Cara made her way to a forward compartment on the bottom deck of the Banshee, where two other suited PJs were examining their own holo-map display of the valley. Cara went over the flight path with them again, and, once they were comfortable, they signaled to a waiting petty officer, who began opening three large hatches in the hull.

Cara gathered her team in for a last huddle.

“We must anticipate being targeted by missiles on the way in—until we pass behind the ridgeline. Keep your eyes open and be prepared to react.”

“Got it,” the two others nodded.

The women sealed and locked their helmets, then huddled in close, arms around each other.

“These things we do,” Cara said, reciting their unit’s hallowed creed, “that others may live.”

Then they broke apart, stepping up to the tubes and crawling inside to lay down on a long, body length board. As they clipped suit attachments into the contraption, a crew chief checked their equipment before sealing the tube doors behind them.

“Confirm when ready,” Cara said, as she eyed the claustrophobic compartment around her.

“Two, set,” came the response through the radio. “Three, set.”

“Banshee launch control, Valkyrie is loaded and ready to fire,” Cara finished.

Her body tensed as her heartbeat accelerated to a hum.

“Valkyrie standby,” said the bridge controller’s voice. “Attitude is adjusted to your flight path. Standby to launch in five…four…three…two…one… Launch!”

A giant’s fist crushed Cara’s body with twenty times the strength of gravity—the maximum any of the nanite enhanced soldiers could endure. The blackness of the launch tube vanished, replaced with the brilliant blue green of Caldera looming below them, and slowly growing larger.

For a moment, Cara was lost in the beauty of the spectacle; the precious globe hanging against the black void beyond. Edging around the planet’s horizon, the warm glow of the retreating terminator framed the landscape in gold. Far below her, deep blue bodies of water glinted in the sunlight, and as they descended further, the vast pattern of wrinkles that made up Caldera’s mountains passed at a terrifying speed.

Cara’s Heads-Up Display showed her that both teammates were hundreds of yards away, following her in a loose formation. The viewscreen automatically brought up the track of their flight path, descending in a slope down to the distant cloud tops.

The glide-wing she was firmly strapped onto was a maneuverable heat shield, and as they fell into the upper atmosphere, she felt it begin to vibrate, gently at first, then more and more violently.

There was no human input to the wing’s flight control, so Cara had to trust the suit’s onboard computer to maintain her stability and course. She watched through her helmet visor as the air inches in front of her face began to glow streaky green; the ablative material on the heat shield burning away with the intense friction of atmospheric deceleration. The glow turned red, then a white as brilliant as the sun, and Cara felt the searing heat even through the protective layers of her suit.

Not for the first time, she hoped the women in the engineering department responsible for the glide-wing had been having a good day when they assembled it. Any fault or glitch in the control surfaces would send it tumbling out of control, instantly incinerating her alive.

The three women of Valkyrie—one of many elite teams of the Pararescue unit—burned like meteors across Caldera’s sky, bringing the only assistance that could be sent to the desperate survivors of the crashed dropship.

Rose flinched as a bone spike shrieked through the air by her head, struck the top of a rock and span away. Taking a knee to steady her aim, she sighted the last, distant drone, and fired into its chest. The monstrous thing dropped to the ground, and her weapon bolt locked back.

Rose swapped in her last magazine. Things had gone quiet, but that didn’t mean she could relax.

The cannons of the Banshee had kept the drones back so far, but the vessel had to periodically pass below the horizon, following its orbit around the planet.

Rose took advantage of the lull following the latest bombardment and went back to check on the dropship’s passengers. They appeared to be intact, and Christie was beginning to come to. She groaned and squirmed in her harness.

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“Christie? Can you hear me?” Rose called to the bloodstained, broken body.

“Uhhh- why is it dark?” a groggy voice replied.

“Can you look at me?” Rose tried again, trying to gauge her friend’s conscious state by offering a simple command.

In response Christie looked up, and her eyes focused in recognition.

“Rose? Why are you outside?”

She was obviously still confused. “Wait there, I’ll unclip you,” Rose said.

She was about to climb inside when she heard another series of howls. These were different than the drone calls—higher pitched and animal. A new group of creatures must have arrived in the valley, made bolder from the extended cessation of fire. From the sound’s proximity, they were obviously advancing on the dropship.

Rose put Christie out of her mind, went back to her firing position, and waited.

She heard the roar of jet engines, then the sensation of being punched hard in the head as a blast detonated almost right next to her. Overhead, she caught sight of the black Shrike fighter swinging away over the top of a ridgeline, a sparkling cloud of chaff in its wake as a missile trail chased after it.

The proximity of the fighter’s bombs could only mean that the enemy had gotten much closer, and once the dust and smoke cleared, Rose saw movement between the closer rocks. Fast movement. Whatever the new creatures were, they would certainly arrive before the Banshee could fire again.

She dove back into the dropship and unclipped Christie’s harness—the least she could do was offer her friend a chance. Christie was staring at her uncomprehendingly, so Rose unholstered her friend’s sidearm and placed it in her hand.

“Please wake up Chris!” Rose pleaded.

But Christie dropped back against her seat, lapsing into unconsciousness.

An animal howled nearby. Rose climbed out of the dropship and returned to her firing position. Two four-legged beasts were loping towards the crash site. They were smaller than the drones, but each was as large as a big wolf, and as soon as they saw her, they broke into a sprint. Rose focused on one and fired round after round into its body. It shrugged off the bullets as though they were insects, but she kept shooting until its armor shattered, and it collapsed into the dirt.

Then the other beast was on her.

It leaped from several yards away, reaching out razor-sharp claws to try to rip her flesh. Rose rolled quickly, jumping back to her feet, weapon aimed.

She fired again until her carbine’s trigger clicked, but it wasn’t enough—the monster was still up, circling back towards her. It charged and leaped, and this time she was too slow—a claw tore across her arm, and she was caught.

The heavy beast grabbed her leg in its jaws and threw her against a far rock. Then it charged again, and the was air knocked out of her as a horn impaled her chest. Rose collapsed to the ground, her mind fading as though lost in a drunken haze. Her vision blurred, and she was overcome with a deep sensation of cold.

The creature wandered away, losing interest in her, and approaching the wreckage of the dropship. Something had drawn its attention. It roared again, slamming into the side before standing up on its hind legs and searching for a way to get in.

Rose felt like she wanted to sleep, but the sight of the creature closing in on her helpless friends lit a flash of rage in her mind. Her body flooded with adrenaline, and she jumped up, driving through the cold, pain, and tiredness that wanted to drag her down. From her belt she drew the combat knife—all she had left. Driven by instinct, she leaped onto the creature’s back and stabbed as hard as she could into its neck as she tried to hack through the weak gaps in the Chitin plating.

The creature shrieked and rolled, and she was trapped beneath it. She didn’t care—all she knew was rage and the thrill of watching her knife draw blood. Her arm had already gone numb, while the blade flashed back and forth of its own accord.

The creature scrambled to pull away. It turned, stumbled drunkenly, splashing black blood to mix with the red that covered the dusty ground. Rose got onto her knees, though she could barely keep her balance as her head swam.

The creature turned again to face her and lowered its head to charge. Rose tensed her grip on the knife, though she knew she would surely die.

Gunshots rang out over her head, and the monster collapsed lifelessly into the dirt. Rose looked up and saw Christie leaning out from the dropship, smoking weapon in her hand. When she looked over at Rose, her face went white.

Rose felt the violent energy drain out of her in seconds, and now she was tired—so terribly tired. Blood was streaming out of a ragged hole in her chest, and didn’t seem to be slowing.

“Christie,” she said softly. “You’re awake.”

Tendrils of darkness reached out to her and dragged the world away, leaving nothing but blackness.

Cara and the two other flyers of Valkyrie entered the lower atmosphere of Caldera. Once their speed had dropped sufficiently, the flight computer beeped an alarm and detached the re-entry wing, which blew into pieces around her.

She began to slow into free fall, but now her limbs were free, and she extended them, opening up the vanes of her specially designed wing suit. Toughened fabric chambers filled with the pressurized airflow, providing the rigid wing shape that would allow her to continue gliding down through the thin air to the target at more than two thousand miles an hour.

As the trio flew high above the sparse cloud tops, Cara saw the meteors of the Orion’s guns streaking past above them. Their glide had taken them in a steep curve so they could pass behind the ridgeline Urtiga’s Tiger team had occupied just hours earlier. Looking ahead, Cara watched in awe as the kinetic piles struck the valley below, throwing fountains of debris higher than the peaks themselves.

She checked her glide path, making sure to compensate for the air turbulence trying to push her off course. With the lower speed and greater control the wingsuits gave, the three PJs drew into a closer, tighter formation.

All three women kept their eyes sharply focused on the valley. So far, neither Elmira, nor the Rangers had been able to put a stop to the missile launches that had isolated the battlefield from aircraft. The morning sky was nearly clear, and Cara had no doubts that observant watchers would see the three black dots moving slowly overhead, and that their missile system would be sophisticated enough to track them.