Seventeen years ago, a twenty mile long alien ship entered the terran solar system. It was cloaked and undetectable as it hid on the dark side of the earth's moon. It released yet another much smaller three mile long alien ship that entered the orbit of Earth on the planet's dark side. As it circled the earth it telliported people from every continent on the face of the planet, as each one lay in their beds sleeping. From that night onward not only were they (no longer in Kansas any more, Dorothy) they were no longer in their homes on Earth. After a meeting with an alien admiral of a united consortium of inhabited worlds, they were informed that they were, to make a long story short, they were to be contestants of a sort, brought aboard to be trained, providing that they could be trained, in one earthen year, to do battle with the twenty mile long ship that awaited in the moon's orbit. The prize to the winner would be the planet Earth itself. Thirteen other worlds had played the game and had lost. Robert Jackson and the rest of humanity on the tiny blue marble known as Earth would bend the rules and cheat the aliens out of the first battle that they had ever lost. Now thirteen years later, it might not be as easy, for Jackson and humanity, as it was the first time.