When Captain Ryker Vaughn signed up for ordnance patrol, he knew that scavenging for improvised explosive devices carried risk. After unexpected and inexplicable dangers, he becomes the sole survivor of his team—and a double amputee. Cinching tourniquets on his traumatically amputated legs, he fends off enemies before losing consciousness.
After waking up post-surgery, Ryker finds prosthetic metal posts protruding through the skin of his residual limbs. The posts connect to state-of-the-art bionics called Ozzies, which could change his life by offering immediate function. Yet despite receiving the life-altering technology, he vows to never walk again, believing that being mobile would dishonor his now deceased team. But when an unparalleled force enters Earth’s atmosphere, threatens to extract the planet’s most valuable resource, and abducts his little brother, Ryker must make a decision: stay under the covers, or use his innovative bionics and return to duty.
When Captain Ryker Vaughn signed up for ordnance patrol, he knew that scavenging for improvised explosive devices carried risk. After unexpected and inexplicable dangers, he becomes the sole survivor of his team—and a double amputee. Cinching tourniquets on his traumatically amputated legs, he fends off enemies before losing consciousness.
After waking up post-surgery, Ryker finds prosthetic metal posts protruding through the skin of his residual limbs. The posts connect to state-of-the-art bionics called Ozzies, which could change his life by offering immediate function. Yet despite receiving the life-altering technology, he vows to never walk again, believing that being mobile would dishonor his now deceased team. But when an unparalleled force enters Earth’s atmosphere, threatens to extract the planet’s most valuable resource, and abducts his little brother, Ryker must make a decision: stay under the covers, or use his innovative bionics and return to duty.
Capt. Ryker Vaughn typically navigated his forward ordnance patrol around fields of improvised explosive devices—IEDs as the military acronymized them—but this morning, he intended to lead his team directly through them. He squinted to shield the morning sun from his hazel eyes as he scanned the bomb-filled landscape. The undulating hills and endless Afghan sand seemed harmless, but inches below the surface, the soil was riddled with Humvee-crippling explosives.
“You done daydreaming, Cap?” asked Dylan, Ryker’s second-in-command and most sarcastic team member. He wiped his thin brow, smearing sweat-soaked sand that was accumulating on his forehead.
“No, Captain Impatient! Just remembering how bad I beat you balling last night.” Ryker flexed, showing off his athletic six-foot-two build, forged through years of basketball and military training. His thick arms and brawny legs were readily visible even through heavy combat fatigues.
“Ooh, harsh! I see how it is,” Dylan retorted, playing calm to hide his nervousness as he loaded a container with water bottles and rations into the back of a Humvee. “Looks like we have a rematch coming up. But hey,” he nodded toward the tablet in Ryker’s hands, “do you need me to take a look at that thing?”
Ryker held up the tablet. “Dude, we’d end up at a bar if I put you in charge of this! I got it.”
Dylan paused and smirked, then shrugged. “Yeah, you’re not wrong.”
Ryker laughed with the team, then refocused to double check the tablet as the others loaded the last of the equipment. He opened the tablet case and eyed the inside cover onto which was taped a crinkled photograph of his mom, himself, and his lanky teenage brother, Jack, perched on his back. He could still smell the ocean spray that splashed their faces as they took that picture on their latest family vacation. Noticeably absent in the photo was his dad, Paul, who had been killed in battle. Ryker knew that his mom consistently feared the same would happen to him.
I’ll be fine, Mom, he thought.
He hoped he was right.
He folded the tablet cover back, putting the photo out of sight, and entered his personal code into the system app, giving him access to the IED-detection software.
“Welcome, Ryker Vaughn,” a computerized woman’s voice said.
Ryker clicked the “System Check” icon.
“Confirming you want to perform a system check?” the voice asked.
Ryker clicked a “Yes” icon. A slew of numbers, readouts, and information appeared. Based on the data, and the green flashing lights on the C-arm-like contraptions hanging off the front fenders of the lead Humvee, the U.S. Army’s newest state-of-the-art IED-detection system was functioning normally.
“Readouts are clean,” Ryker said. “Ready to go in?”
“I guess,” Dylan said. “But I’m not thrilled about being a test dummy for this new detection system. IEDs suck, sir!”
“Command says this system’s three times more accurate at finding them,” Ryker said. He had to display some semblance of confidence in the system to his team. He'd spent a half hour the night before trying to convince his commanding officer, Col. Samuel Brighton, that he didn’t feel the system was test ready. But Col. Brighton and Dr. Sharp, the IED-detection software inventor, had insisted they had enough data to support a field test. The orders stood.
“Command?” Dylan scoffed. “Yeah! What could go wrong?”
“Plenty!” said Deshauna, the sole female sergeant in the group. She widened her big brown eyes and spoke in her thickest Georgian accent. “But it’s what we do. So, where we headin’?”
Ryker held the tablet up and panned it across the horizon, displaying an electromagnetic map. “Once we roll over that second hill with the three bushes, we’ll head west. That area should have the most IEDs.”
“Normally, I wouldn’t say this,” Deshauna said, “but I hope you’re right.”
Ryker took a deep breath and put the tablet aside. He patted his armored pockets to ensure he had his equipment, donned a helmet over his sand-colored hair, then checked his weapons. Satisfied he was ready for patrol and battle, he ordered, “All right, everyone, load up!”
One by one, the ten team members buckled into three heavily armored, camouflage-patterned Humvees.
Ryker watched each patrol member with respect. Just twelve hours prior, they were hanging out in a makeshift bar in Camp Firefox. Now they were carrying weapons of war, willing to pay the ultimate sacrifice for each other and their nation.
Ryker had been chosen to lead and handpick the team field-testing the device. The mission was nerve-wracking; they had to get as close to IEDs as possible to assess proximity statistics and readout potentials. If anything happened to any team member, he would feel responsible.
Deshauna slid into the driver’s seat of the lead Humvee, made the sign of the cross over chest and head, and closed her eyes briefly before asking, “Ready?”
Ryker sat next to Dylan in the back and buckled in. “Ready!”
“It’s go time!” Deshauna spoke into the comm to alert the trailing Humvees. “Follow close.” She floored it and angled the Humvee toward a pre-determined path that led to the bomb field. For ten minutes, the Humvees lurched over washboard roads and weed-infested landscape.
“Pull up on that ridge,” Ryker said, pointing as they approached a precipice. “If everything’s reading right, that’s where we need to start the measurements.” He tapped the tablet screen. Still working, he thought. Electromagnetic sensors, ore detectors, resonance frequency modulators, and detonation warning readings were all within normal ranges. “Systems look clean,” he announced. “Move forward.”
The vehicles eased frontward, carrying the team closer to enemy explosives. In direct opposition to the jovial and joke-filled atmosphere of last night, everyone was reserved.
“There!” Ryker hollered.
Deshauna could see it: a slight mound of dirt concealed the first detectable IED. She pulled the Humvee to the right to avoid it, then continued down a poorly marked road. The trailing Humvees followed her lead.
Nearly eighty feet later, Ryker cautioned, “There!” again.
Deshauna dodged the second one. The two trailing Humvees followed suit.
Ryker continued to monitor the tablet sharp-eyed, looking for signs of the next bomb. Twenty feet down the path, he saw an unusual signal.
“That’s odd,” he said. He shook the tablet, thinking that might affect the feedback. It didn’t.
“What is it?” Dylan asked.
“I’m not … sure.”
“Does it show there’s something ahead?” Deshauna asked.
“Yeah, but—”
“There’s no mound.” She finished Ryker’s sentence.
“Right. It’s buried deep,” Ryker said. “Much deeper than an IED.”
“So, let’s leave it be,” Dylan pled. “We have enough to worry about already.”
“But it’s not a bomb,” said Ryker. “The next bomb is at least a hundred feet ahead.” He stuck his head out the window and ensured the green lights on the C-arm-like contraptions were blinking. They were. He sat back down. “The detectors are working. Whatever this thing is, it’s producing a completely different signal. Stop here for a sec.”
“Is it a weapon?” Deshauna asked and pressed the brake.
“Doubtful,” Ryker said. “There’s no sign of explosive material.”
“It’s treasure!” Dylan cheered.
“Now we’re talkin’!” Deshauna hollered.
“Ha, I wish,” Ryker said as he opened the door. “Wait here.”
Dylan pushed his helmet back and watched Ryker exit the Humvee. “Dude, you’re not gonna—”
“Yeah, we need to find out what it is. Could be a new reconnaissance system. If it is, we could be ambushed any second.”
Ryker went to the back of the Humvee, grabbed a shovel and threw it on the ground. He used the tablet to maneuver the C-arm-like contraptions and identified the exact location of the underground signal.
“Got it.” He picked up the shovel.
“Shouldn’t we help?” Deshauna asked.
“No,” Ryker replied. “If I’m wrong, I’m responsible.”
Ryker walked ten feet ahead and sank the shovel repeatedly into the sand, digging a three-foot-wide pit. Within minutes, he uncovered a piece of black metal.
“Found something!” he announced. He got to his knees and pushed sand out of the way, revealing a six-inch diameter, foot-tall, obsidian-colored cylinder. He pulled it from the ground, surprised at how heavy it was, and held it up.
“Permission to exit the Humvee?” Dylan asked. “I want to see what the heck that is.”
“Granted.”
Dylan got out and stood next to Ryker. Ryker angled the cylinder so they could both analyze it.
“Those are some weird markings,” Ryker said, tracing his fingers along vein-like crevices that ran the length of the shaft.
“Is that an animal?” Dylan wondered, pointing at a hieroglyph-like symbol.
“I don’t know,” Ryker shrugged.
Deshauna was anxious. “So, uh, we gonna have another Jurassic Park incident here, folks?”
“Huh?” Ryker asked.
“Don’t worry about it,” Dylan cut in. “She’s always making Jurassic Park references when she sees something weird. It’s her favorite movie.”
Deshauna rolled her eyes. “Whatever that is, I say we put it down and get back to work!”
Ryker ignored Deshauna’s plea and wiped the cylinder with his sleeve. He didn’t realize there were now three more team members from the other Humvees standing behind him, wanting to glimpse the newfound treasure.
Ryker noticed sand still embedded in the cylinder’s crevices. He spat on it to wipe it down—then nearly dropped it as several of the crevices lit up, displaying intense blue veins of what appeared to be a viscous liquid. The light paths traveled to the opposite side of the cylinder then outlined a curved rectangular panel.
The team stepped back, preparing for something bad to happen.
Dylan warned, “Careful! You’re making it mad!”
Before Ryker could do anything, the panel illuminated and cycled through a series of indecipherable symbols.
“What do all those mean?” Dylan asked.
“No idea,” Ryker responded.
Deshauna remained in the driver’s seat shaking her head. “Jurassic Park, y’all! Don’t say I didn’t warn ya! And ya better believe I’m outrunnin’ all y'all when that first dinosaur comes. Uh-huh, you know that’s right. I ain’t gettin’ eaten first!”
Ryker looked toward Deshauna and promised, “A T. rex is not going to pop out of this thing!”
“But apparently, it does know your name!” Dylan blurted.
“What?!” Ryker asked.
Dylan pointed at the panel.
Ryker looked and saw his name—R.Y.K.E.R. V.A.U.G.H.N.—spelled out in crystal-clear blue letters on the cylinder’s panel.
“How the—?” He wiped the cylinder again to remove the remaining sand. The intense blue veins darkened, and his name faded.
“Trippy!” Dylan said.
“Okay!” Deshauna hollered. “This is officially a freak fest. Is this some kind of joke? Dylan, you always pullin’ crap on us. You do this?”
“Yeah, Deshauna, I came through here last night, dodged all these IEDs,” he panned his arms across the landscape, “and planted this big, fat, black cylinder right here in the ground.” He threw his arms in the air. “Ya got me!”
Deshauna pursed her lips, raised her eyebrows, and tilted her head. “I knew it.”
Dylan rolled his eyes. Deshauna was always being impossible.
“You guys, enough!” Ryker said. “I’m going to call it in.” He went to the Humvee and pulled a radio out of a pack. “Col. Brighton, do you copy?”
The deep, middle-aged voice of the team’s commanding officer, Col. Samuel Brighton, came through. “Copy, Capt. What’s the fuss? We see you on satellite. You'd better have a good reason for digging into dirt where IEDs reside.”
“I did, sir. The system found something. Not a bomb. Some kind of cylindrical device. It even knows my name. It turned on, then fizzled out. I think it may be reconnaissance.”
“Finish the mission, then bring it in. The Humvee armor should shield any transmission it’s giving. We’ll have the communications team analyze it.”
 “Copy, sir.”
 “We’ll await your arrival. Out.”
 Ryker slipped the radio back into the pack and picked up the cylinder. “Guess we’re taking it back. Load up. We still have work to do.”
 The team obeyed their orders and returned to the Humvees. Ryker hefted the cylinder onto the seat between him and Dylan. He buckled in, grabbed his canteen, and took a swig of water. He half screwed the lid, set the canteen aside, and wiped his mouth as he looked once again at the tablet screen. “Everything’s still clean. Let’s roll.”
“Mother Mary help us,” Deshauna prayed as she eased the Humvee forward. “A hundred feet you said?”
“Yes, system shows the next one’s at least that far,” Ryker confirmed.
As they moved forward, the terrain worsened.
“Bumpy ride ahead,” Deshauna said. “Hold onto your butts!”
Ryker reached over and latched a seatbelt around the cylinder.
Dylan smiled. “Precious cargo?”
“Guess we’ll find out,” Ryker said. He grabbed a handhold above his head to brace himself as the Humvee jostled over the rocky terrain. He and Dylan failed to notice water sloshed out of his canteen, dousing the cylinder. The veins emanated intense blue light, and the panel displayed Ryker’s name again, but he didn’t notice.
Ryker checked the tablet screen. An unfamiliar set of numbers and letters in the bottom left corner morphed in and out of sequence. The hairs on the back of his neck tingled. Something was wrong.
He looked at the cylinder. The vein-like crevices were pulsating various hues of blue.
No!
He checked the tablet. The screen was wigging out.
It’s malfunctioning!
Ryker thrust his head out the window and yelled, “Abort!” But his voice was lost in a sudden explosion.
A shockwave of hot air burned his face, and lava-hot shrapnel scattered in every direction as the trailing Humvee erupted.
The second Humvee lurched to its side. As its passenger door hit the ground, the impact triggered an IED. The Humvee lurched into the air and exploded.
The force of the second shockwave ejected Ryker from the lead Humvee. He flailed through the air. Just before landing, the left fender of the second Humvee zipped toward him and sliced through his legs, taking them both off inches above the kneecaps without him realizing it; adrenaline coursing through his veins masked any sense of trauma or pain.
He thudded to the ground and watched as the lead Humvee detonated. He felt an instant sense of loss for the mission. He coughed, cleared sand out of his mouth, and tried to gasp before realizing his was the only breathing he could hear. He assessed the wreckage.
No movement.
Anywhere.
“Everyone okay?” he yelled.
No answer.
He knew then he was the only survivor. He teetered to his side and wailed. A sinkhole developed in his stomach. He had just killed his team. His friends. The sense of loss immediately racked his soul.
I never should have dug up that cylinder!
He wanted to scream, but he struggled to get air into his lungs. He gasped again.
Aching. Legs.
Ryker's brain started to detect that something more was wrong. The ringing in his ears prevented his mind from processing his senses. He tossed his head back and forth, trying to shake awareness into his brain. His balance was wildly off as he tried to sit up.
The throbbing in his thighs was painless at first, then intensified as he gained his senses.
My legs!
He clawed through the sand where his lower legs should have been. Blood-soaked sand, threads of camouflage cloth, and bone fragments slid through his fingers. Panic flooded through him as reality set in; he would be a double amputee for the rest of his life.
No! He shook his head, imagining the nightmare he would live: he would never play basketball again, never walk again, never go on a run, never kneel to pick up one of his children. A sense of sorrow he had never experienced engulfed his heart.
He threw his helmet at a smoldering Humvee behind him. I was supposed to do this for my family, not fail in battle.
He wiped away involuntary tears that he didn’t realize were forming. The increasing pain in his legs reminded him that there wasn’t time to mourn. Not yet. In a matter of moments, he would be dead, too, if he didn’t get his bleeding under control.
Five years of military training and the experience of three tours of duty kicked in. He burst his survival pack open. He dry-heaved and yelled toward the sky; that relieved the pain only slightly. He wiped his brow and tore open two emergency tourniquets. They would save his life. He hesitated briefly … not sure he wanted to be saved. That was his subconscious talking.
Mom, Jack, he reminded himself.
Focusing his thoughts, determined to fight for his life, Ryker bit a stick between his flattened teeth—worn from the constant stress of combat. He controlled his shaking hands and readied the tourniquets. It was impossible to soothe the pressure as he cinched them onto his mid thighs to compress both femoral arteries. He grimaced and exhaled repeatedly, causing the veins to bulge from his thick neck. The bleeding stopped in seconds.
He slammed his head on the cool ground, rocked it back and forth, and growled in pain. Exhaustion was already setting in. But he knew he didn’t have time to rest. Al Qaeda enemies would likely be en route after hearing the explosions.
He reached for his canteen, drank the bulk of its contents, poured the rest on his face to refresh his agonized body, then reached for his M4 carbine. Grunting, he rolled over and looked at the closest overturned Humvee. The engine block, he thought. The only refuge where bullets won’t penetrate.
His six-pack abdomen shifted in pain as he army-crawled toward the crumpled remains of the Humvee; his mind didn’t yet know how to deal with lost limbs. He twisted onto his butt and shimmied his traumatized body backward until he could rest against the Humvee’s front axle. Taking refuge by the vehicle was a risk—the gas tank or engine components could still explode—but it was a risk he had to take. This would be his best protection from al Qaeda militants.
The triage strategy of Operation Enduring Freedom meant that most wounded soldiers could be accessed within five minutes if they were close to the city. But at nearly ten miles out, Ryker knew he wouldn’t be reached for fifteen or twenty minutes and wasn’t certain who would show up first: al Qaeda or medical help.
Ryker was never one to back down from a challenge or battle. His grit was unparalleled. He prepared for the worst.
He scanned his proximal surroundings to see if extra ammo or another firearm were within reach. None were, and he didn’t have the energy to crawl fifteen yards to reach the next closest weapon. All he had were two extra magazines for the M4, two grenades for the underside M203 grenade launcher, and a 9mm on his hip with thirteen rounds. That wouldn’t be enough for most soldiers, but Ryker would have a chance against four or five hostiles; his accuracy with rapid fire was unmatched.
Several minutes passed with no sound but his heavy breathing and the crackle of burning tires, the fumes of which were generating a gag-inducing stench. The throbbing in his legs became unbearable. Morphine, stored in the Humvee, could have taken the edge off, but it had disintegrated in the blast. He yelled again, beginning to not care if the enemy heard him.
Another two minutes passed. If a triage medical unit didn’t arrive soon, he would be exchanging fire. Confirming that both weapons were chambered and the grenade launcher loaded, he placed the 9mm on the sand to his right and readied the M4. If this were the last chance he had to serve his country, he would die fighting, just as his dad had in Iraq years earlier.
Both eyes open, Ryker lifted the M4, aimed toward the horizon, and steadied his breathing as best he could. Two hundred yards out, someone was coming.
Dustin Williams’s Return to Duty kicks off with Captain Ryker Vaughn and his team finding a strange cylinder buried in the Afghan sand. This discovery leads to him losing his legs and the death of his entire team. After Dr. Steven Sharp determines the cylinder's origin, the focus shifts to the White House’s Situation Room, where the president and Secretary of Defense, General Van Childress, must take inventory of the nation’s military capabilities because an alien invasion is imminent. In the meantime, Captain Ryker is given Ozzies, highly advanced prosthetic legs, and it doesn’t take long before the unusual villain makes his presence known, calling himself Maazi, the FORM commander of the aliens, and going as far as addressing the world on the screen, during which he asks humanity to prepare for an unprecedented war. Maazi states his demand. However, after all else fails, a glimmer of hope emerges, igniting the fight for Mother Earth.
In Return to Duty, Dustin Williams’s characters contribute and drive the story to the climax. Dr. Sharp exploits one weakness in the aliens for humanity’s sake. Col. Samuel Brighton mobilizes soldiers and resources. Grace and Jessie risk their lives to get the disruptors activated. Captain Ryker is responsible for returning amputees to duty and infiltrating Maazi’s organization inside the extraterrestrial ship with Dr. Sharp's help.
Dustin also makes this book more interesting by distributing wins and losses equally between humans and aliens, further heightening the tension. Moreover, the book’s ending is also great; perhaps Dr. Sharp is the happiest of all the characters, as he’s been admiring alien technology, believing there’s so much that earth scientists like him can learn from the aliens. The ending gives him that. The book also has some fun moments. For instance, there’s a scene where the president bursts out talking science, much to the surprise of his audience. In another scene, a girl warms up to Captain Ryker, but in the end, when he asks for a name, she gives him nothing and only laughs as she walks away.
Though the book has too much war and science, the plot is still fast-paced and engaging.
Lastly, Return to Duty is all fun, and I recommend it to science fiction readers and those who enjoy war stories.