In our timeline, Operation Eagle Claw ended in disaster—eight Americans dead, fifty-two hostages still imprisoned, and a presidency broken. But in this recovered history, the mission succeeds. Against all odds, Delta Force extracts every hostage from Tehran in a daring night raid that reshapes the soul of a nation.

President Carter rides the wave of triumph to a second term. America rediscovers its faith in quiet strength. Solar panels rise where culture wars might have. The War on Terror unfolds with surgical precision—less bravado, more restraint.

But victory has its shadows. Through one pilot’s eyes, and the generations that follow, we glimpse what was gained... and what was quietly lost. When history turns on a single moment, the triumph echoes—but so do the ghosts.