Without waiting for a reply, Wagner sauntered back the way he had come. Everything he envisioned stretched out ahead of him, from that very moment to an empire inconceivable for anyone else of his generation. The threads tying them all together lay for him alone to see.
Every strand rested in his hands, the eternal puppet master.
APPROACHING FORWARD BASE ZULU
17:05 MST
DAY 745
(-5 DAYS)
A dark cloud hung over the members of Third Platoon, A-Company, Second Battalion. Jenkins suspected it emanated from Lieutenant McCabe and, from there, infected everyone else. Sitting in the transport, he glanced over the various morose faces. No laughter or banter broke out, and all avoided eye contact with one another. The men of the former Mars Expeditionary Force stared at nothing, lips clamped ti
