Lieutenant Colonel Marina Locke had been invisible for nearly two years—by choice, not by failure. At Forward Operating Base Sentinel, she was known simply as “Locke,” the quiet armory technician who cleaned weapons, calibrated systems, and kept mostly to herself. Nobody asked about her past. Nobody cared.

She preferred it that way.

On a scorching afternoon, she knelt beneath an AH-64 Apache, wiping carbon residue from the 30mm M230 chain gun. Her movements were precise, almost surgical—far too skilled for a mere technician. But the base dismissed her competence as quirks of a perfectionist.

Then Major Rowan Hale, the Apache’s pilot, stepped into the hangar.

He greeted her casually at first—until his eyes fell on the small, worn patch on her sleeve: a black talon gripping a lightning bolt. The insignia of a unit that no longer existed.

“Where did you get that?” Rowan asked, voice tightening.

Marina froze for the first time in months. She had worn the patch intentionally today—a calculated move. Slowly, she looked up.

“This patch?” she said quietly. “It’s mine.”

Rowan stepped closer, disbelief washing over him. “No. That can’t be. The Eagle Talon Division was wiped out in Samurand. Five years ago. There were no survivors.”

Marina held his stare. “There was one.”

Word spread across the base within hours. Senior officers whispered. Veterans exchanged haunted looks. A survivor of Eagle Talon—one of the most classified, elite special operations units ever formed—had been working among them unnoticed.

That night, Rowan confronted her again, demanding the truth.

So she gave it to him.

Her team hadn’t been killed by insurgents. They had been betrayed—sold out by someone inside the U.S. military who leaked their location to a private military corporation called Iron Dominion, a shadow contractor with connections in procurement and intelligence circles. The attack had been surgical, overwhelming, and deliberate.

Marina barely survived.

For two years, she had operated undercover, gathering evidence. At Sentinel, she had quietly modified the Apache’s Hawkeye targeting suite into a covert SIGINT interceptor capable of decrypting Iron Dominion’s encrypted comms.

And she had finally captured something: hard proof linking the corporation to military insiders.

Rowan exhaled. “If what you found is real… someone will kill to bury it.”

“They already tried,” Marina replied. “And they’ll try again.”

Suddenly, an explosion rocked the base—brief, controlled, and unmistakably tactical. Sirens blared. Marines sprinted across the tarmac.

Rowan grabbed Marina’s arm. “They’re here. Iron Dominion—they’re attacking Sentinel.”

Marina turned toward the hangar doors as shadows moved beyond the fence line.

Her voice was icy calm.

“They came for the intel. But they forgot what happens when you corner a Talon.”

But how had Iron Dominion found her?
And who inside Sentinel betrayed her location?

PART 2 

The initial blast had targeted Sentinel’s communications array—a precision strike designed to sever the base from outside support. The alarms were still echoing when Rowan pulled Marina behind a row of tool cabinets.

“Locke—Marina—what do they want first?” he demanded.

She didn’t hesitate. “My drive. It contains the intercept logs. They can’t let it leave this base.”

Another explosion rumbled near the vehicle depot. The attackers were methodical, not reckless. Iron Dominion wasn’t a ragtag militia—it was a mercenary force trained by former military specialists who knew how U.S. bases responded under pressure.

Marina reached under her bench, retrieving a compact tactical bag she had kept hidden for months. Inside were items no technician should have: a suppressed sidearm, encrypted data keys, and a hardened drive containing the decrypted communications she’d spent two years collecting.

Rowan stared. “You really were undercover.”

“Still am.” She zipped the bag and slung it over her shoulder. “But tonight it ends.”

Before Rowan could reply, gunfire crackled from the outer perimeter. Marines and Dominion mercenaries exchanged fire in the shadows of the fencing lines. Sentinel’s quick reaction force rushed to their positions, but the mercenaries had already breached the northern gate.

“We have to move,” Marina said. “If they reach the hangars—”

“They’ll destroy the Apache,” Rowan finished. “And your modifications with it.”

They sprinted through the hangar as Dominion fighters advanced. Marina tapped a concealed panel on the Apache’s fuselage. A small compartment opened, revealing a custom processing board wired into the Hawkeye targeting system—her secret project.

“If they take this,” she said, “Iron Dominion erases everything.”

Rowan climbed into the cockpit. “Then let’s not let them.”

Marina swung into the gunner’s seat. She hadn’t intended to fly again—not after Samurand—but the rhythm of the controls felt natural, familiar, like a part of her had simply been dormant.

Rowan powered the engines. “You sure you remember how to do this?”

“I didn’t survive Samurand by forgetting.”

The rotors thundered to life. Dominion forces spotted movement and opened fire, bullets pinging against the hangar’s metal roof.

Rowan lifted the Apache just as the hangar doors slid open. Floodlights illuminated a squad of mercenaries rushing forward with shoulder-launched weapons.

“Hard right!” Marina barked.

Rowan banked sharply as Marina unleashed a burst from the 30mm gun. The rounds struck the ground near the attackers, forcing them to scatter. Rowan climbed to a higher altitude, gaining visibility across the base.

Sentinel was a war zone. Vehicles burned near the fuel depot. The barracks were under siege. Dominion had committed an entire strike team to silence one woman.

“Marina,” Rowan said, “they’re not trying to overrun the base. They’re trying to isolate us.”

“That means someone inside marked our position.”

“Any idea who?”

“Not yet,” she replied, eyes scanning thermal signatures. “But I intend to find out.”

A heat signature lit up on the far ridge—an enemy helicopter preparing to engage.

Rowan cursed under his breath. “Of course they brought air support.”

Marina locked onto the target. “We take them out before they take us out.”

The Apache roared across the valley, rotor wash scattering dust and debris. The enemy chopper pivoted toward them, ready to fire.

“On my mark,” Marina said.

The two aircraft closed distance in a deadly dance. Their rotors hummed in synchronized aggression.

“Mark!”

Rowan swung the Apache sideways as Marina fired a missile. The explosion illuminated the night sky—brilliant, decisive. The enemy craft spiraled and hit the ground in a plume of smoke.

But Marina wasn’t relieved.

Iron Dominion didn’t deploy helicopters lightly. This attack wasn’t a hit squad—it was a decapitation strike.

Rowan glanced back. “They’ll regroup. What’s next?”

Marina tightened her grip on the controls.

“We take this intel straight to command. Tonight. Before the infiltrator can strike again.”

But one question gnawed at her—

Who inside Sentinel knew she was Eagle Talon… and who had sold her out to Iron Dominion?

PART 3 

Dawn crept over the mountains as the Apache skimmed low across the terrain, avoiding radar detection. The base was still smoldering behind them, but Sentinel had survived—barely. Its defenders had held the line long enough for Rowan and Marina to escape with the one thing Iron Dominion feared most: the evidence.

Rowan checked their fuel gauge. “We’re good for about ninety minutes. After that, we’re landing wherever gravity decides.”

Marina didn’t respond immediately. She was staring at the encrypted drive in her lap—the culmination of two years of undercover work, endless nights of decoding, and memories she still hadn’t dared revisit.

Rowan noticed her silence. “You okay?”

She exhaled slowly. “The last time I flew like this, my entire team died. I’m trying to make sure this flight doesn’t end the same way.”

Rowan’s tone softened. “You’re not alone this time.”

Marina opened the drive and displayed fragments of intercepted transmissions. Coordinates. Payment logs. Shipment manifests. Names.

One name appeared again and again—someone inside the Pentagon with procurement authorization, routing advanced targeting modules to shell companies tied to Iron Dominion.

“This isn’t corruption,” Marina said. “It’s orchestration.”

“And you have proof,” Rowan replied. “Enough to drop careers.”

“Enough to drop governments.”

A sudden alert chimed across the cockpit. Rowan scanned the terrain. “Unmarked vehicles approaching from the east. Fast.”

Marina frowned. “How did they track us so quickly?”

Rowan didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.

There was still a leak. Still a traitor. Someone with real-time access to flight data.

The vehicles opened fire with mounted weapons.

Rowan banked left. “We can’t outrun them!”

“We’re not going to,” Marina said. “We’re ending this.”

She activated the Hawkeye system, now functioning as an advanced reconnaissance tool instead of standard targeting. It highlighted structural weaknesses along the ridge.

“Rowan, bring us to fifty feet.”

He hesitated. “That’s insane.”

“So is trying to kill me twice.”

He lowered the Apache, sweeping dangerously close to the mountainside. Marina fired a burst at a rock outcropping. The ledge collapsed, blocking the advancing vehicles beneath a cloud of debris.

Rowan let out a breath of disbelief. “Remind me not to underestimate you.”

“Most people do,” she replied.

With no remaining pursuit, they continued toward Forward Command Delta, a secure intelligence hub. But Marina’s thoughts drifted.

Someone had betrayed Eagle Talon. Someone had tried to erase her twice. And someone inside the highest levels of power was fueling Iron Dominion’s rise.

When they landed at Delta, security surrounded the Apache instantly. An intelligence general approached Marina with mixed awe and caution.

“Lieutenant Colonel Locke… or should I say, Eagle Talon One?”

She stiffened. “That designation no longer exists.”

“It does now,” he replied quietly. “And we need you.”

In a sealed briefing room, Marina presented the decrypted data. The faces of every officer at the table hardened as they realized the scale of the infiltration.

Iron Dominion wasn’t a rogue contractor. It was a parallel military apparatus—funded through insider channels, protected by officials, and testing stolen U.S. technologies in real conflict zones.

“You’ve just exposed the largest internal breach in modern military history,” the general said.

Rowan looked at Marina with newfound respect. “So what happens now?”

The general answered: “Now? We fight back. But we can’t do it through traditional channels. Too corrupted.”

He slid a folder toward Marina.

Inside was a new assignment. No unit name. No insignia. No rank.

Just a codename: Nightwarden.

“You want me to lead this?” Marina asked.

“You already are,” the general replied.

Rowan grinned slightly. “Guess cleaning the Apache wasn’t your final job.”

Marina looked down at her sleeve—at the worn Eagle Talon patch. For years she hid it. Now she straightened it proudly.

Her mission wasn’t to survive anymore.

It was to reveal the infiltrator, dismantle Iron Dominion, and reclaim the honor of her fallen team.

She stepped onto the tarmac with renewed purpose.

Behind her, the sun rose, casting long shadows across the ground.

Ahead of her, a war hidden from the public was about to begin.

And Marina Locke—once invisible—was now the one person Iron Dominion feared most.

But who inside the Pentagon was orchestrating the betrayal… and how far were they willing to go to silence her next?