Valkyrie Rising (Warrior's Wings Book Two) Read Online Free PDF Page A

little war that probably won’t even make a footnote in their histories.”
    Patrick nodded, wishing he could disagree. “You want a chapter to ourselves then?”
    Nadine smiled then, a nasty, feral look crossing her face. “If we have to go down as a species, Patrick, I want books, movies, and ballads. I will not settle for less.”
    *****
     
    Aida Family Hacienda
     
    Cassius Aida carried a tray into his daughter’s room, momentarily flashing back to old memories as he crossed through the door. It had been many years since he’d done this for her, and the last time was for nothing more than a simple flu, but it felt good all the same.
    “Dinner for you, Hija,” he called softly.
    Sorilla groaned a little, shifting in bed so that she was sitting up. The doctors had locked out her spinal shunt to prevent her from injuring herself; long experience told them that people who signed up for the sorts of things she did weren’t likely to lay around voluntarily, so the choice had been stay in the hospital for the duration of her recovery or have the shunt locked down. Sorilla despised hospitals far more than she did pain.
    “Thanks, Da,” she mumbled, slurring her words a little against the painkillers fuzzing up her brain.
    Doctors were strange, to be honest. The nice, clean neural block was a no-no, but apparently getting shot full of morphine or whatever the synthetic version was called these days was perfectly fine.
    Probably has something to do with the fact that I can’t fucking walk with this crap in me, Sorilla thought, disgustedly.
    Her father set the tray across her body and helped her into position, grimacing as she groaned again.
    “You all right?”
    “I’ll live,” she told him with a wan smile.
    He sighed, shaking his head. “In my day, we kept our gear outside our bodies, where it belongs. Spent a goodly amount of time working very hard to keep people from sticking things in us, one way or the other, I’d like to add.”
    She snorted softly. “Pull the other one, Dad. You’ve got as many implants as I do.”
    “Only because I wasn’t very good at keeping people from sticking unwanted things into my body,” he replied sourly. “I’m not referring to medical implants, and you know it.”
    “Times change,” Sorilla sighed theatrically, forcing herself to eat some. “I guess the army got tired of you old codgers losing all the gear you didn’t keep inside your body.”
    Cassius smirked in response. “Must be. I see you’re feeling a little more fit, though. Enough to fight your old man in a battle of wits.”
    “Baiting me with an obvious opening for a comment about beating up on unarmed opponents isn’t going to distract me from the soreness,” she responded dryly.
    “And aware enough to spot an intentional opening in your opponent’s defenses,” he chuckled, rising up as he patted the bed. “You’ll be fine in a few more days.”
    “Two weeks,” she mourned. “Two weeks before they’ll let me start working back up again.”
    “You’ll live,” he responded, rolling his eyes at her sulky expression.
    As a former Ranger, Cassius was well aware of how it felt to be lying in bed while your conditioning seeped away. The frustration for someone who defined her life by her active style was palpable, but he also knew that there were times you fought through the pain and times you surrendered to it. This time, his lovely daughter would simply have to learn that surrendering simply meant preserving herself for a fight on another day.
    Sorilla watched him go for a moment then continued eating distractedly while looking through her corneal implants at an augmented world. The new OLED screens were light-years past her old second gen version, which had been limited to green and red colors and very limited graphics. The new ones were in full color, with almost life-scale definition to the overlay. As she looked at the food she was eating, her computer core watched alongside her and offered