Prologue

The day of the takeover started as any other. It was a warm day in June, at first indistinguishable from its fellows. The sun rose with a beautiful precession of pink clouds, an easy invitation for anyone over the age of sixty to mention “sailor’s warning”.

John had never understood the eye rolling expression when he heard it repeated throughout his childhood. He supposed it might make more sense if he lived near the ocean. But probably not.

He was fifteen years old. Summer was just beginning to infect the world with serotonin. But a few hours after the sun graced North America, it disappeared.

It would be more accurate to say that it was instantly and entirely eclipsed by something large which lacked a similar source of light or heat. The planet went completely black.

This lasted for a few tense moments, wherein the world’s leading scientists wracked their brains in an attempt to explain an eclipse so complete that not even an outline of the sun’s radiance made it around the foreign object. Nowhere near enough time to make conclusions passed before light returned to Earth in spectacular fashion. The surface brightened so completely that it seemed like the sun had returned.

Those who were outside looking up to the sky where the sun had been were temporarily blinded as the light returned. It was as if nothing had happened. The same scientists were even more confused as what appeared to be the sun returned to its original position and role. Then the voice spoke.

It was heard in the mind of every living thing on Earth. Different cultures heard different translations of the same information, right down to the insects in the air. For John, it was a monotonous English voice, neither deep nor high in pitch. What it said begged belief in the minds of all who heard it.

“Retrieval Complete. Initiating simulated standards. Integrating gravitational influence. Supplementing gravitational influence of home star. Transitioning to artificial heating conditions. Activating all dormant transitional nodes. Error; no dormant transitional nodes found. Implanting active transitional nodes.”

While the voice spoke, subtle but noticeable tremors wracked the planet’s surface. John felt them even indoors. He was too transfixed by the ludicrous words in his head to pay much attention.

“Removing all orbital debris. Scanning for natural satellites. One natural satellite found. Preserving satellite.”

All around the planet, cell phones, televisions, and computers instantly became useless as every single satellite in earth’s orbit disappeared. Communications were down. Densely populated areas quickly descended into pandemonium. All the while, the invasive voice continued to pass information to the various life forms of earth.

“All combustion based technology has been confiscated. All atomic  weapons have been confiscated. All nuclear technology has been confiscated. Error; societal shift necessary. Converting element 261 into electricity. Exchanging power source from combustion to element 261. Stabilizing, please wait.”

All around the world, every appliance reliant on electricity flickered for the slightest moment. It was like a planetary power shortage. But in an instant, it was as if nothing happened.

“Scanning native implants. Standard implant found. Running diagnostics. Diagnosis complete. Implant is present and active. Initiating surveillance mode. Error, surveillance mode unresponsive. Please present implant at nearest Kumani Service Center. A note has been made of this error. Failure to report malfunction will be met with punitive action by Kumani Compliance Corps.”

“Congratulations! Planet number 4289 of Galaxy number 1,848,265,497,391 has been successfully transitioned. Please await further instructions.”

After that, John didn’t hear anything. The confusion of the situation was made much worse a moment later. From his place in his bedroom, he heard hysteric exclamations out his window.

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Going over to the closed blinds, he quickly pulled them out of the way. A lawn away, his neighbor Susan was standing in her driveway staring so hard at the sky that John’s own eyes were drawn upward. When they settled on the cosmos, he gasped.

John stared disbelievingly at what he saw. The normally blue sky had been replaced entirely by a massive planet that had to have been at least the size of Jupiter, but maybe much larger. Having no idea what he was actually seeing, John’s breath caught in his throat.

He hadn’t made sense of the words that had been spoken in his mind. Only when staring up at an unfathomable mass above him did his mind return to the message with any comprehension. It said earth had been “successfully transitioned”.

John had no way of being sure, but he supposed the entire planet had somehow been moved to a new spot in the universe. Despite having a moon of its own, earth was now effectively a moon for this much larger planet. What that meant, who could say?

John’s fifteen year old mind was boggled by the turn of events. He sat back on his bed and started breathing hard. Earth had been stolen by aliens.

His next thought was of his parents. He hoped they were safe. His dad had left before dawn as he always did. His mother was probably just about to take her lunch break a few blocks away where she was supervising summer school.  

John wouldn’t normally expect either of them to be home before that evening. But this was no ordinary day. True to that fact, his mother burst through the front door a few minutes later.

“John! Where are you?” She yelled through the house immediately upon entrance.

“I’m here mom,” he called down to her from the upstairs hallway.

“Oh, thank God you’re safe. Have you heard from your father?” She asked as she looked at him from the bottom of the stairs.

“Not yet. It will probably take him another hour to get here if he’s already on his way.”

His mom nodded in agreement. Jack worked construction outside the city. He wouldn’t have beat her home when the school was as close as it was.

“What about Emma?” John asked.

“She’s coming. Miranda left right when I did. She’s going to bring her back.”

Miranda was Amy’s mother. Emma stayed there a lot. Or at least she had. John didn’t think anyone would be having sleep overs any time soon after this.

His thirteen year old sister arrived within the hour, followed soon after by his father, Jack. They all relieved themselves of the worry that one of them was in danger. But before they could discuss the insanity of the giant planet in the sky or the monotonous voice they had all heard, there was a knock at the door.

No one moved. No one spoke. They all stood rooted in place staring at the disturbance like it was a wild animal that might attack.

Then an electronic voice spoke from the other side. It was clearly automated and had none of the emotional tones of sentient life. It did speak clear and perfect English, like a text to voice app.

“Greetings residents. Sensors show that all occupants are present and conscious. Please allow a brief survey to occur. There is no need to open the door.”

John and his family just stood silently, waiting for the bizarre voice to continue. They had no idea how these mysterious alien planet thieves knew their house had four people living in it, or that they were all present, but stealing entire planets made it easy to imagine that they could get the relative information on a dwelling and it’s inhabitants.

“Scanners show two adults and two adolescents. Your home has been deemed a one eligible worker home. One adult is required to present themselves at a transfer station no less than one time per month. One adult is permitted to remain as guardian for adolescents. Roles are interchangeable. Your home has one standard earth day to present one such adult to the transfer registrations office to be properly registered for transfer. Failure to comply will result in full disintegration of dwelling as well as all of its inhabitants. Reevaluation scheduled for ninety three earth days from now. Have a great day.”

With a mechanical beep and some retreating propeller sounds, the house grew quiet. John was frozen in place, trying to make sense of everything he had heard. His heart pounded in his chest like a hammer.

It wasn’t only because the robotic voice had threatened the house with disintegration if one of his parents didn’t go to whatever a transfer registrations office was. Not even at the idea that aliens were effectively enslaving earth. It was the last message the voice had spoken that had him shaking in his skin.

“Reevaluation scheduled for ninety three earth days from now.”

His mother looked at him in alarm as she too felt the enormity of the statement. John was fifteen. He was a sophomore in high school. He would have been a junior in the fall. Normally that would mean he was sixteen. But John’s birthday always happened shortly after returning to school, making him consistently the youngest person in his grade.

What it also meant, and what his mother had realized a few seconds later than him was that whatever these aliens were, they considered humans to be “adult” at the young age of sixteen. Unfortunately, it also meant that in ninety three days, John would be officially enslaved.