Chapter 1
The desert outpost was already burning when Colonel Marcus Dayne realized command did not mean control.
Sandbags exploded around him.
A radio antenna snapped in half and fell across the dirt.
Men screamed from the smoke.
Somewhere beyond the broken wall, enemy fire tore through the air so low it sounded like metal insects passing over his skull.
“Sir, stay down!” a young soldier shouted.
Dayne dropped behind a dirt wall, his face covered in dust, one hand clamped around a bleeding cut on his arm, the other still gripping the radio like it was the last piece of power he had left.
He had spent twenty-two years making men fear his voice.
But now his voice was shaking.
The outpost had been clean that morning.
Flat desert.
Blue sky.
A line of armored trucks parked in the sun.
Dayne had stood in front of his soldiers with a polished pistol on his hip and arrogance in his smile.
“No one breaks this line,” he had said. “Not today.”
Captain Riley Shaw had stood beside the air liaison officer, helmet under one arm, blonde hair tucked tight, flight suit faded from use.
She did not look impressed.
“Sir,” she said quietly, “your southern approach is exposed. If they push through the dry riverbed, your armor won’t have enough room to turn.”
Dayne looked her up and down.
An A-10 pilot.
A woman.
A captain.
Three things he had already decided were beneath him.
“This is a ground operation, Captain,” he said. “Not an air show.”
A few officers laughed.
Riley did not.
“I’m talking about survival, sir.”
Dayne stepped closer.
May you like
“No. You’re talking because you like hearing yourself sound important.”
Read Part 2 to see how the warning he mocked became the nightmare that trapped his entire outpost.
