Chapter 2 - THE UNBENT SHADOW
Captain Logan Pierce took two confident steps closer to lane seven, stopping precisely at the yellow safety boundary line painted onto the concrete shooting pad. He leaned forward, resting his hands on his tactical belt, a broad, mocking grin cutting across his sunburnt face.
"Need the target closer, Bennett?" Logan shouted over the ambient noise of adjacent lanes resetting their targets. "We can drag it up to five meters if you need help hitting the sheet!"
The soldiers behind him burst into renewed laughter, pushing against the safety railing as they watched the apparent humiliation of one of their own.
Maya acted as if Logan did not exist. She kept her face directed downrange, her eyes locked onto the distance. With smooth, unhurried movements, she unhooked the sling attachment on her upper receiver, adjusted the nylon webbing across her left shoulder, and secured the tension tab. Her hands were completely fluid, void of any nervous twitching or anger-induced stiffness.
Standing ten feet away near the main range command table, Master Sergeant Daniel Hayes watched her intently. Forty-six years old, a decorated combat marksmanship instructor with decades of range management under his belt, Daniel held a heavy wooden clipboard tucked under his left arm.
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At first, Daniel had simply been filling out the official score logbook for the morning cycle. But as the laughter from the crowd mounted, his eyes drifted away from his paper and focused entirely on the quiet woman standing in lane seven.
Something about her demeanor didn't match the scoreboard. In twenty-four years of military service, Daniel had seen hundreds of shooters fail their qualification. They panicked, cursed, shook, or lowered their heads in embarrassment. Maya Bennett did none of those things.
