Personally, I like being alive.

The Mogs don’t pretend that they took my home planet of Lorien—which I barely remember—for any reason other than because they needed its resources. It’s the same reason they’re on Earth now. A planet as big as Earth will serve the Mogs well for decades before they have to go looking for another home—maybe even centuries. And the humans . . . well, it’s not like there’s anything really special about them. They’re pretty weak for the most part and are only barely managing to keep the planet alive as it is. One day soon there will be a full-scale invasion, and all their petty problems won’t mean anything, because suddenly there will be some incredibly powerful extraterrestrials lording over them. Showing them how to live. Giving their lives purpose.

And I’ll be one of their new rulers. Because the Mogs have seen the potential in me. They’ve promised me a spot as a commanding officer in the Mog ranks, with North America as my kingdom. My personal playground. And all I have to do is fight alongside them and help them capture the other Garde remaining on Earth. Then I can help the Garde see that there’s no way the Loric are ever going to defeat the Mogs. I’m assuming they were spoon-fed the same stories Rey, my Cêpan, told me when I was growing up: that the Mogs were our enemies.

But that’s not true. Or at least it doesn’t have to be true. Not if we join them.

After sitting around training and waiting for almost my entire life, it feels good to finally have an actual mission. To have a purpose. To not just be hiding and waiting for something to happen to me. It makes me actually want to train and study and get better, because what I’m working towards now isn’t some fairy tale Rey fed me over dinner on the island, but a future I can see.

I’ve learned a lot about the reasons why wars are fought and won in the last few weeks since I’ve been living in a Mog compound somewhere in the middle of West Virginia. In fact, most of my “research” hours are spent in an interrogation room that’s been converted into a study for me, where I learn about famous battles and conflicts or read the Great Book, which is the story of the Mogadorians and how their intellect and abilities outgrew their planet and forced them to seek other worlds to rule and guide. About how the Loric refused to share their resources or listen to reason when it came to adopting the Mogs as rulers. It’s a book written by Setrákus Ra, the unstoppable leader of the Mogs, and, well, let’s just say if I’d read it earlier, I would have had a much clearer viewpoint of the fight between the Mogs and the Loric than I did when I was hiding in a lean-to shack on a deserted island. I’ve begun to wonder if all my memories of being so young and happy on Lorien are just because I was too dumb and little to know what was really going on. I mean, any civilization that puts their last hope in a bunch of toddlers on spaceships has got to be a little bit out of whack, right?