Rise of a Valkyrie

Part 80

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Her suspicion was quickly confirmed. There was a flash and a puff of white smoke, which stretched up into the sky, reaching out towards the PJs like a ghostly tentacle.

"Break!" Cara called on the radio and tucked her arms and legs into a ball.

As her glide turned into a fall, the two gliders above her banked hard in opposite directions, splitting the trio apart.

Their close formation was intended to trick the missile's seeker head into identifying them as a single target. When they flew apart in different directions, its guidance computer experienced momentary confusion—unable to select which fragment to follow. The pause lasted just long enough to take it straight through their formation and harmlessly off into the clouds.

Cara stretched out into a glide again, but any sense of relief was cut short. Her fall had taken her perilously low. As the mountain ridgeline reared up, she would have to pass over a spur in order to continue the glide behind it, and now she could see that she would be lucky to get past that spur. Deploying her chute too early would leave her as an easy target for a second missile shot, but if she misjudged, she would impact the mountain, headfirst.

"Stay high," she radioed her teammates, who had been descending to rejoin her.

The mountain drew closer, and Cara saw that she would have a chance—an incredibly slim chance. They raced towards the rocks at more than a hundred miles an hour as Cara held the shallowest glide she could manage without stalling.

She offered a silent prayer to whatever might be listening.

The rocks came closer, rising up to meet her until she was certain she would impact. They were a blur, a matter of feet away from her face, and she felt a gentle pressure under her right foot. Then the mountain side was dropping away hundreds of feet below her, and they were descending in the cover of the ridge, heading to the far end of the valley. Cara's inner child wanted to whoop and yell, but the soldier stayed quiet, knowing that the hardest part of her job was still ahead.

The trio continued the glide until the ground began to rise again, leading up to the saddle on which the dropship had come to rest. The flyers separated, pulling their chutes a hundred feet above the terrain.

Cara steered her chute hard, driving into a downward spiral, before flaring at the last second into a painful landing across the slope. Her body impacted shale, sliding and bouncing until she smacked into a large rock.

She cut away the canopy before it could drag her down the mountain, then ripped the vanes out of her wing suit, giving her the freedom to move and fight until she had the time to properly remove it.

Ahead of her, she saw with satisfaction that her teammates had also landed safely enough, so she released her weapon from the flight harness, and rushed over to join them. Once they reassembled together, they sprinted straight up the col towards the wreckage. They ran hard, moving as fast as they could without slipping on the rocks.

When they reached the crash site, Cara motioned to the two other PJs, who raised their weapons and moved into the surrounding rocks. They would secure the site while she moved straight for the wreckage and the casualties that would surely be waiting for her.

As she approached the downed dropship, what she found stopped her short. The corpse of a monstrous creature lay close to the wreck, while two women were on the ground, both covered in blood. One looked terrified, but alert, and was bent over the other and trying to apply soaked bandages to a nasty bleed on her chest. Cara approached her.