REBORN INTO A COMBAT ACADEMY

Chapter 7

Showing his anger here would cost him more than it earned him. 

Diego was a student; Barrett held the grade book. If Barrett came down to his level in front of a full classroom, his own authority would be what took the hit, not Diego's. He smiled instead and brought his hands together in one slow, deliberate clap.

"Good, good. Some things 'are' more important than class. I'm sure you've got plenty to show for the time you spent away from my sessions."

"Thank you," Diego said.

"In that case, let's not waste any more of the morning." Barrett opened his copy of 'Combat Doctrine and Institutional History' and let his eyes settle exactly where he'd already decided they would. "Campbell. A question for you."

The room went still. 

Barrett's questions had a reputation that preceded every one of his sessions — never anything printed in bold at the chapter's end, always something buried in a footnote nobody bothered memorizing unless they were trying to catch someone out.

 That the first one of the morning was aimed at the one student who hadn't shown his face in this room for months wasn't lost on anyone.

"Name the three pieces of specialized loadout Commander Arthur Hayes carried during the Black Ridge extraction."

Diego didn't answer right away.

A few students traded glances.

 Hayes was a name that showed up in the textbook only in passing — a heavy-assault specialist once attached to Wraith Company, remembered mostly as a footnote beside the operators the syllabus actually cared about. His personal gear wasn't in the standard chapter at all.

Barrett's smile sharpened. "What's the matter, Campbell? All that time away from my class, and nothing to show for it? Or did you decide a frontline operator's record wasn't worth your attention?"

Diego stayed quiet. Before he could open his mouth, a voice cut in from the back of the room.

"I'd object to the framing," she said. "As far as doctrine history is concerned, Hayes doesn't belong in this course. He wasn't a tactical architect. He was muscular."

Barrett's jaw tightened.

If it weren't for her family's seat on the Global Security Council — the board that decided which contractors got first pick of Ironclad's graduates — Isabella Sterling would have been thrown out of this room in a far uglier way than Diego ever had been.

 She made a habit of interrupting his sessions, and there was nothing he could do about it that wouldn't cost him more than it cost her.

"Hayes was the first operator to formally integrate heavy-breach mechanics into small-unit movement," Barrett said, recovering his smile. "Whatever his methods, no one can deny he advanced the doctrine."

"He applied doctrine. He didn't write any of it," Isabella said, unhurried. "That's a different category entirely."

She wasn't wrong, and Barrett knew it — her reading ran deeper than most of the staff's. His smile didn't move regardless. "So you're dismissing every operator who worked the ground instead of a desk, Ms. Sterling?"

"That's not what I said."

"Perhaps not. But whether frontline specialists belong in the same category as doctrine architects is still very much a live debate in the field. A sensitive one. I'd choose your words with more care, if you're planning a seat on that Council yourself one day." His eyes flicked back to Diego before she could answer. "The question was for Campbell."

Isabella pressed her lips shut, jaw tight. She'd disliked Barrett from her first week at Ironclad — not only for the petty grading, but for the particular way his gaze lingered a beat too long whenever she stood up in front of the room. He thought he was being discreet about it. He wasn't.

Barrett caught the look on her face and, for half a second, allowed himself something close to satisfaction. 'Shame about that Council seat of hers,' he thought, and put the idea away before it could go any further.

Diego finally spoke. "The thermal-baffle suppressor. The weighted tungsten rig. And the ghost-weave poncho."

The room went silent.

Barrett's eyes widened before he could stop them. Isabella's head turned fully toward Diego.

"Am I wrong?" Diego asked.

His memory of Hayes's actual kit was hazier than he would have liked — most of what he remembered came from the two of them trading gear checks in the dark before a drop, half by feel — but he left that part out.

"That is… correct," Barrett managed.

"What a relief," Diego said, and let his eyes drop back to the desk.

The murmur that went through the room was different this time — not disbelief that he'd gotten it right, but disbelief that he'd gotten it right so calmly, like he'd only been confirming something he already knew rather than guessing at all. 

He had been. Hayes had been part of Wraith Company — one of the small number of people Julius had trusted enough to sleep back-to-back with in hostile territory for weeks at a stretch.

 There wasn't much about the man Julius didn't remember, down to his terrible taste in field coffee.

The memory settled something heavy in his chest for a second before he let it go.

"That was a warm-up," Barrett said, gathering himself. "I've got more."

"All right," Diego said, and looked almost faintly entertained by the idea.

What followed took most of the block. Five more questions, each more obscure than the last — footnoted doctrine disputes, minor engagements, two questions near the end pulled from papers so narrow only a handful of specialists had ever cited them.

 Diego never answered quickly.

 Each time, he went still for a few seconds, sometimes closer to a full minute, his eyes somewhere else entirely, like a man working through a filing system nobody else in the room had access to.

Every answer came back correct.

Somewhere in the middle of it, Barrett asked about the three conditioning principles behind a technique used by combat medics attached to old Wraith Company units — and for just a moment, something moved behind Diego's eyes that wasn't concentration. It passed before anyone could name it.

Not one field has moved an inch in four years, Julius thought, turning the fact over with something between disbelief and quiet contempt. 

They were calling this stretch of stagnant, over-regulated competition a golden age. He'd trained recruits who could have taken apart half the "elite" operators this generation produced, and done it without breaking a sweat.

Barrett's voice thinned with every exchange. He'd started the session at full volume, certain of the outcome. By the fifth question, he was barely finishing his sentences before Diego answered.

'Is this really Campbell?' Barrett thought, watching the boy's face — steady, unbothered, nothing like the version of him Barrett had bullied out of this room a year ago. 

He recognized the bearing, if not the boy wearing it. It was the same quiet certainty he saw in Voss. In Graham. People who had stopped needing to prove anything to anyone in the room.

'Impossible,' he told himself, and refused to let the thought go any further.

"Anything else?" Diego asked, when the silence had stretched long enough to answer itself.

Barrett's jaw worked once. He looked back down at the textbook as though it might offer him something new.

"…Page 131," he said finally.

It was as close to a surrender as a man like him was capable of making in front of a room full of students. When the bell rang, he gathered his things and left without another word to anyone.

Diego stood, and only then noticed most of the room had been watching him for a while, several faces caught between curiosity and caution.

 Everyone already knew what Trent had planned for the arena that afternoon. Very few of them were willing to be seen anywhere near Diego before then.

"Heading to the mess hall?"

It was Isabella, tray already in hand.

Diego kept walking, his mind already on lunch and nothing else. Isabella blinked, clearly unused to being ignored, and fell into step beside him anyway.

"Isabella Sterling," she said, louder this time, stepping into his path just enough to make him look at her.

"You're talking to me?"

"Yes."

"I didn't realize." He didn't slow down. "I'm heading to the mess hall."

She matched his pace without being asked twice. "That last question Barrett asked. Vasquez's three principles."

Diego thought it over. "Her base reset. Her stress spiked. And her null count."

"That's the one."

They reached the counter together, traded their tickets for trays, and Diego sat at the first open table he found. Isabella set hers down acr

oss from him without waiting for an invitation.

Around them, the surrounding tables went quiet, then started talking all at once.