Chapter 13
Major Ross’s hand shook so violently his fingers brushed against his eyebrow as he held his salute. “General Sullivan, sir! It is an absolute honor to have you at our battalion. If I had known of your arrival, I would have ensured the proper honors and a full dress inspection were—”
General Sullivan raised a single, leather-gloved hand, cutting Ross off mid-sentence without looking at him. The silence that followed was absolute. The entire hangar seemed to hold its breath, the only sound the low, steady idling of the armored Suburbans.
Sullivan walked past Ross as if the Major were made of glass, his eyes fixed entirely on Maya Vance. He stopped exactly three feet in front of her.
Maya’s eyes locked onto his. For a long, agonizing moment, neither of them spoke. Sullivan’s expression was a complex tapestry of deep sorrow, profound respect, and an ancient, shared understanding that only existed between people who had survived the unthinkable.
Then, Sullivan’s gaze traveled down to her left shoulder.
He saw the empty, blank square of black Velcro. He saw the tiny, microscopic threads of green and black that had been left behind when the previous insignia had been violently ripped away.
The General’s face went completely, terrifyingly still. The air around him seemed to drop ten degrees in an instant.
Slowly, Sullivan turned his head toward Major Ross. The look in the four-star general’s eyes was so intensely cold it made Ross step back involuntarily, his polished boots sliding an inch on the concrete.
“Major Ross,” General Sullivan said, his voice dangerously quiet, carrying a soft, razor-sharp edge that made Captain Miller’s stomach drop. “Where is this soldier’s unit patch?”
Ross swallowed hard, his throat clicking loudly. A bead of cold sweat broke from his hairline, tracing a rapid path down his temple. He looked frantically at Captain Miller, then at the floor, his mind scrambling to find a bureaucratic justification that could save him.
“Sir… General,” Ross stammered, his hands fluttering nervously against his sides. “Staff Sergeant Vance was… she was in violation of Army Regulation 670-1 during our formal morning inspection yesterday, sir. She was displaying a non-standard, heavily degraded, and completely unidentifiable tactical insignia on her sleeve. It was frayed, blackened, and unreadable, sir. As the acting commander, it is my duty to maintain the presentation and uniform standards of this battalion. I simply ordered her to bring her uniform into compliance with standard Support Command regulations.”
Ross took a shallow breath, trying to regain his professional composure, trying to look like a leader who was simply enforcing the rules. “I provided her with a brand-new, regulation battalion insignia, sir. She chose to leave her sleeve bare this morning in an act of… well, in an act of quiet defiance, General. I have actually just finalized a formal counseling statement for insubordination—”
“Shut your mouth, Major,” CSM Thorne roared from behind the General.
The command sergeant major’s voice was so loud it echoed off the corrugated steel roof of the hangar like a thunderclap. Major Ross literally jumped, his shoulders flinching downward as if he had been physically struck. Across the hangar, Specialist Jax Jackson let out a low, silent whistle, his eyes wide with dark amusement.
General Sullivan didn’t take his eyes off Ross. “A non-standard tactical insignia, Major? Is that what you called it?”
“Yes, sir,” Ross whispered, his voice trembling. “It looked like a piece of burned surplus gear, sir. It was a shield with a downward sword and a broken chain. It wasn’t registered in any standard active division index from the Institute of Heraldry. I checked with Captain Miller, and the file—”
“Captain Miller,” General Sullivan’s voice cut through the air, shifting his gaze to the younger officer. “Step forward.”
Arthur Miller felt his knees turn to water. He took two steps forward, his boots clicking against the concrete, and brought his hand up to a rigid salute. His face was completely drained of color.
“Captain,” Sullivan said, his voice dropping into a quiet, interrogative hiss. “When you reviewed Staff Sergeant Vance’s background record to prepare this… counseling statement, what did the database tell you?”
Miller swallowed the copper taste in his mouth. He looked at Major Ross, who was glaring at him with a desperate, pleading intensity. Then, Miller looked at Maya Vance’s bare shoulder. He thought of his father’s old, tarnished infantry compass sitting in his desk drawer. He thought of the word coward that had been echoing in his mind for twenty-four hours.
“Sir,” Miller said, his voice shaking but clear. “The database locked me out completely. It displayed a bright red warning box stating that Staff Sergeant Vance’s personnel file is under a Level 5 DIA restriction under Department of Defense Directive 5200.2. It threatened an immediate security audit by the Defense Intelligence Agency if I attempted to bypass the firewall.”
