(2035, Undisclosed Border Region)

  Rain hammered the broken ridge like fists on a steel door, loud enough that Dig had to lean in close to hear the radio. The wind threw grit in hard, stinging bursts. Somewhere up the slope, muffled through the weather, came gunfire — not much, not close, but close enough.

  The PJ rotor team was already lifting out with the most badly wounded. Dig stayed behind with the SAS patrol. One of theirs was still missing.

  “Last seen over the lip of that cut,” the older SAS operator shouted over the wind, pointing at the dark ravine. “We tried to get down to him — terrain’s unstable.”

  Dig stared into the black seam of the canyon. He didn’t blink. Didn’t hesitate.

  “I’ll go.”

  The SAS operator didn’t argue. Didn’t ask. Didn’t waste time on thanks.

  He just nodded once.

  Dig clipped in, checked anchors, tested rope tension. The wind shoved against him hard enough that he had to brace sideways. His helmet light threw a narrow cone into swirling mist.

  He descended.

  The world narrowed to rope, breath, and the shifting groan of rock.

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  Halfway down, his boot slipped — the stone slick beneath his weight — and he slammed into the cliffside, pain flaring through his ribs. He hissed, reset his footing, continued down.

  A voice reached him through the storm.

  “…down here…”

  The SAS sergeant lay wedged between two angled slabs of rock, dirt caked to his face, one leg pinned at an ugly angle. Conscious. Pale. Breathing fast. Trying not to panic.

  Dig dropped the last few feet and landed in a tight crouch.

  “You’re alright,” he said, automatically, his voice quiet, steady. “You’re going home.”

  The sergeant started to speak, but Dig had already checked his airway, pulse, lungs, and pupils, hands moving in practiced rhythm. Nothing life-threatening. Painful, yes. Deadly, no.

  He keyed the radio. “I’ve got him.”

  Static. Then a terse acknowledgment.

  He freed the trapped leg, stabilized it, wrapped a pressure band, and got the harness ready. The sergeant gritted his teeth but didn’t make a sound.

  Above them, something shifted — a heavy, grinding crack. Dig’s eyes snapped up.

  “Rope team, hold—”

  Too late.

  A sheet of rock the size of a refrigerator sheared loose from the ravine wall. Dig threw himself across the injured man just as it hit. The impact tore through his right knee like lightning — white-hot, sharp, nauseating.

  He tasted copper.

  The sergeant shouted something he didn’t hear.

  Dig forced breath into his lungs, shoved the pain aside, and checked the casualty again. The sergeant was untouched — Dig had taken the whole hit.

  He swallowed hard.

  “Up we go,” he said.

  His knee screamed when he moved. He ignored it.

  He clipped the sergeant into the lift. Gave the all-clear. The line took tension, lifting the SAS man into the storm above.

  When it was Dig’s turn, he climbed — dragging himself up one brutal foot at a time, not trusting his right leg to bear weight. By the time he reached the lip, he was shaking, sweat cold on his palms despite the freezing air.

  But the sergeant was alive.

  That was the only thing that mattered.