Ten years prior, the Earth has been conquered by the Tsorians, a race of Humanoid Aliens who have made Earth into a military outpost. Though the Tsorians do maintain control over the Earth and its governments, life for the average citizen continues as normal. But some humans chafe under the aliens' rule, claiming humanity has been denied its rightful place amongst the stars. These are the Resistors.
The book features two protagonists; Jason Sykes, a human teen who dreams of joining the Resistors despite his mother being a collaborator, and Aryl, the daughter of the alien commander currently governing Earth who can't understand her father's admiration for its natives. When an attempt kidnap the Tsorian commander goes awry, causing a much bigger problem to descend upon Earth, the two are forced to work together to survive, and hopefully gain a certain level of understanding for each other.
Provides examples of:
- Affably Evil: The Tsorians have conquered Earth and several other planets, but they genuinely work to help the inhabitants of the worlds they conquer and overall seem to make things better.
- Alien Invasion: Earth got one a decade before the story begins, with a second one occurring at the climax of the book that makes the first feel like a Benevolent Alien Invasion.
- Aliens Are Bastards: Subverted with the Tsorians but played straight with the Hykzoi.
- Alien Sky: An interesting case as this is how the Tsorians feel about Earth's sky. Apparently the Tsorian homeworld has no moon but is instead surrounded by a massive asteroid belt, not unlike the rings of Saturn. Aryl finds the moon bothersome as it casts too much light, but her father thinks it's a beautiful sight that adds to Earth's native charm.
- Becoming the Mask: Mrs. Sykes undergoes this accidentally in her efforts to get close to and gain the trust of the Tsorian Commander. Leads to a My God, What Have I Done? moment when her Resistor cell kidnaps the man.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Tsorians use different colored clothes to represent military rank. The green cape Aryl wears signifies she's the daughter of an extremely high ranking officer in their military.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: How the invasion of Earth went. The Tsorians utterly destroyed Earth's military forces when they clashed. This is an understandable sore point for the Resistors.
- Defrosting the Ice Queen: Aryl's character development takes this form. She starts the book hating life on a boring, backwater planet like Earth and viewing Earthlings as savages beneath her. Her first interactions with Jason are very antagonistic, and she clearly expects him to be subservient to her. As she comes to depend on him and see the occupation from his point of view, she gains a grudging respect and admiration for him and humanity, even if she still views said occupation as necessary. By the end of the book, she's come to understand her father's admiration for the species and agrees humans should be made full citizens of the empire.
- Hot-Blooded: Combines with Hair-Trigger Temper and Teen Angst and causes Jason quite a few problems as he tends to leap into action without caring for the consequences.
- Humanoid Alien: The Tsorians have the same general build and physical appearance of humans, differing only by having exotic skin and hair color, as well as more pronounced claws and teeth as befitting a species evolved from more feline predators.
- The Empire: The Tsorians are a military, expansionist one. Despite this, they're actually a pretty benign one, offering any civilization they conquer the chance to join their empire as full citizens after a period of occupation.
- A second empire, the Hykzoi, appear at the climax of the book, a far less benign example that favors exterminating and enslaving their conquests.
- Enemy Mine: Three examples, two straight, one a subversion:
- A straight one between Jason and Aryl who have to work together to survive and get back to their respective groups
- A subversion occurs when the Resistors attempt to contact another alien empire the Tsorians are at war with, offering up the Tsorian Commander as incentive to invade... this does not have the results they were hoping.
- Finally between the Resistors and the Tsorian Commander when the previous attempt at an Enemy Mine blows up spectacularly as it turns out the Hykzoi are genocidal and have no intention of sparing humanity if they can kill the Tsorians.
- Gray-and-Grey Morality: The Tsorians invaded and conquered Earth and slaughter entire neighborhoods (nonchalantly children, visitors, other innocent bystanders and all) whenever there’s an act of resistance there. The Resistors strive to free Earth from alien rule. Despite this set-up, things are not as black and white as they seem. The Tsorians don't enslave humans, and their leadership is actually working to upgrade Earth into a full member of the Empire. They also point out that Earth is dead in the middle of their warzone, and if they hadn't conquered the planet, the Hykzoi would have and been far less friendly about it. Meanwhile, while the Resistors do fight to restore Earth's sovereignty, they're more than willing to indulge in collateral damage, actively provoke armed Tsorian responses, and very nearly get humanity wiped out when they try to make an Enemy Mine with the wrong side of a war.
- I Warned You: When he learns of the Resistors' plans to contact the Hykzoi, Aryl's father attempt to talk the humans out of it, citing the dangerous nature of the other aliens. Naturally when they ignore him and the plan goes south, he does remind the (new) leader of the cell that he did warn them while convincing the humans to help return him to his command post.
- La Résistance: The Resistors, which are actually loosely affiliated cells fighting to get rid of the Tsorians. While quite a few cross the line into Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters, others are more benign. The one Jason joins straddles the line, refraining from overt acts of violence while still stirring up trouble through acts of sabotage. This gets tossed out the window when their leader decides to become more proactive.
- Les Collaborateurs: What Jason believes his mother to be, treating her with all the contempt a budding resistance fighter would have for such a person. Doubly so when he finds out his father died as a Resistor because he sees this as a betrayal of the man. Jason winds up literally getting some sense knocked into him by a member of the cell when it's pointed his mother is actually The Mole, and told how close his hotheadedness has come to blowing her cover over the years.
- The Load: This is actually the opinion his father's former crewmates have of Jason when he finally meets them. It turns out they have to work extra hard keeping his own subversive activities off the Tsorians' radar so his mother won't lose her position with the Tsorian Commander.
- Missing Mom: Not so much missing as Aryl can quite easily find her if she desires, but more not present. Once old enough, the child of two Tsorian military personnel chooses which parent to live with, gaining comparative rank and privilege. Aryl chose her high ranking father, but there isn't any rule saying she's unable to talk to or interact with her mother. However the woman is a foot soldier on another world, so Aryl is disinclined to be try.
- Spoiled Brat: Aryl has shades of this, given that she shares rank and privileges with her father who is the highest ranking Tsorian on Earth. This allows her to boss around her peers, and even a few of the adults which she quite enjoys. Restrained because any bad behavior or abuse of power on her part reflects exclusively on her father and can actually torpedo his career, thus stripping her of any power.
- Uncanny Valley:In-Universe: Discussed at length amongst the characters. Humans and Tsorians look so similar to one another, the little differences between the two species seem all the more pronounced. This makes humans uneasy around the Tsorians, but is a two way street. Aryl points out that, in her eyes, Jason's body seems every bit as wrong as hers does to him. An earlier scene in the book actually has the Tsorian Commander jokingly contemplate if the humans would have been more accepting of the Tsorian occupation had they been Starfish Aliens.
- Vichy Earth: The Earth governments have retained day to day control of the planet, but must bow to the Tsorians in all matters of military and resource management.
- What the Hell, Hero?: During The Reveal, Mrs. Sykes takes her son to a secret rendezvous with a Resistor cell she's clearly familiar with and vice versa. At the meeting, Jason learns that, not only was his father a former leader of the cell, he also died at Tsorian hands. Naturally he turns on his mother, calling her out for being a collaborator and working for the very aliens that had killed her husband. It never crosses his mind that there's something more going on. It's almost cathartic when one of the operatives slaps some sense into him.
- You Killed My Father: Part of the reason, a large part in fact, of why Jason hates the Tsorians and wants to be a Resistor. Coming to terms and moving past this is part of his character arc.
