Page 54 of My Forbidden Commander

An hour crawls by like that, maybe more. My magazines empty faster than I want to admit, and every time I think the pressure’s easing, another burst comes from a slightly different angle, testing, probing, looking for a gap that isn’t there yet.

Wilder’s rifle cracks at a slower rhythm, methodical, and every time it fires, something out in the dark stops moving. He’s not wasting a single round. I count eleven shots from him over what feels like two hours, and I’d bet everything I own that eleven men are down because of it.

“Reyes, status!” Callahan’s voice, closer now. Sykes must be patched up enough to be quiet instead of screaming.

“Holding!” I shout back. “They’re not pushing through, but they’re not backing off either!”

“Same everywhere.” He drops down beside me, breathing hard, blood on his hands. “I don’t think this is a raid. They came to fix us in place.”

“For what?”

“Don’t know. Don’t like not knowing.”

The moon shifts across the sky, and I lose count of how many magazines I’ve gone through, how many times my rifle’s gone dry and I’ve swapped without thinking, muscle memory doing what my exhausted brain can’t keep up with. The cold stops registering. My hands stop shaking.

Liu crawls past with a fresh dressing for Sykes, and in the green light of my goggles, I catch his face—young, scared but holding it together—and that steadies me further.

“They’re not falling back,” Wilder says at some point, voice flat even now. “Every time we thin one position, another opens up. This is a big element. Bigger than anything we’ve seen.”

“Copy that,” Callahan mutters, and keys the radio with hands that seem to tremble. “Kestrel, Kestrel, this is Callahan. We are pinned down, taking fire from multiple elevated positions, one casualty, requesting immediate QRF and air support, do you copy?”

Static answers, making my stomach drop.

“Kestrel, this is Callahan. We are in a sustained firefight, hours now, no let-up, request immediate support, over.”

I lie there in the dark with an empty magazine in my hand and another mountain’s worth of muzzle flashes lighting up the ridge above us, and all I can think, underneath the fear and the noise and the ringing in my ears, is that Gabriel is asleep a world away, with no idea that the man he told to come back in one piece might not get the choice.

27

GABRIEL

The radio’s been clipped to my belt since Reyes rolled out of my bunk last night, and I told myself it was standard practice for a task force commander during an active deployment. But then again, I’ve been telling myself a lot of things lately that wouldn’t survive a close inspection.

It’s late on night one, dawn not far off, when the radio chirps. Static. Then Callahan’s voice, stretched too tight, interrupted by the echo of gunshots.

“Kestrel, Kestrel, this is Callahan. We are pinned down, taking fire from multiple elevated positions, one casualty, requesting immediate QRF and air support, do you copy?”

I’m off the bunk before the transmission finishes, boots already in my hand, my heart dropping past my stomach and landing somewhere near my knees. One casualty. And he didn’t say who, neither in the first transmission nor the one that follows. I stop for a second as Hayes replies, standing in the dark with one boot on, not breathing, because it could be anyone. It could be him.

I finally get my other boot on and run to the command hut. Okafor’s already coming the other way, radio to his ear, face carved out of granite.

“Sir.” He falls into step beside me without slowing. “Drones are already tasked, going out now. Maddox’s team is QRF, standing by at the gate.”

“Have them wait,” I say, my words clipped.

He looks at me. “Sir?”

“One minute. I’m going with them.”

“Sir—”

I don’t let him finish. “You have the base, Sergeant.”

Okafor plants himself in front of me, and for one moment I think he’s actually going to put a hand on my chest and stop me, which nobody had the nerve to do in two decades.

“You’re not fully healed,” he bites out. “If you go down out there, this base doesn’t just have a task force pinned, it’s also down a commander. That’s not tactics, sir.”

“I’ll be fine.”