Kiana Azunna has survived the kinds of losses that should end a life-first as a child in Nigeria, then as a Royal Marine in Afghanistan.
Kiana knows all about struggle and loss. Orphaned before she was ten and left in charge of her younger sister, she was the first woman to earn the green beret of the Royal Marine Commandos. While she has learned how to “fit in,” she is longing for a place where she truly belongs. When a mission goes tragically wrong during the pull-out from Afghanistan, she doubts that place exists for her.
When the SIS comes calling, Kiana sees a chance to start over, but can she? On a mission where she will find herself tested to a degree never expected, will she find that real home with her sister, a man she loves, and a new purpose in life?
Kiana Azunna has survived the kinds of losses that should end a life-first as a child in Nigeria, then as a Royal Marine in Afghanistan.
Kiana knows all about struggle and loss. Orphaned before she was ten and left in charge of her younger sister, she was the first woman to earn the green beret of the Royal Marine Commandos. While she has learned how to “fit in,” she is longing for a place where she truly belongs. When a mission goes tragically wrong during the pull-out from Afghanistan, she doubts that place exists for her.
When the SIS comes calling, Kiana sees a chance to start over, but can she? On a mission where she will find herself tested to a degree never expected, will she find that real home with her sister, a man she loves, and a new purpose in life?
Captain Kiana Azunna, Royal Marines, lay on the hard ground of north-eastern Afghanistan looking through her Schmidt and Bender spotting scope. Moonrise in the far southern reaches of the Hindu Kush this hot August night was so late as to be early morning. While the moon was full, the mixed cloud cover played tricks on illumination, giving advantages to neither predator nor prey. A Taliban commander moved about what was supposed to be a little camp but looked more like a small village. After the ten-kilometre yomp from the insertion point, Azunna and her team had been in the prone position for more than an hour. Even with a lightweight pad under her body, the sharp edge in every rock seemed to make its way to her core.
Azunna had been a Royal Marine Commando for four years, having transferred from Naval Intelligence when the Ministry of Defence had finally permitted women to serve in all units. The mission of 30 Commando’s Reconnaissance and Surveillance Squadron had been a natural fit for her skillset. She and her small team were on their last mission in Afghanistan. The Americans had announced a pull out by the end of the month and with it the end of the clandestine British presence as well.
Next to Azunna was her principal section sniper, Colour Sgt Tom Colley. Seventeen years in the Royal Marines, the last seven in 30 Commando, he had been around the world. Colley had been brand new to the Royal Marines during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, worked counter-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden, led mentoring operations in West Africa, and done his own training in Belize and Brunei. An exemplary demonstration of the fortitude of Royal Marines, he was Azunna’s most trusted and accurate shooter, and as her senior troop NCO advisor, both mentor and subordinate. He had eleven years of combat operations on her, and his body felt every single one of the deployments. He didn’t think of himself as old, but at thirty-seven he knew combat was a young person’s game.
“Any time you are ready ma’am.” Colley’s steel grey eyes were focused through his own Schmidt and Bender scope atop his L115A3 .338 Laupa rifle. Hours on the range outside of RM Stonehouse had allowed the rifle to become an extension of his body, rising and falling in conjunction with his breathing. The moment to press the trigger at the end of his exhale was built into him. He was ready to reach out and touch someone at over a kilometre.
“Send it,” Azunna said softly.13
One minute the Taliban commander was having a conversation with one of his subordinates, and the next his head disappeared in a cloud of pink mist.
“Let’s move.” They had a ten-kilometre yomp back to the exfil point. Their mates from 845 Naval Air Squadron would not be happy if they had to wait on the deck for them. That distance in the dark, over uneven ground was not easy, even for the fittest of people. On a night like tonight to call the yomp ahead of them a slog was making it sound like a walk at Richmond Park.
The reaction in the little encampment below them was completely predictable. Taliban riflemen looked for the threat from all around, wary of any further attack, some firing randomly into the dark. Others acting as medics quickly concluded their commander was dead and it was time to move. Some ran to Toyota Hi-Lux pickups. Out of the corner of her eye, while she shouldered her Bergen, Azunna saw something unexpected. “Hold the airstrike!”
“Ma’am, we don’t have the time!” If pressed Colley would have said that Azunna had one flaw, and that was she thought she could right any injustice, save any innocent. It was an admirable flaw to be sure. Colley did not think of himself as a cynic, just a realist. The world of possession and privilege was a cruel one, and Colley was just trying to do the best he could. In the middle of the chaos, two little girls had emerged from a small building that seemed at the centre of the camp and Colley knew his commander well.
Azunna was already on the move, M4 up, peering through her night vision scope, pressing toward the girls. If she could get to them, the Marines could carry them to the exfil point. She had no idea what would happen if she showed up in Kandahar with two orphaned girls, but she’d worry about that later.
“Everybody stand-by and get ready to move! I’m going with the gaffer!” shouted Colley. Fuuuuck. I can’t believe she is doing this. No. Of course I can. He set off in pursuit of Azunna, M4 up, ready to engage.
Azunna put two 5.56mm rounds into one Taliban soldier and kept moving. A machine gun opened up, 12.7mm rounds stitching the ground behind her. She dove for cover behind a large rock quickly followed by Colley.
“Ma’am, there’s no time! We need to move, the strike aircraft and our ride are both inbound.”
“The intel said this was strictly military, we are not killing innocent kids. Come or stay, I don’t care, but I am getting them.” Azunna was diligent about her duties to Queen and country, and also to the ideals she had. Little girls weren’t going to be killed because she had given the strike order. She hadn’t allowed a combined eight years in the Royal Navy and Marines, with four combat deployments to Afghanistan to change her to that degree.
And with that, she was off again, Colley in hot pursuit, and they entered a raging gun battle with a group of Taliban. The 7.62x39mm rounds of the enemy AKs bounced off the rocks, sending little chips of stone their way. Azunna and Colley replied with the 5.56x45mm rounds of their M4s. She could see other Taliban getting in their Hi-Luxes and Land Cruisers and racing off. They dove behind another large boulder.15
“Captain! We’re blown. We need to move to the exfil site!” Colley screamed.
Azunna had lost sight of the girls and so looked up above the rock just enough see the camp. The human eye does amazingly well in the dark. If there is a full moon, it can be almost as good as daylight. The firing had slowed down and the flurry of activity that had been below them was almost all gone. Azunna rolled out from around the rock, rifle up, moving forward. Colley still right behind her.
Then she saw them, standing in the open, illuminated by the headlights of the Land Cruiser bearing down on them. The vehicle stopped, and a rough-looking man exited the passenger side of the SUV, picked up the girls and pushed them into the front seat, climbing back in after them. The driver must have had the truck in gear because the vehicle was already backing up as fast before they had even shut the door.
The grey darkness was about to turn to bright light. The roar of the RAF Typhoon strike fighters was upon them before they knew it, each one releasing a Paveway IV laser-guided 500-lb bomb that landed in the middle of the encampment. The combined 1000 lbs of high explosives did three things: it turned night into day, even if only for a couple of seconds; it destroyed everything in the little encampment; and it sent the two Royal Marines flying, blowing them off their feet and onto their backs.
The lethal radius of the Paveway IV 500-lb bomb is about 80 x 30 metres. Azunna and Colley had been about 200 metres from the point of impact, but that did not mean they were safe.
It was impossible to tell how far the Land Cruiser had been able to move in the fifteen seconds between when it pulled away, and the bombs detonated. Theoretically, it should only take six seconds to move far enough. Theoretically.
Azunna was out for who knows how long, later she would figure that it had probably been less than a minute, but as she came around, she felt as if it could have been hours. Her ears were ringing and her vision a mess. She shook her head trying to get a sense of time and place. Both freezing cold and burning hot, she quickly triaged herself, from head to foot, by quickly being in touch with her body. Thank goodness for all that yoga. Her right knee was in a great deal of pain, but other than that she appeared to be alright.
She struggled to sit up, finally using her left side to leverage her body into a more upright position. Looking around she searched for Colley. After her vision returned to normal, she saw him, about two metres to her right. He lay motionless in the early morning grey light. His head was titled in her direction, eyes open, vacant. She tried to get up to go to him, but her knee completely failed, shooting even more sharp pain to every part of her body.
“Sergeant Colley, get up!” Her cry was almost an order, a command. It was as if her authority as an officer with a Queen’s Commission, would solve this problem. Just looking at him, not moving, those open, vacant eyes, the injuries started to overcome her, and she eased herself back to the ground. And Azunna was jolted back in the pouring rain on that Nigerian roadside, holding Ngozi in her arms, staring into the vacant eyes of her mother.
Her performance in Afghanistan wasn’t much, so she believes, but the world doesn’t run short of criminals, especially those exploiting the innocent. So it’s no surprise she’s assigned to kill.
This is Kiana Azunna’ s story, as grippingly told in Eric Coulson’s novel, The Chrysalis Option. She has served in Afghanistan as a Royal Marine commando and has close ties to Nigeria.
Infiltrate the target, kill them, and take a snapshot for identification purposes, and once the mission is classified as a success, wait for the next assignment. Azunna’s job is neatly cut out for her. Even so, things get uglier nearly all the time, and Azunna finds herself wearing a cloth bag on her head and being driven to unknown places.
Beginning in Nigeria, The Chrysalis Option brings to mind Nigeria in the hands of the Dictator Sani Abacha, and zooms in on one man, George Azunna, as he’s about to make the most difficult decision. It’s apparent that these early episodes will play an integral part in the rest of the book.
The Chrysalis Option’s protagonist is the first reason readers would get immersed in it. Azunna’s skin colour and gender work for her and against her. Each mission is dangerous and often brutal—Azunna faces torture, the threat of death, and the psychological toll of her work. Yet, behind the deadly efficiency lies a woman searching for connection and love, hoping to reclaim what the past has taken from her. The narrative moves between high-stakes action and intimate character moments, immersing readers in Azunna’s struggles and triumphs.
There is also Uncle G, a man with an odd laugh and a rather successful empire. Between uncle G and Azunna, who’s playing who? And who’s ahead of the other? Interesting questions to unravel as these two continue to interact.
The book also doesn't focus on just one mission. Instead, after one kill, another awaits. It’s therefore travelling to places for both Azunna and the readers.
For readers, especially those into thrillers, action-packed, and assassins, The Chrysalis Option evokes the style of Frederick Forsyth and Robert Ludlum, delivering a tale of intrigue, danger, and the search for love and belonging. The story is slow-paced in the early pages, but picks up pace as it unfolds and maintains the momentum.