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She Weaponized Our Past and Denied Us a Retreat
NovelShort
Hoàn thành
I was the captain of a rescue unit, and during an overseas mission, we were ambushed and surrounded. As such, I immediately requested an emergency withdrawal from the command center. But what I got in...
Chương (5)
第1章
Isaac's POV
I was the captain of a rescue unit, and during an overseas mission, we were ambushed and surrounded.
As such, I immediately requested an emergency withdrawal from the command center. But what I got in response was a cold, emotionless order from the supreme commander, my ex-wife.
“Hold your position. Fight to the last.”
My voice came through the radio hoarse with urgency. “We’re being encircled by terrorists! If we don’t pull out now, the entire team will be wiped out!”
But her reply was icy. “Didn’t you abandon me the same way at our wedding? You left without looking back and ran off overseas. Now let’s see if what you threw everything away for was worth it. And remember, if I don’t give the order, retreating on your own counts as treason.”
I clenched my fists in despair and led my men to dig in under relentless gunfire, where every second felt like a year.
I didn’t know how much time passed before her voice came over the channel again. “I’ve seen enough. You’re permitted to withdraw now.”
For a brief moment, I thought we were saved.
Then her next words dragged me straight into hell. “But before you retreat, kneel in front of everyone. Admit your affair. Knock your head on the ground one hundred times.”
——
“Commander, I request confirmation of that order!”
Explosions roared around us, and shrapnel even screamed past my helmet.
I was practically screaming into the mic as my voice was drowning out by the nonstop blasts.
Behind me, the cries of more than a hundred rescued civilians cut into my chest like invisible ropes tightening around my heart.
My vice-captain moved closer, wiping blood and ash from her face. Her voice was low and desperate as she said, “Captain, the heavy machine gun has one belt left. Rifle ammo is under thirty rounds per person. We won’t survive another assault.”
At that moment, a cold and merciless voice came through the encrypted channel, saying, “Order confirmed. Hold the position until the last man. This is the supreme commander’s final directive.”
It was our Supreme Commander.
The title hit me like a bullet to the chest.
Back home, deep underground in a heavily fortified command center, sitting in the highest seat, was the woman I had abandoned at the altar three years ago.
She was watching us bleed through satellite feeds, utterly calm.
“Captain, what is she trying to do?” My vice-captain, Lauren Donovan, had gone pale. She was barely in her twenties, and her voice was trembling. “All civilians have been evacuated. According to protocol, we should’ve received top-level extraction support. Why are we being ordered to hold out to the end? Why?!”
I didn’t answer.
My eyes were fixed on the horizon, where enemy headlights tore through the night like a rising black tide.
I tightened my grip on the communicator, and my smoke-choked voice poured into the mic. “Diana, I’ll say this again. All civilians have been safely evacuated, and we are critically low on ammunition. I’m requesting immediate withdrawal.”
There was a two-second silence on the other end before a soft, almost amused sigh came. “A request? Five years ago, at our wedding, when I grabbed your sleeve and begged you to stay, did you listen? When you turned around and walked away, you didn’t even look back.”
I slammed my fist into the scorched earth in front of me, pain shooting through my knuckles as I tried to suppress the rage boiling inside.
This was not the time to settle old scores.
Behind me were more than a dozen brothers-in-arms and one hundred thirty-one terrified civilians. Their lives depended on the decision I made right now.
“Diana, snap out of it!” I nearly ground my molars to dust, forcing every word out through clenched teeth.
第2章
Isaac's POV
“You’re the supreme commander of this operation right now,” I snapped. “Not a woman settling old scores with me. Do you have any idea how bad the situation is?!”
“Snap out of it?” Her cold laugh came through the headset, calm enough to chill my bones. “I’m perfectly clear-headed, Captain Thorn. I’m sitting in the command room, keeping you company while we admire the moon overseas together.”
“Why don’t you take a good look at this place, the one you ran to without hesitation five years ago. Let’s see what it’s given you in return,” she continued.
“If we don’t withdraw now, we’re all dead!” My eyes were bloodshot as I roared into the mic.
“So what?” Her voice didn’t waver in the slightest, frozen like permafrost. “You could throw away three years with me just to come here. So, I assume you’re more than willing to die for this place now.”
That was the moment my last thread of reason snapped.
“Diana! You’ve lost your damn mind!” The shout tore my throat raw as I hurled the radio into the mud.
My vice-captain, Lauren, lunged forward and grabbed my arm, holding on tight. Her voice cracked as she begged, “Captain! Calm down! Please, just calm down!”
I sucked in a heavy breath, bent down, and picked up the mud-smeared radio. Then I forced myself back into command mode.
“All units, report remaining ammunition and casualty status. Team A, fall back to Cover Two. Team B, plant the last Claymores at the southeast breach. Snipers, prioritize enemy machine gunners and RPG operators.”
Under my direction, the team continued to resist, even though it was almost hopeless.
Of course, a rescue unit cut off from support had no chance of holding back a full armed group. It was like stopping a tidal wave with bare hands.
Our ammunition was draining at a visible rate. Every shot fired felt like someone tipping the hourglass of our lives faster.
Soon, the medic’s voice came over the internal channel, strained and close to tears. “Captain… the civilians… many of them are breaking down. They’re asking if we’ve been abandoned. If we’ll ever be able to pull out.”
I glanced at the two magazines left on my belt. My throat tightened as I replied hoarsely, “Tell them… the country hasn’t abandoned them. We will take them home. We just… need them to hold on a little longer.”
I took a deep breath, thick with smoke and blood, and pressed the encrypted channel to the command room again.
This time, all the anger was gone. No shouting. No rage. Only exhaustion and a kind of humility I barely recognized in myself.
“Commander,” I addressed her by rank. “I’ve never begged anyone in my life. But I’m begging you now. Whatever you want to do to me, I’ll accept it. But at least… let those hundred-plus innocent lives survive.”
The channel fell into a long, suffocating silence. Only the faint hiss of static remained, along with the barely audible sound of her restrained breathing.
At that time, a thought I barely dared to hope for crossed my mind. Maybe she was hesitating.
Just as that fragile hope began to rise, her voice cut back in. “Fine.”
My heart jolted.
But then her tone shifted, and she laughed, unhinged, almost manic. “You want to take your people and leave? Fine. But before I issue the official withdrawal order, Captain Thorn, you’re going to kneel in front of every person you rescued. Admit how you cheated, how you betrayed your wife, and how you abandoned her.”
第3章
Isaac's POV
“Then you’ll knock your head on the ground one hundred times. Not a single one less. I want to hear every impact. If you can do that,” she continued lightly, “I’ll be generous enough to let you retreat. How does that sound?”
“This is murder!” Lauren shouted beside me, her voice breaking. “She’s using us as tools to kill you! Captain, she never intended to let us live. She’s forcing you—”
But I raised my hand, cutting her off.
Of course, I understood.
No one knew me better than Diana Crossfield.
She knew exactly what the honor of this unit, the dignity of its captain, and a man’s unbending spine meant to me.
That was her goal. To crush me completely. To grind into the dirt everything I had spent my life protecting in front of my team, in front of the people I had sworn to protect, and in front of any records that might survive this battlefield.
Five years ago, under the eyes of everyone, I had thrown away her dignity and her hopes at our wedding.
Now, standing on the edge of life and death, she wanted it all back with interest.
“Isaac,” Diana’s voice cut into the channel again. “Have you made your decision? Let me guess how long your ammunition will last. Three minutes? Or maybe not even the next second?”
Pure rage shattered the last wall of restraint. “Diana! Do you even understand what you’re doing?! This is a crime! I will report you! I will have you charged!”
But what answered me was a soft, contemptuous laugh. “True. But that’s only if someone survives long enough to accuse me.”
In that instant, a bone-deep chill seized my heart.
I froze, finally understanding what she meant.
She was absolutely certain that this isolated unit would never make it out alive.
“Captain, don’t listen to her!” Lauren said urgently. “We can contact headquarters and bypass her command!”
I shook my head slowly, exhaustion washing over me like a tide. “It won’t work. This mission is classified at the highest level. She has direct command authority. Without top-tier override orders, our distress calls won’t go through.”
“Along the withdrawal route, this is the only terrain we can use to delay them. If we pull out without support, we’ll be nothing but moving targets in open ground. She calculated everything,” I explained.
Lauren’s voice cracked with despair. “So… there’s really no other way? We can only…”
I reached into my inner pocket and pulled out my last crumpled cigarette, lighting it with the fading embers of gun smoke around us.
The weak flame flickered in the cold night, eerily similar to that rushed night outside the airport five years ago.
Back then, I’d lit a cigarette the same way as I carried my unconscious, gravely ill mother on my back, turning to face Diana's tear-streaked eyes.
“Isaac, if you walk away today, I’ll never forgive you for the rest of my life!” Her cries still echoed in my ears.
I had thought that burning those three years of love to ash was the full price fate demanded of me.
I never imagined that the hatred she carried for five years would come to collect in this way—by wagering the lives of more than a hundred strangers who had nothing to do with us.
“Captain! A civilian’s been hit by a stray round, his arm is wounded, and he's bleeding! He needs immediate evacuation!” The medic’s tearful voice ripped through the tense silence.
That voice was the final straw.
I took a long drag from the cigarette, and the last light in my eyes went out.
“Lauren, take command. Hold the position for three minutes, and I’ll bring you home.”
第4章
Isaac's POV
Lauren grabbed my arm, her fingers digging into my armor hard enough to hurt. “Captain—”
“This is an order.” I shook her off and didn’t look back.
Under the stunned, pained, and disbelieving gazes of my teammates, I turned and walked one step at a time toward the civilians huddled in the shadows behind us.
Almost immediately, Diana’s voice came through the radio, trembling slightly with excitement. “Good. Then begin, Captain Thorn. I’ve been waiting.”
Silently, I turned up the public broadcast volume on the radio.
I already knew what was about to happen. The civilians I had risked my life to save would look at me with confusion and contempt. The comrades who had stood beside me through life and death would feel shock and humiliation. My name would be disgraced. The dignity I had treated as my life would be crushed by my own hands.
But none of that mattered anymore.
Compared to one hundred and thirty-one living, breathing lives, any personal honor was lighter than dust.
I stopped at the front of the crowd, facing those terrified faces filled with fear, dependence, and uncertainty.
The noise and crying slowly died down. Every eye fixed on me, confused and wary.
“Fellow citizens,” my voice came through the loudspeaker, steady and clear. “I am the commander of this rescue operation, Isaac Thorn.”
After a brief pause, I said the words that would end my military career, perhaps even my entire life.
“Five years ago, I betrayed my wife. At our wedding, in front of all our family and friends, I abandoned her and walked away. “That was entirely my fault. Today, I offer her my formal apology.”
The moment the words fell, the silence shattered. The crowd erupted in shocked gasps and murmurs.
Yet I didn’t raise my head. I didn’t look at a single face.
Slowly, but with unwavering resolve, I bent my knees.
On the first bow, my forehead struck the hard, frozen ground, the dull sound briefly overpowering the distant gunfire.
On the second, dust smeared my brow as a deep ache spread across my skin.
Then followed the third, fourth, and fifth.
My movements grew faster, yet emptier and mechanical, as if my body had broken free from my will and was only carrying out a cold command.
Soon, the whispers faded.
Whether they were stunned by the sheer finality of it, or simply unable to comprehend the madness behind it, I couldn’t tell.
All that remained was the roar of explosions, the scream of bullets, and the steady, sickening rhythm of my bowing.
Blood ran down my forehead, blurring my vision. Warm liquid slid into my eyes, carrying the metallic taste of iron.
Still, I didn’t stop.
Then I soon reached thirty, forty, and fifty.
The world seemed to lose its color and sound.
All that remained was the vibration of each impact traveling through my skull and the heart in my chest, growing colder and more numb with every strike.
I didn’t know how long it lasted.
It felt like a century.
Finally, Diana’s voice came through the radio again.
There was a lazy satisfaction to it now. Even a trace of strange, unsettling gentleness. “That’s enough. Given your sincerity, I’ll allow you to withdraw.”
Soft keystrokes sounded over the channel.
“The extraction point is Zone E-7. Retreat route is Route Three.”
Route Three.
The instant the withdrawal was confirmed, Lauren nearly broke down in tears. “We’re saved!”
第5章
Isaac's POV
But I cut her off. My voice was hoarse, cold. “Route Three is an emergency extraction path used only when a mission has failed, or a unit is completely compromised.”
“That route is almost entirely exposed open ground. No cover and protection. Taking over a hundred slow-moving civilians that way is the same as marching them into an execution field,” I explained.
Then I grabbed the radio and roared with the last of my strength. “Diana! That isn’t a withdrawal route. It’s a killing route! What are you really trying to do?!”
“What am I trying to do?” She chuckled softly, as casual as if she were talking about the weather. “I’ve already issued the order and the route, haven’t I? Captain Thorn, you’re the legendary special forces ace. Getting a few people across open ground should be basic training for you. Whether you manage to bring them back alive… that’s your problem now.”
She paused, then delivered the final blow, each word cutting deep. “After all, when you abandoned me back then, you didn’t hesitate this much.”
At that time, Lauren was shaking with rage as there were only two paths left, and those were both leading to death.
Either we bled out on this position, or we stepped straight into the naked death trap that was Route Three.
“Captain… what do we do?” Lauren’s voice was stretched to its breaking point.
Yet I didn’t answer right away.
Silently, I reached into the deepest compartment of my tactical pack and took out the black terminal reserved for absolute last-resort communications.
My fingers flew across the icy keys. A string of blood-red code flashed on the screen, then confirmed transmission.
The instant Lauren saw the code, her face went deathly pale. “That… that’s the Night Owl 313 code, full unit KIA pre-report…”
“That’s right.” My voice was unnervingly calm.
I tossed the terminal to the ground, spun around, and faced the terrified, confused civilians and the battered but still-standing soldiers behind me.
I drew in a deep breath, pouring everything I had into my lungs, forcing my voice to rise above the thunder of artillery and carry clearly to every ear.
“Fellow citizens! Listen to me! The statement I was forced to make earlier was not the truth, and it was never made of my own will! My ex-wife abused her authority, maliciously vetoed every legitimate withdrawal plan, cut off all our channels for external support, and forced us onto a so-called retreat route that guarantees death!”
But making them less worried, I continued, “I have now sent the Night Owl Unit’s 313 immediate-fatality code to the highest command. This is our final report before total annihilation! I, Isaac Thorn, will lead my team and use our bodies as your last shield! We will draw all enemy fire and carve out a path for you to escape!”
“If none of us survive, remember her name. Diana Crossfield. She is the one who killed us,” I announced firmly.
Just then, the final assault signal sounded.
“All units! Prepare to charge! Clear a path for the civilians behind us!”