This is a previously published edition of ISBN 9781505630848.

2566 A.D. Five centuries ago, Earth sold a million children into slavery, the price of protection from the regional superpower. One group of slaves was bio-engineered and augmented to fight for alien officers as the Human Marine Corps.

To most alien eyes the Corps is a joke: plasma fodder equipped with third-rate cast-offs and so stupid that they go off to die actually believing they are genuine warriors.

But there are others who look deeper and see potential. To them the human Marines could be the wellspring of something far greater…

FREEDOM!

Unlike the other Marines on board the troop ship Beowulf, when eighteen-year old Arun McEwan is woken from cryo to board an enemy ship, he already knows he will survive: his destiny to lead the Human Legion has been foretold.

But there are other factions who will stop at nothing to bring about their rival dreams for humanity’s future.

Isolated on a ship rocked by mutiny, betrayal, and murder, Arun must find new allies amongst the most detested of the Navy crew: the freaks…