Chapter 1
Alanna
Humming to herself, Alanna continued to take notes off of her combot – onto her combot. Two holodisplays were open before her, allowing her to work and read at the same time. It had apparently always been able to do this, but she just figured out how recently. It certainly made researching easier.
There were a lot of things Alanna still had to learn about alien technology.
It was Alanna’s personal philosophy that anything was possible and to truly appreciate life, you had to be ready to embrace those possibilities.
That mindset had kept her calm and centered through many amazing things in her life.
Like when her uncle became president of the United States, and she was suddenly the president's unofficial child since he had none of his own. Or that one time she met her favorite band at a political fundraiser. Or that time she had helped save the ruler of an alien planet and was given, for her efforts, a name of high honor among his people and the right to fight for Earth’s future in the cosmos.
Even she could admit that last one was extra incredible.
She was taking notes on the legalities of making a planet an official protectorate of the vast multispecies Coalition on one screen while making plans for presenting the requirements of being a protectorate to Earth in a way that Earth would accept them on another.
She was doing it inside the conference room on a massive, city sized starship called the Jutiron Stor on her way to hang out beside Jupiter.
They chose Jupiter so as not to freak out Earth by dropping out of their subspace swing – the process of teleporting through subspace – too close to the planet.
The name of the game right now was – ‘caution’.
Earth, theoretically, knew they were coming.
Alanna had called her uncle and warned him of their imminent approach, but communication wasn’t possible in subspace and contacting Earth was, itself, very difficult to do from such a vast distance when Earth didn’t have access to subspace technology.
Therefore, they could only hope that her uncle would have prepared the planet for their arrival, and that this would go well.
She had faith in her uncle, but they had to plan for the worst.
That was why she was in this meeting room. She was waiting for the others of the contact delegation to arrive so they could finalize their plans before dropping out of the swing tomorrow.
She was the first one there, but she didn't mind. It gave her a chance to take her notes and simultaneously people watch as everyone slowly came trickling in.
The first to arrive – besides herself – was Scarlet and, right behind her, Havali.
Scarlet was a human, like her, and an alien trained healer.
Havali, First Guardian, was her mate. While, strictly speaking, Havali was not needed on this trip for contact, he was coming to support Scarlet and to meet her family.
They were newly mated and, as far as Alanna knew, trying for their first pup.
Aliens, collectively, had breeding kinks.
Mainly because reproduction was harder for them than it ever had been for humanity.
And, by some strange twist of science they had yet to figure out, humans were capable of producing healthy hybrid babies with, at least, the domini – the three eyed, camouflaging species that Havali came from.
Both of them smiled at Alanna when they entered, greeting her warmly. Their auras matched really well together. Scarlet’s had always been so aloof and distant practically lonely, while Havali’s had been protective and eager. Together, the two of them were balanced and happy.
They had barely taken a seat at the table when the door slid open again.
This time, it admitted Hattie – another human girl.
She had the brightest, happiest aura Alanna had ever known.
It was a genuine pleasure just to be in Hattie’s presence.
Her warmth and love and nurturing energy was a balm to even the weariest soul. Lovely.
The three of them started talking, leaving Alanna to her note taking. It was a couple of minutes before the next couple arrived.
Holly and Romival stepped inside together – the latter tapping away at his datapad as Holly spoke to him in slow, carefully enunciated English. She was telling him the story of Cinderella while Romival took notes on words he didn't yet know.
Alanna and the other human girls all had language implants to speak with the aliens – Domtri for the domini and Standard as the general language for the Coalition.
However, the imprint couldn’t be given to other humans until the protectorate agreement was finalized.
Furthermore, Earth languages hadn’t been made into an imprint yet as it required a group learning the language while having their brains scanned.
Therefore, Holly had begun teaching Romival English the old-fashioned way since he could learn faster without imprints anyway.
And the First Scholar was proving how he earned his name.
He had only been studying for a couple tendays – weeks, she had to remind herself to speak like a human again – but he had picked up a great deal.
They still had to speak slowly to him, and he didn't have all the grammar and syntax down yet, but he could be understood and that, alone, was impressive. Even more so when it was taken into consideration that Holly wasn’t a teacher, so she had just been winging the entire process.
Those two were also perfect for each other.
Holly had such an erratic, nervous aura.
It was easily calmed and soothed by Romival’s steady, strong one.
She brought out his passion and he eased her fears.
They had already succeeded in making their first baby.
She was only a bump in Holly’s stomach for now, but they were both looking forward to her arrival.
The next pair through the door weren’t mated, nor were they domini.
Instead, they were the two reptilian ratchi that were acting as co-sponsors for Earth’s protectorate status alongside the domini.
The one on the right was an elder by ratchi standards, his dark green scales turning dull and gray.
The younger, shorter male was a deep shade of blue and he was saying something in his native tongue that she didn’t understand.
It had been agreed, among the humans that, though the ratchi were co-sponsors in this venture, they should not be directly part of the contact team.
They were nice, but they were also frightening.
The domini, at least, looked mostly human.
The tails and three eyes and long, pointed ears ruined the effect, but they were still more human in shape than the ratchi.
The reptilians looked like dinosaur-men, with elongated snouts completely filled with sharp fangs, a boneless grace to their movements like snakes, and long, quill-like hair on their heads that did nothing to hide the spikes going down their back.
Neither species were human, and both were frightening in their own way.
Especially considering the size of them.
Romival was the shortest, leanest domini Alanna knew, yet she only just reached his chest, and he could probably bench press any of them easily.
To keep the humans on Earth as at-ease as possible, they were advising only the domini go to the surface.
For now.
Earth would have to get used to many more aliens than just the domini and ratchi. There were two hundred-fourteen member species of the Coalition, and if Earth wanted to be a protectorate, they had to accept more than just the demonic appearing domini and dinosaur appearing ratchi.
Alanna knew both ratchi males that had entered.
She had met the green Elder Haviss many tendays ago, when they first presented their arguments to the Coalition for Earth to become a protectorate.
He was a very kind male with an easy smile and a determination to atone for the actions of the rogue clavas that had abducted Alanna and the other four humans from Earth originally.
His aura was grandfatherly – masculine, protective, and warm.
She could bask in it like a lizard under a heat lamp.
The younger ratchi male she had met only after boarding the Jutiron Stor when they left Turv – the domini homeworld – to begin this trek.
His name was Tzomei, and he was a government official that was, essentially, an ambassador.
There were no official alien ambassadors to Earth yet.
He had been promoted and given this job specifically when one became necessary.
His aura was sharp, focused, and had a distinct hunger to it that she associated with ambition.
The few times she had met him, Alanna had come away with the impression that he was a driven but nice male that was eager for this opportunity and worked hard to get it.
Close on their heels was the next human-domini pairing – Peony and Atem. The latter had his hybrid son wrapped around his neck – because that was how domini babies traveled. Peony was petting his little curved back with a wide smile on her face.
Viktor was the first known hybrid to ever exist. There were a lot of eyes on him. And thus far, they were all amazed.
The domini were capable of camouflage, but that reflex didn't start until they were children, and even then, it was imperfect until they went through puberty.
As a pup only a few weeks old, Viktor should either still be baby gray or he should have settled on a single color that he would retain until he reached childhood.