"We have to act now."
"For the last time, no." The councilor looked outside the image like he was talking with someone else."We are already risking the security of this fleet by sending a single transport ship into the System." Even with the technology of the stealth system. We are not going to risk losing one of our best battleships for a rescue mission."
The transmission from the council's representative was cut off and substituted by the gray face of councilor Ko from the Gemini race.
"Sorry, Shani. There is nothing more to discuss.. The council has decided that the situation in the system is too volatile to risk sending in the cavalry."
To make his point more valid her old face was replaced by the familiar image of the blue planet that they had found ... and the effects of the war against the futas.
Volatile was an understatement.
The blue planet was no longer so blue. Large clouds of dust and ash covered large regions of the planet's surface. And from orbit you could see how massive fires consumed large hectares of land in the Americas and Asia. This was not the first time the futas used the brute force, but that was usually when they faced more than one race at the same time and if it had already spread through space. A campaign of total domination by a lonely, backward and without allies planet like this one have no sense. Not when you had all the resources of the galaxy at your fingertips and all the time in the world to take care of the least collaborative population or convince them to join your cause. Shani had seen this happen before; even she had witnessed entire races volunteering to be transformed by The Hive. But nothing like what Earth had suffered these last months.
"As you can see, the new Earth's Queen is complicating things for our new allies. Her actions in recent months have turned out to be too..."
"Bellicose?"
"Yes, you can call it like that. Very few times in the history of this fleet have we had to face this state of affairs. The last time we entered a war zone we lost two of our destroyers to save five freighters loaded with refugees."
"This is not the same situation as in Lambda system. This time we are certain that The Hive is unaware of our presence in the system. And going on the offensive offers us the opportunity to weaken the enemy forces before leaving the system forever. We'd buy some time before they regroup and come back to hunt us down."
"Your recomendations will be taken into account in the next meeting. But I can't promise you anything."
"Great ... Thanks you, ko."
"Be safe, Shani."
The communication was cut off leaving the thoughtful female Matulian alone in the communications room of the Matulian Remnant's Claw spacebattleship.
Five months had passed since that meeting and the subsequent airstrike to the secret facility.
In that time things had gotten worse for the humans. Futas had launched a devastating campaign against every military force of the blue planet: Military targets were targeted around the world, that resulted into the destruction o military bases and missiles silos. Evere defeated army ended Conversed or destroyed. But it was not only the military who were the target of futa's fury: All over the world, energy facilities, water treatment plants and the food production and distribution system were taken over or destroyed, causing millions of humans to suffer from hunger, disease and thirst. The reasons for this behavior were obvious: They wan speed up the capitulation of humanity. And, So far, it was proving to be quite an effective tactic: The global economy had collapsed after the first orbital strike, leaving entire nations in th poverty. Others had already surrendered to the invaders and their cities had been taken and remodeled for the use of the latex futas. Humanity's assimilation process into the Hive was going according to their plan. Leaving Shani's people with little time to act.
Statistically, things weren’t better: from the 7 billion of human beings that lived on Earth at least 2 billion had already undergone The Conversion process. Experts’ best predictions were that in less of a decade only futas would live on Earth.
It wasn't all bad news, their allies on Earth had managed to design a teleporter and it was currently being installed in the Prometheus complex where they hoped to evacuate the five million humans who would join the fleet. They may not be able to save the entire species, but at least a small part of it would survive in the depths of space.
If all went according to plan, at the end of the month the operation would be carried out and they will get the hell out of here never to return.