A warm breeze rustled through leaves of peach blossom as Kayla walked with Urtiga. They were in the Vale of the Fallen, where every tree represented a woman who had been lost in the service of Valkyrie,

  and the sturdy, immortal trunks stretched as far as the eye could see.

  Urtiga liked to take Kayla to meet her fallen friends, and tell their stories. She insisted that it was the only way to keep alive the memories of those who were lost, and the knowledge they had earned

  in blood.

  For Kayla it was an honor and a privilege. By tacit agreement, no woman ever went further into the forest than her own generation—unless invited. It would too easily allow her to guess the age of

  the Valkyrie she met.

  “I still don’t understand why you took me under your wing,” Kayla said, as they walked back to the entrance. “I’m more trouble than I’m worth.”

  Urtiga gave her a mild shove. “Have you been feeling sorry for yourself? You know that’s not what I want to hear.”

  “A little bit,” Kayla admitted. She reached up and scratched at a bad rash on her neck, wincing at the movement.

  “Training accident?” Urtiga asked.

  Kayla chuckled “No, I got a bit over-zealous with my authority, and Thandi made me pay for it. She’s got this natural talent for all martial arts. Makes me super jealous.”

  “Okay, I get,” said Urtiga. “You’ve been screwing up.”

  “And then some. You heard about the friendly fire incident?”

  Urtiga smiled wryly. “Which one? My unit had one too, you know.”

  “At least nobody got shot in yours.”

  “Anything can happen when bullets start flying.”

  “Yeah, that’s what everyone says. I just don’t know if I’ve got this leadership business figured out yet.”

  Urtiga shook her head and said nothing. Then she stopped.

  “My whole family got vaporized by a bomb on Titan,” she said. “During the Sol war. Most people don’t even remember it now. It’s a footnote in any history book.” She looked

  sadly into the distance. “A few rebels versus the Earth government in a weeklong exchange of ordinance that achieved nothing. Valkyrie took me in, and I’ve never known anything else.

  Kayla watched her mentor and took in every word.

  “My older sister was the coolest person I knew. We used to do everything together; run around the colony, steal boats and race them on the methane lakes. When the bombs started falling, we all ran

  into the basement. They told me to stay still, but I was too scared, and we always used to run from trouble, so I got out of their grip and raced outside.”

  She smiled. “I honestly thought they would follow me. But I looked back and the whole building just disintegrated in front of me. They used bunker busters because they said they the rebels were tunneling

  under houses. There was nothing left at all.”

  “Did you blame yourself?” Kayla asked.

  Despite the rush of grief and horror, and the parade of questions, she didn’t want to overreact. She had no business falling to pieces when she hadn’t experienced what Urtiga, at more than a

  century old, had already healed from. Even with her own memories, excessive sympathy made her uncomfortable.

  “Sure,” Urtiga said. “I went through the whole rollercoaster for decades. But anyway, when you lost your dad, I thought you could use an older sister. So that’s why I took you under

  my wing.”

  Kayla suddenly lost control of her voice. “Sometimes I wish you were my mother.”

  “Oh, I’d be a terrible mother,” Urtiga said as she awkwardly kicked at a fallen branch. “Besides, yours is still alive.”

  “But she’s a narcissist,” Kayla insisted. “There’s nothing there to connect with.”

  “You remember when you came to Tyr? The first thing I said to you? It was so awful, and I beat myself up about it for ages.”

  Kayla thought for a moment, then laughed. “Did I regret the day you met me? The day my dad died? Yeah, I wasn’t sure about that one, but I think I forgot about it quickly with everything that

  was going on.”

  “You see? I can’t be a mother. I’ve lost the touch. I don’t think I’m a narcissist, but… well, you would be reminded of one from time to time.”

  “You probably could, if you wanted to be.”

  “Just like you could be a good team leader, if you wanted to be?”

  Kayla stopped short and lifted her head to stare at the sky through the pink blossoms above them. She felt very angry, and very stupid at the same time.

  “I’m a reckless, irresponsible idiot, and I have no idea what I’m doing.”

  Urtiga nodded. “That’s about how most of us start out. It’s very on the job training.”

  “But the others… they need someone way better than me.”

  “No, they need you, because you are an excellent soldier, and as soon as you stop trying to take responsibility for the risks they accepted for themselves, you’ll figure that out.”

  Urtiga stopped and stared down the path. The forest had given way to a crowd of evenly spaced young saplings. Christe and Thandi sat by one of them, talking happily.

  “Your friend Rose didn’t join this organization because she wanted to live forever,” Urtiga said. “She joined because she wanted her life to count for something more than herself.

  And it did.”

  Kayla tried to sniff back tears. “But Rayker got away. I let it happen again.”

  Urtiga grabbed her shoulder and looked her in the eye. “I don’t want to hear that. We let Rayker get away. It was a team failure, and it won’t be the last. But you know we’ll hunt her down again. And some more women will die. And one day we will succeed, and it will all

  have been worth it. If you don’t give everything you have to make that happen, failures included, then what does that mean for the sacrifices of those that did?”

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  After she left Urtiga, Kayla joined her friends at the sapling where Rose’s body was buried.

  “How’s your shoulder?” Thandi asked.

  “It’s good, but I need to stretch it some more. Did you really have to dislocate it?”

  “I dunno. I guess we’ll see how you do over the next couple of weeks.”

  “One of these days it’s going to be me kicking your ass,” Kayla said with a grimace.

  Thandi laughed, and shook her head dismissively.

  “How is the wide-eyed, na?ve, and totally unsuspecting future of our precious organization?” Kayla asked.

  Thandi scoffed. “Driving forward with a spring in her step. Barely put off by your doom and gloom speech. Still idolizes the squad in general, and you in particular, in defiance of explanation. Ray’s

  taken her under her wing.”

  “That’s good,” Kayla nodded. “Ray’s awesome.”

  “What will happen to Yak?” Christie asked.

  “She was already near the end of her probation,” Kayla said. Valkyrie were usually required to serve a five-year term as a Ranger before they could specialize into other units. “And she

  was already on a program to prep for Pararescue selection. Either way, she won’t come back to our squad.”

  “What a coldly bureaucratic system your battalions operate under.”

  “Obviously. Duty comes before everything.”

  Christie looked thoughtful. “Do you know, I’ve heard a lot of stories about your friend Ray. I feel certain she’s spent a lot more than five years as a Ranger.”

  Thandi shrugged. “You can stay however long you want. Before Ash left, she told me Ray was in Winter battalion before she came to Mountain. But she’s super cagey about it.”

  “She’s easily the most dialed in Ranger in the company, too,” Kayla observed.

  “Of course,” Christie mused, “Given the advantages of nanite enhancement, we have no idea how old many of our colleagues are. I was shocked when I learned Urtiga was nearly a hundred and

  forty. You can’t remotely tell by looking.”

  “Sure,” Kayla said. “Ray can be a bit adolescent though, especially when it comes to men.”

  Christie only raised an eyebrow.

  “I just hope we have time to get our rookie up to speed before we have to go face Rayker again,” Kayla said, absently. She picked a blade of grass and studied it closely.

  “Unlikely,” Christie said after a thoughtful pause. “One cannot move a small army of alien war machines around without generating chatter. She might go into hibernation in dead space somewhere—and

  who am I to make assumptions about her strategy? But if she moves, we will know within weeks. There are many ears to the ground, you see. It’s a very all-hands-on-deck situation.”

  “I would bet,” Thandi said carefully, “that the mess at that ice base gave the chiefs a wakeup call. They need to reorganize Valkyrie into a large-scale, coordinated force, rather than

  the piecemeal cleanup groups they’ve gotten used to.

  “But there are so many problems with that approach,” Christie argued. “You cannot simply move a private army into human space without catastrophic effects.”

  Thandi shrugged. “Come on Chris. This whole ‘neutral protectors’ thing was never going to last. Between the trafficking and Rayker… something had to change. Everyone knows it.”

  Christie scoffed. “Oh gosh, how could I forget that we had the benefit of perfect moral righteousness to guide us?”

  Kayla gave her a disappointed look. “But you do think we have superior intellect on our side, don’t you? Here’s the thing, you might want to revisit some of your assumptions about who

  exactly is in the driving seat of the Ranger battalions. And they don’t necessarily share the opinions of the officer-intel class.”

  Christie stared at her in surprise. When she finally spoke, she sounded offended. “I’m stunned you would even use a term like that. What happened to one-team, one-fight?”

  Kayla just shrugged. She couldn’t help being the bearer of bad news.

  “I’m sorry, I thought I had joined a responsible paramilitary organization. Now my friends tell me I’m part of a gang, a mob, of angry, over-powered ego maniacs. I suppose this is the

  time where I need to shut up and do as I’m told by those with the guns, is that right?”

  “That’s unfair,” Thandi said. “I hate the way you try to oversimplify everything.”

  “Un-simplify it for me then,” Christie said, as her cheeks began to color.

  Thandi’s voice softened. “You know that Valkyrie puts reputation and experience before rank, and you know that the most senior veterans could be anyone. Probably only the chiefs know who the

  old guard are.”

  “It is an extremely effective clique; I grant you that.”

  “Officers are a necessity for organization and coordination. They are the nerves which drive the muscle. But the body has a heart, and it has a gut.”

  “An organ for pumping blood and another for digesting food, gosh, what an insightful metaphor.” Christie said coldly.

  Kayla chuckled. “Which part do you think is the ass—sorry, sorry.” She looked down as her friends scowled her into silence.

  “Listen Chris,” Thandi continued, maintaining her even tone. “You’re the one making assumptions about how the organization thinks.

  “Or ought to think,” Kayla said quietly.

  “We’re just sharing the broader picture,” Thandi finished.

  “Hmph.” Christie looked away into the forest as her jaw clenched.

  She didn’t speak for some time, and Kayla exchanged a look with Thandi as the silence continued. Eventually, however, their friend appeared to relax, and sighed deeply.

  “You’re right, obviously,” she said. “None of us really know what kind of people our superiors are, or their agenda.”

  Kayla nodded. “All I know is that I like who I work with, and the missions we get handed seem worthy. Here, have a dandelion.”

  Christie gratefully accepted the flower and her smile brightened.

  “I suppose you’ll bring your new girl to Caldera?” she asked.

  Smyrna had declared mandatory weekend leave for the task force, with explicit instructions to get off Tyr and visit civilization. The squad had planned to unwind on Caldera by staying in the spacious town

  house of Kayla’s adoptive father, Jack Fenway. The ability to find their own friends outside work had expired with time in service, and so they hoped to get drunk in Zula while flirting with locals. Only Kes had declined,

  citing family matters.

  “Yeah, of course,” Kayla said. “She’s been pushing so hard she’s brain fried, and it’s the perfect opportunity to integrate her. Anyway, check it out, I’ve got

  this awesome new outfit I wanted to wear—”

  “If it was that meager scrap of fabric you had laid out on your bed, you’re not wearing that,” Thandi said flatly.

  Kayla huffed in frustration. “I’m sorry, are you just my full-time mother now?”

  “Yours mostly ignored you, as did all the girls you grew up with. So, yeah, I guess I have to take on some of that responsibility.”

  “Well give it a rest. There’s nothing wrong with me being feminine and showing off some skin.”

  “First,” Thanda replied patiently, “those are two completely different concepts, and the fact that you don’t understand that tells me how far you have left to go. Second—no,

  listen.” She cut off Kayla’s attempted backtalk with a stern look. “Second; girls who can dress like that without concern usually know what they are doing. You have no idea what you are doing, because you’ve

  never socialized with people outside this group of immortal, trained killers, who are as far removed from real life as it is possible to get.”

  Kayla scowled as she scratched at the dirt. “I bet Christie would be happy to take me out looking hot.”

  “Don’t try and turn us against each other,” Thandi snapped. “I’m looking out for you, because you do not understand that the world is filled with sharks. When they see a young

  woman wearing skimpy outfits, without the experience to know how to handle herself, all they see is prey. Christie, back me up.”

  “Thandi is correct,” Christie said. “Social interaction is a subtle and fast spoken language, chiefly used in the exploitation of the inexperienced. And men, of course, are vile monsters

  to be watched with constant suspicion, while noting their range and elevation. Perhaps, Thandi, a mortar team could be called upon to set up a thousand meters from the venue, in case we have need?”

  Thandi slapped her on the leg and turned back to Kayla. “She’s being facetious, but she did agree.”

  “Broadly agreed,” Christie allowed. “Just don’t let her turn you into a nun. And can we do anything to convince you to explore the rest of the color spectrum? Black cannot be worn

  for every occasion.”

  Kayla shook her head. “That’s objectively false.”

  “And please, whatever you do,” Thandi said, “Remember Rose’s advice. If you meet anyone who reminds you of your friend Weslan Genny, walk away immediately.”

  “So, to clarify,” Kayla said in exasperation. “Even when I get a long weekend break, I still have to spend it learning new tactics, techniques and procedures?”

  “Correct,” Christie said. “And there will be a test.”

  Thandi squeezed her shoulder. “I’m really sorry you weren’t given the upbringing you needed to become as well-rounded as other girls. I’m sorry you have to work hard just to become

  more normal. But, on the bright side, you are a Ranger, and you will crush this like you crush everything else.”

  Kayla smiled gratefully. “Usually with a lot of collateral damage, but I appreciate the sentiment.”