Part 2: The Chimney

The rope didn’t just hold weight; it held judgment.

I jammed my boot into the first fissure of the rock face, the vibram sole slipping on a layer of centuries-old dust before finding purchase on a jagged lip of granite. My hands were already raw, the tactical gloves shredded at the knuckles from the initial scramble into the ravine, but I couldn’t feel the skin tearing anymore. The adrenaline dump had taken care of that, replacing pain with a cold, vibrating urgency that felt like high-voltage electricity humming through my nervous system.

“This is going to hurt,” I had whispered to Cain, but that was a lie. “Hurt” was a word for twisted ankles or a punch in a bar fight. What we were about to do wasn’t going to hurt—it was going to deconstruct us.

I looked up. The “chimney” wasn’t a proper climbing route. It was a geological mistake—a vertical wound in the earth where two tectonic plates had tried to strangle each other. It was maybe three feet wide at the bottom, narrowing to a claustrophobic squeeze near the top, twenty feet up. Under normal circumstances, with a Chalk bag and rock shoes, it would be a fun 5.8 scramble.

But I was wearing thirty pounds of kit, a helmet that threw off my center of gravity, and I was tethered to a two-hundred-pound Navy SEAL who was actively bleeding out.

“On three,” I gritted out, though I was talking to myself. Cain was drifting in and out, his consciousness a flickering bulb in a storm.

I drove my back against the left wall and my feet against the right, creating a bridge of tension. The technique is called stemming—opposing forces keeping you suspended over the void. But usually, you don’t have a dead weight swinging from your harness, trying to peel you off the wall like a scab.

I hauled.

The friction was a physical scream.

The high-tensile cord bit into my waist, bypassing the padding of my harness and digging straight into my hip bones. It felt like a serrated knife sawing through the nerves. I grunted, a guttural, animal sound that I didn’t recognize as my own voice. Behind me, below me, Cain’s body dragged upward. His tactical vest scraped against the unforgiving stone—skrrrt, thunk, skrrrt. Every inch was a battle. Every foot gained was a negotiation with physics that I was losing.

My quads began to tremble immediately. It wasn’t the good kind of shake you get at the gym; it was the violent, uncontrollable spasm of muscle fibers rapidly depleting their glycogen stores. Lactic acid flooded my legs, turning my blood into hot syrup.

Don’t look down. Don’t look down.

I looked down.

The ravine floor was a chaotic tapestry of dust and shadow. And there, rounding the corner of the canyon wall, was the movement I had been dreading.

The first scout.

He moved with the fluid, predatory grace of a man who knows the terrain. He wasn’t wearing a uniform—just a loose shalwar kameez that blended with the tan rocks. But the weapon in his hands was unmistakable.

I saw the glint of an AK-74 barrel in the harsh, midday sun.

The sun caught the blued steel, a flash of light that felt like a signal flare announcing my death. He wasn’t looking up yet. He was looking at the ground. He was tracking the drag marks we had left in the silt. He was looking at the blood.

They were sniffing the air, looking for the blood trail. It was primal. It was a hunt. I froze, my muscles locked in an isometric contraction that made my vision blur. If I moved, a rock might fall. If I breathed too loud, the acoustics of the chimney might amplify it. I was a spider trying to hide in the center of a web while the broom was coming down.

The scout paused. He said something in Pashto—sharp, guttural commands that echoed off the canyon walls. I couldn’t translate the words, but I knew the tone. It was the tone of a man who has found what he’s looking for.

I looked back at Cain. He was dangling limply, his head lolling against his chest. A string of dark, viscous fluid connected his chin to his chest rig. He looked like a marionette whose strings had been cut.

He’s dead, a voice in my head whispered. It sounded like my old drill instructor. You’re hauling a corpse, Jensen. Cut the line. Save the asset that still functions. That’s you.

“Shut up,” I mouthed.

I thought of Caleb. I forced the image into my mind—not the Caleb I remembered laughing at a barbecue in San Diego, beer in hand, but the Caleb I saw in the digital report. The “Unrecoverable.” The empty casket. The flag folded into a triangle so tight it felt like a weapon. I had promised myself then, standing in the rain at Arlington, that I would never be the reason a mother had to bury an empty box.

I drove my boots harder into the rock. The rubber shaved off, leaving black streaks on the granite.

Heave.

I gained six inches.

Heave.

Another six.

The pain in my back was blinding now. It felt like my spine was being compressed into a diamond. The rope was a living thing, a constrictor snake trying to crush my internal organs. I couldn’t take a full breath; the weight of the Commander pulled the harness so tight against my diaphragm that I was sipping air in shallow, panicked gasps.

Below, a second figure joined the scout. They were pointing at the ground where Cain and I had been lying moments ago. One of them knelt, touching the wet earth. He held his fingers up, showing the other the fresh blood.

They looked up.

It happened in slow motion. I saw the scout’s eyes widen—white circles in a dust-caked face. He shouted. The AK-74 started to rise.

“Move, Lena! Move!” my brain screamed.

I abandoned stealth. I abandoned technique. I clawed at the rock face with frantic, desperate strength. My fingernails tore, leaving bloody streaks on the grey stone. I wasn’t climbing anymore; I was wrestling the mountain.

Crack-thwack!

A bullet slapped the rock face three feet below my left boot, sending a spray of razor-sharp stone chips into my calf. The sound of the gunshot in the confined space of the chimney was deafening—a physical blow to the eardrums.

Crack-crack-crack!

More rounds impacted the wall, walking their way up toward us. They were blindly firing into the shadow, trying to flush us out.

I couldn’t engage. My hands were the only things keeping Cain and me from falling twenty feet to our deaths. I had to trust the angle. I had to trust that the chimney’s depth would shadow us from the shooters below.

“Hold on, Ryan,” I grunted, sweat stinging my eyes, blinding me. “Almost there. Almost there.”

My arms were screaming. My triceps were vibrating so hard I thought the bone would snap. I was ten feet up. Twelve feet. Fifteen.

The ledge was close. It was a narrow shelf of rock, barely enough for two people, but it was the high ground. It was salvation.

I reached up, my hand slapping blindly against the stone until my fingers curled over the lip of the ledge. The rock was hot, baked by the Afghan sun, but it felt like the hand of God.

I pulled.

This was the hardest part. The transition. I had to pull my own weight, plus the drag weight of Cain, up and over the lip. It’s a move that requires a pull-up followed by a mantle, all while fifty pounds of gear tries to drag you backward.

I groaned, a low, guttural sound that came from the bottom of my stomach. I engaged my lats, my shoulders, everything I had. My vision started to tunnel. Black spots danced at the edges of my sight. I was hypoxic. I was redlining.

Just one more. Just one more rep.

I got my elbows onto the ledge. I hooked a heel. I scrambled, kicking and thrashing like a drowning swimmer trying to board a boat. I rolled onto the flat stone, the air rushing back into my lungs in a painful whoosh.

But I wasn’t done. Cain was still hanging below the lip.

I scrambled to my knees, spinning around to grab the rope with both hands. I braced my feet against the edge of the rock.

“Come on, you stubborn bastard,” I yelled, my voice cracking.

I hauled. The rope dug into my palms, burning through the gloves. I could feel his weight swinging, banging against the rock face. I needed to get him up before the angle of fire from below improved.

I reached the ledge, ten feet above the ravine floor, and gave one final, bone-popping heave.

My shoulders felt like they dislocated and snapped back into place. I threw my entire body weight backward, using the momentum to jerk the rope.

Cain’s head cleared the rock.

His helmet scraped over the edge, followed by his shoulders. He was dead weight—limp, heavy, uncooperative. I grabbed his collar, my fingers twisting into the nylon of his tactical vest. My muscles were twitching in a state of near-failure—uncontrollable spasms that made my hands shake violently.

I pulled. I dragged. I rolled him onto the flat stone.

He flopped onto his back, his arms splaying out. He wasn’t moving. His chest wasn’t rising.

“Ryan?” I choked out, crawling over to him on hands and knees.

I ripped off my glove with my teeth and pressed two fingers to his carotid artery.

Nothing.

Then—a flutter. Weak. Thready. But there.

I collapsed next to him.

They lay there for a heartbeat, two broken figures silhouetted against the unforgiving blue of the sky.

For a second—just one single, precious second—there was silence. No gunfire. No shouting. Just the sound of the wind hissing through the rocks and the pounding of my own heart in my ears. I stared up at the sky. It was so blue it looked fake. It didn’t look like a sky that belonged to a war zone. It looked like a sky you’d see on a postcard from a beach in Florida.

I wanted to close my eyes. I wanted to sleep. I wanted to let the exhaustion take me. My body felt like it had been run through a rock crusher. My knees were bleeding, my hands were raw, and my back felt broken.

Just close your eyes, Lena. Just for a minute.

But war doesn’t give you minutes. It barely gives you seconds.

The air around us changed. It wasn’t a sound at first; it was a pressure change. A displacement of air caused by something large and violent moving very fast.

Then, the heavy machine gun started to bark from across the ridge.

DOOF-DOOF-DOOF-DOOF!

It wasn’t the light crack of the AKs from below. This was a PKM—a Russian-made belt-fed nightmare that chewed through cover like it was paper.

The stone beneath Lena’s cheek disintegrated into a spray of grey powder.

I didn’t think. I rolled.

“Contact right!” I screamed, though there was no one to hear me but a semi-conscious man.

I threw myself on top of Cain again, pressing us both as flat as possible against the rock. The rounds were impacting inches from our heads, sending razor-sharp fragments of granite flying into our faces. The sound was overwhelming—a continuous, rhythmic thunder that rattled my teeth.

We weren’t safe. We had climbed out of the frying pan and straight into the fire. The ledge wasn’t a sanctuary; it was a killing floor.

I risked a glance up, peering through the dust and the spray of rock chips.

The enemy hadn’t just found us; they had boxed us in.

The fire was coming from the opposite ridge, about three hundred meters away. High ground. They had a perfect angle on our ledge. If I stood up, I was dead. If I tried to drag Cain further back, I was dead. If I stayed here, the rock would eventually erode away under the volume of fire, and we would be dead.

“Think, Valkyrie, think,” I hissed, wiping grit from my eyes.

I needed to return fire. I needed to suppress that gun, or at least make them keep their heads down long enough for us to move.

I reached for my M40. It was slung across my back, battered and covered in dust, but it was a bolt-action rifle built for precision. It was a scalpel in a world of sledgehammers.

My hands were shaking. I couldn’t stop them. The muscle fatigue from the climb was wreaking havoc on my fine motor skills. Trying to work the bolt was like trying to thread a needle while riding a rollercoaster.

I took a deep breath, holding it, trying to force my body to still.

Inhale. Exhale. Pause.

I settled the bipod on the rock, ignoring the rounds snapping overhead. I pressed my cheek to the stock. It was warm.

My eye found the glass.

The scope was dusty, but the reticle was clear. I scanned the opposite ridge. The heat haze made the air shimmer, warping the image, but I saw the muzzle flash. A rhythmic, blossoming flower of fire in the shadows of a rocky outcrop.

There.

Thirty men with a PKM and a blood feud.

They knew they had us. They weren’t rushing. They were just suppressing us, keeping us pinned while the scouts below climbed up to finish the job. It was a classic hammer and anvil maneuver. And we were the metal being beaten into shape.

I cycled the bolt. Clack-clack.

I lined up the crosshairs on the gunner. He was a blur of movement behind the weapon. I adjusted for wind—there was a stiff breeze coming up the valley. I adjusted for elevation.

“Come on,” I whispered.

I squeezed the trigger.

The rifle kicked against my bruised shoulder. Downrange, the gunner flinched, ducking behind the rocks. The stream of heavy machine-gun fire stopped for a fraction of a second.

“Miss,” I cursed.

I worked the bolt again.

But then I heard it.

In the distance, the low, rhythmic throb of rotors began to chew at the air.

It was the most beautiful sound in the world. The deep, percussive thump-thump-thump of heavy blades beating the atmosphere into submission.

The birds were coming.

The extraction team. The cavalry.

My heart leaped. We just had to hold on. We just had to survive for…

I checked my watch. The crystal was cracked.

Two minutes? Three?

It didn’t matter. The sound of the rotors wasn’t just hope; it was a timer. But as the sound grew louder, I realized the tactical nightmare we were in. The helicopters couldn’t land on this ledge. They couldn’t hover in the ravine without getting chewed up by the same PKM that was pinning us down.

Between them and the landing zone sat thirty men with a PKM.

If the birds came in now, they’d be flying into a wall of lead. The pilot would wave off. Or worse, he’d get shot down.

I looked at Cain. He was awake again. His eyes were open, staring at me with a terrifying clarity.

“They can’t… land,” he whispered, reading my mind.

“I know,” I said.

“You have to… suppress,” he wheezed.

“I know,” I repeated.

But one rifle against a fortified machine gun nest and thirty fighters? It was suicide.

I looked back through the scope. The enemy gunner was back up. He was adjusting his aim. He wasn’t firing at us anymore. He was turning the gun toward the sky. toward the sound of the incoming helicopters.

He was setting the trap.

I felt a cold resolve settle over me. The shaking in my hands stopped. The pain in my legs faded into the background. The world narrowed down to the circle of glass in front of my eye and the trigger under my finger.

This was it. This was why I hadn’t let go of the rope. This was why I hadn’t folded the flag.

Lena clicked the safety off.

Her finger found the cold curve of the trigger.

I wasn’t just a Marine anymore. I was the only thing standing between a Blackhawk full of my friends and a fiery death.

“Valkyrie,” Cain whispered, his hand catching my sleeve.

His grip was weak, barely a touch, but it stopped me.

“What?” I snapped, my eye still glued to the scope.

“Look,” he said.

There was something in his voice—not fear, not pain. Awe.

I pulled my eye away from the scope. I followed his gaze.

On the ridge opposite them, a line of silhouettes appeared.

My stomach dropped. Reinforcements. The enemy had brought more men. We were dead. It was over.

But then I squinted. The sun was behind them, turning them into black cutouts against the glare, but there was something… off. They weren’t moving like the scouts. They weren’t moving like the fighters in the valley.

They stood tall. Rigid. A perfect line.

Not the scouts. Not the enemy.

I blinked, thinking the heat stroke was finally making me hallucinate.

The horizon was beginning to burn.

It wasn’t the sun. It was something else. A low, rolling fire that seemed to be consuming the very edge of the world behind the silhouettes. And as I watched, the lead figure raised a hand.

It wasn’t a wave. It was a signal.

And for the first time since the mortar hit, I didn’t know if I was looking at salvation or the end of the world.

(End of Part 2)

Part 3: Broken Arrow

The rifle was cold, but my hands were burning.

I reached for my M40.

It’s a reflex, etched into the lizard brain of every Marine who has ever worn the Scout Sniper hog’s tooth. When the world collapses, when the geometry of survival narrows down to angles of fire and cover, you don’t reach for hope. You reach for steel.

The weapon was slung across my back, the strap digging into the raw abrasions on my neck caused by the mortar dust and the climb. I swung it around, the movement agonizingly slow in the thickened air. My deltoids, shredded from hauling Cain up the chimney, screamed in protest, a hot, tearing sensation that shot down to my fingertips. But pain was just information now. It was the dashboard light telling me the engine was overheating, and I had no choice but to keep the pedal floored.

I settled the rifle on the crumbling limestone of the ledge. The bipod legs bit into the rock. I didn’t have a sandbag. I didn’t have a spotter. I had a dying Commander bleeding out on my left and a sheer drop on my right.

“Target index,” I whispered to myself, my voice sounding foreign, like it was coming through a radio filled with static.

Through the scope, the world was magnified and distorted by the heat shimmer rising from the valley floor. The optics, usually crisp German glass, were coated in a fine layer of Afghan silt. It was like looking through a dirty window into hell.

The heavy machine gun started to bark from across the ridge again. DOOF-DOOF-DOOF-DOOF.

The sound was a rhythmic sledgehammer. It wasn’t just noise; it was pressure. Each round from the PKM snapped overhead with a supersonic crack that signaled it was passing within inches of our skulls. When they hit the rock face behind us, the stone exploded.

The stone beneath my cheek disintegrated into a spray of grey powder. Sharp flecks of granite peppered my skin, drawing tiny pinpricks of blood on my cheek. I didn’t flinch. You can’t flinch when you’re on the glass. Flinching throws the shot. Flinching gets you dead.

I focused on the enemy position. They were good. I’d give them that. They had set up a classic L-shaped ambush, using the terrain to funnel us into this kill box.

They had boxed us in.

The gunner was positioned in a rocky defilade about four hundred meters across the gap. He was dug in deep, only the black snout of the PKM visible between two boulders. He knew he had the advantage. He had volume of fire; I had a bolt-action rifle with five rounds in the internal magazine. He had thirty friends; I had a ghost.

But between them and the landing zone sat thirty men with a PKM and a blood feud.

I could see movement around the machine gun nest. The shimmer of heat waves distorted their forms, making them look like fluid shadows pouring over the rocks. They weren’t just suppressing us; they were maneuvering. I saw a team peeling off to the left, moving down the slope to cross the ravine and flank us. Another team was moving high, trying to get a plunging fire angle.

They were tightening the noose.

“Range, four hundred,” I mumbled, my brain doing the ballistics math on autopilot. “Wind, full value, left to right, maybe ten miles an hour.”

I adjusted the turret. Click-click. Two minutes of angle left.

I needed to kill the gunner. If I killed the gunner, the heavy suppression stops. If the suppression stops, the birds can come in. It was a simple equation. Life and death reduced to algebra.

I exhaled, emptying my lungs until I hit the natural respiratory pause. The crosshairs settled on the dark void where the gunner’s head should be.

My finger found the curve of the trigger.

Lena clicked the safety off. Her finger found the cold curve of the trigger.

The trigger break on an M40 is crisp, like snapping a thin glass rod. I applied pressure. Two pounds. Three pounds.

Crack.

The rifle bucked into my shoulder, the recoil a familiar punch. I worked the bolt instantly—up, back, forward, down—chambering the next round before the brass casing from the first had even hit the ground.

Through the scope, I saw the rock next to the PKM nest explode into dust.

“Miss,” I hissed. The wind down inside the ravine was swirling, unpredictable. It had pushed the round six inches right.

The PKM didn’t stop. In fact, it intensified. The gunner had seen my muzzle flash. Now he wasn’t just firing at the area; he was firing at me.

Bullets walked across the ledge, chewing up the rock in a line of angry geysers, moving closer to my head. Chink. Chink. CRACK. CRACK.

I buried my face in the dirt, shielding the rifle action with my body. Dust covered me. I felt a heavy thud against my boot—a ricochet or a direct hit on the sole, I couldn’t tell.

“Valkyrie…” Cain’s voice was barely a whisper, lost under the roar of the incoming fire.

I crawled backward, dragging the rifle, putting the bulk of the cliff wall between me and the machine gun. I checked Cain. He was pale, his skin the color of old parchment. The blood loss was catastrophic. He was shivering, signaling the onset of hypovolemic shock.

“Stay with me, Ryan,” I said, checking his tourniquets. They were tight, but he was leaking from places I couldn’t patch. “The birds are coming. You hear them?”

And then, I heard it. We both did.

In the distance, the low, rhythmic throb of rotors began to chew at the air.

It started as a vibration in the chest, a deep thrumming that resonated in the bones before it registered in the ears. Then came the distinct whump-whump-whump of heavy blades beating the thin mountain air.

“Angels,” Cain whispered, a faint smile touching his cracked lips.

I looked out toward the valley opening. Two black specks were growing larger against the amber sky. UH-60 Blackhawks. Dust-off birds. They were coming in low and fast, hugging the terrain, banking hard to avoid the radar threats that didn’t exist out here.

Hope is a dangerous thing in combat. It makes you sloppy. It makes you look at the exit instead of the enemy.

“Valkyrie to Dust-off,” I screamed into my radio, keying the mic with a dusty thumb. “LZ is hot! Repeat, LZ is hot! We are taking heavy fire from the east ridge!”

Static. The mountains were eating the signal.

“Dust-off, do not approach! You are flying into a kill zone!”

I watched, helpless, as the lead helicopter flared, its nose pitching up as it prepared to approach the ravine mouth. They couldn’t see the PKM nest from their angle. They were flying blind into the ambush.

The enemy gunner saw them, too.

The PKM stopped firing at me. The barrel swung heavily to the right. The sound changed. It wasn’t the rhythmic thump of suppression anymore; it was a long, continuous tearing sound. A dump of the entire belt.

Tracers drew green lines across the sky, reaching out like fiery fingers toward the lead Blackhawk.

I watched the rounds impact. Sparks danced off the helicopter’s fuselage. I saw the plexiglass of the cockpit shatter. The bird lurched violently to the left, the pilot fighting for control as the hydraulics likely took a hit.

“Break off!” I screamed, though I knew they couldn’t hear me.

The lead bird banked hard, smoke trailing from its engine exhaust. It abandoned the approach. The second bird followed, peeling away to avoid the cone of fire. They were bugging out. They had to. They couldn’t land in a shredder.

My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird. They were leaving.

“You’ve got four minutes before the birds have to bug out!” Hails had said.

Those four minutes were gone. The math had changed. We weren’t getting extracted. We were getting erased.

I looked at Cain. He had seen it too. The light in his eyes dimmed, not from death, but from the crushing weight of realization. We were alone.

But the war didn’t pause for our disappointment.

A sound from below snapped my head around. Not the distant machine gun. Something closer. A scrape of fabric on stone. A grunt of exertion.

The chimney.

I had forgotten about the scouts. The ones tracking the blood trail. While I was dueling the PKM, they had been climbing.

I rolled onto my back, bringing the M40 around, but the barrel was too long, the space too tight.

A hand slapped onto the ledge—a callous, dirt-encrusted hand gripping the rock. Then a head popped up.

It was the scout I had seen earlier. The one with the AK-74. He wasn’t ten feet away. He was three feet away.

Our eyes locked. Brown eyes, wide with the adrenaline of the climb. He looked young, maybe twenty. He looked surprised to see me right there.

He scrambled to bring his rifle up, trying to hoist his torso over the ledge.

I didn’t have time to work the bolt of the M40. I didn’t have time to draw my sidearm.

I lunged.

I drove the buttstock of the sniper rifle into his face. It was a vicious, desperate strike. The composite stock connected with a wet crunch of cartilage. The scout screamed, his head snapping back.

But he didn’t let go. He had a death grip on the ledge. His other hand flailed, grabbing the strap of my tactical vest.

He pulled.

I was yanked forward, my chest slamming into the rock. The breath left me in a whoosh. I was dangling half-off the ledge, staring down into the abyss of the chimney.

The scout was hanging there, suspended by one hand and his grip on my vest. He was shouting something, spitting blood at me. He reached for a knife on his belt—a curved, rusted blade.

“Get… off!” I gritted out.

I couldn’t reach my pistol. My arms were pinned by the angle and the weight of the rifle.

I kicked. I drove the toe of my boot into his shoulder, once, twice. He grunted but held on. He swung the knife, the blade flashing in the sun. It caught my forearm, slicing through the sleeve of my combat shirt and biting into the skin.

The pain was sharp and hot.

I roared—not a word, just a sound of pure rage. I dropped the M40. I didn’t need a rifle. I needed leverage.

I grabbed his wrist—the one holding the knife. I twisted, using the torque of my entire body. I felt the bones in his wrist grind. He shrieked. The knife clattered against the canyon wall and fell into the dark.

But he still had my vest. He was heavy, and he was dragging me down with him. I could feel my center of gravity shifting. I was going to fall.

Then, a shadow moved over me.

A hand reached out—weak, trembling, but undeniable.

Cain.

He had crawled to the edge. He grabbed the shoulder strap of the scout’s chest rig.

“Let… go,” Cain rasped.

And he shoved.

It wasn’t a strong shove. It was the last ounce of strength a dying man had. But it was enough to break the scout’s balance.

The scout’s eyes went wide. His grip on my vest slipped.

He fell.

He didn’t scream on the way down. He just fell, a silent, flailing shape that vanished into the shadows of the ravine. A second later, a sickening thud echoed up the chimney.

I scrambled back from the edge, gasping, clutching my bleeding arm. I looked at Cain. He was lying face down, his hand still extended over the abyss.

“Ryan!” I crawled to him, rolling him over.

He was grey. His eyes were rolling back in his head. The exertion had cost him everything he had left.

“I… got him,” he whispered, a bubble of blood forming on his lips.

“Yeah,” I choked out, tearing a strip of fabric from my sleeve to bind my arm. “Yeah, you got him, Boss.”

We were battered. Bleeding. Trapped. The PKM on the ridge started firing again, realizing we were still alive. The bullets resumed their chipping away of our shelter.

I looked at the M40 lying in the dirt. It was useless now. We were out of options.

This was it. This was the end of the line.

I checked my radio again. Dead air.

I checked my magazines. I had two for the rifle, three for the pistol. Enough to make a stand. Enough to take a few of them with us when they finally rushed the ledge.

But then, a thought cold and sharp as a jagged piece of steel entered my mind.

Broken Arrow.

If we were going to die, we weren’t going to die alone. If the position was overrun, the protocol was clear. You call it in on yourself. You turn the coordinate into a crater.

I grabbed the radio handset again. I didn’t care if they could hear me. I had to say it. It was the last act of defiance.

“Any station, any station, this is Valkyrie,” I said, my voice eerily calm. “We are declaring Broken Arrow. Position is overrun. Requesting immediate fire mission on my coordinates. Danger Close. I repeat, Danger Close.”

I waited.

Nothing but static.

I slumped back against the rock wall. I had tried. I had fought. I had climbed the impossible mountain.

“I’m sorry, Caleb,” I whispered to the ghost in my head. “I tried to bring him home.”

The sun was beating down on us, hot and indifferent. The flies were starting to buzz around the blood on Cain’s uniform. It was such a small, stupid detail to notice at the end of the world.

Then, Cain moved.

He didn’t groan. He didn’t thrash. He just lifted his hand again.

“Valkyrie,” Cain whispered, his hand catching my sleeve.

“I’m here, Ryan. I’m here.”

“Look,” he said.

His voice was different. Stronger? No, not stronger. Focused. He wasn’t looking at me. He wasn’t looking at the sky where the birds had been. He was looking across the canyon. At the ridge where the enemy machine gun was.

On the ridge opposite them, a line of silhouettes appeared.

I wiped the sweat and grit from my eyes. I squinted against the glare.

There, on the crest of the ridge, behind the enemy positions, figures had emerged.

My first thought was: Reinforcements. The enemy had brought up a reserve platoon. They were lining up to sweep down the valley and finish us off.

I reached for the rifle again. I would make them pay for every inch.

Not the scouts. Not the enemy.

I froze.

The silhouettes were standing perfectly still. They weren’t taking cover. They weren’t moving with the hunched, scurrying gait of the insurgents. They were standing tall, outlined against the blinding sun.

There were five of them.

They looked… ethereal. Like shadows cut from black paper.

“Who are they?” I whispered.

” ghosts?” Cain wheezed.

I brought the scope up one last time. I needed to see.

The magnification cut through the distance. I focused on the lead figure.

He was wearing gear. Heavy gear. But it wasn’t the mismatched, scavenged kit of the Taliban. It was sleek. Helmets with odd protrusions.

And he was holding something. Not a rifle.

He was holding a laser designator.

He wasn’t looking at us. He was looking down at the enemy machine gun nest—the thirty men who had us pinned.

My heart stopped.

These weren’t reinforcements. These weren’t regular infantry.

They were the reapers.

They were Special Operations. Maybe Delta. Maybe DEVGRU. A team that wasn’t supposed to be there. A team that operated in the shadows.

They had been watching. They had been waiting.

The lead figure on the ridge didn’t wave. He didn’t signal. He just stood there, a conduit for the wrath of god.

He was painting the target.

And then I realized what the “Broken Arrow” call meant. It didn’t matter if my radio worked. They had radios that worked. They had heard me. Or maybe they had been calling it in long before I opened my mouth.

“Ryan,” I said, my voice trembling. “Close your eyes. Open your mouth. Cover your ears.”

“Why?”

“Because the sky is falling.”

I saw the lead silhouette drop his hand. It was a gesture of finality. A judge slamming a gavel.

The horizon was beginning to burn.

It started silently. A flash of light so intense it bleached the color out of the world. It came from behind the silhouettes, a wave of pure, white energy that erased the ridgeline.

Then came the sound.

It wasn’t an explosion. It was the sound of the atmosphere ripping apart.

CRAAAACK-BOOOOM!

A Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM)—probably a two-thousand-pounder—slammed into the enemy position. The ridge where the PKM had been simply ceased to exist.

A massive plume of fire, rock, and dust erupted into the sky, mushrooming outward like a miniature nuclear blast. The shockwave raced across the canyon, a visible wall of compressed air.

“Head down!” I screamed, throwing my body over Cain again.

The shockwave hit us a split second later. It felt like being hit by a freight train. The air was sucked out of the ravine, then slammed back in with crushing force. Rocks rained down on us—shrapnel from the mountain itself.

The world turned into a chaotic swirl of orange fire and black smoke.

But it wasn’t over.

Through the ringing in my ears, I heard a new sound. Not the thump-thump of helicopters.

The shriek of jet engines.

Two A-10 Warthogs dropped out of the sun, their silhouettes distinct and terrifying. They dove toward the valley floor, lining up on the remnants of the enemy force that was trying to scatter.

BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRT!

The sound of the GAU-8 Avenger cannon is the sound of the earth tearing open. It’s a chainsaw cutting through the fabric of reality.

The valley floor erupted in a line of explosions as the 30mm depleted uranium shells chewed through rock, metal, and bone. The enemy scouts, the technicals at the mouth of the ravine, the reinforcements—they were being vaporized.

I lifted my head, coughing, dust coating my tongue.

The ridge opposite us was gone. The PKM was gone. The thirty men were gone.

In their place was a crater that glowed with the heat of the sun.

And on the crest of the surviving rock, the silhouettes were still there. Unmoved. Unshaken.

They were the masters of the storm.

I looked down at Cain. He was staring up at the A-10s banking for a second run, tears streaming through the dust on his face.

“Broken Arrow,” he whispered. “You crazy… magnificent… bitch.”

I laughed. It was a hysterical, jagged sound that hurt my chest.

“I told you,” I said, grabbing his hand. “I am not folding another flag.”

The horizon was burning. The valley was burning. But we were still here.

And the birds were coming back.

(End of Part 3)

Part 4: The Vow Kept

The silence was louder than the bomb.

That’s the thing about kinetic strikes that the movies never get right. They get the fire, the smoke, the shockwave that ripples through the air like a visible distortion of reality. But they never capture the void that follows. When a two-thousand-pound JDAM erases a mountainside, it doesn’t just kill the enemy; it kills the sound. It sucks the oxygen out of the atmosphere and leaves a vacuum where the world used to be.

For a long, suspended moment, there was nothing. No birds. No wind. No gunfire. Just the high-pitched, electronic whine of tinnitus screaming in my ears—a flatline tone that signaled my auditory nerves had finally quit.

I lay pressed against the limestone, my body draped over Commander Cain like a frantic mother bird shielding a chick from a storm. The heat from the blast on the opposite ridge washed over us, a dry, oven-like wave that smelled of pulverized granite, ozone, and the distinct, coppery stench of vaporized metal.

I didn’t want to look up. If I looked up, I might see that we were still trapped. If I looked up, the miracle might vanish.

“Lena…”

The voice was so faint I felt it through his chest wall rather than heard it.

I peeled my face off the back of his tactical vest. My skin was raw, abraded by the grit and the pressure. I blinked, my eyelashes crusted with grey silt.

“I’m here,” I croaked. My throat felt like I had swallowed a handful of broken glass. “I’m here, Ryan.”

I rolled off him, wincing as my body screamed in protest. Every muscle, every tendon, every joint was inflamed. The adrenaline that had fueled the climb up the chimney and the duel with the machine gun was evaporating, leaving behind a wreckage of pain. My left arm, where the scout’s knife had sliced me, was throbbing with a dull, sickening heat.

I sat up and looked across the ravine.

The landscape had been rewritten.

Where the enemy machine gun nest had been—the jagged outcrop of rock, the thirty men, the PKM that had pinned us down—there was now only a crater. It was a gouge in the earth, glowing faintly orange at the center, smoke drifting lazily from the blackened edges. The ridge looked like a giant had taken a bite out of the mountain.

The “silhouettes”—the mysterious figures on the crest—were gone. Vanished like smoke. Whether they had retreated back into the shadows or were merely phantoms of my hypoxic brain, I would never know. They were the reapers, the anonymous gods of the battlefield who strike from the ether and leave no footprints.

“Broken Arrow,” Cain whispered again. He was staring at the destruction with glassy, dilated eyes. “You actually called it.”

“I didn’t have a choice,” I said, my hands shaking as I reached for my canteen. I uncapped it and poured a few precious drops onto his lips. He swallowed convulsively.

“You realized… that was Danger Close?” he wheezed. “You almost… turned us into pink mist.”

“Almost counts in horseshoes and hand grenades, Commander,” I said, a hysterical bubble of laughter rising in my chest. “Not in JDAMs. We’re alive.”

We’re alive.

The realization hit me like a physical blow. The fatalism that had carried me through the last hour—the certainty that I was going to die on this rock—shattered. And with the return of hope came the return of fear. Now, suddenly, I had something to lose again.

“Valkyrie, Valkyrie, this is Dust-off 2-6. How copy?”

The voice in my earpiece cracked through the static, clear and urgent.

I grabbed the radio handset, my fingers fumbling with the push-to-talk button. “Dust-off, this is Valkyrie! I read you five by five. The threats are neutralized. LZ is cold… I repeat, LZ is cold, but it’s tight.”

“Copy that, Valkyrie. We see the smoke. We are inbound. ETA thirty seconds. Get your casualty ready for hoist. We can’t land on that shelf.”

Hoist.

My stomach dropped. Of course. The ledge was too narrow for a Blackhawk to put its wheels down. They were going to have to lower a PJ (Pararescue Jumper) on a cable, strap Cain in, and winch him up while the helicopter hovered hundreds of feet above the deck. It was a precision maneuver in calm weather. In the swirling, superheated updrafts of a post-strike ravine, it was a nightmare.

“Understood,” I said. “Preparing for hoist.”

I looked at Cain. He was fading again. The burst of adrenaline from the airstrike had burned off the last of his reserves. His skin was grey, clammy to the touch. The blood loss from the shrapnel wounds in his legs and torso was catching up to him.

“Hey,” I said, slapping his cheek lightly. “Stay with me. The taxi is here. You don’t get to sleep yet.”

“Tired, Lena,” he murmured. “So tired.”

“I know. I know it hurts. I know you’re tired. But you have to listen to me. I need you to lock it up. I need you to be a SEAL for ten more minutes. Can you do that?”

He looked at me, his eyes struggling to focus. “For you… yeah.”

The sound of the rotors returned, louder this time. Aggressive. The two Blackhawks swept back over the ridge, banking hard. The lead bird, the one that had taken the hits earlier, stayed high to provide overwatch. The second bird, Dust-off 2-6, came into a hover directly above us.

The rotor wash hit us like a hurricane.

Dust, rocks, and debris whipped into a frenzy. It was a blinding, choking sandstorm. I threw my body over Cain’s head again to protect his airway, shielding his eyes with my hand. The noise was deafening—a physical pressure that rattled my teeth and vibrated in my chest cavity.

I looked up through the squint of my eyes. The belly of the helicopter was a dark beast hanging in the sky. The side door slid open, and I saw the legs of the crew chief dangling out, spotting the drop.

Then, the cable began to unspool.

At the end of it, spinning slowly, was a man. The PJ.

He descended like a spider on a thread, buffeted by the wind, his legs splayed to stabilize himself. He was wearing a flight helmet with a visor down, heavy body armor, and a medic’s bag strapped to his thigh. He hit the ledge with a heavy thump, instantly dropping to his knees to detach from the hook.

He moved with the frenetic, precise energy of a man who knows he is a target. He crawled over to us, shouting over the roar of the rotors.

“SITREP!” he yelled, leaning in close so I could hear him.

“Male, thirty-eight! Multiple shrapnel wounds to lower extremities and torso! Significant blood loss! Tourniquets applied at 1300 hours! He’s shocky! BP is dropping!” I screamed back, reciting the tactical trauma assessment.

The PJ nodded, his eyes scanning Cain’s body. He ripped open a pouch and pulled out a specialized extraction collar and a rescue basket—the “jungle penetrator” wasn’t safe for a spinal injury, so they had sent down a rigid litter.

“Help me roll him!” the PJ commanded.

Together, we manhandled Cain onto the litter. It was brutal work. Every movement caused Cain to groan in agony, a sound that cut through me more than the shrapnel had. We strapped him in, tightening the spider straps across his chest and legs until he was immobile.

The PJ grabbed the hoist cable, which was still dangling above us, dancing in the wind. He clicked the heavy steel carabiner onto the litter’s lifting point.

“I’m going up with him!” the PJ yelled. “You’re next! Stay low!”

He gave the thumbs-up signal to the crew chief above. The cable went taut.

I watched as the winch engaged. Cain and the PJ lifted off the rock, swinging out into the void of the ravine. They spun slowly, suspended two hundred feet above the jagged rocks below. I held my breath. I watched the cable. Don’t snap. Don’t fray. Don’t let go.

The wind gusted, swinging them dangerously close to the cliff wall. I saw the PJ kick out with his legs, fending off the rock, using his own body as a bumper to protect Cain.

They rose higher. Fifty feet. One hundred feet.

And then, finally, hands reached out from the helicopter door. They grabbed the litter. They pulled it inside.

He was safe.

I slumped back against the rock, the tension cutting like a severed wire. I was alone on the ledge. Just me and the bloodstains and the empty brass casings from my rifle.

The cable came back down.

It was my turn.

I stood up. My legs wobbled. I felt lightheaded, detached. The adrenaline crash was hitting me hard. I stumbled toward the cable, grabbing the horse-collar loop. I slipped it over my head and under my arms, tightening the strap across my chest.

I looked down at the ravine one last time. At the chimney I had climbed. At the spot where the mortar had hit. It looked like a graveyard. It looked like hell.

“Goodbye,” I whispered.

I gave the thumbs up.

The world fell away. My feet left the rock. I was airborne.

The sensation of the hoist is terrifying. You are helpless, a piece of cargo dangling in the slipstream. The wind tore at my uniform. The view spun—sky, rock, valley, sky, rock, valley. I saw the crater of the JDAM strike from above, a perfect circle of destruction. I saw the bodies of the enemy, small and insignificant from this height.

Then, the noise of the engine grew louder. The heat of the exhaust hit me. I was pulled up to the door.

Strong hands grabbed my vest. A crew chief hauled me inside, unhooking me from the cable and shoving me into a seat.

“Strap in!” he yelled.

The door slid shut, cutting the noise by half.

I looked across the cabin. The PJ and a flight medic were already working on Cain. They had an IV line established. They were pushing fluids. They were cutting off his uniform to expose the wounds.

I tried to stand up, to go to him, but my legs wouldn’t work. I sank back into the canvas seat, my head lolling against the vibrating fuselage.

We banked hard, the G-force pressing me down, and the bird accelerated, racing toward the horizon. toward the Role 3 hospital at Bagram. toward home.

---

The flight was a blur of dissociative memories.

I wasn’t in the helicopter anymore. I was back in San Diego, ten years ago. I was standing in a living room that smelled of lemon polish and stale grief. I was looking at Caleb’s mother. She wasn’t crying. She was just staring at the wall, holding a folded flag.

“They couldn’t bring him back, Lena,” she had said. “There was nothing left to bring back.”

The words had echoed in my head for a decade. Unrecoverable. It’s a sterile word for a horrific reality. It means your friend, your brother, your son, is part of the landscape now. It means there is no closure. Just a void.

I blinked, and the living room dissolved. I was back in the Blackhawk.

I looked at the stretcher. Cain was there. He was pale, covered in wires and tubes, blood soaking the bandages, but he was there. He wasn’t a memory. He wasn’t a void. He was a warm body with a heartbeat.

I had changed the ending.

“BP is stabilizing!” the medic shouted, his voice tinny through my headset. “He’s responding to fluids!”

I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding. Tears started to flow—hot, unstoppable tears that cut tracks through the dirt on my face. I didn’t wipe them away. I let them fall. They tasted like salt and relief.

My own body started to demand attention now. The adrenaline was gone, and the pain was reclaiming its territory. My back seized up in a spasm that made me gasp. My knees felt like they were filled with gravel. The cut on my arm was burning with a rhythmic throb.

I looked down at my hands. They were trembling violently. They were covered in dried blood—some mine, some Cain’s, some from the scout I had killed. I tried to make a fist, but my fingers wouldn’t obey. They were frozen in the shape of a grip—the grip on the rope, the grip on the rock, the grip on the rifle.

The crew chief noticed me shaking. He reached over and placed a heavy hand on my shoulder. He didn’t say anything. He just squeezed. It was a grounding touch. A reminder that I was real, that I was safe.

“Two minutes out!” the pilot called.

I looked out the window. The sprawl of Bagram Airfield appeared below—a city of tents, concrete barriers, and hangars rising out of the dust. It was ugly. It was industrial. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

We flared for landing, the wheels touching down with a gentle bump.

Before the rotors had even stopped spinning, the side doors were thrown open. The trauma team was there—a swarm of doctors and nurses in blue scrubs and body armor, waiting with a gurney.

“Let’s move! Let’s move!”

They swarmed the helicopter. They offloaded Cain with practiced efficiency, shouting medical jargon, checking lines, moving him onto the rolling stretcher.

I unbuckled my harness. I tried to stand up to follow them, but my legs finally gave out. I crumbled, sliding down the bulkhead to the floor of the helicopter.

“I got you, Gunny. I got you.”

The crew chief was there, scooping me up. He half-carried, half-dragged me out of the bird.

The sun at the airfield was blinding. The noise was overwhelming. But as they loaded Cain into the back of an ambulance and the doors slammed shut, I felt a profound, heavy peace settle over me.

He was gone. He was in their hands now. My watch was over.

“Medic!” the crew chief yelled, looking at my arm. “We got a walking wounded here!”

I looked at him and smiled. It was probably a terrifying expression, cracked lips and blood-stained teeth in a mask of dirt.

“I’m fine,” I whispered. And for the first time in my life, I wasn’t lying.

---

Recovery is a different kind of war.

It’s a war fought in white rooms with beeping machines, where the enemy isn’t a man with a gun but the silence of your own mind.

They flew us to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany within twenty-four hours. I spent two days in a haze of painkillers and surgeries. They stitched up my arm—fourteen stitches. They drained the fluid from my knees. They treated the friction burns on my waist where the rope had tried to saw me in half.

But the physical damage was easy. The body heals. The mind is a different story.

I woke up screaming the first three nights. In the dream, the rope always snapped. In the dream, I watched Cain fall backward into the darkness, his eyes wide and accusing. In the dream, the flag I folded was always empty.

On the fourth day, I was cleared to walk.

I put on the hospital gown and the grippy socks. I shuffled down the hallway, pushing my IV stand like a walker. The hospital was quiet, filled with the murmur of voices and the soft squeak of rubber shoes on linoleum.

I found his room at the end of the ward. ICU. Room 402.

I stood outside the door for a long time. I was terrified. I don’t know why. I had dragged him up a cliff while under mortar fire. I had killed men to keep him alive. But walking through that door felt harder.

What do you say to the man you saved? What do you say to the man who saw you turn into something… else?

I pushed the door open.

The room was dim. The blinds were drawn. The only light came from the monitors stacking up beside the bed.

He was awake.

Commander Ryan Cain looked small in the bed. The swelling in his face had gone down, revealing the sharp angles of his jaw, now covered in a week’s worth of stubble. His legs were elevated, wrapped in thick casts. His chest was bandaged.

He turned his head as I entered. His eyes were clear. The glassy, death-haze look was gone.

“Gunny,” he rasped. His voice was stronger, though still rough.

“Commander,” I said, standing at attention out of habit, even in my hospital gown.

He tried to smile, but it turned into a wince. “At ease, Lena. For God’s sake, sit down.”

I pulled a plastic chair up to the bedside. I sat down, my hands resting in my lap. I didn’t know what to do with them. They felt empty without a weapon or a rope.

“How are the legs?” I asked, stupidly.

“They’re still there,” he said. “Doctors say I’ll walk. Maybe even run, if I’m stubborn enough. And you know I’m stubborn.”

“I know,” I said. “You were heavy enough.”

He laughed, a short, sharp sound. Then he grew serious. He looked at me, really looked at me, with an intensity that made me want to squirm.

“I read the after-action report,” he said. “The debrief from the drone footage. The pilot’s statement.”

I looked at the floor. “And?”

“They’re calling it the ‘Chimney,'” he said. “The route you took. They’re saying it’s technically unclimbable. Not with gear. Not with a casualty. They sent a team back to recover the sensitive equipment from the site. Their lead climber couldn’t replicate it. He fell twice trying.”

I shrugged, tracing a scratch on the armrest of the chair. “He probably thought about it too much. I didn’t have time to think.”

“You hauled two hundred and ten pounds of dead weight up a sheer face, Lena. Under fire.” He paused. “Why?”

It was the question I had been dreading. Why? Why didn’t I cut the rope? Why didn’t I follow protocol? The logical, tactical decision would have been to leave him. He was compromised. I was mission-capable. The cold calculus of war says you save the asset that can fight.

“You ordered me to leave you,” I said softly. “You said the ramp was too high.”

“I did.”

“I disobeyed a direct order.”

“You did.”

I looked up at him. “Ten years ago, I followed orders. I was a Corporal. My squad leader, Caleb… he got hit. Bad. The zone was too hot. The birds couldn’t come in. Command ordered us to pull back. To regroup. They said we’d go back for him when the air support arrived.”

My voice cracked. I swallowed hard and forced the words out.

“We pulled back. We left him. By the time we got back there… he was gone. They had taken him. We never found the body. Just his gear.”

I took a shaky breath.

“I folded the flag for his mother, Ryan. It was an empty casket ceremony. I stood there, in my Dress Blues, and I handed her a triangle of cloth that represented absolutely nothing but failure. And I swore… I swore to whatever God would listen… that I would never, ever do that again. I would never fold another flag for a man I left behind.”

Cain listened in silence. The only sound in the room was the rhythmic beep-beep-beep of the heart monitor.

He reached out his hand—the one not hooked up to the IV. It was scarred, calloused, shaking slightly.

I took it. His grip was weak, but it was warm.

“You didn’t just save me, Lena,” he said quietly. “You saved yourself.”

He squeezed my hand.

“The boys… the guys from the unit… they have a new name for you.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Is it ‘Stubborn Ass’?”

He smiled. “No. They’re calling you Valkyrie.”

“That was just a call sign,” I muttered.

“No,” he shook his head. “It’s not just a call sign anymore. In the old myths, the Valkyries were the ones who chose who lived and who died on the battlefield. They were the ones who carried the warriors to the great hall.”

He looked at me with a reverence that made my throat tight.

“You looked Death in the face, Lena. You looked at the laws of physics, at the enemy, at the fire… and you said ‘No.’ You chose life. You carried me to the hall. You are a Valkyrie.”

I felt a tear slip down my cheek. I quickly wiped it away.

“I’m just a Marine, Sir,” I said. “I just did my job.”

“No,” Cain said, closing his eyes as the exhaustion finally pulled him back under. “You did the impossible.”

---

Epilogue: The Flag.

Six months later.

The wind on the tarmac at Camp Pendleton was cool, smelling of ocean salt and jet fuel. It was a good smell. It smelled like home.

I stood in formation, the stiff collar of my Dress Blues biting into my neck. The medals on my chest clinked softly in the breeze—the Navy Cross, the Purple Heart. They were heavy. They felt like weights dragging down the front of my jacket.

The ceremony was for the unit. A homecoming.

The families were there in the bleachers. Wives holding signs. Children waving miniature American flags. It was a sea of red, white, and blue joy.

I scanned the crowd. I wasn’t looking for my family; I didn’t have much of one left. I was looking for him.

And then I saw him.

He was standing near the front, leaning heavily on a cane, but he was standing. Commander Cain. He was in his dress uniform, looking sharp, looking whole.

He saw me. He nodded. A barely perceptible dip of the chin. I’m here. We’re here.

I looked away, toward the center of the parade deck.

There was a color guard presentation. Four Marines, marching in perfect lockstep. They were folding a flag.

It wasn’t a funeral flag. It was the garrison flag, being retired for the evening.

I watched them work. The precision. The snap of the canvas. The way they triangulated the fabric, tucking the blue field over the stars. It was a ritual I had performed a hundred times. A ritual that used to haunt me.

But as I watched them today, I didn’t see Caleb’s empty casket. I didn’t see the dust of the ravine.

I saw the rope. I saw the climb. I saw the hand reaching out from the helicopter.

I touched the pocket of my jacket. Inside, tucked against my heart, was a piece of grey granite. A rock I had picked up from the ledge before I clipped into the hoist.

It was just a rock. But it was also a promise.

The flag was folded. The music swelled. The crowd cheered.

I took a deep breath, filling my lungs with the clean, salt air.

I thought about the physics of the climb. I thought about the friction and the gravity and the weight. They say that energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transferred.

I had taken the energy of a tragedy—the dark, heavy weight of Caleb’s loss—and I had transferred it. I had turned it into the strength to pull a man out of a grave.

I had balanced the ledger.

The narrator over the loudspeaker announced the dismissal.

“Company… Dismissed!”

The formation broke. The chaos of reunions began.

I walked toward Cain. He hobbled forward to meet me, ignoring the cane, limping with a stubborn pride.

We didn’t salute. We didn’t hug. We just stood there, two survivors in a world that had tried its best to kill us.

“Ready to go home, Valkyrie?” he asked.

I looked at the flag, now a tight, perfect triangle in the hands of a young Sergeant.

“Yeah,” I said, a genuine smile breaking across my face for the first time in a decade. “I’m ready.”

I wasn’t folding flags anymore. I was carrying them.

The End.