apart anyway; they wouldn’t be getting any income, they weren’t broadcasting and the newspaper distribution network had been shot to hell. He smiled as he typed, enjoying the thought…and feeling like a real reporter for the first time in far too long.
The first day of the occupation passed quietly, too quietly. There were a handful of incidents in the inner city, an area that seemed to have been completely abandoned to the gangs of young humans, but they were dealt with quickly. Allon couldn’t understand why the humans had even allowed them to flourish; it wouldn’t have happened at home and it wouldn’t have been difficult for the humans to clear them all out. The young humans had been easy to crush once he’d sent in a few hundred warriors and the survivors, those who hadn’t escaped to spread the word that lawlessness would not be tolerated, had been added to the clean-up crews.
“WarPriest,” the Inquisitor said. Allon eyed him with carefully concealed disliked. Inquisitors were all the same; they stuck their noses into everything, often without any concern for propriety. “We have completed our survey of human religions establishments within this city.”
Allon felt a flicker of annoyance. He’d assumed that it would take longer for the Inquisitors to locate all of the human religious buildings. His people weren’t prepared to hold down the city if it erupted against them, not yet. The warriors were poking their heads into every nook and cranny, confiscating all the weapons they could find, but he was far from convinced that they’d found all of the weapons. The city seemed to have a quite amazing amount of weapons in civilian hands, something that the Truth strictly forbade, and the humans seemed to dislike losing them.
“The humans had actually listed them all prior to our arrival,” the Inquisitor continued, apparently unaware of Allon’s innermost thoughts. Or maybe he wasn’t; he might have been as nameless as the rest of his kind, but there was a certain sliminess around this one. “We have located them all and we would like them destroyed, as per standard procedure.”
Allon fixed the Inquisitor with an icy look. “We are not secure enough to move against their religions,” he said. “You know that as well as I do.”
“That is beside the point,” the Inquisitor said, firmly. “You have the duty of breaking their religions so that they may come to us. You will carry out your duty or I will be forced to convey my doubts to the High Priest and the remaining Inquisitors. Their armies have been broken, their cities in ruins…what else can they do to prevent us?”
“We are not required to kill unbelievers in vast numbers,” Allon snapped. “If they revolt against us, they will be slaughtered, along with hundreds of warriors.”
“If they revolt against us, they exempt themselves from their protection,” the Inquisitor countered. That, too, was accepted doctrine. “Your warriors will die in defence of the Truth. You must move now.”
Allon looked up into the Inquisitor’s eyes. He was right, damn him; he had to move, and yet…he didn’t want a slaughter. A few more cycles and they would have had the entire city disarmed and then they could have done what they liked, but no, they had the power to move now…and that was their cue. If it couldn’t be done…but it could.
“Very well,” he said. If nothing else, he could try and make sure that the right person got the blame for failure, if failure it was. “I shall issue the orders at once.”
The University Baptist Church had had something of a interesting history. Officially chartered in 1908, it had chosen to welcome African-Americans in 1943, becoming one of the first integrated churches in the Southern Baptist Convention. Later, it had accepted women as deacons…and then, most controversially of all, it had accepted gay men in the same role. The Committee had even spoken of accepting aliens to the Church, should they feel the call, but the Takaina had other plans.
The warriors spilled out of their protective vehicles and advanced at once to surround the Church. The procedure was well understood; everyone who came out of the Church was to be seized, and then checked to see if they were a religious official. Those that were deacons, or priests, or any other religious personage were hauled off at once to the camps, the remainder were permitted to leave, while the church was thoroughly searched. The bibles and other holy books in the church were gathered together as the warriors completed their work, left in the pews and covered with oil. As soon as the search was completed, the warriors left the building, the last one out throwing in a grenade. The explosion ignited the oil and the flames spread rapidly. Within minutes, the entire building was a towering inferno, watched by warriors and humans alike.
It wasn't the only religious building to be attacked. The list had been quite comprehensive. Churches, synagogues and mosques were attacked, in two cases defended viciously by their parishioners, but the warriors simply called in a KEW strike and then cleared up the mess afterwards. Austin’s religious buildings, one by one, vanished in the flame. The handful of firemen who tried to put out the fires were manhandled away from the flames by the warriors.
From the apartment block, Joshua watched in horror as new flames reached for the sky. It didn’t take a genius to know what was burning…and that suggested that the aliens had come on an interstellar crusade. It sounded impossible, but
Chapter Seventeen
– Daniele Vare
The remainder of the week onboard the
It was impossible to speculate too much on what the aliens might be doing down on Earth, although Francis had a nasty suspicion that that’d invaded the US because the aliens kept asking questions about his country, but it could have been worse. He kept trying to talk to the aliens, if only to try and learn more, but it seemed that not all of them were able to speak English…and they’d never heard any of their own language. It was something that puzzled him; if it was a security measure, designed to stop the humans from speaking to the guards, it was a very paranoid one. He wondered, looking at the faceless guards who accompanied them from time to time, just what they thought of the humans, or the invasion.
He knew, from his experience, that cultures were never monolithic. It was easy to believe that a human group was perfectly united, but that was never the case. Imperial Japan had been as united as human societies ever became…and yet there had been good and decent people, caught up in the maelstrom of World War Two. There had to be weaknesses in how the alien society worked, if only closet atheists, but without the ability to talk to the aliens directly, it was impossible to find them. The handful of aliens who were able and willing to talk to them freely – all female, he’d noted – refused to be drawn on certain subjects.
And that, too, was odd. He’d expected, he realised, that a highly-religious society would keep the women subordinated, as most human societies had done, but the aliens seemed to place women in all ranks, except one. It was hard to tell, under the armour, but as far as he could tell, their guards were always male. That wasn't unknown in human society – there had been a time when the status of women and homosexuals in combat had seemed like the most important issue in the world – but what did it signify for the aliens? Who was really in charge? What happened to determine how the aliens mated?
There were so many questions and so little time.
