The High Priest had sent her on the mission, she knew, because she was expendable. Females were the source of the new warriors, and the females who supported them, and as a sterile Clan-less female, Femala wouldn’t ever be having children of her own. It wasn’t unknown for a clan-less female to raise her own clan, sometimes creating one more powerful than the one that had disowned her, but that wasn’t possible for her. If she died down on Earth, as so many of the warriors had done, it wouldn’t hurt the development of Earth at all. The High Priest might mourn her passing, but he’d be the only one who would even care. The remainder of the settlement force would probably be glad that she was gone. She felt a sudden burst of delighted amusement, remembering the faces of the other researchers; how could they prove themselves when it was Femala who would be on the ground, Femala the person who would make the discoveries that would tap human ingenuity for the good of the Truth? How could having children and expanding their clans compare to bringing new technology to the Takaina?
Her smile grew wider as the shuttle continued its plunge towards the surface. The only other female in the compartment, a researcher into human behaviour who needed new subjects to study, was clearly terrified. She had been the best at her job, but the High Priest had had to order her to take the trip down to the surface, escorted by a unit of warriors. Femala watched, with a kind of disinterested amusement, how the warriors preened themselves in front of her, trying to convince her to choose one of them as a mate. Warriors didn’t have much to do with clan leadership — that was the domain of females — but if they helped create the children, they had a certain place within the clan. Normally, that was a serious matter, but now, with a world being invaded and death lurking for them somewhere on the blue-green orb, they were treating it lightly, almost as a joke. The poor researcher wasn’t flattered; she was terrified… and Femala found it hard not to laugh. She would only have interacted with males on the Guiding Star, where they were properly respectful, not in a combat zone. Femala almost wished that they would pay her that much attention, but the brand on her forehead marked her clearly as sterile, a woman who wouldn’t be the mother of a warrior’s immortality.
The shuttle shook, suddenly, and the lights dimmed. Femala heard the other female cry out in panic, wondering what could cause the lights to suddenly dim Femala knew that it normally meant that power was being rerouted to somewhere else on the shuttle, perhaps the guiding systems themselves. The shuttle was a tough modular construction, a simple device built for landing a small number of people or a tiny amount of cargo on a world, but it was far from perfect. If they were being forced to take evasive action — if there was anything that could shoot at them on the ground — they would rapidly burn through all their fuel, and fall to Earth and crash. They were probably no longer capable of returning to orbit. The craft shook again and she peered through the porthole, watching as Earth span below them, and shivered. The planet was massive… and it was getting closer.
“Remain calm,” the pilot said, through the intercom. “The base on the planet is under attack and…”
His voice fuzzed out suddenly. Femala stared as the lights dimmed still further and computer screens blinked out. The craft had to have taken a major hit from an EMP, she realised, but that wouldn’t have knocked out everything. The craft was still under power, as much of the systems were shielded, but not all of them. The odds were that the shuttle was still going to crash. Gravity would make that inevitable… but they might still survive. Her fate rested in the hands of the pilot and his crew.
“What’s happening?” The researcher female demanded. Femala knew that she should ask the woman’s name and share what reassurance she could, but she’d been driving Femala mad ever since they had first met, assuming a superiority she didn’t possess. She thought she was better than Femala, just because she could bear children, and society would back her up. “You’re the technician, what’s happening?”
Femala kept the cruel smile she wanted to show off her face as she explained, in precise detail, what was going on and just how many things could go wrong and get them killed. If the craft had been in orbit, she could have aided the pilot in repairing the damage… but then, if they had been in orbit, one of the parasite ships would have recovered them and brought them back to the Guiding Star, the adventure at an end before it had even begun. Clearly, the High Priest and the Arbitrators had underestimated the human capability for fighting back. Anyone would think that they didn’t want to be converted to the Truth.
The researcher seemed to shake more as Femala outlined the possibilities, but at least she listened quietly, allowing Femala a chance to think. They’d been entering an orbit for a landing at once of the human airfields that had been repaired and pressed into service when the EMP had hit. The odds were that most of their systems had been knocked out. If the main engines weren’t working, they would plummet to their deaths, but if they were, they could probably land… but where? Would they still come down in occupied territory, or would they land amidst the wild humans?
“We’re going to have to go for a landing,” the pilot said. Standard emergency procedure encouraged getting the ship down as fast as possible, but the procedure hadn’t been created for a war zone. “I want everyone to remain in their chairs until we land, whereupon we might have to evacuate the ship as fast as possible.”
One of the warriors had clearly been thinking along the same lines. “Pilot, where will we land?”
“Unknown,” the pilot said. There was a long uncomfortable pause. “I’m not even sure that I can guarantee 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.