The little one in my belly was restless and upset with the loss of her male breeder. There were times we couldn’t feel the men at all. She wanted him and his experiences, but that just wasn’t possible.
I read all I could, whenever I could, but it wasn’t enough. She wanted more than I could give on my own. I quickly found that while others could notpletely satisfy her, it did tame the curiosity.
I sewed in the small shop all day, every day. When men came in I started to ask them for information. Anything would do really, it just had to be something I didn’t know already. It quickly became a game in the camp to see who could give me the most amazing piece of new information. It was all I could do for my girl, but it seemed to partially satisfy her.
The men from the camp told me things I never would have thought to study. They taught me history and geography. Other days it was nt life and survival skills. It was all immensely interesting and I was grateful for the effort they put into soothing my growing daughter.
A moon passed and we knew the warships were still gathering above our heads. As a woman carrying a female, perhaps a very special female, I was not encouraged to go outside. Men and women talked about sightings of the crafts zipping through the sky. They may have been real or imagined, either way the stories were unnerving.
Everywhere I went, even though it was inside, I always wentpletely armed. The sword stayed on my left hip and the gun on my right. When we were attacked it would be everyone fighting. I was no exception.
I felt the men sometimes. My child and I relished the snatches ofmunication with them. They were restless and bored. Everyday they paced the underground tunnels keeping themselves ready in case of attack. As soon as the fight started they would spring from beneath the surface and protect the other men.
It was a long and frustrating wait and one day, it all changed.
The warships cut through the air on the day of the attack. We’d known they were gathered at the edge of our system of moons and weren’t surprised when they sted through our atmosphere. Still the sound was deafening and I cringed on the floor of the shop for a moment.
My training took over and I got up off the floor almost instantly. I had a station, just like everyone else. My job was to help any men that came back injured. I went to the area we’d set up and waited with Rose.
The “infirmary” wasrge, and took up a huge amount of space inside the mountain. The floor was covered in the raised warm stones the women liked to sleep on. Should a man be bloody or damaged it was believed the stones would be a superior ce to put him and his family. The Healing devices were all set up and ready for us to use. The few men we had left here that were considered Healers were ready for anything, but nothing came.
The sound outside was distant and far away. I ended up sitting on arge warm stone waiting. There was no attack where we were. The aliens either had not noticed the rebel camps or nned to take out thepounds first.
Beyond the mountains my men were fighting for their lives. They had burst from beneath the ground when the warships approached and started to fight back. Legions of Paterian men soared through the sky intent on defending their home.
In my mind’s eye I saw shes of the fighting. The transports sent from the camps moved in harmony with one another. It was as though the separate Paterian families weremunicating and moved as one being to fight the invaders. I mentioned it to the men around me and they bowed their heads to the Great Harmonious Spirit.
This was a fierce world. The men were trained to fight and raised to do battle. The weapons the aliens brought were quickly evaluated and strategy for defense was decided upon. The shields Rue and his Brothers had developed worked perfectly.
The aliens shot at us with some sort of beam. The thing would explode on contact with almost anything, except the shields. The men on the transports raised theirs and deflected the beams to hit harmlessly in the desert. There were very few direct hits on thepound or the vige.
The weapons Rue had developed using the ore were also very effective. They couldn’t seem to breach the armor on the sides of the warships without three or four direct blows, but they could down one by aiming for their engines. Once on the ground, the warships could be targeted and destroyed.
Rue had several cannons developed that could actually project the ore itself. That cannon tore open an alien ship in one hit. The men were hesitant to use this powerful tool. If they missed the ore exploded pointlessly on impact with the ground. It was wasteful. That particr weapon was preserved and used only when they were sure of a direct hit.
All in all, Rue’s weapons were disastrous for the aliens. The defense had been totally unexpected and it was effective. However, that wasn’t to say there wasn’t any damage on our side.
The women that owned men had been waiting above ground in thend surrounding thepounds. They didn’t understand what the free men could do. Unfortunately, they put themselves between the rebel men and the aliens. Many of them were destroyed by the alien weapons before they realized that the rebels could defend themselves.
Unlike before, the ships the aliens had brought would not be bested by the women’s native weapons easily. The ving women were almost helpless before the onught. Had the rebels not been present, the world would have fallen within the first day cycle.N?velDrama.Org holds this content.
I sat in the quiet room in the camp and heard themotion as my men did. Just like them I experienced the screaming wail of the dying women and the panic from the shopkeepers in the viges. None of it distracted my men, we had a job to do and it would be done.
The damage to the women was immense and we knew what it meant. Gunth sent out a plea. A second contingent of men was sent to the mountains. The women could fight the warships, but many were being lost in the process. We moved to defend them when it became apparent they would need us.