His Wife, His Wingman, His Regret

Before flight school, I had passed polar survival training, open-water ejection recovery, and high-altitude decompression drills. Later, I graduated first in my class and entered North Ridge Air Base as the youngest lead pilot under Ethan Hale's command.

One more round of final evaluations, and I would qualify as an ace pilot.

All three missions went wrong.

The first was a nighttime low-altitude recovery through a storm front. I was ordered to retrieve an encrypted navigation core from a prototype drone that had gone off course. I brought the core back intact, but the aircraft took heavy damage in the thunderstorm, and the mission was marked as a failure.

The second was air support for a border hostage rescue. I had the target zone locked and the ground team was seconds from closing in when the enemy suddenly changed position. I dropped altitude to buy the team time to evacuate. The hostages survived, but the planned capture failed, and I lost the evaluation again.

The third was an escort mission for a battlefield medical convoy. At the worst possible moment, our identification beacon failed, and an enemy defense system locked onto my aircraft. I drew the fire away from the medical helicopters and forced a landing on an abandoned service road. The convoy made it through, but I was grounded for review.

By the end of the evaluation period, I was facing removal from Ethan's direct flight team.

I did not believe in coincidences that precise, so I pulled flight logs, visitor clearances, beacon records, and maintenance footage. Every trail led to the same name.

Chloe Bennett.

A junior flight candidate assigned to the command center after failing out of cockpit rotation.

I carried the evidence to Ethan's office, but before I could knock, I heard Liam Reed's voice from inside.

"You are putting Chloe forward for the ace-track recommendation? She has never completed a real flight mission." Liam gave a bitter laugh. "Do you think I don't know how Ava's three evaluations were destroyed?"

Ethan answered evenly.

"I'm the commanding officer. I judge by the final record."

"The final record?" Liam nearly lost control. "The first mission was never an accident. Chloe started the prototype training program without clearance and left her ID chip inside the drone. You sent Ava into a storm to clean it up because you didn't want Chloe disciplined."

My fingers tightened around the folder until the edge cut into my palm.

Ethan only said, "Chloe was terrified."

"And the second mission?" Liam pressed. "She patched Ava's live reconnaissance feed into the visitor display, and the target moved early because of it. Do you know why she did it? She wanted you to see that she was involved too."

"She was trying to help."

"The third time, she entered the wrong frequency for the identification beacon and got Ava locked by hostile defense systems. That is enough for a court-martial. Why did you bury it?"

For a few seconds, the office went quiet.

When Ethan spoke again, his voice was lower, but he was still defending her.

"She lost control after finding out Ava and I were married. I'm not ruining her entire life over this."

This.

Standing outside the door, I almost laughed at how absurd it sounded.

The missions I had dragged back from the edge of death, the failures I had carried on my record with my body and aircraft both damaged, were only this to him.

Liam went quiet too. When he spoke again, his voice was cold.

"You protect Chloe because you think she was the first hostage you rescued in the field. Ethan, what exactly is Ava to you?"

After a short silence, Ethan answered.

"Ava is my wife, my partner, and the woman I love. She has my marriage, my career, my future. Chloe has nothing."

Liam asked, word by word, "If Ava knew, would she still stay as your wife and your partner?"

Ethan's voice turned sharp.

"Her flying career is here. I'm here. She won't leave."

So he had known everything.

The medal beneath my collar seemed to turn cold against my skin.

He had built years of guilt and protection on the wrong memory, and I suddenly no longer wanted to correct him.

I did not open the door. I did not go in and ask him why.

I simply turned around, walked back to my station, opened my computer, and sent the email I had written days ago.

The reply came quickly.

It was from the Tactical Technology Office at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and the message was short.

[Welcome to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Report to Arlington, Virginia, next Monday. Welcome back, Code X.]