PART 3 — The Terminal
Everyone looked at Maddox.
He looked at the tablet.
Then at me.
“That wasn’t me.”
Lieutenant Commander Reyes didn’t accuse him.
“Then we verify that.”
Good answer.
Because an access log was evidence.
Not a confession.
Range security isolated Maddox’s workstation within minutes.
The terminal showed the request had been submitted at 09:42.
Seven minutes after my shot.
But Maddox had been standing on the firing line at 09:42.
In front of dozens of witnesses.
So either someone had used his credentials—
or someone wanted us to think he had.
That changed everything.
The investigation moved fast.
Not publicly.
The range remained open while digital forensics pulled login history, badge access, and internal camera footage.
By that afternoon, they found the first inconsistency.
Maddox had left his authentication card inside the operations trailer that morning.
His young spotter, Private Kessler, had seen it beside the terminal.
“Anyone else?” Reyes asked.
Kessler hesitated.
Then nodded.
“Major Daniel Crowe.”
Range operations officer.
Crowe had entered the trailer shortly after my shot.
Stayed four minutes.
Then left.
Crowe denied touching the computer.
The camera disagreed.
It showed him sitting at Maddox’s terminal.
Using the card.
Accessing something.
Then removing a USB drive.
My stomach tightened.
Why would a range officer care about my sealed record?
The answer appeared inside an archived message.
Crowe had received an email three weeks earlier from a private defense contractor:
If Voss attends, confirm identity before allowing any public recognition.
Reyes read it twice.
“Why would a contractor care whether Claire Voss competes?”
I knew the company name.
Halcyon Defense Systems.
Fifteen years earlier, Halcyon had supplied surveillance equipment during Valley Nine.
Equipment that failed.
Not accidentally.
The after-action review found unauthorized modifications that allowed location data to be transmitted outside approved channels.
My team discovered it.
The inquiry disappeared behind classification.
Halcyon survived.
Apparently, so did its interest in me.
The renewed investigation took nine months.
Crowe admitted he had been paid as a “technical adviser” by a Halcyon subsidiary.
He claimed he only wanted to verify whether I was the same Voss from the old files.
Investigators found no evidence he intended physical harm.
They found plenty of evidence that he had improperly accessed restricted records and concealed a financial relationship.
Halcyon faced a broader contracting review.
Several old procurement decisions were reopened.
Maddox?
He was cleared of the unauthorized access.
He still had to answer for something else.
Not mocking me.
Not touching my rifle.
Those were unprofessional.
But the real issue was what investigators found after examining his training records.
He had pressured junior shooters to alter environmental data so his championship scores appeared more consistent across seasons.
Nothing criminal.
But dishonest enough to cost him his instructor position.
Months later, Kessler asked me the question everyone eventually asked.
“Why Hades?”
I almost laughed.
“It wasn’t because I was dangerous.”
“Then why?”
I looked toward the desert.
“Because when teams were trapped somewhere ugly, I was usually the voice telling them there was still a way out.”
He nodded slowly.
The legends always sounded better than reality.
But reality mattered more.
Thirteen shooters missed that morning.
I hit once.
People remembered the shot.
I remembered something else.
The moment Maddox’s terminal lit up seven minutes later.
Because that was when the past stopped being buried—
and started asking who had worked so hard to keep it there.