Invasion

The MLRS truck had been carefully camouflaged and positioned only a short distance from the alien lines. Its crew had been amazingly lucky to get as close as they had, although given that the MLRS looked fairly harmless from the air, it might have simply been mistaken for a truck and ignored. The aliens might have worked hard to prevent human vehicles from moving within the red zone, but there were so many vehicles of all kinds in the United States that destroying them all from orbit might have expended all of their projectiles. They still shot at tanks and other obviously military vehicles, but they tended to leave civilian vehicles alone, unless they presented a very temping target. The railroads had been almost completely shut down by the aliens, so the truck was being used to move food and supplies across the United States…and military gear. The logistics were interesting and, in places, hung by a shoestring.

The aliens hadn’t created a World War One-style network of trenches and so there was a ‘no man’s land’ between their positions and the human forces, gathering in strength. Both sides were uneasily aware that they could be attacked at any moment, and the aliens had insurgents to worry about, and so the border had been surprisingly peaceful, although the KEWs had continued to fall. The aliens had been fairly confident of their ability to defeat any conventional attack and so…they might, the crew hoped, have grown a little overconfident.

Time to show them the error of their ways, the commander thought, as he made the final checks on his vehicle. The briefing had warned that the alien parasite ships would have something else to worry about, but they couldn’t rely on that. He smiled, briefly, as the sky lit up with a blinding glow in the distance. The first of the nukes had detonated. That explained why the higher-ups had thought that the aliens would be distracted, although no one knew how much EMP shielding the alien technology mounted. What little had fallen into human hands had been crude, but functional. That hadn’t stopped them tearing the guts out of the USA – or, for that matter, the rest of the world.

“Fire,” he ordered. The MLRS elevated to launch position and started to fire. Illuminated by the flare of the rockets, the crew ran for their lives, abandoning their vehicle. The aliens might still be able to react, somehow. He watched, as they reached their pre-prepared bunker, as the rockets continued to fly towards the alien base. They looked to have been completely surprised. Their lasers weren't even burning the rounds out of the air. A moment later, he started to hear explosions as the rounds came down in the alien positions, shattering their defences.

Operation Lone Star had begun.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Surprise is the one constant in the universe.

– Anon

The SSTO slowly fell away from the Guiding Star. Researcher Femala sat back in her chair and tried to force herself to relax as the pilot started to guide the shuttle down towards the planet below, but it was impossible to be calm. She was about to set foot on a new world, the first female to set foot on the planet Earth. How could she be calm when excitement was bubbling up within her chest, her four hearts beating like crazy as the craft’s engines fired, pushing them out of orbit? How could she keep herself composed when she was going to study the human technology in its own environment?

The High Priest had sent her on the mission, she knew, because she was expendable. Females were the source of the new warriors, and the females who supported them, and as a sterile Clan-less female, Femala wouldn’t ever be having children of her own. It wasn't unknown for a clan-less female to raise her own clan, sometimes creating one more powerful than the one that had disowned her, but that wasn't possible for her. If she died down on Earth, as so many of the warriors had done, it wouldn’t hurt the development of Earth at all. The High Priest might mourn her passing, but he’d be the only one who would even care. The remainder of the settlement force would probably be glad that she was gone. She felt a sudden burst of delighted amusement, remembering the faces of the other researchers; how could they prove themselves when it was Femala who would be on the ground, Femala the person who would make the discoveries that would tap human ingenuity for the good of the Truth? How could having children and expanding their clans compare to bringing new technology to the Takaina?

Her smile grew wider as the shuttle continued its plunge towards the surface. The only other female in the compartment, a researcher into human behaviour who needed new subjects to study, was clearly terrified. She had been the best at her job, but the High Priest had had to order her to take the trip down to the surface, escorted by a unit of warriors. Femala watched, with a kind of disinterested amusement, how the warriors preened themselves in front of her, trying to convince her to choose one of them as a mate. Warriors didn’t have much to do with clan leadership – that was the domain of females – but if they helped create the children, they had a certain place within the clan. Normally, that was a serious matter, but now, with a world being invaded and death lurking for them somewhere on the blue-green orb, they were treating it lightly, almost as a joke. The poor researcher wasn't flattered; she was terrified…and Femala found it hard not to laugh. She would only have interacted with males on the Guiding Star, where they were properly respectful, not in a combat zone. Femala almost wished that they would pay her that much attention, but the brand on her forehead marked her clearly as sterile, a woman who wouldn’t be the mother of a warrior’s immortality.

The shuttle shook, suddenly, and the lights dimmed. Femala heard the other female cry out in panic, wondering what could cause the lights to suddenly dim Femala knew that it normally meant that power was being rerouted to somewhere else on the shuttle, perhaps the guiding systems themselves. The shuttle was a tough modular construction, a simple device built for landing a small number of people or a tiny amount of cargo on a world, but it was far from perfect. If they were being forced to take evasive action – if there was anything that could shoot at them on the ground – they would rapidly burn through all their fuel, and fall to Earth and crash. They were probably no longer capable of returning to orbit. The craft shook again and she peered through the porthole, watching as Earth span below them, and shivered. The planet was massive…and it was getting closer.

“Remain calm,” the pilot said, through the intercom. “The base on the planet is under attack and…”

His voice fuzzed out suddenly. Femala stared as the lights dimmed still further and computer screens blinked out. The craft had to have taken a major hit from an EMP, she realised, but that wouldn’t have knocked out everything. The craft was still under power, as much of the systems were shielded, but not all of them. The odds were that the shuttle was still going to crash. Gravity would make that inevitable…but they might still survive. Her fate rested in the hands of the pilot and his crew.

“What’s happening?” The researcher female demanded. Femala knew that she should ask the woman’s name and share what reassurance she could, but she’d been driving Femala mad ever since they had first met, assuming a superiority she didn’t possess. She thought she was better than Femala, just because she could bear children, and society would back her up. “You’re the technician, what’s happening?”

Femala kept the cruel smile she wanted to show off her face as she explained, in precise detail, what was going on and just how many things could go wrong and get them killed. If the craft had been in orbit, she could have aided the pilot in repairing the damage…but then, if they had been in orbit, one of the parasite ships would have recovered them and brought them back to the Guiding Star, the adventure at an end before it had even begun. Clearly, the High Priest and the Arbitrators had underestimated the human capability for fighting back. Anyone would think that they didn’t want to be converted to the Truth.

The researcher seemed to shake more as Femala outlined the possibilities, but at least she listened quietly, allowing Femala a chance to think. They’d been entering an orbit for a landing at once of the human airfields that had been repaired and pressed into service when the EMP had hit. The odds were that most of their systems had been knocked out. If the main engines weren't working, they would plummet to their deaths, but if they were, they could probably land…but where? Would they still come down in occupied territory, or would they land amidst the wild humans?

“We’re going to have to go for a landing,” the pilot said. Standard emergency procedure encouraged getting the ship down as fast as possible, but the procedure hadn’t been created for a war zone. “I want everyone to remain in their chairs until we land, whereupon we might have to evacuate the ship as fast as possible.”

One of the warriors had clearly been thinking along the same lines. “Pilot, where will we land?”

“Unknown,” the pilot said. There was a long uncomfortable pause. “I’m not even sure that I can guarantee