Vaughn Heppner
THE TRAVELER SERIES
Galactic Marine (Book 1)
The Zero Stone (Book 3)
Earth becomes too hot for Jake Bayard. Too many shape-shifting aliens and people, including those on his own side, are trying to capture him in order to use his star-traveling abilities for their own greedy ends.
Bayard flees to Kaldar, a world devastated by atomic war and lousy with mutated rat-men and the Dark Brotherhood. At first, he’s just trying to stay alive. Then, he uncovers a mystery, one that, incredible as it seems, reaches all the way back to Earth. It could mean the alien enslavement of everyone, which means that Bayard is fighting for more than just his own survival.
THE ZERO STONE is the third tale of a gung-ho Terran taking on the masters of an insidious and ancient alien conspiracy.
Neanderthal Planet (Book 5)
A nuclear attack in the Persian Gulf wrongly implicates Jake Bayard. Everyone seems to be hunting for him.
Bayard flees to Garm, an ice age world full of sabertooths, dire wolves, mammoths and Neanderthals.
Unfortunately, Institute Homo habilises are also there: extraterrestrial, crafty, small and deadly hominids. They’ve enslaved the Neanderthals to mine for dreaded alibite.
It’s a Spartacus moment for Bayard. The Institute hominids hate him for what he did in the Chaunt System last journey. He’s as good as dead unless he can lead the Neanderthals in a successful slave revolt.
But how do you defeat an enemy far smarter than you, more ruthless and holding all the cards?
Bayard is about to show the brainy creeps.
NEANDERTHAL PLANET is the fifth tale of a gung-ho Terran taking on the masters of an insidious and ancient alien conspiracy.
Sleeper Ship (Book 2)
Alvor the Sleek—a Krekelen shape-shifter—hates Jake Bayard because the Galactic Marine slew the others of his plotting brood. Bayard wants to wring Alvor’s neck because the alien tricked him into teleporting to deadly Canopus instead of Saddoth to help his friend.
Bayard’s teleportation opens the way for Alvor to reach Canopus so he can board an ancient, orbital sleeper ship and collect a cargo that should give the Krekelens ultimate victory everywhere.
Well, that’s fine. After dealing with prehistoric supercrocs, kamikaze air-cyclists and 900-pound hominoids with .75 caliber six-shooters, Bayard just needs a minute alone with Alvor to fix everything. First, though, he’s going to have to find the devious alien who can literally look like anyone.
SLEEPER SHIP is the second tale of a gung-ho Terran taking on the masters of an insidious and ancient alien conspiracy.
The Institute (Book 4)
To Jake Bayard’s amazement, he meets a Homo habilis: a five-foot, hundred-pound, hairy hominid that was supposed to have gone extinct 1.65 million years ago.
Philip is no moronic precursor to man but a member of the elite, extraterrestrial Institute, needing help leaving Earth. The problem is that Philip is a liar, a sneak and a diabolical genius using the Traveler for his own ends.
Out in the stars, Bayard discovers a conspiracy backed by ancient military tech and run by the little hominids bent on conquering everything, including Earth.
What can one Marine stranded on a deadly alien planet do against an army of technologically superior soldiers?
Bayard is about to find out.
THE INSTITUTE is the fourth tale of a gung-ho Terran taking on the masters of an insidious and ancient alien conspiracy.