She reached out tentatively for the paper, half wondering if it would unravel everything she thought she knew about her place in the corps. As her fingers brushed the edges, Kane’s eyes met hers with a challenge, and that’s when she realized the note wasn’t addressed to her. It was addressed to Major Steele. And worse—it was in her handwriting.

Serena’s eyes scan the page, her pulse thudding in her ears. The words are clear, printed in her unmistakable block letters: “CONFIRM GREENLIGHT ON OP—REDEPLOYMENT NOT OPTIONAL. BURN AFTER READING.” Below that, a time and date—one that hadn’t happened yet. Tomorrow. 0400 hours.

A hundred thoughts race through her head. She never wrote this. She never wrote this. But the handwriting is flawless. It’s hers, no doubt. Years of field reports, logs, and mission briefs had carved her penmanship into muscle memory. But this… this was planted.

Kane watches her, not like a predator waiting to pounce, but like a chess player waiting for a move. One wrong word, and she could be branded a traitor. One false step, and everything—her rank, her future, her reputation—would burn down around her.

“I didn’t write this,” she says, finally, holding the note as if it were a live grenade.

“No?” Kane folds his arms. “Because it’s a damn good match. And I have a forensic specialist upstairs who says otherwise.”

Serena’s lips part, but nothing comes out. The squad shifts behind her. Tension crackles. She hears whispers, someone coughs. She turns to look at them—faces she’s trained with, bled with. None meet her gaze.

Except one.

Private Daniels. Wide-eyed, stiff, standing too straight. Too still.

A flicker of something—guilt? Fear?—shimmers in his eyes before he forces it away.

Serena narrows her eyes.

“Permission to investigate this further, Staff Sergeant,” she says, still clutching the note.

Kane tilts his head. “You want to investigate your own betrayal?”

“I want to prove my innocence,” she says, her voice like steel wrapped in velvet.

There’s a pause. Then Kane nods, just once. “You have twelve hours. But if you even think about running, Reyes… I’ll have every drone in the base tracking your heartbeat.”

He turns sharply and walks off, leaving her standing in the thick silence.

Twelve hours. No backup. No official authority. And someone inside her unit wants her gone.

She heads straight to the barracks, the note tucked inside her breast pocket. Her mind works faster than her boots. If someone planted the note, they had access to her handwriting. Her belongings. Her schedule. That narrows it down to the inner circle. And if they’re trying to set her up before a mission launch, the timing is surgical.

She enters the barracks, and Daniels stiffens again. He’s seated on his bunk, lacing his boots, but it’s all wrong—he’s too focused, too mechanical.

“Private,” she says coolly, “walk with me.”

Daniels glances up, pale. “Yes, Corporal.”

They step outside, the sun brutal against the concrete. She walks until they’re behind the admin building, out of sight. Then she spins on him.

“Tell me the truth, Daniels. Did you put that note there?”

He flinches. “No, ma’am.”

“Don’t lie. You looked like you saw a ghost when Kane pulled it out.”

“I—I didn’t know he found it! I just…” His voice cracks. “I didn’t mean for it to go that far.”

Bingo.

Serena steps closer. “Talk. Now.”

Daniels trembles. “It was Sergeant Vance. He made me do it. Said if I didn’t, he’d make sure I failed out of the program. He had a copy of your mission reports. He traced your handwriting. He—he said it was just a scare tactic. That it wouldn’t actually be used.”

Serena’s breath turns to ice. Vance. Of course. He’d been gunning for a promotion for months, and when Serena was fast-tracked for the same role, tension between them grew teeth.

“And the mission tomorrow? Is it real?”

Daniels hesitates, then nods slowly. “That part… yes. It’s real. But not authorized. Not fully. Vance has been in contact with Steele. Something about rerouting a convoy and making a drop outside protocol. He said no one would notice if it got done fast.”

Illegal deployment. Rogue op. Fabricated orders. Her mind spins. If this mission goes through, not only is she the scapegoat, but Vance walks away with field creds—and Steele, whoever he’s really working with, keeps his hands clean.

Serena grabs Daniels by the collar. “You’re coming with me.”

“To where?”

“To make this right.”

They sneak into comms, bypassing the security log with Daniels’ clearance. Serena downloads encrypted correspondence from Vance’s private inbox—he was sloppy, assuming fear would keep others from snooping. But she’s careful. She screenshots everything, drops it to a flash drive, and deletes the traces of her access.

Then she does something bolder. She opens the base-wide comms server and uploads a report to Internal Command—flagged urgent—complete with the forged note, Daniels’ confession (which she records on her phone), and every one of Vance’s messages.

She includes one line in her transmission: “If I go dark in the next twelve hours, this is why.”

Her finger hovers over the ‘Send’ button.

Daniels is shaking beside her. “He’ll know it was me.”

“If we do this right,” she says, pressing send, “he’ll be in shackles before he has the chance.”

The next few hours are chaos.

Serena returns to her bunk like nothing happened. She cleans her rifle. She even cracks a smile when Kane passes by, though he doesn’t return it. Her stomach twists, but she doesn’t show it.

Then, just past midnight, the alarm goes off.

Unauthorized deployment detected. All units report for lockdown.

Boots thunder. Orders are shouted. Lights flash red.

Serena stands at attention outside her bunk as two MPs storm toward Vance’s quarters. He emerges half-dressed, confused, angry—until they shove him to the ground and cuff him. He sees her. Their eyes lock.

“You did this,” he snarls.

“No,” she replies calmly. “You did.”

The MPs drag him off, and moments later, Major Steele is called to Command. She watches from the shadows as he’s questioned under floodlights. His smirk fades when they show him the data dump.

It takes less than ten minutes for the higher-ups to ground the mission permanently.

By dawn, Serena is summoned.

Kane waits for her in the war room, alone. His face is unreadable.

“You recorded Daniels?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You cracked the server?”

“I was careful.”

“You leaked the data to Internal Command?”

“I did what I had to.”

Kane stares at her for a long moment, then leans back in his chair. That same twitch of a smirk plays on his face.

“You’re damn lucky you’re good at your job.”

“I didn’t rely on luck.”

He nods slowly. “You exposed a rogue op, a forged deployment, and saved our division from an international incident.”

Serena raises her chin. “And proved my innocence.”

“That too.”

There’s a beat of silence. Then Kane pulls a fresh piece of paper from his desk and slides it toward her.

A promotion request. Her name typed at the top. Sergeant.

“Effective immediately,” he says. “Pending your signature.”

Her hand doesn’t shake as she signs it.

She steps out of the war room and into the rising sun. The base hums with renewed order, but beneath it all, she feels something shift. Not just in rank or reputation—but in the way her fellow soldiers look at her. Respect. Real respect.

Daniels meets her gaze from across the quad. He gives a nervous but sincere nod.

She nods back.

No victory is clean. But this one is hers.

And now… she’s just getting started.