Joe Jukic leaned back in the cracked leather seat of the Martian outpost briefing room, the red dust still clinging to his boots. The hum of the life-support systems filled the silence until Felipe Coronel lit a Native American cigarette, staring at the holographic projection between them.
The map showed the Cydonia region, but not the tourist version with the “Face on Mars” for conspiracy buffs. This was military intel—overlaying ancient ruins with fresh construction grids, hangars, and the unmistakable sigils of Earth’s darkest societies.
“Four factions,” Felipe said, flicking ash into a zero-gravity tray. “Skull and Bones. Black Sun. Vril. Thule. Used to be rivals. Now they’ve merged. Mars is their Vatican.”
Joe narrowed his eyes. “That merger isn’t about survival. It’s about control. Skull and Bones brings the Yale intel networks, Black Sun brings the Nazi occult legacy, Vril brings the off-world propulsion tech, and Thule… well, they’re the ideologues. They’re here to build a Fourth Reich on the Red Planet.”
Felipe swiped the hologram to reveal underground chambers, each lined with energy cores pulsing like the heartbeat of something alive. “They’ve got reverse-engineered Haunebu craft. Plasma drives. Rumor says they even have a portal—linked to Antarctica and the Moon. A Martian triangle.”
Joe gave a short, bitter laugh. “Let me guess—financed by Earth’s biggest corporations under the guise of ‘terraforming research.’ They’re not just colonizing Mars—they’re weaponizing it.”
Felipe leaned forward, lowering his voice. “The worst part? The merger charter calls it the Solar Reich Mandate. They believe whoever controls Mars controls the next thousand years of human civilization.”
The lights flickered, a reminder that someone—maybe even one of the four societies—was listening. Joe and Felipe both knew they were running out of time.
“Then we burn their base to the Martian ground,” Joe said flatly, “before they finish building their empire.”
Felipe crushed his cigarette. “Welcome to the real war, hermano. Earth was just the rehearsal.”
