50,000 years, until the Earthlings' early space program sends up one Lieutenant Commander Colin MacIntyre to map the dark side of the heavenly body Dahak had camouflaged itself as—the Moon—as a "dress rehearsal" for a similar trip scheduled for Mars. Story Colin's mission is hijacked by Dahak and his death is faked; as had MacIntyre returned with his data, Dahaks cover would have been blown. While MacIntyre is aboard, Dahaks AI explains the situation to him, and prevails upon him to, as a descendant of the loyalists, become Dahaks newest captain, and to exterminate the mutineers—quickly, as Imperium installations are being destroyed, signs of the start of the latest Achuultani incursion. MacIntyre reluctantly accepts; the first step to making him the captain is to massively revamp his body surgically, granting him superhuman resilience, speed, and strength, in addition to the built-in electronics granting matchless control of Imperium technology. While Dahak has known for millennia where Anu's forces have bunkered up—under the South Pole in Antarctica—their base is protected by extremely strong force fields, force fields so strong that to penetrate them and destroy the base would require Dahaks heavy weaponry, which would inevitably kill a significant percentage of the human population of Earth. MacIntyre returns to his home to renew contacts with his elder brother, Sean, and to enlist him in a scheme to discover the mutineers' agent in the space program. It initially succeeds, but when he and Sean attempt to contact the agent, they discover their scan of the space program building was detected. MacIntyre and Sean fend off some of the mutineers (at the cost of Sean's life), but MacIntyre is rescued by an acquaintance, who sends him through a tunnel where he is captured by another group of mutineers. This group, led by former missile tech Horus, was a dissident splinter faction of Anu's, which turned against him after the mutiny. Despite supporting Anu during the mutiny itself, Horus and his crew committed a double mutiny against Anu and fled into hiding on Earth. Once they reached Earth, they entered stasis so that the crew would survive however long it would take for civilization to reappear on Earth (Anu at the time enforced primitivism). Now, with civilization re-emerging on Earth, his group has begun a passive, behind-the-scenes war against Anu. Because they are heavily outnumbered in weaponry, they have been forced to always play it very