Laura Marie Steinert

Halona's Children Laura Marie Steinert

Two decades ago, Halona Sam watched as the Earth finally reached the tipping point and traumatic global climate destabilization bloomed into the disasters scientist had predicted. Amid this global climate disaster, governments destabilized, racial and ethnic hatred were revived with each group blaming the others for the environmental, political, social, healthcare, and economic collapse on a global scale. When it became apparent that humans were about to drive themselves into extinction, Aliens stepped in to help. Humans reacted as they always have-with fear and loathing. The civil, religious, and boarder wars escalated to nuclear weapons, poison gasses, and biological warfare on a global scale. Following the nuclear explosions and the ballistic missile strikes, that ended only when munitions were completely depleted, the Earth struck back. The volcanoes of the Pacific Ring of Fire erupted sending billions of tons of gasses and ash into the skies. Yellowstone Caldera collapsed, venting sulfurous steam that circled the globe. Soon after, European and Asian volcanoes followed suit. Finally there was a great tectonic shift causing earthquakes so massive they could be felt over a thousand miles from the epicenter. Halona Sam, formerly a Chief Master Sargent in the US Air Force and a Yakama Indian is one of the 6,000 people chosen to act as representative to the Aliens and to be safely harbored until Earth stabilizes. She is modified to survive on their planet, where she is trained to be a leader in one of the domes the Aliens are providing as shelter until Earth is once again habitable. Each of the 6,000 domes hold 800 humans, all that remains of the species. In Orbit One of the New Earth, she and her new family begin the business of saving humans from extinction and building a new civilization. Despite the Alien's decontamination of human genetic material and their modification of the surviving humans' memories, there are settlements where cults develop, where destructive cultural patterns crop up, and where greed resurfaces. Halona and the Aliens must deal with these abominations while she is managing her new settlement and trying to raise a family of exceptional children with her co-wife and two husbands.