Rise of a Valkyrie

Part 78

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The dancing teacher smacked her baton against the wall as Rose stumbled gracelessly through another movement.

"Again, Rose. Again!" the older woman cried as she banged the stick,

The percussion reverberated painfully through Rose's skull. She tried to stand, but her legs were too weak, and the teacher only laughed as she smacked the baton rhythmically.

"Again Rose! You're too lazy today. You want to get lost in your daydreams like a child? Get it right!"

The vision faded out as she drifted back into consciousness, replaced with an even stranger scene.

She was upside down, hanging in the air by her harness from the wall panel above her, and it took her a moment to realize that the dropship had landed on its side. As the sensation in her limbs began to return, she reached up to unclip the harness, dropping herself with a painful thud onto the awkwardly shaped metal of the opposite door.

Struggling to breathe through lungs that didn't want to expand, Rose tried to focus. Her head throbbed with what felt like the worst hangover she had ever experienced. Despite nausea and confusion, urgent signals were forcing their way through the brain fog, demanding to be heard. She had to get up; she had to move, and do... something—anything but stay still on the floor of the crashed ship.

Christie was strapped to the wall. She was held securely in her harness, still unconscious, but her cheeks were flushed, while the wound she had sustained from the missile strike had stopped bleeding.

"Hey! Everyone okay?" Rose called to the dark cockpit. Her voice was a weak groan, and she got no response.

She hauled herself upright to get a better look. A mess of blood and shattered glass covered the pilot's and co-pilot's bodies, still strapped into their seats. Rose checked their pulses, relieved to discover that both women were still alive, though unresponsive. As she looked around, uncertain of what to do, the rhythmic whack of her dance teacher's baton began to sound more and more like distant explosions, and she realized she was listening to the sound of the battle.

Christie's carbine was hanging off her body by a strap. Rose grabbed it and climbed out of the wreckage through an open hatchway.

She emerged into the cold mountain air and saw the warm rays of the sun beginning to creep into the gray murk of the valley. Moving around the wrecked craft, for a better view, she came face to face with their desperate situation. The dropship had crashed higher up the valley from the Rangers' line of battle, near a saddle that linked to another valley.

What really alarmed her, though, were the muzzle flashes she saw in the dim morning light. The Rangers were shooting in her direction, which meant that the entire enemy force of drones stood between her and rescue.

There could be no doubt that they had seen the crash unfolding clearly.

Rose did not allow herself to react to this information. She had a problem to solve, that was all. Moving to get a better sense of the ground, she staggered forward a few yards from the ship, still limping as she tried to keep weight off her injured leg. She mounted a rise and found she could see a slope stretching away to the north. A path to safety. If she ran now, she might make it, even with her bad leg.

Of course, that would leave Christie and the pilots to the mercy of the enemy drones, so she crushed the idea immediately, and cursed herself for having even thought it.

A cacophony of blood curdling shrieks echoed through the valley, and Rose felt a bottomless pit open in her stomach.

The drones were coming.