Princess
Copyright© 2026 by Megumi Kashuahara
Chapter 8: Back to Work
0642 hours. The first American helicopters arrived—three at a time, big birds with armed escorts and medevacs with red crosses that were actually red crosses. They came down on the landing pad in a storm of dust and engine noise, and the wounded were carried out on litters. Sergeant Elias Davies was the third man loaded. He was conscious, gray but alive. He turned his head as they carried him past the place where Kirsti was sitting, and he raised one hand.
She raised hers.
That was all that needed to be said.
Corporal Rodriguez sat down beside her in the dirt without being invited. He didn’t say anything for a long moment. Just sat. Then he took off his helmet and set it in his lap.
“Duncan. I was the guy on the radio at 0347 when you called in the headlights on the Molar. I was the guy who said it was too early to wake the captain. I was the guy who told you to log it and stand down.” He paused. “I knew you were telling the truth. I sat in that comms hut for two minutes after you clicked off, and I knew it—and I did nothing. Because I didn’t want to be the corporal who woke the captain for something that turned out to be nothing. I thought: she’s new, she’s nervous, she’s overreacting.” His voice was careful. “I thought that about you.”
“Rodriguez.”
“Yeah.”
“It’s forgiven. It’s already forgiven. You made a bad call. You won’t make that call again. That’s all there is.”
He didn’t trust himself to speak. He nodded, stood, and walked away with the back of his wrist against his eyes. Nobody on the base pretended not to see it. Nobody had any pretending left in them that morning.
Specialist Davis came next. He stood in front of her and put his hand out. She stood—slowly—and shook it.
“Duncan.”
“Davis.”
“The case of beer. Every deployment, every return, every year—one case from me to you. That’s a promise.” He held her gaze. “A top-down Javelin attack at that angle is not a shot a man takes. A man sets up, gets proper standoff, waits for a better angle. I took that shot because you told me I wouldn’t miss.” He paused. “And I didn’t miss because you told me I wouldn’t.”
“Davis. We both know who shot the missile.”
He walked away.
Private Robert Evans was still sitting beside her, still holding the spotting scope. Kirsti looked over at him, and Robert Evans—twenty years old from Tennessee, who had climbed a ladder with a helmet on a stick because she had asked him to—was crying. Not loudly. Steadily. Tears running down his cheeks and he was not trying to stop them.
“Robert Evans.”
“Duncan.”
“It’s okay.”
“Duncan—I’m not okay.” His voice was honest about it. “I have never been that close to dying. I have never had somebody ask me to do something like that. I’ve never watched somebody do what you did today.” He wiped his face. “My granddaddy was at Normandy. He told me stories my whole life—about soldiers. He didn’t tell me about anybody like you. My daddy’s going to want to meet you. My mama’s going to want to meet you. My whole town’s going to want to meet you. And I don’t even know how to start telling them.”
“Robert Evans—you don’t have to tell them. You just have to go home to them. That’s all. Just go home.”
He nodded. He wiped his face. He handed her back the spotting scope.
0710 hours. Captain Kowalski’s voice came across the base on the loudspeaker.
“All hands. All sectors. Command tent. Five minutes.”
They gathered. Every man still standing. The wounded who could walk, walked. The wounded who couldn’t were wheeled. Davies was gone on the medevac, but Rodriguez stood where Davies would have stood, and Davis stood where he’d been all morning, and Robert Evans stood next to Kirsti. Thirty-eight men who had come within one bad decision of being thirty-eight dead men formed up in a loose circle around Captain Kowalski.
Kowalski did not have notes. He did not bring a clipboard. He stood in front of his soldiers and spoke without a script.
“I’m going to tell you what happened here today. I’m going to tell you so that you all hear the same version. And I’m going to tell you in front of Private First Class Kirsti Duncan, so that she hears me say it—because she deserves to hear me say it.”
The base was silent.