Invasion

landing on the land. The beacons are all down and I can’t pick up any station to guide us down.”

Femala smiled to herself as the researcher started to panic again. The idea of coming down in the water wasn't as bad as it seemed. The shuttle would float for a short period, although there would be no hope of recovery, unless the humans picked them up and offered to trade them for humans within the occupied zone. Judging from the researcher’s face, she was more worried about having to swim, rather than meeting uncontrolled humans, without a squad of warriors to protect her. She’d spent most of the last few cycles studying captured human materials…and she knew, probably better than Femala, how unpleasant humans could be. The thought of capture wasn't a pleasant one. The old laws of war allowed warriors to be killed, but females were allowed to live, but the humans knew nothing of such laws. On the other hand, they probably wouldn’t kill Femala for being sterile.

“I’m firing the main engines now,” the pilot said. “Remain in your chairs.”

Gravity returned suddenly as the roar of the engines cut through the air. Femala could tell, at once, that there was something badly wrong. The sound of the rockets was rougher than it should have been, and nastier. She could hear the shuttle’s frame screaming in protest as the craft fought to avoid a fatal craft; for the first time in far too long, she found herself mouthing prayers as they plummeted towards the ground. The roar rose to a crescendo, and then suddenly faded, half of the racket simply vanishing. She knew what that meant; one of the engines had flamed out, perhaps condemning them if they were still too high. The craft seemed to shudder, again, and then the ground rose up and hit them. Dull thunder echoed through her head as the shuttle tipped, tilted towards the ground…and Femala blacked out.

***

Captain Andrew Stocker and the company had been on patrol in eastern Arkansas when they had seen the falling star. The alien occupation had sent hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing Texas and his duty had been to find them and escort them to refugee camps, where they could be processed. Most of them were harmless, mainly men and women who were willing to work for food and help rebuild as much as they could of the state, but some were criminals and others had been forced into working for the aliens. They normally were easy to spot, but most of them tried to escape rather than surrender, although a couple had tried to shoot their way out of the trap. The ones who were captured confessed at once, admitting that the aliens had their families under their control as hostages, but they couldn’t be trusted. The soldiers sent them to a prison camp in the north and prayed to themselves that they would never be faced with the same decision.

They had seen the alien craft from a distance and it had been obvious that it was trying to land. One of the men had produced a Stinger – they’d had hundreds distributed to the soldiers and resistance fighters, in hopes of wearing down the alien helicopter force – and taken aim, but Stocker had ordered him to hold fire. The craft was definitely trying to land, hundreds of miles from the red zone…and it was clearly in trouble. It came down, a demented cross between Thunderbird One and Thunderbird Three, and he felt a moment of respect for the pilot. It was clear that his craft was in deep shit, but he was working desperately to prevent a crash, struggling with his engines to land safely on the ground.

“We need to take that craft intact,” he muttered, knowing that it might prove futile. The alien pilot was good, but if his drives cut out at the wrong moment, the craft would plunge to the ground and explode. Probably. At the very least, it would be unusable. If they could gain control of a working alien craft, it would unlock new secrets… hell, maybe they could fly it up to space and bomb the aliens from orbit. “Sergeant, I want a perimeter around the craft; I’ll lead the squad that investigates.”

He ignored the Sergeant’s comment that he shouldn’t put himself in danger. Wild horses couldn’t have kept him from meeting the aliens directly. The craft was clearly at the end of its tether – the noise of its rockets sputtered, bare meters above the ground, and failed – and it hit the ground with a thud. Stocker covered his eyes, expecting an explosion, but instead the craft tilted, slowly, and fell over. It lay on the ground, smoking slightly, waiting for them.

“Come on,” he hissed, and led the way down to the craft. Up close, it was massive, but somehow they would have to camouflage it and hide it from the aliens. He’d sent for a camouflage team, but they’d have to be incredibly lucky – if Lone Star hadn’t blinded the aliens, they’d already be scrambling a response. The craft was rapidly cooling, but the waves of heat would probably be noticeable from orbit. They swept around the craft and located a hatch, set within the cooling metal, and he knocked. There was no response.

“There,” the Sergeant said, pointing to a smaller section within the hatch. Stocker realised that it was a control of some kind and pulled it. The hatch unlocked, but it took the combined strength of three soldiers to pull it open and lock it in place. A wave of hot air, smelling of something indefinably alien, struck them in the face, but Stocker pushed forward anyway, shining his torch ahead of him. It was a disaster area; the entire interior of the craft had been torn to pieces, but he could see some bodies. The alien engineering had held up, barely; he barked an order and the soldiers started to recover the bodies. There were nine live aliens, in total, including two with very noticeable breasts. He had to remind himself that they might not actually be female. “Sir, what do we do with them?”

“Get them to the hideout and have the medics work on them,” Stocker ordered, after a long moment’s thought. If they could take the aliens alive, they'd have to give him a proper combat role, rather than patrolling the rear. “Check them for any kind of weapon and then move them out, carefully. We need to get them well away from here before dawn.”

The sense that the aliens would be taking steps to prevent them escaping with this treasure trove forced him forward, exploring the higher reaches of the craft. It had once stood on its end; now, lying on the ground, it was hard to reach the cockpit, but when he managed to climb inside, he found two more dead aliens. He examined them quickly, trying to determine what had killed them, but there didn’t seem to be any kind of real damage. They had cuts and scars from damaged consoles, but…there didn’t seem to be any real reason why they were dead. It was a complete mystery.

“Get these bodies as well,” he hissed, as the camouflage team arrived. Moving the alien craft before dawn would be impossible, but if they could hide it, they could break it up and move it, piece by piece. “Sergeant, get a couple of others up here and strip the craft of anything we can carry; books, files, whatever…”

“Yes, sir,” the sergeant said.

Stocker managed to climb back to the hatch and out into the cool air. Lights were twinkling high above him and he could only hope that one of them wasn't an alien KEW, coming to ensure that no alien secrets fell into human hands. If they could hide the craft…

“Sir, look at their foreheads,” one of the junior lieutenants said. “They’re marked!”

“Yeah, so?” Stocker asked coldly. The priority was getting the prisoners away from their craft, not discussing their tattoos. They’d be discussing the alien breasts next. “What about them?”

“They destroy religious buildings and they have marks on their forehead,” the lieutenant pointed out. “It could be the Mark of the Beast. They could be demons, or the servants of the antichrist…”

Stocker stared at him for a long moment. “You’ve been reading Left Behind too much,” he said, dryly. “This whole war is quite bad enough without adding supernatural elements to the problem, don’t you think? They bleed and die when we shoot them, so they’re not demons, are they?”

***

Femala felt her head swimming as, slowly, she returned to awareness. It took her time – it felt like entire cycles – to remember what had just happened. The shuttle had crashed, but somehow, she was still alive. They had to have come down in occupied territory, then, and the warriors had recovered their craft. The gravity was slightly heavier than that on the Guiding Star’s habitation section, which meant that they were still on Earth. The field medics had probably insisted that they remain on the planet until they were fit to return to orbit.

She opened her eyes and got the shock of her life. She knew, instantly, that she was lying inside a human room. The bed wasn't designed for her race – it was softer than any that they would have used – and the proportions were all wrong. Sprawled across the bed, she struggled to sit up, only to discover that she was strapped down. A massive black shape leaned over her and she cringed back, convinced that he was a demon and