My Marine Brother Threw My Visitor Badge Into the Gravel and Mocked Me in Front of His Entire Unit

Dylan didn't have time to mourn.

The main observation dome blew completely apart with a terrifying crack that shook the seabed. Thousands of tons of frigid saltwater crashed down like a falling mountain, completely obliterating the gantry where Dylan had been lying just seconds before.

Running purely on training and survival instinct, Dylan sprinted across the collapsing catwalk, diving through the heavy submarine hatch leading to the escape corridor just as the steel dome behind him imploded into crushed scrap.

He slammed the watertight hatch shut, spinning the manual dogging wheel until the seals locked tight. Water slammed against the other side with the force of a battering ram, denting the heavy steel plate inward.

Gasping for air, Dylan raced down the narrow evacuation tube, stumbling into Sector Nine where Ramirez and the surviving Raiders stood waiting by the open hatch of the deep-submergence escape vehicle.

"Sergeant! Get in!" Ramirez yelled, grabbing Dylan by the tactical vest and hauling him into the circular pod.

Dylan hit the emergency ejection lever.

Explosive bolts around the pod detonated. The escape vessel shot upward out of its launch tube like a cannonball, propelled by high-pressure ballast tanks just as the entire subterranean fortress of *Project Poseidon* collapsed under the weight of the Pacific Ocean in a massive undersea shockwave.

Inside the pod, the red cabin lights flickered as the vessel rocketed through the crushing dark, ascending toward the surface. Nobody spoke. The Raiders sat in exhausted silence, their chests heaving, their faces stained with soot and seawater. Dylan stared down at the encrypted black data drive clenched tightly in his bleeding fist.

Marcus was gone, buried in the dark abyss he had chosen. But his final words echoed like a death knell in Dylan's mind: *The warheads were just a diversion. The real strike is coming from inside Washington. Hayes is in danger.*

Four minutes later, the escape pod breached the surface of the Pacific, bobbing violently among the ten-foot storm swells under the gray dawn light.

Dylan pushed the upper hatch open, pulling himself onto the outer casing of the pod to assess their extraction zone.

He looked out across the horizon—and his blood ran cold.

There was no friendly American carrier strike group waiting for them.

Surrounding the escape pod in a vast, silent perimeter were four monstrous, unmarked Aegis Vanguard guided-missile destroyers, their railgun turrets swiveling slowly in unison, locking their targeting lasers directly onto the small floating pod.

And above them, descending through the storm clouds, hovered a massive stealth gunship, its spotlights blinding Dylan as a synthesized voice boomed across the water: