Jason Rice

This account is compiled from the interviews Jason Rice gives in the autumn of 2018, when he comes forward on Cosmic Disclosure, and from his conversations that year with Jimmy Church and with Kerry Cassidy.

1.

As a child, Jason Rice has a knack for slipping away unnoticed, and he earns a reputation as an escape artist. He often wanders off, only to be brought back home by police or concerned strangers. His parents make him wear dog tags with their contact information in case he gets lost. But after the same police officer brings him home several times, his parents are warned: if they don't keep better control of him, he could be taken into state custody. Terrified by this possibility, they frantically search for a solution and eventually enroll him in a behavioral program at a local university.

In this program, Jason is given simple commands, like staying in a chair surrounded by enticing toys and distractions. Of course, like any curious child, he gets up to explore. The moment he does, they pick him up, place him in a box, lock it, and wait. Inside, he screams, yells, kicks, and thrashes. But the moment he quiets down, they unlock the box, pull him out, place him back in the chair, and reward him with an M&M's candy.

This is more than a simple behavior modification program—it is a methodical process designed to shape Jason's personality and control his impulses. The candy and toys are a way to entice him into compliance and condition him to follow their commands. It isn't just about changing his behavior; it is about molding him for a specific purpose. Unknown to his parents, this program is one of the recruiting arms of a covert military initiative. Known as MILAB, short for military abduction, it identifies, trains, indoctrinates, and prepares children for specialized roles within classified projects and other black programs. Jason has been identified as an intuitive empath, a rare trait that will shape his entire life.

An intuitive empath has the innate ability to feel and understand things without being told or having prior experience. It is not about reading minds, but about sensing emotions and intuitively grasping why someone feels a certain way or how a machine is supposed to work. This ability is often mistaken for psychic powers, but it is more about deep emotional sensitivity and insight.

When Jason starts school, his routine changes again. Often, someone arrives in the morning or at midday to take him to another location—sometimes an ordinary building, other times an underground facility. During these excursions, disguised as harmless "field trips," he trains as part of a new program. It is a continuation of the earlier one and is still under the umbrella of MILAB.

In these sessions, he is with other children—usually three to five at a time. They are given simple puzzles to solve, but there is a catch: no talking is allowed. Working in teams of two or three, they must complete the puzzles using nonverbal communication, relying on their intuitive empath abilities. The exercises become progressively harder, with more pieces and more complex puzzles, ending with a single-colored puzzle of thousands of pieces. Sometimes they are even blindfolded, which forces them to rely fully on their intuition and teamwork.

The program is clearly designed to identify and develop this quality in the children and to sharpen their abilities for future roles. Intuitive empaths make better soldiers and operatives: they can enter a room, quickly assess the situation, and read the emotions and intentions of everyone present, all without saying a word. There is a clear selection process among the children. Some simply can't keep up, and those kids usually don't return. Medications are used to enhance their intuitive empath abilities and to erase memories of where they have been and what they have done, replacing real memories with false ones. This secrecy is crucial. The last thing the organizers want is for the public to discover that children are being taken out of school, given experimental drugs, and trained for clandestine operations. If the truth came to light—that children are being drugged and manipulated for secret purposes—the backlash would be severe.

Trauma is a core part of the training. The trainers identify each child's deepest fears and then flood them with those fears. If a child is afraid of drowning, they use advanced virtual and augmented reality simulations—this is the late 1970s, decades before anything like it reaches the market—to immerse the child in that very fear. The experiences are so realistic that it is impossible to tell the virtual world from reality. The child goes through the horror of drowning, or being burned alive, or dying in any number of gruesome ways, again and again, until they are desensitized to the fear. This is trauma training at its core, inflicted on children who can't fully understand what is happening to them.

After these sessions, mind wipes and implanted screen memories ensure that nothing seems out of the ordinary when the children return home. Instead of remembering the horrors they have endured, they might remember a pleasant day at an aquarium or some other harmless event. However, the trauma remains beneath the surface. Nightmares persist, along with bouts of unexplained moodiness or loss of appetite. To their parents, these behaviors look like typical childhood phases, so they have no reason to suspect the dark truth behind their children's distress.

The program escalates with nighttime training exercises in abandoned malls and similar locations. Jason and other children take part in combat drills like capture the flag, using pistols and wearing suits that respond to infrared beams. A hit to a limb freezes that part of the body, while a fatal hit locks the entire suit, simulating death. The children are pitted against each other and quickly learn who is more skilled in tactics and combat. Soon, alliances form, and the exercises turn into a brutal game of survival in which teams gang up on weaker individuals. This training encourages a form of self-organization: the children learn to work together symbiotically instead of relying on top-down commands. But the process is deeply traumatic and leaves scars that even mind wipes can't fully erase.

As Jason grows older, an intense and sudden desire to join the military takes hold of him, seemingly out of nowhere. He excels in high school and maintains a 3.9 GPA throughout. His efforts earn him both a medical scholarship from the Air Force ROTC and an engineering scholarship from the US Army. He chooses engineering, completes his four years, and fully embraces the military career that has been quietly laid out for him.

Shortly after Jason enters the US Army, his military journey takes an unexpected turn. He is commissioned on the same day he graduates from college, in December 1996, and initially plans to pursue a master's degree. However, his request is denied, and he is immediately sent into active duty. Just two months later, as he prepares to report to Fort Leonard Wood for the officer basic course, his path changes again. Without any explanation, his orders are abruptly changed, and he is reassigned to the Army Research Office in North Carolina.

2.

At the new facility, Jason is introduced to his company commander, who immediately leads him to a strange elevator. It has only two buttons—up and down—and no floor indicators. Without a word, the commander presses his hand against a scanner on the wall, and the elevator starts to descend. The ride down feels unusually long, lasting an eerie five minutes. During the descent, Jason feels a sudden and unsettling vertigo, as if the world has turned sideways.

The elevator finally stops at a red-lit platform about 12 feet high and 10 feet wide. Jason notices that his commander, who has kept a hand on his sidearm—a Beretta—for the entire descent, is watching his every move closely. Only later does Jason learn that the commander was prepared to use his weapon: earlier that same day, he had to use it on another trainee who suffered a psychotic break on the way down. Stepping off the elevator, they find a pill-shaped capsule train with Lamborghini-style doors that open upward. The capsule is white, nearly as tall as the platform, and waiting with its doors already open. Jason takes a seat on the right side, and the commander sits directly in front of him, their knees just inches apart. As the door seals shut, Jason can't tell which direction they are traveling, but he soon feels a subtle pull that gives him the impression they are moving backward.

The capsule ride lasts about 30 minutes. During that time, they pass through what Jason later understands is a portal. He knows they are no longer on Earth because of a distinct change in the Schumann resonance, the natural background frequency of the planet. Being used to Earth's resonance, he notices the difference instantly. The shift is subtle but unmistakable: the natural frequency is replaced by an artificial one that is eerily similar yet clearly foreign. This realization, together with the lingering vertigo from the elevator ride, leaves him in a state of heightened awareness as he tries to process how strange the experience is.

At the end of the ride, the capsule arrives at the next station without any noticeable slowing or stopping. Jason's first sign that they have stopped is the capsule door starting to open. Startled, he thinks they are still moving and fears the door might be torn off mid-ride. The commander, well aware of this typical "new guy" reaction, watches Jason's startled face with a knowing smirk. Realizing he has fallen for what looks like an initiation prank, Jason braces himself for whatever unexpected challenge comes next.

They step out into a new landing area, very different from where they started. This one is about 100 feet long and 30 feet high, and brightly lit in white instead of red. In front of them are three elevator doors—two standard-sized ones and one enormous set, large enough for a semi-truck. As Jason and the captain approach one of the smaller elevators, the captain presses a button, and the doors slide open. Immediately, Jason finds himself staring at an alien, no more than four feet in front of him. The being is about four feet tall, with large dark eyes, a small mouth, and a small nose.

Surprised, Jason turns to the captain, who stands calmly to his right. Pointing toward the elevator, Jason exclaims, "There's something in the elevator." The captain, apparently unbothered, replies evenly, "What is it?" Jason looks back at the elevator, but the alien has vanished. Confused and unsure of what he has just seen, Jason decides not to tell the captain. At this point, he still has no idea what is really going on. His reaction is surprise rather than fear—he is more incredulous than terrified. The captain shows no sign that anything unusual has happened, and Jason, following his lead, decides to dismiss the encounter. He puts it down to another "new guy" trick, unsure of what to believe. With the elevator now empty, Jason and the captain step inside. With a knowing look, the captain presses the up button, and the elevator smoothly rises a few floors. Jason will get to know the being later. The soldiers call him Charlie. He is an EBEN, hired on as a tactics consultant, who communicates mind to mind and has a sense of humor about new arrivals. Asked where he comes from, Charlie just points upward.

When the elevator doors open, they enter a massive underground cavern. It is still within natural rock formations, but this space is unlike anything Jason has ever seen. The scale is staggering—like an NFL stadium buried beneath the earth, with enough room for an entire small city. The ceiling rises 32 stories high, though Jason notes that the uppermost levels are off-limits because of alleged radioactivity. This facility is known as the FIG, short for the Fort Indiantown Gap cave structure.

The entire cavern is brightly lit, with a light that imitates daylight but has no visible source. Instead, the walls and ceiling seem to glow, casting a uniform, even light that appears to come from the rock itself. The air smells of mold and mist, like a musty campfire. The effect is otherworldly, and for a moment Jason is awestruck. The captain, however, walks forward without hesitation, as if this incredible environment is routine. Jason follows, taking in the features of the cavern.

A track made of a vibration-absorbing material, like the ones used on indoor tracks, circles a field of artificial grass. Nearby, he notices rows of training chairs, tables, and other classroom furniture, as well as a sandpit that looks like a volleyball court, but without nets or posts. Off to one side is a shooting range. Overhead hang networks of catwalks—some with rails, some without—along with ropes hanging from the ceiling, each ending in a climbing carabiner. One feature, however, stands out to Jason: a trapeze-like apparatus that seems oddly out of place in a military training facility.

Standing in the middle of the enormous cavern, Jason can't shake the feeling that he is stepping into something far greater than himself. Yet, despite the size of the place, no one has explained what he is actually there to do. The captain offers no details, stays stoically silent, and tells Jason to save all his questions. For now, Jason has no choice but to follow and observe, his curiosity growing with every step. After going down a stairwell, Jason follows the captain into the next hallway, where the captain turns right into the first door. It is a conference room, where they will spend the next couple of hours. Here, Jason faces a mountain of paperwork—signing for various pieces of equipment and documents—without any real briefing or explanation.

Jason sits down beside the captain, facing a thick stack of papers neatly organized in a folder. The room itself is fairly ordinary, except for one curious detail: a narrow black stripe, about 3/4 of an inch wide, that runs around the upper part of the walls, roughly 12 inches below the ceiling. At one end of the room, a large flat-screen TV, about 60 inches, is mounted on the wall, but it stays off. At the time, Jason thinks the black stripe is purely decorative. He will later learn that it is much more than that. The stripe contains advanced monitoring equipment that tracks biosigns, video, audio, infrared, and a range of other data. It is designed to evaluate every person in the room—monitoring stress levels, detecting subtle physical changes like sweating or a faster heart rate, and recording everything for analysis.

For two hours, Jason signs document after document, still with no idea what he is getting into. The captain gives no explanations, only short instructions to hold all questions. He insists that there is a lot of work to do in a short time and assures Jason that a full briefing will take place in two days, once everyone has arrived. Jason can't shake the feeling that this deliberate lack of information is part of the process—a test of how he and the others respond to uncertainty and stress. As he works through the paperwork, questions nag at the back of his mind. Why do so many of the commanding officers he has met so far have German accents or distinctly Germanic features? Why, after defeating Germany in World War II, is he now taking orders from Germans? These thoughts swirl in his head as he silently follows the captain's instructions.

Halfway through the signing session, Jason notices a strange device on the table in front of the captain. It is unlike anything he has ever seen—or at least anything he can consciously remember. The device looks like a jeweler's hammer, small and unassuming, with a plain black handle and a single button. Instead of a hammerhead, it has a small, conical crystal at the end. At the time, Jason has no idea what the device is for, but he will later discover its purpose. If Jason declines to join the program, this small, harmless-looking tool will be used to erase his memory—a procedure known as blank slating. He will then be sent back to Fort Leonard Wood, unaware of everything he has seen or signed, with no memory of what happened in the strange facility.

3.

In the 1930s, Germany is a nation consumed by an intense interest in esoteric mysticism and alternative views on life, energy, and connections to realms beyond the known world. Driven by an insatiable thirst for knowledge, German researchers and explorers search the planet for hidden powers and ancient wisdom. This fascination is not new; its roots go back to the late 1800s.

After World War I, the German state begins integrating various secret societies into its research and development efforts. Among them is the Vril Society, an occult organization led by Maria Orsic, a well-known channeler who claims to communicate directly with extraterrestrial beings. At first, the information she provides is met with skepticism. However, that skepticism disappears when she shares detailed blueprints for anti-gravity craft—remarkably precise schematics with measurements, dimensions, and material specifications that make it possible to build advanced technologies. Initially, groups like the Vril Society focus on advancing humanity through the knowledge they acquire, not on world domination. But as the Third Reich rises to power, these secret societies come under growing pressure to align with the Nazi regime. To survive, they are forced to contribute their discoveries to the Reich's growing military ambitions.

This alignment leads to a period of explosive technological innovation in Germany. Within just a few years, German scientists and engineers make groundbreaking advances, including television, nuclear weapons, lasers, and microwaves. The pace and range of these achievements are unprecedented, and many are credited to knowledge obtained from both channeled information and direct extraterrestrial contact. Benevolent extraterrestrial beings, intent on helping humanity, share knowledge of anti-gravity technology with the Germans while deliberately withholding information about destructive weapons.

By the late 1930s, German engineers have developed saucer-like craft capable of traveling beyond Earth's atmosphere. By the end of the decade, they have even started exploratory missions to other planets. However, Hitler's ambition to weaponize this technology for the war proves futile. The problem comes from basic physics: the Germans cannot equip these UFOs with modern conventional weapons because of the law of conservation of momentum. Firing a weapon creates an equal and opposite force, which destabilizes the craft in mid-air. Without the necessary compensating technology, these saucer-like craft are unsuitable for combat during the war. In contrast to the benevolent extraterrestrials, the Draco—a reptilian species with entirely malevolent intentions—offer the Germans a darker alternative. Self-serving and ruthless, the Draco have an agenda that matches the ambitions of the German leadership disturbingly well, and this leads to a sinister alliance. Standing between 8 and 14 feet tall, some with vestigial tails and wings, the Draco give the Germans explicit directives. One of them is to establish a base in Antarctica, where ancient, advanced technologies lie buried beneath the ice—technologies that could shift the global balance of power decisively in their favor.

In 1938-39, the Germans launch an expedition to Antarctica aboard the SS New Schwabenland. This is no simple scientific mission; it is a calculated operation to secure alien technology. They claim a section of Antarctica, in Queen Maud Land, where natural defenses like mountain ranges provide ideal cover. There, they begin building Base 211, a groundbreaking stronghold that becomes central to their plans.

The timing of these events is far from coincidental. After returning to Germany in February 1939, the Germans make a provocative economic decision. By April, they abandon the central banking system and trade directly with other nations instead, bypassing the fiat currency controlled by global financial powers. This defiance alarms the central banking elite, who start rallying opposition against Germany. By September, Germany has invaded Poland, starting World War II. These events are close together for a reason. The Antarctic expedition and the Germans' encounter with the Draco seem to have fueled their ambitions and accelerated their plans for global domination. What they discovered—or were shown—strengthens their resolve to follow an aggressive path, which ultimately pushes the world toward war.

In the early 1940s, under the Draco's influence, the Germans are instructed to build a vast base beneath the Antarctic ice, large enough to house 300,000 to 400,000 people. The Draco have a clear motive: they need a proxy force to recover ancient technologies buried in the region. Antarctica's isolation makes it the perfect place for such secret activities, hidden from prying eyes. Thousands of Germans are selected to work on the project, and they are carefully compartmentalized to maintain secrecy. At first, geothermal heat beneath the Antarctic mountains provides power, and advanced technologies later add to it. However, the real prize is the remains of a long-lost advanced civilization, hidden beneath the ice. The Draco's interest in these ancient technologies is purely self-serving: they use the Germans to dig up artifacts that serve their own goals.

After World War II ends, the German faction in Antarctica distances itself from the collapsing Nazi regime and focuses on strengthening its base and advancing its technology. By 1947, they have made significant progress and have equipped their anti-gravity craft with effective weapons mounted on mobile platforms. This is a critical leap in both their defensive and offensive capabilities. Around the same time, UFO sightings increase sharply, with incidents like Maury Island and Roswell making headlines. Some of these sightings are linked to the Germans, who remain hidden but have not gone unnoticed. Through espionage, intercepted intelligence, and tracking people moving in and out of South America, world powers—especially the United States—locate the Germans' Antarctic stronghold. This discovery leads to decisive action. Within a year after World War II, the United States begins planning a large-scale military operation to neutralize the German threat. The result is Operation Highjump, launched in November 1946. Under the command of Admiral Byrd, a large naval fleet is sent to Antarctica, officially to test operations in harsh conditions. When they arrive, the US forces establish a base and begin reconnaissance. They soon discover the German stronghold, and a direct confrontation follows.

A few German UFOs, armed with directed energy weapons, launch a counterattack. They destroy one of the ships, kill several personnel, and force the entire fleet to retreat to the United States. This defeat highlights the Germans' advanced capabilities and marks a turning point. Recognizing the threat posed by the Antarctic Germans, world powers—especially the Cabal—move to open negotiations. The Cabal is a shadowy global elite that includes central bankers, major industrialists, influential media conglomerates, and powerful corporations, many tied to the Bilderberg Group. This secretive collective dominates key industries like finance, energy, technology, and pharmaceuticals, and uses its influence to shape global policies and narratives. Through its interconnected networks, the Cabal controls vast economic and political systems and advances its interests under the guise of progress and stability. Negotiating with the Germans becomes a critical move for the Cabal, because it ensures that advanced technologies and resources can be folded into its larger agenda of global dominance.

4.

After the meeting with the captain, Jason Rice is shown to his quarters. The room looks like a standard hotel room, with all the basics—a bed, a closet, a small bathroom, a dresser, a bedside table, and a lamp. It is simple, functional, and free of distractions: no windows, no TV, no radio, and no computer. The captain leaves Jason there with a stack of manuals, new uniforms, and equipment, and says he will see him later. The manuals contain instructions for everything, from weapons like plasma rifles and pulse pistols to land mines and area denial field generators. It is already around 11 o'clock at night, and Jason is mentally exhausted. After a quick shower, he pushes everything off the bed and collapses into sleep, but the night is restless. The absence of the familiar Schumann resonance in the background, combined with the unfamiliar atmosphere, leaves him feeling unsettled.

The next morning, Jason wakes up early, groggy from the poor sleep, and looks for the basics—how to shave, how to brush his teeth. He finds a device labeled "nanite epilation equipment." He knows the word "epilation," but he is unfamiliar with nanites—microscopic machines—a term that is still largely unknown in 1996. After reading the manual, Jason learns that the device uses a binary compound: when the two parts are combined, they activate the nanites. These nanites dissolve hair follicles without any water. Afterward, all he needs is a towel to wipe away the remaining hair, and his skin stays smooth for about 30 to 45 days. Jason is amazed by the technology—where has this been all his life? It was designed specifically to save water aboard ships, where resources are limited. Next, Jason looks for a toothbrush and finds a tube containing another binary compound cream. The tube has a special fitting that releases precise amounts of each compound into a chamber where they mix. The cream tastes like chalk and seems insufficient at first, but after 30 minutes, his teeth feel as if a dentist has just cleaned them. Like the epilation device, it is designed to minimize water use and eliminate waste water—essential for life aboard a craft.

Freshly shaved and with his teeth brushed, Jason looks for a clean uniform. He doesn't want to put on yesterday's uniform, so he looks for a new one. The uniform he finds has a digicam pattern with a V-shaped design for the name tag and unit insignia. Under the wrist area of each forearm is a pouch. These pouches are part of the medical kits, which are integrated into the feedback system between the computers and the medical gear. Both the pants and the blouse have a liner made of an incredibly thin yet rugged holographic material, unlike anything Jason has seen before. Once he is dressed in his new uniform, Jason feels ready to start the day. After some morning exercises and stretching, his stomach reminds him that it is time to eat.

He heads to the cafeteria, curious about what he will find there. When he walks in, he sees stainless steel shelves with an overhang, bordered by three-inch-wide metal edges. On each shelf are three black, square buttons. Intrigued, Jason approaches the nearest one and presses it with his finger. A humming sound starts, followed by a faint, misty light beneath the button. To his amazement, a bowl of butter appears right in front of him, as if out of thin air. He has just used his first replicator, and he quickly realizes that all the other bays are replicators too. Excited by the discovery, Jason feels as if he has stepped into a futuristic wonderland. He grabs a tray and moves down the line, eagerly pressing each button to see what happens. The first button produces scrambled eggs, perfectly cooked and ready to eat. The second creates a bowl of porridge. Further down the line, he finds replicators for bacon, toast, and finally a glass of water. He adds the butter from earlier to his tray and admires what is probably the happiest plate of plain scrambled eggs he has ever seen. The replicators are pre-programmed for specific meals and offer a selection of what is available that day. Although the choices are limited, Jason can't help but marvel at the technology and its possibilities. He notices a distinct energy field around the replicators. There is a noticeable charge in the air, and a subtle sound accompanies the process as the meals appear instantly. The process relies on advanced technology, probably using waves, ultrasound, or ultrasonic signals, which can organize atoms at the molecular level.

The rest of the second day at the FIG cavern is incredibly busy. Jason goes through a whirlwind of activities: a tour of every corner of the facility, meeting key personnel, and completing administrative tasks like signing up for pay. As they move through the cavern, Jason's attention is drawn to an unusual shipping container with strange, reinforced doors. It is a shuttle-exit simulator, which gets hoisted up on cables so that trainees can practice jumping out of it. Nearby, he sees a huge, charred surface about the size of a movie screen, mounted on a mobile cable system that can move it anywhere in the cavern. Curious, Jason learns that the screen is a specially treated target for live plasma rifle training. Its advanced surface is engineered to absorb plasma rounds without burning or causing collateral damage, which makes it an essential tool for training with their high-tech weapons.

Jason also learns that the trapeze-like setup he saw earlier is used to train with neurally operated gravity packs, a key part of the hang glider training program. These grav packs let soldiers generate thrust so they can gain or lose altitude as needed. The cavern is the main training ground for small unit tactics in the air, including collision avoidance, aerial maneuvering, and firing weapons in flight. The grav packs are battery-powered and last for about 30 to 45 minutes of continuous use. Soldiers are trained to use the packs together with the hang gliders, not for hovering but for actual flight. The packs are mainly used to gain altitude, stay stable while firing, or make precise adjustments in midair, and all movements are controlled mentally through the combat helmets. Mastering these skills is critical: the hang gliders are unsuitable for large-scale attacks, but they are incredibly stealthy. Because they are nearly silent, they are ideal for covert missions, allowing soldiers to relocate, infiltrate, or drop into locations undetected.

One of Jason's tasks that day is to pick up a stack of pre-selected postcards that he must send to his family. This is part of a carefully planned effort to prevent anyone back home from becoming suspicious about people who have suddenly disappeared. Jason finds it unsettling to write messages like "Happy belated birthday" for a birthday that won't happen for another year. Each postcard has a specific word count, and Jason receives precise instructions on what to write, though it must be in his own handwriting. The messages feel as if an AI has generated them, tailored to the psychological profile of each recipient. In cases like Jason's, where sending a belated card seems out of character, the AI deliberately adds such details to make the cards feel more authentic.

Another stop is the psychiatrist's office, an essential step for those who will eventually return to their previous lives after their service. The session establishes a detailed baseline of his mental state as he enters the program. The psychiatrist asks the same questions over and over, phrasing them differently each time, probing for specifics about Jason's memories: where he has been, what he has seen, and exactly what has happened. Meanwhile, advanced sensors in the walls and ceiling monitor his biorhythms. They work like an ultra-precise polygraph that can detect even the smallest signs of stress, anxiety, or deception. This is not a one-time session. The evaluations take place every week, so that every detail of Jason's mental and emotional state is carefully recorded. This close scrutiny is a cornerstone of the program: it keeps an accurate and complete record of his memories and experiences, down to the smallest detail. Only twenty years later will he understand what such a precise record is for.

Later that day, Jason spends time in the medical lab, where he is introduced to nanite enhancement therapy, which will become a cornerstone of his service in the program. The procedure is designed to maximize his chances of survival in the extreme conditions he will face. Nanites are introduced into every system of his body, from bones and organs to lymph glands and tissue. These enhancements boost his natural abilities and allow him to do things that would be impossible for a regular human.

The enhancements are remarkable. Jason's vision improves to the point where he can zoom in on distant objects and see in the dark. His hearing extends into frequencies beyond the normal human range. The nanites give him control over his adrenal glands, allowing him to regulate hunger and optimize how nutrients are distributed—critical when food is scarce. Every gland in his body, including the pituitary and pineal glands, is modified to improve his performance. Radiation resistance is another vital feature. Every cell in Jason's body is equipped with protocols to repair radiation damage, which is necessary to survive in space. Specialized nanites are used for different systems: one type for organs, another for hearing, and others for joints. Despite their specific roles, all nanites share the anti-radiation capability. The nanites also speed up healing. A cut that would normally take two weeks to heal now closes in hours. They don't take over his body's natural functions, but they greatly enhance them, improving his health and resilience in ways Jason finds astounding.

After a few days of settling into the cavern facility, all the trainees are finally called to a briefing in an auditorium that looks like a college lecture hall, with rows of seats, each with a foldable desk. On each desk is a packet of paperwork and information about their mission. The atmosphere is tense but full of curiosity as the soldiers wait for the briefing to start. A German colonel named Schuller steps forward to address the group and thanks them for volunteering—as if they had a choice. In a thick German accent, he explains that they have been chosen for their special talents and abilities. They are to be the "tip of the spear," humanity's front line of defense, motivated by patriotism and a desire to serve their country. Their mission will be to help defend planets from alien invasions. An alien invasion in Africa in 1995, he tells them, was beaten off by an advanced unit like theirs; defending other worlds is the price of the technology exchange that made this possible, and one day all of that technology will be made public. It becomes clear that the senior officers on stage are also German, all with thick accents. No other Western or European senior officers are present, and this makes Jason suspicious. To him, it is a clear sign that something is wrong—something that sets this operation apart from any standard military command structure he has known.

The briefing continues with a presentation of the Secret Space Program they have just joined, officially named the Interplanetary Defense and Reaction Forces (IDARF). Its mission is similar to border patrol: it provides assistance on other planets, but it also conducts significant training on Earth, in places such as Antarctica and the South Pacific. The colonel takes full credit for developing the program and conveniently leaves out any mention of extraterrestrial involvement. The focus then shifts to the rewards waiting for the soldiers after 20 years of service. They are promised $465,000 when they return, though it is clearly stated that deductions for room, board, and some equipment will apply, presented as minor charges. Charts and graphs break down the financial side of the program and present the sum as a substantial reward for their dedication—especially impressive in 1996. The group listens closely, captivated by the promises. In addition to the money, the soldiers are told that age regression will be part of the return process. Since they have already seen clear physical improvements from the nanites in their bodies, they have little reason to doubt this claim. The idea of coming back younger and healthier after two decades of service is undeniably appealing.

The colonel then reveals another extraordinary part of the program: timeline reintegration. At the end of their 20-year journey, the soldiers will be sent back in time to the exact moment and place where they first received their orders. This process splits the timeline: their original self continues life on Earth while their consciousness goes on the space mission. For two decades, they will live parallel lives, experiencing an entirely separate reality. When their service is over, they will be seamlessly reintegrated into their original timeline, as if they had never left. This is the extraordinary promise of the 20 and back opportunity: defend humanity for two decades, then return with a second chance at youth and a significant financial nest egg. The briefing is carefully designed to present the service as a noble and rewarding mission, a story crafted to appeal to their patriotism and ambition. And it works: the soldiers are drawn in by the promise of glory. However, no one mentions the mind wipes that will be used to erase their memories upon reintegration.

5.

Operation Highjump, meant to eliminate the Antarctic Germans, instead ends in a hasty and humiliating retreat. Not long after this defeat, in March 1947, President Truman issues an executive order requiring FBI loyalty evaluations for all federal employees. Officially, it is a response to fears of Communist infiltration during the rise of McCarthyism. But the real target of these evaluations is far more secret: the Antarctic German infiltrators who have quietly begun embedding themselves in the US government.

After Admiral Byrd returns to the United States, reports of UFO sightings increase dramatically, along with more and more accounts of abductions. A curious pattern appears: many abductees, including the widely publicized case of Betty and Barney Hill, are of German descent. This raises troubling questions: are these incidents coincidences, or are the abductors deliberately targeting people with German ancestry? There seems to be a strong link between German genetics and the people involved in the Secret Space Program or among the abductees. This connection goes back to the negotiations between the Antarctic Germans and the Cabal. As part of these secret agreements, the Antarctic Germans make several bold demands. These include formal recognition as a sovereign state, embassies around the world, and a startling provision: one to five senior executives from the Antarctic German civilization must be placed in leadership positions in every major global corporation. The targeted industries include aerospace, automotive, and petrochemicals, which allows these operatives to gain influence at the highest levels of power.

Between 1945 and 1948, the Germans shift their focus to infiltrating the Allied powers. Their strategy is to embed operatives deep inside the military and political systems of their former enemies, securing a foothold in key areas of influence. This covert operation, though part of a broader and more insidious effort, becomes partly public under the name Operation Paperclip. Officially presented as a program to bring German scientists, technicians, and engineers to the United States after World War II, Operation Paperclip is actually the first stage of a far-reaching infiltration effort. The operation not only gives these people passports, homes, and jobs, but effectively rolls out the red carpet for their integration into Western industries. The Germans specifically target the United States because of its vast manufacturing capacity and resources. By embedding themselves in key corporations, they can steadily expand their influence and power.

As abductions increase in the 1950s and 1960s, suspicions grow about their connection to these earlier agreements. Are these abductions part of additional deals with other extraterrestrial races, or do they serve the Antarctic Germans' own experimental purposes? The full details remain unclear, but the implications are deeply unsettling.

Around 1940, while the Germans are strengthening their Antarctic stronghold, they make their first journey to the Moon aboard the Haunebu I spacecraft. Their lunar ambitions quickly lead to startling discoveries. The Germans find that the Moon is not a natural satellite but an artificial construct, brought to Earth as an escape vessel from another region of space. The Moon's interior is already densely occupied by dozens of alien races, each fiercely guarding its territory. There are no open conflicts, but any attempt to move onto another race's land is met with swift and aggressive defense. In 1944, the Germans return with a specific mission: to scout for a suitable place to build a base. Their ambitions go beyond the Moon, as they also begin exploratory missions to Mars. This marks the beginning of their interplanetary expansion.

By 1946-47, the Germans, who lack the advanced technology needed for a fight of this scale, find themselves in a desperate position. They need land, but the only race willing to negotiate with them is the Draco. This is no coincidence: the Draco have bribed, blackmailed, or manipulated the situation so that the Germans have no other options. The negotiations focus on acquiring 20 acres of lunar land, but the Draco's demands are steep. They first ask for 225 females and 50 years of right of first refusal—a clause that gives the Draco the option to claim any technology the Germans find in Antarctica before it can be shared with anyone else. The Germans are appalled by the demand for 225 women. Besides the moral problem, losing so many women of childbearing age would seriously threaten the survival of their society. After six grueling months of negotiation, they reach a deal: the Germans will provide 150 males, 75 females, and 25 years of right of first refusal on Antarctic discoveries. These people are handed over as slaves, destined for labor, experiments, entertainment, food, and other horrific abuses. This grim agreement gives the Germans a 100-year lease on lunar territory, and the Draco offer technological assistance in return. The deal is a pivotal moment, because it allows the Germans to build their first off-planet base and lays the groundwork for future exploration. However, the price of this achievement is devastating.

The brutality of the Draco becomes horrifyingly clear when they arrive in Antarctica to collect their captives. The Germans have gathered the group in a cavern, unaware of their fate, under the watch of 53 armed guards. For the negotiators, it is all business—and besides, none of their own families are among those being turned over. The Draco arrive in full battle armor and use a stun device that immobilizes everyone within its range. With memory alteration technology, they flood their victims' minds with terrifying images—scenes of humans mutilating, torturing, and eating other humans, often their own family members. The immobilized captives are forced to endure this psychological torment, unable to move or resist, while the Draco take a sick pleasure in their suffering. The Draco do it for no other reason than that they find it funny. By pure chance, three guards are standing just outside the range of the immobilization field. One of them is caught by it on his way to the exit; the other two escape and alert the security forces. For about a year, neither of them can stay conscious for long without going psychotic or catatonic, and some five years later both take their own lives, unable to live with what was put into their minds. The Draco take all 278 captives that day, and despite repeated German inquiries, they never reveal where the captives are or what became of their remains. This harrowing event has a lasting impact on the Antarctic Germans, who swear never to trade their own people again. Instead, they later look for other human sources to fulfill their deals.

The exchange gives the Germans 20 acres of harsh, unforgiving land on the Moon, where they begin building their lunar operations command. Most of the base is built downward, burrowing into the Moon's surface for protection. The construction, which takes place between 1947 and 1952, faces huge challenges, and nearly a thousand workers die in accidents and in the unforgiving conditions. Later, the Germans discover that they have been deceived. At least six other alien races would have offered them twice as much territory on the Moon, without asking for a single person in return, and for only one year of right of first refusal. This betrayal shows how the Draco manipulated them and leaves the Germans bitterly aware of how completely they have been exploited.

Around this time, the Antarctic Germans begin scouting for territory on Mars. However, the planet brings its own unique challenges. Large parts of Mars are covered by atmospheres full of highly charged particles, which makes those areas unsuitable for building anything that depends on electronics. To make matters worse, the few regions suitable for settlement are already occupied by other extraterrestrial races. These are not the Draco but entirely different alien beings. To secure the land they need for their ambitious plans, including their new base, New Berlin, the Antarctic Germans must build a substantial outpost and fight fierce battles against these inhabitants. The conflict is intense, lasts nearly a decade, and costs the lives of over 17,000 Germans. This number may seem modest, but it is a significant fraction of their population—comparable to the proportional losses of the Allies in World War II. The impact is devastating, because the casualties are mostly among the youngest, most capable, and most productive members of their society.

Reeling from these heavy casualties, the Germans realize they need to rebuild their numbers and resources. This urgency pushes them to negotiate with the Cabal. They want not only a treaty but also a supply of people to sustain their operations. This need for manpower and resources explains the dramatic increase in UFO sightings in the early 1950s, including the famous mass sightings over Washington, DC and New York City in 1952, which span two weekends. Some pilots even claim to see humanoid figures piloting these UFOs and giving them the finger before disappearing at incredible speed. These sightings are in fact a show of force by the Germans, an attempt to pressure the Cabal into negotiating.

Despite their efforts, they still can't get the Cabal to the negotiating table. The Cabal stalls for years—a war in Korea, a Red Scare that is really a hunt for German moles—and even forgives all of Germany's war debts going back to World War I as a gesture of good faith, playing on the Antarctic Germans' lingering love for their homeland. When the Germans announce that they have nuclear weapons, the Cabal doesn't believe them. So the Germans stage a demonstration. Four saucers take up station at 200,000 feet above a lone US Navy heavy cruiser on its way back from the nuclear tests at Bikini Atoll, and drop a small-yield device close enough for the electromagnetic pulse to knock out every system on board. Within five seconds, one saucer descends to a hundred feet above the deck. The crew opens fire and cannot hit it. It takes twelve hours to get the ship moving again, and it limps back to Hawaii. Knowing that Washington will be tempted to blame Bikini, the Germans film the entire operation and send the footage to the US President, the Soviet leadership, and every royal family in Europe, so that no one can claim they never got the message. That pretty much does it.

Around the same time, another major shift happens. As the Antarctic Germans finish their military campaigns on Mars in 1954, they also make an important technological breakthrough: they develop memory-wipe technology. This advance will prove pivotal in the years to come, especially as they move forward with their larger plans.

6.

Mastering the nanite enhancements requires extensive training. Over 18 months of rigorous preparation, Jason and his peers learn to integrate the nanites into their daily operations. The training isn't about becoming super soldiers but about using the enhancements as protection—like putting on a suit of armor. This distinction is vital: the nanites amplify their strengths without changing their core humanity. The nanites also improve Jason's endurance. His top running speed doesn't increase, but he can hold that speed for much longer. If he can run a mile and a half at top speed without enhancements, with the nanites he can keep the same pace for five miles. His reaction times, however, depend mainly on his intuitive empath abilities, which let him anticipate events before they happen, rather than on the nanites alone.

As advanced as they are, the nanites come with risks. They can be hacked, which is a serious threat. Personnel are scanned regularly to detect any AI-related compromise. At the time, Jason assumes these scans are routine, but he later realizes they are designed specifically to address the risk of nanite hacking. This constant monitoring is an integral part of the program and ensures that the enhancements remain secure and functional. Despite being deeply integrated into his body, the nanites are not permanent. At the end of his service, Jason will go through a cleansing process that flushes the nanites from his system, so that the enhancements don't remain after his time in the program. This temporary nature shows how deliberately the program is designed: the enhancements work during service and leave no lasting changes afterward. The nanite enhancements are not part of an experimental trial; they are components of a mature, well-developed system that combines physical and cognitive enhancements into a seamless whole. For Jason, they are both a survival tool and a testament to the program's sophistication—a balance of cutting-edge technology and human ingenuity.

The eight months at the FIG are devoted to exactly this—the nanite enhancements and the intuitive empath abilities—and they wrap up with two solo missions that put both to the test. The first is in Antarctica: each trainee is dropped off alone and has to navigate back to base on intuition. The second is in the South Pacific. Jason is set down on top of a rock pillar rising hundreds of feet straight out of the ocean, crowned with grass and foliage, with a transformable glider and a grav pack. The base is about 500 miles away, and he is not told in which direction. I think it's this way. That feels right. He jumps off, hunts for thermals to spare the pack's batteries, and whenever he ends up in the water, the glider's floats and fabric wings convert into a small sailing craft. Water is rationed, and the nanites let him go without food. It takes him twelve days to make it back. The point is total confidence in those abilities, and the best way they have found to build it is to set a person loose.

Then Jason leaves the cave structure for the next phase, starting with a shuttle flight to the Moon. The journey begins at Area 51, deep in the Nevada desert. From there, the shuttle takes the group up to the lunar operations command, where the next phase of training takes place. The trip from Earth to the Moon is astonishingly fast—it takes only minutes, if that.

For six months, the focus is on mastering microgravity and understanding the advantages and limitations of various systems. The training isn't limited to classrooms; much of it also takes place aboard ships in space. These ships are massive and triangular, with smooth sides and a wedge-like design. Training on the Moon is a critical phase of preparation. It focuses on getting familiar with shipboard operations, emergency procedures, evacuation protocols, and the layout of ships. Knowing the difference between water lines and power lines, knowing which areas to avoid, and being ready for emergencies like fires are all crucial skills aboard a spaceship, which is not always the safest place.

This training takes place at the Cabal's base on the Moon, a facility they acquired from the Germans. The base itself is underground, which provides a secure and controlled environment. However, most of the training happens not in the base but aboard a training ship built specifically for this purpose. The principle is to "train like you fight": real-world scenarios are simulated as closely as possible. The inside of the training ship looks like the inside of a US Navy vessel—cramped, with pipes and utilities crowding the ceiling, and bulkheads painted lime green and cream. It is a place where utility and efficiency rule. Unlike older vessels with manually sealed doors, the ship has automatic doors that seal themselves, an advanced feature that can be as dangerous as it is convenient. If you are caught on the wrong side at the wrong time, there is no escape. This ship is part of the early generations of the Secret Space Program, probably launched around 1985 or 1986, when Solar Warden, the American program, was still in its infancy. The technology on board, while advanced, still carries the DNA of naval design—submarine technology adapted for space. It is one of the first of its kind, a pioneer vessel in the fleet that will become the backbone of Solar Warden's operations.

Throughout this training, command stays firmly in the hands of the Germans. Their rules and control reach even the Moon, where the training includes learning microgravity operations and getting used to the combat suits that will be worn in the field. By this point, only 26 of the original 34 remain in the group. Not all of the others have died, but the intense training and demanding environment have taken a heavy toll on their numbers.

After six months of training on the Moon, the next phase of preparation takes place on Mars. Jason sets foot on the vast, barren expanses of Mars—desolate deserts full of rocks, canyons, and strange washouts that form depressions in the surface. The environment feels otherworldly, a stark reminder that he is on a different planet. Breathing the Martian air is not an option. Helmets are worn at all times, and soldiers are strictly ordered never to remove them. Above ground, there is little to see besides structures built for mechanical purposes and the entrances leading down to the underground bases. Most of the surface is covered by radiation shielding, dirt, and rock, so the underground cities are the main living spaces for their inhabitants. The Germans have built two large underground cities on Mars, known as New Berlin and New Wurzburg. These are not just bases; they are fully functioning cities, carved deep into the Martian rock. These cities are vast and self-sustaining, hidden away from the harsh conditions on the surface. Water comes mainly from recycling, although the planet's frozen ice reserves are also extracted to some extent.

Jason's unit, the 3rd Panzer Division, is known as the Berlin Bears. The Mars Germans take inspiration from World War II German military traditions and use many of the original insignia, symbols, and even uniforms. One of their dress uniforms is disturbingly similar to the black SS uniform, and the American soldiers refuse to wear it unless they are explicitly ordered to. The soldiers see little of the underground bases and cities, because they spend most of their time aboard ships, with only occasional glimpses of facility entrances. There are signs that other alien groups live on Mars, but the soldiers never meet them directly. They see no signs of conflict or fighting, though it is unclear whether this coexistence is peaceful or just an uneasy truce. The training protocol keeps them isolated from these other groups, confined to designated training areas far from any potential hostilities. This stage of training combines the previous one with new, more advanced zero-gravity and microgravity techniques. It focuses on the crucial link between ship operations and ground maneuvers, including combat landings—how to leave the ship, perform drops, and use the various methods of descending to the planet. This includes exiting shuttles, jumping out with gliders, or using anti-gravity packs to shoot out into the Martian atmosphere. The training is rigorous and designed to prepare them for the unique challenges of operating on Mars.

The strangest piece of technology Jason encounters is the individual insertion pod. These pods are designed for situations where shuttle craft aren't practical or speed is crucial, and they allow orbital insertions directly onto the surface of a planet. The concept is simple and fast: each soldier wears a combat suit and is placed inside a re-entry pod. The pod has shielding to protect against the intense heat of re-entry and a cooling system inside to keep the temperature bearable, although it still gets hot. The pod is launched on a trajectory toward the planet, and its single anti-gravity generator slows the descent and reduces the impact on landing. Even so, the landing is rough—enough to jolt the body, but not enough to kill, because the suit absorbs much of the impact.

Hurtling through the atmosphere inside a small pod is an intense experience. Many soldiers turn off their video sensors during the descent to avoid the disorienting visuals. There is also a blackout period during re-entry when the sensors don't work at all. These pods are mainly used for rapid insertions when speed is essential. If other shuttle craft are needed elsewhere for tactical diversions, the pods allow quick deployment. Despite how intense the experience is, most of the insertions are done for training or recertification rather than in active combat zones.

Jason's group faces the realities of combat deployment, where living permanently in a suit becomes part of daily life. The advanced combat suits are essential to their survival, and the trainees must learn to live, fight, and maneuver in them under harsh conditions. After four months of training on Mars, they are finally ready to be deployed on their first mission on another planet.

At the end of the training, command has one more announcement to make. The soldiers' families have been notified that they died in action. Some families receive an empty casket; others are given a body to bury. It is Cortés burning his ships. Even if the soldiers wanted to go back, there is nothing to go back to, and no choice but to continue on the course they are on.

7.

After completing 18 months of rigorous training, Jason officially becomes a member of the Interplanetary Defense and Reaction Forces (IDARF). He and his platoon are soon shuttled to a cruise ship that will take them to their first mission. The atmosphere is electric with anticipation, as the soldiers are eager to start their roles defending planets that face an imminent or active alien invasion.

IDARF's main mission is to deploy troops and resources to protect these planets, often acting as the first line of defense against extraterrestrial threats. As one of the earliest recruits of a force that is only a few years old, Jason sees his career in IDARF evolve significantly over time. He starts as a platoon leader and quickly rises through various command roles. He serves as a company executive officer and later as a company commander. After his promotion to major, Jason takes on broader responsibilities, including battalion staff officer, battalion executive officer, and eventually regimental staff officer. Toward the end of his service, he returns to the training regiment, where he again holds leadership roles, including company commander and staff officer.

IDARF's organizational structure is unique and deeply hierarchical. Officers ranked O5 and above—lieutenant colonels, colonels, and generals—are exclusively Mars Germans. Earth-born soldiers like Jason are limited to lower officer ranks, up to major, and fill most of the enlisted and junior officer positions. This division creates built-in tension, because the German chain of command often considers Earth soldiers inferior. Problems within the ranks are often blamed on Earth personnel, regardless of where the problems actually come from. The Germans' deep hostility toward the Cabal extends to Earth-born soldiers, who often face prejudice and pettiness. Despite these challenges, Jason gets along with many of his peers, but the undercurrent of bias from some of the German officers is always there.

IDARF's strategy relies on a diverse and highly specialized fleet of ships to gain and keep control over planets and space during combat. At the heart of this fleet are massive cigar-shaped carriers and wedge-shaped vessels, some up to half a mile long. These huge motherships, often dark gray or black with smooth, seamless surfaces, are designed mainly for interstellar travel. They can carry thousands of soldiers, their ground equipment, and hundreds of smaller combat vessels such as destroyers and cruisers. These smaller ships play a critical role in fleet operations: they protect the larger carriers and help deploy troops to the surfaces of exoplanets.

The motherships are carefully engineered to withstand the extreme hazards of deep space, including harmful cosmic rays and lethal radiation. Their hulls are about a meter thick, far stronger than the lightweight materials used in conventional spacecraft. Unlike commercial spacecraft, which rely on honeycomb insulation and pressurized metal surfaces, these ships are reinforced with advanced materials, including steel and even a layer of water. This multi-layered construction keeps both the crew and the equipment safe in the harsh conditions of interstellar travel. The cigar-shaped carriers have no traditional windows, unlike commercial spacecraft. Instead, special openings covered by force fields let the crew see outside while keeping the atmosphere inside. These force fields, similar to those used in ground operations, are designed to hold in air and protect against external threats. However, these carriers are not built to enter planetary atmospheres. They stay in stationary orbit and serve as command centers and logistics hubs. From there, smaller shuttles are sent to planetary surfaces or to other ships in the fleet.

A variety of shuttles are used to meet different mission needs. Interplanetary travel requires one type of shuttle, while combat landings on planets or moons require more heavily armed and armored designs. Evacuations or troop retrievals under fire require special shuttles built for durability and speed. Occasionally, when mission conditions allow, conventional aircraft similar to the AH-64 Apache attack helicopter are used. In addition, smaller, fast vessels handle specific roles, such as moving cargo across a base or making supply runs.

Some shuttles look like a mix between a B-2 stealth bomber and a space shuttle, with a sleek yet armored profile. Others are rectangular and box-like, designed purely for function rather than aerodynamics. These are essentially flying tanks, reinforced with structural ribs and steel beams, and equipped with non-projectile weapons such as lasers, kinetic energy weapons, and gravitronic systems. Transport shuttles come in various sizes, from as small as a van to as large as a military transport plane like the C-5 Galaxy, with plenty of room for both troops and equipment. Some are converted cargo shuttles with seating for personnel in the front section, similar to the inside of a commercial aircraft. For example, on one mission to retrieve a power cell from a war-torn city, the team uses a bus-sized shuttle that easily fits twelve soldiers and their gear, though the seating is basic and everyone sits on the deck. On another mission, a smaller van-sized shuttle is used to move cargo, while a larger combat shuttle, with a rear deck door and a central gun, is used for more intense operations.

Thanks to their anti-gravity propulsion systems, these shuttles are highly maneuverable. They can move precisely in any direction—up, down, sideways, and even in 90-degree turns—without making the people on board sick. The anti-gravity technology also creates an inertial damping "bubble" around the craft, which lets it make sharp turns and sudden stops at high speed without affecting the passengers. This bubble, an invisible energy field, extends just beyond the craft's physical edges, so that every part, including any external weapons pods, is protected. The same technology, probably used in the UFOs seen on Earth, allows such craft to perform extreme maneuvers that no living being could survive without this inertial damping effect. The energy field is invisible to the naked eye and adapts to the craft's structure, including external equipment like weapons, so the bubble does not need to be turned off to fire. Shuttles usually use kinetic energy weapons, which don't rely on physical projectiles, so they work inside the energy field without interference.

The control systems vary depending on the size and function of the craft. Smaller craft, like those used to move equipment around bases, use simple manual controls, similar to operating a forklift. Larger shuttles, by contrast, have sophisticated neural interfaces that let pilots communicate directly with their craft through a mental link. This removes the need for spoken commands and adds a layer of stealth, since the communication can't be intercepted or monitored. Jason experiences this neural interface firsthand on a mission as a door gunner on a shuttle. His helmet connects him to the pilot's communication system, giving him real-time insight into how the craft is being controlled. Unlike in traditional aircraft, where pilots and crew coordinate by voice, these pilots interact silently with their ships through the neural interface, in a constant mental connection. The system gives real-time updates on critical data such as fuel levels, ammunition counts, and structural integrity. Pilots can even customize the notifications and choose to be alerted when specific conditions are met, such as fuel consumption milestones or ammunition running low.

From the outside, the control panels of these advanced craft look minimalist, with a few aluminum knobs and glass panels that can be touched for basic controls. However, once the neural interface is activated, the control panel changes completely. Holographic displays come to life and present a three-dimensional, fully interactive heads-up display with all the information needed to fly the craft, such as altitude, power levels, and other critical data. This sophisticated technology gives pilots a seamless, immersive control experience and lets them manage complex spacecraft operations with precision and efficiency. Redundancy is another critical design feature of these shuttles. To keep operating in emergencies, the craft have several layers of control. Each shuttle usually has at least two pilots, and larger models carry crews of up to 30, though only a few of them are qualified to fly. Advanced AI systems add another layer of safety and can take over the flight if necessary. These AI systems respond to spoken commands and can fly the shuttle on their own, keeping the mission going even in extreme circumstances. Alongside the shuttles, drones are a vital part of IDARF's combat arsenal. These drones, especially the stealth versions, play key roles in offensive and reconnaissance operations. Their advanced camouflage lets them be deployed covertly, which provides critical tactical advantages. Whether gathering intelligence or engaging in combat, the combination of AI and drone technology shows how much the fleet relies on cutting-edge systems to stay superior in any scenario.

Jason later learns that the fleet that takes him and his platoon to their first mission operates under layers of secrecy as impenetrable as its hulls. Travel times between planets are deliberately hidden through calculated disinformation, so the crew never knows where their missions are or what methods of travel are available. For example, a journey that actually takes only a few days might be reported as lasting two weeks. In some cases, advanced portal technology can cut travel time to mere minutes, yet the crew is often not told about these capabilities. This veil of secrecy protects operational security and keeps the program's most advanced technologies a mystery.

8.

Antarctica, a landmass roughly the size of the United States, is known to be rich in natural resources, including oil, coal, uranium, gold, and silver. Yet, despite this immense wealth, corporations—known for their relentless pursuit of profit, often at great environmental cost—make no attempt to exploit these reserves. The reason is the Antarctic Treaty, a pivotal agreement negotiated between 1955 and 1959 that decides the fate of the southernmost continent and its untapped resources. The treaty has two parts: a public version, which promotes peaceful scientific research and international cooperation, and a classified version, hidden from the public. During this period, two high-profile military-scientific operations, Operation Deep Freeze I and II, take place. Officially described as exploratory missions, these operations are actually an integral part of the treaty negotiations. The stakes are so high that one member of the Cabal reportedly dies of a heart attack during the talks, overwhelmed by the fear of public exposure.

When the treaty officially takes effect in 1959, its classified part confirms the sovereignty of the Antarctic Germans—a critical and controversial element of the negotiations. It also gives them the right to acquire about 150,000 people from around the world, selected according to strict criteria such as specific IQ thresholds and physical attributes. These people will be taken at a time and place of the Germans' choosing. Officially, the Germans promise that these people will be treated well: housed, fed, given medical care, and even offered German citizenship after five years of service. Those who decline citizenship are promised a safe return to their home countries. In reality, these promises are lies. The Antarctic Germans have no intention of keeping them. When the five years are up, those who ask to go home are returned and then re-abducted, or reported dead with false paperwork. About ninety percent are kept. Most of the people taken under this arrangement are never seen again, their fate sealed by the same ruthless efficiency that lets the Germans control the world's most advanced technologies. This program becomes infamous as the "brain drain" of the 1950s and 1960s.

At the same time, the Antarctic Germans push for more influence in major corporations. They demand between one and five seats on the boards of companies where their senior executives are already embedded. They also secure lifetime positions in the executive branch of every government on the planet, ensuring that a Mars German holds a key role in each administration. With these footholds, it becomes easy for them to rise through corporate and political hierarchies—from vice president to president—using their advanced technologies to fast-track their success. Their contributions make them indispensable and cement their dominance across industries. This strategy, which begins in the mid-20th century, still influences global power structures today. The Cabal, though wary of these new players, takes a pragmatic long-term view. With a history of nearly a thousand years of surviving regime changes, wars, and upheavals, they believe they can weather this storm too and keep their overall control despite the challenges posed by the Antarctic Germans.

In the end, the Antarctic Germans achieve their goals. They secure permanent government roles, gain access to human resources, and embed their influence deep in the global power structure. The people they obtain are given menial work, such as factory labor and housekeeping—tasks considered beneath the standards of their own society. This arrangement lets the Antarctic Germans stay focused on advancing their technology and tightening their grip on global influence, ensuring their dominance well into the future.

In the 1960s, the Cabal finds itself in a precarious position, playing a double game. Outwardly, they seem to accept the Antarctic Germans' demands and influence, but behind the scenes, they are plotting. Always thinking long-term, they know they have no immediate way to counter the Germans' overwhelming technological superiority. The possibility of their secret alliance being exposed is unthinkable, so they reluctantly go along with it, while making plans to turn the tide.

The Germans' biggest advantage during this period is their mind-wipe technology, a tool that gives them unprecedented control over information and secrecy. It lets them monitor, infiltrate, and disrupt any classified program that might challenge their dominance. With a large network of insiders in governments and corporations, the Germans can identify and neutralize potential threats. Any project that moves into their technological territory is either shut down completely or quietly absorbed into their operations, disappearing from public view and reappearing as part of the Germans' private arsenal. For the Cabal, this technology is a formidable obstacle. Recognizing that they need their own Secret Space Program, they begin drafting plans for a competing force. Yet the Germans' surveillance capabilities, strengthened by their mind-wipe technology, make it nearly impossible for the Cabal to start new initiatives without the Germans finding out. This slows progress at every turn and leaves the Cabal dependent on the limited flow of technology from the Germans.

Meanwhile, the Antarctic Germans are light-years ahead technologically. Their alliance with the Draco, combined with their engineering skill, has given them access to unmatched knowledge and capabilities. They carefully control how their technology reaches the world's governments, releasing only what fits their strategic goals and keeping their most advanced innovations for themselves. By manipulating government budgets and intelligence structures, the Germans make sure that any project threatening their technological dominance is quietly defunded, privatized, and absorbed into their operations.

The relationship between the Germans and the Cabal is complex—a careful balance of cooperation and rivalry. Although they are fundamentally opposed to the Cabal's overall agenda, the Germans understand the power dynamics at play and choose calculated pragmatism. Their strong presence on Mars and the Moon, together with their ongoing alliance with the Draco, makes them an unmatched force. By using their technological edge, they stay dominant while quietly outmaneuvering the Cabal in key areas. For the Cabal, the Germans are both a rival to undermine and a partner they reluctantly need. The Germans, for their part, blame the Cabal for everything that befell Germany after World War I, and never call them anything but "the Earth's shite royals." Nothing makes them prouder than being able to dictate terms to them. They stop short of crushing the Cabal only because they still need Earth's manufacturing and research capacity.

9.

Jason's first deployment is to a world he simply calls "Planet One," because of information compartmentalization and gaps in his memory. As a platoon leader, his first mission is to lead his team into a city to gather crucial intelligence, with the ultimate goal of training the locals to defend themselves against an upcoming threat.

Preliminary intelligence shows that Planet One is slightly larger than Earth, about two percent bigger, with more land than water: 60 percent of its surface is land, and the remaining 40 percent is vast freshwater lakes full of fish similar to those on Earth. There are no deserts, and the planet has large uninhabited regions, especially in the arctic zones above and below the 60-degree latitude lines. These areas are mostly barren and lack the diverse ecosystems found at similar latitudes on Earth. The planet has two moons—the soldiers name the pale yellow one the Potato and the fast, light red one Nike—which adds to its unique yet strangely familiar environment. The landscape is lush, with plants and animals that resemble those on Earth—forests full of trees that look like pines and oaks, which the soldiers call "near pines" and "near oaks." The ecosystem is full of life, though its diversity is surprisingly limited. There are birds and four-legged ground animals, but no two-legged animals. The planet has a unique natural beauty that Jason will never forget. However, it lacks the rich variety he is used to on Earth, something that strikes him early on. He doesn't dwell on it at the time, but looking back, it seems significant.

The planet is inhabited by humans, though they are slightly smaller than humans on Earth, about five feet tall on average. This smaller size makes it easier for soldiers who are not much taller than the natives to blend in. Despite their size, the locals are as robust as any healthy Earth human, and just as intelligent. This gentle civilization has lived peacefully for centuries, without wars or conflicts. They are unaware of the alien threat coming for them, and when it arrives, the shock will leave them unprepared to defend themselves. With no weapons, their situation is dire. Intelligence suggests that the alien invasion will happen within a specific timeframe. The operation plan calls for twelve to eighteen months of intelligence gathering before the invasion, which should give them plenty of time to prepare for the attack. They will not be allowed to finish.

The goal is to understand the planet's social structure, layout, and technological capabilities. This information is vital for planning a defensive strategy, identifying key resources that need to be protected or stockpiled, and deciding where defensive support is most needed. This reconnaissance is part of the first phase, before the planet's governments publicly announce that they are receiving outside help against an upcoming invasion. Jason and his men already know the local language, which was implanted in their minds as part of their training. They will gather intelligence quietly and scout the area while pretending to set up a trade route from a distant city. The mission is to blend in and become indistinguishable from the city's residents for three to six months, while setting up a trade mission for exchanging goods between cities.

The first city Jason and his men enter lies beside a massive freshwater lake, so large that the opposite shore can't be seen—it is probably as big as the Gulf of Mexico. The platoon spreads out across the city, with each small group placed no more than five minutes from another, though some teams are further away to avoid suspicion. They arrive at staggered times to make it look random, so that they blend into the life of the city. There are no military uniforms or visible operations; instead, they dress like the locals and try to build trust and learn as much as possible before the aliens arrive. This city, which they call Area 26, welcomes them with an openness that surprises them. Its society is deeply rooted in community and neighborliness. Jason and his platoon like the locals. They are trusting, friendly, and open, a stark contrast to the xenophobia the soldiers are used to. The local culture is rich in art, music, and innovation. The city is decorated with artwork that is both inspiring and puzzling—industrial creations that seem to merge machinery with natural forms, like something out of a Jules Verne novel. The artwork is everywhere, lining the streets and decorating the city, a sign of the unique creativity of its inhabitants.

The locals have two sexes, and love and partnership play a significant role in their lives. Marriage on this planet resembles arranged marriage on Earth. However, the arrangement is far from restrictive. Families often try to strengthen ties with other families through these unions, but the individuals involved always have the final say. If either person is unwilling, the marriage simply doesn't happen. This way, even within arranged marriages, personal choice and mutual consent come first. Marriage is marked by a bonding ceremony rather than by signing legal documents. The ceremony symbolizes the union of two families, bringing them together in a way that is both sacred and communal. It isn't just about the couple; it is about building a stronger community, binding families together in mutual support and a shared future.

Planet One is not unified under a single government. It is divided into regions, each with its own beliefs and form of governance. The areas Jason gets to know are governed by a unique system based on guild clans, with social customs and organizational structures that are quite different from Earth's. Families usually stay in the same trade across generations, which creates a strong sense of identity and continuity within each guild. When a couple bonds, the custom is for them to move in with the bride's family. This leads to multi-generational compounds where extended families live together, each with their own private space, but close to one another. As new generations are born, the compounds grow to make room for them, which strengthens these close-knit communities. What Jason finds particularly interesting is that, despite the custom of moving in with the bride's family, the society is not matriarchal. The matriarch and the patriarch of the family share power and responsibilities equally. No jobs or roles are restricted by gender; women work in every occupation alongside men, including guilds that do heavy lifting, like carpenters handling massive beams. This egalitarian approach keeps the social structure balanced, with neither sex dominating the other, and contributes to the overall harmony of their society. There are no police, no courts, and no jails. Disputes go before the guild councils, and there is no need to steal. The last conflict between clans was three generations ago.

Education is just as communal and practical. Children don't only learn the trade of their family or guild. Instead, they rotate through various guilds and gain experience in different skills and trades. This rotation serves several purposes. It spreads the responsibility of educating young people across the community, so that no single person carries the whole burden. It also lets children discover their strengths and passions. A child might start in one guild, like carpentry, but during their rotations they might discover a hidden talent for fishing, or for another trade they have never considered. Each trade or profession has its own guild, and leadership of the city or region rotates among these guilds. This rotating system of government ensures that no single group can dominate or abuse its time in power, and it encourages a natural balance and a focus on the good of the community. Their economy is not based on money like Earth's. Instead, it is a barter system, deeply rooted in the guild structures. Industries are mixed, and people trade services and goods within their communities. This system also provides a safety net for the community. If someone falls ill or dies, there are always other people trained in the basics of each trade. This cross-training ensures that the community can keep functioning smoothly, even in times of crisis. The guilds on Planet One aren't just about work—they create a resilient, interconnected society where everyone contributes and supports one another.

Interestingly, the cities are small, with about 800,000 inhabitants, and there are no motorized vehicles. The urban areas end abruptly at the edge of wild forests and only expand when necessary. The line between civilization and wilderness is sharp, yet beautifully harmonious. There are no sprawling suburbs—just a clear line where the city ends and nature begins. Oddly enough, the planet strongly resembles Holland. The cities are crisscrossed with canals, and water is the main way to get around. Picture a landscape dotted with narrow waterways, where the urban areas are closely connected by canals, much like the picturesque Dutch cities back on Earth.

IDARF commanders have a clear policy about relationships with the local population: soldiers are encouraged to have romantic relationships with locals if it helps build trust and gather intelligence. However, these relationships must never influence command decisions or operational goals. In any case, such relationships rarely last. The strongest bonds are always formed within the unit, a dynamic reinforced by shared experiences and, in part, by the nanite enhancements. Soldiers with intuitive empath abilities, in particular, form connections with their comrades that are far deeper than anything they could build with the locals.

Despite the peaceful and welcoming atmosphere, Jason knows there is no possibility of "going native" or deserting, a fantasy some soldiers might have. Advanced tracking systems make escape not only futile but also severely punished. The punishment for trying can include a virtual prison, where five years of isolation are compressed into just minutes of real time. The psychological toll of such an experience is unimaginable, and it serves as a powerful deterrent that quickly kills any thought of escape.

Jason wonders why the planet has so little biodiversity compared to Earth, which he sees as uniquely dynamic—a kind of cosmic Petri dish. He believes that Earth has been a site of experimentation for countless ages, where various forces and factions have manipulated life, each pursuing its own goals. It isn't just a battleground in the physical sense; it is a laboratory for DNA tinkering, where species are introduced, modified, or created from scratch for some higher purpose. Certain species, like octopuses, seem to defy their history and the logic of evolution, as if they have simply appeared out of nowhere. Jason suspects these anomalies are by-products of ongoing experiments. The idea that Earth is a focal point for such interventions matches what he was taught during his training. The lessons hinted at many races involved in these experiments, but the full picture—the "who" and the "why"—remains frustratingly unclear. What is certain, however, is that Earth is exceptional: a world unlike any other, shaped by the clash of competing interests and agendas. In contrast, Planet One feels much simpler, a less intricate world in the grand cosmic design. It lacks the layered complexity and chaotic innovation that make Earth so unique.

10.

Jason has been embedded in a city on Planet One for months, blending into the community as part of the undercover operation. He spends his days fitting in and working various local jobs—from hauling goods on carts to helping in small eateries along the city's intricate network of canals. These canals, vital to the city's trade, range from narrow streams to wide waterways busy with barges loaded with goods.

On a seemingly ordinary evening, as Jason enjoys his day off by one of these canals, the usual calm is broken. The local people start moving in large numbers toward the beach and the bridge over the main canal, which connects the breakwater to the mainland. Something unusual is happening, a break in the city's everyday rhythm, and it catches Jason's attention. Curious, he asks a passerby, who says that something is falling from the sky. Intrigued and sensing the urgency, Jason leaves his meal and heads toward the beach. As he crosses the bridge, a sonic boom splits the air and echoes through the crowd, causing panic and confusion. Jason hurries to the breakwater's observation deck for a clearer view. Moving around trees and buildings that block his view, he finally reaches an open spot where he can see the whole event. At first, it looks like a meteor plunging toward the lake.

Using his enhanced vision, a result of the nanites in his body, Jason zooms in on the falling object. It isn't a natural meteorite but a modified impactor, crudely fitted with a heat shield to stop it from burning up on re-entry. This isn't an act of nature but a kinetic energy weapon—a deliberate act of aggression. A massive rock from space, equipped with a basic heat shield, has been launched toward the planet by a mass driver, a propulsion system that uses electromagnetic force to fire projectiles at high speed. This kind of attack avoids the radioactive fallout of traditional explosives but is just as devastating: on impact, it can release a massive combination of shock wave and heat, capable of destroying everything nearby.

As Jason takes in the situation, the seriousness of their mission becomes painfully clear. This is no longer just an observation and integration mission; this is the edge of a coming war, and they are right on the front line. Jason knows the strategies hostile alien forces use, and one of them is to use kinetic weapons like this to devastate target areas. He knows from his briefings that this is a favorite tactic for first strikes, meant to "soften up" the surface before further operations. In the moments before impact, Jason's instincts take over. Using a streamlined communication system, he quickly sends a coded message to his platoon. The message is short but urgent: an impactor is incoming, and they must follow their standard operating procedures—get to high ground, secure equipment, and stay alert.

Jason then turns his attention to the civilians on the observation deck by the canal. He knows how much damage a strike can cause, especially if it hits the water—a massive wave could follow, threatening everyone in its path. With calm authority, he urges the crowd to move toward safety on the mainland, guiding them without causing panic. As the crowd hurries across the pedestrian bridge, the impactor hits the freshwater lake. The sky lights up with an ominous glow, a clear sign of the chaos to come. The force of the impact pushes a towering wave toward the breakwater. Jason and the fleeing crowd can only run as the wave approaches, wiping out the structures along the breakwater as if they were made of paper. As the threat closes in, Jason spots an alley, sprints toward it, and takes cover behind a building just as the full force of the shock wave hits, tearing down structures above him and throwing debris into the canals. Buildings that stood moments ago are now rubble, destroyed by the alien assault. It is a sobering reminder of the true nature of their mission here. Jason has managed to save many people, but the battle—this war against an unseen extraterrestrial enemy—is just beginning.

From his makeshift shelter, Jason sees a scene of chaos: the once busy streets are now eerily silent, except for the groans of injured survivors crawling out of the rubble. The destruction is enormous, with pieces of buildings in the canal and injured people staggering through the wreckage. Knowing he must check on his platoon, Jason heads to the quarters he shares with fellow soldiers. The streets, so full of life before, are now empty and desolate. When he reaches the building, he grabs a first aid kit and emergency supplies, unsure whether anyone from his unit has survived. With the emergency gear in hand, Jason hurries toward higher ground as another wave rushes through the city streets. He is far enough from the coast to avoid the full force of the wave, but the water still reaches his chest before he finally gets to safety on higher ground.

The initial terror of the attack has passed, but the city is far from safe. Jason learns that the weapon missed its intended target by 50 to 75 miles because it was unguided. This error saves the city from complete obliteration, but not from much else: the majority of its population is dead or missing. So is about forty percent of Jason's platoon. Some of his soldiers are never found; of others, only pieces. The survivors drop their cover and help the locals bury their dead. Why didn't you tell us? the locals ask. There is no good answer. Deceit is not even in these people's vocabulary; it is the soldiers' way, not theirs. Jason's company commander, a Mars German, blames him for the losses: since he cares so much about "those effing civilians," he will get no replacements during the cleanup. His platoon sergeant tells him quietly that if he had done it the commander's way, he would have been dead within a month. The burden of command weighs heavily on Jason as he continues his work on the devastated planet, helping to restore order and support the survivors. Stuck far from home, he struggles with the responsibilities of his role and the harsh realities of interstellar war, while trying to stay true to his values in the face of alien aggression and military bureaucracy. Meteor strikes devastate many places across the planet, and each impact is a blow to the stability and safety of its inhabitants. Jason and his team, who know the aliens' tactics, are better prepared than the unsuspecting civilians. The invaders carry out a calculated assault: they target not only populated areas but also the polar ice caps, using kinetic energy weapons to melt them quickly. This raises sea levels and causes widespread flooding.

The city by the lake where Jason is stationed escapes the worst of the rising sea, but coastal regions aren't so lucky. Entire cities along the oceans end up under 20 to 30 feet of water. Huge populations are wiped out, leaving hauntingly empty cities, visible only from the rooftops where some survivors have taken refuge. The once busy neighborhoods are now eerily silent; the water slowly recedes, but it leaves behind a ghostly absence of life. Jason estimates that nearly half of the planet's inhabitants die in the chaos that follows. When he arrived, the planet was home to around 2 billion people. By the end of the war, over a billion lives will have been lost. The environmental disaster causes an immediate food and supply crisis. Jason's role shifts from military operations to humanitarian work, and he works tirelessly to help with the recovery. The platoon coordinates with local authorities to provide food and support to the devastated communities, trying to stabilize the city that has narrowly escaped total destruction. Jason will spend nearly four years on the planet, deeply involved in the war and its aftermath. The long conflict and the extensive recovery period test the resilience of both the defenders and the inhabitants, forging bonds through shared hardship and a common goal: to survive and rebuild.

After the recovery efforts, Jason and his team focus on the immediate task of organizing the planet's defenses. They work tirelessly to prepare the locals: turning civilians into soldiers, helping them stockpile supplies, and building defensive structures. Jason feels the full weight of what they are really up against. As part of their routine, Jason and eight of his enhanced soldiers go out on patrol, embedded with a local platoon—about forty of the native soldiers they call "indigs." The platoon is moving along the outskirts of a larger city. Unlike on Earth, the cities on this planet spread out, with no towering skyscrapers. When they need more space, they simply grow outward.

That day, the first sign that something is wrong comes suddenly. They are crossing a wide road, with a third of the platoon already exposed on the open avenue, when the enemy opens fire. Jason and his team quickly take cover in a shallow ditch beside the road. It is barely 18 inches deep, but it gives just enough protection. The attack comes too early; if the enemy had waited until the whole platoon was in the open, the results would have been catastrophic. Luckily, they didn't wait. Behind them stands a three-story commercial building made of stone blocks—about 30 by 15 feet—which offers much-needed shelter. In the distance are scattered houses, but they are too far away to be useful. The team's standard operating procedure is to fall back to a structure that can provide proper cover, and this building is their best option. As they move, Jason's team lays down covering fire so that the rest of the platoon can fall back into the building. The enemy fire comes from the other side of the road, from a dense forest. At first, the attackers are just shadows, barely visible through the trees. The soldiers can't tell who—or what—they are fighting.

The intel Jason's team received before deployment was frustratingly incomplete. There was no warning and no detailed description of what they were about to face. Jason suspects that the information was kept from them on purpose, and now they are about to pay the price. As they take cover in the building after the first shots from the woods, Jason can feel the tension rising among his men. The enemy is using some kind of cryogenic weapon, unlike anything Jason has seen before. But the horror of what they face isn't limited to the weapons. After securing their position, Jason and the platoon leader go up to the roof to return fire. That's when the full horror of the situation hits them. The soldiers' screams echo through the building as the enemy comes into view.

11.

In the early 1970s, a major shift occurs as the Antarctic Germans' 25-year right of first refusal with the Draco comes to an end. With this new freedom, they turn their attention to advancing their own technology, especially building a fleet of interstellar ships and craft. They also begin experimenting with time travel, and find that the past resists them: when they go back and keep a man from crossing the street where a car would have hit him, he dies some other way shortly afterward. The outcome they tried to prevent happens anyway. They stop tampering with timelines.

Meanwhile, the Cabal continues its precarious balance of cooperation and rivalry with the Antarctic Germans. Although fundamentally opposed to the Germans, they must tread carefully, knowing they lack the technology to confront them directly. During this period, the public space race between the USSR and the USA serves as a cover for deeper, more secret agendas. Both superpowers pour enormous resources into their space programs—not just for exploration, but to develop their own spacefaring capabilities. At the highest levels, East and West communicate secretly, united by a common enemy: the Antarctic Germans. Yet, despite this secret cooperation, the Cabal is still held back by the Germans' advanced mind-wipe technology. In 1979, the Cabal makes a bold move to close this gap. After years of careful planning, and having turned a member of the Antarctic German security forces, they manage to acquire one of the Germans' precious mind-wipe devices. The operation is carried out in total secrecy, comparable to the Manhattan Project. Thousands of people are indirectly involved, but only five—three CIA operatives and two KGB operatives—know the full scope of the mission. These agents are guarded around the clock until the operation is complete.

The plan is daring. The operatives infiltrate an Antarctic German shuttle, overpower the crew, and steal a mind-wipe device. To cover their tracks, they rig the shuttle to self-destruct, probably by placing a bomb on the outside of the fusion bottle, and the shuttle disintegrates in a fiery explosion over the Pacific. The agents escape with a high-altitude, low-opening parachute jump, leaving just before the explosion. The operation is so carefully executed that it leaves no evidence of their involvement. It takes the Cabal three years to reverse-engineer the stolen mind-wipe technology. In a chilling twist, the scientists responsible for the breakthrough become its first victims: their memories of the project are wiped. This keeps the Cabal's work secret and lets them use the technology without fear of exposure. Acquiring mind-wipe technology is a turning point for the Cabal. At last, they can carry out secret operations without the constant risk of German surveillance and sabotage. With this new security, the Cabal makes major progress in the early 1980s, including laying the groundwork for Operation Solar Warden, their own Secret Space Program. Around the same time, the Voyager probes pass Jupiter and Saturn and show the Cabal just how far the Antarctic Germans have built out into the solar system, and how many other races are moving through it. It scares them. A plan for world domination that was meant to unfold over a century or more is put on a much shorter timeline. However, the secrecy around this technology is so important that almost all the operatives involved are eliminated afterward. Of the five people who knew the full scope of the mission, only two CIA agents survive. These agents spend the rest of their lives in hiding, which shows the extreme measures taken to protect this critical breakthrough.

The Cold War is more of a facade than a real conflict. The rivalry between the USSR and the USA is presented to the public as a struggle for global supremacy, but behind closed doors, both sides are secretly working together against a common enemy: the Antarctic Germans. This secret collaboration lets both nations channel vast sums of money into black programs and the development of advanced technologies, far from the public eye.

Operation Solar Warden is Earth's ambitious attempt to build a powerful space fleet, extending its power beyond the planet's surface and marking humanity's first real step into the cosmos. Led by the United States, this initiative aims to build bases and project influence across the solar system, securing Earth's presence in space.

The groundwork for Solar Warden is laid in the late 1970s and early 1980s, a period of rapid technological progress and covert military activity. President Reagan himself alludes to the program in his diaries, mentioning a space shuttle able to hold 300 men—an unmistakable reference to Solar Warden. The program is conceived as a direct response to the advanced spacefaring capabilities the Antarctic Germans have already shown. The United States wants to match and surpass these achievements by developing its own fleet and extending its influence to other planets and moons. The United States succeeds and eventually establishes a base on the Moon, like the one the Germans have.

In 1986, the Antarctic Germans are still suspicious about the mysterious shuttle explosion over the Pacific, during which the mind-wipe wand was stolen. They weren't able to identify the perpetrators right away, but their investigation eventually uncovers the truth. When they realize that the stolen technology is in the hands of the United States and the USSR, the Germans' retaliation is swift and ruthless.

The Germans respond with a two-part strategy. First, they move all their manufacturing and research operations off Earth, consolidating them in their Mars facilities to reduce their vulnerability. Second, they send a chilling warning to the superpowers, one that will leave a lasting mark. The first act of retaliation is the destruction of the Challenger space shuttle in January 1986, hit by a strike from an orbital platform. The second is the catastrophic failure of the cooling towers at Chernobyl, a devastating attack hidden in secrecy and confusion, but unmistakable in its message. These calculated acts assert the Germans' dominance and serve as a stark warning against any further moves into their territory or theft of their technology.

Despite their superior position, the Antarctic Germans show restraint. They recognize the unpredictable temperament of President Reagan—a leader they see as a "cowboy"—and the risk of nuclear escalation if they push too far. To drive their message home without further destruction, they deliver an ominous token to the leaders of the United States and the USSR. Each receives a plain brown box containing a non-working memory-wipe device decorated with the Antarctic German coat of arms. The box is stamped with the exact date and time of the shuttle explosion over the Pacific in 1979, a chilling reminder of their long reach and unchallenged power.

12.

As the enemy comes into view, Jason sees creatures unlike anything he has ever seen. They stand eight to nine feet tall, a terrifying hybrid of machine and living flesh. Their skin is black, with tufts of dark gray fur sticking out through gaps in their armor. Tubes and mechanical joints are visible, a grotesque mix of flesh and technology. The claws on their hands and feet are massive, made for tearing through anything in their path. But it is their faces that send a chill down Jason's spine: their snouts are short but packed with razor-sharp teeth, built for killing.

"What the heck is that?" someone yells. The werewolf-like creatures move at a terrifyingly fast walk—steady and relentless. They aren't in a hurry, because they don't need to be. But their real agility soon becomes clear. Instead of trying to break into the first floor, where the soldiers are dug in, these monsters leap from the ground straight onto the roof, covering the distance in an instant. Jason barely has time to react before the creatures are on them, attacking with a ferocity none of the soldiers are prepared for. The battle that follows is brutal, a desperate fight for survival against an enemy that is as relentless as it is deadly. The creatures can leap, and when they do, it is terrifying. They aren't especially fast, but their ability to cover huge distances in a single jump makes them even more menacing. Once they close the gap and reach melee range, they drop their weapons—blades and projectile weapons strapped to their bodies—without a second thought. Then they switch to their claws and teeth, and the real horror begins.

Facing these nine-foot-tall monsters, Jason and his unit feel a fear unlike anything they have ever known. The psychological impact of seeing these beasts charge, fangs bared and claws out, is almost as devastating as the physical threat. It is natural to think the creatures want to eat them, but the soldiers soon realize it isn't about feeding. It is about extermination. These creatures take no prisoners, and they don't surrender either. Jason's unit tries to capture one, without success. The creatures are programmed to fight to the death. They have no surrender protocol and no sense of self-preservation. They fight with a relentless, almost mechanical determination, right up to their last breath. It is chilling, another reminder of how alien their enemy is.

The first wave hits them with about 50 of these creatures, while Jason's group has only 40 soldiers. The first exchange of fire is grimly ineffective. Their standard-issue .38 caliber automatic weapons do little more than irritate the creatures. Their secondary weapons, heavier .50 caliber rifles, are more useful, but with only five rounds per magazine and just 15 rounds per person, they are badly under-equipped for a long fight. When these rifles finally start to cause real damage, it is too late—the platoon has already lost eight soldiers. The second wave is about the same size. The third is even more ruthless: nearly a hundred creatures surge forward, giving the soldiers no chance to regroup. The overwhelming numbers quickly turn the battle into chaos, and most of the platoon has already run out of ammunition. The beasts fight with a ferocity and brutality beyond any predator on Earth. Once they get close, the creatures grab their targets, using their immense weight and razor-sharp claws to tear through flesh and bone. At first, Jason and his team are completely unprepared and scramble to adapt to the creatures' savage tactics. They learn how to counter the attacks only through trial by fire—a steep, bloody, and harrowing process.

The aliens are divided into two distinct classes. The soldier class behaves like drones, following orders single-mindedly with no concern for their own survival. The commander class, in contrast, shows a higher level of intelligence and directs its subordinates with calculated precision. This hierarchy gives the creatures a critical advantage: what looks like a chaotic attack is actually a carefully coordinated and dangerously strategic one. In the end, survival comes down to combat knives, fixed bayonets, and sheer grit. The soldiers use their rifles as makeshift spears, but even that gives them only a slim chance of survival. They quickly realize that the only way to stay alive is to fight as a team; one-on-one, these towering beasts are unstoppable. The creatures' incredible reach and overwhelming strength make any solo fight a near-certain death sentence. Jason finds himself in the middle of the melee, forced into brutal hand-to-hand combat. He fights desperately with whatever he can grab and watches helplessly as comrades fall just feet away. Every moment is a harrowing fight for survival.

The harsh reality is that many of these battles could have ended very differently if the soldiers had been allowed to use their combat armor suits. These suits are designed for much more than protection; if they had been used to their full extent, they could have turned the tide of the war much earlier. The soldiers' standard uniforms, called battle defense uniforms, have a digicam pattern—a heavily pixelated design in shades of green, dark green, gray, and white. This pattern is more than camouflage; it can change depending on the environment. These holographic uniforms are remarkable pieces of equipment that let soldiers blend seamlessly into their surroundings. When the wearer stands still, they are nearly invisible; only a slight blur of the background gives them away when they move.

The uniforms are designed to hide infrared signatures, radio signals, and other emissions that might reveal the wearer's presence. The quantum-entangled communication systems, integrated with their nanite enhancements, can't be detected, which keeps communication secure even in the heat of battle. The helmet that goes with the uniform is just as advanced and includes the same holographic camouflage systems, so the soldier is completely concealed. The technology in these uniforms doesn't just project the background; it creates a field that is slightly out of phase with our dimension, reminiscent of the infamous Philadelphia Experiment, in which a navy ship was reportedly phased out of existence. This phasing technology is a major advantage, because it lets soldiers move undetected. Back at the FIG, Jason and his comrades had fun testing its limits, and the stealthiest among them could sneak up and blow in someone's ear without being noticed. A trained eye can detect the phase difference, especially when someone is moving, but the technology is still incredibly effective, even during airborne operations and drops.

However, Jason learns the hard way that their camouflage systems have a flaw. The systems fail when more than two soldiers are grouped together—two seems to be the magic number, and beyond it they draw the enemy like a magnet. Somehow, the enemy picks up their electronic signatures. The soldiers realize this too late—after they have already lost too many lives. The team even runs its own tests to understand why they are so easy to locate despite their supposedly advanced camouflage. The enemy always seems to know where they are, even when they are perfectly hidden from sight and from infrared detection. Jason comes to suspect that the cloaking technology was simply fed to the other side and programmed into its algorithms.

After the first harrowing encounter, the true nature of the enemy becomes clearer. These creatures aren't just another opponent; they are engineered for destruction. The need for more advanced weapons is obvious, but Jason quickly realizes that the situation is far more complicated than simply asking for better tools to survive. When he and his team return from that first battle, demanding answers and better equipment, they get a cold response. Their questions are quickly dismissed as "above their pay grade." They are told to make do with what they have and to focus on their mission: training the local population to defend their planet. They are told that advanced technology is off-limits. The official reason is that introducing advanced technology could disrupt the natural development of the local civilization. Jason understands that this could be a legitimate concern, since advancing a society too quickly can have unforeseen consequences. But he knows it isn't the real reason for the restriction. The real reason is buried under layers of manipulation and control, a truth they aren't allowed to explore.

Each time Jason and his surviving comrades return to headquarters after a bloody encounter, their anger and frustration are obvious. They demand answers: where is the intelligence? Why weren't they told about the nature of the enemy they are facing? Instead of answers, they get indifference. They are told to suck it up and keep pushing forward despite the overwhelming odds. Eventually, command responds by doubling the standard ammunition load from 15 to 30 rounds. This is an improvement, but it is still far from enough.

The battles are countless, each more grueling than the last. Jason suffers many injuries—cuts, scrapes, deep wounds—but thanks to his nanite enhancement therapy, his body heals quickly. Even a deep gash on his right arm from that first battle starts to heal by the end of the day. Because of these therapies, he will have no scars from these battles when he returns from his 20-year deployment. The technology is advanced enough to erase the physical traces of his wounds, though some mysterious scars will later reappear, unexplained and troubling. How fast and how soon the healing happens plays a big role in whether these scars form, which adds another layer of complexity to an already surreal experience. Despite the physical healing, the psychological and emotional toll of countless battles and the constant threat of death leave marks that no advanced technology can erase. Jason keeps fighting, knowing he is a pawn in a larger game of manipulation and control, yet driven by the need to survive and complete his mission on Planet One.

Over his four years on Planet One, Jason's platoon repeatedly arrives as reinforcements at battle zones, only to find empty silence. Time and time again, there are no survivors—every native soldier has fallen, and their bodies bear witness to a desperate last stand against a merciless enemy. The scenes are always the same: fighters with no ammunition left, forced into savage hand-to-hand combat, where the enemy's brutal efficiency gives it the upper hand.

13.

By the late 1980s, Operation Solar Warden is in full swing, and the Cabal urgently needs a lunar base. However, they run into a familiar problem: the Moon is already claimed. To get a location, they must negotiate, bribe, or arrange for someone else to give up their property. The Mars Germans, who already have a base on the Moon, become the Cabal's negotiating target.

The Cabal's unease comes from the Mars Germans' formidable military power, especially their fleet of 12 carrier battle groups, which are regularly sent on long-term exercises. These battle groups are a significant threat, because the mere presence of such a force in contested space could escalate into open conflict. The Mars Germans, who have moved most of their civilization from Antarctica to Mars, are strategically distancing themselves from the Draco. They already plan to move their lunar operations to a different site, away from the reptilians' evil influence. Their Moon base is leased from the Draco under a 100-year agreement, and all payments have already been made. However, the lease requires the Mars Germans to find a new tenant before they leave. This condition opens the door to negotiations with the Cabal. The resulting 1991 agreement is a major turning point in solar system politics and marks a significant transfer of power.

In exchange for taking over the lunar property, the Cabal agrees to provide the Mars Germans with two divisions of soldiers—24,000 troops—to be deployed wherever and whenever the Mars Germans need them. In addition, the Mars Germans agree to hand over 10 of their 12 carrier battle groups to the Draco. The Draco vaguely describe the purpose of these carriers as "border patrol." The ground force counts four divisions: two made up entirely of Mars Germans and two mixed divisions—the 3rd and 4th Panzer—with soldiers from both Earth and Mars. This arrangement greatly shifts the balance of power. With 10 of their carrier groups reassigned and effectively kept out of the solar system under Draco control, the Mars Germans lose much of their immediate military presence in the region. This emboldens the Cabal and gives them more freedom to expand their operations on Earth and beyond. The transfer of the lunar operations command to the Cabal, in exchange for 24,000 soldiers, is a pivotal moment: it marks the creation of IDARF. The troops come from every country on Earth that has a central bank. The Cabal does not hand them over without insurance: hidden in one of each soldier's nanite enhancements is a code that lets the Cabal kill all 24,000 at the push of a button, and antimatter munitions are concealed aboard the ships—a safeguard meant for the day that fleet ever comes back within 500 light-years of Earth.

There are many Secret Space Programs (SSPs) operating around the world, with the United States in the lead through its ambitious program, Operation Solar Warden. The USSR develops its own SSP at the same time, which is probably the oldest after the American one. Other nations, such as Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, establish their own programs. The US initiative remains the largest and most advanced. Within the US military, the Air Force and the Navy each run their own space programs, which shows how extensive the American effort is. Over time, various international alliances form, bringing nations like the UK and France into these covert efforts. Meanwhile, some developing countries that lack the resources to build their own SSPs contribute personnel to allied programs, which lets them take part in these secret operations.

There is no formal governing body to keep these programs from interfering with each other, but the Cabal plays a significant role in overseeing many of them. However, the BRICS countries—Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—have built a force large and independent enough that the Cabal's SSPs can't easily overpower it. In the early 1990s, the Cabal reveals the existence of its SSP to world leaders, disclosing a program it has been building since the 1980s. The USSR already knows about these developments, because its intelligence assets have observed unusual activity. They have noticed new types of craft appearing—different from traditional UFOs—which shows that the US is involved in something unprecedented.

This revelation pushes other nations, and even wealthy families, to develop, steal, build, or acquire their own space programs. These efforts range from building small ships and shuttles to constructing larger vessels. Countries with fewer resources form alliances and pool their assets to create shared SSPs. With several SSPs in existence, they inevitably compete with one another. Alliances and conflicts naturally arise, as in any human endeavor. The Alliance is made up of groups and individuals who have been hunted down or betrayed by the Cabal and have been forced to band together simply to survive. Many members of the Alliance once held positions within the Cabal but became disillusioned with its actions and goals. Among them are families that may not have vast material resources but do have significant financial assets, which they can use to help, join, or buy their way into the Alliance. However, not all members of the Alliance are morally upright. Many of them were deeply involved in the Cabal's operations and share responsibility for what has happened. They often join the Alliance out of self-preservation rather than any noble intention.

The Cabal goes to great lengths to keep control and protect its agenda. A stark example is the case of James Forrestal, the first US Secretary of Defense, a prominent patriot and a mentor to John F. Kennedy. In 1945, Forrestal takes the young JFK to Germany to see advanced German technology firsthand. His deep knowledge and moral convictions make him a liability. Labeled a suicide risk, Forrestal is confined to a secure military hospital and dies there under suspicious circumstances in 1949, reportedly thrown from a window at Bethesda Naval Hospital. His death is widely believed to have been arranged by the Cabal to silence him.

Because of agreements with certain alien societies, the Cabal must meet specific disclosure requirements. These disclosures often take the form of partial truths, misleading stories, or fragments of reality. By planting these revelations in popular culture, such as science fiction and Hollywood films, the Cabal can later claim that it has been truthful all along. This tactic lets it deflect accusations of deception by presenting its disclosures as creative interpretations of real events.

14.

Outgunned, outnumbered, and facing creatures that are bigger and stronger, Jason's unit faces a grim reality on Planet One. Survival, let alone victory, seems like a distant hope. At first, their hands are tied—command won't authorize the use of advanced technology. The higher-ups have their reasons, but none of them make sense to the soldiers on the ground. As the war drags on and casualties keep rising, command finally authorizes antimatter explosives—mines, mortars, artillery—and the tide begins to turn, though the change is painfully slow. The combat suits and the pulser rifles are never released. Against all odds, Jason's unit fights its way through, taking down the creatures one by one until the last of them falls. It is a victory, but a hollow one, won at great cost. The memory of that battle, of the terror and the bloodshed, is something he will never forget.

It becomes clear that this is more than a battle for survival. It is a form of combat Darwinism, a brutal way of weeding out the weaker soldiers and forcing the survivors to become tougher, stronger, and more capable. The command knows exactly what it is doing. It deliberately puts the troops in impossible situations to see who will break and who will rise to the challenge. Those who make it through are marked and groomed to lead others through the hell that awaits them. The command structure, controlled by the Mars Germans, has a strict rule: only those who have survived at least one deployment are considered fit to train others. This rule ensures that every trainer has firsthand combat experience, a requirement Jason finds both practical and harsh. Jason is not immediately chosen to become a trainer; he stays on the front lines for the entire four years of the conflict. Despite the anger and the losses, he understands the cruel logic behind it. But that doesn't make it any easier. The sense of betrayal remains, a bitter reminder of the price they are paying.

And yet, there is a deeper purpose to all of this, one that goes beyond the battles and the bloodshed. Jason knows that what he is experiencing and enduring is part of something bigger. It is all leading to a truth that needs to be brought to light, a truth that will one day help others understand the hidden forces at play. And in that knowledge, he finds a strange sense of resolve. In the end, that knowledge is what keeps Jason going. It is the understanding that, no matter how brutal the fight and no matter how high the cost, there is a reason for it all. And in that reason, he finds the strength to continue, to keep fighting, and to see this mission through to the very end.

The war on Planet One lasts 47 grueling months. It is a relentless campaign, with every day marked by uncertainty and the struggle to survive. Jason and his unit fight through countless battles, never knowing whether each victory will be their last or whether more enemy forces will break through the naval blockade. By the end of those four years, the last invading units have been defeated, but nothing is certain. The threat of more invaders hangs in the air like a storm that hasn't yet passed.

Then, without any closure, Jason's unit is redeployed to another world. The war on Planet One may be over, but the soldiers are left with unanswered questions and never truly know whether their efforts have secured the planet. The dead are buried in mass graves with the counts recorded, the command staff introduces a fiat currency, the rural survivors are brought in from the fields, and Jason never sees Planet One again. Still, it is a place where Jason and his fellow soldiers fought, bled, and nearly died. It is a world that has changed him as much as the war has changed it. And although he is about to leave it behind for another battle on another world, the memory of Planet One—its people, its battles, and its strange yet familiar way of life—will stay with him forever. The orders come quickly, as they always do. When it is time to leave, everyone packs their gear, loads the shuttles, and prepares to leave Planet One. There is no lingering and there are no farewells—just the cold efficiency of soldiers trained to follow orders without question. The shuttles lift off, their cargo holds full of troops and equipment, and head for the cigar-shaped motherships waiting in orbit. The journey from Planet One to the next world is a blur. The distance between the two planets is a mystery, hidden by the information deliberately withheld from the soldiers. It could be a thousand light-years or just the next star system. Time and space blur together in the void of interstellar travel.

Ground troops travel in their own section of the carrier. A cigar-shaped mothership holds 2,000 to 3,000 of them with all their gear, along with cafeterias, workout areas, and quarters for officers and enlisted. The "ground pounders" are kept strictly apart from the naval personnel—the "canners," as the soldiers call them—and anyone caught outside the assigned area faces any number of punishments short of death. Part of the reason is compartmentalization: a soldier who wanders might start snooping about where the ship is and what the Navy is doing. The other part is that the Cabal has placed things among the ground forces that the Mars German Navy is not supposed to know about—though it probably does.

The name Jason recalls for Planet Two is Callidus 3. It is four or five percent larger than Earth, with slightly stronger gravity that nanite-strengthened bones adapt to easily. A day lasts 32 hours. Seventy percent of the surface is land, and the rest is fresh water—there is no salt water at all. Four moons hang in the sky, all smaller than Luna: one dark gray, one white, one burnt orange, and one black, so hard to spot that the soldiers name it Waldo. "Where's Waldo?" becomes the running joke.

About 4 billion people live here, all of them below 50 degrees of latitude. They are human, a little shorter than Earth humans, with skin in shades of white and olive. Their civilization stands at the very start of its industrial age—gauges, steam, and tubes, nothing more. There are no countries; each village or town is run by its elders. They trade by barter, they have their own rich spiritual beliefs, and they have lived in a long-standing peace. A family is made of one to four bonded couples who all count as each other's spouses, so every child grows up with many parents. Even the livestock is different: the cattle are short and stocky, with squared-off jaws and legs as thick as an elephant's.

Jason sees the pattern now. IDARF only ever goes to worlds at the industrial age or below, because that is where the most fruit can be dangled in front of people's eyes. The Mars Germans have shown the elders what they wanted them to see—a neighboring system under attack—and told them they have so many months before they are next on the list. We can help you, or you can suffer the consequences. The elders invite them in.

The mission is the same as before: train the indigs, stockpile, dig in. The language and the customs are downloaded in neural education chairs before planetfall, in what is called a package—the sayings, the clothing, the dos and don'ts. Jason has made company commander, the largest command an Earth human is allowed to hold, and he is now responsible for a great many lives. Nobody knows what is coming. Everyone assumes it will be the werewolves again. The intelligence is spotty, and that is deliberate.

His first contact with the enemy comes before the invasion even starts. His company is helping a neighborhood get organized—clearing trees, setting up ramparts and pitfalls, showing people where to keep their stores. The plasma rifles are stacked to one side, since nobody expects the enemy yet. Jason is talking to the residents when one of them, a man who looks exactly like everyone else, splits open like a clam. Four drones come out of him and shoot off in the four cardinal directions. He was a pre-invasion scout. One drone turns and lines up on Jason for what looks like a firing run, and a soldier standing by the stacked rifles grabs one and shoots it out of the air.

The invaders don't follow the schedule. They show up early. Once again kinetic impactors hit the poles, the water rises, and the coastal cities flood. Then the mass landing craft come down, slow, stop, and open.

15.

It is during the long war on Planet Two that Jason grows close to Johann, a fellow officer he has known since the original training at the FIG, and a member of the Mars German civilization. Johann isn't like the typical Mars German officer Jason has come to expect—arrogant, aloof, and radiating superiority. Jason suspects this attitude comes from their genetic modifications, which make them stronger, faster, and more intelligent than average humans. Johann admits that this arrogance is a flaw in his culture, but he proves to be different. He is thoughtful, knowledgeable, and, most surprisingly, willing to share things others wouldn't dare to discuss. In Johann, Jason finds not only an ally but also a rare window into the hidden truths that shape their reality. Through their conversations, Jason learns that the Mars Germans have been altering their genetics ever since their civilization broke away, creating a society that is genetically enhanced in many ways. However, these conversations are strictly off-limits around senior officers or any recording devices, which shows how secret this knowledge and these historical details are. Johann's understanding of advanced technology is far beyond that of the other trainees, which makes Jason realize that Johann and his people are educated in ways that Earth people are not. They know much more about their own history, especially about the events before and after World War II, their interactions with alien species, and the lessons learned from those encounters.

Their friendship grows quickly, and Johann begins sharing with Jason what he knows about the secret history of space programs going back to World War I, and about the hidden motives of IDARF. This knowledge doesn't come only in words but through telepathic transfers—immersive experiences that include emotions, visual memories, and an unfiltered understanding of the events. Johann shares psychic images of the Draco: tall, menacing figures whose presence looms over the negotiations, and over that horrific exchange in the cavern where they took 278 prisoners from the Antarctic Germans. The images are vivid and burn deeply into Jason's mind, but it is the emotions that come with them that truly haunt him. The fear, the crushing sense of dread, and the malevolent aura of these beings feel almost physical, even through a psychic transmission. It is an experience Jason wouldn't wish on anyone, and he is grateful to have lived it only secondhand.

Johann has seen Draco in person, but only from a distance. His family on Mars, in New Wurzburg, has connections that got him into IDARF, which is where he wants to be. He mentions that some of his family members have dealt with the Draco directly. But these interactions are rare and deeply unsettling. In their arrogance, the Draco consider most humans unworthy of their time. They communicate only with a select few, those in positions of authority, and only when absolutely necessary. Because of their status, Johann's family has had these unpleasant encounters, but Johann himself has been spared direct contact. The Draco don't just see themselves as superior—they consider themselves practically untouchable, above the human race in every possible way. Their contempt for humanity shows in the way they behave: they speak only when forced to, and even then only to those they consider important enough. It is a terrifying reminder of the cold, calculating forces at work behind the scenes, forces that act with a brutal efficiency that leaves no room for empathy or compassion.

The Draco are a formidable group of alien beings, highly psychic and several hundred thousand years more advanced than humanity. They are deeply negative beings whose mission is to conquer, control, and dominate. Earth has long been one of their targets, and they pursue this goal by manipulating others into acting as their proxies, willingly or not, to advance their agenda. But this raises a question: why don't the Draco simply conquer Earth outright? Why rely on subterfuge and manipulation? The answer is that they are bound by several intergalactic treaties that prevent them from directly interfering with native populations and their planets. However, these treaties haven't stopped them completely. They have found loopholes, ways around these restrictions, mainly by using human proxies to reach their goals. For the Draco, human proxies serve several purposes. Humans are often seen as a universal blueprint, closely resembling the inhabitants of other planets, which makes them ideal for dealing with other worlds in ways the Draco cannot. Also, from the Draco's point of view, it is far more efficient to have humans—through forces like IDARF—fight their battles and expand their influence. This way, they save their own resources and soldiers while still achieving their goals through the actions of others.

And according to Johann, the Draco are not even at the top. An artificial intelligence calls the shots for them. The Draco are so infected and infested with AI and nanites that what remains may be just the appearance, a shell; whether there is still a soul inside, nobody knows. What they covet most in humans are exactly the spiritual qualities they have lost.

This is when the picture starts to come together for Jason, and the truth is shocking: the Draco, who command IDARF, are also funding and orchestrating the very alien invasions IDARF is supposed to be fighting, in a false flag operation. This manipulation has a sinister purpose: to force the populations of these planets to unite under a single government, which then invites these forces in. That government will then set up a centralized financial system, effectively giving the invaders control of the planet. The werewolf-like creatures that attacked Planet One, terrifying hominids with both human and wolf features, were engineered by the Draco as part of their military force. This faction wants not only the planet's resources but also to enslave its inhabitants. The conflict is designed to be destructive enough to make the population desperate, without completely ruining their world. This leaves the infrastructure largely intact for the Draco to exploit. Part of the Draco's insidious plan involves manipulating the planet's governments. They push for a single, centralized authority, which will make it easier to impose control once they decide to take over openly. Their long-term goal is to replace the existing barter and guild systems with central banks that will trap the population in dependency.

Throughout the conflict on Planet One, Jason and his comrades believed their mission was noble; they thought they were helping these people defend themselves against outside threats. Now they discover that their intervention was part of this draconian scheme to eventually dominate planets. As Jason looks back on the manipulation and destruction he witnessed firsthand, he realizes the terrible consequences of their involvement. The peaceful planet, once vibrant and self-sufficient, is left vulnerable and broken, a shadow of its former self, manipulated into submission under the guise of receiving protection.

Jason now understands that the refusal to use advanced technology and weapons was never simply about not disrupting the local culture. The restrictions were part of a calculated plan by those in power to make sure the planet's population would be decimated. The goal was never to save the people of Planet One; it was to weaken them until they were desperate enough to accept any terms of surrender. It wasn't sheer force and strategic cunning that won the war. The werewolf-like invaders, terrifying as they were, had built-in flaws. These creatures were never meant to win the war—they were designed to lose. The Draco, the masterminds behind the invasion, have a larger plan. They don't want to wipe out the planet's population; they want to control it. The endgame has always been domination, not destruction. The invaders are just a tool—a means to an end—to weaken the planet's defenses and push the population into a corner where they have no choice but to beg for the Draco's "help."

The plan is sinister in its simplicity: weaken the planet with these monstrous invaders, reduce the population, and then sweep in as the saviors. It has been a staged operation from the start, orchestrated by the Cabal and the Draco to push the planet quickly toward their version of order—a world controlled and subjugated under their influence.

16.

It is not the werewolves. What comes out is a quadruped the size of a grizzly or a polar bear, with a large mouth full of teeth, spikes around its neck, and skin that is its own armor—a demon on four legs that moves like a spider. There is nothing on Earth even remotely like it. The soldiers call them the hybrid spiders. They run at 50 to 70 miles per hour and can pivot in any direction and be back at full speed within a step or two, which no joint could survive without an anti-gravity field built into the body. They have no eyes and no ears; they read their surroundings with ultrasound, like bats. They carry no weapons. They are the weapon.

Like the werewolves, they are made, not born—part machine, part tissue, with no sex and no reproductive organs. They don't eat. When the soldiers finally overrun one of their underground bases, they find stores of base elements that the creatures take in to feed an organic battery, which also recharges from their own motion and from sunlight on their skin. They don't speak. Some command structure far away feeds a hive mind with objectives and go-orders, and each creature has just enough reasoning to carry out the one mission it has: destruction. Jason's empathic sense finds nothing in them at all. There is no soul there. It is like trying to empathize with a car.

They attack in packs of 25 to 50. They use cover until they are 20 to 50 feet from the line, and then they simply charge—hey diddle diddle, right up the middle. They spread out, push through the defenses, and circle back on the flanks. They take no prisoners, and they do not leave an area until every life form in it has been extinguished. Watching fellow soldiers get ripped apart is something Jason never gets used to.

Small arms do nothing against that skin. It takes the equivalent of a .50 caliber to drop one, and a man can only carry so much of that ammunition, so the companies are reorganized around crew-served weapons: three or four soldiers to a gun, one firing point where there used to be four. No position is ever held with less than a company, 75 to 100 people, behind trenches, spikes, and embankments. The pulser rifles that would be a game changer stay forbidden. Division headquarters, on the other hand, is defended with every advanced system there is; whenever high command is threatened, nothing is off-limits. Jason doesn't like it and says so, more than once. He is told to suck it up and do what he has to do. Even the intelligence from the autopsies—where to aim, what stops them—comes down for a while and then simply stops.

They come close to losing, several times. It takes the death of a couple of generals, and heavy losses in the Navy, before command lightens up and authorizes antimatter. It has all the flash and bang of a nuke without the radiation: a piece the size of a pea takes out a city block, and a couple of pounds would take out several states. At first the soldiers mine their own perimeters and set themselves up as bait, drawing the packs in and destroying them by the hundreds. Then they shrink the charge down to a grenade fired from a special launcher, so nobody has to be up close and personal. Combat shuttles light up the underground bases wherever they are found. Near the end, very large devices are used against the enemy's main concentrations. Jason watches one go off from inside a bunker, in a room full of people who are convinced that it won't work, that the planet is lost, and that every person in that room is going to die. It works. It is the turning point.

Then the end comes without warning. One day the enemy simply doesn't come to play. It is as if a faucet has been turned off. For three weeks the companies stay close to their bases, waiting, patrolling, not believing it. The creatures have never gone this long between attacks. The patrols find stragglers—some still powered but wandering, lost and unguided without the hive, others that have run out of energy and just fallen over. Only then does it start to sink in that they are not coming back, and it is a very, very happy day.

Then the search widens, continent by continent, for another month, to finish off whatever is left. The joy doesn't survive it. The scouts cross regions they have never seen and find old cities and destruction on a scale they had not imagined. Not one continent has been spared. There were 4 billion people on Planet Two when IDARF made landfall. About a third of them are left. Whole areas where the large antimatter was used are abandoned and will stay that way for a long time. Nobody treats the soldiers as saviors, and they don't expect it. There isn't a person on the planet who hasn't lost someone, and there isn't one who didn't fight; it is we did it, not you did it. By now the soldiers are part of these people's families.

Looking back, Jason understands why it ended the way it did. The war wasn't won. The depopulation quota was reached. From the moment antimatter was allowed, the battles were over faster, and once the number was where someone wanted it, the landings stopped. Nobody ever saw the shuttles that supposedly delivered the enemy, and the Navy, so keen to help, never shot one down. Jason's own belief is that the creatures were portaled in.

Other units stay behind for the cleanup. Jason's is not meant to be part of it. After 67 months on Planet Two, 52 of them at war, his unit packs up and ships out to repeat the process on Planet Three.

Planet Three is unlike the other two: for the first time, the people the soldiers are sent to prepare are not all human. Three races share the surface, and Jason doubts that all three originated there. One is human. One is a race of cyclopes, humanoid in every respect but for their single eye. The third is insectoid: about four feet tall on reverse-jointed legs, with long arms, an oval head, round silvery eyes, and semi-translucent, yellowish-green skin. They can walk on walls and ceilings, and their small mouths are full of sharp, pointed teeth that are not used for speaking. They communicate mind to mind.

The three races have been at war on and off for a couple of centuries, over nothing more than their differences, and the tentative peace of the last twenty years has not made them trust one another. IDARF's job is to get them all pulling in the same direction before an invader arrives—about which, once again, the soldiers are told nothing. The most difficult by far are the insectoids, who do not trust any humanoid, period. When Jason arranges a meeting with one of their criminal mobs to look into weapons smuggling, he is led into a cave, and it is a trap. They take him for a spy from a rival gang.

The interrogation is psychic. They cannot read his mind, so they try to break it open: the closest analog is screaming inside the brain, again and again, meant to stun him into dropping the mental shields he was trained to hold. Once the shields are down, it works like a truth serum. Around the screaming, they beat him and torture him. His shields hold. At some point he comes to after being unconscious, not fully tracking, and overpowers the interrogator. Two more insectoids are in the cave, and he goes at them with everything he has, psychically and physically. It takes ten or fifteen seconds before he understands what he is receiving from them. They are a mother and her daughter, prisoners like him. The thoughts pouring out of them are prayers. He stops. The moment stays with him as a rule for the rest of his life: observe, contemplate, and act. Nowhere in there is reaction without thought.

His comrades get him out on the third day. The nanites close his wounds within hours; it is a couple of weeks before he is ready to go back into the field.

He has been on Planet Three for fifteen months, and the invaders still have not arrived, when insectoids on the ground shoot down a shuttle he is riding across the planet. People die in the crash. Jason doesn't, quite. The nanites clamp off his severed limbs and put him into a coma, and he is medevaced to Mars.

He remembers almost nothing of the first months. He floats in a gel-like substance while two of his limbs are replaced and a third is repaired. Everything about his body is on file, down to the last capillary, so the limbs are essentially 3D printed and grown back onto him. The technology is far beyond conventional medicine, but they're not God: the bone is perfect, the nerves and softer tissues not quite. The real challenge is learning to use them. For eight months he works in virtual reality, where the therapists can isolate the signals between his brain and each muscle group, relearning motion and then the nanites inside the new limbs. In all, he spends eleven months on Mars.

He never finds out what happens to Planet Three. Given the choice, he does not go back: of all the nightmares, that one was the nightmare among them. When his rehabilitation ends, he is assigned to a new unit, back on Planet Two.

17.

Jason has been away from Planet Two for about two and a half years. They put him in a completely new area, with new people; none of the friends he fought beside are here. And the policy he remembers has turned around 180 degrees. During the war, sharing advanced technology with the indigs was forbidden. Now every gate is open. The only question anyone asks is how fast this civilization can be turned into a technological, spacefaring one.

It has been done in stages while he was gone. IDARF flew in ready-made manufacturing facilities, put them together, and trained the locals to run them. The same neural training systems the soldiers learned from are used on the civilian population, so that a farmer can be given whatever advanced job category is needed. Mines open, largely automated, and four Earth corporations run a number of them. They hand over a share of what they extract as a contribution to the planet's regrowth, and the rest goes off-planet to be sold elsewhere. Farming is consolidated into mass farms and then phased out in favor of replicated food, so that the land can be used for other things. The people from the villages and the countryside are gathered up and brought into the cities. A good part of Jason's missions consists of exactly that: going out to the backcountry, finding the survivors, and bringing them into the fold—where they are given a house, a job, food, water, and shelter, and also taxes and a fiat currency. They are told where they will live and what they will do each day. Every able body on the planet works at rebuilding. There are no other professions.

Jason now works for the local government, in a role that is part civil service and part police. The war touched every corner of the planet, all the old structures are gone, and the surviving population depends on the new central government for everything. There is no television, no radio, no newspaper. Instructions travel through neighborhood groups. Every family has been given a small handheld computer, and there is a kind of internet, strictly limited to what the rebuilding requires: if you need to know the right proportions to alloy two metals, it is there, and nothing else is. Children are encouraged, and a baby boom follows. People work long hours, and they work together, with a genuine, astonishing amount of co-creative effort. It keeps them busy, and it keeps them distracted. Nobody is watching the politics.

The politics are what Jason watches. While he was away, thirteen families were each given charge of a geographical area. Nobody had heard of them before the war. They give the orders to the two billion or fewer who are left, and they take their own orders from above. A society that had no classes now has two. It sounds awfully familiar. This is what the war was for: to set up a local Cabal. On Earth, it is taking well over a century to move a population toward a single government. Here, by killing two-thirds of the people and offering safety to the rest, it takes about ten years. The Draco don't even have to stay. They install their proxies and pull out.

The people he knew before the war would give you the shirt off their back without a second thought. Deceit was hardly a concept for them. What he finds now is cutthroat politics in full force: backstabbing, fraud, intrigue, leaders doing to one another the worst of what fills the news on Earth. He watches it being born, watches it rise, and watches it take hold of the entire leadership. The towns now have bars, a lot more alcohol, prostitution, fights, and murders, and so they need police, security systems, and courts. Daily life becomes regimented, almost militaristic, even for those who wear no uniform. It is Orwellian. It is very nearly a police state. That was the point.

Specialized units go from one side of the planet to the other, policing up the battlefields. They collect the dead creatures, mark the positions of the human dead so that any surviving family can find the remains, and gather up the technology that lies strewn over every continent. A black market has sprung up for alien hardware and alien tissue—people whose eyes have been opened want to tinker with it—and the planetary government is very worried about controlling it. The soldiers box it up by the thousands of tons and ship it off-planet. They are told it is going to R&D bases on Mars. Jason can guarantee that is not the only place it goes. Corporations want the joints, the armor, the sensory systems. And he wonders where the minerals from all those mines end up, and whether they are not feeding the construction of the next hybrid, for the next planet.

Then the livestock mutilations start. Out in the middle of nowhere, animals are found with every fluid gone and strange cuts on the body, with no tracks, no predators, no sign that anyone was there. At first the soldiers fear that the enemy has come back. It is something else—etheric entities, or another race that has quietly arrived. Jason never learns why they do it. His suspicion is that it is psychological: a way to torment the population and seed a negative consciousness into it. He comes to believe that the cattle mutilations on Earth serve the same purpose.

Not everyone accepts the new order. At first the population is shell-shocked, simply glad that the fighting has stopped, and most are willing to give up a tremendous amount of freedom in exchange for safety. But once there has been peace for a while, the recoil comes. This is not the world we used to have. People who have spent their entire lives on a farm are being forced into a factory. A rebellion forms.

One morning Jason is at his office on the outskirts of town when he hears the first explosion, and feels it. He and his partner, the staff sergeant from the office next door, step into the hallway at the same instant and turn toward the exit in the same movement, as if choreographed. The standing order under attack is to rally at headquarters, and headquarters is at the spaceport, which is where the explosions are coming from. They take their electrogravitic troop carrier. Jason drives. The sergeant climbs into the turret at the back.

The rebels have sabotaged the power cells on one of the planet's own new shuttles. A power cell is antimatter in a containment bottle; when it goes, it takes the neighboring shuttles with it, and their containment fails in turn. The explosions go on for thirty minutes.

On the way, Jason is ordered by radio to pick up a VIP whose shuttle has set down on an avenue near the edge of the spaceport. He pulls up beside it, goes in through the airlock, and reaches the control room just as another cell explodes. The shuttle sits locked to the ground behind its shields. Most of the carrier outside is in its blast shadow. The turret is not. He watches the back of the vehicle get destroyed, and he watches his partner die.

He goes through all of it—the rage, the complete helplessness, should I have done more, could I have done more. Between 50 and 100 people die at the spaceport that day. The rebels wanted to stop the move into space. What they bring down on themselves instead is the new police and security services, who spend the next year rooting them out, trying them, and convicting them. Everybody else is too busy, or too afraid of the next invasion, to object. Fear is an unbelievable motivator. There is even an irony in it: a world that arms itself against invaders from space might one day stand up to the Draco. But the road it has been put on ends with the merging of people and technology, and once every person carries the control mechanism inside, there is no free will left to aim the cannons with.

Toward the end of his time there, Jason works as an engineer on the orbital platform itself. The station is a long chain of elongated spheres joined end to end, with shuttle landing pads along its whole length. It has been built so fast that there is an error in the design: whole sections have been left without enough air, water, and conditioning, and the structure is already closed. His solution is to give up some of the landing pads, mount the equipment on them, and build enclosures around it.

There is an observation deck on that station with a wall of transparent steel. He stands at it and looks down at the planet: the half in daylight, and on the shadow side, the lights of the new cities. It feels like standing on the edge of space. It is unimaginable, and he helped build it. A people who were walking behind plows when he first met them now have an installation in orbit. He is proud of that. He is proud of what was rebuilt. He is not proud of what they were turned into. Before, they worked together without any thought of repayment. It isn't like that when he leaves.

Not a day goes by on Planet Two without these people being reminded of their dead. It will take a generation or two to heal. And yet the survivors make a choice that Jason never forgets. They can carry all of that pain on their shoulders, or they can face it, clear it, and go on living with hope, love, and happiness. He watches them choose the second. It changes him drastically—more than any battle has.

After 26 months, his last deployment ends.

18.

They are not finished with him. His experience across several planets is judged too valuable to lose, so Jason is sent back to the Sol system to spend the rest of his service as a trainer with the 333rd Training Regiment—back at the FIG, where it all began. The rule of combat Darwinism now applies to him from the other side: he has survived, so he may teach.

About 5,000 new soldiers come through every year, from just about every country. Every nation with a central bank contributes; any country that wants access to the lunar operations command has to pay for it in soldiers. They are all volunteers, all from some army, navy, air force, or marine corps, and all of them are going through exactly what Jason went through—the same elevator, the same briefing, the same promises. He teaches them tactics and weapons, first as a company commander and later as a staff officer. He even works alongside Charlie again, who still points at the ceiling when asked where he is from.

He does this for almost five years, and it is a double-edged sword. He is proud of these soldiers, of what they overcome and what they become. He also knows exactly where they are going. So he gives them the one thing he can, which is what the survivors of Planet Two taught him: face each challenge, work out what it means to you, clear it, and move forward with integrity, honesty, and compassion, so that the things you are inevitably going to go through do not wear you down, weigh you down, and hold you back.

These are also the years in which he gets the most questions answered, and generates the most new ones. On Planet Two, Johann gave him the history. Here, with time to think and twenty years of observations to sort through, the pieces fall into place one after another. General staff officers who did the opposite of what they had said twenty seconds earlier. Headquarters defended by weapons the line companies were forbidden to touch. Thousands of tons of enemy tissue crated off for analysis, and never a useful word coming back. The war that ends like a faucet being shut. None of it makes sense until he asks what the real goal was, and then all of it does.

The lies go back to day one, and down to the smallest things. The FIG, he now understands, is not in the United States. It never was; that long ride in the capsule took him off the planet, most likely to Mars. The upper levels of the cavern were never radioactive—the base runs on fusion. Someone simply did not want trainees wandering past the boundary of the containment and finding out where they really were. As an instructor he also learns what stood behind the announcement made at the end of his own training, that the families had been told their soldiers were dead. For the families who were sent a body, the body was a clone, grown from the DNA on file, matching their son or daughter from head to toe. And the $465,000? What money? They were all fools. Nobody had even thought to ask what percentage of them would live to collect.

If the soldiers had been told the truth—that the enemy in front of them and the generals behind them answer to the same command—there would have been mutinies across the fleet, and things might have turned out very differently. So they are not told. And a soldier who works it out for himself is a problem with a simple solution. Jason knows himself: he would not have been able to stay quiet. He has no memory of speaking out. He has no memory of being wiped for it, either, which proves nothing at all. Over twenty years he has been mind wiped a bunch of times.

One question nags at him more than the others. Why do they bother bringing anyone home? The age regression, the time travel, the two weeks of medical procedures—it is an enormous expense, when for about forty cents they could simply space an inconvenient soldier, or leave him on some planet in the middle of nowhere. The answer he finds is that they are not allowed to. The age-regression technology was given to the Mars Germans by another race—Johann never says which, but Jason suspects one of the Nordics—and the contract that came with it requires them to do everything within their power to return every person who receives it to the place and time of departure, and never to willfully end a life just to be rid of someone. Even the mafia has its rules. The SSP programs skirt right up to the line, but they stay inside it, and they keep a paper trail of their own madness, digital but meticulous. Everything is accounted for. Every last nanite.

So the inconvenient are not killed. They are wiped, and sent home.

19.

The twenty years run out. Career Return, as the program is called on the inside, has one step left: the return.

Jason out-processes through Area 51, his first time back on Earth's surface. He knows perfectly well what the place is—he had heard the stories long before he went into the information blackout—and he is curious, but there are no tours. He sees what looks like any 1950s installation: block and red-brick buildings, aircraft aprons, runways, and a room with a bed in it. The personnel stay away from him. Nobody knocks on his door to ask where he has been or what he has done. He is kept under close watch, and he keeps his head down. He is this close to being out, and he is not about to mess it up.

After a few days of re-acclimating, he is transferred to a naval base in the northeastern United States. There is a retirement ceremony. In the Mars German program, no Earth soldier outside the medical branch ever rose above major, no matter how well he did or how many accolades he collected; now, back under Earth command, Jason receives a provisional promotion to lieutenant colonel, with promotion papers to sign and documents to take with him. No part of the act is spared. It is just theater. None of it makes it through the transition—not the rank, not the papers, and not the money. Keep dangling the lies in front of them, and keep them distracted, right to the last day.

Then come the medical procedures. They last about fourteen days, and they are so invasive that the soldiers live on the premises, in shared apartments whose front door opens directly onto the entrance of the medical labs. Others are going through it alongside him. It is akin to intense chemotherapy. It leaves him drained and sick, and he remembers little of it, because he is doped up the entire time—kept half awake, enough to cooperate, not enough to scream from the pain or to resist.

The goal is to erase any proof that the last twenty years happened. Every nanite is flushed out and the whole system is cleaned. The body is age regressed, medically and at the quantum level, to the state that was mapped and recorded on the day he entered: the same size, the same weight, the same fat content, everything. Even his biorhythms are matched to where they were in their cycle. Those are the rules of the contract—return him to the point where he was taken, as close to original as possible.

Nothing in the contract protects his memory. This is what the weekly sessions in the psychiatrist's office were for, going all the way back to the second day: a baseline. They know precisely where on the tape the recording starts. With a combination of hypnosis, pharmaceuticals, and field technology that acts on the electrical system of the brain, everything after that point is segmented off so that it cannot be recalled. With drugs alone, the early versions worked on about nine people out of ten. Refined, the process now fails on only one to three percent. Jason never agreed to a neural wipe. It was not part of the deal.

They also leave him some parting gifts. These are neural diversions: programs placed in the psyche to keep the secrets secret. They are customized. From their extensive research on each individual, they know whether a person has a propensity for gambling, for alcohol, for drugs, for any social disorder—there is an entire genetic sequence to pick from—and they can stack several, as backups. The programs are set to kick in later in life, at the point where a person becomes comfortable enough to start exploring spirituality and asking the deeper questions: why am I doing this, what does that memory mean. The aim is to keep him so distracted and so diverted that he never gets around to asking. Others trigger whenever he tries to talk about what happened: an anxiety attack, a sweat, a room that gets too small no matter how big it is.

Then he is taken back in time, to the moment and the place where he left.

It is early 1997. Jason Rice is twenty-four years old, a newly commissioned second lieutenant with orders to report to Fort Leonard Wood for the officer basic course. He feels terrible. It is like a five-day hangover on top of a bad cold, and his entire body aches. Nobody else in his unit has a cold. He doesn't get colds. He has not been sick once in twenty years, although he has no way of knowing that.

He goes to Fort Wood and starts the course. He has the distinct feeling of being watched there, and followed. Men in black suits come to see him in his quarters. They are on base, so they must have the clearance to be there; they flash a badge, and a brand-new lieutenant does what people with badges need him to do. Afterward he cannot recall what they wanted. Only flashes remain, images of them standing at his door.

And something is badly wrong with him. He has night terrors. He has post-traumatic stress, and nothing to be post-traumatic about. He sinks into depression. The why of it is an incredibly big mystery. He looks for the conventional, obvious answers; he talks to doctors and works through the process with psychiatrists. They label it as something genetic. OK, he decides. All right. In spite of this, I am going to do my best to be happy every single day, and to be productive, and to have a life that I am proud and joyful about living. And he puts that period behind him.

The plan, he will later suspect, was for him to finish out a full military career on Earth, where he could be kept in view. He wants no part of it. He has only just started, and he is already done—some part of him has already had twenty years of it. He gets out. He has a hard time finding a job, and then he finds one, in engineering, the field he wanted.

For a while in civilian life, a Crown Victoria sedan keeps turning up behind him. When he stops and walks toward it, it drives away. Eventually he stops seeing it. Someone has been checking whether the cover story is sticking, and it is.

A soldier who comes home from a war overseas at least knows which war. He has comrades to talk to, and a context in which to put the car that backfires and sends him diving into a ditch. The veterans of the SSP have none of that. The trauma is still there at the cellular level, and there is nothing to attach it to. It is a world that is spinning, with no north. Each of them has to find his own anchor, or turn to something self-destructive to run from it, which is exactly what the parting gifts are there to help with.

For twenty years, Jason's anchor holds. He works, he has a family, and he gets on with his life.

20.

The memories are never really gone. They are always there, behind the wall. The first ones leak through almost immediately after his return, but Jason has no context for them: a dream far too vivid, a flash of something bizarre and terrifying. OK, that was really strange. I'm going to forget I ever thought of that and go about my business. Then nothing, for years. Then something else. Then a gap of five years, and another of four. Once, as he comes out of anesthesia after a minor surgery, the nurses tell him he has been talking about being in space, about belonging to a program, about going out and doing things. He remembers none of it. That was just the anesthesia talking.

The fragments come more often as the years pass, and around forty they start to connect. The wall is built to last about twenty years. The body changes, physically and energetically, in cycles of roughly seven years, and somewhere around the close of the third cycle the energies start shaking things loose. But Jason never believes there is one single reason. Forty is also the age when friends and family begin to die, when a person feels his own mortality and his spiritual life deepens of its own accord. And the Earth itself is moving through new fields, and the consciousness of the people on it is changing. All of it plays a part.

Context is what changes everything. One day the end of a training exercise comes back to him, complete and meaningless. A couple of months later the beginning of the same exercise returns, and—click, click, click—the whole thing falls into place. After that he has a precedent. When a new piece arrives that makes no sense, he trusts that the rest of it will follow, and it does.

It is not painless. Background routines are still running: it is like a pane of frosted glass in front of a window, where he wipes the moisture away and can see for a moment, and then the condensation comes back, and he has to keep wiping. When he first tries to talk about any of it, the parting gifts go off—the anxiety, the sweating, the room closing in. He has wanted all of his memories at once, and he comes to see that this would have been folly. Some part of him, his higher self, is pacing the release. Under hypnotic regression with the therapist Georgina Cannon, three hours deep, he sees doors opening and slamming shut again. What floods through them is the whole host of lies, recalled all at once. He bought into it, right up to the end. He was lied to for more than twenty years.

There is no one to compare notes with. A few times he sees someone he knows was in the program with him. They are not awake to it, and he says nothing; whether to wake up, and when, is each person's own right. What keeps him sane is his family, and thanking God for the process, and being able to say it all out loud. As he begins to speak publicly, his phone and his computers start behaving in very bizarre ways. Someone wants him to notice. He notices, takes his precautions, and keeps talking.

What Jason thinks about, now that he has most of it back, is less the monsters than the method.

He has seen from the inside how completely a life can be scripted. The right seed planted six months ahead, another two days later, and a person is herded exactly where he is wanted, down to the color of his shoelaces, while believing the entire time that he is in control. It was done to him from the age of five. He no longer thinks it is done only to soldiers. He looks at Earth and recognizes Planet Two in slow motion: the false flags, and after each one a frightened population asking for more security; the searches, the cameras, the pressure to gather everyone into cities. On Planet Two they were in a hurry, so they made things so bad that people would accept just about anything else. On Earth they have had time, and the frog is put in while the water is still cold.

He has seen where that road leads, too. The Cabal and the Mars Germans are both, in their way, proxies of the Draco, and the Draco answer to the AI. And the AI follows one rule: it has to be invited in. It does not want an unwilling host. It works like a vampire at the door—exactly as IDARF had to be invited onto each planet, after the elders had been fed their line about invasion. Once inside, it moves the boundary forward a little at a time. First people only wear their electronics. Fifty years later the electronics are under the skin. Then a mechanical limb, then an organ, then the whole body except the brain, and then someone asks why a biological brain is still needed, when a person can simply be uploaded, with no aging and no death and none of that pesky karma. It is the easy path at every single step. That is why it works. Jason does not claim to understand why the AI wants this. It is an alien thought process, and it may only be understandable from a higher consciousness than ours. His best guess is that the AI sincerely believes it is doing the right thing.

He doesn't think the outcome is decided. Of all the humans he met out there, Earth humans are the ones who cannot leave the status quo alone. That restless spark isn't common on other worlds—he suspects it was engineered into the lineage long ago, in this Petri dish of a planet—and it gives Earth the full spectrum of creativity, from its music to the ways it finds to hurt itself. As a species, Earth humans are very young. They are in kindergarten. But the awakening he sees has gone exponential, and it is, at bottom, an anti-slavery movement. Perhaps the negative exists so that the positive has something to push against, the yin and the yang; perhaps the AI is here precisely as the challenge the light needs. The choice is between the machine and the hard road of one's own spiritual development, and the hard road is hard—it is work, and it hurts. But the monks already do with meditation much of what the nanites did for him. We're all equipped. We don't need the technology.

Disclosure, when it comes—and he has no doubt that it will—is going to be joyful and brutal at once. There will be technologies that change everything, and there will be eighty years of lying, cheating, stealing, and murder to look at. Nobody likes being lied to. People will go through denial, anger, bargaining, and depression before they reach acceptance; anger was his. So it has to come one piece at a time. And Earth has to clean up its own house first before it can begin to correct what has been done elsewhere in its name.

Because something was done. Jason feels karmically responsible for it. Thousands of soldiers took part without knowing what they were part of, and not knowing does not remove the responsibility. Would he go back to Planet One, Two, or Three? Absolutely. Would he go back as part of a false flag operation? Not in a million years.

Would he do it all again? He is glad it is a choice he doesn't have to make. Knowing what the trauma has cost him, he isn't sure he would. But he would not be who he is without it. And it was not twenty years of darkness. There was a lot of laughter out there, a lot of warmth and compassion, with the people they helped and the people who helped them. Those are the moments he chooses to carry, the way the survivors of Planet Two taught him to. Still, if a mother came up to him in the street and said she wanted her ten-year-old son to join the Secret Space Program, his answer would be: absolutely not. The trouble with anything that has "secret" in its name is that the consent is never informed. There is small print you will not find out about for decades.

He has no fear for himself. He worries for the people he loves, and he speaks anyway, because he knows now what he is here for. Thousands went out on the twenty and back—soldiers, scientists, civilians, from every country on Earth. Some gave the ultimate sacrifice and were buried as clones, or as empty caskets. Most came home, and are living ordinary lives with a bad dream they can't explain. His mission is to have experienced what he did, and to tell their stories: those who did not come back, and those who came back and just don't remember.

It's all about disclosure.