The flight in was fast, violent, and loud—just how mornings usually go for Blackbird-9.
Clouds ripped apart around my canopy as we cut low across the valley. Smoke curled up from Fort Hadrian like a dying campfire, except campfires don't fire back at the things trying to eat them alive.
GDF markers blinked weakly on my HUD.
Xyne signatures blinked stronger.
Of course.
"Blackbird-9, tighten formation," I said. My voice stayed steady, but my throttle was already forward. "Visual on Hadrian in sixty seconds."
"Roger, Alpha-1," Hana answered. Sharp. Exact, as always.
Marcus' voice followed, way too cheerful for someone flying straight into an active warzone.
"Copy, Frost. And here I was thinking today would be boring."
"Burner," Sofia sighed. "Please don't jinx us. You always jinx us."
"I don't jinx—"
Three red blips spiked upward on radar.
He shut up.
Good.
I hit comms, switching bands. "Fort Hadrian, this is Lieutenant Commander Lucas Paige, Blackbird-9 Squadron Leader, Alpha-1. We're approaching from the northwest. Respond."
Static. Then—
A tired, stressed voice:
"Blackbird-9, this is Captain Daniel Okoye, Hadrian Command. Thank God. We've been holding with sticks and stubbornness. We've got major breaches on all outer gates."
A second voice cut in—female, fast, clipped:
"Comms Officer Staff Sergeant Elise Marchand. Sending you live telemetry now."
My HUD populated instantly.
Red. Red everywhere.
"Hadrian, confirm enemy type," I asked, though I already knew.
Captain Okoye exhaled like someone who hadn't slept in two days.
"XN-G11 units. Mixed swarm. And—" A pause. "—they're shooting now."
Marcus whistled. "Well, shit."
"Eyes forward," I muttered. Not like he listens, but I try.
The first ground impact shook the air. Metallic insects, over a hundred of them, swarmed over the eastern wall. Some fired thin, needle-like rounds from their thorax chambers.
You don't dodge those. You predict them, or you die.
Sofia leaned her jet slightly ahead. "Alpha Flight on your lead, Frost. Bravo, stay high for overwatch."
Enzo's voice came crackling in. "Copy, Alpha. Raven and I have eyes on the heavy clusters—ooh, that one's ugly."
"Tally ready for marks," Danielle said. "Vector covering rear arc."
"Good," I said. "We're cleaning the ground. Hadrian needs breathing room."
Hana's voice slipped in quietly. "Luke—"
She corrected herself instantly.
"Frost. You're taking point?"
"I always take point."
It wasn't bravado.
It was fact.
The ground rose beneath us, so I had to drop altitude fast. Xynes crawled across the earth like spilled metal, firing up at our silhouettes. Green tracers sliced past my wings.
I spoke calmly:
"Blackbird-9… weapons free."
Eight jets answered with fire.
My cannons lit the earth in three-second bursts, cutting through the front ranks. Marcus' strike run tore a trench through the swarm. Sofia's long-range shots popped their armored thoraxes like metal fruit.
Then I saw movement, bigger shadows.
"Contact," I said. "Goliaths at Hadrian's Gate."
Three massive Xynes—eight meters tall—hammered the bunker wall with their forelimbs. Each impact made the ground tremble. Their carapaces opened and fired bursts of alloy spikes that shredded whatever they aimed at.
Hadrian would fall in minutes.
"Okoye," I called. "Hold your fire. We're clearing the gate."
"You've got maybe… two minutes before those things push through," he answered. "We're sealing families in the lower bunker. Give us that time, Blackbird."
Two minutes.
Plenty.
I swung the Talon low—almost skimming the dirt—and lined up on the first Goliath.
"Burner, Siren—left and right suppression. Nighthawk, on me."
Hana's jet slid into formation with surgical precision. I felt her engine hum through my own hull.
We fired in unison.
Two Goliaths collapsed, legs curling, as their armor cracked open like ruptured steel.
The third turned toward us, thorax plates splitting—charging a full volley.
I didn't blink, didn't tense, didn't even feel fear.
CIP has its uses.
I dove straight at it.
"Frost—!" Hana snapped.
But the creature hesitated for one microsecond—just one—trying to track me.
Fatal mistake.
"Vector," I said, perfectly calm. "Clean it."
The youngest ace of my squadron responded instantly. "On it."
A white streak fell from above—Vector's strike missile punching through the Goliath's skull-plate and detonating inside.
Metal rained like confetti.
Silence followed shortly after, just breath and smoke.
Captain Okoye spoke through the comms, his voice low with stunned relief:
"Blackbird-9… Fort Hadrian owes you."
Elise Marchand added: "Outer gate stable. Swarm retreating east."
"Hadrian," I said, "we're not done. Rally your people. We'll hold the perimeter until reinforcements arrive."
"Copy that, Lieutenant Commander. And Paige?"
"Yes?"
"I'll buy all eight of you a drink if we survive this."
Marcus perked immediately. "Sir, for the record, we absolutely accept drunk payment."
Sofia groaned. "Please stop talking forever."
Hana's voice cut cleanly through them. "Blackbird-9, stack into defensive orbit. Frost, taking your wing."
"Always," I murmured.
Engines flared behind me as my squadron rose into a wide circle over the fort.
Eight shadows guarding a single burning speck on the map.
We weren't heroes.
We just showed up where no one else wanted to die.
Another swarm stopped.
Another wall saved.
For now.
— — —
From the shattered battlements of Fort Hadrian, smoke rising behind him, Captain Daniel Okoye watched the eight jets climb into formation above the fort, banking into a protective circle.
Beside him, Staff Sergeant Elise Marchand lowered her headset slowly.
"Sir… that was him, wasn't it?" she asked quietly.
"The one they talk about. Frost."
Okoye didn't answer at first. He just exhaled, as his eyes followed the contrails thinning against the sky.
"Yes," he finally said. "Lucas Stratton Paige."
Elise hesitated.
"I heard a rumor. That he's the pilot with… that condition."
Okoye nodded once.
"CIP — Congenital Insensitivity to Pain. The boy can't feel a damn thing… not even when he should."
Elise swallowed, looking up at the eight jets holding their slow orbit above the fort.
"No wonder he flies like he doesn't care about dying… He never learned what fear feels like."
Okoye's jaw tightened.
"That's the part everyone gets wrong, Sergeant."
He turned back to the ruined fort.
"It's not that he isn't afraid. It's that he doesn't know when he's hurt, and that makes him unstoppable… and terrifying."
The wind howled through the broken walls.
"God help the Xynes," Elise whispered.
Okoye nodded again, slowly.
"God help all of us.".