Chapter 1 - The Punch Nobody Expected

The big soldier swung for her face. Captain Avery Mitchell ducked, caught his wrist, and heard a tiny metallic click inside his glove.

"Stop!" she shouted.

Too late. Something hard scraped her cheek. A red line appeared beneath her eye.

Twenty trainees went silent. Staff Sergeant Cole Briggs stepped back and lifted his hands as if she had attacked him.

"She tried to break my arm," he said.

Avery stared at the split seam of his white wrap. A thin strip of black plastic protruded from the cloth. Not tape. Not padding. A weighted insert forbidden in training.

Master Sergeant Thomas Hale blew his whistle. "Both of you off the mat. Now."

Briggs smiled for the watching soldiers. "Can't handle a real fight, ma'am?"

Avery could have dropped him. Her grandfather had taught her to recognize a loaded punch before she could drive a car. But a fight here was never only a fight. It was a public test, and somebody had arranged an audience.

"I can handle a real fight," she said. "What I won't do is pretend that glove is legal."

The trainees looked at his hands. Briggs curled them into fists.

Avery had arrived at Fort Calder three days earlier to evaluate injuries in the close-combat program. Seventeen trainees had been pulled from duty that summer. The paperwork called them accidents. The bones told a different story.

Colonel Mercer, commander of the training brigade, stepped through the gym doorway. His crisp uniform seemed out of place among sweaty shirts and rubber mats.

"Captain Mitchell," he said, surveying the room. "I hear you've been disrupting instruction."

"Someone put a weight inside Sergeant Briggs's hand wrap. I want it secured."

Mercer didn't look at the wrap. "What I want is discipline."

Hale approached Briggs, hand out. "Turn over the equipment."

Briggs hesitated. For one moment the smirk vanished. Then a trainee at the edge of the mat coughed sharply. Briggs ripped the wrap away and threw it toward a rolling cart.

Avery moved, but a boot kicked the cart into her path. White cloth vanished under a stack of towels.

"Everyone stays," Avery ordered.

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The gym door clicked shut behind Mercer. He turned the deadbolt, then spoke so softly only the front row could hear.

"Captain," he said, "you should have taken the punch."