Series Dossier — Echoes of Ascension Universe

Mission Files

By R.A. Stapp

Classified operations from deep inside the Order. Each story in the Mission Files collection pulls back the curtain on a single black-ops job — the kind that never makes it into an official report, and the kind that leaves a mark on the operative who carried it out.

These are standalone missions from across Ace Morrison’s history with the Order — from the depths of his moral compromise to the operation that finally broke him free of it.

Not heroics. Not clean wins. Just the file, the target, and the cost nobody puts in the report.

The Files
FILE 01 Assassin’s Guilt Declassified

Some missions leave scars that never heal.

Ace Morrison has a file that says COLLATERAL: NONE. The file is a lie.

Sent to eliminate an Order-noncompliant target in Sicily, Ace expects a clean, staged-suicide hit — in and out before dawn. But when the mission goes sideways, what should have been a simple black-ops file becomes something he’ll never be able to unsee, unbury, or forgive himself for.

With the twins still healing in rehabilitation and no one to turn to, Ace carries this one alone — and starts counting the days until he can finally turn on the organization that made him capable of it.

A dark chapter from Ace Morrison’s past with the Order, and a pivotal turning point in the Echoes of Ascension Universe.

FILE 02 The Sofia Shot Declassified

Eight hundred and twelve meters. One impossible shot.

Reinforced glass. A twelve-minute window. Ace Morrison has never taken a shot like this — and he’s not doing it for the Order.

Running a private, for-profit operation with handler Renata Kessler, Ace is deep in his most compromised years — taking contracts that have nothing to do with duty and everything to do with reputation. The target: Viktor Kozlov, eight hundred meters and a small eternity away.

This is Ace at his lowest point — the moment right before everything breaks.

The mission that made enhanced individuals legendary, for all the wrong reasons.

FILE 03 Forty-Seven Seconds Declassified

Beth Stewart has forty-seven seconds to save the future.

Six months before the Arctic, Ace Morrison’s team is done taking orders from the Order. Now they’re the ones breaking in — infiltrating a Cluj-Napoca facility to pull out what the Order left behind.

But when the extraction goes wrong and the twins are caught in the collapse, it’s Beth who buys the time they need — one desperate second at a time.

One sacrifice becomes the cornerstone of everything that follows — the debt the coalition is built on, six months before Operation Silent Winter ever begins.

What Readers Can Expect
  • Standalone black-ops missions from across Ace Morrison’s history with the Order
  • No easy heroics — every file carries a real cost, on-page or off
  • A close look at the compromise that comes before the defection, and the sacrifice that comes after it
  • Each story stands alone — no prior reading required to follow along
Series Connections
Timeline
Assassin’s Guilt and The Sofia Shot take place during the Order era, before Ace’s defection. Forty-Seven Seconds picks up six months after — the coalition’s first real cost, ahead of Operation Silent Winter.
Reading Order
Each file stands independently — read in any order. The numbering above reflects in-universe chronology, not a required sequence.
Connects To
The Arctic Conflict Trilogy and the wider Echoes of Ascension Universe — these are the missions that shaped the man readers meet in Operation Silent Winter.

“COLLATERAL: NONE.”

The file is a lie.

Shop the Mission Files