Kayla leaned out over the open ramp of her drop-ship and watched the gentle folds of white mountain ranges drift past, nearly two dozen miles below. Like the rest of the Rangers on board, her white and

  gray pattern combat suit was fully sealed to protect her from the rarefied atmosphere and extreme cold. Several miles below her feet, a black fighter circled lazily as it led the slower transport vessels.

  Days of gear maintenance, training and boredom had been violently interrupted when the Banshee crashed to a stop, alarms blaring and loudspeakers instructing all hands

  to brace for impact. The news quickly spread that a minefield had suddenly activated ahead of them, blocking their approach into the system that held their target.

  The Rangers waited impatiently while Smyrna debated with the task force’s officers. A drone was dispatched, and gossip turned to cold hard fact as its findings were passed down the chain. Rayker appeared

  to be holed up in an underground base, possibly a construction plant, that once again had not been on any of Valkyrie’s charts.

  Then the news broke of a VennZech-contracted freighter inbound from Intaba. Rumors flew fast. The ship was loaded with mercenaries, and Rayker wanted a pitched battle. Or the ship was supposed to transport

  her and a new army off the planet, while a Jotnar fleet jumped in to protect her escape. Or it was a flying nova-bomb that would cover her escape.

  At this point, Smyrna deferred to Valkyrie’s governing chiefs. The crew of the Banshee watched the planet like hawks while two more ships, the Sirène, and the Erinys raced out to join them, packed with the Rangers of Winter Battalion.

  By the time the freighter was preparing to leave the foreboding new site, a plan had formed, and the force had maneuvered forward to attack. Rayker’s tracker had winked out right before the vessel

  climbed to orbit, and when that was announced, a chill passed through the ranks of the assembled warriors.

  Their prey had signaled that she was ready for them.

  The entirety of Orbital Demolition Team Four assembled on the Sirène and prepared to capture the freighter as it left the system. Meanwhile, the Raiders and Rangers

  moved to assault the base, hidden beneath its shield of snow and ice.

  Even with the air superiority of nine Shrike fighters and two orbital gunships, Smyrna had no appetite to take the same risks as they had on Caldera. No drop-ship would go anywhere near the target. Instead,

  the Rangers would jump in below the horizon, then navigate across the eerie, smooth landscape.

  And for Kayla, thrilled for the final confrontation, and always enamored of the terror brought on by too much altitude, that was just fine.

  “Thirty seconds,” the pilots called through her headset.

  Kayla’s heart leaped. She hadn’t gotten much sleep over the thirty-six hours of the assault’s preparation, but adrenaline flushed her fatigue away. She was going to have a great time,

  and at the end of it, kill Rayker.

  Turning away from the exhilarating view, she went to check on her fire team as they queued up behind her on the ramp. Ray was humming a tune behind her faceplate, whilst Tian and Yak appeared to be staring

  at nothing.

  Kayla held up a fist. “Ready to destroy evil?” she sent through the squad comm-link.

  Tian banged her fist in return while Yak only nodded calmly. Kayla snuck a peek at Thandi, further back with Kes. She was never one for heights, but she seemed focused.

  A red light illuminated above the ramp, and Kayla shuffled forward. Between her suit, weapons, rucksack, main chute, and reserve chute, she weighed over two hundred pounds. For her nanite enhanced body

  it was still an uncomfortable, but manageable weight. She almost bounced on her toes as the red jump light hung placidly over her head.

  When it turned green, she leapt out over the white landscape without a second’s hesitation.

  As she began to tumble, she twisted her neck to see the drop-ship vanishing to a dot, while small white figures drifted like snowflakes above her.

  Soon the accelerating air currents allowed her to straighten out and orient along her trajectory. Her visor’s electronic display showed a dark gray marker against the endless white desert, three thousand

  feet below; the drop zone. From there, they would have to travel a hundred miles to reach the base and begin the assault.

  Preliminary scans from stealth drones had suggested that the complex was the size of a small city. Even with the addition of the Winter Ranger battalion, the operation’s commanders had estimated they

  would need several days to clear the place.

  Whilst Kayla’s platoon had jumped as two chalks to the south of the base, the force had structured the assault around several potential entrances. Once contact was made, the gunships would rain destruction

  down on the remaining openings. Even if Rayker made it out, a small swarm of drones were waiting to provide total surveillance of the area. If she was on the escaping freighter, the ODT team would catch her there.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  The noose was in place. All the Valkyrie had to do was draw it tight.

  The weather was calm, and the platoon landed smoothly. Kayla quickly checked that her Rangers were fine before she joined Kes.

  “Oh, shit,” the squad leader said quietly after listening on the radio. “A corporal in Winter had a main chute problem, and the reserve failed. She burned in.”

  Kayla shook her head. It was a dangerous job, though their enhanced bodies were able to handle a fall from any altitude, provided they landed on something soft. All Valkyrie had to jump out of a plane without

  a chute to pass Ranger school, but for an hour after the impact, Kayla had regretted surviving it.

  “How is she doing?” she asked.

  “Non-ambulatory,” Kes replied. “They’re keeping a few extra bodies with her while she heals. Apart from that, the op is a go.”

  Lieutenant Akane signaled to the platoon, and they broke out the cross-country skis they had strapped to their packs. Soon, they were moving quickly through the snow, walking uphill, then racing off the

  crests and along the flats. They, and the other elements of the force, reached their objectives within hours.

  Kayla watched the distant mounds as she lay in the snow atop a ridgeline. The assault force was still maneuvering into position, and the squad kept the objective under close observation. Expecting close

  quarters combat, Kayla hadn’t taken a scope for her carbine, instead preferring a lower magnification holo-sight. Through a small pair of binoculars, she studied what appeared to be the entrance to an underground garage

  over a mile away. No vehicles were visible, but there had been a recent collapse of snow around the large opening, while tracks led off in the direction of other mounds that formed more of the base.

  “Lots of activity recently,” she said in a low voice.

  Off to her side, Ray chuckled. “I hope you’re all ready for a fun day.”

  Kayla smiled wryly. Ashna Rai Bharath was nicknamed for a nasty scar across her neck, the result of a defensive laser that came within a millisecond of decapitating the spirited woman. It was a memory she

  also liked to describe as a ‘fun day’.

  Kayla crawled back down the ridge’s reverse until she came to Thandi, who was carrying the light machine gun for Kes’ fire team.

  “What do you think?” she asked.

  “Nothing really,” Thandi replied. “It’s just a bunch of caves in the ground. No way to know what’s down there until we go in.”

  Kes scooted across the line of Rangers to join them. “The briefing said it’s an uncharted site, so it could be literally anything.”

  “I’m starting to get that Caldera vibe again,” Thandi said.

  Kes cocked her head. “Did you ever own of those super cute tiny dogs? Like a Jack Russell?”

  Thandi raised an eyebrow. “You mean the little psychopaths that like to pick a fight with literally every other living thing?”

  Kes chuckled. “That’s them. I owned a couple. If you’re out for a walk and they see a hole in the ground, they dive in like a crack addict going for his stash.”

  “Cos they’re terriers,” Kayla noted. “Hunting dogs bred small, to go into the burrows of foxes or vermin.”

  “The country girl gets it,” Kes said. “And the awesome thing about a burrow is that it often contains a mama trying to protect her babies. So, she’s going straight to eleven on the

  rage scale, and anything that sticks its face in there better be ready to have it ripped off. Pure up-front aggression is the only thing that will get you through an experience like that.”

  Thandi thought for a moment. “Do you think Rayker’s in there protecting her eggs?”

  Kayla chuckled quietly.

  “She’s brooding over them right now,” Thandi continued, “while she preens her mandibles and rubs her front legs together. Lord, that woman is a special kind of demon.”

  Lyna tossed a snowball at her. “I really wish you hadn’t said that,” she said glumly.

  There was a moment of silence while the squad reflected. Kayla had a deep scar on her right bicep, where Rayker’s bone spike had pinned her to a concrete pillar. It began to itch.

  “Okay,” Lyna said hopefully, “but we have the element of surprise, so—”

  “Nope,” Kayla interrupted. “She pulled the tracker out. She knows what’s coming, and she’s had plenty of time to prepare for us.

  “Find your eleven, girls, and get ready to stay there indefinitely,” Kes said.

  “Thandi, did you pray?” Kayla asked.

  “Like… once a minute since we left the ship.”

  “Ah well,” she squeezed her friend’s shoulder. “We’ll be fine then.”

  She glanced up as a shape popped up over the horizon opposite the target—a low-flying Shrike fighter. They would prep the area for the initial assault, then return to orbit when the Rangers went inside.

  Fat lot of good they would be after that.

  A deafening screech announced the overhead passage of a pair of anti-ground missiles, which flew straight into the garage door ahead. The first tore a ragged hole through the metal for the second to pass

  unhindered, and destroy anything that waited on the other side. Flames and smoke belched up into the sky while the Shrike circled for another pass. With a sound like the sky being ripped open, the fighter’s rotary cannon

  spat a hundred high-velocity, explosive shells into the hellish maw.

  The silence that followed was filled seconds later by the whistle of mortars from the company’s weapons platoon. Smoke rounds burst around the base’s mounds, filling the air with an invisible

  haze.

  “Let’s go!” Lieutenant Akane called, and the mass of waiting Rangers surged forward, guided by their infra-red vision towards the breach point.

  Kayla’s legs hammered through the thick snow, enhanced muscles pushing her across the mile distance quickly. Even so, her thigh’s burned with acid by the end while she panted for breath. It

  was an endless struggle; super strength could take them further, with more weight, in less time. Pain was the only limit.

  When they reached the garage opening, they took no chances. Kayla motioned to Yak, who tossed a thermobaric grenade inside. The weapon’s shockwave produced a deadly overpressure that easily flowed

  through the structure.

  Even behind cover, Kayla felt the blast wave like a punch to the head. Then she led the way inside, climbing over the sheared wreckage as fast as she dared, with the rest of the squad in close pursuit.

  Their weapons played over twisted metal debris, lingering on nooks and crannies as they scanned for any sign of a hidden enemy.