Serpents and Vipers

It is the 32nd century and the treaty between the Romani and a reptilian race they call the serpents has been in force for 300 years. It had started with an act of kindness by the humans towards dying serpents in a derelict ship. This compassionate action so impressed the serpents that they sent a diplomatic ship to the Romani home world, Nova Romae. Unbeknownst to the Romani, serpents had been watching humans evolve since first visiting earth when humans were at the dawn of their civilizations. They attempted to make contact then, but humans were afraid of their own reptilian species and did not trust the serpents. This distrust was heightened by the fact that serpent speech had a hypnotic affect on humans. After the final world war in the 22nd century, earth was abandoned and only in the last millennium had people returned to make it an open-air museum for tourists. All power now rested with the seven major and ten minor corporations earth had founded before her demise. The Romani lived outside of corporate space and were the descendents of the intellectual and dissident castoffs of the corporations five centuries ago. They dreamed of someday exacting revenge on the corporations for the injustice done to their ancestors. Romani space lay between corporate space and serpent space. One of the largest corporations is the Sinclair Corp and a small group of citizens of that corporation has been thrust into the world of the Romani. This group, led by Christopher Slone and his wife Alaya, found a home among the Romani after being treacherously abandoned by Alaya's father, the CEO of Sinclair Corp. Alaya's mother told her that she was not the true daughter of Horatio Sinclair. Her mother had an affair and Alaya's biological father was the leader of the Romani, the Consul Strabo. The former Sinclair citizens were now fully Romani and commanded one of the great dreadnought starships that made up part of a Romani legion. The Slones lived comfortably in a lakeside villa on Nova Romae and they were enjoying their new role as parents to their daughter, Olivia. They also befriended a serpent assigned to their scout ship named Sly. The gift the serpents gave the humans was a cloaking device that rendered their ships invisible, but only serpents could operate it. Therefore, every Romani military vessel carried a serpent crewmember. Life on Nova Romae was good. As the Slones and their friends were enjoying valuable family time, a strange ship was about to enter the Nova Romae system and bring with it a summons, which would change the human serpent relationship forever . . .