Mason faced Captain’s Mast:
Rank stripped
Probation assigned
A 2,000-word paper on Naval warfare history required
But the real punishment was the story that spread faster than any mission brief.
Sterling instituted mandatory Naval Heritage training across Coronado. Master Chief Carter used the transcript of the mess hall incident to teach it.
Weeks later, a park in Coronado at sunset.
Mason found Arthur sitting quietly, watching the waves.
“Sir… I’m sorry.”
Arthur nodded gently.
“Sit, son.”
They sat.
“You got two ears and one mouth,” Arthur said. “Use them that way.”
Mason didn’t speak.
He just nodded.
A moment not of victory… but of remembering.
When the next all-hands formation came, Arthur was no longer the man who sat unseen.
He was the reminder Michael finally heard.
And the legacy Mason finally learned to respect.
And for the first time since Iron Tide, Arthur Grayson felt what no battlefield could ever grant him —
Peace, earned not through war… but through remembrance.
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