“Don’t let the dog see the bodies.”
Ana Sharma said it softly, almost professionally, as if she were asking me to move a chair instead of dragging three dead Marines out of a blast radius.
The K9 at her side—Rex—froze anyway. His ears went up. His nostrils flared. Dogs always know.
FOB Arabus sat in the middle of nowhere, a dust-stained rectangle carved into Afghan rock. I had arrived there as a logistics officer, not a hero, not a trigger-puller. My job was to count fuel, track supply chains, and make sure nothing important went missing.
That was before the first convoy vanished.
They said it was an IED. Then a second convoy disappeared—no explosion, no wreckage, just silence. Satellite feeds went dark for twelve minutes that night. Twelve minutes no one could explain.
Ana arrived two days later with Rex and a sealed folder marked INTERNAL INVESTIGATION – DO NOT DUPLICATE.
She didn’t smile. She didn’t salute casually. She watched people the way snipers watch ridgelines.
“Something’s wrong with this base,” she told me during our first briefing. “And it’s not outside the wire.”
That night, Rex alerted near the fuel depot. We uncovered disturbed soil—fresh, shallow. Three bodies. All American. All with their ID tags removed.
Official report: contractor accident.
Unofficial reality: someone inside FOB Arabus was cleaning up mistakes.
Ana started keeping notes by hand. No digital trail. She trusted Rex more than command.
I noticed supply discrepancies. Fuel burned that no vehicle logged. Night patrols rerouted without orders. A ghost schedule that only existed after midnight.
Then Rex found blood in the comms room.
Not a lot. Just enough.
The next morning, command announced an early rotation. FOB Arabus was to be shut down “due to strategic realignment.”
Ana looked at me across the briefing table.
“They’re burning the crime scene,” she said. “And if we don’t stop it, we’re next.”
That night, the base went into blackout.
And someone locked the gates from the inside.
When the generators died, panic followed discipline like a shadow.
FOB Arabus wasn’t designed for silence. Radios chirped. Lights hummed. Without them, the base felt wrong—like a living thing holding its breath.
Ana moved fast. Rex stayed glued to her left knee, low and alert.
“They’re isolating us,” she said. “Watch the guard towers.”
Two towers were empty. The third rotated its gun inward.
That was when the shooting started.
Not chaotic. Controlled. Suppressed rifles. Head-level shots.
Someone knew exactly who to eliminate.
We took cover in the motor pool. Ana pulled a satellite tracker from her vest—military issue, modified.
“They rerouted fuel for months,” she said. “Black-market ops. Weapons, intel. FOB Arabus was a laundering point.”
“Who?” I asked.
She didn’t answer. She didn’t have to.
The name sat heavy between us: Command.
Rex suddenly bolted.
We followed him to the old medical tent—supposedly decommissioned. Inside, hard drives stacked in ammo crates. Video logs. Interrogations. American contractors torturing locals for intel they then sold to the highest bidder.
And dates.
Recent ones.
Ana’s hands shook as she copied files. “This base isn’t being shut down,” she said. “It’s being erased.”
Footsteps outside. Friendly voices calling names.
“Don’t answer,” Ana whispered.
The tent flap burst open.
Two MPs. Weapons raised.
Rex lunged.
Gunfire exploded. Rex went down with a sharp yelp that cut deeper than any scream.
Ana screamed his name.
We fought our way out, dragging Rex, blood soaking the dirt. The MPs weren’t trying to arrest us.
They were trying to erase witnesses.
We barricaded ourselves in the armory. Ana transmitted the files through a narrow satellite window—one shot before the signal died.
“They’ll deny everything,” I said.
Ana looked at Rex, barely breathing.
“Then make sure someone remembers,” she said.
The base alarms suddenly reactivated.
Evac inbound.
Not for us.
“If we’re still alive at sunrise,” Ana Sharma said quietly, “it won’t be because they stopped trying. It’ll be because we made it too expensive.”
The mess hall no longer looked like a place meant for food or laughter. By 0400, it had become something closer to a bunker carved out of wreckage. Tables were splintered and stacked into crude barricades. Ammo crates had been dragged into firing lanes. Blood had dried dark and sticky across the concrete floor, tracked everywhere by boots that no longer cared.
Outside, the night pressed in—thick, breathless, and listening.
Ana Sharma moved through the space like she belonged to it. Not hurried. Not loud. Every step had purpose. She checked sectors, leaned in close to each Marine, corrected grips, adjusted firing angles, redistributed magazines with the efficiency of someone who had done this more times than she could count.
Sergeant Cole watched her from behind an overturned steel table. Hours ago, he’d laughed at her. Now he waited for her eyes before making any decision.
“Ammo count,” she said.
Cole didn’t question it. “Green team low. Red team stable. Two wounded who can still shoot.”
“Good,” Sharma replied. “Rotate Green back. No hero shit. We hold, not chase.”
Another explosion thumped somewhere deeper in the FOB. Not close—probing fire. Testing.
“They’re shaping,” Corporal Davis muttered.
“Yes,” Sharma said calmly. “And they’re running out of patience.”
She keyed the radio again. Static answered first, then Major Rener’s strained voice.
“—Sharma, say again. We’re cut off from north sector—”
“I know,” she interrupted. No apology. No hesitation. “They’re pushing south and probing weak points. Your people need to fall back here in small elements. Not all at once.”
There was a pause. Rank argued with reality on the other end.
Then: “Understood.”
Cole noticed it then—the shift. The major wasn’t issuing orders anymore. He was receiving them.
At 0452, the real push came.
Small arms fire cracked from the eastern perimeter, followed by the unmistakable chatter of a PKM. The barricades shuddered as rounds chewed into steel and wood. Marines returned fire, disciplined now, controlled. Sharma stood behind them, voice steady, cutting through the noise.
“Left window—short bursts. Don’t waste it. Let them think we’re scared.”
A rocket streaked overhead and detonated outside, showering dust and debris through the shattered mess hall windows. One Marine flinched. Sharma was there instantly, hand on his helmet.
“Eyes up,” she said. “Breathe. You’re still here.”
Then she was gone again—moving, adapting, commanding.
When the machine gun fire intensified, she already knew where it was coming from.
“Cole,” she said. “You’re with me.”
He didn’t hesitate. They moved low, fast, through smoke and shadows. Every motion felt rehearsed, though Cole knew it wasn’t. Sharma flowed through the chaos, reading angles, counting seconds between bursts.
She paused once—just long enough to listen.
“There,” she whispered.
They split. Cole laid down suppressive fire while Sharma moved wide, disappearing into the broken interior of the FOB. Cole lost sight of her for thirty seconds.
Then the PKM went silent.
Three shots followed. Clean. Final.
When Sharma reappeared, there was blood on her sleeve that wasn’t hers.
“Gun’s down,” she said. “They’ll test us once more, then fade.”
“How do you know?” Cole asked, breathless.
She looked at him—not unkindly. “Because they always do.”
By dawn, the firing stopped.
The silence that followed was heavier than the fight. Marines stayed in position, weapons up, waiting for the trick. But the light kept growing. Pale. Unforgiving.
Bodies lay where the night had left them—enemy and friendly alike.
Sharma sat on a crate and methodically cleaned the borrowed M4. Only then did Cole see the stitches along her ribs. Fresh. Precise.
“You’re hit,” he said.
“Was,” she replied. “Handled.”
Major Rener approached, limping, uniform torn and filthy. He stopped in front of her, unsure of how to speak now.
“I’m recommending you for the Navy Cross,” he said finally.
Sharma didn’t look up. “Recommend the Marines who held the line.”
“They wouldn’t be alive without you.”
She met his eyes then. There was no pride in her expression. Only exhaustion.
“Then make sure they go home,” she said. “That’s enough.”
When Rener left, Cole stepped forward. He reached down and placed his KA-BAR beside her rifle.
A silent offering.
Sharma regarded it for a moment, then gave a single nod.
Cole turned and took up position at the entrance, standing guard without being told.
Behind him, Ana Sharma finished cleaning the weapon, checked the chamber, and set it down.
The sun rose over FOB Arabus, revealing the truth the night had tried to hide:
Leadership wasn’t about rank.
Respect wasn’t demanded.
And survival belonged to those who stayed calm when everything else burned.
