ABOUT THE LOST EMPIRE:Fedorov returns from the deep past, delivered safely by the Old Ones. He discovers a new and grave threat being prepared by the Kroth.

As Karpov considers how to face that threat, Kamenski complicates matters by asking for a new mission, not on Apollo, but on Kirov. The Kirov Series shifts gears, tacking away from the climactic confrontation with the Kroth to take on a mission of great importance.

Fedorov has already learned that Carthage has survived to modern times, and its advanced science contributing to the eventual development of Earthforce. But Director Kamenski has discovered an intervention has been made in the history of the 1970s that plunges Europe into war.

Somehow, in that dark period, Prussia and Italia team up to destroy Carthage, and the technology is not available to successfully build Earthforce. How did this happen?WWII is late in coming, and was not fought in the 1940s because neither Hitler nor Mussolini survived the First World War.

Yet now another strongman has risen in Italia and taken the moniker of Il Duce upon himself. Set on expanding Roman influence and territorial holdings.

Il Duce sends his vaunted battleship Impero and challenges the Royal Navy, sinking the British Cruiser Norfolk to trigger the start of hostilities in the Mediterranean. A war erupts that soon involves all of Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia.

To the North, the reigning Prussian Kaiser Frederik Wilhelm III watches developments closely before launching his own war of expansion into Poland. Il Duce takes his war to North Africa and invades Egypt to throw out the British and close the Suez Canal to Allied powers.

But Carthage rises to lead the Allied effort in the Med, declaring a fourth Punic war against Italia, set on driving the Italians out of North Africa to reopen the Suez Canal. This sets up a confrontation when the Axis powers team up to try and eliminate Carthage and her empire, and if Carthage falls, Earthforce never gets built to face the Kroth.

Coming Soon: Impero Italia is the second volume covering this war, and then the Mars segment of the series resumes when the Kroth put their new war plan into motion. Will Earthforce be there to face them? The outcome of the war in 1972 will determine that.

Yet a discovery made by Karpov the younger reveals a startling secret that could help Earth survive. It’s fate now depends on lost empires—not one, but two.

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