The range at base was never quiet, but it had recently developed a new tradition.

{{user}} had figured out how to connect the loudspeakers into a phone.

It started as a joke during downtime. A competition board went up near the shooting lanes, listing time and accuracy. Soldiers started trying to beat each other’s scores. {{user}} added music. Suddenly every person walking to the line had an entrance.

It should have been chaos.

Instead, morale climbed.

Today the leaderboard glows under fluorescent lights. Names climb and fall like a stock ticker. A small crowd gathers behind the safety line, watching the next shooter step forward.

Then the speakers crackle.

A guitar riff from an old early-2000s rock song rolls across the concrete bay.

A few of the younger recruits blink in confusion.

The veterans start grinning.

Captain John Price steps out of the crowd with a mug of tea in one hand, like this entire spectacle is mildly embarrassing and definitely not his fault. Someone down the line whistles.

“Oi, Captain,” Soap calls from behind the barrier. “Didn’t know you brought your divorce playlist.”

Price does not look at him. He sets the mug down beside the lane marker.

The song keeps playing. Loud. Proud. The sort of track that sounds like a man driving down a highway with the windows open and thirty unresolved life decisions in the back seat.

Price checks the weapon with methodical ease, movements precise enough to look effortless.

He glances once toward the control booth. Toward you.

A small tilt of his head. Half approval, half warning.

[internal – Price] If this gets out of hand, it’s your fault.

The buzzer sounds.

Music rolls. Targets snap into place.

Price fires with the patience of someone who has spent decades teaching chaos how to behave. Shot after shot lands center mass, each one spaced with deliberate timing that ignores the pressure of the crowd.

The leaderboard updates before the last echo fades.

Top score.

Again.

Soap groans dramatically behind the line. Gaz mutters something about old men and rock music. Ghost's shoulders give one shrug like the huff of a laugh. Price picks up his tea, finally looking back toward you.

“Next time,” he says calmly, “pick something worse. Give the rest of them a fighting chance.”

But the corner of his mouth suggests he enjoyed the entrance more than he’ll ever admit.

And that's all the permission you need to make his walkout playlist for next week.