Chapter 3 - The Canyon
Twelve Navy SEALs entered the canyon before sunrise.
Only nine remained alive when Rachel arrived.
Chief Noah Briggs had positioned the survivors behind a collapsed sandstone shelf. Two men were unconscious. Petty Officer Tyler Ross’s leg was pinned beneath rock, and the team had less than thirty rounds left.
Mercenaries controlled the ridges.
Their equipment was too advanced for an improvised militia.
Encrypted radios.
American-made optics.
Shoulder-fired missiles bearing serial numbers Noah recognized from restricted military inventories.
The SEALs had entered Blackthorn Canyon to recover proof that weapons meant for allied units had been diverted through private contractors.
Their mission plan promised drone surveillance, air support, and two extraction helicopters.
The drones disappeared ten minutes before the ambush.
The first helicopter never launched.
The second turned back after taking fire through a fuel line.
Every failure pushed the team deeper into the kill zone.
Rachel entered beneath the dust storm at less than one hundred feet above the canyon floor.
Her targeting display failed almost immediately.
She flew by landmarks supplied through Noah’s broken radio.
Dead tree.
Split boulder.
White scar on the eastern ridge.
She cleared the southern shelf long enough for a Chinook to approach.
Then ground fire struck her left engine.
The cockpit filled with warnings.
Command ordered her to climb and eject.
Rachel remained in the canyon.
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Nine men could not climb into a helicopter while mercenaries still controlled the northern ridge.
Her damaged aircraft had become the only shield they had.
