Chapter 6 - PressureThe investigation became impossible to hide.
News vehicles appeared outside the installation.
Military blogs began publishing speculation.
Someone leaked Maya’s name.
By Friday morning, strangers knew who she was.
Some called her courageous.
Others accused her of exaggerating the confrontation to destroy a senior officer.
A photo of her swollen cheek appeared online.
She hated it.
At the dining facility, conversations stopped when she entered.
A Sergeant she barely knew approached her tray.
“You’re the Specialist who took down Sterling.”
Maya’s stomach tightened.
“I didn’t take down anyone.”
He grinned.
“You know what I mean.”
“No.”
He walked away confused.
Maya lost her appetite.
That afternoon, General Vance found her outside the motor pool.
Maya saluted.
Vance returned it.
“You look irritated.”
“Permission to speak freely, General?”
“Please.”
“I hate this.”
Vance nodded.
“Reasonable.”
“Everyone acts like I did something extraordinary.”
“You followed an order under pressure.”
“That should be ordinary.”
“Yes.”
Maya looked at her.
“Then why isn’t it?”
Vance smiled faintly.
“That is a question people have been trying to answer since armies existed.”
Maya looked toward the maintenance bays.
“Can I ask something?”
“Yes.”
“Why were you personally here?”
Vance’s expression changed.
“The inspection involved information I did not trust to travel through normal channels.”
“You thought someone here was involved.”
“Yes.”
“Colonel Sterling?”
“We suspected a command-level connection.”
Maya hesitated.
“But not him specifically.”
“No.”
Vance looked toward the road.
“Until that morning.”
Maya thought of Richard’s face when he arrived.
The brief flash of calculation.
General Vance had seen it.
“You knew when he looked at the car.”
“I became more interested.”
Maya almost smiled.
Vance continued.
“Powerful people rarely expose themselves during rehearsed moments.”
She looked at Maya.
“They expose themselves when something unexpected happens.”
The unexpected event had been Victoria striking a Specialist.
Her arrogance had cracked open something far larger.
Maya lowered her voice.
“Do you think she knew?”
“About the equipment?”
“Yes.”
“I think she knew she was abusing access.”
Vance paused.
“That is not the same as knowing why her husband wanted her to.”
The distinction mattered.
Maya realized she had begun imagining Victoria as part of some elaborate conspiracy.
But perhaps the truth was uglier in a simpler way.
Victoria had wanted privilege.
Richard had found privilege useful.
“What happens now?”
“We follow evidence.”
“And if it leads nowhere?”
“Then it leads nowhere.”
Vance started walking away.
Maya called after her.
“General?”
Vance turned.
“Why did you pick up my cap?”
The question had been bothering Maya for days.
Vance considered it.
“Because someone had knocked it into the dirt.”
“That’s all?”
Vance’s expression softened.
“No.”
She looked at Maya for a long moment.
“Your father once did something similar for me.”
Maya stopped breathing.
“What?”
Vance seemed to realize she had said more than intended.
But she did not take it back.
May you like
“Ask him.”
Then she walked away.
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