Lieutenant Colonel Patrick Brenner stood with arms crossed, an unreadable expression on his face. Combat fatigues soaked around the cuffs, boots caked in Italian mud. His eyes tracked Mercer first, then shifted to First Lieutenant Matthis, who stood at parade rest, helmet under his arm, uniform streaked with grime and sweat.
“You trained him well, Captain,” Brenner said without preamble. “Held it together when the op flipped. Got his people out. That’s what I like to see.”
Matthis opened his mouth to speak, then hesitated. He cleared his throat. “Respectfully, sir, it was Vic — Sergeant Santana — and the squad leaders are the ones who ran the platoon out of that meat grinder. I just held the leash.”
Mercer gave a faint smirk behind him, arms folded. Brenner chuckled, eyes never leaving Matthis.
“Good answer. You taught him well,” he said, glancing over at Mercer. “He already knows it’s the NCOs who run the platoon, not the officers.”
Mercer met the battalion commander’s gaze. Held it for a beat. “He’ll make us proud, sir.”
Brenner nodded once. That was all it took.
The room fell into silence for a moment. Then Brenner’s jaw flexed. He dropped his hands to his hips, a shift in weight punctuating what was coming next.
“I just got a warning order.” His voice dropped a register. “Division’s flagging our battalion for forward posture in the Baltics. Could be tied to a big exercise spinning up around the first of May.”
Mercer’s eyes narrowed. Matthis shifted his grip on his helmet but didn’t speak.
“Nothing’s official yet,” Brenner continued. “But if this goes the way it smells, we’re wheels-up with a reinforced task force. Could be Poland. Could be Gotland.”
Silence returned, heavier this time.
“I’ll put you in for that Ranger School slot,” Brenner added, looking at Matthis. “But if this deployment drops, I can’t guarantee it sticks. You might lose the date.”
Matthis gave a single nod. “Understood, sir.”
“I’ll fight to hold it or get you a new slot down the line if it gets scrubbed. Your packet’s strong. You’ve earned it.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Brenner nodded again. No salutes, no more words. He stepped back out into the rain, alone.
Mercer looked at Matthis, then turned back to his field monitors. Outside, the storm deepened.
The next war wasn’t coming. It was already moving. He could feel it in his bones.
The room was cold, the lights dimmed to half, and the soft hum of the HVAC filled the silence between spoken words. Rows of officers in MultiCam uniforms filled the seats — company commanders, battalion staff, and brigade planners. Most had flown back from field training less than thirty-six hours ago. Tired and exhausted.
Brigadier General Carter Ashford stood at the front, flanked by a pair of intel officers from the S2 and a large operations display screen dividing the world into three theaters — Eastern Europe, the Russian Far East, and the North Pacific.
“This isn’t routine,” Ashford began, voice clipped, his West Point cadence sharpened with combat-seasoned restraint. “What you’re about to see is classified, SECRET-NOFORN. No one is to discuss this with anyone outside of this room.”
The screen shifted — zooming in to reveal the Leningrad Military District, a broad swath of northwestern Russia encompassing Saint Petersburg, Murmansk, and the surrounding Leningrad and Arkhangelsk Oblasts, stretching from the Barents Sea in the north to the Gulf of Finland in the west. Its reach hugged the Finnish border for over a thousand kilometers, ran along Lake Ladoga, and extended south along the borders of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Major transport corridors from Vologda and Moscow funneled directly into the district’s staging areas — now glowing red on the screen.
To the southwest, a smaller but highly sensitive zone lit up: Kaliningrad Oblast — a Russian exclave wedged between Lithuania and Poland, completely landlocked from Russia proper. “There’s no overland access to Kaliningrad,” Ashford noted. “Only way in is by sea or air. I’m going to hand things over to the S2 to bring us up to speed on the bigger picture of what’s going on and what this ‘exercise’” — he added air quotes — “actually looks like.”
He stepped back.
Major Grace Elliott, the brigade S2, stepped forward. Her voice was calm, clipped. “Bottom line up front: this isn’t just a training event. The scale and logistics footprint suggest it’s meant to prove they can surge fast — and sustain it.”
She tapped a control. The display zoomed on Kaliningrad’s coastal ports.
“Over the last ten days, we’ve seen a sharp increase in sealift traffic inbound to Kaliningrad, especially into Baltiysk and Kaliningrad Port. Cargo manifests are either sealed or falsified, but imagery shows military containers, vehicle crates, and radar assemblies being offloaded under security.”
A new frame snapped up — satellite stills of freshly cleared terrain, dirt berms, and defensive batteries under camo netting.
