Christopher Nuttall - Invasion

The alien leader, the one wearing a gold medallion, seemed to drift forward slightly, coming to face the humans. Two other aliens, both female, stayed behind him; the guards watching the humans from their positions. Francis wondered, looking at one of the females, if she had been the doctor who’d examined him; the marking on her forehead was the same.

“You will be returned to your homeworld,” the alien leader said, his voice echoing in the room. Francis realised, suddenly, that there was almost no airflow in the room at all, something that could be very dangerous in space. Did the aliens even need to breathe? They clearly heard , but where were their ears? The sides of their heads were bare. “You will carry with you our message to your people.”

Here it comes , Francis thought, dryly. Having sucked their human captives dry, they would proceed to make what use of them they could. Returning them from orbit would be a gesture, but, more than that, it would be a sign that they were prepared to open communications, if only on their terms. They held the more powerful position, he knew, so… well, they could determine their own terms and make others stick to them. How very… human of them.

“We have come to bring you the Word,” the alien leader said. “Your people will hear the Word and will become one with us, with the Takaina.” Francis felt his heart race suddenly, thinking hard — was that their name? “You will join us in our worship of God.”

Francis stared at the alien. He’d suspected, but… it was impossible. “You want to convert us all to your religion?”

“You will accept the Truth,” the alien said. Francis could almost hear the capital letter thudding into place. The aliens were insane … and yet, they had the power to back up their words. “We have come to change your world. We will settle on your planet and bring your people to the Truth, making you like us.”

“And,” Gary growled, “resistance is futile, right?”

“Yes,” the alien said, without irony. Francis would have laughed if the situation hadn’t been so deadly dangerous. “You will inform your people that resistance will only result in the death of as many of your people as necessary and considerable destruction being wrecked on your planet. We will not be denied. You do not have the ability to prevent us from imposing order on your world.”

Francis felt his head spin. “You want us to go home and demand their surrender?”

“Yes,” the alien said, flatly. “Once we have secured a foothold on your world, we will transport you to the surface and give you a means of communicating with us. You will pass on the message to your leadership. Until then…”

He gestured. The guards pulled them away.

“They did not want to believe you,” the Inquisitor said, after the humans had been escorted out of the chamber. The humans had probably not been aware of his presence, watching from the sidelines, but he’d been there. Like the High Priest, but for a very different purpose, the Inquisitor’s real name and clan had been stripped from the record, let alone his Chapter. His task, to keep the Takaina themselves in line, could not be influenced by mere politics, or old clan loyalties. The Inquisitors were merciless to their own who failed their tests. “They thought that you had more… mundane purposes.”

Femala watched, dispassionately, as the High Priest stared towards Earth. She disliked Inquisitors on principle, even though this one was more inclined to accept her continued existence than some of the others she’d met. She was , after all, the most capable researcher they had, even though some of the males showed surprising promise. They wouldn’t get a chance to learn further; as males, their role was either with the warriors, or with the priesthood. It was the females who did the remainder of the work.

“Their beliefs are of no concern,” the High Priest said. “They are a fragmented race. They have fragmented religions that have had a glimpse of the Truth, but only a glimpse. They have shown themselves unworthy to be anything, but subordinates until they embrace the Truth.”

The Inquisitor smiled thinly. “And so you intend to proceed?”

Femala shivered suddenly. The other role of the Inquisitors was to provide a check, the only real check, on the power of the High Priesthood. If this one had reason to believe that the High Priest wasn’t living up to his role, he had the right to take corrective action, in any form he felt justified. The impending invasion of Earth meant that the High Priest was going to be under more scrutiny than any High Priest had faced since they had left their last world and headed towards Earth.

“We have little choice,” the High Priest reminded him, dryly. “We have delayed longer than we should before landing on their world.” He looked over towards Femala and, for a moment, smiled at her, inviting her to share a joke. “Do you oppose the planned landing site?”

The Inquisitor, scenting the trap, drew back. “Such matters are not within my area of responsibility,” he said, firmly. “I merely…”

“It is the most powerful and advanced nation on the surface of the enemy planet,” the High Priest said. “In the absence of further data about how their world works, we will attempt to seize a foothold there for rapid expansion and conversion. The other nations on the world’s surface will be unable to interfere in any significant fashion.”

“And you intend to settle there?”

Femala watched the High Priest hesitate. The remainder of the colony force was on the second section of the Guiding Star , seven cycles away. Landing them would allow the Takaina to rapidly overwhelm the natives, but not all of them were warriors… and massive losses would be crippling. The humans could be expected to resist settlement of their lands.

“Perhaps,” the High Priest said. They would have to discover if the foothold occupied an area of local religious significance. “Will you join the landing force?”

The Inquisitor said nothing.

High overhead, the first of the landing craft disengaged from the Guiding Star , slowly falling into a new orbit. Powerful optical sensors scanned their designated landing site, watching for possible threats and picking out targets for further bombardment, before the craft slowed their orbital speed and started to fall towards the planet. Streaks of light accompanied them down, racing ahead to strike at targets on the ground, clearing the way for the landing.

Inside, warriors and a handful of priests waited nervously for the landing. They were, they knew, almost helpless as long as they were in their craft. The natives of the world below had expended most of their weapons that were capable of reaching orbit, but the lower the landing craft came, the more likely it was that they would enter the engagement range of previously unseen weapons, ones designed to engage aircraft rather than spacecraft. The landing craft were completely beyond their ability to stealth; the heat of their entry into the atmosphere alone would provide a perfect target for enemy fire. Some of them prayed, as soldiers had done throughout history, others just waited for the landing and the coming fight. As the first to set foot on the alien world, they could expect vast estates and fame… if they survived.

A handful reviewed what little data was known about the aliens. It was a matter of policy that few warriors would know the alien language, but those that did would have to be in the front lines, in hopes of convincing the aliens — the humans — to surrender without a fight. Few believed that would happen. They’d studied their own history extensively and the Truth had been resisted, constantly, by every breed on their homeworld and every other race they’d encountered. The Unification Wars alone had cost millions of lives, even though it had bred a planetary unity and a determination never to risk extinction again. Earth would become another settled world. It had been written.