The sun over Forward Operating Base Rhino didn’t shine—it punished. Heat shimmered above the sand like steam over an open furnace as Lieutenant Commander Sarah Glenn walked briskly across the compound. Her boots pushed up tiny clouds of dust, each step steady, unhurried, controlled. Afghanistan had a way of training even the calmest minds to stay alert, and three months in-country had fine-tuned her instincts into something close to radar.

Inside her chest pocket rested a dossier stamped with so many red stripes it nearly looked patriotic. Its contents, however, were anything but festive—coordinates, surveillance captures, coded intercepts, all pointing toward a Taliban stronghold buried deep in the northern mountain ranges. A stronghold invisible to most intelligence units. Not invisible to her.

Her father’s voice—older, wiser, amused—floated through her mind as she neared the command building:
“Going to space was the easy part. Dealing with people—that’s the real mission.”

Colonel John Glenn. First American to orbit Earth. American legend. Household name.
And her father.

To the world, that legacy was a badge of honor.
To Sarah, it was an anchor—one she had been dragging since childhood.

NASA had wanted her. MIT had expected her.
The nation assumed the second Glenn would follow the first.

She had shocked everyone when she enlisted in Naval Intelligence instead.

“One Glenn in space is enough,” she had joked during an interview.
But the truth was sharper, grittier.

Space was silent.
War wasn’t.
She wanted a battlefield where decisions had consequences measured in heartbeats, not orbital paths.

Today she wore civilian-cut khakis and a simple blue button-down shirt, blending with the logistics officers and humanitarian liaisons drifting across the base. It was deliberate camouflage—the perfect disguise in a place where assumptions were formed in seconds. More importantly, she needed the freedom to cross the FOB without every Marine saluting or calling her “ma’am.”

She was headed toward the new arrival—the elite SEAL Team Wolfhound, flown in after midnight and already causing a stir. Their reputation preceded them: precision, aggression, loyalty sharpened to a razor’s edge. They didn’t scare easily. They didn’t trust easily either.

And she was about to ask them to trust intelligence that could determine whether they lived or died in forty-eight hours.

She paused at a corner as a convoy rumbled past, the smell of diesel and dust mixing in the air. A light breeze carried distant echoes from the shooting range—controlled bursts, disciplined, rhythmic.

Her satellite phone buzzed.
Commander Jackson: “Briefing moved to 1400. SEALs in the cafeteria now. Recommend rapport-building.”

Rapport-building.
She almost snorted.

Nothing built rapport with SEALs except battle scars, heavy fire, or saving their asses during a mission. Luckily, she’d done all three.

Still—walking into a room full of them felt like stepping into a wolf den wearing lamb’s clothing.

She pushed open the cafeteria door.

Instantly the temperature dropped, replaced by the chilled hum of old air-conditioning. The room buzzed with lunch-time energy—forks scraping metal trays, soldiers laughing too loudly, the scent of overcooked pasta.

She grabbed an apple and a bottle of water, then slid into a corner seat where she could see the whole room. Her instincts demanded it.

The SEALs occupied two long tables near the center—broad shoulders, tactical haircuts, the easy swagger of men who had nothing left to prove.

Sarah kept her eyes on her apple.

Then a new voice cut through the noise—louder, sharper, confident to the point of arrogance.

A SEAL had just entered late.

He was tall. Sunburned. Muscular enough to look like he’d been carved out of ballistic gel. He tossed his cap onto the table and grinned like the room belonged to him.

“Anyone save a seat for me, ladies?” he boomed.

Laughter rolled across the cafeteria.

Sarah kept her gaze down—until she felt his eyes lock onto her.

The teasing smirk.
The amused curiosity.
The instant judgment.

“Hey, Harvard!” he called. “You with State Department? You look kinda lost over there.”

Slowly—deliberately—Sarah lifted her eyes.

And the room began to shift.

Sarah set her apple down, her posture straight but relaxed—neutral, non-threatening, yet unmistakably in control. Around her, the cafeteria noise dimmed by degrees, like someone slowly turning down the volume.

The SEAL who’d called out to her swaggered closer, tray in hand. His teammates watched with grins—this was entertainment to them.

He planted himself two tables away, leaning his elbow casually on a chair back.

“So what’s your rank?” he asked, chin tilted, tone dripping with playful condescension.

He expected her to flinch.
Or laugh awkwardly.
Or, best of all, admit she wasn’t military.

But all Sarah did was close the file in front of her with a soft, deliberate snap. Then she looked him dead in the eye.

“Lieutenant Commander Sarah Glenn,” she said clearly, “Naval Intelligence.”

The effect was instantaneous.

The SEAL froze—not dramatically, not comically—just enough for the mask to crack around the edges. A few nearby chuckles died mid-breath. Forks hovered over trays.

Sarah slid a badge case across the table.
Her credentials gleamed under the fluorescent lights.

She wasn’t trying to humiliate him.
But she was done pretending she didn’t exist.

The SEAL—Lieutenant Reeves, she remembered—blinked. Twice.

“Glenn?” he stammered. “As in… Glenn Glenn?”

Her reply was calm enough to chill the air.

“As in Colonel John Glenn. Yes.”

Reeves’s bravado buckled.
A few SEALs exchanged looks—surprised, wary, suddenly recalculating the hierarchy of the room.

Sarah had no interest in family legacy, but she knew what her name meant to men in uniform. Her father wasn’t just an astronaut—he was a symbol. A man who’d risked everything for a mission few understood.

But she didn’t let the silence linger in awe.

With the same calmness, she rolled up her left sleeve.

A long, jagged scar ran across her forearm—raw, uneven, a brutal reminder of a night they hadn’t reported in any official briefing.

“This,” she said quietly, “is from an extraction in Jalrez. Two weeks ago.”

She met Reeves’ eyes again.

“The man who gave it to me won’t hurt anyone again.”

The cafeteria went so still that even the hum of the AC seemed to falter.

Reeves stepped back a fraction. The cocky smirk evaporated.

Sarah wasn’t done.

“I’m the one briefing your commander at 1400,” she continued.
“Operation Shadowhawk requires precision and trust. You’ll be putting your lives on intel I verified personally. So if you have doubts about who I am—”
Her voice lowered into something almost lethal.
“—I suggest you resolve them now.”

Before Reeves could form a response, the double doors swung open with military decisiveness.

Commander Jackson strode in, eyes scanning the room until they landed on her.

“Lieutenant Commander Glenn,” he called. “Good to see you’re getting acquainted with Wolfhound.”

A ripple of suppressed amusement passed through the room—the kind that soldiers used to soften tension.

Reeves straightened immediately.
“Sir, yes sir.”

But Jackson wasn’t done.

He picked up a bottle of water, unscrewed it, took a sip, then addressed the SEALs:

“In twelve hours, Glenn will be joining us on insertion into the Korengal Valley.”

A collective stillness fell like a curtain.

Reeves turned his head sharply.
“She’s going with us?”

“Yes,” Jackson said. “Her intel is the only reason this op is still possible.”

Sarah stood, folder in hand.
“Briefing room in fifteen minutes, gentlemen.”

The SEALs watched her leave—not with doubt, not with condescension, but with something closer to respect.

Reeves swallowed hard.

The woman he’d mocked wasn’t a tourist.
She was the difference between coming home alive and being flown home under a flag.

The situation room buzzed with restrained urgency as Sarah entered, the overhead projector bathing the table in cold blue light. Satellite imagery froze on the screen—shadows of ridgelines, jagged ravines, clusters of mud-brick compounds pressed like scars into the mountainside.

Commander Jackson stood at the head of the table, arms crossed.
The SEALs of Wolfhound Team filled the room with their silent mass—focused, sharpened, recalibrated after the cafeteria incident.

Reeves sat closest to the screen, jaw tight, pen tapping against his thigh.
He looked like a man trying to outrun his own embarrassment.

Sarah placed her folder on the table. Her voice was steady, professional, and carried the weight of a person who had carved her credibility inch by inch.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” she began, “this is Shadowhawk.”

A map appeared—white lines, heat signatures, red markers.

“Our primary target is Compound 17, located at the base of the northeastern ridge. Intel suggests it contains encrypted comms and digital records tied to three planned attacks on American soil.”

Jackson added, “We’re on a 72-hour countdown. Washington wants this buttoned up.”

Reeves raised a hand—hesitant, respectful this time.

“How recent is this intel, ma’am?”

Sarah met his gaze evenly.

“Forty-one minutes old. Pulled from a drone feed routed through Langley.”

That got his attention. A murmur of surprise rippled through the room.

Sarah pointed at a cluster of red dots.

“The problem is this: the Taliban have reinforced the southern and western approaches. These ridgelines here—” she tapped twice “—used to be blind zones. They aren’t anymore.”

“So what’s the solution?” another SEAL asked.

She switched slides.

A narrow cliff face appeared—vertical, jagged, cruel.

“We go through the north.”

A few SEALs scoffed under their breath.
Someone muttered, “That’s a death wish.”

Sarah didn’t flinch.

“It’s a Class 5 climb,” she said. “Technically possible if you’re willing to suffer.”
She paused. “I’ve done it before.”

Reeves blinked.
“Done… this climb?”

Sarah nodded once. “And El Capitan. Twice.”

The room quieted.
Even Jackson turned toward her—not surprised, but proud.

“I’ll lead the ascent,” she concluded. “We reach the cliff shelf undetected, breach the compound from the north, extract the intel, and get out before they know we were ever there.”

Jackson stepped forward.

“We move at 2300 hours. Gear up, hydrate, and mentally prepare. This is one of the toughest insertions you will ever do.”

Wolfhound stood and filed out, their silence no longer skeptical—now charged, lethal, hungry.

Reeves hung back.

When the others left, he walked toward her.

His voice was low, humbled.

“I misjudged you, Lieutenant Commander.”

Sarah didn’t look up from her notes.
“You misjudged what someone in this uniform can be.”

Reeves swallowed hard. “Won’t happen again.”

She nodded once.

“Good.”

ON THE CLIFF — 02:14 HOURS

The world narrowed into darkness, rock, and breath.

The Korengal Valley sprawled beneath them—a black chasm of shifting shadows. The moon was their only witness, a silver coin hung over hostile terrain.

Sarah led the climb, her fingers finding holds invisible to the untrained eye. Years of covert fieldwork had hardened her muscles, sharpened her instincts. Behind her, the SEALs ascended silently, their bodies moving with disciplined precision.

Reeves grunted as he hauled himself up an uneven seam of rock.

“How the hell,” he whispered, “do you climb like this?”

Sarah pulled herself onto a ledge, secured her rope, and offered him a hand.

“I grew up climbing on Smithsonian scaffolding when my father worked late.”

Reeves smirked breathlessly.
“Hell of an origin story.”

Sarah shrugged.
“It builds character.”

For two hours they climbed. Their fingertips bled. Their legs trembled.

Halfway up, gunfire flared below.

Not aimed at them—aimed at someone else.

Jackson’s voice crackled in their earpieces.

“Wolfhound, stand by. Sounds like Outlaw Team is pinned down.”

Reeves hissed, “Outlaw? They weren’t supposed to be within ten klicks of here.”

Sarah’s mind turned like a well-oiled machine.

“If they’re pinned, it means the enemy has greater numbers than predicted. Which means our window just shrank.”

Jackson said, “We push on. Outlaw will have to exfil on their—”

“No,” Sarah cut in sharply.

Jackson froze mid-sentence.

Sarah spoke with the cold clarity of someone who has been in enough firestorms to know what matters.

“They won’t survive without backup.”

“And if we divert,” Jackson countered, “we lose Shadowhawk.”

Sarah considered the map, the cliff, the terrain, the odds.

“Let me go alone.”

Reeves nearly dropped his grip.
“Alone? Down there?”

“I know exactly where the intel is inside Compound 17. I can breach from the ventilation shaft.”
She looked up. “You go save Outlaw.”

Jackson breathed slowly through his nose, thinking.

Reeves said quietly, “Commander… she’s right.”

Jackson exhaled.

“Glenn, you get that intel and rendezvous at the fallback site. Wolfhound—move to intercept. Reeves, you’re on point.”

Sarah unhooked from the main line and began descending the opposite side of the ridge—alone, silent, fearless.

Reeves watched her vanish into the dark.

“God is my witness,” he muttered, “that woman’s made of steel.”

INSIDE THE COMPOUND — 03:47 HOURS

Sarah moved like an apparition.

The ventilation shaft was narrow, rusted, suffocating.
Every inch scraped her arms. Sweat dripped into her eyes. The wound on her forearm throbbed under the bandage.

Inside the compound, men shouted in Pashto—coordinating the ambush below. Alarms were half-raised, but no one suspected infiltration from above.

She reached the server room.

Three minutes.
That’s all she needed.

She connected a portable decryptor, fingers flying over the keys.

A progress bar appeared.
45%
52%

Gunfire echoed in the valley.

Outlaw was running out of time.

Sarah gritted her teeth, forcing the device to push faster.

71%
82%

An explosion rocked the compound.

Shouts. Footsteps. Doors slamming open.

93%
98%
COMPLETE.

She yanked the drive free and sprinted toward the stairwell—just as two armed men burst inside.

A shot grazed her shoulder. Pain flared.
She ducked behind a support beam, returned fire, and dropped both targets with surgical precision.

The building shook again.

She heard Reeves on comms.

“Outlaw’s falling back! We need a new route!”

Sarah answered between breaths.

“Sending coordinates now.”

She rerouted them through a dry riverbed she’d memorized a month earlier.

Then she ran.

The mountains came alive with gunfire.

Muzzle flashes strobed across the valley floor like violent lightning, illuminating figures scrambling for cover behind boulders, broken walls, and uprooted trees. The Taliban force was larger than predicted—much larger—coordinated, disciplined, and seemingly prepared for a multi-front engagement.

Sarah sprinted along the northern cliff path, clutching the encrypted drive against her chest. Her shoulder burned where the bullet had grazed her, warm blood soaking through her sleeve. Pain was a distant shadow—irrelevant, ignored.

Her boots pounded against loose gravel as she descended into the ravine. The path was treacherous, a series of narrow ledges carved by centuries of wind and erosion. One wrong step meant a fatal drop.

Over the radio, Reeves’ voice cracked with static.

“Wolfhound to Glenn—Outlaw’s boxed in. We’ve got wounded and they’re losing ground.”

Sarah pressed her back against a jagged rock, catching her breath.

“I sent you the coordinates,” she said. “The riverbed will get you out. You just need to hold until—”

“Until what?” Reeves snapped. “We’re outnumbered ten to one!”

Sarah wiped sweat from her brow.

“Until I give you an opening,” she said.

Jackson chimed in. “Glenn, what the hell does that mean?”

“It means,” she replied, “that Compound 17 is sitting on a fuel cache.”

Silence. Even gunfire briefly dulled under the weight of what she implied.

Reeves whispered, “You’re not thinking—”

“Yes,” she answered simply.

A distant explosion shook the ground—Outlaw’s last position collapsing under mortar fire.

Sarah started running again, faster now, the night wind slicing against her skin.

“We don’t have time. The cache ignites, they’ll pull back. It buys you seconds—but that’s all you need.”

“Glenn,” Jackson growled, “that explosion is going to take down half the ridge. You don’t have an exit route!”

“I’ll make one.”

“You’ll be killed!”

Sarah paused behind a boulder as two fighters ran past her, their rifles slung low. She waited until they disappeared into the darkness before whispering into the radio:

“If I don’t light this place up, you’re all dead anyway.”

Her voice was steady—too steady.

Reeves whispered, “Commander, let her do it.”

Jackson swore under his breath, harsh and unfiltered.

“Glenn,” he said finally, “you get that fire started, then you run like hell. Full sprint. Don’t look back.”

A small smile tugged at Sarah’s lips.

“Copy that.”

THE FIRE

The compound loomed ahead, a dark silhouette against the night sky. Sarah approached the north wall, keeping low, moving quietly. Bodies lay scattered across the courtyard—some Taliban, some from a rival militia group they’d been battling earlier. The scene was chaos layered on chaos.

She made her way to the storage annex—a squat steel structure partially buried in the ground. Inside, rows of fuel drums lined the walls, marked with faded red hazard symbols.

Her hands trembled slightly as she unholstered her sidearm.

Not from fear.
From adrenaline.

She checked her watch.

03:58.

If the SEALs didn’t get clear soon, none of this would matter.

She placed three explosive charges—all she had left—against the largest drums. Her shoulder throbbed violently as she worked, but she gritted her teeth and finished arming the detonators.

A door creaked behind her.

Sarah spun, weapon raised, and froze.

A boy—maybe fifteen—stood there, wide-eyed, a rusted AK hanging loosely from his hands. His face was dirty but unmistakably terrified.

She lowered her weapon slowly.

“Get out,” she said softly. “Run.”

He hesitated, glancing at the explosives.

Sarah didn’t raise her voice.

“Run.”

He dropped the gun and sprinted out into the night.

Sarah exhaled.
Then pressed the detonator.

She had five seconds.

THE EXPLOSION

She exploded into motion.

Her boots pounded the dirt. Her lungs burned. Her legs screamed. She vaulted over debris, ducked under low beams, sprinted past a rusted water tank as—

BOOM.

A white-hot blast tore the compound apart, ripping through steel, sand, and stone. A shockwave slammed into Sarah’s back, throwing her forward like a rag doll. She hit the ground hard, rolling through rubble as flames erupted behind her.

Shards of metal rained from the sky. A fireball mushroomed upward, bathing the valley in violent gold.

Taliban fighters screamed orders, abandoning their positions, rushing toward the burning compound.

Reeves’ voice burst over the radio.

“OPENING ACHIEVED! GO, GO, GO!”

Gunfire flared as Wolfhound surged into the riverbed, dragging Outlaw’s wounded with them. Sarah pushed herself up, coughing, her ears ringing.

She stumbled through smoke and falling ash, vision blurring.

“Glenn, do you copy?” Jackson barked.
“Glenn—SARAH—answer me!”

She pressed her finger to the comm.

“Still here,” she rasped.

“MOVE TO EXTRACTION!”

Easier said than done.

The explosion had destabilized the ridge. Rockslides thundered around her, sending boulders crashing down. She zigzagged through the chaos, dodging debris by instinct alone.

Her body screamed for rest.

She didn’t give it permission.

THE LAST STAND ON THE RIDGE

At the top of the ravine, a shadow moved.

Sarah froze.
Too late.

Three fighters stepped into the moonlight, rifles raised.

She dropped behind a rock as bullets tore through the air, shattering stone inches from her head. Dust filled her lungs. She coughed, firing blindly to suppress them.

Her magazine clicked empty.

“Dammit—”

She crawled backwards, searching for any escape route. None. Nowhere to go.

One fighter approached, confident, gun steady.

Then—

A single suppressed shot echoed.

The fighter dropped.

Another shot.
The second fell.

Sarah blinked through the haze.

Reeves slid into view on the ridge, rifle smoking.

“Get up, Lieutenant Commander,” he barked. “Extraction’s waiting.”

She let out a choked laugh.

“You disobeyed orders.”

He offered a hand, gripping her forearm tightly as he pulled her up.

“Yeah, well,” he said, “you set half the mountain on fire. Call it even.”

Together they ran.

EXTRACTION

The chopper’s rotors beat the air like thunder, sending sand swirling into miniature tornadoes across the plateau. The rest of Wolfhound was already aboard—bloodied, bruised, but alive. Outlaw’s wounded lay strapped to stretchers, pale but breathing.

Jackson hauled Sarah inside.

“You’re insane,” he shouted over the roar. “Completely insane!”

But his eyes weren’t angry.
They were relieved.

Reeves dropped into a seat beside her.

Sarah leaned her head back, closing her eyes.

The encrypted drive was still in her vest.

Jackson knelt in front of her.

“What you did is not going into the report,” he said. “Officially, you acted outside operational protocol.”

Sarah smirked weakly. “I’ll survive the paperwork.”

He softened.
“Unofficially… I’m putting you in for the Silver Star.”

Reeves let out a low whistle.

Sarah didn’t answer. Her adrenaline was crashing hard, leaving only exhaustion and the dull throb of her wounds.

The helicopter lifted off, banking sharply away from the flames still devouring Compound 17.

Below them, the mountains stretched endlessly—rugged, ancient, indifferent to the small humans bleeding on their slopes.

As dawn crept over the horizon, a soft orange glow washed across the ridges.

Reeves glanced at her.

“You know,” he said quietly, “earlier today I thought you were a paper-pusher.”

She cracked one eye open.

“And now?”

He shook his head.

“Now I think you’re the toughest person I’ve ever met.”

Sarah exhaled slowly.

“Courage,” she murmured, “isn’t a feeling. It’s a choice.”

The helicopter cut through the early morning sky, carrying them toward safety, toward home—but also toward the inevitable debriefings, the reports, the scrutiny.

Yet for this moment, Sarah allowed herself one breath of peace.

Her father had once seen the world from space.

She had seen it from the edge of survival.

And now—finally—she understood:

Both perspectives mattered.
Both required courage.
Both demanded sacrifice.