Chapter 1 - The Object Inside My Leg
Staff Sergeant Mason Cole looked at my prosthetic before he looked at my face.
That told me most of what I needed to know.
I had been standing at the edge of the mat for maybe twenty seconds, gloves in my hands, when he stepped into my space.
His eyes dropped to the carbon-fiber lower leg beneath my training pants.
Then he took both gloves out of my hands.
Not asked.
Took.
He threw them onto the mat.
“This is combat training, not rehab.”
Several trainees looked away.
One smiled.
Mason put his palm against my shoulder and shoved me backward.
I caught my balance.
He pointed toward the benches.
“Sit this one out.”
I looked at him.
Then at the gloves.
I stepped onto the mat.
Picked them up.
And threw them aside myself.
“Then make me leave.”
That wiped the smile off his face.
Probably should have walked away.
Probably should have called the training supervisor.
I knew that.
I also knew exactly what had happened inside me when he looked at my leg and decided the rest of me was already explained.
I had spent four years learning not to react to that feeling.
Apparently I had one lesson left.
Mason came forward.
He reached for my upper body, expecting the size difference to solve the argument.
It didn’t.
I shifted.
Redirected.
Used the momentum he brought.
He hit the padded mat on his back.
I stayed upright.
Every face around us changed.
Mason got up quickly.
Too quickly.
That was when training stopped being training.
He came at me angry.
A fast punch.
I moved outside it, controlled the wrist, turned behind him and brought his arm into a position where his next decision became very simple.
Stop moving.
He did.
I released immediately.
Mason dropped beside my prosthetic leg.
I extended a hand.
He ignored it.
His eyes had locked onto something near my knee.
Not my face.
Not the trainees.
My prosthesis.
“What?”
He didn’t answer.
A small metal access panel on the side of the joint housing had shifted open.
Probably during the movement.
I looked down.
I had seen the panel before.
The prosthetics clinic used it for maintenance access.
I had never seen it open by itself.
Mason’s face changed.
Not embarrassment.
Recognition.
“What is it?”
I asked.
He stood slowly.
“Don’t touch that.”
That guaranteed I would.
“Mason.”
“Rachel.”
First time he had used my name.
I bent slightly and opened the panel.
Inside the housing was something small.
Dark.
Metallic.
About the size of the end of my thumb.
It sat deeper than the screws and fittings I recognized.
Separate from them.
I reached in carefully and removed it.
The trainees around us leaned closer.
Mason backed away.
I turned the little object in my palm.
There were no obvious controls.
No display.
Just a faded stamped mark along one edge.
K-17.
“What is this?”
Mason said nothing.
His face had gone pale.
The training supervisor, Sergeant First Class Leah Warren, came through the surrounding group.
“What happened?”
Mason kept staring at my hand.
“Cole?”
He finally looked at her.
“This block is over.”
Warren frowned.
“You don't end my block.”
Mason barely heard her.
I held up the object.
“You know what this is.”
His jaw tightened.
“Yes.”
“How?”
He looked at the prosthetic.
Then at me.
“How long have you had that leg?”
“Eighteen months.”
“Who built it?”
“Rehabilitation center outside Bethesda.”
“Was any part reused from your first return-to-duty prosthesis?”
I stopped.
“Why?”
“Answer me.”
Warren stepped between us.
“You don't give her orders right now.”
Mason looked at her.
Then back at me.
I remembered the rebuild.
My first prosthesis after the accident had been replaced after a training fall four years earlier.
The current limb had gone through two major refits since.
I had assumed everything inside it had changed.
“Maybe the joint housing.”
Mason closed his eyes.
“Damn it.”
“What?”
He pointed toward my palm.
“That’s a Kestrel module.”
The name meant nothing to me.
Warren frowned.
“What does it do?”
“Or did.”
Mason corrected himself.
“It was part of an experimental diagnostic program.”
I looked at the object.
“Why would an experimental module be inside my leg?”
He didn’t answer.
I turned it over.
K-17.
Mason stared at the number.
“What?”
His voice dropped.
“Seventeen.”
“Yes.”
“That was the unit everybody argued about.”
A strange pressure formed behind my ribs.
“What unit?”
He looked at me.
Then at my prosthetic.
“The one involved in the Hayes return-to-duty accident four years ago.”
Nobody around us moved.
I had never heard my accident called that.
Not out loud.
Not by somebody who knew what K-17 meant.
I closed my hand around the object.
“Mason.”
May you like
He swallowed.
“That device was supposed to be destroyed with your first leg.”
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