As they climbed the next hill, they heard a sharp scream and raced up a ridge to investigate. Rose was sitting against a mound, white as a sheet, vomit and blood covering her t-shirt. Her leg was grotesquely inflated and bent at an odd angle.

Thandi stood over her, looking deeply shaken. “Thank God!” she said as Kayla and Christie ran up. “I’m losing my mind! She won’t let me help.”

“Isn’t she healing?” Kayla asked. “What happened?”

“She came down on a big rock,” Thandi explained. “Completely shattered her leg. I don’t know if this is beyond the nanite’s capacity to heal, but it isn’t getting better.”

“It’s feeling okay,” gasped Rose faintly.

Thandi cradled her head in her hands. “Rose, you crazy… She won’t let me carry her. Says she can walk by herself. Oh Lord, she’s going to kill herself like this.”

“I know where my limits are, Thandi, and I have a little way to go yet,” said Rose, grimacing as she forced out each word.

Kayla looked down at the wretched young woman. Rose had a lot more than a broken leg to get past before she was going anywhere.

“There is a fine line between hard-ass and dumb-ass, Rose, and it looks to me like you just jumped across it,” she said.

“You girls carry on,” Rose said. “I’ll catch up—No!” she yelled as Thandi reached down to try to pick her up.

Kayla sat down next to her old rival. “What’s going on?”

Rose scowled. “I’m fine. I can do this. The point—”

“The point is,” Kayla said flatly, “Rose Djallen is worth nothing if she isn’t out in front taking the universe’s first prize. Billionaire heiress, dancer, elite soldier? Right?”

Rose shook her head. “Just go.”

Kayla shrugged. “Nope. We’re going to wait out here with you until you figure it out or we all die.”

Rose didn’t respond.

“As a potential plan B,” Thandi began, cautiously, “we could knock her unconscious and carry—what?” She stopped as the others scowled at her. “Oh, okay. Dying of thirst over several days is the plan.”

“When I arrived in Rackeye,” Kayla said, “I had heard all the stories about Helvets, and I was convinced I would never meet a girl I could respect.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Rose replied.

“Yeah, I was wrong,” Kayla said. “I met you. At first, I thought you were the most awesome person in the galaxy. Then you betrayed me.”

Rose looked down. “I’m sorry. I know it shouldn’t have happened like that, but…”

“What? Can’t risk your reputation? Can’t upset the wrong people?”

“Do you have any idea what it’s like? What those people can do to you? To your life and your future? You act like society should be so easy.”

Kayla nodded. “Well, now it is that easy because you don’t exist in that world anymore. You are a Valkyrie. We are your life now and you need to figure that out—but no rush. We’ll wait, won’t we, girls?”

“It would be nice to stop and enjoy the scenery,” Christie said as she sat cross-legged.

Thandi gave Kayla a look of disbelief, but also dropped onto the grass.

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Rose looked down at her leg and her stained t-shirt. She seemed to sag under the weight of the decision. “What happened to pushing your limits every day?” she asked.

Kayla laughed. “I don’t think that applies when one of your limbs looks like a balloon animal. This isn’t about toughness, is it? This is about your weaknesses in Maneuver Phase.”

Rose said nothing.

“You know,” Kayla continued, “I think you’ve been on top of the world so long you’ve forgotten what starting from the bottom looks like. Screwing up, falling flat on your face, looking like a dumbass.”

Christie nodded. “Mark her words Rose, she is the expert.”

“Thanks, Chris,” Kayla said. “But that’s how it happens when you start down a path you’ve never prepared for. You were bottom of the class for the first time in your life, and that sucks. But the cadre passed you through, and all you have to do is keep plugging away at it. You know how to do that, but you’re afraid of anyone seeing you as less than perfect.”

“By the way,” Thandi said. “The fact that you even tried to keep going with that leg is what’s impressing me. The first time you fell was enough, though. That’s your badass checkmark for today, and the next month, probably.”

Rose stared into space while her mangled leg occasionally twitched. She wiped away tears. “I don’t know why anyone thinks I’m worth anything without… the other things. The money and fame and whatever. In school, I thought you wanted what everyone else did—to get close to my family. Then after we fought, I thought you were jealous that you couldn’t. You said you respected me, but… I don’t even know what that means.”

“It means you followed me up on the school roof, even though it terrified you,” Kayla said. “That’s all I needed to know. And you’ve earned your place in this insane organization, same as the rest of us. Hell, even as the squad leader, you were pushing to succeed. You were kind of pig-headed, but you weren’t giving up or half-assing it.”

Rose was silent for a while and refused to make eye contact. Kayla couldn’t imagine that a lifetime of emotional disfunction would be easy to get past. She wanted to help, but had no idea how.

Eventually, Rose spoke again. “Leading people was terrifying and humiliating. I don’t understand how you found it so easy.”

Kayla snorted. “Well, I don’t mind being humiliated. But it sure wasn’t easy.”

Christie put her arm around Rose’s shoulder. “We’re all a little screwed up. It’s going to take you a long time to figure it out.”

“Yeah,” Kayla laughed. “I mean, I think my life is meaningless unless I do stupidly dangerous things to help people. I probably need to work on that.”

Rose sniffed and managed a smile. “Sounds like something a colonist would think.”

“You might not have it figured out yet,” Kayla said. “But I know you’re a good person, and if anyone tells you you’re not—I’ll beat the shit out of them.”

“Unless they’re a moderately capable boxer,” Thandi cautioned.

Even Rose laughed as she wiped away tears. Then she grabbed Kayla’s arm and held it tightly.

“I’m sorry I was so mean to you,” she said. “I was a coward.”

Kayla nodded. “Apology accepted.”

A new warmth flooded her heart. While the soft breeze whipped the grass around them, as insects chirped happily in the sun, the world seemed to stand still. For the first time, Kayla thought she knew what serenity meant.

The girls sat in silence for a while, each alone in their thoughts.

“Please, can you help me?” Rose asked softly, and without a word, Thandi and Kayla stood and hoisted her up on their shoulders.

“Let me hop for a bit,” Rose said. “Just because… I kind of want to see if I can.”

“You are a real headcase,” said Thandi.

“We can rotate so we get back in good time,” Christie suggested.

They began to move off, Rose hopping awkwardly while the others supported her.

“Kayla?” Rose said.

“Yeah, babe?”

“If you drop me, I’m actually going to kill you.”

Kayla laughed. “I won’t drop you.”

“You know how everyone gets a call-sign?” Thandi said. “Rose is going to be ‘Bunny’.”

By the time they got back to Tent City thirty-six exhausting hours later, they were carrying Rose’s unconscious body over their shoulders. As the girls got close to the camp, cadre members caught sight of them and raced over with medical kits. A woman tried to take the weight from Kayla, but she abruptly pushed her aside. No-one was carrying her friend for her.

They took Rose into the medical tent and laid her on a bed. After the cadre’s medics provided what treatment they could, a dropship arrived to take her to a hospital in Tyr.

“She’ll be fine,” one of the medics said, as they watched the craft disappear into the sky. “Couple of months and she’ll be back on her feet.”

“A couple of months after an injury like that?” Thandi said in disbelief.

“The Nanites can fix superficial wounds like cuts and small fractures very quickly,” the medic said. “A severe skeletal break takes longer, and requires medical intervention, but it will still heal fast.”

“Looks like being super has its limits,” Christie remarked.

Thandi, Christie and Kayla, along with the rest of the Rangers, were bussed to an administration building in Tyr city, where they received their orders. Thandi and Kayla were thrilled to see they were both assigned to the Mountain Ranger Battalion, while Christie’s directions did not indicate her unit.

“Just an address in the city,” she said, shrugging it off.