Thanks for the opportunity, this was a really fun commission!

They did indeed! Energy shields in this setting block shrink rays and plasma weapons, along with bullets and most other stuff. Cephalos have armor on their ships, but don't use power armor or shields like Zetans and Humans do, largely because their mental powers are usually enough. 

Nope, things are about to get a lot worse. The Zetans at this point are not great people, but the Cephalo are bad enough that they can force even the worst of enemies to work together, especially since humanity has a deep genetic hatred of the Cephalo due to some ancient aliens stuff. 

Regarding the other two alien races? I never really decided, I always kind of imagined a few refugee communities living in the Zetan Empire, with their appearances and mannerisms being something I could fill in at a later date if the universe expanded that way. I'm sure they're improbably sexy too, though they might not have the same obsession with shrinking others, that's very much the Zetan thing since it's kind of their "signature technology" in universe. 

I think we should have some space for that before the end. 

The atrocities against humans using shrink rays are completely censored from the Zetan populace at large, and even to the lower level security clearances like Nalia has. She has probably read rumors about them happening, and probably suspects they are true, but she wouldn't have seen hard proof of them. In case it's not clear, Nalia has a very negative view of the Zetan government and military, so she would believe just about any terrible rumor on a message board, and probably thinks things are much worse for humans than they actually are. For some perspective, the Zetan government still wants the public to see them as the good guys, even though they're shrinking and enslaving another race. Their narrative is that the humans are dumb and warlike, and they'll all be much happier being tiny pets (obviously some like Lucas will, but most will not lol). While there are definitely atrocities and murders being committed by the Zetan forces, it's not official combat doctrine and probably denied or disavowed by the higher ups, even if they're not doing that much to actually curb it, there are billions more humans to catch after all.

With the Cephalo finally entering the story, yes Keva and everyone else who purchased humans will be very glad they did so. Elora has probably already realized that Lucas is her equal in most ways, even if she can't admit it to herself. An army of zetan-eating space squids can certainly speed up that process though.

Don't worry we'll see some less than kind Zetans over the course of the story. Glad you liked the original!

It's one of mine too, this is going to be about 6 chapters long and should be interesting.

Thanks! The Zetan-Human relationship obviously doesn't start off on a great foot, the Zetans of this time period aren't nearly as nice as the ones we saw in the original story.

Yes, by land, sea, or space, they're always out to get us.