Chapter 13 - Blood at the Gate
The morning mist was thick over the rolling green lawns of the Quantico Marine Corps Base in Virginia.
I stood beside General Vance near the obstacle course, watching the forty scholarship cadets running in tight formation.
These were the sons and daughters of soldiers who had died wearing Arthur's defective ceramic vests in the arid valleys of Sangin.
Now, their tuition was paid by the very fortune that had orphaned them.
Seeing them push through the mud, their voices chanting in unison, brought a fierce warmth to my chest that no medal could ever match.
"They have your grit, General," Vance noted, offering me a paper cup of black coffee from the tactical mess truck.
"They don't have my baggage," I replied softly, taking a sip.
"That's why we fight, Vance."
"So the generation behind us can carry a lighter pack."
Before Vance could respond, the screech of burning rubber shattered the morning calm.
At the main security perimeter two hundred yards away, a heavy, armored civilian utility truck smashed straight through the concrete barricade.
Armed guards opened fire immediately, their 9mm rounds ricocheting uselessly off the truck’s reinforced windshield.
"Ambush! cadets, down!" I bellowed, my combat instincts taking over before my brain could process fear.
The cadets hit the dirt in perfect formation, burying their faces into the mud just as the truck's rear doors burst open.
Four masked operatives in tactical black gear deployed with automatic weapons, aiming directly toward the training field.
They weren't trying to breach the secure installations of Quantico.
They were here for a slaughter.
They were targeting the scholarship children.
"Vance, get the cadets to the bunker!" I ordered, unholstering the standard-issue sidearm from my hip.
"Katherine, you don't have armor on!" Vance shouted, reaching for my arm.
"Move the kids, Vance!" I barked with the unquestioned authority of a four-star commander.
I broke into a dead sprint across the open field, closing the distance between the training ground and the hostile firing line.
The first gunman leveled his carbine at a trembling seventeen-year-old cadet who had frozen in terror near the pull-up bars.
I fired twice on the run.
Both rounds struck the shooter in the center of mass, the kinetic force knocking him backward onto the asphalt.
The second shooter turned his weapon toward me, unleashing a three-round burst.
A bullet grazed my upper left shoulder, tearing through the pristine fabric of my service uniform and slicing across my flesh like a red-hot blade.
I didn't stop.
I closed the ten yards between us, driving my shoulder directly into his chest, taking him to the pavement.
We rolled across the gravel, the impact jarring my injured arm, but twenty years of infantry conditioning surged through my veins.
I twisted his wrist until the tendon snapped, wrenched the rifle from his grip, and delivered a devastating elbow strike to his jaw.
He went limp instantly.
The remaining two attackers, seeing the base rapid-response team converging with heavy machine guns, abandoned their dead and scrambled back into the vehicle.
The truck reversed at full throttle, tires smoking, and sped through the shattered gate into the forested highway beyond.
Base sirens wailed against the gray morning sky as medical personnel flooded the field.
I stood panting, blood soaking through the silver fabric of my uniform sleeve, my sidearm smoking in my hand.
Not a single cadet was harmed.
Vance ran up beside me, a combat tourniquet in hand, his face white with fury and horror.
"Katherine, you're bleeding out!"
"I'm fine," I breathed, kneeling beside the gunman I had shot dead.
I pulled down his tactical balaclava, revealing the sharp, stoic features of a professional foreign contractor.
Tattooed upon his right collarbone was a distinct emblem: a black falcon clutching a broken sword.
Beneath the bird was a single engraved phrase in Latin:
*Fidelis Usque Ad Mortem Familiae.*
Faithful unto death to the family.
Eleanor Mercer hadn't just sent a warning.
May you like
She had attempted to massacre forty children to show me that my stars could not protect the world I was trying to build.
***
