The smell of Hoppe's No. 9 solvent was Kyle Wilson's incense. It was a sharp, clean, chemical odor that cut through the dust motes dancing in the late afternoon sun slanting through his bedroom window. At fifteen, most boys his age had posters of rock bands or sports cars on their walls. Kyle had a detailed, laminated map of the Republic of Veridia, a framed photograph of the Veridian flag, and a bookshelf neatly organized by military history, field manuals, and tactical theory.
But his most prized possession lay in pieces on a green army blanket spread across his desk.
The VRA-M40, the standard-issue battle rifle of the Veridian Armed Forces. His father's rifle.
His hands moved with a practiced, ritualistic precision that belied his age. Each component—the bolt carrier group, the trigger assembly, the gas tube—was cleaned, oiled, and inspected with a reverent focus. The copper-colored brush scoured the barrel's rifling until it gleamed. His finger, slender but already calloused from hours at the local rifle range, ran along the cold, dark steel of the receiver.
Respect the weapon, and it will respect you. His father's voice, a gravelly bass rumble that seemed to vibrate in Kyle's bones, echoed in the silent room. It is not a tool. It is an extension of your will. The final argument of patriots.
Kyle believed it. He believed all of it. The stories of Veridian valor at the Siege of Blackridge Pass. The heroic stand of the 7th Battalion during the Separatist Wars. The unbroken line of honor and duty that stretched back generations. It was the national mythos, and Sergeant Major Rhys Wilson was its living, breathing—if deeply flawed—avatar.
A slamming car door outside shattered his concentration. The engine died—a familiar, unhealthy rattle that signaled the end of his father's shift. Kyle's hands, moments before so steady, developed a minute tremor. He quickly began reassembling the rifle, his movements faster now, urgent. The ritual had to be complete before he walked in.
The lock on the front door turned with a heavy, metallic clunk. Boots, heavy and uncompromising, struck the hardwood floor of the hallway. Step. Drag. Step. Drag. The old shrapnel wound in his father's leg announced his arrival long before he did.
Kyle slung the reassembled rifle into the locked case on his wall and stood up straight, shoulders back, chin tucked—a recruit standing at ease.
Sergeant Major Rhys Wilson filled the doorway. He was a man carved from oak and granite, with a square jaw perpetually shadowed with stubble and eyes the color of chipped flint. His uniform, still crisp despite the hour, seemed to be a part of his skin. He didn't look at Kyle immediately, his gaze sweeping the room as if inspecting a barracks, missing no detail.
"Room's acceptable," he grunted, his voice like stones grinding together. His eyes finally landed on Kyle. "Rifle?"
"Cleaned, oiled, and secured, Sergeant," Kyle responded, his voice even, betraying none of the nervous energy coiling in his gut.
Rhys stepped further into the room, his presence sucking the air out of it. He stopped by the desk, picked up the cloth Kyle had been using, and sniffed it. He gave a short, almost imperceptible nod.
"Hoppe's. Good. Only solvent worth a damn." He dropped the cloth. "Your geometry teacher called."
Kyle's blood ran cold. He kept his face neutral. "Sir?"
"Said you corrected him. In front of the class." Rhys's tone was deceptively flat. "Something about the calculation of artillery trajectories."
Kyle had. It had been instinctive. The teacher's method was inefficient, antiquated. The formula Kyle had read in a field manual was superior. "The formula he was using has a three percent margin of error at distances over six hundred meters, Sir. The Veridian Army Field Manual, chapter eight, section—"
"Are you a teacher, boy?" Rhys interrupted, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper.
"No, Sergeant."
"Are you an artillery officer?"
"No, Sergeant."
"Then you keep your mouth shut and learn what they teach you." Rhys took a step closer. He didn't need to raise his hand. The threat was in the proximity, in the sheer dominance of his stance. "You think you're smart? Intelligence without discipline is a bullet without a barrel. It blows up in your face. You understand me?"
The words were a physical blow. Kyle felt a hot flush of shame and anger creep up his neck. He wanted to argue, to explain that he was being disciplined—to the truth, to efficiency. But he knew better.
"Yes, Sergeant. Understood."
Rhys stared at him for a long, uncomfortable moment, his flinty eyes searching for a crack in Kyle's composure. Kyle gave him none. Finally, Rhys's lip twitched. It wasn't a smile. It was a dismissal.
"Dinner in ten. Don't be late."
He turned and left, his step-drag, step-drag fading down the hall. Only when the sound was gone did Kyle allow himself to exhale. His hands were clenched into fists so tight his nails bit half-moons into his palms. He looked at the framed photo on his desk: a much younger version of himself, beaming with pride, perched on the shoulders of a man in uniform who was actually smiling. A man who looked like a hero.
That man felt like a story now. A story he desperately needed to believe in.
That night, after a silent dinner where the only sounds were the scraping of cutlery, Kyle lay in bed. The confrontation played over in his head, twisting into the familiar, painful knot in his stomach. But then, as it always did, his mind drifted to the other stories. The good ones.
He was seven, and his father put his oversized beret on his head. The world smelled of wool and aftershave. "This is our legacy, son. We Wilsons have served Veridia for four generations. We are the steel in her spine."
He was ten, and his father took him to the national parade on Republic Day. Tanks rumbled past, soldiers marched in perfect, thunderous unison, and jet fighters screamed overhead in a tricolor of smoke. Rhys stood ramrod straight, tears of pride in his eyes, his hand on Kyle's shoulder. In that moment, Kyle felt connected to something vast and glorious and eternal.
He clung to those memories. They were the light he used to drown out the darkness of slammed doors and cutting words. He loved his father. He loved Veridia. The two were inextricably linked in his heart. The abuse was just… a form of harsh training. A necessary forging of his character for the trials to come. That's what he had to believe.
Three days later, the official army sedan pulled up to their curb. Kyle was mowing the lawn, a weekly duty performed to a precise regimental standard. He saw the two officers in their dress greens get out, their faces grim, hats held under their arms. His heart stopped. He knew. Everyone in a military town knows what that visit means.
He stood frozen, the mower's engine sputtering and dying as the world narrowed to the path those officers took to his front door.
The details of the next hour were a blur. The words "regrettably," "line of duty," "hostile action," "bravery," all floated in a haze of numb shock. The official report stated that Sergeant Major Rhys Wilson's patrol had been ambushed by insurgents near the dusty border town of Kresh. He had held his position, covering his squad's retreat, and had taken a dozen hostiles with him before he fell. A hero's death.
The complex, ugly, beautiful truth of the man was sanded down, polished, and encased in the neat, shiny box of national myth. Kyle felt a devastating wave of grief so profound it made him physically sick. But underneath it, to his own horror, was something else. A tiny, silent, terrifying sense of release. The door to his room would never slam again. The criticisms would never again bite into him in that gravelly voice. The weight was gone. And the guilt for feeling that relief immediately followed, threatening to crush him completely.
The funeral was a spectacle of military precision. A twenty-one-gun salute cracked the sky open. A bugle played the haunting notes of "Taps," each one a needle in Kyle's heart. The flag was folded thirteen times into a tight, perfect triangle—a symbol of sacrifice and tradition—and placed in his hands by a grim-faced General.
"Your father was a great man, son," the General said, his voice thick with manufactured emotion. "A true Veridian patriot."
Kyle looked at the flag in his hands. He looked at the gleaming casket. He looked at the rows of soldiers, the perfect lines, the unwavering ideals. He thought of his father's stories, his father's pride, his father's pain. In that moment, he made a choice. He would cling to the myth. He would embrace the story. He would become the patriot his father wanted him to be. It was the only way to justify the man's life, and his death. It was the only way to bury the confusing, shameful feelings of relief.
The love for the idea had to be stronger than the memory of the reality.
That evening, he unlocked the rifle case on his wall. He held the cold, heavy metal of his father's rifle. It felt different now. It was no longer just a symbol of discipline and fear. It was a relic. A inheritance. A purpose.
The next morning, he put on his best pair of trousers and a clean shirt. He didn't tell anyone where he was going. He walked the three miles from his quiet, suburban street to the downtown recruiting district.
He stood there for a long time, looking up at the massive, wrought-iron gates of the Veridian Army Enlistment Center. The national emblem—a fierce eagle clutching a rifle and a olive branch—was welded to the bars, stark and imposing against the grey sky. He was two years too young, but he knew they made exceptions for sons of fallen heroes. He knew his test scores were off the charts. He knew this was his path.
He took a deep breath, the image of the folded flag burning behind his eyes.
He walked through the gates.