The transmission hit Aero 342 like a grenade.
“They have the Colonel. I repeat, hostile elements have secured Colonel Robert Keane.”
The voice was clipped, professional—calm over chaos. Then came the chaos: gunfire, shouting in Arabic, frantic commands… and dead air.
Captain Hadley Cross froze over the radio console. Around her, the command post moved like clockwork—keyboards clacking, headsets shifting, officers issuing updates—but for her, the world narrowed to one fact: Keane was captured, and every second mattered.
Official protocol kicked in. Notify command. Lock down the base. Assemble a response. Wait for approvals. Run through the chain. Too late.
Hadley’s eyes traced the tactical map. Fifteen kilometers northeast, the intel pointed to a village. Fifteen kilometers. Close enough to save him—or close enough to watch him die waiting.
Keane wasn’t just a superior. He’d been her mentor. Three years ago, fresh out of Ranger School, she’d met him in the field:
“Lieutenant Cross, I don’t care if you’re male, female, or Martian. Can you lead soldiers in combat?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then prove it.”
She had. Two deployments. Countless firefights. Decisions made in heartbeats. Respect earned the only way it counted: under fire.
Now he was a hostage. The site commander, a clean-cut major, barked protocol: “We wait for special operations assets. This exceeds our capability.”
Hadley absorbed it. She didn’t argue. She didn’t yell. She left.
At 0400, she was moving. M4 in hand, night vision on, every magazine loaded. A civilian pickup carried her northeast. The young guard hesitated at the gate. “Ma’am, you’re not on the log.”
“Emergency supply run,” she said, final. He lifted the barrier.
The desert stretched in green ghost-light through her goggles. Every sound mattered. Every shadow was a threat. Every minute counts.
Two kilometers from the compound, she dropped the truck and went in on foot. Silent. Calculated. Ruthless in discipline. She moved like someone alone, trained to kill efficiently without mistakes.
Continue reading on the next page…