Their Darkest Hour

Discussion in 'Survival Reading Room' started by ChrisNuttall, Jan 29, 2012.


  1. ChrisNuttall

    ChrisNuttall Monkey+++


    ChapterTwenty-Seven<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:eek:ffice:eek:ffice" />



    Near AlienDetention Camp

    United Kingdom,Day 40



    “Jimmy!”



    Jimmy Coates scowled as he heard his wife calling hisname. What did the dumb bitch wantnow? It was bad enough that picked afight with him about each and every little thing, but wouldn't allow him torespond to her stupid arguments. So whatif he drank too much and came rolling home drunk? She’d come rolling home drunk if she saw halfthe **** he had to see, as well as the looks people gave a collaborator whenthey thought one of the aliens wasn't watching. And who cared if the ****ing cooking club bitches had voted to throwGinny out on her arse? Just because theydidn't want a collaborator’s wife...



    “What?” Hedemanded, furiously. There were timeswhen he thought that going to the whorehouses would be a good way to punish ashrewish spouse. It wasn't as if therewas a shortage of whores these days. Pussy was cheap when so many were starving, kept alive by the mush thealiens doled out every week to those who bent the knee to them. “What’s so ****ing important that you have todrag me out of the bathroom?”



    “They’re saying there’s going to be a nationalannouncement in twenty minutes,” his wife shouted back. God – what had he been thinking when hemarried her? She’d trapped him, allright; she’d told him that she was on the pill. But she’d gotten pregnant and her father had insisted that he marry her,or else. Jimmy still remembered themoment when he’d realised that he’d been trapped, forced into a marriage to agirl he didn't love. And even thoughthey’d had three brats together, he still didn’t love her. “You have to watch it too.”



    Jimmy snorted, but didn't argue any further. The BBC was wholly controlled by the aliensthese days and they used it to make sure that their subjects heardannouncements that might otherwise be missed. When they weren’t issuing orders, they were showing old soap operas andmovies, rather than anything else. Theonce-famed BBC news service had terminated two days after the aliens landed,never to be replaced. It seemed that thealiens believed that humans were only to know what they needed to know, ratherthan have news from all over the world pumped into their living rooms. Jimmy was almost relieved. His wife and her cooking group had held salesfor every lost cause across the world, apart from Britain itself. No one was allowed to mention how Britain hadproblems...



    He stumbled down the stairs, cursing the five pints ofbeer he’d downed after leaving work earlier, and crashed into the livingroom. She’d decorated it, of course,with all of her frilly decorations, rather than the beer table and fridge hewould have preferred. Surely a man coulddesign at least one room in his house. But no, it was all her own work – and it had cost him a pretty pennytoo! He sat down in the armchair andpretended not to see his wife’s lips thinning with disapproval. So what if he was half-drunk? It wasn't as if he wasn’t providing for her,was it? She still got half of his salary– real alien money – and there were goods in the shops for those who had alienmoney. They ate better than all of theirneighbours.



    The television was showing the end of one of the soapoperas he so detested, but he told himself to be patient. It wasn't easy, not when his wife was eitherlooking at the television or scowling at him, giving him the look thatsuggested that she regretted marrying him almost as much as he regrettedmarrying her. But it wasn't as if he’d hadany choice...and then there were the kids. He loved his kids, or at least he told himself he did, and he wouldn'twant any harm to come to them. They’d beshattered if mum and dad broke up...maybe he would go to the whorehouse afterall. It wasn't as if his wife was givinghim access to her body any longer.



    He looked up as the music announcing an alien broadcastcaught his attention. The aliens alwaysannounced their broadcasts in advance, warning everyone to watch – orelse. Jimmy had no idea what had gotinto their minds this time, but he knew better than to avoid watching, not whenhis very career depended upon them. Thealiens seemed interested in recruiting thousands of humans and they paid well,although they were really the only paying employers these days, No doubt the wretched banking CEOs and otherswho made it impossible for a man to overcome his debt and stand tall had soldout to them. No one had any principlesany longer.



    “Case in point,” he grunted, as the collaborator-in-chiefappeared on the screen. Alan Beresfordwas just another MP who proved that there was no point in being loyal to thecountry. Why should he be loyal to agovernment that pardoned outright criminality among its own members and at thesame time hectored him to improve his lifestyle? What ****ing business of theirs was it if hesmoked twenty fags in a day, or drank himself senseless every weekend? It wasn't as if there were any dreams anylonger. How could they claim his loyaltywhen they so manifestly didn't deserve it? The last Prime Minister was probably hiding in a aristocratic mansionsomewhere, while his successor was an outright collaborator.



    His wife looked over at him. “Yes, Jimmy?”



    “Oh, shut up,” Jimmy grunted. He wanted a beer, any beer. But he’d stashed all of his cans upstairs andthere was none within reach. “I thoughtyou admired this guy anyway.”



    “These have been tragic times for our country,” Beresfordsaid. Jimmy snorted. Somehow, he didn't think that Beresford hadfound them very tragic. It was clearthat he was well-fed and content, even if he was the focus for a great deal ofanger. The aliens would protect him ifthe lynch mob ever reached his door. “Wehave been forced to adapt to a new world order – and yet there are those whoare resolved to fight to the bitter end. But their fight is hopeless – we are part of a greater universe now andit is time to earn our place in it.”



    “By whoring for the aliens, no doubt,” Jimmysneered. “Bet you’re not worried aboutthugs slashing your tires when you park and go for a beer.”



    He smiled at the memory. It hadn't been that long ago that he and his fellow lorry drivers hadcaught a pair of young kids slashing their tires. They hadn’t bothered to call the police,knowing that the little brats would only be let off with a warning. Instead, they’d thrashed hell out of them andabandoned them some miles from town. Jimmy had half-expected them to inform the police, but there had neverbeen any comeback. Perhaps the policehad figured that the brats deserved their treatment.



    “We have broken many cells of bitter-enders, people whobelieve that they must still fight on,” Beresford continued. “It is with great regret that I am forced toconfirm that those fighters – who have killed far more innocent humans thanaliens – will be executed in two days. Their deaths will serve as a warning – being a bitter-ender will bringyou nothing, but grief. The entirepopulation will see their executions on television. And then let us pray that that will be an endto the fighting. Our poor country hassuffered enough.



    “But you haven’t suffered at all,” Jimmy bellowed, andthrew the remote at the television set. People like Beresford never suffered. They simply attached themselves to the centre of power and madethemselves indispensible, at least until a new centre of power arrived. Bottom-feeders, the lot of them. “Do you really think that we will beimpressed?”



    “It gives me great pleasure to announce that the dailyration will be increased in response to the increasing number of people whohave seen the inevitable and started to work with the aliens to build a newworld,” Beresford concluded. “Together,we will build a new Britain.”



    His face vanished from the display. Moments later, the next soap came on, while asmall line of text underneath the pictures warned that the alien broadcastwould be repeated every hour on the hour. Everyone in Britain would see it. And then they would watch in horror as the aliens executed theircaptives. Jimmy shrugged as he stoodup. What had Britain ever done for himthat he should fight for it? He’d beennagged by the nanny-state since he was a little kid. Don’t smoke, don’t drink, don’tquestion....we know what’s best for you, never mind that you don’t like it...wehave the right to reshape you as we see fit...



    He rolled his eyes, just as the doorbell rang. Jimmy blinked in surprise; ever since he’dgone to work for the aliens, their circle of friends had dwindled away toalmost nothing. His wife had taken itharder than he had – he was happy as long as he had beer and a place tosleep. Perhaps it was one of thereligious freaks who went around offering salvation – in exchange for a cashdonation, of course – or someone collecting for charity. It seemed that the only endangered speciesunworthy of assistance was the white male.



    Carefully – there werebitter-enders out there – he peered through the tiny spy hole andfrowned. Two brisk young men stood infront of the door, wearing civilian clothes. They didn't look likereligious freaks. Maybe they wanted tosign up with the aliens – it wouldn't be the first time he’d been approached bysomeone looking for a job. He opened thedoor and scowled down at them. Theydidn't seem intimidated by his face.



    “We need to talk to you,” one of them said. He stepped forward, put his foot neatly inplace to prevent Jimmy from shutting the door, and pointed a gun right at hisface. Jimmy jumped back in shock,feeling the pleasant haze of near-drunkenness fading away. “You’re going to help us rescue our friends.”



    Jimmy found himself on the floor, looking up atthem. “And if you don’t help,” the manadded, “you’re really not going to enjoy what happens next.”



    ***

    Alex rolled over as she heard the sound of the cellopening. They seemed to take her to adifferent cell after each interrogation session, sometimes with someone in thecell, sometimes empty so she had a chance to brood on what would happen to hernext. Her body just ached constantly,the pain blurring together into a single mass tearing away at her mind. She was half-convinced that they weretorturing her for the fun of it, or perhaps they were waiting for her tobreak. They certainly hadn't bothered toask her any questions.



    The light came on, revealing a man with a blood-stainedface hobbling into the cell. Like her,he was naked, with dark blue-black bruises covering his entire body. She found herself wondering if she wouldrecognise him, but as her eyes adapted to the light she realised that he was astranger. The blood on his facesuggested that he’d been tortured worse than she had, at least physically. Being at the mercy of a pair of sadists who coulddo anything they wanted to her was taking its toll. The only thing keeping her from breaking wasa bitter determination not to give them the pleasure.



    “Hi,” Alex said. So far, all of the other prisoners she’d met had been women. She hadn't even known that there were anymale prisoners in the complex, although she wasn’t really sure how large thecomplex actually was. It felt as if theywere underground, but there was no way to know for sure. God alone knew if they were still inBritain. “What did they do to you?”



    The man stumbled to his knees, grunting in pain as he hitthe stone floor. “They caught me twodays ago,” he said, quietly. Alexblinked in surprise. It looked as if hehad been worked over more than once, but maybe she was mistaken. “They were lying in wait – wiped us out,apart from me. I was the lucky one theytook alive.”



    There was a bitterness in his voice that was alarminglyconvincing. “I was in Chester’s group,”he added. “Good old Chester – ShinyTwo’s Colonel. He’s dead too, now.”



    Alex winced. ShinyTwo was the nickname for 2 Para, one of the toughest units of fighting men inthe British Army. She’d flown missionssupporting their operations in Afghanistan, before returning to Britain andflying in defence of the UKADR. Ifthey’d been wiped out, what hope was there for anyone else?



    “We lost contact with everyone else,” he admitted. “Who were you with?”



    “No one,” Alex admitted. The memory was a bitter one, although if he was telling the truth itwould seem that the professional soldiers hadn’t done much better. “I don't want to talk about it.”



    “It’s over,” the man insisted. “None of us are ever going to see the outsideworld ever again. What possible harmcould it do now?”



    Alex considered the point for a long moment. She didn't know who had betrayed her and sheprobably would never know. It was niceto think that Archer and the others would carry on the war without her, but thetraitor might have betrayed them as well. And if that had happened, their resistance cell would have been blownopen and destroyed. The supplies thatArcher had guarded ever since 1940 would have been confiscated by the aliens.



    “I don't want to talk about it,” she repeated. She wasn't going to break, not aftereverything else she’d been through. “Ineed to rest.”



    “But they’ll kill you,” the man protested. “You can’t help your friends now...”



    Something clicked in Alex’s mind. She’d been slapped and beaten and raped and,afterwards, she’d found it incredibly difficult to walk. The man looked to have been tortured worseand yet he was still walking, if badly. Theyshould have shackled him, yet they’d left him free to walk. And he didn't sound as though he was inpain...



    “Go **** yourself, collaborator,” Alex said, wondering ifit would be the last thing she’d ever say. He might lash out at her and she was in no state for a fight. “You’re nothing more than a goddamned Walt!”



    There was a pause, and then the man stood up and bangedon the cell door. His limp seemed tohave vanished, she noted, as the door opened and he was hauled outside. She could hear the sound of someone screamingfrom further down the corridor before the door was slammed closed and the lightwent off, leaving her alone in the darkness. Alex chuckled, despite the pain it caused her to laugh. They’d tried to trick her into talking andfailed.



    She lay back on the hard bed and closed her eyes, tryingto relax. It wasn't easy; the pain kepther awake. She wasn't sure how much moreshe could take before she broke, even though she was determined to hold out aslong as possible. But what was going tohappen to her afterwards? She had a feelingthat she wouldn't enjoy the answer.



    The cell door banged open without warning. A dark silhouette appeared, standing againstthe faint light from outside. “Well,you’re certainly posing an interesting challenge,” the tall man said. He sounded more amused than annoyed. “I thought that you would have been fooledfor sure.”



    It was a mistake to talk to one’s captors, but Alexcouldn't resist. “**** you,” shesaid. “I won’t tell you anything.”



    “I’ve already ****ed you,” the tall man said, nastily. There was a faint chuckle, an inhuman soundfor all that it came from a human throat. “I come with good news. Yoursuffering will soon be over, my dear. Our masters have decided to execute a number of people caught in the actof waging war against the new world order. They announced it on the BBC and everything. And unless you talk, you’re going to be oneof the ones executed by firing squad.”



    He leaned closer. “You could talk right now,” he said. “I’ll have your wounds treated and you’d even be able to rest properly,without any more suffering. There areplaces where you could live out the rest of your life, far from the maddeningcrowd. All you have to do is tell us whatwe want to know...”



    Alex braced herself, and then threw a slap at his face. But she was wounded and drained and she movedfar too slowly. He stepped back,effortlessly avoiding her desperate blow.



    “I suggest you make your peace with yourself, bitch,” hesaid, in the same casual tone. “Tomorrow, you will die. Anddon’t even think that they will care, all the people you’re protecting. They will just forget you, or forever wonderif you betrayed them...”



    “Go **** yourself,” Alex said, as harshly as she could.



    “I’ll **** someone else tonight,” the tall man said. “Enjoy your last day on Earth.”



    The door banged closed behind him, leaving Alex aloneonce again. She’d known that there was aprospect of violent death from the day she’d first joined the RAF. And she’d known that she might be shot downover enemy territory and interrogated. It had been one of her few nightmares, back when the world had madesense. If only it had stayed in hernightmares...quietly, alone in her cell, she prayed to a God she hadn't spokento for years. At least her death wouldhave some meaning...



    And perhaps it would be quick.
     
  2. ChrisNuttall

    ChrisNuttall Monkey+++


    <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><font size="3">ChapterTwenty-Eight<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com[​IMG]
    Alien DetentionCamp
    United Kingdom,Day 41

    “I strongly suggest that you don’t **** up,” Chris said,looking over at the lorry driver. Ithadn't taken much to pigeon-hole their unwilling assistant as someone who couldbe threatened, although never fully trusted. “One mistake and they’ll have us – and they will never believe that youweren't part of it.”

    Jimmy Coates nodded, clearly nervous around the soldiersand their weapons. The aliens hadsummoned three of their tame lorry drivers – and their vehicles – to thedetention camp, a stroke of luck that Chris intended to use against them. Each of the lorries could hold upwards oftwenty soldiers, along with some heavy weapons. The remainder of the assault force had positioned itself nearer thecamp, watching and waiting for the balloon to go up. Chris had devised the plan, but right now –on the verge of implementing his plan – it struck him that there were too manythings that could go wrong. If they****ed up...

    “I’m going to be in the cab with you,” he added. “If you betray us, it will be the last thingyou ever do.”

    He bellowed for the soldiers to clamber into the lorries,and then nodded to Coates to climb into his cab and start the engine. Chris had ridden in army lorries before, butit had taken some careful work to prepare the civilian vehicles for theiruse. They weren't designed to carrypassengers in the rear, let alone heavy weapons. Chris hadn’t mentioned it to the lorrydrivers, but if necessary they wouldn't hesitate to abandon the lorries andleave them behind. The aliens would knowwho had assisted the resistance, which would mark the drivers for death whenthey were caught. Their families werealready safe and the drivers, assuming that they survived the mission, would beallowed to join them.

    “Come on,” Coates bellowed. “We need to get moving!”

    Chris nodded and scrambled up into the cab. It was warmer than he had expected, smellingof something he didn't quite want to identify. Jimmy turned the key and the engine roared to life as Chris pulled onhis seat belt and checked his Browning. He’d stashed a small bag of grenades and other surprises below the seat,out of sight of any alien patrols. Ifnothing else, the mission should convince the aliens that they couldn't rely ontheir tame collaborators – at least not completely. And Coates, a drunkard with a shrew of awife, would go down in the history books as a hero.

    The vehicle lurched into life and headed off down theroad, followed by the other two lorries at a safe distance. Chris wasn't too surprised to see how emptythe roads had become, even though the aliens had started doling out petrol totheir collaborators. Most vehicles weredriven by collaborators and they’d been targeted by resistance fighters – orjust local youths – for destruction. Notmany people picked on the aliens these days. The Leathernecks were clearly learning; not only had they improved theirreaction times, but they didn't hesitate to blast nearby towns and villages inretaliation for attacks on their vehicles.

    Chris gritted his teeth as the roar of the engine grewlouder, thinking hard. How long couldthey continue to fight if the aliens retaliated massively for every littleattack? They had plenty of weapons, butthe aliens would simply keep wearing them down – and force the local populationinto more active collaboration. If theystarted warning the inhabitants of towns near their bases that any attack wouldresult in the destruction of their town, the inhabitants might betray theresistance fighters to the aliens. Chriscouldn't really blame them, even though it would make carrying on the wardifficult. How could they keep fightingif they didn't have a real hope of victory?

    The internet – passing messages from cell to cell – wasclearly trying to keep their hopes up, but he could tell that the resistancewas fraying at the edges. None of thelads had ever expected to have to fight a war in their own backyards and manyhad seen to their families, only to be rounded up by the aliens andshipped...where? It bothered him thatthey still had no idea what happened to human military personnel. There were hundreds of rumours, but none ofthem had ever seemed more than marginally likely. Perhaps they’d just been taken somewhereisolated and murdered. It was as likelyas any other suggestion.

    Once, the motorways had been jam-packed with traffic,making it impossible to move along at anything above a crawl. Now, from what he’d heard, thosecollaborators who drove out found driving almost pleasurable – at least whilethey weren’t dodging rocks. He couldn'treally blame them for that, even though he hated them for collaborating. The longer the country remained under aliencontrol, the more and more people who would find themselves pushed intocollaboration, or at least accommodation, with the aliens. And then...

    There were parts of the country that had been used formilitary training and exercises for years, places where few civilianslived. The Scottish Highlands could hidea resistance force for years; indeed, the aliens seemed less interested inhuman activities above Dundee. They didhave a small alien force in Aberdeen, but they hadn't bothered to expandoutwards or even start supervising the locals as closely as they did inLondon. It was reassuring to know thatthere were limits to their manpower, even though it was likely that they didn'tconsider the Highlands very important. He could go there and join the Scots Guards who were preparing their ownfallback positions, or...maybe he would just carry on the fight until his luckran out and the aliens killed him.

    He glanced down at his watch. It was 1024. The executions had been scheduled for 1100 precisely. Apparently, the aliens were sending a numberof bigwigs from London and the other occupied cities down to watch as theypumped bullets into captured resistance fighters, perhaps as a warning toanyone who would consider playing both sides of the fence. It was possible that Beresford himself wouldbe there. Now there was a pleasant thought. If they had a shot at him, Chris intended to take it. Maybe it would teach the other collaboratorsnot to sell themselves, body and soul, to the enemy of the entire world.

    ***
    The light came on, shockingly bright.

    “On your feet,” a man ordered. Alex gasped in pain as strong hand graspedher legs and pulled them off the bed. Amoment later, she was yanked to her feet and pushed against the cold wall whileher hands were tied behind her back. Hertwo captors, both wearing the black masks that obscured their features, shovedher towards the door. Despite nearlyfalling onto her face, Alex found the masks rather heartening. They were clearly concerned about retributionfrom the resistance.

    Outside, a number of other naked prisoners – male andfemale – were being pushed towards a flight of stairs leading upwards. Many of them were silent; others were cryingout, begging for mercy from their masked captors. None of the captors seemed particularlyimpressed, although a few were taking advantage of the situation to grope thewomen in the group. Alex snarled at aman who grasped at her breast and he jumped back, clearly not having expectedany resistance at all. The thought madeher smile as she was pushed up the steps and out into the cold morningair. They seemed to be on the far edgeof the alien detention camp.

    She heard someone calling to her and glanced over towardsthe fences. Both the male and femalecamp populations were staring at the small parade, despite angry shouts andthreats from their masked escorts. Alexwondered, absently, what had happened to the aliens. Surely they would be watching while theirhuman pawns abused their captives...or perhaps they were ashamed. Hadn’t there been a fictional race of alienswho had discovered the Nazi concentration camps and destroyed them inhorror? If only Earth had been invadedby those aliens. The war wouldn't havelasted longer than a few weeks and Earth would have won with ease. Unless the aliens managed to drop asteroidsonto the planet instead of landing in force...

    “Move, bitch,” one of the guards snapped, pushing ather. Alex was tempted to fall to theground and force them to carry her, but it was clear that there would be littlepoint. The handful of prisoners who hadbeen tortured so hard they couldn't walk were being dragged along the ground bytheir hair or feet. A pair of alienhelicopters flew overhead, the sound of their engines a mocking reminder of everythingshe’d lost since the day her Eurofighter had been blown out of the sky.

    They rounded what looked like a gym and came to a halt infront of the wall. A set of aliens werewaiting for them, with a smaller group of humans standing nearby. They looked like collaborators to her,although some of them clearly looked as if they wanted to be somewhere –anywhere – else. She wondered if she’drecognise any of them from the parish council – maybe one of those politicianshad betrayed her – but none of them looked familiar. There was no sign of Beresford or any of hisinner circle. Perhaps the aliens feltthat they’d seen the slaughter in London and didn't need another lesson inalien ruthlessness.

    “Get them against the wall,” one of the humansordered. The guards obeyed, pushing andshoving at the prisoners to make them move. Two of the badly-beaten prisoners sagged to their knees as soon as theywere pushed against the wall, unable to remain standing upright on their owntwo feet. Alex leaned backwards andrelaxed against the wall, feeling oddly calm. The aliens would kill her and that would be the end. No more torture, no more suffering, no moredesperate attempts to prevent her treacherous tongue from speaking aloud...itwould be the end.

    A cold wind blew across the field as the collaboratorsprepared themselves. Alex was suddenlyvery aware that the entire country was going to see her naked – somehow, shefound herself chuckling at the very thought. She’d once broken up with a boyfriend because he’d wanted a nakedpicture of her on his mobile phone; absently, she wondered if that ex-boyfriendwould be watching as the aliens blew her apart with their handheldcannons. Perhaps her death would inspirehim to go out and kill a few aliens...or perhaps it would just terrify him intosubmission. She did her best to standupright, despite the increasing pain from her legs and feet. One way or the other, it wouldn't be longnow.

    ***
    “Here we are,” Coates said. “They don’t normally bother to look insidethe lorry...”

    Chris braced himself as they reached the aliencheckpoint. After the suicide bomber inLondon, and a handful of copycats from all over Britain, the aliens hadinstalled blast walls and double-fences to prevent any more suicide bombersfrom getting into their bases before they detonated their bombs. They’d done the papers properly, using MI6’sforgery experts, but if the aliens decided to check the lorries anyway...theywould have to fight their way into the base. The plan had been to rescue the prisoners and, ideally, give the aliensa colossal black eye. It would be muchharder if they were caught outside the fence.

    One of the aliens came stamping up to the cab and Coatespassed him the papers. The driver wasclearly nervous, although Chris suspected that it wouldn't be so obvious to analien. Some suicide bombers in Iraq hadgiven themselves away by being nervous as they neared their target...he glancedat his watch, noting that they only had ten minutes before the executions werescheduled to take place. A delay could ruinthe entire plan. Carefully, he allowedhis hand to drop down into his rucksack, where he’d concealed thegrenades. If they had to fight their wayinto the camp...

    The alien stepped back and waved one clawed hand. Coates wasted no time in gunning the engineand sending them around the blast walls, while the other lorries were checkedand then waved into the base. Chris wasalmost disappointed at how easy it had been, although there was some evidencethat this base wasn't really important to the aliens. They’d only flown a handful of their shuttlesdown to the base, while they kept flying them to the garrisons outside Londonand the base they’d built on the remains of Ten Downing Street and BuckinghamPalace. He remembered, briefly, thefriends he’d lost in the brief, but violent land stand of the HouseholdDivision. They’d be watching from thenext world as he led a mixed group of soldiers and marines against the alienbase.

    According to a handful of collaborators who hadmaintained ties to the resistance, the aliens had two main detention camps anda number of buildings that served as their local headquarters. Several prisoners had been taken into thosebuildings and never seen again, although there was no clear explanation as towhat had happened to them. The aliens,it seemed, maintained a human interrogation team who interrogated prisoners ofparticular interest to the aliens. Atleast one of the interrogators had been identified as a particularly unpleasantsadist and murderer who had been serving thirty years in jail when the alienshad arrived. Chris gritted his teeth atthe thought of anyone he knew falling into their hands.

    History hadn't been a particular interest of his beforethe invasion, but he’d been reading about the French Resistance to Hitler. The French Resistance had been rather morelow-key than it had claimed particularly after VE Day when the membership ofthe resistance skyrocketed, but it had had some successes. But it had also had problems with Frenchmenwho threw themselves completely into serving the Nazis, as had the Russians andseveral other occupied countries. Thelocals had sometimes been worse than their foreign masters, having little or noregard for their own country. Some ofthe stories had been sickening. Peoplehad betrayed their fellows for food, drink, or merely some shelter in a worldgone insane, but others had used it as a chance to play out their fantasies.

    “Here we are,” Coates said, nervously. The three lorries had parked near one of thehuman buildings. “How long do you wantme to wait here?”

    “I suggest you get out to the gate once the shootingstarts,” Chris said. Coates hadn'trealised it, but the moment the aliens realised that they were under attack,they’d blast every human vehicle moving near the base. The only thing preventing them from droppingKEWs on their heads would be the presence of hundreds of their own people. “You know where to go to link up with ourpeople.”

    He scrambled down from the cap and rapped on the back ofthe lorry. The first bunch of soldiers,wearing the brown uniforms that the aliens issued to their collaborators,opened the doors and jumped down, weapons in hand. If they were lucky, the aliens would startgunning down their collaborators, convinced that they had turned on them. And even if they didn't, they’d be confused.

    “Come on,” he said. The aliens didn't allow their collaborators firearms. They’d know something was wrong the momentthey saw the SA80s and antitank weapons. “Let’s go.”

    ***
    The problem with trying to make a defiant impression asone was waiting to be shot, Alex decided with a flash of humour, was that ittook time for the enemy to get around to actually shooting. Their collaborators were busy makingspeeches, cursing the bitter-enders who felt that they had to carry on thefight even though it was hopeless. Afterthe first speech, a second had begun, followed rapidly by a third. The viewing public would be getting verybored by now, Alex told herself, wondering if there was something she could doto speed up the affair. It was growingcolder and she was hardly dressed for the weather.

    She caught sight of a group of aliens marching towardsthem, carrying their weapons at the ready. There was already one group of armed aliens with the collaborators, butperhaps the aliens had decided they needed two groups – or maybe three. What sort of threat did they think they werefacing? They seemed almost laughablyparanoid about their prisoners, even though they were tied and suffering the effectsof torture.

    “And so, it is with the deepest regret that we mustexecute those who feel that they must resist the new world order,” one of thecollaborators finally droned. Alexstraightened upright as the aliens levelled their weapons, pointing directly ather head. Their bullets were larger thanhuman-designed bullets, she’d noted, perhaps a testament to the tough leatheryskin that protected the aliens from outside threats. “Their deaths will serve as a warning tothose who feel that they can resist with impunity...”

    Alex closed her eyes, expecting the shot to come at anysecond. Instead, she heard alien gruntsof alarm. She opened her eyes, just intime to see a small band of armed collaborators advancing on the aliens. Armed collaborators...? The aliens, caught in the open, swung around,too late. Alex threw herself to theground as the newcomers opened fire, mowing down the aliens before they couldtake cover or return fire. A handful ofcollaborators were shot in the legs, knocking them to the ground. Alex glanced up as a figure bent down andsawed the plastic tie away from her wrists.

    “What...?” Shemanaged. It was suddenly very hard tospeak. “What’s going on?”

    “Isn’t it obvious?” The man demanded. “You’re beingrescued!”
     
    goinpostal, ssonb, Grimjaw and 5 others like this.
  3. ChrisNuttall

    ChrisNuttall Monkey+++


    ChapterTwenty-Nine<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:eek:ffice:eek:ffice" />



    Alien DetentionCamp

    United Kingdom,Day 41



    Tra’tro Yak’shathad been studying his records when the attack began. The Detention Camp wasn’t officially part ofthe Land Forces, although they provided the troopers who guarded it from insurgentattack. Instead, it fell under thepurview of the Sha’ra, the intelligence service that safeguarded the State fromenemies both inside and outside its territory. There hadn't been an intelligence network on Earth prior to the invasion– too great a chance of being discovered ahead of time, or so they’d said – andthe intelligence officers were working overtime to build up networks they coulduse to hunt down human insurgents. Itwasn't going too well.



    The Sha’ra had wide latitude when it came to intelligencegathering, and he’d been told that he had no need to know any of the gorydetails, but he'd heard enough to gather that they were using human rogues totorture their prisoners and extract confessions. Anything was permitted in the service of theState – and if the humans were unwilling to dispose of their own rogues, theyhad only themselves to blame – yet he found it hard to accept that such torturewas permissible. The humans seemed to betheir own worst enemies. Even the Sha’rahad been shocked at some of the rogues they’d allowed to live. Using them in the service of the State was...



    He jumped up as he heard the first explosion. The Sha’ra had ordered the execution of someof the prisoners – even to the point of bringing in their own executioners –and he’d been told to keep him and his troopers away from the execution ground,but explosions suggested that the base was under attack. The alarms sounded a second later, summoningthe troopers to grab their weapons and repel the human insurgents. He picked up his own sidearm and ran towardsthe hatch. If the humans intended toattack his base, they’d get a few unpleasant surprises. He’d been careful to keep half his garrisonunder cover at all times, in the hopes that any human watchers would believethat he only had half as many troopers as he had. They’d be deploying now...



    Outside, the sound of gunfire was alarmingly close. The humans were already inside thefence...how was that even possible? Andhe could hear the sound of human mortars lobbing shells into the base. Explosions flared up from where they’d parkedtheir helicopters and the shuttle that had brought the Sha’ra execution crewdown from orbit. The entire base shook,seconds later, as the fuel dump exploded, blasting a colossal fireball into theair. Much of the base had been built tobe fire resistant, but if the shuttle fuel had caught fire the prefabricatedbuildings would start to melt very quickly. Fire was already starting to spread over the grass the humans had usedto mark out their runways. It wouldn'tbe long before the entire base went up in smoke.



    He lifted his weapon, too late, as he saw a pair ofhumans running towards him. The weaponsin their hands flashed fire...and he felt a brief moment of pain, before hefell down into darkness.



    ***

    Chris saw antitank rockets smash into the guardpost,destroying the firing position before the aliens could bring their machine gunsto bear on either side of the fence. Theassault force outside had already taken out the other posts, allowing them toget close and start taking down the fence and push the blast walls aside. It would have been simpler to knock down thefence in a dozen places, but combat reports from America suggested that thealiens scattered mines between the two fences and they didn't have time toclear a path. Besides, it might beeasier to get people out over the road.



    “Get the prisoners moving,” he bellowed. Sergeant Haywood heard him and startedpushing the prisoners towards the gates. A second team headed towards the cages holding the remainder of theprisoners. Some of them prisoners lookedas if they’d been beaten half to death, but they were all moving, ifpoorly. He’d have to assign people tohelp them get out of the base if they ran out of other options. “Get a team over and concentrated on thealien barracks!”



    The aliens seemed to have had a number of troopers hidingin a large building that had clearly been designed to serve as a fortress. Chris watched as they fired from portholes,forcing his men to stay back. Whoeverhad designed the building knew what he was doing, he admitted to himself; thealiens could cover all of the possible angles of approach, except directlyabove their building. He detailed twoplatoons of Royal Marines to keep the aliens pinned down, while rounding up aplatoon to follow him towards the human-designed buildings. If their intelligence was correct, the humansthe aliens had been using as interrogators would be based there.



    A small group of aliens had gone to ground behind a blastwall and were firing down towards the detention camp. Chris nodded to two of his men, who threwgrenades over the blast wall and ducked for cover. Two shattering explosions tore through thealiens, sending bloody chunks of flesh flying everywhere. The alien body armour was good, he noted, with a flicker ofenvy. Several of the alien bodies wereintact, even though they’d been stunned or killed by the grenades. They put a bullet in each of the alien heads,just to be sure, as they reached the hanger. Inside, there was a small alien helicopter and a pair of aliens who hadto be techs. They reached for weaponshanging by their sides, only to be shot down before they could draw them andopen fire. Chris watched them fall andthen glanced at the alien helicopter, wondering if they could fly it out of thebase. A quick check revealed that it hadbeen designed for beings with very different proportions than humans and itwould be very difficult for a human to fly. Maybe two humans, with proper training...he pushed the thought aside asthey ran towards the stairs. There wasan entire underground complex underneath the hanger, one built back when thebase had been preparing for war against the Russians. The aliens would probably have found ituncomfortable claustrophobic...



    “Incoming,” one of the sergeants yelled. Chris glanced up to see an alien helicopterswooping over the base, firing down towards the humans on the ground. A Stinger leapt up and slammed right into thealien craft, sending it heeling out of the sky and down to the ground, where itexploded in a massive fireball. “Sir...”



    Chris unhooked a grenade from his belt and motioned forthe soldiers to get ready. A secondlater, he hurled it down the stairs, where it exploded. He followed it down, weapon ready to dealwith anyone lying in ambush, only to see nothing more than scorched walls,illuminated by flickering lightbulbs. They moved down and started to check each of the small rooms one byone. Most were empty, but a couple heldwounded prisoners and one held a man who’d somehow managed to bite though hisown wrists and commit suicide. Judgingfrom the condition of his body, he’d been tortured so badly that he’d thoughtthat he was on the verge of breaking and decided to silence himselfpermanently. Chris would have liked totake his body out of the alien base and bury it somewhere properly, but therewasn't time. The aliens would beresponding, even now, to the attack on their territory. How long would it take them to getreinforcements to be base, or decide to cut their losses and drop KEWs on theirheads? The only thing keeping them fromdoing that was the aliens holding their building on the surface.



    The final set of doors were locked, but Chris slapped anexplosive pack against the doors and jumped back, allowing the explosive packto blow the door off its hinges. Inside,there were five men, cowering under the table. Chris recognised two of them as people the aliens had recruited to serveas interrogators, which probably meant that they were all interrogators. He noddedto his men, who seized the interrogators, searched them roughly, and thenbundled them back towards the stairwell. They’d be taken back to the resistance base, interrogated themselves,and then executed. After seeing whatthey’d done to the prisoners, he had no room left in him for mercy.



    A shuffling sound further down the corridor caught hisattention and he unhooked his torch from his belt, pointing the beam of lightinto the darkness. Dark eyes stared backat him and he almost fired reflexively, before realising that the alien wasunarmed. How could it even be in the underground complex? Chris wasn't claustrophobic, but he'd had tocrawl through all kinds of tunnels at Catterick and the alien had to find thehuman tunnels proportionally worse than he’d found the drains he’d had toexplore. It struck him a moment laterthat the alien had to be one of their intelligence officers. Who else would want to be so close to the interrogationrooms?



    He pointed his gun at the alien’s head and glared athim. “Can you understand me?”



    The alien seemed to quiver, and then nodded. “You’re coming with us,” Chris said. “We won’t hurt you as long as you behaveyourself, understand?”



    There was a pause, and then the alien nodded again. A student of humanity, perhaps? Human body language had to be alien to theLeathernecks, just as their own body language was almost unreadable tohumanity. He looked at the alien’sclawed hands and winced, inwardly. Thelast thing he wanted was the alien behind him with those natural weapons. He’d heard stories that suggested that thealien claws could cut through flesh and bone.



    He jerked the gun upwards and the aliens shuffled to hisfeet. Chris stepped to one side andmotioned for her to move towards the stairs and he obeyed, slowly. He couldn't tell if the alien was movingslowly because he was claustrophobic or because he was hoping that its fellowswould come to the rescue. Chris pokedthe alien impatiently in the rear end and the alien jerked, before moving alittle faster. His massive bulk blockedhalf the corridor.



    “Get him to the surface and out of the base,” Chrisordered, before peering through the remaining tunnels. The lighting was failing, suggesting that thebase’s emergency generator had been damaged in the fighting. Or maybe it was just designed to add to theeffect. “We’ll finish searching down hereand then get up to join you.”



    The remaining rooms were empty, apart from one which hada pair of laptops and several large hard drives piled on one table. They were definitely human manufacture, whichseemed rather odd – even though the aliens had been noted as having an interestin human computers and rounding up human experts they could put to worksomewhere outside Britain. He pickedthem up anyway, remembering their intelligence sweeps through Taliban hideoutsback before the invasion, where they’d found all kinds of interesting information– and porn – on their software. Theintelligence staff would study the laptops and determine if the interrogatorshad stored anything useful on their systems. Who knew? There might be videosof their interrogation sessions that could be played at their trial.



    He glanced into the final room and blinked insurprise. The interrogators had turnedwhat had once been a small kitchen into a chamber of horrors. A small pile of tools lay beside a hospitaltable, which was stained with blood and **** and piss. He recoiled, despite himself, wondering howanyone could get their kicks by torturing helpless victims. A cigarette lighter, a welding torch, adental knife, a rattan cane, a pair of wire cutters...he could see how they’dused each and every one of them to break their victims. He felt sick, fighting down the urge to gofind the interrogators and put a bullet through their brains. Even the Taliban hadn’t been so unpleasant totheir captives.



    A glance in a cupboard revealed a small fortune’s worthof cannabis and heroin, as well as some luxury foodstuffs that had beenunavailable since the invasion. Hecouldn’t tell if the interrogators had used them for themselves or tormentedtheir captives with them, although he could see how they might addict someoneto a drug and then leave the withdrawal symptoms as yet another form oftorture. One compartment held booze,mainly the muck that various farmers were trying to brew in the absence ofgovernment officials to tell them not to make their own. Some of the bottles, however, were old enoughto impress even the hardened officers in the mess. Chris couldn't imagine what the torturers haddone with the booze.



    “Splash the fuel around here and let’s go,” he ordered,harshly. He didn't quite recognise hisown voice. Outside the room, back in thedarkened tunnels, he could see just how easily the torturers could break theirvictims. They’d be able to convince themthat the tunnels went on forever, that there was no hope of escape...thebastards must have been laughing as they enjoyed making people suffer. Perhaps they hadn't even produced results.



    He unhooked a small bottle from his belt and splashed thecontents around as they headed back to the stairs. The compound had been devised by chemists –it was a distant relative of napalm – but they’d never been allowed to use itin action. They’d followed the ROEscarefully when the world had made sense, yet they no longer mattered now. He pulled a small detonator from his belt asthey reached the top of the stairs and tossed it down the shaft. It produced a spark which ignited the liquid,sending flames roaring through the underground complex. The torture chamber, the supplies thetorturers had hoarded and the evidence of their grizzly task went up inflames. By the time it burned itselfout, it would have incinerated everything, leaving the aliens nothing, butashes.



    “Get the prisoners out to the RV point,” he ordered, ashe headed back out into the open. Thesound of shooting grew louder from the direction of the alien strongpoint. They were merely keeping the aliens pinneddown, rather than trying to kill them – and invite the aliens to bombard thebase from orbit. “Have we emptied thewire?”



    The aliens had established two detention cages, one male,one female. They’d cut through the wireonce they’d driven the aliens back from the execution grounds, but several ofthe prisoners were too terrified to move. Others had started streaming out as soon as the wire had been cut,heading out to the countryside and hopefully away from the aliens. Chris had detailed men to round up theprisoners and take them to resistance hideouts, but if any of the prisonerswanted to go their own way, that was fine with him. The further they were spread over thecountryside, the harder it would be for the aliens to round them all upagain. He did hope that they were smartenough not to go home. The aliens andtheir collaborators would presumably have lists of who had escaped and wheretheir families lived, assuming they has families.



    He glanced back at the alien base and allowed himself aquick smile. They’d devastated theplace. Many of the buildings were toughenough to take the flames without being completely wrecked, but they’d killeddozens of aliens and destroyed their interrogation program. And they’d even destroyed a handful of alienvehicles. No one was quite sure how longit would take for the aliens to get resupplied from their homeworld, yet itwould throw a crimp into their invasion and occupation plans. And even thatdidn't take account of how badly their reputation would suffer. Once the news of the raid got out on theinternet, resistance fighters all over the world would take heart and try theirown attacks on alien bases.



    “Sir,” Sergeant Gravesend snapped. “I just picked up a flash message from thewatchers. The aliens are on their way!”



    Chris nodded. “Good,” he said. “Let’s see justhow badly we can maul them this time.”



    ***

    Alex’s entire body hurt, worse than anything she’d everexperienced, but she would have endured worse for the chance of freedom. One of the rescue party had passed her a coatwhich she’d used to cover her nakedness, yet she wouldn't have minded eventhat. Her feet hurt from the brokentarmac and grass they had to cross – they didn't have any shoes – and she feltas if she was half-stumbling from the pain, but she kept moving. She wasn't going to allow this chance toescape because of the pain.



    A burly man ahead of her was breaking the escapees downinto small groups. “You’re going withGroup Five,” he said, pointing to Alex, who nodded. Her heart was pounding like a drum, therhythm seemingly echoing inside her head. Could she hear the sound of alien helicopters, or was it just herimagination? “Follow Wilson there anddon’t slow down. The Leathernecks are ontheir way.”



    She caught sight of a pair of bound men being pushedalong by some of the soldiers and realised, with a burst of unholy delight,that one of them was the tall man who’d tortured her. The thought kept her moving, even as thesound of alien helicopters grew louder; there would be a chance forrevenge. Maybe she could torture himherself, if he proved unwilling to talk...she pushed the thought aside,disgusted at herself. And yet it had aseductive appeal...



    “Keep running,” Wilson snapped. “You’re not safe yet!”



    Alex bowed her head and kept moving.
     
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  4. ChrisNuttall

    ChrisNuttall Monkey+++


    <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><font size="3">Chapter Thirty<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com[​IMG]


    Alien DetentionCamp

    United Kingdom,Day 41



    The line of alien tanks moved with astonishing speed,racing cross-country towards the detention centre. Chris watched them come through a pair ofbinoculars, noting that the tanks had outraced their troop-carriers they’dpresumably been supposed to be escorting. But the aliens trapped in the detention camp had presumably beenscreaming for help ever since they’d realised that the only thing keeping themalive was their value as hostages. The alienswould want to save their lives, if possible.



    His original plan had been a quick smash and grab; getinto the base, free the prisoners and then start running. The resistance commander, insofar as theresistance had a commander, had modified it into a better mousetrap, remindinghim of stunts the Taliban had pulled during the early years of the war inAfghanistan. They’d been fond ofattacking one place to lure a relief force into a trap, but they’d always paidhighly for it. Chris had wondered if theresistance was likely to make the same mistakes, yet he’d been overruled. Besides, planting IEDs was all very well, butit wasn't spectacular enough to be inspiring.



    “Sir,” Maxwell called, “I have their overhead drone in mysights.”



    Chris nodded. Noone was entirely sure just how capable the alien drones were, but the Americanshad designed and produced fantastically capable platforms before the invasion,ones capable of tracking individual fighters and dropping Hellfire missiles ontheir heads. He had to assume that thealiens were just as capable, even though they didn't seem to be designed tooperate in a threatening environment. But then, few Taliban fighters had ever had working Stingers. The briefers had commented that possessingsuch a weapon would make someone a Big Man – and if they fired the missile,they wouldn't have the weapon any more, would they? It had struck Chris as absurd, but they hadclearly had a point. The aliens, facingpeople less concerned with their tribal status, had lost a number of drones tohandheld missile launchers since the invasion had begun. But why hadn't they started to take betterprecautions?



    He looked back towards the alien tanks. They’d be within engagement range in a matterof seconds and they all had to be taken out quickly, or they’d be lethal oncethey realised that they were under attack. Their main guns would be useless against insurgents, but they allcarried heavy machine guns and their armour could stand off bullets and evengrenades. The gangs in London, accordingto the internet, had thrown petrol bombs at the aliens, but the alien tanks hadsimply shrugged the blows off and kept on coming. Their soft-shelled vehicles were easier todisable or destroy.



    “Fire,” he barked.



    Maxwell launched his Stinger upwards towards the aliendrone, while the antitank teams fired on the alien tanks. Chris saw a flash in the sky from where thedrone had been hit, moments before four of the alien tanks exploded. The fifth ground to a halt and sank to theground – the rocket had struck the underside of its carriage – but returnedfire with its machine guns. Chris cursedas two of the antitank teams were wiped out before they could fall back, whilethe remaining alien vehicles slowed down and started deploying theirtroopers. He watched the alien shapesemerging from cover and swore again. They were going to be on him faster than he had planned.



    “Fall back,” he ordered, raising his voice to be heardover the sound of the tank’s guns. Thealiens seemed to be shooting at random, raking the ground near theirposition. He wasn't sure if they werehaving targeting problems or if they were just trying to keep the humans pinneddown. “Fall back to the next line.”



    Crawling through mud wasn't fun, but it beat being shotin the back by alien machine guns. Thesecond set of surprises had been positioned along the route they assumed thealiens would come, yet the aliens had managed to get there before it was quiteready for action. He slipped down intothe half-dug trench – any protection was welcome on a battlefield – and graspedhis rifle, looking for targets. Thealien infantry were still advancing, more carefully now that their tank was nolonger providing cover. Chris wonderedwhat was going through their minds, before realising that it probably wouldn'tbe that different to what went through his mind when he advanced on an enemyposition.



    He glanced upwards and cursed as he saw a trio of alienaircraft roaring overhead. The aliensdidn't deploy aircraft with the same enthusiasm as NATO had – they could droprocks from orbit – and seeing them now was a surprise. They swept low over the ruined base, firingrockets at anything that looked remotely dangerous. Chris saw an explosion billow up from wheretwo of the Royal Marines had been positioned and knew that they were bothdeath. A Stinger chased one of the alienaircraft as it headed into the distance before coming around for another run, butthe aliens dropped flares and the missile, decoyed away, exploded harmlessly.



    “Grenades, then run,” he yelled, unhooking the last ofhis grenades from his belt and pulling the pin, before throwing it right intothe alien position. The others followedsuit, and then started to crawl away, using the explosions to cover theirdeparture. Unless the aliens got verylucky and guessed that they were starting to retreat, they should hesitate longenough to allow the fighters to lose them. He reached for his radio and keyed it once, sending a simple message tothe other two positions, and then abandoned it. The aliens would zero in on its position and drop a bomb on him.



    The grenades shook the ground as they scrambled away,keeping their heads down. Outside thedetention camp, they’d had a chance to scope out possible ways to retreat,including two that led through villages the aliens had ordered abandoned bytheir human residents. There was plentyof cover for resistance traps and they’d set up several IEDs, enough to keepthe aliens carefully sweeping for more while the fighters made theirescape. Several men had volunteered tomake a last stand in the houses, but Chris had vetoed the idea. They needed every man they could get andfutile stands would only cost them lives for nothing. The aliens could simply fall back and hammerthe houses from orbit.



    He heard the sound of alien aircraft overhead andinstinctively sought cover. The groundshook a moment later, a colossal explosion that sent a fireball roaring intothe air. God alone knew who or what thealiens had seen, but they’d certainly killed it. He kept moving, knowing that there was nolonger any point in trying to fight. They’d split up into smaller groups and meet up again at the RV point.



    There was a brief burst of firing, not too far away,followed by silence. Chris wonderedbriefly what had happened, but it hardly mattered. Assuming that the aliens believed that theirmen were still in danger, they would have gone to liberate the camp first andthen give chase to the resistance fighters. Or perhaps they would simply drop rocks from orbit on the desertedvillages, hoping to trap some of the resistance fighters in the blasts. It struck Chris as excessive, but the aliensprobably regarded it as efficient. Butthen, they’d never know for sure how many they’d killed.



    Shaking his head, he kept moving. There was a long way to go before he couldrelax and start heading towards the base. He’d have to be careful that he wasn't followed, either. The aliens might be holding backdeliberately, hoping that he would lead them to a base. That was the last thing the resistanceneeded.



    ***

    U’tra The’Stigknew that he wasn't supposed to lead relief missions in person, but many of hissubordinates were either inexperienced in fighting humans or too low-ranking tobe given overall command responsibilities. With the new access his promotion had granted him, it was alarminglyeasy to see just how badly the humans had mauled the Land Forces – and causedthem to bring in reinforcements earlier than the planners had expected. The humans might not be the most advancedrace the State had ever encountered, but they were certainly the moststubborn. A sensible race would havestarted seeing what niche it could carve out for itself in the State by now.



    The detention camp had been devastated. They’d blown through the gate, despite theblast walls that were supposed to prevent anyone from getting in withoutpermission, and somehow secured much of the base long enough to cut through thecages and release the prisoners. Most ofthem would have been in no state for running, but they wouldn't have been givenmuch of a choice. Even so, he could seea number of dead humans who clearly weren't insurgents, unless the insurgentshad decided to fight while naked. Theprisoners had been shot down in the crossfire, probably by their guards.



    He watched as the remains of the base’s garrison stumbledout of their barracks. At least they’dmanaged to hold out – although he had a feeling that they’d been left alivedeliberately, if only to prevent higher authority from cutting their losses anddropping rocks on what remained of the base. The superior officer, an intelligence officer, came over and glared atThe’Stig, before snarling orders for him to track down and kill the humaninsurgents. The’Stig tapped his badge, adroll reminder that he actually outranked the intelligence officer, and waitedfor him to calm down.



    “They’ve destroyed all our work,” the intelligenceofficer said, finally. “We were usinghumans to track down other humans and they’ve destroyed our work!”



    “They do that,” The’Stig agreed. The intelligence officers had a reputationfor arrogance, but they did produce results. “I’m deploying my unit to hunt for the humans. I expect you and your unit to stay out of my way.”



    Ignoring the intelligence officer’s splutters, he orderedhis mobile command post set up in one corner of the ruined base. They were already deploying drones and attackaircraft to support the Assault Units on the ground. If the humans had managed to go to ground,they might be able to smoke them out before the operation was called off. Given the recent events in America that hadforced the redeployment of several Assault Units and Security Units, it wasquite possible that the humans would manage to hide. But they’d certainly do their best to rattlethe humans as they fled.



    ***

    “What the hell do we do with this guy?”



    Chris looked over at their single alien prisoner. The alien didn't seem to be doing anythingdeliberately to slow them down, but there was no denying that his bulk made itharder for them to hide from the advancing alien patrols. Chris had climbed a tree and seen severalaliens advancing in their general direction, hunting for human fighters. There was an IED nearby, hidden in theirpath, but the aliens had become much better at spotting and neutralising themover the past few weeks.



    “Cut off his clothes and leave them here,” he ordered,finally. It was possible that the alienshad hidden tracers in their clothing. Chris would have, if he’d been in their shoes. “And then we get him to the safe house andhope that they haven’t tracked us.”



    It was the first time he'd seen one of the aliens nakedand he had to admit that he was curious. Their captive’s leathery grey skin seemed to shift unpleasantly over hisbones, almost as if the alien had lost a great deal of weight recently. There was no sign of any sexual organs,between the alien’s stumpy legs, but judging from what looked like coiledmuscle under the skin the sexual organs had actually retracted into thebody. Human penises did tend to shrinkif the human was nervous, yet it looked as if the aliens didn't deploy theirpenises unless they were aroused. Hefound himself trying to envisage how they would mate before deciding that ithardly mattered. They could answer thatquestion once they were safely away from the aliens chasing them.



    “Come on,” he ordered. “Let’s go.”



    Fifteen minutes later, they seemed to have broken contactwith the main body of the aliens, but Chris still felt uneasy. The skies seemed to be crowded with alienaircraft, some clearly hunting for the escaping insurgents, others flying downtowards the base. One of them was blownout of the sky by a missile, but its comrades launched rockets towards themissile’s point of origin. Chris hopedthat whoever had fired the missile had abandoned the launcher and run themoment the missile had been launched, yet he suspected otherwise. The aliens had reacted with alarming speed.



    The sound of alien aircraft slowly tailed away, leavingonly the occasional sound of helicopter chopping their way through theskies. Chris kept glancing upwardsanyway, wondering if they were being watched by a drone. No one knew for sure how good alien sensorswere, but the Americans had performed miracles. The aliens might be just as good, or they might have stolen Americantechnology – or perhaps they’d pressed Americans into service ascollaborators. Many of the reports theyhad from across the Atlantic were confusing, or contradictory. People had welcomed the aliens, some said,while others claimed that the entire country was at war. But America had far more land surface to hideresistance fighters. Maintaining aresistance in Britain was growing harder by the day.



    He looked over at the alien, stumbling his way throughthe undergrowth, and wondered just how he felt about being a prisoner. How many humans had the aliens taken asprisoners – and just what were they doing to military prisoners? Perhaps their captive knew the answer tothose questions. They’d have to ask him,once they found a secure place to keep him – did he even know how to speakEnglish well enough to answer complex questions?



    Shaking his head, he kept walking – and silently prayedthat they weren't being tracked from far overhead.



    ***

    “Maz’Bak is missing,” the intelligence officer said. “We have been unable to locate his body.”



    The’Stig looked down at the remains of the undergroundinterrogation chamber. The humans hadburned it, incinerating everything they hadn't taken with them. They’d left nothing, but ashes behind. It was quite possible that a body had beenburned so completely that it would need a full DNA sweep to prove that it hadbeen there, but he could see the intelligence officer’s point. A missing trooper would be bad enough – thehumans could do anything they wanted to him – yet an intelligence officer wasfar worse. He would know details thatneeded to be kept from human ears.



    “The humans have largely made their escape,” he said. It wasn't a pleasant thing to concede, butgiven how quickly they’d had to respond to the disaster, it was almostunavoidable. Small parties of trooperswere still out in the gathering darkness, hunting for the humans, yet he’d hadto pull most of his force back to the base. The drones might just pick up humans trying to move under cover ofdarkness. “If they had your officer withthem...”



    It wasn't a pleasant thought. An adult Eridian had a brighter heatsignature than a human, but if the humans were careful there wouldn't beanything for the drones to detect. They’d already figured out weaknesses in some of the sensor networkssurrounding Land Force Bases – did they know, perhaps, that the Assault Units hadinferior night vision equipment to the devices the humans had invented? And if they had an intelligence officer tointerrogate...



    “I insist that you start searching for him at once,” theintelligence officer said, angrily. “Theloss of one of my people is a catastrophe of the highest order!”



    Particularly for his career, The’Stig thought, with acertain amount of private amusement. He’d have to keep that to himself – intelligence officers made nastyenemies, even if they were outranked by Land Force officers – but it wasfunny. The intelligence officer wouldhave to explain why they hadn't taken more precautions, or vetted the humancollaborators more thoroughly or...they’d be blamed for the entiredisaster. Losing an entire detentioncamp, to say nothing of the propaganda victory that had just been scored by thehuman insurgents. Someone would have totake the blame.



    “I will detail units to continue the search,” hesaid. It would be straightforward topush blocking forces forward, although he had the feeling that the humans wouldsuccessfully evade contact. They’d hadplenty of time to plan their retreat. “Isuggest that you start thinking about what your officer could tell the humans. Who knows what they will do to him to makethem talk?”



    He’d heard rumours about how the intelligence service wasconducting its interrogations, ugly rumours. The humans certainly wouldn't hesitate to retaliate in kind, once theylearned the truth. And it would onlystiffen their resistance. If they hadenough Assault Units to tie down most of the country...but they didn’t. They’d have to call in reinforcements fromthe rest of the world and that wasn't going to happen. Earth had already absorbed far more AssaultUnits and troopers than the planners had believed necessary.



    The Command Triad would have to make some decisions,sooner rather than later. Perhaps ifthey pulled out of some parts of the world and left them to rot, they’d be ableto return later, once the humans had finished killing each other off. The Middle Eastern humans had unleashednuclear weapons on each other. Who knewwhat the British humans would do?
     
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  5. ChrisNuttall

    ChrisNuttall Monkey+++


    Chapter Thirty-One<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:eek:ffice:eek:ffice" />



    ResistanceHideout, Near Coventry

    United Kingdom,Day 42



    “Well, you’ve been through the wars,” the doctorobserved, cheerfully. “Let’s have acareful look at you, all right?”



    “Let’s not and say we did,” Alex said. Her body still hurt, even though she’d had agood meal and a proper sleep once they’d evaded the alien pursuit and foundtheir way to a resistance base near Coventry. “I don’t want anyone to look at me ever again.”



    “I need to examine you if I am to prescribe treatment,” thedoctor said, patiently. “I’m sorry thatI'm the only doctor here, but...”



    “Never mind,” Alex said. The original owner of the house had left a dressing gown behind whenthey’d abandoned their property for the illusionary safety of thecountryside. She shucked it off andclimbed onto the examination table, wincing as she saw the bruises covering herbody. The interrogation team had seemedmore interested in hurting her than actually dragging information from herunwilling lips. “Get on with it.”



    “Lie flat,” the doctor said. He started by examining the bruises coveringher chest, including a nasty one right across her left breast. “They hit you with a cane, I presume?”



    Alex nodded. “Canes can break the skin, which is why some people use them for S&Mfrolics,” the doctor observed. “There’san extra layer of danger as the cuts can become infected and cause greaterhardship down the road.” He studied thecuts in view and relaxed a little. “There’s no sign of any infection, but I’m going to give you some creamto rub on them every night before you go to bed. It should encourage faster healing.”



    “They lashed my feet as well,” Alex said. She couldn't keep the bitterness out of hervoice. “Do people do that for fun aswell?”



    The doctor snorted. “There are people who choke themselves nearly to death for the thrill itgives them,” he said. He studied herfeet carefully. “Luckily, your feetweren’t too badly damaged – I expect they wanted you to be able to walk underyour own power. A couple of the woundedwe plucked from the alien base were hamstrung – the bastards cut the nerves intheir ankles, making it impossible for them to walk properly. It’s hard to tell if they were being paranoidor sadistic. Roll over for a moment.”



    Alex obeyed, tensing as she felt his fingers workingtheir way over her back and buttocks. “Ican't see any infection,” the doctor said, after a moment. “I think you’ve been very lucky. The disgraceful conditions in that camp wouldhave meant that you would have picked up something, sooner or later. A number of the prisoners from the maindetention cages have been suffering vitamin deficiencies, of all things. We don’t have the resources to treat all ofthem here, so we’ve had to spread them out a bit and hope that the aliens ortheir collaborators don’t realise what we’ve done.”



    His hands grasped her buttocks, pulling them apart for amoment. “There’s far too much scarringdown here,” he said, grimly. “How manytimes did they rape you?”



    “I can't remember,” Alex admitted. It was shameful, but no amount of thinkingcould unlock the puzzle. She should haveremembered. “Why don’t I remember?”



    “They gave you a mild drug in your food,” the doctorsaid. “I took a blood sample last nightand found traces of a particularly obnoxious date rape drug. My guess is that they were working to breakdown your resistance by disorientating you – it probably would have worked,given enough time.” He winced. “Turn over and let me have a look at you fromthe other side.”



    Alex had always been embarrassed when her sexual organshad been examined, even by a female doctor, but she submitted withoutcomplaint. “I assume that you weren't avirgin when you fell into their hands?” The doctor asked. Alex flushed,but nodded. Her first time had beennothing to write home about, although it had gotten better over the weeks thathad followed. “There’s quite a bit ofscarring down here – I don’t see any signs of any STDs, but I don’t have theequipment to do proper tests. I’m goingto give you a course of antibiotics and I expect you to take them for at leasta month.”



    He shrugged. “Normally, we would have sent you for counselling as well, but we don’thave any of the trained specialists here,” he added. “I spent half my time as a civilian GPreferring people for counselling who didn't need it and now there are moretrauma cases on my hands than I ever saw in my worst nightmares.”



    “It's tough all over,” Alex said, as she satupright. It still hurt to move, but itwas getting better – or maybe she was just getting used to the pain. Her hands shook as she reached for thedressing gown and she found herself having problems picking it up. The doctor gave her a sympathetic look andhelped her stand upright. “I...why don’tI feel balanced?”



    “Delayed shock,” the doctor said. “I’ve seen it quite a bit in military andpolice personnel. You keep pluggingonwards while the crisis is going on and then you start coming to pieces. My advice, my very strong advice, would be torest for the next few weeks. You don’tneed to spend any time on the front lines...”



    “The entire world is on the front lines,” Alex pointedout, dryly. “What happens if the alienscome crashing in here and demand our immediate surrender?”



    “Try and relax,” the doctor said, with a faintsmile. He hesitated, briefly. “One other thing. I’d strongly recommend that you refrain fromsexual intercourse for the next month or two, at least while you’re taking theantibiotics. You really need to let yourbody heal before you do anything else.”



    “I don’t think that that’s going to be a problem,” Alexsaid. She caught sight of herself in themirror and scowled. Her blonde hair hadbeen hacked off by a manic, her face was bruised and covered in tiny cuts andwhat little of her legs could be seen had been marked by the cane. “No one’s going to be interested in me for afew weeks anyway.”



    The doctor shrugged. “I’d suggest refraining anyway,” he said. “I should warn you – some people putting outpropaganda on the internet want to use your story to embarrass thecollaborators. They will certainly wantto talk to you about it, maybe have you filmed talking about it or takepictures of your wounds. If that bothersyou, tell them to go to hell. Theycaptured enough footage from the interrogation chamber to thoroughly embarrassthe collaborators without needing your input.”



    Alex looked up at him. “Footage?”



    “The bastards recorded all of their interrogations,” thedoctor said. He looked sick, even at themere thought of it. “I saw a handful ofthem when they wanted a medical opinion. My considered opinion is that they were torturers first andinterrogators second. At least one ofthem was supposed to be locked up in jail for the rest of his life. One of their sessions was the slow murder ofa young girl with no real connection to the resistance. God alone knows what they did with the body.”



    Alex remembered some of the reports from London. “The aliens had their prisoners dig pits andthey simply dumped the bodies there,” she said. “Maybe there’s another pit near the detention camp. The girls in the cage told me that quite afew of them had died while they were in alien custody.”



    The doctor shrugged. “I’d suggest telling that to the review team,” he said. “They may want to go back and look.”



    He looked her up and down, and then nodded. “I’ll have the antibiotics and cream sent upto you,” he added. “We don’t keep themall here, for obvious reasons. And thenI strongly suggest that you get plenty of rest.”



    ***

    Outside, she met a young man who was wearing civilianclothes, but carried himself with a military bearing. “I’m Gus,” he said, with a faint smile. “I was wondering if you would be willing todiscuss your time with the enemy with me?”



    Alex blinked in surprise, even with the doctor’swarning. Part of her wanted to forgetthe entire experience, but the rest of her knew that telling the entire worldcould serve as a warning to other resistance fighters not to get caught. Or perhaps they’d be too scared to resist thealiens when the time came. But thatwould be their choice – and besides, perhaps talking about it would help herget over it. The headshrinker who’dvisited the squadron after they’d lost a pilot to equipment failure hadcertainly believed that that was the case.



    “If you wish,” she said, finally. “I’m afraid I intend to ask as many questionsas you.”



    Gus led the way into a large room that had once been aliving room, with a sofa, a plasma television and a computer placed against thewall. “We have been going through therecordings taken by the collaborators,” he said. He nodded towards the television, which wasshowing a frozen scene from one of the recordings. Someone – Alex was relieved to see that itwasn't her – was being whipped. Blood wasdripping off his back and down to the ground. “Some of it is for propaganda, but the rest of it is for building a caseagainst them. We have them as prisoners,you see.”



    “Shoot them,” Alex said, sharply. She remembered the girl who had tried to helpher, after her first session with the torturers. And the others, only half-remembered in thehaze her memory had become, who’d been there. “Is there any ****ing doubt that they deserve to die?”



    “None at all,” Gus said, seriously. “But we intend to put together a series ofvideos for the internet that will prove them guilty, before we executethem. There’s been quite a bit of debateover the issue, I’m afraid.”



    Alex snorted. “They chose to serve the aliens,” she said. “What excuse is there for their actions? They weren't pushed into collaboration andthey didn't have any noble motives – they wanted to indulge theirfantasies. And they did.”



    She shuddered as she remembered the feelings ofhelplessness that had almost broken her, the awareness that she had lost allcontrol over her body. Alone in thedark, she had come far too close to breaking, to begging them to listen to heras she spilled everything she knew. Whoknew what might have happened if they’d been allowed to keep working on her forlonger?



    “We have to prove that,” Gus said, quietly. “And we need your help to do it.”



    The next hour passed slowly. Alex watched one of the videos the torturershad recorded, fighting down the urge to be sick. She hadn't even been the worst-treated personin the underground complex. Two men hadbeen sawn apart by their tormentors, while a girl had been practically raped todeath. She told herself that she wasright, that the torturers had been more interested in hurting people thanlearning anything the aliens could use, but it was no mercy. How could anyone indulge themselves bytorturing helpless victims?



    Alex had known how Third World countries treated theirprisoners. She’d always known that beingshot down and landing in enemy territory was a possibility. Saddam’s regime had had entire corps oftorturers, many of whom were nastier than the people the aliens had found andput to work. Iran and Saudi Arabiatortured dissidents and democrats with equal abandon, but they were bothbarbaric states. The thought of anyonein Britain willingly torturing someone was horrifying. And it was so pointless!



    She recorded a brief interview with Gus, where sheexplained what had happened to her and how she’d been rescued from the firingsquad. Gus proved to be a surprisinglygood interviewer, although as an army intelligence officer he’d probably beentrained to talk someone into revealing more than they intended. He replayed it for her and she was struck bythe sense of hopelessness she saw in her eyes. The video would be put out on the internet and the entire world wouldsee her. She’d never wanted to be a filmstar, but it was worth it if it turned hearts and minds against the aliens.



    “So,” she said, finally. “What happens to me now?”



    “You recover,” Gus said. He paused, just for a moment. “Did you hear about the Area Commanders the aliens have been creating?”



    Alex shook her head. After she’d been arrested and sent to the detention camp, she hadn'theard anything new from the outside world. The last she’d heard was that the aliens were handing out seeds andexpecting the farmers to plant them and raise crops before the onset ofwinter. Maybe they could, but Smithhadn’t been too confident of it.



    The thought reminded her of her friends. “What happened to the others from the camp?”



    “The ones we got out are scattered over the country,” Gussaid. “Most of them will go into actionunits once they’ve recovered from their ordeal. I’m afraid we don’t keep records here...”



    “For fear the aliens will capture them,” Alex said. Al Qaida had been notoriously good at keepingrecords, too good. Documents uncoveredby raids on their hideouts had often led to more hideouts. “Who are the Area Commanders?”



    “Senior collaborators,” Gus said. He picked up a folder and placed it in frontof her. “From what one of our sourcessays, they're going to be responsible for integrating Britain’s economy withthe alien empire. We believe that thealiens are doing something similar in America and France, but we don’t have anyconfirmation. I was wondering if yourecognised any of them.”



    Alex opened the folder and skimmed through thephotographs. None were familiar, apartfrom one she vaguely remembered as having been an MP during the ExpensesScandal. A note beside the photographclaimed that he’d volunteered for alien service, rather than being press-gangedinto unwilling collaboration by the aliens. She put the photo to one side and glanced down at the next – and swore.



    “That’s Rupert Leigh,” she said, in shock. He’d been one of the few who’d known who shewas, and what she had been before the invasion. And he’d known about the resistance movement she’d led even though hehadn't been an active member. “He...”



    It clicked in her mind. “He betrayed me!”



    “Almost certainly,” Gus agreed. “From what we have been given to understand,Leigh was offered a chance to rule the entire county – in exchange for hisservice to the aliens. He probably was theone who betrayed you, along with several others. He’s marked down for death if we ever get aclear shot at him.”



    “I want to go after him,” Alex said, sharply. “You cannot deny that I have the right tokill him...”



    “Maybe, but that doesn't mean that you should,” Gussaid. He held up a hand before she couldsay anything. “The doctor said that youshould rest – so rest. There will betime to kill the traitor afterwards.”



    ***

    The underground chamber was cold, illuminated only by asingle overhead light. Chris strode intothe chamber and stopped in front of the five chairs positioned in the centre ofthe room. The men sitting on the chairshad been cuffed to render them immobile and hooded to make sure that they sawnothing, just in case they managed to escape and run back to the aliens. Besides, being blind was disorientating anddemoralising. Chris hadn't enjoyed itduring his training and he doubted that any of the collaborators would haveenjoyed it either.



    He reached for the first hood and pulled it off,revealing one of the alien torturers. The man stared up at him desperately, but the ball someone had stuffedin his mouth prevented him from speaking. Chris removed each of the hoods in turn, revealing the remainingtorturers and collaborators. They hadall featured in the videos they’d recovered from the alien detention camp. There was no doubt whatsoever about theirguilt. Chris had watched the videoshimself, just to prepare himself for the task ahead.



    Quickly, he pulled his own facemask on and looked up atthe cameras. “Start filming,” heordered. The set of cameras within thechamber came to life, recording the five faces – and Chris, standing behindthem. They wouldn't see his face behindthe mask. “Each of you has been foundguilty of collaborating with the alien occupiers and of torturing your fellowhumans for your masters. The evidencehas been placed on the internet, there for all to see. For your crimes, there can only be onepenalty. The sentence is death.”



    He lifted his Browning and put it to the head of thefirst torturer. The stench of **** aroseas the man fouled himself, suddenly realising that the game was truly up. Chris felt nothing as he pulled the trigger,putting a bullet through the man’s brains. The torturer had deserved far worse than a quick death. He moved to the second torturer, rememberingthe videos he’d seen that were now firmly burned into his mind. The man had gloried in watching helplesspeople screaming in pain. He pulled thetrigger a second time and watched as the man died, bound and as helpless as hisvictims.



    The remaining three were less guilty, but they’ddefinitely been involved. Chris shot allthree of them and then stepped back to allow the cameras to film their deadbodies. The video would be uploaded tothe internet tonight and then the entire world would see what had been done forthe aliens – and what had happened to those who had done it. Maybe the next set of collaborators would beless willing to torture their captives...



    Shaking his head, he walked away from the chamber,leaving the bodies behind. They’d beburied when night came, left to rot in an unmarked grave. And that, he hoped, would be the end of it. He didn't want to have to do it again.
     
    goinpostal, STANGF150, kom78 and 2 others like this.
  6. ChrisNuttall

    ChrisNuttall Monkey+++


    Chapter Thirty-Two<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:eek:ffice:eek:ffice" />



    North England

    United Kingdom,Day 44



    The alien had been placed in a large holding cell, withfoodstuffs that had been liberated from one of the alien bases by acollaborator who had ties to the resistance. It – no, Gavin reminded himself, he– had been well-treated, with the intelligence crew’s best guess at the kind ofenvironment the aliens would find comfortable. Given the temperature of their buildings, they seemed to prefer a saunarather than the open air. The aliencertainly didn't look uncomfortable, although there was no way to know forsure. He didn't seem to speak Englishproperly without his voder, but there was no way they could risk bringing it totheir hiding place. The aliens mighthave been able to track it down.



    “I doubt that we will ever be able to talk their languageproperly,” Linux reported. They werestanding together in front of the monitor, watching the alien and two of theintelligence team experimenting with a prototype translator. “Their mouths and ours are just toodifferent. We’d have better luck tryingto speak fluent pig.”



    “I’ve known a few intelligence operatives who claimedthat they spoke fluent donkey,” Gavin said, wryly. “Can we ask him questions?”



    “Once the techs have finished, I think so,” Linuxsaid. “We copied their translationprograms onto a pair of laptops and started working away at it. I think there will probably be quite a fewglitches, but on the whole we have something that should work fairly well.”



    Gavin nodded, looking down at the reports from the pairof doctors who had examined the living alien. Most of what they said tied in with the reports from the handful ofaliens who had been dissected around the world, but there were some interestingadditions. The alien seemed to haveundergone some form of surgery at some time, yet it seemed cruder than anythinghumanity had devised for itself. Theirbest guess was that the aliens actually seemed to be able to take morepunishment than humanity, but any serious injuries healed slower thancomparable damage to a human. It didn'tmake much sense to Gavin, yet the doctors seemed convinced that it fitted inwith what they’d observed about alien behaviour.



    Added to the files they’d pulled from the alien computernetwork, they’d also been able to identify different ranks, at least for aliensoldiers. Their military appeared to bestrictly top-down, without any of the special arrangements human forces madefor their Special Forces, although their intelligence service – which appearedto be completely separate from the military – had no formal rankstructure. Gavin suspected that theywere missing something, if only because that little datum didn't seem to fit inwith the rest of the alien structure. But their intelligence service might not keep its files on the generalsystem, if only because they would fear hackers from Earth.



    The two technicians finished working with the alien andleft the chamber, leaving the alien alone in the heat. He seemed to prefer bright light, even atnight; the technicians had shown him knobs that he could twist to adjust thelight and heat to whatever he considered natural. Some of the researchers had wondered if thealien homeworld was permanently illuminated – they'd come up with all kinds ofmodels to demonstrate how a habitable world could float at the gravitationalpoint between two stars – but Gavin suspected that the alien simply didn't wantto be in darkness. He was alone, milesfrom any of his own kind – and light years from home. If humans could get uneasy being only a shortdistance from their own kind, how would an alien feel light years from home?



    He stepped into the chamber, one hand half-covering his eyes against theglare. He’d had to leave his Browningoutside the chamber, leaving him feeling oddly naked. The alien’s heaving mass was stronger thanhim, although he could move quicker if he had to dodge the alien’s grasp. One of the laptops had been left on thebench, proofed against damage caused by the humidity. He picked it up and sat down facing thealien. Dark eyes looked back athim. The alien seemed to be taking hiscaptivity well, all things considered. Humans would probably have been bouncing off the wall by now, demandingrelease.



    There was a note on the screen waiting for him. Thealien’s name is Maz’Bak. Gavin readit quickly and then looked up at the alien, Maz’Bak. No one really understood how the alien nameswent together – if there was a forename and a surname, or if there was someother way they constructed their names – but it was an issue that wouldhopefully be addressed once the war came to an end. Who knew? Perhaps they could force the aliens to accept something less than totalconquest of Earth. And the key to unlockingmany mysteries was right in front of him, breathing heavily. Up close, there was a faintly musty smellaround the alien. It wasn't entirelypleasant to the nose.



    He tapped the laptop, bringing up the translationprogram. “My name is Gavin,” hesaid. The translation program produced anumber of grunts, followed by his name. It was clearly smart enough to recognise that there was no directtranslation of Gavin. “I am here to askyou some questions.”



    The alien made an odd motion with one hand. It seemed almost a shrug.



    “Start with the easy question,” Gavin said, dryly. “Why are you here?”



    There was a pause, and then the alien grunted back. “I was captured by some of your men andtransported away from my people,” the laptop said. Gavin had to smile. “They brought me here and put me into thecare of your doctors.”



    “That isn't what I meant,” Gavin admitted. There was something almost simplistic aboutthe alien’s reply. He had to remindhimself sharply that the translation program would be simplifying things asmuch as possible, perhaps editing out some or all of the meaning in theprocess. A Star Trek-style universal translator would have been veryuseful. “Why have your people invadedEarth?”



    The alien grunted, several times. Gavin listened carefully, but as far as hecould tell it was just grunts. Thesubtle points were impossible for humans to hear. “This world is in an important location forus,” the laptop said. “We chose to claimit to forestall others from claiming it.”



    “Interesting,” Gavin observed. “So you have enemies? Races on the same level as yourselves?”



    The alien said nothing.



    Gavin looked up at the dark eyes. “We have videos of what your human allieswere doing to your prisoners,” he said. “We could attempt to force the information from you.”



    “And then the State will extract its revenge,” the aliensaid, through the laptop. Gavin had toadmit that the alien had a point. Thealiens were in a position to extract revenge, simply by bombing humanpopulation centres. “Your world is oursbecause we were strong enough to take it from you. We do not understand why you did not climbinto space and secure yourself from races like us. And yet there is much about you that can beadded to the State. Your race is awealth of knowledge for us.”



    Gavin glanced at the laptop, suspiciously. He’d tried primitive translation programsbefore in Afghanistan and they’d never really impressed him. If the alien was speaking truthfully – andthe translator was working perfectly – the aliens had taken Earth because theycould, rather than any desperate need for real estate...unless their mysteriousenemies had wanted to take Earth and the Leathernecks had wanted to get therefirst. It struck him as oddly primitive,but it tied in with other statements the aliens had made since the invasion hadbegun. They didn't bother coming up withelaborate justifications for their actions. They just did what they thought needed to be done.



    “You’ve been rounding up military personnel and computerspecialists,” he said. “What happens to them?”



    The alien seemed to rock forward, slightly. “We intend to use your knowledge to enrichourselves,” he said, finally. “Yourcomputer specialists will assist us in creating the next generation of warshipcomputers, giving us an edge over the...”



    Gavin frowned. Thelaptop had declined to translate the final grunt. If that was the name of their enemy...it didmake a certain kind of sense. They hadan enemy out among the stars, maybe more than one. And human computers were generally betterthan alien designs...of course they would want to add human technology to theirwarships. It would be an unpleasantsurprise for their enemies when they restarted the war.



    In fact, he could think of several other things thealiens might want. Ever since HG Wellshad written a story about invaders from Mars, humans had been writing vastscience-fiction epics that explored all kinds of fictional technology. But the aliens didn't find it fictional –they already had some kind of FTL drive, even if their computers weren't up tohuman standards. What if they started toimplement ideas humans had devised into their warships, or their tactics,or...? There were thousands ofpossibilities. Maybe tactics from Star Wars could be used, or Babylon 5, or even Doctor Who.



    “So you’re taking the specialists away from Earth,” hesaid, slowly. There were thousands ofreports of people just taken away by the collaborators, leaving friends andfamilies behind. They would never knowwhat had happened to their missing relatives, not unless the aliens deigned totell them – and it seemed unlikely that they would even understand the humanneed for closure. “What are you doingwith the military personnel?”



    The alien said nothing.



    “Oh, don’t give me that,” Gavin snapped, angrily. “We know that you have captured thousands ofBritish and American military personnel – and we assume you’ve done the sameeverywhere you’ve landed. What are youdoing with them?”



    He stared up at the alien’s dark eyes. “We need to know,” he said, quietly. “Where are our soldiers?”



    “They have been taken off-world,” the alien said,finally. His bulk seemed to quiver, just for a second. “They will serve the State on the disputedworlds. As subjects of the State, it istheir duty to serve as the State decrees. They will fight for the State or die.”



    Gavin blinked in surprise. “You’re expecting them to fight for you?”



    “Of course,” the alien said. “Their world is in our claws. We own your planet now and your people existto serve the State. Your militarypersonnel will be expected to take the disputed world or lose the right toreturn to their homeworld.”



    “I see,” Gavin said. “And most of them will die in service to the State?”



    “To die in the service of the State is a great thing,”the alien said. Gavin stared down at thetranslator, convinced that there had to be an error. How could the aliens have developed such asociety – and at the same time, developed FTL drives that had allowed them tospread out into interstellar space? Forall he knew, someone had given thealiens FTL technology – or someone had landed on their homeworld and they’dcaptured their starship.



    But then, what would have happened if Hitler had wonWorld War Two? There would have been afascist state, with children indoctrinated into believing Hitler’s warpedracial theories from birth – theories that would have been ‘proven’ by the Nazivictory. How long would it be beforesomeone decided to question the fascist state’s nature? And if they’d all been brought up to believethat genocide was acceptable in the name of the state, who among them wouldeven question?



    A few years ago, he’d read a book about the AmericanSouth – and how slavery had been an integral part of society. They’d knownthat blacks were inferior to whites, which had played a large part inkeeping society ordered, rather than have the poorer whites realise just howbadly they were being screwed by their social superiors. And generations of children had been raisedto believe that blacks were inferior...it had taken generations and a civil warto start the long task of changing their minds, and the scars were stillpresent when the Leathernecks had invaded Earth. How long would it be before some Leatherneckversion of William Wilberforce raised his voice to challenge the ruling party?



    “One final question,” he said, finally. “How can we get you off our world?”



    The alien seemed almost amused by the question. “You can’t,” he said. “Earth belongs to the State.”



    ***

    “We have been bouncing questions off him for some hours,”the intelligence officer reported. Shewas a slight woman, barely strong enough to get through the army’s basictraining before being streamlined into intelligence. “I’m afraid that most of what he told you,General, seems to fit in with what else we know about them. They came, they saw and they conqueredEarth.”



    She tapped her laptop and the display changed. “We now know more about how they’reorganised,” she continued. “At the time,there’s a Command Triad; three officers, one from the Land Forces, one from theSpace Forces and one from their intelligence service. Below them, there are Land Force Commanderswho serve as the principle officers on the ground – we have one assigned toBritain, there are several assigned to the United States and at least threeassigned to Europe. Below them” – she tapped the laptop again –“there are a number of units assigned to the various Land ForceCommanders. Apparently, we’ve beenbleeding them pretty hard and they’ve had to shift units around fairlyregularly on fireman drills.”



    Gavin smiled, despite his tiredness. Earth might be tiny by interstellarstandards, but she was still a pretty big planet and most of the regionaltheatres were separated by large bodies of water. The aliens might have upwards of two millionsoldiers in their conquest force, yet it was nowhere enough to hold down theentire planet. But they didn't really need to hold down the entire world. The fighting in the Middle East, the chaossweeping through Africa, the mass slaughters in the Balkans and Central Asia –the humans were still fighting each other, even when there was a more dangerousthreat in orbit. It might not have beenthat important – the aliens were perfectly capable of bombarding parts of theplanet they didn't need into submission – but it would have been nice to thinkthat humanity could unite against a common foe.



    Linux looked up from where he’d been sitting. “We’re fairly sure that we could take theircommand network down for some time,” he said. Gavin nodded, remembering when it had been first proposed. “But it would only work once. After that, they would start isolating theirsystems and making it impossible to take them down again.”



    Gavin snorted. “Istill don’t understand why they even offered us the chance to do it once.”



    Linux smirked. “Howmany people really know what happens inside a computer?” He asked, clearly remembering hispre-military days. “Every time aperson’s identity is stolen by a hacker, it happens because someone was carelessor ignorant and left the front door to their computer wide open. People use the same passwords for differentcomputers, even though they should know better. Do you know how I broke into the Pentagon’s computers?”



    His smile grew wider. “One of their officers used the same password for accessing theircomputers as he did for buying stuff on Amazon,” he explained. “I cracked one password and then I had accessto all of his Pentagon files. And thatwas someone who really should have known better. I’d be surprised if the alien troopers knowanything about what happens inside a computer. They certainly don’t seem to be interested in telling them anything morethan they need to know.”



    “Maybe we should hold off for a few years and let themabsorb our computer systems,” Gavin mused. “And then we could take down their entire system at one fell swoop.”



    “Unless they're complete idiots, they will takeprecautions,” Linux pointed out. “Iwould – if I had human specialists working for me.”



    Gavin shrugged. “And so we go back to the old problem,” he said. “The aliens are in a position to bombard usinto submission. Even if we take out theirforces on the ground, we would still be knocked back down and forced tosurrender.”



    “Maybe we could find a way to contact their enemies,”Linux said. “The enemy of my enemy is myfriend.”



    Gavin had been giving that some thought. “I don’t see how,” he admitted, finally. “Unless we can build an FTL communicator...”



    “They don’t have one,” Linux said.



    The door burst open as one of the operators ran into theroom. “Sir,” he said, “there’s animportant broadcast on the BBC. You haveto see it!”



    Gavin followed him back upstairs, leaving a pair ofsoldiers behind to keep an eye on the alien. The broadcast was already repeating when he reached the dining room,where two of the staff had been monitoring the BBC. He was mildly surprised that the alienshadn't bothered to put out their own version of the attack on the detention camp,but their propaganda efforts seemed feeble, almost uninspired. Their collaborators weren’t quite working ashard as they should.



    Alan Beresford’s face appeared on the screen as themessage started again. “I have beeninformed that the bitter-enders have taken one of our alien friends captive,”he said. The collaborator-in-chiefsounded as if he sincerely believed every word he said, although that was anecessary skill for a politician. “Theyhave informed me that they no longer intend to allow the bitter-enders tofrustrate Earth’s admission to the galactic state. Therefore, if this captive is not released, alarge number of humans will die.”



    He leaned forward. “I understand that change always worries those who do not want to seeany change in how the world is run, but I appeal to those who are stillfighting the aliens,” he added. “Theyare not bluffing. Unless the captive isreleased within two days, they will take punitive measures against a city onthe British mainland. Please, for thelove of God, release the captive before millions die.”
     
    goinpostal, STANGF150, kom78 and 3 others like this.
  7. ChrisNuttall

    ChrisNuttall Monkey+++


    ChapterThirty-Three<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:eek:ffice:eek:ffice" />



    London

    United Kingdom,Day 45



    The entire city had gone crazy.



    “Damn it,” Robin yelled, as he ducked to avoid a hail ofrubbish being thrown at them from the flats. “Where the hell is our backup?”



    “Caught up in their own riot,” Sergeant Wiggin shoutedback. They’d entered the East Londonhousing estate looking for a suspected resistance organiser. And then the entire estate seemed to haveexploded around them. The alien threatsagainst a human city had triggered off a whole series of riots. “They’re stuck for the moment!”



    Robin gritted his teeth. The housing estates had been slowly decaying into criminality for years,despite programs designed to give the inhabitants pride in theircommunity. They were notoriouslyunfriendly to the police, even before the invasion. Their police car had been tipped on its sideand they’d had to flee into an alley in the hopes of escaping the crowd. It was apparently worse along the outside ofLondon, with humans desperate to escape the city clashing with police and alienguards equally intent on keeping people in. The internet had named a hundred different cities that might be targetedand they’d all gone crazy.



    Outside, there were over five hundred youths, probablyall members of the same gang. The gangshad been defending their territory ever since the invasion, even though theywere drawing food and drink from the aliens. If they were waiting before giving chase to the policemen, it suggestedthat they were expecting others to arrive and fall into the same trap. Or maybe they were just biding theirtime. Robin wished, once again, that thealiens had allowed them to carry firearms. The crowd outside was better armed than the police.



    He looked around and saw a drainpipe leading up to awindow. Quickly, before he could thinkbetter of it, he ran over to the pipe and scrambled up it. It was a harder climb that he’d expected, butthe crowd outside the alley was a powerful motivator. He managed to push the window open and fallface-first into the flat, gasping for breath as the stench of death reached hisnostrils. Someone had been using theflat to smoke drugs, but had overdosed – or perhaps it had been a murder. Judging from the condition of the body, ithad been at least a fortnight since death had taken place. He leaned back out of the window and wavedfrantically to Wiggin. Wiggin was olderand fatter than Robin, but with a little help he made it into the flat.



    “Jesus,” he muttered, as he tried to avoidbreathing. “What the **** happenedhere?”



    “No idea,” Robin said, shortly. He glanced around the flat as they came outof the bedroom and up to a bolted door. Someone had attached no less than five bolts to the door, making it muchharder for anyone to enter without breaking down the door. Drug dealers tended to be paranoid, notwithout reason. Their list of enemiesdidn't stop at the police. “I bet youthat the back door outside is blocked off too.”



    “That’s a fire hazard,” Wiggin said. They shared a droll look as they opened thedoor. It didn't smell much betteroutside. An overpowering stench of urinealmost sent them staggering backwards. Robin had never been able to understand how anyone could willingly livein such a dump, although he had to admit that most of them never stood achance. The gangs were simply toopowerful for ordinary people to overcome. Who would bother cleaning the stairwell if they knew it would simply bevandalised again within the week?



    Robin glanced outside through a broken window and sawthat the mob was getting stronger. Therewas little hope of anyone coming to help on the ground, unless they were armedand willing to cut down enough of the gang members to convince the others toflee. It wouldn't be long before theydecided to go after the two trapped policemen – and it wouldn't take theirleaders long to guess where Robin and Wiggin had fled. He glanced down at the crowd again beforeheading up the stairs. There should be away to get onto the roof from the stairwell.



    The stench seemed to grow stronger as they raced up thestairs. Robin had made arrests in placeslike the estate before and knew that the closed doors hid all sorts of crimes –and people living their lives of quiet desperation. A drug dealer, a prostitute and her pimp, terrorists,racists...all hidden behind closed doors. The BBC might prattle on about the benefits that alien rule would bringto the country, but he doubted that any benefit could help those trapped onpoor estates. Very few people born andbred on such an estate ever managed to climb out and build a proper life forthemselves. The pressure just to sinkinto criminality was overpowering. Therewere some girls who were grandmothers at thirty, assuming they lived so long.



    At the top of the stairs, he glanced up and saw the hatchleading to the roof – and a small set of metal climbing handles. Quickly, he climbed up and pushed at thehatch, before making the mistake of looking down. Dizziness almost overcame him, but he closedhis eyes and pushed at the hatch again. It opened and fell to one side with a loud bang, almost as loud as agunshot. He scrambled out onto the roofand peered out over London. A dozenfires were burning brightly in the distance, towards the centre of thecity. He could hear the sound of alienweapons being fired, suggesting that the rioters were trying to take out thealien patrols. Maybe they’d evensucceed...



    “Call for a helicopter,” he ordered, as Wiggin scrambledup beside him. Peering over the side ofthe building brought on another fit of vertigo, but he managed to overcome itlong enough to realise that the crowd had realised that its hostages weremissing. They were thronging around theblock, looking for trouble. “Tell themwe need an emergency pick-up right now.”



    He closed the hatch and dragged a number of fallen bricksover to make it difficult for anyone to reopen it from inside thebuilding. The rioters had probably usedthe rooftop as a place to defend their territory in the past, throwing bricksdown towards their enemies. Wigginjoined him and between them they stacked up nearly fifty bricks. It would be almost impossible for someone toopen the hatch, Robin told himself, and hoped that he was right. After their escape, the crowd wouldn't befeeling merciful to the policemen if they caught up with them.



    The sound of helicopter blades grew louder and he allowedhimself a moment of relief as a police helicopter came into view. A rope ladder was already falling downtowards them as it slowed and came to a hover directly over the estate. The sound of the crowd grew louder as Wiggintook hold of the ladder and started to scramble up into the helicopter. Robin heard a series of bangs and thuds fromunder the hatch that suggested that someone was trying to push the hatch openand come climbing out onto the roof. Hetook tight hold of the rope ladder and climbed up himself, followingWiggin. The helicopter seemed to bank inthe sky the moment he reached the top and was helped into the cabin, tiltingaway from the estate and heading back towards Central London. From overhead, entire streets seemed to bejammed with rioters, or protesters. Hecould see riot teams unleashing CS gas on some mobs, while leaving others toshout themselves hoarse. It looked as ifLondon was dissolving into chaos.



    “They want every available officer out manning thebarricades,” the pilot called, as they flew lower. “The Leathernecks are moving up forces fromoutside the city. If we don’t put therioters back in their box, they’re going to start mowing them down!”



    Robin wasn't alone in believing that more vigorouspolicing and less politically correct ******** would do more for the city thanany amount of urban improvement schemes, but there were limits. And the aliens wouldn't hesitate to gun downthousands of humans to convince the remainder to do as they were told. He sat back and covered his eyes as thehelicopter slowly came in to land at the makeshift New Scotland Yard. They’d be expected to go back out on thestreets at once and he didn't know if he had the energy. All he wanted to do was crawl into a bottleand die.



    ***

    “Well, mighty master of all you survey,” Catherine said,dryly. “I think that some people are amite upset.”



    Alan Beresford ignored her. The new seat of government for thecollaborators was a small fortress, protected by the aliens. It said something about how effective theywere at dealing with urban mobs that no one had risked attacking them, eventhough the deadline for the return of the alien captive was counting downtowards zero. But the remainder ofLondon didn't have that immunity to the chaos gripping the city. The entire city seemed to be out of thestreets, trying to get out or to take down an alien or two before it was toolate.



    “You might have done better not to tell the world aboutthe threat,” she added. “Just thinkabout how long it is going to take to clear up the mess...”



    “Shut up,” Alan snapped. He didn't want to let her get under his skin, but there were limits towhat he was prepared to endure. Catherine was preparing herself to challenge him and perhaps become thenext Prime Minister – and tool of the aliens. “You know as well as I did that there was no choice.”



    The aliens had made their feelings quite clear. They wanted their kidnapped officer back –and they were prepared to threaten mass murder to be sure that they got theirway. Alan knew them well enough by nowto know that they weren't bluffing. Infact, he wasn't sure that they had the ability to bluff. They seemed to preferthe simplest and most direct way of doing things possible – and if that meant agreat many humans got hurt, they didn't seem to care. Alan might have admired their ruthlessness ifhe hadn't been all too aware that they would turn on him if he stopped beinguseful. And his usefulness might justhave run out.



    Alan had managed to get most of the city’s workers backto work, particularly ones who could help the aliens administer their newterritory. The registration process hadidentified a vast number of people who could join the alien government and workoverseas, perhaps in France or America. Alan had calculated that the aliens wouldn't want to bring in locals ifhe could produce servants, even if they would be at risk from the localresistance fighters. But now most of hiscivil servants seemed to have gone on strike, or were being hunted down by mobsin London. The rest of the countrywasn't much better. Every city or largetown that didn't have an alien ring of steel keeping the population trapped wasemptying out into the countryside, spreading panic and disorder over the entirecountry. It wasn't as if they could allbe fed outside the cities.



    He glanced down at his watch. Two days, the aliens had said; two days fortheir kidnapped officer to be returned or else. And one of those days was nearly over. If he’d had a link to the resistance, he would have begged them toreturn their captive, if only because his usefulness would expire if the aliensdecided that he’d lost control of his people. But there was nothing he could do, apart from waiting and hoping. It had been a long time since he’d prayed.



    Catherine walked up behind him, looking out over thedarkening city. “Do you remember when wethought that we were in control?”



    “We will get back into control,” Alan said, flatly. He was not going to let her rattle him. They were on the verge of losing everything –if the aliens bombed a city, it would be the end of his provisional government– and the damned woman was making a power play! “The resistance will release their prisoner.”



    “But how do you know?” Catherine said. “They might justbelieve that chaos is better for their goals than a country under your foot.”



    Alan prided himself on his self-control, but the womanwas driving him insane. “And whathappens if the aliens decide to administer the country themselves?” She asked. “What use will they have for us then?”



    A hot flash of anger boiled through Alan’s mind. He slapped her, right across the face. She staggered backwards, one hand raised tothe ugly red mark where he’d struck her. Alan stepped forward and slapped her again, knocking her to thefloor. He bent over her and put his handon her throat, ignoring her feeble attempts to push him back. A sense of dark power roared through him ashe stared down at her. He could doanything to her; rape her, choke the life out of her...and who could stophim? The old order had died the day thealiens bombarded Britain and the rest of the world.



    “You will do your ****ing job or I will kill you,” hehissed, finally. Part of his mindpointed out that it would be unwise to let her live, but the feeling of triumphoverruled it. “Now get out and find away of convincing the sheep down there to go back to work nice and peacefully.”



    He took his hand off her throat and stepped back,half-expecting her to lunge at him. Instead, she pulled herself to her feet and walked towards thedoor. Alan watched her go and thenturned back to the window, shaking his head. He’d mounted a tiger when he’d made his bargain with theLeathernecks. They didn't care how heruled the country, provided that he ruled it for their benefit. But the moment he stopped being useful,they’d kill him.



    Outside, the fires were growing brighter. Alan watched, feeling cold despair replacingthe exultation he’d felt when he’d humbled the bitch. If he stopped being useful...



    “Damn you,” he muttered, knowing that no one would hearhim. “Why did you have to go and spoilit?”



    ***

    “They shot up a crowd as they headed to Whitehall,” oneof the resistance fighters said. “Atleast thirty wounded, fifty dead – should I have them forwarded to here?”



    “Only if you get me more supplies,” Fatima said,tiredly. She’d been working like ademon, almost non-stop since the riots started to tear London apart. Hundreds of wounded had been brought in,passed across her table and then sent somewhere to recuperate. Many of them wouldn't survive, no matter whatshe did. They needed a proper hospitaland one wasn't available. “Didn’t Joeget some from the nearest hospital?”



    “Only a few,” the fighter said. “They’re inundated with wounded too. We’re trying to slip some of our own intotheir system, but if they’re not registered...”



    Fatima nodded, and then yawned. Tiredness caused people to make mistakes –and yet she hadn't been able to get any rest since the day had begun. She wasn't the only medical doctor in theresistance, but the others were scattered out over the city; like her, they werefighting to keep people alive who really needed proper treatment and ahospital...



    She yawned again, feeling the room spinning aroundher. Had it only been last year whenshe’d taken the last two weeks of Ramadan off because she had worried aboutwhat would happen if she grew too hungry? What a joke! She’d worked herselfhalf to death over the last few days and now she could barely keep herselftogether.



    “Bring them in,” she ordered, tiredly. Her last patient, someone who had been shotthrough the shoulder by one of the alien bullets, would probably never recoverthe use of his arm. One of the soldiershad commented that the aliens seemed to use elephant guns, something that madesense given how tough they were. Ordinary ammunition wasn't quite good enough against Leatherneckskin. “I’ll have a look at them as soonas I can.”



    “You’d be better off getting a nap,” a new voicesaid. She looked up to see Abdul. “You look too tired to work properly.”



    “I feel dead.” Fatima admitted. She hadn't seen Abdul in days, ever sincehe’d brought her to the first of the makeshift hospitals. From what she’d heard, he’d been too busyorganising attacks on collaborators and the alien patrols. “Can you have someone else take care of thepatients?”



    “I’ll do my best,” Abdul promised. He hesitated. “I think you need at least five hours of sleep, so get to bed and staythere. We’ll wake you up if we have tovacate this place in a hurry.”



    Fatima looked up at him, nodded, and then stumbled intothe next room. God alone knew what ithad been originally intended for, but they’d set up a cot for her beside thewindow. Outside, she could see fires inthe distance. London was burning –absently, she wondered if someone on the other side would realise that theresistance hadn't set any fires near its hideouts. But judging from the chaos, the collaboratorshad too much else to worry about before they started hunting the resistanceagain. They’d have to put out the fires,calm the rioters and – if the aliens carried out their threat – provide help toa destroyed city and its stricken population.



    She closed her eyes and felt sleep overcome her.
     
  8. ChrisNuttall

    ChrisNuttall Monkey+++


    ChapterThirty-Four<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:eek:ffice:eek:ffice" />



    North England

    United Kingdom,Day 46



    “There isn't any question about it,” Gabriel said,flatly. “We’re going to return the alienprisoner.”



    He held up a hand before Brigadier GavinLightbridge-Stewart could say anything. He’d come to the Prime Minister’s hiding place despite the securityrisks, because it was one conference that they couldn't trust to theinternet. The Leathernecks had a greatmany human computer experts in their hands now, people who could presumablytrack messages through the internet and locate their destination. Gabriel found their dependence uponmessengers and carrier pigeons oddly ironic, given the circumstances. The longer the war continued, the moreprimitive the resistance would become.



    “I know that the alien represents a treasure trove ofvaluable information and biological data,” he continued, “but keeping him isn'tworth a few million human lives. We canshove him out somewhere and one of their patrols can pick him up.”



    Lightbridge-Stewart frowned. “There are complications, Prime Minister,” hesaid. “The first one is simple; if wegive in to their threats, we create a precedent. If they feel that they can threaten us intosubmission, they will use it again and again, blackmailing us into surrenderingour only hope of carrying on the fight. What would you say, a week from today, if the aliens threaten to bombardLondon or Edinburgh or Newcastle if you don’t surrender yourself to them?”



    Gabriel hesitated. “I’m aware of the risks,” he said, flatly. “Doesn’t the fact that they haven’tthreatened mass bombardments suggest that they don’t intend to push it thatfar?”



    “They may not have believed that it would work,” Lightbridge-Stewartcountered. “From what we have been ableto draw from our alien friend, we know that humans are often more barbaric thanthe Leathernecks – we’re certainly a lot better at justifying inhuman treatmentto ourselves. If we give them proof thatit will work, they may try it again. Where do we draw the line and say where we will no longer allow them tothreaten us into submission?”



    “But this is one point where we have to make a decision,”Gabriel snapped. “We have an alienprisoner – and they want him back. Now,do you think that keeping that alien a prisoner is worth the loss of God knowshow many of our own civilians?”



    He pressed on before Lightbridge-Stewart could sayanything. “And what happens to ourreputation if we refuse?” He asked. “How many of our own people will turn againstus after we lose an entire city?”



    “The entire planet is at stake,” Lightbridge-Stewartsaid. “What decision we make here andnow will have an effect on the entire world. What if our captive can tell us how to contact the other intelligentraces out there? What if we could gethelp from someone who could take out the alien starships hovering over ourheads, poised to bombard us into submission if we rebel?”



    “But we don’t know that we could,” Gabriel said. “We have the insight into their computers –maybe we can get the information some other way. I won’t put so many lives at risk because wehave one captive. The dangers are justtoo great.”



    He looked the military officer in the eye. “Correct me if I’m wrong,” he added, “but amI not the ultimate civilian authority?”



    Lightbridge-Stewart didn't hesitate. “You are, and if you want to order himreleased, I will carry out the order,” he said. “However, there are other complications. Moving something the size of the alien cross-country will not beeasy. Wherever they find him, they willcertainly suspect that he was concealed somewhere nearby and start searchingfor him. There is a distant possibilitythat they might come here.”



    “It’s a risk we have to accept,” Gabriel said. He glanced at the television. The volume was down, but the BBC hadhelpfully displayed a ticking clock counting down the seconds to when the alienultimatum ran out. He’d watched imagesof desperate rioters battling the police and the aliens, or fleeing out acrossthe countryside like locusts. Others hadboarded small boats and set sail for Ireland or the Scottish Islands, where thealiens hadn't bothered to establish a presence. They might find safety there. “Wecan abandon this building if necessary.”



    “Yes,” Lightbridge-Stewart said. There was a long moment when they bothcontemplated possible futures. “I cansee to his release, if that is your command.”



    “It is,” Gabriel said. “Please see to it.”



    ***

    “Did I do the right thing?”



    Sergeant Butcher shrugged. The three SAS men stayed close to Gabriel, whilea small unit of soldiers were outside, maintaining a secure perimeter. Gabriel was rather surprised that the aliensor their collaborators hadn't bothered to investigate the old manor andregister the people staying there, but Haddon Hall had been off the officialradar for many years. The owners havingties with the security services had advantages for them. Gabriel would have been surprised if theyeven got taxed.



    “I don’t think that there was any right answer,” Butchersaid, after a moment. He looked down atthe board for a long moment. All of thethree SAS men played Chess and Gabriel had found it a good way to relax. “You have to make the decision and then stickto it.”



    He moved a piece forward and smiled, thinly. “I used to serve in Africa on missions thatofficially didn’t exist,” he added. “Thelocals really didn't trust their own governments – not without reason. If there was a foreign interest willing to spendbig bucks on bribes, the governments would roll over and use troops to clearaway the locals if they got in the way. I don’t think you could afford developing a reputation as someonewilling to throw British lives away for one alien.”



    Gabriel frowned, considering the board. “And what happened to most of those unluckypeople?”



    “The radicals would arrive and start convincing thepeople that the only hope was to fight,” Butcher said. “And most of them wound up being slaughteredwhile the government disguised effective genocide by claiming that it waswaging war against radical Islam. Thereare some truly shitty places out there, boss. Even worse now that the aliens have smashed anyone who might have beenable to impose order by force.”



    He shook his head as Gabriel moved another pieceforward. “Checkmate,” he said, movinghis queen into position. “You’re gettingbetter, sir.”



    “Thank you,” Gabriel said, dryly. “You’re masters at unarmed combat, sneakingabout...and Chess?”



    “There was a trooper up at Hereford who was a five-starchef,” Butcher said. Gabriel couldn'ttell if he was being serious or joking. “And there was a little old woman who knew absolutely everything about plantsand kept massive greenhouses. Every sixmonths, a dozen lads from Hereford would gather around this tiny old lady andlearn what they could safely eat in the wild. She never had any problems with vandals either. I wonder why.”



    Gabriel opened his mouth, and then looked up as thebutler entered the room. “Pardon me,sir,” he said, “but the Brigadier has returned from his trip. He is waiting for you in the library.”



    “Good,” Gabriel said, standing up. Butcher moved ahead of him, watching forassassins lurking in the corridor. Gabriel had tried to talk his close-protection detail out of being soparanoid, but Butcher had pointed out that the aliens had human collaboratorswho might be more adroit at tracking him down. Haddon Hall’s small staff had just had to get used to the three menwatching their every move. They were allsecurity-cleared, positively vetted, yet none of them had expected to besuddenly living in an occupied country. Gabriel hadn't expected it either.



    Lightbridge-Stewart stood up when Gabriel entered thelibrary. “We got the consignmentunderway,” he said. The alien was on hisway back to his people, then. “I wantedto discuss a possible operation with you, while I was here. My staff have been putting together a planwe’ve entitled Operation Hammer.”



    Gabriel frowned as he took his seat. The Americans loved bold and purposefuloperational names – Operation Enduring Freedom, Operation Iraqi Freedom – butthe Ministry of Defence preferred to assign names at random, on the groundsthat anyone who heard the name wouldn't automatically know what it meant. Using a purposeful name was unusual and itsuggested that someone intended for it to become public sooner rather thanlater.



    “The core problem, Prime Minister, is that we cannotprevent them from moving wherever they please – and, if necessary, bombardingus into submission,” Lightbridge-Stewart said. Gabriel nodded, concealing his impatience. “They have the ability to hit us whereverthey want, put bluntly, and it cripples our ability to mount a sustainedinsurgency. We need to show them that weare not going to roll over for them and surrender.”



    “Particularly after we returned their captive,” Gabrielagreed. “How do you intend to hammer themessage into their heads.”



    “We can cripple their command and control network,” Lightbridge-Stewartsaid. “Maybe not for very long, but wecan bring it down long enough to mount a series of attacks on their bases – andthe collaborator government in London. At the very least, we would force them to fall back and rebuild theircollaborator force from scratch. Wemight even give them enough of a bloody nose that they pull out of Britainaltogether.”



    “I doubt they will feel inclined to surrender,” Gabriel said,dryly. “It's much more likely thatthey’ll take a step back and hammer us from space.”



    “It’s possible,” Lightbridge-Stewart agreed. “The problem, however, is simple; do we takeadvantage of the one chance we are likely to get to hurt them, and smash theircollaborator government, or do we surrender the initiative to them? We know they’ve been working on buildingnetworks for controlling our civilians and putting them to work on alienprojects. How long is it going to bebefore the last resistance fighters are pushed to the Highlands, or the NorthYorkshire Moors, or...”



    Gabriel nodded. “We’re stuck,” he said. “We cankeep irritating them, but if we piss them off too much they might just decidethat they’re better off without us.”



    “Maybe not,” Lightbridge-Stewart said. “We were talking to the alien captive aboutthem committing genocide – about them wiping out the entire human race. From what we were told, they can’t – thereare interstellar laws that prohibit genocide.”



    “There are human lawsthat prohibit genocide,” Gabriel pointed out. “I don’t recall anyone actually stepping up to the plate and stoppingthe slaughter in Sudan. The laws aren'tenforced, so...”



    He shrugged, remembering how frustrated he’d felt beforethe aliens had landed and shown him just how helpless many people inundeveloped countries must have felt over the years. It was easy to get governments to condemngenocide, but much harder to actually convince them to do anything about it, no matter how clear-cut the case forintervention. He had no doubt that theycould have stopped the slaughter in Sudan or any of the other strickencountries in Africa, yet the cost would have been horrific and there was nohope that anyone else would pick up the tab.



    “Apparently, the interstellar races do enforce the laws,”Lightbridge-Stewart said, slowly. “There’s no law against invading a planet that can’t defend itself, itseems, but there is one against deliberately causing a genocide. That’s something we can use against them.”



    “They can kill a hell of a lot of us without committinggenocide,” Gabriel pointed out, sourly. Dear God – had he ever wanted to be Prime Minister? One less scandal and he might have died inLondon when the aliens landed, or perhaps found himself drafted into thecollaborator government. The entireweight of the world rested on his shoulders. “How sure are we that the aliens wouldn't exterminate us?”



    “I think we are reasonably sure,” Lightbridge-Stewartsaid. “But they will certainly push backhard when we start pushing them.”



    “True,” Gabriel said. They needed a victory. Theyneeded something they could use to inspire resistance all over thecountry. And after the aliens had forcedthem to surrender their captive, they needed one desperately. “I authorise the operation.”



    He hesitated. “AndI hope to God that we’re not making a terrible mistake,” he added. “The aliens won’t hesitate to hammer us if wepush them right out of the country.”



    ***

    Tra’ti Gra’shakept one eye on the countryside around him as his small patrol skimmed down thehuman road, looking for trouble. It alllooked peaceful, apart from the handful of birds flying through the air, butthe undergrowth had been known to hide all kinds of surprises over the past fewweeks. The humans were past masters atburying an IED and using it to hit a patrol, and then bringing in armed bandsto catch the survivors before they had a chance to escape. Some of the Land Forces patrolling the groundaround their bases had taken the opportunity to burn as much as they could ofthe local foliage, making it impossible for the humans to use it as a hidingplace.



    The armoured vehicle slowed as the driver caught sight ofa group of animals blocking the road. Gra’sha hefted his weapon, alert for trouble; it wouldn't be the firsttime that some enterprising human had used animals to block a patrol’s routewhile preparing an ambush. The driverhad similar thoughts and turned the vehicle onto the embankment, relaying onthe hover-cushion to keep it upright and moving. A fence splintered as the vehicle brushedagainst it, but they ignored it and kept moving. The humans knew better than to complain abouttheir damaged property. If they wantedto keep their property and their lives intact, they could stop harbouring therogues who ambushed patrols.



    He heard the sound of the animals protesting as thevehicle skimmed past them and back down onto the road. A pair of young humans – females, judgingfrom their increased frontal development – jumped back in shock, clearly nothaving heard their approach until it was far too late. Gra’sha resisted the temptation to wave intheir direction, knowing that they would probably be planting bombs or takingshots at him in the next few years. Atleast this bunch of humans seemed reluctant to send their young to war. There were tales of human children carryingbombs right up to patrols in some other parts of the world, although they couldbe just rumours. Rumour-spreading wasofficially forbidden, which didn't stop troopers from exchanging rumours andsurvival tips at every opportunity. Eventhe newcomers from the homeworld had finally learned to listen to those who hadlanded on Earth with the first invasion force. They’d survived the worst that the humans could throw at them.



    Two aircraft flew overhead, matching course with thearmoured vehicle for a few moments. Italways made Gra’sha feel better to know that there were aircraft overhead, watchingand waiting to provide support if they ran into trouble. They were supposed to run a random patrol,but there were only a handful of possible routes from the base they could runand the humans knew them all. Even ifthey didn't run into an ambush this time, they were likely to run into one thenext time...and some human ambushes had been nasty.



    He was still watching the environment when he saw asingle naked Eridiani standing by the side of the road. For a moment, Gra’sha refused to believe whathe was seeing – and then he connected it with the missing intelligence officerthe Command Triad had warned them to look out for. It was just typical of intelligence to insistthat the troopers on the ground poured out all the stops for a missingintelligence officer – not that he would ever dare say that out loud, ofcourse. Intelligence officers tended tospend more time watching their subordinates for disloyalty rather thanmonitoring their human enemies. Absently, he wondered if that were true of the human intelligenceorganisations too. Probably. Certain things were universal, even among thenon-humanoid race that had been the State’s first major foe.



    The vehicle pulled to a halt near the missing officer andGra’sha dismounted, quickly. It was quitepossible that the humans were using their captive as the bait in a trap,although quite what they hoped to gain from it was beyond him. The intelligence officer seemed ratherdisorientated as Gra’sha reached him, but looked very relieved to see a friendlyface. How had the humans treated himwhile he was their captive? They did allkinds of horrible things to their fellows, according to the briefings they’dreceived – what would they do to a captive trooper, let alone someone who couldactually tell them what they needed to know.



    “It’s all right,” he said, as the intelligence officerstaggered towards the vehicle. It lookedas though the humans had just dumped him, presumably some distance from theirbase. They’d take a look at the orbitalcoverage and see if they could trace the humans back to where they’d kept theircaptive. “You’re safe now.”



    He helped the captive into the vehicle and remounted,hefting his weapon as he surveyed the horizon for human threats. Somehow, he was sure that none wouldmaterialise. The humans had wanted togive them the captive – they wouldn't blow them up now. He smiled as the vehicle hummed back intolife and started heading straight back to the base. Whatever the humans had had in mind, therewas a good chance of promotion or a bonus from their superiors. And that would give the small crew a chancewith the females when mating season rolled around.



    And if they managed to trace the humans back to theirlair, they might just be able to decapitate the resistance in a single blow.
     
    goinpostal, STANGF150, kom78 and 2 others like this.
  9. ChrisNuttall

    ChrisNuttall Monkey+++


    ChapterThirty-Five<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:eek:ffice:eek:ffice" />



    London

    United Kingdom,Day 47



    “Maz’Bak’s debriefing has been completed,” theintelligence officer informed Oheghizh. “The humans treated him fairly well by their standards. They did, however, interrogate him quiteextensively.”



    “And as an intelligence officer he had a great deal totell them,” Oheghizh said. Curiosity wasnot encouraged by the State, but intelligence officers were an exception tothat rule. Indeed, rather than stampingon excessively curious youths, the intelligence service preferred to recruitthem. Their curiosity could be put towork on behalf of the State. “What didhe tell them, precisely.”



    “It’s all in the report,” the intelligence officersaid. “They know a great deal more aboutus than they knew before they raided the detention centre.”



    Oheghizh skimmed through the report, barely keepinghimself from swearing out loud. Thehumans weren't supposed to know anything about any of the other races out amongthe stars – but now they did, along with far too much information on thegalactic geopolitics that had led the State to Earth. And they knew how the command network onEarth was organised, the location and identities of the CommandTriad...anywhere else, the information would have had a disastrous impact. If the humans had climbed into space, likeany halfway sane race, it would have given them a decisive advantage. Instead, they were still trapped on thebottom of Earth’s gravity well.



    The Command Triad was not going to be pleased. Nor was the State, when superior authorityheard about it. Earth had already soakedup more resources and combat power than anyone had anticipated, which meantthat reinforcements had to be diverted from other planets. The human military personnel they'd takenoff-planet and sent to disputed worlds might redress the balance, but how couldthey be trusted completely? They weren'teven mercenaries; they’d been pressed into service. And they’d know it.



    “On the other hand, we did manage to trace the humansback to their lair,” the intelligence officer added. “They must have a fairly major command postof their own hidden in the general area. If we wait a couple of days, and then attack...we might be able tocripple the human resistance.”



    Oheghizh nodded, sourly. In truth, he wasn't sure that it would do more than hamper the humanresistance organisation. The Americancommand and control structure had been shattered by the opening blows of theinvasion, but they were somehow still managing to mount a creditable challengeto the State. Intelligence was fairlysure that there was no overall commanding authority, which raised worryingquestions about how far the Americans took the concept of leaderlessresistance. It was an idea alien to theState.



    “Prepare an assault force,” he ordered, finally. “And have the former captive shipped to orbitfor a more extensive debriefing. I wantto know everything he told his captors – and I’m sure that the Command Triadwill too.”



    He watched the intelligence officer scuttle out of hisoffice, and then he turned to look out over London. The riots that had threatened their grip onthe city had died away after the BBC had reported that the alien captive wassafe and well, back with his own people, but they’d come alarmingly close tooverwhelming their ability to govern the city. Part of him was tempted to just pull out and leave the humans toslaughter each other, yet he knew they needed as much of the local economyfunctioning as possible. The registrywas already being used to earmark humans for clean-up efforts – and if theyrefused to work, they would starve.



    And if they did manage to cripple the human resistance,perhaps they could bring the whole campaign to a successful conclusion.



    ***

    Robin lay on his bed, staring up at nothing. It wasn't his bed, not really. The flat had been abandoned in the openingdays of the invasion and the police, needing living space for policemen who hadbeen forced out of their homes, had commandeered it. Robin had no idea who had owned the flat beforehe’d moved in, but they had had excellent taste in wine. He’d downed no less than six bottles over thelast two days and was seriously considering finishing off the rest. It could hardly have made his life any worse.



    Back before the invasion, he’d been a loyal policeman,upholding the law even when he’d wanted to forgot proper procedure and justkick some young thug’s head in, or turn water cannons on protestors who had noidea how lucky they were. And then thealiens had invaded and he’d told himself that he had to go to work for them,just to keep the public safe. His ownjustifications rang hollow in his ears, mocking him; how safe was the public ina world at war? Outside, parts of thecity had been torn apart by rioting, dead bodies lay everywhere and whatremained of the police force was working for the aliens. And they weren’t the only ones. Some of the special constables the aliens hadrecruited weren’t policemen, or even soldiers. They just wanted to get their kicks by pushing around helplesscivilians.



    He reached for the bottle and cursed when his tremblinghand knocked it down onto the floor. Somehow, he managed to roll over, just in time to see the red winedraining out of the bottle and soaking the carpet. It would probably drip down to the flatunderneath, giving the inhabitant a scare. He pulled himself upright and rubbed at his head. Maybe a few more drinks would make him drunkand then he could forget the world for a while. If he could go home, if he could see his wife...but she didn't wantanything to do with him now, not after the chaos in London. The entire world hated the policemen, thosewho had joined up to serve the aliens. If he’d known...



    ...Perhaps he would have gone underground too.



    The thought was a bitter one. There were policemen, unmarried policemen,who had deserted their comrades and gone off to join the resistance. But they were the ones who had no hostages tofortune – or to the aliens. The marriedmen knew that their wives and children were known to the aliens, and that theywould be killed if their husbands or fathers showed any signs ofdisloyalty. Perhaps his wife could haveevaded them if he’d vanished in the early hours of the invasion, when so manyhad gone missing, presumed dead, but it was now far too late. He reached for another bottle, struggled withthe cork, and then took a long swig. Whocared about going on duty now? Maybethey’d just kill him and that would be an end to it.



    How long had it been, he asked himself, since he’d walkedhis first beat? Not long at all, really;he’d known that he didn't want to go anywhere else. The endless red tape that strangled realpolicing, the politically-correct rules invented and enforced by politiciansthat made it impossible to nick real villains or monitor terrorists...despiteall the trials and tribulations of modern policing, he’d loved his job. And now he was nothing more than a filthyquisling. They didn't need to drag upexamples from France or Norway any longer, not when there were thousands ofcollaborators in the United Kingdom. They’d be calling them Robins in the future, no doubt.



    His hands started to shake and he put the bottle down,quickly. He should get up and showerbefore donning his uniform, but he really didn't care any longer. The weapons they’d stashed away...maybe heshould go to the stash, pull out one of the pistols, and put a bullet throughhis own brains. What else could he do? Resistance was futile. He was halfway to his feet before realisingthat suicide would probably mean doom for his wife, if the aliens decided toview his suicide as a kind of desertion. Did they even have suicide asa concept? There was no way to know,although given their tough bodies, killing themselves probably requiredpoison. Or maybe they just jumped out oftheir starships and burned up in the atmosphere below. The thought made him giggle, a sure sign thathe was drunker than he realised.



    “You know,” a voice remarked, “there’s little sillierthan a drunken policeman.”



    Robin’s eyes snapped open. He’d been alone. Unlike some of the other policemen, he had nointention of bringing a whore back to his flat. He still loved his wife, despite everything – and besides, at least someof the whores had murdered their policemen and vanished into theunderground. No one loved the policethese days. Through his rather hazyvision, he saw a young Asian man standing by the door, wearing a policeman’suniform. Robin didn’t recognise him –and there was something about the way he wore his uniform that suggested thathe wasn't a policeman at all. Butsomeone wearing a policeman’s uniform could walk around the complex withoutbeing questioned...



    “Don’t worry,” the man said. “I’m not here to kill you.”



    “Right,” Robin growled. His head felt as if someone had smashed it with a brick,repeatedly. Mixing the different kindsof alcohol had probably been a mistake. It was hard to form words in his mind, let alone say them out loud. “What do you want then?”



    “My name is...well, they’ve been calling me Abdul,” theman said. Despite his light, almostflippant tone, his brown eyes never left Robin’s face. “You may have heard of me. I believe the reward on my head is currentlyenough luxury food to keep someone eating for the next few months.”



    The name seemed to shock Robin out of his drunkenhaze. Of course he’d heard of Abdul – hewas supposed to be one of the ringleaders behind the resistance, linkingtogether groups as disparate as National Front racists and IslamicFundamentalists. The name had beenmentioned by captured insurgents during their interrogation, but none of themhad known where Abdul based himself. Some policemen had thought that the name was a joke, yet the aliens hadtaken it seriously. The reward onAbdul’s head was massive.



    “Don’t worry, they don’t know I’m here,” Abdul assuredhim. One hand rubbed the uniform,mockingly. “It’s amazing how many peoplespy the uniform and don’t look past it to the face.”



    “We don’t know what you look like,” Robin managed. Up close, Abdul was almost unmemorable. He had no beard, but otherwise he couldsimply have faded into the crowd and vanished. Bearded Asian men had often been targeted by the aliens, purely onsuspicion. One of Robin’s fellowpolicemen had joked that the aliens found beards intimidating because theycouldn’t grow them themselves. “Andnow...why are you here?”



    “I was told that you might know where some weapons arestashed,” Abdul said, lightly. “I thinkthat it is time we talked, don’t you?”



    Robin staggered to his feet and stumbled over to theshower. The water in London was oftenturned off and then on again by the aliens, purely to remind Londoners who wasin charge, but there was never any problem with the water in police complexes. He turned the knob and blasted cold waterover his head, shocking himself awake. Partof him wanted to sound the alert and call for help, but the rest of him...ifAbdul knew that Robin had been involved in hiding weapons, what else did heknow? It wouldn't take much to alert thealiens to his betrayal – and they’d definitely see it as a betrayal. All weapons were supposed to have beensurrendered to them.



    “****,” he said, as his mind finally caught up withhim. “Who told you?”



    “Does it matter?” Abdul asked. “All that really mattersis that we need to talk.”



    Drying up the water dripping from his hair gave Robin amoment to think. He hadn't been the onlycopper involved in hiding weapons, and two of the ones who had had desertedafter the first riots. One or both ofthem could have found Abdul and shared confidences with him, naming Robin assomeone who had hoped that he would be in the position to do something aboutthe aliens one day. But that day hadnever come...



    “Very well,” he said. “What do we have to talk about?”



    “You know that the aliens won’t ever leave on their own,”Abdul said. “Do you really believe thatthat collaborator asshole they have speaking for them can influence them in anyway?”



    “No,” Robin said. He’d never trusted Alan Beresford, even when he’d been MP forHaltemprice rather than a collaborator claiming to be Prime Minister. The man smiled too much, among his many otherfailings. There had been rumours ofshady dealings, but nothing had ever been proven. And now it was too late. “Do you believe that fighting them will makethem give up and go away?”



    “It’s all we have left,” Abdul commented. “You do know that the Vietnamese drove theAmericans away after years of inconclusive warfare?”



    “Years,” Robin grated. It felt almost as if the aliens had alwaysbeen on Earth. Had it really beenless than two months? “Do you think thatwe can keep fighting them until they give up and leave us in peace? Or simply drop a massive rock on our headsand slaughter the remaining humans on Earth?”



    “There’s little other choice,” Abdul said. He leaned forwards, warningly. “We need your help to hit them,policeman. Think about your people andjoin us.”



    Robin hesitated. “My wife...”



    “We can get her out of their reach,” Abdul assuredhim. “We’ll fake her death and hide herin one of our bases. All it needs is foryou to decide which side you’re on. Doyou support your fellow humans, or ugly aliens intent on turning us all intoslaves?”



    Robin looked down at his hands. How much blood was on them? How many had died, at least in part, becauseof him and his fellow collaborators? Thealiens had slaughtered humans when protest marches had gotten out of hand, tosay nothing of threatening mass slaughter to get one of their captivesback. And they’d succeeded. The resistance had surrendered their captive,despite endless complaints on the internet that one city was a worthwhile tradefor an alien who might finally provide real answers.



    “My fellow humans,” he said, finally. He reached for his uniform, feeling a flickerof the old pride he’d felt when he’d first donned it as a fully-fledgedpoliceman. “What exactly do you want meto do?”



    Abdul smiled and told him.



    “Write a letter to your wife,” he said, afterwards. “We’ll make sure it gets delivered.”



    ***

    I should be part ofthe attack force, Alex thought sourly, as she parked the car outside thehouse. It was situated in one ofLondon’s surrounding towns, a nice place to live if you could afford therent. I want to hit back at the bastards, not play secret agent...



    Most of her wounds were healing, thankfully, but themedics had been insistent that she should avoid actual fighting for at leastanother month or two. Alex had pointedout that they could hardly send someone back home to recuperate when the alienshad occupied the entire country, yet they’d been insistent. She’d been tortured, raped and abused and shereally needed time to recover. Theyseemed to expect her to break down at any moment, rather than being determinedto get back out there and keep righting the Leathernecks. The doctor had strongly urged her to go tothe Highlands of Scotland or one of the other long-term resistance bases andhad been surprised when she’d refused.



    She climbed out of the car, ignoring the handful of sharpglances from pedestrians as she locked the door behind her. Only collaborators had fuel for cars thesedays; the aliens hadn't touched this part of Britain as much as they’d touchedLondon, but their presence was keenly felt. They had a base only a few miles away, part of the ring of steelsurrounding London proper. She touchedthe Browning she’d stuffed into her coat pocket – just in case, even though shehad papers that should have fooled the aliens – and walked up to thehouse. There was the faint sound of musiccoming from inside.



    Calmly, she pushed the button. There was no sign that the neighbours hadrealised that the house’s lone occupant was married to a collaborator, but ifthey ever found out...some wives and children of collaborators had been bullied,or isolated, or even murdered by their former friends and neighbours. The door opened a crack and a lady withItalian features peered out.



    “I have a letter for you,” Alex said. “I suggest you read it now and then come withme.”



    Helene Harrison skimmed through the letter, her eyesgoing wide. “I am to come with you?”



    “Yes,” Alex said. There was no time to argue. “Don’t worry – you’ve nothing to worry about. Just come with me for your own safety.”



    There was a pause as Helene picked up a bag she’dpositioned at the doorway and then came outside. Alex felt an odd flicker of jealousy as sherealised just how beautiful Helene was, before seeing the fear in hereyes. She hadn’t seen her husband forover a month and yet her neighbours would condemn her, if they ever realisedthat he was a collaborator. But he couldhave died when the aliens hit Scotland Yard...Alex glanced at Helene andrealised that she pitied the girl. TheHelene Harrison’s of the country were whom the RAF had existed to defend.



    She climbed into the car, checked the Helene was buckledin, and started the engine. They had along journey before they reached the safe house – and they’d have to abandonthe car along the route. Who knew howclosely the aliens monitored human vehicles?
     
  10. ChrisNuttall

    ChrisNuttall Monkey+++


    Chapter Thirty-Six<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:eek:ffice:eek:ffice" />



    Near London/London

    United Kingdom,Day 50/51



    They approached from the west, crawling low to be surethat they weren’t seen as they neared the isolated station. A simple chain-link fence provided security,barely a moment’s delay for SF soldiers who’d been taught lock-picking as partof their intensive training before they were unleashed on Britain’senemies. No one should have beenanywhere near the station, but they checked twice before relaxing slightly andlocating the keys they’d taken from the bunker. The door clicked open, revealing nothing, but darkness inside.



    Chris Drake pulled a torch from his belt and clicked iton, aiming it into the darkness. They’dbeen briefed that the isolated station – part of a contingency plan that hadbeen drawn up during the Cold War – had been left untouched for years, but itwouldn't be the first time some vagrant had set up home in an isolatedbuilding. The building looked untouched,however; a thick layer of dust bore silent tribute to the years since it hadbeen built and then abandoned. He foundthe hatch on the ground, inserted a different key, and breathed a sigh ofrelief as the hatch opened without trouble. It led down a long rusty ladder to an isolated part of London’s sewernetwork, one that had been sealed off from the main network years ago. Chris hooked the torch onto his belt andstarted to climb down the ladder, bracing himself for the smell. None of these tunnels had been cleaned fordecades.



    “Clear,” he called back up, once he’d reached thebottom. The sewer network extended allthe way from London out into the countryside. London was honeycombed with tunnels, some known to the public; othersknown only to the government, or simply forgotten in the years since they’dbeen built and abandoned. It was a wayto get in and out of the city without being detected or stopped by thealiens. “Come on down. The smell is terrible.”



    The others chuckled as they clambered down and foundthemselves in an abandoned sewer, standing on a walkway that led into thedarkness. “Better not fall into that,”one of the Marines commented. “Worsethan that shitty pond at Kandahar.”



    Chris snorted as he started leading the way down thewalkway. “You want to bet that somemutant turtles have been breeding down here,” he said, flashing the beam oflight over the still water. “People usedto put crocodiles down here with the rest of the **** they threw out.”



    “Thank you, sir,” the Marine said. “I won’t ever be able to wipe that image frommy mind.”



    The walk seemed to stretch out into hours. It was strange to think that the aliens werejust above them, watching for any signs of trouble. Chris knew that smaller parties of insurgentswere meant to be launching a series of attacks to keep the aliens busy, butthere was no way to know just how they were faring down in the tunnels. The torch flickered once as they reached acrossroads, reminding him of all the horror stories he'd read of monsterslurking deep underground. Aliens from Alien, sewer monsters from The X-Files...as a kid, he’d lovedwatching horror movies. And even as anadult, the memory still sent a chill running down his spine.



    They reached the end of the tunnel and stopped dead. There was supposed to be a way around theblockage, into the parts of the sewers that were still working. Chris puzzled over the chart, beforerealising that they had walked past a smaller tunnel that connected to the mainstream. The roof seemed to be closing inon them as they passed through a hidden door and out into the main body of thesewers. From what he recalled, most ofthe sewage was pumped out of the city, cleansed and then...actually, hecouldn't remember what happened then. They weren’t allowed to simply pump it into the Thames any longer, if herecalled correctly.



    “Jesus,” one of the men commented. “What a ****ing pong.”



    Chris nodded, trying hard to breathe through hisnose. In the distance, he could hear thesound of pumps pushing the sewerage through the tunnels. The environment was a breeding ground forrats, according to the briefing – he saw one running along a pipe beforevanishing into the darkness. They seemedto have almost no fear of humanity, running up and almost touching their bootsbefore jumping back to avoid kicks from the soldiers. Chris remembered that rats had carrieddiseases in pre-modern times and shuddered. The aliens had broken down a great many health and safety systems. There were probably places in Britain wherescurvy and other long-forgotten diseases had returned to torment the humanrace.



    He saw a light in the distance and reached for hispistol, before realising that it was the welcoming committee. Two of the soldiers who had been in Londonever since the invasion were waiting for them, including someone he hadn't seensince the Battle of London, when he’d been swept out of the city by theriver. He called his name and ranforward, heedless of the danger of slipping and falling into the ****. It had been far too long since they’d seenone another.



    “Bongo,” he said, as they hugged. “I thought you were dead!”



    “I thought you weredead, you old pirate,” Bongo said. He’dcome from Jamaica to join the British Army and had been streamlined into theHousehold Division. “What the **** blewyou out of London?”



    “The aliens,” Chris said, as Bongo pointed to the ladderleading upwards to the safe house. Hecouldn't imagine which civil servant had been so paranoid as to designate ahandful of houses as emergency evacuation points, but he had to admit that theparanoia had made it a great deal easier to slip into London. “What have you been doing with yourself,then?”



    Bongo filled him in once they reached the top andclambered out into the safe house. Chrishad seen a couple like it while he’d been on close-protection details, placeswhere MI5 could debrief defectors or notable public figures could hide from themedia. It looked perfectly normal fromthe outside, but most of the building would be wired for sound and the tapesstored at a different location. He hopedthey'd taken out the bugs once they’d started to use it as a base.



    “Oh, we’re not based here,” Bongo said, when heasked. “There’s too much chance thatsomeone will come across a reference to the place in the files – too many damnbureaucrats went over to the aliens. Wejust use it because it has access to the sewers.”



    He made a show of glancing at his watch. “We'll have to wait here until the sun goesdown,” he added, “so we may as well have a brew. I hope you bought some teabags from outside...?”



    “And a few army-issue packed lunches,” Chris said, with agrin.



    “Bastard,” Bongo said, without heat. “Anyway...what have you been doing withyourself since Westminster?”



    ***

    It was an hour before Bongo decided that the night hadfallen far enough to allow them to slip out onto the streets. The aliens and their collaborators had put astop to London’s once-celebrated nightlife by enforcing a curfew, but theydidn't really have the manpower to keep it firmly in place outside CentralLondon. Bongo and the rest of theresistance could still move about with impunity as long as they didn't go tooclose to the aliens, who had night-vision gear and a willingness to open firewithout confirming that the contact was actually hostile. Most humans knew to give them a wide berth.



    Chris had grown up in London and had loved the city, eventhough he’d left school with few qualifications and little hope of a worthwhilejob outside the army. Looking at thecity now tore at his heart. Buildingshad been destroyed, or reduced to blackened shells of what they’d once been;the once-endless traffic had been driven off the road, leaving London’spopulation forced to walk from place to place on foot. Burned-out cars were everywhere, a reminderthat the aliens sometimes used them for target practice; others had bulletholes through their windscreens or superstructure. He saw a handful of dead bodies as theyslipped onwards and wondered just how many had died in the weeks since the alienshad landed. London had had a hugepopulation once, but now...now there was no way to know how many wereleft. He only saw a couple of livinghumans as they walked through the gloom.



    Bongo had said that many of the gangs had wiped eachother out. They’d been dependent uponselling drugs to customers, drugs that were no longer available because thealiens had sealed off London and destroyed world shipping. The gangs had been reduced to fighting overthe last few bags of cocaine or heroin, while their customers had been forcedto go cold turkey, weaning themselves off the drugs the hard way. Chris had nothing, but contempt for those whobecame enslaved to the needle or snorting powder, yet many of the addicts wouldhave suffered greatly for lack of their crutch. One more crime to blame on the Leathernecks, he told himself, as theyreached what had once been a large housing estate. The locals probably knew that the resistancehad a base there, but hadn’t breathed a word to the police. They’d probably felt that having theresistance there was good for them. Theresistance certainly didn't waste time taking protection money or all the othertricks the gangs used to pull.



    “Come on,” Bongo hissed. Inside, the massive block of flats smelled faintly of urine. “I’m sorry about the stench, but we can'trisk standing out from the crowd.”



    Chris nodded as the doors closed behind them. “Welcome to one of our staging bases,” Bongosaid. He nodded towards a team of fourpeople who had been waiting for them. “Abdul – SAS dude, very brave or thoroughly crazy. Jake – local volunteer, smart-ass. Janet – our...ah, contact with some of thepolice. And Fatima – our doctor.”



    “Welcome to London,” Abdul said, dryly. He might not have been wearing a properuniform – none of them were – but he managed to look as if he was dressed for parade. “I think you’ll hate what we’ve done to theplace.”



    He shrugged and stood up. “There are places to sleep here, so get some rest,” he added. “In the morning, we will start checking outour targets and planning the final stages of the operation. And then we’re going to send a lot of peopleout through the tunnels before the **** hits the fan.”



    Chris nodded. “Letthe CO know that we got here,” he said. “How do you plan to check out the targets?”



    Abdul smiled. “Let’sjust say that we had a little help and leave it at that,” he said. “You don’t need to know the precise details.”



    ***

    The following morning, after a breakfast that mainlyconsisted of the ration packs they’d carried through the tunnels, Abdul led Chrisand a couple of others out into the city. They’d all been issued ID cards that noted their occupation as workers,people who moved from place to place to do manual labour for the alienoverlords. London had simply too muchdamage to clear up and almost everyone who wasn't in a priority occupation hadbeen tasked to help with the work – or starve. It was an attitude that Chris found rather understandable – it wouldcertainly have helped clear up many of Britain’s inner cities and housingestates – but the aliens didn’t care about the niceties. From what many of the resistance fighterswho’d stayed in London had reported, the aliens pushed the workers as hard asthey could.



    Dozens of work gangs roamed the city, clearing up smashedor burned-out cars, carting away debris from fallen buildings and even pickingup dead bodies from where they’d been abandoned. Chris wouldn't have been surprised todiscover that Londoners had an epidemic on their hands as well as everythingelse, just from the number of dead bodies that had been left to rot for a fewdays. The teams that cleaned up the deadwore NBC suits and were apparently granted special privileges by thealiens. Chris doubted that anyone couldbe given enough privileges to make the work worthwhile.



    And there were policemen everywhere in CentralLondon. Chris watched them checking IDcards as they patrolled, remembering the stories he’d heard about the FrenchResistance and those who had collaborated with the Germans. The police might have started to collaborateout of a desire to keep the public safe, but now they were nothing more than amillstone around London’s neck. Some ofthe men wearing police uniforms reminded Chris of the torturers he’d pulled outof the Detention Camp and executed, men who wanted to indulge their dark tastesand were willing to serve the aliens in exchange for having their way withtheir victims. Others looked ashamed andtried to do as little as possible.



    The aliens themselves were very much in evidence. Chris watched as they ran armed patrolsthrough London, waiting for one of the resistance fighters to take a shot atthem. When they were engaged, they threwback a hail of bullets, with an alarming lack of concern for civilians whomight be caught up in the crossfire. They didn't seem to recognise that some people just wanted to get onwith their lives and ignore politics; anyone they caught close to theresistance fighter was often dragged away and dumped in the back of an alienvehicle.



    “They go outside the city to one of the camps,” Abdulmuttered, as they busied themselves carting away rubble. “The Leathernecks sometimes press them intoservice, but mostly they just seem to leave them in the camps. We don't know why...”



    “We don’t know a great deal about them,” Chris mutteredback. They’d been studying the alienbase they’d built on the remains of Buckingham Palace, a base that was heavilyguarded, without any humans allowed to pass through the fence. The intelligence briefing had stated that thealien commander charged with invading and occupying Britain was based there,which explained the precautions. Theyhad to feel more isolated than the Americans in the Green Zone in Baghdad hadfelt during the war in Iraq. “It’s notgoing to be easy to get in there, not if they don't let humans into thebuilding.”



    “There are some humans allowed in,” Abdul said. “Their collaborator-in-chief, for one. I don’t think he’d help us unless we pointeda gun at his head and I think the aliens would probably notice if we did.”



    Chris chuckled. The aliens did seem to be curiously uninterested in some humanactivities, although there seemed to be no rhyme or reason to theirdisinterest. They didn't seem to beinterested in what humans were wearing, or in sex, even though both of themwere clues to another human that something might not be right. He picked up another piece of rubble anddropped it in the cart, shaking his head. The aliens had their weaknesses, just like humans. All they had to figure out how to do was usetheir weaknesses against them.



    His lips twitched with sly amusement. If it was that easy, he knew, everyone wouldbe doing it.



    They’d definitely realised that having their troops keepa fixed routine was a dangerous mistake. The patrols through London seemed to be random, while the guardspatrolling the fence surrounding their base were varying their routine. Chris suspected, from the way they weremoving, that there were probably reinforcements inside the base, just as therehad been at the Detention Camp. Butapart from that...? The closest majoralien base was outside the city. If theycould pin down the forces defending the base itself, they could run riot beforethe aliens could respond...



    ***

    “I think you’re going to be going out of the city tonight,”Bongo said. Fatima nodded, tiredly. Her skills had helped save lives, but she’dwatched too many people die because she didn't have the supplies or equipmentto save them. “Once you get through thetunnels, you’ll probably be taken up north with some of the others.”



    Fatima sighed. She’d never really been out of London, apart from a brief trip toEdinburgh. Her stepmother had wanted herto go to Pakistan, but Fatima had refused – she’d suspected that her stepmotherhad intended to marry her off. Andnow...where was her stepmother? Thealiens had taken her away and...what? Had they killed her, or imprisoned her, or...she wasn't anyoneimportant, not really. Hardly the kindof person they'd want to interrogate thoroughly.



    But she’d been related to the first suicide bomber. That alone made her a person of interest.



    “I see,” she said, finally. “When do you want me to be ready?”



    “Get your stuff ready when you have a moment,” Bongosaid. “We’ll have to wait until darkanyway. They might spot us movingthrough the streets in daytime.”



    Fatima grinned, realising that she was being teased. As far as she knew, the aliens still wantedher for the crime of being related to a young man foolish enough to blowhimself up – along with hundreds of humans and a dozen aliens. The collaborator government kept making thatpoint on the BBC, reminding everyone of the evils of suicide bombing. Fatima couldn’t really disagree, even thoughshe’d disliked the young asshole. He’dthought that all women should be neither seen nor heard.



    “Right,” she said. “Will you be coming with me?”



    “Probably not,” Bongo said. “I have work to do here.”



    Fatima nodded. “Good luck,” she said. “May Godgo with you.”
     
  11. ChrisNuttall

    ChrisNuttall Monkey+++

  12. ChrisNuttall

    ChrisNuttall Monkey+++

    Comments would be nice...


    ChapterThirty-Seven<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:eek:ffice:eek:ffice" />



    North England

    United Kingdom,Day 51



    “I think we have a problem.”



    Gavin looked over at the operator. He was manning one of the computer stationsmonitoring alien activity in the region, using their own computer networksagainst them. It gave them a view ofwhat the aliens were doing, although he had to keep reminding himself not totake it for granted. The aliens, if theyever worked out what the humans were doing, could get around it by simplydisconnecting from the network.



    “The aliens have dispatched a flight of aircraft comingright towards our position,” the operator said. “Their ETA is roughly ten minutes - perhaps less. I think we've been rumbled.”



    The damned captive,Gavin thought, angrily. The decision torelease the alien might have made sense, but there had been no time to concealtheir tracks properly. All the alienshad had to do was look at their orbital observations and they might well beable to track the small team back to the holding cell. And the PM and several other officials werebased nearby as well.



    “Send the alert to the PM’s bodyguards and tell them toget his ass out of there,” he ordered, flatly. Seven minutes...not very long at all. There wouldn't be any hope of completely dissembling the base andvanishing before the aliens arrived. “Andthen start the destruct sequence on our computers. I want nothing left that could lead thealiens to any other bases.”



    “Aye, sir,” the operator said. There was a bleep from his console. “Sir, they’ve also started detailing landforces in our general direction. ShouldI send an update to the picketers?”



    “Yes,” Gavin said. He’d scattered small teams in positions along the roads leading to thebase, teams armed with antitank weapons. They could slow the aliens down, but there was no easy way to slow downthe aircraft. Their stock of antiaircraftmissiles had largely been earmarked for Operation Hammer. “Tell them to land one good punch and thenbug out. I don’t want a stand-up battleif we can avoid it.”



    He glanced down at the map. The aliens had used helicopter assaults before,often with just as much bravery and skill as their human counterparts. They presumably wanted to take the alien’s interrogationteam prisoner, if possible – did they know that they were close to the PM, aswell as Gavin himself? There was no wayto know. No one outside the base knewwhat it hid, a security precaution that had seemed rather paranoid at thetime.



    “And then start making your way to the exit,” headded. “You know where to go if we getsplit up?”



    “Yes, sir,” the operator said. He watched as Gavin checked the SA80 he carriedslung over his shoulder. There’d used tobe regulations against arming soldiers who weren’t on duty. Those regulations no longer existed, alongwith the MOD that had sometimes seemed more paranoid about its soldiers beingarmed than about security. “Good luck.”



    ***

    Gabriel had been sleeping lightly when the door burstopen. He jumped awake, one hand reachingfor the pistol on the table. He’d neverfired a weapon before the invasion began, but Butcher and his team had insistedthat he learn and spent several days in the forest showing him how to load,fire and clean a Browning automatic. Itfelt oddly reassuring in his hand, even though he knew that he would never be acrack shot. The SAS men regularly shotbirds out of the sky and made it look easy.



    “Prime Minister,” Butcher said. “We just had a warning from the OP. The aliens are on their way, cominghere. You need to get up, now.”



    He pulled Gabriel out of bed and tossed him his dressinggown. “There isn't any time to dress,”he said, as he scooped up the overnight bag they’d insisted that Gabriel packwhen they’d first arrived. “They’ll beon our heads in five minutes.”



    The thought made Gabriel shake off his drowsiness andfollow Butcher down the stairs. Ahandful of staff were at the bottom, talking urgently among themselves in grimvoices. Butcher ignored them and pulled Gabrieltowards the rear of the building when he started to slow down, nodding toHughie and Mother as they appeared in front of them. The two men were armed to the teeth, carryingwhat looked like enough rifles and grenades to fight a small war. Judging from the military’s statistics Gabrielhad read back before the invasion, they barely had enough for a brief skirmishwith the enemy.



    Outside, the morning dew hung heavily in the air. He could hear the sound of birds awakeningfrom their slumber, but nothing else, not even a hint that someone was headingtowards them with bad intentions. Gabrielalmost opened his mouth to ask if it was a drill, before hearing the firstsounds of helicopters in the distance. These days, there were only a handful of human aircraft in the air, alloperated by collaborators. The alienswere definitely on their way.



    Haddon Hall’s rear gardens blurred into the forestsurrounding the estate. In his firstweek at the hall, Gabriel had enjoyed walking through the woodlands andwatching the animals scuttling around, untouched by the war marring Britain’ssoil. Now, there was no time tosightsee. He relaxed slightly as thetrees and branches closed in around them, providing a limited amount ofcover. The aliens might lose them withinthe gloom. He found himself praying asthey stopped, briefly, near a cache of supplies Butcher had hidden in theforest, including a small change of clothes. They could pass for poachers trying to supplement their rations if thealiens caught up with them, although they had no ID cards. If the aliens demanded that they produce thecards...what could they do, but fight?



    The sound of helicopters grew louder. Gabriel glanced up and saw dark shapes movingover the forest, heading towards the hall. He cringed back, only to be pulled back into a run by Butcher. The aliens might come down right on top ofthem if they lingered. Behind him, hecould hear the sound of gunfire. Someonein the hall was giving the aliens a hot reception.



    “We’ll head to the coast and grab a boat,” Butcher said,as they headed further away from the hall. The SAS man didn't even have the decency to pretend he was winded. Gabriel knew that he was the one who wouldslow them down, if they encountered the enemy. He’d once asked Butcher if they would put a bullet in his head ifcapture was certain. Butcher had duckedthe question. “And then we can headnorth to somewhere a little safer.”



    Gabriel nodded, breathing hard. He’d had more exercise at the hall than he’dhad in his entire life – with three SAS men as instructors – but he still feltwinded. But there was no choice. They had to keep moving or the aliens mightcatch up with them. And then...Gabrielhad no illusions about what they’d do to him. They’d force him to betray his country on television and then take himoutside and put a bullet through his brains. They didn't need the old Prime Minister when they had a collaboratorwilling and able to do everything they asked.



    Behind them, the sound of gunfire grew louder.



    ***

    The aliens appeared with terrifying speed, their attackhelicopters swooping low over the forest, followed by a pair of heavy-lifthelicopters loosely comparable to Chinooks. Gavin watched them come closer, knowing that the bigger helicopters werethe dangerous ones. The aliens, if theywanted prisoners, couldn't simply hose down the hall with bullets and rockets;they’d have to put boots on the ground. And the only way to do that quickly was through landing them from theair. They had their own version of theHALO parachute tactic, according to the internet. They’d used it while assaulting a French positionin the south of France.



    He keyed his radio. The aliens would be monitoring their traffic, but they shouldn't be ableto get real-time decryptions – at least if the intelligence on their computersoftware was accurate. British forces inAfghanistan had been able to monitor their enemies transmissions and use itagainst their foes, sometimes as targeting information. It was a risk, but one Gavin felt was worthtaking. The same considerations aboutwanting prisoners ensured that the aliens couldn't simply drop a rock on thetransmitter from orbit.



    “Fire,” he ordered.



    The forest seemed to erupt as the concealed GPMGs openedfire on the larger helicopters, while a single Stinger – the only one at thehall – roared upwards towards one of the attack helicopters. It struck the helicopter on its armour-platedunderside, sending the helicopter staggering off in search of a good place toput down, smoke billowing out from its lower regions. The aliens had clearly been armouring uptheir helicopters, Gavin noted, as the other attack helicopters turned andstarted to fire back towards the soldiers in the forest. They stopped firing and started to run, butsome weren't quick enough to escape. Gavin saw them die, just before one of thelarger helicopters heeled over and fell towards the ground. It came down with a terrifying crash, but didn'texplode. A moment later, he saw alientroopers emerging from the wreck, shooting to force the humans to keep theirheads down. It would have been admirableif it hadn't been aimed at his troops.



    He cursed as the attack helicopters made a second runover the hall, firing down with heavy machine guns towards the British positions. His men had had plenty of time to preparedefences, but building something to stand off a helicopter without beingnoticed by alien orbital satellites would have been difficult. The aliens knocked two of the positions out –he forced himself not to think about the men inside – before their secondtransport helicopter started dropping aliens down towards the ground. From his point of view, it looked as if theywere dropping out on bungee cords. Themoment they touched the ground, the cords broke, releasing them before theycould be yanked back up into the air. Gavin’s soldiers, positioned at the windows around the hall, opened fireon them; the alien attack helicopters, sighting the firing positions, hurled adeadly storm of lead towards the windows. Their heavy fire smashed chips off the stone walls and blasted throughthe windows. Below, two alien assault teamsran forwards carrying what looked like an antitank weapon. They launched it into the main doors andshattered them backwards, smashing through the interior walls like paper.



    Gavin clicked his radio twice – the signal to the outsideteams to break contact and retreat to the RV points – and then abandoned theradio on the ground, kicking it under a bush. It would be too dangerous to use it now that the aliens controlled mostof the ground. He could see a fireballrising up in the distance from where one of the larger IEDs had detonated, buthe had no illusions about their ability to prevent the aliens from taking thehall. His close-protection detail spreadout around him as he started to walk away from the hall. The remaining soldiers inside the buildingshould be running for the exits, where they would link up with their fellowsand start walking east. Gavin was theonly one who knew that the PM and his team had headed west; the eastbound soldiersshould provide some cover for his escape.



    Another flight of alien helicopters swooped overhead,lowering a pair of light armoured vehicles to the ground. Gavin had seen the reports on their useagainst civilian rioters, but there hadn't been any report of them being usedagainst resistance fighters before. Theyweren't as heavily armoured as Viking or Jackal vehicles, which should makethem easy prey for antitank missiles or IEDs. On the other hand, they carried heavy machine guns and what intelligenceclaimed was a portable mortar launcher. It gave the aliens a surprisingly heavy punch for such light vehicles.



    The ground shook as the first explosive charge inside thehall detonated. It had taken some specialistwork by the defenders to position a fuel-air explosive in the basement, intendedto send the entire hall up in flames. The aliens, picking their way into the building, were caught by a sheetof flame that seemed to roar up and out of nowhere. Gavin had been told that the main structureof the hall might survive – they’dknown how to build tough buildings in those days – but anything the aliensmight have been able to use to track the resistance to their next base would bedestroyed. They’d never know for surehow close they’d come to decapitating the resistance, or bagging the PM. The Prime Minister’s ability to broadcast tothe country, using the internet, had helped keep the resistance going. Gavin said a silent prayer for his safety asthey continued to head into the countryside. The aliens would be putting up roadblocks and cordoning off the area,intending to trap them before they could escape. They had to move quickly before time ranout.



    Behind him, he heard another series of explosions,followed by rapid gunfire. It wasimpossible to guess at what was happening, although most of the gunfire seemedto be coming from alien weapons. Theykept running through the forest, despite hearing alien helicopters overhead,searching for fugitives. If they’dmanaged to improve their tracking technology, part of Gavin’s mind insisted onreminding him, their helicopters or drones could keep track of them and steer ablocking force right into their path. Ormaybe they’d just hose down the forest with bullets and leave their targets tobleed out and die.



    The forest came to an end suddenly, broken by a roadleading northwards towards the motorway. They crossed it rapidly, just as they heard the faint humming of alien vehiclesracing towards them. Gavin heard thesound of gunfire and threw himself to the ground, trying to bury himself in themud. Bullets were snapping right overhis head, smashing through trees and branches with equal abandon. He heard one of his men yelp as a bullet slashedacross his back – a inch or two lower and it would have shattered his spine –before the sound of alien helicopters came closer. The aliens, if they were still tracking thesmall party, would be sending in ground troops...



    “Come on,” one of his escort detail hissed. “We need to get out of this trap...”



    The aliens were firing to force them to keep their headsdown, but they could still crawl. Gavin squelchedthrough the mud, just as he heard what sounded like incoming fire. An explosion, far too close to him, sent mudand branches flying towards his position. The second explosion picked him up and threw him through the trees. He crashed down and felt his arm snap underhis weight. The pain almost overwhelmed him, even as hetried to stagger to his feet and run. Everything seemed to be shifting around him. It was almost impossible to move.



    A dark shape appeared in front of him, pointing a guntowards his head. The alien’s dark eyesseemed to meet his, and then pull back a little. Gavin remembered that they wanted prisonersand tried to reach for his pistol, but his hand refused to obey orders. He had to be more seriously injured than he’dthought...



    The alien lifted a clawed hand and snapped it down acrossGavin’s face. There was a brief momentof shattering pain, and then he plunged down into darkness.



    ***

    Gabriel was completely exhausted by the time they reachedthe coast, heading down towards a small village along the shore. It had probably once been a fishing village,but with the decline of the fishing industry it had turned into a tourist attraction,with boat trips to the Isle of Man, Ireland and the Scottish Islands. Gabriel found a place to sit and catch hisbreath while Butcher walked down to the small harbour, looking for a boat thatcould take them north. He’d admittedthat he’d steal a boat if necessary, but he’d prefer to avoid it ifpossible. The last thing they needed wasan outraged village calling the aliens and reporting their escaoe.



    He closed his eyes. The next thing he knew was Mother shaking him gently. “We have a boat and an ex-Royal Marine to sailit,” he said. “Come on. We'd better get moving before the alienscatch up with us.”



    The sound of helicopters in the distance underscored hiswords. Gabriel followed him down to theharbour and blinked in surprise when he saw the boat. It was an elderly sailing boat rather than amore modern design, but it did have an outboard motor at the stern. The owner, a man who looked old enough to bea granddad, nodded when he saw Gabriel and then started the motor.



    “You’ll be heading north, right?” He said, as they motored out and into openwater. Gabriel wondered if the shape hecould see in the distance was Ireland, or if they were too far north to see theEmerald Isle. “I hope you’ve gotsomewhere safe to stay.”



    “Yes,” Butcher said, shortly.



    “I’ll get you there, safe and sound,” the sailorsaid. “Don’t worry about a thing.”



    Gabriel half-turned, looking back at the recedingshoreline. The green hills of England seemedto be illuminated as the sun beat down from high overhead, creating a marvellouspicture. Despite himself, he wondered ifhe’d ever see them again. If they had toflee to Scotland, where would they go when the aliens came after them again?



    “I’m not worried,” Butcher said, stiffly. “I just want to be away from here before ourfriends catch up with us.”
     
  13. ChrisNuttall

    ChrisNuttall Monkey+++


    ChapterThirty-Eight<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:eek:ffice:eek:ffice" />



    London

    United Kingdom,Day 55



    “We’re still on, then?”



    “It looks that way,” Abdul said, from where he wasstudying the laptop. London’s internetconnections were starting to collapse, although no one was quite sure if thealiens were doing it deliberately or if the wear and tear on the system wasfinally taking a toll. Probably both, Chrisconsidered. The aliens had to know thatthe internet was being used to coordinate the resistance and they wererecruiting computer experts. “We’re toofar advanced with the planning to back out now. If some groups don’t get the message in time...”



    Chris nodded. Thealien attack on Haddon Hall – which had apparently been serving as a crucialresistance node – had scattered some of the resistance’s fighting men, but it hadn'tshattered the command network. Somepeople had suggested abandoning – or at least postponing – Operation Hammer,but too many people were already briefed and making preparations. Delaying the operation only increased thedanger of the alien intelligence service figuring out what was coming before theoperation was launched.



    “Then” – he made a show of checking his watch – “we movefrom here in three hours and hit the aliens right where they live,” hesaid. Offhand, he couldn't recall abigger operation in recent history – let alone one mounted on such ashoestring. The cost of failure would bealarmingly high. “I take it that everyoneis ready?”



    There were nods from the small team. London was large enough to hide a couple ofhundred fighting men – as well as the volunteers, gangsters and trouble-causerswho were giving the collaborator government fits – in places close to theirintended target. Thanks to Abdul’scareful preparation – he’d recruited louts to smash CCTV cameras all over thecity – the aliens and their collaborators would have difficulty realising thatthe assault force was being prepared, although they had to know that they weregoing blind. Chris privately suspectedthat one of the reasons the aliens had started insisting that people worked fortheir food was to keep control over the population, rather than leave people totheir own devices. They might startgetting ideas about lashing out at the aliens.



    “Good,” Chris said. He grinned to relieve the tension. “I feel like saying something terribly dramatic.”



    Abdul chuckled. “Oncemore into the breach, dear friends, once more,” he said. “Consign their parts most private to a Rutlandfence.”



    Chris laughed. He'dmissed laughing and joking with his comrades before an operation, or tellinggreat lies about female conquests...anything, but taking about the comingbattle. They’d prepared carefully and rehearsedas much as they could, yet the tension would continue to rise until they wereactually moving out and heading towards contact. The only thing that would make it settle wasactual engagement.



    London wasn't what he remembered any longer. Even Basra or Kabul at their worst didn't matchwhat the aliens had done to London. Chriswould cheerfully have killed every last one of the aliens for what they’d done,both for the damage they’d inflicted upon London's monuments and for the fearthat pervaded the lives of ordinary citizens. There was no longer any faith in the law, or the police; the policeserved the aliens and the law was a joke, unable even to protect those who hadspent their entire lives following it. Many people had been arrested by the aliens after being denounced bytheir neighbours out of spite, or because the neighbours wanted to pay back oldgrudges...no one trusted anyone any longer. Chris imagined that Moscow under Stalin or Berlin under Hitler wouldhave had the same aura of fear, of mistrust and suspicion, that seemed to havesettled over London like a shroud.



    No amount of joking could convince him that things werenormal, or that they would ever be normal again. One of the guys he’d met during the briefingshad commented that the discovery of alien life alone had changed the world, andit would have done so even if the aliens had been friendly, or indifferent topoor struggling humanity. And if thelatest intelligence on the internet was to be believed, there were at least sixother alien star-faring races out there. Humanity was a very small fish in a very large pond.



    He looked down at his SA80 and shook his head. He’d already checked, cleaned and rechecked ittwice in the last two hours. They shouldbe resting and preparing themselves, but he’d never been able to rest before anoperation. Some of the others didn't sharethat particular problem. They weresitting against the wall, snoring loudly. Their comrades would make sarcastic remarks later.



    “Don’t worry,” Bongo said. “It’ll be alright on the night.”



    One of the other soldiers managed to twist his voice intoa shrill falsetto. “It’s all right,dear,” he said. “We’ll try again in afew minutes. Just take a look at some ofthese naughty pictures...”



    Chris glanced at his watch, again. Would zero hour never come?



    ***

    Robin had had some difficulties in altering his duty scheduleto fit the operation’s requirements, but by calling in several favours he’dbeen able to have himself and four others assigned to the force guarding thecollaborator government’s headquarters. Ithelped that Beresford was something of a micromanager, intent on keeping asmuch as possible of his government’s operations under his thumb. The old Civil Contingencies Centre had beendestroyed during the alien invasion of London, but a new command centre hadbeen set up under Beresford’s headquarters and outfitted with the latest incommunications and surveillance equipment. Many of the officers who worked there had become more tainted bycollaboration than anyone else.



    There was no difficulty in getting through the securitycheckpoints outside the building, not with police uniforms and ID cards. Robin was almost disappointed. Part of him thought that he was beingtreacherous to men he’d known and worked beside for years, even though theywere serving the aliens – and he’d been serving the aliens until recently. But there was a fine line between doing whatthey could to keep the public safe and actively helping the aliens achieve theirgoals and many of the operators had crossed that line. And if there was an element of hypocrisy,even self-hatred, in that thought, Robin no longer cared. It was time to put an end to it.



    They walked down the stairs and into the canteen, wherethey would wait until ten minutes to zero hour. The police had been getting more and better food lately, a bribe to keepthem on the streets in the face of public hatred and near-constant attacks fromgangs of resistance fighters. He pouredhimself a cup of tea and waited, glancing from time to time at his watch. They weren't meant to go on duty for anotherhour, but the collaborator government didn't approve of lateness. Even a few minutes late was grounds for a reprimand.



    He tried to push his thoughts out of his mind as theseconds ticked down. In truth, he didn'texpect to survive the next few hours. The aliens had their own guard force on duty by the gates and if they weren'ttaken out in the opening moments of Operation Hammer, they would certainlyrespond to rogue policemen. OperationHammer, even the small section he’d been told about, had simply too manyworking components for everything to come off perfectly. Years of experience in the police force hadtaught him that the more moving parts in a particular operation, the greaterthe chance of something coming apart at the wrong moment. The day they’d had to arrest nearly fiftysuspected terrorists across Britain had come alarmingly close to being unglued.



    His watch vibrated a warning and he nodded to his allies,standing up and heading down to the lockers. He’d stuffed the briefcase in the locker he used as a matter of course,just to keep someone from trying to open it too early. Between them, they were carrying assault rifles,grenades – and one large briefcase that had been converted into a makeshiftIED. Picking up the final briefcase,Robin headed to the lift and down towards the bunker. It had started life as a corporate gym, butthe collaborator government had lost no time in installing the latest computersand assigning operators to watch over the city. Robin had done a few shifts at Scotland Yard before the aliens haddestroyed it and he had to admit that the collaborators had been very efficient. If they hadn’t lost so many CCTV cameras overthe past few weeks, they might realise what was going on before the operationbegan.



    He strode through the chamber and up to a set of lockersassigned to senior personnel. One ofthem belonged to a detective-inspector with a habit of using the samecombination for everything, a combination that he shared with some of hisassistants who needed to use the locker. Robin opened the locker, cautioning himself to act normally and not makeany moves that might attract attention, and placed the briefcase inside thelocker. He had a cover story planned,but it wasn't necessary. People had ahabit of assuming that anyone inside a secure perimeter had been cleared to bethere. Closing the locker, he walkedback out of the compartment and up the stairs to where his allies werewaiting. The timer was ticking down thefinal minutes to zero hour. He took hisrifle, pistol and a handful of grenades and led the way to the stairs. They were at the third floor when thebuilding shook, violently. The IEDinside the briefcase had detonated and taken out the command centre.



    “Come on,” he snapped, as they broke into a run. The emergency procedures insisted thateveryone had to abandon the lifts and take the stairs, which meant that theywould find it harder to get up while everyone else was heading down. He winced as the security alarm started tosound, even though it would add to the confusion. The procedure for security alerts was toremain where you were and wait. Panicwould start sweeping the building.



    The hardcore of dedicated collaborators were on the twentiethfloor; men and women who had completely dedicated themselves to the aliencause. Some of them were intent on theirown people, others had tastes they wanted to indulge – tastes that made Robinand his allies sick at the mere thought of such people being allowed out ofjail and left free to prey on an innocent population. He kicked open the door and led the way intothe first conference room. Thecollaborators looked up at him in shock, saw the weapons, and started to babblehelplessly. Robin pointed his rifle atthe closest man, shot him through the head, and then moved onto the next. They would decapitate the entire collaboratorgovernment before they were done.



    A woman – blonde, with long legs revealed by a very shortskirt – ran for the other door. Robinhesitated, but one of the others didn’t, putting a bullet in her back. She collapsed, blood leaking onto the carpet,as Robin turned his attention to the remaining collaborators. They were trying to run, or begging formercy, but it was far too late. Theywere gunned down and abandoned, left to die like so many of their victims. Robin remembered the guilt and shame he’dfelt when he’d served the aliens and refused to feel sorry for them. They’d chosen to serve the aliens anddeserved to pay the price.



    He kicked open the next door and ran into theoffice. A personal assistant – one heknew had been hired for her looks rather than her brains – took one look at himand started to scream. Robin ignored herand checked the next room, almost running straight into the Director of Human Resources. He’d always hated Human Resources departments– personnel departments had been much more friendly – but this one had servedthe aliens, turning humans into their servants. Cleaning the debris one day, burying the dead the next...they’d beenshamelessly intent on selling out the entire human race. Robin hit him in the chest, knocked him downand then put a bullet through his head. Behindhim, the assistant continued to scream.



    All the alarms were going off now, deafening him. The people downstairs would be probablyrunning now, despite security procedures. He headed back to the stairwell and ran up to the top floor, leaving theothers behind to finish off the rest of the collaborators. It had once belonged to a rich businessman,but the collaborator-in-chief had taken it over to serve as his living space. God alone knew what had happened to the originalowner. Far too many people had gonemissing in the chaos since the aliens had landed. He kicked open the door and stormed into thepenthouse. It was time for the bastardto pay for his crimes.



    ***

    “What’s that noise?”



    Alan snorted, rolling over in bed. “I’m not paying you to talk,” he sneered,through his yawns. He’d planned a latemorning after a night spent enjoying himself with one of the whores hisassistants had found for his pleasure. Prostitution was a buyer’s market these days, particularly when one hadaccess to real food and drink. The girlwas young, barely legal age. Indulginghimself with her was a sign that he had truly arrived.



    A moment later, the alarms shocked him awake. The emergency panel beside his bed wasbuzzing, reporting...an explosion? Everyalarm seemed to be going off at once, demanding his attention. And had the entire building shook justnow? If something had exploded down below,would it bring the entire building down...?



    The girl looked over at him. “What’s happening?”



    She sounded frightened. Alan couldn't really blame her. “Thisbuilding appears to be under attack,” he said, as evenly as he could. Crisis...it was a crisis, but he knew how todeal with a crisis. The secret was toremain calm and alive. Everything elsecame second. “Get down on the floor andstay there...”



    He heard the sound of someone breaking down the door inthe next room and swore. If someone wasintruding on his privacy, it almost certainly wasn't someone friendly. He’d made the point to his allies time andtime again – he wanted his privacy while he slept. Desperately, he tore open the drawer and removedthe pistol he’d hidden there, despite the alien edict against humanfirearms. The door burst open and heswung around, lifting the gun and pulling the trigger. It kicked in his hand, just as the intruderfired at him. There was a brief momentof pain, and then he fell into darkness.



    ***

    Robin hadn't expected Beresford to have a gun. The collaborator’s bullet passed through hischest, just above his heart. It felt asif someone had stabbed him with a red hot poker. The pain was so great that he almost fainted,before dropping to his knees and pressing one hand to the wound. Blood was spilling down, warm against hishand – and he knew that he was dead. Ithurt to move, but there was no choice. He had to know that Beresford was dead.



    Somehow, drawing on his every last ounce ofdetermination, he managed to stagger towards where the collaborator hadfallen. Beresford’s dead face, twistedwith agony, looked back at him. He wasbarely aware that there was someone else in the room until he saw the nakedgirl jump up from where she’d been lying and run towards the door. Robin wanted to call out to her, to warn herthat she was running right into danger, but his mouth refused tocooperate. The pain was growing strongerand stronger, threatening to drag him down into the same blackness that hadswallowed Beresford.



    Should have had someonecome with you, he thought he heard, at the back of his mind. It seemed to take hours before he managed tosit upright, keeping one hand pressed to his wound. It felt as if the bullet had lodged itself inhis body rather than coming out of his back. He could hear the sound of alien weapons in the distance, demanding hisattention, yet he was so tired. Hisother hand reached for his pistol and tried to pull it from his belt, but itrefused to come free from where he’d stashed it. It was all he could do to pull one of thegrenades free as he heard the sound of heavy footsteps clumping up the stairs.



    His vision was starting to blur, but somehow he managedto keep his eyes open until the first alien form lumbered into the room. They’d killed his fellows, then, or forcedthem to retreat...it hardly mattered. All that mattered was that he was dying – and that he wouldn't diealone. He pulled the pin from thegrenade and looked up at the aliens as they advanced on him. They hadn’t realised the danger. Perhaps they hadn't even realised that he hadturned on them. They’d probably thoughtof him as a very loyal servant.



    He thought, briefly, of his wife. They’d said that she was safe, somewhere tothe north. He hoped that she wouldunderstand one day, and find happiness with someone else. There was no reason anyone had to know thather husband had been a collaborator, if only for a short period. And besides, he’d turned on the aliens. That had to count for something, didn't it? But that would depend on who wrote the historybooks. Humans – or Leathernecks? The winners always wrote the history books toplease themselves.



    “**** you,” he managed to say, and jerked the grenadefree. “**** you, you...”



    The aliens jumped back, but it was far too late.
     
  14. squiddley

    squiddley Monkey+++

    Great story Chris,attack of the lizard people.
     
  15. I.C.O.E.B.G.

    I.C.O.E.B.G. Monkey+

    Great story Chris! Thanks for sharing![beer]
     
  16. ChrisNuttall

    ChrisNuttall Monkey+++


    ChapterThirty-Nine<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:eek:ffice:eek:ffice" />



    London

    United Kingdom,Day 55



    “If this fails...”



    “It won’t,” Abdul said. “Have a little faith in your fellow man.”



    Chris nodded, watching from his vantage point as the alienpatrols headed towards their checkpoint. They were very careful with their routines these days, even though hewas sure that there was a pattern in their movements. He couldn't blame them for that, or theirdecision to exclude human vehicles from their bases. The resistance had attempted to capture anddrive a handful of alien vehicles, but the experiments hadn't been successful. They’d found the alien vehicles difficult tooperate with human drivers.



    The alien base loomed over London, a brooding metal shapethat mocked humanity’s pretensions to historical monuments. They’d built it on the remains of BuckinghamPalace, just to illustrate the fact that the Earth belonged to them by right ofconquest. Chris had heard that they’ddone the same with the White House and the Kremlin, knocking them down to makeroom for their buildings. Perhaps itmade sense from their point of view, rather than waving a red flag in front ofthe human bull. They’d certainly shownno particular willingness to give a damn about what humans thought. There was a certain blunt honesty in theiractions that contrasted oddly with human political thinking. All the politicians who’d talked about notgiving offense to people who harboured terrorists intent on killing British troops...



    Abdul tapped his shoulder. “The policeman should be moving by now,” hesaid. “Two minutes left. You ready?”



    “Yes,” Chris said. He glanced back at his team. Theylooked ready, even though they knew that challenging the aliens on their ownbase was incredibly dangerous. Thealiens might just cut their losses and start dropping rocks from orbit. “Get the Javelin teams into position.”



    The laptop buzzed once. They’d spliced it into one of the underground telecommunications linksthat had made up the backbone of the British communications network before thealiens had arrived, using it to link into the internet. The final countdown had begun. All over the world, countless computers werebeing linked into the alien communications system, attempting to hack into itand bring it down. Chris wasn't sure ifhe believed any of the more extreme promises, but they should certainly disruptthe alien response. It was all they’dneed to get in, hit the bastards and get out again. The final seconds ticked down to zero.



    He clicked his radio. “Go,” he ordered. The sniperspositioned on nearby rooftops opened fire, picking off the aliens withinview. Their patrollers fell to theground or dived for cover, trying to bring their own weapons up to returnfire. They’d have some problems spottingthe snipers, Chris hoped. “Javelin teams– go!”



    The Javelin teams ran forward, taking up position tolaunch their antitank missiles directly at the alien gates. Chris had seen them used before to take outbunkers and other fortified positions, but as far as he could recall no one hadever used them to take out a gate. Themissiles were fired before the aliens had a chance to react, blasting downtowards the alien positions and slamming into their heavy gates. Chris watched as the gate he could seepersonally toppled inwards, squashing a couple of aliens who had been behind itwhen the attack began. The aliendefences had been crippled.



    He keyed his radio again. “Mortar teams, go,” he ordered. “Fireat will.”



    The sound of mortars started to echo out over London asthe teams opened fire, lobbing shells into the alien base to force thedefenders to keep their heads down. Other teams all over London would be assaulting alien patrols, hoping toprevent them from turning and charging to the rescue of their leadership. In the early hours of the invasion, humanmilitary and police forces had been badly scattered, their command and controlnetworks broken down and fragmented, leaving them facing their individualnightmares. Now the boot was on theother foot. The aliens were going tohave to deal with an unfolding crisis as individuals.



    He glanced over at Abdul, who was monitoring the resultsof the mortar strikes. “Not too bad,” hecommented. “Shame we couldn't get intothe tunnels – we could have popped up right in the midst of them.”



    Chris shrugged. “Alphateam,” he said, picking up his rifle, “go!”



    As one, they started to run towards the alien gates,covered by the snipers. Up close, thesound of the mortars was louder. Asingle shell falling shot might take out friendly soldiers, yet there was notime to call off the strikes. No one wasentirely sure what the aliens used to build their base, but they did know thatit was strong; alien bases across the world had stood off everything from RPGsto guided missiles. They had to keep thealiens pinned up while they deployed into position to assault the base itself.



    He smiled as he saw a pair of wounded aliens staggeringback inside the base, only to be shot down before they could escape. They took cover behind what remained of thegate and glanced around, taking out any remaining aliens outside before theyadvanced into the base proper. Maybethey’d die without ever knowing what had hit them, but the aliens faith intheir own invincibility was about to suffer one hell of a knock.



    “Go,” he ordered.



    ***

    Ju’tro Oheghizhhad been reading the report from the latest round of interrogations when theattack began. There had been rumoursthat something was being planned, butan attack in the centre of London hadn't been expected. Everyone had known that the aliens and theircollaborators controlled the city and attacking their base was merely a way toget encircled, trapped, and then exterminated. But it was clear that the humans hadn't gotten the message. The hooting of the aliens was growing louder,just as the first shells started impacting on the metal shielding.



    He lunged towards the command room, expecting to see hisofficers already reacting to the crisis and summoning assistance from the othergarrisons scattered over the city. Instead, the big board had lit up with glowing icons – and thenfrozen. His officers were tryingdesperately to reactivate the command network, but it had clearly crashed. Or hacked – the humans were marvels withcomputer technology. They’d developedentire libraries of tactics for attacking and defending their own computersystems – why wouldn't they be able to come up with something targeted against his computer systems?



    And if they’d taken down the systems assigned to him, hadthey taken down everything?



    The sound of the human bombardment grew louder. They didn't have a properly-trained computertech at the base and they couldn't assume that someone who was only familiar withtheir own systems would be able to fix the damage the humans had inflicted,even if they had had a tech. And thatmeant that they’d been thrown back on their own resources. The higher commanders had loved thecommunications systems – it allowed them to supervise operations from on high –but the humans had turned it into a colossal weakness.



    “Leave the computers,” he ordered. There wereemergency procedures for computer failure, although he had no idea how manywould have the time to implement them if the humans were attackingeverywhere. “Get the radios passed out” –unless the humans had managed to set up a jamming system – “and then armyourselves. This base is under attack.”



    He picked up a weapon himself to illustrate thepoint. The command techs were unused tobeing in danger – they certainly hadn't been on the first drop into London, oron any of the more dangerous landings after the pre-invasion bombardment – but therewas no choice. They’d be able to summonhelp from the bases surrounding London, if they could hold out long enough forhelp to arrive.



    Another explosion shook the base. The command techs, almost on the verge ofpanic, cried out in shock. “If they hadanything that could break through the shield, they’d have used it by now,” Oheghizhsnarled at them. A nuclear weapon couldhave broken through – they hadn’t been able to account for some of the humantactical weapons, let alone the devices they’d installed on their missilesubmarines – but the humans had been oddly reluctant to use nuclear weaponsagainst the invaders. Apart from theChinese...and China was now a wasteland of competing warlords, tryingdesperately to survive. “Get out of hereand down to the inner defence lines. Wedon’t know how long we have until they start breaking in.”



    ***

    The first warning of attack had come when the shellsstarted landing inside the base. U’tra The’Stig, who had been preparingfor the latest sweep against human insurgents, had taken immediate action,ordering the base’s own counter-battery weapons to return fire. He didn't realise that the entire commandnetwork had been taken down until he’d deployed two Assault Units to sweep thearea around the base and capture, kill or drive away the human insurgents. It was only when higher command had failed totake command that he’d discovered the truth.



    “Get the radios out,” he ordered. He was supposed to direct his units from themobile command vehicle, but half of its communications functions had beendisabled. There was no way of knowingwhat the humans had done and they didn't have time to try to fix it. The handful of reports they had had beforethe system failed had warned that the entire network of bases around London hadcome under attack. “And then prepare forimmediate deployment.”



    For a moment, he found himself lost in indecision. There was clearly a major attack underway,yet he didn't know what was being targeted – which meant he didn't know wherehe should send his troops. The baseitself had only been lightly shelled, but the humans were tricky. It could have been an attempt to force themto stay in the base, a division...or merely the prelude to a more intensivebombardment. He’d have to keep shiftinghis troopers out and hope that the humans hadn't anticipated his actions andtaken precautions. There were horrorstories from many other bases about deploying their forces in pursuit of humanraiders, only to walk right into an ambush that bled them heavily before theyfell back.



    “I managed to get a radio link to the London Base,” oneof the techs reported. They’d beenworking on the radios, the only system they could fall back on if the commandnetwork had gone down. “They’re underheavy attack. The humans are threateningthe base itself.”



    The’Stig cursed. It was bad enough having the humans gloating over how they’d pulledtheir people – the ones who were due to be executed – out of the detentioncamp, but if they managed to take out the central base in London it would givethem a major propaganda victory. And ifthey’d learned better than to try to take prisoners, they’d wipe out theadministrative staff – human and alien – who were trying to assimilate thehumans into the State. The entireprogram would be set back weeks, if not months.



    “I want us moving in five minutes,” he ordered,finally. There was no choice – they hadto assume that they were the only ones available to relieve the London Basebefore it fell. The radio operatorsstill hadn't established contact with half of the nearby bases. The’Stig hoped that the bases had merely hadproblems establishing their own radio links, but he had to assume theworst. The humans might have taken thebases – and the troopers guarding them – out. It was a horrifying thought. “Weneed to head into London.”



    There was a pause. “And get the helicopters up too,” he added. “We’re going to need air cover.”



    ***

    Chris ran to the next piece of cover, heading towards themain entrance to the alien base. Anumber of aliens had taken up positions just inside, firing towards the humansas they came closer. Their shooting didn'tseem to be particularly accurate, but they were definitely forcing Chris andhis men to move carefully. He firedtwice and then ducked down as a burst of alien bullets nearly took his headoff.



    Two men ran closer, holding grenades. They pitched them into the alien building andthen ducked for cover themselves as the grenades detonated. A number of aliens were caught and wounded bythe blasts, but the others kept firing, determined to keep the humans fromgetting inside. Chris waved to theJavelin team as they reached a position where they could fire directly into thedoors, ordering them to take their shot. The missile blasted into the base and exploded, smashing through theirdefences. A handful of grenades polishedoff the remaining aliens.



    “They’re trying to snipe from the windows,” his radiobuzzed. “Our snipers are sniping back.”



    Chris nodded as he ran forward, into the wreckage of thealien front door. They’d been paranoidenough to set up firing positions inside, but the grenades had wreckedthem. A single alien seemed to still bealive, yet he was so badly wounded that there was nothing anyone could do forthem. Chris shot him and led the wayforward, into the alien base. He’dcrawled through Taliban hideouts before, seeing some of the horrors theyunleashed upon their own people, but there was something oddly inhuman aboutthe interior of the alien base. Helaughed at himself a moment later. Ofcourse there was something inhuman – it had been built by aliens who neededmore space than their human counterparts. Their rooms and doors were far larger than anything a human wouldbuild.



    There had been no way to get an accurate picture of thebase’s interior layout, but he headed towards the centre on the assumption thatthe alien command staff would be in the safest place on the base. The aliens seemed to have vanished, leavingthe soldiers glancing nervously from side to side, looking for the next threat. It came in a burst of alien gunfire asthe Leathernecks sprang an ambush, taking down two soldiers before they wereforced to retreat by Chris and his men. Chrisunhooked a grenade from his belt, tossed it into the side room, and headedinside as soon as the grenade had exploded. One alien was dead; the other, somehow, was completely unharmed. His shot missed Chris by bare millimetres. Abdul put three bullets into the alien head,shattering his skull.



    One by one, the remaining rooms on the lower level wereswept. Some of the rooms were completelybare, with nothing to show what the aliens had done in them. Others were packed with alien equipment,sleeping cots and other gear that was vaguely recognisable. A handful of aliens tried to surrender, butthere was no time to take prisoners. Allthey could do was gun them down. Chris knewthat it would bother him later, yet there was no time to worry about itnow. They had to keep moving.



    “I think this is the way up,” one of the soldiers called. He’d kicked down a plastic door, revealingwhat looked like a bumpy ramp leading upwards. Chris had visions of disabled aliens trying to make their way up thestairs in wheelchairs before realising that the aliens probably found humanstairs uncomfortable. There hadcertainly been some reports of aliens either becoming trapped or simplyignoring the upper floors, although no one had been quite sure why. “There’s a blockage at the far end.”



    Chris smiled. Itwould have been an effective defence against the aliens, but humans weresmaller and nimbler. Grenades clearedthe way, allowing them to get up to the second floor and start pushing thealiens back. They didn't seem to beparticularly well coordinated, reminding him of the times that headquarters staffhad found themselves in contact with the enemy in Afghanistan. They’d found themselves roughly handled bythe Taliban. It stood to reason that thealiens had similar people in the rear. He wondered, absently, if they had their own word for REMFs.



    He glanced down at his watch as alien bullets snarledoverhead. There had been no way tocalculate how long it would take before the aliens started sending inreinforcements from the bases outside London. One theory had claimed that the aliens would wait for orders beforedoing anything – orders which were never going to come. Chris suspected otherwise; some aliencommanders were clearly more capable of acting on their own initiative thanothers. Assuming that they left theirbase as soon as the attack began...there were too many variables to calculateany likely ETA. They’d just have to assumethe worst and push on as fast as they could.



    They punched through a plastic wall and came into whatlooked like a control room, almost comparable to the stations Chris had guardedwhile on active duty. The aliens foughtback savagely, but it was too late. Grenadesshattered the room, leaving most of the aliens dead or wounded. The remainder seemed stunned, unable toresist effectively. And one of them wasclearly in charge.



    ***

    Oheghizh stared at the human, wondering what the humanswould do to him. Did they even know hisrank? Probably, he told himself. They’d certainly be able to read the goldbuttons and know that he was important. But they’d never be permitted to take him prisoner. The Command Triad would simply repeat thethreat of bombarding a human city if he wasn't returned, alive.



    Two human soldiers marched him back down the ramp and outtowards the open air. There was a briefpause, then one of them produced a black bag and pushed it down over Oheghizh’shead. The command network was down, but thesatellites would still be watching...and all they would see, he realised inhorror, would be a black mass. They wouldn'tknow he was a prisoner...



    He wanted to fight, but it was far too late.
     
  17. ChrisNuttall

    ChrisNuttall Monkey+++


    Chapter Forty<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:eek:ffice:eek:ffice" />



    London

    United Kingdom,Day 55



    David Lamb watched the alien convoy making its waythrough London, led by its tanks. Theywere clearly out for blood, judging by their response to a handful of pot-shotsas they’d entered the city. They’dresponded with heavy machine gun fire and even HE shells from their armoured vehicles. But there were only a handful of ways to getinto London and head to Buckingham Palace, at least if they wanted to get theredirectly. They pretty much had to come this way.



    He smiled as he reached for the detonator. The aliens had killed millions of humans,without remorse; they probably didn't know that they’d killed Carol Lamb, wifeof David, or their son Thomas. But Davidknew. He’d been wanting to fight eversince he’d discovered that his family had been caught up in the invasion andcut down in the crossfire. Theresistance had trained him and given him a vital role in thecounterattack. He had no intention of****ing up and failing to kill as many aliens as he could before they finallykilled him. The alien tanks slowed asthey spotted the plates they’d left on the road – they looked like mines, ifsomeone was feeling paranoid – and started to move around them. David pushed down on the detonator and bracedhimself.



    The entire world seemed to explode. They’d placed explosive under the road, intwo parked cars and in buildings facing the alien position. The blast was terrifyingly loud and thebuilding he was using as a lookout point rocked alarmingly. To the aliens, caught up in the blast, it hadto look like a foretaste of the hell awaiting them when they died. He couldn't hear anything through the ringingin his ears as he pulled himself up and staggered towards the fire escape,knowing that the aliens were likely to be ready to murder any human theyencountered – assuming that some of the aliens had survived the blast. Someone had definitely survived. He saw a flash of tracer pouring up into theair, but there was no way of telling if humans or aliens had fired the shot.



    He saw something moving out of the corner of his eye andturned to see a pair of alien helicopters, moving rapidly towards the billowingcloud of smoke. They were shooting downtowards the ground, aiming at resistance fighters – or maybe civilians who hadbeen caught up in the battle. A missilerose up from the ground and slammed into one of the helicopters, sending itspinning over and down into the ground, where it vanished in a colossalexplosion. The second helicopter climbedhigher, all the while firing rockets down towards where the missile had comefrom. David took one final look, knowingthat the aliens would never feel safe again in a human city, and then hurrieddown the stairs to safety. He’d beenwarned not to linger.



    ***

    The shock of the explosion was so powerful that it nearlydestroyed the command vehicle, despite the heavy armour that should haveprotected it from harm. The’Stig cursedas the vehicle spun around on it’s hover-cushion, almost crashing into one ofthe other vehicles in the convoy. Judging from what little he’d seen, the blasthad almost certainly taken out four tanks, the vehicles he’d placed at thefront to deter any humans from ambushing his force. He’d put them out there to be slaughtered.



    There was no time to curse his own mistake. The humans were firing down at the convoyfrom all directions. Bullets werepinging off the command vehicle’s armour, while the troopers in the trooptransports had to dismount to seek cover before their vehicles were rippedapart by the human assault. Hundreds ofmortar shells seemed to be crashing around them, trapping them in a killingzone. The air cover he’d ordered shouldbe able to deal with the mortars, if the humans hadn't brought antiaircraftmissiles along to the ambush. They’dprobably anticipated that he’d bring his helicopters with him.



    “Order the tanks to return fire indiscriminately,” heordered. He’d set out to relieve LondonBase before it fell, but it looked as if he was going to have to cut his wayout of the ambush first. The rear of theconvoy was in chaos. One of the tankshad ploughed into a troop transport and ground to a halt. The surviving troopers had managed todismount and start providing cover for the tanker as he tried to get his vehicleback into operation. “Tell them to clearthe streets.”



    The tanks swung their main guns around and started firingshells into the surrounding buildings. Mighty explosions sent human buildings toppling to the ground, hopefullytrapping and killing human ambushers before they could escape. The’Stig had only a moment to register thefact that one of his helicopters had gone down before the second one came underheavy fire from a hidden machine gun and had to break off, trailing smoke as itlimped back out of the city. The radiokept buzzing with scraps of isolated chatter, but all his attempts to raise thefighter jet bases outside the city failed. It didn't take much imagination to realise that the humans might havetaken out the bases, or at least forced them to keep their jets undercover.



    “Start moving back,” he ordered the rear units, as thehuman fire started to slack off. Therewas no point in trying to push ahead, even though the hover-cushions couldprobably allow the tanks to get over the rubble. The humans might have anticipated that andset up a second ambush, firing straight into the tanks vulnerable undersides. “Move the troopers to cover the tanks as theyhead back.”



    He glanced down at the map. Without the command network, it was farharder to coordinate his operations, which gave the humans an advantage. There were other routes to London Base, butif they were also mined...they might walk right into a second trap. The humans had clearly set out to delay themand they’d succeeded admirably.



    But if he failed to get to London Base in time, thehumans would inflict disastrous damage on the occupation force...



    ***

    “Ned, Eccles,” Chris’s radio snapped. “The pig is in the poke.”



    Chris nodded. Thefirst alien attempt to relieve their base had been ambushed, but the alienscould presumably shoot their way out of the trap. They had enough firepower to break through,or fall back and try to get to London via a different route.



    “Start spraying,” he ordered. There hadn't really been time to pull anypapers or documents out of the command base, but they’d certainly ensure thatnothing was left for the aliens to recover. Each of the soldiers carried a flask containing an extremely flammable liquid. Sprayed over the aliens, it would ensure thatvery little was left – and conceal the fact that the resistance had taken asecond high-ranking prisoner. “Everyoneelse, start falling back to the city.”



    He finished emptying his own flask, tossed a detonatorinto the centre of the alien command room, and then waved for Abdul to precedehim back down the alien ramp and into the lower levels. The sound of firing in the distance wasgrowing louder, although there was no sign of any alien aircraft. They’d based antiaircraft teams throughoutthe city on the assumption that anything flying would be hostile and they’dclearly forced the alien aircraft to keep their distance.



    “Not a bad day’s work,” Abdul said, as they made itoutside. There were small fires burningthroughout the remains of the alien base, with hundreds of dead alien bodiesscattered around, waiting for the aliens to recover them. The human bodies had already been dragged awayto where they would be buried. Therewould be time for a proper ceremony later. “I think we taught them a lesson.”



    Chris smiled, counting the men out as they left theremains of the alien building. Once everyonewas confirmed as having left, he pushed down on the remote control, triggeringthe detonator he’d left behind in the alien control room. The flames would rapidly destroy the equipmentand records as well as most of the DNA traces, making it almost impossible for thealiens to be certain of who’d been in the chamber when the fire started. They’d never know that they’d lost ahigh-ranking prisoner, not this time. And who knew what he could tell the human race?



    The main body of the base would survive – he doubted firewould melt the material they’d used to build it – but it would be a blackenedshell. Humans all over the world wouldtake new hope from the story, as they would from all the other stories. The global counteroffensive would have hurtthe aliens badly. Maybe, just maybe,they’d hurt the aliens badly enough to convince them to retreat and leave Earthalone.



    He keyed his radio one final time, sending the signal toretreat, and then turned it off. It wastime to make themselves scarce.



    “Impressive,” Abdul muttered.



    Chris followed his gaze. Great plumes of smoke were rising up over London, revealing whereresistance fighters had mounted attacks on the police and the other collaborators,as well as a handful coming from alien bases outside the city. He'd only known snippets of the overall plan,but it was clear that they’d hammered the aliens hard. God alone knew how many Leathernecks had diedin the last few hours.



    “Yeah,” he said. “That’ssomething they can take for granted. Humans don’t ever give up.”



    ***

    Battered bloody, the remains of The’Stig’s force finally brokethrough the human resistance and reached London Base. It was already too late. The base was a broken ruin, flames lickingout through portholes that had been intended to allow the defenders to fire outat human opponents. There seemed to beno living thing left alive, not even the small collection of animals some ofthe command staff had kept as pets, despite edicts against it. Some humans – the Russians, in particular –were very good at using pets and other trained animals to take out tanks andother armoured vehicles.



    He dismounted from the command vehicle and stared at thedevastation. The entire base would needto be torn down and rebuilt from scratch. He cursed the humans as he realised that they’d wiped out vast quantitiesof equipment, all of which would need to be replaced from the homeworld. With all the other demands on the homeworld’sresources, it was possible that they’d decide to slow Earth’s progress intobecoming part of the State. The humanswould have a chance to prepare themselves for the next round of fighting, andthe next.



    The human collaborator government had been totallydestroyed. Somehow, the humans hadsneaked explosives and insurgents into the building – perhaps through usingsome collaborators who hadn't really decided to collaborate. They searched the remains of the humanbuilding as best as they could, but found that almost all of the seniorcollaborators were dead. It was clearthat they’d been shot down by the insurgents in cold blood. The destruction of most of the records wouldmake it much harder to be sure of who was still alive, or of who could betrusted. Personally, he wouldn't havetrusted any human. They were a shifty treacherous race. Even their collaborators had beentreacherous.



    There was no sign of any living human. They’d done the smart thing and made themselvesscarce. The’Stig couldn't blame them,not really. His troopers were in amurderous mood, intent on taking it out on the first group of humans that theyencountered. Their city almost feltdeserted, even though he knew that it was an illusion. The gunfire he could hear in the distanceproved that some humans had been left alive.



    “I managed to get a link to the Command Triad,” his aidecalled. “The command network has beencrippled, but they’ve managed to clear some functions.”



    The’Stig nodded and made his slow way back to the commandvehicle. The Command Triad would not bepleased. Someone was likely to take thefall for everything that had happened to the Conquest Force. He wondered, mordantly, if they’d try to blamehim. It was possible, although almostunthinkable, that he was the senior surviving officer in Britain.



    But that couldn't be true, could it?



    ***

    “I think they’ve probably got their network back up now,”Abdul said, as they gathered in the estate after the battle. “They’ve certainly been coordinating theforces they’ve been moving around the city more effectively.”



    Chris nodded. TheLeathernecks hadn’t been shy about re-establishing order, even though theircollaborators had been killed or forced to flee. It would take them weeks to calm London down,weeks before they started rebuilding the collaborator government. Assuming, of course, that they could findanyone willing to become collaborator-in-chief. The last one had been gunned down by a policeman who was supposed to beloyal to the new government.



    The reports on the internet kept changing, but itcertainly looked as if Operation Hammer had been a success. They’d hit the Leathernecks all over theworld, despite problems with international communications; the Leathernecks hadto be badly shocked by the experience. ThePM and several other world leaders, hiding out, had already uploaded messagesof congratulations to the fighting men. Someof the soldiers had been contemptuous of the PM remaining in hiding, but Chris hadreminded them that the aliens wanted him dead – or alive, serving as acollaborator. They needed to keep the PMalive and free. Defeating the aliens wasall that mattered. The Leathernecks wouldn'tgive up easily, but they had been hurt. They knew they’d been hit hard...



    And if they didn't know that they’d lost a seniorofficer...Chris smiled at the thought, before realising that getting theprisoner out of London would be difficult. The Leathernecks were searching lorries, they’d never be able to get himdown the tunnels...maybe they could float him out on a boat. He had a brief mental vision of a submarineslipping up the Thames before realising that it was absurd. After the Americans had lost a submarine whenit came too close to the surface what remained of the Royal Navy wouldn't takethe risk. They’d need to find a boat toget the prisoner out.



    Standing up, he headed outside and walked down the stairsto the basement. The estate, like manyothers in East London, had once had a gang in effective control, before theresistance had moved in and taught the gangs what real organised violence was all about. Now, it was guarded by soldiers in plainclothes, watching against collaborators and alien spies. They had no hope of stopping the aliensdestroying the base if they discovered its existence, but there would be timeto destroy the computers and escape.



    The alien prisoner was held in the basement, guarded bythree soldiers. Like the previous alienprisoner, he had been stripped of everything that might have carried atransponder, but his living quarters weren’t so good. They didn't have the equipment to make it ashot or humid as the alien would probably have preferred. Chris looked through the window set into thedoor and scowled. The alien looked thoroughlymiserable. It was dangerous to ascribehuman thoughts and feelings to the Leathernecks – they weren't even sure whatan alien smile or frown looked like –but he was fairly sure of his ground. Thealien looked very unhappy.



    Chris opened the door and stepped inside. The alien looked up at him, his dark eyes seeminglyexpressionless. Maybe the alien washungry. All the experts claimed that thealiens could eat human foods – they wouldn't want Earth if they couldn’t – but hehadn't touched the food he’d been given. Perhaps he was trying to starve himself to death.



    “You do realise that they will come for me?” The alien said. He had to repeat himself twice before Chris understood. His English, spoken through an inhuman mouth,was mushy. “You won’t be allowed to keepme.”



    “They don’t know we have you,” Chris said. The aliens had certainly not demanded hisreturn. But then, they’d said almostnothing to humanity since Operation Hammer. “And even if they did, there’s one thing about humanity that you folksneed to understand.”



    The alien looked over at the wall. “What?”



    “We don’t give up,” Chris said. “We will keep fighting until we’re free.”



    The alien said nothing.
     
  18. ChrisNuttall

    ChrisNuttall Monkey+++


    Chapter Forty-One<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:eek:ffice:eek:ffice" />



    Deep Space

    Day 70



    “Don’t try to move,” a feminine voice said. “You’ve had a nasty shock.”



    Gavin opened his eyes. He saw a young woman, wearing a shapeless tunic, bending over him. It was so unexpected that he was almostconvinced that he was in heaven. Andthen he remembered...the aliens had attacked, they’d run...and something hadknocked him over and out. He was aprisoner. There was no otherexplanation.



    “Lie still,” the woman said. “It takes a moment for your body to adapt tothe change in the environment. You’ll beon your feet in no time.”



    She pushed something to his neck before he couldobject. He felt a brief stab of pain,almost as if he’d been pricked with a needle, and guessed that he’d beeninjected with something. A truthdrug? Something to make himpliable? If the Leathernecks knew who hewas, they’d want to interrogate him – and he knew what they did to make peopletalk. He just hoped he could hold outlong enough for his men to scatter, assuming they knew that he'd beencaptured. The chaos as they’d retreatedfrom Haddon Hall meant that they might not realise that the aliens had takenhim alive. Not even the Leatherneckscould get answers out of a dead man.



    He tried to sit up, only to feel his head spinning. There was something subtly wrong about the environment. The young woman put a hand around hisshoulder and helped him to stand upright. He had it a moment later, even though he’d never experienced anythinglike it in his entire life. The gravityin the compartment was barely two-thirds of Earth’s gravity. Some of the scientists had speculated thatthe Leathernecks came from a world that had a significantly lower gravitationalfield than Earth, he recalled, but he had dismissed it at the time. The Leathernecks were so much stronger thanthe average human that he suspected it was the other way around.



    “Who...” Histhroat hurt. He had to swallow hardbefore he could finish the sentence. “Whoare you?”



    “Sharon Cordova, United States Marine Corps,” she said,briskly. “I was a medic before the invasion,which is why they put me in here.” Sheshrugged. “You seem to have come throughthe suspension process unharmed. Someguys swear blind that they remained aware even though they were floating in astasis field.”



    Gavin stared at her, confused. She smiled at him. “If you’re feeling better, I have someone youneed to meet.”



    “One moment,” Gavin said. The gravity wasn’t the only odd thing about their environment. He could feel a faint queasiness in the backof his mind, hear a constant thrumming just loud enough to be on the edge ofperception. “Are we prisoners?”



    Sharon grinned. “Notexactly,” she said, as she helped him towards the door. It opened as they approached, revealing acompartment large enough for a small party of Leathernecks. “Like I said, I have someone you need tomeet.”



    Gavin walked through the door and stopped dead, unable tobelieve his eyes. The Leathernecks werehumanoid, if not human. Some of thescientists had speculated that humanoid was evolution’s default form,suggesting that all the old TV shows with humanoid aliens might have had apoint after all. But...the alien infront of him was anything, but humanoid. A great mass of orange-gold tentacles, constantly spinning around thecentral egg-shaped mass...his mind almost refused to grasp its existence. The body – he assumed it was the alien’s body– seemed featureless. There were noeyes, no mouth...no way of deducing how the alien collected data about itsenvironment. Merely looking at it madehim dizzy. It seemed to be incapable ofremaining motionless.



    “This is Protector Hank,” Sharon said. She had the grace to look embarrassed. “They don’t have names, not like us – we hadto call him something.”



    “I am very pleased to meet you,” Hank said. It’s voice seemed to come from a small devicehanging below the central body. Thealien certainly sounded a great deal more natural than anything theLeathernecks had ever produced. “We havea great deal to talk about.”



    “I think I need to sit down,” Gavin said. “And perhaps something to eat.”



    “Certainly,” Hank said. The alien didn't need to turn; it just started wobbling its way down thecorridor. Gavin wondered if the alienhad had its back to him, before realising that ‘front’ and ‘back’ probablymeant little to the aliens. They couldhead in any direction they liked without turning, leaving him wondering howthey saw. Some form of mentalvision? A sense of perception? Or maybe they saw through their tentacles. “We have become accustomed to feeding humansover the last few weeks.”



    ***

    “They captured me in Missouri,” Sharon explained, twentyminutes later. They were seated around atable that had clearly been designed for humans, rather than Leathernecks...orHank’s race. “We had a base camp forwounded there – somehow, they discovered our location and raided us, ratherthan dropping a hammer on our heads. They took us off-world, loaded us into suspension pods...and the nextthing we knew, the Leatherneck ship had been captured by our new friends. I think they’d been lurking around Earth forthe past few months, waiting for a chance to stick a spanner in the works.”



    “That is correct,” Hank said. “We took advantage of the remoteness of yourplanet to cause one of their ships to go missing. They will not understand what has happeneduntil it is far too late.”



    Gavin stared at the alien. “You mean to say you did nothing while theyinvaded our world?”



    “You misunderstand the nature of interstellar travel andcommunications,” Hank informed him. “Itcan take months to travel between stars. By the time we discovered that the Leathernecks had found you, it wasalready too late to intervene – they had already dispatched the ConquestForce. There was nothing we could do,but watch and wait for an opportunity to act.”



    There was a long pause. “We first encountered them roughly two hundred of your years ago,” Hankadded. “It was hate at first sight. We spent fifty years fighting them beforecoming to a reluctant agreement that neither of us were likely to winoutright. The victor in the conflictwould be badly weakened, while the loser would be pushed to the brink ofextermination. And that would have...consequences. We made a truce with them. Since then, both of us have been pushing outas far as we can, attempting to gain a decisive advantage before the warresumes. Your world was invaded andoccupied as part of that process.”



    “They want to add our technology to their own,” Gavinsaid, softly. “And start using us asexpendable fighters too...”



    “They tend to think in terms of brute force,” Hankobserved. “Their socio-politicaldevelopment led not to the victory of capitalism, as on your world, but a fasciststate that managed to overcome many of the flaws that threatened to bring itcrashing down. They were quite successfulat absorbing the rebels, the thinkers, into their system. Those who might point out that the Emperorhas no clothes, to use one of your world’s sayings, end up supporting theState.”



    “You seem to know us very well,” Gavin observed.



    “We have...sources within the Leatherneck State,” Hanksaid. “They collected a great mass ofdata on your world’s society, even if much of it made little sense to theirresearchers.”



    Gavin smiled. “Peoplewho realise that the Emperor has no clothes?”



    The alien didn’t bother to deny it. “Unfortunately, their traditional way ofcoping with the universe – brute force – has given them an advantage over you,”it said. “You barely started to exploitspace – they had massive space stations in orbit within twenty years of developingrocket technology. From there, theyeventually cracked the secrets behind warp drive – and they did it withcomputers inferior to yours.



    “There is some speculation that someone else gave them ahand,” Hank added, “but there has never been any proof of outsideinterference. Your world’s historyshould inform you that predicting technological development is a difficulttask. The Leathernecks approach problemsfrom a different angle to your own race, but that doesn’t make them stupid. They have already crushed your world.”



    “Yes,” Gavin said, flatly. “Are you going to destroy their ships inorbit?”



    “An open act of war would restart the conflict,” Hanksaid. “We would prefer to avoid outrightconflict before we were ready to win.”



    “You captured one of their ships,” Gavin pointedout. “Isn't that an act of war?”



    A human would have smirked. “Not if the Leathernecks never find out whathappened to their ship,” Hank countered. “And they won’t. Ships go missingall the time.”



    “Maybe the Leathernecks are capturing your ships,” Gavinsaid, dryly.



    “It’s possible,” Hank agreed. He didn’t sound particularly concerned. “Both sides have been pushing the truce tothe limits.”



    “Right,” Gavin said. “So...what are you going to do to help?”



    “Provide you with support,” Hank said. “Provide you with weapons. Provide you with tools you can use againstyour alien overlords. Help you torecover your world.”



    “And you’d get an ally for the coming war,” Gavinsaid. He couldn’t say no. Whatever had happened back on Earth, theyneeded help if they were to kick the Leathernecks off the planet. “When do we start?”



    Hank’s tentacles seemed to slow, just for a second. “How about now?”



    End of Part One


    The Story Will Continue In:


    TheDevil and the Deep Blue Sea
     
  19. Grimjaw

    Grimjaw Monkey+

    This was another very good read..thank you.
     
  20. kom78

    kom78 OH NOES !!

    another awesome read Chris thank you
    Will definitely check out your new book too
     
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