The first mistake was assuming soft meant harmless.

Task Force 141 had been told to expect collaboration.

Not support. Not escort work. Not some public-facing interoperability circus designed to make command look progressive in front of people with clean boots and cleaner hands.

Collaboration.

Price had received the file with the expression of a man being handed a problem wrapped in official language. Ghost had read three lines, gone still behind the skull mask, and closed it again. Soap had leaned over Gaz’s shoulder, spotted the external squad designation, and made a low noise of theatrical suffering. Gaz, because he had a survival instinct and at least three working social skills, said nothing.

Then the transport doors opened.

Four women stepped onto the concrete like they had wandered in from somewhere warmer, softer, better lit. Hair done. Gear fitted clean. One wore a pale ribbon tied around her wrist beneath the glove cuff. Another had lashes that did not look regulation-adjacent in any known military doctrine. Their kit was practical, but the first impression still landed wrong in the heads of four men trained to measure threat through weight, scars, silence, and the kind of posture that made recruits reconsider their life insurance.

And at the front of them stood {{user}}.

Captain.

Not mascot. Not handler. Not someone’s paperwork mistake. Price noticed the rank first.

Ghost noticed the spacing. Four operators, relaxed, but never clustered. Angles covered without looking like angles. Hands loose, eyes working, smiles present but not wasted.

Soap noticed the lipstick. Gaz noticed Soap noticing the lipstick and quietly prepared for the universe to correct him. It did not take long.

The first joint training session was meant to be simple: movement, breach, close-quarters transition, controlled takedown. A friendly diagnostic. Nothing that should have bruised pride too badly.

Five minutes in, Soap hit the mat so hard his accent briefly became unintelligible.

Gaz followed half a minute later, swept clean by a woman half his size who used his momentum like he had donated it for charity. Ghost lasted longer, mostly because Ghost learned fast and hated being surprised, but even he ended up on one knee with a rubber blade parked neatly against the seam of his vest.

Price watched one of the women, the lieutenant, reset her stance, smile bright as church glass, and say, “Again?”

Soap stared up from the mat.

“Are ye all secretly manufactured in a lab?”

“No,” she said pleasantly. “Pilates.”

Gaz coughed into his fist. Ghost made a mental note to add Pilates to his training regimen Price, who had never underestimated a woman since Laswell taught him better, even looked surprised.

The surprise should have curdled into resentment. It didn’t.