Like an old file dragged out of a vault. Like a war that never ended. The cadets hold their breath as he walks toward her, each step an unspoken correction to everything this base got wrong. He stops. Right in front of her. The air? Gone. And then, in a voice low and loaded like distant thunder, he says…“Iron Wolf, report.”

Gasps scratch through the room. Maddox chokes on his smirk. Emily doesn’t move. Not a twitch. She only nods once, then steps forward, heels like gunshots against the concrete floor.

“Sir,” she says.

And just like that, the room forgets how to breathe.

Remington turns to the others, slow, deliberate. “You’re all here to learn how to lead. But leadership’s not medals or barking orders—it’s surviving the kind of hell that follows you home. Carson here? She’s been to that hell. She walked out. And she brought people with her.”

No one speaks. No one dares. Even Maddox lowers his gaze.

Emily stands at attention, still as stone. Her eyes betray nothing. But inside, her pulse hums like a live wire.

Remington’s voice drops, steel in velvet. “Effective immediately, Sergeant Emily Carson is reassigned as Tactical Adjutant for Ironridge Command Evaluation Group. She will observe, assess, and, when necessary—correct.”

A few cadets shift uncomfortably. Maddox? He scoffs under his breath.

Remington hears it. “Got something to add, Lieutenant?”

Maddox straightens. “Sir, I just don’t see how a—”

“You don’t need to see,” Remington cuts in. “You need to listen. You’re not here to like the chain of command. You’re here to survive it.”

The room shivers with silence.

Remington gives Emily a subtle nod. Then turns and walks out without another word, leaving behind a trail of stunned faces and shaken egos.

Emily doesn’t look at anyone. She simply returns to her place at the back—where shadows sharpen and weakness gets smothered.

That night, the base feels different. Tighter. Alert. A message arrives on Emily’s secure channel—again, no sender. This one reads:

“Door unlocked. 0400. Storage Bay Echo-3.”

She memorizes it. Then deletes it. No hesitation.

By 0355, she’s already there. The bay is empty. Quiet. Lit by a flickering overhead bulb like a nervous eye. She steps inside, breath controlled, back straight.

The door hisses shut behind her.

“Still sharp,” says a voice. Low. Familiar.

Out of the shadows steps a woman—gray braid, lean build, one eye clouded by scar tissue. Commander Alya Sand, codename: Vulture. Disavowed years ago. Presumed dead.

Emily doesn’t flinch. “You’re late.”

A smirk. “You’re early.”

They meet halfway, like ghosts crossing paths.

“Remington called me in,” Emily says, voice low. “You?”

“Didn’t wait for an invite,” Alya replies. “The feed glitch? That wasn’t a test. It was a trace. Something’s piggybacking on base surveillance—masking in training sim data. Whatever it is, it’s smart. And it’s watching.”

Emily processes this. “Any leaks?”

“Not yet. But one more blink and they’ll own this place.”

Emily nods slowly. “Then we shut the eyes before it blinks again.”

They get to work. Silent, methodical. In another life, they were fire and ice—blazing raids, clean extractions. But that was then. Now, it’s personal.

By dawn, Alya’s gone. Vanished like fog. And Emily? She’s back in the training hall, clipboard in hand, expression unreadable.

Cadets whisper as she walks by. Maddox stares, jaw tight. She ignores him. Observes. Evaluates. Takes notes no one sees.

Later, she’s summoned to Remington’s office. He doesn’t look up when she enters.

“Report.”

“System’s compromised,” she says. “Code ghost is tunneling through AI target sim layers. Masking patterns suggest external feed, possibly offsite. We’re dealing with someone who knows our blind spots.”

Remington leans back. “Can it be isolated?”

“Maybe. But not without tripping it.”

He nods. “Trip it.”

She doesn’t blink. “I’ll need a burner sim. Manual override clearance. And Maddox.”

Remington’s eyebrow lifts. “Why him?”

Emily’s eyes narrow. “Because he thinks this is about rank.”

Remington smiles. “Approved.”

That night, she finds Maddox in the barracks lounge, surrounded by hangers-on.

“We’re running a test sim,” she tells him. “You’re lead. Report at 2200. Echo Hall.”

He scoffs. “Why me?”

“Because you said I don’t belong,” she replies coolly. “Time to prove it.”

At 2200, Echo Hall is blacked out. Only manual lights and the pulse of generator hum fill the space. Maddox steps in, cocky. Then stops. Something’s off. The sim is live—but there’s no data on the walls. Just static.

“Where’s the scenario?” he asks.

Emily appears from the shadows. “We are the scenario.”

She throws him a headset. “Put it on.”

He hesitates. Then obeys.

The moment it activates, everything shifts. The walls fade into a simulation of a burned-out city—ruins, smoke, distant screams. Maddox spins. “What the hell is this?”

“A real memory,” Emily says, her voice in his ear. “Ironclad, Sector 9. Three years ago. Classified evac op. You’re me now.”

Suddenly, Maddox hears gunfire. Sees civilians running. An injured child screaming. A soldier—his face—panicked.

“Move them!” a voice yells. “Now!”

Maddox stumbles. “This isn’t training—”

“No,” she says. “This is what happens when leadership fails.”

The scene freezes.

A new voice cuts in. Mechanical. Wrong.

“Welcome, Emily.”

The simulation shutters, glitches, then spirals into code static.

“Found you.”

Emily yanks her tablet, fingers flying.

“It’s here,” she mutters. “It piggybacked on the sim feed. It’s talking to me.”

Maddox looks pale. “What the hell is that?”

“A ghost,” she says. “But ghosts don’t taunt you. People do.”

Suddenly, the system flares—projecting a new figure onto the sim wall. A face. Blurred, digital. Smiling.

“Iron Wolf. Still loyal. Still predictable.”

Emily’s jaw tightens. “Trace it.”

She sends the command. Sparks burst from the console. The feed dies.

Remington’s voice bursts through comms. “Carson, what happened?”

She answers calmly. “They know we’re listening. They’re accelerating.”

Remington’s pause crackles with tension. “Then accelerate faster.”

Within the hour, all base systems are under lockdown. Power rerouted. AI feeds severed. Maddox, now stripped of swagger, works beside Emily, watching her type like she’s playing chess against a phantom.

“You’re not just a medic,” he says finally.

She doesn’t stop typing. “No. I never was.”

By morning, they isolate the signal source: an abandoned relay drone just outside the perimeter. Emily volunteers for retrieval.

Remington objects. “Too dangerous.”

She meets his eyes. “I’ve lived worse.”

Alya intercepts her outside the gate. “You sure about this?”

Emily cocks a brow. “You didn’t come back from the dead to babysit me.”

A smirk. “Fair enough.”

They move fast—covering brush and rock under the hush of pre-dawn light. The drone waits, half-buried, blinking.

Emily kneels. Opens the panel. Inside: a drive. Flashing.

“Here’s our ghost,” she murmurs.

She disconnects it—then everything goes still. Too still.

Then the shot comes.

Dirt explodes near her boot.

“Sniper!” Alya shouts, dragging Emily behind cover. Gunfire rains from the tree line.

“We’ve got company!” Emily barks into her comms.

Base scrambles to respond, but Emily’s already pulling her sidearm, eyes scanning the ridge. Then she sees him—black gear, mask, rifle. A single red dot where an eye should be.

She fires. Misses. He vanishes.

Remington’s voice booms: “Evac inbound. Hold position.”

“Negative,” Emily says. “He’s not running. He’s herding.”

She turns to Alya. “He wants us to lead him in.”

Alya swears. “It’s a trap.”

Emily smiles coldly. “Good.”

They fall back—fast and messy, just enough to sell panic. The sniper follows, exactly as predicted. The moment he crosses the perimeter line, alarms scream.

Steel doors slam. Traps engage. From the control tower, Remington watches the target vanish into containment smoke.

“Got him,” Emily says, breathless, victorious.

Later, as the base resets, Remington studies the decrypted drive. His expression hardens.

“What is it?” Maddox asks quietly.

Emily steps beside him. “A map.”

“To what?”

She looks out the window. “To the next war.”

Remington nods. “Then let’s make damn sure we’re ready for it.”

Emily turns back to the cadets. This time, no one questions why she’s there. They don’t whisper. They don’t laugh.

They watch.

They listen.

Because when Iron Wolf stands by—everyone else follows.