GABRIEL
The radio’s been clipped to my belt since Reyes rolled out of my bunk last night, and I told myself it was standard practice for a task force commander during an active deployment. But then again, I’ve been telling myself a lot of things lately that wouldn’t survive a close inspection.
It’s late on night one, dawn not far off, when the radio chirps. Static. Then Callahan’s voice, stretched too tight, interrupted by the echo of gunshots.
“Kestrel, Kestrel, this is Callahan. We are pinned down, taking fire from multiple elevated positions, one casualty, requesting immediate QRF and air support, do you copy?”
I’m off the bunk before the transmission finishes, boots already in my hand, my heart dropping past my stomach and landing somewhere near my knees.
One casualty. And he didn’t say who, neither in the first transmission nor the one that follows.
I stop for a second as Hayes replies, standing in the dark with one boot on, not breathing, because it could be anyone. It could be him.
I finally get my other boot on and run to the command hut. Okafor’s already coming the other way, radio to his ear, face carved out of granite.
“Sir.” He falls into step beside me without slowing. “Drones are already tasked, going out now. Maddox’s team is QRF, standing by at the gate.”
“Have them wait,” I say, my words clipped.
He looks at me. “Sir?”
“One minute. I’m going with them.”
“Sir—”
I don’t let him finish. “You have the base, Sergeant.”
Okafor plants himself in front of me, and for one moment I think he’s actually going to put a hand on my chest and stop me, which nobody had the nerve to do in two decades.
“You’re not fully healed,” he bites out. “If you go down out there, this base doesn’t just have a task force pinned, it’s also down a commander. That’s not tactics, sir.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“You said that last time,” he shoots back.
“I meant it that time too.”
He holds my eyes, and I let him, because arguing is wasting precious seconds. Whatever he sees on my face must sway him, because he exhales through his nose in resignation.
Then three more shapes come pounding out of the dark toward the command hut, gear already strapped on. Hayes, Delgado, and Petrillo.
“Sir.” For once Hayes doesn’t look like he has a joke loaded. “I had the graveyard comms shift. I heard the whole thing. We’re going.”
“You forgot to say that wasn’t a request,” Delgado adds, already checking his weapon.
Okafor looks at the dark sky like he’s asking for patience. “Anybody on this base planning on being reasonable tonight?”
Nobody answers him.
I look at Hayes, serious now, nothing like the man who complains about PT or has mouse jokes. “Get a second Humvee ready. You’re riding with me.”
“Yes, sir.”
They scatter toward the vehicle line, and Okafor grabs my sleeve before I can turn towards supply, close enough that nobody else can catch what he has to say.
“Check in every hour. On the hour. I don’t care what’s happening out there, you find thirty seconds, and you key that radio.” He says it like an order, like he outranks me instead of the other way around, and normally I’d correct that in about a second flat.
“I’ll be fine, Marcus,” I say instead.
I can’t remember when I used his first name last, and it catches him off guard enough that his grip loosens on my sleeve. He studies me for one more long second, then he nods.
“Go get our people, Colonel.”
The Humvee’s engine is already turning over when I climb into the passenger seat, Hayes behind the wheel, Delgado and Petrillo in the back with the aid bag already open on Petrillo’s knees like he’s rehearsing what he’ll need before we’ve even cleared the wire.
Maddox’s team piles into the second vehicle behind us, headlights cutting twin trenches through the fog.
“We can only do about six klicks in these, Colonel,” Delgado yells from the back as we roll out. “I checked the map. It’s a goat trail after that.”
“I know,” I mumble. Then louder: “Six klicks buys us an hour.”
But after that it’s hours of walking in the dark toward a position that’s been under fire since midnight.
Somewhere on that ridge, drones are already burning fuel, trying to get eyes on a firefight.
They’ll get there first. I don’t let myself finish that thought further than hopefully in time, because I don’t think I can survive the other hand while I still have a job to do.
The Humvee jolts over a rut, making my shoulder twinge. A reminder that Ainsley would have my rank if she saw me doing this. I press my hand against it and put it out of my mind.
The road gives up on being a road right where we expect it to. We dismount into the biting cold, settle gear onto our shoulders, and start walking.
I set the pace, and nobody complains. Even Hayes breathes hard but says nothing, because there’s nothing funny about this, and he knows it as well as I do.
With every step I take, the weight of the ruck tugs on my shoulder, making it burn worse.
I let it burn because somewhere ahead of us, past ridgelines I can’t see yet in the dark, Noah is hiding behind some rock, likely with an empty magazine.
Or he isn’t. He’s either fine, or he’s the one casualty Callahan didn’t name.
I don’t know which, and not knowing is a kind of violence I haven’t experienced yet.
I check in with Okafor, then think about the porch light my mother used to leave on.
How she said it’s so my father would always know which house was his, no matter how dark everything else got.
I never understood why that story stuck with me until right now, walking through a mountain at four in the morning toward a man I have no rank-appropriate reason to be this afraid for.
After a while, the sky starts to change, a fraction less black at the eastern edges, stars losing their sharpness one by one like somebody slowly turning down a dial.
Dawn, or close enough to call it that. My legs have gone past burning into something numb and mechanical, and the radio on my hip has stayed silent for the last forty minutes, which could mean anything.
Could mean everything’s fine and nobody has breath to spare on a check-in. Could mean something else entirely.
I don’t let myself finish that thought either.
In my forty-five years, I’ve never needed anyone or anything. Not my father’s approval, not my mother’s worry, not the men I’ve buried, not the ones I’ve carried home. I decided long ago that I’d rather be alone and standing than vulnerable to losing someone I couldn’t survive losing.
Somewhere in the last six weeks, a twenty-three-year-old mouthy specialist barreled through every last defense I had, and I let him, and now I’m crossing a mountain in the dark with a bad shoulder and a war around us.
Because there isn’t a version of this life I can live with if I don’t know if he’s still breathing.
I quicken my pace. The seven soldiers behind me match it.
Whatever’s waiting on the other side of that ridge, I am not walking home without him.