Page 97 of Duty Preserved

“What we can do,” I said, “is make sure this doesn’t happen again.”

I turned so I was facing all of them.

“The fire proved something none of us wants to hear. Patrols aren’t enough. We had eyes on every waterhole in the northeast sector for a week, and Nasser’s people rolled straight through our perimeter at three in the morning without a single alarm raised. The reserve needs to be defended. Night watches on every approach road and early warning positions, so that if someone comes in here again, we know about it before they reach us.”

Zayn nodded once. “I can draw up the positions. I know the roads.”

“Good. Do it.”

“And if they come anyway?” Baraka said. “If all the watches and the positions don’t stop them, and they come with guns instead of gasoline?”

“Then you need to be ready.”

Baraka held my gaze. He wasn’t challenging me. He was asking me to say what he already suspected. Behind him, the rest of the group had gone still.

The silence that followed was a different kind. Heavier. It registered across the group, settling into the spaces between them.

“Two nights ago, when they opened fire on us, nobody in this group fired back.”

Not a single man looked away. I gave them that.

“That is not a criticism. I need you to hear that. What happened out there is normal. First time somebody shoots at you, your body locks up. Fight, flight, or freeze—and most people freeze. Every trained soldier in history has had that moment when the rounds come in and the brain stops talking to the hands. I’ve been there. Andrew’s been there. It does not mean you failed.”

“But if it happens again,” Baraka said quietly, “we can’t freeze again.”

“No. You can’t.”

Andrew spoke from beside me. He’d been quiet through all of this, letting me run the briefing, and when he stepped in, the group’s attention shifted to him.

“The training changes. Starting today. Everything we’ve done up to now—the drills, the field exercises—built a foundation. It made you a team. You proved that last night with the fire. Not one person had to be told what to do. That foundation is real, and it is solid. But it won’t prepare you for what happened two nights ago, and it won’t prepare you for what might come next.”

“What replaces it?” Zayn asked.

“Contact drills,” Andrew said. “How to move when someone is shooting at you. Not just hitting the ground, but getting to cover while keeping your weapon oriented toward the threat. How to conduct fire and maneuver.”

“How to hold a position,” I said, “when every nerve in your body is telling you to run. How to keep functioning when the chaos and fear are so loud that nothing makes sense.”

Each man began processing what it meant to train for something that two days ago had been theoretical and was now the most real thing any of them had ever experienced.

I owed them one more thing.

“Anyone who wants to walk away can walk away. Right now. No judgment and no shame in it. You signed up to be rangers, not soldiers. What I’m asking you to do next goes beyond what anyone asked of you when you took this job. If this isn’t what you want, you tell me, and you go home to your families with my respect.”

Silence.

The compound held its breath. The burned-out shell of the vet facility stood behind us, heat still rising from the debris in thin wisps, the painted words on the water tank taunting every man standing there.

Nobody moved.

Nobody spoke.

Nobody walked.

I made eye contact with each and every one of them. All of them held their ground.

“All right. Get some food and some water. We start in an hour.”

Chapter 27