The Umite Imperative

Sepherin Tekin is a young woman about to embark on an age-old tradition and journey that many on her planet have participated in the past. Born on Umitia, a beautiful and glorious planet located 170 light years from Earth in the Sagittarius arm of the Milky Way galaxy, she was raised in an upper-middle class home with her many siblings and a loving mother and father at the helm. She grew up enjoying all the splendor of a typical Umitian childhood. However, Sepherin was anything but average. It was something she noticed, yet tried to fluff off, at very early age. As she grew into womanhood, she was summoned to join the planet's Imperite program: an initiative that set out to hunt down and kill the evil Eridani race, a great enemy of the Umitian people. Strong, both in body and mind, Sepherin was the ideal candidate to tackle the Umite Imperative. Still, while her life's purpose seemed to be paved out for her, Sepherin's true destiny will be a terrifying journey of discovery - and loss. Despite her intuition telling her to run away from her Imperite duties from the get-go, Sepherin ignored those feelings and found her way into program training and eventually was placed on the planet Earth for assignment. Her job was simple: kill the Eridani. But simple jobs can get quite complicated (and fast), especially when the Men in Black, the Imperite Guards, are involved. No Imperite has ever evaded their duties to execute the long-standing Oath of the Imperite; no Umitian has ever gone against the order of the Manager - the planet's all-powerful ruler and the brainchild behind the Imperative. Soon after Sepherin lands on Earth, disaster strikes and she quickly finds herself running from the MIB, along with an Earther she befriends. Hiding from the Imperite Guards, to protect herself and her friend, Sepherin embarks on a journey that goes against everything she was trained to do ... and everything she had been taught to believe in about Umitia. As the old saying goes, one can try and run from the truth, but you will never be able to hide from it. While Sepherin desperately attempts to flee from who she is and what she was meant to be, the eons of history wrapped in her homeworld catches up to her - and she begins to understand that she holds a piece in the puzzle to help unlock the secrets of Umitia's past, and lead her people to freedom, for good. You were introduced to the Umites, the Men in Black, in the On Mars trilogy; now it's time for their tale to be told. Jim Melanson, the author who brought you The Mike Lane Stories, Volumes 1, 2, and 3, now dives into the story behind the MIB and the land of Umitia. The Umite Imperative invites readers to learn about the planet's rich history in a saga about love, betrayal, revelations, civic duty, and friendship - wrapped around the planet's need for intergalactic peacekeeping. Readers will hit the ground running with this story, and the pace does not stop until the explosive climax ending.