JONAH The red dot in my vision was the only thing that gave the drone away. My visor painted its electromagnetic leak for me. Without that, the thing was a ghost. No shape. No heat signature. Nothing. That was what bothered me. How fast they were learning. A few days ago they were just standard flying cameras. Now they were experimenting. Changing color. Soaking up radar. Hiding their heat. Our enemy was clever. They used what they had. My jaw ached from clenching it. My Marine unit hadn't been given a chance to hit back. Our orders were absolute. Observe. Collect data on mission-critical infrastructure. Wait. Understand the enemy before you try to defeat them. We never saw this coming. The intelligence failure was total. I knew that.It just stuck in my gut because it was my area. I was the Executive Officer. Intelligence was my duty. In my head, I knew the failure belonged to people above me. People who never saw the campaign coming. But the guilt sat with me anyway. Out there, the rest of the armed forces were in a desperate fight. They were dying to hold key assets for the nation. And here I was with my unit. Skulking in the shadows. Doing everything possible not to join the battle. I didn't know what the right feeling was. What was clear was that the country was split. A flood of lies did that. I had seen it too many times now. Local police and armed citizens turning on each other. Or launching sudden, brutal attacks on our soldiers.Each time, I had to force myself to be still. To not send my reconnaissance team in. The first times were the worst. Then the pattern showed itself. That was the point. To make units like mine react. To burn us out. To load us down with wounded. That's when the main force would find us. We hadn't met their humanoid combat drones face to face. But we had seen the aftermath. Their shattered metal limbs tangled with our dead in uniform. That was how I knew. My commander and the NSA Director knew what they were doing. Their order to avoid contact was the right one. "Is it gone? We need to leave." The older man's voice grated against my nerves. I didn't reply. I watched the red dot until it faded from the edge of my sensor display.Only then did I turn. My helmet visor hovered close to the side of his head. "If you give our location away again, I'll kill you myself." He flinched. His eyes got very wide. "You wouldn't. I'm...." "Too important?" I said, cutting him off. He nodded, his throat working. He couldn't see my face, but I curled my lip inside the helmet. "You put my men at risk again, and I don't care if you're the President. I'll do it." "Your commander wouldn't allow it," the pathologist stammered. I turned my head, scanning the tree line once more. A dry, quiet sound that was almost a laugh came from me. "Soldiers are just as vital to the plan as men like you. For once, the guys on the ground matter as much as the brains." I looked back at him and thumped his shoulder with my gloved hand. The force was a little too friendly. "Besides, you're not the first pathologist we've pulled out of this mess." My tone was too light. It didn't match the words. I looked down, bringing up the comms link in my visor. I connected to my second in command for the recon team. Lieutenant Hannon. He was a good officer, usually in charge. But this was a high-priority grab. Colonel Kellen sent me along. Two reasons. To make sure we got the high-value personnel. And to have an experienced set of eyes out here. Someone who could look at all the little pieces of data and see the picture they made. A young lieutenant, or even a sergeant with fifteen years, could miss the connections. Colonel Kellen needed his executive officer to be his eyes and ears. Without what I saw out here, his analysis of this chaos would be incomplete."Hannon. Are we clear to move?" I used the low-power burst transmission. The limited AI in my suit used our passive sensors to find the team. If it couldn't reach Hannon directly, it would hop the signal through the next closest member, and then the next, until it got to him. His voice came back, crisp in my ear. "Yes, sir. Drone is beyond effective range. All green."