Chapter 2 - The Consultant Nobody Wanted
Six days earlier, Kael had learned that Warcom was sending a specialist to review his platoon’s close-combat program. He hated the idea before he even heard her name.
Riley Voss.
Civilian contractor. Twenty-two. Classified background. Combat systems consultant. Training rotations with allied units overseas. Seven disciplines listed in her file, plus several lines blacked out in places that made Kael angrier than a bad evaluation.
“A twenty-two-year-old civilian woman is going to teach my SEALs how to fight?” he asked Captain Morrow over the phone.
“She’s going to refine technique,” Morrow replied.
“My men don’t need refinement.”
“Two injuries in four weeks say otherwise.”
Kael hung up hard enough to crack the phone cradle.
By afternoon, the platoon knew. Kael gathered them in the briefing room and turned the assignment into a joke before anyone else could take it seriously.
“We’re getting a babysitter,” he said.
The room erupted.
Marco Delaney laughed loudest. He was the biggest operator in the unit, all shoulders, forearms, and reputation. Men called him a wall because men like nicknames that sound like warnings.
“How old?” Delaney asked.
“Twenty-two.”
Delaney slapped the table. “I’ve got boots older than that.”
The jokes came easily after that. Yoga instructor. Social media fighter. Martial arts princess. Kael let them laugh because mockery was useful. It built the wall before Riley ever arrived.
Only Travis Webb did not join in.
“What if she’s actually good?” he asked.
The room went quiet.
Kael looked at him. “Then she’ll prove it.”
May you like
But his tone said something else.
If she was good, he would make sure it did not matter.
