“Port thruster’s shot,” he said, not looking up.
They ran into the glowing dark. Behind them, Mira’s tools sang. Ahead, the ground groaned like a dying beast.
When they found the boy—no older than seven, trembling on a crumbling pillar of dirt—Ryan dropped to his belly and reached down.
“Directly below us. And Mira? Make it fast.” Ryan-s Rescue Squad
They were a team because when the world wrote someone off, they wrote back.
, the muscle, kept his massive arms folded, scanning the treeline where the bioluminescent ferns were beginning to glow. “We don’t have five. The fauna here gets chatty after dark. And hungry.”
, the squad’s whisper—their intel specialist—tilted his head, listening to the silent frequency only he could hear. His eyes went distant, then sharp. “The survivor is a kid. Trapped in a sinkhole three klicks north. Ground is collapsing at a meter per hour.” “Port thruster’s shot,” he said, not looking up
Behind them, the hovercraft roared to life, Mira’s voice crackling over the comm: “Thrusters green. Where do you need the pickup?”
As the ground began to cave, as Jax lifted the boy onto his shoulders and Kael triangulated the extraction point, Ryan thought about all the people who had told him a squad like this couldn’t work. Too messy. Too emotional. Too unofficial .
“Hey,” Ryan said, calm as sunrise. “I’m Ryan. This is Jax and Kael. We’re the rescue squad. You’re going to be fine.” Ahead, the ground groaned like a dying beast
, the mechanic, was already knee-deep in the access panel, her multi-tool whining. “Ten minutes. Maybe five if I reroute coolant through the waste exchange.”
“What’s the angle?” Jax asked. There was always an angle with Ryan.
The hovercraft’s engine coughed black smoke into the amber twilight. Ryan wiped a smear of synthetic oil from his cheek, his fourth pair of goggles already cracked.
“New plan,” Ryan said. “Mira, you stay with the hovercraft. Get it airborne. Jax, Kael, with me. We move fast.”
Behind him, the three members of his squad didn't flinch. They never did.