The Reign of Man: Hell on Earth

By Elbert Lewis Jr

The Reign of MAN is the third installment in the Dawn of MAN series. It chronicles Logan’s attempts to unite humanity after earth is caught up in an interstellar war for domination of the Milky Way galaxy. While nearly single-handedly holding at bay one alien threat he must convince another alien race that mankind is a worthy ally and should be saved from annihilation and extinction.
Logan is forced to undergo numerous enhancements and genetic accelerations in order to prove that he is the long-awaited Mutation Accelerated Nemesis, the ultimate warrior, and that the human race can and will produce many more
Before the human race can be united, Logan must first find a way to deal with rising racial tensions, civil war, wholesale religious strife, a resurgence of communism, battles over strategic resources and nuclear exchanges between several sworn enemies.
The situation on Earth is dire and the future of mankind is bleak. The introduction of advanced alien technology has given man the ability to truly destroy the planet. In order to save mankind from self-destruction, Logan must take drastic actions and use his access to quantum energy to assume dictatorial powers over the peoples of Earth and the fledgling human colonies.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Nov 23, 2021
• ISBN: 9781663232175

Elbert Lewis Jr

Elbert Lewis, Jr. is a former Marine who served with the 3rd Division in Vietnam [1969-1970]. He earned a BS in Civil Engineering from the University of Cincinnati Evening College and a Professional Engineer certificate from the State of Ohio. He served the citizens of Cincinnati for thirty years in various positions from labor, to senior engineer, to Assistant Superintendent. He retired in 1999 to pursue his interests in writing science fiction, portraiture and podcasting.

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Copyright © 2021 Elbert Lewis, Jr.

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except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue

in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Cover graphic by: ShutterStock

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ISBN: 978-1-6632-3218-2 (sc)

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Contents

Acknowledgements

Prologue

Part I   Inquisition

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Part II   Acceleration

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Part III   Alliance

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Part IV   Offense

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Part V   Treachery

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Part VI   Dominance

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Epilogue

For KD

Acknowledgements

I would like to express my heartfelt appreciation to my beta readers; Karen Davis, Kathy Glover, Darlene Robinson, Debora Lewis, Larry Jackson and Ronald Foster. Thank you, one and all, for your timely and thought-provoking insights. As always, I want to thank my editor Amy Reeb for her invaluable work in bringing this story to fruition.

Unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who possess it.

And this I know… that where laws end, tyranny begins,

— William Pitt, Earl of Chatham

1708 - 1778

Prologue

Admiral Harold S. Danton, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, his face pale and haggard from eleven straight days of directing a losing battle, nevertheless maintained an erect military bearing. Danton, taciturn and humorless in the best of circumstances, was dejected and emotionally spent. He held the undivided attention of the President, his surviving cabinet members and what remained of the United Earth Executive Council. He had the somber task of briefing them on the plight of the United Earth Armed Forces Space Command.

The extent of their confirmed losses was staggering and had grave implications given the emergence of another, even larger, alien fleet in the outer reaches of the solar system. After two battles with the Hadaran invaders, the fleets of the UEAF Space Command were spent after suffering nearly seventy percent losses in crews and warships. Danton and everyone in attendance were keenly aware that mounting a successful defense of Earth against the advancing Hadaran juggernaut was unlikely and marshaling enough reserves to meet the new threat was a pipe dream. The sense of doom was pervasive and an undercurrent of panic ran just below the surface of the collective mindset.

All eyes were glued to the gigantic wall monitor displaying deployments of the meager defense forces in high Earth orbit. The blue icons were cold and uncaring representations of the lives that were about to be sacrificed in the defense of human civilization. If they failed—when they failed—the total annihilation of the human race at the hands of the implacable Hadarans or unconditional surrender and enslavement were the only two possible outcomes.

Suddenly everyone’s attention was pulled away from the screen when Logan pushed back violently from the table, jumped to his feet while grabbing his head and screaming from excruciating pain.

A collective gasp went out from the officials in the room.

Lieutenant Jessica Davidson and Major Jerome Wallace sprang quickly to his side, each grabbing an arm and preventing him from collapsing after his knees buckled. His screams soon subsided to deep moans. One cabinet member, a medical doctor, hurriedly swept everything from one end of the conference table. He instructed them to help Logan lay down and to loosen his uniform tie. He made sure Logan’s airway was clear, checked his pulse and then tried to examine his eyes. Logan had recovered somewhat and turned his head away in protest, then weakly pushed the doctor’s hand away.

I… I’m okay… I just need a minute, Logan croaked as he swung his legs off the table and tried to stand but lost his balance again.

Jessica held onto his arm while Wallace swung a chair around and they helped Logan ease back down. For several long moments, he sat slumped in the chair moaning with his head still cradled in his hands.

The President pulled the doctor aside for a private conversation while the rest of the attendees dispersed into small groups; all were discussing the implications of Logan, the Space Marshal and savior of Earth, being incapacitated at this critical juncture, interspersed with fearful glances to see if his condition was worsening. The prevailing sense of doom deepened.

Logan gradually regained enough control of his faculties to stand unassisted. The President rushed over and placed a fatherly hand on his shoulder. The others crowded around them. You gave us quite a scare, son. Are you alright? Can you tell us what happened and what we can do to help?

Logan shook his head, Don’t worry about me, Mr. President. That new fleet is not Hadaran, it’s Scorpiin. I received a communication from them via a tachyon transmission through a micro-channel in my implant, a backdoor channel… one I didn’t know existed. He frowned deeply, They weren’t trying to harm me. They inadvertently used too much power on the carrier wave than was necessary. It felt like someone was using a jack hammer inside my skull.

Logan fell silent as he gazed slowly around the room. The anxious faces that stared back were a contrast of gloom and doom mixed with the wishful thinking that he could still be their salvation.

The expression on Logon’s face all but dashed their hopes.

Jessica was also shocked to see that expression of fear painted across his face. It was an emotion she had never before seen in him. When he spoke again it was in a voice totally devoid of hope, also something she’d never experienced.

The Scorpiins have come to reclaim their property, Logan said with infinite sadness.

Jessica bristled, They don’t own you, Logan.

Logan shook his head slowly, sadly. He then briefly hugged her, not caring how inappropriate it was for members of the UEAF to display affection in public, while in uniform.

Not just me, Jess, Logan said, his voice just above a whisper. They’re here to reclaim the whole human race.

Part I

Inquisition

The great cycle of the ages is renewed.

Now justice returns, returns the Golden Age;

A new generation now descends from on high.

—Virgil [Publius Vergilius Maro]

70-19 B.C.

Chapter 1

Logan felt the despairing certainty of a death row inmate walking the last few yards to the execution chamber and the end of his existence. The prospect of his death did not frighten him. As a professional soldier, a true warrior, he’d long ago accepted the possibility of an early, violent death.

Sadly, no eleventh-hour reprieve from a governor would intervene to save him. Even worse, his knowledge of the true origin of modern man denied him the comfort of repenting his transgressions to a god, praying for forgiveness and the promise of a better afterlife. Maybe it’s for the best. Death is no pain or suffering, no regrets, no nothing. Those thoughts were almost comforting.

The Scorpiins, he recalled, had no death penalty, mainly because their species and society had no criminals or crime to speak of. But he knew from experience they could be coldly efficient when dispensing death in battle. The murders he committed during his escape from them, nearly forty years earlier, had probably been the first atrocity of that nature committed in thousands of years of Scorpiin history. Maybe they didn’t have a codified death penalty but he was certain they would make an exception for him, more like an example of him.

In order to escape forced servitude in the Scorpiin Alien Legion and ensure they would have no inkling of his survival, he killed the technicians, in cold blood. They were assisting Logan in acclimating to the intricacies of interfacing, melding his mind, with an experimental warship’s AI through the cybernetic implant imbedded deep within the cerebellum of his brain.

The Scorpiins, while subjecting Logan to the memory-wiping procedures performed on all abductees, correctly mapped the extent of the downloaded information from two sessions under their Trans-Cerebral Imprinter, a machine that encoded vast amounts of data directly into the engrams of a sentient brain. However, they grossly underestimated the intrinsic elasticity of his brain or the extent to which he’d retained his memory. Even more critical, they failed to realize the depth of his rebelliousness.

The opportunity to escape from them came when the Scorpiin’s arch enemies, the Hadarans, launched a surprise attack on their staging area in a solar system many light years behind the battle lines. It came during Logan’s final war-gaming exercise with the fleet before being committed to battle in his new role.

After killing the technicians, he faked the destruction of the prototype research vessel and warship using a tactic he’d seen in an old WWII movie about submarine warfare. He positioned the bodies in an escape pod, then launched it. He also jettisoned various identifiable pieces of equipment out of an airlock, then raked the debris with laser fire as they dispersed into the wreckage of other destroyed warships. He fled in the ship, returned to Earth and successfully remained hidden from the Scorpiins for the better part of four decades while hiding in plain sight within American society.

He’d gotten away with his crimes for half a lifetime. But now, the Scorpiins knew that the experimental vessel, the warship he’d commandeered during his escape, wasn’t destroyed until recently, not forty years before. The question of the fate of the crew, five senior military technicians, would surely be front and center in the accounting to come.

Unknown to Logan, his deception had been unnecessary. His long reprieve from justice came at the hands of the Hadarans who captured and never relinquished control of the target solar system. The ship was recorded in the Scorpiin naval archives as destroyed in the battle. Its crew was listed as missing in action, along with the rest of the expeditionary fleet. It was just another entry in the annals of a never-ending war.

When Logan returned to Earth in 1975, he’d christened the stolen warship Shaka after the Zulu warrior king. Although he retained some allegiance to his homeland, he was reluctant to turn the Shaka, and the advanced technology it exemplified, over to the US government that allowed discrimination against its minority citizens. Aligning himself with another nation would have severely destabilized the geopolitical situation, intensified the cold war, and possibly ignited a conflict between the super powers. Instead, Logan decided to establish a colony on a planet many light years from Earth, which he named Haven.

He set about finding other polyracial genome adepts within the melting-pot of America. Then, over three-plus decades, he recruited thousands of polyracial Americans and convinced them to leave Earth and make a new home on Haven. He considered them an insurance policy against Earth becoming even more embroiled in the GOD Project than it already was or being dragged into an interstellar war where species extinction and destruction of planets were not unheard of. Unforeseen events would make his strategy more successful than he ever thought possible.

After a forty-year reprieve, the Hadarans discovered Earth and Logan had to come out of hiding and use advanced Scorpiin technology to defend Earth and the human race. That brought the Scorpiins into the mix, portending a three-cornered war. Logan knew that it was just a matter of time, ergo the colony on Haven. After a titanic space battle, the Scorpiins won the first round over the prize but time would tell whether Earth would remain in the Scorpiin sphere of influence or be absorbed into the Hadaran imperium.

Now Logan’s worse fear had been realized and he was in route to surrender himself to the Scorpiins, to face the music for his crimes. Those crimes, actions from his point of view, were what any POW was obligated to do, he escaped. It seemed a lifetime ago since he committed those murders but he was sure that just as with most human cultures, there was probably not a statute of limitations for murder under the Scorpiin legal system. Or maybe he would be subjected to Scorpiin military justice. After all, he had been a member of the Scorpiin’s Alien Legion, one of tens of thousands of abductees taken from Earth, and other planets, then forced to do battle with the Hadarans.

If not for his elevated brain elasticity, by virtue of his unique lineage—Logan was polyracial, possessing genes from every human racial group mutated from the Neanderthals—the memories of his life on Earth would have been erased by the brainwashing they called indoctrination and reeducation. He would have been rendered another cultureless automaton like so many others. When the retention of memories of his past life became known to the Scorpiin military leaders, he was taken out of the field and assigned to the Naval Research Bureau. His ability to resist the initial memory-wipe was the first indication that Logan was different from other humans harvested from Earth. It was far from the last oddity discovered during his participation in the study. He became a full-blown bioweapons research project which culminated in his preliminary designation as the prototype MAN, a Mutation Accelerated Nemesis, the ultimate warrior.

Overshadowing his pending rendezvous with his executioner was the one regret that plagued his thoughts and threatened to send him into the depths of despair, deeper than the prospect of his own death. He’d failed to adequately prepare the human race for war with the Hadarans and now the Scorpiins posed another imminent threat. As fate would have it, a Hadaran survey flotilla discovered Earth. Their mission was to establish a forward operating base on the continent of Australia, in support of a new front and offensive against the Scorpiins.

Logan came out of hiding, revealed his existence to the US government. He then used the Shaka and the bounty of military strategies imprinted into his brain to aid Earth’s nuclear powers in barely defeating the alien invasion force. The victory came at the cost of millions of lives and left eighty percent of Australia, a radioactive wasteland.

When Logan’s existence was reveled and his role in defeating the Hadarans made known, he was proclaimed the savior of mankind. In the weeks following the battle, he reneged on his secret deal with US government and made the entire Scorpiin science and technology database, contained in Shaka’s memory banks, available to every nation on Earth. Again, he was widely lauded for his gift of advanced technology to the world and later appointed Space Marshal, commander of all United Earth Armed Forces.

Although great strides were made in the next eighteen months of integrating human and Scorpiin technology—the reverse engineering of the TCI had been instrumental in that regard—it was not enough. There was insufficient time to properly prepare the human race for the onslaught of the follow-on assault fleet dispatched by the Hadaran Imperium.

Initially the nascent UEAF Space Command defeated and destroyed a third-tier proxy fleet sacrificed by the Hadarans to ascertain Earth’s war-fighting ability and soften up the hastily prepared solar system defenses. That enemy fleet was manned by a race of beings who’d just entered the age of flight when their planet was invaded, conquered and absorbed into the Hadaran Imperium.

The second battle, against a top-tier Imperial fleet manned by Hadarans, was short-lived and disastrous for the UEAF. The Hadarans decimated the fledging space fleet of conventional jet aircraft converted to gravity drive and made space worthy. Hundreds of spaceships were destroyed and thousands of brave men and women of Space Command died in the defense of Earth. After the space fleets were roundly defeated, all of the recently established combat bases situated on Mars and various moons were either destroyed by the Hadarans or abandoned. The following assault on the near-Earth defense forces was catastrophic for the planet and the human race.

The phrase collateral damage took on a whole new meaning in the age of interstellar warfare. More than two-hundred million civilians perished when an errant missile, with a one-hundred megaton, third generation fusion warhead, detonated off the coast of Portugal. The blast killed tens of millions in southern Europe and Northwest Africa. The electro-magnetic pulse (EMP), destroyed the electrical grids across the rest of Europe, most of Northern Africa and the Middle East.

To make matters worse, the seismic shock from the titanic blast propagated through the ocean floor and the earth’s crust, disturbed a fragile geological fault between the American and Eurasian tectonic plates. It caused massive Earthquakes all along the fault, including the slopes of the island La Palma and others in the Canary Island chain. The displacement of more than 956 trillion cubic yards of bedrock occurred within the northern Atlantic. The colossal amount of material displaced an equal volume of ocean and pushed the wall of water all the way across the Atlantic at nearly five hundred miles per hour.

It towered into an eight-hundred-foot tsunami when it reached the shallow waters of the coastal shelf five hours later. The entire eastern seaboard of the United States was devastated. The state of Florida was nearly depopulated. Cuba and other island nations in the Caribbean were swept clean of life. All seemed lost. Logan, the UEAF command staff, the United Earth government and the rest of humanity was braced for an invasion of Earth and probable enslavement of mankind.

In order to counter the Hadaran strategy and retain Earth’s population to support their war effort with human abductees and protect the source of test subjects for their Nemesis Project, the Scorpiin War Ministry intervened and dispatched a superior fleet to defend the Sol system. In an epic twenty-two-day battle, they defeated the Hadarans, reclaimed the human race and Earth’s planetary resources for the race of beings inhabiting the Earth-like planet Thoi which orbited the star designated 18 Scorpii. Now the fate of Earth and mankind hung in the balance, caught between two superior alien races engaged in a war that started in 1300 AD.

Unknown to the Scorpiins, Logan had undergone a third enhancement session under a TransCerebral Imprinter or TCI of human manufacture. It vastly increased his cognitive abilities and access to the implants many heretofore unexplored functions. When they communicated, through Logan’s cybernetic link, their intentions to regain full control of Earth, they unwittingly left a digital imprint of the tachyon frequencies over which the Scorpiin warship’s communication system operated.

During the days and weeks between the summons from the Scorpiins and their defeat of the Hadaran fleet, Logan spent nearly every waking hour analyzing the engrams which now formed an indelible memory of the communication. He now had knowledge of the gravitic modulation, electro-magnetic frequency variation and other characteristics of the transmission. It gave him a reasonable approximation of the Scorpiin’s latest communications protocols.

Logan was convinced that somehow, at some point in time, he was going to find a way to exploit the intel to give him an advantage in dealing with the Scorpiins. For the time being he was constrained by the threat the Scorpiin Fleet posed to Earth. He was powerless to do anything other than submit to their demands and surrender himself into their custody. To do otherwise would endanger the entire human race, not to mention the possibility of the Scorpiins transmitting a lethal neuro-electronic spike through another unknown backdoor channel of his implant.

Now, on the eve of his probable demise, Logan had sunk into a well of depression. His sense of personal loss was beginning to press in on him. His chance at a normal life with Jessica, perhaps children, a real family, all seemed distant and unlikely now. On a whim, or a subconscious act of defiance, Logan sent the interceptor into a series of barrel rolls, loops and figure eights that was probably his last taste of freedom. He knew his antics would make the Scorpiin sensor operators instantly suspicious of his intentions. Almost immediately his instrument panel lit up, flashing multiple warnings of Scorpiin sensor scans and targeting radars locking onto his craft.

Logan was piloting his converted GF-15E Strike Eagle through the tenuous stratosphere when it dawned on him that he would miss his Eagle. The venerable aircraft had been an integral part of America’s air defense and tactical operations for decades before it was replaced by the F-16 Falcon. The converted—G for gravity drive—spacecraft version was a marvel of integration of Scorpiin and human technologies. Now it resembled an F-15E that swallowed two frisbees with concave sides facing each other, or more like a flying saucer with a cockpit, wing tips and twin tail sections added as an afterthought. When the UEAF elevated him to Space Marshal, he was assigned the converted fighter for his personal transportation within the solar system.

Logan smiled, his patented wry smile. He was smiling but he was aware that this was serious business. Approaching a fully armed Scorpiin naval formation in any way other than the prescribed manner, was to invite a hail of anti-shipping missiles, high velocity kinetic projectiles, point defense laser fire and certain destruction.

He prudently brought the craft back to linear flight then reached to his electronics control panel and canceled all defensive counter measures that the ship’s rudimentary AI had automatically activated. The Eagle was now transparent to their sensors as Logan resumed a direct flight path towards the Scorpiin fleet.

Despite his expectation of personal doom, Logan was guardedly optimistic about the prospects for the survival of the rest of the human race. The fact that the Scorpiins had come to their defense, and not attacked UEAF space forces after defeating the Hadaran invasion fleet, was a good sign. They had maintained a non-threatening posture as the surviving UEAF warships reformed into provisional squadrons, abandoned Mars and the surviving moon-based outposts, then retreated back to fortress Earth.

Hopefully, the Scorpiins would continue their Nemesis Project, accelerating humans to produce an army of MANs. Their treatment of the human race would include coerced cross-racial breeding. Although hardly benevolent, it would be more humane than Hadaran rule and outright slavery. Logan renamed it the GOD—Genetically Optimized Development—Project, when he revealed the true origin of modern man to the world. He thought at the time it would be more impactful with the masses. His unfortunate attempt at social engineering would have disastrous consequences and lead to tens of thousands of deaths.

Logan firmly believed that although he’d not performed at the level of a MAN, he could be the liaison between the Scorpiins and the human race, an advocate for the fair treatment of mankind. He had been gene-enhanced to a degree that in some aspects placed him—or more accurately, his brain—hundreds of thousands of years further along the evolutionary path than ordinary humans. But in his eyes, he clearly was not a MAN. A true MAN would not have failed as miserably as he had. In his depths of despair, he didn’t realize he was being unfairly critical of his performance and what he’d accomplished. In reality, he’d led Earth’s fledgling space force to a brilliant, albeit temporary, victory and an impressive showing against an arguably superior enemy force. He unwittingly gave the human race a huge bargaining chip.

At one point, Logan vowed that he would not be taken alive and used as a human guinea pig again. Many times, during the three weeks it took the Scorpiins to defeat the Hadaran fleet, he’d considered going out in a blaze of glory by attacking the first Scorpiin warship that established Earth orbit. Jessica had divined, from their brief conservations and his dark moods, what he was planning. She enlisted the aid of the President and Logan’s best friends, National Security Advisor Mark Olson and Major Jerome Wallace, in convincing him that it would be sheer folly to throw his life away in a meaningless gesture. They eventually wore him down, made him give his word of honor he would face whatever the Scorpiins had in store for him and do everything he could to survive.

It wasn’t long before the Scorpiin ships were visible to the naked eye through the crystal steel canopy. Beyond the fleet was the moon, a couple of planets and then the backdrop of infinite space speckled with the billions of stars in the Milky Way and endless multitudes of galaxies. Logan gazed at the magnificent view for long moments. He thought, perhaps for the last time. It was only out in the vastness of space that he felt truly alive. He feasted his eyes and surrendered himself to its grandeur.

One of the capabilities he’d gained was the ability to let his mind function in total free-association where the sphere of normal consciousness was extraordinarily expanded. In that moment of deep contemplation, of transcendent cognizance, something mysterious and overwhelming overcame Logan. It was manifested at a level so deep within the core of his being, he had no inkling of its genesis. A wellspring of iron determination rose up and infused every fiber of his being. Suddenly he realized one thing with absolute certainty. Out there, among the universe of stars, were countless planets with oxygen-nitrogen atmospheres awaiting the footprint of man. Those virgin worlds were the stepping stones to his destiny and the future of humanity.

He closed his eyes and made a solemn vow to the cosmos that somehow, some way, he would be equal to the task of leading mankind into that grand and glorious future. With that realization, a deep calm, an all-encompassing serenity suffused his mind and body. In that moment, he was certain that he would not die while a hapless prisoner of the Scorpiins.

As expected, Logan received detailed final approach and docking instructions via a transmission through his cybernetic implant. This time at a power level that didn’t push him to the brink of unconsciousness or fry his brain. It made him smile because the message augmented and reinforced the transmission protocols he’d garnered from the first. It bolstered his confidence. On the downside, their detailed knowledge of the functions of his implant was troubling.

The third session under a TCI, administrated by DARPA scientists with the first machine manufactured by man, increased his capabilities. He planned to fully exploit those amplified abilities when the time was right. For months he’d consciously downplayed or concealed the full extent of his enhancements when on Earth and in the company of ordinary people. He wanted to avoid a xenophobic reaction or even worse, misplaced hero worship. This situation was totally different and he would be free to push the limits of his abilities. He was almost looking forward to the confrontation—almost.

Following their instructions precisely, he piloted his Eagle towards a large flotilla of ships, through the destroyer screen and around several escort cruisers in the formation to reach his destination, a warship was more than a half a mile long. As he got closer he recognized the ship as a CCB, a Command and Control Battleship, the third largest class of warship in their navy and the flagship of the Scorpiin fleet.

He could not help but admire the monolithic, lethal beauty of the behemoth. It was dotted with numerous weapon stations; missile launchers, plasma blisters, rail guns, point defense laser pods and force field projectors. He wished he’d had such warships to deploy in the defense of Earth. If not for the dire circumstances of this reunion, the sight of the ship would have made him nostalgic for his time spent with the Scorpiin Alien Legion.

A huge airlock, large enough to swallow a B-52, yawned open to receive his craft. It was his first landing on a carrier, but he pulled it off without resorting to the crash presser field designed for returning small craft that had sustained too much battle damage to land properly.

Ten minutes later, after the hangar deck had been repressurized, Logan left the cockpit, exited the Eagle’s airlock then stepped down onto the steel deck plates. Before he straightened up, a squad of ten Scorpiin Marines with weapons at the ready, had surrounded him. Each towered over Logan at a uniform six and a half feet in height; he was somewhat surprised to discover that all of them were female. He smiled when he was instructed in halting english relinquish any weapons. He had not spoken their language in nearly four decades but his eidetic memory served him well. When he responded in perfect Thoin that he was unarmed, the officer’s face displayed mild surprise at his fluid use of their language but she directed one of her Marines to search him. The Scorpiin ran a hand-held scanner over his entire body, including the soles of his shoes. She let the scanner linger for a moment or two over the chest full of medals adorning Logan’s dress uniform.

When she was satisfied that he was indeed unarmed, the officer snapped, Follow me. Then she about-faced sharply, as was the custom of Scorpiin Marines, and led the detail, with the rest of the Scorpiins bracketing Logan, into the bowels of the battleship. They marched him into a passageway that was at least thirty feet wide and appeared to run half of the length of the ship. He had to consciously adjust his stride in the lower generated gravity, set to Thoin standard. Several wheeled, electric vehicles passed them by, but it seemed he was not worthy of riding to his inquisition. He was a huge curiosity to the crew members they passed. A huMan—a derogatory version of human—on the fleet’s flag ship had never happened before.

After walking twenty minutes at a brisk pace towards the bow, he was directed into a passageway that branched off at a right angle and led deeper into the interior of the massive ship. Logan kept his head on a swivel, scrutinizing and memorizing every aspect, facet and feature in sight. Five more minutes brought them to a lift tube clearly labeled for use by the command staff. Only three members of his escort entered the tube with Logan, although it could have accommodated them all without being crowded. He surmised his docile behavior thus far had allayed any concerns that he might be a serious security risk. That made him smile.

Throughout the trip his mind had been racing. His implant was ablaze, tracing and analyzing the sea of emissions, both electromagnetic and gravitic, permeating the interior of the ship. His catalog of communication and electronic control system data grew by the minute.

Logan felt an unexpected flutter in his gut as the lift-tube, riding an antigravity node, whisked them up three hundred feet in exactly seven and a half seconds according to Logan’s implant clock. He suspected the rapid ascent was intentional. Anyone with a weak stomach would have been on their knees, surrendering the contents of their stomach. Logan was proud that he stepped out of the lift tube as steady and surefooted as his escorts.

A short walk brought them to a large entrance that he recognized as a compression hatch. It was designed to maintain an atmosphere in the compartment on the other side, in the event of a hull breach or catastrophic damage to the ship. It opened in response to a silent electronic signal from the Scorpiin officer. Logan was happy to add it to the list of access frequencies he was sure his implant could duplicate, if and when the time came.

Enter, was the single and last word the officer spoke to Logan.

Inside the compartment was a small anteroom and security station. There stood another female security officer. Follow me, was all she had to say.

This officer was typical and towered over Logan’s six feet of height. Although six inches shorter, Logan weighed in at two-hundred and thirty pounds of solid muscle and bone. He probably outweighed her by sixty pounds. In fact, he was muscle-bound, a Mr. Universe, compared to any of the Marines he’d encountered, and they were typical of the Scorpiins, including the males.

The Scorpiins were lavender-gray in skin tone, humanoid and bilateral. They were reminiscent of the fictional natives of Pandora, without the blatantly racist tails. The biggest difference was the six digits at the end of each limb, with thumbs as long as the fingers. They’d evolved on Thoi, the fourth planet orbiting the star 18 Scorpii, with just eighty-one percent of Earth’s gravity. So, they were sorely lacking in the muscle mass and the strength departments.

On the other hand, they made up for it with a mastery of advanced martial arts. Although light-weight and thin in body structure, their Marines had developed a system of hand to hand combat, that refined over thousands of years, made them quite lethal. Logan had trained with them many times. However, there was another major difference between humans and Scorpiins. On the planet Thoi, they had no natural predators so they could not muster the visceral intensity and aggressiveness of Homo sapiens who were the apex predators of Earth’s animal kingdom. It was one of the main reasons the Scorpiins, who were mutated from the most evolved species on Thoi with Reiign DNA, sought out other races to do the lion’s share of their infantry fighting. They were simply not biologically or evolutionarily well suited for heavy personal combat. Hundreds of years of cloning had not changed that. However, in the air or in space, manning advanced warships, it was a different story. They were hundreds of years ahead of man in technological warfare.

In spite of their excessive height, Logan had always considered the Scorpiin females exotic and alluring. Not that any of them would stoop to have a personal relationship with a lowly, brutish huMan. Logan wondered briefly if beauty in the females of mutated species, including humans, was the result of the genetic tinkering within the Nemesis Projects, since in lower animals it was the males that were splendid.

The officer led Logan across the anteroom to another hatch that opened as they approached. This time Logan got an even more complete reading of the frequency of electro-magnetic signals controlling the locking mechanism. He was now absolutely certain he could use his implant to duplicate the signals that activated the circuits which controlled hatches and airlocks.

On the other side was an enormous compartment which contained a huge conference table and chairs bolted to the deck. Seated around the table were thirteen Scorpiins of various ranks and branches of service, identifiable by the assortment of uniforms and insignia.

His handler pointed to a spot near the foot of the table closest to the entrance. There was no chair so he stood at attention facing the head of the table and the officer seated in the power position. He was the equivalent of a fleet admiral.

Logan had feared from the very beginning that this day would come. He’d been very careful to conceal the Shaka in a deep crater on the dark side of the moon, or in the asteroid belt anytime a Scorpiin survey ship entered the Sol system to collect more human specimens. For three and a half decades he’d operated clandestinely, avoiding the Scorpiins at all costs, while hiding in plain sight within the African-American community in the US.