Invasion

“Yes, Your Holiness,” the War Leader said. The High Priest could feel the growing power of the drive now. The last of the shuttles had docked and they could move. “We will punish them for this impudence.”

“And summon the Inquisitors,” the High Priest added. He had a final order to give. “Those who converted to the Truth must face the ultimate test.”

***

Brent had been nervous about combat in zero-gravity, but the handful of aliens who had come to meet the shuttle hadn’t suspected a thing, not until they popped open the hatch and came face-to-face with silenced gun barrels. Brent disliked silencers – he’d yet to meet one that didn’t screw up his aiming – but they had to be used…and the heavy ammunition punched through the alien skins like a knife through butter. Blood, dark alien blood, bubbled off the bodies and floated in the air, slowly falling towards the rear of the ship as the drive started to push them away from the planet.

“You two, stay and guard the shuttle,” Brent said. “The rest of you, follow me.”

The aliens clearly had their own problems in zero-gravity and had thoughtfully rigged up a series of hoops and railings to help their people manoeuvre around the ship. Gary had been right, Brent decided, after five minutes of swarming through the tunnels and corridors down into the heart of the ship; the aliens had designed the battle section to have gravity, at least some part of the time. It wasn't shaped like the interior of the International Space Station, but rather more like the Starship Enterprise, although a decidedly less advanced one. They passed – and killed – groups of surprised aliens, wondering how long they would have before the alarm was sounded. If they could take out something vital…they might survive this crazy mission after all.

***

“We’ve been boarded!”

The High Priest couldn’t believe his ears. No one had ever boarded a Takaina starship before, not since the Unification Wars…and even then, the boarding actions had been minimal and designed to hamper operations. They had never even anticipated the possibility! The human prisoners they’d taken and held onboard, before returning them to Earth, had been watched carefully…but naked and unarmed, what could they do?

But the display was clear. The internal security system was reporting humans, real armed humans, moving unerringly down into the vitals of Guiding Star, right towards the main drive shaft. If they started to wreck havoc down there, their very success of their holy mission would be in peril. They would be crippled, at the very least, their plans to defeat the human race shelved until they could rebuild the starship. The High Priest’s hindsight was nagging at him now, reminding him of all the things that could go wrong, and his mind snapped under the pressure.

“Send the warriors,” he screamed. If nothing else, they couldn’t know about the security system, or that they were being monitored all the way; the sterile bitch had never known about that! They knew where they were going, all right, but they didn’t know to knock out the system as they moved, and even if they did…they would mark out a clear pathway for the warriors to follow. “Destroy them!”

***

“Shit, we’re hopelessly lost,” Jack called. The corridors all looked the same to the humans. If they’d had a chance to navigate, they’d blown it somewhere once they left the hanger deck. “Captain, you got any idea of where we are?”

“No,” Brent said. He looked over at Luke, but the alien was coming apart at the seams. The sight of one of his priests blown apart by a spray of bullets seemed to have unhinged him slightly. He wouldn’t be any use at all and it was damn lucky that they’d never given him a weapon. “We just keep heading into the ship and…”

A spray of bullets cut off his words. The aliens had, somehow, managed to get a blocking force in ahead of them…and, he suspected, another in back of them. The space engineers had suggested that the aliens would be reluctant to use heavy weapons on their mothership, but clearly no one had bothered to tell them that; they were firing heavy machine guns right into the confined space. The small unit split up and threw a pair of grenades back down the corridor, hearing an explosion and screams of pain, but Brent knew that they were trapped. They might punch their way through the blocking force, but by now the aliens would be sealing them into a trap and sending warriors to cut off all the escape routes. They’d be expecting a surrender; they knew that most trapped human units tried to surrender, but not now.