by Alma Nilsson
Married to the Alien Admiral of the Fleet
Renascence Alliance Series Book 4
Alma Nilsson
Married to the Alien Admiral of the Fleet, Renascence Alliance Series Book 4 © 2019 by Alma Nilsson. All Rights Reserved.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
Cover designed by Alma Nilsson, Photo20938622©Inara Prusakova-Dreamstime.com
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Printed in the United States of America
First Printing: November 2019
ISBN: 9781697322354
Abbreviations:
Universal Credits: UC
Instant Communicator: IC
Video Messaging: VM
Video Messaging in Real Time: RVM
The High Council Reception
Alliance date: 2nd day of the 55th week of the year 18905, Earth date: November 15th, 2636
Jane gazed with wonder at the image Drusilla James’s had just sent in a message from the Alliance Capital Planet down below. She was on the warship Zuin in orbit. But even from orbit, Jane wasn’t going to tell James not to wear that gorgeous human dress to her marriage ceremony. It wasn’t her responsibility anymore either. James had sworn an oath to Kara in exchange for fighting a duel for her. If anyone was going to be fined for that provocative dress, it would be Kara and her House Zu. Jane smiled, thinking about how irate Kara’s husband, Admiral Tir, would be when he saw the dress, as Jane had no doubt that it would be featured in at least one of the Capital City gossip columns as soon as she walked out of House Human. Not because James herself was very famous, but the man she was marrying was considered one of the most eligible men in the Empire.
Instead of RVMing James from orbit, she sent the following message,
James,
You look gorgeous today. I’m am very happy for you and I hope this is your light at the end of the tunnel and that your toughest struggles in life are over. I’ll see you the next time we are on the Capital Planet. Enjoy your holiday with your husband.
J
It was at times like these that Jane missed her partner, Jim, on Earth, and her children. But ever since she and the rest of the Dakota crew had been taken captive, no correction, ‘had volunteered to become Alliance citizens’, they had not been allowed to visit Earth or have human visitors, that is unless they married an Alliance man and had at least one child.
Jane had been 38 years old when she had become an Alliance citizen, only two years shy of being ineligible for an Alliance marriage. As such, part of her contract with the Alliance Empire was that she was not required to marry if she didn’t find someone suitable, and her status was more undefined, something she understood to be like a widow.
When Jane had first heard these terms, she had thought they were reasonable because, What man would want to marry an older alien woman who already had three children? However, she was quite mistaken in that thought, as she, just like the rest of the younger human women from the Dakota, had had young Alliance men lining up to court them for marriage shortly after their first Assembly. Jane spoke to a few men, but the problem was that she still loved Jim and her children back on Earth. The men that approached her for courting, she met only out of curiosity more than anything else. Because she knew in her heart that if she were to marry an Alliance man, it would only be to use him so that she could see her human family again. She could never imagine loving anyone else besides Jim and her human children. And she definitely couldn’t imagine loving an alien. Even though she had become accustomed to seeing grey faces all around her and quickly fallen in line with their strict religious culture, she knew she would never be able to love one of them the way she loved Jim. Nor would she be able to love a half-alien child the way she loved her human children. And so, she avoided marriage to an Alliance man because she could. And she kept these views to herself as most of the human women in House Human seemed to like their alien husbands and love their hybrid children. Jane suspected this was because she was the only one who had had a real human family with real human children that she had had to leave behind when she became an Alliance citizen.
Although she had done a lot of questionable things in her life, she didn’t want to add using an alien man and having a hybrid baby to the list. Nor did she want to contaminate her human family with some of the filthy things she had done since joining the Alliance Empire. And if she was really being honest with herself, she didn’t want her human family to see her wearing an Alliance uniform and living a true Alliance life. When Jane thought about what she had become since she joined the Empire, she felt overwhelmed with guilt and shame because she believed ultimately, she had betrayed humanity. Despite her fate being out of her control, she still felt she could have done more and still today could do more, but she didn’t. And her inaction made her ashamed of her position now.
Jane had only wavered for a couple of weeks in resisting Alliance cultural assimilation. However, when it became clear that she would never be returning to Earth, she had thrown herself into her new life in the Empire. She had begun to take her positions in the Alliance seriously, first as Head of House Human, which was a mainly pastoral position and second as Chief of Engineering on the Zuin an Alliance Warship commanded by her human captain, Captain Kara Rainer. In many ways, after living in the Alliance for over a year, despite her longing for her family on Earth and her struggles with decisions she had made, she was, more or less, content. Content to know this was the best it was going to be for her forever. Like a prisoner in a prison that was not too bad. Jane had accepted that she would never see her family again, but they had VMs and messages. She consoled herself that at least she wouldn’t be using an Alliance man or hybrid child to fulfill her genuine desire to see her human family again. It was a sacrifice but one she could live with.
Jane looked down at her IC and confirmed the time. Tonight, was a special reception hosted by the High Council for all the Heads of Houses in the Alliance Empire. The Empire was segregated by Houses. Each House had members of all three classes, maximum, middling, and slave. Humans had been put into a maximum class, as the High Council wanted to begin replenishing the upper echelons of the Empire first. As Head of House Human twice a year, Jane was required to attend the High Council open days for all the Houses, a time when she could make public requests or complaints about individual issues affecting her House and its members. In all the evenings following the open days at the High Council, there were always receptions to meet and greet with all the other Heads of House and important and influential people in the vast Alliance Empire. Jane had attended for her first time last year and had kept a very low-profile. However, this year, she was much more confident and actually was almost looking forward to meeting some of the other women she had had contact with throughout the year. And it was all women, of course. No men were allowed to represent their Houses in the High Council except under extreme circumstances. Men were allowed to serve as assistants and aides, but that was all. On the Alliance planets, women were in charge of everything. Jane balked at this extreme sexism when she had first arrived, but now it seemed so natural, and she even had to catch herself sometimes for thinking, Well, he’s a man, what can I expect?
However, Jane was in a unique position as we
re most women who had served on the Dakota in the human fleet as now, they were in the Alliance Fleet with the men. Otherwise, Alliance women never left their planets, not because the men forbid them as other species in the galaxy naively assumed. But, because the women deemed the men less necessary, therefore, if they died in space, it didn’t matter as much. However, of course, times had changed, and the Alliance High Council understood that for the human women taken from the human fleet, they would have to risk their safety in the galaxy to keep them happy. As such, Jane served with all of her old crewmates and under their same captain, who was married to their small fleet admiral. It goes without saying that the Alliance men she served with were kept on very short leashes because of this. Admiral Tir was an honorable man, but when it came to his wife, Kara, he was obsessive over her. And this obsession spread to all the other human women onboard the Zuin as well. As a result, an Alliance man had to be very sure of his intentions as well as be a friend of the Admiral’s to go anywhere near one of the human women serving on the Zuin. This meant that although Jane worked with a lot of men, it was about as deadpan as working with computers as she didn’t really know any of them out of their fear of Admiral Tir.
Jane looked at her clothing and smiled. Three days ago, she had put in a request with the High Council that human women be allowed to wear clothing from Earth 50% of the time. The High Council had agreed but added to the amendment that they would not be allowed to wear this clothing for any religious functions. Jane had consented to this as the Empire took their pantheon of gods very seriously and knew they rarely compromised when religion was involved. She knew some of the women in House Human would be disappointed, as she guessed they would never want to wear the popular functional Alliance dresses that looked like floor-length muumuus with high collars all the time. Still, Jane felt 50% was a huge win considering the conservativeness of the Empire. This was their second message sent out to her wards. She had not even met most of them yet as they had been ill and kept on Space Port One for the last several months under the constant care of Space Port One Chief Medical Officer Doctor Anu. However, they would be released over the next day. Jane thought it would be nice to share this small victory with them as well before they met:
Women of House Human,
I have excellent news; the High Council has approved our request to wear human clothing on the condition that it is only worn 50% of the time and that it is never worn for religious functions. Our clothing conditions have now been changed, and there is a new function on your IC to keep track of when you wear human clothing. If you exceed 50% in one week, you will be fined. House Human is always low on UCs, so please do not wear your human clothes excessively. I hope you are all settling in at House Human with Madame Bai. I look forward to meeting you all in person tomorrow.
May the gods light your paths,
Jane
Jane was already taking advantage of this new rule and was wearing a human dress for the High Council reception. It was the first time in over a year she had worn a human-made dress, and she loved it. Alliance dresses were all very warm and comfortable, but they were mostly of nondescript designs and hung like tents without copious amounts of jewelry to define the wearer’s figure. As most human women didn’t like wearing all the copious jewelry to signify societal position and rank that their Alliance counterparts wore, the dresses hung unbecomingly on most of the human women, and it was a constant complaint she had to listen to among the other members of House Human. And most of those complaints were coming from women who were able to wear an Alliance man’s uniform most days, which was simply black trousers and a long-sleeved black shirt with a mandarin collar. She didn’t want to even think about all the complaints that would flood her account from the 1,000 new arrivals from Earth.
As soon as her request was passed at the High Council, she had gone directly to the Earth Store, in the Immigrant Ring of the Capital City and bought the tightest form-fitting dress she could find for the reception tonight. It was black and had little black beads embroidered in geometric patterns on it. The dress showed off her athletic figure and her long legs. She wore it with human black stockings that weren’t nearly as warm as her Alliance ones but complemented the dress better as the stockings had a light shimmer to them. She knew that this would be considered quite scandalous to most of the Alliance women she was going to meet tonight, but she wanted to prove a point. And that point was, that human women would compromise and conform, but they would always be human in their hearts. They would never be completely broken by the Empire.
Not everything was terrible for Jane in the Empire. Back on Earth, she would have never been able to afford such an extravagant dress, but now that she was an engineer in the Alliance Empire’s fleet, she was very wealthy by human standards. In addition, the Alliance had given her a kind of signing on bonus of a considerable sum of UCs, when she became an Alliance citizen, she viewed it as an apology for taking away her human life, her partner, and children. She, of course, sent a lot of UCs back to Earth for her human family, but even what she kept for herself, despite the high prices in the Alliance Empire, the UCs she had provided her with a better material life than she had ever enjoyed on Earth.
Jane looked at her reflection in the bathroom mirror and ran her fingers through her short brown hair. It was supposed to be forbidden for her to cut it, as only those in the slave class who were considered closest to the gods, were allowed to cut their hair, but as Jane was in the fleet and not on planet often, no one had said anything to her about her short hair. It also helped that her captain, Kara, still cut her hair. Otherwise, Alliance citizens of maximum class, never cut their hair, regardless if they were men or women. And it was the style in the maximum class to wear their hair in elaborate braids and adorn the braids with jewelry. Jane had never had long hair and didn’t want to have it now, so she was always grateful for the small reprieves granted to her in this conservative culture. She saw her short hair as one of the last things that genuinely made her human.
Jane put on one necklace, her ID. It was like a dog tag that everyone in the Alliance wore. It let people know who you were and where you belonged. This was all very important to Alliance people. Jane’s tag said, ‘Jane Head of House Human.’ Then she put on a ring, and it signified that she was in the military and an engineer. She could put on a lot more jewelry to make these rankings even more apparent, including the ship she served on, but that was the last thing she wanted to do. She wanted to feel as human as possible tonight, and that meant wearing the least amount of Alliance jewelry as she could get away with at such a formal occasion.
“Mirror,” Jane said as she walked out into her living quarters and a full-length mirror appeared. She looked at her reflection and said out loud, “Yes, this is the Jane, I know. Human Jane. Computer, capture the image, and send it to Captain Kara.”
“Sent,” the computer responded in an even male voice.
“Close mirror,” Jane said and then left her quarters aboard the Zuin. She went to the hangar bay where an Alliance pilot and transport was waiting to take her down to the Capital Planet. There were two other men there, security guards. “I don’t need any security,” Jane said dismissively to the men.
“Sorry, Chief, Captain’s orders. After what happened with Doctor Drusilla, I mean Doctor James,” Captain Kara had officially changed her name, as Kara had said that ‘Drusilla’ was an unfit name for anyone in the galaxy, “Captain said she wasn’t taking any more risks with her humans.”
“Her humans?” Jane asked rhetorically with a little laugh. “Last time I checked; I was Head of House Human.” Jane knew though that Kara carried a great deal of guilt for all of the human women forced to live in the Empire. Although she had never been a member of House Human, she was constantly helping its members in one way or another.
The security guard who had been speaking shrugged.
“Fine, come on. But I feel sorry for you both as I expect this to be a boring High Council reception and security
will be tight anyway,” Jane said as she entered the transport with the guards silently trailing her.
Jane and her two guards arrived at the High Council Assembly Rooms in the Administration Ring of the Capital City a quarter of an hour later. Jane had attended the party last year but had been so overwhelmed with all the newness of everything she had not been able to properly admire the sheer vastness of the rooms. They were, without a doubt, spectacular in both size and quality. The outside of the building, as were the interiors, were all made out of yellow stone, which was the preferred building material on the Capital Planet. And the Grand Assembly Room was lit only by artificial candlelight that flickered throughout, casting strange and gentle shadows on the high stone walls. And along the high walls, the only decorations were massive statues of the gods looking down on all the occupants of the room. As if the gods were truly watching their every move. Alliance citizens had better night vision than humans, so much so that their eyes shown like cats’ eyes in the complete darkness and half like cats in the candlelit room now. Jane preferred their appearances this way. It reminded her of their alienness.
Jane confidently walked in the crowded room of grey Alliance people and got more than a few looks from the other women of the High Council. They were not shocked to see her, as they had gotten over their initial surprise that she really was human with pink skin last year, no, they were stunned now because she was wearing a tight-fitting human dress and human makeup. And probably just now realizing that her hair was still the same length as it was last year as well.
