Chapter 9
Boots scuffed against gritty sand, the cadence uneven.
Shouted commands in French and the local dialect echoed off the concrete blast walls.
Yeah, the guy knew how to fucking yell but not what to yell.
Talon glanced toward the hard-packed sand where aging trucks moving even older equipment vibrated faintly through the ground beneath his boots.
It was a disaster.
“Jesus Christ,” Jug muttered over comms, his voice a low growl from the center of the mock convoy. “These guys are moving like they’re on a Sunday stroll through the park.”
Talon adjusted his tactical scope and sighted on where Jug should be. He tracked the SRF soldiers as they drifted too close together, then sighed and shook his head as their loose formation collapsed until they moved as one tight cluster.
“A perfect target for any militia with half a brain and an RPG.” Dude’s voice reminded him that the satellite was overhead.
“No doubt,” he agreed. His jaw flexed. These men weren’t lazy. They were green. Raw. And raw got people killed.
“Stryker, what’s your assessment from the medical checkpoint?” His voice stayed steady, professional, but the frustration knotted tight beneath his ribs.
“They’re treating casualty evacuation like a fucking afterthought.
” Stryker’s reply came from the supposed secure triage point.
Even through comms, Talon could hear the scrape of movement—Stryker pacing, restless.
“No clearing procedures, no perimeter. If this were real, half these guys would be gone before I even popped my bag open to help.”
Through his scope, Talon tracked the SRF unit leader, Captain Oumarou.
The man’s stance was solid, commands sharp as he tried to corral his men, but the soldiers were a patchwork of ex-military, undertrained police, and kids who’d signed on for steady pay.
The skill gap was as deep as the Grand Canyon and probably twice as fucking wide.
“Wolf, eyes on the high ground,” Talon ordered, shifting to scan the terrain.
“Copy.” Wolf’s voice was low, clipped, the faintest rustle of movement as he repositioned from a manufactured observation point that mimicked the jagged rock ridges along the real convoy route.
“I see multiple blind spots in formation. I count six where hostile forces could set an ambush without detection. They’re not reading the terrain, boss. ”
Talon’s gut tightened. Six ambush points meant six ways to bury men before they even reached the airstrip.
“Hammer, rear guard status?”
“They’re a joke,” Hammer came back without hesitation. He was shadowing the convoy’s tail, and Talon could almost see his unimpressed scowl. “No rear security, no alternating overwatch. If somebody wanted to cut off their retreat, it’d be easier than taking candy from a baby.”
The exercise limped to its miserable conclusion twenty minutes later, the SRF men clapping each other on the back as though they hadn’t just been turned into bullet-riddled confetti a dozen times over.
Talon pulled his headset off, rolling his shoulders to work out the knot that always formed when he watched people try very hard to fail in creative new ways. The air was heavy with dust, the metallic tang of overheated gear, and the faint, mocking scent of rain on the far-off horizon.
He strode into the loose knot of men, raising his voice over the sound of congratulatory backslaps.
“Good news. You’ve officially set the bar so low you can trip over it on the way to your next failure. Bravo. Really. If there were an Olympic sport for creative ways to die in under ten minutes, you’d all be wearing gold medals right now.”
“Ouch.” Dude laughed.
“Oh fuck.” Stryker also tried to stop laughing.
“Skipper is going to pull the rip cord,” Jug said.
A few nervous chuckles from the men in front of him vanished.
Talon growled, “That wasn’t a training exercise.
That was a group suicide, and thank you for that.
Group deaths mean more paperwork for me.
” Talon took off his garrison cap and wiped the sweat off his forehead as he spat, “I’ve seen better coordination by a group of kindergarteners playing tag.
For those of you who don’t know what kindergarteners are, think four- and five-year-old children.
At least the kids don’t leave their teammates bleeding out in the sandbox. You did.”
He started pacing slowly, eyes moving over the group.
“Let’s recap the highlights, shall we? Comms discipline was nonexistent. I could hear every one of you narrating your heroic deaths in real time.
“Breach team, you did manage to get through the entry. Congratulations. Shame you forgot to check your flanks and walked into what we in the business call certain death. Casualty extraction? Oh, right. You didn’t do any.
But don’t worry, you’re going to die fast enough. You won’t have to be concerned.”
He stopped pacing, hands settling on his hips.
“You’re supposed to be a team. Instead, I got a front-row seat to twelve different solo actors, and all of them die.
Out there, lone wolves don’t survive to the end of the movie.
They die so fast they don’t even get their names added to the credits.
And right now? None of you would survive past the first scene. ”
Talon’s expression flattened, the sarcasm taking on a harder edge.
“You want to strut around as a quick reaction force? Then stop reacting like a drunken bachelorette party trying to find their way out of an escape room. Move faster. Think smarter. Work together.”
He stepped back, letting his gaze sweep over them.
“Every single mistake you made today, you’re going to know it, own it, and have a fix ready before the next drill.
Because next time? I expect better. Not for me.
For you. Because when it’s real, there’s no headset, no safe word, and no reset button.
My team isn’t going to die when you respond.
You will. My job is to educate you to stay alive.
You're going to be educated if I have to shove the lessons down your throat.”
He let the silence stretch a long, uncomfortable beat before delivering the final line with a wry grin.
“You want to live through a real fight? Start training.”
One of the men sneered at him, and Talon walked straight up to him.
His voice was low, but everyone could hear him.
“I don’t give a flying fuck if you hate me.
Hate keeps you sharp. Hate keeps you focused.
” He turned away from the man and addressed the rest of them.
“People who stay alive can hate me for a lifetime. Now, hydrate, rearm, and remember, complacency kills. And you boys are too fucking comfortable.”
An hour later, the Guardian team gathered in their temporary operations center, which was nothing more than a converted shipping container.
The hum of the air conditioner rattled overhead, struggling against the rising heat.
Tactical maps were posted on the walls, and the faint buzz of a generator mixed with radio chatter from the team as they practiced through the heat of the day.
Jug dropped into a folding chair and braced his forearms on his knees. The ever-present ring of sweat darkened the collar of his shirt. “Six to eight months,” he muttered, swiping at his forehead. “That’s what they’re giving us to turn those guys into an actual fighting force.”
Talon leaned over the central table, his palms pressed flat to the cool metal surface. Six to eight months. His heartbeat still hadn’t settled from the exercise, each steady thump echoing in his ears. Time. Resources. Terrain. All stacked against them.
Failure wasn’t an option. Neither was letting down the people who hired them.
“Might as well be six to eight years,” Stryker muttered, checking the seals on his medical kit. The faint snap of Velcro and click of buckles punctuated his frustration. “Half of them don’t even know basic firearms movement. And don’t get me started on their equipment.”
Talon spread the tactical map across the makeshift briefing table, the surface still faintly warm from the relentless heat outside.
The convoy route was marked in a bold red slash between Arjun Ridge Mine and Boka Airstrip.
There were forty-seven kilometers of hostile territory where local militias had been increasingly active.
The uranium coming out of Arjun Ridge was worth killing for, and everyone in the region knew it.
“The equipment issue isn’t going away,” Talon said, his finger tracing the route. His calloused fingertip caught on the edge of the laminated map. “Half their rifles are older than I am, and their communications gear belongs in a museum. But that’s a political problem, not a tactical one.”
“Speaking of political problems,” Dude said in their ears, “I intercepted some chatter yesterday. The Burundu Defense Ministry is under pressure to accelerate its timeline. They want the SRF operational in four months, not eight.”
Jug barked a humorless laugh, leaning back in his chair. “Four months? To turn farmers and shopkeepers into convoy security? They might as well ask us to teach camels to fly.”
“What kind of pressure?” Talon asked, a low current of warning threading through his voice. His attention sharpened. Political interference this early was rarely a good sign.
“Unknown,” Dude replied. Talon could hear Dude’s fingers dancing over his keyboard.
“But the frequency patterns suggest it’s coming from someone with significant influence.
It could be government oversight or the mining consortium.
Hell, it could be Washington, for all we know.
I’ve up-channeled it to CCS for them to work. ”
Hammer glanced up from the disassembled weapon on the table in front of him, his hands stilling. “What about specialized equipment? We keep talking about training, but these guys need a proper kit if they’re going to have a chance.”