Chapter 5 - GRIEF, NOT AGGRESSION
Inside the observation deck, Colonel Hargrove took a sharp step closer to the heavy plate glass, his brow furrowing beneath his crisp khaki cover.
"They're preparing a coordinated strike," Hargrove insisted, his voice sharp, cold, and demanding authority. "Look at the posture on the lead dog. That's tactical positioning. They're surrounding her."
Evelyn kept her eyes fixed straight ahead, reading the microscopic changes in the dogs' body language that forty years of rigid bureaucracy had made Hargrove blind to.
"No," Evelyn said softly, her voice picking up clearly through the long-range directional microphones mounted on the fence posts. "They're not aggressive."
She turned her head just an inch, meeting Thor's gaze through the shimmering heat waves rising off the dust.
"They're grieving."
Inside the control room, Staff Sergeant Petrov turned slowly toward the Colonel. His chest tightened, a knot forming in his throat as Evelyn's words hit him with the force of a physical blow. He had spent months watching these dogs bark, snap, and tear at bite sleeves, classifying them as operational hazards, hazards to be managed or destroyed. He had never considered that their anger was simply the only language they had left to process the sudden, permanent absence of the man who had slept beside them in the dirt of three different continents.
Across the enclosure, Thor slowly, deliberately, pushed himself up onto his front paws.
May you like
His back legs straightened. His tail gave one short, faint sway against his dusty flank.
The quietest, most broken dog in the unit had stood up.
