Chapter 1
My name is Chloe Evans, and until about sixty seconds ago, my biggest problem was Sergeant Elias Briggs knocking my clipboard out of my hands.
"Get back in the bunker, pocket-protector," Briggs sneered, his chest deliberately bumping into my shoulder, trying to physically intimidate me. "This is a combat zone, not a construction site."
I adjusted my thick, oversized glasses and tried to pull my baggy fleece jacket tighter around myself, playing the part of the timid civilian structural engineer the Department of Defense had supposedly hired for a routine infrastructure assessment. It was a good cover. It had held for six weeks.
"The rebar in that central observation tower is completely compromised, Captain," I stammered, looking past the hulking sergeant to Captain Marcus Thorne. "A stiff wind could bring it down. If you don't reinforce—"
Thorne cut me off with a condescending laugh. "We're in the middle of the Nevada desert at a classified black site, Ms. Evans. The only thing hitting that tower is sunshine. Go categorize some dirt."
Fourteen minutes later, the world ended.
The deafening screech of incoming artillery shattered the quiet afternoon, followed instantly by a concussive shockwave that threw me face-first into the gravel. Dirt rained down in sheets. I coughed, tasting copper and dust, as the deafening chatter of heavy machine-gun fire erupted from the rocky ridgeline above our base.
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Another whistle. An RPG slammed directly into the central observation tower. The compromised concrete didn't just crack, it vaporized, exactly the way I'd told them it would fourteen minutes earlier. A massive chunk of the structure collapsed, taking our overwatch sniper with it. I watched in horror as the soldier plummeted into the dust, his heavily modified M2010 sniper rifle clattering onto the open quad, resting agonizingly out of reach.
Chaos consumed the outpost. "Ambush! Get to cover!" Thorne screamed, but a secondary blast sent him flying into a stack of sandbags, his leg immediately soaked in crimson.
