Subjugation
by James 'Fel' Galloway


Prologue

Mankind's first contact with extra-terrestrial life was as dramatic and historical as everyone believed it would be.

They were called the Faey, and they came to Earth not as messengers of peace, but as conquerors.

On March 12th, 2005, they arrived in two immense starships and addressed the peoples of Earth via radio transmission, in every major language, that Earth had two weeks to surrender to the Faey Imperium or face war. They did not use any show of force or destroy anything to prove their might, for the images that Earth telescopes gave of their two vessels was all the show of force anyone needed. They were two miles long and nearly three quarters of a mile across, two sleekly designed monstrosities that were so massive that when they entered into Earth orbit, they affected the tides.

The next day, a lone Faey emissary descended from the vessels above to address the United Nations with the Faey demands, and the global news coverage of the arrival of the emissary caused its own con-fusion. The Faey representative, a high-ranking military officer, was a breathtakingly lovely human-looking female with light blue skin and pointed ears. She did not look like a warlike alien; she did not even look particularly dangerous. But when she addressed the United Nations, in English, it became quite apparent to everyone watching the globally broadcast event that she was every bit the conqueror. She was arrogant and condescending, and she made it clear immediately that there would be no negotiation. The Earth had two weeks to surrender unconditionally or face war. Earth could either surrender or be conquered, but either way, they would become a part of the Faey Imperium.

Faced with an enemy vastly superior in technology to their own, the nations of Earth met in the United Nations met for two solid weeks and debated furiously, but such a debate had only one ultimate conclusion. That conclusion was reached March 26th, 2005, when the Secretary General of the United Nations, Vladimir Kosparivic, formally and officially surrendered on behalf of all the nations of Earth.

Without firing a shot, without killing a single human being, the Faey Imperium conquered Earth.

And so, Earth became a farming colony under Faey control. The second major shock that the natives-as the Faey called them-discovered about their conquerors was that there was much more to them than first believed. The Faey were a telepathic species, and they used that telepathic power to quickly move in and root out all the resistance movements that had sprung up since their arrival. All Terran governments were dissolved, replaced by a feudalist system where a Faey noble held absolute power over his or her territory. At first, the humans held hope that their conquerors could somehow be overthrown, but it was a feeble one. In two months, the Faey Occupational Forces wiped out every band of organized resistance, leaving the humans with nothing but grim resignation of the lot that had been dealt to them.

The changes were drastic. Human society was allowed to continue to function, at least after a fashion. The Faey meant for Earth to be a farming colony, and that was exactly what it became. All activity on Earth was shifted to farming or offering material or technological support for the farming effort. The verdant belts of Earth, such as the American mid-west, had every single square inch of their land taken over by farming. Entire cities were depopulated and razed to make room for farms, and the middle sections of America became nothing but a vast collection of large collective farms. Every open space became a farm, even inhospitable areas like deserts and tundra, from the northern reaches of Canada and Russia all the way to the southern tips of Africa and South America. The Faey did not cut down forests to make room for farms, and all small-scale civilization that existed within forested areas was evacuated, letting the regions go back to nature to maintain the planetary ecosystem and sending the inhabitants to work elsewhere.

Society continued on much as it did before, but all the humans who had had a job that had either been phased out as unnecessary, or had been replaced by Faey, found themselves working on farms. Every single human who was unemployed suddenly found himself on a farm, and a large segment of the rest of the population also found themselves working on farms, having been assigned there by random lottery that was held every three months. The rest of the human race continued on much as it had before, manufacturing supplies and equipment needed for the farms, maintaining the infrastructure, rendering services and support to other workers. Because of this realignment, lawyers, politicians, stock brokers and bankers suddenly found themselves weeding fields, while doctors, construction workers, and the clerks at the local convenience stores found their jobs to be suddenly secure. For those who avoided being sent to farms, job loyalty became insanely high and performance became fanatically perfect, for being fired or quit-ting would lead to immediate reassignment to a farm... and once assigned to a farm, a worker was virtually guaranteed to be a farm worker for the rest of his life.

The Faey did turn out to be not quite so heartless as humans originally first believed. They installed a great deal of their own technology on the planet to clean up the environment and converted all human cars and trucks to fuel cells of hydrogen, which burned cleanly. They instituted universal health care for all humans, cured plagues on human kind like AIDS, cancer, and diabetes, and revamped the educational system to start training humans in their technology, so they could maintain the Faey systems themselves. The Faey took over the roles of police, and their telepathic abilities led to the quick capture of all criminals, which in turn led to a drastic drop in crime. They did not interfere with the arts or entertainment, allowing music, movies, television, and even the internet to remain for the enjoyment of the citizenry, encouraged careers in the arts and protected the jobs and livelihoods of those already in careers in the arts, even going so far as to not even bother to censor content, allowing people to express any opinion they wished... for everyone knew that the Faey telepathic gifts would destroy any kind of rebellion before it ever had a chance to begin. Humans were allowed to object to the Faey, even do so publicly, so long as they didn't actively do anything about it. But many saw these gestures as nothing more than guaranteeing the health and well-being of their slave work force.

Human society slowly and begrudgingly accepted this new order, however, for it was impossible to rebel. Their Faey conquerors were telepathic, and quickly rooted out any attempt to organize resistance and crushed it. Unable to counter either the vast technological superiority of their conquerors or maintain any kind of organized resistance, humans slowly came to accept that there was nothing that could be done. But many continued to try, unable to live under the heel of an oppressor. These mavericks mainly existed within the area formerly known as the United States, which proved to be both one of the most productive regions in terms of farm output, and the most troublesome in terms of defiant troublemakers. The vast majority of these malcontents were squatters who had escaped from farms or had left their jobs and homes, and moved into the unpopulated forested regions of the eastern and western sides of the continent, areas that had been stripped of human population to allow the areas to return to nature. In these lawless forest zones, they eked out dangerous and sometimes violent lives living off the land and preying on one another, living stark, almost primitive lives, but living free. The Faey allowed them to do so, not bothering them so long as they didn't raid Faey holdings.

And so things remained for two years, a continuous cycle of the indomitable human spirit seeking to organize and resist, only to have their Faey conquerors move in and destroy the attempt before it got started.


Chapter 1

_Raista, 9 Shiaa, 4392, Orthodox Calendar;_
_Wednesday, 14 May 2007, Native regional reckoning_
_New Orleans, Gamia Province, American Sector_

He hated heat.

Blowing out his breath, Jason fanned the neck of his tee shirt as he scurried across the campus of Tulane University, lugging a heavy backpack full of assorted things around, just one of the many racing around campus like psychotic ants, trying to get wherever they were going as quickly as possible to escape the withering heat. Why did it get this hot so early in the year down here? Back home in Maine, there would still be snow in sheltered, shady pockets on the ground!

It was almost enough to make him want to be sent to a farm, but with his luck, they'd stick him on one of the rice or sugar plantations they had down here, instead of a nice wheat farm up in New England. It was just ridiculous. He looked at his watch and saw that he was going to be nearly a half an hour early, but he didn't care. He'd stand out in the hall and wait if only to be in air conditioning. It had to be nearly a hundred degrees! For him, that was outrageous, given back home in Portland, it was a news event if the thermometer hit eighty!

How did these people manage to live down here, anyway? He was sure that they would have melted by now.

The overshirt and backpack didn't help, but he couldn't help that. The overshirt, nothing more than a button-up, short sleeve, light blue denim shirt that was worn unbuttoned was a vanity of his. He'd worn shirts like that for so long that he felt naked if he wasn't wearing a shirt and an overshirt over it. The backpack was roasting his back where it was against him, but there wasn't much he could do but pull it down and switch to the other shoulder. It was a bit heavy today, but that was because he had today's project in there in addition to his panel display, the universal computer-like device that all students were issued, that acted as a textbook, notebook, assignment book, and personal computer. His cell phone (which he was required to carry at all times), earphones, several music and data sticks-crystalline devices that looked like little inch-long pencils made of crystal which stored information-and a few good old fashioned paper notebooks were also in the pack, adding to the weight but not about to be left behind.

If only Professor Ailan had let him build a smaller model. His project was for Advanced Plasma Fundamentals, and he had to build a functioning plasma flow model, complete with a plasma power generator, conduit for the plasma to take at least two separate paths, and an ion exchange module at both junctions. The Faey had microscopic versions of what he had in his pack, a massive dog of a device that weighed nearly thirty pounds, but he had to use the supplies that were available to him. It was a ridiculously easy project, truth be told, because all a student had to do was get the parts and put them together. His model had three paths instead of two, because he was the last student to get to the part bin, and had to use the leftovers. Professor Ailan had kept him at the podium on purpose, he privately suspected, keeping him from being able to get the necessary two-path split exchanger and merge exchanger to build the simplest version of the model. He managed to get a three-path split exchanger and two two-path merge exchangers, and used those to build a cascading model where the primary conduit was split into three paths, then two merged, then that joined path merged with the last before returning to the PPG.

Ailan was alright, at least for a Faey. Jason didn't like Faey, because they were conquering occupiers. It was well known that Jason was an objector, a vocal dissident, but he never allowed his opinions to appear to be anything more than opinions, and he also had the highest grade point average among second semester students in the university. The crux of his attitude towards Ailan dealt with a philosophical position. Because the Faey had stripped Jason of his freedom and rights, he was opposed to their system. But individual Faey were just that, individuals, and often voiced the same objections he himself raised. But since they were Faey, he had a moral obligation to avoid them, and do his best not to like them. That wasn't easy when all his instructors were Faey, and Faey like Ailan were friendly, personable, and actually rather funny. Ailan was a male Faey, which weren't often seen on Earth. The Faey was a female-dominated society whose entire core was based on telepathic power. Females tended to have stronger telepathic abilities, so they had emerged as the dominant gender. Females and males were the same size and roughly the same strength, but it was that disparity in telepathic might that made all the difference. Males did have a place in the society, but they were not allowed, by law, to enter into any occupation that was considered overly hazardous or dangerous, outside of serving on the large starships. Male Faey tended to be scientists, engineers, inventors, doctors, and teachers, while females were just about the only Faey that most people dealt with. All military Faey were female, including the occupational forces, who served as the new police. In addition to being military, females were also allowed to enter into any career they could manage to qualify for, and pull enough strings with whichever noble ruled them to manage to get in.

That was one reason Jason got so aggravated with the Faey system. It was a feudal bureaucracy, where every Faey was tested to see where they excelled, and allowed to pursue careers within those fields. The personal choice of the person had nothing to do with these choices, which was why Jason cursed his own role every day. When the Faey took over Earth, the tested each and every human on the planet, tests of intelligence, reasoning, and aptitude. Prior education and training had little impact on these tests, and everyone tried their absolute hardest when taking them. People who scored poorly were sent to farms, and being put on a farm was a fate that every human on Earth who was not already on a farm strove mightily to avoid. In that regard, the Faey system was a great deal like the military. But people who had money or connections could get out of that mandatory placement and go wherever they wanted. They just had to have enough credits or the right lineage. Nobles never served in the military in any role other than fleet officers or non-combat logistics officers for those who washed out of the academy, because they could buy those positions. If Jason had had enough money, he could have bribed his placement assessor to get any job he wanted. Not that it mattered for humans, for virtually all forms of old Earth currency was now worthless except for gold and silver. Some rich millionaires did manage to have enough gold or silver assets on hand to buy themselves out of working on a farm, but not many.

The main reason Jason hated his position was because he scored very high on those tests, high enough to be classified as able to comprehend Faey technology. And because of that, now he was in school to learn their technology. They didn't consider that a risk because of their formidable telepathy, which would let them catch him long before he tried to use his education in some kind of harmful manner. He would be trained in some kind of Faey technology, and then become a part of the Imperium by serving it And he hated that. He'd be serving no matter what job he was doing, even farming, but it seemed so wrong to him to be trained in their technology and then work for them. It was almost as if he were betraying the American ideals he had held so dear, cooperating with the enemy.

It was doubly agonizing for him because he was fascinated by their technology. They used plasma as a power source, and had mastered the science of manipulating space itself for use as propulsion, containing the fusion reactions that supplied plasma to power their systems, communicating over the entire galaxy, and had even learned to use it to breach the spatial boundaries and allow ships to jump through artificial wormholes... the closest thing to teleportation that had been devised so far by any race. They used plasma for everything, from lighting their homes to the energy of their weapons, and had learned techniques to alter the nature of plasma to make it safe for commercial and residential use. They used the manipulation of space as propulsion, as a means of travel beyond propulsion, and had even learned a way to form micro-wormholes that allowed communications to pass through, giving their Imperium real-time communications over their vast empire of nearly seventy star systems. It was all so incredibly fascinating, and yet he felt he was violating his ethics and morals by enjoying his education. He hated the Faey, and yet was learning to be a productive member of their society. He hated being nothing more than a slave, yet his was the gilded cage, for they had put him in a place he loved to be.

Too hot. He had another half a block to go. Tulane and another university called Loyola had existed side by side here in the Garden District of New Orleans, but Loyola had been dissolved, its buildings taken over by Tulane to form a single campus. Not that it was Tulane anymore, it was simply called Tulane because that was the university whose buildings were still standing. Officially, it was the Basic Technology Academy, Gamia Province. His next class was all the way on the other side of the campus, in a brand new facility that had been built where the centuries-old Loyola building had once stood. Scornful of the rich history of that venerable institution, the Faey had razed the building to the ground and in its place built their five-story nightmare of glass and synthetic plastic-like material that was stronger than steel but lighter than aluminum. It was called the Plasma Dynamics building, or what the students called the "Plaid" due to the checkerboard appearance of glass and dark plastic that formed the front faade of the building, and it was where all lab-oriented Plasma courses were taught. How did these people deal with it? And it was only _May_!

Two Faey females in that strange form-fitting body armor came across Saint Charles Avenue, their rifles slung over their shoulders. He wondered how they could even breathe in those things. They were truly form-fitting, showing off all those lovely curves for which many human men secretly pined. Faey women were very lovely, all the military women were athletically thin, and most of them were curvy and very appealing. Jason had a feeling that the tight fit of the armor had something to do with its protective aspects, since it didn't hinder their movement in any way. If there was no void space within it, there would be no jostling inside the armor. He once saw a Faey soldier get hit by an SUV that had to be going about fifty miles an hour back when they first arrived, before they got the hang of crosswalks and realized that traffic wasn't just going to stop just because they stepped out into the street. She got thrown about thirty feet after the impact, then she got up and simply dusted herself off. The SUV was completely trashed. The armor was more than just showing off their forms, it was a powerful protective shell that surrounded them. These two had their helmets off, slung by small cords over the barrels of their rifles. They were patent Faey, high cheekbones, large, almond-shaped eyes, small, pert little noses, full lips, and that strange bluish skin. The taller one had gray eyes and auburn red hair cut short, combed over one side of her head, which seemed odd with her blue-hued skin, and the shorter one had blue eyes and hair so blond it was virtually white, short and straight as straw. Both had black armor, which denoted them not as regular army, but as Marines. They were the ones that a human had to watch out for, for they were rough, impatient, and tended to hand out very harsh punishments for the most benign of offenses. They resented their jobs as police, and took it out on the people they policed. Jason rushed past them, head down, not glancing to either side, his mind carefully neutral, betraying nothing.

And there it was. He'd come to be very familiar with that brushing sensation against his mind, the touch of a Faey who was using her telepathy against him. Jason had a very organized and controlled mind, thanks to his father. His father had been an Air Force fighter pilot, but resigned after his mother was killed in a car crash to spend more time with him. His father had been a fanatical practitioner of martial arts, and had taught his son Karate, Aikido, Kendo, and Ninjitsu, which gave him a very structured and strong mind. He still practiced, but not as much as he had before his father passed away. That mental training gave him the ability to control his mind, present to the world a repetitive train of thought which the Faey couldn't seem to penetrate without being very serious about it, an upper layer of sorts that concealed the true thoughts beneath it. And they all tried, damn them. Every single Faey he came into casual contact with probed him within ten seconds of coming close to them. It was automatic, and he had come to expect it every time he came within twenty feet of a Faey. Some of those brushings were light, as this one was, some were strong, and sometimes the Faey abandoned tact and literally attacked his mind to break down his defense of repetitive thought and get at the true thoughts beneath. No matter how light or strong the touch, Jason never failed to feel violated at those touches, violated and offended that they would strip him of the most private of all private domains, his own mind.

The thought he used against most Faey when he was feeling petty, as he was now, was an image of the Faey involved, stark naked and in a rather provocative pose. Except for a pair of army boots. The boots were rather important. He wasn't sure which one it was doing it, so he decided to use the redhead. She was cuter. He had several stock poses that he used, but given that this one was a but more buxom than the usual Faey, the good old cupping breasts image suited her rather well.

It was a dangerous game to play with a Marine, but it was worth it. One had to fight one's battles where and when one could. Ruffling a Marine's feathers would satisfy his sense of necessity.

From behind, he heard a startled gasp, and then he felt a second brushing. That was proceeded immediately by uncontained laughter.

He knew he had about three seconds to make himself scarce, before that redhead got over her sense of moral outrage and got mad. He quickened his step as he heard the second one continue laughing, and he managed to get in with a group of other students moving towards the Plaid.

"Hey!" came a sudden call from behind. "Come back here!"

Jason ducked his head and broke out in front of the other students, who had stopped and turned around to see who was being addressed. They melted out of the way when they saw two Marines, one of them with a dark expression and the other trying her best not to start laughing again. Jason just barely managed to duck into the Plaid before the Marine spotted him, and he quickly got out of sight. He felt several more brushings, but instead of presenting an image of a naked Marine, he instead made his mind like smoke, empty and presenting little more to the outside world than a plastic plant would. He slipped into the broom closet between the bathrooms as he heard the sound of the Marine's boots on the tiled floor, then controlled his breathing and remained centered on nothingness, surrendering thought to the Zen-like state of nothing but silence within and without, the serenity of a meditative mind.

"I know you're in here, human!" the Marine boomed in English, and she sounded quite miffed.

"Calm down, Jyslin," the other said in a reasonable tone. "I thought it was funny."

"It was funny, Maya, but do you think I'm going to let him get away with that?" she shot back, obviously miffed, because she was still speaking English. "Oh, no, not until I strip him and put him in a pair of those ridiculous high-heeled shoes the human girls wear. Now shut up and help me find him."

Jason stayed in the closet for several moments as brushing after brushing slid over him, very strong ones, as the two of them used their telepathic gifts to try to find his mind. He remained serene, allowing them to see nothing but emptiness as his mind worked beneath that misdirecting shell, curious as to why they _couldn't_ find him. At that range, with as much power as he could sense in their probes, they should have punched right through his defense and locked right onto him. He could hear them not ten feet outside the door, for their armored boots _clacked_ on the floor every time they moved. That close, they should be able to _smell_ him, because he could certainly smell that strange copper-like smell that the strange metal of their armor exuded.

He heard them chatter at each other in their musical language for a moment, as the redhead's voice seemed to get agitated, then the blonde's voice got quite serious. What was the matter with them now? She thought it was funny. What had the redhead said that changed her mind?

He heard their boots clack away, then from the sound of it, they went up the stairs. He quickly pounced up from his crouch and cracked the door open, and indeed saw them just as they turned and went up the steps, disappearing from sight.

Quick as a cat, Jason darted from the closet, his sneakers making no sound, and he rushed down the hall, his mind racing. They _couldn't find him_. Their telepathic power should have found him easily once they got serious about it, but they hadn't. Maybe it was the door. It was made out of metal, and some people on the internet speculated that their telepathy couldn't pierce through heavy metals, like lead. If the door had a steel sheet, then maybe that was enough to weaken their probes to the point where it would keep them from finding him.

It was the only plausible explanation.

He rushed through the door of his classroom, closing the door behind him and peering through the small window. Had they heard him? Did they see him come out of the closet? He should have waited.

"Well, so glad you could join us, Mister MacKenzie!" the voice of Professor Ailan boomed across the room, followed up by the laughter of twenty others.

Jason whirled around and put his back against the door, surprise making his face flush, and found all of them looking at him. Had he been in the closet that long? When he zoned out like that, he couldn't keep track of time.

"Well, since you wanted to make such an entrance, why don't you step up and show us your project?"

He drew a blank. Project? What was he talking about? Oh, his _project_. "I have it right here, Professor," he said, taking his pack off his shoulder and approaching the table which Ailan used as a lectern and a desk. "Sorry I'm late."

"And just who were you hiding from?" he asked with a sly smile.

"You don't want to know," he answered as he put his pack down by his chair, closest to the door, and pulling out his breadbox-sized plasma system. He felt a brushing from Ailan, and he was careful to keep his mind tightly focused on the project in his hands. Males didn't have the raw strength of the females when it came to telepathic ability, but they knew many tricks and subtle nuances that actually made them much more dangerous to him. Ailan had a policy of not probing his students, but sometimes, like right now, when his curiosity was piqued, he just couldn't help himself. The first time Ailan had used his power on Jason, he had used his standard smoke and mirror trick to conceal his thoughts, and he felt Ailan immediately probe around the edges of it, trying to find a way through. Ailan had _known_ that it was nothing but a defense, that his true thoughts were lurking beneath that misdirection. No female had ever managed to detect that, at least not that he knew of. Because of that, Jason had to use more crude but no less effective techniques, such as repetitive concentration on a single thought, which drowned out everything else. Ailan could only see his focus on getting his project set up and running, and for as long as he felt Ailan brushing up against his mind, he could think of nothing else. But after a few seconds, the tentative brushing stopped, and Jason dropped his repetition and got down to the business of checking the seals on his exchangers before powering up his PPG.

The incident with the Marine was brushed into the back of his mind as he displayed his working three-path plasma system, then sat down and watched as the others displayed theirs. All of them but one worked perfectly, and that one failed because of a faulty PPG, which wasn't the student's fault. Jason had the luck of being in a class of other smart people, for they had all been shipped into New Orleans to attend this particular school, which had the best instructors. Jason had already had a year of school up in Boston, but when he aced his final in Basic Plasma Systems, they shipped him here, to Tulane, where the work was more challenging and the washout rate was tripled. This was the school where they sent the humans that they thought might have a knack for the work, and pushed them hard to see how quickly and completely they could embrace plasma technology. The Tulane campus was the M.I.T. or Northwestern of the Faey upper level education facilities, where the brightest students were sent.

No one in this school wanted to wash out. They all knew that the further they got in this school, the better of a job they qualified for once they were placed, and thus the more money they could make and the more secure they would be in their new careers. The goal of any student at Tulane was to get at least to pass Advanced Plasma Applications, the benchmark requirement for plasma systems technicians. Anything above that was good money and solid job security. Many of them, once they got to that level, slacked off, washed out, and ended up getting placed, but they didn't care. They'd reached the Promised Land, and it didn't matter what job 