He didn’t smile.
The test was already underway. They just didn’t know it yet.
Mercer adjusted his visor, zooming in on the heat bloom of six bodies moving through the trees.
Let’s see if Matthis figures it out in time.
The rain hadn’t let up, and now it hissed off the tree canopy like oil on a skillet. Visibility dropped. Sound carried weird through the wet.
First Lieutenant Reid Matthis lay behind a moss-covered stump, visor pulled low as his HUD tracked First Squad from Second Platoon moving into the kill zone.
They were good. Disciplined. Their TES-X signals painted them in clean blue icons, spacing tight, heads on a swivel. Their rifles — sim-modified M7s — registered hot, ready to “fire” laser pulses synced with their recoil modules and blank adapters.
Everything was proceeding perfectly.
Which was what worried him.
He narrowed his eyes. “Where the hell are the other squads?”
Only six signals. First Squad, clearly. The rest of Second Platoon — Second, Third, and Weapons Squads — should be stacked along the southern ridge, blocking escape. But no movement. No pings. No sound.
“Vic,” Matthis said, voice low. “Where’s the rest of Spectre?”
Vic frowned. Glanced at his forearm tablet. Nothing.
Matthis’s stomach twisted.
Something was off.
Vic tapped his mic. “All Spectre elements, report status.”
Silence.
Then—
“Contact front!”
Gunfire erupted.
Crack-crack-crack — not real rounds, but the TES-X blank rifles thundering like they meant it. Lasers streaked through the air, visible only through the HUD as faint red trails. Half of First Squad lit up — vests chirping, visors flashing damage overlays.
“Oh crap — they see us!” someone shouted.
“Back up, back —!”
Matthis twisted to Vic. “It’s a feint — Spectre’s bait. We’ve been made!”
He keyed to Travis. “Reorient west! Collapse fire onto—”
Too late.
Third Platoon surged from the underbrush — Reapers, full force, rifles glowing with laser strobes as they stormed up the flank.
Matthis’s squads scattered.
Simulated fire lit the ridge. Digital overlays mapped out where suppression fire was hitting. One AR indicator showed a virtual grenade go off in their rear element — two blue icons blinked red, disabled by system rules.
“Smoke! Now!” Matthis barked.
Vic yanked the pin on a 2033 smoke canister — thermal and IR-dampening, designed for both cover and AR masking — and lobbed it toward the right slope.
Pop-hissss.
A thick fog bloomed, churning like ghost vapor as rain pushed it sideways.
“Reaper elements closing from the south!” someone shouted.
Matthis spun. “Fourth Platoon — damn, they’re pinching us!”
Red icons flooded the HUD. Gravediggers. They were coming hard, simulating mortar splash with visual overlays that forced his men into scatter movement. Their AI was working perfectly — smart fire arcs forced breaks in Matthis’s cohesion.
He didn’t hesitate.
“Fall back! Move! Use the smoke — bound back to Delta!”
They moved — some tagged “wounded,” limping as motion feedback slowed their lower limbs, others “dead,” visors blacked out, watching helplessly from the ground.
Matthis stayed behind, herding the rest, rifle at the ready.
His test wasn’t whether he could win.
It was whether he could lead in the chaos.
And Mercer was watching.
The scent of wet canvas, hot plastic from field servers, and burned cordite clung to the TOC like smoke in a barbershop. The rain hadn’t let up. It beat against the roof in steady rhythms — background noise for the after-action debrief.
Lieutenant Colonel Patrick Brenner stood with arms crossed, an unreadable expression on his face. Combat fatigues soaked around the cuffs, boots caked in Italian mud. His eyes tracked Mercer first, then shifted to First Lieutenant Matthis, who stood at parade rest, helmet under his arm, uniform streaked with grime and sweat.
“You trained him well, Captain,” Brenner said without preamble. “Held it together when the op flipped. Got his people out. That’s what I like to see.”
Matthis opened his mouth to speak, then hesitated. He cleared his throat. “Respectfully, sir, it was Vic — Sergeant Santana — and the squad leaders are the ones who ran the platoon out of that meat grinder. I just held the leash.”
Mercer gave a faint smirk behind him, arms folded. Brenner chuckled, eyes never leaving Matthis.
“Good answer. You taught him well,” he said, glancing over at Mercer. “He already knows it’s the NCOs who run the platoon, not the officers.”
Mercer met the battalion commander’s gaze. Held it for a beat. “He’ll make us proud, sir.”
Brenner nodded once. That was all it took.
The room fell into silence for a moment. Then Brenner’s jaw flexed. He dropped his hands to his hips, a shift in weight punctuating what was coming next.
“I just got a warning order.” His voice dropped a register. “Division’s flagging our battalion for forward posture in the Baltics. Could be tied to a big exercise spinning up around the first of May.”
Mercer’s eyes narrowed. Matthis shifted his grip on his helmet but didn’t speak.
“Nothing’s official yet,” Brenner continued. “But if this goes the way it smells, we’re wheels-up with a reinforced task force. Could be Poland. Could be Gotland.”
Silence returned, heavier this time.
“I’ll put you in for that Ranger School slot,” Brenner added, looking at Matthis. “But if this deployment drops, I can’t guarantee it sticks. You might lose the date.”
Matthis gave a single nod. “Understood, sir.”
“I’ll fight to hold it or get you a new slot down the line if it gets scrubbed. Your packet’s strong. You’ve earned it.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Brenner nodded again. No salutes, no more words. He stepped back out into the rain, alone.
Mercer looked at Matthis, then turned back to his field monitors. Outside, the storm deepened.
The next war wasn’t coming. It was already moving. He could feel it in his bones.
The room was cold, the lights dimmed to half, and the soft hum of the HVAC filled the silence between spoken words. Rows of officers in MultiCam uniforms filled the seats — company commanders, battalion staff, and brigade planners. Most had flown back from field training less than thirty-six hours ago. Tired and exhausted.
Brigadier General Carter Ashford stood at the front, flanked by a pair of intel officers from the S2 and a large operations display screen dividing the world into three theaters — Eastern Europe, the Russian Far East, and the North Pacific.
“This isn’t routine,” Ashford began, voice clipped, his West Point cadence sharpened with combat-seasoned restraint. “What you’re about to see is classified, SECRET-NOFORN. No one is to discuss this with anyone outside of this room.”
The screen shifted — zooming in to reveal the Leningrad Military District, a broad swath of northwestern Russia encompassing Saint Petersburg, Murmansk, and the surrounding Leningrad and Arkhangelsk Oblasts, stretching from the Barents Sea in the north to the Gulf of Finland in the west. Its reach hugged the Finnish border for over a thousand kilometers, ran along Lake Ladoga, and extended south along the borders of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Major transport corridors from Vologda and Moscow funneled directly into the district’s staging areas — now glowing red on the screen.