Chapter 2
Aiden had been given his name in the briefing as Sergeant (Retired) Cross. He had not asked further questions because the coordination team handled the demonstration targets and Aiden's role was the dog and the command sequence.
He checked Rex's positioning. The dog was in the ready posture — weight forward, eyes locked on the target, the focused stillness of an animal that has processed the situation and is waiting for the word. Everything was correct. Everything was as it had been every time.
Aiden extended his arm.
"Attack."
Rex went.
He went the way Rex always went — not like an animal but like a decision made at full speed, the training taking over from intention and producing something that was harder to watch than force alone because it was force with complete specificity. Dust came up under his paws. The soldiers behind the working lane leaned forward collectively.
The target man braced.
Rex stopped.
Not slowed, not hesitated. Stopped, at two feet from the target man, with the precise abruptness of a mechanism that has received a signal it was not expecting. The sudden absence of momentum in something moving that fast produced a physical impression on everyone watching — a collective gasp that the soldiers mostly absorbed before it became sound.
Rex was looking at the target man's right hand.
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The hand was extended slightly at the man's side, the way a person's hand sits when they have braced for an impact that did not arrive. Three fingers were present. The fourth and fifth were absent from the knuckle, cleanly healed over in the way of old injuries that have been through everything they needed to go through.
Rex began to tremble.
