They Told The Limping Nurse To Stay Back—Until 4 Marine Helicopters Landed Demanding “Angel Six”…
The tarmac trembled before anyone heard the rotors. Then the sky over Seattle general tore open as four Blackhawk helicopters descended in a combat formation usually reserved for war zones, not civilian parking lots. Dust swirled, blinding the terrified hospital security team who rushed to block the landing.
They didn’t stand a chance. A dozen Marines in full tactical gear hit the ground weapons at the ready, ignoring the shouting chief surgeon. Their captain didn’t ask for the director. He didn’t ask for a doctor. He marched straight to the terrified ER entrance and screamed one name that froze the entire staff. We need Angel 6.
Where the hell is Angel 6? The lenolium floor of the emergency room at Seattle General Hospital was a distinct shade of sterile gray, a color Claraara Halloway knew intimately. She knew it because she spent most of her 12-hour shifts staring at it her head down trying to make herself as small as possible. To the high-powered trauma surgeons and the fresh-faced residents, Claraara was just the slow nurse.
She was the 40-year-old woman with the heavy limp in her left leg who couldn’t run when a code blue was called. She was the one relegated to changing bed pans, updating charts, and handling the non-critical drunks who wandered in on Friday nights. They didn’t know why she limped, and frankly none of them cared enough to ask.
“Move it, Halloway, you’re blocking the hallway.” Dr. Adrien Prescott snapped, shouldering past her. Prescott was the hospital’s star trauma surgeon. Brilliant, handsome, and completely insufferable. He had a jawline that could cut glass and an ego that required its own zip code. Claraara stumbled slightly, gripping the edge of the nurse’s station to steady herself.
Her left leg, the one held together by three titanium pins and a mess of scar tissue, throbbed with a dull, familiar ache. Sorry, doctor,” she murmured, her voice raspy. “Don’t be sorry. Be faster.” Prescott threw back over his shoulder without breaking stride. We have a multi-car pileup coming in 10 minutes.
If you can’t keep up, go work in geriatrics, or better yet, the morg. They don’t move fast down there. A few of the younger nurses giggled nervously. They idolized Prescat. To them, Claraara was just part of the furniture, a slightly broken piece of furniture that the administration hadn’t gotten around to replacing yet.
Claraara adjusted her scrubs and went back to organizing the supply cart. She didn’t let the insults sting. She had been insulted by men far scarier than Adrien Prescott. She had been screamed at by drill sergeants in the pouring rain of Paris Island and cursed out by wounded localized commanders in the dust of Kandahar. Prescott’s arrogance was the chirping of a cricket compared to the roar of a mortar shell.
But she kept that to herself. Here she was, just Claraara, not Lieutenant Commander, not Flight Nurse Halloway, and certainly not the call sign she had buried deep in her personnel file 7 years ago. Hey, Claraara. Sarah, a kind but overwhelmed junior nurse, whispered as she hurried past with a tray of IV bags. Ignore him. He’s just stressed.
The board says we have a VIP incoming with the crash victims. Some senator’s kid or something. It’s fine, Sarah, Claraara said softly, her eyes scanning the chaos of the ER with a precision that went unnoticed. While the others saw noise and panic, Claraara saw patterns. She saw that bed 4 was going into shock before the monitors even beeped.
She saw that the intern in bed 7 was fumbling the intubation, but she stayed silent. She had learned the hard way that in the civilian world, a limping nurse wasn’t supposed to diagnose. She was supposed to fetch blankets. The automatic doors slid open with a hiss, and the paramedics rushed in, wheeling a gurnie carrying a teenager covered in blood.
Male 17 unrestrained driver blunt force trauma to the chest the paramedic yelled. Prescott was there instantly barking orders. Get him to bay one. I want a chest x-ray and a full panel statoway. Stay out of the way. We need space to work. Claraara stepped back against the wall, her hands clasped behind her back.
She watched Prescott work. He was good, she had to admit. His hands were steady, but he was arrogant. He was treating the patient, not the person, and he was missing something. From her vantage point, Claraara could see the boy’s neck veins distending. She watched the way his chest rose unevenly. The monitor showed his blood pressure dropping, but his heart rate wasn’t spiking as high as it should for hypoalmic shock.
Cardiac tempernard Claraara’s mind whispered or attention pneumthorax on the right side. The breath sounds will be absent. She took a half step forward. Doctor, she said, her voice low but firm. Check his right lung sounds. The trachea is deviating slightly. Prescott spun around his face flushed with adrenaline and rage. Excuse me.
Did I ask for a consult from the peanut gallery? I am the attending here,Halloway. I know what a collapsed lung looks like, and this isn’t it. Go get me two units of O negative and shut up. Claraara clamped her mouth shut. She saw the intern, a young man named Davis, look at her with pity. They all thought she was trying to play doctor.
She turned and limped toward the blood bank, her fist clenching at her side. The ghost of the pain in her leg flared up a reminder of the night she had earned that limp. The night she had hung upside down in a burning fuselage, keeping a marine sergeant alive with one hand while using the other toricate her own shattered thigh.
She retrieved the blood bags, checking the labels three times a habit that never died. When she returned to the trauma bay, the chaos had escalated. The boy was crashing. BP is 60 over 40, Davis shouted. We’re losing him. Push EPI poor. Prescott roared. Where is that blood? Halloway, move your ass. Claraara handed off the blood, her eyes locking onto the patient’s chest again. It was worse.
The deviation was visible now. If Prescott didn’t decompress that chest in the next 60 seconds, the boy would be dead. He needs a needle decompression, Claraara said louder this time. Right second intercostal space now. The room went silent for a microcond. Prescott threw his stethoscope onto the tray with a clatter.
He walked up to Claraara, invading her personal space, looming over her. Get out, he hissed. Get out of my trauma bay. You are relieved of duty. Get out before I have security drag you out. Claraara looked him in the eye. For a split second, the slow nurse vanished, and something steelely and dangerous flickered in her gaze. But she blinked and it was gone.
“Yes, doctor,” she said. She turned and limped away the sound of her uneven gate echoing under the beep of the alarms. She walked toward the breakroom, her heart pounding, not with fear, but with frustration. She knew the boy was going to code, and she knew Prescott wouldn’t catch it until it was too late.
She was just pouring herself a cup of stale coffee when the ground shook. It wasn’t an earthquake. It was a vibration that rattled the mugs on the shelf. A deep thumping rhythm that she felt in her bones before she heard it with her ears. Thwop Claraara froze. She knew that sound. Every cell in her body knew that sound. It was the sound of salvation and the sound of destruction.Rotors heavy lift. She moved to the window of the breakroom which overlooked the parking lot. Her eyes widened. Approaching from the south, flying low and fast over the city skyline were four black shapes. Not the red and white of the medevac choppers. These were matte black and olive drab. Military. The hospital PA system crackled to life.
The voice of the receptionist trembling. Security to the main entrance. We have unauthorized aircraft landing in the parking lot. Repeat unauthorized landing. In the ER, the panic shifted from the dying boy to the windows. Patients and nurses alike crowded the glass. “Is it a terrorist attack?” someone screamed. “No!” Dr.
Prescott shouted, trying to regain control of his floor. It’s probably just a drill gone wrong. Ignore it. Focus on the patience. But it was impossible to ignore. The roar was deafening now. The first helicopter, a UH60 Blackhawk with no markings other than a Saul gray serial number, flared aggressively over the rows of parked cars.
The wash from the rotors sent a compact car skidding sideways. Claraara watched from the breakroom, her coffee forgotten. She pressed her hand against the glass. “What are they doing here?” she thought. “This isn’t a designated LZ. They’re coming in hot.” She watched as the lead chopper touched down its wheels, barely kissing the asphalt before the side doors flew open.
They didn’t wait for the rotors to slow. Men poured out. Claraara counted them instantly. 12 full kit plate carriers. M4 carbines drop holsters, fast helmets with coms. This wasn’t a National Guard transport. This was a quick reaction force. She squinted. The patches on their shoulders were velcroed on dark gray on black, but she recognized the unit insignia, a dagger through a globe.
Force recon. “Oh god,” Claraara whispered. The second and third choppers landed in a tight perimeter, blocking off the ambulance bay. The fourth hovered overhead, providing overwatch its sniper leaning out the open door. The doors to the ER burst open, but it wasn’t patients coming in. It was the hospital’s security guard, an elderly man named Frank, running backward, his hands up.
I couldn’t stop them, Frank yelled. They have guns. Behind him, the double doors were kicked open so hard, one of them cracked off its hinges. Three Marines entered first, sweeping the room with their rifles. They didn’t aim at the civilians, but their discipline was terrifying. They moved like water flowing around gurnies and freezing the room with their presence.
“Everybody stay exactly where you are,” the lead marine shouted. His voice was amplified by the tacticalthroat mic booming through the small speaker on his vest. “Hands visible, no sudden movements.” Dr. Prescott stepped out from the trauma bay, his gloves covered in the teenager’s blood. His arrogance, usually his armor, was now a liability.
“Who do you think you are?” Prescott demanded, marching toward the armed men. “This is a hospital. You can’t just barge in here with weapons. I have a patient dying in there.” The lead marine didn’t even blink. He was a giant of a man, easily 6’4 with a scar running through his eyebrow. He simply stepped forward and shoved Prescott back with one hand.
It wasn’t a violent shove, just a dismissal of an obstacle. Prescott stumbled back 5 ft gasping. I am Captain Silus Thorne, United States Marine Corps. The giant boomed. And I am not here for your patient, doctor. I am here for my soldier. Your soldier? Prescott sputtered, his face turning purple. We don’t have any military admits today.
You have the wrong hospital. Captain Thorne ignored him. He reached up and keyed his radio. Command, we have secured the lobby. Scanning for asset. He pulled a folded piece of paper from his tactical vest and unfolded it. He looked around the room, his eyes scanning the terrified faces of the nurses and doctors.
“I am looking for a former service member,” Thorne announced, his voice echoing off the tile. “We have intelligence that she is employed at this facility. We need her immediately. It is a matter of national security.” The room was silent. “Who?” Prescott asked, his voice shaking slightly. “Who are you looking for?” Thorne looked at the paper, then back at the room.
Her name is Claraara Halloway, but in the core she was known as Angel 6. A gasp went through the room. Heads turned slowly, agonizingly, eyes shifted toward the back of the nurse’s station, toward the breakroom door. Dr. Prescott looked confused. Halloway the the janitor nurse he let out a breathless incredulous laugh. You’re joking. You landed four helicopters for the woman who empties the bed pans.
Thorne’s eyes narrowed. He took a step toward Prescott and the air in the room seemed to drop 10°. Watch your tone, civilian. You are speaking about a recipient of the Navy Cross. The silence that followed was absolute. Claraara stood in the doorway of the breakroom. She had heard everything. Her heart was hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird.
She hadn’t heard that call sign in years. Angel 6. She smoothed her scrubs. She took a deep breath. She didn’t want this. She had spent 7 years hiding from this. But she knew the look on Captain Thorne’s face. She knew that stance. They weren’t here for a reunion. Someone was in trouble. Bad trouble. Claraara pushed the door open.
The squeak of the hinge sounded like a gunshot in the quiet room. I’m here, she said. Her voice wasn’t loud, but it carried. Every head turned. Dr. or Prescott looked at her, his mouth hanging open. The young intern Davis looked from the Marines to Claraara and back. Captain Thorne turned. When he saw her, the hard lines of his face softened for just a fraction of a second.
He saw the gray in her hair, the tired lines around her eyes, and he saw the way she leaned on her left leg. But he didn’t see a He snapped to attention. His boots to a hallom slammed together with a crack that made the triage nurse jump. He brought his hand up in a crisp, sharp salute. Ma’am, Thorne said his voice respectful.
Captain Thorne, first recon, we require your assistance. We have a catastrophic situation in the field and the flight surgeon is down. We have a mass casualty event involving a covert unit 30 mi north. They are trapped in a ravine. We can’t get a medevac in, but we can get a bird to hover. He lowered his hand.
We need a flight nurse who is combat certified for high angle rescue. We checked the database. You are the only one in the tri-state area with the rating. Claraara stared at him. Captain, I haven’t flown in 7 years. My leg. We don’t need your legs, Mom. Thorne said intensely. We need your hands, and we need your brain.
There are seven Marines bleeding out on a mountain right now. One of them is the general’s son. They specifically asked for you. Asked for me? Claraara whispered. No, Thorne corrected himself. The pinned down unit. They didn’t ask for a nurse. They radioed that they wouldn’t let anyone touch them except Angel 6. They said you served with their say in Fallujah.
Claraara’s breath hitched. Fallujah. Is it? She started her voice trembling. Is it Commander Ricks? Thorne nodded grimly. It is, and he’s critical. Claraara didn’t hesitate anymore. The slow nurse evaporated. The woman who apologized for existing was gone. In her place stood Angel 6. She looked at Thorne.
My kit is at my apartment. We have a full trauma kit on the bird, Thorne said. We leave in 2 minutes. Claraara nodded. She took a step forward, her limp pronounced, but her movement purposeful. Halloway, Prescott shouted, finding his voice. You can’t leave. You are onshift. If you walk out those doors, you are fired. Do you hear me? Fired.
Claraara stopped. She turned slowly to face Dr. Prescott. She looked at the man who had belittled her for 2 years, the man who had mocked her pain and ignored her skill. She walked up to him. She reached into her pocket, pulled out her hospital ID badge, and dropped it into the front pocket of his pristine white lab coat.
“Dr. Prescott,” she said, her voice cool and commanding. “That boy in bay 1 has attention pneumothorax. Needle decompress him now or you’ll be explaining to his senator father why he died.” And as for firing me, she smiled a cold, sharp smile. I resign. She turned to Captain Thorne. Let’s go. The interior of the MH60M Blackhawk was a sensory assault of noise, vibration, and the overwhelming smell of JP8 jet fuel, a scent that acted as a time machine for Claraara.
The moment the side doors slid shut and the bird banked hard to the left, leaving the Seattle skyline behind the hospital ceased to exist. Dr. Prescott, the rude interns, the sterile gray floors. They were a lifetime away. Captain Thorne handed Claraara a headset. She pulled it over her ears, the active noise cancellation, instantly dampening the roar of the rotors to a dull hum.
He then pointed to a duffel bag secured to the floor webbing near her feet. We brought your old loadout, Thorne said, his voice crackling over the intercom. Standardiss issue flight suit boots and a tier 2 trauma bag. Ricks kept it. He said you’d be back one day. Claraara looked at the bag, a lump forming in her throat.
Commander Ricks, the man currently bleeding out on a mountain, had kept her gear for 7 years. She unbuckled her seat belt, a violation of safety protocol that Thorne ignored and began to strip off her blue hospital scrubs. She didn’t care about modesty. She was in a fuselage full of Marines, and to them, she was just another piece of essential equipment, like a rifle or a radio.
She pulled on the flight suit. It was a little loose. She had lost muscle mass since her discharge, but the familiar weight of the fabric felt like armor. She laced up the tactical boots, wincing as she tightened the left one over the scar tissue of her ankle. The pain was sharp, a jagged reminder of why she had left the service, but she shoved it into a mental box and locked the lid.
Sitrep, captain, Claraara said, plugging her coms into the walljack. Her voice had changed. The raspy apologetic tone of nurse halloway was gone, replaced by the clipped authoritative cadence of Lieutenant Commander Halloway. Thorne nodded, appreciating the shift. He pulled a tablet from his vest and passed it to her.
Training exercise in the north cascades. Thorne explained his face grim. Unit was first recon engaging in high alitude survival and evasion. But something went wrong. We lost comms with them 4 hours ago. When we finally reestablished contact, the radio operator was frantic. They took fire. Claraara looked up from the map on the tablet.
Fire in the Cascades. It’s a training op. That’s the twist, Thorne said darkly. They stumbled onto something they weren’t supposed to see. Illegal grow op drug runners. Maybe something worse. We don’t have eyes on the hostiles, but they are heavily armed. They shot down the extraction bird and osprey.
It went down hard in a box canyon known as the Devil’s Throat. The terrain is too steep for us to land. We have to hover and winch you down. Claraara studied the topography map. The contour lines were stacked on top of each other. It was a vertical nightmare. Casualties. Seven confirmed on the ground. Three critical.
Commander Ricks took a round to the abdomen and has shrapnel from the crash in his neck. The corman is dead. RX is the highest ranking officer on the ground, but he’s incapacitated. The one calling the shots right now is a Lance Corporal named Sterling. Thorne paused. Sterling is General Sterling’s son. The kid is green.
He’s panicking and he’s screaming for Angel 6 because his father told him stories about you. Claraara closed her eyes for a second. The general’s son. That explained the four helicopters. Politics always bled into warfare. But Rick’s was family. How long until we’re on station? 6 minutes. The pilot’s voice cut in. Weather is deteriorating.
We have a blizzard front moving in from the north. Visibility is dropping to zero. If we don’t drop you in the next 10 minutes, we scrub the mission. Claraara looked out the small port hole window. The lush green of the Seattle suburbs had given way to the jagged snowcapped teeth of the Cascade Mountains. Gray clouds were swirling around the peaks like sharks circling a kill.
She felt the old fear clawing at her stomach. The last time she had been in a helicopter over hostile terrain, she hadn’t walked away. She had crawled. Flashback Kandahar 2018. The night was hot, smelling of sulfur and rot. The RPG had come out of nowhere, hitting the tail rotor. The spin had been nauseating. The impactshattered her world and her leg.
She remembered hanging upside down, the blood rushing to her head, watching Ricks drag the pilot out of the burning wreckage. He had come back for her. He had carried her three miles on a broken back. He had saved her life. Ma’am. Thorne’s voice snapped her back to the present. Claraara looked at him. Her hands were trembling slightly.
She clenched them into fists. “I’m good,” she lied. She reached into the duffel bag and pulled out a smaller pouch. Inside was her personal medical kit, intubation blades, combat gawes, chest seals, and a heavy dose of morphine. She rolled up the sleeve of her flight suit to check her watch revealing the tattoo on her inner forearm.
It was faded now, but the ink was still legible, a pair of wings wrapping around the number six, with the Latin phrase, “No, Tim, be not afraid.” Thorne saw it. He tapped his own chest. The boys on the ground, they think you’re a myth. You know the angel of Kandahar. Ricks kept your legend alive. Legends don’t stop bleeding, Captain.
Claraara muttered, checking the seal on a bag of saline. Tourniquets do. 2 minutes, the pilot yelled. We’re taking small arms fire. I repeat, taking fire. The helicopter lurched violently to the right. A sound like hail hitting a tin roof erupted along the fuselage bullets, impacting the armor.
“Lock and load!” Thorne screamed, dragging the charging handle of his carbine. The other marines in the cabin instantly shifted from passive passengers to lethal predators. Claraara grabbed the overhead strap. The vibration changed. The chopper was slowing down, entering a hover. The door gunner on the right side opened fire with the minigun the deafening, shaking the fillings in Claraara’s teeth.
“We’re over the LZ!” the crew chief shouted, sliding the side door open. Freezing wind and snow blasted into the cabin, instantly sucking the warmth out. Claraara looked down. Through the swirling snow, she saw the wreckage of the osprey, a twisted metal skeleton smoking in the ravine. Traces were flying back and forth between the treeine and the crash site.
It’s too hot to land, the pilot screamed. We have to fast, ropeway. You’re up first. If we stay here, we’re dead. Claraara unclipped her safety belt. She grabbed her medical bag. She limped to the edge of the open door and looked down. It was a 60- ft drop into a war zone. Her bad leg throbbed in anticipation.
Thorne grabbed her shoulder harness. You sure about this, Angel? Claraara looked at the chaos below. She saw a figure waving a strobe light. Ricks. She pulled her goggles down over her eyes. Send me. The rope burned her gloves. a friction generated heat that battled the biting cold of the mountain air.
Claraara descended fast, too fast. The tactical descent was designed for young men with healthy knees, not 40-year-old women with titanium pins holding their tibia together. But adrenaline is a powerful anesthetic. Claraara focused on the ground, rushing up to meet her. 30 ft 20 10 She flared her legs trying to land on her good side, but the uneven terrain of the ravine had other plans.
She hit a patch of loose shale and collapsed her bad leg, buckling under the weight of the trauma bag. A bolt of white hot agony shot up her spine, blinding her for a second. She gasped, biting her lip so hard she tasted copper. Move. You have to move. Bullets pinged off the rocks inches from her head. The sniper in the treeine had seen the insertion.
“Suppressing fire!” a voice screamed from the wreckage. “Three marines from the crash site popped up from behind the twisted fuselage of the osprey and unleashed a wall of lead toward the trees. It bought Claraara the three seconds she needed. She scrambled on hands and knees, dragging the heavy medical bag through the mud and snow, diving behind the cover of the Osprey’s landing gear.
She was instantly surrounded by the smell of burnt hydraulic fluid and the metallic tang of blood. You made it. A young marine, his face smeared with camouflage paint and dirt, grabbed her vest and hauled her further into cover. He looked barely 20. His eyes were wide, the pupils dilated with terror. I’m Corporal Sterling.
Dad said you’d come. Claraara grabbed his collar, pulling him close to be heard over the roar of the gunship overhead. Where is Commander Ricks? Take me to him now. He’s in the fuselage. He’s bad, man. He’s really bad. Sterling led her deeper into the broken aircraft. The interior was a nightmare. The red emergency lights were flickering, casting strobeike shadows over the carnage.
Four Marines were huddled in defensive positions at the jagged openings of the hull. In the center, lying on a thermal blanket, was Commander David Ricks. Claraara dropped to her knees beside him. He looked older than she remembered. His hair was silver now, and his face was gray, the color of wet ash.
A makeshift dressing was pressed against his neck, soaked through with bright red arterial blood. Anotherbandage was wrapped around his abdomen. “Dave,” Claraara whispered, her hands already moving, snapping on blue nitrial gloves. Rick’s eyes fluttered open. They were hazy, unfocused. He blinked, trying to clear the fog of shock.
When he saw her, a weak, crooked smile touched his lips. “Clara,” he rasped, blood bubbling slightly at the corner of his mouth. “You ignored my direct order to stay retired.” “I never was good at following orders,” she said, her voice steady despite the chaos. She peeled back the neck dressing. It was a jagged laceration, missing the corroted by millimeters, but nicking the jugular.
He was losing blood fast, but it was controllable. The abdominal wound, however, was the real killer. Sterling put pressure here. Claraara barked, guiding the young corporal’s hands to the neck wound. Don’t let up. If he bleeds out, it’s on you. She cut open Rick’s shirt. A single bullet entry wound just below the ribs.
No exit wound. That meant the bullet was bouncing around inside shredding organs. His stomach was distended internal bleeding. “Pressure is 70 over 40,” a nearby marine with a shattered arm said, reading a portable monitor. “He’s crashing, Mom. I need fluid,” Claraara ordered. “Start a line, 18 gauge, wide open.
” Suddenly, the hull of the osprey rang like a bell. Clang. An RPG had impacted the nose of the aircraft just 10 ft away. Dust and debris rained down on them. “They’re flanking us,” Sterling screamed, taking his hand off Rick’s neck to grab his rifle. “They’re coming down the ridge. Keep your hand on the damn wound,” Sterling, Claraara roared, shoving him back down.
“Let the Force Recon boys handle the shooting. Your job is to be a sandbag. Do not move. RX grabbed Claraara’s wrist. His grip was surprisingly strong for a dying man. Claraara, he wheezed. Listen to me. The laptop in the cockpit. You have to destroy it. Not now, Dave, she said, injecting morphine into his IV line. No. He tried to sit up, groaning in pain.It’s not drug runners. It’s mercenaries. Black Ops, they want the drive. It has the coordinates for the prototype. Claraara froze for a split second. The training exercise story was falling apart. If they get it, Ricks coughed violently. They’ll kill everyone to cover it up. You have to save the boy. Sterling. Get him out. Leave me.
I’m not leaving you. Claraara said, her voice fierce. She leaned close to his ear. I walked out of a shift with Adrien Prescott to be here. I am not going back empty-handed. You are going to live, Dave. Even if I have to carry you out myself. Incoming, someone shouted. The world exploded. A mortar round landed just outside the open hatch.
The concussion wave picked Claraara up and threw her against the bulkhead. Her head slammed into the metal and her vision went black for a second. She shook her head, fighting the ringing in her ears. She looked up. Sterling was on the ground, dazed. Ricks was unconscious, and standing at the brereech in the hull, silhouetted by the snow and the muzzle flashes, were three figures.
They weren’t wearing the rag tag clothes of drug runners. They were wearing high-end tactical gear night vision goggles and carrying suppressed Vector SMGs. Mercenaries, professionals. One of them raised his weapon, aiming directly at the unconscious general’s son. Claraara didn’t think. She didn’t analyze. The muscle memory of a thousand drs kicked in. She was unarmed.
Her medical status theoretically protected her, but these men didn’t care about the Geneva Convention. She grabbed the only thing within reach, a flare gun from the emergency survival kit strapped to the wall. She raised it and pulled the trigger. The flare hit the lead mercenary square in the chest plate.
It didn’t penetrate, but the phosphorus ignited with a blinding white intensity, burning at 3,000°. The man screamed, dropping his weapon and thrashing as the fire engulfed his vest. The other two mercenaries flinched, blinded by the sudden magnesium glare in their night vision goggles. “Clear the door,” Claraara screamed.
Captain Thorne dropped from the ceiling hatch, descending on a rope like a vengeful god. He landed on the second mercenary, his combat knife flashing. The rescue team had arrived, but RX was flatlining. “I need light.” “Someone give me light!” Claraara yelled. The firefight had pushed outside the fuselage. Thorne and his force recon team were pushing the mercenaries back up the ridge, buying her a bubble of safety.
But inside the wreck, the war was biological. RX’s heart had stopped. Starting compressions, Sterling yelled, finally finding his courage. He began pumping RX’s chest. Too fast, slow down, Claraara corrected him. Let the chest recoil. She scrambled to her bag. She needed to do a thoricottomy, open his chest to clamp the aorta and stop the abdominal bleeding long enough to get him to a hospital.
But doing that in a frozen, dirty helicopter wreck was insanity. It was suicide. “He’s dead if you don’t,” her innervoice whispered. “Get me the scalpel,” Claraara ordered the marine with the broken arm. “And the betadine, pour it everywhere.” She ripped the rest of Rick’s shirt open. “What are you doing?” Sterling asked, breathless from the CPR.
“I’m going to clamp his aorta,” Claraara said calmly. “Stop compressions.” “He has no pulse.” “I know. That’s why I’m cutting him open.” She made the incision. A long vertical cut down the center of his chest. Blood didn’t flow. His pressure was zero. She used a rib spreader from the heavy rescue kit to crack the sternum.
The sound of bone snapping made Sterling wretch, but he held the flashlight steady. Claraara reached into the chest cavity of the man she had loved like a brother for 20 years. Her hands were warm inside his body, a stark contrast to the freezing wind howling outside. She found the descending aorta. She clamped it with her fingers, pressing it against the spine. “Ep 1 mg!” she shouted.
The marine with the broken arm fumbled with the syringe and injected it into the IV. Claraara squeezed the heart manually. Once, twice, three times. It felt like a dead bird in her hand, still limp. “Come on, Dave,” she hissed. “Don’t you die on me. Not here. Not in the snow. She squeezed again. Thump.
A weak flutter against her palm. I got a rhythm. She yelled. Come on. Thump. Thump. The heart began to beat on its own, struggling, irregular, but beating. By clamping the aorta, she had diverted all the remaining blood to his brain and heart, sacrificing the lower body for now. “Pulse is back,” the marine shouted. “Weak but palpable.
We have to move him,” Claraara said, withdrawing her hand, but keeping the clamp in place with a pair of surgical forceps. “Now, if we wait, he dies from hypothermia.” She keyed her headset. Thorne status. Hostiles are retreating, but they’re regrouping for a heavy push. Thorne’s voice was breathless. We have a 3minut window before they bring up a 50 cal.
Is the package ready to move? Package is critical but stable, Claraara replied. We need a hoist extraction now. The weather is zero viz angel, the pilot cut in. I can’t see the deck. Follow my voice, Claraara yelled. I’m popping green smoke. She grabbed a smoke canister and threw it out to the back hatch.
Thick green smoke billowed out instantly, whipped away by the wind, but visible enough. The roar of the black hawk increased. The downdraft nearly knocked them over. The basket was lowered. “Get him in,” Claraara ordered. They loaded Rick’s into the rescue basket. It was a clumsy, desperate struggle. Claraara had to run alongside the basket as they dragged it, checking the clamp sticking out of his chest.
As the basket lifted off the ground, a bullet pinged off the metal rail. “Go, go, go!” Thorne screamed, laying down suppressive fire with his saw. Claraara hooked her own carabiner to the hoist cable above the basket. “She wasn’t going to ride up separately. She needed to monitor Rick’s every second of the ascent.
They lifted off the ground, swinging wildly in the wind. Claraara wrapped her legs around the basket, shielding Rick’s open chest with her own body. Below them, the ravine was a light show of traces. Above them, the dark belly of the helicopter promised safety, but as they reached the halfway point, 50 ft in the air, the winch jammed.
They stopped dead, suspended in the void. Jammed, the crew chief screamed over the coms. Hydraulic failure on the secondary winch. I can’t pull you up. Claraara looked down. The mercenaries were coming out of the trees. They were looking up. They were sitting ducks. Manual crank? The pilot screamed.
Who’s the manual crank? It’ll take 4 minutes. The chief yelled back. We don’t have 5 minutes. Thorne’s voice cut in from the ground. They’re setting up a rocket propelled grenade. You’re the target. Claraara looked at Rick’s. His eyes were open again. He was looking at her. Cut the line, he whispered. Save yourself. Claraara looked at the cable.
She looked at the open door of the helicopter above where the crew chief was frantically cranking a lever. She looked down at the men aiming the RPG. She reached into her vest and pulled out her sidearm, a standardisssue M9 Beretta she had been given on the bird. She wasn’t going to cut the line.
She aimed down at the dark shape of the RPG gunner in the snow 50 ft below. She took a deep breath, timing the sway of the cable. No Tim, she fired. The recoil of the Beretta kicked against Claraara’s palm. A jarring snap in the freezing air. 50 ft below the mercenary, citing the RPG crumpled into the snow. The unguided rocket launching harmlessly into the sky and detonating against the canyon wall in a shower of useless sparks.
“Clear! We are clear!” Claraara screamed into her headset, though the wind snatched the words away. The manual winch groaned a terrible metal on- metal screeching that vibrated down the steel cable and into her bones. Inch by agonizing inch, the basket rose.
Claraara kept her legswrapped tightly around the frame, her body acting as a human shield against the biting wind and any stray rounds from the ground. Her eyes, however, never left Commander RX’s chest. The aortic clamp was slipping. The vibration of the ascent was shaking the surgical instrument loose. If it popped off, RX would bleed out in seconds, his heart pumping his remaining life into the chest cavity she had just cracked open.
“Steady!” Claraara yelled at the crew chief as her head cleared the floor of the Blackhawk. “Don’t jerk it!” Strong hands grabbed her tactical vest. Captain Thorne and the crew chief hauled the basket into the cabin with a heave that nearly dislocated her shoulder. They slid the basket across the diamond plate floor, securing it instantly.
Pilot, get us out of here. Thorne roared. Nap of the earth. Stay low. The black hawk banked violently, diving over the ridgeel line to escape the kill zone. The GeForce pressed Claraara into the floor, but she didn’t let go of the clamp. I need light, she barked. He’s fibrillating again.
The cabin was bathed in the red glow of tactical lights. It was a nightmare operating theater. The helicopter was shaking the air, pressure was fluctuating, and the patient was technically dead, kept alive only by a piece of steel pinching a major artery. Corporal Sterling, the general’s son, was huddled in the corner, staring at Claraara with wide, terrified eyes.
He had just watched a middle-aged nurse with a limp repel down a rope perform open heart surgery in a wreck and shoot a man from a hanging cable. “Is he? Is he going to make it?” Sterling stammered. “Hold this IV bag,” Claraara ordered, ignoring the question. Squeeze it. Every time I nod, you squeeze. Do you understand? Yes, ma’am.
Claraara looked at the monitor. Rick’s vitals were erratic. She needed to stabilize the clamp and pack the chest. Thorne, get me on the comms with the receiving hospital. Claraara said, her hands deep in the chest cavity, adjusting the packing gauze. We aren’t going to the base. He won’t make the flight to Madigan.
We have to go back to Seattle. General Negative, Angel, Thorne said, listening to his earpiece. Command says the package is too sensitive. The laptop, the data, we can’t bring that into a civilian sector. Claraara looked up, her face smeared with grease and blood. Her eyes were furious. I don’t care about the laptop, Captain.
I care about the man who saved my life in Kandahar. He has a clamped aorta and a tension pumothorax. Seattle general is 6 minutes out. Madigan is 20. If we fly to the base, you will be landing with a corpse. Do you want to explain to General Sterling why his son’s savior died? Because of protocol. Thorne hesitated.
He looked at Rick’s then at Claraara. He saw the fire in her eyes, the same fire that had earned her the Navy Cross. He keyed his radio. Command, this is Dagger 11. We are declaring a medical emergency. Diverting to Seattle General. Pilot, punch it. Copy that, the pilot responded and the engines whining as he pushed the throttle to the stops.
Claraara focused back on the wound. Stay with me, Dave. We’re almost home. The flight was a blur of alarms and desperate measures. Twice RX’s pressure bottomed out. Twice Claraara had to manually massage his heart, her hand rhythmically pumping life through his veins while the Marines watched in reverent silence. As the Seattle skyline came into view, the hospital helipad was already illuminated.
But as they approached, Claraara saw something that made her blood boil. The helipad was empty of medical personnel. Security guards were blocking the doors. “They aren’t ready for us,” Claraara realized. “Prescott blocked the landing.” “He what?” Thorne growled. “Dr. Prescott, he’s the trauma chief. He probably thinks this is a stunt.
” Thorne racked the slide of his rifle. “Set it down, pilot. If anyone gets in her way, I’ll remove them. The Blackhawk flared over the hospital roof, the wash kicking up debris. The wheels slammed down onto the painted H. Before the rotors even slowed, Thorne kicked the door open. He jumped out his weapon held low, but ready, his team fanning out to secure the perimeter.
The hospital security guards who had been ordered to deny access took one look at the force recon marines and backed away. Hands raised. Claraara unbuckled. She grabbed the side of the gurnie. Let’s move. On my count. 1 2 3. They rushed Rick’s out of the chopper. The wind was howling, whipping Claraara’s hair across her face.
She limped heavily, her bad leg screaming in protest, but she didn’t slow down. She ran alongside the gurnie, her hand still holding the clamp inside RX’s chest. They burst through the roof access doors and into the trauma elevator. Trauma bay 1, Claraara ordered. and someone Paige Prescott, tell him if he isn’t there in 30 seconds, I’m doing the surgery myself.
The elevator doors dinged open on the ER floor, revealing a scene of utter confusion. The staff hadheard the helicopter, but no one knew what was happening. When Claraara Halloway burst out, flanked by four heavily armed Marines and pushing a gurnie with a man whose chest was literally cracked open, the entire floor froze. Dr.
Adrien Prescott was standing at the nurse’s station holding a coffee, laughing with a resident. He turned and the smile died on his face. He saw Claraara, but it wasn’t the Claraara he knew. She was wearing a flight suit covered in mud and blood. Her hair was wild. She moved with a terrifying intensity, the limp in her gate now looking like the stride of a wounded predator rather than a liability.
“Get out of my way!” Claraara shouted, her voice, echoing down the corridor. “Hello!” Prescott sputtered, dropping his coffee cup. It shattered, splashing hot liquid on his pristine white shoes. What is the meaning of this? You resigned. You can’t just patient is male. 52 gunshot wound to the abdomen, penetrating trauma to the neck, emergency thorotomy performed in the field.
Claraara rattled off the report with machine gun precision as she rolled past him. Aorta is clamped. I need the O prepped now. Type and crossmatch for 10 units of ONEG. Get the vascular team. She didn’t stop to ask for permission. She didn’t look down. She drove the gurnie straight into trauma bay 1. Prescott ran after them, his face red with indignation. Security, stop her.
She’s practicing medicine without a license. She’s a nurse. He reached out to grab Claraara’s arm as she transferred Rick’s to the hospital bed. Before his fingers could graze her flight suit, Captain Thorne stepped in. The giant marine didn’t shout. He simply placed a gloved hand on Prescott’s chest and shoved him back against the wall hard enough to knock the wind out of him.
“Touch her again,” Thorne said, his voice dropping to a subsonic growl. and you will need a trauma surgeon. This is my hospital, Prescott wheezed. And that is my commanding officer on that table, Thorne replied. And she is the only reason he is still breathing. You will take orders from her or you will stand down. Prescott looked around.
The entire ER staff, Sarah Davis, the nurses, the orderlys were watching. They weren’t looking at Prescott with the usual fear or admiration. They were looking at Claraara. They were looking at the woman they had ignored for years now, commanding a room full of special forces soldiers. “Dr. Prescott,” Claraara said, not looking up as she connected Rick’s to the hospital monitors.
“I need a vascular surgeon to repair the aort.” “Are you going to scrub in or do I need to call someone competent?” The insult hung in the air, sharp and brutal. Prescott swallowed his pride. He saw the open chest. He saw the clamp. He realized with a sinking feeling the level of skill it took to perform that procedure in a hovering helicopter.
He looked at Claraara’s hands. They were steady as rock. I’ll scrub in, Prescott muttered. Good, Claraara said. But I’m lead on this. You repair the vessel. I manage the patient. That’s highly irregular. Do it. The next 4 hours were a blur. Claraara didn’t leave the O. She stood at the head of the table monitoring anesthesia, dictating blood products, and guiding Prescott’s hands when his arrogance made him sloppy.
For the first time in his career, Adrien Prescott was the assistant. When the final stitch was thrown and RX was moved to the ICU stable, Claraara finally stepped back. She peeled off the bloody gloves. Her adrenaline crashed. Her leg gave out. She stumbled, but she didn’t hit the floor. Captain Thorne caught her. “I got you, Angel,” he said softly.
They walked her out of the O and into the waiting room. The room was full, not with patience, but with uniforms. General Sterling, the father of the boy Claraara had saved, was there. He was a terrifying man with four stars on his shoulder, known for eating kernels for breakfast. Beside him stood the hospital director and the rest of the board.
When Claraara entered, leaning on Thorne, the room went silent. General Sterling walked up to her. He looked at his son, Corporal Sterling, who was sitting in a wheelchair nearby with a blanket around him. The boy nodded to his father, tears in his eyes. The general turned to Claraara. He didn’t offer a handshake.
He saluted. It was a slow, deliberate salute. Behind him, the 20 other Marines in the room snapped to attention. “Lieutenant Commander Halloway,” the general said, his voice thick with emotion. My son tells me you walked into hell to get them. Just doing the job, sir. Claraara said, her voice. No, the general said, you did more than the job.
You saved the lives of seven Marines. You secured intelligence that will save thousands more. and you did it while this,” he gestured dismissively at the hospital administrators. While this institution treated you like a servant. He turned to the hospital director, a sweating man in a cheap suit. “Did you know you had a Navy Cross recipient scrubbing your floors?” Thedirector stammered.
“We personnel files are confidential. She is a hero,” the general barked. “And as of this moment, she is reactivated. The Navy wants her back. The core wants her back. She will not be emptying bed pans for you anymore. He turned back to Claraara. If you want it, Claraara, the position of chief instructor at the Joint Special Operations Medical Training Center is yours.
Colonel’s rank. Claraara looked at the general. Then she looked at the corner of the room. Dr. Prescott was standing there. He looked small, defeated. He had watched the entire scene. He realized that the woman he had bullied the woman he had called slow was a giant he had failed to recognize. Claraara let go of Thorne’s arm.
She stood on her own two feet, wincing at the pain, but standing tall. She looked at Prescott. She didn’t gloat. She didn’t scream. She just offered him a small pitying smile. “I think I’ll take that offer, General,” Claraara said. “But first, I have one loose end to tie up.” She walked over to the nurse’s station where her old locker key was still in her pocket.
She pulled it out and placed it on the counter. Sarah, the young nurse, who had been kind to her, was crying happy tears. “Goodbye, Sarah,” Claraara said softly. Don’t let them push you around. She turned and walked toward the exit, flanked by the general and Captain Thorne. The automatic doors slid open, letting in the cool night air.
The sound of the Blackhawk on the roof was gone, but the silence she left behind was louder than any engine. The quiet nurse was gone. Angel 6 had returned, and as she walked into the night for the first time in 7 years, she didn’t feel the pain in her leg. She only felt the wind beneath her wings. The legend of Angel 6 didn’t end that night.
It was just the beginning of a new chapter. Commander Ricks made a full recovery, eventually retiring to a cabin near the training center where Claraara taught the next generation of combat medics. Dr. Prescott resigned a month later, his reputation in tatters, unable to command respect in an er that knew he had belittled a legend.
Claraara Halloway proved that heroes don’t always wear capes and they don’t always run. Sometimes they limp. But when the call comes, when the sky tears open and the rotors scream, they fly. She was no longer defined by her injury, but by the lives she refused to let go of. In the end, the scars we carry are not signs of weakness, but evidence that we survived to fight for others.
