“Send when ready.”
She exhaled.
The rifle cracked.
A moment later, steel rang at eight hundred meters.
Nobody laughed.
She cycled into the next shot without lifting her cheek from the stock.
Crack.
Ring.
A third.
Crack.
Ring.
Brooks stared through the spotting scope beside Ellis.
“That’s three,” he muttered.
Ellis said nothing.
The wind changed.
The flag halfway downrange snapped farther east.
The young lieutenant who had bet twenty dollars leaned forward unconsciously.
The woman stopped.
She waited through one breath.
Two.
Then adjusted.
Crack.
Ring.
Ellis finally looked at Brooks.
“Still want to hold her hand on the trigger?”
Brooks lowered his eyes.
“No, Range Master.”
The woman fired the rest of the string with the same deliberate rhythm.
Not fast.
Not flashy.
Each shot arrived only after she had read what the air was doing between her muzzle and the steel.
When she finished, Ellis checked the observer sheet.
Then he checked it again.
The grouping was not merely a pass.
It was the kind of result that changed the posture of every instructor standing nearby.
The woman cleared the weapon and sat up.
“Range safe,” she said.
Ellis confirmed it, then walked to her position with the clipboard.
“Qualification complete.”
She nodded.
“Thank you.”
Kane approached more slowly than before.
The six officers no longer formed a laughing wall around him.
They followed several steps behind.
For the first time that afternoon, Kane stopped at a respectful distance from her rifle.
“Commander,” he said.
She looked up.
The word sounded very different in his mouth now.
He glanced briefly toward the others, aware that every person who had heard his earlier joke was still close enough to hear this conversation.
“I was not informed we were receiving a special-access visitor.”
Ellis answered before she could.
“You were not on the notification list, Admiral.”
Kane’s eyes moved to him.
Ellis did not blink.
The woman began removing the magazine and checking the chamber again before packing the rifle.
Kane tried another direction.
