The leader of the newly arrived soldiers was a tall man with short-cropped brown hair, stepped forward.
His blue eyes swept over the group before locking onto Owen. "You guys are a hard bunch to track down," he said, his tone carrying a hint of irritation.
"Tell that to command," Owen replied, his usual sleepy expression replaced by an annoyed one. "We’ve been trying to contact you for hours."
The soldier sighed, shaking his head. "Communications have been unstable. We lost all signals when we entered this area. It wasn’t until a few minutes ago that we managed to reestablish a weak link with HQ."
"What about the backup you were supposed to provide?" Clara asked with folded arms.
"This is getting annoying " the leader muttered under his breath before answering,
"About that..." He said, "there was a slight delay back at base."
"Slight?" Clara sounded exasperated "you were supposed to be here two hours ago."
Lisa had to hold her back because she seemed just a second away from lunging at him.
The soldier raised an eyebrow, his entire respectful and professional demeanor suddenly switched "You’re all still alive, aren’t you?"
That wiped the humor off everyone’s face.
Reid narrowed his eyes. "You call being late and losing comms a ’slight delay’?"
The leader shrugged.
"Look, sweetheart," he said, completely ignoring Reid and directing his comment toward Clara, "You might not know this, but backup is only called when your team is getting overwhelmed and by the looks of it that doesn’t seem to be the case."
"Not everyone has the luxury of babysitting a field team that got in over their heads." He completed.
Clara’s hand twitched toward her rifle, and Lisa had to grip her wrist tighter. "You did not just call me sweetheart."
The man snorted. "Don’t take it personally, princess. I call all my teammates that. Builds morale."
"Try that again, and I’ll build a crater where your jaw used to be," Clara snapped.
Before the situation could escalate further, Owen stepped in, his tone cold and controlled. "That’s enough."
Owen sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "What’s your name, soldier?"
"Senior Officer Mace Callahan," the man answered proudly, placing a hand on his chest in mock salute.
"Well, Mace," Owen said flatly, "you’re not earning any points here. You’re late, disrespectful, and about two seconds from getting decked by a sharpshooter."
Callahan laughed, unfazed. "Touchy crowd. No wonder command didn’t send the good teams."
That was it.
Marcus, who had been silent this whole time, suddenly stepped forward, towering over the lieutenant like a boulder with legs. He didn’t say a word. Just stared.
Callahan’s smirk wavered, but he quickly hid it."Hey now, no need for—"
"Apologize," Marcus threatened with a glare.
To everyone’s surprise, Callahan actually backed up half a step.
"Fine, fine," he muttered. "Didn’t know you people were so sensitive."
He glanced at Clara again. "My bad. Didn’t mean to ruffle your feathers."
Clara, without breaking eye contact, said to Lisa, "If he breathes too loud, I swear—"
"You’ll have to get in line," Lisa muttered.
Owen shook his head. "Let’s just finish this mission and get out of here. The longer I breathe the same air as this guy, the more I feel like losing IQ points."
Clara turned to the others. "Let’s move. We’ve done our job. No reason to stick around with people who think showing up late and mouthing off makes them important."
As they began walking out of the cave, Callahan called after them, "Don’t worry, I’ll let HQ know the junior squad made it out alive. Great job not dying, kids."
None of them answered. But Marcus gave him a look.
That was enough to shut him up for the rest of the day.
________
The flight in the hover craft back to base was an annoying one to say the least.....for the first half anyway.
Clara contemplated putting a bullet through Callahan’s brain, at least that would’ve shut him up.
Callahan either didn’t notice Clara’s seething or didn’t care because he continued speaking anyway.
Even his own team looked irritated by his constant chatter.
Owen, who had been trying to finally catch some sleep, eventually reached his limit.
He immediately summoned his forged beast and before Callahan could react, the hound emitted a mist directly at him.
"What the—" he choked, swallowing a mouthful of mist.
Before he could finish his sentence, his head suddenly slumped forward, completely unconscious.
No one moved, no one spoke. For a brief moment, the only sound was the steady hum of the engines.
The silence was blissful.
Then Clara let out a soft, satisfied sigh. "Finally."
Even Callahan’s own second-in-command, a broad-shouldered woman with a tired expression, gave Owen a small nod of approval. "Thank you."
Owen didn’t say anything—he just leaned back in his seat, eyes half-lidded, arms folded, as if nothing had happened.
Callahan snored quietly in the corner, slumped awkwardly against his seat like a ragdoll.
The second-in-command glanced at the unconscious Callahan and shook her head. "He’s been like this ever since he got promoted. Used to be decent. Now he thinks he’s untouchable."
Clara raised an eyebrow. "Who in their right mind thought that was a good idea to promote someone like him?"
The second in command sighed before answering "he might look like this now," she gestured to the embarrassing position Callahan was in "but he’s strong enough to have earned that promotion."
Clara scoffed. "Strength doesn’t mean squat if you can’t lead."
The second-in-command gave a half-smile, as if she agreed but couldn’t say it outright. "Yeah, well... command doesn’t always prioritize leadership skills. Sometimes they just want someone strong enough to clear waves of primals, no matter how n*sty their attitude might be."
The second-in-command then chuckled and continued "If only. I’m officer Kara Doyle, by the way. Sorry you had to deal with him."
Owen gave her a lazy nod. "You seem more like the one who should be leading."
Kara shrugged, then looked out the window. "I used to. Before he surpassed me."