THE LAST EXTRACTION

THE DAY TH

already burning whe

is spine forward and drove the breath out of his lungs. Metal screamed, glass explod

tent pain, spreading from his ribs down to his legs. Not fatal, y

shield shattered, and the nose of the helicopter was buried deep in the red di

ally, it

o himself, voice hoarse, tasting c

, and rolled out of the twisted metal just as a secondary explosion ripped through

instead of burning metal. Then he l

y was

olumns rising from the valley below. Distant gunfire popped like fireworks. Mortars thumped

his eyes for

ve. That's

lf to his feet

le:

ered but scrat

crack

: mi

one hit

ction unit sent to retrieve a defector known only as Asset Orion. A scientist

en simple: in and

d lit up the night sky like a war mo

passed

fro

pter-definitel

he dirt where his head had been seconds earlier. The c

hink I

o

battered rifle discarded by his own team, and disappeared

ance, it looked abandoned. Up close, it looked massacred. Burned

collapsed doorway, clutching a child, eyes wide w

idn't h

ruthless. The woman ran. The ch

en safely behind a

an military. Too

she demanded in

n slightly. "That depen

w tigh

I know wh

uld respond, th

age-more militia, trucks load

f they capture him, thousands di

the vehicles,

ear. But so was th

," he

Vale," s

nce. "Then

osing in like a trap. The forest swallowed them in darkness.

crash wasn't an accident. The mission wasn't about extraction-it was containment. And somewhere in Kandara, a

s were burning with fear, determination

we going?

"He's alive. And they will kill

is side burned with each

about survival-and about doing what was

stars struggled to pierce through s