Ryan-s Rescue Squad -

Behind him, the three members of his squad didn't flinch. They never did.

, 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.”

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 .

Behind them, the hovercraft roared to life, Mira’s voice crackling over the comm: “Thrusters green. Where do you need the pickup?” Ryan-s Rescue Squad

, 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.”

Ryan finally stood. He was the youngest commander in the sector, and the most doubted. His crew wasn’t military; they were misfits, burnouts, and the forgotten. But when a distress signal went unanswered, when the official rescue corps logged it as “low priority,” Ryan’s Squad was the one that showed up.

Ryan grinned—a small, fierce thing.

And they always, always came.

“Directly below us. And Mira? Make it fast.”

Ryan pulled out a battered flare gun and loaded a green cartridge—the signal for children found. “There is no angle. We’re getting that kid out before the planet eats him.” Behind him, the three members of his squad didn't flinch

“New plan,” Ryan said. “Mira, you stay with the hovercraft. Get it airborne. Jax, Kael, with me. We move fast.”

When they found the boy—no older than seven, trembling on a crumbling pillar of dirt—Ryan dropped to his belly and reached down.

The boy’s eyes were wide, but he reached up. “Ten minutes