Chapter 1: Chapter 1

Humankind does not particularly excel in a single field. Physically, they lack noteworthy traits, technologically they do not specialise in a specific field, and while they have a lot of experience fighting each other in often horrific warfare, they do not have the bloodlust of the Salvron. But they are still very capable in every field that they engage in, and they are capable of fascinating feats of innovation, and that includes warfare. They would contribute enormously to the galactic community once they finally leave their solar system, but heavens help us if they decide we need to be subjugated rather than befriended.

Summary of a report to the High Commander of the Galactic Defense Force regarding the Human Species

❖

Estella Kendrick yawned as she roused from her slumber (courtesy of her alarm clock radio), on the morning of what she believed would be a very typical Wednesday.

She got out of bed, took a quick shower and begun to get dressed for the day, deciding to utilize one of her usual attires. She tied back most of her slate blue hair, which reached down to her hips, into a ponytail using a simple orange band. As for clothes, she started off with a simple long-sleeved dark blue leotard and a grey and orange hoodie jacket (both of which were tailored to fit her very large chest), along with matching dark blue long socks that reached the middle of her rather thick thighs. She also put on a pair of white and purple running shoes and a belt around her waist - the latter of which was more of a fashion statement than anything else, though it was handy to attach thing to from time to time.

Estella’s room was lively, the walls covered in a tasteful purple. One wall was lined with old photos from various occasions, featuring family, friends or both, often from parties or special events. She had an entire bookshelf filled to the brim with history and mythology texts, and some more piled up next to it - she’d been meaning to get another bookshelf but hadn’t had the time recently. On a wall-mounted shelf sat various accolades and trophies from her primary and high school, mainly academic and athletic accomplishments, particularly in track and field, cricket and soccer, all of which provided a bit of nostalgia when her eyes came upon them, along with the karate black belt. She had a simple desk for study and computer work, her computer was not remotely remarkable.

She applied a bit of rose-coloured lipstick and, with some satisfaction, headed downstairs for breakfast.

When she saw that no one else was there, she sighed, and immediately headed back up, making a beeline for the room of her first younger sister. It was going to be one of those mornings, apparently.

The bedroom door was unlocked, and Estella came in, her gaze focusing on the bed on the other end of the room. She could see the lump under the sheets and the long mess of Persian blue hair, however. Estella went over to the bed, reaching over to her sister’s shoulder, placing a hand on it. “Sis. You need to get up.”

“Give me a mo, Es,” Anja Kendrick groaned, before she sat up and looked at Estella with her turquoise eyes. Her expression and the look in her eyes told Estella everything she needed to know. “Sorry, just… One of those days.”

“You gonna be alright for today?” Estella smiled softly, trying to be supportive, “you don’t have to push yourself…”

“Yeah, I’m good, just feeling a bit bleh. A hot shower should clear that right up,” Anja said, sitting on the side of the bed, taking a deep breath. “Thanks.”

“Good to hear,” Estella smiled wider, patting her sister supportively on the shoulder, and left the room, hearing Anja head into the shower as she closed the door behind her.

“Uh, morning, sis,” spoke a voice to her left. Estella looked to the side to see her little sister, Natalia, coming out of her room. “Anja had another episode this morning?”

Natalia Kendrick was the youngest of the sisters, albeit not by much, but unlike her sisters, her sapphire blue hair went only down to her neck at the back, and also had that unusual lick of hair that went off to the side^{The Kendricks had a common hair feature where a part of their hair would curve straight off to the side, usually in a slight crescent shape. Each of the siblings styled it slightly differently, but they could never get it their hair to stop doing it at all, never mind making it consistently go either way, and it ended up becoming one of their most prominent shared visual traits.}. And her outfit was much more modest, with an orange sweater, a cactus-green set of leggings and black, grey and white running shoes, but her figure was too curvy to be able to easily hide despite showing basically almost no skin below her head.

“Yeah, pretty much, she’s fine now… I think,” Estella said, deciding to not dwell on it, and chuckled, smirking at Natalia, “did you have another late night, Nat?”

“No!” Natalia’s denial quickly withered until her elder sister’s skeptical gaze, and she squirmed a bit, with a bit of a yawn. “Okay, yeah. But I was less late this time…”

“I noticed. I know you’re working on your own projects, but you still need more sleep. Mum wouldn’t let you get away with it if she was here,” Estella said, as she and Natalia headed down the stairs to the kitchen. She stretched as she went to grab some cereal from the pantry - actually healthy cereal, mind you, not the sugar-filled fluff typical of most cereals - her body could handle the carbs just fine. As she carried it to the table, she noticed the old family Labrador, Cookie, lying next to her chair, and happily petted him before resuming her breakfast preparations.

Natalia sighed as she also went to the fridge to make herself breakfast in the form of a fruit smoothie. “Which one?”

“Both of them. Atti especially,” Estella said, as she glanced towards a collection of photos hanging from the wall. Ever since Natalia had graduated from high school and started attending university, their parents had started going on trips either cross-country or across the globe, sometimes even for months at a time. Of course, they would send regular updates and photos, but Estella couldn’t help but feel that the house was a bit emptier without them. She had no doubt in her mind that her sisters felt the same way.

Unfortunately, it had made Natalia more vocal about her issues with their parents - specifically, the secrecy. The girls had no father in their lives, neither Atsuko or Ryana Kendrick had ever mentioned one, and Natalia suspected that they never had any kind of biological father to begin with, despite that being seemingly impossible. This had been explained as the sisters being conceived via a common sperm donor, but even Estella couldn’t ignore that it didn’t explain the common biological features they shared with both of their parents. She remembered when Natalia had finally decided to confront their parents over the issue when the sisters were still in high school.

For her part, Estella had decided that she would prefer to trust her parents. She had remembered how pained Atsuko and Ryana had looked, how they clearly wanted to tell but couldn’t. They said had important reasons not to, but they’d explain eventually when the time was right, and Estella had decided they were being honest about that.

“Yeah, I guess so,” Natalia admitted, as she began getting the fruit ready for mixing. “Though it’s not like you two don’t spend some late nights partying.”

That’s when Anja came down, having finished a quick shower and gotten dressed. The middle sibling had gone for her usual outfit set - a sky blue backless top that went around her neck and waist but otherwise showed off a lot of skin, and there was a lot of skin to show, considering Anja was the most stacked out of the three incredibly impressively stacked siblings. She wore a black g-string under a pair of denim shorts that hugged her no less impressive hips and rear end. She also had knee-length socks that had blue and green stripes, matching wristbands, and a set of white, grey and blue running shoes. Lastly, her favourite sunglasses adorned her head. She went to prepare bacon and eggs on the stove. She apparently had overheard part of the conversation. “Eh, fair cop, though you’re going to less of them. I know you’re not as sociable as us, but it feels like you’ve become a bit more shut-in.”

“Uni’s a different atmosphere than high school. You’re used to it already by being a year ahead, I’m not,” Natalia replied with a sigh and a shake of her head.

“You won’t get used to it if you just lock yourself in your room at every opportunity!” Estella remarked with a slight chuckle, having finished prepping her cereal and starting to eat, “it’s okay to hang with friends, you know?”

“Easy for you to say, you’re the town’s serial Juliet,” Natalia grumbled, starting the blender.

Anja snorted, glancing at Estella. “She’s got you there. I know you’ve slowed down on the dating, but back in high school, you had how many boyfriends and girlfriends…?”

Estella pouted, stuffing a chunk of cereal and milk into her mouth, unable to come up with an adequate retort by the time she swallowed. “I can’t help that I have terrible luck with dates.”

❖

When Anja Kendrick had woken up this morning, she had felt, to put it in succinct terms, like absolute crap. It had taken her older sister coming in to check in on her to give her the motivation to actually get out of bed.

Her room’s walls were a dark red, and a bit of an organised mess - if something wasn’t already on a shelf, it was in a pile on the floor against the wall, along with anything else even tangentially related grouped together. Old awards for drama and acting were gathering dust, along with a black belt. A small TV along with a couple of consoles in the corner and a bean bag chair had seen the most use, along with the desk and computer.

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She was, fortunately, feeling significantly less terrible once she had a shower and came downstairs to her older and younger sister chatting.

Anja flipped the bacon on the pan. She was glad this was a relatively positive conversation and not another argument. Those had been happening a bit more in the last few months.

She glanced at Natalia, who was giggling at Estella’s minor indignation. She understood where her younger sister had been coming from with her grievances, but she wondered if Nat had been too hard on her family about it, even if it was from an understandable place. She clearly saw things differently from both her elder sisters, and Anja wondered if Natalia being the youngest sister gave her a perspective that she and Estella had been ignoring.

On the flipside, there was Estella, who implicitly trusted the word of their parents and was more hopeful. Anja wondered if maybe it would be more helpful if her older sister was a bit more skeptical rather than defensive of their parents.

As for Anja herself… To her, there was no point angsting about the secrets their parents may or may not have. After all, all three of them were now adults, they had become relatively well-adjusted without a father figure, what would the truth really change? Sure, she was still a bit annoyed at her parents for keeping them, but she was mostly resigned to the fact that her parents would only tell the truth on their own terms, and not hers or her sisters’. Besides, she had worse issues than her parents keeping secrets.

Once she was satisfied with how well her breakfast was done, Anja transferred the eggs and bacon to the buttered toast, and went over to the table to eat, sitting down.

Anja Kendrick had clinical depression. It was something that she had suffered over long periods a few times over the last few years ever since high school. She wasn’t sure if she had briefly recovered during the interim or if her depression was at a low ebb, but either way, it was at least a chronic condition to some degree. Fortunately, the worst of it was long behind her, and she had a therapist helping her through it.

But that didn’t set aside the fact that she could be doing just fine one day and feel like absolute garbage emotionally the next, or vice-versa, amongst other things. Her emotions were a goddamn roller-coaster, and to state the obvious, she didn’t much like it at all. But really, who would?

“Anja, you alright to go out today?” Natalia asked with familiar concern. Bless her heart, she and Estella really went out of their way to make Anja was okay.

Anja smiled softly, swallowing a piece of bacon and egg before replying. “Yeah, I think so. Don’t worry about me today. Just a morning mood.”

That seemed to satisfy both her sisters, who nodded. Estella spoke up, “just remember to take it easy if you need to.”

“You really don’t need to say that, God knows our parents drilled that into me,” Anja replied, rolling her eyes. To be fair to her, it was getting rather predictable at this point.

“Yeah, we know, but they’re not here, so we gotta pick up the slack,” Estella chuckled.

“That’s fair, but again. Don’t worry about me. If I need help I’ll ask for it,” Anja said. “Still, thanks. I’m not sure what I’d do without you two looking after me, even if you overdo it sometimes.”

❖

Natalia Kendrick was having problems with late nights in recent months.

She had felt more pressure to achieve academic success ever since she started attending university, regardless of how real or imaginary that pressure happened to be. This meant late-night studying and working on her projects.

Natalia’s room was blue, neat and tidy, all except for her desk and workbench where she worked on electronics. She had a full-fledged computer gaming rig with relatively top of the line parts that she had worked tirelessly to build, with a bit of pitch-in help financially from her parents. Along the wall, aside from the black belt, was a small collection of guitars she had amassed over the years, along with a few other instruments that had struck her fancy. All three sisters had great singing voices, but Natalia was the only one who truly embraced music as one of her passions. She just wished she could make more time for it, though she wondered if that was indeed a problem of her own making.

That morning, Natalia knew she wasn’t the last one up and awake when she saw Estella coming out of Anja’s room, and she instantly knew why. She did not enjoy seeing her elder sister’s liveness crumble after that one terrible night, and while some of that spark had returned, it had not been an easy process. All Natalia could do was try to help her sister in any way she could, but being the youngest and least confident of the trio, it wasn’t the easiest thing for her to do, but she tried all the same.

Now that the matter of checking in on her big sister was addressed, Natalia decided to turn towards the television, turning it on to the morning news. The TV woke from its electronic slumber, swiftly displaying a news program with a reporter standing at a sidewalk in town, holding a microphone. Unfortunately, the news, as usual, was not particularly positive, and what she heard sent shivers down her spine.

“Two more people have been reported missing to the police, adding to a new total of roughly thirty-two missing persons cases in recent weeks. A phone belonging to one of the missing people was discovered late last night by police, but further leads have yet to be uncovered.”

“Yikes, this sleepy town got kinda dangerous out of nowhere,” Estella said. “Good thing we aren’t gonna be out late this evening.”

“That’s not a huge comfort. If people are being kidnapped, you don’t need to be walking around at the dead of night to be nabbed,” Natalia said, imagining the various scenarios where a kidnapper could attack even in broad daylight. “Just somewhere where people aren’t around or paying attention.”

“Then we’ll wait at campus and go home together, easy,” Anja shrugged. “Not that big a deal. We can watch each other’s backs just fine, we know how to defend ourselves.”

“Yeah, our parents certainly saw to that,” Natalia said dryly, recalling the countless karate lessons their parents insisted the trio went through to ensure that they would be more than capable of self-defense. She remembered how Atsuko would put the trio through their paces, demonstrating skill that even their teachers were lacking in. Natalia was driven to learn from that alone, though it had dawned on her over time that it may have been partly out of spite to try and surpass her mother.

She didn’t hate her parents, not by a long shot. Despite their slightly strained relationship, Natalia loved and adored her parents no less than her sisters, and for the most part, thought the world of them. It was the secrets, however, that were the problem - the admittance by her parents that there were secrets at all vindicated Natalia’s suspicions, but who knew when they would be willing to reveal the truth, or even if it would be the whole truth, and it ate Natalia up inside whenever she thought about. She tried not to, but on some days it really couldn’t be helped. It was a fundamental question about the foundation of her birth, of course it was important. She just absolutely hated the notion that she might not actually trust her parents to keep their word. But she also didn’t want to break their trust, either. So as much as it ate at her, she would stay the course.

“We could take the car, but the walk is too short to really be worth it,” Anja shrugged. “Waste of petrol, and the streets around here aren’t exactly good for snatching people.”

Natalia had mixed feelings on the matter - while Anja did raise a good point, she also felt that ‘better safe than sorry’ might be more prudent. But judging by Estella’s expression, she realized she was likely to be outvoted. “Alright, I guess, but I’d like us to have alert apps ready or something.”

“Sure, we keep our phones ready while we’re walking home, then,” Estella nodded, evidently satisfied. “The idea crossed my mind as well, it wouldn’t make sense not to try that.”

Natalia drank the rest of her smoothie, her stress draining out of her body now that that issue was properly resolved with a reasonable compromise. She just hoped her stress wouldn’t come back the moment she arrived at campus.

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