Invasion

The High Priest had been studying the plans for the expanded settlements in the Middle East when the first reports of the attacks down in America had come in. He hadn’t been unduly worried, despite the somewhat panicky tone of newcomers to Earth who hadn’t faced the humans before, but it was possible that the humans intended to launch a second attack. The orbiting spies hadn’t picked up anything that might suggest that the humans had massed another attack force – although it had turned out that nothing they picked up from human radio could be entirely trusted – but the humans were masters at camouflage. He’d issued orders for the parasite ships to prepare to repel any armoured advance and for reinforcements to advance out to help secure the border – now that the settlement process was underway, they could no longer trade space for time – and turned back to the other matters. By now, the War Priests and their subordinates had the experience to handle the humans without his direct intervention.

The second report had shocked him back to the issue. They’d learned about human missile-launching submarines – a concept the Takaina had never actually invented – when they’d been used to attack the Texas Foothold and the orbiting ships with EMP, but they’d thought that they had destroyed them all. The reports had obviously been exaggerated, the High Priest decided, as the new missile tracks started to rise up from the trackless wastes of the oceans, reaching for orbit.

Smart of them, the High Priest thought coldly, as the tracks kept rising. He thought, for a moment, that the humans were actually intending to attack Guiding Star itself, or one of the starship’s sections, but the missile tracks weren't aimed at the starship. It was almost a pity – the missiles were slow and Guiding Star’s point defence would have picked them off before they became a danger, even if they were armed with nukes – but instead, the missiles were aimed at Texas. For a moment, the High Priest couldn’t believe his own eyes; they had to be out of their minds! There were millions of humans – and Takaina settlers – in the targeted zone…and the insurgents had been knocking down their local air defence units. The warheads would fall to Earth and detonate, burning Texas down to bedrock…and slaughtering everyone within the area.

“They’re mad,” he breathed. There was time, yes, there was time, but barely enough to react. He opened his channel to the war room. No one would dare not to take his call unless Guiding Star himself was under attack. “War Leader, move the parasite ships from their patrol positions to intercept the missiles before they can scatter their warheads.”

“Yes, Your Holiness,” the War Leader said. “Should we move, also, to defend the settlements in the Middle East?”

They, the High Priest saw, were also coming under attack. “Do so,” he ordered. If the humans intended to destroy Texas, they might intend to destroy the Middle East as well, even though they needed the oil. It was insanity, as far as he could tell, but so much about the human race made no sense. If they had needed the oil so badly, why hadn’t they thrown out the previous owners, or converted them to their own religion? How many submarines were left, anyway? “Order the parasites to hunt down the remaining submarines and teach them a lesson.”

“Yes, Your Holiness,” the War Leader said. The High Priest could hear his subordinates barking orders in the background. The Takaina Warriors were responding to the new challenge…and, soon, the humans would discover that they’d made a mistake. They’d wasted a lot of very expensive, even in human terms, missiles…for nothing. “The parasite ships are on their way now.”

“Good,” the High Priest said. There would be time enough, after the missiles had been wiped out, to punish the people who’d fired them. There were more missiles than the Americans could muster, if the details they’d recovered from Texas were correct, involved in the attack, which meant that the other human powers were involved. They would pay for their impudence in due time. “I want those missiles wiped out now.”

The War Leader paused. “There were five shuttles rising from the Texas Foothold when the attack began,” he said, thoughtfully. “Do you wish them diverted to the parasite ships, or to the settlement ship?”

“No,” the High Priest said, after a moment’s thought. The vast stores of war material on the battle section of Guiding Star would be needed in Texas, and they were running out of landing cones. It was a pity that they were use-once items, but not even the humans had invented a drive that could lift things that size to orbit, although there were some interesting thoughts in their engineering journals. Once the war was won, the Takaina would study them and try to develop them for further expansion. “We will need the shuttles here.”