Invasion

She was still mulling over that question when the human, Paul James, was shown into her quarters. She’d grown to like him, along with the other humans, even though she wasn’t sure of his duties. A person who had been in charge of preparing for an alien invasion should be able to do more than the Takaina had faced, but if the humans had had the idea that an alien invasion should consist of massive flying saucers with impossible beam weapons and even more impossible force shields, they probably hadn’t been able to come up with a proper defence. Amazing special effects, though; the Takaina had never come up with anything like them.

“Hi,” she said, suddenly aware of her manners. He was, technically speaking, senior in the clan to her, although that had required some mental adjustment as well. No male was normally of any position within the clan. That was a female role. “How have you been?”

She was starting to recognise some human emotions, but the look on his face was beyond her. “Washington has been destroyed,” he said, grimly. The liquid that had appeared in one eye couldn’t be healthy. “Your people took out an entire city.”

“Mass slaughter is forbidden by the Truth,” Femala protested, honestly shocked. The High Priest had to have gone mad. The only justification for such slaughter was to prevent the spread of heresy. Earth, being largely unaware of the Truth, didn’t count as a legitimate target. “What happened?”

He explained, bit by bit. “The High Priest had to be more than a little worried about your sudden willingness to use nukes,” Femala said, when he had finished. “How many of your people were killed?”

“No one is sure, yet,” Paul admitted. “The preliminary figures are high, but they’re always high; all we know for sure is that there were several million people under the footprint of the nuke when it went off. Why did they hit Washington, of all places?”

“Your capital doesn’t mean much to them,” Femala said. Now she understood the system that she had been a slave to her entire life, she felt little in the way of loyalty towards it. “The intention was to settle your world and bring your people into line with their own.”

“We don’t want that to happen,” Paul said, rather dryly. It was so hard to pick out and understand human tones, but Femala was getting better at it. “We want to stop it.”

So did Femala – now. She needed the humans to awaken her own people. “It won’t be easy to stop,” she said. “They’ll have started the settlement by now – or they will soon start it, and that will bring lots of their people down to the planet. How is the shuttle-building program coming along?”

Paul started. “How did you know about that?”

Femala explained, unable to keep her disappointment out of her voice. The human probably didn’t notice. Why else would anyone ask her about them? She might have been a victim all her life, without even the very human consolation of knowing that she had been a victim, but she was far from stupid. The humans had to be working on ways to recover control of space.

“Yes, I see,” Paul said, finally. “The building program is fine. It’s getting up into orbit that’s going to be the problem.”

Femala thought about it. Anything boosting to orbit, unless they discovered something so completely out of the box that the High Priest wouldn’t have the slightest idea it was even possible, would be very hot. The orbiting sensors would detect the rocket flame and react at once. Missiles and spacecraft would be shot down as soon as they were identified as such. It wouldn’t be easy to build enough craft to get some into orbit in the face of such firepower…and failing to retake control of space would be fatal in the long run. She could help them build thousands of shuttles, if that was what they wanted from her, but it wouldn’t solve the overall problem.

She tossed it around in her mind. They couldn’t get into orbit, therefore they would lose…and that was unacceptable. She couldn’t allow the opportunity to pass, and yet, unless they could get into orbit, it would pass. They needed to clear space of hostile ships first, but even with the most powerful ground-based weapons, it wasn't going to be easy. In fact, it was probably going to be impossible. Unless…

“I want to make a deal,” she said. “I have, I think, a way of getting you into orbit, something that will give you a chance at victory. In exchange, I want something.”

Paul looked at her, his human face unreadable. “What do you want?”

“I want you to help me educate the remainder of my people,” she said, and explained her epiphany. She wanted, she needed, to share it with her fellows, male and female alike, and give the dissidents something to rally around. They could bring down the Theocracy, at least in one tiny system. “Will you help me?”

Paul leaned forward. “How do you intend to get us into orbit?”

Femala smiled and explained.

***

“Do you think we can trust her?”