“Talk to me, Goose.”

It was five-thirty in the morning at PT formation and Holly wasn’t quite awake yet. She shot Sarn’t Major Cox a wry look. “Really? The sun isn’t even up yet, Sarn’t Major, and you’re dropping lines from Top Gun?”

“You would prefer maybe Heartbreak Ridge?”

She squinted at the older enlisted man. “Are you on something?”

He grunted. “Sleep deprivation. Busy night around the battalion.”

“Tell me about it.” She paused as his statement sank in. “Wait. What else happened?”

“Well, other than the fun in Diablo Company, Chaos had two arrested for domestic incidents on post. I caught the staff duty NCO asleep at the desk and we won’t even discuss what I caught the staff duty officer doing.”

Holly hissed between her teeth. “Is Sleeping Beauty still an NCO?”

“He won’t be for much longer,” Cox said. “Sadly, I have no control over the officer in charge.”

“Okay, fine, I’ll bite. What was he doing?”

“She was painting her toenails in the ops office.”

Holly pinched the bridge of her nose and shook her head. “Tell me you’re making that up?”

He glared at her and she wondered if he’d slept at all. It wouldn’t be the first time either of them had functioned on little to no sleep. “Do I look like the kind of creative genius who could make something like that up?”

She chewed on the inside of her lip. “Well, it could always be worse.”

Cox spat into the dirt. “It could. Indeed it could.”

“So want to tell me why I’m doing PT with you this morning and not with my company?”

They both paused, saluting the flag as the cannon went off across the installation at the Corps headquarters building. Once the last note of Reveille echoed across the formation, they dropped their salutes and Holly fell into step next to her mentor and friend. They started out at a slow jog down Battalion Avenue, heading toward the main road that intersected main post.

“The bar fight last week. Talk to me about that.”

“This again? This is the incident that just keeps giving at this point.” She sucked in a deep breath. “Got a call from the Heights PD that we had a couple of troopers getting ready to get arrested. Captain Bello and I went out and got them out of there before shit got real.”

“Which soldiers, First Sergeant?”

She glanced over at the unemotional question. “Sarn’t Pizarro. Who is most likely in an abusive relationship with Sergeant Freeman from my company. Private Balboa—the roof jumper—is trying to be a friend to Freeman but is basically losing his shit over a girl who doesn’t want him.”

“Two NCOs and a private. What the hell is happening to the Army?”

“Tell me about it.” They reached Hood Road and turned back. The run wasn’t brutal, not by a long shot. Cox needed information and she was used to this tactic. Hell, she used it more often than not when she needed to have a long chat with someone that didn’t quite require paperwork.

“And the incident on the roof? Want to talk to me about your Spiderwoman propensities?”

She swallowed the sudden dryness in her throat. “Flashbacks to Korea, Sarn’t Major.”

He looked over at her, his eyes filled with sympathy and something else. Something that told her she was about to get a boot applied to a strategic pressure point. “You’re still letting that eat at you.”

It wasn’t a question. Nor did it require a response.

She let the silence drag on as they continued.

“Pizarro was arrested last week, right?”

“Right. After he and Freeman violated their respective no-contact orders.” She swiped her forehead against her shoulder. “I suppose there’s a reason you’re asking me about all this, Sarn’t Major?”

“I need your assessment of the situation.”

“Which part, Sarn’t Major?”

“The part where I’ve got a senior NCO in a world of trouble and I can’t seem to find a single record of it anywhere. Not a counseling statement, not a blotter report. Nothing. It’s like I’m imagining things.”

Another pause as Holly considered her words. Carefully because she knew her opinion was highly biased now. “I think it’s not outside the realm of possible that Delgado is protecting Pizarro. I think they want to take Pizarro downrange. He’s a known quantity. It’s easy enough to see why Delgado might try to hide Pizarro’s misconduct.”

Cox spat onto the dry asphalt. “What if it’s the commander?”

She scrubbed her hand over face and slicked her hair back where some of it had come down from the hair-tie. She felt ill but she honestly couldn’t see Sal doing something like that. Not now. Maybe before she knew him. But not now. And she fully recognized it could easily be because of her feelings toward him. “I don’t think Bello would do that.” But the seed had been planted and now she had to wonder.

Cox slowed to a walk as they returned to the battalion area. LTC Gilliad and Sal approached from the headquarters.

Sal was rigid, his body tense, his back stiff. Holly and Cox saluted the officers.

“So he up to speed on the plan?”

“Roger that, Sarn’t Major,” Gilliad said.

Holly looked between the three men. “Can I ask what plan?”

“The psych docs are referring Sarn’t Freeman to a medical board,” Sal said quietly.

Holly folded her hands at the small of her back, a physical reminder that she was the most junior ranking individual in the small huddle. “Okay. I guess I’m just a little tired or maybe I don’t have enough oxygen going to my brain at the moment but I’m still a little lost about the whole thing. Say that again?”

“Sarn’t Freeman is being referred to a med board. She’s being found medically unfit for duty,” Sal said softly. “Preexisting PTSD aggravated by deployment to a combat zone.”

Holly ground her teeth as the awareness of what that meant sank in. “Which means we can’t take any judicial action against Freeman while this is going on. We’re stuck with her,” she said slowly, fighting the tightness in her chest and the ugliness of her thoughts.

She couldn’t explain where the anger came from but a burning frustration tore through her lungs and set her blood on fire. She was suddenly, violently, furious. With the commander for not taking action sooner. With Cox for not letting her deal with Freeman before it had come to this.

With all of them.

“First Sergeant, you have something you want to say?” Cox asked, his voice low and laced with the last shred of patience. Holly recognized the signs. She just didn’t care at the moment.

“Sarn’t Major, roger, I do. This is complete bullshit. Do the separation packets. Let’s get rid of the soldiers we can’t train and get the ones we can on the range. We’re wasting time we don’t have. Now we’ve got an NCO we can’t get rid of and we can’t replace because we screwed around with paperwork for too long.”

“First Sergeant!”

Holly closed her eyes and snapped her mouth shut but it was too late. Just like always. Her mouth engaged before her brain and sadly, she didn’t think the battalion commander was up for a game of take backsies.

* * *

She’d lost her mind. That was the only explanation Sal could come up with for why Holly had just piped off like that to the battalion commander. Maybe the fight the other night had knocked her brain loose.

Sal closed his eyes hoping, praying that she wouldn’t do what he figured she was about to do.

That maybe she’d find some tact and not tell the battalion commander how she thought he ought to be running his battalion.

But oh no, she did exactly as he’d learned to expect from the out-of-control first sergeant.

“Sir, this is not that complex of a problem. Commanders are concerned with the metrics. How many people are deployable. How many on profile. You’re asking the wrong questions, sir.”

Gilliad braced his hands on his hips. “What questions should we be asking?”

“We shouldn’t be asking if Freeman or Pizarro or Balboa are going downrange with us. We need to identify those we know are going—put them in a separate box from the maybes. And have a completely separate box for the nos. We know Balboa isn’t deploying. Not after this stunt. We know Pizarro is really high risk at this point—he goes in the maybes, if and only if this investigation clears him and we find out that he’s not hitting his girlfriend. I wouldn’t take him either way. He’s high-risk now; what’s he going to be like after yet another deployment? Get the other commanders to break out their formations into those three pots and figure out what we’ve got. Then we mass effort on getting those who are not going and get them out of the unit. Otherwise, we’re going to saddle the rear detachment with a shit show that is going to distract from your mission downrange.”

“And how do you propose to do that, First Sergeant? I can’t even get a daily personnel status report that’s accurate, let alone focus on separations packets.”

“Sir, you could stand up the rear detachment early. Set up the leadership, give them a cadre of half a dozen competent dudes and dudettes and let them unleash the fury on the chapter packets.”

She was on a roll now. Sal could see the excited light in her eyes, the animated set of her shoulders. It was fascinating watching her, watching the passion burning through her words.

Gilliad sighed heavily, rubbing his index finger along his upper lip. “She’s got a point, Sarn’t Major.”

“She does,” Cox said. “Clearly, however, I need to reacquaint my first sergeant here with a few lessons on tact.”

Gilliad laughed and it was the first time Sal could remember ever seeing the man smile. “Clearly, she’s your protégé in every way.”

Sal watched the exchange, baffled by the easy way Holly had transformed flagrant disrespect toward a senior commissioned officer into a miniature strategy session. A successful one at that, because the boss was listening to her.

“Why didn’t you ever go to OCS?” Sal asked Holly suddenly.

A strange look came over her face. There for only an instant and then it was gone. “I never wanted to give up leading soldiers, sir.”

Cox shifted, drawing attention back on the boss. “Sir, I can have the manning drawn up for you by close of business.”

LTC Gilliad pinned Holly with a hard look. “I appreciate your candor, First Sergeant.”

Holly lifted one eyebrow and it was all Sal could do to stop himself from reaching over and putting his hand over her mouth. He was tempted. So tempted.

But she surprised them all when she merely said, “Sir, my job is to give you the truth. Yours is to figure out what to do with it.”

Gilliad nodded and turned to go. Cox fell into step with his commander., leaving Sal and Holly alone.

It was Sal who broke the silence. “I think I’m going to be a little pissed if you get yourself fired. You are far too entertaining to lose because you get yourself in trouble.” Sal shook his head, relief crawling over his skin that she’d escaped unscathed. “I don’t think there is a single other individual in this battalion who could have pulled off that hat trick.”

Holly shrugged but Sal didn’t miss the forced nonchalance in the gesture. She was wound up and it showed in the set of her shoulders, the tension in her stance.

There were too many things twisted up inside him from watching her. Too many realities came crashing together in that moment, too many possibilities that collided.

“I have a job to do. Sarn’t Freeman’s medical board complicates things; it doesn’t make them impossible.”

Everything from her words to the set of her shoulders said otherwise.

“I thought you wanted Freeman to get into counseling,” Sal said quietly.

“There are things we can do to help people who want help. If she’s part of this—if she’s tied to Balboa damn near jumping off the roof, then there is no place for her in this formation.”

Pain laced her words. She was a woman on the edge no matter how much she was trying to play tough right now.

Holly glanced at Sal. “How is Balboa?”

“Stable. That’s really all I know at this point,” Sal said. “I’m hoping to have an appointment later with the entire medical team but it depends on how he’s doing.”

She nodded, then tried to leave.

And he wasn’t having any of it.