Dominique looked down at her wrist-mounted altimeter, watching as the needle leveled out at 15,000ft. The last time she’d jumped it was to rescue a downed pilot, a HALO jump of course. This was nothing new. A casual “skydive” as civilians called it. Well, as casual as jumping out of a C-130 in full kit would be. She had never jumped without her combat gear on and so, as always, she stood in full kit looking as if she’d only just gotten off of a post. Everything minus the actual weapons was present. It was what she was used to.

She stood at the very edge of the now open ramp, looking over the terrain that was the Royal Marines base. Her comms crackled to life and she glanced back at Niko and the other two with a grin “Try not to fall too far behind.” She pulled down her sunglasses and turned to face the group, her feet inches from the edge of the aircraft. This was not a career for people afraid of heights.

“Alright, this is not a textbook HALO jump. We have a very small target landing and we’re jumping from a lower altitude. Our deployment altitude is around 3,500ft, however your chute will only automatically deploy at around 2,000ft, so stay conscious of your altitude. I’ll give a heads up when we’re approaching. We’re aiming for our portion of the compound ideally. Bonus points if you knock the beer out of Richard’s hand.”

After the team lined up with some instruction from Oakley --the one hour crash course in HALO jumping wasn’t exactly detailed-- she looked to the the light and raised an open hand up. As the light changed, she clenched her hand into a fist and jumped out of the plane with a roll, letting off a loud “Wooo!” as she did. It was the first time she’d been actually happy in a while.