Washington D.C. | 2011
Mark's POV
The Pentagon. The bastion of the United States Department of Defense, or as I likened it, the anthill of military bureaucracy. I sat before the IG, waiting for my hearing to begin, thinking that the sooner this clusterfuck got over, the better. I never realized how much I loathed this place until I got out. Life in California, away from the Beltway politics, had taught me one thing that the Pentagon never could: Perspective.
"Alright, everyone, we will start this First Session of the Investigation into Operation 1020," the man at the center of the table announced. "Chaired by Inspector General William Steinbach, along with Major General Kick Grabaston and Major General Margaret Woodkin."
The air in the room was stale, recycled, and thick with tension.
"The investigation pertains to the failure of Air Force apparatus GMS Point Star L1 014-S," Steinbach continued, his voice dry as dust. "Seated with us is Major General Mark Naird, Deputy Commander of Space System Command."
IG William finished his initial brief, and the room fell into a heavy silence. I looked at all three panel members, trying to ascertain how to get by with this problem.
Kick Grabaston sat to the right, a smug expression plastered on his face. He was the last person I would look to for help, for he had been nothing but an asshole to me ever since I started working with him. He smelled blood in the water.
Major General Margaret Woodkin, to the left, was a stone statue. She was known to be strict in protocol matters; she didn't care about excuses, only regulations.
IG Steinbach in the center looked to be unclear as of yet on what stand to take. He was the fulcrum. I would have to paint the proper picture for either of them to be swayed.
At this point, after reviewing a file or two, IG Steinbach was ready to proceed further.
"The incident under investigation is dated August 17th, 2011, in the Tahir Valley, Afghanistan," he stated, looking over his glasses. "Major General, you are under investigation for the failure of GMS Point Star to locate and properly assist the extraction of the QRF sent to the designated point." He paused, letting the gravity of the operational failure hang in the air. "Major General, were you the designated Commanding Officer for the SSC on that night of August 17th?"
"Yes, Sir," I replied firmly, keeping my back straight, my face impassive.
"Where was your Commanding Officer at the time?" the follow-up was asked immediately.
"Lieutenant General Hardy was scheduled to travel to D.C. for his meeting with the Secretary of Defense, sir," I answered.
"So, you as Deputy Commander had sole command, Major General?" Steinbach asked. It wasn't a question but a fact.
"Yes, sir."
Steinbach leaned back, interlacing his fingers. "Tell us your account of the night of August 17th, Major General."
"The room was cold. It's always cold in the SSC command center," I began, my eyes losing focus on the IG as the memory pulled me back. "August 17th. 1400 hours."
Flashback
The heavy, reinforced doors of the Space Systems Command operations floor hissed shut behind me, sealing out the mundane hum of the Pentagon hallways. Inside, the atmosphere was a different frequency entirely—a low, rhythmic thrum of high-stakes competence. Rows of analysts sat bathed in the blue glow of monitors, the massive main screen dominating the front wall, displaying a high-resolution topographical map of the Tahir Valley.
"Room, attention!" a voice barked.
"As you were," I commanded, striding toward the central dais without breaking pace. "Report."
Colonel Brad Gregory, my deputy and a man I trusted with my life, stepped up to my side. He was holding a tablet, his face grim but composed.
"General GMS Point Star is currently completing its orbital insertion over the AO," Gregory reported, his finger tracing a trajectory on his screen. "We are three minutes out from optimal lock. The QRF is staged and holding for our signal."
I nodded, leaning over the main console. "Communication status?"
"Link with Operations Command in Afghanistan is green, sir," a comms officer called out from the pit. "We have a direct line to the ground team leader. Latency is sub-zero-point-five."
"Good," I said, my voice projecting clearly across the floor. "Listen up, everyone. We have a Quick Reaction Force going into a hot zone. Their eyes are blind without us. We are their flashlight. I want precise geo-locations refreshed every ten seconds. Constant surveillance on the extraction point and a five-mile radius around it. If a goat moves in that valley, I want to know its heart rate. Do I make myself clear?"
"Yes, sir!" the room chorused back.
"Initiate final burn for geostationary lock," I ordered.
"Initiating... burn complete," an engineer confirmed. "Satellite is stable. Thrusters are holding. We have picture."
The main screen flickered and then resolved into a crystal-clear, real-time thermal image of the valley floor. I could see the heat signatures of the extraction vehicles, the harsh terrain, the waiting silence of the desert.
"Target acquisition?" I asked.
"Locked," Gregory confirmed. "We are streaming data to the ground. Ops Command confirms receipt. They are green to go."
I watched the screen for ten minutes, the tension in my shoulders slowly uncoiling. It was a textbook setup. The satellite was a rock in the sky, the data stream was a river of pure intelligence, and the ground team had everything they needed. We were in the 'monitor and maintain' phase.
"Excellent work," I murmured to Gregory. "Keep the telemetry tight. I don't want that bird drifting an inch."
"Understood, sir. We've got it locked down."
I stepped back from the console, reaching for my coffee. That was when the vibration buzzed against my thigh.
I frowned. My personal phone was for emergencies only. I pulled it out, shielding the screen. Maggie.
I slid the unlock bar. "Maggie? I'm in the middle of an op, is everything—"
"Mark, you need to come. Now." Her voice was high, thin, and laced with a panic that sent a spike of adrenaline straight into my heart, bypassing my brain entirely.
"Calm down," I said, keeping my voice low, turning away from the ops floor. "What happened? Is it Erin?"
"It's Bradley. Oh god, Mark, it's Bradley. He's been in a fight. Harris called me... we're at St. Jude's. The doctors..." She was hyperventilating. "They wouldn't treat him... he passed out... Mark, please."
"A fight?" I repeated, the concept not computing. "Is he okay?"
"I sent you a picture. Just... just look."
I pulled the phone away from my ear. A message notification popped up. I tapped it.
The image that filled my screen froze the blood in my veins.
It was my son. But it wasn't the confident, stoic boy I saw every morning. His face was a roadmap of violence. His left eye was swollen shut, purple and angry. There was dried blood caked on his chin from a split lip. His knuckles were raw. He looked small, pale, and broken on a hospital gurney.
The General in me vanished. The tactician, the officer, the man who commanded satellites and soldiers—he was gone. All that was left was a father staring at his injured cub.
My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic, terrifying rhythm. Gravely injured. That was what she had said. Passed out.
I looked up at the main screen. The thermal image of the valley was calm. The data streams were steady. Green lights across the board.
Logic kicked in, warring with the panic. The satellite was parked. The hard part—the insertion and the link-up—was done. The rest was maintenance. The Operations Command on the ground in Afghanistan had the feed. They were running the extraction. My role here, for the next four hours, was essentially supervisory. To watch. To wait.
My son is in the hospital.
I looked at Colonel Gregory. He was watching me, sensing the shift in my demeanor.
"Gregory," I said, my voice sounding strange to my own ears.
He stepped closer. "Sir?"
"I have a family emergency," I said, the words tasting like ash. "Grave. I have to leave."
Gregory's eyes widened slightly, but his training held. "Is everything alright, General?"
"No," I said sharply. I looked at the big screen one last time. "Status?"
"Stable, sir. Link is solid. We're just feeding data to the QRF now. It's a waiting game."
"Right," I said. I made the calculation. The probability of a system failure in the next two hours was less than 0.05%. The probability of my son needing me was 100%. "I am transferring command to you, Colonel. You have control. Maintain the feed. If anything—anything—deviates by a decimal point, you get the engineers on it. Do not let that link drop."
"Yes, sir," Gregory said, straightening up. "I have control. Go. We've got this."
"Log it," I instructed the recording officer nearby. "Command transferred to Colonel Gregory at 1545 hours."
"Logged, sir."
I didn't look back. I couldn't. If I looked back, the weight of the stars would crush me. I turned on my heel and walked out of the command center, the hiss of the doors closing behind me sounding like an airlock sealing.
I practically ran through the corridors of the SSC, my mind racing not with orbital mechanics or extraction protocols, but with images of my son's battered face. I needed to get to the car.. I needed to get to the hospital.
I sat in the back of the transport, my phone clutched in my hand like a lifeline, staring at that picture. I reasoned with myself. The mission is fine. Gregory is capable. It's just a surveillance op now. I am not needed.
I convinced myself. I had to.
End Flashback
I looked at IG Steinbach, my hands clasped on the table in front of me, steady despite the memory.
"I left the SSC at 1550 hours," I said quietly. "The system was green. The handoff was logged. I believed... I believed my duty there was done, and my duty as a father was beginning."
I paused, the weight of the next sentence heavy on my tongue.
"It was exactly twenty-eight minutes after I boarded my transport that the UIO hit the GMS transponder. And everything began to crumble."
Flashback
The sterile silence of the hospital room was a different kind of tension than the command center, but it was just as heavy. Bradley was finally sleeping, sedated and stable in the clinic room. His breathing was rhythmic, a small mercy that allowed the adrenaline to finally drain out of Maggie.
I stood by the window, holding her. She was trembling, fine tremors that racked her body now that the crisis mode had deactivated. I rubbed her back, murmuring things that felt inadequate against the sight of our son's battered face. "He's tough, Mags. He's going to be alright. We're here."
She nodded against my chest, her grip on my jacket tight. For a moment, the world outside—the SSC, the satellite, the extraction—felt a million miles away. I was just a husband and a father.
Then, my phone buzzed again.
The vibration against my hip was the reminder of what I had left. I checked the caller ID. Colonel Gregory.
A cold stone dropped into my stomach. Gregory wouldn't call unless the world was ending.
"I have to take this," I said, my voice dropping automatically into command pitch. I stepped into the hallway, letting the heavy door click shut. "Report."
"General." Gregory's voice was tight, stripped of all protocol, vibrating with controlled panic. "We have a situation. A catastrophic situation."
"Give it to me," I ordered, staring at the linoleum floor.
"Twenty-eight minutes after you left, sir... an unidentified object impacted GMS Point Star. It wasn't on any trajectory map. It just... appeared."
"Damage assessment?"
"Kinetic impact to the starboard array," Gregory rattled off. "It knocked the bird out of geostationary lock. We lost the feed, sir. Total blackout for twelve minutes while we tried to stabilize and maneuver back into position."
"Twelve minutes," I repeated, the blood draining from my face. "The QRF?"
There was a silence on the other end that was louder than a scream.
"They landed during the blackout, sir," Gregory said, his voice cracking. "They went in blind. Ops Command lost their eyes. They walked right into a localized ambush they couldn't see coming."
I gripped the phone so hard the plastic creaked. "Status."
"Two officers Killed in Action, sir," Gregory whispered. "Three wounded. The survivors have retreated into the mountain range to hide before we can attempt a secondary extraction. But the satellite... it was knocked out of the operations area. The thrusters are firing, but we need time to reattach the link and get back on station. They are dark, General. They are alone out there."
Two KIA.
The words echoed in the empty hospital hallway. Two men dead. Because the eye in the sky blinked. Because I wasn't there to make the call? Or would it have happened anyway? It didn't matter. I was the Commander.
"Gregory, listen to me," I said, my voice sounding like grinding stones. "Issue the emergency declaration immediately. Wake up everyone. I want every available asset focused on re-acquiring that signal. Keep Operations Command informed on every second of progress. Do not let them think we have abandoned them."
"Yes, sir."
"I will be back at the control station in thirty minutes," I said. "Hold the line, Colonel."
"Understood."
I hung up. For a second, I leaned my forehead against the cool wall of the corridor, closing my eyes. The image of Bradley's beaten face flashed in my mind, superimposed over the thermal image of a valley in Afghanistan where two men lay dead.
I straightened up. I had to go back in.
I walked back into the room. Maggie looked up from the chair next to Bradley's bed. She saw my face, and her own expression shifted instantly. She didn't ask who it was. She knew.
"Mark?" she asked softly.
"It's bad, Maggie," I said, my voice rough. "Things today... they are getting worse. There was an incident with the operation. Men are dead." I looked at her, trying to convey the magnitude of it without breaking down. "I have to go back. And... I may be in trouble at the office. Serious trouble."
Maggie looked at me. She looked at our sleeping, broken son. And then, she stood up. The fear vanished, replaced by the steel I had fallen in love with years ago at the Pentagon. She walked over to me, fixed my collar, and looked me in the eye.
"Then go," she said firmly, regaining control for both of us. "Do what you have to do, General. Save who you can." She glanced back at Bradley. "Our son is safe. He is taken care of. I am here. I have this."
"I'm sorry," I whispered.
"Don't be," she said. "Go."
I nodded, turned, and walked out of the hospital, leaving one war zone to return to another.
End flashback
"By the time I would make it back GMS Point Star had floated out of operational area and 15 US Marines were isolated, injured and without help in Afghan Valleys"