PART ONE
PART TWO — The Shot Nobody Wanted to Authorize
The alarm at
3:47 in the morning
did not sound like a warning.
It sounded like the ship itself had started screaming.
Red lights pulsed through the passageway. Boots hammered metal. Voices tore through the speakers, clipped and urgent, but half-swallowed by static.
“Man overboard protocol suspended—combat contact confirmed—QRF missing—repeat, QRF missing—”
I was already moving before I understood the words.
By the time I reached the armory, Mercer was there, face pale under the emergency lights.
“Chief,” he said, “grab the Barrett.”
I stopped only long enough to look at him.
“What happened?”
He swallowed. “Recon team got separated during a recovery operation. Twelve Marines are pinned on a reef platform three thousand meters off our starboard side. Enemy skiff has them locked down behind broken concrete.”
“Distance?”
He looked at me like he hated the answer. “Estimated thirty-two hundred meters.”
For half a second, even the alarm seemed far away.
Thirty-two hundred meters.
Not impossible.
Worse.
Possible enough to tempt God.
I slung the Barrett over my shoulder and ran.
The flight deck had become a nightmare of red light, salt spray, and shouting men. The Pacific was black beyond the rails, roaring under a sky with no stars. Wind ripped across the deck hard enough to shove grown men sideways. Rain flew nearly horizontal, cutting faces like thrown sand.
A tactical monitor had been rolled beside the command station. Grainy thermal footage shook on the screen: twelve human shapes trapped behind a jagged structure near a dark line of rocks. Two hostile figures moved beside a mounted weapon on a skiff, using the storm as cover.
Major General Raskin stood in front of the monitor.
He no longer looked amused.
He looked older.
“Air support?” Mercer demanded.
“Grounded,” someone answered. “Wind shear is too high.”
“Drone strike?”
“Signal disruption. We can’t hold lock.”
“Naval gun?”
“Too close to the Marines.”
Then Raskin turned and saw me.
For one strange second, all I could think of was his gloved knuckle tapping my rifle three days earlier.
Looks to me like you’re dragging around thirty pounds of overcompensation.
His eyes dropped to the Barrett.
Then lifted to my face.
“Chief Dalton,” he said.
I waited.
The entire deck seemed to wait with me.
He looked toward the monitor again. One of the thermal figures on the reef fell flat as rounds sparked across the concrete around him.
“Twelve Marines,” Raskin said. “Their position will be overrun in less than a minute.”
Mercer stepped toward him. “Chief Dalton is the only shooter aboard with confirmed hits beyond twenty-six hundred meters.”
Raskin’s jaw tightened. Pride fought fear across his face.
Fear won.
“What do you need?” he asked.
I set the Barrett down on the mat someone had thrown across the deck. The bipod slammed into place with a hard metallic crack.
“Range confirmation. Wind readings from mast and deck. Ship roll interval. Target movement pattern. And silence.”
No one laughed.
Not this time.
A petty officer shouted numbers. Mercer dropped beside me with a tablet. Portman appeared on my left, pressing a hand to the mat so the wind wouldn’t flip it.
“Range: three thousand one hundred eighty-eight meters, shifting.”
“Crosswind?” I asked.
“Twenty-four knots at deck. Thirty-one at mast.”
“No,” I said.
Mercer looked at me.
I closed my eyes for one breath.
The ship rolled beneath my ribs.
The rain struck the back of my neck.
The sea spoke in layers.
“Thirty-six,” I said. “Gusting forty. Wind is curling around the superstructure before it hits deck level.”
The petty officer stared at his instruments.
Then his face drained.