The hearing room was smaller than I expected — a plain conference room repurposed with a long table at the front for the review board, three officers I didn't recognize flanking General Cole in the center chair, Colonel Reyes seated to one side as a witness rather than a judge for once. Major Voss sat across the aisle from Marlowe and me, his expression carefully composed, betraying nothing of the pressure Reyes had told me he was under.
Marlowe had walked me through exactly how this would go the night before, and I'd rehearsed my answers enough times that they felt almost mechanical by the time Cole called the session to order.
"This board is convened to review the inquiry filed by Major Voss regarding Corporal Johnathan's conduct during the warehouse recovery operation, and subsequent conduct during the recent engagement with hostile forces at Main Base's western perimeter," Cole said, voice carrying the flat, formal cadence of a man who'd done this a hundred times before and hated every occasion equally. "Major Voss, you may present your findings."
Voss stood, smoothing his uniform, and launched into a presentation that was, I had to admit, more measured than I'd expected — no wild accusations, just a careful laying out of the deleted access logs, the unreported sub-level, the depot incident and the witness statement that came with it. He spoke without notes, every fact arranged in a sequence clearly designed to build toward one conclusion, his voice pleasant and unhurried the entire time, the same tone he'd used at the ceremony weeks ago.
"The pattern here is not one of a single lapse in judgment," Voss said, near the end, addressing the board directly rather than me. "It is a pattern of a soldier who has consistently made unilateral decisions about what his superiors are entitled to know. I would ask this board to consider not only what has already come to light, but what that pattern suggests about what may not have."
Marlowe let him finish entirely before she stood, unhurried, her presence somehow filling the room more completely than Voss's had despite her smaller frame. "The defense does not dispute that Corporal Johnathan failed to fully disclose the contents of the warehouse sub-level in his after-action report. We concede that point outright and accept whatever reprimand this board deems appropriate for that failure."
I watched something flicker across Voss's face — surprise, maybe, at the concession, or perhaps suspicion that it was coming too easily, his careful composure cracking just enough for me to catch it.
"However," Marlowe continued, "we contest the relevance and admissibility of the depot incident testimony, on the grounds that the witness statements underpinning Major Voss's theory of Corporal Johnathan's affinity were gathered through improperly conducted interviews with two other witnesses — interviews this board has already received documentation of, showing explicit threats made against those witnesses' service records absent their cooperation."
The room went very still. General Cole's expression didn't change, but one of the flanking officers leaned forward slightly, and Voss's carefully composed face finally cracked, just for a second, into something tighter and angrier.
"Those interviews were conducted within standard investigative procedure," Voss said, standing again despite not having been given the floor.
"Standard procedure doesn't include threatening a soldier's career unless he corroborates a theory you haven't yet proven," Marlowe said, calm and utterly without mercy, not raising her voice at all, which somehow made it land harder than shouting would have. "The transcripts speak for themselves, Major. I'd ask the board to review them directly rather than take either of our characterizations on faith."
The board did review them, right there, passing a folder down the line while the room sat in uncomfortable silence. I watched Cole's jaw tighten as he read, watched the officer beside him mutter something under his breath that didn't sound complimentary toward Voss, his pen tapping an irritated rhythm against the table.
"Major Voss," one of the other officers said, looking up from the transcript with an expression I couldn't quite read, "did you inform either witness of their right to counsel before this line of questioning?"
"The interviews were informal in nature," Voss said. "I judged formal counsel unnecessary at that stage."
"You judged," the officer repeated, flat, and made a note that Voss clearly didn't like the look of.
"Corporal," one of the flanking officers said, addressing me directly for the first time, an older man with a weathered face and eyes that gave nothing away, "walk the board through your reasoning at the time. Not what you'd say now, with three months of hindsight. What you actually thought, standing in that sub-level."
I answered what I could plainly, the way Marlowe had coached me — no embellishment, no over-explaining, just the truth as far as it went. "I thought about how many people passed through that base's lobby every day. I thought about how fast rumors move once something like a weapons cache gets written down anywhere official. I judged that the safest thing for that cache, and for the base, was for exactly one person to know where it was until someone above my pay grade could secure it properly."
"And you never revisited that judgment? Not once, in three months?"
"I revisited it plenty," I said, and something in my own voice surprised me with how steady it came out. "I just never found a version of reporting it that didn't put more people at risk than leaving it sealed did."
Voss rose before the officer could respond, seizing the opening. "That's a remarkably tidy justification for a sixteen-year-old to have arrived at independently, without consulting a single superior officer."
"Objection to characterization," Marlowe said, not even bothering to stand for it. "The Corporal answered the question asked. Major Voss is welcome to ask his own."
"I will." Voss turned to face me directly, and for the first time all session, I felt the full weight of his attention land on me like a physical thing. "Corporal, in your own words — is there anything else from that mission, or any mission since, that you have not fully disclosed to this board?"
The room went very quiet. I felt Marlowe go still beside me, though she didn't intervene, apparently trusting whatever answer I gave.
"I've disclosed everything relevant to the charges brought against me today," I said, choosing each word with the same care I'd have used moving through a minefield. "If Major Voss has a specific, evidence-based question, I'm happy to answer it. I'm not going to speculate about what else he might be imagining."
Something flickered across Voss's face — not satisfaction, not yet, but the particular patience of a man noting a non-answer for later use. "No further questions," he said, and sat back down, and I understood that round for exactly what it was: not a loss, and not a win either. A stalemate, with both of us fully aware of what the other hadn't said.
It took another twenty minutes of questioning after that — most of it directed at Reyes, confirming the emergency authorization and its scope, and at Bruce's records contact, whose written statement Marlowe entered without requiring her to appear in person and risk her own position further — before Cole finally called a brief recess to deliberate.
Marlowe leaned close to me while we waited in the hallway outside, voice low enough that only I could hear it.
"That went about as well as it could have," she said. "I don't want to promise anything before the verdict, but I'd be very surprised if the depot incident survives this board's decision."
"You think they'll strike it entirely?"
"I think the coercion finding gives them every reason to, and boards generally look for reasons to avoid opening a can of worms they don't have to open." She glanced back toward the closed hearing room door. "A formal capability review is expensive, politically and administratively. If they can resolve this with a clean reprimand instead, most boards take that option gladly. It's not justice, exactly. It's institutional gravity. But it works in our favor today."
We were right. When Cole called us back in twenty minutes later, his verdict was almost exactly what Marlowe had predicted — a formal reprimand for the after-action concealment, noted permanently in my record, along with a warning that any future failure to disclose relevant operational information would be treated far more severely. The depot incident, and every theory Voss had built around it, was struck from the proceedings entirely, deemed inadmissible due to the coercion findings.
"Major Voss," Cole added, once the verdict for me had been read, his voice hardening in a way I hadn't heard from him before, "your conduct during these interviews will be referred for separate review by this same board. Consider this the first and only warning you receive from me personally before that review concludes."
Voss said nothing, just nodded once, stiffly, and I caught the look he sent my way as the session adjourned — not defeat, not exactly. Recalculation. The same look he'd given me the day we first met, filed away for later use, patient and unbothered in a way that should have worried me more than it did in the immediate relief of the moment.
I walked out of that hearing room with a reprimand on my record and my secret, somehow, still intact, and I understood with total clarity that I hadn't won anything so much as bought myself time. Voss wasn't the kind of man who let a setback become an ending.
Reyes caught up with me in the hallway, a rare, genuine smile breaking through her usual composure, the exhaustion of the last two weeks visibly easing from her shoulders. "Congratulations, Corporal. You're reinstated to full Vanguard duty, effective immediately."
"Thank you, Colonel. For everything."
"Don't thank me yet." Her smile faded slightly, replaced by something more serious, her voice dropping so the officers filing out around us wouldn't overhear. "Two commanders coordinating a warband in that forest, an Unbound faction willing to burn this base down to make a political point, and a major who's just been humiliated in front of his own review board. Whatever quiet you think you just bought yourself, Johnathan — I wouldn't get too comfortable in it."
"I wasn't planning to."
"Good," she said, and something almost approving crossed her face. "Go find your squad. I imagine they've been waiting outside this whole time, and I don't think any of us have the energy left to make them wait any longer."
She wasn't wrong. I found all four of them exactly where I expected, a deck of improvised cards abandoned across three chairs, and the second I stepped through the door Ralph was already on his feet, grinning despite the bandage still visible under his shirt collar.
"Well?" he asked. "Do we get to keep you, or is this a sad goodbye speech?"
"You get to keep me," I said, and the sound that went up from all four of them was loud enough that an aide two doors down poked his head out to see what the commotion was.
Ian pulled me into a hug that lasted about two seconds longer than either of us would probably admit to later, and Dustin, of all people, actually cracked a real smile — small, but real, the first one I'd seen from him since I'd known him.
"Told you," Ralph said, unable to resist. "We survive plenty without you. But we're a lot better with you back."
"I'll take it," I said, and meant it more than any single sentence I'd said all week. Whatever came next — Voss's recalculating stare, the Dominion's growing training grounds, the crystal still unexamined in my footlocker — none of it felt quite as heavy standing here, surrounded by people who'd chosen, over and over, not to leave. For one afternoon, at least, that was enough.