Luna and I had agreed to let Gunny do his story first and then see how the mood in the room is before deciding on whether to tell him or not. We had decided for a code word to indicate whether the time for it was good or not, vanilla pudding being signal for a go-ahead and chocolate pudding being the signal for a no-go.

  When we re-entered the main living space of the cabin, Gunny was already well underway eating the burger we had provided for him. Doctor Winter looking at him with a stern look with her arms crossed. “Make sure to chew your food as well, otherwise you might not make the night after all…”

  Gunny noticeably slowed down his pace after this small reprimand as Luna and I sat at the table together with our friends.

  We decided to wait for him to at least have finished his burger before starting our interrogation. That didn’t last too long however so we were soon staring each other in the eyes while Gunny nervously worked down a couple of fries with mayo.

  “So…” I started. “I think it’s about time you told us what the actual fuck is going one.” I put my elbows on the table and folded my hands in front of my mouth.

  “Do I h-”

  “Yes, yes you do, Gunny. It’s gone too far. There’s no crawling back now. You already said you were going to tell us like ten minutes ago.”

  Gunny sighed and looked down at the table.

  “I need to be able to lean on you for support. I can not do that if I do not know if you’ll be able to carry the load. If you don’t tell me, I’m going to put you on inactive duty until you fix this stuff.”

  Gunny didn’t raise up to meet my gaze, but he did nod. “I will tell you… Just… give me a couple of seconds, alright?”

  “Alright.” I nodded and folded my arms on top the table, waiting for Gunny to feel ready to give us a reply.

  He sighed quite a bit for the next couple of minutes before he finally raised his head and looked at the three of us. “You promise to stay serious?”

  “Yes.” Eva replied pretty much immediately.

  “Of course.” Luna did so too.

  “What happened?” I asked as the last one in our trio.

  “You see. During our time on Earth I spent a while in the Caribbean, blowing off some steam. While I was there, I met this amazing woman…” Gunny looked up at us to gauge our reactions as he said that. While I was slightly surprised this all was apparently caused by a woman, I didn’t say a thing and just nodded solemnly so Gunny could continue his story. “She was amazing… Well… amazing might be an understatement all things considered. I was over the moon when we met. At first, it was a bit touch-and-go, but it only took us two dates to really start hitting it off.” Gunny leant back into his seat and stared up at the ceiling. “Those were probably the best two weeks of my life. I had fallen completely for her and the feeling seemed mutual.” Gunny stayed silent for a couple of seconds.

  “What happened next?” Luna asked. Trying to keep the ball rolling.

  “She shattered my heart… That’s what happened.”

  The entire room went even quieter than it already was, Eva’s stern expression even faltered as she could see that Gunny had been really hurt by what had happened.

  “Do you want to… tell us what exactly happened?” I continued, I had lowered my tone as well.

  “I owe it to you… you are my friends and respected colleagues after all… Besides, telling what happened might actually help me… I hope…” Gunny sighed and swallowed as he prepared to continue his story. “So yeah, after about three weeks, I got contacted by a guy, seemingly out of the blue. Some kind of banker type who had apparently sent a private investigator after the woman I was dating. First I thought it was a jealous ex or something who wanted to have a harsh word with me, but instead I got a warning.”

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  “A warning?” Luna squinted her eyes slightly.

  “Mhmm.” Gunny nodded. “A warning to stay on my toes, that the woman I was dating wasn’t as sincere as she appeared to be. He then handed me a file containing all kinds of information.” Gunny pulled out his holo stick and handed it over to Eva. “Here, you can look through it.”

  Eva accepted Gunny’s holo stick and then browsed through the file that Gunny had opened. It took her a couple of minutes to browse through it all but from her facial expression I could see that it was serious. “Holy shit.” She said after about ten minutes of reading.

  I looked up at Eva and raised my eyebrows to non-verbally ask an explanation.

  “From the looks of it, she specifically targeted military personnel to live off their pay while they were on long-time missions. And from the looks of it she really latched onto you because she recognized you from a news report.”

  “How’s that in the file?” I asked.

  “The P.I. got hold of her search history in one way or the other.”

  Gunny nodded. “After I had read through the file I asked why he was telling me all this. He wasn’t in the military after all. Apparently the woman had targeted his mom too and as a result of her betrayal, his mom had committed suicide. But they could never prove it so she wasn’t led before any court. The son had then decided to start a bit of a personal crusade to make sure it never happened again.”

  “Did you believe him?” Eva asked.

  “Would you if they just threw this in front of you all the sudden?” Gunny retorted. “Of course I was in denial initially. The guy was not surprised either, so he told me to keep the file and then he gave me his contact info just in case.” He then took a deep breath before he continued. “It all gave me a bad feeling though, so in the end I did end up confronting her a bit later.”

  “I suppose that didn’t go well?” Eva asked.

  Gunny shook his head. “She denied everything, but I could tell by the look on her face and just the way she acted that it was all a well-studied routine for her… That evening I reported her to the police and broke off our relationship…”

  “Do you know what happened to her?” Luna asked.

  Gunny shrugged in response. “I made a declaration to the police and handed over everything I had on her. But I didn’t stick around to find out what happened. The day after we got the message to head back to HQ and I was honestly too drunk to really keep tabs on anything by that point…”

  “Shit…” I sighed and looked at the ground. I could feel anger boiling up inside of me. “If I had known…” I gritted my teeth.

  “You would have dropped everything and come over to teach her a lesson… I know… That’s exactly why I didn’t tell you at the time, Lauren. I just wanted to be alone… But maybe I should have.”

  “Urgh.” I grunted frustratedly. “It really irks me that we can’t find out what happened…”

  “I can do something about that, Commander.” Ellie spoke up from my holo stick.

  “Ellie, have you been listening this entire time?” Gunny looked displeased.

  “I’m sorry Gunnery Sergeant, but this is the Commander’s cabin and access was allowed to me.”

  “C’mon, Gunny. Ellie won’t tattle and she did help save you...” I replied before I put my attention on Ellie. “What can you do?”

  “Thanks to the communication buoy’s we have been laying, it wouldn't be too hard for me to access police files from our current location. I have also gone through the navy database and have found the journal of the woman who has passed away on her personal server. The last entry of which is especially incriminating and would most probably result in a sentencing.” Ellie explained.

  I looked at Gunny questioningly. “What do you think, Gunny? Do you want Ellie to give justice a hand?”

  “Why do I have the feeling that you would tell her to do so anyway even if I said no?” He replied.

  “Well…” I was a bit taken aback by his comment, but he wasn’t wrong. I had a very deep hatred of misusing people’s trust like that. Even if I wouldn’t command Ellie to do so immediately, it would probably keep nagging on me until I did give the order. “Yeah, sorry, I probably would.” I admitted.

  Gunny chuckled softly in return and looked up at the ceiling. “You can go ahead with that, Ellie. Fuck her. I hope she spends a lot of her time in jail.”

  “I will do so, Gunnery Sergeant.”

  “And Ellie…”

  “Yes, Gunnery Sergeant?”

  “Thank you.”

  “No problem at all.”