The Crash

The fuselage hit spruce trees at sixty miles per hour. Metal shrieked. Belmont's head snapped against the window frame. When the spinning stopped, pine needles dusted the cracked windscreen.

Odin whimpered from the cargo hold behind him. Not injured. Scared.

Belmont unbuckled and turned. The dog's amber eyes were fixed on him. That look—it transcended training. Odin was asking a single question: what now?

Outside, the Alaskan wilderness pressed close. Mountains rose in every direction, anonymous and massive. The emergency beacon was dead. Radio was dead. The pilot lay motionless in the forward cabin.

Belmont's hand found Odin's collar. The dog pressed his skull against Belmont's palm, seeking ballast. They had survived worse than this. Helicopters. Ambushes. The mountains.

But those had soldiers, logistics, extraction plans.

This had only two lives: one human, one animal, and a single certainty—neither could survive alone.