Chapter 6
The wail of the alarm filled the damp air as more soldiers poured out of the barracks, their camouflage uniforms hastily buttoned, weapons held at the low ready as they formed defensive perimeters around the command block. Commander Vance stood frozen for a fraction of a second, weighing centuries of military protocol against the grim reality unfolding before his eyes. Protocol dictated that civilian prisoners like Elena were to be locked inside the secure holding cells beneath the barracks during any level-one security alert. But protocol had been written for an entirely different kind of war, long before automated sabotage and long-range kinetic strikes became the norm.
“Sergeant Miller!” Vance barked over the din, signaling to one of the junior soldiers who had scrambled behind the concrete pillar. “Secure the fuel line valves at Sector Four immediately! Move!”
“Sir, we don’t have eyes on the ridge!” Miller yelled back, hesitating near the doorway. “If we cross the open tarmac without counter-sniper cover, we’re walking into an open kill zone!”
Vance’s jaw tightened. He looked down at the sniper rifle resting in the wooden rack, then turned his gaze back to Elena. Her pale face remained entirely composed, her dark ponytail swaying slightly as she slowly shook her head. She knew what he was thinking, and the sheer audacity of the thought made his stomach knot. Trusting an inmate with a live weapon during an active attack was a court-martial offense punishable by immediate field execution. Yet, standing there in the flashing red light of the emergency strobes, Vance realized that waiting for the regional garrison meant twenty minutes of delay—twenty minutes during which the fuel lines would be systematically dismantled from six hundred yards away.
“Parker,” Vance said, his voice dropping into a dangerous, low register as he stepped directly in front of her. “If I hand you that rifle again, and you miss, or worse, if you turn the barrel on my men, I’ll put a round through your chest myself before you can pull the trigger a second time. Do you understand me?”
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Elena met his gaze without blinking. Her dark eyes reflected the flashing red emergency lights like drops of blood. “The wind has shifted from the west to the northwest,” she said quietly, ignoring his threat entirely. “The crosshair needs four clicks of windage and half a mil of holdover. If you want those fuel lines to stay intact, you need someone who knows how to shoot through a cross-breeze.”
Without waiting for his formal permission, Elena reached past him, her fingers wrapping firmly around the cold steel of the rifle stock. She lifted it effortlessly from the rack, checking the chamber in one fluid, practiced motion. Vance didn’t stop her. Instead, he ripped the radio handset off his shoulder, his eyes fixed on the distant ridge line where the second muzzle flash suddenly bloomed like a tiny star in the grey haze.
