People did not know why but in a lot of places morning arrived earlier than expected.
For most its just updates, notifications being sent back and forth, between people trying to figure out if what was broadcasted last night was real or some stunt that went way too far.
But in other certain places. small apartments spanning several cities, military compounds that have some relation to Guss, to overseas comms rooms. For every place that has heard the news something shifts and people start to move differently than usual.
For many this is personal
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The first call come in at 03:17 local time.
Not on any official line, but on an old secured channel that was used in the past and probably should have been decommissioned by now.
"C'mon... c'mon pick up"
Yet only static answered back for a few seconds until a faint click sounded.
"Yeah?"
The voice on the other end came out gruff, as if he hasn't had something to drink for the past few days.
A pause
"You see the latest news?"
Another pause, this one longer in time.
"No, what's happened?"
This time a silence that was heavy.
The caller takes a second before breaking the news. "They said Rover's KIA".
A breath followed as if trying to control itself from an outburst.
"Who said it". Was the receiver's response.
"News, command channels. Pretty much everywhere. It's all over the grid, man".
That's when the line crackles, just slightly but enough.
"No," the voice says. Simple and in a flat tone.
"I'm telling you what I saw," the caller replies louder now, cracking at the edges. "They showed his name. They showed footage. They..."
"Did you see a body?"
That stops him.
Because no, he didn't. Nobody did, not directly.
Just what was shown by the news.
And that's when doubt starts doing what it always does, creep in slowly.
____
By 06:40, it's no longer just one call.
It's a chain reaction.
Former unit members lighting up encrypted channels that haven't been active in years. Guys scattered across continents suddenly awake, suddenly remembering each other's voices like muscle memory.
"Anyone confirm Rover?"
"Last comm I had with him was two days ago."
"He was fine one day ago."
"He was supposed to be rotating out next month."
"Command's not answering."
That last one lands differently.
Because command always answers, eventually.
Even if it lies.
But today? Nothing but filtered silence and automated redirects.
____
By 08:30, the Pentagon feeds open
With no prior announcement a code-level clearance changes. Specific files that were once restricted flip to allow more coverage on the matter.
Something was moving and fast.
General Harrow appears in a secure briefing room feed, eyes tired with the reflection of years of managed issues that spring up every other day that one such as him needs to take care of.
He starts off the meeting with a simple yet heavy "How?".
After a bit of silence, continues.
"How did the news get information on this incident before we ourselves did?" Silence followed.
After what can be considered an uncomfortable amount of time Harrow raises his voice " I need answers". And with that voices start to come through the feed.
A young intelligence analyst finally speaks. "Sir, the broadcast originated from a coalition media hub. It's authenticated. We believe they sold information to local news outlets which led to what we are dealing with now".
Harrow takes a moment to breathe before barking out orders. "We are treating the Anbar incident as a potential coordinated strike against coalition reconnaissance assets".
"Also investigate credible indicators of involvement by The Crimson Veil".
A name that was originally only a low priority target with just one sentence changed into a top 5 most wanted scenario. All military personnel that have access to these files put everything on hold and switched focuses.
"Further," Harrow continues, "we are not confirming casualty identities until full recovery and verification protocols are complete".
A pause, one more careful than others.
But with this pause everyone watching knows that something happened something very wrong.
____
Before we get ahead of ourselves lets do a quick rewind to Guss's Unit (02:00)
That night, nobody in Guss Rover's unit slept properly.
At first it was the usual kind of unease which quickly turned into a bad feeling. A half-heard rumor. Something off in the air, but something about this was different.
The first phone call came from his old bunkmate, Alvarez, who rang twice before anyone picked up at the other end.
"Tell me he answered you," Alvarez said, voice already tight.
There was a pause followed by a rough exhale.
"No," came the answer. "No, he hasn't."
That was enough to make Alvarez sit down hard on the edge of his bed. No jokes. No swearing. Just that ugly, sinking silence that hits when your gut knows something before your brain is willing to.
Within an hour, three more calls went out.
Old squadmates.
A medic who used to sit with Guss outside the motor pool and complain about bad coffee. A radio operator who had shared a tent with him for six straight months and knew the exact sound of his laugh through a wall. They all asked the same thing in different ways. Has anybody heard from him? Is he back? Was he on the last op? Did he make it out?
Most of the answers were the same.
No one knew for sure.
And that was the problem.
The uncertainty spread faster than any official statement. Faster than command. By 03:00, the unit had split into two kinds of men, the ones who kept calling, and the ones who stopped answering their phones altogether because they already knew.
Somewhere in the middle of it all, Major Harlan Voss was standing in a secured operations room with three screens in front of him and a face that had gone stone-flat.
He had the kind of expression that made junior officers straighten up without being asked.
"Run it again," he said.
The intelligence analyst beside him swallowed. "Sir, we've reviewed the drone feed twice. The signal drops before visual confirmation."
"I didn't ask what you've reviewed." Voss kept his voice level, which somehow made it worse. "I asked you to run it again."
The analyst did.
The room filled with static, a broken heat map, the last known coordinates of Rover's unit blinking in and out. The feed stuttered near the edge of a ruined compound outside Al-Qaim. Then the image washed white for half a second. A flash, dust, interference, something close to impact. After that, nothing useful.
Just noise and fragments.
Voss stared at the screen without blinking. "And the hostile signature?"
"Present, sir. Multiple devices, ground movement and drone interference consistent with Crescent Veil tactics."
"Consistent?" Voss repeated, and there was a bitter edge under the word now. "We're still saying consistent like this is some tidy pattern we understand."
Nobody answered that.
A colonel entered a moment later, sleeves rolled up, coffee untouched in his hand. He didn't bother with greetings. He took one look at the screen, then at Voss.
"Tell me something concrete," the colonel said.
Voss finally looked away from the display. "Concrete? We've got a dead zone, jamming, hostile movement, and a missing man whose last transmission was cut off mid-sentence."
The colonel's jaw tightened. "Missing?"
That word hung in the room like a bad smell.
Because officially, nobody had said the thing out loud yet. Not in full. Not on record. But everyone in that room knew how these stories usually ended. They knew the shape of bad news. They knew what silence meant when it stretched too long.
The colonel set the coffee down and opened a folder filled with reports he probably already knew by heart. "Get me his team lead, as well as comm logs, and get me every eye-witness statement, and I want them now."
Voss nodded once. "Yes, sir."
Outside the command room word had gotten around.
Not the official version. But the real one, or close enough to make it hurt.
By dawn, Guss's name was moving through the camp in pieces.
"I heard it was an ambush."
"No, I heard it was a drone strike."
"Somebody said Crescent Veil had eyes on them for hours."
"Who said that?"
"Does it matter?"
It always mattered, and it never did.
A private named Mercer called from the motor pool with his voice shaking just enough to be noticeable. "He was here yesterday," he said. "He was literally here yesterday. Borrowed my charger and never gave it back."
It was a stupid thing to say. A tiny, useless thing. But it cracked something open in the air.
Because that was how people remembered the dead before they knew they were dead. Not as heroes. Not as headlines. But as the guy who stole your charger. The guy who hated onions, the guy who could fix a jammed rifle with one hand while downing a beer in another. The guy who said he'd be right back.
And then wasn't.
____
A friend from his first deployment left a voicemail and couldn't finish it. Another tried but would give up halfway through the ring worried about what he might already suspect.
"Look," he said into the phone, breathing hard, "maybe he's in a med evac. Maybe comms are down. Maybe this is one of those messes that looks worse than it is."
He stopped. Realizing halfway through saying it, that he didn't believe himself.
Then there was a long pause, and quieter: "God, I hope I'm wrong."
That line made it through the static.
By the time the sun came up over the base, nobody was talking about whether something had happened anymore.
They were talking about what exactly happened, who had seen it, and why the reports were coming in so strangely fractured. Why the enemy moved like they'd known the route ahead of time. Why the drones went blind. Why Guss's last transmission had cut out after three words.
Three words.
That was the part his friends couldn't stop circling.
Not because they were important. Because they weren't.
People cling to the small things when the big ones are too terrible to hold. A phrase, maybe a timestamp, a laugh in the background or the sound of breathing. Anything.
And somewhere beneath all of it, in the locked-down offices and blinking control rooms and half-lit tents, the truth was already settling in whether anyone wanted it or not.
Guss Rover was gone.
Not officially.
Not yet.
But gone all the same.
However this was only the first notch to turn in a machine full of gears. Just waiting to come alive.
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That all you will get for today. May upload one more tomorrow since I have some time.
Hope you enjoyed.
Only a couple more chapters till the real story begins.