“Is this your family, Captain?” the General asked, holding my Distinguished Flying Cross toward me. I looked past him at my father—once so proud, so loud, so certain I was a disappointment—now standing amid shattered glass and spilled bourbon with tears running down his face. For thirty years, he had mocked me in front of anyone willing to listen, but the answer I gave that General made the entire room fall completely silent.

The landing zone was an absolute inferno.

Tracer fire crossed the night sky like ropes of incandescent orange beads. Heavy mortar rounds detonated across the canyon floor, throwing plumes of burning rock and dirt into the freezing air. The enemy had surrounded the cave entrance, advancing behind the armor of a heavy technical truck mounted with a dual 23-millimeter anti-aircraft cannon.

I didn't have offensive missiles, but the Valkyrie had raw physics.

I brought the aircraft out of the canyon gorge at tree-top level, kicked both scramjets into full auxiliary afterburner, and blew directly over the enemy's fortified positions at six hundred miles per hour.

The resulting supersonic shockwave hit the canyon floor like the detonation of a five-hundred-pound bomb. The sheer overpressure shattered the windshields of the technical trucks, flipped two gun mounts into the ravine, and threw fifty enemy combatants violently into the dirt, temporarily deafened and disoriented.

Before the dust could settle, I pulled the nose up, deployed the heavy titanium airbrakes, and dropped the Valkyrie onto the rocky riverbed with a bone-jarring thud.

The reverse thrusters screamed, kicking up a blinding cloud of river stones and spray as the aircraft ground to a halt thirty yards from the cave mouth.

I hit the master release. The rear cargo ramp dropped with a heavy mechanical clatter.

Unbuckling my harness, I grabbed the short-barreled carbine mounted beside my seat, activated the automated roof-mounted defense turret to lay down suppressing fire, and ran down the ramp into the howling chaos of the firefight.

The smell of cordite, blood, and burning diesel slammed into my senses.

"Alvarez!" I screamed over the deafening roar of the automated turret chewing through the rocks above. "Move! Move! Move!"

Out of the darkness of the cave mouth, three figures emerged, carrying two improvised stretchers between them. Mike Alvarez was at the point, his uniform torn and blackened with soot, blood dripping from a shrapnel wound across his temple, firing his rifle with one hand while dragging a wounded comrade with the other.

He looked up, through the blinding glare of the Valkyrie’s rear lights, and froze for a fraction of a second in pure disbelief.

"Captain Hayes?!" he roared over the gunfire.

"Get them aboard, Mike! We don't have thirty seconds!"

I laid down a steady stream of covering fire toward the northern ridge as the survivors scrambled up the metal ramp. They dragged four critically wounded men into the belly of the Valkyrie. The automated turret clicked dry with a hollow, metallic snap.