Chapter 1
"Are you deaf?" Ryan snapped.
"No," Emma said.
"I told you to shoot the standard target."
Master Chief Ryan Cole had been running this range for eleven years, and in eleven years no one had ever answered him the way Emma Carter was answering him now, with a stillness that felt less like insubordination and more like patience running out on someone else's behalf.
"You have one shot left," Ryan said. "Shoot the standard target, or explain to me right now why you won't."
Emma raised the rifle a fifth time. Her sight picture settled, and for one long second, the entire line held its breath waiting to see which target she'd choose. Then she fired, and the round struck the standard silhouette dead center, exactly where Ryan had demanded, exactly where every trainee on that line had expected the previous four shots to land.
The silhouette's chest ring rattled softly on its stand.
Ryan's jaw worked. "So you can hit it."
"I never said I couldn't," Emma replied, lowering the rifle, safety on, muzzle downrange, finger clear.
"Then why didn't you?"
That was when Commander Daniel Brooks finally moved. He crossed the gravel with the unhurried gait of a man who had spent thirty years learning that the loudest person in a room is rarely the one who understands it best, and he stopped a few feet from Ryan, close enough that the trainees straightened without being told.
May you like
"Master Chief," Daniel said, quiet enough that only the front two rows caught it clearly, "walk downrange with me."
Ryan blinked. "Sir, we're mid-drill."
