And above the photo, stamped in bold letters across the page, were three words. Three words that made my knees go weak. “She isn’t a mechanic,” I whispered. The room leaned closer. I looked up at Jade. My voice barely worked. “She’s…”
“…the Ghost of Karsk.”
The words leave my mouth before I can stop them.
The reaction is immediate.
Martinez inhales sharply. Collins frowns, confused. The Quartermaster’s face drains of color as if every drop of blood has suddenly fled his body.
No one laughs now.
Everyone in this room has heard that name.
Some say she wiped out an entire insurgent battalion alone. Others say she infiltrated enemy command posts like a shadow and left nothing but silence behind her.
But the official reports always end the same way.
KIA.
Dead.
Buried in a classified archive somewhere under layers of secrecy.
And yet she is standing here.
In mechanic coveralls.
Holding a mop bucket.
Collins finally finds his voice.
“That’s… that’s impossible,” he mutters. “The Ghost of Karsk isn’t even confirmed to exist.”
Gerald slowly turns his head toward him.
“Oh, she exists,” the general says quietly.
Then he nods toward the folder.
“Page four.”
My hands shake slightly as I flip through the pages.
Photos.
After-action reports.
Satellite imagery.
Then I see the body count.
Thirty-one.
Forty-six.
Seventy-two.
The numbers climb until the last mission report appears.
Operation Nightfall.
Status: Unit lost.
Casualties: Total.
Survivors: None.
Except apparently that wasn’t true.
I slowly look up again.
Jade hasn’t moved.
She stands there with her arms relaxed at her sides, her expression unreadable.
But now that I know what I’m looking at… everything about her is different.
The way she stands.
The stillness.
Like a coiled spring that hasn’t decided yet if it needs to snap.
Collins shifts uneasily.
“So what?” he says, trying to recover his confidence. “Maybe she was good once. But that was years ago.”
He gestures toward her coveralls.
“Right now she’s just a janitor.”
For the first time, Jade speaks again.
“I’m not a janitor.”
Her voice is calm.
Flat.
“I’m retired.”
The word hangs in the air like a strange joke.
Gerald lets out a quiet breath.
“You disappeared after Nightfall,” he says. “We searched for months.”
Jade shrugs slightly.
“You should’ve searched quieter.”
A few soldiers exchange uncertain looks.
The tension in the room thickens.
Then Collins crosses his arms.
“Well if she’s so legendary,” he says, “why is she hiding here mopping floors instead of saving the world?”
Jade finally looks directly at him.
And for the first time I see something move behind her eyes.
Pain.
Just a flicker.
But it’s there.
“I’m done saving the world,” she says.
Gerald studies her face.
“You wouldn’t be asking for the Black Talon if that were true.”
Silence falls again.
The Quartermaster slowly regains enough courage to speak.
“Sir… the Black Talon is restricted for a reason,” he says nervously. “It’s not just a rifle. The targeting system alone—”
“I know exactly what it is,” Gerald interrupts.
He turns back to Jade.
“Who’s hunting you?”
The question lands like a dropped grenade.
Jade doesn’t answer immediately.
For a moment, I think she won’t answer at all.
Then she says something that makes every hair on my arms stand up.
“They found me.”
Collins scoffs.
“Who found you?”
Jade looks past him.
Toward the door.
“The ones who survived.”
The room goes still again.
Gerald’s jaw tightens.
“That’s not possible,” he says.
“They’re supposed to be dead.”
Jade’s expression darkens.
“They were.”
The hallway outside suddenly echoes with distant footsteps.
Heavy.
Fast.
Everyone in the armory hears it.
A soldier near the door frowns.
“Sir… we weren’t expecting anyone else on base today.”
Gerald’s eyes flick toward the entrance.
Then back to Jade.
“How long?”
“Two minutes,” she replies calmly.
Collins laughs again, but this time it sounds forced.
“You’re telling us some ghost army is about to storm a secured military base?”
Jade tilts her head slightly.
“Yes.”
Right on cue, the lights flicker.
Just once.
But it’s enough.
The Quartermaster’s face goes pale again.
“That… that’s connected to the external power grid,” he whispers.
Gerald moves instantly.
“Lock the doors,” he orders.
The soldier near the entrance slams the heavy metal security lever.
The armory doors seal with a loud hydraulic thud.
The footsteps outside stop.
Complete silence fills the hallway.
Then—
Three slow knocks.
Not loud.
Just deliberate.
Everyone stares at the door.
Collins whispers, “Who the hell knocks during a raid?”
Jade answers without looking away from the entrance.
“Professionals.”
Gerald turns to the Quartermaster.
“The rifle. Now.”
The Quartermaster runs to the back vault.
His hands tremble as he punches the code.
Inside the steel chamber sits a long black case.
He opens it.
The weapon inside looks like something from another decade of warfare.
Matte black.
Angular.
Silent.
He carries it out carefully.
The entire room watches as he places the case in front of Jade.
She opens it slowly.
Her fingers run across the rifle with a familiarity that feels almost intimate.
Then she lifts it.
The weapon looks heavy enough to break a normal person’s arm.
But Jade handles it like it weighs nothing.
She checks the chamber.
Adjusts the targeting scope.
Then she looks at Gerald.
“How many soldiers do you have on base?”
“Thirty-seven,” Gerald answers immediately.
Jade nods.
“That should buy us time.”
The soldiers around the room exchange worried glances.
Collins tries to laugh again.
“Buy us time for what?”
Jade finally looks at him again.
“For me to finish what Nightfall started.”
The door explodes inward before anyone can ask another question.
The blast sends metal fragments flying across the room.
Two soldiers are knocked backward instantly.
Through the smoke, figures move.
Fast.
Silent.
Black tactical armor.
Masks.
For a brief second I think they look like Jade in the photo from the folder.
Then the first shot fires.
One of the attackers drops before his boot even hits the floor.
Jade doesn’t move.
She’s already firing again.
The Black Talon lets out a deep, suppressed crack.
Another attacker collapses.
The remaining intruders scatter with terrifying speed.
They move like trained predators.
But Jade moves faster.
Three shots.
Three bodies.
The entire exchange lasts maybe five seconds.
Then the room goes silent again.
Smoke drifts through the broken doorway.
Collins stares at the bodies on the floor.
His mouth hangs open.
“What… what the hell were those guys?”
Jade lowers the rifle slowly.
Her face hardens.
“They were my team.”
A chill spreads through the room.
Gerald steps forward.
“I thought Nightfall wiped them out.”
Jade shakes her head slightly.
“No.”
She looks down at one of the masked soldiers.
Then she kneels beside the body and pulls off the helmet.
The man underneath looks young.
Too young.
His eyes stare blankly at the ceiling.
Jade studies his face.
Then she whispers something so quietly I almost don’t hear it.
“They’re not soldiers anymore.”
Gerald crouches beside her.
“What happened to them?”
Jade stands slowly.
“They were captured.”
She glances toward the hallway.
“And someone turned them into something else.”
As if answering her words, another sound echoes from outside.
Not footsteps.
Something heavier.
Mechanical.
Metal grinding against concrete.
The soldiers inside the armory instinctively raise their weapons.
Collins swallows hard.
“What now?”
Jade checks the rifle again.
Her voice stays calm.
“Now the real problem arrives.”
The massive silhouette appears in the smoke-filled hallway.
At first I think it’s a machine.
Then it steps forward.
A man.
But barely.
Black cybernetic plating covers most of his body.
One eye glows faint red through a cracked visor.
Gerald breathes one name.
“Reyes…”
The figure stops at the threshold.
The glowing eye shifts toward Jade.
For a moment neither of them speaks.
Then the armored man’s voice crackles through a distorted speaker.
“Hello, Ghost.”
Jade’s grip tightens slightly on the rifle.
“I buried you.”
Reyes tilts his head.
“Yes.”
A mechanical smile creeps across the metal plating of his jaw.
“But death didn’t stick.”
The soldiers around us shift nervously.
Even Gerald looks uncertain now.
Reyes takes another step into the armory.
The floor vibrates under his weight.
“You left us behind,” he continues. “The entire unit.”
Jade’s eyes flash.
“I came back.”
“Too late.”
His red eye brightens.
“They rebuilt us.”
Collins whispers, “Rebuilt…?”
Reyes raises one cybernetic arm.
The metal fingers flex with quiet power.
“Better.”
Suddenly he moves.
Faster than something that size should be able to move.
Jade fires.
The Black Talon roars.
The shot slams into Reyes’s chest—
—and sparks explode off reinforced armor.
He barely slows down.
Several soldiers open fire.
Bullets ricochet off his plating.
Reyes swings one arm.
A heavy steel crate flies across the room like it weighs nothing.
It smashes into the wall inches from my head.
Chaos erupts.
But Jade doesn’t panic.
She backs up slowly, calculating.
Watching him.
Waiting.
Reyes stops again a few feet away.
“You should have stayed dead,” he says.
Jade’s expression changes.
For the first time since this started… she smiles.
It’s small.
But confident.
“You first.”
She reaches into the rifle case and pulls out something none of us noticed before.
A small cylindrical device.
Gerald’s eyes widen.
“Jade… that’s experimental—”
She throws it.
The device hits the floor beside Reyes.
For one second nothing happens.
Then the cylinder erupts with a high-pitched electromagnetic pulse.
Reyes staggers.
His glowing eye flickers violently.
Jade raises the Black Talon.
This time she doesn’t aim at his chest.
She aims at the small exposed seam behind his jaw.
The rifle cracks once.
Reyes freezes.
The red eye goes dark.
Then the giant armored body collapses onto the concrete floor with a deafening crash.
Silence floods the armory again.
No one moves.
No one speaks.
Finally Collins exhales slowly.
“Remind me… never to make you mop floors again.”
Jade lowers the rifle.
Her shoulders sag slightly for the first time.
Gerald studies the fallen cyborg.
Then he looks back at her.
“You knew he’d survive the first shot.”
Jade nods.
“I trained him.”
The soldiers stare at her.
Gerald asks quietly, “So what now?”
Jade looks toward the open hallway.
Somewhere outside, distant alarms finally begin to sound.
Then she sets the Black Talon gently on the table.
Her voice softens.
“Now I disappear again.”
Collins blinks.
“That’s it? You just save the base and vanish?”
Jade pulls off the mechanic gloves she’s been wearing.
“They didn’t find me because I was hiding.”
She glances at the bodies.
“They found me because I came out.”
Gerald studies her carefully.
“You baited them.”
Jade nods once.
“They were hunting civilians near the border. I couldn’t let that continue.”
A long silence follows.
Then Gerald slowly salutes her.
Not as a superior officer.
But as an equal.
“Good hunting, Ghost.”
Jade gives a faint nod in return.
Then she walks toward the exit.
Past the broken door.
Past the stunned soldiers.
And just before she disappears down the hallway, she says one last quiet sentence.
“Try not to lose the next war without me.”
