Alien Rule Read online

  ALIEN RULE

  Clans of Kalquor Book 2

  By

  Tracy St. John

  © copy­right No­vem­ber 2010, Tracy St. John

  Cover art by Erin Dameron-Hill, © copy­right Oc­to­ber 2013

  This is a work of fic­tion. All char­ac­ters, events, and places are of the au­thor’s imag­i­na­tion and not to be con­fused with fact. Any re­sem­blance to liv­ing per­sons or events is merely co­in­ci­dence.

  Kin­dle Edi­tion

  This ebook is li­censed for your per­sonal en­joy­ment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other peo­ple. If you would like to share this book with an­other per­son, please pur­chase an ad­di­tional copy for each re­cip­i­ent. If you’re read­ing this book and did not pur­chase it, or it was not pur­chased for your use only, then please re­turn to Ama­zon.com and pur­chase your own copy. Thank you for re­spect­ing the hard work of this au­thor.

  Ta­ble Of Con­tents

  Pro­logue

  Chap­ter 1

  Chap­ter 2

  Chap­ter 3

  Chap­ter 4

  Chap­ter 5

  Chap­ter 6

  Chap­ter 7

  Chap­ter 8

  Chap­ter 9

  Chap­ter 10

  Chap­ter 11

  Chap­ter 12

  Chap­ter 13

  Chap­ter 14

  Chap­ter 15

  Chap­ter 16

  Chap­ter 17

  Chap­ter 18

  Chap­ter 19

  Chap­ter 20

  Chap­ter 21

  Chap­ter 22

  Chap­ter 23

  Pro­logue

  The Kalquo­rian Em­pire was and still is a civ­i­liza­tion of great im­por­tance to the Ga­lac­tic Coun­cil of Plan­ets. The fierce but in­tel­li­gent species has been at the fore­front of tech­no­log­i­cal, med­i­cal, and sci­en­tific break­throughs for mil­len­nia. Their mil­i­tary might has never been in ques­tion; even their an­cient en­emy, the op­por­tunis­tic race of Tra­gooms, hes­i­tates to at­tack a Kalquo­rian force half its size.

  How­ever, Kalquor’s sur­vival is in jeop­ardy. The force that has threat­ened this mighty race is not one that wields weaponry. It can­not even be seen with the naked eye. It is a virus.

  Cen­turies ago, this virus struck the home world of Kalquor, wip­ing out a sub­stan­tial num­ber of its peo­ple, par­tic­u­larly the fe­males. Symp­toms in­cluded mas­sive bleed­ing of the body’s ma­jor or­gans, along with those of the fe­male re­pro­duc­tive tract. Dam­ag­ing the x-chro­mo­some of the Kalquo­ri­ans, the virus’ ef­fects went be­yond death. The ma­jor­ity of women not killed out­right were ren­dered in­fer­tile, and daugh­ters born to those who could bear chil­dren were not guar­an­teed the abil­ity to do the same. The virus al­tered the very DNA of the en­tire race.

  In an ef­fort to keep their race from go­ing ex­tinct and pre­vent fight­ing amongst the men, fam­ily groups called clans were formed. Each clan was made up of one fe­male known as the Matara (child­bearer) and rep­re­sen­ta­tives of each of the three breeds of male: the Dramok (leader), Imdiko (care­giver), and Nobek (pro­tec­tor).

  De­spite their ef­forts, the num­bers of Kalquo­ri­ans con­tin­ues to de­cline. So few chil­dren are born now that the most re­cent es­ti­mates con­clude the species will go ex­tinct in 300 years. De­spite all their med­i­cal ex­per­tise and at­tempts to find com­pat­i­ble species to mate with, the Kalquo­ri­ans seem des­tined to dis­ap­pear.

  Then less than a decade ago, the in­hab­i­tants of a small, iso­lated planet no one knew of, flew into the Ga­lac­tic Coun­cil if Plan­ets’ space. These new­com­ers, search­ing for colonies to house their ever-grow­ing pop­u­la­tion, called their home planet Earth. It was im­me­di­ately re­marked upon how in­cred­i­bly sim­i­lar they were to Kalquo­ri­ans. The doomed race took note at once, and hope was re­stored. It has even been the­o­rized that per­haps the Earth­ers were the fa­bled Lost Tribe of Kalquor’s an­cient an­ces­tors.

  Earth, how­ever, is not as en­thralled with their po­ten­tial dis­tant cousins. Ruled by a gov­ern­ment based on fa­nat­i­cal re­li­gious be­liefs, Earth­ers have been taught they are God’s Cho­sen, made in his won­drous im­age. They look upon Kalquor with hos­til­ity and out­rage, par­tic­u­larly since the be­lea­guered in­hab­i­tants of that em­pire sug­gested com­pat­i­bil­ity test­ing for pur­poses of in­ter­breed­ing.

  The lead­ers of the Kalquo­rian Em­pire, feel­ing they had no other re­course, de­cided the time had come to se­duce Earther fe­males and con­vince them to come to Kalquor. Women on Earth are treated as lesser crea­tures and sec­ond-class cit­i­zens by the men, and the Kalquo­ri­ans with their near-wor­ship of women hope they can en­tice these lifebringers to join their clans. And if the women will not be se­duced, Kalquor is no longer above the dis­taste­ful ne­ces­sity of ab­duct­ing them out­right.

  Al­most 2000 Earther women have come to Kalquor now, putting the Em­pire and Earth on the brink of war. On the peace­ful planet of Pla­sius, an ally of Kalquor, two more women wait and hope to be res­cued by Kalquo­rian clans from cer­tain ex­e­cu­tion.

  Chap­ter 1

  Shak­ing vi­o­lently, Michaela whis­pered, “I can’t do this.”

  Jes­sica’s pound­ing heart stut­tered at her friend’s words. De­spite her cof­fee-with-cream Mid­dle East­ern com­plex­ion, Michaela had paled. White showed all around the choco­late brown irises of her black-lined eyes. Those same heavy lid­ded eyes filled with tears. The younger woman held a square speech am­pli­fier with a white-knuck­led grip, as if she at­tempted to crush the metal­lic box.

  Jes­sica fought to keep the tremor out of her voice. If she be­trayed any of her own ner­vous­ness, Michaela would surely bolt. “Of course you can do this, sweetie. You prac­ticed your lines and put us through hell all week to get ready for it.”

  “Not just the in­tro­duc­tion and danc­ing,” Michaela sobbed. “The whole thing. Hav­ing sex. Join­ing a clan. Jess, I can’t do it.”

  Jes­sica swal­lowed to hear her own fears spo­ken out loud. She still couldn’t be­lieve she her­self would go through with the show, let alone the rest of the plan.

  She took a deep breath. You’re safe here on the planet Pla­sius. No one is go­ing to ar­rest you for in­de­cency or lewd­ness. You won’t be pun­ished.

  To her friend she said, “Michaela, you have to join a Kalquo­rian clan. There’s no other choice. You can’t stay on Pla­sius, and you can’t go back to Earth. Ei­ther is a death sen­tence.”

  In the room be­yond the heavy cur­tains they hid be­hind, Jes­sica heard the mur­murs of con­ver­sa­tion grow louder. More peo­ple were ar­riv­ing, build­ing a large au­di­ence from the sounds of things. How many had the Plasian leader Saucin Is­rala in­vited to the show? Jes­sica’s anx­i­ety climbed to an all-time high.

  Jes­sica McIn­ness and Michael-Michaela Blake were among over one hun­dred refugees from Earth hid­ing on the peace­ful world of Pla­sius. Only seven months prior, both had been part of the crew of an Earth mil­i­tary trans­port. Jes­sica had been a nurse in sick bay, and Michaela had served hun­gry sol­diers in the mess hall. Un­til events al­lowed them to seek sanc­tu­ary among the amorous Plasians, the two had barely been aware of each oth­ers’ ex­is­tence.

  Now they were the best of friends. Jes­sica and Michaela clung to each other with the kind of des­per­a­tion re­served for those flung to­gether by cruel cir­cum­stances. Es­cap­ing Earth’s in­tol­er­ant faith-based gov­ern­ment had given them both a taste of free­dom, free­dom nei­ther had ever con­te m­plated as truly pos­si­ble in their short lives. When one lived un­der a to­tal­i­tar­ian regime that kept its cit­i­zens yoked with fear, lib­erty seemed an un­achiev­able fan­tasy.

  Tonight’s per­for­mance was the cul­mi­na­tion of their flight from the tyranny of their home planet. Only a hand­ful of the 150 mem­bers of the mil­i­tary trans­port re­mained loyal to Earth. When the com­mand­ing of­fi­cer had been killed, his throat torn out by an an­gry Kalquo­rian, the Earth­ers made a mass plea for sanc­tu­ary on Pla­sius. Is­rala, leader of the Plasians and a woman who lusted for the young vir­ile sol­diers, took the des­per­ate hu­mans in.

  The Plasians had saved the Earth traitors’ lives, es­pe­cially Jes­sica and Michaela’s. As a woman, Jes­sica faced more bru­tal pun­ish­ment from Earth’s pa­tri­ar­chal so­ci­ety than the men. Michaela’s sit­u­a­tion was even more pre­car­i­ous. With Earth now blockad­ing the peace­ful planet, the women’s lives hung on join­ing the des­per­ate clans of the planet Kalquor.

  One would never know the threat hang­ing over the Plasians’ heads from the sounds of easy con­ver­sa­tion. Laugh­ter drifted through the ivory drapes that sep­a­rated the stage and the bare back­stage space. There had to be dozens of peo­ple out there wait­ing for the danc­ing to start.

  Jes­sica knew the guests couldn’t all be Kalquo­rian clans hop­ing to at­tract Earther mates. Few ships got through the block­ade, and Earth con­sid­ered Kalquor its bit­ter­est en­emy. The ma­jor­ity of the crowd had to con­sist of Plasians and Is­rala’s cur­rent sta­ble of young Earther men.

  The race of the au­di­ence mat­tered lit­tle to Jes­sica at this point. The worry was in the num­ber of eyes that would be on her, wit­ness­ing her per­form a dance that would have put her in prison on Earth. Sex­u­ally en­tic­ing men war­ranted harsh penal­ties. Even rape vic­tims on Earth were deemed as guilty as their at­tack­ers. If dis­cov­ered, those ‘temptresses’ were sen­tenced to prison terms that al­ways re­sulted in death be­fore they were fully served. No amount of ar­gu­ing with her­self about the ab­sence of Earth au­thor­ity could take away Jes­sica’s in­grained ter­ror of dis­cov­ery.

  Michaela’s fears went even deeper though they had lit­tle to do with the threat of pun­ish­ment. She wasn’t fazed by per­for­mance anx­i­ety ei­ther. She seemed born to dance. In fact, the only time she al­lowed her­self to re­lax and be happy was when she prac­ticed in her stu­dio or moved to the stage. The trick tonight would be get­ting her out there.

  Michaela shook her head, her wig’s ebony spi­ral spill of curls fly­ing about with the vi­o­lence of the move­ment. “I’d be bet­ter off dead then to make a fool of my­self over those men. No Kalquo­rian clan is go­ing to want a freak like me any­way.”

  Jes­sica tried to come up with some­thing, any­thing to set­tle Michaela’s mind so Jes­sica wouldn’t be forced to go out there alone. She knew that the nor­mal plat­i­tudes, no mat­ter how sin­cerely felt, would do noth­ing to erase Michaela’s self-loathing, her con­vic­tion she was not worth be­ing loved. That was a real prob­lem con­sid­er­ing that tonight’s per­for­mance was all about at­tract­ing love, or at least lust.

  As con­ver­sa­tion in the hid­den room swelled, panic blocked co­her­ent thought. Jes­sica watched with grow­ing dis­may as Michaela edged away from the cur­tain. The younger woman’s des­per­ate gaze skit­tered to­wards the door that led to their dress­ing room. Jes­sica grasped her friend’s broad shoul­ders in an ef­fort to halt the es­cape at­tempt.

  In her bel­ly­danc­ing cos­tume of flow­ing scarves, the breadth of Michaela’s shoul­ders was the only in­di­ca­tion of her dual na­ture, along with the husky voice that bor­dered on a tenor. She’d lived dis­guised as Michael Blake un­til re­al­iz­ing the free­dom to ex­press her­self among the sex­u­ally ad­ven­tur­ous and non­judg­men­tal Plasian pop­u­lace. Now she rev­eled in her fe­male side, defin­ing her­self as in­ter­sex. Most of the ex­pa­tri­ate Earth­ers called Michaela a her­maph­ro­dite. Those still loyal to Earth, the ones stranded with­out a way off Pla­sius, re­ferred to her as the ‘freak’ or ‘abom­i­na­tion’.

  Had Michaela’s con­di­tion been dis­cov­ered by the au­thor­i­ties on Earth, she would have been locked up and prob­a­bly eu­th­a­nized. Ac­cord­ing to the Church, Earth­ers were made in God’s im­age. Michaela, phys­i­cally both male and fe­male, would have been seen as de­mon spawn. Her par­ents would have been ex­e­cuted for pro­duc­ing and hid­ing the na­ture of their only child. Their deaths in a shut­tle ac­ci­dent had bro­ken Michaela’s heart; para­dox­i­cally, it had also re­lieved the worst of her fear of be­ing dis­cov­ered. With her par­ents be­yond the hor­ror of bru­tal ex­e­cu­tions, Michaela had signed on to the mil­i­tary trans­port in hopes of es­cap­ing Earth per­ma­nently. Main­tain­ing the male iden­tity the sym­pa­thetic doc­tor had put on her birth cer­tifi­cate, Michaela had slopped food onto trays in the chow line, learn­ing to curse as col­or­fully as the sol­diers that sur­rounded her. Men, es­pe­cially those in the mil­i­tary, could use pro­fan­ity to their hearts’ con­tent. They just couldn’t take God’s name in vain.

  As Michaela strained against Jes­sica’s grip, the lights in the room went out. All con­ver­sa­tion be­yond the drap­ery ceased, and Jes­sica and Michaela plunged into silent dark­ness.

  The buzzing alto of an Egyp­tian kawala flute be­gan to play, swirling around them in the black­ness. The strain­ing shoul­ders un­der Jes­sica’s hands re­laxed as the hyp­notic notes filled the air. Michaela shifted to­ward the cur­tains, re­spond­ing to the mu­sic’s call. In an in­stant, her shak­ing ceased.

  She grasped one of Jes­sica’s hands in her own and squeezed. “Sorry about the hys­ter­ics, Jess. I’m okay. They may not like me, but I’m go­ing to dance. Damn Earth all to hell, I can dance and no one will stop me.”

  Speak­ing into the speech am­pli­fier to those who had gath­ered be­yond the drap­ery, Michaela’s sul­try voice wove it­self around the mu­sic. Jes­sica shiv­ered to hear her friend’s low, sexy tones blend with the mes­mer­iz­ing notes of the kawala.

  “Wel­come to the an­cient Ara­bian desert of Earth, where sul­tans once ruled the king­doms of sand. It is here you dis­cover the se­crets of this lost do­main. This is where the harem princesses per­formed their ex­otic dances for the plea­sure of the men. Now two of these maid­ens will en­ter­tain you with Raqs Sharqi as they vie for the priv­i­lege of be­ing your fa­vorite.”

  Michaela’s set­ting of the scene was non­sense, or ‘pure bull­shit’, as the of­ten foul-mouthed in­ter­sex liked to say. Her Mid­dle East­ern an­ces­tors would have been shocked to hear such blather about harem dancers, but the pur­pose of tonight was to se­duce, not ed­u­cate. The dance it­self wasn’t even the true tra­di­tional form.

  “I’ve cor­rupted the dance so Kalquo­rian men will be driven to cor­rupt us,” Michaela glee­fully in­formed Jes­sica as she guided the for­mer nurse through her first awk­ward lessons. “The so-called ‘belly dance’ ac­tu­ally came about as an ex­er­cise to strengthen ab­dom­i­nal mus­cles for child­birth. Later it was turned into tit­il­la­tion by cer­tain naughty ladies.” Then came the ex­as­per­a­tion Jes­sica would hear too of­ten dur­ing Michaela’s dance in­struc­tions. “No Jes­sica, the shimmy is shoul­ders-only. Keep your hips out of it … that’s a to­tally dif­fer­ent move.”

  A spot­light il­lu­mi­nated the other side of the cur­tain be­fore them, and Jes­sica blinked against the sud­den glare. Michaela stooped to set the voice am­pli­fier on the floor. In the light her ex­pres­sion was now dreamy and dis­tant. The mu­sic of her mother’s home­land had once more res­cued her, trans­port­ing her from the real world and all its at­ten­dant mis­eries. Jes­sica’s lungs gusted a heavy sigh of re­lief. Then she tensed once more as the in­tro­duc­tory mu­ sic ended on a high plain­tive note.

  The time had come to take the stage.

  Aware­ness of her bare skin sharp­ened. Jes­sica had never shown any man so much naked flesh. Who knew how many were out there, how many she was about to put her­self on dis­play for?

  The se­duc­tive moves of Michaela’s chore­og­ra­phy sud­denly seemed too bla­tant. How could they per­form such a dan­ger­ous dance? If it ever got back to Earth and they were cap­tured…

  Michaela, her eyes dark in an­tic­i­pa­tion of the com­ing per­for­mance, tugged Jes­sica into place next to her. Her whis­per car­ried in the quiet mo­ment.

  “Three steps into the dance and the stage fright will be gone. Let the mu­sic take you. You’re go­ing to be won­der­ful.”

  The doum­bek and tar drums be­gan a slow, sen­sual rhythm. The stringed ka­noun and kawala flutes joined in. The cur­tains opened and Jes­sica stood in the daz­zling glare. Her heart seemed to stop.

  The down­beat ar­rived. Be­side her Michaela moved and ev­ery­thing snapped into place. The long months of end­less prac­tice sent Jes­sica into her first steps, spin­ning and twirling, long white and gold scarves flut­ter­ing be­hind as she made her grace­ful way into the room. The sil­ver ac­cents of Michaela’s con­trast­ing black cos­tume caught the lights over­head as she matched Jes­sica’s move­ments.

  They reached the cen­ter of the room. Around them in the shad­ows, the au­di­ence sat in a semi-cir­cle. They were still in­vis­i­ble to Jes­sica’s daz­zled eyes be­yond the fall of the spot­light. She ex­e­cuted a fi­nal, silk-trail­ing spin and faced Michaela.

  Across the floor, Michaela glow­ered at her. She was ev­ery inch the Saudi Ara­bian princess her great-great-grand­mother had been be­fore the com­bin­ing of coun­tries and rise of Earth’s re­li­gion-based gov­ern­ment. Black waist-length curls framed her, bring­ing at­ten­tion to her sculpted bel­ly­dancer’s torso. The black and sil­ver beaded bra cupped her young round breasts, lift­ing them like an of­fer­ing. Sil­ver slave cuffs wrapped her wrists and an­kles, bring­ing im­ages to mind of be­ing bound help­lessly for her mas­ter’s plea­sure. Her gir­dle hugged her wide hips and matched the bra. Trans­par­ent black strips of silk served as the floor-sweep­ing skirt, through which lean mus­cled legs peeked.