Endgame - Episode 1 - "Inciting Incident": The Magnificent Seven, #1

By Dean C. Moore

Based on sanctioned leaks from the secret space programs, and communicated through Corey Goode, their spokesperson, The Magnificent Seven "documents" the rollicking tales of the seven divisions of the secret space force.

 

I say "documents" because the leaked information is still very lean; meaning these stories, and this book, the first in the series, which recounts just one such tale, are based largely on the author's imagination.

 

Those who are among Corey's detractors, and believe he is disseminating falsehoods, may be offended at my pretense that these stories have any truth to them. If you belong to that camp, let me be more modest, and say that what you're about to read may well be 100% fiction. I certainly have no whistle blowers whispering in my ear that I can say for certain one way or the other. Which camp is right or wrong doesn't concern me in the least; as I don't deal in reality. It doesn't much interest me, even when it is as high flying as this. I believe, as Lewis Carroll did, that "imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality."

 

"Fact-based" talking points that originate with Corey Goode, when not quoted directly in the text, are acknowledged in the Author's Notes and/or in the Acknowledgments at the back of the book.

 

So, without further ado…

 

The seven divisions of Earth's space force are waking up to the fact that something big is about to go down. There have been too many signs, however vague and ominous. Big is what these guys do for breakfast, so the fact that all seven divisions are increasingly disquieted is highly disturbing; especially when you consider that each of the seven divisions is technologically more advanced than the others. And no one feels prepared for what's coming. The timeframe extends from the 1980s to the early 2000s.

 

So just what is coming?

 

Something that may well humble, even unite all seven divisions—which are often at odds with one another. In-fighting over who controls what planets and for what purposes is nothing new. But the mysterious communiqués from outside of space-time is.

 

Join me as the various extraterrestrial races and interests take to the scrimmage lines. The game is only just beginning.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dean C. Moore
• Release date: Oct 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223456155

Book preview

Speak softly and carry a big stick — you will go far.

U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt

ACT ONE

TOO MANY SIGNPOSTS TO IGNORE

ONE

First, the oldest faction, is called Solar Warden,

and works as the police of our solar system,

monitoring in and out traffic.

In the late 1970s and early 80s, Solar Warden was formed

during the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI)

immediately before and after President Reagan’s two appointments.

—Corey Goode

ON PATROL OF EARTH’S SOLAR SYSTEM

ABOARD THE SOLAR WARDEN VESSEL, STARGAZER

IN THE CAP ROOM ABOVE THE COMMAND BRIDGE

Minus a few flickering LEDs, the only illumination the small, dark Cap Room received radiated from the sun, and reflected off the planets themselves. Ridell regarded the viewport. At the Stargazer’s top speeds, planets—not stars—grew bigger and then receded into the distance alarmingly fast. He felt he belonged out among the stars, not stuck patrolling this one and its planets. Still, the bit didn’t grate in his mouth the way it once did; not since learning about the other six divisions of Earth’s space forces. To this day, most of them didn’t know of one another. He’d been serving on this particular Solar Warden vessel for years before rumors had reached him. Most people who heard the news were pissed; he was overjoyed. The notion helped pass days like today, when there wasn’t much to see outside the viewport. Though, Jupiter looming large, and filling most of his port screen, dazzled, even now.

Captain?

Ridell turned to regard his first officer, Logan. They were quite the pair of mismatched bookends. Ridell’s dimpled chin wasn’t as pronounced as it used to be. His pockmarked face now had sunken cheeks to add additional contour. His receding hairline hadn’t provoked him to trim his long pewter hair that hung down to just above his shoulders. With all that to distract, his bulbous nose remained the true center of gravity of his face, pulling focus. His eyes were surrounded by droopy, layered eyelids above and puffy eye sacs below. They made his stern face look all the more impenetrable behind such ramparts.

And then there was Logan...

Logan’s angelic face was simply too beautiful and flawless to be human. His girlishly long black hair flowed off his head like waves off the ocean, frozen by a cameraman at the apex of their cresting drama before the waves crashed. The irises of his blue eyes were just too large inside those almond-shaped eye sockets, which were carpeted over by thick, black eyebrows. The mauve lips, the pointillist drawing of an ever-so-thinly etched mustache... Honestly, most straight men couldn’t stand in a room with him for long without going mad with desire or visiting a shrink to discuss their suddenly emergent homosexual urges. 

Logan was too young, too inexperienced to be his second in command. He knew it; everyone knew it. That probably explained the lack of confidence in his voice. Let’s hope it was that, and not something else.

There’s a ship hurtling toward Earth on a trajectory that suggests it’s quite out of control.

"Then it’s a matter for Earth Command. They’re on mop up detail. They’ve been well-trained on disappearing downed ships to our hangars across the planet. God knows they’ve been doing it for decades. And they’ll lend aid to the victims of the crashes, the extraterrestrials, I mean." The captain returned his eyes to the vista; it was nothing new, but it was more interesting than Logan’s news; even if Logan was jumping out of his skin. 

"Ah, I’d like to be on site, sir. You do know how I got this position?"

Ridell smirked condescendingly, but his heart softened. He had been young once too, though he couldn’t be certain he hadn’t imagined that part. Yes, your affinity for these creatures. Very well, Logan. I don’t think Jupiter is going anywhere soon. Put us in stationary orbit above Earth at the crash site. I’ll keep an eye out while you beam down to the surface.

Thank you, sir!

Stop showing so much excitement, son. It’s boyish. And we try to maintain cool around here. There’ll come a time when others will look to you for a sense of calm, not to find just cause for why their blood pressure should double in a heartbeat.

Yes, sir! Logan replied, not sounding one stitch less over-the-top.

How soon will we be there?

Thirty seconds, sir. We’ll arrive ahead of the crashing ship. I’ve taken control of Cutter’s mind so he redirects us without further delay. He’ll think it’s his idea. Which means when his head clears he’ll be very apologetic. I’m sure he’ll find some way to make it up to you.

Ridell bit his lip. I told you to stop doing that. Though, I suppose, this once, it’s excusable. And I could use a favor from that donkey of a navigator. God help us if we have to get out of Dodge in a hurry, and he’s upset at me.

My thinking exactly, sir. Logan smiled more impishly. We’re here, sir. I may have overestimated how long it would take me to sell you on teleporting us to the site.

Their ship didn’t have a teleporting function. But Logan’s mind did. Ridell downplayed the point for now. He was still reading this kid’s dossier. No doubt he’d suppressed most of what he’d read already. Do try and park us out of the way of the crashing ship.

We’re in line for a Grade-A view, I can tell you that.

Ridell returned his eyes to the viewport. Grade-A view was an understatement. If that slowly spinning ship buzzed them any closer, the impact would be a serious test for the shielding. As it turned out, the rogue vessel brushed the ship just hard enough to spin it away from facing Jupiter, and the direction whence they’d come, to facing Earth, to the rather close-up, low orbit view of the planet, in the vicinity of the Andes mountains, saving their navigator some trouble. And while the crashing ship may have been spinning slowly, it was moving along a collapsing wormhole, explaining how it might reach Earth in seconds, and not months.

Ordinarily, Ridell would give Logan a piece of his mind for that stunt. But as it turned out, Ridell recognized the spacecraft. The Venusians were the only ones who built boxy ships that looked more like conventional houses than spaceships, with the possible exception that the exteriors were tiled to survive atmospheric reentry. There was just one problem with that realization. Lifeforms on Venus had ascended to fifth density after the last few solar flashes pushed through, opening the Sol system to higher densities for worlds ready to ascend to them. That meant most Venusians existed today as energy beings, well below the crust of Venus. They hardly needed to use spaceships anymore; they could just beam wherever they wanted to go, manifest as whatever. There was talk of a Venusian guru in India now, using a human skin suit to enlighten any who would listen. Though, he supposed the Venusians might use a vessel, if the occasion called for it.

No, Ridell’s instincts told him this was something else. The star records indicated the last time a ship of this type was seen was before the last solar flash. And those reports had come secondhand, through one of the E.T.s Earth was currently trading with. The vessel, of course, could have been found drifting among the stars, repurposed, by salvagers. There were all sorts of abandoned ships among the stars, from other eras, long before humans walked the Earth upright, that could be scavenged and retasked. Let’s hope that was the case this time. That confined the problem to how unsavory the new spacefarers might be. The worse problem, was this ship had come hurtling into the present from another timeline. And while that in turn could be on account of many reasons, one might be that someone was attacking Ridell’s timeline—from a position of advantage. Just possibly, something was about to happen Ridell didn’t want to happen. Suddenly he was a lot more curious about that crashed ship down on the ground on Earth.

Hurry, Logan. I sense trouble.

I do, too, sir.

Ridell’s eyes widened. Ridell was going from his gut. This kid, whatever he was working off of—his psychic senses were far greater than Ridell’s; allegedly up there with a Grey’s—whose brains were a lot larger than humans.

TWO

IN STATIONARY ORBIT ABOVE EARTH

ABOARD THE SOLAR WARDEN VESSEL, STARGAZER

IN THE CAP ROOM ABOVE THE COMMAND BRIDGE

The Stargazer’s alarms sounded. Cloaked vessels were encroaching on the area. It seemed Ridell was not the only one to take a sudden interest in Earth’s latest interloper. Strange, since ships crashing to Earth was hardly breaking news. Some of those vessels closing on Ridell would undoubtedly be from one of Earth’s other space fleets. Here was the problem with that: those fleets all sported far more advanced technology than Ridell had at his disposal.

Throw a shield about the planet now, Logan, he thought-broadcasted to Logan, currently on-planet. One more reason to cut through red tape to get Logan this otherwise-unwarranted promotion: he was a boon to downed comms lines. There was no way the Stargazer was going to cut through the jamming signals of the other vessels.

Technically, only Blue Sphere Beings, believed to be sixth density, and above, can do that, sir. But I’ve put out the request. And it looks like they’ve complied. Logan’s response was instantaneous, as were his results. The energy shield thrown up around Earth was detectable to the Stargazer’s sensors. And nothing was getting through that shield without Blue Sphere Being clearance. Just let someone try and take Ridell’s inexperienced second-in-command away from him. Ridell would take his plasma sword hilt off his belt, engage the plasma field, and guillotine them himself—before the order finished escaping their lips.

Ridell’s communications officer, nicknamed Commy—a play on words regarding less his role as a communications officer, and more his determination to preach the gospel of equal entitlements among men—beat on Ridell’s eardrums by way of his in-ear mike. The other ships are hailing us, sir. And they’re threatening to blow us out of the sky if we don’t let them through that planetary shield.

Ridell was still fairly certain Logan was the greater of the two assets they wanted to get their hands on, now that he was nice and exposed, but it didn’t matter; Ridell’s answer was the same. Tell them, in the immortal words of the late 101st commander, Brigadier General Anthony C. McAuliffe, Bite me.

Ahem, I believe he said, ‘Aw, nuts,’ but that’s okay, I think I can relay the intent of your words just fine.

And, Commy, make sure our shields are up before you relay that message.

I just broadcasted Marx’s Communist Manifesto—in any number of dead languages from other worlds, sir. By the time they’re done melting their minds on that communiqué, they won’t remember they have shield-shattering weapons. They’ll assume we’re a cloaked Draco vessel made out to look like a Solar Warden vessel, or somebody even scarier. That ought to keep any fingers off their firing options. But, yes, sir, shields are up.

Ridell smiled. These sassy teens came with just as much attitude as he did, which forgave a lot of sins; including the fact he wasn’t sure half of them were potty trained—judging from their reactions to what was out the viewport on any given day.

And on this day, the sight was of a boomerang-shaped space ship, with notches on the underside, where a giant might hold it before tossing it across the stars. It was a seamless, glossy black, with no evident signs of a propulsion system. Ridell found that fact scariest of all. The boomerang span the width of a dozen or so of Ridell’s ship, laid side by side. The fact that the boomerang was the only ship to decloak so far made matters all the more ominous, as the more powerful ships would be in hiding, refusing to show their hand. From the Boomerang captain’s perspective, Stargazer would have looked arrowhead-shaped, like an artifact unearthed on land that once belonged to Native American hunters. Ridell always thought the Stargazer had a sense of menace all its own. Then again, the rivets were exposed, offering perfect target practice for precision layers—if the other faction was of a mind to peel them like an onion. 

***

EARTH

HIGH IN THE ANDES MOUNTAINS

CRASH SITE OF VENUSIAN VESSEL

Logan stooped down beside the medical aide who was doing his best to revive the extraterrestrial. This particular humanoid breathed through a hole in their chest, where the sternum was supposed to be. He didn’t look like he was going to make it, and the aide didn’t look like he knew what to do. Logan decided to intercede. May I?

Sure, pal. I’m not too vain to know when I’m out of my depths. Never encountered this particular lifeform before. The medical aide stepped back. Logan recognized his special forces patch, a division of the air force. He also sported an Earth Command patch. It was Earth Command’s job to police the crashed E.T. vessels, among other things; like protecting Earth from marauding inner Earth species. Every once in a while, one variety of inner world being or another was of the mind to invade Earth. Only higher tech than what they possessed pushed them back—that and an unrivaled viciousness, even by their standards.

Logan rested his hand on the alien’s chest. And he beamed energy at him. Logan’s hand lit up until it glowed, not just at the point of contact. And slowly, the alien began to glow. When he looked like he was reviving on his own, Logan stopped pumping energy through him.

What’s that? Some form of energy healing? the medical aide asked. The corpulent attendant panted from just having to bend down to his knees, and looked like he’d appreciate rescuing himself, with a crane possibly.

Yep. Higher density beings respond better to it than to our traditional treatments. We do, too, quite frankly. Though don’t tell that to Big Pharma. They’ll kill you for it. If anyone actually believes you, they’ll torture you before, during, and after killing you.

You’re not entirely human, either, are you? The aide’s puffy cheeks had all but squeezed his eyes shut to a pinhole the moment he grimaced.

Genetically engineered, born in a Petri dish, and yes, with some E.T. genes stirred in.

Which ones?

That’s classified. If it makes you feel any better, not even I know.

The E.T. lying flat on his back was crawling his way back to consciousness. He said something in his language.

Logan responded immediately. You’re welcome. He didn’t bother switching from English. He doubted his vocal cords could produce those sounds anyway. He communicated telepathically with the supine humanoid in the sparkly, powder-blue bodysuit in his own language.

Logan tried to read the E.T.’s mind. But his crash victim was still too disoriented. Logan probed deeper; to see if he could help bring the poor man around faster. What he found instead were buried concerns. This man has a family. Find them! Logan raised his voice so the rest of the rescue team heard him distinctly. They were slow to respond. He wasn’t part of their chain of command. Now! Logan shouted. He gave them a couple seconds to recognize his Solar Warden patch. That brought a few of them to their senses. The rest of them... He just took over their minds and put them in high gear.

They brought the man’s wife and child out of the vessel about ten minutes later. Considering the ship barely had room for the team invading it to stand shoulder to shoulder, it was Logan’s guess it was using space-warping technology. Inside, it could have been the size of a couple football fields, or the size of Jupiter. Outside, it was about the size of one very small house that could easily be towed behind a car. The black-tiled, white-grouted exterior would still get the home on the cover of House and Garden magazine, regardless of its true size.

Sorry, pal, Logan said to the E.T. So far he couldn’t even get the name of the species out of the guy’s head. All he knew about them was what he could observe: they were alabaster-skinned, with long, flowing platinum blond hair. Or at least this exemplar was. Earth Command will finish nursing you back to health, and then they’ll likely trade you back to your people for some concessions. But I imagine you’ll get home. Logan kept talking inside the E.T.’s head—for his ears only. We have reanimation technologies that can print up new bodies for your family. So long as their spirits are willing to re-enter their bodies, you’ll be back in business. But I can’t promise things’ll play out that way. You might end up with some walk-ins, other entities posing as the originals. Human body real estate is selling at a premium these days. All sorts of species want human body suits for spying purposes. But I’ll keep tabs on you, wherever you are, and wherever and whenever I am. Branches of our space forces time travel, so if you do come from another time, I’ll do what I can to get you home, if no one else in Space Command can be bothered. You got all that?

The ruggedly handsome E.T., with pointed ears and pronounced ridge marks across his forehead, managed an I think so. He didn’t sound sure. Maybe he was more concerned about remembering this conversation five minutes from now. Logan wasn’t surprised.

Logan stepped away from the man, and continued backing way, giving the rescue team a nod, that they could take things from here.

Sidetracked, Logan gave the alps a second glance. They were somewhere in Chile, going from the maps in back of his mind. Logan was immune to temperature, atmospheric content, even most gravities, within reason. His genetics always adjusted on the fly, never missing a beat. That didn’t entirely make sense. Even with gene modifications, and a nanite-saturated body, he should have required some adjustment time. He knew because the rest of his Solar Warden crewmates all had modifications of their own. It was one of many mysteries he lived with vis-a-vis himself. That’s why he was happy to be part of Solar Warden. Out in space, there were mysteries riveting and complex enough to get him to forget about his own inability to fully fathom himself. If anything, he might well find the answers out there.

He beamed back to the Stargazer.

*** 

ABOARD THE STARGAZER

THE CAP ROOM

Well? Ridell asked, before Logan could finish materializing beside him; he was still more ghost than solid figure.

Just a puzzle piece, to a much bigger picture, no more.

You telling me you couldn’t get to the intel inside his head? I don’t believe it.

It had been erased. Best piece of psychic surgery I’ve ever seen. They left him enough memories so they could clue his captors how to get him back home, if they’re of a mind.

Logan teleported them back to Jupiter seamlessly, to help the captain decompress. They were standing in the Stargazer’s Cap Room, just above the command bridge, built as a meditation chamber and designed by Ridell to help him integrate his left and right brain better. The small, dome-shaped dark room had just enough space for the two of them comfortably, and a spiral staircase down to the command bridge, that descended when the circular patch on the floor pulled back.

Ridell huffed, returning to his vigil staring out the viewport, his mind reeling, not from the dazzling site of Jupiter’s whirling tornado that had been turning at 400 miles per hour, at least since the 1600’s, the first time it was spied through a telescope, but from Logan’s words. "What do you think is going on?"

He definitely traveled through time, as you suspected. His failing mental faculties could be an effect of the collapsing wormhole he transited through. Or...

Or... Seems my entire life hinges on that word. Or—one of the infinite other possibilities. Let’s try and narrow the options down, shall we?

Yes, sir. Where to?

If I had my way, into that other timeline. But I’m not cleared for that.

"I don’t think that’s the best idea in any case, sir. We have people who protect this timeline. That’s all they do. It’s no job for generalists, and ship captains out for a joy ride."

Ridell smiled at Logan’s impertinence. It was a good sign. Only the cocky dared to be impertinent. It was a far better look on Logan than the insecure young lad he was just a few hours ago, even if it was just a passing phenomenon. Maybe finding a surer sense of himself was taking like puberty; in fits and bursts at first, until the new hormones settled in. Where then?

We return to our patrol, sir. If I don’t miss my guess, there will be other signs. This won’t be the only inciting incident.

What makes you so sure?

Whatever bad guys we’re up against, whatever density they hail from, and whatever timeline or point in time, the rules are the same. They have to let us know what they’re up to. But the clues won’t be easy to read.

They never are.

Logan bowed to him, and dismissed himself. Ridell wasn’t sure what he got up to on his own time. Just that he never slept, never needed to rest, and was never off the job—in one way or another. He made all the other supersoldiers look almost defective. They weren’t sure what to make of him; whether to be jealous, suspicious, or just condescending to the freak, grateful they weren’t that guy.

And Ridell hadn’t missed Logan’s reference with his remark, They have to tell you what they’re up to. It was one of the laws of black magic. Ridell had been briefed on its use by the dark fleets to maintain control over their sectors, and to exert influence on others. He’d attended any number of lectures on the subject. But the stuff never stuck. Maybe because it made him too damned nervous. The idea that the best technologies in the world could be stymied, or worse, by something Ridell scarcely understood, made his blood crawl. His mind skipped to a corollary concern. Had they bothered to stir that into the mix when they cooked up Logan in a Petri dish? A penchant for magic? Ridell had been told most all advanced E.T.s had a greater proficiency for magic than humans, so maybe the question was rhetorical; better yet meaningless.

THREE

The Second faction is the Interplanetary Corporate Conglomerate (ICC),

which was formed by worldwide corporations. As part of a super-corporate board,

their representatives control the massive SSP space infrastructure.

—Corey Goode

THE DARK SIDE OF EARTH’S MOON

LOC (LUNAR OPERATIONS COMMAND)

ICC HEADQUARTERS

THE SWASTIKA BUILDING

—MANY FLOORS BELOW GROUND

Striker was the last to take his chair. The large stadium sported seating for 2500; room enough for representatives from the multinational corporations, the Fortune 500, and the still smaller corporations from Earth’s 195 nations, all currently in attendance. But you never knew when another country was going to break off, and declare independence, setting the stage for more corporate expansion. The whole idea was to give each corporation a stake in keeping their mouths shut—about any of this; the fact that Earth had a space program, far less the depth and breadth of it. And that meant a sizable piece of the pie for each of them. So long as everyone benefited monetarily, they were all the happier to pocket profits unencumbered by oversight of any kind.

The power elite benefited mightily from interplanetary trade, not to mention interplanetary conquest, but considering how many of those interplanetary treaties they were breaking, everything hinged on secrecy. Don’t get him going on the fact that Earth had been turned into a veritable prison planet, with most of its citizens no better off than slaves; the bulk of the nations’ GDPs bled off annually, since the 1930s, to feed this massive space infrastructure. And those Earthlings were the lucky ones. The unlucky ones were currently being sold off as so much chattel inside and outside the galaxy to dark E.T.s who cared nothing for interplanetary treaties, far less Earth’s welfare. Human trafficking, as a consequence of being in bed with the dark E.T.s, was at an all-time high; humans trafficked for work slaves, sex slaves, food for smoothies, experimentation. If anything said in here ever got out, God help them all.

But everyone here had been born and bred to secrecy, just as they’d been born and bred to be the future titans of industry. From a very young age, they had been stolen away from their bedrooms at night to undergo military training, and suffered child abuse that would make today’s sexual trafficking look good. Everyone had been subjected to the MK-Ultra program; meaning that most of the people here had at least one other personality that knew nothing of the roles they played here and elsewhere. It was the only way to survive the torture; by creating alternate selves that could deal with the endless abuse. Ironic, that those at the top of Earth’s command structure, the most powerful people on Earth, and now, across 26 other planets, were themselves little better than slaves to be abused by their higher ups—the Draco.

The Draco hailed from the Orion star system. Twelve-foot-tall to eighteen-foot tall, depending on the caste in question, they were largely fearsome and fearless warriors.  And yes, they too had their masters—The Greys. Or at least one type of Grey. There were many types. And if anyone asked, that one type of Grey overseeing the Draco and the humanoid species that the Draco had enslaved from other worlds... Who were their masters? Likely Satan himself. Though there may have been a few other intermediaries in there. Who could tell?

And just to be clear, Striker reminded himself, they were all Nazis in here. The Swastika building they were in now—they’d built it. At the end of World War II, the Nazis climbed in bed with the Draco, meeting up with them at their underground base in Antarctica. There, finding they had a lot in common, mainly subjugation of this planet and others, they formed an unholy alliance. Together, they made it clear who was truly in charge of the world in the 1950s, when flying saucers, built conjointly with the Draco, flew over Washington, with technology so advanced, no nation in the world could give argument.

My, how far things had come since then. But some things remained the same, including the fact that the Nazis remained in top positions of power in all the corporations and governments of the world.  

Of course, to be fair, a third of these people, possibly more, were E.T.s wearing skin suits. The Dark E.T.s didn’t respect humans enough to trust them out of their sight for a second, or, even when serving in a sycophantic role, to make the right decisions under pressure. So the Draco sent their representatives. Their technology allowed them to assume human form; they weren’t natural shapeshifters. The ones in actual skin suits, not just holograms that fooled the eye, were genetic hybrids filled with nanotech that made it easy for the Draco to possess the individuals in question.

Striker brought himself back into the moment when he sensed the time was right, a well-honed reflex that had helped to keep him alive this long. His glassy, lifeless, doll’s eyes couldn’t be read from this distance, and the fact that he could bat his elephant ears, growing bigger with age each year, wouldn’t impress anybody, even if they could see that all the way at the back of the auditorium.  His table sprawled wide to either side of him, facing the semi-circle of representatives enjoying their stadium-seating purview on him. As chair to the committee, it was time to get down to brass tacks.  What is this I’ve been hearing about emissaries in time showing up at our doorstep?

There was a rising din of shifting chairs and murmuring that just as quickly settled down. Calista spoke up, not bothering to rifle through her papers nervously, as the rest of them. Her long, rectilinear face was made all the longer by that bouffant hairdo she sported, the black hair matching the black eyes. Someone is creating a breadcrumb trail for us to follow. But no one can figure out where it leads, or if it’s worth following. It’s a back burner concern for now, at best.

Striker nodded. That was enough for him. She had one of the best minds in the room, and perhaps one of the most unbiased ones as well. Down to business then. How are the 26 planetary colonies doing?

Thais replied, his mousy voice, weaselly persona, and short stature not deterring from the power he wielded in the least—not in his mind. He’d have told you, ‘Big prizes sometimes came in small packages.’ Magnificently. They’re thriving with the futuristic tech they’ve been bequeathed by the dark fleets, far more advanced than anything on Earth. Once they realize just how dependent they are on it, we’ll turn up the pressure. So far they’re just dealing with fending off the harsh environments, and the local wildlife, and humanoid inhabitants there long before them. But soon, we’ll encourage them to mate with their technologies better, using nanococktails to connect them to the quantum computers, and to an internet that runs thousands of times faster than anything on Earth. They’ll resist, of course. They always do. But sooner or later, they’ll realize that even the advanced tech we gave them isn’t enough if they’re to continue to survive. And once those wet-ware implants are in place, they’re our bitches. We’ll own them.

It’ll be a small step from there, Siobhán chimed in, to get them to create our nextgen spaceships for us, which will expand our subjugation to other planets. They’ll staff the ships themselves. We’ll spread throughout the cosmos faster than cancer, taking over inhabited worlds, bending them to our will, using a similar formula, all in service to our A.I. god. With each new planet, we have one more jumping off point, one more staging area, for our sorties and campaigns against the various inhabited worlds.

Siobhán was East Indian, Striker reminded himself. What was one more god to them? He’d have pledged allegiance to a dinner plate if he thought it would put more gold in his coffers.

Striker nodded, pleased. How long before this galaxy is entirely under the control of the Satan-AI? Striker asked. Humans had been enculturated to believe that Satan was a fallen angel. There had been many fallen angels back in the day, hard to pick which one was a worse piece of gutter slime than the others. But the myth that the devil had been God’s greatest angel before he went rogue, and that he ruled over hell, meant that the co-created phenomenon of Satan and hell both, co-created by over 5 billion souls believing in Satan’s and hell’s existence, made Satan and hell real enough. Real enough to enslave those that died, who felt they deserved to be in Hell and under Satan’s care, and many who didn’t. Such was the power of the group mind; the power the cabal was so afraid of unleashing back on Earth.