Part 1

 

The gate at Fort Kessler, Wyoming, was a shimmering mirage in the high-desert haze. My knuckles were white on the steering wheel of the government sedan. I wasn’t gripping it. I was holding myself together.

Every rut in the godforsaken road sent a jolt of white-hot fire up my thigh, a lovely reminder from the titanium pin that now held my femur in one piece. My ribs, still knitted in that ugly, crisscross pattern of healing bone, ached with a dull, persistent throb. I’m a living map of old and new pain, a geography of scar tissue that twists and pulls every time I dare to breathe too deep.

I pulled to a stop at the guard post. The kid—an MP, barely old enough to shave—sauntered over, all crisp uniform and mirrored sunglasses, trying to look bored.

“Morning, ma’am,” he said, his eyes sliding over the car. “Orders?”

I passed the sealed manila envelope through the window. He opened it, scanned the first page, and his professional boredom evaporated. He frowned. He looked up from the paper, his eyes dropping to my face, then back to the paper. He did this three times.

The name was simple: Sergeant Grace Mallory. The directive, signed by General Thomas Barkley himself, was not.

“Special directive, ma’am?” he asked, his tone slipping. He was looking at me now. Really looking. At the thin, surgical scar that ran from just beneath my left eye to my jawline. At the way I held my left shoulder perfectly, unnaturally still.

“Just follow the orders, private,” I said. My voice was flat, dry. Like the desert around us.

The kid snapped back. “Yes, ma’am. Sergeant.” He handed back the envelope and waved me through. “Welcome to Fort Kessler.”

Welcome. That felt wrong. This wasn’t a welcome. It was a sentence. Or maybe, a penance.

I found the training barracks for Bravo Squad. A low, concrete box that smelled of industrial-strength disinfectant, stale sweat, and testosterone. My orders were explicit: billet with the pre-deployment cadets. I was here to instruct, but first, I was here to observe. An enigma. A problem to be managed.

I parked and pulled my duffel from the trunk. The simple act of lifting the 30-pound bag made my vision swim. I grit my teeth, locked my jaw, and willed the black spots away.

Pain is just a signal, I chanted internally. The old mantra. It doesn’t get a vote.

I pushed open the barracks door. The room went silent.

It was 1900 hours. Twenty young men, all muscle and adrenaline, were scattered around, polishing boots, cleaning weapons, or just talking trash. They all stopped. They all stared.

One of them, leaning back in his chair with the easy, arrogant confidence of a kid who’d always been the best at everything, broke the silence. He had a smug, lazy grin. This one, I’d learn, was Private Wade Huxley.

“Lost, ma’am?” he drawled, his eyes raking over me. “The officers’ club is two blocks over. Or are you just looking for a real soldier?”

A few of his friends snickered.

I ignored him. I found the one empty cot at the far end of the room, threw my bag on it, and began to unpack. Meticulously. I placed one small, framed photo on the flimsy metal nightstand. A picture of seven people in full kit, smiling in the back of a C-130.

“Damn, she’s really staying,” someone whispered.

“Barkley’s new pet project,” another muttered. “Heard she’s some paper-pusher who failed a PT test. Here for ‘remedial training.’”

“Look at her face,” Huxley’s voice cut through again, louder this time, enjoying the audience. “Looks like she lost a fight with a lawnmower.”

I kept my back to them. I stripped off my jacket, revealing the plain grey t-shirt underneath. The whispers died.

My arms, exposed under the harsh fluorescent lights, were a tapestry of deep, angry-purple bruises. They bloomed down my collarbone and disappeared under my shirt. My knuckles were raw, the skin split from my own “rehab” on a heavy bag.

The room went quiet, but for a different reason. This wasn’t the silence of respect. It was the silence of a pack of predators seeing a wounded animal.

I pulled my shower kit from my bag and walked toward the latrines. My gait was just slightly off, a limp I fought to conceal with every single step.

“Looks like someone’s been having some ‘spa days,’” Huxley called after me, to a new round of nervous laughter.

I didn’t stop. I closed the latrine door behind me, turned on the shower, and leaned my forehead against the cold, damp tile as the scalding water hit my back. I didn’t cry. I hadn’t cried in four years. I just stood there, my hands clenched into fists, breathing through the pain, and waited for the ghosts to recede.

They never do.

I didn’t sleep. I lay on the cot, every spring digging into a fresh point of pain. I listened to the barracks breathe. The snores, the whispers, the kid in the next cot whimpering in his sleep. At 0200, the ghosts came in earnest. Not memories. They were tangible. I could smell the pine and cordite. I could feel the cold, so cold it burned.

I saw Raptor’s face, his eyes wide, trying to plug the hole in his neck. I saw Jester and Seeker, one second there, the next… just a red mist that froze instantly in the air.

I’m sorry, I whispered to the dark. I’m sorry I was the one who walked out.

At 0400, I was up. The pain was a familiar cloak. I dressed in the dark, my ribs screaming as I pulled on my shirt.

The air at Fort Kessler was sharp, cold, and thin. It tasted like iron.

Bravo Squad was already on the open training field, the first rays of the sun just beginning to light the Wyoming high desert. They were running drills, a simple 5-mile perimeter run, full kit.

I ran with them.

I was in the middle of the pack, my breathing even, my pace steady. The titanium pin in my leg was a rod of ice. The limp was there, but I ran through it. I focused on my breathing. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Pain doesn’t get a vote.

They were testing me. One would speed up, trying to make me break. Another would lag, trying to see if I’d fall back. I did neither. I just ran, my eyes fixed on the horizon, my face an unreadable mask.

But Huxley couldn’t stand it.

He couldn’t stand my silence. He couldn’t stand the way I ran, as if the 70-pound pack was nothing. He couldn’t stand that I was there, a woman, an NCO, living in his barracks. He saw my pain as weakness, and my silence as arrogance.

We finished the run and dumped our packs, moving to the calisthenics field. The recruits were breathing hard, sweating through their shirts. I was soaked, dust clinging to my skin like a second uniform.

This was when Huxley made his move.

He stepped back from the formation, close enough for everyone to hear.

“Nice bruises, Princess,” he said, his voice slicing through the early morning haze like a dull blade. “Didn’t know Fort Kessler had spa days.”

I stood alone, my tank top plastered to me, the bruises on my arms stark and dark in the morning light. I didn’t turn. I didn’t react. I just waited for the next command.

This lack of reaction infuriated him. He wanted a response. He wanted to break me. He thought this… this… was breaking.

“How many push-ups does it take to snap a wrist, Sarge?” he continued, flashing that lazy grin. “Or did you trip over your own ego again?”

The others snickered. The nervous laughter of a group testing its boundaries.

He took a step closer, dropping his voice to a conspiratorial, mocking tone. “Seriously, Sarge, are you deaf? Or just damaged goods? Maybe you should just—”

“Private.”

The voice wasn’t loud. It was calm. Controlled. It carried across the field like a warning wrapped in gravel.

General Thomas Barkley was walking toward us.

 

Part 2

 

Everything stopped. The laughter. The sideways glances. The smirks. Even the wind seemed to hold its breath.

Huxley snapped to attention, his face flushing crimson. “Sir! General Barkley, sir!”

Barkley didn’t look at him. His eyes were on me. He walked past Huxley as if the private were a piece of training equipment. He stopped in front of me. He looked at me, his gaze taking in the exhaustion, the pain I held behind my eyes, the steel in my spine.

Then he spoke, his voice quiet, but every man on that field heard it.

“Call sign, Widow 27.”

Huxley blinked, half-confused, half-annoyed. “Widow what?”

General Barkley turned, slowly. His arms were no longer behind his back. He looked at Huxley, and for the first time, the private felt a cold spike of actual fear.

“You just ran your mouth at Widow 27, son,” Barkley said, his voice flat.

The field didn’t just go quiet. It tightened.

Somewhere near the back, Private Keller, a kid from Arizona with five older brothers in the service, let out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding.

“No… no way,” he whispered, his voice trembling. “Sir, that’s… that’s her?”

Next to him, another cadet’s eyes widened. “Who? What’s a Widow 27?”

“It’s not a what,” Keller hissed, his eyes locked on me. “It’s a who. It’s a ghost story, man. They tell it at BUD/S. They tell it to Rangers. Widow 27… she’s the one who walked out of the ice.”

The recruits looked at each other, the myth rippling through their ranks like an electric current. Widow 27. The name was a whisper in dark barracks, a legend told to scare rookies, a story of the absolute worst-case scenario. It was an exaggeration. A myth. It couldn’t be this woman. This bruised, silent figure, standing in front of them with dust in her hair.

“Have you ever heard of Operation Ghostline?” Barkley’s voice was calm, too calm, like the quiet right before something breaks.

Huxley was pale. “No, sir.”

“You wouldn’t have,” Barkley said, his voice sharp. “It’s buried so deep, the file number doesn’t exist. Four years ago, a seven-person recon unit—Ghost Team—was dropped behind the Larian Divide. Remote. Cold. Hostile. We’re talking 20-below-zero, high-altitude hell. They were sent in to confirm intel on a weapons facility we weren’t supposed to know existed. A black op.”

He paused, his eyes sweeping across the frozen faces of Bravo Squad. “What should have taken 48 hours, turned into eight days.”

A few recruits shifted. The air was getting colder.

“They were ambushed on day two. A pressure-plate IED, daisy-chained with machine gun nests. It was a kill box. A perfect trap.”

Barkley’s eyes found mine. I hadn’t moved. I wasn’t on the training field anymore. I was back in the snow.

“Two gone instantly,” the General said. “Vaporized. One bled out before sunrise. One vanished. Never recovered. Dragged off in the chaos. That left three.”

The wind picked up, gently, but no one moved.

“One had shrapnel embedded so deep in his chest he could barely breathe. Another, their comm specialist, was knocked unconscious in the blast, severe head trauma. And the last?”

He let the question hang.

“The last one… she was shot through the thigh. Two fractured ribs from the blast. No painkillers. No evac. Just 12 miles of ice and shadow between her and maybe… survival.”

His eyes returned to me. I hadn’t flinched. Not once.

“She carried the comms guy on her back,” Barkley’s voice was a low growl now. “And she dragged the wounded one on a makeshift sled, rigged from broken pack straps and a snapped rifle barrel. For eight days. No backup. No air support. Just grit.”

The unit was silent.

But I… I was somewhere else.

(Flashback: Operation Ghostline)

The world was white, red, and screaming.

One second, I was Ghost 2, moving behind Raptor, our team lead. The next, a click.

The mountain erupted.

Jester and Seeker, our point men, were just… gone. A red mist that froze instantly in the air. The sound didn’t even register, just a deep, guttural WHUMP that I felt in my bones before the blast wave hit me.

It threw me twenty feet, my body slamming into a frozen pine. I heard my ribs crack, a wet, popping sound. The air left my lungs in a painful whoosh.

Then the machine guns opened up. Heavy, stuttering thunder from the ridge. PKMs. They had us. They knew.

“Contact!” Raptor yelled, but it came out as a wet gurgle. He was down, 10 yards to my left, a dark stain spreading on the snow beneath him.

“Patch!” I screamed for our medic, my voice cracking. “Patch, get to Raptor!”

“Hit!” Patch yelled back, his voice tight with pain. “I’m hit! Leg’s gone!”

I crawled, my rifle digging into the ice. The air was thick with the smell of cordite, ozone, and hot copper. A round skipped off the rock near my head, sending stone fragments into my cheek. Another tore through the meat of my left thigh.

It didn’t hurt at first. It was just a blinding, all-consuming fire. A hot poker. I screamed, a sound that was stolen by the wind.

Pain is a signal. It doesn’t get a vote.

I got to Raptor. He was trying to plug a hole in his neck with his glove. His eyes were wide, confused. “It’s… it’s no good, Ghost,” he choked, grabbing my arm. His hand was already cold. “Get… get the others… out.”

“Don’t you quit, Raptor! Don’t you quit on me!” I fumbled for my trauma kit, my fingers numb.

But he was already gone. His eyes glazed. “One bled out before sunrise.”

“Raptor!” I shook him, but he was just weight.

The gunfire was still hammering the ridge. “Patch! Where are you?”

“Here! By the rock!”

I low-crawled, dragging my useless leg. The pain was a living thing now, white and sharp. I found Patch. He was propped against a boulder. His leg was a ruin. Bone, white and sharp, stuck out from his fatigues. Shrapnel was embedded deep in his chest. He was pale, his teeth chattering violently.

“I’m… I’m done, Grace. Go. Just go.”

“Shut up, Patch,” I growled, cutting his pack straps. “You don’t get to die.”

“Switch!” I yelled. “Switch, report! Comms!”

Nothing. The radio was dead.

“Switch!”

I scanned the kill box. I found him 10 yards away, face down in the snow, a bloody crater where the back of his helmet used to be. I crawled to him, my heart in my throat. I rolled him over.

Breathing. Shallow, but breathing. Unconscious. “Switch, wake up! Wake up, damn you!” I shook him. Nothing. Severe head trauma.

“Heavy!” I screamed for our heavy weapons guy. “Heavy, where are you?”

Silence.

Just the wind and the fading echo of the guns. They weren’t shooting anymore. They knew they didn’t have to. They’d wait for us to freeze or bleed out.

Then I saw it. The drag marks in the snow, leading away from the kill box, toward the ridge. And a single, dropped glove. Heavy’s glove.

“One vanished. Never recovered.”

It was over.

Seven members. Four dead or missing. Three left. All of us wounded. Me, shot and broken. Patch, dying. Switch, unconscious.

And the enemy was coming.

“No,” I whispered, the word freezing on my lips. I looked at the blood in the snow. I looked at the two men who were still breathing.

I took Patch’s bootlaces and my own. I broke my own rifle—already damaged—in half over a rock, using the two pieces and my pack frame to build a crude A-frame sled. Every movement sent daggers into my ribs.

I tore strips from my own uniform to pack my thigh wound. A ragged, bloody mess. No painkillers. We’d used them all on Raptor. I just bit down on a piece of webbing until I tasted my own blood.

I loaded Patch onto the sled. He screamed, a high, thin sound.

“Just pass out, man,” I hissed, my teeth chattering. “It’ll be easier.”

I hauled the unconscious Switch onto my back. He was 190 pounds of dead weight. His blood matted my hair.

“If I pass out,” Patch whispered from the sled, his voice thin as paper, “don’t stop. Just keep walking.”

“I’m not walking,” I said, grabbing the sled’s straps. “I’m getting you home.”

I put my head down and pulled.

For eight days, I was a ghost.

I moved only at night, using the stars. The pain in my leg was a universe. The infection set in on day two, a new, hot fire that burned all the way to my hip. I hid in ice caves and under snow drifts during the day, listening to the enemy patrols sweeping the valleys below. Their dogs barked. Once, they passed so close I could hear them talking. I held my hand over Patch’s mouth, praying he wouldn’t cough.

We ran out of rations on day two. On day three, I killed a snow hare with a rock. I ripped it open with my knife and we ate it raw.

Patch was delirious. He kept calling for his wife. “Tell her… tell her I love the new kitchen.”

“You’ll tell her yourself, Patch. Stay with me.”

On day six, Switch woke up. He was blind in one eye and couldn’t remember his name. He just cried and tried to wander off. I had to tie him to my own wrist.

By day seven, I was delirious. The fever from my leg was cooking my brain. I saw Raptor, walking beside me in the snow, nodding. “Just one more klick, Ghost. Don’t you quit on me.”

“I’m not quitting,” I mumbled to the empty air.

On day eight, I could no longer stand. My leg was a useless, swollen mass. The exfil point was 300 yards away, across a frozen, open field. Just 300 yards. It looked like 300 miles.

I got on my hands and knees. I untied Switch from my wrist and tied him to the sled with Patch.

And I crawled.

I dug my raw, bleeding fingers into the ice and pulled. My thigh screamed. My ribs felt like knives. But I pulled. Every inch was a victory. Every foot was a lifetime.

I crawled the last 300 yards.

I reached the exfil point, a simple, flat rock. I pulled the flare from my vest. My fingers were so frozen I could barely pop it. The red smoke plumed into the grey sky.

Then I collapsed on top of my two squadmates, my hand still on my empty sidearm.

When the rescue team found them, the pilot said he’d never seen anything like it. I was conscious. Barely. The first thing I said when they loaded me onto the helo?

“Where’s the rest of my team?”

(End Flashback)

The training field was so quiet, you could hear the blood draining from Huxley’s face.

I was back. My hands were clenched so tight my nails were digging into my palms. Not out of anger. But because even now, even here, the ghost of the ice hadn’t let go.

Barkley’s voice cut through my memory. “You think she came back for glory?” he asked the unit, his eyes scanning every face. “She spent eight months at Walter Reed learning how to walk again. She spent another year in physical therapy. She came back because not everyone who walks out of the fire leaves the fire behind.”

He turned to Huxley. The private looked like he was going to be sick.

“You, Private,” Barkley’s voice dropped, and the authority in it was absolute. “You stand here, a prime specimen of what this Army can build. You are strong. You are fast. You are healthy. And you used that strength to mock a woman who has forgotten more about sacrifice than you will ever know. You mocked scars that were bought and paid for in blood, while the worst you’ve ever suffered is a bruised ego in a sparring match.”

Huxley flinched as if struck.

“You think command sent her here?” Barkley continued. “You think this was some reassignment, some favor, some pity transfer?”

He took a few steps, pausing in front of the unit. “Sergeant Grace Mallory had every right to walk away. She could have taken the medical discharge. She could have gone home with honors, with full clearance, and no one would have questioned it.”

A beat, long enough for the weight of those words to drop.

“But she didn’t.” His voice sharpened. “She asked to come back.”

Several cadets shifted.

“Not to sit behind a desk, not to write reports or pose for recruitment posters,” Barkley turned slightly, his eyes landing back on me. “She asked for the hardest assignment we have. Field instructor for pre-deployment cadets. That means you.”

He didn’t need to say the rest. Every person standing there now realized this wasn’t some battered soldier trying to hang on. This was a warrior who chose to come back, to teach the next generation.

Not with stories. But with scars.

“You’ve got a legend standing right in front of you,” Barkley said, his voice dropping to a whisper that every man heard. “And you didn’t even know it.”

He turned to Huxley. “Private Huxley. Report to my office. 1400. You are dismissed from this field. And you will address Sergeant Mallory as ‘Ma’am’ or ‘Sergeant’ until you earn the right to speak to her at all. Am I clear?”

Huxley’s face was a mask of pale, sick humiliation. He didn’t salute. He couldn’t. He just croaked, “Yes, sir.” He turned, his shoulders low, no swagger left, and walked off the field. The silence followed him like a long shadow. No one clapped. No one sneered. And that was louder than any noise.

Barkley looked at the remaining 19 men. “As for the rest of you. You are Bravo Squad. You are dismissed. Re-assemble at 1800. Sergeant Mallory is now your primary instructor. Do not… disappoint me.”

He nodded once to me, a look passing between us that no one else could read. It was a look of shared history, of pain, and of a promise. Then he was gone.

The squad just stood there for a long minute, looking at me. The mockery was gone. The arrogance was gone. In its place was something new. Awe. Fear. And a dawning, terrible understanding.

I just stood there, my face a mask. I didn’t say a word. I just turned, my limp more pronounced now that the adrenaline had faded, and walked toward the barracks.

Later that evening, the mess hall buzzed. But something had shifted. Nobody laughed too loud. Nobody filled the air with nonsense.

In the back corner, at a table for six, I sat alone. Same posture, same silence. Eating slowly, methodically. I didn’t want company. I just wanted the day to be over.

Until one by one, they came.

Keller, the kid from Arizona, was first. He walked up, his tray in his hands, and stood there for a second.

“Is this… is this seat taken, Sergeant?” he asked, his voice quiet.

I looked up, then at the empty chair. I just shook my head, once.

He sat.

Then Rhys, the youngest, sat down. Then two more. They came with no fanfare. No speeches. Just quiet footsteps. Quiet trays.

None of them said a word. Not “sorry.” Not “we were wrong.”

They just sat. Ate. And every few moments, their eyes glanced my way. Not with pity. Not even with guilt. But with recognition.

After a few minutes of silence, Keller finally got up the nerve. He leaned in, his voice barely above a whisper. “Why? ‘Widow 27’?”

I didn’t look up from my tray. I finished chewing a piece of bread. I thought of the faces. Raptor. Jester. Seeker. Patch. Switch. Heavy. And all the others before them. The 26 empty cots in my memory.

“Because I’ve buried 26 of my team,” I said, my voice even. “From Ghostline. From Tarsus. From the Valley. I’m number 27.”

The table went still.

The silence that followed wasn’t uncomfortable. It was reverent.

Rhys, the young one, looked at his tray. “Sergeant… the General said… a broken rifle barrel. For a sled. How… how do you even train for that?”

I finally looked up, my eyes finding his. “You don’t. You don’t train for the moment your plan fails. You train for the day your plan fails. You train for what happens when your gear is gone, your comms are dead, and your backup isn’t coming.”

I pushed my tray back. “1800. Full kit. Be at the range. Don’t be late.”

I stood up and walked out, leaving them to digest their food and their new reality.

I didn’t go to the barracks. I went to the gym. It was empty, smelling of rubber and iron. This was my real rehab.

I stripped off my top, leaving just my tank. I started on the heavy bag.

Pain is a signal.

I wasn’t punching the bag. I was punching the mountain. I was punching the click of the IED. I was punching Raptor’s wide, confused eyes.

It doesn’t get a vote.

My ribs screamed. My knuckles, already raw, split open again. I didn’t care. I worked the bag until my arms were jelly and the black spots danced in my vision.

Then I moved to the floor mats. For my leg. This was the worst part. The part no one saw. The endless, agonizing stretches. Forcing the titanium and scar tissue to bend. Forcing my hip to accept the new geometry of my femur.

I was on my back, my teeth clenched, a strap around my boot, pulling my own leg to a place it didn’t want to go, when the door opened.

“I figured I’d find you here.”

General Barkley. He walked in, holding a manila folder.

“You shouldn’t be pushing this hard, Grace,” he said, his voice soft.

“And you shouldn’t be babysitting your NCOs, sir,” I grunted, pulling harder. The pain was a white-hot flash. I let out a sharp breath.

He sat on a bench nearby. “That was a hell of a thing, what you did today. Letting Huxley hang himself.”

“I didn’t do anything, sir. He built the noose. He just needed a little quiet to kick the chair.”

Barkley chuckled, a dry, rasping sound. “You always were a poet.” He grew serious. He tossed the folder onto the mat beside me. It landed with a soft thwack.

“What’s this?” I panted, easing the tension on the strap.

“Your real orders.”

I sat up, my ribs aching. I looked at him, confused. “My orders said instruct Bravo Squad.”

“Your orders said attach to Bravo Squad. There’s a difference.”

I opened the folder. The first page was a satellite image. A place I knew. A place I saw every time I closed my eyes.

“The Larian Divide,” I whispered. My blood went cold.

“Bravo Squad is being deployed there in six weeks,” Barkley said, his voice flat. “Designation: Operation Frostbite. They’re being sent back to that same facility.”

I looked up, my eyes narrowed. “The facility we destroyed.”

“The facility we didn’t destroy,” Barkley corrected me. “Ghostline was a failure, Grace. We thought the strike hit the target. It didn’t. It just… annoyed them. Intel says they’ve doubled their production. Biologicals.”

The room spun. All this time. All the pain. Raptor. Jester. Seeker. For nothing.

“Why?” I managed, my voice a rasp. “Why them? Why these… children?”

“Because they’re clean. No one is looking at a pre-deployment cadet squad from Wyoming. They’re going in as a security detail for a diplomatic envoy, then they’re slipping the leash. A quick recon, plant a new beacon. That’s it. In and out.”

“’In and out,’” I repeated, the words tasting like ash. “That’s what they told us.”

“Which is why you’re here,” he said, leaning forward. “This wasn’t my idea. It was yours.”

“Sir?”

“You put in the request, Grace. You asked for Bravo Squad. You’ve been tracking their deployment schedule for months. You knew they were going to the Divide before I did. Didn’t you?”

I didn’t answer. I just stared at the satellite photo. At the ridge where I’d lost my team.

“You’re not here for penance, are you?” Barkley asked, his voice quiet. “You’re not here to train them. You’re here to finish the job.”

I looked at him. The mask was off. The ghosts were right here, in the room with us.

“I’m here to make sure they don’t end up like the 26, sir,” I said, my voice hard. “I’m here to make sure they can walk out of the ice.”

“And you?” he asked. “Can you walk out? Or are you just looking for a way to stay buried there with the rest of your team?”

I stood up, my leg screaming. I picked up my jacket. “It doesn’t matter what I’m looking for, sir. It only matters what I’m going to do. These boys think they’re soldiers. They’re not. They’re lambs being led to a slaughterhouse. My slaughterhouse.”

“So you’re going to make them wolves,” Barkley said. It wasn’t a question.

“I’m going to make them survivors,” I corrected him. “Or I’m going to break them here, where it’s safe. Either way, they won’t be lambs by the time I’m done.”

“Six weeks, Grace. That’s all you have.”

“It’s more than I had on the mountain,” I said. “1800. I have to be at the range.”

I walked out, leaving him with the folder. The pain in my leg was gone. Replaced by something else. Something cold, sharp, and familiar.

Rage. And purpose.

The range.

The sun was a fiery red gash on the horizon, bleeding into the purple-black of the desert night. The air was cold.

Bravo Squad was there. All 19 of them. Huxley was there, too. He stood at the back, apart from the others, his face pale and set.

They were all in full kit. They’d been waiting for 15 minutes. Silent.

I walked up, my duffel bag in my hand. I didn’t say a word. I just walked to the firing line, unzipped my bag, and started pulling things out.

Not a rifle. Not a pistol.

I pulled out a 10-foot length of climbing rope. A roll of duct tape. A single, un-filled magazine. A broken K-bar knife. A single bootlace.

I laid them all on the table.

The squad watched, confused.

“Alright,” I said, my voice carrying in the cold air. “Standard drill. Private Keller, you’re hit. Shrapnel in the chest. You can’t breathe. Private Rhys, you’re the team medic. Your kit is gone. Destroyed in the blast. You have these.” I motioned to the table. “Go.”

Rhys and Keller looked at each other.

“Sergeant?” Rhys asked, confused. “This is… this is a live-fire range.”

“And you’re a dead man,” I snapped. “You, too, Keller. You just bled out. Congratulations. You’re the first two dead. Who’s next?”

The squad was frozen.

“You!” I pointed at a private named Martinez. “Your rifle just jammed. Sand. It’s useless. Fix it. But you can’t. Because you’ve got two broken fingers.”

“Ma’am, this is… this isn’t the drill on the schedule.”

“The schedule is a lie!” I roared, and the sudden volume of my voice made them all jolt. “The schedule is for soldiers who think the world works. The schedule is for men who think their gear will save them. The schedule is for boys who have never seen their team leader gargle his own blood in the snow!”

I was in their faces now, stalking the line.

“Your gear will fail. Your radio will die. Your backup is not coming! The only thing that will save you is what is in here,” I tapped my temple, “and in here,” I tapped my chest. “And right now, you are all empty.”

I walked to Huxley. He was staring at the ground.

“Private Huxley,” I said, my voice dangerously quiet.

He looked up, his eyes haunted. “Yes… Sergeant.”

“You are the team leader. You just lost two men. You have one wounded. Your comms are dead. The enemy knows where you are. And it’s 20-below-zero. What… do you… do?”

Huxley looked at the squad. He looked at the useless items on the table. His training, his arrogance, his entire world was crumbling. He opened his mouth. Nothing came out.

“That’s what I thought,” I said, turning away in disgust.

“Wait,” he said, his voice cracking.

I stopped.

“We… we use the bootlace,” he said, thinking, his voice gaining a fraction of strength. “We use the bootlace and the K-bar to make a… a tourniquet. No, not a tourniquet. A chest seal. We use the duct tape for the chest seal. For Keller.”

“And what about Rhys?” I challenged. “His hands are soaked in blood. It’s freezing. He can’t work the tape.”

“Then I give him my gloves!” Huxley said, louder now. “And I… I take his rifle. I get on overwatch. I have Martinez and Keller strip… strip strips of their uniform. We make a sled. With the rope. And the broken rifle.”

He was looking at me now, his eyes wide, not with arrogance, but with a terrifying, dawning understanding. He was connecting the dots.

I stared at him for a long, long time.

“You’re still dead,” I said, my voice flat.

His face fell. “But… I did what you said. The sled…”

“You did what I did. You’re not me. You’re you. And you spent 30 seconds talking. You just got overrun by a PKM team from the ridge. You’re all dead. Again.”

I walked back to the front. The moon was rising, making them all pale ghosts.

“You think this is a game,” I said. “You think this is about passing a test. You think because you can run five miles and hit a target at 500 yards, you’re a soldier. You’re not. You’re just a collection of parts. You’re not a team.”

I pointed out into the darkness. “Out there, in the desert, I’ve set up a course. It’s 10 miles. You have one 150-pound dummy. You have one map. And you have one compass. You will carry the dummy. You will not let it touch the ground. You will navigate to three waypoints. And you will be back here… by 0400.”

“Sergeant,” Keller said, his voice tight. “That’s… that’s 10 hours. In the dark. With a dummy.”

“It’s 10 miles. Not 12,” I said, my voice void of emotion. “My team… I… dragged two men, 12 miles, over eight days. You have 10 hours. And all of you are healthy.”

I picked up my duffel bag.

“I’ll be at the finish line. Move.”

For a second, they just stood there. Then, a new sound. Huxley.

“You heard her!” he yelled, his voice raw. “Bravo Squad, let’s go! Martinez, Rhys, grab the dummy! Keller, get the map! Move! Move! Move!”

They scrambled. They weren’t a fluid team. They were a panicked mess. But they were moving. They grabbed the dummy and disappeared into the desert night, their headlamps bobbing.

I stood there in the cold, listening to the sounds of them arguing and crashing through the brush.

Huxley was wrong.

I wasn’t going to the finish line.

I was already out there. In the dark. On the ridge. Waiting for them.

I pulled my night-vision goggles from my bag and slipped them on. The world turned a sickly, familiar green.

They think I’m a legend, I thought, pulling the collar of my jacket tight. I’m not. I’m just a woman who ran out of luck and kept walking.

But I’ll be damned if I let them end up like Raptor. I’m not here for them. I’m here for the 26.

This is my penance. This is my war.

And class… was just beginning.