Earning an Al Qaeda commander’s trust had not been difficult; it had simply required that Shahim do something so atrocious that no one could doubt his resolve in the jihad they had all committed their lives to. After the explosion at the US Air Force base in Afghanistan had killed so many infidels, and claimed no fallen martyrs from the fighters’ ranks, he had been able to carry his blanket-wrapped black box into the camp he was sent to unhindered, no one daring to stop him.

It turned out to be Pei Leong-Lam who was the last to be able to return to his relay, the closed doors of the Chinese Training Camp keeping him penned up for the entire officer training class.

After three months, however, Leong-Lam was also to be the first among them to be assigned to a base. Based on Drill Sergeant Shih’s firm recommendation, he was to be sent to the prestigious Hong Kong Garrison. The day before deployment, he requested and was granted twelve hours leave by Shih out of respect for the way Leong-Lam had handled the drill sergeant’s abuse, and as Pei came into range of his buried relay, the connection was reestablished, and the eight were united once more.

Since its inception, the plan to infiltrate the earth’s superpowers had been founded on a very flexible set of parameters. No one could have predicted how earth’s major societies would change over the years that would pass from when the attack was launched to when the advance party actually arrived, so into the various parts of the team had been built a series of checks and balances.

Like all civilized societies, the one that was descending upon us was as complex and multi-faceted as our own. Factions and political alliances were as much a part of its systems of government as any of ours. However, an unparalleled unity of purpose had come from the discovery of a weaker, conquerable planet within their grasp. This could be a fresh start for the planet’s fiscal elite, a chance to expand out of the confines of their crowded, financially and politically saturated planet.

But as the plan to invade was formed, none of the prominent parties or dynastic families had been willing to give up control of the expedition to any of the others. So it had been decided that they would bake the same political diversity into the advanced team, and the invading army, which they ‘enjoyed’ in their own colorful governments.

The concession to politics had been further facilitated by the military decision to use a programming method known as personality-overlay to program the eight operatives, aiding their ability to appear less … robotic. Years of practice had led AI programmers, AIParents, or AIPs as they were called, to the conclusion that the fundamentally illogical nature of all animals was extremely difficult to fully duplicate in a fundamentally logical AI.