The room went still.

Every soldier who had been around long enough knew that name — Task Force ECHO.
A ghost unit. Unofficial. Off-record. The kind of team that operated in places that didn’t officially exist, doing things no one would ever admit had been done.

Even the air in the room seemed to tighten.

Lieutenant Mercer’s smirk faltered, replaced by a flicker of uncertainty. “You’re saying you’re with—”

“I was,” Riley said, her tone clipped, professional. “ECHO was disbanded last year. But that’s not relevant to why I’m here.”

The room remained silent, a dozen eyes fixed on her.
Colonel Davis, the commanding officer, leaned forward, steepling his fingers. “Captain Hart,” he said slowly, “if you were part of that unit, you’ve got experience none of us have. You’re cleared to advise us on Red Ridge. Continue.”

Riley opened the folder she’d placed on the table. Inside were satellite images, topographic overlays, and coded notations. She spoke evenly, her voice carrying quiet authority.

“The terrain around Red Ridge is unstable. It’s not just high ground — it’s fractured shale. The enemy knows this. They’ll use it to their advantage. If you deploy armor through sector Bravo, you’ll lose half your vehicles to landslides before you even reach the ridge.”

A few of the officers exchanged skeptical looks, but no one interrupted this time.

Mercer folded his arms. “And your recommendation?”

Riley’s eyes flicked up from the folder. “You don’t go through Bravo. You go under it.”

A murmur rippled through the room.

“Under?” the Colonel echoed.

“There’s an abandoned mining tunnel system that runs beneath the ridge,” Riley continued. “Old cobalt operations from the fifties. Unstable, yes — but navigable for an infantry unit. If you get in quietly, you can flank their artillery positions before they even know you’re there.”

The Colonel studied her for a long moment. “You’ve been there.”

Riley didn’t answer immediately. Her gaze drifted — not out of hesitation, but memory. “Yes,” she said finally. “We were there. Two years ago.”

And then, the ghosts began to whisper.

That night, as the rest of the base went dark, Riley sat alone in the briefing room. The projector hummed softly, casting pale light across the maps and her face.
She traced the ridge line with a gloved finger, her thoughts miles away — somewhere deep in those tunnels, where it had all gone wrong.

ECHO-6.
The callsign still echoed in her mind.

They’d been sent in under blackout orders — no comms, no backup, no extraction window. A hostage recovery, they’d been told. Simple in, simple out.

But nothing was simple in Red Ridge.

The tunnels had collapsed behind them halfway through the mission. The air grew thin. The enemy wasn’t supposed to be there — but they were, and they were waiting.

Riley could still hear the static of her comms, the last message from her CO:
“ECHO-6, fall back. Do not engage. Repeat, do not—”
Then the line went dead.

She never told anyone what happened after that.
Not the gunfire. Not the screams.
Not how she was the only one who made it out.

A voice pulled her from the memory.

“You’re not sleeping either, huh?”

Mercer stood in the doorway, holding two paper cups of coffee. He looked different now — less smug, more human. He handed her one cup, then took the seat across from her.

“Didn’t mean to step on your toes earlier,” he said. “Didn’t know who you were.”

“You weren’t supposed to,” Riley replied quietly.

He hesitated, studying her. “Task Force ECHO. That was real?”

Riley met his gaze. “Does it matter?”

“Yeah,” Mercer said after a beat. “Because if what people say about them is true, then you’ve seen things most of us never will.”

Riley took a sip of coffee, the bitterness grounding her. “You don’t want to see the things I’ve seen, Lieutenant.”

They sat in silence for a while. Outside, the wind howled across the training fields. Somewhere in the distance, a generator coughed, then fell silent.

Mercer leaned forward. “You think this operation’s going to go south?”

Riley exhaled. “Every operation goes south if you assume you’re in control.”

He frowned. “That’s… bleak.”

“It’s reality,” she said. “Control is an illusion. Preparation is what keeps people alive.”

Mercer nodded slowly. “And you’re here to keep us alive.”

She didn’t answer.

Two days later, the unit deployed to Red Ridge.

The convoy crawled through the forested foothills, engines muffled under camouflage netting. The November air bit cold against exposed skin, and a low mist clung to the ground like smoke.

Riley rode in the lead Humvee, eyes fixed on the horizon.
She’d seen this route before — once through the lens of a night-vision scope, once through a haze of dust and blood.

The Colonel’s voice crackled through the radio. “Hart, confirm coordinates.”

“Confirmed,” she replied. “Tunnels are one hundred meters east of the marked waypoint.”

They parked and dismounted. Mercer joined her at the tunnel entrance — a jagged maw in the rock, reinforced with rusting beams. He swept his flashlight inside. “Looks like hell.”

Riley shouldered her rifle. “That’s about right.”

They moved in.

The air grew thick the deeper they went.
Dust danced in the flashlight beams, and every footstep echoed like a drumbeat. The tunnels twisted and narrowed until even the air felt heavy.

“Smells like oil and death,” Mercer muttered.

“Don’t romanticize it,” Riley said flatly.

They advanced for nearly half an hour before reaching a junction — one passage collapsing into rubble, another sloping deeper underground. Riley checked her map.

“This is where ECHO lost contact,” she said quietly.

Mercer glanced at her. “You mean where you lost them.”

Riley didn’t reply. She didn’t need to.

The air carried something else now — a faint metallic tang, the scent of old blood and rust. Her pulse quickened. Memories flashed behind her eyes: the blast, the chaos, the faces of her team fading into smoke.

She steadied her breathing. “Left tunnel. Keep your comms tight.”

They moved forward.

The first sign of trouble came fifteen minutes later.
Movement. Shadows that didn’t belong. Mercer froze, raising a fist. Riley swept her rifle to the side tunnel — nothing but rock and darkness.

“Thermal’s picking something up,” one of the sergeants whispered.

“Could be heat pockets,” Mercer said.

Riley shook her head. “No. Too regular. Someone’s here.”

A distant sound echoed — metal scraping against stone.
Then another.

Riley’s stomach dropped. “Back! Now!”

But the warning came too late. A blast tore through the tunnel wall, throwing everyone to the ground. The lights flickered, then went out completely.

Screams. Gunfire. Chaos.

Riley’s ears rang as she crawled toward the wall, gripping her rifle. Through the haze of dust, she saw silhouettes — not her men. Too fast, too silent.

“Contact left!” Mercer shouted.

“Fall back!” Riley barked. “Go, go, go!”

They scrambled through the narrow passage as bullets sparked off the rock. Riley turned, covering the rear, returning fire into the dark. Something — someone — moved through the smoke, a shape she almost recognized.

No. It couldn’t be.

Her finger froze on the trigger.
The silhouette stepped into the dim light, face half-covered by a scarf, gear unmarked. But the eyes— she knew those eyes.

“Price?” she whispered.

Her former second-in-command.
Killed in action at Red Ridge. Two years ago.

He didn’t speak. Didn’t even blink.
Just raised his weapon.

The blast hit her square in the chest plate, throwing her back into the dirt.

When she came to, the tunnel was silent. The rest of the team was gone.

Smoke hung thick in the air. Her radio hissed static.

“Mercer—do you copy?”
Nothing.

“Colonel, this is Hart, we’re compromised, I repeat—”

A crackle, then a voice:
“Captain… we have multiple signals… your unit’s not showing up on radar.”

Riley pushed herself up, pain radiating through her ribs. “What do you mean, not showing up?”

“Like they’re not there, ma’am.”

She looked around — shattered helmets, bootprints in the dust, and then… nothing. No bodies. No blood. Just empty space where men should have been.

Her flashlight caught something carved into the tunnel wall.
A mark. Familiar.
The insignia of Task Force ECHO.

Freshly scratched.

Her heart pounded. “That’s not possible…”

The radio crackled again, distorted.
“…Echo… online…”
The voice wasn’t the Colonel’s.
It was Price.

Hours passed. Or maybe minutes — time had no meaning in the dark.

Riley limped deeper into the tunnels, following faint footprints. She kept hearing whispers — her name, her rank, old call signs. Echoes of people who shouldn’t exist.

At last, she reached a cavern. The walls were lined with crates, flickering lights powered by makeshift generators.
A camp. Hidden. Active.

And in the center, standing beside a tactical console, was Price.

He looked older. Harder. But very much alive.

“You shouldn’t have come back,” he said.

Riley raised her rifle. “You’re supposed to be dead.”

He smiled faintly. “We all are.”

She stared at him, mind racing. “What is this? What did you do?”

“ECHO didn’t die, Riley,” he said. “We were abandoned. Written off. So we built our own command. No politics, no oversight — just the mission.”

“The mission?” she echoed. “Killing your own men?”

He tilted his head. “No. Saving them. From them.”
He gestured upward, toward the world above. “The brass. The media. The ones who sell wars like products.”

Riley’s hands trembled slightly on her rifle. “You think this justifies everything?”

“I think truth does,” Price said. “And you came here for it.”

Her breath caught.
Maybe he was right. Maybe she had come looking for something — not just tactical advice, but closure. Proof that ECHO wasn’t a ghost story.

But the way Price looked at her — it wasn’t as an ally. It was as a loose end.

She saw his hand twitch toward his weapon. Reflex took over.
One shot.
Then silence.

Price fell, eyes open but empty. The console behind him sparked, screens flashing red.
SYSTEM OVERRIDE: ECHO PROTOCOL REACTIVATED

Riley backed away, the lights flickering around her. On the monitors, feeds appeared — satellite imagery, troop movements, classified operations. All under one label: ECHO NETWORK ONLINE.

The radio on her shoulder hissed again.
“Captain Hart… come in. We’ve lost contact with your unit. What’s your status?”

Riley stared at the glowing screens, her pulse hammering.

She pressed the transmit button.
“This is Hart,” she said softly.
Then she paused, eyes narrowing as the symbol on the screen pulsed in rhythm with her own heartbeat.

“Correction,” she said, voice calm, steady.
“This is ECHO-6. Mission continues.”

The transmission cut to static.

Above ground, the dawn broke cold and silent over Red Ridge.
And somewhere in the dark below, Task Force ECHO breathed again.

[End]