The tension inside Hangar 4 could’ve snapped steel. Admiral Riker Blackwood—the untouchable giant of the base—commanded the center of the room, his uniform glittering under harsh lights as if daring anyone to challenge him. He was mid-brag, voice booming with pride as he recounted the infamous Damascus extraction, soldiers hanging on every word. Then he cracked a joke at the expense of a quiet dad lingering at the edge of the crowd. A harmless jab—or so everyone thought. But the moment someone uttered the codename “Iron Ghost,” the laughter died so abruptly it felt like the oxygen had been sucked from the hangar…..The air in Hangar 4 was thick with the scent of jet fuel and polished brass. Admiral Riker Blackwood—

The moment I stepped into Hangar 4, the air felt wrong—too still, too heavy, as if the walls themselves were holding their breath. Admiral Riker Blackwood stood gleaming under the floodlights, medals blazing across his chest like a challenge. He laughed—one of those deep, cutting laughs that demanded everyone else laugh with him—while retelling the glory-soaked tale of the Damascus extraction. But when his gaze slid toward the quiet dad standing near the shadows, his smile sharpened into something cruel. No one expected that a single nickname—one whispered like a ghost from a classified nightmare—would freeze Blackwood mid-sentence and turn the entire room silent.

The air in Hangar 4 was thick with the scent of jet fuel and polished brass. Admiral Riker Blackwood—the most decorated and feared commander on Coronado—stood surrounded by officers hanging on his every word. His chest gleamed with ribbons from theaters no journalist had ever been allowed to write about. He was retelling a familiar story: the Damascus extraction, a mission so classified that even most of the men in the hangar only knew the sanitized version.

“Hell,” Blackwood laughed, slapping a captain on the back, “half the operators today wouldn’t last ten minutes in that op. We carried ghosts on our backs and still made it out.”