A week later in U.S. occupied Tijuana, Mexico, Luna Skye remembered how she arrived at her current location very well. She drove her 2017 Range Rover across four hours of barren Mexican highway, passing a truckload of workers on their way to a farm, an old man driving a pickup older than her SUV, and a poor family on the side of the road walking a goat on a leash. Part of her journey passed over crumbling asphalt and some of it over dirt roads kicking up clouds of dust in her rearview mirror. The entire trip took place with her windows down, one hand on the wheel and the other free to run her fingers through her hair or pat the side of the door to the beat of the radio.

She had spent the past week collecting rock and soil samples in the mountainous region of southern Baja California—searching for trace elements of recent meteor impacts. Her study, a grant funded by Next Gen, hoped to identify certain metals not found anywhere else on Earth. Potentially, the corporation could mine the same valuable metals from asteroids or comets in the near and far future. She imagined an enormous spaceship traveling to the asteroid belt, setting up a mining station, and digging for precious metals, used for a variety of purposes such as tank armor, delicate electronic components, and even deflector shields for colonization vessels destined for interstellar space.

But to Luna, a rock was a rock, whether from Montana or Mars. The work was in the blistering heat, tedious, and often unrewarding, but as a part-time professor in the geological sciences department at San Diego State University, this was a way of life, and a way to pay the bills. She would rather spend her time in the field than in a classroom any day. Even though the college wanted her to achieve tenure and increase her involvement in teaching, Luna was looking to go another direction. She didn't know what direction that was, but she would know it when she found it.

After her week in the arid mountains, she made her trek north into Tijuana, where she planned to stay for the night before heading back across the border to California the next morning.

To relax and unwind, she chose a bar on the popular main street, Avenida Revolucion. Souvenir shops, restaurants, and bars packed the Zona Rio district. Some of the drinking hotspots were on the lower end of the respectable scale. Like this one. But Luna didn't care. She could handle herself, and the alcohol, and the men gathered around the card table, staring at her with wantonness eyes. That said, she knew when to make for the exit.

She stared over the top of her cards, spreading them into a wide fan to hide her—I need to get my culo out of this rathole—face. Besides her need for amusement, she didn't have a reasonable explanation for how she found herself in a game of five-card draw with four men in a sleazy low-light establishment.

The booze. Yeah... that's how.

Somehow, all the other women in the nicotine-stained dump were wise enough to get lost after happy hour. Luna just wanted some extra spending money and a little entertainment after a hard day's work. But unfortunately, she was out of credit chips and pesos, and down to her last hand.

A pair of twos, an eight of diamonds, nine of spades, and a lonely king of clubs would not get her far. She chewed on the inside of her cheek while studying the expressions of her male counterparts. While keeping her eye on Juan—the man seated across from her—she took a slow and sensuous pull from the longneck bottle of a Corona as his gaze traced the outline of her white tank-top. Luna, with a drawn-out sigh of satisfaction from the beer tingling in her throat, set the bottle down, and slapped her cards flat on the table, face down.

She patted a hand on her leg in nervous contemplation.

Her eyes wandered down, falling to the object on the table.

She didn't plan on following through with the bet she made. With her other hand still on her leg, she allowed the slender chain of the gold pocket watch to slide over her fingers. It was a gift from her father, passed down through several generations of her family. Its sentimental value outweighed the small fortune it could bring as a classic timepiece. With a sad look of defeat meant to embolden the men at the table, she sighed and returned the pocket watch to her blue jeans... an act which drew a raised brow from Juan. She hoped they would underestimate her ability to handle herself in a pinch.

Luna needed a distraction.

That wouldn't be difficult.

She brushed her fingers over her bare arm and watched Juan's gaze track her every move. With the same hand, she reached up and thumb popped the strap on her cotton tank top. Offered a smooth smile.

The other men at the table leered at her, but Juan, the leader of the pack, grinned mischievously. Gel held a wave of dark hair in perfect formation above his forehead. Luna wasn't ashamed to admit he was good looking, but his arrogance was a major turnoff. He snuffed out a cigarette and leaned back in his fold-up chair, waiting with anticipation. She sensed the wager wasn't the only thing on his mind. Juan didn't seem to care about the pocket watch at all anymore. He was thinking about something else, which fell right into her plan of escape.

"Are you folding, señorita?" Juan cocked his head sideways. His words flowed with the typical Latino flavor of the tongue. "Espere." Wait in Spanish. "Before you do, would you like a shot of tequila? Your beer is all but gone."

"I'm afraid I might swallow the worm."

"No worries," Juan said. "One of us has already done that." He erupted into laughter. His buddies seated around the table joined him with cackles, reminding Luna of a pack of hyenas. That's what these men were... scavengers, but like the African wild dogs, they could hunt as well.

Luna fluffed her russet-colored hair, her split ends grazing her shoulder, thin and a little greasy from her last day of fieldwork. The fact her archaic Range Rover didn't have air conditioning didn't help matters any. The refrigerant had leaked out a long time ago, and they didn't make a replacement for it these days. It made for a sweaty commute with the windows down and hot air blowing in her face.

She needed a bath and a manicure, but more so, she needed to figure out a way past these leering men. The exit taunted her. She needed an ace up her proverbial sleeve.

They were not getting the watch, or anything else, that she was sure of.

Her left foot rested on the brace of the lower portion of her chair. A shiny dagger strapped to her ankle drew her hand like a magnet.

"Amigos," Luna said, "that was not my best hand, I regret to admit. Suppose I'll have to pay up and say adios."

The back room seemed miles away from a dash down the street to her Range Rover and it's dinged up and pitted paint job. Sixty years old and on its last piston, it still had enough get-up-and-go to get her out of here. Fortunately, she could still get gas in Mexico. Pretty much everything was electric, and energy celled in the States.

She sighed, knowing this could get nasty in the blink of an eye. It didn't matter how many U.S. soldiers roamed the streets during the day, these tequila guzzling, poker players still wanted what was due them when darkness fell.

Luna made the first move.

While Juan gloated from his position of power, she bolted to the right and drove her elbow into Pal Number One. The lightning-fast move smacked him square in his bony cheek. He careened backwards, flipped over in his chair, and crashed to the floor. As soon as she pulled her arm back, her left hand found the dagger on her ankle. It slipped out with her thumb, popping the button strap.

Pal Number Two didn't expect the blade. He brought his arm up in defense and got the dagger straight through the hand. Luna ripped it from his bloody palm and kicked the table over, launching it into Juan, knocking him to the floor as well.

Pal Number Three lunged for her, his focus on the knife, not Luna's twisting low center of gravity, which dropped to the floor, her boot arcing around in a leg sweep.

The man's head bounced off the dusty wooden planks with a sick thump.

Pals One, Two, and Three temporarily disabled.

Juan jumped to his feet, tossed the table aside, and spat. "You little, puta."

"I'm not a slut. If I was, I'd have another round of tequila with you."

Luna bent her knees, fists up, finger waving him forward. "Let's do this."

There was only one problem with her plan. Pals One and Three had risen to their feet while number Two wiped the pain off his acne pitted face and inched closer with one good hand clenched tight.

"Si let's do this," Juan said.

Luna's hardened gaze registered movement in the doorway behind him.

Before anyone reacted, a flood of black-clad figures burst into the room. Juan collapsed under the force of a bull rushing attacker. The man landed on Juan's back and snapped his neck.

No more Juan.

What the—she wanted to wipe the gloating smile off his face; she didn't want him dead.

Pal Number One pulled a gun from under his shirt and fired point blank at one of the shadowy figures. The bullet ricocheted off the assassin's molded helmet, the contours of the man's face visible except for the parts hidden by a dark visor wrapping from ear to ear.

Some kind of high-tech armor. U.S. Military for sure.

A blade whipped from the assassin's waist and slashed Pal Number One's throat. He sank to his knees, hands to the wound, gurgling, seeping crimson between his fingers.

Pals Two and Three hit their knees, hands up in surrender, begging for their lives. Without mercy, two of the attacker's whipped out suppressed handguns and put bullets in their heads. It happened so fast it stunned Luna. She winced from the thump, thump as their bodies thudded to the floor.

Two more men dressed in the same armor squeezed through the door, followed by a snarling man with buzzed gray hair and brown skin, decked out in Navy blues with stripes and bars in all the right places.

He grabbed a turned over chair, set it upright, and took a seat before Luna. "It seems you owe us for saving your hide."

"Excuse me, I had everything under control."

The man chuckled and followed it with a disbelieving grin. "You were about to get your tail handed to you, Ms. Skye."

"You know my name, how?"

"Allow me to introduce myself. I'm Admiral Woodrow Jax of the United States Navy, and you can tip your head to my SEALs for taking care of your dirty work."

With things slowed down, Luna counted the number of assassins, Navy SEALs, as the admiral called them. Six soldiers lined the perimeter of the room, arms crossed like robots awaiting orders.

She snorted, shaking her head. "What do you want?"

"You, Ms. Skye. Your mastery of the sciences is quite impressive. Geology, volcanology, even a minor in chemistry. We are—how should I phrase this—commandeering your services. Of course, you still have the choice to say no... if you can get past my men."

"What do you want from me?"

"We need you for a project." Admiral Jax offered her another one of those knowing grins. His eyes widened, apparently wondering if Luna had any more questions. "We've had a pair of recent setbacks, one of them fatal, so I would appreciate it if you came willingly."

"I don't see how I fit into this picture."

He ignored her, lost in his own thoughtfulness, a faraway look in his eyes. "You would have liked Lieutenant Commander Kailani."

The admiral rose from the chair and pointed a finger at Luna. "But you never know this day and age. Anything is possible."

She was losing her patience, but it wasn't like she had much of an option. She could have handled Juan and his men, but not these ninja-like soldiers.

Admiral Jax turned to a SEAL. "Take her. Dispose of her relic automobile and leave no trace of what happened here tonight."

"Sir, yes, sir."

"That's my Range Rover," Luna said. "Do you know how hard those things are to find these days?"

Admiral Jax pointed a finger at her and offered a sly smile. "I like your intelligence and spunk, Ms. Skye. But we'll have to tame your wild side. That shouldn't be a problem."

With that, he left the room, and the SEALs closed in on Luna. One of them grabbed her by the arm. Her first impulse was to resist, but after a careful look around at the carnage and bloodshed, she thought otherwise and played along with their charade.