SHADOW OF THE SCORPION

Raised to adulthood during the end of the war between the human Polity andthe vicious arthropoid race, the Prador, Ian Cormac is haunted by childhoodmemories of a sinister scorpion-shaped war drone and the burden of losseshe doesn't remember. In the years following the war he signs up with EarthCentral Security, and is sent out to help either restore or simply maintainorder on worlds devastated by Prador bombardment. There he discovers thatthough the old enemy remains as murderous as ever, it is not anywhere nearas perfidious or dangerous as some of his fellow humans, some of themcloser to him than he would like. Amidst the ruins left by wartimegenocides, he discovers in himself a cold capacity for violence, learnssome horrible truths about his own past and, set upon a course ofvengeance, tries merely to stay alive.