by mpaulwhelan
What if a government program was protecting something so vital, so important for all humanity, that virtually any evil committed to further its agenda was justified as the lesser evil? Would they stop asking: How much evil are we willing to commit in our effort to do good? – Robert S. McNamara, architect of the Vietnam War When an Air Force Pararescueman joins a desperate mission to rescue a downed team recovering a satellite in the Iranian desert, Lt. Evan “Poet” Black discovers the satellite is a craft, and it was not made by human hands. While saving a teammate, he is imbued with abilities that make him pivotal to interacting with the alien technology. When a charismatic Program representative offers him an opportunity to overcome deep feelings of cowardice, he jumps at it, joining a classified program so secret that disclosure of its existence has lethal consequences. Evan is told they are protecting humanity, but struggles with the morality of killing to keep the truth hidden. He accepts it as the lesser evil to even greater harms, and to prevent global societal collapse. As a struggle within the Program ignites, factions have split; a disclosure group ready to end the killings and tell the public, and those willing to protect the secret at all costs. Evan must decide if the truth is being suppressed out of a desire to retain global hegemony, or are they protecting civilization from a reality too terrifying to accept? Hannah is a former intelligence officer working as a journalist in Washington, D.C. investigating a brutal murder, Her investigation is blocked at every turn by a seemingly all powerful gov’t agency, with evidence of the crime vanishing faster than she can track it down. Hannah discovers an insider that has information that can lead her to the truth. Dylan, a powerful and charismatic head of the Alpha teams conducting the craft recoveries, is revealed to have a weakness that he's desperate to conceal from Evan, his superiors, and from the Program. At the mid-point, Evan gets what he wants in the most tragic way possible, learning that it’s not what he needs. A meeting with a secretive friend threatens to destroy everything he’s worked toward, just at the moment he felt he had found acceptance and was putting his trauma behind him. As Hannah's investigation turns up the heat, the Program is forced to act. All three scramble to make a deal, but in order for one to survive, the others must die. When Hannah gets too close, she’s targeted for assassination. Time is running out, and the wrong choice will be catastrophic. When Evan is ordered to kill a journalist investigating a brutal program murder in Washington, D.C., he must decide between loyalty to the Program, his mentor, or to his own conscience. How far will he have to go to protect the secrets of The Legacy Program?
