SAGE
The ejection seat fired and Sage's world became violence.
Explosive bolts blew the canopy off her fighter. Rockets launched her into empty air. The force slammed her back so hard she couldn't breathe.
One second she was in the cockpit. The next she was tumbling through the sky.
Below, her fighter spiraled toward the jungle and exploded in a ball of fire. Three years flying that craft. Seventeen battles won. Now just twisted metal and flames.
Gone.
The parachute deployed with a crack that jerked her upward. The straps bit into her shoulders. Then she was floating, drifting down toward an alien world.
Her training kicked in automatically. Check for injuries. Assess the environment. Find shelter. Signal for rescue.
Except rescue wasn't coming.
She'd figured that out thirty seconds before her fighter died. The gravity anomaly that pulled her down hadn't been natural. Someone had positioned her exactly where it would catch her.
Her own father had sent her to die.
The jungle canopy rushed up fast. Sage grabbed the parachute controls and tried to steer toward a clearing. Didn't work. She crashed through branches that whipped her face and arms.
Then the ground.
She hit moss-covered earth hard enough to knock the wind from her lungs. Pain exploded through her left ankle. She rolled onto her side and gasped for air that wouldn't come.
Breathe. Just breathe.
Finally her lungs started working again. She forced herself to sit up and check for damage.
Left ankle throbbing. Probably sprained. Cut above her right eye bleeding into her vision. Bruises everywhere.
But alive.
She pulled herself to her feet, testing the ankle. It held her weight but barely.
The jungle around her was massive. Trees with trunks wider than her fighter. Vines hanging like ropes. Strange flowers that glowed faintly. And sounds. So many sounds.
Clicks and whistles and calls from creatures she couldn't see. Movement in the canopy. Something large passing through the undergrowth.
This planet was alive and she was prey.
Her hand went automatically to the weapon at her hip. Military grade plasma pistol. Fifteen shots before the charge pack died.
She'd need to make them count.
Then she heard voices.
Human voices.
Sage froze. Her training kicked in like muscle memory. Locate the enemy. Assess their numbers. Eliminate the threat.
She'd done this before. Found enemy survivors after battles and finished what her weapons started. Quick. Clean. Efficient.
That's what commanders did.
But her feet wouldn't move.
She stood in the shadows, listening to people call out in a language she understood perfectly. Human standard. The same language she'd been taught since childhood.
A woman's voice, panicked.
Is anyone alive? Please, someone answer.
A man's voice, steadier.
Over here. I found Morrison. He's breathing.
They were gathering survivors. Organizing. Doing exactly what she would do.
Sage's finger rested on her weapon's trigger. She could take out three, maybe four before they realized where the shots came from.
Do it. Complete the mission. Eliminate enemy combatants.
But her hand wouldn't draw the weapon.
She'd killed enemy soldiers before. Lots of them. Seventeen successful campaigns. Perfect tactical record.
But those soldiers had been trying to kill her too. This was different.
These people were hurt and scared and just trying to survive a crash they didn't cause.
Just like her.
Footsteps approached through the undergrowth. Heavy boots on soft earth. Someone moving with military precision.
Sage pressed herself against a tree trunk. Her training screamed at her to move. To take position. To strike first.
She didn't move.
The footsteps got closer. Then a figure emerged through the vegetation maybe twenty feet away.
A man. Tall with dark skin. Sharp features carved by responsibility. Black eyes that scanned the jungle with awareness that came from years of combat.
He was injured. Blood ran down his face from a cut on his forehead. His left arm hung wrong, probably dislocated. But he moved like the pain didn't matter.
Sage knew who he was before she saw the rank insignia on his torn uniform.
Captain Kieran Hayes.
The man she'd been hunting for six months. The man whose fleet she'd destroyed piece by piece. The man General Hax told her to eliminate personally.
Her father's voice echoed in her memory.
He's the human military's greatest asset. Remove him and they fracture. Show no mercy.
She'd memorized his service record. Studied his tactics. Knew he'd risen from nothing to command humanity's largest fleet.
Knew he'd lost his best friend in the Meridian Nine attack.
The attack she'd led.
Twenty thousand civilians dead because she'd followed orders without questioning. Because she'd trusted the coordinates she was given.
The weight of those deaths lived in her chest like a stone.
Captain Hayes had every reason to hate her.
And here he was. Injured and vulnerable and searching for survivors while his ship burned.
He turned slightly and his eyes locked directly onto her position.
For a heartbeat neither of them moved.
Then his hand went to his weapon.
Sage was faster.
She had her plasma pistol drawn and aimed at his chest before he cleared leather. Her training. Her reflexes. Three years of combat made her deadly.
Kieran froze with his hand on his weapon, watching her across the distance.
And Sage stood there with her finger on the trigger, staring at the man she was supposed to kill.