summary.
Rourke had exploited that secrecy from the beginning.
He had understood that the better Mara protected the people she had served beside, the easier she would be to discredit.
Shaw continued.
“Let’s discuss Lantern Ridge.
Your team entered the Korengal foothills to observe a suspected weapons-transfer route.”
“Yes.”
“You were instructed not to engage.”
“Yes.”
“And your team moved nearly eight hundred meters outside its original observation area.”
“Because the route had been compromised.”
“According to you.”
“According to every surviving member of Raven Six.”
Shaw smiled.
“Five survivors whose careers were threatened after the mission.”
“After Commander Rourke wrote the report blaming us.”
Rourke leaned toward his attorney and whispered something.
Mara watched his hands.
Those hands bothered her more than his face.
She remembered them gripping a radio handset in the command trailer months before Lantern Ridge.
She remembered the polished academy ring on his right hand.
She remembered thinking, back then, that Rourke was the kind of officer who never seemed surprised.
On the worst morning of her life, he had sounded calm too.
Shaw paced toward the jury panel.
“Isn’t it true, Ms.
Ellison, that your team ignored instructions, moved into an unauthorized position, became surrounded, and then blamed Commander Rourke when extraction became impossible?”
“No.”
“You were angry.”
“Yes.”
“Traumatized.”
“Yes.”
“You lost a teammate.”
Mara’s throat tightened.
“Yes.”
“And trauma can affect memory.”
“It can.”
Shaw spread his hands.
“Yet you ask this court to trust your memory over the official operational record.”
Mara answered quietly.
“No.
I’m asking this court to find out who wrote the official record.”
For the first time, a few people stopped smiling.
During a recess, Mara remained seated while attorneys moved around her.
A young lieutenant assigned to courtroom support approached carrying a glass pitcher.
“Ma’am, would you like some water?”
“Yes.
Thank you.”
He reached across the table.
Someone behind him made a joke Mara couldn’t hear.
The lieutenant turned his head.
His elbow struck the pitcher.
Cold water and ice poured over Mara’s hair, face, and sweater.
The lieutenant went white.
“Oh, God.
Ma’am, I’m sorry.”
Several people laughed.
One voice from the gallery said, “Guess the sniper missed that one.”
Another replied, “Maybe the pitcher was classified.”
Mara remained still.
The lieutenant grabbed napkins.
“I’m so sorry.”
“It’s fine,” she told him.
But she didn’t wipe the water away.
Instead she looked across the courtroom.
Rourke’s smile had disappeared.
Something about the water had pulled Mara backward three years.
Rain in the mountains.
Mud under her palms.
Sergeant Owen Calder trying to crawl despite a broken ankle.
Diego Ruiz smashing a damaged radio battery against his helmet because the connection kept dying.
And Thomas Lennox, her spotter, whispering that if they survived, he planned to spend an entire month somewhere flat.
Mara leaned toward the microphone.
“November ninth,” she said.
Shaw turned.
Judge Holt looked up.
“At 0438 hours, Sergeant Calder was injured when the southern slope collapsed beneath him.
At 0441, we detected movement along the eastern tree line.
At 0446, we transmitted an authenticated emergency extraction request.”
Shaw immediately stood.
“Your Honor, the witness is volunteering testimony outside the question.”
Judge Holt studied Mara.
“Ms.
Ellison?”
Mara’s eyes stayed on Rourke.
“At 0452, Commander Rourke personally answered us.”
Rourke stood halfway.
“That
