Second Chance War

Choice

Major General Hughes took a folder off from a pile on the side and slid it in front of Thomas. OPERATION KINGMAKER was stamped in red on the front of it, along with the words HIGHEST PRIORITY/CLASSIFICATION ALPHA ROMEO/EYES ONLY/DESTROY AFTER USE. Hughes looked at Thomas for only the briefest of moments before he warned him of the consequences of opening the file.

"If you open this file, there is no going back Thomas, any other file and we would watch you for awhile, but this one. This file is too important to be casually looked at. Can't risk the details getting out one way or another. Damn I wish I could smoke in here." The Major General was fumbling with the breast pocket on his uniform before he sighed and stopped. Thomas had a decision to make, he could take and open this file, going deeper down the rabbit hole, or he could look at some of the other files.

Why would I look at the other files though, Thomas was thinking. Kingmaker related directly to him, he might be able to learn more about himself through it, or maybe he might even be able to ascend to a higher rank where he could ask those questions. There was no question about it, Operation Kingmaker was his best bet to accomplish most of, if not all of his goals.

"Allow me to look at the Operation Kingmaker folder," Thomas pulled the folder over and opened it up. It was very ambitious, that was the first thing Thomas noted, the second thing Thomas noted and one which surprised him a little bit, was the fact that the operation revolved around getting his soul and the other soul to fuse, thereby creating a new existence and hopefully cementing his position in this reality. If they could do that, maybe nothing would happen on June fourth in a few years.

The contents of the file seemed really complex, but they were broken down into a few main ideas and some recommendations. First and foremost, the training and formation of an elite company designed to go behind enemy lines and cause havoc by: Assassinating enemy leadership, disrupting supply lines, cutting of communications, and other miscellaneous but important tasks. Basically extreme risk high reward operations. Second, periodic testing on him using prototype and theoretical technology to try to assimilate and combine both souls in his body, with the outcome being Thomas on top of course. Thomas wouldn't have it any other way and he was sure, that it would be preferable to have a soldier like him versus an American spy from the future who has many tricks up his sleeves and probably knows more about the technology in the journal than he does.

After all, it may take time for them to decode the journal, but it also would be the safest bet as Thomas would also be able to decode the journal once his soul takes over the body completely. The third benefit to all of this is that Thomas will personally lead a squad of people hand-picked from a set of dossiers of the most highly skilled people in the world, as long as they have allegiance to America of course. There were a few minor benefits of little note, they benefited both sides, but overall they weren't very useful. He did see something interesting of note.

"Major General Hughes sir, what is Chemical Course HB-105?" Thomas was curious, would this turn him into some kind of super soldier? He wondered what it'd be like to be a superhero. With this turn him into Captain America, make him more like Captain Marvel? They were popular comic book superheros, Captain America was always his favorite. Major General Hughes chuckled, he could tell what Thomas was thinking.

"No sergeant, it's not what you think. Chemical Course HB-105 is a series of steroids and hormonal drug treatments designed to give your body a boost in muscle mass and density, more so than Captain America, but most definitely much less. It's designed to have little to no side effects if successful, but the risk is high, very high. Mortality rates are shown to be at seventy seven percent. Well there is one thing that it will do that not even Captain America or Wonder Woman or any of those comic book heroes have. Superhuman reflexes. Your reflexes will be greater than a cat, your body will have sufficient muscles to keep up. It won't make you a superhero, but in high adrenaline situations, the world may very well come to a full stop for you."

"What about the hand-picked dossiers? Where are those?" Thomas asked.

"Right here in this stack, I'll pull them out for you, but only because you no longer have a choice in any of this. You made your choice when you asked for the Operation Kingmaker file. Oh and just so you know, only you will go through CC HB-105, your hand-picked squad will not. So you'll have to remember that in the field. " The Major General fished around in the stack and pulled out a thick set of files, individually there were about thirty, but together they looked like a hundred or more, it was quite impressive.

"Right, so there are thirty three dossiers here, but you can only pick twelves. Once you've made your selection, toss away the other envelopes, preferably away from the table. Maybe at the door. Or that wall over there." The General Major hooked his thumb over at the wall that he had shouted at earlier. He must really have a beef with those men in there or something. A sudden knock from the wall came in a flurry of sequences.

"Yeah I bet you do! How about we see who has a job at the end of all this huh?!" The Major General shouted at the wall. The flurry of knocking went silent almost immediately. Whoever was in there, he could only assume it was a room, must have been terrified of Hughes threats.

"This whole project is headed by me and General Eisenhower, just one word and I could probably have him cleaning latrines for the rest of his career." Major General Hughes winked at Thomas. Now Thomas understood why everyone deferred to the major general, he was the direct supervisor of the whole project and only reported to Eisenhower. How was a big project like this kept under wraps? Surely a senate hearing committee had to hear about this proposal so they could secure the funds for it? Politics is a giant mess for sure, Thomas strives not to be political ever, not even in his previous life was he political.

"Don't worry about the funding, as soon as we showed the committee some of the technology we made with the journal they shut up immediately. Officially the project was denied and all related news and information deleted and wiped from existence. Unofficially we are operating out of the classified funds that the government has lying around. Many other projects got cancelled this year in favor of this one. All made possible by you and Kincade." The Major General was all big smiles, he got off the chair and walked over to the one wall. He knocked on it and the most important sentence in the history of mankind came out of his mouth.

"Operation Kingmaker is a go."