Chapter 5 - CROSS'S COUNTERATTACK
Being arrested did not make Bennett Cross weak.
It made him strategic.
Within forty-eight hours, his attorney, Mitchell Sloane, issued a statement:
Master Chief Cross denies any intentional falsification of training records and maintains that contested decisions were made under operational pressure consistent with established practice.
Then came the attack on Elara.
Sloane claimed she had:
targeted Cross because of cultural hostility toward special operations,
misrepresented incomplete files,
used physical force unnecessarily during the training demonstration,
and benefited from a command investigation that deprived Cross of due process.
Some operators believed him.
Not most.
Enough.
Anonymous posts appeared online.
Voss wanted a career-making scandal.
Mercer protected his favorite lieutenant.
Cross was being sacrificed because leadership needed a villain.
Elara read none of the comments after the first day.
Her father once told her:
If strangers can ruin your judgment with words, they own more of you than they deserve.
She focused on evidence.
Cross’s defense had real strengths.
Training environments were chaotic.
Timelines recorded after incidents could differ honestly.
Equipment malfunctions were common.
Witness memories diverged.
A hidden file was suspicious but not automatic proof of criminal intent.
Then came another problem.
One of the recovered helmet-camera cards had been altered.
Not deleted.
Altered.
A twelve-second segment near Rourke’s distress signal had been overwritten with digital noise.
Forensics showed the modification occurred six days after the incident.
Cross had access.
So did eleven other people.
The case became less clean.
Mercer hated that.
Elara did not.
May you like
Clean cases are comforting.
Real truth rarely arrives polished.
