Chapter 9 - THE LESSON OF THE PIT
Master Sergeant Vance stepped onto the mat, standing beside Commander Miller. He turned his harsh, silver-haired glare toward the forty soldiers standing around the perimeter.
"Every single one of you," Vance roared, his voice shaking the metal support beams overhead. "Drop down! Give me fifty push-ups right now!"
Without a second of hesitation, forty elite infantrymen dropped to their hands and knees on the black rubber mats. The sound of forty bodies hitting the floor in unison sounded like thunder.
"Drive!" Vance shouted, pacing the perimeter as the men began pumping their arms up and down in frantic cadence. "You thought it was funny, didn't you? You thought because she didn't have fifty pounds of extra meat on her ribs she couldn't break your necks! You sat there like children at a circus laughing at a master operator!"
"ONE! TWO! THREE!" the soldiers chanted in unison, sweat pouring off their faces onto the mats.
Knox dropped down beside the support beam, his body trembling as he tried to perform push-ups with a ruptured diaphragm and a swelling jaw. Every repetition drew a sharp gasp of pain from his throat, but he didn't dare stop.
Commander Miller walked slowly across the mat toward the edge of the gym where her canvas duffel bag lay resting against a wooden bench.
She picked up the bag, slinging it over her shoulder with a smooth, effortless motion. She didn't look back at the forty men sweating on the floor. She didn't look at Knox. She was already moving on to the next task, her mind focused on things far beyond the walls of Building 302.
As she reached the double steel exit doors of the gym, Master Sergeant Vance called out across the silent room.
"Commander!"
Miller stopped, her hand resting on the heavy metal push-bar of the door. She looked back over her shoulder.
Vance stood at rigid attention, bringing his right hand up to his brow in a slow, flawless, sharp military salute.
Across the gym, the two senior sergeant majors paused their push-ups, sitting up on their knees and rendering the exact same respectful salute.
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Commander Miller looked at them for one second. She didn't return the formal salute—she was, after all, currently operating in civilian capacity—but she gave them a single, clean nod of recognition.
"Keep them training, Vance," she said softly. "The world is getting cold."
