Chapter One
Taryn
I blinked hard to clear the moisture that wanted to bead along my waterline and let out a slow breath as the machine beside me settled into a steady, unbroken tone.
“It’s okay Angela. We tried. I can finish, you go ahead and get cleaned up.”
My voice sounded distant to my own ears, but Angela swallowed and gave a short nod, turning away to shut off the heart monitor before peeling off her protective gear and shoving it in the trash bin. It rattled, the quiet snick of the door following her escape almost lost beneath it.
My superiors would have had me treat the dog on the table the same way. Just toss it in the garbage as if it were nothing but a broken tool. They were useful, until they weren’t. Replaceable if damaged too much. They didn’t know the dogs the way I did, nor did they want to.
“I’m sorry Freyja.”
My whisper was lost in the sterile air. Her ears would never perk forward at the sound of her name again.
It was bad enough to lose one of the dogs due to an injury in the field, but the fact that this was due to her handler’s fuck up during training had fury making my motions sharp and jerky as I closed the incision I’d made. He’d disregarded protocol, and she’d paid for it.
It was another wound on my already scarred heart.
I’d gone into Veterinary Medicine due to my love of animals and had dedicated my career to the military dogs who had inspired that love when I was little.
Watching them from my father’s office window had been my favorite pastime, and my heart ached for those innocent days when I didn’t understand how short and fragile their lives were.
They’d been the heroes then, not expendable assets.
I knew better now.
When I finally sat down at my desk later, all I could do was stare at the blank computer screen in front of me as I waited for it to wake. It was old, like all of the clinic’s equipment. Military budgets were for weapons and armor, not upgrading relics.
I felt old and used too, and it wasn’t the first time I had to fight back depression with nothing more than stubbornness.
Shaking my head, I opened my email, planning out what to say to the handler’s superior, as well as the head of the Military Dogs’ Unit.
I wasn’t na?ve enough to think it would do any good, but perhaps I could have the soldier reassigned so he wouldn’t be a threat to the next dog they brought in to replace Freyja.
I could only hope it would save another dog from ending up on my table due to carelessness.
I wasn’t surprised to see an email from command already waiting for me.
The soldier had sustained an injury as well from what I’d been told, so a report would have had to be made to the general.
For a moment I was relieved that I wouldn’t have to explain how there was one less dog ready for deployment…
Until I read the contents.
“Disbanded?”
I stared at the word as if its meaning would change, but it just sat there, refusing.
“Doctor Calder?”
My eyes moved up as Angela called my name from the door. I didn’t give her a chance to explain why she was there before blurting the burning question.
“Did you get the email?”
Whatever she’d come to my office for, the way her expression shifted to guilt told me she had.
“About the end of the month?”
My attention moved back to the screen in front of me. I hadn’t made it that far, but after reading the rest of the message, it confirmed she already knew.
“When did you find out?”
I couldn’t help the accusation in my tone. I was the Veterinarian, I ran the clinic, I should have been the first one informed.
“Career Placement called me Monday. At first they only said I was being reassigned and when I asked why, they told me. I—I thought you already knew.”
My shoulders sank as I shook my head. I couldn’t be mad at her when it wasn’t her fault.
She stepped closer, hovering on the other side of my desk. We’d worked together for three years, and I’d never enforced the rank system the military insisted on since I viewed us as a team. We were partners whose goal was to keep the dogs alive.
“Did they tell you what’s going to happen to them?”
My gut clenched. She cared about the dogs just as much as I did, and she knew what the likely response was to her question.
“They didn’t say, only that the Military Dog Program is ending. We’re obsolete and a drain on resources.”
The words were bitter and my throat tightened as I blinked back the sting of tears. Years of dedication, of sacrifice, deemed obsolete. My career, my life, hadn’t even mattered enough to them to be told in person.
“They’re letting me stay through next week before my new assignment kicks in. I hope… I hope they find the dogs new homes by then.”
I tried to swallow the lump strangling me as I nodded. The end of the month was a little more than a week away, but there was no reason to fuss about them reassigning her before then.
And I doubted command was concerned about finding the dogs new homes.
“That would be nice.”
It was all I could manage. There was no reason to stomp on her feelings just because my life was suddenly dangling by a thread.
What was I going to do?
“Tyr’s handler reported that the antibiotics seemed to have worked. The swelling has gone down in his toe, and he’s putting weight on that foot again.”
I searched my memory for the case and what the dog had come in for, but I came up empty. It was as if my brain had retreated behind a shell that the words bounced off without penetration.
“Tell him we should still do a follow up.”
It was an automatic response. The handlers always wanted to skip the follow-up appointments if the dog seemed better, even when half the time they were wrong.
Angela nodded and returned to the front desk, leaving me staring at the email I’d never expected to receive. I knew the dogs didn’t play a major role in the military anymore, they never really had, but it had never crossed my mind that the program would be disbanded.
Without dogs, the military no longer needed a veterinarian, but unlike Angela, I wasn’t a soldier. I wouldn’t be getting a call from Career Placement for reassignment.
I leaned back in my chair, the emails I had planned to send forgotten. They no longer mattered.
Like me.
That spark of fury flared again, sharp and biting. They’d erased my job, my entire purpose, with an email. A cold jumble of letters on a screen telling me the lives I’d cared for were no longer worth the expense, and I wasn’t either.
I was on my feet before I made the decision to stand.
I knew there was nothing I could do about the program being disbanded, that likely came from above anyone on the base, but the least I deserved was for the general to look me in the eye and tell me what was going to happen to the dogs.
Angela might be able to convince herself they would find homes, but I knew command would go for the simple option. The safe bet.
Euthanasia.
Even if I couldn’t save my job, I could save the dogs. I could fight for them, because if I was losing my job anyway, there was nothing command could use to make me back down. Enough dogs had already died because of them, they could give the survivors a chance.
I grabbed my coat from the back of my chair and shrugged into it as I strode through the clinic to the front desk where Angela was packing up to head home.
“Do you mind locking up behind you?”
I didn’t want to get her hopes up telling her my plan, so I kept it to myself. If it worked out I’d let her know, and if it didn’t…
Well, she was better off not knowing so she could cling to her hope.
Her brows rose. I never left before she did, usually working well past official hours.
“Sure?”
Giving her a tight smile, I left before she could voice the question in her tone.
The general’s office was on the other side of base. Anyone else might have already left for the weekend, but he was an old workhorse like me. Some people married other people, but some of us married our careers.
His vehicle was still there when I arrived outside the building, but his assistant’s desk was empty, allowing me to walk past without showing credentials. I stood outside his office for a moment before raising my hand to knock, telling myself not to overreact.
Ask questions, get answers, and get out.
I doubted my peptalk was going to help, but discipline was hard to unlearn.
I knocked before calling his name through the door and was told to enter.
“Doctor Calder.”
General Hargreeve didn’t look up from the form he was filling in, the fact that the military still required paper copies proof that change came slowly. He pointed at the chair across from his desk for a split second, as if this were a routine meeting he’d expected and not the result of impulsivity.
I remained on my feet beside the chair instead, unable to sit and pretend everything was fine. His pen was still flying over the form, the stack of papers beneath it showing why he was still in his office.
“Sit, Calder.”
I wanted to ignore him, but despite not being one of his soldiers, obedience to authority was ingrained in who I was.
“I assume this is about the Dog Unit being disbanded.”
His tone was anything but welcoming. He’d never been a bad person to work for, but no one made it to the rank of general without getting straight to business.
“Partially.”
My voice came out steady despite the quiver inside me. I’d always been good at hiding my emotions. It was something that came from growing up in a military family.
“I have questions.”
He flipped the form onto a different stack and finally looked up, folding his hands overtop the papers still waiting for his attention.
“The decision came from above me. The program has been under review for years, and there’s nothing I can do to reverse it.”
I’d already known he wouldn’t be able to do anything, but I hadn’t been aware we’d been on the chopping block that long.
“That would have been nice to know before I was called obsolete.”