Aaron raised his glass. “Look, all I’m saying is that it’s not that bad.”

Jack stared at the man as he took a swig of ‘Red Grain’. He glanced down at his own Guinness.

“I’m not arguing,” the older man sighed. “I’m just… like, can you trust them? Really?”

“Can you trust any government?” Aaron responded with a wry smile as he put his glass down.

Jack stared at the half empty container of almost flamboyantly red fluid. Prior to them walking in, he hadn’t even known Mac had started stocking the alien brew. But he had, and had been for a while apparently, given how confidently Aaron had ordered it.

He thought it a rather fitting analogy for the occupation as a whole.

To the surprise of many, the purps hadn’t changed much after the occupation. People still went to work. You still got rumbled by the police for being drunk and disorderly. Hell, you could still even vote when election time came around.

Sure, he’d heard there’d been a real shit-fit in the US when the purps had tried to take away their automatic weaponry, but that hadn’t been a real issue on this side of the pond. Part of him wondered if that was for better or worse.

Because now the purps were changing things. And they were being subtle about it.

Sure, he and Aaron still worked in the same factory they had prior to the invasion, but now it was churning out… he didn’t really know. Some kind of mechanical knee joint. And the forklifts were gone. Replaced by those queer mechs of theirs.

Though he didn’t know how much longer that would be the case. Not after some idiot shot up a space port a few weeks back. He’d heard some of the folk that had got a mech license whining about needing security checks now, but that really wasn’t his business.

Next the local bobbies were gone. Phased out by the ‘militia’. Which had been a bit of a shock for many. Him included. It was one thing to get tapped on the shoulder by an unimpressed local bobby while you were pissing in an alley, quite another for said tap to come from a bemused looking seven foot tall - and heavily armed - alien.

One would think that with hordes of them roaming the streets, things might be a bit safer.

One would be wrong.

Because the average purp could speak maybe five words of English – and invariably four of those were variants on the word ‘sex’. Intimidating they might be, but pretty fucking useless if you expected them to find out who’d just robbed your flat. Apparently they had some special people who did ‘proper’ investigations, but you had a snowball’s chance in hell of getting them to be interested in anything as ‘plebian’ as a break-in.

At least, that was the case according to Darren.

Which Jack was inclined to believe, because Darren dropped out of high-school in the tenth grade and he doubted the man would remember a word as fancy as ‘plebian’ unless he’d heard it recently.

Jack’s own interactions with the new local ‘police’ had begun and ended at the aforementioned public urination incident. Something he was in no hurry to repeat, no matter how much his bladder protested after staggering home from a crawl.

And the elections? Well… maybe that hadn’t changed. It just meant that it was some purple ‘advisor’ pulling the suit’s strings rather than corporate lobbyists. Not that it meant a lot, given that said politicians ultimately answered to whichever noble cunt had been installed as the sub-regions low governess.

“Don’t give me that horseshit,” Jack grunted. “Sure, it wasn’t ideal, but if a politician got caught keeping a band of… I don’t know… sex slaves or something in his office, he wouldn’t have been around for long.”

Aaron just smiled wryly at him. “You really think the governess is doing that?”

He didn’t say which governess he meant. Not that it really mattered to be honest.

“Of course, I fucking don’t,” Jack said, “but it’s the principle of the thing. If one day she said that she wanted to round up all the blokes aged eighteen to twenty five as her personal harem, ain’t shit any of us could do to stop her.”

“The prime minister would complain,” Aaron pointed out, but it held little in the way of conviction.

Jack just snorted. The prime minister had about as much sway over the governess as Jack did over his wife when Christmas rolled around. Which was to say that he held none.

“The aliens - and their… nobles,” the older man whispered as he glanced round the room. He wasn’t too sure exactly what he was looking for or why he was whispering, but he did it all the same. “They aint got no checks or balances. And look at history, doesn’t matter how long it takes, eventually that kind of thing goes south. And where the fuck will we be then?”

This time it was Aaron’s turn to snort. “All I’m hearing is a bunch of what if’s? What I know is that I’m better off than my parents were. Say what you will about the purps, they take care of their own.” He looked at his colleague over the rim of his glass. “And we are one of them now.”

Jack scowled. “One of them? Don’t make me laugh. I take care of my dog, doesn’t mean I let him sit at the dinner table.”

The other man rolled his eyes. “That’s a pretty fuckin’ gross exaggeration.”

“Is it… them…” Jack paused as he searched for the alien word. “Rak…gals? The dog looking ones at the spaceport? Apparently their homeworld still has a Shil’vati governess. They been loyal subjects for like… two hundred years. You think that means the Shils have taken the collar off?”

He wasn’t exactly sure of the authenticity of that information, even as he said it. For one thing, he’d never been to the space port. Nor had he ever spoken to one of the dog aliens. He’d seen one. Once. Just standing at a checkpoint like all the other aliens. Hell, the only reason he even somewhat recalled what he’d just said was because he vaguely remembered someone on the radio talking about it.

“Bleh, who gives a shit?” Aaron slapped his mug down. “You make it sound like it makes any difference to people like us whatsoever?” He waved his hand dismissively. “You think you’d have more of a say in things if a human were running the show? So long as the one on top of things is doing right by me and mine, I could care less whose flag is on the wall or what planet they came from.”

Jack frowned. He hated to sound like an old man – even if he privately admitted that with each passing year he was getting closer and closer to being exactly that – but that was the problem with youth today.

They’d lived too much of their lives under the boot of the aliens. So much so that they didn’t even see it as such.

They saw it as a shield. Protection against a universe they’d been assured held much worse.

He was about to say as much when he was interrupted by shouting from the opposite side of the room. Which, while not exactly rare in Mac’s – it was a pub after all – usually didn’t have that same level of shrillness to it.

Both men glanced over, a long with much of the room, to where a girl was positively screaming at her boyfriend.

Or ex-boyfriend, he absently noted.

“-I thought we were going to patch things up!?” the girl shouted, genuine hurt mingled with indignance in her tone.

“We were…” the young man said, hands raised defensively, “It’s just… we’ve been on the ropes for a while…”

“So what? You’re just giving up on us?”

Rather than respond, the boy – as Jack swiftly recategorized him – shrugged awkwardly.

Silence reigned between the couple for a few seconds, before the girl said something quiet enough that had it not been for the now relative silence of the pub, Jack wouldn’t have heard.

“Have you been cheating on me?”

To his credit, the boy seemed positively affronted by the very notion. “No! I’d never cheat on you.”

Of course, his words were somewhat undercut by the girl’s next line. “…It’s that purple bitch isn’t it?”

And by his actions as he looked away.

Which looked to be all the confirmation the girl needed as her tone turned decidedly icy. “You have.”

I haven’t,” the boy defended. “We’ve just… talked a few times while we’re at the gym. Nothing more.”

“More like she’s been sniffing around you.” The girl crossed her arms. “I know exactly what those skanks are like.”

She looked away, genuine hurt once more coming to the fore even as she tried to keep her tone cold. “I bet your new single status won’t last long. Trading up from a boring old Earth girl?”

“I’m not,” the boy said, instinctively reaching one hand forward as if to comfort his ex, before remembering where they were and what was happening. The hand remained awkwardly handing in the air as he aborted the motion

“She’s not a skank either, Sarah. We’re just friends.”

The girl rallied. “I bet she’s hinted she’d like to be a bit more though? Hence this little conversation.”

The boy’s silence was telling.

“What does it matter?” he finally managed to say, sounding more tired than defensive. “I came to tell you that we’re over. What I do hereafter is none of your business. I’m just… trying to do the right thing here.”

The girl sounded much the same. Worn out.

“Whatever,” she said, turning to walk out. “I hope you have fun with your new skank. Traitor.”

The boy watched her go, regret and relief mingling in his expression.

Of course, then he noticed that he was being watched by most of the bar, who had heard pretty much the entirety of the conversation. And Jack was willing to bet more than a few of the expressions facing him were of the unfriendly sort.

The Shils themselves were close to untouchable, but more than a few people weren’t above targeting those humans that got too close to them. From what he’d seen, those sorts of people saw ‘race-traitors’ as in many ways worse than the purps themselves.

Which the boy clearly knew too, as he threw down a few notes and positively scampered out.

Which told Jack that he at least had some brains, even if he had piss-poor taste in romantic prospects.

He sighed as he looked away and the usual low hum of conversation returned to the bar. He didn’t check to see if anyone had followed the boy. He didn’t want to know.

Scenes like what had just happened weren’t exactly common, but they weren’t uncommon either.

After six years, it was pretty inevitable that people – young lads – in particular would be getting curious.

Hell, that it hadn’t taken so long surprised him. Maybe people just used to hide it better?

It wasn’t like he didn’t understand. His feelings on the occupation aside, the purps were a horny young guy’s wet dream. A race of sex-obsessed bombshells who didn’t mind sharing? It was like something out of ‘Venus Needs Men’.

Not that said acceptance of xenophilia was being taken lying down by women. Which he fully understood. He wouldn’t have been too impressed either if a bunch of sexy men from the stars started ‘stealing’ human women.

Though the response seemed to be split between women who disdained the very notion and had no issue being vocal about that fact… or those who had become more… aggressive in their affections in the name of securing a resource that had gotten just a bit more precious.

To his mind it was a foul situation all round.

Still, he could admit that if he was twenty years younger…

He shook his head, lips quirked in amusement. He was a happily married man with two wonderful children. To be honest, he didn’t think those interspecies relationships would last. Most of them at least.

Call him old fashioned, but he felt that kids were what really tied a household together. Through thick and thin. It was shared suffering as much as shared joy that really allowed a relationship to grow. Children were the cornerstone of that, and from everything he’d read – and just plain common sense – relations between a Shil and a human couldn’t create kids.

Though, as he looked at the considering gaze of his colleague, he couldn’t help but feel the sentiment wasn’t shared.

He didn’t think he’d be drinking with Aaron again in future.

“Injuries are up slightly, but fatalities have nearly doubled in the last solar cycle.”

Amana just shrugged as her adjutant continued to list off casualty statistics. The word ‘doubled’ sounded scary, but 0.003% was still just that.

Perhaps that seemed a tad callous to the servicewomen that had given their lives, but those were the facts. You couldn’t tame a Tuskgar without expecting a few gashes. Nor could you form an interstellar empire without expecting a few losses. Even on a relatively ‘easy’ world like this.

“We knew it would happen,” she said. “We aren’t dealing with stone age savages. They had weapons that could hurt us when we showed up. The last six years has just given them a chance to refine them.”

Sure, those refinements had occurred in secret, and were far from universal, but after six years even a Scaddit could have figured out a few methods of inconveniencing the average trooper or mech on the ground.

And while humans were many things, they definitely weren’t Scaddit’s.

Though looking at the weapon display on her data-pad, she couldn’t help but wonder if they’d been taking design tips from them.

Rail-guns – or even laser weapons - had been expected once the uplift began in earnest. The humans had the theory down, they’d just needed the tools. Tools the Imperium had gleefully provided.

What she – and a number of others - hadn’t been expected had been some of the less… esoteric applications of the tools provided to them.

Which was why she was looking at the latest ‘craze’ in anti-Shil’vati weaponry.

A spear.

A spear with a directional charge attached to the head.

While objectively, she understood that such weapons were the result of resistance fighters lacking other means, with which to well… fight, it still boggled her mind that anyone would use them at all.

“Why not throw it?” she asked. “Or build one of those… fish hunting things?”

“A harpoon-gun?” her ever faithful underling asked.

It was moments like this that reminded her why she hired on Kelva. While other nobles scoffed at the idea of having a plebian so close to them in a ‘thinking woman’s’ position, House Makra had ever been of the opinion that a noble was only as good as the women under her.

It was the ability to acquire and apply talent that mattered. No woman would ever be as proficient as a smoothly running team.

Kelva shook her head. “Harpoon guns are relatively complex pieces of equipment, requiring tools to transport and upkeep. By comparison, these… Kamikaze spears,” Amana smiled at the way her underling stumbled over the strange word, “have only two parts of consequence. The spear’s shaft and the explosive tip. Which makes them simple to make and transport.”

“And they don’t throw them because?” Amana asked.

Kelva glanced down at her own pad, no doubt pulling up the relevant section needed from the copious notes she’d no doubt made in preparation for this meeting.

“According to our engineers, in addition to the tip being unbalanced and heavy, a counter-force is needed to keep the explosive ‘on target’ when it goes off.” She pointed. “That is what the prongs are for. Not to pierce as you might imagine, but to help ‘grip’ the intended target.”

Said target being some poor Imperial trooper’s abdomen, Amana thought with a dour sigh.

“I assume that they are dangerous to the user?” she asked.

“Nearly universally deadly,” Kelva said. “Shaped charge or not, the residual back blast shreds user and target alike.”

Well, at least that means that every success guarantees there was one less resistance fighter in the world, she thought.

Still, that there were resistance fighters of such a fanatical disposition that this was now a viable weapon system… well…

It draws uncomfortable comparisons to…

“Roaches.”

“I was hoping you wouldn’t say that,” Amana sighed as the lowborn said exactly what she’d been worried about.

“You pay me to give you hard truths. This is one of them.” Kelva smiled wanly. “Fortunately, they aren’t quite as bad as the insects. With humans, such fanaticism is the exception rather than the rule. The fact that Earth still has cities left to occupy tells us that much.”

“Yes,” Amana nodded slowly. “I suppose that in this case the lack of a caste system works in our favor.”

Human notions of equality were certainly an irritant for all the nobles on-world, but at least it made it so that only the most fanatical amongst them would conceive of dying for the cause as a first course of action rather than the last.

Looking at the long list of casualties on the screen across from her, she wondered, not for the first time, if the Imperium might have been better served attempting to absorb Earth diplomatically rather than through military action.

Of course, just like every time before, she shook her head at the very notion.

It had been considered and dismissed.

Even before they’d arrived, Humanity had been too divided. It would have taken decades, if not centuries for them to have reached a point where Earth was a unified political entity capable of consenting to being absorbed.

Even then, she believed there would have been resistance. It would have been the same situation, just slower and maybe only marginally less fierce. Because humans were nothing if not contrary.

So the Imperium had decided to trade blood for time.

Truthfully, Amana didn’t necessarily disagree with that decision. She just wished that said invasion hadn’t left her with such a massive mess in the small section of the world she was in. And at least the residents of ‘Japan’ were less combative than other parts of the world. She shuddered to imagine what her life might be like if she’d inherited the desert section toward the center of the nearest continent.

To hear her compatriots talk about the place, it seemed all the local tribes there hated each other – yet somehow hated the Shil’vati more. A hatred that was only made worse by their frankly insane notions about women.

Still, as she glanced at the video taken from a nearby security camera, she couldn’t help but wonder whether they ever had to deal with humans using explosive lances from the back of motorbikes?

I doubt it, she decided.

And if she was wrong, she didn’t want to know about it.

“At least tell me our human militia is on track?”

Another project she’d had mixed feelings about. Unfortunately, a higher up had come across a report from an enterprising noble from the North American Region who’d reported having made great strides in her own anti-dissident operations by incorporating humans into her taskforce.

It wasn’t exactly a ground breaking notion to employ natives as both sources of information and militia units on conquered worlds – it was in fact common practice for the Imperium – but it was almost unheard of for them to be employed so soon on a world that was in many ways still in active rebellion.

Unfortunately for her, and other overseers, the governess had been impressed by the results achieved by the woman, and ordered her vassals to raise and deploy a number of ultra-light human militia units.

Being ultra-light, the units would only be suited to crowd control, light patrol and enforcement work, which meant that they wouldn’t be any real threat in the event of a rebellion. Even so, it rankled her to know that they effectively trained soldiers that might well fight against them eventually.

Fortunately, this was one case where human divisiveness worked in their favor. For every human that seemed to want to fight the Imperium to the last, there was one who was a die-hard supporter of the Empresses regime – and a half-dozen who felt any number of different ways on a dozen different topics relating to the occupation, or who just couldn’t care less.

“It’s on track. A number of our instructors are actually rather impressed. Say what you will about them, the pink-skins are an adaptable bunch.”

Amana sighed. “I thought I sent a memo about the use of the moniker ‘pink-skin’? It’s offensive to them when you refer to their color… for some reason. And more to the point, in our case factually incorrect because they aren’t all that pink.”

Another facet of human divisiveness. They even got upset about other humans being different colors to them.