Iron Bonds: The Brotherhood of Echo Unit

Chapter 5: Ghost Protocol

The desert had a way of swallowing sound — as if it knew how to keep secrets.

By dawn, Echo Unit was already miles away from the refinery ruins, moving under the ghost-pale light of a rising sun.

Mercer led from the front, rifle slung tight, eyes hidden behind scratched lenses. The others followed in silence, weighed down by exhaustion and questions that no one wanted to voice.

The world felt different now.

No orders.

No mission briefing.

No Command watching over their shoulders.

Just five men walking through sand that smelled of smoke and diesel, haunted by what they’d seen.

“Anyone else getting déjà vu?” Jace muttered finally. “Last time we were this far off-grid, we ended up three clicks into an ambush.”

Rafe adjusted his pack, smirking faintly. “That’s because you were reading maps upside down.”

“I was improvising.”

“You were lost.”

Amir sighed. “Both of you, shut up. Navarro’s trying to sleep.”

Eli, half-conscious and pale, leaned against Amir as they walked. His wounded arm was bound tight, but infection was creeping in. Sweat beaded on his brow, and every step looked like it cost him.

Mercer slowed his pace. “We’ll stop soon. Need shade and water before noon.”

Jace raised a brow. “And what then, Captain? You plan on walking all the way to civilization?”

Mercer didn’t answer immediately. His gaze was on the horizon — where the heat shimmered like glass, distorting everything. “No. We’re heading for the border station at Tarek Ridge. There’s an old supply cache there, maybe a sat-link.”

Rafe frowned. “That’s forty miles through open desert. We’re low on ammo and carrying a half-dead man.”

Mercer looked over his shoulder. “Then we move faster.”

They reached the ridge by nightfall.

The terrain changed from flat sand to jagged rock and dry gullies — better cover, but harder on their bodies. The wind howled through the cracks like whispers from the dead.

When they finally stopped, the stars had come out — thousands of them, burning cold.

Rafe built a small fire in the lee of a boulder. Amir tended to Navarro’s arm while Jace kept watch, scanning the desert with his rifle scope.

Mercer sat apart from them, a silhouette against the flames. His expression was carved from stone.

Amir broke the silence first. “He’s fading, Cap. I don’t know if he’ll make it another day without antibiotics.”

Mercer didn’t move. “Then we find some.”

Rafe poked at the fire. “Yeah, sure. Maybe the sand’s hiding a pharmacy.”

Jace turned, lowering his rifle. “He’s right. We’re running on fumes, Hawk. We need food, medical gear, a plan that doesn’t end with us bleeding out in the middle of nowhere.”

Mercer finally spoke, his voice low but steady. “There’s an abandoned listening post fifteen miles north. Old intel says it was sealed off five years ago after a drone strike. But if it’s intact, we’ll find comms equipment — and maybe answers.”

Rafe’s eyes narrowed. “Answers about what? That name Turner spat before he died? Sentinel?”

Mercer nodded. “Yeah. Whatever it is, it’s why he turned. And why Command wanted us erased.”

Jace scoffed. “You think Command’s really out to kill us?”

Mercer looked up, eyes glinting in the firelight. “If they weren’t, why haven’t we been extracted?”

No one spoke after that.

By morning, they were moving again.

Navarro couldn’t walk anymore, so they built a makeshift stretcher from rifle stocks and a torn tarp. The march was brutal — endless dunes, blistering sun, and silence heavy enough to crack.

Every few hours, they passed wreckage half-buried in sand: the husk of a transport truck, a broken drone, the remains of a supply convoy long forgotten.

“This sector’s a graveyard,” Rafe muttered. “No wonder they pulled out.”

Mercer stopped to scan the horizon through his scope. “Graveyards have ghosts. Stay sharp.”

It was mid-afternoon when they saw it: a cluster of rusting antennas jutting from the ridge like bones. The Tarek Listening Post.

Half-collapsed walls surrounded the structure, but the satellite dishes were still intact — a miracle in the wasteland.

They approached cautiously, weapons ready.

Inside, the air was cooler, heavy with the smell of dust and machine oil. Dead screens lined the walls, cables coiled like veins.

Amir set Navarro down gently near a console. “We’ll rest here.”

Mercer swept through the side rooms, clearing each one. “Secure perimeter. Jace, see if you can bring the generator back online.”

Rafe smirked. “You mean the one probably filled with spiders and dead rats?”

“Exactly that one.”

It took nearly an hour, but when Jace finally hit the switch, the old generator coughed to life. Lights flickered across the control room, bathing it in a dim orange glow.

Mercer approached the main terminal, brushing away years of dust. “See if you can get into the archive.”

Jace slid into the chair, fingers flying across the keyboard. “Most of the drives are fried, but… wait—there’s a secure file cache still intact.”

“Open it.”

The monitor flickered, loading a classified log header:

PROJECT SENTINEL

Status: TERMINATED

Access Level: OMEGA BLACK

Date: [REDACTED]

Authorized Personnel Only

Rafe whistled low. “Omega Black? That’s top-tier ghost protocol. Even Command doesn’t talk about that.”

Mercer’s jaw tightened. “Then we’re in the right place.”

Jace tapped a few keys. “I can decrypt some of it, but the system’s old. Might fry the drive if I push too hard.”

“Do it.”

Lines of code streamed down the screen, then froze on a series of images — grainy photos of soldiers, test sites, medical data.

One file opened fully: a report titled “Subject Integration Trials – Echo Division.”

Amir’s brow furrowed. “Echo Division? That’s us.”

Mercer leaned closer. The document showed biometric readings — brainwave patterns, neural enhancement data, psych conditioning notes. All labeled with familiar call signs.

Jace swore under his breath. “What the hell is this?”

Rafe stepped forward. “They were experimenting on us.”

“No,” Mercer said quietly. “They were monitoring us.”

Amir looked up sharply. “For what?”

Mercer’s eyes hardened. “Control.”

He scrolled further. Another entry appeared — a mission log stamped with the same insignia as their unit patch.

Objective: Field test of behavioral cohesion under duress.

Subjects unaware of observation.

Trigger conditions: betrayal, loss, isolation.

Result: Subject Mercer displayed high leadership resilience and loyalty retention metrics.

Rafe’s voice dropped. “They orchestrated the ambush.”

Jace slammed his fist on the console. “They used us as lab rats to see how far we’d break!”

Mercer stared at the screen for a long time. His reflection glimmered faintly in the glass — hollow eyes, ash-streaked skin.

Finally, he said, “They didn’t break us.”

The lights flickered suddenly. A low tone echoed through the speakers — faint static at first, then a voice.

“Unauthorized access detected. Identify yourself.”

The men froze.

Jace frantically began typing. “It’s a live relay — someone’s still on this network.”

Mercer stepped forward. “This is Captain Daniel Mercer, Echo Unit. Identify yourself.”

Static. Then, clearer:

“Mercer… you weren’t supposed to find this.”

The voice was female. Calm. Cold.

Rafe looked around, uneasy. “That’s Command frequency.”

“You’re to stand down immediately. Your unit is terminated under Ghost Protocol. Extraction is no longer authorized.”

Mercer’s fists clenched. “You tried to erase us. We survived.”

“Then die quietly, Captain.”

The feed cut. The screen went black.

For a long moment, no one moved. Only the hum of the generator filled the silence.

Then Jace muttered, “So that’s it. They really did bury us.”

Mercer turned away from the console, his voice quiet but hard. “Then we stop being soldiers.”

Rafe frowned. “What does that mean?”

“It means we fight for ourselves now. For each other.”

He looked over his team — the men who had followed him through hell and fire. “They called us ghosts. Fine. Then we’ll haunt them.”

That night, the fire in the outpost burned low, and the desert wind howled like an omen.

Mercer sat alone on the roof, staring at the stars. Below, his men slept in the ruins — tired, wounded, but alive.

He could still hear Turner’s words in the back of his mind: It’s not a mission… it’s a purge.

Maybe it was.

But if the world wanted to erase Echo Unit, it would have to burn the sky to do it.

Mercer lifted his dog tags, turning them over in the firelight — the symbol of a loyalty that no longer existed.

Then he let them fall into the sand.