Chapter 5
“Jackson,” Maya said without looking up from her clipboard, her pen marking a neat checkmark next to a line of digits. “Why aren’t you under the chassis of that five-ton cargo truck? I’m pretty sure Chief Evans gave you a deadline of fourteen hundred.”
“Because the five-ton is currently a massive, multi-ton paperweight, Sarge,” Jax said, flashing a wide, white-toothed grin as he unlatched the gate and stepped into the cage. He set a cold, sweating aluminum can of cola down on the corner of her desk. “We need a new fuel injector pump assembly, and according to the digital logistics log, the supply depot has them backordered until the next millennium. So, I am officially on a tactical reconnaissance mission for cold beverages.”
He dropped himself onto an upside-down plastic milk crate near the desk, leaning his head back against the shelving. He watched her for a moment, his bright blue eyes losing a bit of their usual humor. “Heard about the morning formation. The whole shop’s talking about it.”
Maya didn’t pause. Her pen moved to the next line. “There’s nothing to talk about, Specialist.”
“The hell there isn’t,” Jax snorted, crossing his arms. “Word from the orderly room is that Major Ross had an absolute, grade-A meltdown over some vintage patch on your sleeve. The clerks are saying you used to be in some black-ops outfit, and the guys in the tire shop are wagering fifty bucks that you just bought a weird piece of surplus gear to look tough. Me? I think Ross is just an insecure little parasite who likes to yell at people who actually have a combat deployment ribbon that didn’t come from managing a warehouse in Kuwait.”
Maya stopped writing. She set the clipboard down on the metal desk with a soft, controlled click. She looked at the young soldier sitting on the crate. Jax’s face was full of the kind of unblemished, innocent confidence that only belonged to people who had never seen the devastating reality of what modern warfare actually did to human flesh and bone. To him, Major Ross was just a bad boss, an annoying manager in a uniform. He didn’t understand that the rules Ross weaponized were the only things keeping the Major safe from the terrifying reality of the world outside the base gates.
“Jackson,” Maya said, her voice dropping into a quiet, serious register that instantly made the young specialist straighten his spine. “Go find Chief Evans and tell him the fuel injector pump is backordered. Then, go to the latrine and wipe your face. You look like a coal miner.”
Jax blinked, the casual smile vanishing from his face as he recognized the invisible, hard wall in her tone. He stood up from the crate, tossing the grease rag into his hand. “Yes, Staff Sergeant. Sorry. Just… we’ve got your back down here, you know? The mechanics. We know who does the actual work around here.”
He gave her a quick, respectful, non-regulation nod and slipped out of the cage, the chain-link gate rattling shut behind him.
Once he was gone, Maya reached into her right cargo pocket. Her fingers brushed past a small piece of green nylon cord until they found the rough, coarse surface of the faded patch. She pulled it out, holding it within the shadow of the desk where the overhead security cameras couldn’t see it.
The downward-pointing sword. The broken chain.
To Major Ross, it was an administrative infraction, a violation of Army Regulation 670-1. To Jax, it was a piece of interesting base gossip, a mystery to be solved over a cigarette behind the smoke pit. But to her, that piece of thread was the only physical proof left on earth that eleven extraordinary men had once lived, fought, and died in a dark valley while the rest of the country slept peacefully in their beds. It was a tombstone she wore on her shoulder, and she had allowed a man who had never heard a shot fired in anger to throw it into the trash.
The guilt of that surrender felt worse than the shrapnel that still rested near her left shoulder blade.
Across the main courtyard of the base, inside the air-conditioned, carpeted sanctuary of the battalion headquarters building, Captain Arthur Miller sat at his desk, his eyes straining against the sharp blue glare of two massive computer monitors.
The office smelled of industrial carpet cleaner, stale black coffee, and the faint, ozone tang of high-end laser printers. Through the thin drywall that separated his cubicle from the executive suite, Miller could hear the muffled, sharp voice of Major Ross lecturing a logistics lieutenant about a minor formatting error on a weekly readiness report.
Miller let out a slow, weary sigh, rubbing the bridge of his nose where his glasses had left deep red indentations. He was twenty-eight years old, a graduate of the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps at Ohio State, and the son of a highly decorated Vietnam War infantry veteran. Every single day he put on his uniform, Arthur felt the crushing, suffocating weight of an imposter syndrome that refused to leave him. His father’s shadow was long and terrifying; the old man had a Silver Star, a Bronze Star with Valor, and two Purple Hearts hanging in a velvet-lined shadowbox in the family living room. Arthur, by contrast, spent his days tracking shipping containers, managing digital personnel folders, and ensuring the battalion’s Excel spreadsheets were perfectly color-coded.
