert the other soldiers to a hostile force behind them. They’d converge on me too quickly for me to even reach the prisoners.

Think. There must be some way to save more of them…

“Archer,” I began, tucking the Glock back in my waistband.

“Chrissy, we’re making a bit more prog— GAAAHH!” Genel abruptly cried in pain.

“Genel?! Genel, are you okay?”

“Son of a fucking— I’m fine. Just took a round to the arm. We’re pushing toward your position. How’s it going over there?”

I breathed a quick sigh of relief. “Good. Listen, I’ve managed to empty one truck, but the US Army’s bringing the rest of the civvies to the Northstar VTOLs right now. We need to do something!”

More semi- and fully automatic fire erupted on Genel’s end of the line before she replied. “Copy that! Knight and I are trying to get there, but we can’t move fast enough! I don’t think we’re going to make it!”

I peeked around the truck again. A couple of soldiers were now approaching the back of the second truck, most likely coming to secure the next twenty or so prisoners. The first truck’s occupants had already vanished onboard one of the two VTOLs that were ready for dustoff up ahead.

“Genel, I’ve got only one idea left,” I said over comms, watching the soldiers lowering the second truck’s tailgate. One of them barked at the passengers to disembark.

“Let’s hear it! Knight, behind us! BEHIND US!”

I heard a man’s voice yell back, “copy!” and presumably let loose automatic fire. Knight. He was still fighting.

“You still got a lock on the TACPAD I’m carrying?”

“Affirmative! Why?”

“I’m gonna board one of the Ospreys here.”

“What? That’s crazy! You can’t get on that bird!”

“I’m going to stow away and when we’re isolated in the air, I’ll force the bird I’m on to land. I’m counting on you to hurry to my location and pick up the prisoners.”

“This is frankly a shitty plan, Chrissy.”

“I know. I’m sorry.” I didn’t have one moments earlier, so a poor plan was supposedly an improvement, but I wasn’t going to argue with her. “I don’t know how else to do this.”

Genel did not respond for a few seconds. The prisoners of the second truck were now unloading from the cargo bed.

“Genel? How about it? Can I count on you?”

“Ian says you’re a ‘stupid, crazy’ woman,” she eventually answered, “but we’re out of options! Go for it!”

“Thanks, Genel.”

“He also asked me to tell you something else real quick.”

“What’s that?”

“He told me to tell you to stay alive, and that he still has to give you your punishment.”

Despite the grim reminder, I found his words to me comforting, somehow. I even smiled a little to myself. If he could threaten me like that, he must still have some confidence that this hastily brewed up plan could still work.

“Tell him I’ll do everything I can,” I replied.

“Be careful, Chrissy. We’ll catch up on our chopper as soon as we can.”

“What about the civvies in the hangar?”

“King says she and Reid just got there with a couple of transport trucks. They’ll take care of those guys.”

“Good. Okay, I’m heading for the bird. See you guys soon.”

“See you soon, Chrissy. Good luck!”

I removed the earpiece from my ear, shoved it back into the pocket of my hoodie, and approached the second truck.

The last several prisoners were still piling out of the back when one of the two supervising US Army soldiers noticed me coming from the direction of the third truck. He swung his M4 carbine around to aim at me. I threw up my hands, giving him my best impression of fright.

“HEY! YOU, FREEZE! WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU’RE GOING?” he shouted at me.

“Oh, god, please don’t shoot! Don’t shoot, please!” I pleaded loudly, doing my best to sound submissive and afraid.

I lowered myself to my haunches, curling up with my hands still up, but before I could assume a more non-threatening pose, I felt a hand take a chunk of my hair and pull me forward roughly.

I cried out in pain, feeling several strands of my har being uprooted from my scalp. The soldier dragged me to the back of the procession of the second truck’s prisoners and threw me forward, causing me to stumble to my knees.

“Get up, you! Move!” I heard him snarl at me from behind, kicking me on the back of my thighs.

I scrambled unsteadily to my feet and fell in line behind a blond teenager and followed the prisoners ahead of me.

A minute-long march brought me and the rest of the prisoners to the loading ramp. The soldiers dressed in the olive drab uniforms of Northstar Security Solutions stood guard on either side of it. I kept my cool and kept walking past them and up the ramp.

I followed the example of the other terrified prisoners and settled down in one of the seats on the port side of the aircraft. As everyone else had seated, I looked toward the ramp again, where a US Army soldier had jogged over to speak to a lean man in a familiar overcoat and hood.

“Sir, the prisoners in the last truck are gone!” the US Army infantryman reported.

“What?!” Rhodes’ usually smooth voice sounded strained and incredulous for once. “How the fuck do they just vanish, you moron? Where are they?”

“We don’t… know, sir—”

“You useless—!”

“Hornet.” One of the masked Northstar sentries guarding the ramp of the Osprey moved toward Rhodes to interject. “Suggest we lift off now. That enemy bird’s still in play. It could ground us if we stay here.”

“We’re missing twenty whole prisoners! I’m already in deep shit with HQ for recent events!”

“And you’ll be in even hotter water if you come home empty-handed,” the other mercenary snapped at Rhodes. “We need to go, now.”

I watched Rhodes’ tense shoulders hold tensely for a moment before they fell.

“Damn!” he practically screeched, then rapidly tried to compose himself again. He turned back toward the US Army soldier who’d reported the missing prisoners. “Fine! We’re leaving now – those missing prisoners are your problem now.”

“Y-Yes, sir,” the bemused soldier stammered, then hurried off out of sight.

Rhodes pointed toward the prisoners in this Osprey. “All right, we’re out of here. Let’s go!”

He vanished from sight as well, presumably to board the other Osprey beside this one. The two other mercenaries guarding the ramp retreated into the troop compartment. One of them strode the length of the compartment to inform the pilot of the decision to evacuate now, while the other man walked up and down the rows to assist the prisoners in strapping in for the flight.

After he’d secured the safety harness across my body, I surreptitiously touched the grip of my Glock still ramming the small of my back underneath my hoodie.

I felt the familiar sensation of my body seeming to glow slightly heavier as the Osprey began to climb upward in midair. The merc who had gone to talk to the pilot returned, then settled on the seat on the port side, closest to the now raised and shut loading ramp, across from his partner.

Eventually, I felt the rising motion of the Osprey cease and become replaced with some forward motion.

Can’t attack too soon. Need to wait a few minutes. But not too long, either, or Shadow Team will have a hard time catching up to us.

While waiting for the Osprey to put enough distance between it and the chaos at the airport, I took time to observe the other passengers on the same flight as me.

Most of the civilians sitting on the opposite, starboard side were definitely younger than me. A majority of them were adolescent males, with three even younger girls of about twelve or thirteen sitting farther toward the cockpit.

I hadn’t been with Northstar long, but while I was working for them, I had never heard of any mandates or objectives involving the collection of children, teenagers, or young adults for whatever reason. Young adults, I could understand if they wanted to bolster their already formidable ranks, but juveniles? What were they up to here? Whatever it was, it had to have started after I’d left.

My eyes landed on a little girl of about six sitting between two women a bit younger than me on the starboard side, close to the ramp. She had tears running down her face, though she was weeping with barely a sound. The girl to her right who looked perhaps fifteen or sixteen years old had brought the child’s brown hair under her chin and had the girl’s small hand in one of hers, whispering something I couldn’t hear from here over the drone of the Osprey.

Seeing that little girl reminded me of that other girl the night of the bombing with unrepentant clarity. Her blue eyes fully dilated, glassy, lifeless. Though her pale, pink lips did not move, I couldn’t help imagining her final were pleas for help, for someone to save her from the concrete and steel crushing her. I recalled cutting my hands ragged and bloody and pushing desperately against that girl’s chest in a half-crazed attempt to bring her back.

I’m begging you. Please let me save you.

The painful memory eventually faded, bringing me back to the present. To the sight of another girl crying, begging for help right in front of me.

I took a surreptitious look around the troop compartment. Counted the number of civilians. Checked to make sure there were only two soldiers nearest the loading ramp present in terms of armed resistance.

Twenty civilians in the troop compartment. Two Northstar mercs. Most likely two more in the cockpit: the pilot and the co-pilot.

I carefully, slowly, reached behind me for the compact pistol, making sure to keep watch of the mercenaries about six passengers down from my seat. With my other hand, I quietly worked to unfasten my safety harness.

What if Shadow Team doesn’t make it in time? What if there’s a shit-ton of US Army when we land? What if I can’t pull this off, after all?

Too many what-ifs. I wouldn’t get anything done wondering what could be or should be.

Shadow Team will pull through. Genel told me she would catch up. I believe in her and Josh.

I believe in Knight.

The harness across my body fell away, the metal buckle unfortunately banging loudly against the edge of my seat, drawing the gazes of several prisoners.

And the one Northstar mercenary sitting on the starboard side.

He rose to his feet with a rough bark telling me to buckle up again just as I committed to drawing my pistol. The merc had left his Galil leaning against the edge of his seat, so when I raised my weapon and took aim, he was left momentarily surprised. By the time he reached down his thigh for his sidearm, I had already pulled the trigger one mine twice.

My rounds struck him square on the plate carrier vest, causing him to stagger backward a little. I ignored the sudden screaming and yelps of however many startled civilians around me and aimed a bit higher to fire on the stunned mercenary a third time.

Blood spurted from the wound in his neck from where my bullet drilled into him. As he began to fall while clutching his neck, I turned my gun toward the other Northstar operative.

He had closed the gap between us much quicker than I’d hoped. The merc snarled, calling me something demeaning that I didn’t fully catch in the heat of the moment, before lunging at me and grabbing my shooting arm. I tried to wrestle his grip off me, but he quickly drew his own pistol and let off a shot before I could do anything else.

I managed to occupy him enough to avoid a torso shot, but his round still managed to pierce my leg right above the left knee. I cried out as searing, stinging pain exploded in my left thigh.

My momentary moment of weakness was enough for him to pistol whip me across the face and send me sprawling to the floor of the troop compartment. As soon as I scrambled to face my adversary, the merc descended upon me and wrapped his hands around my throat and began to squeeze.

I grabbed his wrists and tried my hardest to pry his hands off my throat, but naturally, my strength was negligible compared to his.

“Go to sleep, you little shit,” he growled at me, his outline against the overhead lights starting to grow fuzzy and darker.

I fought to draw as much air as I could even as his fingers continued to constrict my flow of oxygen. The screams and cries of the other prisoners started to sound more distant to me.

Just as my vision dimmed considerably at the edges and I felt my consciousness slipping, the merc holding me down abruptly grunted and swore, his head jerking downward toward mine as if he’d been slugged by something from behind.

He cursed again and I felt his hands leave my throat. I struggled to shake off my weakness as I heard the merc go after someone else nearby.

“You want a beating too, huh?” I heard him ask someone else. A second later, a woman cried out in pain.

I coughed and hacked violently, gasping desperately for air. When the other woman whimpered and cried again, I shakily came back to my senses. My right hand instinctively shot out toward the floor at my right in search of my fallen handgun.

My fingers found the grip of the Glock 48, then wrapped around the weapon as I sat up.

The merc who’d nearly overpowered me completely had his back toward me and was half bent down, beating another woman with his own pistol.

Wasting no more time, I got back to my feet and charged at the man. I wrapped my left arm around his neck to pull off the other woman. At the same time, I put the pistol to his temple and fired.

I felt something splash against my cheek as the merc’s body went limp, falling backward and landing on top of me and pinning me underneath his lifeless bulk.

Before I could even take a breath, I heard the cockpit door swing open and a male voice demand, “What the hell is going on here?”

Thinking fast, I tilted my head upwards, then aimed my pistol at the upside-down Northstar operative in the pilot gear, who was trying to aim at me but clearly hesitant to fire his machine pistol for concern of hitting his colleague whom he thought was still alive on top of me.

I took this opening and fired at him. Two rounds from my Glock pierced his unprotected chest and toppled him over.

That was when I finally breathed a sigh of relief.

A woman hovered above me, blocking out some of the lights from the ceiling. She grabbed hold of the body on top of me.

“Here… let me help get him off you…” she said, grunting from the effort.

Together, we pushed the corpse of the mercenary off me. I managed to sit up and look at the woman’s face.

Her unkempt, shoulder-length brown hair framed a pale, gaunt face. Her electric blue eyes struck me with overwhelming familiarity. The sight of her woolen, peach shrug sweater, now dull with dirt and torn in several places, immediately placed her for me.

“Olivia?” I blurted, taken aback and wondering if I’d been knocked about too much that I was seeing things.

Olivia Munn grabbed hold of my free hand and my forearm, lifting me to my feet. “Thank goodness you’re okay, Christina.”

She threw herself at me, crushing me in an embrace that I was still too surprised to return.

When she released me, I remembered that I still had something left to do here.

“Olivia,” I said, struggling to keep up with all that was happening. “Thanks for… you know, helping. But I gotta get them to land this thing.”

Her eyes gleamed, even as I just noticed that her left eyelid was swollen halfway shut, presumably by being beaten by the merc just now.

“What can I do?” she asked me eagerly. “I can take this guy’s gun and—”

“No,” I said, glancing around quickly at the prisoners who were watching us tentatively and the ones still visibly panicking at the sight of two dead bodies in the compartment. “I told you, leave the fighting to me. What I need you to do is stay here and make sure everyone calms down and gets ready to disembark. Strap everyone in for landing. You, too. Hurry.”

“Sure. Leave it to me, Christina.”

I turned my back on her and limped as fast as I could over the open cockpit door, ignoring the pain in my wounded leg and stepping over the body of the co-pilot.

The last remaining mercenary still in the pilot’s seat was busy frantically jabbering into his headset.

“—mative, shots fired in the troop compartment! Co-pilot Frank Ashton is KIA, possibly the others in the—”

I pushed up behind his seat and jabbed the muzzle of my pistol against the side of his neck.

“Shut up and turn your comms off,” I ordered him. “Turn all of it off. And keep your hands where I can see them.”

“O-Okay,” he said gingerly, carefully raising a hand to remove his headset and toss it onto the now empty co-pilot’s seat. He then flicked a switch and pressed a couple of buttons on the dashboard in front of us before replacing his hand on the control stick. “Okay, comms are offline.”

“Land this bird.”

“We can’t just land this bird just like—”

“That’s not a suggestion,” I snapped at him, pressing the gun harder against his skin. “Land it. Now.”

“All right, all right,” he said, clearly and fortunately finding me intimidating enough. “Fuck, okay. Where do you want to land?”

“Anywhere safe. Get to it.”

“There’s no airport or helipad down there—” he protested, to which I clicked my tongue at him impatiently and chopped him on the side of the neck with the butt of my gun.

“So land it in a fucking parking lot,” I hissed.

“Without enough landing lights down there, we could be in trouble! You want me to crash this bird instead?”

Sick of his stalling, I aimed the muzzle of the Glock at his right thigh and fired once. The pilot screamed and whined loudly.

“You want a castration next? Land. This. Thing. NOW.”

“Fuck! Oh fuck, that shit hurts… FUCK! Okay, OKAY! I’ll do it! Just calm down, damn it!”

I kept my gun trained on his neck as I watched the lights from the city buildings below gradually rise with respect to our beginning descent.

I kept my eyes on the pilot in case he was going to try anything while calling back toward the troop compartment. “Everyone! Strap in and stay seated! We’re making a quick landing here!”

The pilot maneuvered the Osprey lower and lower. During the descent, he spoke up again.

“The other V-22’s going to stick around and investigate why this one’s breaking formation.”

He had a point. Rhodes was only going to be in an even fouler mood thanks to my stunt.

“Doesn’t matter,” I answered dismissively. “Just get us on the ground.”

“S-sure thing.”

A couple of minutes later, the Osprey touched down in the middle of an empty parking lot. My eyes scanned the buildings visible to me out the cockpit windows. There was a darkened Safeway grocery store less than a hundred metres ahead, and a larger Home Depot to my ten o’clock a bit further away.

The pilot lifted his hands in surrender. “Okay. I did what you asked. I landed this bird. You’re still screwed when my guys come down from the other Osprey, though.”

I chopped him again on the side of the neck, harder this time. The impact caused the pilot’s head to hang toward his left shoulder, his consciousness having left him.

I limped back to the troop compartment after hitting the button that lowered the loading ramp for our exit. Olivia was on her feet again and helping the other civilians release their safety harnesses.

“All right, everyone,” I announced to the twenty lost and scared passengers. “We need to get out and take shelter. Follow me, and be quick! Everyone, help the kids!”

As everyone older thankfully attended to the younger passengers, I approached Olivia again. She finished up removing the harness of a boy of about ten, who was promptly ushered toward the ramp by an older boy.

“Sorry about that,” I told her, jerking my head toward the cockpit. “I needed to get us on the ground. I’m so glad you’re still alive, Olivia.”

She smiled softly. “I’m glad you’re okay, too, Christina. You look like you’ve been through hell since I last you, though. We should get your leg patched up.”

“That’s not inaccurate. And yeah, maybe in a bit.”

“I guess you saw what happened to the rec centre.”

“Yeah.” I sighed heavily when she reminded me of that. “I saw. Where’s Sarah?”

“I don’t know. We got split when those Army guys recaptured us and threw us back into the Stampede. I don’t know if she was on one of those other trucks, or if she’s still at the Stampede. I haven’t seen her in a few days.”

“We’ll find her. For now, let’s go take shelter in the Safeway nearby. My— the team I was working with will be here soon and pick us all up.”

The two of us ushered the rest of the passengers out of the Osprey. Once my boots touched the snow again, I noticed the last Osprey hovering about a couple hundred metres above the parking lot. Its underbelly searchlight landed right on top of me and Olivia.

I lifted a hand to shield my eyes from the brilliant light. The V-22 seemed to stare down at us menacingly from the sky.

“Come on,” I told Olivia, walking toward the entrance of the Safeway. “Let’s get everyone inside.”

Together, the two of us herded the rest of the passengers of our aircraft indoors.

How much longer before Rhodes comes and gets us? I couldn’t tell. He could try retaking the prisoners by force if I fought back. I didn’t want to put any of these people in the crossfire, but at the same time giving them up to Northstar was effectively the same as putting them to death. I didn’t know why Northstar was taking in these people, but given what I knew of them, it couldn’t be anything good.

No, I can’t just abandon them. Not after coming all this way.

All we could do now was hunker down and wait for Shadow Team to come. Until then, I had to keep everyone safe.

I limped briskly alongside Olivia, who put her arm around me to support me. We entered the grocery store after everyone else had done the same.

“What now?” she asked me as she brought me to a cash register so I could lean against it.

I looked out the store windows and the Osprey still hovering ominously overhead.

“We wait. Do me a favour? Help me get these people to the back. The freezers – they should be warm now that the power’s out. I want you and everyone else to hide in there.”

“What about you?” Olivia asked, placing a hand on my shoulder.

“I’ll stay out here. If more bad guys come, someone’s got to hold them off.”

She frowned and shook her head. “Christina, you should let me help. Look, do you have an extra gun? I can back you up. You’re hurt. You need help.”

“I’ll be fine, Olivia. Just… please, do this for me.”

“What happens if you lose?”

A good question – one that I was trying not to think about answering right now.

“I won’t.” I ejected the half-empty magazine from the Glock, tucked it into my back pocket, and swapped in one of the two full magazines. “Because I can’t. Help is coming. I just gotta hold out until then.”

Help was coming.

All I could do now was wait.





“Heimdall, that enemy bird’s going to ground the remaining Ospreys. Bring it down.”

“Yes, sir. I will do that.”

Heimdall rose from his crouch behind the US Army Stryker that had taken a defensive position in front of the transport trucks. He tapped the nearest US Army infantryman on the shoulder, prompting his attention.

“Where can I find anti-aircraft weaponry? Do you have any Javelins or FIM-92 Stingers?”

The private nodded, then took Heimdall to the rear of the Stryker, where he pointed toward a rectangular building to the west, across the central runway, between half and one kilometre away.

“We’ve got a weapons cache with Stingers and LAW rockets in that Sunwest Aviation rental building,” the soldier replied, almost shouting to be heard over the sound of autocannons thundering and Hellfire missiles roaring in the background. “First floor lobby. We’re trying to get some of our men over there, but all of us are here on this side of the site. That bird will pick us off if we cross all that open ground.”

“Can your LAV get closer to engage it?” Heimdall asked.

“Negative! The enemy bird has AGMs. And there’s a separate ground force over by Concourse A. Our own ground forces are engaging theirs, but if the Black Hawk takes out the forward Stryker, there’ll be nothing but this other Stryker to provide security for your exfil.”

Heimdall nodded, then directed his gaze skyward, to the northwest. The hostile dark gray UH-60 was circling the area around the north end of the central runway, keeping its distance from the Stryker positioned just past Concourse B, some two hundred metres north of Concourse A. No doubt, the enemy pilot was erring on the side of caution and choosing to stay defensive rather than directly attack the LAV. Both the LAV and the enemy helicopter had the means to disable one another, but both were settling for keeping the other at bay for now.

“Understood,” Heimdall replied calmly. “I will cut south, out of range of the enemy aircraft. Please keep the Black Hawk occupied. I will find the weapons cache and terminate the bird while it is distracted.”

The soldier thumped Heimdall on the back. “Copy that. We’ll draw its attention to us. Just get to that cache.”

Heimdall hefted his rifle and took off in a southwesterly direction, headed for the maintenance hangars to the east of the runway. Even carrying a rucksack containing ammo, medical supplies, and other military equipment, he was able to move at a speed nearing thirty kilometres per hour, making good time on his approach to the Sunwest Aviation building.

He booked it across the central runway and made it to the other side in under a minute with no incident. Now and again, he glanced to the north to verify that the pilot of the enemy helicopter was still largely unaware of him flanking the aircraft. For now, the Black Hawk was effectively staying put.

Heimdall then turned north, completing the last leg of his roughly U-shaped path toward the arms cache. It wasn’t until he arrived at the target building that he allowed himself to catch his breath.

He entered the building via a south entrance, which fortunately brought him directly to the lobby the US soldier had informed him about. Several military-grade weapons cases sat on the benches and the floor, boasting an inventory of rifles, anti-tank launchers, and the portable surface-to-air Stinger missile launchers Heimdall sought.

Dropping his rucksack and rifle, he got to work on acquiring one of the Stinger launchers. As best as he could tell, there were three launchers in the lobby, not including the one he was already carrying on his right shoulder.

Four shots. More than enough to take care of the enemy helicopter.

Heimdall promptly headed back outside and proceeded along the southern wall of the aircraft rental building until he was at the southeastern edge of it, where got a clear view of the target still hovering in the air about five hundred metres to the northeast.

Heimdall brought his eye to the mounted targeting scope on the launcher and placed the reticle squarely atop the UH-60’s fuselage. He waited until the intermittent beeping changed to a solid, unbroken one indicating a full lock-on, then pulled the trigger.

The missile shot out of the end of the launcher and propelled itself steadily toward the UH-60. Heimdall dropped the spent launcher to the tarmac and watched the missile home in on the target.

The helicopter, however, jerked sideways, away from Heimdall a few seconds before the missile could reach it. At the same time, firework-like lights erupted from the base of its stub wings, falling toward the ground like lightweight flakes. In response to them, the aircraft and nearly grazing its cockpit. It continued to fly in a wobbly pattern, eventually plummeting to the ground further north.

Alerted by the presence of enemy Stingers, the helicopter abandoned the designated hold-off point and began banking toward Heimdall.

Flares. As long as those were in play, Heimdall’s Stingers would never find their mark. Still, he knew the helicopter couldn’t have many of them. He, on the other hand, still had three chances left.

Heimdall hurried back inside to pick up another missile launcher, then headed back outside and listened for the rotors before straying from the lobby entrance. The helicopter was circling back from the east.

As he waited for the chopper to come back to the western face of the building, his earpiece came to life and Hornet’s slightly winded voice came through.

“Heimdall, be advised, the two remaining V-22s are lifting off now. Two-thirds of the prisoners are aboard.”

“Understood, sir. What about the others?”

“They’ve gone missing. The third truck was empty.”

Heimdall took a fleeting moment to wonder how that many civilians could just go missing. At the same time, the enemy Black Hawk came into view again from the north.

“We’re taking off with the ones we’ve got now. This site’s too hot to risk staying longer,” Hornet went on. “Status on that enemy helo?”

Heimdall aimed again with the second launcher, panning the weapon to keep the target in his sights.

“It is still in the air, sir. Attempting to bring it down with Stinger missiles.”

Beep, beep, beep. Beep, beep… BEEEEEEEP.

Heimdall pulled the trigger again, launching a second Stinger at the bird.

The missile shot toward its target just as precisely as the first one, but once again, the UH-60 ejected flares and caused the Stinger to fly past beneath the aircraft and keep going on a descent toward the west.

“We’re leaving the city now, Heimdall,” Hornet said. The senior Northstar officer paused momentarily, then continued, “We are away. Everything else down there is your problem now, Heimdall. Good work stalling the helo, regardless.”

“Understood, sir. Have a safe flight back to headquarters. I will take it from here.”

“Well, goodbye, then. Good luck.”

The port side door of the enemy UH-60 opened up and Heimdall saw a soldier ready a minigun at the door. The barrels began to spin up, trained down at him.

The bullets started wailing at him just as Heimdall dove back into the building to escape the gunner’s line of fire. He stuck to the adjacent walls for cover, not daring to stick even his foot out into view as rounds tore angrily into his cover.

The minigun continued to fire on his position for half a minute, suppressing him and preventing any chances for another missile launch. After that, the firing stopped and Heimdall heard the bird finally accelerating to the east. He heard a few more whoosh-ing sounds to indicate the deployment of anti-ground missiles, then subsequent explosions in the distance.

When the sounds of the enemy helicopter grew distant enough for Heimdall to be certain that it would no longer engage him directly, Heimdall headed back outside and went to the southwestern edge of the building again, where he sighted the Black Hawk touching down at Concourse A almost a kilometre to the east. It was hard to be certain in these dark, early morning conditions from such a distance, but he thought he could see one or two human shapes boarding the helicopter. No more than seconds later, the chopper began to climb in the air again.

Were they in retreat? Heimdall couldn’t tell if the enemy force had sustained enough losses and was deciding to withdraw, or—

He watched the bird rise above the ground a couple hundred metres, then head east, away from him. It appeared they were in retreat, after all.

Now was not the time to celebrate or be idle, however. There were still targets to eliminate in the city, like those on the helicopter that just left. He had to keep working to track them down.

He attuned his comms unit to connect with the US Army forces here at Calgary International Airport.

“This is callsign ‘Heimdall’ with Northstar Security Solutions, broadcasting to all airport personnel. Please provide a report on damages and other relevant data.”

He waited a few seconds for someone, anyone, to respond to him. Five seconds later, his hail was responded to.

“Copy, reading you loud and clear, Heimdall,” said a male radioman. “This is Warrant Officer Frank Billings, US Army. We’ve sustained… twenty-one casualties. Two Humvees and one Stryker are out of commission thanks to the enemy air assault.”

“Do you have any intelligence pertaining to the missing prisoners here?”

“Affirmative. Two unauthorized transport trucks blew past our northern checkpoint. Unknown drivers, but at least one of those trucks was sighted carrying civilians. We are currently unable to pursue. We’ve informed downtown HQ about the situation and are awaiting reinforcements to relieve us.”

For now, those trucks were Heimdall’s only lead as to where he could find his targets. If the enemy’s objective this morning was to secure prisoners, then they had partially succeeded for the time being.

“Please relay all information of unidentified hostile forces to my frequency,” he told Billings. “It is much appreciated, Warrant Officer Billings.”

Heimdall redirected his gaze to the enemy helicopter, which had banked south instead of continuing east. From his knowledge of Hornet’s flight path out of the city, Heimdall knew that the Ospreys were going to hold a steady southward path until Idaho, where it would head slightly east and southeast to avoid inclement weather conditions in that state.

The enemy Black Hawk appeared to be heading roughly in the same direction.

Heimdall tried raising Hornet, getting a practical busy dial tone for the first attempt before the senior mercenary finally picked up.

“Heimdall, now is not a good time,” he said, sounding occupied and irritable again.

“I apologize, sir. I merely thought you would like to know that the hostile aircraft that attacked us is heading south. I suspect it may be trying to intercept you.”

Hornet was quiet for a moment, then he murmured something almost inaudibly.

“So that’s what she’s up to.”

“Sir?”

“The other Osprey broke formation and landed in a parking lot some eighteen kilometres south of the airport,” Hornet said by way of explanation. “I’ve got eyes on Christina Valentine and the rest of the detainees heading into a store.”

“Valentine, sir?” For someone so frail and diminutive, that girl was remarkably resilient.

“Affirmative. She must have stowed aboard somehow and we were too distracted by the attack to notice her. She probably also knew where the detainees who went missing at the airport are.”

“What are your orders, sir?”

Heimdall mulled it over a little while, then answered.

“We can’t stay here. If that enemy chopper is heading south, it’s likely trying to head us off. I can’t lose any more prisoners, Heimdall. I’m sending you the coordinates to Valentine’s location.”

“Yes, sir. What are my orders?”

“Locate Valentine. Interrogate her and find out where the missing detainees are, then secure them.”

“What should I do with her once all that is complete?”

“She’s expendable at this point. Eliminate her once she’s given up the information. Her survival is becoming tiring.”

“Understood, sir. I am on my way to the target coordinates.”

“I will station the Osprey away from the site. Can’t risk losing the civilians and our last bird. Engage all threats as necessary, but get those other detainees back, Heimdall.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’ve been told US Army reinforcements are on their way to that part of the city, but you’re closer.”

“Understood, sir. Moving now.”

Heimdall hustled off to find fast land transport. Once he borrowed a Humvee from the US Army at the airport, he went back to the weapons cache to pick up a couple of M72 LAW rocket launchers. After that, he left the airport and headed south toward the location Heimdall had indicated.





A twenty-minute drive to the target coordinates brought Heimdall to an outlet mall beside 36th Street. He parked the Humvee toward the north end of the parking lot in the center of the outlet mall buildings.

From his position, he could make out a dark grey helicopter just about to touch down on the ground, right beside an inert but still intact V-22 Osprey. Both aircraft were about three hundred metres to the south – just about the effective range of the M72 LAW.

Heimdall shut off the Humvee’s engine and brought out one of the rocket launchers from the trunk. He primed it for use and jogged toward the chopper with its wheels down on the ground and its rotors still going. He stopped about fifty metres, having ascertained he could reliably hit the helicopter from that far away.

He hefted the lightweight launcher onto his right shoulder, took aim, and fired at the helicopter that was still in standby.

The rocket zoomed toward the Black Hawk and impacted the top of the fuselage, right above the starboard door and right below the main rotors. The hit resulted in a controlled explosion that killed the engines and sheared the aircraft in half right down the middle, lengthwise. Flames erupted from the grounded bird and dark smoke began to float from the wreckage.

Satisfied with the disabled enemy aircraft, Heimdall dropped the empty launcher and headed back to the Humvee to pick up his assault rifle. Once he had the rifle, he headed toward the burning wreckage.

When he was within twenty metres of the debris, he found one person crawling sluggishly toward him. Though his clothes were in the process of being consumed by fire that had latched on, Heimdall noted that it was a variant of arctic military camouflage. In addition, the man on the ground was outfitted with a plate carrier vest and carried standard military gear like a handheld radio, a sidearm, and a canteen at his hip. The crawling man dressed differently from the other Canadian military personnel Heimdall watched getting executed a few days previously, but this man was not US military, either.

Heimdall approached the man with the ebony skin, who lifted his face to look at the Northstar mercenary beadily. For a moment, Heimdall simply looked down at him impassively.

“Help,” the man on his belly managed to say hoarsely. Large swaths of his neck and face were covered with burns that looked to be of at least second-degree. “Help, please…”

The man extended a shaking, gloved hand toward Heimdall. Heimdall answered back by placing a single shot from his rifle to the top of the pleading man’s head. The incapacitated soldier fell silent and still, flames still eating away at his clothes.

Heimdall walked around the fiery wreckage to the aircraft’s port side. There, he saw two inert bodies lying on the snow. The first, not five metres from the flames, was a large man with white skin and a burly physique. A chopper pilot headset was mounted to his head, its wire severed about a foot from the actual headgear from the console that was now aflame. Unlike the first man who was crawling away from the burning debris, this one was wearing non-military garb: a dark red winter coat and brown cargo pants. He was outfitted with combat gear nonetheless, but he was not wearing a military uniform like the US or Canadian Army. He was lying on his stomach as well, his face turned sideways toward Heimdall. Upon taking a cursory glance at this man’s face caked with soot and dust from the blast, Heimdall saw that this was the same man he’d intended to take down with his marksman rifle back at the association centre.

The second person, lying on their back a few steps down the length of the halved fuselage from the large man but no more conscious, was female. The woman’s face was wholly unfamiliar to Heimdall, who was positive he’d never seen her before. Her tawny, brown skin glistened with what appeared to be sweat, and was also caked with dirt and soot. Like the pilot, she was dressed in civilian clothing: a beige duffle coat and scuffed, navy blue women’s leggings. A Heckler & Koch HK417 marksman rifle lay on its side on the snow, several centimetres away from the woman’s outstretched right hand.

“Heimdall, come in. This is Hornet. Status.”

Heimdall brought his finger to his earpiece, still gazing at the unmoving man and woman by the helicopter’s chassis.

“This is Heimdall, sir. Enemy UH-60 has been destroyed. The V-22 appears to be intact still. It may still be operable for transporting the detainees.”

“Excellent. Move to recapture. Radio in once the prisoners are secure and Valentine is disposed of. Hurry.”

“Yes, sir. I will do that right now.”

Heimdall turned toward the one-story grocery store dubbed ‘Safeway’ about fifty metres from where he stood. He began walking toward the main entrance, but no sooner had he taken two steps did a shot ring out from an adjacent store window. Almost instantly, Heimdall’s left bicep jerked back as if it had been punched by something heavy.

Heimdall was aware of the pain that came from having his arm pierced by a bullet, but he wasted no time diving into cover behind an abandoned white sedan parked parallel to the store’s front wall. Three more shots he recognized as handgun discharges barked out, all of them colliding harmlessly against the opposite side of the car he had ducked behind.

Heimdall touched his left sleeve, verified that he was hit nowhere vital, and listened for any more gunfire. There weren’t more after the four total shots that had been sent his way thus far, but he knew whoever had shot him was still watching his position.

Staying concealed behind the car, Heimdall got on his knees and drove a fist into the car’s right wing mirror to shatter the glass. He picked up the largest shard that fell to the ground and surreptitiously stuck the broken mirror slightly out at knee height from the rear end of the car, such that the reflection afforded him a relatively safe view around cover and at the front of the store. He tilted the piece of glass a little toward the left until he saw something in the resulting reflection.

There was a head poking out a bit from the bottom edge of an open store window to the left of the ‘OUT’ automatic door that was standing wide open thanks to the lack of power to the entire store. Even in the darkness, Heimdall’s eyes made out the top of a girl’s pink hair. Christina Valentine.

Heimdall tossed the glass shard away and lifted a smoke grenade from one of his vest pockets. He pulled the pin and rolled the grenade toward the main store entrance, sending it out beneath the car so as not to present the enemy with a target. Several more pistol discharges pierced the air as smoke steadily filled the area between him and the shooter, clearly made in the desperate chance of hitting Heimdall. When the smoke was at its thickest, Heimdall left cover and sprinted into the smokescreen, stopping when he collided against the store’s east wall.

Instead of chancing a quick burst into the main entrance where Valentine was posted, Heimdall moved south along the wall until he came to the café entrance close to the southern wall. The door was open as well, allowing him to slip inside to reach the store window.

Heimdall took cover behind the counter of a Starbucks bar. He peered from the edge in time to see a light from a torch about half a dozen aisles shining into his eyes. Four shots rang out at the same time, prompting him to duck fully back behind the bar – the same pistol shots he heard outside. At least two of the rounds impacted the marble counter, mere inches from where his head was sticking out just a second previously.

From somewhere in the direction of the bullets’ origin, a woman’s voice called out in the darkness.

“Stay away! If you come any closer, I’ll kill you!”

That was not an option. Heimdall’s orders were clear.

“You killed them,” the woman continued, sounding bitter and short of breath. “You bastard, you killed them!”

Heimdall headed quietly for the other end of the bar, toward the opposite end of the aisles from where he glimpsed the light from the torch was. He refrained from using a light source of his own; even in this poor lighting, his enhanced vision saw enough without leaving him feeling around in the dark.

He crept from aisle to aisle until he came to the one he believed Valentine shot at him from. He peeked around the corner shelf of cereal boxes to see if she was in the aisle with her back to him, but was forced to whip his head back into cover again when another round flew in his direction, narrowly missing his face and instead punching a hole into a box of Weetabix a couple of inches to the left, scattering flakes of whole grains onto the floor at Heimdall’s feet.

Heimdall had to give her credit – she was more dangerous than she appeared. To be aware of how he might flank her in this dimly lit environment was something only someone with acute awareness and experience with firefight maneuvers could do. He found it somewhat astonishing that this girl was once helplessly secured to a bedframe, at Hornet’s mercy.

“I told you to stay back!” she shouted at him from down the aisle.

Heimdall stayed in place for a moment, training his own ears to get a feel for Valentine’s general location. He hadn’t heard any footsteps since he was last shot at just now, so it was most likely that Valentine was doing the same thing he was: waiting for him to make a move.

Heimdall took out a different grenade from another pouch of his body armour: an M84 flashbang. He pulled the ring to prime the device, waited two seconds, then gave the thing an underhanded toss, aiming it at the opposite end of the aisle where he felt Valentine was waiting for him to expose himself.

A deafening bang broke out not long after, and a fleeting flash like lightning illuminated the shelves, walls, and ceiling. Somewhat muffled by the bang, Heimdall heard Valentine swear and yelp in shock.

Taking this as his cue to move up on her position, Heimdall broke from cover and dashed down the aisle. When he reached the other end, he found a miniature shaped human figure stumbling aimlessly toward the cash registers, knocking over a magazine rack in a daze to find her bearings.

Heimdall darted toward the stunned figure, drew his knife, and drove the blade into Valentine’s side. The girl’s disoriented groans gave way to a shrill scream of pain as she doubled over from the stab. Heimdall dropped his assault rifle to free his other hand, then spun the tiny woman to face him. He wrapped his left hand around her slender neck and lifted the girl high enough that her boots left the floor.

Valentine thrust her left arm toward him to aim the pistol she still carried, but Heimdall saw this coming in advance. He drove his knife into the fleshy part of the girl’s shoulder, making her scream again and disabling her left arm. The sidearm she was holding slipped from her fingers and clattered to the floor.

The girl tried to pry Heimdall’s fingers off her neck, but now that she was literally in his grip, she was practically harmless. Her strength was almost non-existent compared to his. She kicked her boots at Heimdall’s knees and thigs, but her kicks felt weak. She frantically, desperately, drew short and strained breaths even as Heimdall’s fingers exerted pressure against her throat.

“Christina Valentine,” Heimdall began plainly, lifting her so that her feet were level with his thighs. “where are the prisoners?”

“Khhh… ghh… ack… guhhh…”

“Where are the detainees?” Heimdall demanded of her again.

The girl’s head turned from side to side as much as Heimdall’s hold on her would allow it to.

Heimdall stabbed the knife into Valentine’s right thigh. A strained cry escaped her lips as Heimdall pried the blade free of her flesh.

“Tell me where they are,” he told the girl, whose hands seemed to fly from his hand, to her side, then to her leg repeatedly in different orders, clearly not sure which wound to attempt to stem bleeding for. “I will grant you a quick death in return for this information.”

“Ffff… kaaaahh… fff… kuhhhh… yuuuuu…” she gave out in short chokes.

Heimdall eased his grip around her neck a little, shifting his fingers a bit upward to her jaw and allowing the girl to breathe a little more easily.

“Fuck… you…” the girl said hoarsely, then sent spit flying at Heimdall’s face, which he promptly wiped with the sleeve of his right arm. He found it a bit astounding and tiresome that this woman who weighed like nothing and looked like a child had the courage to defy him even under threat of more pain and suffering.

Heimdall brought the bloodied tip of his knife to the girl’s belly. He pressed it against her clothes enough that she would feel the sharpness of the tip through the fabric.

“Where are the detainees, Christina Valentine?” Heimdall asked another time, his tone not straying from unflappable neutrality. “This is your final warning before I will be forced to cause you undue suffering.”

The woman glared down at Heimdall with wariness and defiance, but little fear. Heimdall conceded that this frail girl had more resilience than some men from the rebel army whom Heimdall had put under extreme duress before. He’d never encountered a single target prior to this point who did not give up demanded information after being inflicted serious wounds like these.

When, after a lengthy pause was allowed to see if she would break, Valentine still did not answer his repeated question, Heimdall steadily pushed the blade further into her stomach. The steel perforated the cotton easily and then Heimdall felt considerably increased resistance as the knife began working its way through skin and muscle next. The girl screamed and howled in agony, but Heimdall kept forcing the blade deeper into her. Little by little, the weapon buried itself deeper into Valentine’s body. First, a fourth of the knife’s steel length vanished into her, then nearly a third. Blood stained the front of Valentine’s hoodie and began to leak out through the bottom, dyeing the crotch of the woman’s cargo pants with a dark red that looked like black.

“Where are the detainees?” Heimdall asked again.

A little blood dribbled out from the corner of her parched lips. “Why… are you… doing this…?” she mumbled. Her voice had dropped even lower that Heimdall actually had to bring her face a bit closer to his ear so he could make out her words.

“Locating and securing the detainees are my orders,” Heimdall replied simply.

The woman gave a constricted cough, sending flecks of blood flying. Drops of it landed on Heimdall’s lower sleeve.

“I… can’t… tell… you… that…” Valentine croaked, blood continuing to drip down her chin.

Heimdall grasped the knife handle jutting out the front of his prey’s clothing and yanked the blade out. He wiped the blade on the legs of his pants and sheathed it. Then he stuck his right hand under Valentine’s clothes and located the stab wound he had created.

He straightened all his fingers to align with his palm and wedged his fingertips into the wound. Valentine cried out again and again as Heimdall forced his fingers deeper into the gouge. Blood spurted out of the perforation, further dousing Valentine’s clothes and the floor below her with red. She screamed her lungs out as Heimdall’s fingertips worked through the tough muscle of her abdomen and persisted inward.

“I will stop,” Heimdall told her, speaking over her screams, “when you answer my question. Where are they, Christina Valentine? Where? Tell me, or this will continue.”

The woman kept wailing in agony but still refused to answer.

Heimdall prepared to plunge even deeper into Valentine’s bowels, but movement out the right corner of his eye halted his push.

“That’s enough. Let her go.”

Heimdall glanced to his right, still holding up Valentine, who continued to groan in pain. Through the parking lot lights pouring in through the storefront windows, he made out the spectral outline of a person standing about thirty metres away, six or so cash registers down. Streaks of soot and dirt swathed his mildly wounded face. The figure was about his height, dressed in a grey winter jacket, dark combat pants, and a black watch cap. A pair of infrared goggles were mounted atop the man’s headwear. The man was aiming a G36C rifle in Heimdall’s direction. One look at his garments alone struck recognition in Heimdall’s mind.

“You let her go right now,” the man said coldly, holding his rifle steady. “You want answers, I’ve got them right here.”

Heimdall stayed still, holding up Valentine as he had the past few minutes.

“Who are you?” Heimdall asked the other man. “We have met twice before. You are… rather difficult to kill.”

The bronze-skinned man seemed to think it over, then replied with, “Let Christina go right now.”

Heimdall did not comply. “Where are the detainees?”

“Half are in the warehouse in the back of the store,” came the other man’s prompt reply. “The other half are on their way here now.”

“N-no,” the weakened woman pleaded to the newcomer. “Nnn… Knight… we can’t…”

“Now let her go,” the so-called ‘Knight’ repeated.

Heimdall released the wounded girl, who crumpled to the floor halfway between the end of the aisle and the nearest cash register.

“Understood. Unfortunately,” Heimdall said, his gaze remaining on the other man, “I am unable to secure the detainees with a hostile force on site.”

There was a lull of silence between the two men before Heimdall drew his sidearm from his thigh holster in a lightning-quick motion, then fired at his adversary from the hip. At the same time, he darted into the aisle to his right, out of the line of fire, as the enemy’s rifle fired a burst at where he stood just moments ago.

Heimdall sprinted for the other end of the shelves, to the other side of the store. As he took cover at the end of the shelves and holstered his Sig Sauer P226, his ears picked up the sounds of boots sprinting across the floor somewhere on the other side of the store. He heard the man telling someone – presumably the heavily injured Valentine – things like “hold on” and “stay with me”, as well as instructions to apply pressure to her wounds.

Heimdall’s earpiece came online again as he was listening to the other man dragging his companion along the floor, away from him.

“Heimdall,” Hornet‘s voice reached him through comms, “what’s the situation over there?”

“Sir, I have the whereabouts of the detainees. One hostile remains. Proceeding to terminate him in preparation for prisoner detainment.”





“GAAAHHH!”

I whipped my head around to my eight o’clock, where Genel was hunched behind a luggage buggy carrying a few large instrument cases.

“Archer!” I called from my own position behind one set of wheels of a jetway about twenty metres away from her. “Archer, status!”

Relentless assault rifle fire continued to pelt at my cover. There was nowhere to go unless someone else took some of the heat off us that came in the form of twenty-plus foot hostiles shooting at us from halfway to Concourse B.

“ARCHER!” I bellowed to my tech specialist.

“I’m okay,” she yelled back, not looking at me. “Took a hit to the arm. I’m fine!”

I tapped my earpiece to raise Josh. The sound of bullets ricocheting off my cover was deafening, such that I had to speak more loudly even through comms.

“Goliath, we’re taking a beating here. Any chance you can swing by for some air support?”

“Knight, that LAV close to your position’s still operational,” he replied. “I can swing around for a strafing maneuver and have Jacobs sweep the area, but if that Stryker’s cannon hits us more than a few times, we’re in trouble.”

“Shit. Any chance you can hit it with a couple Hellfires from outside its effective range?”

“It’s practically right next to you, boss. I don’t want to hit you guys, too.”

I peeked out just enough to verify the armoured vehicle’s position. It was sitting in place about fifty metres to the south, in front of some dozen or so hostile foot soldiers firing at me and Genel.

“Okay, Goliath. You got thermal optics on?” I asked over the cacophony of the bulletstorm.

“I got ‘em here,” he answered.

“Archer and I will pop smoke to cover out retreat to a safe distance. You hit these bastards and give us some breathing room.”

“KNIGHT, BEHIND US! BEHIND US!”

At Genel’s warning, I pivoted to face six o’clock, where three US Army soldiers had burst out of a maintenance bay past Concourse A and started firing at us, too.

I primed the M203 grenade launcher mounted to the bottom of my G36C and fired a grenade at the maintenance bay entrance, clearing the hostiles from their nest before they could cut us down.

I loaded a new explosive round into the underbarrel launcher. “All right, Goliath. We’re gonna pop smo—”

“Wait, shit!” Josh cursed abruptly, his voice sounding a lot more intense. “Jacobs, hang on! Incoming missile!”

“Josh?!” I yelled over the line.

“Flares away, flares away!” Josh announced. “Jacobs, can you see him? Find the son of a bitch launching Stingers at us, fast!”

“Josh? Josh, are you all right?” I demanded, momentarily forgetting our own immediate problems. “Respond!”

“We’re good,” the weapons specialist and team pilot answered me, sounding a little short on breath. “We’re good, Knight. But we’ve got problems here, too!”

“Don’t tell me they’ve got SAMs—”

“Negative, negative! Looks like a lone ground hostile trying to knock us out of the sky with Stinger missiles. Jacobs, you see him? Circling the area – let me know when you find something.”

“Sorry, Knight,” he continued, sounding preoccupied. “Hold off on your retreat just a minute. We gotta find that launcher, or we’re dead.”

I wanted to argue that Genel and I might not even have a minute before part of the enemy ground forces here on our side might move up on our position to flank us, but I kept my mouth shut. If Josh gets shot down, we were all effectively screwed.

“Knight!”

Genel’s frantic voice came back over comms.

“What?”

“Angel says the enemy Ospreys are about to take off with the prisoners. She’s proposing stowing away on one of them and forcing the bird to land away from this hot zone!”

“What?” I shouted again.

“I said, Chrissy’s going to board an Osp—”

“I heard what you said!” I snapped at her. “That stupid, crazy woman! Damn it, fine! Tell her we’ll catch up! And… tell her something else!”

“Clock’s ticking, Knight!”

“Tell her to stay alive. She’s not getting out of punishment from me.”

I thought I heard Genel snort on comms, but with all this gunfire in my ears, it was hard to be sure.

“Roger that, Knight!” she replied regardless.

“Reaper, come in, it’s King,” said a different female voice over comms.

“Reading you, King! What’s your situation?”

“We’re at the hangars. Found the prisoners your XO diverted away. Loading them up on the trucks we found now. We need to exfil ASAP here before more of them show up to cut us off,” the CSOR team leader reported.

“Copy that! You and Reid get clear. Keep those civvies safe. Make sure you’re not being tailed. We’ll update you on our end.”

“Understood. Stay safe, Grim Reaper.”

I switched back to my channel with Josh. The bullets tearing into the wheels of the jetway hardly let up in the last two or three minutes. Sooner or later, a few of those would find me.

“Goliath, I don’t mean to be a nag, but we’re about to be overrun here!”

“Ah, fuck it, then. Jacobs, forget him. We’re ready for you, Knight. Just say the word!”

“Archer!” I called out to the sharpshooter.

“What?” she yelled back, glancing at me with a hassled expression.

“Pop smoke grenades to conceal our position from those hostiles and their Stryker! Then fall back to that maintenance bay on my signal!” I gestured toward the same maintenance bay that the three enemy soldiers had come out of just now, almost a hundred or so metres behind us.

“Copy!” Genel removed two cylindrical shaped grenades from her vest and pulled the pin on the first one. “Smoke going out!”

She tossed the first grenade some twenty metres to our twelve o’clock, then lobbed the second right at the wheels of the Stryker to my two o’clock.

I waited for the grenades to expel all its smoke for maximum concealment, then radioed Josh.

“Goliath, green light on attack run. Repeat, green light to attack, now!”

“Roger, boss! Got ‘em on thermal. Get your asses clear!”

“Archer, fall back! Fall back now! GO!”

“Copy!”

The two of us backpedaled, turning our backs on our smokescreen and hauling ass to the open maintenance bay. I felt rounds whiz by us as we retreated at full sprint. I kept glancing at Genel during our retreat, worried a lucky round might hit her in the back, but fortunately, none did.

We crashed into the bay, falling on top of discarded, scattered repair tools and other aircraft maintenance parts. At the same instant that Genel’s full weight landed on top of me, I heard the rotors of the UH-60 Black Hawk thunder closer, followed by a whooshing of several AGMs being launched. In tandem, the relentless BRRRRRRRRRRR of the M134 rattled alongside the missiles, courtesy of Warrant Officer Jacobs. A deafening, ear-rending crescendo of explosions filled the area for several seconds, though the ringing in my ears afterward felt like it stayed for hours.

“Ian! Ian, you okay?” I heard Genel screaming in my ears, but all the loud noises had relegated her voice to a muffled volume temporarily.

I opened my eyes to find myself nearly nose-to-nose with Genel, who was directly on top of me. She kept shaking me as I opened my eyes, and my multiple eye blinks seemed to not give her the idea that I was okay.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m good. Stop jostling me.”

“Good!”

“Now get off me.”

Genel got to her feet and offered me a hand in standing up myself. When I was back on my feet, Genel tapped her earpiece.

“Goliath, requesting pickup. There anywhere nearby we can have you land?”

“Glad you guys are still there,” our pilot replied. “Yeah, just north of Concourse A looks good for now. Be advised, my Hellfires took out most of the infantry and disabled that Stryker, but I’ve got stragglers to the south and southwest of you. We’ll mop them up quickly and touch down to pick you guys up in thirty seconds.”

“Roger that, thirty seconds.” Genel picked up her HK417 off the ground. “Come on, Ian. Let’s go.”

I followed Genel out of the maintenance bay. Together, we jogged further north of the first concourse toward the northern fence bordering the tarmac, toward the furthest apron. As we were on the move, Josh and Jacobs swept the area with more minigun fire. Gradually, the scattered small arms fire that attempted to retaliate against the chopper died out.

Eventually, the Black Hawk banked north toward us and descended to the ground a safe distance in front of me and Genel. When it was on the ground, Genel and I climbed aboard the troop compartment with Jacobs.

“How is she, Goliath?” I asked over the sound of the powerful rotors above us.

Josh ran his eyes over the panels in front of him. “Fuel’s still at seventy-five percent. I’m now down to… three Hellfires left. That Stryker managed to clip us a bit on our approach, but for now, systems are still okay.”

“Starboard minigun’s dry,” Jacobs added as Genel took a seat on the port side bench. “Port’s still got maybe two, three hundred rounds left.”

“I wouldn’t take on another enemy force like this again, Knight,” Josh said, then began to lift the chopper into the air again. “We need to rearm.”

“Let’s hope we don’t need to,” Genel commented, tapping and swiping at my TACPAD at her wrist. “Okay, Goliath. Sending you coordinates to Angel’s current location.”

As the bird climbed to five hundred metres, Josh pored over the data Genel had sent to his TACPAD. “How did she do that? I saw two Ospreys take off while I was busy. Thought we’d missed our chance to rescue more, actually.”

“She posed as a detainee and forced the bird to land,” Genel answered him.

“She’s gutsy, I’ll give her that.”

“We need to get there now. No telling how much enemy backup’s headed her way,” I said as the bird began to head east.

“Aye, boss.”

I nodded to Jacobs. “Thanks for the covering fire.”

He nodded back. “No problem.”

The bird banked south once it was outside of Calgary International Airport, heading for where Christina had somehow forced one of the Ospreys to land. On our way, I dug out my first aid kit and quickly dressed the gunshot wound to Genel’s left arm. Not long after Genel donned her coat again, Josh spoke up over the team’s comms channel.

“We’re here. Angel’s tracker puts her in that Safeway down there. But we have a different problem.”

I reopened the port side door of the Black Hawk and looked down at the area we were hovering over. There was an outlet mall of sorts comprised of several stores, chief among them a Wal-Mart that took up nearly half the length of the mall. Situated west of 36th Street, the Safeway Josh had pointed out was about half a kilometre away.

“What’s the problem?” I asked, glancing at the cockpit.

“I’m seeing considerable enemy movement moving toward Angel’s position, on Memorial Drive. Real-time feed shows… about five vehicles moving east, just passing the Max Bell Centre now.”

Genel and I consulted our own TACPADs to confirm Josh’s assessment. He was right: there was a definite, coordinated movement of several vehicles on Memorial Drive, just three kilometres to the southwest of our current position. The maximum zoom magnification allowed by the feed afforded us enough foresight to identify the vehicles on approach: five standard US Army Humvees.

“Most probably a reaction force to reinforce the airport,” Genel said. “This’ll put them on the path to Angel’s position.”

She looked up at me, silently prompting me for a decision. I watched the five small vehicles on the scree crawl like ants steadily eastward on the highway for a moment, then turned back to Josh.

“Goliath, we can’t risk that group finding Angel and those civilians.”

“I don’t disagree. We’re cutting it close, though, Knight. We’re nearly out of ammo for the weapons system.”

“I get it. But we can’t risk Angel’s position being compromised.”

“Roger. Moving to intercept the vehicles.”

As the bird steadily picked up speed again, I raised King on comms.

“King, it’s Knight. Come in.”

She picked up almost immediately. “Reading you. Bit busy putting distance between us and that airport. What’s up?”

“We’re gonna need you to divert to our location. Safeway grocery store close to the intersection of 36th Street and Memorial Drive, across the road from Marlborough Mall. We’ve found our XO with about twenty other civilians, but the Black Hawk can’t carry all of them. We need you to pick them up.”

“Solid copy. Give us a few mikes to get there. Kind of have to do loops and stuff to throw any pursuers off our scent.”

“Understood. We’ve got more inbound, but we’ll head them off. Just get here as soon as you can.”

“Hang tight, Grim Reaper. We’ll be there. Out.”

Josh waited for me to finish with King, then spoke again. “Be advised, the bird will be practically naked after this. We can’t sustain another engagement.”

“I know,” I said. “Let ‘em have the rest of the Hellfires. Any stragglers, the M134 will deal with them.”

“Aim for the engine block,” Josh advised those of us in the troop compartment. “Our rounds aren’t rated to dent Strykers, but they’ll punch through Humvees’ armour if we pelt them enough.”

“Roger.” I crouched in front of the port side door and primed the M134 door gun. “Manning the port side gun.”

A minute later, the helicopter came up on Memorial Drive, a well-lit throughway in the otherwise gloomy winter morning. Picking out the convoy of Humvees in an otherwise large highway wasn’t difficult, given that their headlights were the only ones present and mobile on the road.

Josh dropped the bird to about two-hundred-fifty metres as the enemy vehicles were coming up on us, headed the other way we were. He tilted the bird slightly downward and toward the approaching convoy.

Just then, pinpricks of light erupted from the roofs of the Humvees, accompanied by the sounds of large-caliber rounds impacting the side and bottom of the bird.

“Taking fifty-cal fire!” Josh called out to us. “Can’t stay in place here. AGMs online… Firing!”

I watched as the last three anti-ground missiles mounted underneath the port wing left their perch and went flying toward the enemy vehicles below in an almost simultaneous fashion.

The first missile struck the lead Humvee, causing it to explode and its irreparably damaged chassis to veer toward the outer railing, where it halted when its bumper collided with the metal. The second Humvee followed suit, flipping sideways until it landed on its roof, just as inoperable as the first one. The third Humvee was disabled by the last Hellfire missile as well, which sent it partially backflipping and landing on top of the hood of the fourth Humvee behind it. The gunner on the turret of the fourth vehicle was thrown forward as the vehicle he was in tipped erratically with its rear-end up, shooting him out of the MG port and sending him into the burning debris of the third Humvee.

“Three vehicles out of commission,” Josh reported, then immediately began a strafing maneuver, circling around to the last two Humvees’ seven and six o’clock. “Mop ‘em up, Knight.”

I ignored the machine gun fire still pelting us from the turret of the fifth and final Humvee and aimed the minigun at its hood. I held down the trigger, letting loose a continuous, high-speed stream of fire at the last vehicle still attempting to shoot us down out of the sky.

I kept the crosshairs on the Humvee, compensating for Josh’s strafing and circling until the vibrations in my arms effectively stopped and the beefy whirring of the cylinders gave way to a neutered whining from the now-empty M134.

By the end of it, the last Humvee was down its gunner. The driver and two other passengers stepped out of the vehicle that had its engine smoking from having been hammered with automatic fire. They proceeded to aim upward and fire at us with their M4 carbines, which were hardly enough to damage our Black Hawk.

I took care of the survivors with a 40-millimetre HE round from my rifle’s underbarrel grenade launcher, plus a few 5.56 rounds to clean up the one soldier that managed to avoid the blast of my grenade.

“That’s all hostiles down!” I called out to Josh, putting my rifle aside.

“Nice one,” he replied from the pilot’s seat, throwing me a thumb-up.

Genel put a hand on my shoulder. “Let’s hurry before downtown sends even more at us. Goliath?”

“Got it,” he said to her. “Heading back to Angel’s location.”

The bird banked around and headed back northeast, toward the grocery store Christina had used to shelter himself and the prisoners who were on her V-22.

Not long after, Josh announced that he was now lowering the Black Hawk next to a grounded, intact Osprey in the middle of the parking lot in front of the store.

As the chopper gradually descended to the ground, I spoke to Genel from the opposite bench from where she was sitting.

“Angel still with us?”

She gave a nod. “Yeah. She just finished asking me for the third time where we were and what’s holding us up. Think she’s gotten impatient?”

“I don’t know.”

“Nervous?” Genel’s lips teased me with the beginnings of a prodding smile.

“About what?”

“Talking to her about… you know.”

I hesitated to answer, watching the parking lot lights rise above us out the window as the UH-60 continued to descend.

“Why would I be?” I asked, not looking at her. I kept my eyes out the port window instead, twirling my G36C on is stock on the floor.

“No particular reason,” Genel replied. Even when I wasn’t looking her in the face, I could tell she was ribbing me again to an extent. Perhaps silently gloating that she’d managed to change my mind about some things.

Well, I’m not going to make her job easier by reinforcing that thought.

“You already know what you’re going to say to her?” she asked next.

Do I?

It had been less than three hours since I decided not to blow her head off. It had been three years since I began waiting for a day like this.

I didn’t know if I could string sentences together just yet. But… now I was going to have to try. That was all I could do.

If I was being honest with anyone, I was a bit nervous. I’d spent months and years working toward the day I’d find and confront the people who took Miyaku’s life. I’d dreamt up possibly dozens, even hundreds of scenarios of how this might go down. I fantasized about it with adolescent fervency.

But none of those fantasies looked remotely like this.

The chopper finally touched down on the snow-covered parking lot, just fifty or so metres away from the Osprey.

“Earth to Knight.” Genel snapped her fingers in my face.

“Yeah, I’m here.”

“I’ll keep the bird ready for dustoff out here,” Josh told me and Genel. “Go get our XO. King and Reid shouldn’t be long now.”

“Right,” I mumbled, taking a steadying breath.

Genel got up from her seat and hopped out of the chopper via the port side door. She looked back and gestured toward me to follow.

“Come on, Knight. Let’s get her.”

“Yeah.”

I was barely out of my seat when Josh yelled something from the cockpit.

“Ah, fuuu— ROCKET INCOMING! SHI—”

There was no time to react. I didn’t even have the chance to look around to see from which direction this projectile was coming from. Something struck the helicopter with the strength of a mammoth stampeding into an obstacle. There was a fleeting flash of heat, then I was thrown against the ceiling of the troop compartment. The back of my head cracked against the metal, and for perhaps a second, there was pain shooting across my brain.

The next, however, gravity pulled me harshly back down. My forehead smacked against the edge of the port side bench that Genel had just vacated.

This time, there was no pain, only blackness.





When I opened my eyes, all I could see was some metallic floor. All I could hear was the crackling of something, like what campfires sound like in an otherwise quiet evening. As for what I felt, I felt pain. And heat.

And something physically holding me down.

Smoke. Smoke filled my nostrils on its way to my lungs.

It took me several seconds to figure out where I was: inside the Black Hawk chopper. Or, what used to be one.

I tilted my head around, trying not to move it too fast in response to the aches and pains on and around it. As I lay on my stomach, I surveyed the surroundings: the helicopter was trashed. Something had shorn the fuselage in half, such that the split itself gave way to bare, snow-coated ground just inches from my left arm. The heat I was feeling was from the flames seemingly devouring the remains of the aircraft that had, perhaps just moments ago, served us well against numerous ground forces. The fire had miraculously not charred me alive while I was unconscious. If I had not woken when I had, perhaps it may have.

Aside from me, the helicopter’s remains were empty. I took a look to my right and found the cockpit unoccupied, though from where I lay I saw a pair of brown cargo pants lying on the snow, just outside the pilot’s side door, which was open.

And to my left, outside where the missing port side door would be, was a pair of black winter boots leading up to some navy leggings and a torso I couldn’t see thanks to the forward half of the chopper blocking my view.

Oh, God. Genel.

I placed my palms – bloody in a few places from a couple of tears in my gloves made by some jagged edge – squarely on the troop compartment floor and tried to get up, but the weight holding down the lower half of my body kept me in place.

I looked back toward my legs and found what was pinning me: part of the chassis that normally housed the chopper’s transmission had fallen through and collapsed on me, holding everything below my waist down. My backpack had cushioned the blow of something as heavy as the chassis, sparing my spin and legs from significant damage. I still had sensations of heat and moderate pain in my lower extremities, so I was still okay, considering.

My head snapped forward again. The boots and legs I could see not five metres from my position hadn’t moved.

Genel.

I planted my palms more firmly against the troop compartment floor and pushed against both the floor and the scrap metal holding me in place. The mass of the transmission was great, but if I pushed with all my strength, I could lift it on my back, albeit slowly and to a limited extent.

I panted and strained and growled desperately, trying to sustain my strength as I gradually lifted myself off the floor. Slowly, painstakingly, I managed to get my arms fully straightened beneath my body and wormed my hips and legs out from beneath the transmission.

I crawled out from the burning wreckage, coughing and groaning, the warm steel against my hands giving way to cold ground. I took a moment to recheck that both my lower limbs were still in working order before I stumbled, halfway-standing and halfway-prone, to kneels beside the still form of my oldest friend.

Genel’s eyes were closed. Her body was in a supine position with her arms loosely spread to either side of her. If the situation wasn’t so dire, I’d have probably mistaken her for resting from trying to make snow angels. A deep gash had opened in the middle of her forehead, though I could tell that it wasn’t a fatal wound and merely looked worse than it was. But…

I ripped off the glove from my right hand, throwing it aside. Reaching for her neck seemed to take forever, even as I practically descended upon her like a man who’d lost his mind. Perhaps, at that moment, I had.

No, no, no, no. Please, no. No.

I palpated the side of her neck, my shaking hand preventing me from finding a carotid artery. For maybe three seconds, my heart sank as the seeming lack of a pulse was all I found.

Eventually, my fingers found something beating against them. I pressed a bit harder against this anomaly, not trusting my trembling limb to accurately tell me of the presence of a pulse.

But there it was. A frantic throbbing against the tip of my index and middle fingers.

I briefly checked her over for any significant bleeds showing through her clothes. There were none.

The words eventually slipped out of my mouth.

“Oh, fuck. Thank God.”

I nearly collapsed on top of Genel from the sheer relief that flowed through my body like a fast-acting drug.

I finally looked around the immediate area on this side of the fallen chopper. A second person was lying in a similar pose just a few metres to my right, as if he’d fallen right out of the pilot’s seat.

Josh. I hesitated to leave Genel’s side, but having made sure that she was still alive, I reluctantly stumbled over and fell to my knees beside the other Shadow member. I yanked the pilot’s headset off his head and palpated his neck next.

Come on, come on, Josh…

His pulse was easier to find, as it throbbed much more strongly against my fingertips than Genel’s did. I breathed a second sigh of relief when I found it.

Before I could collapse to a sitting position, overwhelmed by nearly being frightened out of my wits, a resounding, slightly muffled round of cracks emanated from somewhere ahead of me.

I lifted my gaze from Josh’s sizeable bulk, looking up at the darkened store windows of the Safeway that was literally a stone’s throw away. One split-second flash lit the interior of the store, though from my low angle I couldn’t see who was shooting.

Still, if someone was shooting…

“Christina,” I muttered, internally berating myself for forgetting her for a moment.

Josh had yelled something about an incoming rocket before I blacked out. Someone else was here, and there was no question that they were after the passengers of the Osprey nearby. I didn’t know how many hostiles were here, but…

I went back to the wrecked chopper, searched the two halves of the fuselage, and retrieved my G36C assault rifle from the floor of the back half of the aircraft. That was when I saw that the starboard side door had been blown out as well. And past the aircraft transmission that had caved inward into the compartment, I saw someone else on the ground on the other side of the downed bird.

Another crack of what was surely a pistol erupted from somewhere inside the grocery store. I hurried around the front of the Black Hawk, limping slightly, and approached the third person sprawled on his stomach on the snow some ten metres away from the debris.

I knelt beside the form of Warrant Officer Caleb Jacobs and flipped him carefully over onto his back, noting the various severe burns on his neck and head. Parts of his camouflage fatigues were also blackened and charred from the fire that was eating the Black Hawk.

“Jacobs? Jacobs, are you okay? Hey—”

I stopped when I got him to lie face-up. A fresh, red hold dripping with blood and gore sat right in the middle of his forehead, right above his dead, still opened eyes.

“Shit,” I cursed, laying him back down gently. I gritted my teeth and ran my fingers down his eyelids to close them. He was gone, and I could do nothing to change that anymore.

I opened a channel on my TACPAD to reach King. She fortunately answered almost immediately.

“Grim Reaper, we’re still on our way over there. How’d it go? Did you get your girl?” she asked as soon as she answered the call.

“King… the Black Hawk’s down. We need you here ASAP. We’re gonna need an exfil, too.”

She paused a second, perhaps processing the thought of our one helicopter getting taken down, then replied, “Roger that. Are you okay? Is the area clear?”

“I’m okay. And the area’s clear, but not for long. I wouldn’t bet on this place being clear for more than a half-hour.”

A different kind of noise erupted from within the store, prompting me to look over my shoulder. A flash grenade?

“Okay, understood. We’ll be there soon. Are all of you good?” King said.

“Archer and Goliath are clear of the wreck, but they’re out cold.”

“What about Caleb?”

“…I’m sorry.”

“Is he—?”

“He’s gone. I’m sorry, Angela.”

There was a slightly longer pause from King this time, then she said in a sombre voice that sounded forcibly emotionless:

“…Understood.”

“I… don’t know what else to say.”

“You don’t need to.” I couldn’t see her expression and I didn’t know her well enough to take a guess. “We’ll… be there. Soon. Hang tight.”

“Be advised, someone else is on site. Probably after the civvies here. I’ll deal with them.”

“Okay, Grim Reaper.” She hung up without another word.

I rose from my crouch and swapped to a fresh magazine for my G36C. I went back around the bird and put a hand on Genel’s shoulder, taking the time to reassure myself by watching her chest rising and falling slowly.

“Wait here,” I said to her, “I’ll be back.”

Then I got back up, shed my damaged backpack to the ground, and headed for the main entrance to the Safeway.

The noises I could hear from outside just moments prior had stopped. The store had fallen silent and dark in the last minute.

I stalked through the open doors and found myself in between the cash registers and the store windows.

I was still hurriedly trying to decide where to begin searching, but a man’s voice that was completely devoid of all emotion shot out like a clear whisper in the darkness somewhere close by.

“Locating and securing the detainees are my orders.”

This was followed by some warped kind of coughing, wet and weak. I heard a different voice say something back, but the response was too low for me to make out the exact words.

I briskly walked between the nearest cash registers and turned right, toward the source of the sounds I was hearing. As soon as I turned, I saw two shadows cast in a dim light from the lamp posts outside the store.

I heard it before I could properly visualize the situation: a woman’s agonized screaming, high and raw. It took me a couple of seconds to ascertain the details in the poor lighting.

A man in military uniform and gear was lifting a much smaller girl by the neck with just one outstretched arm. The girl’s feet dangled over a few inches above the floor, which was stained with something dark that seemed to be dripping from her somehow. The man’s hand appeared to be under the girl’s jacket. A faint, wet squelching that made my stomach turn was just barely covered by the screams of anguish.

The girl, whose hands appeared to be desperately trying to wrench the man’s off her throat, had ghostly pale, pink hair that seemed to stand out in the semi-darkness.

Christina. My heart stopped when I noticed the blood all over the lower half of her jacket and realized that she was the one bleeding heavily all over the floor.

“I will stop,” the man lifting her said blandly, “when you answer my question. Where are they, Christina Valentine? Tell me, or this will continue.”

“AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH! FUUU— HAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!”

I took a step closer to the two and brought my rifle up.

“That’s enough,” I cut in, my voice hardening and my throat tightening a little. “Let her go.”

The man’s head swiveled to face me. I tried my hardest not to look at Christina, who was just barely moving now. Her arms had fallen to her sides.

“You let her go right now,” I told him, squeezing the grip of my rifle so tightly that I thought it would come right off the gun. “You want answers, I’ve got them right here.”

He did not move. Christina twitched. Barely.

“Who are you?” the man answered with a different question. “We have met twice before. You are… rather difficult to kill.”

I narrowed my eyes at him, then finally placed his olive uniform and what details I could make of his face.

Him. The bastard who blindsided me at the Peter Lougheed Centre. The one who ambushed us at the rec centre.

“Let Christina go right now,” I repeated the command, ignoring his question.

“Where are the detainees?”

My eyes flickered to Christina, who wasn’t looking any better by the second, then returned to the Northstar mercenary with the unnaturally pale skin.

I didn’t know where the civilians Christina rescued were hiding out exactly, but right now, they weren’t the priority.

“Half are in the warehouse in the back of the store,” I replied, fighting the growing urge to advance on him and physically force him to put her down. “The other half are on their way here.”

Christina spluttered out blood, saying something I found too incoherent to decipher.

“Now let her go,” I said again. Part of me wanted to just shoot him to force him to release Christina, but another part of me feared he would somehow read my body language and crush her windpipe in his hand as retaliation for merely looking like I was about to pull the trigger.

After two long seconds, he released Christina, who hit the floor with a dull thump.

“Understood. Unfortunately, I am unable to secure the detainees with a hostile force on site,” he said in that same, robotic tone.

I waited another moment, both of us staring at each other in dead silence. After a while, my eyes darted to Christina’s unmoving form lying on the floor. I was growing more and more worried that she’d breathed her last just now—

In my peripheral vision, the mercenary appeared to twitch. Before I could respond to his sudden movement, a thundering crack filled the store interior and a flash erupted in front of me. At practically the same time, I felt something whiff past my leg, nearly grazing my thigh.

Shit.

I fired a burst in the man’s direction, but he’d already vanished into the aisle nearest him. I rushed his last known position and took cover behind the end of the shelf before the aisle he had gone down, listening for noises before peering carefully around the corner.

The aisle was clear. The store was quiet again. This guy was a ghost.

I crossed the aisle quickly to get to the end of the next shelf, where Christina was laying on her side.

I put down my rifle and gingerly flipped her onto her back and lifted her upper body against my forearm.

In the semi-darkness, I caught her eyes, still open but not focused on mine. They lolled from side to side as if she was searching for me but couldn’t see me right in front of her.

“Knight,” she whispered, her voice so faint that I almost missed her words. “is that… you?”

“Hold on,” I told her curtly, trying not to dwell on her grievous injuries. “I’m right here.”

“I’m… s-sorry…”

“Don’t talk. Save your strength. Hey! Hey, eyes open, Angel! Eyes open, and don’t stop looking at me. Stay awake.”

“I… don’t know… if I—”

“Well, you’re gonna!” I damn near shouted at her sharply. “I told you to stay alive! If you give up the ghost here, I’m going to be pissed.”

I hauled her as carefully as I could past the cash registers, then sat her up against the wall with the store windows, facing inward toward the aisles.

I hurriedly removed my ballistic vest, then shrugged off my windbreaker and wriggled out of my sweater. I wrapped my fleece sweater tightly around her slender waist and tied it securely in place. Then I draped my jacket over her torso.

“Keep pressure on your stomach, Christina.”

“Knight… you have to… know…”

“No, no, I don’t. Not right now. I don’t want to hear it! You’re gonna tell me later. If the sweater soaks through, you press my jacket right over it, got it? Press it. Tight.”

“…got it.”

I gently but firmly grabbed her jaw and chin between my thumb and forefingers, facing her to look straight at me.

“You stay awake,” I said, keeping my voice hard and rough; I was afraid of what would happen to it if I didn’t force it to sound that way. “Stay with me, Zero-Nine-Eight. You hear me? You’re not to die here. That’s an order.”

Her head bobbed up and down feebly. “Yes… Af….Affirmative…”

“I’ll be back for you. Just wait here. Nod if you understand me.”

She nodded several times, even if she seemed halfway unconscious.

I squeezed her hand briefly, then stood up and retrieved my G36C from the floor where I left it. I took cover at the end of a shelf that boasted a selection of different brands of beef jerky in packets. I placed my fingertip lightly on the trigger of my rifle.

I lowered the infrared goggles mounted to my watch cap over my eyes, dousing the store in varying shades of green. I strained my ears to listen again.

Nothing, I couldn’t hear anything on the other side of the grocery store.

I decided to head to the last aisle, where the frozen foods and dairy sections were. I hurried over five aisles and went down the last one, moving quickly but still maintaining relative quiet. It was hard to make zero sound, given the store was empty and there was barely any ambient noise. It was even harder to believe that I couldn’t hear anything from that merc. If he was moving silently in this kind of environment, he was probably just as versed in stealth and ambushes as my mentor.

I reached the back of the last shelf, where I stopped to listen a third time for noises. At first, there wasn’t any, but after tempering my breathing a bit more, my eyes picked up something: faint, almost imperceptible, soft thumps. Military-grade footwear tended to be heavy and sturdy – meaning most men wearing them wouldn’t be able to move in absolute silence. In fact, no one could. If someone was moving seemingly silently, it was because—

—they’re moving more quietly than the surroundings’ ambient noises. Could be the rumble of a truck, or the hum of a generator. No one’s absolutely silent, kid. Best you can do is be quiet. There’s a difference between quiet, and silent.

Pay attention. Use your ears. Everything that moves makes noise.

I listened a bit longer. Judging from the gradually weakening, soft thuds, I gauged the source to be maybe four or five aisles away at most, moving toward the cashier area I had just come from.

So, he was trying to loop around to get behind me.

I rounded the corner as quietly as I could and practically tiptoed four aisles along the back wall of the store before taking cover at the back end of the international foods shelf. Slowly, I took a peek around the corner and down the aisle.

I had just enough time to make out part of a head and a couple of arms silhouetted against the light coming in through the store’s front windows before a muzzle flash sparked in the figure’s hands. I ducked back behind cover, but I wasn’t quick enough. Sharp, searing pain exploded in my left arm above my elbow as I gave an involuntary grunt and a hiss.

I placed a hand over the upper sleeve of my shirt, my hand coming away bloody.

Damn it. He could afford to stall for time, but I couldn’t. What if US Army or Northstar reinforcements were on the way right now? And Christina… She needed medical attention ASAP.

I didn’t have time for this cat-and-mouse routine.

I detached a flash grenade from my belt, pulled the safety pin, and blindly threw it down the aisle on the other side of me. I waited for the flash and the bang, then burst from cover and rushed the same aisle, keeping my rifle up and steady.

When I got to the end of the aisle and near the cash registers again, a shadow darted out from the next aisle to my right. I swung the rifle in that direction, but before I could pull the trigger, the Northstar merc grabbed the barrel of the gun and ripped the weapon out of my hands. The G36C flew sideways and landed between two nearby cash registers, out of my reach.

Something glimmered in the soft, early morning gloom being cast through the store windows as the enemy appeared to throw a curving punch at me. I backed up a couple of steps, feeling a slight sting on my cheek as the opponent’s knife sliced mostly at air.

He kept advancing, performing a relentless variety of horizontal swipes and quick jabs aimed at me. I couldn’t do anything but retreat and dodge every time the knife came at me.

I eventually tried to draw and aim my Walther Creed from my left thigh, but the merc put a sudden burst in his lunge, leaped a bit into the air, and struck at me with a perfectly executed spin kick. His boot hit my gun hand as I was raising my pistol, such that the kick knocked my pistol out of my hand, too. In addition to that, though the kick didn’t impact my torso, the force behind it was enough to make me lose my footing and stumbled backward.

I landed on my ass on the cold floor, mild pain exploding up my tailbone. I didn’t have time to process my fall, though, because the merc was still coming. He stabbed down at me, narrowly missing my head as I crab-walked away.

I scrambled to my feet and tried to turn and run to put some distance between me and him, but as I straightened up, I felt that knife swipe me across the small of my back, slicing through my shirt and sending another stinging pain shooting through me.

I fortunately managed to face the enemy again and draw my own tactical knife in my right hand, gripping it icepick-style. This time, the mercenary took a second too long to pursue me, perhaps starting to get winded from relentlessly coming after me.

Seizing the opening made from either his fatigue or his complacency, I launched a counterattack. I swung my own blade at his face, which he dodged by stepping back. I swung again in a backhand motion. Missed him as he backstepped a second time.

I oriented my knife parallel to the floor and lunged at him with my first like I was punching him, meaning to catch his face with the blade jutting out the bottom of my fist, but he raised his own knife and stopped my blade with his own, our weapons giving synchronized clashing noises. Steel bit angrily into steel, vying for victory over the other.

I couldn’t hide my surprise. Neither of our blades was longer than six, seven inches at most, but he managed to block mine with his. No ordinary soldier would think to use a knife like it was some kind of sword.

No ordinary man had that kind of dexterity or precision.

“What the—” I muttered, pushing back against his weapon with my own.

His face remained blank and expressionless as if he wasn’t even concerned about all this.

“As I mentioned before, you are rather difficult to kill,” he said as if this were nothing but casual coffee shop talk. “I do not understand. Most of my targets would have fallen by now.”

Our respective blades squealed in protest as they continued to clash shakily against each other.

I gritted and bared my teeth, focusing on keeping him locked at a standstill with me until I could formulate a plan. I’d never had a pseudo-sword fight with knives before. It was just too ridiculous, as knives weren’t meant for this kind of use. And I wasn’t sure if I could disengage effectively without him stabbing me during the awkward maneuver.

“Who are you?” the merc asked again. If we weren’t brandishing pointed things at each other in a dark, gloomy, cold setting, it would be a bit reasonable to think we were just acquaintances who met by chance.

I finally answered him back. The physical and mental toll of keeping up with this guy had loosened my mouth a little.

“Doesn’t matter. You won’t live long enough to remember me.”

He ignored that. “I ask you, do you know a Doctor Frederic Hayden?”

I warily ran the name through my memory, being careful to keep my eyes on him and his knife in case this was a ploy to gut me while I was distracted.

I wasn’t exactly the most informed when it came to famous doctors in general. Besides, ‘Doctor’ was too broad a title. There were doctors in all kinds of scientific fields.

“Never heard of him,” I answered, still keeping his knife at bay with my own.

Something passed in the guy’s face. His eyes narrowed very slightly, and a soft but deliberate breath passed out his nose. It was perhaps the only semblance of emotion I could detect in him.

Without warning, he shoved at my blade with his, fatally knocking my arm aside. I tried to recover from his push but was too slow to fully stop the blade from coming in low.

I grabbed his wrist at the last moment with my free hand, but damage had already been done: his knife had put another hole in my stomach. Because I had forfeited my vest, I had zero protection against the stab. The knife had definitely entered my body, toward my left side, but my wrist grab had kept the blade from plunging in too far. Still, all-too-familiar pain seemed to bloom from my newest wound. The ticklish sensation of something dripping from it revisited my senses.

I glanced down at the knife’s tip buried in my abdomen, then looked up just in time for the Northstar mercenary to slam his fist against my sternum. Yet more pain spread across my chest as I went flying backward several feet until my back smashed against a glass door to some formerly refrigerated products. I heard the glass behind me crack from the impact as I let out a stunned gasp, fighting to recapture my breath.

I heaved repeatedly, trying my best to recover as quickly as possible from the attack. My lungs begged for more air than I could provide. My head was throbbing painfully. My left arm hurt like hell from the shot I took just moments ago. My stomach was bleeding again, and in a minute or two I would start making a mess on the floor, too…

Light footsteps pattered closer to me. I looked up to see the Northstar operative almost casually – if his noticeably stiff movements had a casual mode – toward me, his knife still in hand.

“In any case, my orders are clear.” His almost inhuman, almost toneless voice came to me rather distantly, like I was recovering from some kind of anesthetic. “I must find the detainees. You and Christina Valentine seek to keep them away from me. I cannot allow either of you to survive.”

In no time at all, I sensed his presence right in front of where I sat. He grabbed me by the neck and stood me up against the glass. He drew his right hand back, pointing the tip of the blade at the base of my neck.

Was this how it would end? It wasn’t as though I was naïve enough to believe I couldn’t die, especially in this line of work. There were no guarantees, not in combat.

Countless times before now, I’d wondered what all this was for. No, rather… I knew what all this was for. I never lost sight of that. Sometimes, I just wondered if it was worth all this trouble.

Now, as a person deadlier and better than I was had me at a blade’s edge, I asked myself again:

Is this worth it? Were the last three years worth this?

They say your life is supposed to flash before your eyes right before you die. When does my montage begin? The one with all my regrets and wrong turns, with all the clichés, platitudes, and wise hindsight. The one that highlighted all the decisions I made that brought others down with and for me.

Maybe Genel was right. This was what ultimately awaited a person like me. She had tried to warn me, many times, but I didn’t listen.

Or perhaps I did, but secretly sought this? Was I looking for—

Enough of this pathetic monologue. I refuse to listen to it.

The knife stabbed in my direction—

Are you going to break another promise? Are you going to let someone else down?

Are you going to lose someone else?

No. I don’t want—

Then get off your sorry ass and wake up. Erin didn’t die for this.

She—

—trained you better than this. Pick yourself up—

—and kill him, Reaper.

Seeing the knife headed straight for my throat seemed to reignite instincts that momentarily shut down.

I was still loosely holding my knife in my right hand. I squeezed the handle in my fist, then grabbed the merc’s right wrist with my left hand before the tip of the blade could touch my nose bridge.

Kill him.

I switched my knife to a saber grip with one hand, then jabbed it at the merc’s side, penetrating his vest where it was weakest. I felt the blade pierce through the material, then skin and flesh once it was through the synthetic fibre.

The man’s face didn’t reflect pain. He merely glanced down at where I stuck him with my weapon.

Never mind that. He can pretend all he wants, but he’s bleeding.

Ah. That’s right.

Death isn’t something you fear, is it?

Of course not. What you fear is…

I yanked the blade out of his side and stabbed it upwards, lodging it in his left bicep. He gently let go of my neck, taking a step back.

That’s it. That’s it. Kill him. Kill him.

I didn’t wait for him to recover from my attack to his arm. I tore my knife out of his arm from below it, letting go of his knife arm at the same time. Instead of putting more distance between us like before, I deliberately stayed within his range.

He swung his knife in a horizontal arc, but I lowered myself to duck beneath the swing. I grabbed at his torso with my left arm, almost like how a rugby player would hold an opponent. With my right arm, I stabbed upward from a low angle, my knife punching through fabric and burying itself in the merc’s crotch area.

He made the first sound I’d heard from him that openly telegraphed his pain:

“Guh.”

It was low, quiet, almost as if I’d merely thumped him on the back, but it was there.

Again.

I pulled the blade free and drove it back in. He grunted and took a couple of steps back, trying to step away from me, but I held on to him a little longer.

Again.

I stabbed him a third time.

AGAIN!

The knife left and reentered his body a final time before he eventually managed to push me away. He cupped his free hand over his freely bleeding groin, his blood spilling vigorously onto the floor.

Giving him no reprieve, I rushed him while he was hunched over slightly, clearly concerned about the mortal wound I just inflicted to his balls.

I swiped at him, and he dodged backward. He let go of his blood crotch and attempted to refocus all his attention toward me. I swung the knife at him again, my knife catching the back of his forearm that he brought up to block my cut. He kept backpedaling, but any room he managed to give himself, I took back immediately.

I kept after him, slashing several more times. Three more times, I managed to connect my slices to his arms, even gracing his chin once.

He’s slowing down. He isn’t as agile as before.

I kept advancing on him, following the trail of blood he was painting the floor with.

Eventually, he took a chance and lunged at me with his knife. This time, however, he put all his weight into the lunge, so I was able to dodge to my left with newfound ease as his body stumbled past me.

I flipped the blade in my right hand back to assume an icepick grip.

You’re done.

I swung my arm backward. My knife pushed through skin and muscle, stopping when it was about a fourth of its length into the back of the mercenary’s neck.

The two of us stayed still for two or three seconds. The merc stayed hunched slightly with his knife arm extended before him before it fell limply to his side. That was when I tore my blade out of his neck, taking care to pull it free in a wide arc to create the largest and messiest wound possible.

Panting from fatigue, I lowered my knife to my side as well. A second later, I heard the mercenary crumple to the floor behind me.

I wiped both sides of my tactical knife on the thigh of my combat pants, then sheathed it.

Turning around, I looked down at my fallen adversary. I placed my foot beneath his shoulder and rolled him over onto his back. His eyes moved to meet mine even with the goggles I was wearing.

He slowly, shakily raised a hand to his ear until he was able to touch his ear.

“S-sir, this… is Heim-Heimdall… I cannot…” he murmured feebly, blood pooling outwards beneath his head.

I kicked his arm to the side and stomped down on it. The merc did not resist; he certainly couldn’t at this point. I plucked the earpiece out of his ear and pressed the device against my ear that didn’t already have the C.O.S. earpiece in it.

A voice was already speaking out of the merc’s earpiece, sounding impatient, frustrated, and petulant.

“—going on? Respond! I repeat, Heimdall, this is Hornet! Are the civilians secure? Is Valentine dead? Answer!”

The sound of that callsign made something in my stomach tighten. I opened my mouth to answer.

“Heimdall can’t talk right now. He’s dead.”

“What?! How could— Who is this? Identify yourself!”

“Call me ‘Knight’. And of course, I know who you are, Hornet. Or should I call you Theo Rhodes?”

There was a definite, stunned pause from Hornet that sent a visceral wave of satisfaction coursing through me before he stammered back:

“Who the hell are you? H-How did you get—”

“Doesn’t matter how I know that. Your friend’s done. I’ll leave his corpse where it is so you can pick it up if you like. Regardless, I’ll be seeing you soon.”

“What— You’re—”

I dropped the earpiece to the floor, crushed it beneath my boot, and met the dying man’s eyes.

“Who…are…” he whispered, twitching on the floor.

I located the Walther I had dropped lying next to a shelf of pain medications, went back to the merc, and shot him on the forehead. Blood poured out from the newest wound, mixing with the blood that was already spreading underneath and around him.

I watched this man named ‘Heimdall’ for a few seconds as if I was concerned he might get back up.

Hmph. Don’t be absurd. Of course he’s dead. What, you want to drill another couple rounds into each eye for good measure? Go right ahead.

Eventually satisfied that he was indeed no longer breathing, I finally holstered my gun.

I hurried over to where I left Christina. When I found her, her sitting posture had slumped slightly, and her head had lolled sideways toward her left shoulder. Her eyes were closed.

I knelt in front of her and cradled her cheeks in my hands.

“Christina?” I whispered, fear settling over my heart again. Was I too late? Did I take too long? Was she—

“Nghhh,” she groaned faintly, her eyelids fluttering open a little. “Knight…?”

“I told you to stay awake,” I said, suppressing the immense relief blooming in my chest.

“I am… awake…”

My earpiece crackled. “Grim Reaper, come in. King here.”

I tapped on it. “Yeah, go ahead.”

“Reid and I are outside with the trucks now. Got eyes on the crash site.”

“Copy. Could I get you to help Archer and Goliath onboard first?”

“Roger. What about your XO? And the hostages?”

I patted Christina gently on the shoulder. “Where did you hide the civilians?”

She shakily tried to sit up straight, wincing as she did so. “Freezers… back of the store.”

“King, they’re in the freezers at the back of the store. Just ID yourselves and get them aboard quickly. We gotta get out of here fast. Reinforcements could be inbound, and Angel’s wounded. She needs to get to the med suite ASAP.”

“Gotcha, Reaper.”

I carefully picked up Christina in my arms, careful not to shake her needlessly. Perhaps it was my imagination, but in her current state, she felt lighter than the last time I carried her on my back.

“Knight,” my passenger mumbled.

“What?”

“I’m s-sorry.”

“Don’t talk. There’ll be time for that later.”

She seemed to reluctantly relent, her eyes closing and finally quieting down.

I hefted her outside, where two transport trucks were parked by the wreckage of the Black Hawk, and where both Genel and Josh were being supported onto the back of one of the vehicles by King and Reid, respectively.

I looked up at the still velvet, dark sky. In less than an hour, the sun would rise. I’d seen enough new days breaking before, but for some reason, this one felt different from the others. Like new.

Glancing down at Christina, I sighed a little.

This was hardly over. Even if Northstar turned back with their tails between their legs here, there were other problems in the city still. The US Army was here to stay unless we root them out ourselves.

But…

I squeezed the shoulder of the woman I was carrying.

For now, I had something more personal to take care of.