Part 1

The Texas sun at Fort Hood isn’t a friend. It’s an anvil.

It was day one of advanced systems training, and the air was already thick with dust, diesel, and the kind of cheap, loud arrogance that only new recruits can produce.

I stood in the back of the formation, keeping my mouth shut and my eyes open. Just like he taught me.

“Alright, recruits!” Sergeant Kopczak barked. His voice sounded like gravel in a blender. His face was a map of places you didn’t want to go. “Today, we separate the gamers from the soldiers. We’re running calibrations on the DR-40 field simulators. This is your bread and butter.”

A collective groan. The DR-40s were old, slow, and about as challenging as a microwave.

“I know, I know,” Kopczak said, a rare, thin smile splitting his face. “But if you can’t handle this, you can’t handle a live-fire exercise. So, step up, grab a unit, and let’s see what you got.”

The line moved. I watched as the other recruits fumbled with the interfaces. Most got a “Pass” — a sluggish amber light.

Then it was Private Price’s turn.

Price. He had “legacy” written all over him. He walked like he was already wearing his daddy’s eagles, and he never missed a chance to tell us about it. He sauntered up to the DR-40, slapped the console, and got a “Pass” in under a minute.

“Too easy, Sergeant,” he boomed, playing to the crowd. “You got anything remotely challenging? Or is this just a daycare?”

Kopczak’s eyes narrowed. “You think you’re hot stuff, Price? Fine.”

He walked to a heavy-duty Pelican case in the back of the truck. He heaved it out and dropped it on the bench with a heavy thud.

“This,” he said, flipping the latches, “is a DR-80. Advanced Coordination Simulator. We’ve got one. It’s a nightmare. It’s got a feedback loop that’ll fry your brain if you look at it wrong. Last guy who tried to calibrate it… well, he’s a very successful civilian now.”

The recruits laughed.

“Who wants to try?” Kopczak asked, his eyes gleaming.

Price’s swagger faltered. He’d seen a DR-80 before. He knew the reputation. “I… uh… I’ll let someone else have a shot, Sergeant. Don’t want to hog the glory.”

Kopczak snorted. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. Anyone else?”

The field went silent. No one moved.

Except me.

My hand didn’t go up. I just took one step forward.

Heads turned. The entire formation was staring at me.

“What is it, Private?” Kopczak asked, squinting in the sun.

“I’d like to try, Sergeant,” I said. My voice was quiet. It didn’t need to be loud.

A few recruits laughed under their breath. I heard Price mutter, “Bet she can’t even find the ‘on’ switch.”

Kopczak’s brows lifted. He looked surprised. “Advanced gear? You sure about that, Private? This isn’t your granddaddy’s radio.”

A strange, cold calm washed over me. I thought of my grandfather. I thought of his garage, the smell of ozone, and the endless, patient hours.

I met the Sergeant’s gaze. I didn’t blink.

“Yes, sir. I’m sure.”

Sergeant Kopczak’s face was a mask of begrudging respect. He handed the DR-80 simulator over, the heavy-gauge plastic casing warm from the Texas sun. “It’s all yours, Private. Don’t fry the grid.”

“Won’t happen, Sergeant.”

I turned, the weight of the unit familiar in my hands. The whispers and laughter had died, replaced by a heavy, expectant silence. Price was staring at me, his face a thundercloud of bruised ego. He couldn’t understand. To him, this was a competition. A way to prove he was better.

He didn’t get it. This wasn’t a game for me. This was a language.

I settled the simulator onto the test bench. My grandfather’s voice echoed in my head, a warm, patient baritone over the memory of a cluttered, dusty garage. “Easy, Ava. Feel the current. Don’t force it. Let the machine tell you what it needs.”

My hands moved. They weren’t my hands, not really. They were his, guiding mine. The interface was old, but the principles were the same. I bypassed the standard boot-up, my fingers flying across the cold access panel, tapping in a diagnostic sequence that probably hadn’t been used since this thing was first designed.

The screen flickered. It was supposed to glow amber, then cycle to blue.

Mine glowed a deep, solid crimson.

“See?” Price hissed from the line. “She broke it. Knew it.”

Kopczak took a step forward, his hand reflexively going to his hip. “Carter? What did you do?”

“It’s dirty, Sergeant,” I said, my eyes never leaving the screen. I wasn’t talking about dust. “The power calibration is off. It’s pulling too much juice, trying to compensate for a feedback loop in the main processor.”

“English, Private,” Kopczak growled.

“It’s like a guitar string,” I said, my hands already moving, inputting a new string of commands. “Someone tuned it too tight. It’s vibrating. All that noise is interfering with the signal.” I found the root command, a simple line of code buried three layers deep. “It’s not a hardware problem. It’s sloppy code.”

I isolated the loop. Instead of fighting it, I created a sub-routine, a tiny digital ‘pocket’ for the feedback to cycle into, effectively neutralizing it. I was redirecting the storm.

The screen flickered from red to amber… to blue… and then, a perfect, steady, brilliant green.

The entire diagnostic panel lit up. 100%. 100%. 100%.

A “Perfect” calibration. The system hummed, a low, clean sound. The vibration was gone.

I stepped back, wiping a smudge of grease from my knuckle.

The silence on the training field was absolute. Even the cicadas seemed to have shut up.

Kopczak stared at the screen. He looked at me. He looked back at the screen. He ran a hand over his clean-shaven head.

“Price,” he barked, not looking away from the green light.

“Sergeant?”

“You said you calibrated this unit this morning.”

Price shifted. “I did, Sergeant. Passed standard diagnostics.”

“Carter says the code was ‘sloppy.’ That it was ‘tuned too tight.’ You know what that feedback loop you missed would do to a live-fire coordination, Price?”

“N-no, Sergeant.”

“It would send a ‘Fire’ order to Artillery Battery A and a ‘Cease Fire’ order to Battery B,” Kopczak said, his voice dropping to a dangerous low. “In the middle of a firefight, you’d have one battery firing on a three-second delay and the other one not firing at all. You’d get our guys killed.”

Price was pale.

Kopczak turned to me. The skepticism was gone. Replaced by something else. Something I’d seen in my grandfather’s eyes. Assessment.

“Where’d you learn to handle that so smooth?” he asked, his voice softer now.

I felt a familiar pang. The garage. The smell of ozone and old canvas. Him, sitting on a stool, handing me a screwdriver.

“My grandfather, Sergeant.”

“Your grandfather,” Kopczak repeated, nodding slowly. “What was he, some kind of defense contractor?”

“Something like that,” I said. “He just… liked to tinker.”

Kopczak knew I was lying. Or at least, not telling the whole truth. But he also knew not to push. He just nodded, a new, sharp respect in his eyes.

“Alright, recruits,” he bellowd, turning back to the group. “You saw that? That’s the bar. I don’t want ‘pass.’ I want green. I want Carter’s green. Price, you’re on latrine duty. You can practice ‘cleaning up sloppy code.’ Dismissed for chow.”

Part 2

The walk to the mess hall was a new kind of social nightmare.

The whispers weren’t laughter anymore. They were… different. Curious. Resentful.

“Who the hell is she?”

“Grandfather. Right. Bet she’s some kind of ringer from the Pentagon.”

“Price looked like he was gonna cry.”

I kept my head down. I got my tray, the same gray, lumpy “stew” as everyone else, and found an empty table in the corner. I just wanted to eat and be left alone.

No such luck.

A tray slammed down across from me, sloshing water onto the table.

It was Price. His face was blotchy red, his eyes narrowed. Two of his buddies, a guy named Jensen and another one, Diaz, flanked him, standing behind him like cheap muscle.

“You think you’re smart, Carter?” Price sneered, his voice low.

I looked up from my tray. I didn’t say anything. I just met his gaze.

“You humiliated me,” he whispered, leaning in. “You embarrassed me in front of a senior NCO. You know who my father is?”

“No,” I said, my voice flat. “And I don’t care.”

“He’s Colonel Price. He runs the entire logistics division for this sector. I’m legacy. You,” he spat, “are a nobody.”

“I’m a Private,” I said, “Same as you. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m trying to eat.”

I went to take a bite. Price’s hand shot out and he slapped my fork, sending it clattering onto the floor.

“I’m talking to you,” he hissed.

The mess hall had gone quiet.

I looked at the fork on the dirty floor. I looked at his hand, still hovering over my tray. I looked back at his face.

I could feel my grandfather’s training kick in. Not the tech stuff. The other stuff. The breathing. The focus. “Never let ‘em see you sweat, Ava. Anger is a tool. Don’t let them use it on you. You use it on them.”

I slowly, deliberately, put my napkin on the table.

“Pick it up,” I said.

Price laughed. “What?”

“You knocked my fork on the floor. Pick it up.”

“I ain’t picking up—”

“Pick. It. Up.” My voice didn’t get louder. It got clearer. Colder. It cut right through the noise of the hall.

Diaz and Jensen looked nervous. They hadn’t signed up for this.

Price looked at me, a flicker of uncertainty in his eyes. He was used to people backing down. I wasn’t moving.

“Or what?” he challenged.

“Or you’ll be on latrine duty for the rest of your career,” a new voice boomed from the doorway.

We all turned.

Sergeant Kopczak was leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed, a cup of coffee in his hand. He looked… amused.

“Is there a problem here, Private Price?” Kopczak asked, his voice dripping with false concern.

Price snapped to attention, his face going from red to white. “No, Sergeant! Just… welcoming the Private.”

“Looked like a real warm welcome from where I was standing,” Kopczak said, walking over. He looked down at the fork. “You drop something, Private Carter?”

“Private Price was just offering to get me a new one, Sergeant,” I said.

Kopczak smiled. A thin, dangerous smile. “That’s real thoughtful of you, Price. Real ‘legacy’ of you. Now, why don’t you get on that? And after, you can report to me. I’ve got some… ‘sloppy’ garbage bins that need ‘re-calibrating.’”

Price’s face was a mask of pure hatred. But he bit it back. “Yes, Sergeant.”

He stormed off. Diaz and Jensen melted back into the crowd.

Kopczak looked down at me. “You alright, Carter?”

“Fine, Sergeant.”

“Good.” He nodded, then leaned in a little closer. “For the record… my money was on you.”

He walked away, leaving me alone with my cold food.

The rest of the day was a blur of standard drills. Obstacle courses. Marksmanship simulation. I just did what I was told. I hit my marks. I didn’t show off. I just… existed.

I was trying to put the fire out.

But the match had already been struck.

By 1500, the story was everywhere. The quiet recruit. The DR-80. Price. The mess hall.

It was becoming a thing. And “a thing” was the last thing I wanted to be.

We were on the field, running wind sprints, the dust coating our lungs, when it happened.

A staff car.

Not a Humvee. Not a tactical truck. A black, polished staff car with flags on the hood.

It rolled across the dirt road, a shark moving through muddy water, and stopped beside the field.

Kopczak, who was in the middle of yelling at us, just… stopped. His words died in his throat.

The car door opened.

Out stepped a brigadier general.

She was tall, composed, and wore her uniform like a second skin. Her dark hair was pulled back in a severe, perfect bun. There was not a speck of dust on her. She carried command in her silence.

She didn’t have a clipboard. She didn’t have an entourage. She just had… purpose.

Kopczak ran to her, snapping the sharpest salute I’d ever seen. “General Rivas, ma’am! We weren’t expecting—”

“At ease, Sergeant,” she said. Her voice was quiet, but it carried. A clear, precise alto. She didn’t look at him.

She was scanning the recruits.

Her eyes moved over the formation. Over Price. Over Jensen. Over Diaz.

And then… they stopped.

On me.

My blood went cold.

She didn’t yell. She didn’t point. She just… looked at me.

“Private Carter,” she said.

My heart hammered. “Yes, ma’am?”

“Join me for an advanced coordination test.”

I blinked. The world had just tilted. “Ma’am?”

“Now, Private.”

Kopczak looked stunned. “Ma’am, the DR-80 is—”

“The DR-80 will be fine,” General Rivas said, still looking at me. “I want to see what she can do with it.”

This was it. The moment I had been dreading.

The entire platoon gathered. No one was pretending to drill anymore. This was a spectacle.

Kopczak and two other instructors scrambled to reset the simulation. They brought the DR-80 to a portable command station.

“General,” Kopczak said, “I’ve got the standard ‘Red Valley’ scenario cued up.”

General Rivas shook her head. “No. Not that one.”

She pulled out her own tablet. A secure one, encased in black rubber. She walked over to the DR-80 and plugged it in directly.

“You’re uploading a scenario, ma’am?” Kopczak asked, his voice laced with confusion.

“I am,” she said. “This one isn’t in your library. It’s… a classic.”

The screen on the DR-80 flickered as the new data loaded. A new file name appeared.

SCENARIO: KRAZNY PASS (UNWINNABLE).

A cold chill ran down my spine. Unwinnable.

General Rivas turned to me. Her face was unreadable. “It’s a disastrous scenario, Private. A convoy hit in a narrow mountain pass. Multiple IEDs. Drones in the air. Civilians in the crossfire. A compromised Quick Reaction Force. Your comms are jammed. Your artillery is blind. You have one asset: a single, two-man sniper team, 800 meters up, with a failing radio.”

She looked at me. “The test objective is to minimize casualties. No one has ever scored above a 40%. The scenario is designed to fail.”

She was setting me up. In front of everyone. In front of Price, who was watching with a hungry, vicious grin.

“Do you understand, Private?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Begin when ready.”

I stepped up to the simulator. I closed my eyes.

I let the noise of the field, the wind, the whispers, the weight of the General’s stare… I let it all fade away.

I heard my grandfather’s voice. “They’ll always give you a broken machine, Ava. They’ll always give you a map with a hole in it. Don’t look at what’s broken. Look at what works.”

What worked?

The comms were jammed. But the drones were in the air. The drones had cameras.

The artillery was blind. But the sniper team had eyes.

The QRF was compromised. But they were still soldiers.

I opened my eyes. I placed my hands on the interface.

And I began.

My movements flowed. This wasn’t a test. This was choreography.

I didn’t try to fix the jammed comms. It was a waste of time. I pushed a single, tiny burst through the drone’s video feed. Not audio. Just a string of coordinates.

I sent it to the QRF. I wasn’t giving them orders. I was giving them targets.

The snipers. Their radio was failing. It wouldn’t carry voice. But it could carry a click.

I rerouted the artillery’s targeting system. I linked it to the snipers’ radio.

One click for fire. Two clicks for cease fire.

I was turning my snipers into a forward observation team. I was turning their broken radio into a trigger.

On the screen, the simulation was chaos. Explosions. Red icons (enemies) swarming the blue icons (the convoy).

My hands were a blur.

Reroute drone. Fire artillery. Move QRF.

I saw the civilian bus. The scenario was designed to make you choose. Save the soldiers or save the civilians.

I refused to choose.

“Look at what works, Ava.”

The IEDs. They were in the road. The enemy had put them there.

I used the drone to ping the location of the lead IED. I sent the ‘fire’ command to the artillery.

The shell screamed in.

It didn’t hit the enemy. It hit the road, right on top of the first IED.

It triggered a chain reaction.

The entire string of buried explosives detonated. It created a wall of fire and debris between the enemy and the civilian bus.

I’d built a wall.

Now, the QRF was engaging. The snipers were calling in fire. The enemy was pinned between the QRF and the fire wall I’d just made.

The convoy was clear.

I rerouted two of the convoy’s armored vehicles, the ones with .50 cals, to circle back and protect the bus.

Time.

I needed time.

It was… beautiful. A perfect, deadly, synchronized dance.

And then, silence.

The screen flashed.

SCENARIO COMPLETE.

I stepped back, my chest heaving. My forehead was slick with sweat.

The entire field was silent.

General Rivas walked to the display. Kopczak was at her side. Price was craning his neck.

The General just looked at the screen. She didn’t say anything for a long, long time.

Kopczak’s jaw was on the floor.

“Ma’am,” he whispered, his voice cracking. “Is that… is that right?”

General Rivas looked at the display, and then at me.

“Final score,” she said, her voice quiet, but it seemed to echo across the entire state of Texas. “100%. All assets recovered. Zero casualties. Civilian bus secured.”

She turned to me. The mask was gone. Her eyes were sharp, intense… and something else. Something I couldn’t place.

“Where,” she said, her voice just a quiet question, “did you say you learned this?”

The wind kicked up dust around our boots.

“My grandfather, ma’am,” I said, my voice hoarse. “Vietnam era.”

The General paused. A flicker of… recognition? “Name?”

“Thomas Carter, ma’am.”

For a second, she just stared. She looked like she’d seen a ghost.

Her hand went to her belt. She pulled out her tablet. She tapped the screen, her movements sharp, precise.

She turned the tablet so only I could see it.

A faded symbol appeared. A photograph of an old, scorched piece of metal.

A black bird, its wings spread, its claws curved and deadly.

“Ever seen this before?” she asked.

My pulse didn’t just still. It stopped.

The world contracted. There was nothing but me, the General, and that symbol.

It was the symbol from the old, locked footlocker in my grandfather’s garage. The one he’d told me never to open. The one I’d picked the lock on when I was fifteen, just to see.

“Yes, ma’am,” I whispered, my throat tight. “My grandfather had that mark. On a… on a box. He said it belonged to a team that didn’t exist.”

The General’s eyes closed. Just for a second. When they opened, they were different. Softer.

Her voice dropped to a whisper, so low only I could hear it.

“Black Talon.”

The name meant nothing to me. But the way she said it… it was a prayer. A curse.

The name moved through the ranks. I don’t know who heard it. Maybe Kopczak. Maybe someone else. But it rippled.

Black Talon.

The whispers started again. No one was laughing now.

Even the instructors stood a little straighter.

The General studied me, her gaze going from my eyes to my hands and back.

“Your grandfather’s record was sealed,” she said, her voice still low. “That emblem… it belonged to a covert recon and tech unit. The first of its kind. One the world never officially met.”

“He never talked about it,” I whispered.

“Of course he didn’t,” Rivas replied, a small, sad smile touching her lips. “People like that… they didn’t need to. Their work spoke louder than any story.”

She looked at me, really looked at me.

“He didn’t just teach you to tinker, did he, Private?”

“No, ma’am,” I said. “He taught me to think. He taught me to see.”

“He taught you the Krazny Pass scenario,” she stated. It wasn’t a question.

“He called it ‘The Broken Guitar String,’” I said. “He… he designed it.”

General Rivas actually took a step back. She looked at the sky, then at me.

“Thomas Carter… designed this test.” She laughed, a short, sharp, bark of a laugh. A sound of pure, astonished grief. “He designed the ‘unwinnable’ scenario. And then he trained his granddaughter to beat it. That magnificent, crazy son of a…”

She caught herself. She straightened, her professional mask sliding back into place. But her eyes were shining.

“Sergeant Kopczak,” she snapped.

“Yes, ma’am!”

“Transfer Private Carter to the elite technical division. Alpha-One. Effective immediately. She’s off your roster.”

“Yes, ma’am!” Kopczak was beaming.

“Price,” the General said, her voice dropping back to ice.

“Ma’am?”

“You’re on latrine duty. Indefinitely.”

And just like that, she turned. She got in her staff car. And she was gone.

The dust settled.

The entire platoon was staring at me. Not with curiosity. Not with resentment.

With awe.

Price looked like he was going to be sick.

Kopczak walked over to me. He held out his hand.

“It was an honor, Private Carter,” he said.

I shook his hand. “Thank you, Sergeant.”

“Don’t thank me,” he said. “Go pack your gear. You’re… you’re going somewhere else.”

That night, I lay in a new bunk. A private room. The “Alpha-One” division wasn’t a platoon. It was a lab.

I stared at the dog tag in my hand. My grandfather’s.

He’d given it to me the day I left for basic.

I hadn’t really looked at it. Not really.

But now, I did.

I turned it over. In the dim light from the window, I saw it.

It wasn’t on the official tag. It was a tiny, hand-etched mark in the corner. So small, you’d miss it if you weren’t looking.

A black bird. Its wings spread. Its claws curved.

I remembered his words, his hand on my shoulder, his voice rough. “It’s a big world, Ava. And it’s loud. Don’t you let ’em shout you down. But if you ever hear that name… ‘Black Talon’… it means you’re exactly where you’re meant to be.”

I closed my hand around the warm metal. I smiled through the silence.

The world had finally caught up with what he’d always known.

Real power doesn’t need noise.

Two weeks later, I walked past the performance board in the new mess hall. My name was at the top.

Carter, A. — 100% Precision, All Advanced Levels. Record Confirmed.

Someone, and I had a feeling I knew who, had scribbled beneath it in pencil.

Like Grandfather, Like Granddaughter — Black Talon Lives.