“I’ve been here since lights out.”
“Timestamp doesn’t lie.”
He left. No argument. No explanation. Just the kind of lie that sounded official.
Dante foundout the next morning. The report was on his desk before sunrise—a dorm violation written by Krueger and endorsed by another cadre member. It was official, sanitized and complete. He read it three times then stood up, walked out of the cadre wing, and took a left turn he wasn’t supposed to.
He didn’t knock before entering the secure observation office. “Pull camera D-5, second floor, wing Bravo.”
The tech looked up. “That’s a restricted pull, sir. Needs?—”
Dante didn’t wait. He keyed in his credentials and accessed the terminal himself. 2200 hours. There was Shannon McKenna, seated on her bunk, back against the wall, flipping through her flight manual. Unmoving and still.
No movement until 22:43, when lights cut and she rolled onto her side to sleep. Never left. Not once.
He walkedout without saying a word. By noon, a private packet was delivered to a secure digital drop. No trace. No internal record. Chase Security’s Washington branch received it within the hour.
Response came in the form of silence and an encrypted file confirming the timeclock software in Bravo wing was accessed at 2152 hours by Cadet First Class Daniel Krueger. It wasn’t official yet, but it was proof of tampering.
After mess,Shannon was called to the outer perimeter for extra gear duty. Olivo met her there. He handed her a folded piece of paper with the formal withdrawal of the dorm violation report.
“Cleared?” she asked.
“Fully.”
Shannon looked up at him. The light off the quad lamps cut shadows across his jaw. “You know he faked the whole thing.”
“I do,” he said.
She hesitated. “You want to know why he’s doing this?”
Olivo didn’t speak.
Shannon leaned against the side of the crate beside them and lowered her voice. “I saw something else. Something that explains why he’s so determined to prevent me from reporting him.”
Olivo didn’t interrupt.
“Not everything,” she continued, steady and deliberate, “but he had the cadet pressed onto his knees while Krueger unfastened his pants. He held the cadet’s head between his hands. Krueger acted like this was an ongoing arrangement, and he was reminding him of the cost of backing out.”
Her jaw tightened slightly. “He used his rank to make it clear the cadet didn’t have a choice. If he talked, he’d be gone. Discredited. Humiliated. Whatever Krueger had already done, he made it clear he planned to keep doing it.”
She paused. “That wasn’t the first time. And it wasn’t going to be the last.”
Olivo stayed silent for a long moment before nodding once. “That changes the scale,” he said quietly.
EIGHT
BASIC CADET TRAINING – DAY 22
The confidence course sat high above the field, all steel lines and wood platforms silhouetted against the sky. From the ground, it looked manageable. From the base of the tower, it looked endless.
Shannon tightened her gloves and stepped into the staging area with the rest of Lima Squadron. The air smelled like sun-warmed rope and dust. Somewhere below, someone laughed too loudly. No one joined in.
Krueger stood near the equipment racks with the course supervisor, clipboard in hand. He looked relaxed, comfortable, like this was his domain.
Shannon felt it before she saw it. The familiar tightening behind her ribs. The sense that something had already been decided.
“Cadet McKenna,” Krueger said, voice casual. “You’re up first.”
