But not as wrong.
Not empty.
Just waiting.
Mac sat there a moment longer before finally reaching for the orders again, folding them once more along the same careful line.
For the first time since the Stewards had come, the leave felt real.
Chapter 14 - Mac
That next morning, Diaz drove him out to the airstrip in one of the company Humvees, the engine rumbling low and steady beneath them as the base slowly came awake around the edges. The sky was just beginning to lighten, the first pale wash of morning spreading across the horizon in thin streaks of gray and faded gold. The harsh brightness that would come later hadn’t arrived yet, and for a little while the desert almost looked gentle, the long lines of Hesco barriers and concrete bunkers softened by the low angle of the sun.
Neither of them talked much.
There wasn’t anything that needed saying, and both of them understood that. Diaz drove with the same quiet focus he brought to everything else, hands loose on the wheel, eyes moving steadily between the road and the mirrors. The Humvee rattled over the packed gravel, suspension creaking in familiar rhythms Mac had stopped noticing months ago.
Mac sat with one arm resting on his duffel, watching the base slide past through the dusty windshield. Soldiers moved between buildings with coffee cups and clipboards, early details already underway. A forklift beeped somewhere near the motor pool. Radios crackled in bursts of static and clipped voices. The place had the same steady motion it always did, the quiet momentum of people who kept going because stopping wasn’t an option.
It felt strange to be leaving in the middle of all that.
The sun was still low enough that the air held a trace of cool, a thin edge of relief that lingered before the heat took over. It brushed against his face through the open window, carrying the layered smells of the base, dust and diesel and sun-warmed metal, scents he’d grown so used to they barely registered anymore. Within an hour the heat would settle in like a weight and the air would turn thick and unmoving, but for now there was a softness to the morning that felt almost unreal.
Diaz pulled up near the airstrip and let the engine idle for a moment before shutting it off. The sudden quiet rang in Mac’s ears, broken only by the distant thrum of generators and the faint mechanical clatter drifting across the tarmac.
Neither of them moved right away.
Finally Diaz glanced over at him, expression steady and unreadable in the growing light.
“You planning to come back?” he asked.
Mac turned his head.
The question wasn’t casual. Diaz wasn’t the kind of man who asked things he didn’t mean, and Mac understood what lay underneath it. Command responsibility. Unfinished work. The quiet understanding that officers came and went, but the company stayed.
Mac snorted softly. “Yeah,” he said. “Try and stop me.”
Diaz held his gaze for a second, measuring something Mac couldn’t quite name, then nodded once. “Good.”
That was all.
Soldiers didn’t make speeches. Not about things like this. You said what mattered and left the rest alone.
Mac reached down for his bag and pushed open the door, boots hitting the packed dirt with a dull, familiar weight. The air felt cooler outside the vehicle, the early morning still clinging stubbornly to the ground. Behind him, Diaz started the engine again, already turning back toward the company area before Mac had taken more than a few steps.
That was Diaz’s way too. No lingering.
Mac adjusted the strap of the duffel on his shoulder and headed toward the waiting aircraft, the steady shape of it rising out of the morning haze. The crew had already started their checks, movements efficient and practiced, the routines of departure unfolding with quiet precision.
The rotors began turning before he reached the aircraft, slow at first and then faster, the blades cutting deeper into the air until the sound settled into a steady, vibrating roar. The wind from them rolled outward in widening circles, lifting dust and loose grit into the air until the ground blurred around his boots.
He climbed the ramp without looking back at first, focusing on the simple mechanics of movement, one step, then another, the weight of the bag shifting against his shoulder.
Only when he reached the top did he turn.
Seen from the ramp, though, the whole installation felt smaller somehow, like something already beginning to belong to the past.
Temporary and replaceable. Everything in a war zone always was.
