The July heat at Fort Moore didn’t just burn — it suffocated. Waves of blistering Georgia sunlight rippled across the parade field, turning every inch of trampled grass into a shimmering haze. Forty-seven recruits stood rigidly at attention, sweat carving lines down their temples, boots rooted like stakes in dry earth.

Staff Sergeant Kyle Morrison’s footsteps echoed with the arrogance of a man who believed he owned the ground he walked on.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

He stopped in front of the only woman in the formation.

“GET. OUT.”

He spat the words with the force of a rifle butt hitting bone.

“You don’t belong here. And your daddy’s rank won’t save you when real bullets start flying.”

His voice rolled across the field like thunder. A few recruits flinched. Others held their breath. They all believed they were watching a typical day-one humiliation ritual — a washed-up MP with a cushy family connection being put in her place.

They had no idea.

Sergeant First Class Reese Conincaid didn’t blink. Didn’t twitch. Didn’t break eye contact with the nothingness straight ahead. Her breathing was perfectly steady. Too steady.

She’d heard worse insults whispered by men whose hands were wrapped in det cord. By warlords with fresh blood under their fingernails. By enemies who smiled as they loaded their final magazines — men whose bodies now lay in unmarked graves no one would ever acknowledge.

Compared to that?

Morrison was a child throwing a tantrum.

He stepped even closer, so close the veins on his neck stood out like blue cords.

“Look at me when I’m talking to you, Private.”

Reese did not.

Because in Delta Force, she’d learned long ago that predators don’t roar.
Only amateurs do.

Up on the observation platform, First Lieutenant Dana Parker watched the confrontation with arms folded tight across her chest. She had seen drill sergeants break down recruits before, but there was something off about this one — very off.

Not Morrison.
Reese.

Her stance wasn’t just disciplined — it was engineered. It was the stance of someone who had been taught to absorb recoil from any angle. Her eyes weren’t the eyes of a soldier who’d “seen some things.”

They were the eyes of someone who’d survived events so classified the Army pretended they hadn’t happened.

Parker didn’t know who Reese Conincaid really was.
But she knew this much:

This woman was not what her paperwork claimed she was.

Morrison suddenly ripped the nameplate off Reese’s chest.

Metal clattered to the dirt.

A ripple of shock went through the formation.

Reese finally moved — slowly, deliberately — as she stooped to pick it up.

When she rose, a sliver of her uniform shifted just enough for Morrison to see it.

A tattoo.
Small. Precise. Black.

A spearhead.

And just beneath it:

1.

At first, he didn’t understand.
Then he recognized the design — not because he’d ever seen it in person, but because every drill sergeant was required to sign a nondisclosure contract acknowledging the symbol’s existence.

But only in theory.
Only on documents sealed under TSSCI compartments he wasn’t cleared to open.

The 1st Spearhead Unit.

The unit that officially didn’t exist.
The unit composed of ghosts.
The unit that appeared only when everyone else had already failed.

Color drained from Morrison’s face.

“Where… where did you get that?”

Reese straightened, brushed a speck of dust from her uniform.

“Mission parameters.”
Her voice was low. Calm.
“And not within your need-to-know.”

The entire field went silent.

Because even if they didn’t understand the words… they understood the tone.

It wasn’t disrespect.
It was dominance.

Pure, lethal dominance.

Lieutenant Parker marched over, boots kicking up dust.

“Staff Sergeant Morrison,” she barked.
“My office. Now.”

Morrison pointed a shaking finger at Reese.

“Ma’am, she— that tattoo— she’s not supposed to— she’s—”

Parker didn’t look at him.
Her eyes stayed on Reese, sharp and calculating.

“You’re right,” Parker said softly.
“She doesn’t belong here.”

Morrison exhaled in relief—
until Parker finished:

“She belongs at a level far above any of us.”

His mouth snapped shut.

Before Morrison could respond, a blaring alarm ripped through the base.

A level-red siren.

The kind that never sounded during basic training.
The kind that required immediate chain-of-command lockdown.

Parker’s head snapped toward the operations building.
A signals officer sprinted toward her, pale as chalk.

“Ma’am—” he gasped,
“Special Operations Command requests Sergeant First Class Conincaid at Command Center immediately. Omega clearance confirmation.”

The word Omega punched the air out of Morrison’s lungs.

That code was never spoken aloud.
Not on open ground.
Not anywhere below Pentagon level.

Reese finally turned toward Parker.

“Do I need a weapon?”

The signals officer swallowed hard.

“They said… no, ma’am. Headquarters said: If SFC Conincaid needs a weapon, then the situation is already lost.”

A shockwave rippled through the recruits.

Reese clipped her nameplate back onto her uniform and stepped out of formation with the same quiet confidence of someone walking into a grocery store — not into a mission coded Omega.

As she passed Morrison, she didn’t slow. Didn’t acknowledge him.

But the message was clear.

He hadn’t been dressing down a weak recruit.

He’d been yelling at a loaded gun.

A gun the United States government only unholstered when the world was about to go very, very wrong.

She followed Parker and the signals officer across the field toward the command building. Recruits whispered behind her. Morrison sank onto a bench, staring at nothing.

Because he finally understood.

Reese Conincaid wasn’t a new soldier.

She was a warning.

And whatever had just triggered Omega…

…was big enough that they needed a ghost.

The command center at Fort Moore wasn’t designed for emergencies like this. Its monitors usually showed training schedules, weather updates, drone footage from the range — nothing beyond the ordinary rhythms of Army life.

But when Reese Conincaid stepped inside, every screen was red.

Alarms pulsed.
Encrypted messages scrolled in rapid bursts.
Officers moved with a frantic quiet — the kind that came when people tried to look calm while the ground shifted under their feet.

Lieutenant Parker guided Reese past the secured entrance. The door locked behind them with a metallic thunk that echoed through the room.

A colonel stood waiting.

Colonel David Rourke.
Special Operations liaison.
A man who rarely showed up at conventional bases — and never without a reason.

He didn’t salute.
He didn’t smile.

He simply looked at Reese with the grim familiarity of someone who knew exactly what she was capable of.

“Conincaid,” he said.
“It’s been a long time.”

“Two years, sir,” she replied.

“Two years too long.”

Parker looked between them, confused, but didn’t ask.

Rourke gestured to the main screen.

It displayed a satellite feed — grainy, infrared, but clear enough to show the impossible:

A convoy of six unmarked vehicles, moving toward the Fort Moore perimeter.

Not military.
Not police.
Not American.

“ETA?” Reese asked.

“Eight minutes,” Rourke said.

Parker blinked.
“Sir, if those are unidentified forces, why haven’t we initiated base lockdown?”

Rourke’s jaw clenched.

“Because they’re not here to attack,” he said.
“They’re here for her.”

The room froze.

Parker took half a step back, looking at Reese as though seeing her for the first time.

Rourke continued:
“Three hours ago, a deep-cover asset embedded in eastern Europe activated a dead-man beacon. Before he went dark, he managed to transmit one fragment.”

He tapped a key.

The screen switched.

A distorted audio file played.
Panicked breathing.
Footsteps on concrete.
Then a man whispering:

“Spearhead One…
She’s alive.
They found out.
The Ghost Protocol…
They’re coming for her—”

A gunshot.
Static.

Transmission cut.

The room felt colder.

Rourke pressed his palms on the table, leaning forward.

“Spearhead One,” he said.
“Your codename.”

Reese’s heartbeat didn’t change.
Her breathing stayed even.

But her eyes — for the first time — shifted.

Only slightly.
Barely perceptible.

Yet enough for Rourke to see it.

“You thought you were done,” he said softly.
“You thought you could disappear. But someone from the Ghostwork file survived.”

Parker whispered, “Ghostwork?”

Rourke nodded.

“One of the most classified operations the United States has ever conducted.”

He looked at Reese.

“And the most dangerous one she ever led.”

Reese finally spoke.
Her voice was flat. Controlled.

“I need the full picture, sir.”

“We’re still piecing it together,” Rourke replied. “But here’s what we know: The group you dismantled in 2020 — the Revenant Circle — wasn’t completely destroyed. One cell vanished before extraction. We assumed they were gone.
We were wrong.”

“They’ve resurfaced,” Reese said quietly.

“And they’re hunting the operatives who took them down.”

Reese folded her arms.
“Sir… there were six of us.”

“There were,” Rourke corrected.
“But in the last seventy-two hours, four agents have gone missing. Off-grid. Zero comms.”

Parker gasped softly.

“And the fifth?” Reese asked.

Rourke held her gaze.

“Dead.”
He pressed a button.
Another image loaded: a blurred photo of a burned car found in rural Poland.

The silence was suffocating.

Parker swallowed.
“So they’re coming for her too.”

Reese didn’t look surprised.

“They won’t succeed,” she said.

Rourke exhaled.
“You never change.”

A soldier rushed in with fresh data.

“Sir! Perimeter drones confirm the convoy is spreading out into a tactical formation. They’re not slowing down.”

Rourke turned to Reese again.

“They shouldn’t know your location. That’s impossible unless—”

He didn’t finish.

Reese did.

“—unless there’s a leak inside U.S. command.”

The room stiffened.

Parker felt the weight of the truth.
If the Revenant Circle had someone inside U.S. intelligence, Reese wasn’t just a target.

She was bait.
A loose end.
A threat to whoever betrayed the country.

Rourke pulled a sealed case from beneath the table and placed it in front of her.

“Open it.”

Reese flicked the latches.

Inside lay a matte-black headset, encrypted radio, biometric tracker, and a single folded slip of paper.

With one word.

OMEGA.

Reese looked up.
Her expression didn’t change — but every nerve in the room tightened.

“Sir,” Parker said carefully, “what is Omega Protocol?”

Rourke answered without hesitation:

“Authorization for Spearhead One to operate with zero restrictions.”
His voice darkened.
“No chain of command.
No oversight.
No accountability.”

Parker stared at Reese like she was staring at a weapon she’d never been trained to handle.

Rourke stepped closer.

“Conincaid… we need you off-base immediately. We can’t risk a firefight inside Fort Moore. Too many civilians. Too many recruits.”

Reese closed the case.

“Then give me a vehicle.”

“No,” Rourke said firmly.
“A vehicle is trackable. You need to leave on foot through the drainage tunnels beneath the obstacle course. They don’t know about that route yet.”

“Yet,” Reese repeated.

Meaning they eventually would.

Parker stepped forward.

“I’ll go with you.”

“No,” Reese said instantly.

Parker bristled.
“That wasn’t a request.”

Reese turned to face her fully — the first real acknowledgment she’d given anyone all day.

“You don’t understand,” Reese said quietly.
“They’re not sending soldiers.”

Parker swallowed.

“Then… who are they sending?”

Reese’s voice was calm.
Deadly calm.

“Hunters.”

Outside, a distant boom echoed — a massive explosion at the front gate.

The screens flickered.

“Contact!” a tech shouted.
“They’re breaching the perimeter!”

Rourke grabbed Reese’s arm.

“Move. Now!”

Alarms wailed.
Security doors slammed shut.
Soldiers scrambled into defensive positions.

Reese lifted the black case, slung it over her shoulder, and headed for the rear exit.

But before she stepped outside, she paused.

Turned back.

Looked at Parker and Rourke.

And said one chilling sentence:

“Lock down the base.”

Rourke frowned.
“That’s already—”

“No,” she interrupted.
“Lock it down tight.”

Her gaze hardened.

“Because they didn’t come to capture me.”

A beat of silence.

“They came to exterminate everyone who knows what I am.”

And then she was gone — slipping into the smoke-filled chaos outside like a shadow returning to war.

The moment Reese stepped out of the command building, the world had already turned into a war zone.

Smoke drifted across the training fields.
Screams echoed between the barracks.
Somewhere near the main gate, gunfire erupted in sharp, disciplined bursts — not the panicked kind of scared recruits, but the cold efficiency of trained killers.

Reese didn’t run.
She moved with quiet purpose, scanning angles, shadows, and lines of approach the way most people scan a grocery store aisle.

Her boots hit the dirt with near-silent precision.

They’re inside the wire already, she thought.

That meant one thing:

The Revenant Circle’s hunters weren’t just good.
They’d done their homework.

She cut across the PT field toward the old concrete culvert near the obstacle course — an access point no one used anymore. Not since the renovations five years ago. But Reese knew every shadowed route on that base from aerial layouts memorized long before she ever stepped foot on it.

Behind her, another explosion tore through the air — closer this time. The blast picked up dust and debris, stinging the back of her neck.

She didn’t flinch.

But she did stop.

Because she heard something else through the echoing chaos.

Footsteps.
Light. Perfectly timed.
Too controlled to be recruits.
Too quiet to be Army.

Then a whisper of motion, slicing the air.

Reese ducked.

A throwing blade shrieked past her head and embedded itself into a wooden post, trembling with deadly precision.

She turned slowly.

A figure emerged from the drifting smoke.

Tall.
Lean.
Clad entirely in matte-gray body armor with no insignia.
A visor that reflected the flames behind him.
A compact suppressed rifle strapped to his chest.

He carried himself with the eerie, loose-limbed grace of a predator.

Reese recognized him instantly.

A Revenant Hunter.

Not infantry.
Not special ops.
Something older.
Rarer.
A breed trained to track and eliminate high-value targets with surgical brutality.

The man tilted his head, studying her.

Then he spoke through a voice modulator — calm, distorted, and without emotion.

“Designation: Spearhead One.”

Reese shifted her stance.

“You’re late.”

The hunter didn’t respond.
Instead, he drew another blade.

Not for throwing.

For close-quarters killing.

He moved first.

He exploded forward with inhuman speed, closing the distance in less than a second, blade flashing toward her throat.

Reese sidestepped, caught his wrist, and used his momentum to hurl him over her shoulder. He hit the ground hard — but rolled immediately, coming up fluidly, as if the fall had been planned.

He lunged again.

This time, Reese didn’t dodge.

She moved into him.

Their bodies collided in a violent tangle of limbs.
Reese slammed her elbow into his faceplate, then drove her knee into his ribs.
The hunter hissed — more annoyed than hurt — and swept her legs.

Reese hit the ground, rolled back, and drew the knife from her boot in the same breath.

They circled each other.

Breathing steady.
Movements small and precise.

Recruits fled across the field behind them, screaming as more hunters breached the far side of the base — but neither Reese nor the hunter looked away.

He struck again.

This time, Reese caught his wrist, twisted until she felt the bones shift, and jammed her boot into his knee. The joint buckled.

She saw the opening.

Went for the throat.

But the hunter slammed a stun charge into her abdomen — a silent, brutal burst of current that arced through her core.

Pain lanced through every muscle.

Reese stumbled.

The hunter rose, limping slightly, retrieving his blade.

He advanced.

But before he could finish her, a thunderous roar filled the air.

A Humvee barreled across the field, skidding sideways, nearly flipping, and slid to a stop between them. The passenger door flew open.

Lieutenant Parker leaned out, eyes blazing.

“GET IN!”

Reese didn’t argue.

She launched herself into the vehicle as Parker slammed the gas pedal. Dirt sprayed in every direction. The Humvee fishtailed wildly, bouncing over uneven ground.

Behind them, the hunter straightened — watching without expression.

He didn’t chase.

He simply pressed two fingers to the side of his helmet.

And whispered:

“Target acquired. Engaging pursuit.”

Inside the Humvee, Parker’s knuckles were white on the steering wheel.

“Reese, what the hell was that thing?!”

“A mistake,” Reese said, forcing her breathing into a controlled rhythm. “A very expensive one.”

Parker shot her a look.

“That was not human.”

“Human enough,” Reese replied.

“Human enough for what?!”

Reese didn’t answer.

Because the truth was worse than anything Parker was imagining.

Hunters weren’t created to track soldiers.
Or spies.
Or criminals.

They were engineered to kill ghosts.

Operators like her.

“What happened to your plan to go through the tunnels?!” Parker snapped.

Reese braced herself against the dashboard as the Humvee hit a ditch at full speed.

“They were already waiting for me. Means the leak is deeper than Rourke thought.”

Parker cursed under her breath.

“So what now?”

Reese checked the side mirror.

Three dark vehicles had appeared at the far end of the field — sleek, armored, and incredibly fast.

They were gaining.

“We need to get underground,” Reese said.
“If we try to outrun them on open ground, we die.”

Parker took a sharp turn, heading for the obstacle course — a maze of pits, walls, nets, and mud trenches.

Reese grabbed the overhead bar.

“They’ll follow us in.”

“I know,” Parker gritted out. “But you said it yourself. They want you. Not me.”

Reese’s gaze hardened.

“That’s not how this works. Anyone near me is a target.”

Parker didn’t respond.

Instead, she slammed the brakes so hard the Humvee lurched violently. Dust exploded upward.

“We’re here,” she said.

Reese jumped out.

Ahead lay the obstacle course — torn-up dirt and twisted metal from the explosions, still smoking.

Beneath the third climbing wall was an old maintenance hatch.

The entrance to the tunnels.

Reese sprinted toward it — Parker close behind.

But before they reached it, the ground trembled.

Not from explosions.

From engines.

The Revenant convoy tore into the obstacle course, weaving effortlessly around debris, closing in like wolves.

Parker yanked the hatch open.

“GO!”

Reese dropped inside.

Then she looked up — at Parker.

“Come with me.”

“No,” Parker said.

“Lieutenant—”

Parker shoved the hatch shut.

“You get out. You survive. I’ll buy you thirty seconds.”

Reese slammed her fist into the hatch.

“Parker! That’s suicide!”

Parker’s voice was calm.
Steady.
Resolute.

“Go, Reese.”

Reese froze.

Because she’d heard that tone before.
From operators who knew they weren’t making it home.
From people who chose death to give someone else a chance.

Footsteps thundered above.
Engines roared.

The hunters had arrived.

Reese had no choice.

She turned.
Ran deeper into the darkness.

Above her, the hatch blew open.

And Lieutenant Dana Parker — unarmed, outnumbered, outmatched — stepped into the blazing sun to face monsters no conventional soldier had ever survived.

Wind tore across the range like a living creature—hot, sharp, relentless. Dust curled off the ground in twisting devils as the platoon jogged toward the next objective: the Obstacle Gauntlet, a punishing half-mile of walls, pits, tunnels, and rope climbs designed to break the arrogant and humble the strong.

Morrison ran beside them, barking orders like a man who believed volume could replace leadership.

Reese ran silently, her breathing steady, her stride effortless. She wasn’t even warm yet.

She caught the edges of conversations behind her—recruits whispering, still shaken by what she’d done to Murphy.

“Bro… did you see her? She flipped him like a pancake.”
“That wasn’t regular training. That was some… special ops level stuff.”
“No way she’s just prior-service intel.”

But the rumors would only get louder, because the Gauntlet was where masks slipped and truth surfaced.

And Morrison—without knowing it—was about to place a spotlight directly on her.

“Next station—THE WALL!”

A fifteen-foot vertical barrier loomed ahead, scarred by sweat, boots, and failure.

Most recruits couldn’t scale it even with two attempts. That was the point.

Morrison jogged ahead, turning to face the platoon.

“All right, listen up! You have ONE try. Fail, and you repeat the entire Gauntlet from the start.”

Groans. Fear. Panic.

Morrison’s grin widened—he fed on it.

He pointed his knife-hand at Reese.

“Conincaid! You’re first. Let’s see if Daddy’s rank helps you here.”

Reese stepped forward, face unreadable.

Internally, she almost sighed.

This again.

She didn’t run. She didn’t leap.

She walked.

Calmly.

Deliberately.

The recruits frowned in confusion—then watched in stunned silence as Reese placed one hand on the wall, exhaled… and jumped.

Her body rose fluidly, like gravity had taken the morning off. She caught the top edge with one hand—one—and pulled herself over with the same ease someone climbs onto a kitchen counter.

Gasps erupted.

“Holy—”
“No way.”
“She’s… she’s not normal.”

Morrison blinked.
Once.
Twice.

His smirk faltered.

Reese landed silently on the other side, waiting.

She didn’t even breathe hard.

The rest of the platoon went next.

Some succeeded. Most failed.

They looked at Reese like she was made of steel and smoke.

Training continued—but an earthquake was rumbling under the surface. The power dynamic Morrison had controlled since Day One was fracturing. His authority—his identity—was cracking.

And nothing threatened a man like Morrison more than someone he couldn’t intimidate.

By the time they reached the rope climb, his jaw was clenched so tight Reese thought his molars might turn to powder.

“All right, princess,” Morrison snapped, stepping inches from her face.

“You think you’re special? Prove it.”

He pointed to a rope—the tallest. The thickest. The one recruits rarely attempted.

“Climb it. No legs. All arms. Fastest time gets chow first. Slowest repeats the entire course.”

Reese raised an eyebrow.

“You want me to go first again?” she asked.

“No,” Morrison growled. “I want you to fail.”

A few recruits winced.

Morrison finally said the quiet part out loud.

Reese nodded once. “Okay.”

She grabbed the rope.

And began to climb.

No.
Not climb.
Ascend.

Her arms pulled with coiled precision, her body gliding upward like she’d been born in the rafters of a circus tent. Every movement was smooth, controlled, almost hypnotic.

Halfway up, she paused—only her fingertips touching the rope.

Then, with casual ease, she lifted one hand, dangling fifty feet above the ground by three fingers.

A recruit screamed.

Even Morrison took a step back.

Reese finished the climb, tapped the beam at the top, and slid down—controlled, silent, perfect.

She didn’t gloat.
She didn’t smirk.
She simply stepped aside, as if what she’d done wasn’t physically impossible.

But Morrison snapped.

“YOU THINK THIS MAKES YOU BETTER THAN ME?” he roared.

Reese turned slowly. “I don’t think about you at all.”

A lethal silence fell.

The other recruits froze.

Morrison’s face twisted with pure hatred.

That was when he made his fatal mistake.

He reached forward—

and shoved her.

Hard.

A collective gasp ripped through the platoon.

Reese stumbled back a single step… then stopped.

Her eyes lifted.

Calm.

Cold.

Inhumanly still.

Every recruit felt a chill slither down their spine. Even the wind stalled.

They were seeing it—the thing they weren’t supposed to see.

Not a sergeant.
Not a woman.
Not a soldier.

But the predator beneath the uniform.

The one with the spearhead tattoo and the “1.”

The ghost from files hidden behind layers of TSSCI access.

The one who’d done more missions than Morrison had done push-ups.

Reese stepped forward.

“Staff Sergeant,” she said quietly,

“touch me again.”

Morrison opened his mouth to retort—but something behind Reese shifted.

Three shadows moved out from the treeline.

Black SUVs rolled up the dirt road.

A man in a suit stepped out—helmet haircut, dark sunglasses, no name tag.

Recruits whispered fearfully.

Morrison paled.

Reese sighed.

Of course.

The man in the suit approached her directly.

“Ma’am,” he said with crisp precision. “Your presence is requested immediately.”

Morrison’s eyes bulged.

“Ma’am? She’s a sergeant! What the hell—”

The agent turned slowly.

“That information is not accurate.”

Reese pinched the bridge of her nose.
“So much for a quiet reentry.”

The man handed her a sealed folder.

She opened it.

Read.

Closed it.

Her jaw tightened.

“Fine,” she said. “Tell command I’m coming.”

She turned to Morrison, who looked like his entire worldview had just been set on fire.

“Congratulations,” Reese said softly.
“You survived me being polite.”

She stepped past him and climbed into the SUV.

The door shut.

Engines roared.

And just like that—

Reese Conincaid vanished again.

Not as a sergeant.
Not as a recruit.
But as what she truly was.

1st Special Forces Operational Detachment–Delta.
Tier One.
Task Force Spike.
Asset codename: WRAITH.

And somewhere far from Fort Moore…

A crisis waited.

One only she could handle.