PROLOGUE
GHOST
“LIEUTENANT, GOD DAMN IT! I SAID MAYDAY! WHERE IN THE HELLS BELLS ARE YOU!?”
I snapped my head up, awake and alert. Fuck, had I fallen asleep?
BOOMMMMM!
The ground beneath me shook. Screams erupted into the air. I scrambled to the computer desk in front of me, my fingers flying across the keyboard.
CRASHHHHHH!
“Noooooo!”
I whipped my head toward the door when something crashed against it.
No. No, no, no. It couldn’t be.
I couldn’t have been that reckless.
“Lieutenant! Ghost! We need a sitrep! Please!”
I scrambled to get to the microphone sitting on the desk next to the keyboard. “Roger, roger. What in the hell is going on out there!?”
“You were supposed to be watching! Were you watching!? You didn’t see it!?”
My eyes danced in between all of the security camera screens. I abandoned the mic, my hands shivering as my fingertips flew a million miles a second.
There was no way I had fallen asleep.
Not with the kind of caffeine I had pumped into my system.
My hands shivered. My heart rate skyrocketed. For the first time in my military career, I panicked. My eyes widened as I watched another convoy make its way through the front gates of our marine compound.
Right through the demolished front fucking gates.
Oh my God.
We had been breached.
I reached for the mic and yelled into it. “How in the fuck did this happen!? Tell me what you saw before they started pouring in!”
Static noise greeted my ears as one of my screens went blank.
“Captain! I need an update!” I barked.
Another crash.
Another boom.
Another round of screens.
Before another screen went staticky.
I pulled my gun from my hip and leapt up from the chair. But almost immediately, the ground trembled, and I got knocked to the floor. My head cracked against the edge of the desk. Stars swam in my eyes.
Another boom shook the ground I laid upon.
