Part 2: The Briefing

Eighteen Hours Earlier — Naval Special Warfare Command, Virginia.

The silence of a briefing room is a specific kind of heavy. It doesn’t feel like peace; it feels like the deep intake of breath before a plunge.

I remember the smell of that room vividly. It smelled of floor wax, stale coffee that had been burning on the burner for three hours, and the metallic tang of ozone from the server racks humming in the adjacent SCIF. It was a sterile, controlled environment—a stark contrast to the chaotic, freezing hell I would find myself in less than a day later.

But at that moment, standing at the front of the room, the cold wasn’t physical. It was atmospheric.

The briefing room was already tight with tension before anyone spoke. It lived in the stiff postures of the men sitting in the tiered leather chairs. It lived in the averted eyes and the rhythmic tapping of a pen against a notebook. It lived in the silence that forms when everyone in the room knows something is about to go wrong, even if they can’t point to the coordinates on a map.

I stood at the podium, adjusting the cuffs of my dress blues, though I would be trading them for thermal tactical gear within the hour. At five-foot-four, I was the shortest person present. In a community dominated by men who looked like they were carved out of granite, my height had often been the first thing people noticed. But height had never been my currency.

Command lived in my bearing. It lived in the calm authority of my voice and the focus that sharpened my stare. When I stood beneath the projection screen, hands folded behind my back in a parade-rest stance, the room stilled completely. They didn’t quiet down out of polite respect. They quieted down out of instinct. They knew that when I spoke, the clock started ticking toward something dangerous.

Rear Admiral Judith Rowe stood beside me. She was a woman of sharp angles and iron-gray hair pulled back into a bun so tight it looked painful. Her expression was unreadable, a mask she had perfected over thirty years of navigating the Pentagon’s shark tanks.

She didn’t look at me. She looked at the men.

“Commander Hale will brief you on Operation Iron Wake,” she said. Her voice was stripped of ceremony, flat and efficient.

I stepped forward, grabbing the clicker for the tactical display.

“Lights,” I ordered.

The room plunged into semi-darkness. The only illumination came from the projector beam cutting through the dust motes in the air. Satellite images lit the screen, bathing the faces of my team in a ghostly blue glow.

The image revealed a snow-buried compound near the Canadian border. It was a cluster of geometric shapes—prefabricated reinforced structures—hugging the side of a mountain range that looked like the teeth of a saw blade. It was isolated to the point of deliberate obscurity. There were no roads leading in, only a small helipad that looked like a postage stamp against the vast white wilderness.

“At 02:40 yesterday morning,” I began, my voice even and echoing slightly in the soundproofed room, “we lost contact with Borealis Research Annex Twelve. This is a civilian installation conducting classified cryogenic biomedical research under joint federal oversight.”

I let that sink in. Civilian. Classified. Joint Federal Oversight.

Those three words were usually a recipe for a bureaucratic nightmare, but today, they meant something worse. They meant high-value targets with zero combat training sitting in a tin can in the middle of nowhere.

“Standard communication protocols require a handshake signal every four hours,” I continued, laser-pointing to the communications array on the satellite image. “We have missed four cycles. The automated distress beacon has not been triggered, but all telemetry from the site has flatlined. No heat signatures, no outgoing data packets, no voice comms.”

I clicked the remote. The image shifted from the grainy satellite photo to a terrifyingly complex weather model. It looked like a bruised whirlpool of purples, blacks, and violent reds spinning over the Northern Hemisphere.

“Seventy hours ago, NOAA data confirmed the formation of a localized, high-intensity depression. It has evolved into a once-in-fifty-years blizzard. Sustained winds in the target area currently exceed fifty miles per hour. Gusts are hitting eighty. Temperatures are dropping fast, currently sitting at minus ten and expected to bottom out near minus thirty tonight. Visibility is approaching full whiteout.”

I looked out at the faces of my team.

In the front row sat Lieutenant Miller, my Second-in-Command. He was a mountain of a man, with a thick neck and hands that looked like they could crush a tank hatch. He was chewing gum, a slow, rhythmic motion that usually signaled he was processing the tactical logistics. We had served together in Syria, in the chaotic withdrawal from Kabul, and in a dozen other places that didn’t exist on official records. I trusted Miller with my life. I trusted him with my dog.

Next to him was Chief Warrant Officer Torres, our demolitions expert. Torres was wired differently than the rest of us; he found calm in chaos. He was leaning back in his chair, arms crossed, studying the weather map with a critical eye.

Then there was Jensen, our comms specialist, a kid who could coax a signal out of a toaster if he had to. And Kincaid, our medic and sniper, who had the steady hands of a surgeon and the patience of a statue.

They were looking at the screen, but I felt their eyes on me, gauging my reaction. They wanted to know if I was worried.

“This isn’t a rescue mission yet,” I said, anticipating the question. “This is a secure-and-assess operation. But the weather isn’t our only problem.”

I clicked the remote again.

The weather map disappeared, replaced by grainy surveillance footage taken from a drone flyover two days prior. Figures were moving through the snow. They were white-clad, moving in tactical formations that spoke of professional training. They were armed.

“Intercepted communications indicate the extremist group Northern Crown may be attempting to extract proprietary research,” I said.

A murmur went through the room. Northern Crown wasn’t a standard terror cell. They weren’t religious zealots or political revolutionaries in the traditional sense. They were a sophisticated syndicate of ex-military mercenaries and corporate anarchists who specialized in high-tech theft and sabotage. They didn’t blow things up for a cause; they stole things for the highest bidder. And they were ruthless.

“Northern Crown has been tracking the output of Annex Twelve for months,” I explained. “The research being conducted there involves advanced cryogenic preservation techniques—technology that has implications for everything from deep-space travel to battlefield trauma stasis. It is worth billions on the black market. And Northern Crown knows it.”

I paused, scanning the room to ensure everyone was locked in.

“Our objective is threefold. One: Secure the site. Two: Recover any surviving personnel. Three: Ensure no classified material leaves U.S. territory.”

Admiral Rowe stepped forward then, her heels clicking sharply on the linoleum. The sound was like a gavel striking.

“Let me be clear,” Rowe said, her voice dropping an octave. “Annex Twelve is a black site. It does not exist on any public map. The personnel inside are scrubbed from civilian databases. If Northern Crown breaches that facility, they aren’t just stealing patents. They are stealing state secrets that could compromise national security for the next decade.”

She looked directly at Miller, then at Torres, then finally rested her gaze on me.

“You have a narrow window, Commander. The storm provides cover for your approach, but it also grounds your air support. Once you insert, you are on your own until the weather breaks. That could be twelve hours, or it could be three days.”

“We’re aware of the constraints, Admiral,” I said, my voice steady.

“Good,” she replied. “Because failure isn’t an option. If that data gets out, or if those scientists are taken, the fallout will be catastrophic. You are authorized to use lethal force to protect the integrity of the site. Rules of engagement are weapons free.”

I nodded. “Understood.”

I looked down at the floor near the front row. Lying there, perfectly still, was Ash.

My Belgian Malinois raised his head as I looked at him. His ears perked up, swiveling like radar dishes. He could sense the shift in the room’s energy. Ash was more than a tool; he was the soul of our unit. He had been with me for four years. We breathed in sync. He knew my heart rate better than I did. If I was stressed, he paced. If I was focused, he locked in.

Right now, he was watching Miller.

That should have been my first clue.

Ash let out a low, almost inaudible whine as he looked at my Second-in-Command. Miller didn’t look back at the dog. He just kept chewing his gum, staring at the screen.

“Deployment in T-minus two hours,” I announced, breaking the moment. “Gear up. Winter loadouts. Suppressors. Thermal optics are mandatory. We’re going into a freezer, so check your batteries and then check them again. I don’t want anyone’s NVGs dying in the middle of a firefight because the cold drained the lithium.”

“Hoo-ah,” the room responded in unison, a guttural sound of affirmation.

The men stood up, the sound of chairs scraping against the floor filling the room. The tension broke, replaced by the familiar hustle of preparation. Miller walked past me, clapping a heavy hand on my shoulder.

“Just another day in paradise, eh, Boss?” he said, grinning. His eyes were crinkled at the corners. It was the same grin he’d given me before we breached a compound in Yemen. The same grin he’d worn when we shared a lukewarm beer on a tarmac in Germany.

“Pack an extra pair of socks, Miller,” I said, forcing a smile. “I don’t want to hear you complaining about frostbite.”

“You know me,” he laughed. “Cold never bothered me.”

I watched him walk out, Ash trotting a few feet behind him before circling back to my side.

Admiral Rowe remained in the room as the team filed out. She was gathering her files, her movements precise and deliberate.

“Elara,” she said, using my first name. She rarely did that.

I turned to face her. “Admiral?”

“This mission,” she said, not looking up from her papers. “It’s… delicate. The research at Annex Twelve isn’t just valuable. It’s volatile.”

“Volatile how?” I asked.

She finally looked up. Her eyes were hard, flinty. “Just make sure you secure the hard drives before you worry about the scientists. The data is the priority. Do you understand?”

A chill that had nothing to do with the air conditioning ran down my spine.

“The mission parameters stated strictly that personnel recovery was objective two,” I said carefully. “Are you changing the order of operations?”

Rowe hesitated for a fraction of a second. “I’m telling you that people are replaceable. The work they’ve done is not. Don’t let sentimentality cloud your judgment, Commander. If it comes down to saving a scientist or saving the drive… save the drive.”

“With all due respect, Admiral,” I said, my voice hardening. “My team doesn’t leave people behind. And we don’t prioritize zeros and ones over American citizens.”

Rowe stared at me for a long moment. It was a look of appraisal, like she was deciding whether I was a useful asset or a liability.

“Just get it done, Hale,” she said dismissively. “Wheels up in two hours.”

She walked out, leaving me alone in the darkening briefing room with Ash.

I looked down at my dog. He nudged my hand with his wet nose, his amber eyes looking deep into mine. He sensed my unease.

“I know, buddy,” I whispered, scratching him behind the ears. “I don’t like it either.”

I should have listened to that feeling. I should have walked out of that room and demanded a new extraction plan. I should have questioned why Miller was so calm, or why the Admiral was so cold about the scientists.

But I was a soldier. I had orders. And I had a team I thought would walk through hell with me.

We spent the next ninety minutes in the prep room, a ritual of velcro and steel. The air smelled of gun oil and nervous sweat. I watched Torres checking his C4 charges, humming a pop song under his breath. I watched Jensen syncing the encrypted radios. I watched Miller sharpening his combat knife, the rasp of the stone against the steel hypnotic and rhythmic.

We were a machine. A family.

We loaded onto the transport plane, the engines screaming as they spun up. The ramp closed, sealing us in darkness illuminated only by the red tactical lights.

The flight north was bumpy. As we crossed into Maine airspace, the turbulence turned violent. The plane bucked and dropped, the storm swallowing us whole.

“Two minutes to drop!” the pilot’s voice crackled over the headset. “It’s nasty down there, Commander! Winds are gusting at sixty! I can’t hold a hover! You’re going to have to fast-rope and pray!”

“We don’t pray!” Miller yelled over the comms, laughing. “We execute!”

I looked at my team one last time. Faces painted in camo, eyes locked on the red light waiting for it to turn green. Ash was strapped to my chest in his jump harness, wearing his doggles and hearing protection. He was calm, his heartbeat thumping steadily against my ribcage.

The light turned green.

“Go! Go! Go!”

We slid down the ropes into the white void. The wind hit us like a physical blow, a hammer made of ice. It tore at our clothes, blinded our goggles, and tried to rip us off the lines.

We hit the ground hard, boots crunching into deep snow. The world was a swirling vortex of white. I couldn’t see five feet in front of me.

“Sound off!” I yelled into the comms.

“Miller, up!” “Torres, up!” “Jensen, up!” “Kincaid, up!”

“Ash is clear,” I said, unhooking the dog. He shook the snow off his coat and immediately went to work, nose to the ground, searching for a scent in the howling gale.

We were ten miles from the nearest civilization, standing at the gates of Borealis Research Annex Twelve. The facility loomed out of the storm like a ghost ship, dark and silent.

We moved in formation, weapons raised. The snow crunched loudly under our boots, but the wind drowned out the sound.

“Breaching in three… two… one…” Torres whispered.

He blew the lock on the perimeter gate. We swept into the courtyard.

It was empty.

No guards. No Northern Crown soldiers. No scientists running for their lives.

Just the wind.

“Where are they?” Jensen asked, his voice tight. “Thermal is clean. I’m not picking up any heat signatures inside the main building.”

“Stay sharp,” I ordered. “Check the corners.”

We moved toward the main entrance. The steel doors were unlocked, swinging slightly in the wind. That was wrong. A classified facility in lockdown should have been sealed tight.

I pushed the door open and we entered the lobby of the Annex.

It was freezing inside, the heating systems clearly offline. Emergency lights bathed the hallway in a pulsing red glow. Papers were scattered everywhere. A chair was overturned.

But there were no bodies. No blood.

“Clear left,” Miller called out.

“Clear right,” Torres echoed.

“Command, this is Hale,” I radioed back to base. “We have breached the facility. No contact. Repeat, no contact. The place is a ghost town.”

Static.

“Command, do you copy?”

Nothing but the hiss of the storm.

“Comms are jammed,” Jensen said, tapping his headset. “Whatever interference is out there, it’s blocking the satellite uplink. We’re dark.”

“Standard procedure,” I said. “We secure the objective, then we move to the rally point for extraction.”

We moved deeper into the facility, toward the server room and the cryogenic labs. My gut was twisting into knots. Something was fundamentally wrong. The intel said Northern Crown was here. The intel said there were scientists.

Where was everyone?

We reached the central lab. It was a massive room filled with rows of glass cylinders—cryo-pods. Most were empty. But three of them in the center were active, humming with a low frequency power. Inside, illuminated by blue light, were biological samples. I couldn’t tell what they were—tissue samples, perhaps organs—suspended in stasis.

“Jackpot,” Miller said softly. But he wasn’t looking at the pods. He was looking at the server rack on the far wall.

“Jensen, start the download,” I ordered. “Torres, secure the perimeter. Miller, Kincaid, on me. We sweep the administrative offices.”

“Belay that order, Commander,” Miller said.

His voice was different. The warmth was gone. The camaraderie was gone. It was flat, like the Admiral’s.

I turned around.

Miller had his rifle raised.

He wasn’t aiming at the door.

He was aiming at me.

I froze. My brain tried to process the image, tried to reject it. This was Miller. My second. My friend.

“Miller, what are you doing?” I asked, my voice calm, dangerously low.

“Put the weapon down, Elara,” he said. He didn’t use my rank. He used my name. That terrified me more than the gun.

I looked at Torres. He had his sidearm drawn, trained on Ash.

“Don’t,” I warned Torres. “If you hurt the dog, I will kill you.”

“Easy, Boss,” Torres said, a smirk playing on his lips. “Just following orders.”

“Whose orders?” I demanded. “Northern Crown?”

Miller laughed, a dry, humorless sound. “Northern Crown? Elara, there is no Northern Crown. There never was.”

My blood ran cold. “What?”

“The intel was cooked,” Miller said, stepping closer. “Admiral Rowe needed a clean team to scrub the site. But she also needed a fall guy. Someone to blame when the ‘terrorists’ blew up the facility and the ‘heroic commander’ died trying to stop them.”

“You’re working for Rowe?” I asked, pieces of the puzzle slamming into place. The warning about the data. The indifference to the scientists.

“Rowe is just a middleman,” Miller said. “The buyers for this tech… they pay better than a Navy pension. A hell of a lot better.”

“We’re soldiers, Miller,” I said, my hand inching toward my holster. “We don’t sell out.”

“You don’t,” Miller corrected. “We do. We’re tired, Elara. Tired of freezing in deserts and mountains for a country that doesn’t give a damn about us. We’re cashing out.”

“Jensen?” I looked at the kid. He wouldn’t look at me. He was typing furiously at the console, downloading the data.

“Sorry, Commander,” Jensen mumbled. “I have student loans.”

The banality of the evil struck me. Student loans. Pensions. They were betraying their country and killing their commander for money.

“Ash!” I shouted, dropping my hand to my pistol.

Ash launched himself at Torres. A blur of fur and teeth.

Thwip.

A soft sound. Not a gunshot.

Ash yelped mid-air and crumpled to the floor, sliding across the linoleum.

“Tranquilizer,” Kincaid said, lowering his rifle. “Didn’t want to kill the dog. He’s worth money too.”

“You son of a b*tch!” I screamed, drawing my weapon.

But I was too slow. Miller was already there. He slammed the butt of his rifle into my face.

White light exploded behind my eyes. I tasted copper. My knees buckled.

I fell hard, the cold floor rushing up to meet me.

“Tie her up,” Miller’s voice floated above me, distant and distorted. “Take her outside. Let the storm handle the rest. It’s cleaner that way. Looks like hypothermia.”

“And the dog?” Torres asked.

“Drag him out too. Let them freeze together. Poetic.”

I tried to fight, but my limbs felt like lead. Hands grabbed me. Rough. Efficient. The same hands I had high-fived yesterday.

They dragged me through the corridors, out into the howling night. The cold hit me again, but this time, I didn’t have the strength to brace against it.

They marched me to the perimeter, to the old comms mast. I felt the zip ties biting into my wrists. I felt the zip ties cinching my ankles.

Miller leaned in close, his face inches from mine. The snow was matting his eyelashes.

“Nothing personal, Elara,” he said. “It’s just business.”

Then he turned and walked away.

“Miller!” I screamed into the wind. “You’re a dead man! You hear me? I’ll find you!”

He didn’t look back.

The four of them—Miller, Torres, Jensen, Kincaid—faded into the whiteout, carrying the hard drives that contained the future of biotechnology.

Leaving me bound. Leaving Ash dying in the snow. Leaving us to the mercy of a storm that had no mercy to give.

And that brings us to now.

03:21 hours.

The numbness is spreading up my arms. My chest feels heavy, like an elephant is sitting on it.

I look at Ash. The snow is burying him.

“Ash…” I whisper.

He doesn’t move.

My mind begins to drift. I think about the briefing room again. The warmth. The smell of coffee.

I wonder if Admiral Rowe is sleeping soundly.

I wonder if Miller is celebrating yet.

They think this is the end of the story. They think the cold will silence me.

But they forgot one thing.

They forgot that the cold preserves things.

It preserves the rage.

And if I can just get one hand free… if I can just wake up my dog…

I am not dying here.

Not tonight.

---

(End of Part 2. Proceed to Part 3 prompt?)

Part 3: The Zero Point

03:25 Hours — Perimeter of Borealis Research Annex Twelve, Northern Maine.

The sound of betrayal isn’t a bang. It isn’t a shout. It is the crunch of snow under boots walking away from you.

I listened to them leave. I listened to the rhythmic, disciplined cadence of four men moving in a tactical column—Miller on point, Kincaid on rear guard, just like I had taught them. I listened until the wind, jealous of the noise, swallowed their footsteps whole. I listened until the only sound left in the universe was the shrieking of the air rushing over the jagged metal of the communications mast I was chained to.

Then, there was silence.

Not a true silence—the storm was too violent for that—but a social silence. The kind of silence that falls when you realize you are the last human being on earth. The kind of silence that screams.

They were gone.

Miller. Torres. Jensen. Kincaid.

My unit. My family.

They had vanished into the whiteout, carrying the hard drives, heading for a landing zone I didn’t know, to meet a pilot I probably knew, to cash checks drawn on the blood of scientists I had failed to save.

I was alone.

No. Not alone.

I forced my head to turn. The movement was agonizing. The cold had already stiffened the muscles in my neck, turning them into brittle cables that snapped and popped with every millimeter of rotation. My eyelashes were frozen together; I had to blink forcefully, tearing the ice crystals apart, just to see.

Ash.

He was still there. Ten yards away. A dark, motionless mound in a field of shifting white.

The snow was accumulating fast. It had already covered his paws and was creeping up his flank. The heavy winter coat of a Belgian Malinois is a marvel of evolution—a double layer of fur designed to trap heat and repel moisture—but it is not magic. It cannot fight physics forever. He was sedated. His metabolic rate was plummeting artificially. The tranquilizer had knocked out his shivering reflex, which was the only thing that would keep him alive in this temperature.

“Ash,” I croaked.

The sound that came out of my throat was pathetic. It was a dry rattle, like dead leaves scraping across pavement. My lips were cracked and bleeding, the blood freezing instantly into a dark crust.

He didn’t move.

Panic, sharp and hot, spiked in my chest. It was a dangerous thing, panic. In SERE school—Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape—they taught us that panic is the predator that kills you long before the enemy does. Panic burns oxygen. Panic spikes your heart rate, dilating your blood vessels and flushing warm blood to your extremities where the cold can steal it faster. Panic is a thermal leak.

Control, I told myself. Assess.

I forced my breathing to slow. In for four. Hold for four. Out for four.

The Assessment

I took inventory of my body. It was a grim calculus.

Feet: Numb. I couldn’t feel my toes inside my tactical boots. That was stage one. The capillaries had clamped shut to shunt blood to my core. If I didn’t get circulation back within the hour, I would lose the toes. If I didn’t get it back in two, I would lose the feet.

Hands: My hands were bound behind the rusted steel pole. The polymer flex-cuffs—standard issue, high-tensile plastic—were cinched tight enough to cut off circulation even without the cold. My fingers felt like sausages, swollen and useless. I tried to wiggle them. The signal from my brain seemed to get lost somewhere in my shoulders. I felt a phantom sensation of movement, but I couldn’t be sure if they were actually moving.

Core: Shivering. Violent, uncontrollable shivering. This was good. It meant my body was still fighting. It meant my core temperature was still above ninety degrees. The moment the shivering stopped, I was dead. The moment I felt warm, I was dead.

The Environment: The wind chill was pushing minus forty. The pole I was tied to was a heat sink, sucking the warmth out of my back through the layers of my parka.

I needed to move.

I tested the bonds. I pulled my wrists apart, straining against the plastic. The zip ties bit into the ulna bone, scraping against the periosteum. Pain shot up my arms, white-hot and clarifying.

“Good,” I whispered to the storm. “Pain is good.”

Pain meant the nerves were still firing.

I pulled harder. I gritted my teeth, baring them to the wind, and jerked my arms. The plastic held. Of course it held. These were restraints designed to hold insurgents, 200-pound men fueled by adrenaline and hate. They weren’t going to snap because I asked them nicely.

I slumped back against the pole, gasping for air. The cold air burned my lungs, freezing the moisture in my alveoli.

My mind began to wander. It’s a seductive thing, the drift. The cold whispers to you. It tells you it’s okay to rest. It tells you that the struggle is pointless. It tells you that sleep is warm and soft.

I saw the briefing room again. I saw Miller laughing. I saw him handing me a coffee. “Two sugars, Boss. Just how you like it.”

I saw Torres showing me a picture of his daughter. “She’s turning five next week, Commander. I promised her a bike.”

Lies. All of it.

The rage surged back, pushing the drift away. They had played me. They had used my loyalty as a weapon against me. They knew I wouldn’t question the mission until it was too late. They knew I wouldn’t leave the dog.

Miller knew exactly where to shoot Ash. He knew the dosage. He knew the anatomy. I had taught him. I had taught him K9 combat causality care. I had shown him the charts.

I taught him how to kill my dog.

That thought was a spark. A tiny, glowing ember in the center of my frozen chest. I fed it. I poured gasoline on it. I hated them. I hated them with a purity that frightened me. I wanted to live, not just to survive, but to hunt them. I wanted to see the look in Miller’s eyes when he realized the ice hadn’t taken me.

The Mechanics of Escape

I focused on the pole.

It was an old radio mast, probably erected in the eighties when this Annex was first built. The steel was pitted, flaking with rust. The surface was rough, like sandpaper.

If I could generate enough friction…

I slid my wrists down as far as they would go, until the plastic of the cuffs was grinding against the roughest patch of the metal.

I began to saw.

Up. Down. Up. Down.

It was agonizing work. The angle was awkward. My shoulders screamed in protest, the rotator cuffs straining against the unnatural position. With every upward motion, the plastic dug into my skin. With every downward motion, the rust scraped my knuckles raw.

Scrape. Scrape. Scrape.

I counted the movements.

One. Two. Three.

I needed thousands.

My breathing fell into rhythm with the movement. Hiss. Hiss. Hiss.

“Come on,” I grunted. “Come on, you piece of sh*t.”

I worked for what felt like hours, but my internal clock was broken. It might have been ten minutes. It might have been thirty.

I paused to check my progress. I couldn’t see behind me, so I had to feel. I ran my thumb over the plastic lock of the cuff.

It was smooth. Unbroken.

I hadn’t even scratched it.

The despair crashed over me like a wave. The polymer was too tough. The rust was too soft. I was rubbing my skin raw for nothing.

I sagged against the pole, the fight draining out of me. The shivering was slowing down. That was bad. The convulsions were becoming less violent, more intermittent. My body was running out of glucose. It was deciding which organs to shut down.

Kidneys? Don’t need them. Liver? Later. Stomach? Gone.

My vision blurred. The whiteout seemed to be glowing, pulsing with a strange, rhythmic light.

I looked at Ash again.

The snow had covered his back completely. Only his head was visible now, a gray stone in a white river.

“Ash…” I whispered.

I needed him. I needed him to get up. If he got up, he could chew through the cords. Malinois jaws have a bite force of nearly 200 PSI. Their molars are like shears. I had seen Ash tear through a Kevlar bite sleeve in training. I had seen him snap a suspect’s radius bone like a dry twig.

He could free me.

But he was asleep.

“Ash!” I yelled, putting every ounce of my remaining strength into the projection. “Fuss! (Heel!)”

The command cracked in the air.

His ear twitched.

I saw it. I swear I saw it. The left ear. It rotated slightly.

“Ash! Hier! (Here!)”

He shifted. The snow on his back cracked and slid off. He let out a low moan, a sound of drugged confusion.

“Yes,” I wept. “Yes, buddy. Come on. Fight it.”

The tranquilizer was heavy. I could see it in the way he tried to lift his head. It was like his skull weighed a thousand pounds. He lifted it three inches, then dropped it back into the snow.

“No!” I screamed. “No sleeping! Ash! Packen! (Bite!)”

I used the agitation command. The command for combat. I needed to spike his adrenaline. Adrenaline antagonizes sedatives. If I could get his heart rate up, he might burn through the drug.

“Packen! Ash! Search!”

He whined. It was a high, pitiful sound. He was trying. I could see his legs paddling in the snow, running a dream race. But he couldn’t get his footing. The snow was too deep, and his muscles were too uncoordinated.

He stopped moving.

The silence returned, heavier than before.

I realized then that I was going to watch him die. I was going to watch the snow bury him, inch by inch, until he was just a bump in the landscape. And then, a few hours later, I would join him.

I closed my eyes.

Maybe it’s better this way, the voice in my head whispered. Just let go. It doesn’t hurt anymore.

I felt a strange warmth spreading through my chest. It was pleasant. It felt like sinking into a hot bath. I remembered the summer I spent in San Diego, the sun on my skin, the smell of the ocean.

Hypothermia paradoxical stripping, my training reminded me. You feel hot before you die. It’s the brain frying.

I didn’t care. It felt nice.

I let my head loll forward. My chin hit my chest.

Sleep.

The Wolf

A sound cut through the drift.

A crunch.

Not the crunch of boots. This was lighter. Four-legged.

My eyes snapped open.

Ash?

No. Ash was still down, a statue in the snow.

The sound came from the perimeter fence.

I squinted into the whiteout. Shapes were moving. Low, slinking shapes. Gray on white.

Coyotes. Or wolves. The hybrids up here were big, nasty things. They were opportunistic. They smelled blood. They smelled weakness.

They had been tracking the storm, looking for deer that had bogged down in the drifts. Instead, they found us.

There were three of them. I could see their eyes reflecting the faint light—yellow, hungry orbs. They moved with a fluid, terrifying grace, circling.

They weren’t looking at me. They were looking at Ash.

He was defenseless. Helpless prey.

A low growl rumbled from the lead wolf. It stepped closer, testing the air. It knew something was wrong with the dog. It knew he couldn’t fight back.

“Get back!” I shouted.

The wolf looked at me, unfazed. It sensed that I was bound. It sensed that I was no threat.

It turned its attention back to Ash. It took another step. Then another. It was ten feet away from him now.

Something snapped inside me.

It wasn’t a decision. It was a biological imperative.

I was not going to let a scavenger eat my partner while I watched. I was not going to let Miller win. I was not going to die tied to this pole.

I screamed.

It was a primal, animal sound. A sound torn from the bottom of my lungs, fueled by every betrayal, every frozen nerve, every ounce of love I had for that dog.

I threw my entire body weight forward, away from the pole.

The zip ties bit into my wrists.

I didn’t care.

I slammed myself back against the pole, then forward again.

Snap. Jerk. Pull.

I needed to dislocate my thumb. It was the only way.

I tucked my right thumb into my palm, squeezing it as hard as I could, making my hand as narrow as possible.

I pulled.

The pain was blinding. I felt the ligament tear. I felt the joint pop out of its socket.

I screamed again, but I didn’t stop.

I pulled harder. The skin on the back of my hand shredded against the plastic cuff. Blood—warm, wet, life-affirming blood—slicked the plastic.

Lubrication.

I yanked my hand downward. The thumb knuckle caught, then ground past the plastic.

My hand slipped free.

I fell forward into the snow, my left hand still bound to the pole, my right hand dangling uselessly, throbbing with a pain that eclipsed the cold.

I scrambled to my knees. I reached around with my good hand (well, my liberated hand; it was broken and bleeding) and grabbed the knife sheathed on my belt.

Thank God they hadn’t searched me thoroughly. They had taken my rifle and my pistol, but they had missed the boot knife, and they had missed the survival blade on my webbing.

My fingers were clumsy, numb blocks of wood. I fumbled for the hilt. I couldn’t feel it. I had to look down and visually guide my frozen fingers to the handle.

I gripped it.

I slashed at the zip tie holding my left wrist.

One stroke. Two.

The plastic snapped.

I was free.

The Resurrection

I didn’t stand up. I couldn’t. My legs were gone. I fell into the snow and began to crawl.

I crawled toward the wolves.

I had the knife in my right hand, held in a reverse grip. I dragged my body through the drift, roaring at them.

“Get away from him!”

The lead wolf snarled, surprised by the sudden resurrection of the prey. It hesitated.

That hesitation was all I needed.

I reached Ash. I threw my body over his. I became a human shield, covering his exposed neck with my parka. I brandished the knife at the yellow eyes.

“Come on!” I challenged them. “Come and take it!”

The wolves looked at me. They looked at the knife. They looked at the energy radiating off me—the sheer, insane will to kill.

Predators calculate risk vs. reward. A helpless dog is a meal. A deranged, armed human protecting that dog is a fight that ends in injury. And in the wild, injury means death.

The lead wolf sneezed—a sign of dismissal. It turned and trotted away into the storm. The others followed, vanishing as quickly as they had appeared.

I dropped the knife.

I grabbed Ash by the ruff of his neck.

“Ash!” I shook him. “Wake up! Now!”

I dug my fingers into his pressure points behind the ears. I rubbed his sternum with my knuckles, hard.

“Come on, Marine! Up! Up!”

He groaned. His eyes fluttered open. The pupils were blown wide, black holes swallowing the amber.

“Elara?” his expression seemed to ask.

“I’m here, buddy. I’m here.”

I needed to get him moving. We were both going to freeze if we stayed on the ground.

I grabbed his harness.

“Stand,” I ordered.

I pulled. He stumbled, his legs splaying out like a newborn foal’s. He fell back down.

“No!” I slapped his shoulder. “Stand! Ash, STAND!”

It was the hardest thing I had ever done. I was hurting him to save him. I was forcing a drugged, dying animal to perform a feat of strength.

He looked at me, confused, hurt.

“Do it for me,” I whispered, pressing my forehead against his cold wet nose. “Please. I can’t carry you.”

He licked my face. One rough, slow swipe.

Then, he growled. A low, rumbling sound deep in his chest. He wasn’t growling at me. He was growling at the weakness.

He planted his front paws. He heaved.

I pulled on the harness, screaming with the effort, my dislocated thumb screaming back.

He stood.

He swayed, drunk on ketamine and cold, but he stood.

I wrapped my arm around his neck, using him as a crutch. He leaned into me, using me as a tripod.

We were a pathetic sight. A woman with a broken hand and a dog who couldn’t walk in a straight line, huddled together in the eye of a white hurricane.

But we were standing.

And we were untethered.

“Good boy,” I sobbed. “Good boy.”

I looked at the tracks the wolves had made. They led away from the outpost. They led toward the tree line.

“We have to move,” I told him. “We have to hunt.”

Not for food. For heat. For survival. For vengeance.

I looked back at the pole one last time. The severed zip ties lay in the snow like shed snake skin.

Elara Hale, the Commander who followed orders, died on that pole.

The woman who walked away from it was something else entirely.

“Heel, Ash,” I whispered.

We took the first step.

The wind tried to knock us down. We stumbled. We corrected. We took the second step.

My mind began to sharpen. The adrenaline was metabolized now, replaced by a cold, hard clarity.

Miller had made a mistake.

He thought the storm was his ally. He thought the cold was a weapon he could wield.

He forgot that I was born in the winter. He forgot that Ash was a wolf before he was a dog.

He gave us to the cold.

And the cold… the cold rejected us.

“Let’s go,” I said into the darkness.

We walked into the void, leaving a trail of blood and drag marks that the storm would erase by morning. But it didn’t matter.

We weren’t looking to be found.

We were looking to be forgotten.

Because the dead are the most dangerous enemies of all.

---

(Proceed to Part 4 Prompt?)

Part 4: The Ghost in the Whiteout

03:45 Hours — The White Void

The world had narrowed down to a radius of three feet. That was as far as I could see. Beyond that, the universe was nothing but a screaming, churning wall of white particulate matter.

We were walking. Or rather, we were falling forward in a series of controlled stumbles.

Every step was a negotiation with physics. My right leg would lift—heavy, wooden, unresponsive—and I would drive the heel down through the crust of the wind-hardened snow. It would break with a sound like snapping styrofoam. I would shift my weight, feeling the tendons in my groin pull and burn, and then drag the left leg forward.

Crunch. Drag. Breathe. Crunch. Drag. Breathe.

Ash was leaning against my left thigh. He was a ninety-pound warm weight, a ballast that kept me from blowing over in the gusts that were now hitting sixty miles per hour. The tranquilizer was still in his system, making his movements loose and uncoordinated. His head hung low, his nose furrowing a trench in the snow as we walked. Every few yards, his shoulder would buckle, and he would lurch into me.

“Steady,” I rasped. The word was torn from my lips by the wind before I even heard it.

My hand—the one I had mutilated to escape the pole—was a throbbing, red-hot star of agony at the end of my arm. I held it against my chest, tucked inside the open flap of my parka, but it didn’t help. The thumb was dislocated, resting at a sickening angle against the side of my hand. The skin on the dorsal side was flayed open from the friction of the zip-tie, raw meat exposed to forty-below air.

It throbbed in time with my heart. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

It was the only thing that felt hot. The rest of me was turning into stone.

We were moving away from the outpost. I knew the topography of this area from the mission maps I had memorized in the briefing room—the briefing room that now felt like a memory from a different life. The research station was built on a plateau. To the north was the mountain face. To the west, a sheer drop into a ravine. To the east, the access road—impassable now.

But to the south…

To the south, about two miles from the main perimeter, was an old logging substation. It had been marked on the satellite imagery as “Structure B-4,” a dilapidated relic from when this land was timber company property. It wasn’t part of the active facility. It didn’t have power. It didn’t have heat.

But it had walls. And right now, a wall was the difference between living and becoming a statue.

“Two miles,” I whispered to Ash. “We just have to walk two miles.”

It might as well have been a march to the moon.

The Hallucinations of the Hypoxic Mind

Time ceased to be linear. It became a loop of suffering.

After what felt like an hour, the shivering stopped.

I knew what that meant. My body had run out of glycogen. The violent spasms that generated heat were fueling themselves with the last reserves of energy in my muscles. Now, the tank was dry. My core temperature was dropping below ninety-five degrees.

The silence of my own body was terrifying. The internal shaking was gone, replaced by a rigid stiffness. My joints felt like they were filled with sand.

And then, the visions started.

I saw movement in the periphery of the whiteout. Tall, dark shapes standing in the snow, watching me.

“Miller?” I said, turning my head.

The shape dissolved into a swirling eddy of snow.

A minute later, I saw him again. He was standing right in front of me, holding a steaming mug of coffee. He was smiling that easy, traitorous smile.

“Just give up, Elara,” the hallucination whispered. It wasn’t his voice; it was the sound of the wind hissing through the pine needles. “Lie down. It’s warm in the snow. Just lie down.”

I stumbled. My knees hit the ground. The snow was soft. It looked like a feather bed. It looked so inviting.

Ash whined.

He head-butted my shoulder. The force of it knocked me sideways, breaking the trance.

I looked at him. His muzzle was frosted with ice. His amber eyes were clear now—the drugs were wearing off, metabolized by the sheer struggle of the march. He looked at me with a fierce, demanding intelligence.

Get up, his eyes said. We are not done.

I grabbed his ruff. The coarse fur felt real. It was the only real thing in this hallucination.

“You’re right,” I grunted. “Not yet.”

I forced myself up. It took three tries. I had to plant my elbows in the snow and lever my torso up like a deadlift.

We started walking again.

04:50 Hours — The Shelter

I almost walked past it.

In the whiteout, the shed was just a slightly darker shade of gray against the black-gray night. It was a low, squat structure, half-buried in a drift that had piled up against the windward side.

I wouldn’t have seen it if Ash hadn’t alerted. He stopped, his ears swiveling forward, and let out a low “woof.”

I squinted. The sharp, angular line of a roof peak cut through the swirling snow.

“Structure B-4,” I breathed.

We waded toward it. The snow here was waist-deep, a moat protecting the castle. I had to drag my legs through it, panting, my lungs burning as if I were inhaling broken glass.

We reached the door. It was a heavy, industrial steel door, rusted shut. No handle. Just a padlock hasp that had been welded by time and corrosion.

I threw my shoulder against it. It didn’t budge.

I kicked it. My foot bounced off like I had kicked a mountain.

“No,” I sobbed. “No, no, no.”

To come this far. To die on the doorstep.

I looked around frantically. There had to be a way in. I dragged myself around the corner of the building, Ash following in my wake.

There.

A window.

It was high up, about six feet off the ground, covered by a steel mesh grate. The glass behind it was dark.

I looked at the grate. It was held in place by four bolts. They were rusted, but not as bad as the door.

I needed a tool.

I patted my webbing. I had my knife. That was it.

I pulled the knife. The blade was thick, high-carbon steel. A drop-point survival design.

I jammed the tip of the knife into the space between the grate and the concrete wall. I leaned on it, using the handle as a lever.

The metal groaned.

“Come on,” I hissed through clenched teeth.

My injured hand was useless. I had to do this all with my left hand, my off-hand, pressing the knife with my palm while my right arm hung limp at my side.

Crack.

The bottom right bolt sheered off.

I repositioned the knife. The bottom left bolt.

I pushed. The knife blade flexed. I was terrified it would snap. If it snapped, we died.

Pop.

The second bolt gave way.

I grabbed the bottom of the grate with my left hand and pulled. It bent outward, creating a gap about eighteen inches wide. The top bolts held, acting as a hinge.

I smashed the glass with the pommel of the knife. It shattered inward.

“Ash,” I said. “Up.”

I pointed to the window.

Ash looked at the height. It was a big jump for a tired dog in deep snow.

“Hopp!” (Jump!)

He crouched, coiling his muscles, and launched himself. His front paws caught the sill. His back legs scrabbled against the concrete, claws sparking.

I shoved his rear end, pushing him up. He scrambled through the jagged opening, vanishing into the darkness inside.

Now me.

This was the problem. I couldn’t pull myself up with one hand.

I looked at the drift piled against the wall. It was compacted, hard.

I stepped back, then ran (a slow, lurching shuffle) at the wall. I planted my boot on the concrete, jumped, and hooked my left elbow over the sill.

Broken glass bit into my forearm through the parka. I ignored it.

I hung there, legs dangling. I kicked against the wall, trying to find purchase.

“Ash!” I called out.

A wet nose touched my face. He was right there.

I gritted my teeth and swung my right leg up. The heel of my boot caught the edge of the sill. I hooked it.

With a scream of effort that echoed in the empty forest, I rolled my body through the window and tumbled onto the concrete floor inside.

The Surgery

The interior of the shed was colder than a tomb, but the wind was gone. The silence was sudden and absolute.

I lay on the floor for a long time, just breathing. The air here was still. Dead. But it wasn’t stealing the heat from my skin at fifty miles per hour.

I sat up. It was pitch black.

I fumbled for the small admin pouch on my vest. Please, let it be there.

My fingers closed around a cold, cylindrical object.

A ChemLight.

I cracked it. A sickly green glow illuminated the room.

It was an old maintenance bay. There were shelves lined with rusted cans of oil, a workbench covered in dust, and in the corner, a pile of rotting canvas tarps.

I crawled over to the tarps. They smelled of mildew and mouse droppings, but they were insulation.

“Ash, here.”

I pulled the tarps into a pile. We curled up on them. I pulled Ash close to me, burying my face in his neck. His body heat was a furnace. I wrapped my parka around both of us, creating a micro-climate.

But I couldn’t rest yet.

My hand.

I looked at it in the green light. It was a horror show. The thumb was pointing almost ninety degrees backward. The swelling was massive, turning the skin purple and tight.

If I didn’t reset it now, while I was still partially numb from the cold, I never would. If the swelling got any worse, it would cut off blood flow permanently. Gangrene. Amputation.

I needed to put it back.

I looked around the room. I needed something to bite down on.

I found a block of wood on the floor. I shoved it between my teeth.

“Okay,” I whispered to myself. “Okay. Okay.”

I looked at Ash. He was watching me, his head tilted. He knew pain. He knew what was coming. He licked my cheek.

I positioned my hand on the concrete floor. I stepped on my own wrist with my right boot to pin the hand in place.

I reached down with my left hand and grabbed the dislocated thumb.

I didn’t count to three. Anticipation is the enemy.

I pulled up and out, applying traction to clear the joint, then slammed it back down into the socket.

CRUNCH.

The sound was wet and loud in the small room.

My vision went white. I clamped my jaws onto the wood block so hard I thought my teeth would shatter. A guttural scream vibrated in my chest, trapped behind my lips.

I fell back against the wall, gasping, sweat instantly freezing on my forehead.

I looked at the hand. The thumb was straight.

It throbbed with a new, sickening pulse, but the mechanical wrongness was gone.

I spat out the wood. It was indented with my tooth marks.

I took a handful of snow that had blown in through the window and packed it around the hand. Nature’s ice pack.

Then, I slumped back onto the tarps.

“Done,” I whispered to Ash. “It’s done.”

He rested his head on my chest. I wrapped my good arm around him.

We lay there in the green gloom, two broken soldiers in a forgotten shed, listening to the storm try to tear the roof off.

08:00 Hours — The Eye of the Needle

I woke up to light.

Not the green glow of the ChemLight, which had faded to a dull gray, but real, honest daylight streaming through the broken window.

I was alive.

I wiggled my toes. They hurt. A burning, stinging pain.

I smiled. Pain meant nerves. Pain meant blood. Frostnip, certainly. Maybe mild frostbite. But I still had feet.

I sat up. My body felt like it had been thrown down a flight of stairs. Every muscle was locked with lactic acid and cold-stiffness.

Ash was already awake. He was standing by the door, sniffing at the crack.

I stood up. My head swam, dizzy with dehydration. I ate a handful of snow. It burned my throat, but the moisture was life.

I walked to the workbench. I needed to see if there was anything useful.

Rusted wrench. Useless. Empty oil cans. Useless. A roll of duct tape, frozen solid. Maybe.

And then, I saw it.

In the back corner, behind a stack of pallets, was a metal cabinet. It was locked, but the lock was a simple wafer tumbler.

I used my knife to pry it open.

Inside, sitting on a shelf, covered in twenty years of dust, was a red plastic case.

First Aid.

I opened it. Most of the contents were garbage—dried up ointments, brittle bandages.

But at the bottom, there was a foil packet.

A thermal blanket.

And next to it, a flare gun.

My heart stopped.

I picked it up. It was heavy. Orange plastic. Single shot.

I broke the barrel open. It was empty.

My stomach dropped.

I frantically searched the box. No shells. No red cartridges. Just the gun.

“Damn it!” I threw the box across the room.

It hit the wall and spilled its contents.

Ash trotted over to the mess. He sniffed at a small, cardboard box that had fallen out. He nudged it with his nose.

I looked.

Olin Marine Signal Flares. 12 Gauge.

I crawled over. The box was damp. I tore it open.

There were three shells.

Two were swollen with moisture, the brass corroded green. They wouldn’t fire.

The third… the third looked okay. The primer was intact. The wax seal on the crimp was holding.

One shot.

I loaded the shell into the flare gun and snapped the barrel shut.

I looked at Ash. “We have one shot, buddy.”

The Extraction Logic

I needed a plan.

Firing the flare here was useless. We were in a valley. No one would see it, and even if they did, the storm clouds were still low.

I needed high ground.

I went back to the mental map.

The helipad at the Annex was the extraction point for the team. But there was a secondary extraction point—a contingency LZ used for emergency evacuations. It was located on the ridge line, about a mile east of the Annex. It was the highest point in the sector.

If I could get there… if I could fire the flare above the cloud deck, or at least high enough to be seen by the satellite sweeps looking for the “lost” team…

But that meant walking back. Toward the killers.

No. They were gone. They had left hours ago.

“We move,” I said.

I wrapped the thermal blanket around my core, under the parka. I taped my broken hand to my chest to immobilize it.

We climbed out the window.

The Ascent

The storm had broken, but the aftermath was brutal. The air was crystal clear and still, which meant the temperature had plummeted even further. It was easily minus thirty.

The sun was a cold, white disk in a pale sky. The world was blindingly bright. The snow reflected ninety percent of the UV radiation. I had to squint until my eyes were mere slits to prevent snow blindness.

We walked.

We didn’t stumble this time. We marched. It was a slow, grim procession.

We bypassed the Annex. I saw the comms mast in the distance. I saw the cut zip ties lying in the snow. I didn’t look at them. I looked forward.

We hit the incline leading to the ridge. The snow here was wind-scoured, hard ice. It was slippery, dangerous terrain.

Ash was struggling. His energy burst from the morning was fading. He was dehydrated and hungry.

“Almost there,” I lied. “Almost there.”

We climbed for an hour. My lungs felt like they were bleeding. My legs were trembling uncontrollably.

We reached the crest of the ridge.

The view was staggering. A sea of white stretching to the horizon. The pine trees looked like tiny models covered in powdered sugar.

I looked at the sky. It was clear blue.

I scanned the horizon.

Nothing. No drones. No helicopters. Just the empty sky.

I sat down on a rock that had been swept bare by the wind.

“We wait,” I said.

We waited.

Ten minutes. Twenty.

The cold began to creep back in, bypassing the thermal blanket, finding the cracks in my armor.

Then, I heard it.

Thwup-thwup-thwup.

The sound was faint, carried on the thin air.

I stood up.

A black speck in the distance. Growing larger.

A helicopter.

A Sikorsky MH-60 Jayhawk. Coast Guard? Or Navy?

It didn’t matter. It was a ride.

It was flying a search grid pattern, low over the trees. It was miles away. It was going to miss us. It was turning, banking away toward the south.

“No!” I screamed.

I raised the flare gun.

My hands were shaking. If I missed… if the flare was a dud…

I braced my right arm with my left hand. I pointed the muzzle straight up.

“Please,” I whispered. “Work.”

I pulled the trigger.

POOM.

The recoil jarred my broken thumb, sending a spike of nausea through me.

A red streak hissed into the sky. It rose, trailing gray smoke. It climbed three hundred feet.

And then, it bloomed.

A brilliant, magnesium-red star hung in the blue sky. It burned with a fierce, artificial intensity.

I watched the helicopter.

It kept flying south.

“Turn,” I begged. “Turn around.”

The flare began to fall. It was dying.

And then, the helicopter banked hard.

It dipped its nose. It swung around. It had seen the red star.

It was coming toward us.

I dropped the flare gun. I fell to my knees and hugged Ash.

“We got ’em,” I cried. Tears froze on my cheeks. “We got ’em.”

The Rescue

The wash from the rotors was like a hurricane. Snow whipped up in a blinding cloud.

The Jayhawk hovered. A basket was lowered.

A rescue swimmer descended on the cable. He hit the snow and ran toward us.

He was wearing an orange dry suit and a helmet with a visor. He grabbed me.

“Commander Hale?” he shouted over the engine noise.

I nodded. I couldn’t speak.

“We have you! Is there anyone else?”

I shook my head. “Just the dog! Take the dog first!”

He looked at Ash. “Roger that!”

He strapped Ash into the basket. I watched as my partner was hoisted up into the belly of the machine. Only when I saw him pulled inside by the crew chief did I allow myself to be clipped into the harness.

The ride up was a blur.

Then I was inside. The warmth of the cabin hit me like a physical blow. It smelled of jet fuel and sweat—the most beautiful smell in the world.

A medic was on me instantly, cutting away my parka, checking my vitals.

“Core temp is 94!” he yelled into his headset. “Severe frostbite on the extremities! Dislocated thumb! She’s stable but critical!”

He put a heated blanket around me. He put an oxygen mask on my face.

I pulled the mask down.

“The radio,” I rasped.

“Ma’am, you need to rest—”

“Give me the goddamn headset!” I ordered. The voice was weak, but the command was there. The command that had silenced the briefing room.

The medic hesitated, then handed me a spare headset.

I put it on.

“Pilot, this is Hale,” I said.

“Commander, this is LCDR Evans,” the pilot replied. “Welcome aboard. We were told your unit was lost. We picked up a faint distress beacon from the Annex but found no one there. We thought you were gone.”

“Evans,” I said. “Connect me to Admiral Rowe. Secure line. Priority Alpha.”

“Ma’am, we’re taking you to the hospital in Bangor—”

“Connect me now!”

There was a pause. Then, the line clicked. A series of electronic tones.

“This is Rear Admiral Rowe,” the voice came through. It was crisp. Calm.

“Admiral,” I said.

There was a silence on the other end. A long, heavy silence. She recognized my voice. She was processing the impossibility of it.

“Commander Hale?” she said. Her voice didn’t waver, but the temperature of it dropped. “We… we received reports that your team was KIA. The storm…”

“My team is alive, Admiral,” I said. “Miller. Torres. Jensen. Kincaid. They are alive.”

“I… I don’t understand.”

“They have the drives,” I said. “And they have your money.”

Another silence.

“Elara,” she said, her tone shifting. Beating. “You need medical attention. You’re confusing things. The trauma—”

“I’m not confused, Judith,” I said. “I’m the witness.”

I looked over at Ash. The crew chief was giving him water from a bottle. Ash looked up at me and wagged his tail.

“I’m coming in,” I said into the mic. “And I want you to know something.”

“What is that?” Rowe asked.

“I didn’t die.”

I ripped the headset off and let it drop.

The Resolution

Three Weeks Later — Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.

The physical therapy room was quiet.

I stood between the parallel bars. My right hand was in a cast. My toes were bandaged—I had kept them all, miraculously, though the nerve damage would likely be permanent.

“Okay, Commander,” the therapist said. “One step.”

I took a step. My legs shook, but they held.

“Good. Another.”

I took another step.

The door opened.

A man in a suit walked in. Naval Criminal Investigative Service.

“Commander Hale?”

“Agent,” I acknowledged, not stopping my walking.

“We found them,” he said.

I stopped. I turned to face him.

“Where?”

“Cartagena, Colombia. They were trying to offload the drives to a buyer from the Northern Crown syndicate. It seems the syndicate exists after all, just not in the way they thought.”

“And?”

“The transaction went south,” the agent said. “Local authorities found them. Miller and Torres are in custody. Jensen is cooperating. They gave up the Admiral.”

I nodded. It was a neat ending. A bureaucratic ending. Justice served on a platter.

“Admiral Rowe has been relieved of command pending a court-martial,” the agent continued. “She claims she was coerced. That she was trying to protect the data.”

“She’s a liar,” I said.

“We know. Her financials tell the story.”

The agent hesitated. “There’s one more thing.”

“What?”

“Miller… he asked to see you. He wants to cut a deal.”

I looked out the window. It was raining in D.C. A cold, gray rain.

“Tell him,” I said, “that the only deal he gets is the one he gave me.”

“And what is that?”

“The cold,” I said. “Tell him he can rot in it.”

The agent nodded and left.

I looked at the corner of the room.

Ash was lying on a dog bed. He was shaved in patches where the IVs had been, and he walked with a slight limp that the vets said would heal in time.

He stood up as I looked at him. He trotted over, his nails clicking on the tile.

He sat beside me and leaned his weight against my leg.

I reached down with my good hand and scratched him behind the ears.

“We made it, buddy,” I whispered.

The story they would tell on the news would be about heroism. About a commander who survived the impossible and brought down a corruption ring.

But that wasn’t the real story.

The real story was about a woman and a dog on a frozen hill in Maine.

The real story was that they left us to die, and we refused.

They thought we were weak. They thought we were broken.

But they forgot the most important rule of the wild.

You never, ever corner a mother wolf.

And you never touch her pup.

I looked at my reflection in the mirror on the wall. The face staring back was older. There were lines around the eyes that hadn’t been there before. The skin was pale.

But the eyes… the eyes were different.

They were colder. Harder.

I wasn’t just a soldier anymore.

I was the storm that survived.

“Heel, Ash,” I said.

We walked out of the room together, leaving the parallel bars behind. We had a lot of work to do.

And for the first time in a long time, I wasn’t cold.

I was burning.

---

End of Story.