Six fighter jets locked onto my Apache while six American soldiers were trapped in the valley below.
Every senior officer in my headset gave me the same order.
“Captain Riley, turn around immediately.”
I watched six red contacts cross the edge of my radar display. They were closing fast. Beneath me, Ranger Seven was pinned behind a line of boulders. Dust burst from the rocks as rounds struck them.
“Reaper,” the team leader said over the radio, struggling to make himself heard. “Two wounded. Ammunition almost gone.”
“Extraction is coming,” I told him.
Command cut in. “Negative. Those fighters will reach you in thirty seconds.”
Then a voice broke across the open channel.
“One helicopter against six jets,” the enemy flight leader said. “You should have run.”
He laughed.
Inside my flight suit was a photograph of my father, Colonel James “Ghost” Riley. Its corners had softened from years of being carried and unfolded. He had taught me to fly before I joined the Army. Later, he had tried to persuade military planners that an attack helicopter could survive an encounter with faster aircraft under the right conditions.
They had called his ideas reckless. He died before he could defend them.
I flew deeper into the valley.
“Riley, acknowledge the order,” command demanded.
“I hear you.”
“Then turn around.”
I looked down at the soldiers. Their team leader had pulled one of the wounded men closer to the rocks. The other lay motionless beside his pack.
“I’m staying with Ranger Seven.”
My copilot, Lieutenant Morgan, turned toward me. He had heard the order too. He checked the radar, then the valley ahead.
“We won’t get a second chance,” he said.
“I know.”
The first fighter came over the ridgeline. I banked behind the rock face as a missile struck the place we had just crossed. The blast shook the Apache. Fragments flashed past the canopy, and the warning tone in my headset rose above the radio traffic.
“Aircraft still flying,” Morgan said. “One system damaged.”
I held our course until we cleared the smoke. Behind us, the fighters broke formation to find us again.
“Ranger Seven, this is Reaper. Mark your position,” I said.
A green flare rose from the boulders. I could see the soldiers now, small figures pressed into the strip of shade below the ridge.
The enemy leader returned to the radio. “You’re making this worse for them.”
I recognized his confidence. He thought my attention was divided between his aircraft and the team on the ground. He was right about that much.
A fighter appeared through the smoke. Morgan called the contact, and I fired. It vanished behind the far ridge trailing flame. I did not see where it came down.
“Riley!” the commander shouted. “Break away!”
Another fighter swept across our path, close enough that its shadow crossed the canyon wall. I pulled the Apache around the ridge and caught sight of Ranger Seven again.
Their team leader was waving both arms.
“Reaper, our wounded can’t move,” he said. “You have to go.”
“Keep your heads down.”
I heard the enemy leader breathe into his microphone before he spoke again.
“Ghost’s daughter.”
For an instant, I forgot the warning tone and the five contacts still moving across my display.
My father’s final mission was classified. His call sign had never appeared in the reports I was allowed to read. The voice hunting us knew it.
“What did you call me?” I asked.
Morgan looked across the cockpit.
The man answered with a short laugh. “He made the same choice you’re making.”
I touched the photograph inside my flight suit. On the day my father left for his final mission, he had promised to call when he returned. For years, all I had received were briefings that changed whenever I asked another question.
“Captain,” Morgan said, “we need to move.”
I looked back at the radar. One fighter had broken from the others and was turning toward Ranger Seven.
“He’s going for the team.”
Morgan saw it. “Command, we need immediate cover over Ranger Seven’s position.”
No answer came at first. Then our commander’s voice returned, stripped of its earlier anger.
“Support aircraft are en route. Hold if you can.”
The fighter descended toward the soldiers. I moved between it and the green flare. A burst of fire struck the rocks beyond us. The Apache lurched, and Morgan braced himself against his seat.
“Reaper, you’re hit,” Ranger Seven’s leader said.
“I know.”
Morgan checked the instruments. “We’re losing power. I can keep talking to the rescue crew, but you need to find us somewhere to set down.”
The fighter passed over us and climbed. I watched it turn for another approach. Farther back, the enemy leader remained above the valley, listening.
“You knew my father,” I said into the open channel.
“I was there when his aircraft went down.”
My throat tightened. “What happened?”
For the first time, he did not answer immediately.
Command spoke instead. “Captain Riley, leave that channel.”
I stared at the radio panel.
The enemy leader had known who I was before he arrived. Now command wanted the conversation to end.
“Captain,” the commander repeated. “That is an order.”
Across the valley, I saw two American aircraft approaching. Their call signs appeared on Morgan’s display. The enemy fighters began to turn away.
“Ranger Seven,” Morgan said, “rescue is inbound. They have your flare.”
The team leader acknowledged him. I kept the Apache steady as the power warning sounded again.
The enemy leader’s voice returned, quieter now.
“Your father wasn’t flying the mission they told you about.”
Then his signal cut out.
Morgan guided me toward a bare stretch of ground above the soldiers. We landed hard, with dust covering the canopy. I stayed in my seat until I heard the rescue crew reach Ranger Seven and report that both wounded soldiers were alive.
Only then did I pull my father’s photograph from my flight suit.
On the back, in his handwriting, were four words I had read hundreds of times: Always bring them home.
Morgan was still listening to command. Someone was asking why the enemy leader had used my father’s call sign. Nobody on the channel answered.
I folded the photograph and put it away. The six soldiers below us were getting out of the valley. Once they were safe, I intended to find out what had happened on my father’s final mission.
