The Synopsis Skirmish 2022—2nd place

Jack Lawton is a former mercenary and Distinguished Service Cross recipient who swore an oath never to take another life, and who currently spends his days working as a taxi driver for the Chinese Triads, attempting to pay off a seemingly unending debt he owes to the gangsters. 

After saving the son of a high-ranking Triad boss from an assassination attempt, Jack is offered a chance to clear his debt in one fell stroke; all he must do is infiltrate an active South-East Asian warzone and rescue the young bride of the man whose life Jack saved. 

However, it turns out that the woman he’s been sent to rescue is in fact an underage teenager named Aya. Sickened, Jack turns on his employers and decides to get the girl out of the country and to safety. Unfortunately, the Triads don’t take betrayal lightly and very quickly put a price on Jack’s head that every mercenary, killer, and bounty hunter in the region is eager to collect. 

Together with Aya, Jack must now escape a country rapidly descending into chaos while dozens of bloodthirsty killers stalk his every move, all while attempting to uphold his vow not to kill. Unbeknownst to Jack, however, Aya herself is no damsel-in-distress. She has an agenda all her own: to avenge her family’s murder by overthrowing the government of the very country Jack is trying to get them both out of alive.