Author Nathan E. Meyer has written an intense military sci-fi novel detailing the covert operation known as Judas Protocol—the complete eradication of the alien presence known as the Ghin in a government facility in below the Arctic ice.

The Special Ops Disco Team, four ruthless soldiers led by Major Hernandez, is small but shockingly efficient as they raid Subterra Foxtrot to shut down the Ghin experiments on living subjects. What they don’t know, however, is that one among the aliens has defected, betraying the U.S. government by giving Ghin secrets to the Russians. And the Russian military is not willing to let Disco Team simply eliminate these new alien allies…

It’s a pulse-pounding work that has one foot in the “what-if?” scenario of a devastating alien presence on Earth and the here-and-now of hardware built for warfare. Meyer clearly knows his weapons, and he knows how to write an action scene.

Snapping up his P100 carbine the way he had done ten thousand times before, Miller placed it smoothly into the snug pocket of his shoulder as his eyes automatically aligned with the sights. Under the smooth leather texture of his glove, his finger found the metal curve of the trigger. He took up the slack in that automatic motion without jerking.

Barrel steady, his shot was precise.

His bullet was not a NATO standard round. It was APLP “blended metal” ammunition whose legality for U.S. personnel, or the world in general, was dubious. It turned rifle ammunition into miniaturized explosive shells.

The slug snapped into the space between the forklift operator’s bulging eyes. The back of his skull exploded outward in a blast of red mist. The driver crumpled forward in his orange coveralls, slumping hard against the wheel while his booted foot slid off the narrow length of the equipment’s accelerator.

The heavy forklift jerked once as it slowed, and its blade caught the side of a cargo container, yanking it off course and avoiding the collision as the body of the driver slumped face down over the steering wheel.

The helicopter shot past the opening in the next heartbeat, its tail rotor clearing the obstacle by less than the length of a kitchen table.

Navarro turned and caught Miller’s eyes. The medic nodded and then both men turned back to cover their vectors. They felt their stomachs jump upwards and then drop as Dunn took the Little Bird through a final roller coaster maneuver over the chain link fence surrounding the target site.

A brawny man in drab olive clothes emerged from the security booth, which controlled the gated entrance to the parking lot that was in front of the building. In his fists, he grasped a Type-79 military submachine gun. Lifting the weapon, he aimed at the helicopter.

DeGroot smoothly lifted his M62 Bull light machine gun, a paratrooper model with the stock folded down to increase maneuverability in the close quarters. A short burst of cased telescoped ammunition caught the guard center mass. Five rounds slammed into the man’s torso and carved channels of devastation through his soft tissue. As the Little Bird finished its approach, the man crumpled to the asphalt.

Chief Dunn fanned the helicopter up, turning the rotor wash into a deceleration cushion and brought the aircraft to a stop on a dime only two feet off the deck.

“Go!” Hernandez barked.

Although the book was completed in 2015, it’s only now ready to be released in conjunction with the LEVEL 7 game of the same name. The trick with fiction that supports a game—and a game that supports fiction, of course—is to ensure the tales being told in both places are the same but are also providing a unique experience for audiences of game and novel alike. Players of the game are very likely to enjoy the novel, and readers of the novel are just as likely to want to play the parts of the characters they’ve been reading about. It’s a win-win scenario for everyone…except possibly the Ghin.

LEVEL 7: The Judas Protocol is coming this spring, and preorders of the book will get the digital board game supplement for free until February 5th, 2016.