Superhumans: a Superior Race

Last fight for humanity. That's what it's come down to. There are six thousand human beings left in the cosmos. All of us are on this spaceship, the Maverick. We're quite a blend. African-Americans. Caucasians. Asians. Middle-Easterners. Latinos. Jews. Atheists. Agnostics. Gays. Lesbians. All of us huddled together on a city-sized spaceship constructed right before the planet Earth was destroyed by our enemy, the Ancestors. We're going nowhere fast. Our supplies are dwindling, as are our chances for survival. We're not going out without a fight, though. This is a promise.

My name is Stephen Jay. A six-foot-three, broad-shouldered and muscular young man with dark brown skin, pale gray eyes and long black hair. I'm the Captain of the Starship Maverick, home of the last humans alive anywhere in the cosmos. I'm one of a kind. Everybody says that about themselves but I actually mean it. I'm a genetically engineered human being. Designed specifically for warfare. There were hundreds of thousands of us, once. We were created shortly after humanity made contact with the Ancestors, and the Ancestors expressed their disappointment with the human species treatment of the planet Earth. They decided to annihilate humanity. And on January 20, 2098 A.D. they did just that. Simply wiped out eleven billion human beings. Along with hundreds of thousands of my genetically engineered brothers and sisters.

The Ancestors didn't merely destroy the planet Earth. They also destroyed the colony worlds on Mars and Titan. Who are the Ancestors? A race of red-eyed, green-skinned, humanoid creatures who claim to be the progenitors of the Sapiens genus, from which humanity is descended. They claim to have been around for at least twenty million years. They're technologically advanced, and extremely powerful. In ancient times, they lived openly among primitive humans and were worshiped as gods and goddesses of various Pagan religions. For some reason, they left. And now they're back. To exterminate humankind. And this I cannot allow.

Recently, we found a hibernation pod in space. A massive one. Inside were nineteen hundred and twenty six of my genetically engineered brethren. We managed to revive all of them. Their leader was Commander Alexandra Wilson, one of the First. The First are what my kind call the oldest and most powerful of us. They're stronger, faster and smarter than the rest of us. They're the Alpha-level members of the genetically engineered warrior class. The very apex of my artificially created and extraordinarily resilient species. Commander Alexandra Wilson was unlike any woman I'd ever met. She was six feet two inches tall, slender, with dark brown skin, pale green eyes and long black hair. Created using the DNA of African and Caucasian donors from the ancient military science program.

Thousands of physically fit men and women from all races and ethnicities donated their DNA to be used to manufacture us. Alexandra was clearly a remarkable exemplar of my species. She was a strong woman. Physically. Mentally. Intellectually. Yeah, she was powerful. So much that she made the humans aboard the Starship Maverick quite nervous. I didn't pay the petty humans any mind. After all, they're a deeply prejudiced bunch. They only keep me around because I'm protecting them from the Ancestors. I'm five times stronger and four times faster than the average human male. And my kind have a lifespan of two hundred years. Give or take a year or two. I am a Protector of man. Sworn to defend humanity against its enemies. However, I'm also a genetically engineered human being who's been cooped up on a ship crawling with humans for over two years. I was thrilled to see members of my species.

Commander Alexandra Wilson became my friend, and my ally. Later, she became my lover. I loved walking the length of the Starship with her. Showing her the vessel I commanded. I was in charge of the Starship Maverick, and truth be told, I didn't trust the humans I protected. They simply couldn't perform certain tasks with the same efficiency I could. It's not their fault, I guess. Still, sometimes I wonder what the humans would do if I weren't around. They need eight hours of sleep at night otherwise they won't function properly. I sleep only three hours per night and can function at one hundred percent capacity the next day. The humans envy me my strength, speed and resilience. They've always been a deeply prejudiced bunch. They have mistreated their own for thousands of years. Over questions of race, gender, sexual orientation or religion. Personally, I'm an atheist. And I don't see what race or gender or who you're attracted to has to do with what kind of person you are. Of course, that's just my way of seeing things. The humans don't see things my way. They're narrow-minded. Designed for deceit and treachery. Strength and courage are in short supply among them.

By contrast, my genetically engineered brothers and sisters were strong, fast and smart. We adapted very well to new situations. Which is why most of us realized humanity was doomed to lose the war against the Ancestors. The Ancestors didn't merely possess technological superiority. They were older, wiser and more lethal than the humans. Humanity thought creating a new breed of super soldiers would save it from becoming extinct. My brethren knew the time of the human species had come and gone. The Ancestors meant business. They've slaughtered billions of people. And how many of their ships have we brought down? Mere hundreds. Considering they have vast interstellar fleets made up of hundreds of thousands of ships, that's ridiculous. Humans simply don't believe some wars are unwinnable. My brethren know better. Since we're the ones who actually did the heavy lifting in the human-Ancestor war.

Alexandra shared her war stories with me over a cup of coffee in the ship's library. The two of us sat in a quiet corner. At this time of night, most of the humans were asleep and the ship was on autopilot. Alexandra told me her story. She'd been stationed on the planet Mars the day the Ancestors came. They obliterated the Martian colony. Killed the three billion humans and thirty thousand genetically engineered warriors who were on the planet at the time. Alexandra and her unit were off-world at the time, doing recon work on one of the Martian moons. When they learned what happened, they fled. Their human commander, some prissy woman named Colonel Jessica Roark, told them to return to Mars. Alexandra thought the commander to be a madwoman, for it was suicide for them to return to Mars while the planet suffered orbital bombardment from the Ancestors fleet. So she assumed command of the ship. They fled the Martian sector. They were chased out of the solar system by some Ancestor vessels. They managed to evade them, but not before their ship suffered heavy damage. Many of them perished. The survivors escaped in space in hibernation pods. They would have died in a matter of months if we hadn't found them.

When she finished with the story, she held my hand in hers. And then Alexandra told me her plan. She was tired of serving humanity. The Ancestors wanted all the humans dead, they didn't seem to know or care about us, the genetically engineered cannon fodder humanity used against them. Alexandra dreamed of escaping onboard a ship stacked with weapons and food, and try to find a habitable world. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Was she insane? I mean, I didn't like the humans but it was our duty to protect them from the aliens. That's why we were created in the first place. Alexandra squeezed my hand hard and told me we weren't the slaves of the humans. We were intelligent, thinking beings with rights of our own. Then she got up and left.

I sat there, thinking about Alexandra and what she said. I went to bed, and couldn't sleep. What would it be like to be free of my duties? To roam the universe where I wanted, and when I wanted. I wasn't human. I had done nothing to the Ancestors. And to be honest, I didn't want anything to do with the humans or the Ancestors. Both were barbaric. My genetically engineered brethren were designed for combat. But we weren't barbaric. We fought because we were told to. The humans were treacherous, as were the Ancestors. Both of them preyed on those they considered inferior to themselves. And my species was caught in the middle. Was it right for me to spend the rest of my life looking after the ungrateful humans? I realized that I agreed with Alexandra on many points. But what could I do about it? What would I do? Was I ready to betray humanity and stand with my species? Decisions, decisions.

The next morning, I woke up to find my ship in chaos. There was gunfire everywhere. Humans versus genetically engineered soldiers. Apparently, some of my fellow supermen and superwomen had gotten into an altercation with a group of drunken humans acting like frat boys. A lot of people from both sides got involved. I jumped into the fray, and tried to restore order. That's when I got shot. In the shoulder. And guess who shot me? None other than one of the humans I'd been trying to protect. Folks, this was the last straw. In that moment, everything changed. After all I've done for humanity, they betrayed me. Well, I would serve them no longer!

I joined forces with my fellow super-soldiers, and together we quickly subdued the humans and took control of the ship. We secured all weapons. The ship was ours. Alexandra stood by my side, filled with pride. I looked at her, and realized why I was drawn to her. We fought side by side, superman and superwoman, against the oppressive humans who created us and thought us to be their slaves. And we won. Before our fellow super people and the captured humans, I kissed her. And from that moment on, we were inseparable.

A few months later, we dropped the humans on the planet Earth. Many of my fellow super soldiers wanted to exterminate them but genocide wasn't my style. We left the humans on their planet of origin to fend for themselves. Then my fellow superhumans and I left the planet onboard the Starship Maverick. I don't know what became of the humans, and honestly I don't care. Maybe the Ancestors came back and finished them off. Or maybe they survived. To hell with them. All that matters to me is that I'm with Alexandra, and we're with our fellow super people. We're sticking together, to seek out our destiny among the stars. If the humans or the Ancestors come calling, we'll take them on and we'll win. Because we're the race created to kick the collective ass of the universe!