The Slightest Hope of Victory

(Outside Context Problem: Book III)

Series Listing

Book One: Outside Context Problem

Book Two: Under Foot

Book Three: The Slightest Hope of Victory

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Cover Blurb

The aliens have landed ... and Earth will never be the same. A third of the world is occupied, groaning under the weight of alien oppression, while the remainder is in chaos or preparing desperately for the final battle. As the aliens unveil their long-term plans for humanity, a horror unmatched by any purely human foe, it becomes clear that the end will not be long delayed. Humanity’s darkest hour is at hand.

But humanity will never give up, not as long as there remains a slightest hope of victory. From the heartland of America to the skies over Britain, from the deepest depths of the ocean to the cold darkness of space, the battle to decide the future of two races is yet undecided ...

And the Battle for Earth has yet to be won.

Dear Readers

The Slightest Hope of Victory is Book III in the Outside Context Problem series, following Outside Context Problem and Under Foot. It will probably not be entirely comprehensible to anyone who hasn't read the first two; I did try to write a recap, but it ended up being over six pages long – too long, in my opinion. You can draw free samples of both books from my site and download them from Amazon Kindle.

As you may notice, there was a long delay between Under Foot and this volume. I hope that it matches up well with its two predecessors.

A number of people were kind enough to read the draft chapters and suggest changes, alterations and improvements. Accordingly, this book is dedicated to them, without whom it would not have been so readable.

There has also been one major change. When I wrote Outside Context Problem and Under Foot, I used ‘Edward Stalker’ as a character name. However, I also used the same name in The Empire’s Corps and its sequels, causing some confusion. I have therefore renamed the character ‘Edward Tanaka.’

As always, I would be very grateful for reviews, critical comments, error-spotting, etc.

Have fun!

Christopher G. Nuttall

Prologue

Alien Command Ship #2

Day 83 (One Day after Second Washington)

Space. The final frontier.

Captain Philip Carlson had lived by those words from a very early age. It had become his dream to travel into space, a dream he had achieved when he had won one of the handful of coveted astronaut slots for himself. The dream had even kept him going when NASA turned further and further away from actual space exploration, cutting missions and cancelling next-generation programs that should have put the United States in space permanently. But instead of reaching for the stars, mankind had decided to stay on Earth.

The universe hadn’t left them alone.

Philip stared down at the blue-green orb of Earth and knew despair. He and the rest of his crew were prisoners on an alien spacecraft larger than many cities, a construction so vast as to be utterly beyond the combined efforts of every human space organisation on Earth. Not that any human space agency deserved the title, really, compared to what the aliens had built. Philip had a suspicion that the aliens, far from respecting humanity’s achievements, were actually laughing at them. The space shuttle, compared to the monstrous alien ship, was nothing more than a toy.

And now Earth was occupied. From his vantage point, he could see an endless stream of alien craft – each one far more capable than anything humans had built – heading to and from the planet, carrying alien colonists to their new homeworld. Humanity’s resistance had been brushed aside, almost casually, once the mothership had arrived in orbit. The aliens weren’t gods, but they were powerful. Humanity had inflicted just enough damage to convince them that they had a chance, before the hammer was finally lowered. Earth no longer belonged to the human race.

He scowled at the thought. The aliens having taken his crew prisoner, hadn't seemed to have any real idea what to do with them – or perhaps they simply didn’t care. There were no anal probes, no interrogation to discover what they knew about Earth’s defences ... they hadn't even been locked up! They’d practically been allowed to wander the ship freely, apart from certain sealed areas. Philip had explored, along with the rest of his crew, but they’d found nothing that they could use against the aliens. He would have sold his soul for a nuke.

But even that wouldn't have done more than slow the aliens down. The massive city-sized ship that held them was one of four, while there was still the mothership itself and the hundreds of smaller craft. Losing one large craft would have to hurt – they weren't that powerful that they could afford to lose one without wincing – but it wouldn't stop them. They’d just keep going ... and his crew would have thrown away their lives for nothing.

He gritted his teeth as he stared out into space. Under other circumstances, the observatory – or so he had dubbed it – would have been an endless source of wonder. It was far larger than anything the ISS had possessed, allowing him to stare into space and down towards the planet below. In the distance, he could even see the moon, where NASA had landed a handful of men before it had given up on the space dream. The aliens had crossed at least ten light years to reach Earth. No wonder they weren't impressed by anything they saw from humanity.

There was a faint rustling sound behind him and he spun around to see one of the taller aliens standing behind him. Philip sucked in his breath sharply as he met the dark alien eyes, so dark that there were no pupils or anything else remotely human. They knew little about how the aliens were organised, but their observations suggested that the taller ones were the ones in charge. The others certainly seemed to defer to them.

The alien stood taller than the average human, with an inhumanly thin body and oversized head. It was easy, now, to see the resemblance between the alien abduction reports and real aliens. Philip had no doubt that humanity had been watched for a long time before the aliens had decided to make their presence known. He wanted to lash out, to snap the thin alien neck, but he knew that it would do no good. Alien Warriors would come for the human prisoners and that would be the end. If all he could do was watch and wait for an opportunity to strike the aliens, he’d wait. Flying for NASA taught one patience, if little else.

The alien voice was thin, almost completely atonal. “There have been developments,” he said. Or at least Philip thought of the alien as male. It was impossible to tell gender with any certainty. “Your people destroyed a Command Ship over Washington, your nation’s capital. We did not believe that you were capable of such a feat.”

Philip said nothing. The reports they’d intercepted from the ISS had been clear. The USAF had taken a terrible pounding in the war and had been on the verge of coming apart under the strain. The aliens had launched wave after wave of attacks, systematically degrading America’s ability to defend itself against further attacks before the mothership arrived in orbit. Philip had no way of knowing what had happened since the command ship had scooped up and abducted the entire ISS, along with the wreckage of Atlantis – but with thousands upon thousands of aliens heading to their new home, he doubted that it was anything good. The aliens claimed that they’d brought a billion of their people along on their colonisation mission. If that were true, they had enough manpower to subdue the entire planet.

It wasn't a pleasant thought. There wasn't much alien invasion literature that dealt with a world the aliens had successfully occupied, but what little there was didn’t make pleasant reading. There would be mass starvation, the collapse of human society and disease and deprivation would be rife, while the aliens built their cities and slowly crushed all resistance out of the human race. Human history would come to an abrupt halt. It would truly be the end of days.

“It opens up new opportunities,” the alien said. He turned to look down towards the planet, his dark eyes inscrutable. “We may be able to work together.”

Philip’s flash of anger overrode common sense. If someone down on the planet had managed to destroy an alien craft the size of a city, it was clear that the fight was far from hopeless. Perhaps the human race would wear down the aliens with constant insurgent attacks. He’d heard rumours about preparations before the ISS had been abducted.

“Why?” He demanded. “So we can roll over and surrender our planet to you?”

“No,” the alien replied. “There is more at stake here than you understand. If we work together, we can save both of our races from mutual destruction.”

Chapter One

Over Virginia, USA

Day 190

“Are you sure this thing is safe?”

Nicolas Little grinned as he checked the parachute harness. For some reason of their own, the aliens – the People, they called themselves – had collected a vast amount of human military equipment. Given their technological superiority, it still puzzled him that they’d even bothered, but it had worked out in his favour. Locating a SF-capable parachute, even a two-man parachute, had been easy.

“Very safe,” he said. “Reasonably safe. Well, sort-of safe, well ...”

“Very funny,” Abigail Walker said. The auburn-haired reporter gave him a cross look. “And what happens if we hit the ground?”

Nicolas snorted. “That is kind of the point,” he pointed out.

Abigail scowled at him. “What happens if the parachute doesn’t work and we fall until we hit the ground at speed?”

“We die,” Nicolas said, simply. He finished checking the harness and grinned at her. “But don’t worry. I’ve done hundreds of jumps and as long as you’re careful, nothing can actually go wrong.”

He scowled, for he knew that this was no normal jump. The alien network that controlled their military machine was difficult, almost impossible, to fool. He knew that the alien rebels were risking exposure by having two prisoners escape from a transport craft, even though there was no other choice. They could hardly call up what remained of the American government on the telephone, or any other more conventional way of making contact. He’d thought that the federal government was bad when it came to intruding into its population’s lives. The aliens had every waking moment supervised by their computer network. Getting around it as much as the rebels did was very difficult.

“As long as you’re sure,” Abigail said. “I just …”

“I understand,” Nicolas said. He’d been nervous before his first parachute jump too. “Just relax and let me do all the work. You don’t have to do anything.”

Abigail winced, then giggled. “I’ve heard that before,” she said. “I don’t suppose that there is something I can take for nerves?”

Nicolas shook his head. “Not here,” he said. “Just close your eyes if you’re too nervous, once we’re out of the hatch.”

There was a faint tap on the door. “Are you decent in there?”

“Yeah,” Nicolas called back. “We’re done now.”

Abigail elbowed him in the ribs as the alien doorway flowed open, revealing Captain Philip Carlson. The former Space Shuttle commander looked grim, but smiled tiredly when he’d saw the other two. Nicolas couldn't help feeling a twinge of admiration, even if it was rare for any SEAL to feel it for anyone outside the Special Forces. Carlson had not only survived captivity by the aliens, but linked up with rebels within the alien ranks. Maybe there truly was a chance at victory.

“They saw that we will be in position in ten minutes,” Carlson said. “Are you ready?”

Nicolas took one final look at the harness, then pulled it over his head. “Just about,” he said, as he fixed the straps. “I just have to tie Abigail to myself, then you can shove us out the hatch.”

Carlson smiled, tiredly. Nicolas recognised the signs of a man who had pushed himself too hard and now found it hard to care about dangers like exposure and sudden death, even though literally everything was at stake. If the Rogue Leaders completed their plans, resistance to the alien leadership would not only become futile, but inconceivable. The freedom of two races hung in the balance, not one.

“Just don’t go seeking revenge until after the war is over,” Carlson said, as Nicolas checked Abigail’s suit. High-attitude/high-opening jumps carried their own risks, including goggles shattering from the cold and eyes freezing shut. The equipment they’d donned should provide them some protection, but Nicolas knew better than to take it completely for granted. “We have to win first.”

Nicolas scowled. It was clear to him that Greg, his ex-wife’s second husband, had betrayed him to the alien occupiers. He’d trusted Greg to take care of his daughter and yet the man had betrayed Nicolas the first chance he’d had. It staggered Nicolas to think that he might have left his daughter with an unworthy man ... or had Greg simply feared what would happen to her when – if – Nicolas was caught. The alien database included samples of DNA from almost everyone in the United States, outside the resistance. If they’d taken his DNA, they would know about his relationship to Nancy – and Greg.

“I know,” he assured him. “Personal revenge can be put off, if necessary.”

He tightened a couple of Abigail’s straps and smiled at her pale face. Nicolas had never been fond of reporters – they had no common sense, particularly when it came to reporting on military matters – but he’d come to like Abigail. She had a wicked sense of humour and, in her own way, had done a great deal of damage to the alien cause. And she was one of the few people who even knew that there was a faction of alien rebels.

“Don’t worry,” he promised. “I’ll take care of you.”

They followed Carlson into the next compartment, which was partly transparent, allowing them to look down on the globe as the craft completed its pre-planned course towards the alien mothership. America was just coming into view, a darkened continent. Nicolas shuddered as he recalled just how brightly lit the country had been, before the aliens arrived to take over the world. Now, there was scarcely a light to be seen. Even the great cities were dark.

They keep turning out the power to remind us that we’re at their mercy, he thought, sourly. Chicago taught them that they could do that.

Carlson turned to look at them, his face tight. “You have everything you need?”

“Yes,” Nicolas said, simply. He pulled Abigail towards him, clicked her harness into his, and then waddled towards the hatch. “We’re ready.”

He shivered as he saw one of the alien workers appear out of nowhere, one hand holding a small object no larger than an Iphone. The workers were far less unpleasant than the warriors, but there was something about them that chilled him to the bone. Knowing that they’d literally been bred for obedience, even before the Rogue Leaders started genetically-modifying their own people, Nicolas suspected he knew why he hated even the sight of the little creatures. The Rogue Leaders had a similar fate in mind for all of humanity.

“Twenty seconds,” the alien said. As always, the voice was flat, completely atonal. “Stand on the glowing square on the floor.”

Deck, part of Nicolas's mind whispered.

“Good luck,” Carlson said.

There was a sudden shift in ... something and they plummeted into the night. Abigail jerked against him once as the cold struck her, seeping into her very pores, then she seemed to freeze. Nicolas guessed that her eyes were tightly closed. The sight of the ground coming up to meet them, even if it seemed agonisingly slow, was not for the faint-hearted. There were hardened soldiers who went pale at the mere thought of having to jump out of the aircraft and fall towards the ground.

The chute jerked as it automatically deployed the parachute, slowing their fall. Nicolas scowled, inwardly. He hadn't discussed it with Abigail – it would only upset her – but there was a very real possibility that the alien sensor network would pick up the parachute as it fell from the heavens. He’d actually considered dropping much further towards the planet before deploying the chute, then decided that it was unlikely to draw more attention. Besides, the alien rebels had been fairly sure that they could insert him and Abigail back onto Earth without drawing attention.

He looked upwards, watching the stars as they blazed out in the night sky. Here, so high above the Earth, there was little twinkling ... and some of the stars were moving. It took him a moment to realise that he was looking at the alien ships as they moved in orbit around the Earth, transporting alien colonists from the mothership to their new homes. There was nothing human in orbit any longer. The aliens had taken out the remainder of the satellite network once they’d realised that the human resistance was using it for their operations.

And then they gave us an improved communications system we don’t dare use, Nicolas thought, bitterly. The alien servers were faster than anything humans had managed to produce for themselves, but if they weren't rigged to allow every message that passed through them to be scrutinised, Nicolas would have been astonished. Few people truly understood that emails passed through a series of servers before they reached their destinations, let alone how easy it could be to intercept and copy the messages. Quite a few terrorists had been caught through not observing proper communications security.

He watched as the American continent took on shape and form. They’d planned to drop him over Virginia, but given the problems with arranging the right flight path he’d known that it was quite possible that he would miss the planned landing site by miles. There was a time when that would have humiliated him – shared jumps were meant to ensure that all of the SEALs arrived in the right place – but now it no longer seemed to matter. All that mattered was landing, making contact with the resistance and then linking into the underground network. And that wasn't going to be easy.

The internet was still working and, at his request, the rebels had sent a message asking the resistance to meet them. It was a message that should have gone unnoticed by the alien filters – a human book was used to substitute innocuous words for words that might have attracted attention – but they might well know that he’d been captured. And if that was the case, the resistance might have assumed that it was a trick and refused to show.

And they might think we’re Walking Dead, he thought, grimly. If that happens, they might plan a mercy kill.

He scowled at the thought. The Rogue Leaders had spent decades abducting humans from Earth before they showed themselves to humanity, carrying out experiments that would have made the Nazi scientists from World War Two blanch. But, as inhuman as it was, it had paid off for them. They could brainwash a human into becoming their loyal servant – and, so far, no one human had discovered a way to reverse the mental conditioning. It made resistance much harder if the aliens, instead of looking for collaborators, could make them for themselves.

The Walking Dead, thankfully, were easy to spot. They were cold, utterly inhuman, more alien than the aliens themselves. There was no way that someone could be captured, brainwashed and then returned to their friends, not without being spotted. It was such an obvious ploy that Nicolas hadn't been surprised to discover that the Rogue Leaders were working on ways to create Walking Dead that didn't act like zombies. If they succeeded, it would be the beginning of the end.

They can’t brainwash everyone, he told himself. But it was no consolation.

The ground came closer, until he realised that they were almost definitely going to land near the planned landing zone. Bracing himself, he pulled on the parachute to slow their descent further and smiled as his feet touched the ground. He hadn't even realise how being on the alien ships had affected him until he touched solid earth. It was almost like being at sea, although he hadn't felt seasick. But then, what sort of SEAL would feel seasick?

He tugged at the harness, releasing Abigail. She staggered forward – for a moment, he was sure that she was going to be violently sick – and then caught herself, turning to face him. Nicolas pulled at her mask, checked her eyes and then grinned at her. She grinned back.

“If you think that’s bad, wait till you get a chance to try a HALO jump,” he said. High-attitude/low opening jumps were one hell of a rush. “Welcome back to Earth.”

He glanced around as he gathered in the remains of the chute. The clearing they’d landed in was in the midst of forest, well away from civilisation – or what passed for it, these days – but he knew better than to think that they were completely alone. Apart from the resistance, there was no shortage of people who had decided that camping out in the wilderness was better than staying in their homes to face the aliens – or their human collaborators. Nicolas couldn't blame them, even though the first winter was likely to kill far too many of them. The Walking Dead were bad enough, but the willing collaborators were worse. They looted, raped and killed with impunity.

Which might be the point, he thought. Compared to the Order Police, the alien warriors are almost popular.

Abigail rubbed her hands together and then placed them against her face. “I don’t think I’ll ever be warm again,” she said, crossly. “Does it get better?”

Nicolas smirked, remembering his first drop. “Yes, it does,” he said. He’d felt the same way too. “You’ll warm up after some heavy exercise.”

He removed the small shovel from his pack and started to dig a hole. Abigail joined him a moment later, digging until the hole was big enough to take the chute and their suits. Nicolas would have preferred to wear the uniform, but it would have attracted attention if they were seen by alien collaborators. They’d been known to arrest anyone wearing something that even reassembled a uniform. Most Americans with military experience had joined the survivalists trying to eke out an existence outside the cities, if they hadn't joined the resistance. No one knew what had happened to most of those who hadn't vanished quickly enough, but it probably wasn't anything good ...

He froze. There was someone out there, watching them.

One hand twitched towards the pistol at his belt, before he stopped himself. They’d told the resistance they were coming, after all. But what if it was the Order Police? Nicolas hesitated, then stood up, peering into the darkened forest. There had to be someone there ...

Abigail looked over at him. “What ...?”

“All right, folks,” a new voice drawled. “Keep your hands where we can see them and make no false moves.”

“No better friend,” Nicolas said, as Abigail froze.

“No worse enemy,” the new voice said. “Which is pretty damn obvious, if you ask me.”

Nicolas relaxed, slightly. The first part of the sign and countersign was obvious, but the Walking Dead wouldn't have pointed out that out. And yet that was the real countersign.

“Say something funny,” the unknown voice ordered. “Please.”

“A joke?” Nicolas asked. It wasn't something he would have thought up, but he had to admit that it was a neat test for Walking Dead. They lost their sense of humour as well as their freedom of thought. “Why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the other side!”

Abigail giggled.

“Yeah, very funny,” the voice said. “You’re under seven guns, Lady and Gent; I suggest that you offer no resistance.”

“We won’t,” Nicolas assured him.

The resistance fighters ghosted out of the trees. None of the ones who showed themselves were carrying weapons, something that amused and appalled Nicolas in equal measure. The United States had been awash with weapons even before the President had removed all the restrictions, seeking to prepare the country for alien occupation, but all of the ammunition plants had been shut down by the aliens. What if the resistance was finally running out of bullets.

On the other hand, he told himself, they wouldn't want to put guns within our reach.

He offered no resistance as the fighters took his hands, pulled them behind his back and cuffed them. Abigail let out a squeak as she was cuffed as well. The resistance wasn't taking chances, he was pleased to see; they searched both of their prisoners carefully and removed anything that could be dangerous.

One of them held an alien device up in front of him. “What is this?”

“Classified,” Nicolas said. It was risky, but the fewer people who knew about what he’d brought, the better. “It’s to go to the higher-ups.”

“Really,” the first voice drawled. Nicolas looked around to see a grizzled combat veteran, holding a shotgun in one hand. “And how do we know that you’re not collaborators?”

Nicolas scowled. The Walking Dead couldn't be blamed for their actions – and the resistance, while it killed them, didn't linger over it. Collaborators, on the other hand, had chosen their own path through life; the resistance didn't just kill them, it killed them brutally. If they were mistaken for collaborators ... after everything he'd done, it would be the ultimate irony.

“Check with my superiors,” Nicolas said, patiently. He’d hoped that a survivor from his own resistance team would have met them, but in hindsight it had been pretty unlikely. Someone who had known him might not have pulled the trigger if Nicolas had clearly been one of the Walking Dead. “And then run whatever tests you feel necessary.”

The combat veteran – he looked old enough to have served in Vietnam, rather than modern wars Nicolas had fought in – eyed him for a long moment.

“You will be taken to a particular location,” he said, finally. “And if you are found to be lying, I will execute you personally.”

“We’re not lying,” Nicolas said, mentally cursing the Rogue Leaders. No doubt they’d watched Invasion of the Body Snatchers while they’d been studying Earth, preparing for the invasion. An enemy could wear a friendly face. A loyalist could become a collaborator during a few short hours when he might be separated from his friends. “And it is vitally important that we speak to someone higher up the chain as quickly as possible.”

“No doubt,” the veteran sneered. “But you will be tested first.”

He nodded to two of his men, who pushed Nicolas forward, into the forest. Nicolas caught sight of Abigail’s expression and allowed himself a moment of pride. Compared to how the aliens had treated her, the resistance were being downright gentlemanly.

Which won’t stop them killing us if they think we’re collaborators, he thought, bitterly. This could still go very wrong.

Chapter Two

Near Casper, Wyoming, USA

Day 191

“It shouldn't happen in America.”

Master Sergeant Edward Tanaka refrained, just barely, from rolling his eyes. Specialist Georgina Benton was a trained combat medic – she'd actually been working towards W1, Special Operations Combat Medic before the aliens had invaded – but there was a certain naivety around her that bothered him. No one who had spent time in the military, let alone been deployed into combat zones – and Georgina had – should have been that naive.

But then, he admitted privately, a year ago he wouldn't have believed that it could have happened in America either.

The refugee camp wasn't quite as bad as some of the camps he'd seen in Afghanistan or Africa, but it was quite bad enough. Thousands of people, some of whom had been doing nothing more than living in their homes minding their own business, had been uprooted and pushed away by the aliens and their collaborators. Large sections of Wyoming might have been effectively unpopulated before the aliens landed, but they’d just kept expanding until they’d pushed half of the state’s population into refugee camps. Or maybe they were just worried about how easily large numbers of insurgents could hide in the countryside or in the mountains. Moving most of the local population into camps would be a neat way to keep control of them.

He’d smelled the camp a long time before they even approached it, a faint stench of shit and piss and hopelessness that threatened to overwhelm him. Edward had never placed much faith in FEMA even before the government agency had had so many problems dealing with the aftermath of hurricanes, but even FEMA hadn't done such a bad job of taking care of refugees. But then, they’d always intended those refugees to go back to their homes, while these refugees knew they would never be returning. Even if they escaped the camp, their homes had been destroyed. Where would they go?

“Bastards,” Edward hissed. He'd thought himself desensitised after his escape from Chicago before the aliens finished grinding the city into dust. But seeing this reminded him, again, of just why they had to fight. “Fucking filthy bastards.”

He peered through his binoculars as a handful of alien warriors moved in front of the camp, watching the human guards through beady eyes. The guards themselves were a mixture of Walking Dead and collaborators, the latter apparently under close supervision. Edward couldn't decide if that was a deliberate attempt to minimise the problems caused by the camp or just random chance. If the former, it struck Edward as pointless. The refugees had lost everything. Did the aliens think they were going to start liking them because they were also protecting them from rape and other forms of abuse?

Maybe it’s just a plot to keep them under control, he thought, as he moved his gaze to the refugees themselves. And keep them fed.

Unlike some of the early POW camps the aliens had used, the refugees had been allowed to bring their own tents – and anything else they could carry on their backs. The result was a crazed mix of holiday camp and prison camp, with colourful tents lined up in neat rows beyond the wire. Behind them, there were a handful of military surplus tents that had been placed there for the benefit of anyone who hadn't brought a tent of their own. The aliens had even provided toilets, fresh water and some kind of rapidly-produced food.

They could feed themselves if they were allowed to hunt, Edward thought, bitterly. But, naturally, the one thing the aliens had made sure to do was to confiscate all of the guns the refugees carried with them. Maybe it made sense – no matter how comfortable the camp was, there would be fights as tensions rose and tempers frayed – but it also ensured that the refugees couldn't rise up against their guards. Any major attempt at resistance and the aliens would simply rip them apart.

“Damn them,” he muttered out loud. Given enough time, the refugees would either become broken – or they’d become fanatics. The latter, at least, might fight. “Let’s go.”

It was nearly an hour before they reached a place where they could observe the first alien city. The warriors were out in force, patrolling the area around the alien base; there were several times when Edward was sure that they’d been spotted, before the aliens had moved on and left them alone. There was no sign of any other aliens, something that puzzled him; surely, if the aliens wanted to keep Earth for themselves, they would be trying to exploit it. But then, there were insurgents – and independents – in the mountains. They might well take advantage of finding a few aliens on their own, utterly unprotected.

“Look at that,” Georgina muttered. “They just ... burned it.”

Edward nodded. There had been a town near the alien base, judging by the road network, but it no longer existed as anything other than a large patch of burned ground. He’d seen the aliens burning their way through Chicago, but this was different; they’d eradicated almost all evidence that the town had even existed. A few years and there would be nothing left at all.

He caught himself wondering what the people who lived there had been like, before the aliens had come for their land. Had they been friendly and welcoming to strangers, or had they eyed them suspiciously and turned away when the strangers came? There was no way to know; right now, the only survivors would be in the alien refugee camps, or lurking up in the mountains.

Cursing, he turned his gaze and looked out on the alien city. It was ... strange. If he hadn't known about the aliens, he suspected that he still would have pegged it for an alien city, rather than anything built by humans. It was just too weird to be human ... and Edward, who had served in the Middle East, Afghanistan and Japan, knew just how many different designs humanity had produced for itself.

The alien city looked as if it was built out of melted plastic, as if it had once been a much larger city before the heat had taken its toll. Some of the buildings reassembled skyscrapers, but others reassembled nothing so much as melted cheese and hamburgers ... he almost started chuckling, before remembering that it didn't really matter how bizarre the alien aesthetics seemed to him. They were still hugely powerful in every way that mattered. He caught sight of an alien transport coming to a halt over the city before lowering itself to the ground and shivered. The aliens and their collaborators had a tactical mobility unmatched by any purely human force, even before America had been occupied. And they were learning how to cope with human weapons and tactics.

He peered through his binoculars, allowing him to see the aliens as they moved through the city. There was something about their movements that puzzled him, something that nagged at his mind until it finally hit him. They almost seemed to be working in unison. A human city would have a population that did hundreds of disparate things, from students and unemployed to policemen and even soldiers, but the aliens seemed almost part of an ant colony rather than a normal city. The tiny workers ... worked. None of them seemed to be enjoying themselves, or relaxing, or even jerking off.

Maybe they’re real party animals when they’re off shift, he thought, although it didn't seem very likely. The workers rarely showed much independence, according to the information he’d picked up from the internet and the resistance’s underground channels. They certainly never seemed to act as individuals. Maybe the aliens didn't have a hive mind – it was clear that what one alien knew wasn't automatically shared by others – but their society was regimented to a degree that few humans would have been able to tolerate. Perhaps they could have made communism work.

But maybe it wasn't too surprising. The human societies that were tightly regimented were that way because of external pressure. It was often the only way to survive, particularly if resources were limited. The aliens had been on a giant spacecraft, a vast but self-contained structure, for God knew how long. Regimenting their society might have been the only way they could have coped with the trip.

“Maybe they’ll loosen up in a decade or so,” Georgina suggested, when he said that out loud. “Or maybe they’re just ... made that way.”

“Maybe,” Edward grunted.

It wasn't a thought he enjoyed contemplating. The Indian caste system was nothing more than racism, based on the colour of a person’s skin. Like all other forms of racism, it was nothing more than a fancy excuse to keep people under control – and deny them basic human rights. There was no real physical difference, apart from skin colour, between a Brahmin and an Untouchable.

But that wasn't true of the aliens. Workers were small slight beings, although reports from brief encounters suggested that they were stronger than they seemed. Warriors were fast, strong and extremely difficult to kill. Edward had seen them take shots that would have killed a human instantly and they’d just kept coming. You practically had to behead one in order to stop it. Alien leaders were tall, willowy and – it seemed – extremely smart. Or so he had been told. And then there were the crossbreeds, who could be chillingly unpredictable.

If Hitler had been able to genetically engineer human beings, Edward knew what he would have done. He would have made his delusions of the Master Race real. Had that been, he couldn't help wondering, how the aliens had become a caste-based society? Or had they simply evolved that way?

As if the thought had brought them into existence, more alien warriors materialised from one of the buildings and started to stride through the alien city. None of the workers, Edward noticed, flinched away from them, or even took any notice of the warriors at all. That was odd – and quite inhuman. Edward had seen civilians flinch away from soldiers in uniform, as if they feared that the military men would turn violent at any moment. And yet the aliens showed no reaction at all.

“It is a goddamned ant colony,” he said, grimly.

“Not just ants,” Georgina said, tartly. “Look over there.”

Edward followed her gaze. There was a small group of figures being moved from one building to another – human figures. At first, he thought that they were collaborators, even though all of the reports from infiltrators had agreed that no humans were allowed into the alien city. And then he saw how they walked and knew, instantly, that they were prisoners.

He sucked in his breath sharply as he realised that they were all young girls, although it was difficult to tell just how old they actually were. American youth had largely been able to grow up without major problems – which hadn't stopped them believing that their relatively small problems were actually end-of-the-world problems – but youths in less fortunate countries often looked older than they actually were. The girls he was staring at were physically in their early twenties, if that, yet they seemed older. And several of them were clearly pregnant.

“Those bastards,” Georgina hissed, from beside him. “They’re ... they’re children.”

Edward shrugged. He hadn't considered himself a child since he’d turned thirteen, although it had been several years before his parents actually accepted that their little boy had grown up. Joining the Marine Corps had probably had something to do with it ... far too many children remained childish until they hit their thirties, if they didn't move out and set up somewhere on their own.

But she was right. The girls had been kidnapped.

He studied them thoughtfully, activating the recording function on the binoculars. The records would be scrutinised by the higher-ups in hopes of identifying the girls, although it was unlikely they would find anything. Once, a missing teenage girl would have shocked the nation and everyone from the local police force to the FBI would turn out to search for her. Now, the list of missing people included millions of names, ranging from military personnel who’d gone underground to criminals who had taken advantage of the chaos to hide. And, of course, hundreds of thousands of civilians who had died during the invasion. It was unlikely in the extreme that they would ever identify the prisoners ...

And then he swore as he zoomed in and studied one particular girl. She looked ... familiar, oddly so. The memory was on the edge of his mind, mocking him. He closed his eyes and concentrated, silently asking where he had seen the girl before. For a long moment, his mind refused to cooperate ... and then it hit him. She’d been a prize-winning sharpshooter in Chicago – no mean feat – before the aliens had landed. And then she’d gone hunting aliens and their collaborators ... and then she’d actually shot an alien leader. There were very few people, including military snipers, who could make that claim.

Edward had given the matter no thought, but he knew that if he had he would have assumed that the girl – it bugged him that he couldn't remember her name – had been killed in the final bloody hours before Chicago fell. The aliens had reinforced their Arab collaborators with their own forces and advanced, intent on nothing less than pulverising any part of the city that dared show resistance. According to the last reports, the population had been more than halved – and those that remained were kept under tight control at all times. Any remaining resistance fighters would be keeping their heads down.

And they brought her here, he thought. Why?

It made no sense. The girl – Dolly, he recalled now – was hardly an important prisoner. It wasn't as if she was the President, or the Head of the NSA or someone else who had become a high-fugitive after the invasion and Fall of Washington. They would have killed her, or turned her into a gruesome example of what happened to people who killed alien leaders, or maybe even turned her into one of the Walking Dead. Instead, they were keeping her prisoner in one of their cities. It made no sense. It wasn't as if they had a shortage of POW camps for prisoners they deemed unworthy of being turned into the Walking Dead.

He studied the girl as she stumbled into the next building, feeling a twinge of pity as he realised just how listless she was. She walked as if she was on the verge of tumbling over; the alien at her side, which he’d assumed to be a guard, might have been there to help her if she fell over. Her hair had clearly been left unattended for weeks, as if she no longer cared to take the effort to brush and comb it every day. Even prisoners in maximum security prisons had more dignity than that.

“She’s been drugged,” Georgina said, quietly. “They’ve all been drugged.”

Edward snorted. “Isn't that against the Geneva Conventions?”

The thought was bitterly amusing. For whatever reasons suited them, the aliens had been surprisingly good at taking care of prisoners, at least the ones they deemed to be of no actual use to them. And they were feeding the refugees, rather than allowing them to die, along with most of the rest of the urban population in the United States. But they did other things too, things that seemed utterly inhuman. Brainwashing prisoners and then putting them to work as allies was worse than anything the Taliban had ever done.

We’re dealing with an alien morality here, he reminded himself. They’re not even remotely human.

They shared a long look, then started to crawl back, heading towards where they’d hidden the tent and camping gear. According to their cover story, they were a married couple from one of the destroyed towns and they had the paperwork to prove it. Edward privately had his doubts about how well it would stand up to scrutiny. There was no shortage of people who had hidden rather than register, but the Order Police conducted routine checks of civilian papers and insisted that shopkeepers check that their customers had papers before selling them anything. Now that the New Dollar was finally entering circulation ...

Luck was with them. They skirted a pair of checkpoints, including one that hadn’t been there earlier, and then made it to the campsite without further incident. Edward had privately suspected that someone would eventually discover the site and rob them, but so far they’d been lucky. Maybe the other people hiding in the mountains had decided to stay well away from them, just in case.

Shaking his head, he climbed into the tent, carefully disarmed the booby-trap he’d set to obliterate any unwanted evidence if someone discovered the tent and pulled out a modified laptop. Once he’d entered the password, he inserted the memory card from the binoculars, copied the files onto the laptop and then wrote out a full report. Later, once darkness had fallen completely, he would take the laptop to one of the hidden cables and upload the report to his superiors. They’d use the data for something, he hoped. Maybe it would even point them to the alien weakness that could be turned against the bastards.

Edward gritted his teeth after he finished writing the report, wondering just when they would be able to kick the aliens off Earth – or at least out of America – for good. The longer the occupation lasted, the greater the damage to America’s social integrity. It was already breaking apart down south, ever since California had finally gone under ... hell, if the aliens hadn't garrisoned the area, it would have been much more.

He shook his head, tiredly. Just how much more could the country take before it was shattered beyond repair?

Chapter Three

Virginia, USA

Day 191

Abigail Walker was almost dead on her feet by the time they were finally marched into a hidden building and down a long stairwell, somewhere in rural Virginia. She had absolutely no idea where she was beyond a rough idea of the state – and they felt as if they had walked far enough to cross the state line into another state. Her wrists hurt from the cuffs, her legs hurt because of all the walking and no one seemed to care. Nicolas had warned her that the resistance would probably be suspicious of them and she’d claimed to understand, but she hadn't really understood what he’d meant until they’d landed. They were effectively being treated as prisoners.

“If you’re genuinely who you claim to be – and no one has done anything to your mind – then I’m sorry about this,” their greeter said. No names had been exchanged and half of their escort wore black facemasks. “If not ... then we will find out and liberate you from your servitude.”

Nicolas let out a droll chuckle. “Get on with it,” he ordered. “There really isn't much time.”

Abigail was pushed into a second room, which looked surprisingly like a doctor’s surgery, complete with examination table and a couple of chairs. She was still staring at the table when she felt someone cutting into her clothes and removing them, one by one. Her one protest was angrily cut off, leaving her fuming silently as she was stripped. They didn't even leave her with her panties.

“Make sure you don’t destroy any of the tools we brought with us,” Nicolas ordered. They’d stripped him too, but he seemed utterly unperturbed. On the other hand, everyone else in the room was male too. “Put them in a strongbox if you like, but don’t destroy them.”

“Understood,” the resistance leader – if he was the leader – said, as the doctor stepped forward. “Stand very still, all right?”

Abigail watched as the doctor carried out what looked like a thoroughly unpleasant exam, starting with a full physical search and then placing several electrodes against Nicolas’s head, checking his brainwaves. It took her a moment to realise that he was actually looking for the implants that turned a person into an alien slave; there’d been quite a bit of information about them passed through the underground network. So far, no one had successfully managed to remove the implants, let alone deactivate them. The Walking Dead would stay alien slaves, permanently. Or so the Rogue Leaders believed.

“He appears to be clean,” the doctor said, finally. “Young lady?”

He gave Abigail a droll smile as she was pushed forward. “I’m gay,” he said, dryly. She couldn't help noticing Nicolas jump in shock. “Don’t worry about a thing.”

Abigail gritted her teeth as he scanned her body with several different devices, then inspected each and every one of her cavities. By the time he was done, she felt almost violated, even though the inspection had been completely impersonal. She looked around to see that most of the resistance fighters had turned their backs, clearly having decided to offer her privacy rather than keep a sharp eye on her. At least they had more human decency than the aliens and their collaborators.

“They both appear to be clean,” the doctor said. “I found nothing on either of them.”

Abigail flushed. “We could have told you that,” she snapped. “You didn't have to ...”

“They couldn’t have taken our word for it,” Nicolas pointed out, mildly. He looked over at the resistance leader. “We need to send a message to whoever is in charge of the state resistance, quickly. And the message has to remain absolutely secure.”

“I can handle that,” the leader said. He nodded to two of his men, who pushed Abigail towards yet another door. “I think you’d better get cleaned up and have a shower, then we can talk properly.”

Abigail smiled. “You mean that we can get out of these cuffs?”

“Yes,” the leader said. He seemed to have relaxed, slightly. “But you will still be watched, closely.”

“Oh,” Abigail said.

She scowled. It looked like privacy was going to be a thing of the past; hell, she’d had more privacy on the alien command ship. But then, compared to what she’d expected to face after the aliens finally caught on to her double game, she was in heaven. What was a little nakedness compared to being turned into an alien slave, so badly warped that she wouldn't even know that she should resist?

Or a drooling idiot, like the VP, she thought, grimly.

They were shown into a small bedroom, the cuffs were removed and they were left alone. “You did fine,” Nicolas assured her, as soon as the door was audibly locked. “I’ve known people who would have been horrified at such an ... intrusive physical search.”

Abigail winced as she sat down. “I know how they feel,” she said. “Where are we?”

Nicolas shrugged. “One of the secret government bunkers, I assume,” he said. “We’re not that far from Washington DC. A bunker or two up here would be easy to hide, even from the locals. If nuclear war broke out, someone from the government would be sent here to hide and take command in the event of everyone above him being killed.”

“Oh,” Abigail said. Her eyes opened wide. “Does that mean that the President is here?”

“I rather doubt it,” Nicolas admitted. “They wouldn't have brought us here if the President was here too. Even if they believed us without an examination, we could easily be carrying a surveillance bug or two on our bodies, if it was a trick. If humans can make bugs so small that they can barely be seen with the naked eye, I’d bet that the aliens could make them a whole lot smaller.”

He nodded towards the bathroom. “Go have a shower and a nap,” he ordered. “We could be here for some time.”

Abigail nodded and obeyed.

***

It was several hours later – after Abigail had finally dropped off into an uncomfortable sleep – that the door opened, revealing four men wearing masks. Nicolas didn't recognise them personally, but he recognised the grim assurance that they were the best of the best common to Special Forces operators all around the world. Knowing that the following interrogation was likely to be unpleasant, be bade a silent farewell to the sleeping Abigail and allowed the men to lead him outside the room and down a concrete corridor.

“Here,” one of them grunted, passing him a pair of silk pyjamas. “Wear these.”

Nicolas rolled his eyes. The silk outfit would allow him to keep his dignity, while preventing him from going unnoticed anywhere in the complex. On the other hand, if he meant harm, he could easily knock someone out and take their uniform for himself ... pulling it on, he decided that at least they were taking security seriously. Once he was dressed, they opened another door and pushed him into a small office. A man, wearing yet another mask, sat on the other side of the desk.

“Sir,” Nicolas said.

The man pulled off his mask, revealing a craggy face that Nicolas recognised from BUD/S. Colonel Oldham had been one of their supervisors – and, although he’d been too old for active service, he’d been supervising black ops in Afghanistan while the war wound down.

“Little,” Colonel Oldham said. “I think we can be reasonably sure that you’re not under alien control, but are you their willing collaborator?”

“No,” Nicolas snapped. “Sir, I ...”

“I have to ask,” the Colonel pointed out. “Almost everyone who has gone into an alien POW facility has either come out ... changed or simply never been seen again. The only exceptions are people who have been liberated by our forces, in the early days of the occupation. And now you.”

“They let me go,” Nicolas said. “Sir, this changes everything.”

Colonel Oldham settled back in his chair. “Then make your report, son,” he ordered. “Tell me what happened since you were captured. And, coming to think of it, what happened to get you captured?”

Nicolas hesitated, then ran through the entire story, starting with the alien attack on the resistance camp and his decision to seek sanctuary with Greg and his daughter. Oldham’s expression didn't change, even when Nicolas admitted that he’d been betrayed. Nicolas honestly hadn't realised that the resistance hadn't known what had happened to him, or how he’d been captured. If he hadn't contacted them himself, they might never have suspected a thing ...

And then they would have shot me when I tried to explain, he thought, as he talked about the alien rebels and how he’d made contact with them. That would have been a sorry end.

“So,” Colonel Oldham said. “You’re thinking that these aliens are actually on the level?”

Nicolas hesitated, then nodded.

“Indeed,” Colonel Oldham said. “And is it not equally likely that they might be setting you up to betray the rest of us?”

“I was not implanted,” Nicolas pointed out, sharply. “Nor was Abigail.”

“On first-name terms with a reporter?” Colonel Oldham asked. “Dear me! It must be love.”

Nicolas, realising that the Colonel was trying to irritate him, kept his temper under firm control. “She was there too,” he insisted. “They exposed themselves to her too.”

The Colonel pretended not to hear. “A reporter and a SEAL,” he said. “It sounds like the plot of a bad romantic comedy.”

His expression shifted with staggering speed. “Are you sure that they’re on the level?”

“Yes,” Nicolas said, flatly.

“Why?”

Nicolas took a moment to gather his thoughts. “They could have killed both of us, or tried to turn us both into Walking Dead,” he said. “Abigail would have made an excellent propagandist and helped them to round up the underground newspapers. I would have made a good recruit for the Order Police. Or they could have just shoved us into a POW camp and left us to rot. I think they took one hell of a risk making contact the way they did ...”

“Not as much as you might think,” Colonel Oldham said. “They could have just dropped you overboard if it hadn't worked out.”

“I don’t think it would have been that easy,” Nicolas said. “From what they told us of how their network works, rerouting a couple of prisoners might well have been noticed.”

“Yeah,” Colonel Oldham said. “But let me play devil’s advocate for a moment. You may believe what you’re telling me, but your new friends are actually lying to you. Would you recognise a lie when you were told it?”

Nicolas scowled at him. He was fairly good at reading humans, but reading the aliens was almost impossible. No one really knew how they showed emotion, even though he’d heard that some of the aliens were practicing human expressions. If an alien chose to tell him a bare-faced lie, would he realise it before it was too late?

“Carlson believed them,” he said, reluctantly.

“But he has been a prisoner ever since the ISS was destroyed,” Oldham pointed out, mildly. “How do you know he isn't one of the Walking Dead?”

“He was emotional,” Nicolas said. He’d spent time undercover in Afghanistan and he knew something about blending into a foreign country, but it would be harder to blend into an alien crew, even if he wasn't trying to hide. “There was none of the ... coldness that marks the Walking Dead.”

“But, you see,” Oldham said, “he could be a new kind of Walking Dead? He might be able to project a human face, without actually being a collaborator instead of just another victim ...”

Nicolas shook his head. “I don’t think that’s possible,” he said. “If they could do that, we’d all be dead by now.”

Oldham lifted both eyebrows, inviting him to continue.

“A Walking Dead cannot pass for a normal human,” Nicolas said. “They appear cold and inhuman; their previous emotional connections and ties are all gone. Even if confronted with their families, or offered sex, they remain disinterested. We can pick them out easily, even without talking to them. There’s no point in them sending one of them to try to infiltrate our group. We’d know immediately.

“If they could control someone like me, someone who could still laugh and cry and make love, without leaving any signs, they would have done so,” he continued. “There would have been hundreds of prisoners released, or allowed to escape, and they would have led the aliens straight to the resistance bases. If I’d been implanted, do you think I would have sent you a message that was bound to raise your suspicions?”

“It did happen once,” Oldham said, quietly. “To a Jihadist cell in Iran. One of the women was apparently implanted.”

Nicolas blinked, then nodded in understanding. “Just how many connections did she have to the men there?”

Oldham smiled. “Point,” he said.

Devious bastards, Nicolas thought. Just because their technology had limits didn't stop them from figuring out ways to overcome those limits. How very human of them. A woman in a complete veil would be almost invisible, particularly to men who thought of women as being good for nothing more than doing housework and making babies. And she would have been there, listening, as all of their plans were discussed. The aliens must have been laughing.

“There were quite a few devices on your person,” Oldham said, changing the subject. “Would you care to talk about them?”

Nicolas nodded. “One of them is a recorded message for the President, proposing an alliance,” he said. “Another is a small collection of tactical data, also for the President or for the analysts. The others ...”

He took a deep breath. “The others are designed to free someone from their clutches,” he explained. “We can free the Walking Dead.”

Oldham stared at him. “And are you sure that it would work?”

Nicolas smiled. “I think we can test it,” he pointed out, dryly. “And if it works, we can decide what to do next.”

There was an almost hungry expression in Oldham’s eyes. “Tell me how it works,” he ordered. “Now.”

Nicolas explained as best as he could. “The implants themselves are designed to interface comprehensively with the human brain,” he said. “Attempting to remove them through human medical techniques will destroy the host’s brain; attempting to shut them down will inflict crippling damage too. However, they can be taken to pieces from the inside. Each of the vials contains enough nanomachines to liberate one person from the Walking Dead implants.”

Oldham’s eyes narrowed. “And what happens after that?”

“They weren't certain,” Nicolas admitted. “They were confident that the implants would be disabled without killing the host, but they weren't sure about what would happen afterwards, once the person was free. There might be permanent damage, sir, or they might be able to walk and act normally. The whole process is apparently more risky than they were prepared to admit.”

He hesitated. “The VP, sir, was a failure,” he added. “The implant process didn't work quite right. Right now, he’s effectively a drooling idiot. They have to puppet his body directly when they parade him in front of the cameras.”

Oldham scowled. “That doesn't explain why he was the only failure,” he said.

“He wasn't,” Nicolas said, flatly. “The process apparently fails at least once in every ten attempts, no matter how they refine their implants. He’s ... just the unlucky bastard who can't simply be reduced to his component atoms and disposed of.”

“Which explains their reluctance to implant everyone,” Oldham mused. He looked over at Nicolas for a long searching moment. “You do realise that this will have to be tested?”

“Yes, sir,” Nicolas said.

“And if it fails, we may have to consider the fact that you are lying?”

Nicolas nodded impatiently.

“I shall discuss it with higher authority,” Oldham said. He tapped the table, loudly enough to be heard outside the room. A moment later, both of the guards walked into the compartment. “Until then, I’m afraid that you will have to remain a prisoner.”

Nicolas rolled his eyes, inwardly, but understood that Oldham had no choice.

“Take me back to prison, guys,” he said, to the two guards.

***

Abigail’s interrogation was much the same as Nicolas had described his own, although there were three people – all masked – facing her. It bothered Abigail that they didn't seem to trust her, even though she would probably have done the same thing in their shoes. She was a reporter, a person who would always be in search of the next hot scoop – never mind how many lives might be put at risk by what she published. It was impossible to think of a way to explain that she knew better, or that she’d risked her own life challenging the aliens. All she could do was answer the questions and hope that what she told them was actually useful.

“Your ideas for spreading the word were inventive,” one of her interviewers said, afterwards. “They appear to have spread.”

“Good,” Abigail said. They might no longer have been able to trust the internet, or any accredited reporter now that the aliens were pulling their strings, but there would be ways of getting the word out. “That’s what I meant it to do.”

“However, you will have to remain here for a while,” the interviewer added. “We cannot risk word getting out, not now.”

“I understand,” Abigail said. “I won’t breathe a word to anyone.”

She allowed them to show her back to their room, then sat down on the bed. “I think they want to believe us,” she said, “but I can't blame them for being suspicious.”

“War is Darwinian,” Nicolas said. He didn't seem too bothered by the fact they were effectively prisoners, somehow. “The smarter ones survive by not taking chances.”

Chapter Four

Alien Base, Near Casper, Wyoming, USA

Day 193

“What have you done to me?”

The alien doctors – or so she thought of them, for the alternatives were even more frightening – ignored her. They rarely answered her questions; indeed, she had a feeling that only a couple of them could even talk. Instead, they examined her body, injected her with a tailored regime of drugs and otherwise left her to wander her room while her child grew inside her. No, not her child. Their child.

Dolly had lost track of how long it had been since she’d been taken prisoner, then transferred to the alien base and impregnated. It seemed like something out of a bad movie and there were times when she thought that it was all a nightmare, from which she could wake up if she only tried hard enough. But maybe that wasn't surprising. The aliens drugged her regularly, leaving her utterly dependent on them. It might easily have been six months since she had been impregnated, or more. There was no way to know.

She put a hand on her belly, feeling the child growing inside her. It seemed to be developing awfully fast, although she was no doctor or midwife. The few sex education classes she had taken hadn't been very detailed on just what happened as a child grew in the womb, but she did recall that the average child took around nine months from conception to birth. Had she been a prisoner for nine months or was the alien baby growing faster than a human child?

One of the aliens pushed at her gently and she lay down on the examination table. The first few times, she had tried to resist or even to bargain, but they’d simply done ... something ... to her and she’d lost the will to try to fight. They didn't seem inclined to cause her pain deliberately, unlike the human collaborators who had captured her, yet they didn’t allow her objections to stop them from doing what they needed to do. Grey leathery hands touched her flesh lightly, as if the aliens were marvelling over the feel of human flesh, then they started waving sensors over her body, concentrating on her belly. No doubt they wanted to see how the child was developing.

Dolly looked over at one of the taller aliens, trying to get its attention. The alien seemed disinclined to pay any attention to the human on the table; they didn't seem to recognise her as anything, but a surrogate mother for their child. Dolly had puzzled over that, when she’d been able to think relatively clearly; what sort of evolutionary process would produce a race that needed another race to carry its children? She’d heard of birds that laid eggs in nests that belonged to other birds, but how could that work when the two races came from very different ecosystems? Surely there weren't humans on the alien homeworld.

They could have been coming here for years, she thought, numbly. They could have had centuries to plan their invasion.

She remembered, dimly, all the hope and optimism that had swept the globe when the alien mothership had been detected for the first time. Humanity had hoped that the aliens would have all the answers and that they would share them with humanity, a hope that now seemed naive and pointless. Dolly could see, now, that the aliens had lied to them long enough to convince humanity to lower its guard, then they’d attacked with stunning force. For all she knew, they could control the entire world by now, directly or indirectly.

One of the aliens stepped in front of her, holding a medical tool that looked alarmingly like a dagger. Dolly tensed, wondering if they literally intended to cut the alien baby out of her womb; the alien touched her forehead and her panic faded away into nothingness. A numbness fell over her body, broken only by a faintly unpleasant sensation from between her breasts. Moments later, that too was gone and she fell into blackness.

When she opened her eyes, she found herself in what she thought of as the alien recovery room. It was a plain and unadorned as the rest of the alien complex – there were no paintings, or artworks, or anything else that humans recognised as decoration – but it seemed to have been designed specifically for humans. The table and chairs were just right, unlike most of the alien furniture.

Sitting upright, unsure of just how long she had been out of it, she patted her body looking for the scars. The child was still inside her, she realised, but there was a faint pain between her breasts that was slowly fading away. Dolly peered down, trying to see what they’d done, yet her skin was unblemished, utterly unmarked. If it wasn't for the pain, she would have wondered if she’d imagined it all.

She looked up – and almost jumped out of her skin. One of the aliens was standing there, facing her ... how the hell had she missed his presence? He didn't seem to have slipped through a hidden door, although it was hard to find the doors in the alien complex. One of the more normal prisoners, the ones who hadn't given up hope yet, had even suggested that the aliens saw colours differently from humanity. It was quite possible that the doors were clearly marked as such, but the human eye couldn't see the markings. Or, for that matter, that the walls were covered in invisible artworks.

“Our child is growing as predicted,” the alien said. As always, there was no hint of emotion in its voice. “You have no reason to fear.”

Dolly tried to glare at the alien. It could never have been mistaken for human, no matter where it went. The creature was inhumanly tall and thin, with an oversized head, dark eyes and long fingers that seemed designed for precision work. It wore a simple white tunic, but there were no bumps or protrusions that might have indicated sex ... at least in humanity. For all she knew, the aliens might pollinate like flowers, rather than the messy lovemaking of humanity.

“Thank you,” she snarled. “What have you done to me?”

The alien seemed utterly unaffected by her tone. “You are bearing the future in your womb,” he informed her. “Your child will be the first of a new era.”

Dolly gritted her teeth. Every woman had the nightmare of being raped, of being forced into sex against her will ... and of carrying her attacker’s child to term. The thought of being raped by aliens was absurd, surely, and yet it had happened. They’d impregnated her, turning her into a brood mare ... she would almost sooner have dealt with a human rapist. The cool clinical approach of the aliens didn't disguise the fact that they’d treated her like a piece of meat. They didn't even have sexual lusts to drive them forwards.

“I don’t want the child,” she said, although her feelings were mixed. How could she refuse to accept a child from her body? But was it really a child of hers? A rapist’s child would still be partly hers, yet the aliens ... was she anything more than a host mother? She wished that she had spent more time paying attention in biology class. “How could you do this to me?”

The alien seemed surprised, although that could have just been her imagination. “You do want the child,” it insisted. “You must want the child.”

Dolly scowled. “Go away,” she snarled, “and leave me alone.”

They normally ignored her when she shouted insults or demands at them. This time, the alien turned and walked out of the chamber. Dolly watched him stepping through a door that hadn't been there a moment ago and sagged, feeling hot tears prickling at her eyes. The alien might have left, but she had no illusions about her fate. She was still their captive and she was still carrying their child. And God alone knew what they would do to her after she’d given birth. For all she knew, they might just put another child in her – and continue the process time after time.

She touched a belly and thought, again, about killing herself. But the thought refused to focus. They’d done something to her mind, she realised dully; there had been plenty of times in the past she’d considered suicide as a possible escape hatch from pain and suffering. Now, the very thought was repulsive ... even though she was far worse off than she’d been as a child. How could she have seen the problems of her teenage years as the end of her world?

Because I was young and stupid, she thought, answering her own question. And because I didn't know just how bad it could get.

***

“You think that they know we’re here?”

“I hope not,” Edward muttered, in response. “But if they did, they’d come after us.”

They’d spent most of the last two days hiding cameras near the alien city, although they hadn't been able to actually set them to transmit their signals to a nearby receiving station. It was terrifying to realise just how much they’d lost, now they were fighting with a far more advanced opponent. There were no longer drones to orbit target complexes so high in the sky that they couldn't be seen, let alone combat radios and other ways to coordinate a large force as it advanced against the enemy. Using radios would have brought the aliens down on them like the hammer of God.

He shook his head. No, they would just have to carry out the surveillance operation the old-fashioned way. Every few days, they would go to the cameras, recover the memory cards and take them back to the tent, where they could attach the recordings to emails and send them out over the hidden cable network. Edward would have preferred to attach the cameras to the cables directly, but it was an unacceptable risk when the discovery of one camera could lead directly to the others – and the cable network. Given enough time, the aliens could disable it – or use it to track down the other resistance cells.

A faint hum echoed through the sky as another alien transport passed overhead, dropping down towards the city. As always, the sight evoked wonder and terror in him; the aliens just seemed to ignore the laws of physics as humans understood them. No aircraft he’d ever seen could just stop dead and hang in the sky, not even a helicopter. It gave the aliens a tremendous advantage when it came to dogfighting with human aircraft, an advantage they’d utilized ruthlessly. The once-mighty USAF had been battered out of the sky in barely two weeks of fighting.

“That's the camera in place,” Georgina assured him. “They should get plenty of pictures of the alien city.”

“Excellent,” Edward said. “Time to move on to the next vantage point.”

He’d wondered, while lying awake at night, just what was the point of gathering so much intelligence. The only plan he’d been able to think of for attacking the alien city involved smuggling a tactical nuke into the area, then detonating it – the aliens would have no idea who to blame for the attack, or how to hit back. But the resistance had learned the hard way that the alien sensors were much better than humanity’s systems. It was quite possible that they would detect a nuke in transit and either capture it or destroy it from a safe distance.

The only alternative was to put together an infantry force to attack on the ground, but that would be an operation fraught with risks. There were hundreds of alien warriors in view around the city at any one time, while there were no doubt others in the buildings or nearby, ready to come to the city’s aid. Unlike humanity, they could keep their rapid reaction force in orbit or on the other side of the globe and they’d still be able to get it into attack position within minutes.

And we know nothing about the interior of the city, he thought, sourly. We don’t even know how many aliens live there.

It was difficult, almost impossible, to tell the difference between two aliens, at least ones who shared the same caste. Their society didn't seem to admit of any individuality, as far as Edward could tell; the workers seemed interchangeable, while even the warriors and leaders faded into a shapeless mass. The only real signs of individuality he’d seen were war wounds; the aliens didn't seem to go in for a hair styles, uniforms or anything else that separated one person from another. Georgina had pointed out that the aliens might have their own ways of recognising one another – and that they might have the same problem telling humans apart – but Edward was sticking with his original theory. The aliens were, effectively, an ant colony.

He was sure that there was a clue to attacking them in that theory. Years ago, as a child, he had deliberately damaged an anthill, just to watch them swarming over and trying to repair the damage. Before his mother had dragged him home, he’d learned that the ants reacted quickly to the damage, no matter how impossible it was on their scale. They just kept trying to repair the damage anyway. It rather suggested a shortage of imagination.

There were human societies that had seemed to be short of imagination, although that was more a product of government and cultural conditioning than any intrinsic failure. He’d served in the Middle East and had decided that most of the people there wouldn't be so dangerous if they weren't allowed to buy weapons from more productive societies, or if their habits of sloppy maintenance weren’t allowed to go unchallenged. They just didn't have the mindset that would turn them into proper soldiers and their governments were unwilling to make the effort to shape that mindset. But the Middle East could parasite on the rest of the world. Who had the aliens used as the source of their innovations?

But they can innovate, he thought, remembering the damage the aliens had inflicted on careless resistance cells. They’re not stupid.

He shook his head tiredly. It just didn't make sense. If the aliens couldn’t innovate and couldn't progress beyond a certain point, how the hell had they developed space travel in the first place? But if the aliens could innovate, why was their society such an ... ant colony? Or was there a specific caste of innovators?

“The parents are out again,” Georgina said, breaking into his thoughts. “Some of them look even more pregnant.”

Edward winced as he panned the binoculars over a small group of young girls, all looking as if they were on the verge of giving birth. How long had they been prisoners? The aliens hadn't really had them long enough to get them that pregnant ... had they? But he’d seen the base in Antarctica, where the aliens had carried out their first experiments on abducted humans ... the girls might just have been taken their first, then removed before the base had been destroyed by American Special Forces. No, he realised as he caught sight of Dolly. She hadn't been pregnant when she’d fought alongside the resistance.

“They must have done something to ensure that the children grew quickly,” Georgina said, softly. “There were theories about ways to speed up the whole process of giving birth, but I don’t think that any of them were ever tested.”

“Because a premature baby could have mental or physical damage,” Edward said. He’d known a Marine who had had a premature child – and while she was a sweet girl, she would never be truly normal, able to find her own place in society. “Do you think that will happen to the alien children?”

Georgina gave him a sharp look. “Biologically, it’s impossible for one species to impregnate another,” she said, crossly. “There have been cases of gorillas raping human females, but none of those ever led to pregnancy. If the aliens have somehow found a way to crossbreed humans and themselves, the normal rulebook has been thrown out of the window. There’s no data to use as a starting point.”

She scowled. “But if they’re experimenting on finding ways to breed more humans, I wouldn't have thought they needed to bother,” she added. “It isn't as if there’s a shortage of human children.”

Edward shivered. In America alone, there were hundreds of thousands of orphaned children, their parents killed by the aliens or by more human threats. According to the internet, several resistance cells had found themselves battling child traffickers instead of the aliens, or making arrangements for orphaned children to be adopted by rural families. At least adoption was much easier now that the government bureaucracy was gone. The alien-backed government didn't seem inclined to care about who adopted what child.

And then there was the endless chaos in Africa, the Chinese Civil War, the meltdown in Europe ... no, the aliens hardly needed to breed more human children. They could simply round up as many as they needed, either taking them by force or simply buying them from their parents or traffickers. The crossbreed theory, as insane as it seemed, was the most likely.

“Time to move on,” he said, and led the way towards the next vantage point. There were two more cameras to plant, then they could get back to the tent. After that, they’d have to make regular visits to the cameras to switch out the memory cards. “There’s work to be done.”

He took one last look at the alien city, shuddering. He’d seen horrors in Antarctica – and that had been when the aliens were worried about detection. Now ... now, they could do whatever the hell they liked to captive humans. After all, who was going to stop them?

Chapter Five

Virginia, USA

Day 193

Nicolas heard the faint knock on the door and sat upright, brushing sleep away as the door opened to reveal the same masked guards. He glanced over at Abigail, sleeping deeply on her bed, then swung his legs over the side of his bed and stood upright, silently grateful that their hosts had finally provided some clothes. Being with a naked girl had been very distracting.

“Come with us,” the first guard said. They said very little, even though Nicolas was sure that they had quite a few things in common. “Now.”

Nicolas said nothing until they were outside the room, with the door firmly closed.

“I’m here,” he said, finally. “Are there more questions for me?”

The guards ignored him, merely motioning for him to follow them down the corridor. Nicolas sighed, but obeyed; they’d been interrogated every day, often going over the same material time and time again. Clearly, the resistance cells wanted to believe what he’d told them, but at the same time they were fearful that it was a trap. Nicolas hadn't really understood how frustrating the whole process of interrogating defectors had been for the defectors until he’d effectively been in their shoes.

Colonel Oldham met him in a small room. For a moment, Nicolas wondered if they’d brought him to the wrong room; interrogation rooms were normally split between the section holding the interrogator and his subject and the section holding the observers. He’d always been in the interrogation section before, but now he was in the observation section. It seemed a little odd.

“Good morning,” Colonel Oldham greeted him. He sounded ridiculously cheerful. “And how are you this morning?”

“Excellent,” Nicolas said, trying to project an equal amount of cheer. It wasn't as if he wasn't used to being ordered out of bed at all hours of the day. Anyone who needed a solid nine hours of sleep each night didn't try out for the SEALs. “Breakfast was delightfully non-fattening, sir.”

Oldham laughed, then nodded towards the transparent window. “You are familiar with these rooms, are you not?”

“Only from the other side,” Nicolas said. Field interrogations were rare – and were never as quick and simple as the media portrayed them. “I assume that the people here can ask questions?”

“The interrogator has an earpiece that allows us to suggest questions,” Oldham confirmed. He nodded towards the window. “There should be no clue that the interviewee is being watched, naturally. To the naked eye, the wall looks to be nothing more than solid concrete.”

“Yes, sir,” Nicolas said, wondering if the man was ever going to get to the point. “Why don’t we use cameras instead?”

“Studies have proven that observers do better if they’re right next door to the interview,” Oldham said. He gave Nicolas a smirk that suggested that he wasn't entirely convinced that the studies were accurate. “That ... and the fact we were too cheap to install the cameras when they became available. This base dates all the way back to the Cold War.”

Nicolas nodded. “Is it completely off the books?”

“It should be,” Oldham said. “But you know what Washington is – was – like.”

Nicolas nodded, grimly. Like all SEALS, he had developed a healthy respect for Sensitive Site Exploitation teams, the military forensic detectives who examined every captured terrorist base and found clues that often led to the discovery of other terrorist bases. It astonished him just how much sensitive data terrorists wrote down, but he supposed they didn't have much choice. Keeping track of their numbers without taking notes would have been difficult ... and terrorists were not exactly renowned for their intelligence. The SSE teams had often been able to use the terrorist lack of thought against them.

And the terrorists had been trying to hide. No one in Washington, certainly not since the end of the Cold War, had seriously imagined that the country might be overrun and the city occupied by enemy forces. It should have been impossible for someone to slip an army over the seas to America, let alone battle their way to Washington. But the aliens had done it ... and inherited whatever paperwork hadn't been destroyed by the time they took the city. Even if the bunker was officially off the books, there might be some evidence left for the aliens to find. And, if they’d converted the bureaucrats into Walking Dead, the paper-pushers wouldn't have the option of simply keeping their mouths shut.

“Not good, sir,” he said, finally.

He scowled. How long had it been – it felt like years – since they’d come up with plans for post-war insurgencies? Given a few months to prepare, he was confident that they could have given the aliens one hell of a bloody nose. But no one had seriously believed that they might need stay-behind teams either. America was an invincible citadel, protected by the iron laws of geopolitics. The foe who had overrun the country existed outside human geopolitics, let alone geography.

Oldham tapped a switch. “Bring in the prisoner,” he ordered. “At once, if you please.”

Nicolas leaned forward, peering through the barrier, as a door opened in the far end of the room and a trolley was wheeled inside. The person on the trolley was so heavily shackled that he couldn't move a muscle, which didn't stop him from glaring around him as he was parked in the centre of the room. Nicolas shivered inwardly as he caught sight of just how solidly the man was held down. It seemed like massive overkill. Surely handcuffs and leg shackles would have been enough ...

He scowled as he realised just what he was seeing. “One of the Walking Dead?”

“I’m afraid so,” Oldham said. “We dare not risk giving him the slightest chance to break free.”

Nicolas nodded in understanding. The Walking Dead might not be anything like as strong as the alien warriors, but when forced to fight they seemed to be desensitised to pain and unwilling to flee to safety. Or, for that matter, to be cowed by threats. Capturing one was not easy, nor was keeping one prisoner. Nicolas had heard that, after the first experiments to attempt to free the Walking Dead had failed, orders had been passed down from the higher ups to simply shoot all Walking Dead on sight. It would be a mercy.

“We had to keep him strapped down for his own safety, as well as ours,” Oldham said, grimly. “He’s effectively a colossal suicide risk.”

“Yes, sir,” Nicolas said. The Walking Dead killed themselves when they saw no other choice, just like captured aliens. Did that mean that the Rogue Leaders knew that their controlling systems were imperfect? “We don’t want him biting out his own tongue?”

He watched as a pair of doctors fussed around the bound man. “Who was he?”

“He used to be a military bureaucrat,” Oldham explained, drolly. “He was stationed at the Pentagon when Washington fell; we’re not quite sure why he wasn't pulled out of the city along with many of his comrades. We’re assuming that he was one of the volunteers to stay behind and keep the building active as long as possible, but we don’t know for sure. It’s quite possible that he was picked up later, identified and then implanted. Or that he answered General Howery’s call for military officials to return to their posts and got implanted then.”

Nicolas scowled. The Walking Dead might have been completely loyal to the aliens, but that didn't make them stupid. If General Howery had commanded troops up to the standards of the pre-invasion military, the resistance would have been obliterated by now. As it was, the last reports he’d heard had insisted that the Order Police were receiving much more detailed training from the aliens and their unwilling slaves. It wouldn't be long before they were far more capable of hunting down the resistance.

A question struck him. “What’s his name?”

Oldham gave him an odd look. “Does it matter?”

“Yes,” Nicolas said, flatly.

“Peter Sanderson,” Oldham said, after a long moment. “Why did you want to know?”

Nicolas hesitated. Peter Sanderson was about to prove that the implants could be disabled, but there was a strong possibility that he was about to die in the process. If so ... he hadn't wanted to remain ignorant of the man’s name, even if he hadn't volunteered to be tested. There was no way of knowing what kind of man he had been before the invasion, before the aliens had stuck implants in his head, but right now he was risking his life for his country. Nicolas liked to think that he would have volunteered if he’d had a free choice.

“I thought I should know,” he admitted, finally.

Oldham nodded. Perhaps he'd had the same thought.

There was a buzz from the intercom. “Sir? We’re ready to inject the nanomachines.”

“We examined them as best as we could, but our facilities are limited here,” Oldham explained. “In the end, it was decided that we should test them on a live subject.”

Nicolas nodded. At least that explained the delay – and it was a wise precaution.

Oldham tapped his radio. “You may proceed when ready,” he said. “We’re watching.”

The alien rebels had explained that the nanomachines were actually small enough to slip between the molecules of a person’s skin and enter their bodies without causing any damage. Nicolas had read enough science-fiction to be thoroughly terrified of all the possibilities, although the aliens had reassured him that outright self-reproducing nanites were still beyond either human or alien capabilities. The vision of the entire planet dissolving into a mass of nanomachines was still terrifying. Who knew what would happen when human researchers started messing around with alien technology?

They’d also explained that the nanomachines were dormant in the vials, but when they were activated – by being shot into a person’s body – they had a very short lifespan. Nicolas suspected that was a safety precaution, although he found it a little disappointing. If they managed to produce nanites that lasted indefinitely, perhaps by drawing their power from the body’s warmth, they might be halfway towards super-soldiers. What would happen if wounds healed as quickly as they were made?

“Here we go,” he muttered. “The dawn of a new era.”

Oldham gave him an odd look, but said nothing.

The doctors pressed the alien device against the man’s forehead and pushed the button on the end, injecting the nanomachines into Sanderson’s skull. Nicolas’s instructions had been explicit; the nanomachines had to be injected directly into the skull, although the aliens hadn't bothered to provide a full explanation. It was possible, he supposed, that the nanite lifespan was measured in seconds, rather than minutes, and they needed to be close to their targets. If nanotechnology even halfway lived up to the promise of science-fiction, patients might be cured in bare seconds.

Oldham watched grimly as Peter Sanderson’s body twitched as far as it could against the restraints, then fell silent. “He’s dead ...”

“Wait,” Nicolas said. There was a long moment when he feared that he was wrong, that the process had failed to work properly ... and then the body twitched again. “I think he’s alive.”

“He seems to have survived,” the doctor said, through the intercom. “We’re just running checks now, sir.”

It was an hour before the doctors had something to report, which they did in a conference room. Nicolas sipped a cup of coffee – coffee was increasingly expensive and rare, even for collaborators – and listened as the doctors made their report.

“We have studied several of the Walking Dead since they first made their appearance and one thing is clear; the implants warp their thoughts to some degree,” the lead doctor said. He hadn't bothered to introduce himself. “We don’t understand exactly how it works; our own experiments with meddling with brains never produced anything as seemingly reliable as the alien technology. On the other hand, we were never able to steer and direct currents in the brain without doing serious damage to the test subject.”

You mean the victim, Nicolas thought, coldly. He’d heard rumours of experiments conducted by the CIA, carried out on unsuspecting victims, but he’d never seen any actual proof. Now ... if there were doctors who specialised in brain manipulation, they would have been pushed into service to try to break the alien conditioning.

“We experimented a great deal on people with mental problems or incurable sociopathic natures,” the doctor continued. “What we discovered was that it was possible to push people in specific directions, but those directions were always vague. For example, we could dull the sexual lusts of sex criminals by manipulating their pleasure centres, yet we could never differentiate between normal lusts and perverse lusts. Actually reading their minds was pretty much impossible.”

Or they thought that it was normal to have paedophilic desires, Nicolas though, coldly. After all, everyone is normal in their own mind.

“That’s unfortunately true,” the doctor agreed, when he said it out loud. “A good example would be homosexuals, who do not – at base – see anything wrong with what they are doing, even though society disagrees. They still have the sexual lusts; it’s just directed at their own sex.”

Nicolas scowled. Just what had the doctor been doing before he’d been pulled into the resistance?

“As fascinating as this is,” Oldham said darkly, “could you kindly get to the point?”

“We have successfully disabled the implants in Sanderson’s brain,” the doctor said. “At the moment, however, his brainwaves are in flux; we cannot decide if he is returning to normal or if he is on the verge of a complete mental collapse. What we are seeing is largely unprecedented. It would help if we knew more about how the alien technology actually worked. None of our agents have been able to tell us what happens when someone is transformed into one of the Walking Dead.”

Nicolas looked over at the doctor. “What is your best guess?”

“My best guess is that the aliens stamped some commands into Sanderson’s head and then used the implants to keep him in line,” the doctor said. “Their grasp of how our brains work must be far superior to our own. Every time Sanderson had an unapproved thought, he would be zapped back into compliance. I suspect that this actually explains the apparent lack of real emotions from the Walking Dead. They’re conditioned to avoid emotions – and patriotism, for example, is an emotion.”

“If that was true,” Oldham said thoughtfully, “surely there would be people who could break the conditioning ...”

The doctor shook his head. “As children, we learn not to touch hot stoves because we do it once and get burned,” he said, simply. “The experience is burned into our minds. Now, the Walking Dead get their thoughts rerouted every time they think a disloyal thought – or, rather, a thought tinged with the emotions that lead to disloyalty. By the time they are sent out to do alien work, they’re incapable of breaking out. The mere act of trying to break out would be punished. I suspect that it doesn't actually take long to break their minds into servitude.

“In the long term, I think that the Walking Dead are going to eventually have mental breakdowns and collapse,” he continued. “There actually was a report of one dying for no apparent reason, down in Texas. It’s quite possible that they have started to reach the limits of their endurance.”

“Except they can keep producing more and more of the bastards,” Nicolas growled. “Everyone they catch can be turned into a slave, an unwilling collaborator. Hell, if they spread the word that the Walking Dead die quickly, the other collaborators will be even more willing to prove themselves useful.”

The doctor’s pager buzzed and he glanced down at it. “Sanderson is awake,” he said. “Do you want to see him?”

Nicolas nodded.

The doctor led them into a small private room, where Sanderson lay on a bed, his hands and feet manacled to the railings. Nicolas was shaken by just how unsteady the man looked, as if he would have collapsed if he’d been trying to stand upright. His face was covered in sweat and his eyes were moving around wildly, as if he expected to be attacked at any moment. Perhaps he did, Nicolas realised. He’d had something in his brain controlling his actions and monitoring his thoughts. Stronger men would have been broken by such treatment.

Oldham was oddly gentle. “I’m Colonel Oldham, your superior officer,” he said. “Can you tell us what happened to you?”

Sanderson’s eyes focused on Oldham, then he started to laugh, a high-pitched sound that became a giggle. “You’re my CO? My CO is in my brain.”

Nicolas looked over at the doctor, who scowled.

“The man probably needs years of treatment,” he said, grimly. “I suggest that you let us work on him. If we manage to get through to him, we might have a working treatment for dealing with others.”

“True,” Oldham said. “Let me know the moment you make a breakthrough, of any kind.”

He led Nicolas outside the room. “If we manage to save him,” he said, “I believe that we will have the basis for an agreement with your friends. But if not ...”

Nicolas understood. Any fool could kill one of the Walking Dead.

“It should work,” he said. “It may just take some time for the results to become apparent.”

“I hope you’re right,” Oldham said. he nodded to the guards. “These men will take you back to your room. Have fun with your reporter.”

“She wants some books,” Nicolas said. “I don’t suppose you have some good books in this bunker?”

Oldham laughed. “Books? I’ll see what I can do.”

Nicolas nodded, then allowed the guards to lead him away. He’d just have to pray that Sanderson made a full recovery. If he didn’t, the resistance would draw the only reasonable conclusion ...

... and the last hope of victory would be lost forever.

Chapter Six

Area 52, Nevada, USA

Day 197

Alex Midgard had the distant feeling that he was suffering from cabin fever.

Area 52 wasn't a large military base. It was small – and smaller still, in a way, because half of its interior was taken up by the underground hanger, the biohazard research laboratories and the base’s power plant. The base CO had decided, as the alien grip on the USA tightened, that there would be as little contact as possible with the outside world. Alex couldn't put a foot outside the research levels without having grim-faced guards ordering him to go back inside.

The security precautions were necessary, he knew. If the aliens ever realised that a large team of scientists was working, right under their noses, to unlock the secrets of their first crashed ship, they would have come after Area 52 with all the force they could muster. And if they realised that the sole alien to be held captive was in Area 53, only a few kilometres away ... Alex was privately surprised that the aliens hadn't stumbled across the base already. But then, it looked like nothing more than a disused airport from high overhead, not even close to a large population centre.

He gritted his teeth as he stared down at the report, feeling his eyes starting to blur. Area 52 had become the principle clearing house for intelligence-gathering in the USA, and for much of the world. Most of America’s intelligence assets overseas had been lost when Washington fell, but enough remained to give the underground a picture of what was going on. It didn't make pleasant reading. The aliens were still in control of the Middle East, what remained of Israel was either fleeing or submitting to alien rule ... and the rest of the world seemed to be going into the toilet. China was in the midst of a civil war, brought on by a colossal economic crash, Europe teetered on the brink of civil war, and Russia ... Russia was a mystery, wrapped inside an enigma. The last reports had spoken of martial law and tanks on the streets. After that ... nothing.

It’s as if the aliens don’t exist, he thought, bitterly. All the resources that could be put to work fighting the bastards are thrown at our fellow humans instead.

The news wasn’t good anywhere. Australia was facing a threat from the north as the civil war in Indonesia threatened to embroil Australia in war. Japan was in dire economic trouble and slowly starving, thanks to the colossal disruption in world shipping. Britain was hanging on, barely, while France was clearly having its own problems. Canada was desperately neutral, fearful of attracting alien attention, while Mexico had collapsed into civil war, a war that had spread across the border into the Southern US.

And, above it all, the aliens were quietly moving ahead with the settlement of Earth.

The reports were clear. There were no less than fifty alien cities on American territory, the population uprooted and forced into refugee camps to make room for the aliens. They didn't seem to want a single human near their cities, which made a certain kind of sense; humans had a habit of launching suicide attacks on alien installations. Not even the collaborators were allowed anywhere near the cities. It was worse in the Middle East and North Africa, where the aliens had over a hundred cities. Given time, Alex was sure that they would expand into Russia and China too.

After the population has thoughtfully wasted much of its military power on one another, he thought, sourly. India and Pakistan had already had a nuclear exchange, one that had shattered Pakistan and crippled India ... and killed millions on both sides. The aliens had probably quietly encouraged the war, hoping to remove two nuclear-armed human powers without having to intervene openly. If that was their plan, Alex had to admit, it had worked perfectly. Neither Pakistan nor India were in any state to fight the aliens.

Angrily, he stood up and strode over to the drinks cabinet. Area 52’s small supply of good alcohol had been drunk months ago, but a mechanic in the garage had managed to rig up a small still and produce something that was almost, yet not completely undrinkable. He had warned that it was likely to damage the drinker’s teeth, but no one seemed to care. Alex poured himself a hefty slug and drank, scowling at the taste. No one drank it so they could come up with flowery lines to describe the sensation.

He thought briefly of Robert Nguyen, the computer expert who had started to unlock the secrets of the alien computer system. He’d vanished somewhere in Washington and no one knew what had happened to him. The only real proof that the aliens hadn't taken him alive was the fact they hadn’t modified their systems to prevent further intrusion. But it was yet another frustration in a war that had too many frustrations. Everything they did, at best, seemed to stave off defeat.

There was a knock on the door. “Go away,” Alex snapped. “I don’t want to talk.”

The door opened. “I think you should,” Doctor Jane Hatchery said. She was tall and beautiful and absolutely the last person Alex wanted to see right now. “There have been developments.”

She sniffed the air. “And I really think that you shouldn't be drinking that,” she added. “Brake fluid isn't a very healthy source of alcohol.”

Alex scowled at her. “Yes, mother,” he said, sardonically.

Jane ignored his tone. “You need to see this,” she said, passing him a set of papers. “It is important.”

Alex sighed, irked. Jane didn't seem to mind their enforced confinement; she had several alien bodies to dissect and study, along with reports from other medical researchers to read. She could do something useful on the base ... once, Alex had believed that they’d make a discovery that would save the human race. Now, he had a feeling that even if they managed to mass produce the energy weapons and other tricks they’d mastered from studying the alien technology, it would simply be too late to do any good. Humanity was being weakened day by day ... and when the aliens weren't cutting away at humanity, it was other humans.

He took the report and glared down at it. A moment later, he looked up. “This is serious?”

“Apparently so,” Jane said. “They tested the cure on five Walking Dead. All, but one made a rapid recovery when treated properly.”

Alex skimmed through the rest of the paper, scowled at the medical terminology and then looked back at the summery. It insisted that four of five Walking Dead had been ready to talk three or four hours after injection, while the fifth had started bleeding internally and dropped dead shortly after he’d been treated. Alex had seen the reports; they’d tried everything they could and had never managed to break the alien confinement. Now ... someone had succeeded. But who?

“Get a shower and a shave,” Jane said, when he asked. “We’re currently arranging a conference call with Torchwood. You’ll want to attend.”

Alex snorted. During the closing days of the war, several alien ships and bodies – shot down by the USAF or ground defences – had been shipped to Britain, where British and European scientists had started to work on them. Now that America was occupied, the main focus of research had to be in Britain ... and everyone in the know prayed daily that the aliens left the British alone. If the aliens had cut through the USAF and occupied America, they wouldn’t have much trouble wrecking Britain.

“Understood,” he said, tiredly. “I’ll go now.”

The fresh water and shave invigorated him. He washed himself thoroughly and stepped back into his room, finding a clean pair of shorts and a shirt. Jane had made herself scarce, unsurprisingly. Alex wondered, briefly, if he would have ever had a chance with her, then dismissed the thought. Their current living conditions weren't designed for romance.

Besides, he told himself, there are more important things to worry about.

The Tiger Team had gathered in the base’s main conference room, a simple concrete bunker with a metal table and uncomfortable chairs. Alex had a mild suspicion that the designers had intended to convince people to end their meetings quickly, just by providing uncomfortable chairs. They’d reckoned without the bureaucrats, who seemed to have asses of steel and bottomless bladders. The thought made Alex smile as he sat down beside Jane and grinned at her. Surprisingly, she smiled back.

“Secure link, online,” a female voice said. The cable connecting America and Britain was completely secure, as far as they knew. Even so, the conversation would be heavily encrypted. “Direct connection to location one; online. Direct connection to location two; online. Direct connection to location three; online. Line integrity; confirmed.”

Alex scowled. The only way – the only human way – to intercept messages passed over a cable was to link into the cable directly, something that could be detected with the right equipment. But the aliens were so advanced that they might have a trick that allowed them to do it ... he shook his head. If they had known, they would have ensured that Area 52, Area 53 and RAF Machrihanish were wiped off the map.

“Good morning,” Tony Jones said. “There have been developments of a most interesting nature. Doctor Hatchery?”

Jane cleared her throat. “Several days ago, a possible cure for the Walking Dead fell into our hands,” she said. She didn't go into details. “Accordingly, the cure was tested on five captured Walking Dead. In four cases, the Walking Dead returned to normal – although they were clearly traumatised by their experience. The fifth died – according to the autopsy, there was considerable damage to the brain and, eventually, internal bleeding.”

Steve Taylor sucked in his breath sharply. “They’re normal? No longer alien slaves?”

“We believe so,” Jane said. “Two of them were insisting on returning to the fight as soon as possible, while the other two need a long period of relaxation ... but they seem to be normal.”

She scowled. “One problem is that they don’t seem to know much about what happened to them,” she added. “It became a nightmare in their minds. The knowledge that it was real probably help tip them over the edge.”

“So we can't get useful intelligence from them,” Taylor mused. “Or might they recover their memories, perhaps through hypnosis?”

“They’re working on that,” Jane said. “However, the whole brainwashing process was traumatising. They have fairly comprehensive memories of much of their time as Walking Dead, but they’re somewhat dreamlike. The ones who remembered the most were the ones who had been under their control for longer. We don’t know why, yet.”

“This does offer us an interesting opportunity,” Taylor said. “How long does it take to cure someone, completely?”

“At least five hours, assuming that nothing goes wrong,” Jane said. “However, it may take a considerable amount of time for them to overcome the trauma. The reports state, for example, that three of them have regular panic attacks; the fourth sometimes just zones out, then snaps back to normal with no memory of the attack. I’ve looked for reputable psychologists to consult, but this level of trauma is largely unprecedented. There may also be long-term health issues that have yet to surface.”

Taylor smiled. “Could one of the healed Walking Dead pose as a Walking Dead?”

Jane stared at him. “Are you suggesting that one of them could go back into the alien lair and pretend to be on their side?”

“It isn't as if we are short of infiltrators who joined the Order Police,” Taylor pointed out, coldly. “This is a little more complicated ...”

“It may be damn near impossible,” Jane snapped, icily. “Weren't you listening to me? Of the five we tested, one died, three have panic attacks and the last one has moments when their thoughts just zoom away from them! You cannot expect them to pass as Walking Dead indefinitely; I wouldn't expect any of them to fool their fellow Walking Dead for more than a few seconds. Just because the aliens don’t really understand our expressions – if we assume that, which I don’t believe to be true – doesn't mean that they can fool the Walking Dead!”

“Or the collaborators, for that matter,” Jones pointed out.

“It’s still worth considering,” Taylor insisted. “If we could refine the process ...”

He trailed off at Jane’s glare.

“You seem to think that it is worth risking their lives to spy on the aliens,” Jane snapped. “Do you think they could pass as normal Walking Dead for longer than a few seconds?”

Alex held up his hand. “The process clearly needs to be refined,” he said. “Where did the technology come from? Britain?”

“Not ... exactly,” Ben Santini said. The military advisor leaned forward. “I don’t think I need to tell you that this is considered utterly secret – and you are not to discuss it with anyone on the rest of the base, let alone outside the base. Do you understand me?”

Alex snorted – they weren't allowed out of the base – but nodded in agreement.

“Very good,” Santini said. He looked from face to face. “We seem to have allies among the alien ranks.”

There was a long moment of absolute silence.

Taylor broke it. “There are some friendly aliens?”

“Yes,” Santini said. He briefly ran through the entire story. “In short, they provided us with the cure, which they admitted hadn’t been tested properly, some tactical data and a means to send messages back to them. We have tested the cure ourselves and discovered that it works, at least to some extent. The question now, ladies and gentlemen, is simple. Do we trust them – or do we assume that we are dealing with an alien sting operation?”

Jane frowned. “They gave us the cure to the Walking Dead and yet you think they might be plotting to betray us?”

“It's a standard intelligence trick,” Taylor said. “You give the enemy a piece of intelligence he can verify, then add a piece of information he can't verify, having used the first piece to prove your credentials. In this case ... they’ve given us something that we want dearly, but it’s too limited to allow us to use it properly. And in return they want ... what?”

“An alliance,” Santini said. “I had the files they sent us copied, then transmitted to another location and printed out. Extreme precautions, perhaps, but you all know the dangers of discovery. However ... if this is genuine, it could be the turning point of the war.”

Alex lifted a hand. “What do they actually want?”

Santini blinked. “I told you,” he said. “They want an alliance.”

“From what they told us, they literally cannot go to another star system, or even to Mars,” Alex said. “If we work with them, what is going to happen to the alien population? Are they going to cut their throats after the war so that we don’t have to deal with them?”

“I see your point,” Santini said. “We have to think about what the world will look like afterwards, after the war.”

Alex nodded. “If we had willing allies, combined with the other tech we’ve been designing in Britain, we might be able to turn the tables on them,” he said. “We’d have far more of a chance at victory than we have now, to be precise. But I don’t think we can expect some of them to turn on their own people so completely. I think we’d need clarification of their terms beforehand.”

He shrugged. “At the very least,” he added, “it would make their story more believable.”

Santini put his hands together, fingertips touching. “And if they had terms,” he said, “what would we consider acceptable?”

Jane snorted. “I believe you only get to dictate terms once you win the war,” she pointed out, snidely. “We have yet to win, or even to make more than a dent in their forces.”

Alex nodded. “I’d suggest that we asked for alien tech and for the complete evacuation of the American mainland,” he said. “They can keep the Middle East – God knows that we got nothing, but trouble from there. Hell, offer to let them keep China if they want to land and restore order there too.”

Jones coughed over the communications link. “You don’t think we’ll want the oil?”

“It will be useless once we get the alien tech into production,” Alex said. “Demand will certainly be much reduced.”

He’d been giving alien tech some consideration, once some of the mysteries had been unravelled at Area 52 and Torchwood. Their batteries alone would make electric cars actually practical ... and, combined with their spacecraft drive fields, the world would change overnight. America’s demand for oil would fall sharply, until domestic production could meet every one of its demands. It would be bad for the oil monarchies of the Middle East, but the aliens had already crushed them. None of the Western-backed states had lasted more than a day when the aliens had attacked. Iran had put up a far more determined fight.

The thought made him scowl. Throughout history, populations had been displaced by invaders who were also colonisers. The Native Americans had eventually ended up a despised, effectively powerless minority. If the Europeans hadn't eventually decided that they posed no further threat, they might have been wiped out entirely.

“The President will have to make the final decision,” Jones said. “However, I want you all to start looking at possible options for making use of this new intelligence. In particular, we should see what we can verify by talking to our captive. Maybe he can tell us something that supports their claims.”

Alex grinned. “Did they ask about him?”

Santini shook his head. “Not according to the report,” he said. “I’ll forward you all copies, but they never mentioned a prisoner ... I don’t think they realise that we’ve got him.”

“An independent source,” Taylor said. His face twisted into a smile. “He might be worth his weight in gold.”

“That wouldn't actually be very much at today’s prices,” Jane pointed out.

Alex rolled his eyes in her direction.

“Children, please,” Santini said. “The adults are talking.”

“Let’s hope so,” Jones said. “I’ll communicate with the President. After that, he can make the final decision. Until then, you know what to do.”

On that note, the meeting ended.

Chapter Seven

Mannington, Virginia, USA

Day 198

“Every so often, you have to gamble,” Pepper said. She tapped her naked breasts to illustrate the point. After they’d started sleeping together, they’d both largely abandoned clothes in the bunker. “But is it worth the risk?”

President Andrew Chalk couldn’t help wondering if she was actually talking about the alien contact or their new relationship. People who were pushed close together, without any space to be themselves, either became very close or they wound up hating each other – or both. Normally, it was a mistake for the President to get close to anyone – Bill Clinton should certainly have proved that – but he had never anticipated being on the run. No one had seriously imagined the President of the United States being a wanted fugitive, with a single Secret Service agent for protection.

He was, perhaps, the most powerless President in history. Buchannan had been unable to avert the Civil War, Nixon had been impeached for bad conduct, but neither of them had been on the run. If the aliens had their way, President Chalk would go down in history as the last President of the United States, assuming they bothered to keep recording human history. He hadn't been able to help wondering just how they would slant it, when they wrote it down – if, of course, they bothered to do so. There had never been any sign that they troubled themselves with the same search for self-justification that was a hallmark of human politics.

The President knew that he had to remain underground, literally. If he went out to fight, he would be nothing more than another resistance fighter, while if the aliens caught him, it would be a propaganda coup of the first order. A quick visit to their brainwashing chambers and he’d be their greatest ally, helping them to unravel the resistance network and crush the remains of the American nation. Whatever had turned the VP into a drooling wreck might not save him from becoming an alien slave.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. The bunker was tiny, barely large enough to house the communications gear, a large amount of foodstuffs and a handful of people. Even with just two of them in permanent residence, it was starting to seem claustrophobic. He wanted out – and he knew that urge was pushing him forward. “If they’re telling the truth, this could be the turning point in the war. If not ...”

He picked up the tablet PC and ran through the data the alien rebels had provided. They’d been remarkably frank, which led him to wonder just how much they thought the human race had already discovered for itself. The alien caste system had been understood – at least in the vague outline – but other details had been a mystery. It seemed that the aliens had avoided both sexism and racism, yet had their own problems based on caste. And that had been true even before the Rogue Leaders had set out to make themselves the undisputed rulers of alien society.

The President had been a politician as well as a military officer and he understood the value of persuasion. Simply barking out orders might work in the military, where everyone had volunteered to join, but it was far more useful for a politician to have people helping of their own free will. Many of his volunteers had done far better work than the paid cronies so beloved of political candidates. But if the alien leadership caste was just better at convincing others to go along with them ... he couldn't help thinking that it would have warped their society anyway. And if the Rogue Leaders wanted to prevent the other castes from being able to disobey ...

He shuddered as he looked down at the long-term plan for Earth. The Rogue Leaders had been experimenting for years, searching for ways to create a human-alien hybrid – or a human who would be subordinate to the Rogue Leaders. It was chilling to realise just how many humans had been abducted permanently and taken to Antarctica, where they’d been used as test subjects and then killed, but it was worse to realise just what the aliens had in mind. Once they had proved that the new human race was viable, they would ensure that it replaced humanity. Details were fuzzy – it seemed that the Rogue Leaders were keeping their options open – but there was no doubting their intent. The twilight of humanity was at hand.

“There’s never been anything like this,” he said, softly. “Compared to this, Hitler was nothing more than a stupid asshole and Genghis Khan a piker. They’re talking about replacing the human race with an improved model and then exterminating the old breed.”

“Or just waiting for it to die out,” Pepper pointed out. She’d read the reports too. “Or maybe they think they can alter our DNA so that all future children will be their servants.”

The President shuddered. He understood politics, or tanks moving into battle, but this was different, an assault on a scale so vast that he found it hard to comprehend. How could anyone work on such a scale? Even the Holocaust, an act so shocking that it was hard to understand how anyone could calmly plan and carry out, wasn't so all-encompassing. But then, the aliens had already killed vast numbers of humans, directly or indirectly. Why shouldn't they seek to destroy whatever threat humans posed once and for all?

He frowned as he looked down at the latest data forwarded from Area 52. If the aliens were so intent on using Earth as their new homeworld, he was surprised that they chose to tolerate the presence of humanity at all. It would be child’s play for them to unleash an unstoppable plague on Earth, killing most of the human race, without ever showing their hand. God knew that they’d been probing Earth for years without ever being detected. If it hadn't been for one of their craft suffering a malfunction and crashing on American soil, the mothership might have managed to get much closer before being detected.

It wasn't as if humanity could claim the moral high ground. The President had seen the evils humans practiced on other humans; the religious, sexual and racial discrimination of the Taliban and the Middle East, the refugee camps in Africa and Palestine, the imprisonment of entire countries in North Korea or Iran ... hell, there was a case to be made that the aliens were more moral. They hadn't distributed smallpox-infested blankets to the locals in the hopes that the disease would do the hard work of exterminating them. How could humanity complain if the aliens warred in the same way humanity warred on itself?

But instead the aliens seemed to need humanity for some reason. It puzzled the President – and most of his analysts. There were a billion aliens, if they accepted their claim; they didn't really need humanity at all. And yet, instead of simply wiping out the human race, they seemed intent on turning them into slaves. Could it be that they simply wanted people to do the grunt work? Or did they have a darker motive?

The alien rebels wanted an alliance. Right now, the President would have made a deal with the devil if it kept the human race alive.

He looked over at Pepper, naked and lovely, and smiled. “I think it is worth the risk,” he said, seriously. “I also don’t think that we have much choice.”

The message he’d been sent from Area 52 had discussed their possible choices in some detail, although thankfully it was more concise than the bureaucratic reports the President had had to read in the White House. If the alien rebels were genuine rebels, humanity needed their help – and could make a deal with them. But if it was a trick of some kind ... humanity risked exposing the underground network to their enemies. The result could be disastrous.

Pepper listened as he summed it up, then smiled. “At the moment,” she said, “what are our odds of actually winning?”

“Point,” the President agreed.

The thought galled him, but he faced it squarely. America had been reluctant to take a single casualty in war, something that had caused its enemies to view the country as weak, unwilling to pay the price for using force. Body-bags coming home could always be relied upon to dampen the country’s enthusiasm for war. It was far easier to fight from a distance, to rely on air power and indigenous forces to do the job ... and if that meant that matters weren't settled in the long term, it wasn't ever noticed by the chattering classes.

But the aliens didn't seem to care about casualties – and they had the Order Police, spearheaded by the Walking Dead. Hell, they’d used Arab forces in the attack on Chicago that had crushed the entire city. No matter how many collaborators the humans killed, there would always be replacements, an infinite supply of manpower for the aliens to deploy as they saw fit. And then there were the alien warriors ... it didn't seem as if the human race could inflict enough damage to get the aliens out of the country, let alone kick them off the planet.

There was no shortage of guns and ammunition in America. He’d signed orders for production plants to be hidden around the country, just to ensure that the resistance didn't run out of bullets and bombs. But, if the aliens were prepared to keep fighting for years, eventually they would grind the insurgency out of existence. The ID cards, the mass registrations, the human labour departments ... piece by piece, they were rebuilding American society to suit themselves. If the underground fighters were fish in the sea of the people, what happened when the sea turned poisonous?

He had no doubt that the underground would keep fighting for years. But how effective would they be?

“Our chances of victory are low,” he admitted. There was the prospect of new weapons from Britain, but could they produce enough to make a difference? Most of America’s vast industrial base had been locked down by the aliens now, with the workers given orders to start producing items for the aliens. “But that’s why this offer is so tempting.”

“Then we need to make use of it,” Pepper said. “What happens if the alien leadership discovers that they have rebels in their midst?”

The President nodded, sourly. No government could take the presence of traitors lightly – and he had no doubt that the Rogue Leaders would regard the alien rebels as traitors. There was no way to know what sort of punishment would be meted out to them, but the President suspected that it would be something ghastly. They’d want to discourage others from following in the rebel footsteps.

“So we contact them, using the instructions they provided,” he said, wishing – once again – that he’d stayed a simple soldier. Cloak-and-dagger work wasn't his forte, even if he had been given a crash course when he’d become President. “And then we ask for something that proves their bona fides.”

“If they can give us something,” Pepper said, darkly. “I don’t think a signed paper is going to impress anyone.”

The President nodded, ruefully. No doubt the rebels wouldn't want to write anything down.

It struck him a moment later and he flicked through the files on the tablet, looking for the latest updates from Area 52 and Torchwood. The British, not having to hide their activities so extensively, were making considerable progress on unravelling the secrets behind the alien ships, but there were still hundreds of unanswered questions. One analyst had even wondered if the aliens had taken technology from another race and written a paper to that effect, something that had made the President laugh when he’d read it. Anyone dissecting the 3rd Infantry Division would have wondered the same thing.

He smiled, remembering the paper. Guns were simple, easy to understand, but the network of GPS satellites, battlespace monitoring systems and other advanced technology was far more complicated. A soldier from 1940 who saw the 3rd ID would find himself confronted with a mixture of understandable technology and technology that might as well be magic. The best scientists of that era wouldn't have been able to make the jumps to understanding its existence, let alone figuring out a way to duplicate it. They might not even have recognised a stealth bomber if one happened to crash right in front of them.

But if they’d had help ... who knew what they could have achieved?

“We’ll tell them that we want technical data,” he said, as he started to write out a response. “Something that tells us how to parse out the rest of their technology. And that we want to know what sort of post-war world they envisage.”

Pepper crossed her arms under her breasts. “You might also want to ask them to refine the process for liberating the Walking Dead,” she said. “If we could get something that worked very quickly, with a high success rate ...”

The President could see the possible advantages easily. It was clear that the aliens trusted the Walking Dead – and their trust was not misplaced. After all, the reports agreed that the Walking Dead simply couldn’t be disloyal. But if there was a way to break one free when he was right next to the aliens ... the President looked over at the organisational chart he’d composed, piece by piece, for the collaborator government. A liberated Walking Dead in the right place could do one hell of a lot of damage to the alien cause.

And they wouldn't be able to trust the others either, he thought, with grim amusement. They might find themselves forced to purge them completely.

“We’ll have to see if it is technically possible,” he said, flatly. The glimmerings of a plan were starting to form in his mind. “And we will need to get out of here.”

Pepper looked up, sharply. “Out of here?”

She had a point, the President knew. Mannington wasn't regarded as a high priority by the alien authorities, but they had placed a small garrison of collaborator troops not too far away, which they’d used to wreak havoc on a resistance cell. Sneaking out of Mannington would be tricky, even for the best-trained Special Forces ... and neither of them had been trained so extensively. If they were caught, the best they could hope for was a quick death. And for that to happen, they’d have to make damn sure that the President wasn't identified.

But they will identify me, the President thought, numbly. They hadn't realised just how capable the alien DNA readers were until they’d started rounding up the families of captured resistance fighters. There were reports that family members on the other side of the country, men and women who hadn't seen their relatives in years, had been arrested and taken away – and no one knew what had happened to them. If the aliens had recovered a sample of the President’s DNA, they’d know who he was as soon as they tested him. If ...

“We can't do this alone,” he said, flatly. “We’re going to have to work with the rest of the world, as well as the alien rebels. And they’re going to need an agreement with the President, not his representative.”

Pepper gave him a long considering look. “And how much of that is genuine conviction and how much of it is cabin fever?”

The President considered it, thoughtfully.

“You’re not just anyone,” Pepper reminded him, again. She’d given him the same lecture every third or fourth day of their captivity. “You’re the President, the legally-elected leader of the United States. Merely knowing that you’re still free gives us a boost ...”

“True,” the President agreed, “but this needs my presence.”

He shook his head when she continued the argument. In truth, his position was worthless in all but name. No President could rule the country in such a state and his ability to enforce his orders was very limited, almost non-existent. There were resistance cells that were turning to crime to support themselves, despite his orders. They’d prey on their fellow humans, who would eventually betray them to the aliens. Why not? The Sunni of Iraq had eventually betrayed their so-called co-religionists to the Americans.

“Besides,” he added, “what happens if they decide to search the town thoroughly?”

Pepper grimaced. There was one person in the town who knew just what was hidden underground and that person was now caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. If the Order Police pressed him, without knowing quite what he was hiding, the results were likely to be unpleasant. They could make the lives of everyone in the town very nasty, for a start – and they’d destroyed entire towns in the past, just to make an example. And, while the bunker was well-hidden, she had no illusions about what a careful search of the town might find, particularly if they were betrayed.

“You know who was caught here,” the President said. “There are already too many eyes on Mannington.”

“True,” Pepper agreed, reluctantly. “I’ll start planning the op. We’ll need a distraction, at the very least. And don’t do anything stupid.”

The President grinned at her. “Me? Stupid?”

He watched her walking over to the map of the town and surrounding countryside, feeling an odd twinge of guilt. He’d been a widower when he’d run for office and being President hadn't given him much time to court other women ... he honestly had no idea how Kennedy and Clinton had found time to have sex in the Oval Office. Actually, it was more likely that part of the story was exaggerated. There was just no time.

But he was old enough to be Pepper’s father, if he’d started young.

He pushed the thought away. Soon, they would be out of Mannington and things could start moving. And then they could try to throw the aliens out of the country.

Chapter Eight

Near Mannington, Virginia, USA

Day 199

“I have come home,” Nicolas muttered.

He’d become intimately familiar with Virginia in the years since Greg and Nancy had moved to Mannington. There had been plenty of rambles around the countryside with Nancy, where they’d talked and tried to build up a relationship that would survive the months Nicolas had spent on active deployment, well away from his family. Deployments put stress on marriages between adults; it would have been understandable if Nancy had practically forgotten her father in the months between visits. Compared to many, Nicolas had been lucky. Greg had never tried to bar him from visiting.

No, he just betrayed me to the aliens instead, he thought, sourly.

He looked down at the piece of alien technology in his hand. It was tiny, little larger than a matchbox, made out of a silvery material the technicians hadn't been able to identify. They’d poked, prodded and x-rayed the device, but it had stubbornly refused to give up its secrets, no matter what they did. Some of the researchers had wanted to crack it open, something Nicolas had hastily vetoed. There was no guarantee that they could put the device back together again.

From what the alien rebels had said, they could slip messages through their communications network with a high probability of escaping detection, but Nicolas had had the distinct feeling that they weren't as confident as they claimed. For one thing, he'd been told not to use the communicator regularly – and never to use it too close to a resistance camp. The alien communications technology might be undetectable by human tech, but they might well be able to track it for themselves. And if they realised that humans had one of their communicators ...

Actually, the rebels hadn't been so worried about that. The human resistance had captured dozens of examples of alien technology, including weapons and communications devices. It would be only natural for them to experiment with the captured gear to see how it worked, but even so using it was likely to draw attention if a single mistake was made. Nicolas took a breath, wondering if the next few seconds would be his last, and then pressed his thumb firmly against the device’s topside. A moment passed and then the device unfolded in front of him, projecting a holographic image of wavy lines into the air. Nicolas couldn't help wondering if he was looking at an alien screensaver.

He counted seven seconds before the wavy lines vanished, replaced by a human face. “Philip,” Nicolas said, in some relief. “I have news.”

He briefly outlined what had happened since they’d dropped to Earth, ending with the requests for information and an improved method of liberating the Walking Dead. There didn't seem to be any time delay between his words and Philip’s answers, although that meant nothing. Unless the command ship they’d visited had gone to the moon between their release and now, there shouldn't have been any time delay at all.

“I’ll have to ask them to improve the nanites,” Philip said, when Nicolas had finished. “Do you have a copy of the results?”

“Yes,” Nicolas said, dryly, “but how do we get them to you?”

He saw Philip scowl and fought back a smile. Alien technology didn't seem to be compatible with Windows 2016, let alone the government-issue user interface used in the bunker. No doubt the aliens had seen Independence Day and decided that they didn’t want someone uploading a virus into their computers and taking down their force shields, just in time for a drunken pilot to save the day. Of course, after computer viruses had been used to cripple the Iranian nuclear program, they might not have needed a bad movie to warn them of the risks.

“I’ll have to get back to you on that,” Philip said. “And on the other data as well.”

Nicolas rolled his eyes, but nodded. Philip wasn't in a position to make deals, or speak on behalf of the alien rebels. At least he wasn't one of the Walking Dead. Nicolas had chatted to him long enough to be sure of that, unless the paranoid naysayers were right and the aliens had cracked the secret of controlling someone without making it obvious. But if they had, the human race was thoroughly screwed anyway.

“Good,” he said. “Be seeing you.”

He switched off the alien device and watched, with a certain amount of amusement, as it folded back up into a matchbox. Once Disney got hold of the technology, he suspected, there would be a revolution in home entertainment. Instead of watching a movie on a flat screen, the watchers could literally step into the movie and watch it from any angle. Coming to think of it, if there was ever a safe way to download information into a human brain, it would be a second revolution. His experiences as a SEAL could be recorded and shared with everyone.

And porno merchants would be delighted, he thought, as he stuffed the alien device into the secure box. According to the sensors, it wasn't radiating anything, but that meant nothing, particularly when the sensors hadn't picked up anything when the device was active. Nicolas had no idea if that meant the sensors just weren't advanced enough, or if what the device did was simply well above human technology. If the latter, it would suggest worrying possibilities for future developments.

Shaking his head, he walked back towards where the rest of the raiding party was hiding.

***

Ken Warwick was nervous, understandably so. His education had been largely worthless, his part-time job had evaporated along with most of the economy and he was the sole breadwinner for his mother and kid sisters, their father having vanished back when Ken had been a kid himself. Desperate and starving, he had joined the Order Police. It had seemed a good idea at the time.

It hadn't taken long for him to realise that it had been a mistake. The vast majority of the population hated the Order Policemen more than they hated the aliens, or even the Walking Dead. Ken had seen the alien-controlled slaves issue orders for mass slaughter and the destruction of entire towns, as calmly as if they were ordering dinner, but still they weren’t hated with the same intensity as the Order Police. But then, the Walking Dead had never volunteered to be turned into alien slaves. The Order Policemen had joined willingly.

He gritted his teeth as the warm night breeze drifted over Mannington and brushed over the checkpoint. At least Mannington wasn't as bad as some of the other places he’d been posted, where the Order Police and the resistance had sought to outdo each other in committing atrocities. Ken had been lucky not to be assigned to one of the ‘pacification’ units; from what he’d heard, they were forced to loot, rape and burn everywhere until the rest of the population submitted to their control. Even where he was, it was hard to avoid the pressure to join in the atrocities. Most of the Order Policemen relished their role.

What do you expect? He asked himself, bitterly. They recruited everyone who wanted power over their fellow humans. The criminal, the mad, the sociopathic monsters ... they all found a home in the Order Police.

The thought made him sick. No one knew how many of the rumours were actually true, but he’d seen enough to give credence to them all. And yet, what could he do? If he escaped, the aliens would hunt him down as a deserter – and the resistance would kill him, for being part of the Order Police. There was nowhere to hide, not when everyone was required to carry an ID card at all times. They’d arrest him, check his fingerprints and then shoot him for desertion. There was no way out.

He glanced up in surprise as he heard a truck making its way down the road towards him. It was rare to see unescorted trucks these days, not after supplies of gas had been heavily restricted by the aliens. It helped keep the population under control, he’d been told, even though it also made it much harder for them to fend for themselves. In America, having a car could literally be the difference between life and death. But with the economy effectively gone, it hardly mattered. The aliens were feeding everyone anyway.

“Let’s hope that it’s a young and pretty driver,” his comrade said. “Someone we can have some fun with ...”

Ken shuddered. And to think that his comrade was fairly sensible, as Order Policemen went!

He scowled, hoping that the driver was an old and ugly man. They might rough him up a little, if there was a problem with his papers, but they wouldn’t do anything else to him. Everyone who complained about the TSA had never met the Order Police. Even the semi-decent ones wouldn't pass up the chance for a grope and perhaps a little more ...

“Let’s hope,” he agreed, neutrally.

The checkpoint was fairly basic, as checkpoints went. Everyone who had a reason to travel outside the towns and cities was expected to check in as they went in and out, allowing the aliens to monitor their movements carefully. Someone caught trying to sneak around the checkpoints would be automatically assumed to be up to something and could be engaged with deadly force, or thrown into the nearest POW camp. The truck started to slow down, as the driver saw the warning signs.

“It is a girl,” his comrade said. “Look!”

Ken winced inwardly, hoping that it wasn't visible on his face. He knew what was about to happen and it wasn't going to be pretty. And it was something that he was powerless to prevent.

“You can flag her down,” he said, numbly. “Just don’t forget to search the vehicle before you have any fun.”

His comrade gave him an odd glance, than sauntered onto the road, rifle in hand.

***

Melissa shuddered inwardly as the Order Policeman came forward, his face twisted into a leer. It brought back memories of the first time she’d encountered an Order Policeman, a twisted monster in human form, who had ... her mind refused to remember the exact details, through the haze of pain and suffering. She’d been raped, then mutilated ... and she’d done nothing. The man had been bored. No one else had done anything, of course. They’d been too scared of the aliens to even try.

Her life hadn't just been ruined, it had been utterly destroyed. No one wanted to even look at her, because they knew that what had happened to her could easily happen to them. The adults shuddered and kept their daughters inside, but they shunned Melissa. They didn't want to even think about the damage, or how much medical attention it had taken to save her life. And now, the doctors had warned, the shortage in medical supplies was so dangerous that anyone else who suffered the same fate was unlikely to survive. Melissa had considered suicide, before she’d had another idea.

It had been surprisingly easy to find the resistance. There was a recruiter in town and he had been happy to forward her to another cell. They'd asked for volunteers for a mission, knowing that it might be suicide, and Melissa had volunteered. She’d had nothing left to live for, but revenge. And she had a motive to alter her orders, just slightly.

She reached down and placed her hand on the detonator, arming the bomb. If she was shot, if her hand was knocked away from the lever, the bomb would detonate. She’d been told to set the timer, take it as close as she could to the checkpoint, and then abandon the vehicle. Her own plans had been much simpler. It was astonishing what she could consider doing now that she’d made the decision to sacrifice her life.

The Order Policeman leered at him; she gave him a completely sweet, completely fake smile. It wasn't the one who had hurt her, she realised, but it hardly mattered. They were all psychopaths in a parody of a police uniform, nothing like the kindly officers she remembered from her youth, before the world had been turned upside down. She pushed hard down on the accelerator, her smile widening as the truck lurched forward, charging straight at the checkpoint. There was a dull thump as she ran right into the Order Policeman and knocked him down ...

... And a click as she released the detonator.

***

Ken had bare seconds to realise that something had gone horribly wrong before the truck was on him. Letting it get so close had been a tactical mistake, part of his mind nagged, even as he lifted his rifle and took aim at the driver. She was grinning broadly from ear to ear, he noticed, her face twisted in mocking joy.

And then the world went white and faded away.

***

There was a brilliant flash of white light, followed by a fireball rising up into the darkened sky. Seconds later, a thunderclap rent the air.

“The checkpoint is gone,” the radio buzzed. “Mission accomplished.”

Major Robert Greely nodded. There was no point in maintaining radio silence now; the aliens and their lapdogs would have no doubt that they were under attack. The other two bombs were already on their way towards their targets, but clearing the checkpoint had been the first priority. Or so the higher-ups had said. There seemed to be no obvious reason for the decision.

He looked over at his mortar teams and smiled. “You may fire when ready,” he ordered. “And don’t miss!”

There was a dull thump as the first mortar launched its deadly shell into the air, aimed towards the Order Police garrison. They’d be running around like headless chickens, according to the plan, and a handful of mortar shells would teach them a lesson. Not that the crews could stay in place longer than a minute or two; the aliens would have no difficulty in tracking the shells back to their launchers and doing something about it. They’d learned the hard way that the aliens were very quick to react.

The radio buzzed again. “Direct hit,” the spotter reported. “They’re not happy, boss.”

Glad to hear it, Robert thought, ruefully. It had been years since he’d last served in active duty, back in Vietnam. If it hadn’t been for the alien invasion, he would have spent the rest of his life wishing that he could go back to the military. But then, fighting was a young man’s game. He’d only been given the mortar crew, he suspected, because he wouldn't be a great loss if he were killed.

He raised his voice. “Bug out,” he ordered. “Now!”

The mortar crews had practiced endlessly for this moment, breaking down the mortar and transporting the components away from the firing site. There had been no time to dig proper bunkers or anything else that might protect them from enemy retaliatory fire. Instead, they would have to rely on speed and stealth. Robert watched as a pair of former soldiers set up an IED in place to take out Order Policemen if they came to locate the mortars personally, then followed the rest of his men away from the firing zone. They were barely in time to escape.

***

Sergeant John Roper sucked in his breath as the alien craft passed overhead, its presence marked by an eerie hum that seemed just below hearing level. Bolts of shimmering blue-white light lanced down from the craft, targeting the mortar firing positions; John silently prayed that they’d managed to escape before it was too late. But there was no way to know.

He pulled the Stinger missile launcher from his back and took aim at the alien craft. The seeker heads had been heavily modified – he’d been told that the work had been done in underground factories, although he wasn't sure he believed it – to track the alien craft, although that was no guarantee of a hit. The craft was so fast that they could be halfway around the world by the time the missile reached their previous location, or they could turn their energy weapons on the incoming missile. If they hadn't been such poor shots, the missiles would have been completely useless.

The seeker head growled as it locked onto the target, allowing him to pull the trigger. It jerked in his hands as the missile lanced upwards towards the alien craft, before he threw it away and started to run. There was no point in staying where he was now; as soon as the aliens had escaped the missile, it would come after him. He was surprised that they hadn't learned that MANPAD launchers could only fire one missile before they were thrown away, but maybe they had a point. Killing the people who fired the weapons might convince others not to do the same.

This time, the aliens were unlucky. The missile struck the craft, sending brilliant flares of light spinning over its darkened hull. For a chilling moment, John thought that it would survive, before it careened over and plummeted towards the ground. There was a colossal thump when it hit the earth, setting fire to the forest around it. John winced inwardly, wondering if the fires would make it harder to escape after the attack was completed, before he kept moving. One craft might have been taken down, but others would be on their way ...

... And they’d be much more careful now they knew that the insurgents were armed with MANPAD weapons.

He smiled to himself as the sound of gunfire echoed through the night air. If nothing else, a great many Order Policemen were dead and the aliens had lost a craft. A very good day’s work.

Chapter Nine

Near Mannington, Virginia, USA

Day 199/200

Judith Dent watched with grim amusement as the Order Policemen scurried around like ants, unsure of what to do. The mortar attacks had unhinged them, while the two successful suicide attacks had made them panic. Judith was unsure of just what they thought they were shooting at when they fired their guns out into the darkness, but she was fairly sure that all they were doing was wasting ammunition. They had depended on the aliens to provide them with cover and the first craft the aliens had sent was now burning in the midst of the forest.

She peered through her scope as someone started to take charge, bellowing orders and laying about him with a swagger stick to restore some degree of order. He was brave, she had to admit, even if he was fighting for the wrong side. She wouldn't have wanted to lash out at men who were both armed and on the verge of panicking completely. But she couldn't allow him to continue trying to rally his men.

Instead, she took aim and fired, once. The bullet passed through the man’s head, sending him crumpling to the ground. His men stared in horror, then started hunting for cover. Judith smiled tightly, then shot two more of them dead in quick succession. Whatever discipline they’d kept crumbled under her fire; they fled, rather than trying to fight back.

The hills have eyes, she thought, as she slung her rifle over her back and started to walk back to the RV point. Shooting at men no longer bothered her, even if she had been sick the first time she'd killed a man, no matter how much he’d deserved it. She’d become what she needed to be to survive.

***

It had been years since the President had gone into action and longer still since he’d been an infantryman, but he’d been careful to keep up with his shooting skills on the White House shooting range. The Secret Service had been horrified at the thought of the President ever having to defend himself in person, yet he’d insisted – and besides, he could imagine the targets as having the faces of his political opponents. Now, as he clutched his pistol in one hand, he was silently grateful for his own paranoia.

“Stay here,” Pepper ordered, as she started to open the hatch. “If we are discovered ...”

The President nodded. Their bunker had two exits, but one of them was far too close to the enemy base for comfort. Pepper had agonised for hours, trying to decide if that was a coincidence or a sign that the aliens knew where they were, before the President had pointed out that if the aliens knew they would hardly need to play games when they could just have stormed the bunker and dragged the President out over Pepper’s dead body. It was much more likely that it was just a coincidence.

He watched Pepper as she opened the hatch and climbed out, holding her pistol in one hand. The house above them had been purchased, years ago, by a patriot who hadn't asked too many questions, the paper trail carefully obscured by the Secret Service. At one point, the President had found it amusing; an accountant, doing a standard audit, might have stumbled across the scheme and unravelled it without ever really knowing what he was doing. But the owner had died in Washington and few people were asking questions about house ownership these days.

I suppose we’re lucky the new authorities didn't earmark the house for someone else to use, he thought, straining his ears for a sound. Something – anything – that wasn't from the bunker. We might have popped up under a family of innocents – or collaborators. No one would have believed that they didn’t know.

He smiled at the thought as Pepper stuck her head back into the passageway. “You can come up,” she said, very quietly. “But be on the alert.”

The President nodded, clambering up the ladder with one hand while holding his gun in the other. It was irritating just how far his body had decayed from his military days; there had been a time when he’d been able to carry the full 36+kg without any major problems, or scramble down a rope ladder into the teeth of enemy fire. Now ... he was a fat-assed politician, just like the ones he’d bitched and moaned about while he’d been a soldier. The irony didn't amuse him.

He glanced around as they came up into the basement, seeing nothing apart from a handful of decaying pieces of furniture. The team in charge of making the house look normal had decided not to stockpile food or survival gear, even though there had been a growing craze for such stockpiles in the years after Wall Street had fallen into depression. Some of the survivalists, the President had heard, had been lording it over their less well-prepared brethren. It was hard to blame them. Precautions often looked excessive until the emergency actually arrived, at which point it was usually too late to take them. God knew that the government’s preparations for alien invasion had proved laughable when the shit had hit the fan.

“Up here,” Pepper said, from above. “Hurry.”

The President could hear shooting as he climbed up the stairs and stepped out of the basement, finding himself in a fairly normal kitchen. Dust lay everywhere; his nose twitched as he smelled the unmistakable stench of rotting food. The planners had put a freezer in the kitchen, of course, but it had failed when the aliens turned off the power and never replaced. He wrinkled his nose – the stench was appalling – and then followed Pepper into the darkened yard.

He’d never visited Mannington in daylight, but he’d assumed – despite the footage from hidden cameras and other surveillance devices – that it was a normal American town, glowing with life. Instead, he could sense fear, a pervading sensation that seemed to crawl down his spine, a mocking reminder that humanity was no longer in control of its own destiny. The only light was provided by the fires in the distance. It made him wonder just how the aliens were distributing power, if they were even bothering. Denying the population unfettered access to power would make it harder for the resistance to operate freely.

But it would also irritate people, he thought, recalling some of the emergency manuals he’d been encouraged to read in the Oval Office. The planners had come up with workable scenarios for everything from civil war to a mass disease outbreak. They’d even tagged the latter The Coward’s Way of War. But the plans for alien invasion had been laughable. The planners had never fully comprehended what they faced, even after the first alien craft had crash-landed. He still found it hard to comprehend just how much the world had changed.

“Stay in the shadows,” Pepper hissed. The sound of shooting was growing louder – and closer. “Don’t let anyone see you.”

The President gave her an icy look, but nodded. It was unlikely that anyone would recognise him, yet they didn't dare take the chance. He’d been one of the most famous people in the world, after all. Now, he was the prime alien target – and, if they caught him, he would be brainwashed.

Another explosion billowed up in the distance, casting an eerie light over the town.

“Coming,” he said. He clutched his pistol tightly, watching for aliens or their collaborators as he started to move. “Let's go.”

***

Nancy didn't know what he’d done, Greg knew. The alien collaborators had interrogated her, but they’d been surprisingly gentle with both of them. It was the reward for collaboration, Greg suspected – and he was a collaborator. He might not fight for the monsters, yet he’d collaborated. There was no avoiding that simple fact.

He wished with all his heart that Nicolas had never shown up at his house, requesting sanctuary; the bastard, Nancy’s true father, had knowingly put his daughter’s life in terrible danger. Greg knew what the aliens would do to Nancy if they caught Nicolas living there – and the longer he stayed, the greater the chance of capture. The aliens monitored everything; if Greg started to buy more food, they’d know ... and they’d start asking why. Their collaborators had caught several women housing refugee children just by looking at their shopping records.

And if he’d hesitated, they would have asked him why ...

He’d had no choice, he told himself, time and time again. Nicolas couldn't stay – and if the aliens discovered that he’d hidden him, Nancy would be at their mercy. Perhaps they would give her to someone else to raise, or perhaps they would throw her to the Order Police’s more perverted members. There had been no choice.

But that didn't stop him feeling guilty, or horrified at what he’d done.

No one else knew what had really happened. The aliens and the Order Police did raid houses from time to time, either because they had suspicions or because they were simply bored. No one knew that he’d become a collaborator, or that he’d betrayed a member of the resistance. But he couldn't help imagining, as he lay in bed, that they did know, that they were merely biding their time until they could do him in. He wouldn't mind if it was him alone – God knew he deserved no less – but what if they killed Nancy too?

He’d collaborated. And now he was alone and friendless and scared.

The sound of shooting woke him up from a fitful sleep and he threw himself out of bed automatically, then crawled out of the room and into Nancy’s bedroom. The little girl – not so little any longer, he told himself, because she’d seen her father taken away and her stepfather exposed as helpless – had done as she had been told; she’d rolled out of bed too and dropped to the floor.

“Come here,” he hissed. “Hurry.”

Nancy crawled over to him, her eyes clearly nervous. She was taking it much better than he had, part of his mind noted. It must have been Nicolas’s genes showing up in her. If half of the SEAL’s stories were true, he was practically a superman; brave, fearless and utterly implacable. And now, at best, he was a POW. And it was Greg’s fault.

“Daddy?” Nancy asked. “What’s happening?”

Greg winced. “I don’t know, sweetheart,” he said. It sounded like World War Three had broken out in Mannington. “I just don’t know.”

***

Nicolas peered through his NVGs as the attack proceeded, wishing that he could get closer and actually tear into the aliens himself. But it wasn't a possibility, something that had been made clear to him when he’d volunteered. He simply knew too much to be allowed to risk his life, at least until they developed a permanent countermeasure to alien implantation. Instead, all he could do was watch and wait.

The aliens, assuming they thought like humans, would have seen a major attack developing from the north, attacking every checkpoint and garrison in the area. There were other attacks being mounted against other towns, although Mannington had come in for special attention. Nicolas wasn't happy about that, because it ensured that the aliens would have their suspicions that the Mannington attack was key to the overall plan, but there was no choice. They had to suppress all of the enemy forces within the town.

There was a faint buzz from the radio, followed by a line of gibberish. “Charlie, Bateman, Hillocks, Hello Jimmy.”

“Good,” Nicolas muttered.

He scowled. The aliens could crack normal human encryption codes – and, given the right technology, they might even be able to crack book-based codes – but they would have no way of knowing what the words meant, even if they had been sent in the clear. They were encrypted, on the off-chance that the aliens would find the gibberish and decide it couldn’t possibly be the answer. Nicolas had his doubts – a simple dictionary would tell them that they’d found real words – but it was worth a try.

The plan seemed to be working, which bothered him. Common sense suggested that if the enemy were attacking, it was wise to send reinforcements – and there were reinforcements, stationed at the checkpoints to the south of Mannington. But the attack might have been a division, or the CO might have been killed, or someone would decide just to sit on their asses and do nothing. Fighting the Order Police was always tricky, if only because it was hard to predict what the amateurs might do.

But they were doing exactly what they were supposed to do ...

***

The President froze as a line of men carrying torches ran through Mannington, heading towards the north of the town. It was clear that they were reinforcements drawn away from the south, rather than patrollers looking for runaway Presidents, but that didn't stop them being dangerous. He hid in the shadows and silently prayed for their safe escape as the Order Policeman ran past, towards the shooting. Once they were gone, Pepper led him onwards.

“Not safe yet, sir,” she muttered, as they reached the outskirts of the city. “We have to get through the checkpoint without being stopped.”

***

Olli – who hadn’t been called anything else since he’d joined the Rangers – held his breath as he crawled up towards the checkpoint. For Order Policemen who had been fighting insurgents who would do literally anything to kill them, they were remarkably lax about security; it didn't seem to have occurred to them that someone might attack their position from the side. The three Order Policemen outside the checkpoint were peering into the darkness, while the ones inside the small building seemed to be trying to ignore the noise as their comrades came under attack.

He unhooked the grenade from his belt and hurled it into the building. The idiots hadn't even thought to put railings on their windows when they wanted some fresh air! There were shouts, followed by an explosion that would have killed or maimed everyone in the building – and frightened hell out of the ones on the outside. Olli would have preferred to use his knife to deal with them, but there was no time. As he came around the building, he shot the first one through the head and the second one through the chest. The third threw himself on the ground and begged for mercy.

“Get fucked,” Olli said.

The Order Policeman had no time to react before Olli shot him too.

***

“Clear,” Pepper muttered. “Now, run!”

The President obeyed, feeling the blood pumping through his veins as he ran towards the checkpoint and the single man who’d taken out the guards. He saw the man’s eyes widen in recognition before he nodded to Pepper and then pointed towards a road that led away from Mannington. The President smiled, but he kept running, ruefully aware that either of them wouldn't hesitate to kick him if he didn't run fast enough. It wasn't career suicide if there was no other choice.

A small group of men waited under the trees to meet him. “Mr. President,” the leader said. “It’s good to see you again.”

The President had always had a good memory for faces, but he found it impossible to place the man standing in front of him. But then, he’d darkened his face to make it harder for anyone to see. His own mother probably wouldn't have recognised him.

“Thank you,” the President said, instead. “What now?”

“We run,” the man said.

They set a punishing pace, but the President found it hard to care. He was free!

***

“Stay in your homes,” the loudspeaker bellowed. “Stay off the streets. Anyone found outside will be arrested and detained. Stay in your homes.”

Greg shivered as he saw the sun slowly rising up above Mannington, illuminating the troubled town. There was no visible damage, as far as he could see from his windows, but something had clearly happened last night. The Order Policemen who were patrolling the streets looked nervous, jumpy enough to fire at shadows. And several alien craft were hanging overhead, just daring the population to try something.

He shook his head as he looked over at where Nancy was sleeping. The corner had seemed the safest place for her, even before he’d positioned furniture to provide some degree of protection for her frail form. It had been hard to resist the temptation just to join her and cower in the corner until they both starved, but there was no choice. Someone had to fix them breakfast.

“At least I don’t have a job anymore,” he muttered to himself. The tasteless slop the aliens provided was free – and it was worth every cent. “I don’t have to leave Nancy alone.”

But what did it matter? If he was with her, or not, they could still come and take her away at any moment. Hell, what would happen when they reopened the schools! Would Nancy keep her mouth shut, or would she say something indiscreet? She was smart, but she was still a child. It was easy to imagine her saying something innocent that told the world what her stepfather had done.

He looked back outside at the alien craft and shivered. Once, hanging in the air with no visible means of propulsion, they would have excited his sense of awe. Now, they brought nothing, but terror. And the aliens inside them were even worse. They didn't even care about human life. That was easy to learn from their actions.

Scowling, he looked over at his drinks cabinet. The Order Police had taken everything, naturally, even the expensive whiskey he’d brought home from Scotland. It was just another reminder of how powerless he truly was ...

And of just how much danger he’d brought into his stepdaughter’s life.

Chapter Ten

Washington DC, USA

Day 200

“Wake up,” a voice hissed. “Karen?”

Karen opened her eyes, quickly. She was lying in her bed in Washington’s Green Zone, the heart of the collaborator government. Jasmine, one of the maids, who’d somehow become her lover, was whispering to her.

“What ...?” She cleared her throat and started again. “What’s happening?”

“You received an emergency call from Director Fairchild,” Jasmine said. The maid gave her a worried look. “She wants to see you, immediately.”

Karen sat upright, reaching for her watch. It was 6 o’clock in the morning.

“Oh,” she said. “Did she say why?”

Jasmine shook her head.

“I see,” Karen said, as she pulled herself out of bed. “I’ll be along in a moment or two.”

The bedroom had belonged to a congressman, she’d been told; the sheer luxury of the room had stunned her when she’d first seen it. Nothing, but the best for the collaborator government and their assistants; they had the best food and drink the country could provide, even foodstuffs that were in short supply elsewhere. Karen could drink as much coffee as she liked and no one would bat an eyelid, even though coffee was scarce outside the walls. And that was merely the tip of the iceberg.

She briefly considered, as she pulled on her shorts and shirt, using her emergency escape plan. There were ID cards that should get her out of the guarded part of the complex and into the rest of Washington DC, where she could link up with the remainder of the resistance. A second set of cards should get them through the checkpoints and out into the countryside. If they knew that she’d been spying for the resistance ...

No, she told herself. If they'd known, they would have kicked down the door, grabbed her and implanted her with controlling implants. And then she would have been Daisy’s slave, as well as being used to mislead the resistance. It was a great deal harder to detect one of the Walking Dead on the other end of an email. She glanced at her reflection in the mirror, shivered at her haunted eyes, and then gave Jasmine a quick kiss. Moments later, she was outside the door and heading downstairs. There would be a car already waiting for her.

Despite the early hour, the lower floors were very active, with dozens of collaborators moving around helping themselves to the food. The aliens and their servants knew how to indulge themselves, Karen had to admit; almost every chef in Washington was employed by the collaborators to prepare their meals. She’d wondered why none of them tried to poison the collaborators, before discovering that their families had been rounded up and were held in a POW camp. If a single one of them poisoned the collaborators, every family would suffer and die – if they were lucky. There were fates worse than death.

She kept her expression blank as she looked over at the buffet table. There was fresh milk, cereal, bacon and eggs ... even fresh bread and meat. It was staggering, even by the standards of pre-invasion America – and now it was a shocking display of conspicuous consumption. There were people starving on the streets of Washington, or being forced to eat the tasteless slop the aliens provided as their daily rations, but the collaborators were living large. It was their reward for serving the aliens.

It wasn't the only one, Karen had discovered. The aliens provided drink, drugs and women to anyone who was interested. It was sickening to realise just how many tastes they were prepared to satisfy, as long as someone remained loyal. The half-naked maids serving breakfast were merely the tip of the iceberg. Karen had heard rumours that some of the collaborators had truly perverse tastes. She wasn't sure what she would have done if she’d being confronted with proof. What could she have done?

Karen walked outside into the cold air and climbed into the waiting car. That was another sign of luxury, she knew; apart from the Fire Department and a handful of medical services, no one had fuel unless they were collaborators. She yawned as the driver took her away from the commandeered mansion and down towards the block of buildings that had been converted into the country’s administrative centre. The aliens had occupied the White House and the Pentagon for themselves.

She smiled, briefly, as she saw the towering ship of the crashed alien ship in the distance, still looming over the city. The resistance had done ... something to bring it down, even though it might have crashed on Washington and crushed the city under its weight. As it was, even the force of the impact had been enough to cause an earthquake and knock down dozens of buildings in Washington. No one knew how many people had died in the chaos. It was tragic, but at least it showed that the aliens were far from invincible. They could be bested.

The car stopped outside the administrative centre and Karen climbed out, nodding goodbye to the driver. Two guards came to meet her; they scanned her body with alien designed sensors, before reluctantly agreeing that she seemed harmless. Karen couldn't blame them for being paranoid, even though it was annoying. The resistance had never stopped testing the defences of the Green Zone, even going so far as to use suicide bombers. And none of the collaborators expected mercy if they happened to be captured by the resistance.

She shivered as she was escorted into the building and up nine flights of stairs. The resistance leadership might know who she was, and what she’d done for them, but none of the rank-and-file would know a thing. It was quite possible that a resistance fighter might kill her, without ever knowing who he’d really killed. Karen hadn’t fully realised it when she’d committed herself to spying for the resistance, but there was no escaping it now. She might well wind up being targeted by both sides.

The core of the collaborator government was assembling in a large conference room that overlooked Washington DC. Karen peered through the window, wondering quite why she’d been summoned, and looked down towards the darkened city. There were no lights at all outside the Green Zone, no suggestion that Washington had once been the most powerful city in the world. Now, it was effectively a prison camp, with thousands of homeless people squatting in abandoned buildings. And many of them had joined the resistance.

“Karen,” Daisy Fairchild said. “I want a full record of this meeting.”

Karen nodded and pulled her notebook and pen out of her pocket. Daisy had been appointed the Director of Human Resources, the alien-backed organisation that determined how human manpower would be utilized to serve their purposes. She was an ambitious person, Karen knew, and wouldn't care if she sold out the rest of the human race, as long as she achieved her aim of power and responsibility. And, unfortunately, she was genuinely competent. SETI had made good use of her, before the aliens arrived. They had even more reason to be grateful for her.

She scowled, inwardly, as General Howery walked into the room. His face had been warm and expressive when she’d first met him, but now he was an emotionless monster, one of the Walking Dead. The imprisoned emotions she had once seen in his eyes were gone, leaving behind a soulless shell. If someone hadn't insisted that he shave and look reasonably presentable, he wouldn't have cared about his appearance at all. All he cared about was pleasing his alien masters.

The thought chilled her to the bone. If she was discovered, she could expect no less. And then she’d be a helpless slave too.

Karen clamped down on her emotions as the final person walked into the room. The alien was inhumanly tall and thin, with dark eyes that seemed to stare right into a person’s soul. Karen suspected that she was imagining it – if the aliens could read minds, surely they would have known about her treachery – but she still had as little to do with the aliens as she could. Daisy didn't seem to mind; the more she monopolised their attention, the more effective power she held in her hands.

“Be seated,” Ethos said, in his whispery voice. “We have work to do.”

Karen leaned against the wall – a mere assistant was hardly allowed to sit at the table – and watched the committee members as they sat down. None of them seemed very pleased that the alien was there, or that they were under scrutiny. Karen wasn't too surprised; the aliens didn't seem to care about their collaborators enriching themselves, as long as it didn't impinge on their activities, but quite a few of the bastards were breaking that rule. If they pushed the aliens too far ... well, they could just look at Howery and know what was in store.

She tried to avoid looking at the alien, even though her eyes kept creeping back towards the strange creature. Ethos wore a one-piece suit that covered everything below the neck, but it was still easy to see the shape of his body – and to realise that there was nothing that might be recognised as genitals. There was no penis between his legs, no breasts ... not even a hint of a vagina. Was Ethos male or female? There was no way to know.

“Five hours ago,” Howery said, “there was a major attack on a series of garrisons near Mannington, Virginia. The attack used a level of force we have not seen for quite some time.”

Karen winced, inwardly. America might have had a reputation for having more guns than people, but those were pistols and rifles, not antiaircraft missiles and machine guns. The President might have cancelled all of the gun control laws, yet there just hadn't been time to distribute heavier weapons all over the country. It would be years before the resistance ran out of small arms, but heavier weapons were harder to replace.

The aliens had leaned heavily on America’s former allies and trading partners, threatening dire revenge if they were caught shipping weapons into America – or any other occupied territory, for that matter. Karen suspected that Europe and Russia were quietly ignoring the alien demands, working through middlemen to keep the resistance supplied. Both powers would have good reason to want to keep the aliens tied down. Even so, it was unlikely that they could meet the resistance’s requirements. Unlike Afghanistan, when the US had supplied man-portable antiaircraft missiles to the insurgents, their countries were under direct threat.

“The question before us,” Howery continued, “is if the attack was meant as a sharp blow in its own right or if they were trying to keep us distracted from something else.”

Daisy frowned. “Surely they intended to hit a vulnerable force,” she said. “How could something so large be a distraction?”

“There's no reason why the distraction force can’t be larger than the true threat,” Howery pointed out, his voice still toneless. “In this case, they may well have wanted us to look elsewhere while they did something else.”

“Throwing away men and equipment to do it,” Daisy pointed out. “Inefficient.”

Karen rolled her eyes, silently relieved that she wasn’t expected to offer her contribution to the debate. Daisy might well have a point, she decided, but liberating Mannington – or anywhere else for that matter – wouldn’t have benefited the resistance at all. The aliens would just move forces over to seal off the liberated town, then attack, hoping to take out as much of the resistance force as possible. Any time the resistance got into a stand-up fight with overwhelming alien firepower, the outcome was inevitable.

No, the resistance hadn't been trying to liberate the town. They’d had something else in mind.

The debate went on for what felt like hours as everyone competed to have their say – and impress the silent alien. Karen kept notes, as per her orders, wondering why Daisy didn't simply record the meetings. But then, records would have been easy to share with the others and Daisy, a past mistress of bureaucratic infighting, knew better than to let them see her notes.

“Steps must be taken to prevent a repeat of the attack,” Ethos said, finally. “I want the entire area cleared of humans, then razed to the ground. If there was some other purpose in mounting the offensive, we will disrupt it by ripping the area apart and searching it thoroughly. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, sir,” Daisy said.

Karen shivered. She'd known how the aliens had been evicting human settlers from the lands near their cities, forcing them into refugee camps as the first step in moving them away from their former homes, but she hadn’t realised that they were prepared to do it elsewhere. But why not? If there was a reason the resistance had targeted Mannington, forcing the population to move might expose the resistance – or disrupt whatever they were planning before it could come to fruition. The fact that the decision was cold and heartless – and that it would cause no shortage of misery – didn't seem to worry anyone.

General Howery had an excuse; his emotions had been torn out of him and replaced with unwavering dedication to the alien cause. The rest of the collaborators had no such excuse. They were prepared to do anything to maintain their power and claim alien protection, anything at all. And if that included forcing humans off their lands, just so the aliens could move in ... they’d do it without a second thought.

“It will take several days to set up the camps and provide a source of food and drink,” Daisy said. Her department had rounded up FEMA experts, but it had also collected every scoutmaster or military logistics officer it could find. They were all experienced at taking care of people who had been forced to leave their homes. “Once that’s done, we can start clearing the area.”

The alien bowed his great head in an exaggerated nod. No one really knew what their body language was like, or how to read it. The only caste that showed anything close to human emotions was the warriors, who seemed to lack the reserve of their fellows. They were so much like humans that some posters on the internet had wondered if they were humans, the results of alien experimentation with human DNA. It didn't seem likely.

“We shall discuss other considerations,” Ethos said. It was hard to pick out any emotion in the alien voice, but he certainly sounded accusatory. “The supply of components for lunar operations has been delayed.”

“We’re working on solving the bottlenecks as fast as possible,” Daisy assured him, quickly. “There were just too many dependencies on China ...”

Karen concealed her amusement with an effort. The United States had gotten into the habit of purchasing far too much from China, a source that had collapsed into civil war after their economy evaporated into nothingness. She suspected that the aliens were relieved that they wouldn't have to fight the Chinese as well as the rest of the world, but it had accidentally put a crimp in their plans. It would take time to rebuild the industrial sectors that had been allowed to wither, even without the resistance destroying everything they could. She privately doubted that the aliens would see a return to full production in less than ten years.

But it was a mystery why the aliens even wanted human production. Compared to their craft, the space shuttle was a sick joke. The craft could barely get up into orbit and NASA had been on the verge of cancelling the whole program before the aliens had arrived. Humanity had sent a handful of men to the moon; the aliens had sent a billion colonists from one star to another. There was no comparison. If the aliens had met humanity in space, perhaps they would have been inclined to give the human race more respect.

She’d added that question to the emails she’d sent to the resistance, but there was no reply. They rarely told her anything ...

“I think we’re finished here,” Daisy said, brightly. Only someone who knew her well could see how frayed she was around the edges. “I shall be hosting meetings to discuss specific subjects later on.”

Karen watched as the room emptied itself, the alien leaving through a separate door that led up towards the craft resting on the roof. For whatever reason, the aliens rarely slept in human dwellings, preferring to use their own ships and buildings. Maybe they just found them a little uncomfortable. The melted plastic design they used for their own cities didn't attract humans either.

“You can type up the notes on the computer and then forward them to me,” Daisy ordered Karen, as soon as they were alone. “And then I want the manpower reports from Mannington and the surrounding areas. There have to be people there we can use.”

Karen shivered. She wanted to ask if Daisy cared about the people living in the area, but she already knew the answer. Daisy’s sole concern was maintaining her own position – and if that meant that Mannington and its inhabitants were to be sacrificed, it didn't matter to her. All that mattered was herself.

“Yes, Director,” she said. “I shall see to it at once.”

And I shall pass on the warning, she added, in the privacy of her own mind. Maybe the resistance can do something to stop them.

But she couldn't think of anything they could do. The aliens might even be hoping that they would try, just so they could deal with them once and for all. A chance to catch the resistance was certainly worth sacrificing a whole town.

And there was nothing she could do to stop it.

Chapter Eleven

Alien Command Ship #2

Day 200

“This would be beautiful, if it wasn't so dangerous,” Felicity Hogan said. “The flying aircraft carrier.”

Captain Philip Carlson nodded in agreement. Flying aircraft carriers were a stable of science-fiction television programs and movies – he’d seen them on Doctor Who and The Avengers, after the concept has first appeared in Captain Scarlet – but they were considered impractical in real life. A naval aircraft carrier was hard to sink and if it did sink, it wasn't going to come down and crash on inhabited parts of the world. Besides, keeping something that large in the air was beyond human technology.

The aliens, on the other hand, had seemed to like the concept. They had had four colossal command ships, all four of which had been lowered into Earth’s atmosphere to serve as a local command centre and network node for the alien forces. That had lasted until Second Washington, when the resistance had – somehow – shot one of the command ships down. Washington had been badly damaged by the impact, but the aliens had learned a lesson. Their remaining command ships were currently hovering over the water, well away from dangerous humans.

Or so they think, Philip thought, even though it wasn't that amusing. The aliens seemed to have difficulties tracking submarines and, as far as he knew, every ballistic missile submarine the USN had had in service was still out there, waiting for the order to fire. It was quite possible that one might lurk under the hovering command ship and fire straight up, if the missile warheads could be reprogrammed to detonate without leaving the atmosphere. And if that happened, the human resistance would accidentally destroy the core of the alien resistance.

He gazed down at the endless waters underneath and scowled. They may have been working with the alien rebels, but they were still prisoners; the Rogue Leaders certainly believed them to be prisoners. If they demanded that the shuttle crew be transferred to one of the planet-side POW camps, the alien rebels would have to try to trick them into believing that the prisoners were dead. It wouldn't be an easy task. The level of surveillance the aliens seemed to consider normal made the USSR or North Korea look like a libertarian state.

“Ah,” Felicity said, suddenly. “Won’t you join us, sir?”

Philip turned to see one of the aliens standing behind him, having walked up absolutely silently. They didn't even seem to breathe, although he was fairly sure that they did need oxygen to live. If they’d needed a radically different atmospheric mix from humanity, they wouldn't have been interested in Earth in the first place. Maybe the aliens just breathed very quietly too. Everything about the alien leaders was quiet.

“Good afternoon,” the alien whispered. “I am Ulhash.”

“Thank you,” Philip said. It was so hard to tell the alien leaders apart, something that worried him. The Rogue Leaders might well be able to slip in a fake rebel to trick him into a confession. “I am Philip.”

He found himself studying the alien as he moved up to the window and peered down at the waters, far below. They had discovered that the aliens could see differently-coloured patches of skin that provided a way to identify one another, but they still all looked the same to him. Even with one of the aliens pointing out the skin patches, he hadn't been able to pick them out, convincing him that there was something inhuman about alien eyes. It shouldn't have been a surprise. If cats could see in the dark, why should aliens – who came from a whole different biosphere – be restricted to the same frequencies as human eyes?

It was difficult to read emotion from the aliens, but he had a feeling that he was finally figuring it out. Humans showed their emotions on their faces; the aliens literally couldn't alter their facial expressions beyond a faint smile. Instead, their hands moved in odd patterns, which indicated their emotional state. Ulhash looked worried, as far as he could tell. But it was impossible to be sure.

“We have produced a second version of the cure,” the alien said, without preamble. Small talk didn't seem to be part of their culture. “It should be a refinement on the previous version and will, hopefully, allow the victim to return to normal much faster.”

Philip glanced over at him. It had been hard to figure out a way to send the test results to the alien rebels; they’d eventually settled for mailing the files to a dummy email address, which had transferred the file into a human computer being used by the aliens for research purposes. They’d known that they were taking a risk, but there was no choice. They needed a way to free the Walking Dead.

“And afterwards?” He asked. “What happens then?”

“It will depend upon their strength of will,” the alien admitted. “The physical effects of the implants can be neutralised before they prove fatal. Psychological effects will be much harder to counter. It is not something we can program the nanites into countering.”

“Understood,” Philip said.

There was a long pause. “There is a possibility,” Ulhash added. “One of our researchers could go to your base and assist your doctors in monitoring the treatment. It might be possible to refine it sufficiently to prevent it from causing mental breakdowns.”

Philip blinked in surprise. “I thought you were all monitored?”

“We would have to convince the network that the researcher was dead,” Ulhash said. “It may be the only way to refine the treatment properly, short of implanting you and then experimenting with the cure.”

It would have been a joke – or a threat – coming from a human. Philip had the feeling that, coming from the alien, it was a simple statement of fact.

“I don’t want to be implanted,” he said, flatly.

“Nor I,” Felicity added, quickly.

Ulhash didn't try to talk them into it. “We are working on ways to evade the surveillance systems long enough to get a researcher down to the planet,” he said. “It will require your active collaboration.”

“Tell us what you want and we will try to arrange it,” Philip said, although he had his doubts. The reports had stated that every alien who fell into human hands – who even might fall into human eyes – ended up dead, killed by implants in their heads. Given the existence of the Rogue Leaders, it made a certain kind of macabre sense. The captives, away from the Rogue Leaders, might start to question their decisions. “But if they realise that we have a guest ...”

“Precautions must be taken,” Ulhash agreed. “We will detail them for your people; if they can meet them, we can move ahead.”

There was a long pause. “Tell me,” Philip said, finally. “How do you want this war to end?”

“There is no way we can leave this planet,” Ulhash said, flatly. “The mothership was reaching the limits of its resources when it finally staggered into orbit around Earth. Even if the Rogue Leaders were defeated without further trouble, we would still be unable to leave.”

Philip nodded. They’d guessed as much.

“We would trade technology for part of your planet,” Ulhash added. “And we would set up bases on your moon and other nearby worlds. The Rogue Leaders are already laying the foundations for bases on your moon.”

Where they would be completely out of reach, Philip thought. And they would have access to the boundless wealth of the solar system.

“There will be humans who won’t like sacrificing any of Earth,” Philip pointed out, truthfully. “Can you satisfy them?”

“We cannot leave this world,” Ulhash countered. “All that matters is the terms on which we settle.”

Philip scowled, but he understood. No matter the reasons behind the invasion and colonisation, the People were here to stay. There was no way to throw them off Earth and if they tried ... the Rogue Leaders intended to enslave humanity through their genes. Ulhash and the other rebels might settle for trying to exterminate the human race. Why not? Philip had no illusions that they would be prepared to sacrifice themselves for the human race. There was no way they would simply choose to go quietly into the night. Why should they?

We’re not bargaining from strength here, he thought, numbly. And while we may be allies, our goals are not identical in the long run.

There would be people, he knew, who would accuse America of selling out the rest of the world. But what other choice was there? Even before the invasion, the US couldn't have matched the aliens; now, the once-proud American military was a shambling wreck. It would take decades to recover, even if the aliens abandoned America immediately. Besides, it was hard to summon up much pity for the Middle East. Let the locals and the aliens kill each other for as long as they chose.

“I believe that would be understandable,” he said, finally. “But don’t we have to win first?”

The alien’s hand moved in a pattern he was starting to recognise as a smile.

“Yes,” Ulhash said. “We must win.”

“We requested technical data,” Philip said. “Can that be provided?”

“Some of it can be,” Ulhash said. “However, much of it is beyond your ability to produce immediately.”

Philip nodded. As a space shuttle commander, he'd done his best to follow the latest developments in aerospace research and he’d heard of nothing as advanced as the alien tech. There certainly hadn't been anything more than whispers about antigravity, of theories that had never produced real technology, or of warp drives ... he’d once read a book where such technology had been deployed in secret and used to wage war on an alien race. Clearly, if the book was based on a real organisation, they were asleep at the switch. Or maybe they no longer cared about Earth.

“We can start unlocking its secrets,” he said, finally. “And we might discover something we can use against the Rogue Leaders.”

But it was hard to see what they could do. Most of the Rogue Leaders were on the mothership, or on the other command ships; they were largely out of reach. And even if they were taken out, what would the others do? Could Ulhash and his allies take control quickly, or would other factions form and start a civil war? There was no way to know.

“I meant to ask,” he added. “Why are the Rogue Leaders insisting that humans produce certain items for them?”

“Our stockpiles have been drained by our voyage,” Ulhash explained. “What we have, we cannot replace easily. The Rogue Leaders intend to rebuild our industrial base, using your technology to save our own. And, if you should happen to copy what they have taught you to build, it will give you no real advantage.”

Philip scowled, bitterly.

Everyone who knew anything about rockets knew that reaching orbit was the hard part. A rocket needed a vast amount of fuel, which in turned heightened the mass and demanded that the rocket needed more fuel ... multiple stage rockets ensured that the weight dropped as quickly as possible. Once someone was in orbit, it was relatively easy to reach the moon, or Mars ... there was no need for vast stockpiles of fuel. But getting to orbit was the tricky part.

The aliens didn't have that problem. There was no shortage to the amount of materials they could haul into orbit, simply by using their antigravity systems. Given time, there was no reason why they couldn't transport an entire human colony to the moon, where purely human tech could be used to mine and expand the base. And if they did try to fight, the aliens would still have a colossal advantage. What did it matter if nanites or bare hands were used to mine lunar ore? The aliens could still use it.

And then they can rebuild their own industrial base at leisure, he thought. And after that the war is lost.

He’d seen enough of the alien technology to know that it could have been used much more imaginatively than they seemed to use it. But if they had a shortage of materials, they wouldn't want to do more than replace destroyed war material and other essentials. Given some time to build up and deploy new industrial nodes, they could produce far more materials than Earth ... and then expand through the solar system. Earth, irony of ironies, might end up as a backwater, at least until the aliens had finished converting the human race to slaves.

Philip shook his head in disbelief. No one could ever accuse the Rogue Leaders of thinking small.

“Clever bastards,” he muttered, sourly. He looked up at the alien. “Can we stop them?”

“There is no choice,” Ulhash said, flatly. “If we fail, two races will be doomed to endless servitude. The result will be inevitable destruction.”

He looked down at Philip. “We will transmit the technical data and other ... materials when they next make contact,” he said. “And we will discuss the plan for sending a representative to the surface. Once we have arrangements made, we will move ahead as quickly as possible.”

Philip hoped that the alien was right and that the plan could succeed. The Rogue Leaders would move Heaven and Earth to recover any downed alien – and, in this case, they would have a chance to crack the resistance movement wide open. He opened his mouth to suggest that the alien be equipped with a suicide implant, then changed his mind. It wasn't a suggestion he could make.

“If we do manage to free the Walking Dead,” Felicity said, “what next? How do we actually win?”

“The only way we can,” Ulhash said. “We take out the Rogue Leaders.”

***

The alien computer network was superb, Philip had been forced to admit. It wasn't, according to the aliens, intelligent in its own right, but it was supremely adaptable and responsive to the people who used it. His thoughts on just how much the aliens had to offer the Earth had only grown more and more specific, the further he delved into their technology. Quite apart from spacecraft and other technology, their computers would help change the world.

But, like human computers, they could be perverted. The Chinese had established the Great Firewall of China in hopes of blocking out the outside world. It hadn't been a great success, even if multinational companies had bowed the knee to China rather than stand up for the principle of free speech. The youth of China had proved surprisingly capable of subverting the network controls. But if they’d had alien tech ... loopholes, as soon as they were found, were closed. The process was so capable that he started to wonder if the computer network was really intelligent after all. Maybe it was just staying very quiet.

The aliens were under heavy surveillance, almost all the time. Philip hadn't realised just how difficult it had been to conceal Nicolas and Abigail when they were transported to the command ship, even with command overrides. The alien rebels had taken one hell of a risk then – and more, when they’d make their alliance with Philip and the rest of the shuttle crew. They were monitored so intensely that Philip was impressed they’d worked up the nerve to launch their rebellion in the first place. A single mistake would have been disastrous. They’d shown more bravery then the brave souls who’d stood up to human dictators and had often been crushed for their pains.

He skimmed through the files, trying to see possible points of attack. According to Ulhash, the leadership caste were expected to periodically review files – and he’d unlocked them for Philip using his biological signature. In theory, the network couldn't tell that it was being used by a human, but Philip wasn't so sure. It had to be obvious that, no matter how intuitive the system was, he wasn't an authorised user. Sweat was running down his back as he finally found the files he was looking for, the locations of the alien leaders.

But which ones are Rogue? He asked himself. It was impossible to be sure. Attack the wrong ones and we might give the Rogue Leaders more allies.

The alien government was ... very alien, by human standards. Or maybe it wasn't very alien at all. The only people allowed to make decisions, certainly long-term decisions, were the alien leaders, while everyone else was expected to follow their lead. And, as there were genuine biological differences between the castes, the system might never be unseated or replaced with something more palatable. He thought about the tiny alien workers and wondered, grimly, if there was a spark of intelligence in their dark eyes. Or if they were truly nothing more than the worker ants their actions made them seem.

And that’s what they have in mind for humanity, he thought. The concept was so horrifically vast as to be almost beyond comprehension. How did one fight something on such a scale? They have to be stopped.

Alien leaders commanded, Ulhash had said – and he’d seen for himself how every other caste deferred to the leaders, even among the rebels. They were biologically programmed to follow the leaders; resistance had been hard, almost futile, even before the Rogue Leaders had started tampering with DNA belonging to the other castes. Since then, they had been followed without question. If they’d had more time before the aliens had arrived on Earth, they might have eradicated the resistance before it could even form.

There has to be a solution, he thought, numbly. He would not see humanity turned into a face of half-alien slaves. A way to kill them all ...

And then, staring at the holographic display, he thought he had it.

But the price would be staggeringly high.

Chapter Twelve

Near Richmond, USA

Day 204 - 210

They travelled at night, passing through the Shenandoah National Park and staying well away from roads and human settlements, trying to avoid anyone who might betray them to the aliens. The countryside was dark and silent, any vehicle had to be assumed to be hostile, the night sky was full of strange lights ... and the President felt better than he had in months. Part of him wanted to run and cheer; whatever else happened, he was out of the bunker!

The soldiers with him took no chances. They holed up in tents during the day and caught up with their sleep, even though they met no one as they made their slow way from Mannington to the coast. The President had served in Iraq and knew that it would be hard for the aliens to occupy every square metre of American soil, but he had to admit that their paranoia was justified. If the aliens caught a sniff of him, they’d throw all of their resources into capturing the President and turning him into their unwilling ally.

When they ate, meals were cold ration bars and bottled water. They refused to take the risk of using a heating element. No one knew just how capable the alien orbital surveillance network was at tracking humans on the ground, but the President knew enough about how far the US had advanced since 9/11 to be worried about what the aliens could do. They might well be capable of eventually locating everyone in the United States and forcing them to register, or simply send a drone out to kill them.

When night fell again, they headed down towards the south of Richmond – skirting the city and its alien occupiers at a safe distance – and kept heading south, towards Elizabeth City. The aliens hadn't considered the smaller city worthy of much attention, the President had been assured, but they weren’t going to go any closer to it than they had to, just in case the aliens had seeded collaborators into the city’s population. At least there hadn't been more than a few cases of collaborators being shot in the area. There shouldn't have been anything to put the aliens on alert.

The President was exhausted by the time Albemarle Sound came into view, a great body of water that led out towards the Atlantic Ocean. Over the years, he recalled vaguely, the area had been overfished, although he couldn't remember much else about it. The aliens didn't pay much attention to small boats, thankfully. These days, it was often the only source of food for seaside communities. They didn't even try to stop sailors from crossing the Atlantic in hopes of a better life away from the aliens.

Probably because there isn't a better life, he thought, wryly. The reports from Europe weren't much better than life in America, with the only real difference being the presence of the alien invaders. Not that they were far from Europe, of course; anyone who doubted that only needed to look up at night and see their craft dancing across the sky.

“There,” his escort said. “They’re waiting for us.”

The President followed his pointing finger and saw a small fishing boat, bobbling in the waves. It was tiny, barely large enough for five or six grown men, but that was an advantage. The aliens weren't likely to pay it any special attention, not when there were thousands just like it in the area. He followed his escort down towards the beach, where there was a brief exchange of sign and countersign.

“Good luck, sir,” his escort said.

The water was shockingly cold as the President waded through the shallows to the boat. It had been a long time since he’d had to scramble into a boat, but he managed it with the aid of two of the sailors. Pepper followed, looking strikingly tired in the semi-darkness; as soon as she was onboard, the sailors started the engine and steered the boat out into the darkness. It was impossible to see if there was anything ahead of them ...

He looked back, towards the American coastline. Only a handful of lights burned through the darkness, the homes of collaborators or alien bases. The rest of the coastline, which had once glowed with light, was dark and silent. He shivered as it struck him, on a raw emotional level, just how far they’d fallen since the aliens had arrived. How much they’d lost that they’d never fully appreciated.

The boat rocked alarmingly as it sailed out onto the ocean. One of the sailors passed him a blanket, allowing him to wrap himself up; he sat on the bench and watched as the sailors steered the boat further away from the United States. They spoke to one another in quiet, hushed voices, using the stars to navigate themselves to a specific location. It had been years since the President had tried to navigate by the stars. In the era of GPS systems, it had seemed an unnecessary skill. Now, those who didn't know how to navigate without them were seriously disadvantaged.

He winced as the boat rocked again, just as the sailors started pulling in the sails. An instant later, a dull thud ran through the hull, suggesting that they’d hit something ... as impossible as that seemed. The President reached for the pistol he’d placed on his belt instinctively before realising what was happening. Instead, he stood up and peered into the darkness. Something dark and massive was coming up from under the boat.

“There,” one of the sailors said. A dark tower could be seen, poking up above the waves. “They’re ready for you, sir.”

The submarine drew closer, until the conning tower was right next to the tiny fishing boat. There was a long moment of silence, then a hatch opened and he saw someone emerge from the submarine, shouting a greeting. The President waved back, then followed the instructions from the sailors as they tied the boat to the conning tower. Trying not to think about what he was doing, the President scrambled over and down the hatch into the submarine. A moment later, Pepper joined him and the hatch slammed shut.

“Dive,” someone shouted, loudly. “Dive!”

The President felt the deck shifting below him as the submarine dived back underwater. If the aliens had spied the submarine, they might have launched an orbital missile at it – or simply sent one of their damned flying craft to sink the boat. They might be about to die ... his hand found Pepper’s and squeezed it tightly as his ears started to pop. How far down were they going?

He shuddered as he realised the truth. They were trapped underwater, surrounded by endless water, and the only thing keeping them alive was a hull that might break under the pressure, or alien weapons fire. And if that happened, they were dead ... he shuddered, inwardly, as he fought off the attack of claustrophobia. He'd never been claustrophobic before, had he? God knew he’d never been reluctant to get into a tank.

“Mr. President,” a new voice said. The President looked up to see a short black man wearing a navy uniform. “Welcome aboard USS Mississippi, a Virginia-class submarine. I’m Captain O’Bryan.”

“Pleased to meet you,” the President said, as he stood upright. “And I’m glad to know that you're safe.”

“Safe may be too strong a word,” O’Bryan said, cheerfully. “We took on a full load of supplies before the war started, but we’ve been draining them ever since. The reactor is supposed to last another thirty-odd years; the crew may be past their sell-by date by then, I’m afraid. We’ve managed to obtain some supplies from the Brits, but every time we risk going near Holy Loch we risk being detected.”

He clasped the President’s hand and shook it, firmly. “Overall, we just hope that this ends soon,” he admitted. “Sooner or later, we’re going to run out of luck.”

The President nodded. It was impossible to be sure, but a number of submarines had missed their scheduled check-in messages, suggesting that they were gone. He allowed himself to hope that they were just running quiet, but there was no way to know and he had to assume the worst. Mississippi might have been lucky so far, yet sooner or later she would run out of luck. If she showed herself in the wrong place, the aliens would kill her and her crew.

He allowed the Captain to show him around the boat, marvelling at how large it appeared even though he still felt claustrophobic. The crew seemed to be in good form, although there were definite signs of strain. Submarine crews had been pressed hard during the Cold War, yet they’d had regular returns to port where they could decompress, meet up with their families and generally recharge their batteries. Now, God alone knew when they would be able to return home. Their wives and families had to assume that they were dead.

“We’ve got one of the first Virginia Payload Modules,” O’Bryan explained. “It means we’re a little longer than I would prefer, but it gives us the ability to hit targets on land by means of non-nuclear cruise or ballistic missiles. Right now, we have a full payload of Tomahawk cruise missiles, ready to ram down the alien throats.”

The President scowled. An American submarine had fired on alien targets in the Middle East, after the location of their cities became clear. The Tomahawks had been shot down in flight and no one had heard anything from the submarine since then. It was alarmingly clear that the aliens had traced the missiles back to their source and attacked it savagely. Given their speed and response time, the submarine probably hadn't had a chance to escape before it was too late.

“It should take no less than seven days to reach the United Kingdom,” the Captain concluded. “Once we’re there, we can pass you to a British ship for transport to the mainland. I’d prefer not to go any closer to the shore than absolutely necessary, because the aliens might see us and then bring pressure to bear on the Brits to do something about our presence. They’ve already been forced to intern an aircraft carrier. I don’t want to add a submarine to the list.”

“Understandable,” the President assured him. He couldn't help a yawn. “Thank you, very much.”

“I’m giving you my stateroom,” the Captain said. “The food isn't up to White House standards ...”

The President had to laugh. “Right now, any sort of food tastes great,” he said. It had been such a relief to escape the bunker’s rations. Neither Pepper nor himself had been able to turn ex-Cold War stocks into something edible. “But I also need to sleep.”

“Some people do have problems if they’re new to submarines,” O’Bryan admitted. “We weed such personalities out at the Submarine School, but visitors have been known to have problems.” He grinned. “Would you believe that we had a bunch of SF troops who found being inside the submarine a deeply unnerving experience?”

“Probably,” the President said. The poor bastards would probably have been gently teased by the submariners too. “How do you cope with them?”

“Depends on the person,” the Captain said. “The doc can prescribe something to help you sleep for a few days, if you can’t sleep naturally. We can't use that for submariners, of course, but there shouldn't be any problems with you taking it. Failing that, we recommend reading, watching movies and mental exercises.”

He paused, just long enough for the President to notice. “We’re putting Agent Reid in a separate cabin,” he added. “I hope that won’t be a problem.”

Pepper’s eyes narrowed. “I am required to protect the President ...”

“There’s no one on this ship who might be dangerous,” the President said, quickly. He could understand the Captain’s unspoken point. Women were few and far between on USN submarines and it would only upset people if he seemed to be sleeping with Pepper. “Besides, you need to sleep too.”

Pepper frowned, then nodded reluctantly. “Very well,” she said. “But please stay in your cabin if I am not with you.”

***

Over the next few days, the President started to wonder if he had traded one form of imprisonment for another. The submarine was more populated than the bunker and it had access to better forms of entertainment, but it was just as confining, if not more so. Captain O’Bryan gave him a formal tour the day after he had boarded the submarine, yet it only served to highlight just how restricted he was. If he ever got back to Washington and returned to the White House, he promised himself, he would never bitch about being confined to the White House again.

Life on the submarine, while it was in transit, was strangely boring, something the crew frankly admitted happened to them too. The surprising informality of the crew was a safety measure, the President had been told, preventing them from becoming so rigid they shattered. Officers and men chatted freely, in a manner he had never seen in the army, yet snapped back into military discipline as soon as it was needed. When they weren't on duty, the sailors read books on Kindle – Kindles and other electronic readers had been an absolute godsend to the sailors; they loaded every book they could find onto the readers before leaving port – or watched movies on the boat’s computers. The President had been amused to discover that many of the movies were actually childish, although there were quite a few war movies mixed in.

Perversely, he felt even more isolated on the submarine than he’d felt in the bunker. There, at least, he’d been able to read messages, scan intelligence briefings and generally feel as if he was paying attention to what was happening. On the boat, there was absolutely nothing coming in at all; the outside world might as well have vanished completely. It was a regular problem, the Captain admitted, but it had grown worse since the aliens had arrived. They were completely dependent on undersea cables for their news. The President had found himself giving briefings to the officers and crew, explaining just what was happening in America. He left out a few of the details, knowing that they would only upset them. There was nothing the crew could do.

The most touching part of the trip had come on the last day, when the sailors presented him with a USB stick and explained that it carried messages for their families. It might have become a security nightmare, but the President had taken it and promised to have the messages forwarded on, once they’d been vetted. Most of their families would have gone into hiding anyway, hoping to remain undiscovered by the aliens. The President had no doubt that they would pressure the families if they ever discovered who they had as relations.

“I’ll take it,” he promised, and stuck the USB stick in his shirt.

It was six days since departure when they found themselves rounding Ireland and approaching HMNB Clyde, the home of the Royal Navy’s ballistic missile submarines. All four of the British submarines, the President had been told, were deployed at sea in the hopes they could avoid prying alien eyes. The American submarine linked into a hidden cable and waited, well away from British shipping. An hour later, a minisub arrived and docked with the Mississippi.

“She’ll take you to your destination,” Captain O’Bryan assured him. “Good luck, Mr. President.”

“Just forget you ever saw me,” the President said, to general amusement. “And stay ready to hit the aliens.”

He scrambled into the minisub, which undocked the moment Pepper joined him in the tiny cabin. There were no windows, nothing he could use to see outside the craft as it powered its way towards their final destination. It seemed to be hours before the craft finally docked and the hatch was opened, revealing a small welcoming party.

“Mr. President,” a voice said. “Welcome to the United Kingdom.”

The President smiled at him, a little tiredly. “Thank you,” he said. “It’s good to be here.”

Pepper had a more immediate concern. “Is this place secure?”

“We’re moving you to another location,” the greeter said. He hadn't given his name, a security precaution that would help to obscure the trail. “There won’t be many people who will know you’re there. After that ... that’s up to higher authorities.”

The President scowled, inwardly. He’d taken one hell of a risk coming to Britain, even though the aliens didn't occupy the country. They could put immense pressure on the British to hand him over ... and, given what else was cooking in the country, the British might see that as the lesser of two evils. Offhand, he couldn't recall if there had ever been an American President in such a dangerous spot, outside bad B-Movies. No one had successfully hijacked Air Force One or held the President hostage in real life.

Of course, he reflected, aliens had been the stuff of bad movies too ...

“Good,” The President said, bluntly. He had little patience for diplomatic formalities at the best of times. “The sooner we can get started, the better.”

The last time he’d visited Britain had been shortly after his inauguration, when he’d wanted to hold talks with the previous Prime Minister about future counter-terror deployments in Afghanistan or the Middle East. Then, he’d come in Air Force One and had been surrounded by heavily-armed security officers from both countries. Now, he was effectively a supplicant, begging for assistance. It struck him, suddenly, just how other world leaders had felt as they waited on Washington’s whims.

He shook his head, pushing the thought aside. They had to defeat the aliens before it was too late. Anything else was secondary to that concern.

Chapter Thirteen

Virginia, USA

Day 211

“That's one of their craft now,” the technician said.

Nicolas nodded. Active radars might have drawn attention – and swift destruction – from the aliens, but passive sensors provided a way to track the alien craft without being noticeable. The resistance had hidden sensors nearby, providing some early warning if the aliens suddenly started to focus on West Virginia. They were of limited value, however; the alien craft moved so rapidly that they would be on top of their targets before the warning could be passed up the chain.

He scowled as he studied the tiny display. The aliens had been alarmingly active in the region lately, moving up several new regiments of Order Policemen as well as at least four maniples of alien warriors. There had been no choice; the resistance had had to pull in its horns and go undercover, instead of harassing the aliens and their collaborators. Nicolas knew that Oldham had seriously considered pulling some of their forces out of the area completely, rather than risk discovery. They couldn't win a stand-up fight with the aliens.

“It’s on the right course,” the technician insisted. “And the timing is right. Other than that ...?”

Nicolas peered into the dark sky with his binoculars, trying to see the tiny craft as it passed overhead. A streak of light flashed by and then vanished in the distance; the aliens weren't even trying to be stealthy. Not that they couldn’t, he had to admit; several resistance bases had been destroyed by alien craft that weren’t visible in the sky for miles around. He wasn’t sure if the aliens were being subtle or if they just didn't care if their craft were visible, unless they were trying to stay concealed. The soldier in him found that careless, but they’d already established that the aliens didn't think like humans.

Something moved, high overhead. It blocked out stars and alien orbital installations for bare seconds as it drifted downwards, heading towards the RV point. Nicolas sucked in his breath sharply as the object, its fall slowed by a parachute, finally hit the ground not too far from their location. Cursing, he stood up and ran through the trees. It wouldn't be the first time that supplies dropped by aircraft had missed their intended target by some distance, but if the package was discovered by the wrong people, it would be absolutely disastrous.

He slowed to a halt as he saw the package half-tangled in a nearby tree, slowly slipping down towards the ground. Carefully, he reached up, caught it and pulled hard, tugging it out of the trees. It didn't weigh as much as he had expected, but it wasn't as if the aliens were supplying weapons, ammunition and food. He broke it open and peered inside, sighing in relief as he saw more of the alien nanite vials and a handful of devices. One of them was clearly intended to link human and alien technology together.

The technician was breathing hard as he caught up with Nicolas. “All there?”

“I think so,” Nicolas said. He pulled his rucksack off his back and started to load the alien supplies into the bag. “I just need to take it back to the bunker and then run tests before we take it for granted.”

He scowled, inwardly. The supplies would have to be inspected first, before they went anywhere near the bunker. Oldham and his people were still paranoid, with reason; if the alien rebels intended to betray them, or were caught by the Rogue Leaders, the results would be disastrous. A single homing beacon in the alien tech would bring the alien warriors right down on top of them. Nicolas understood, even though it was irritating. They didn't dare take chances.

“See you back at Point Delta,” he said, as soon as his bag was loaded. “Good luck.”

***

“According to the briefing notes, this version of the nanites should cause fewer problems,” Nicolas said, three hours later. Everything in the bag had been thoroughly inspected by the security officers and cleared, although they had been at pains to point out that they might have missed something. There were aspects of alien tech was still largely unknown. “But they are prepared to offer a doctor to assist us in streamlining the technology.”

“That would be useful if we knew all about them,” Oldham muttered, gazing down at the alien devices. “As it is, might we be bringing a serpent into our lair?”

“It’s possible,” Nicolas said, “but they seem to be advising us on how best to keep our guest concealed.”

The list of requirements was staggering. Unless the resistance had a secure bunker, which they did, the alien doctor was to remain inside a sealed box, blocking all radio transmissions as well as whatever the aliens used for their own communications. The alien would not see the light of day until the war was over, one way or the other. Hell, if the alien warriors ever attacked, the humans were warned to kill the alien rebel and then destroy the body completely. It seemed remarkably elaborate for a trap.

But then, any trap has to look good, he thought, sourly. You can't catch fish if you bait the lines with shit.

“It’s risky,” Oldham said, “but we’ve moved most of our operations out of the bunker anyway. It's a shame we can’t use the other bunker for this ...”

Nicolas nodded. It was an open secret now that the President had been concealed in Mannington – and that the assault on the garrison had been intended to free him, to allow him to go elsewhere. The aliens didn't seem to have realised, but when they did they would have hard questions for their local collaborators. Did they let the President hide in the middle of an occupied town through incompetence or had they deliberately betrayed their alien masters?

“They’ll start tearing the town apart as soon as they know,” he agreed. “For the moment, don’t you think we should test the new nanites? Then we might have some hard data to base our judgement on.”

Oldham scowled. “Go set up the examination room,” he said. “And be damn careful with those devices.”

Nicolas nodded, picking up the devices and putting them back in the sealed box before he could take them out of the compartment. The alien notes had stated that the devices were intended to help monitor the person’s reaction to the nanites, allowing the alien rebels to streamline the technology further. But the devices were largely incomprehensible to human scientists and there was no way of knowing if that was all they did. It was quite possible that the devices also monitored their own location and reported back to the aliens using a technology humanity had yet to imagine.

The resistance had captured two more Walking Dead in the time since they’d tested the first batch of nanites, bringing them to the bunker and holding them in the cells. Nicolas glanced at their files – one had been a troop leader in the army, the other had been a scout master – before ordering the troop leader brought into the interrogation room. The doctors fussed around the man’s body, inspecting the alien devices as Nicolas placed them against his temple, then took the nanite injector tube and placed it against his forehead.

“Do it,” Nicolas ordered.

The doctor triggered the injector tube. Unlike human technology, there was no visible sign of the injection. But then, the nanites were so tiny that even a cloud of them would be invisible to the naked eye. The technology was so easy to abuse, according to science-fiction, that Nicolas couldn't help wondering why the aliens hadn't pushed it much further. Whatever else could be said about them, they didn't lack imagination.

But they were largely in cultural stasis as they crawled from their homeworld to Earth, he told himself, slowly. Maybe they decided that further innovation could wait.

He shook his head. There were often limits that were not immediately obvious. He’d once asked why humanity couldn't produce an aircraft the size of a navy transport ship and his tutor had pointed out, dryly, that there were absolute limits on how large an aircraft the human race could build. Computers hadn't hit the limit, yet, but aircraft had – at least until the human race duplicated the alien antigravity technology. Perhaps the alien nanotech had problems of its own.

The Walking Dead man jerked against his restraints, then relaxed, falling into a deep sleep.

“The brain activity seems to be returning to normal,” the doctor said, slowly. “Say, you can't see what those devices are seeing, can you?”

Nicolas nodded. “Let me interface it with a laptop,” he said. It might have been quicker if he’d linked them into the bunker’s own network, but that would have been a security nightmare. The only way to keep a system completely safe was to avoid making any links to the outside world at all. “Then you can see if it’s any good.”

It took longer than he’d expected to link the two systems together. The alien tech seemed bent on overwhelming the laptop or pushing it beyond its design specifications. In the end, he had to call for a pair of army computer geeks and leave them to work on it before they produced anything useful. The doctors studied the results, marvelling at how detailed the alien readings actually were, before concluding that they would have to wait and see how the patient was when he awoke. There was no other way to know if they’d succeeded.

“And how long will that be?” Nicolas demanded. “An hour?”

“Go get something to eat,” the doctor ordered, tightly. “I’ll call you the moment something changes.”

***

It was four hours before the doctor finally called him back to the room. “He’s awake,” the doctor said, as soon as Nicolas entered and closed the door behind him. “And he seems normal.”

Nicolas nodded and looked down at the patient in the bed. The guards hadn’t been taking chances; they’d cuffed his hands and feet to the bed anyway, just in case the procedure hadn't worked properly. Other than that, the patient looked remarkably normal, apart from a haunted look in his eyes. And he seemed pleased to see Nicolas.

“I told him that you found the cure,” the doctor said. “I suggest you talk gently, at first ...”

“I’m not deaf,” the patient insisted. “I’m Lieutenant Hammond.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Nicolas said, dryly. He didn't recall meeting any Lieutenant Hammond in the past, although the military had been so big that he could hardly expect to know everyone who had served. “Where did they catch you?”

“I was at Fort Hood when the bastards hammered us from orbit,” Hammond explained. “The CO had ordered us to disperse; we took our guns and weapons and scattered into the surrounding area, just in time to save our lives. A week later, we hit an alien convoy and did some damage, before they shot the shit out of us. When I woke up, I ...”

He stopped, gasping for breath. “I ... they did something to me,” he added. “I ...”

“Emotional trauma,” the doctor said, studying Hammond’s brainwaves. “Quite considerable, in fact. It’s wired right into his brain.”

Hammond stared at Nicolas. “After that, everything becomes a hazy dream,” he said. “Like I was seeing the world through a pane of dirty glass. They gave me orders and I followed them, helplessly. And then I ... I don’t recall. How long has it been since they landed? A week?”

“Several months,” Nicolas said, grimly. Hammond seemed to have survived treatment better than the first test subjects, but his memory had clearly been damaged. Or maybe he was trying to block out the worst of his experience. God knew that there were parts of BUD/S Nicolas would have preferred to forget – and he’d volunteered for the training that had made him a SEAL. “I’m sorry to have to keep asking questions, but we do need answers.”

“More trauma,” the doctor said, as Hammond started to hyperventilate. “I think we’re going to need a different approach.”

Hammond started to reach upwards, before the cuffs caught his hand. “What did they do to me?”

“They used a form of brainwashing,” the doctor said, flatly. “I think we need to work on ways to access your blocked memories, without causing you additional problems.”

Nicolas frowned. “What are you giving him?”

“A sedative,” the doctor said. “He needs to relax.”

Nicolas shivered at the terror in Hammond’s eyes as the doctor pressed the needle against his flesh. The sight seemed to bring back memories for the young man, memories, perhaps, of when the aliens had implanted him with their controlling implants. It wasn't a pretty sight. A smell reached his nostrils and he grimaced. Hammond was so terrified that he’d wet himself.

“There,” the doctor said. “You can rest now.”

He looked up at Nicolas as Hammond’s eyes closed. “I think hypnosis is the best possible solution,” he added. “Right now, it’s clear that talking about anything connected with his period of enslavement will bring on a panic attack. The experience was utterly traumatic, beyond anything I have ever seen. I’ll start working out a program immediately.”

“See that you do,” Nicolas said, tiredly. “See that you do.”

He walked back to Oldham’s office – noting how half of the bunker’s staff seemed to have vanished – and reported to his superior. Oldham listened quietly, asking only a handful of questions, as Nicolas outlined everything that had happened. Hypnosis, he concluded, might provide a way to access those memories, but it didn't provide a way for the former Walking Dead to operate normally in alien company. Something could cause a flashback and then the game would be up.

“No one ever saw one of the Walking Dead traumatised,” he concluded. “We need to solve that problem before we can risk exposing ourselves.”

Oldham nodded. “And we need an alien doctor to do it, right?”

“I think so,” Nicolas said, wishing he knew more about medicine. The battlefield medical skills he’d learned were painfully inadequate to deal with massive mental trauma, let alone provide an accurate judgement of medical advice. “Taking a lone alien into our base doesn't raise the risk level any further.”

“Matter of opinion,” Oldham growled. He nodded towards the map he'd hung on the wall. “Do you realise that we’re seeing the largest concentrations of Order Policemen outside the cities? They’re up to something.”

Nicolas shrugged. “If they had a sniff of this bunker’s existence,” he said, “they would have come down on us by now.”

“Or they might be trying to see who might come visit and why,” Oldham pointed out. “God knows we left terrorist hideouts alone in Pakistan just so we could monitor their movements and identify more terrorists. Tracking couriers was how we caught Bin Laden, after all.”

Nicolas had his doubts. The vast array of monitoring systems had partly depended upon cell phones – and the aliens, in the interests of breaking up the human population, had taken down all of the cell phone networks in America. It hadn't stopped the resistance finding imaginative uses for the devices – they could certainly trigger bombs – but it did mean that they couldn't be used to coordinate the resistance. If the aliens had been inclined to be subtle, they might have left the cell phone network alone just so they could track the resistance.

“I don't think we have a choice,” he admitted. “The best result we have, so far, is someone who seems relatively normal, unless something happens to remind him of his servitude to the aliens. At that point, he has a panic attack. We may not pull any useful information from him at all, let alone be able to use him as a spy. I think we need more direct help from the alien rebels.”

Oldham looked down at the desk for a long moment, then looked up and met Nicolas’s eyes. “I read their message,” he said. “Can we meet their conditions?”

“Yes,” Nicolas said, flatly.

“If you get it wrong, they will be exposed,” Oldham warned him. “They’d have to destroy themselves to avoid capture and interrogation. It would drive a wedge between us and the alien rebels, assuming the rebels aren't rounded up and eliminated in the aftermath. Are you sure that you can pull it off?”

“Give me a good team and we can do anything,” Nicolas said. After crawling through a sewer pipe to carry out a snatch and grab raid that was still officially denied, there were few limits for the SEALs. “All we need is some grenades, a pair of secure coffins and a little luck.”

“The coffins won’t make for pleasant transport,” Oldham said. “But there isn't much of a choice.”

He stood up and tapped the map. “We may have to move operations from this bunker, if they keep moving troops into the area,” he added. “Or pull in our horns, depending on their deployment. Plan your operations around that constraint.”

Nicolas nodded. “Yes, sir,” he said. That was a problem. The aliens would have a rapid-reaction force far too close to the LZ. But he'd always assumed as much, if only because of the speed of the alien craft. “Maybe we can move the LZ somewhere further away from the aliens.”

“If it’s possible,” Oldham said. “I get the feeling that the alien rebels can't do much without being noticed by their enemies.”

“Yes, sir,” Nicolas said, remembering the briefings. The alien rebels had worked hard to conceal the fact that they’d diverted himself and Abigail to the alien command ship. “But if we pull it off properly, there should be no clues left behind to warn the alien leaders that they have rats in their walls.”

“And if you don’t, we’re all screwed,” Oldham said. He gave Nicolas a wintry smile. “Try not to fuck up.”

Chapter Fourteen

Mannington, Virginia, USA

Day 212

“There's even more of the bastards now,” Judith muttered. “What are they doing?”

She peered through her binoculars towards the farm the Order Police had taken over and turned into a base. Some poor farmer had been evicted so that the Order Policemen could set up tents, rather than take over buildings in Mannington itself or another nearby town. It was hard to be sure, but she thought she could count over two hundred Order Policemen on the farm, as well as dozens of others moving over the countryside.

“I think they’re getting ready for something,” Jack McVeigh muttered back. “I think I have a bad feeling about this.”

Judith couldn't disagree. She knew next to nothing about the military – or the police, for that matter – but there was a level of organised chaos that suggested that the Order Policemen were frantically getting ready for something. They were clearly nervous too; she’d heard shots fired at night, while they’d refused to allow anyone to come near their base if they were in vehicles, no matter who they were. And the camp followers, the small army of whores that followed in their wake, was nowhere to be seen.

She scanned the campsite, wondering just what they thought they were doing. Most Order Police bases refused to allow their men to carry weapons, except when they were on deployment or rushing to stand off an insurgent attack. Judith couldn't blame them either; she’d seen Order Policemen hurt themselves through making simple mistakes, mistakes that had been drummed out of her by her first shooting lessons. What sort of idiot tried to stick a pistol in his belt with the safety off? Here, though, everyone was armed ... and getting in plenty of shooting practice in the makeshift range. It bespoke a level of competence that was quite atypical for the Order Police.

A dull roar echoed through the air as a small squadron of LAVs made their way along the road, backed up by a pair of heavy tanks. Or at least they looked like tanks. Judith hadn't known much about military vehicles before the aliens landed and after that the resistance had been too concentrated on fighting to teach the new recruits about the vehicles the Order Police had pressed into service. All that mattered was that she could plink away at them all day with her sniper rifle and it wouldn't slow them down for a second.

“That’s worse,” McVeigh muttered. “We’re running short on antitank ammunition.”

Judith scowled. The insurgents had littered some of the interstates with IEDs – they were only used by collaborators these days – but it was impossible to rig all of the smaller roads with bombs, even if it wouldn't have been disastrous. If the insurgents accidentally killed a civilian, the rest of the civilians would swing towards the aliens – and the insurgents would be betrayed. Judith had some difficulty in imagining why anyone would want to work with the aliens – most of their collaborators were either monsters or brainwashed into servitude – but it was a valid concern. The locals knew the area far better than the aliens. They could easily betray resistance camps.

“Nine trucks coming afterwards,” she added, as she saw them moving into view. “Whatever they’re doing, I think it's starting.”

Someone barked a command and the Order Policemen dropped whatever it was they were doing and hastened towards the farmhouse, where they formed into neat rows in front of their superior officers. Judith’s hands itched, wishing that she could just start shooting; she was sure that she could drop most of the officers before the armoured vehicles started shooting back at her. Hell, the officers seemed to have forgotten the basics of survival in a world that included snipers; they wore fancy uniforms and accepted salutes from all and sundry. If Judith hadn’t identified them already, she would have known when she saw the salutes.

“They’re playing at being military,” McVeigh explained, when she commented on it. “Just like many of those militia groups.”

Judith shrugged. Some of the militias had grown into determined and capable insurgent groups, hurting the aliens wherever they found them. Others had been so overconfident that the aliens had practically wiped them out in their first engagement. War, she’d been told, was a harsh exam. Those who failed died.

“Time to slip away,” McVeigh added. Down below, the Order Policemen were climbing into the trucks. “We need to report in.”

“And,” Judith asked, “tell them what?”

“That the enemy is on the move,” McVeigh said. “I think they need to know that, don’t you?”

***

I think that Nicolas has the better job, Greg thought, sourly. Or does he want to strangle his superiors too?

His original job might have evaporated, but he did have a reputation for repairing computers. It wasn't hard, not when most problems could be solved by looking at the list of recently-installed programs or – if all else failed – checking the help files. But it had also convinced him that most people were idiots when it came to computers. A few simple precautions and half of the job’s hassle would simply disappear.

“The problem is caused by these files,” he said, wishing that he was somewhere – anywhere – else. “They were downloaded from the internet by one of your children.”

Mrs Flint glared at him. She was fifty years old and had brought up three children after her worthless ass of a husband had abandoned them – or so she told everyone who even showed the slightest bit of interest in her life story. Greg would have liked to know which part of his job description included listening to his client’s personal details, but he kept that thought to himself. Mrs Flint would complain about him if she thought he was being cheeky and half of his customers would disappear, out of fear of her sharp tongue.

“My boys wouldn't visit such websites,” Mrs Flint insisted. “Someone must have hacked into my computer and downloaded them into my system ...”

Greg didn’t – quite – roll his eyes. The odds of a hacker deciding that he was going to spend his time downloading porn– and the attached viruses from untrustworthy sites - for Mrs Flint were quite low. It was far more likely that her three teenage boys had discovered the joys of online porn, without learning how to tell the difference between safe sites and unsafe sites.

“No doubt,” he agreed, dryly. “I suggest, however, that I should give them a lecture on computer safety ...”

“So you can claim extra money,” Mrs Flint snapped. “That won’t be necessary, thank you.”

Greg shrugged. It wouldn't be long before Mrs Flint called him again, in a panic because her system was refusing to work properly. Given the amount of junk the boys downloaded – toolbars, nifty programs, outright porn – he was mildly surprised that it worked at all. At least she didn't have a husband any longer. Greg still recalled with embarrassment the day he’d asked an innocent question about who had been downloading porn, only to ruin a marriage.

He opened up the computer and went through it, deleting the junk programs one by one. Luckily, there didn't seem to be any damage to the actual computer itself, merely too many running programs for it to handle. Shaking his head, he finished the job, started to set a password to prevent people from downloading additional programs, then decided that it wasn't worth the hassle. Mrs Flint would make a terrible fuss if she decided that he was interfering with her freedom to use her computer as she saw fit.

“It’s done,” he said, finally. “However, I would suggest that you got a new machine ...”

“I could sell this one for a thousand dollars,” Mrs Flint said. “And then buy a new one with the money.”

Greg sighed. The computer might have been worth a thousand dollars when it had been purchased, although he doubted it, but it wasn't worth more than twenty bucks now. Before the invasion, it would probably have cost more to post it to its buyer. Now, of course, with no new computers being produced in America, there wouldn't be a replacement – unless Mrs Flint made a deal with a computer geek. But that was unlikely. Few people took New Dollars unless they were pushed into it.

He shook his head. Mrs Flint’s refusal to grasp a few basic realities of life – her boys watching porn, alien invasion destroying the public transportation networks that had once allowed Americans to ship something thousands of miles overnight – wasn't his problem. All that really mattered, right now, was taking care of Nancy and keeping his head down. And hoping that the aliens didn't press him into further collaboration.

“I’m sure you can,” he said, and picked up his coat. “I’ll see you next time.”

Mrs Flint counted out seven hundred New Dollars and passed them over to Greg, who took them gratefully. Inflation was already a problem – he wouldn't have been paid so much in old dollars, not before the invasion – but at least it would ensure that Nancy and himself could eat. He pocketed the money, shot a warning look at the two teenage boys hiding up the stairs and then walked out of the harridan’s house. Mrs Flint could solve her own problems in future.

He couldn't help noticing that there were more Order Policemen on the streets as he walked home. Every street corner seemed to have a handful of policemen, standing there and fingering their rifles as if they expected the entire town to come alive and start hunting them down. They didn't seem to be stopping and searching people, something that bothered him more than he wanted to admit. If their behaviour was odd – they weren't even leering at the girls – what were they doing?

Nancy yelled to him the moment he stepped inside the house, running down the stairs to give him a hug. He’d insisted that she didn't step foot outside the house while he was gone; if he’d had enough food, he would have suggested that they both stay inside and hope that the chaos washing over the world left them alone. But the small stockpile of food he’d built up after the invasion was gone and he had to work for them to eat. Shaking his head, he gently pushed his adopted daughter into the kitchen, then concealed half of his money from Mrs Flint in a antique jar. If he hadn’t had enough problems, there were reports that Order Policemen were stealing money too. Didn't the aliens pay them enough?

Maybe it’s inflation, he thought, ruefully. A thousand New Dollars at the start of the month becomes toilet paper by the end of the month.

He walked into the kitchen and found a tin of soup, which he poured into a pan and put on the stove. God alone knew what he was going to do when he ran out of gas; the aliens provided power on a very limited basis, often turning the power off and on every so often to remind the humans who was in charge now. He wasn’t sure that he could keep up with the electricity payments, even with guaranteed employment from Mrs Flint. It was easy to wonder how many repairmen had carefully concealed the source of the problem so that they would be called back, time and time again.

They were midway through dinner when he heard a dull rumble sweeping over the town. Motioning for Nancy to stay where she was, he walked over to the window and drew the curtains aside, just in time to see a handful of military vehicles driving down the middle of the road. Once, the sight would have been strange, almost surreal. The heavy armoured vehicles had once seemed utterly out of place in suburban America. Now, they were all too typical.

“Daddy,” Nancy said, “what’s that?”

“Trouble,” Greg said, feeling a shiver running down his spine. “Drink up your soup and ...”

There was a knock at the door. Greg hesitated, wishing that he still had the pistol Nicolas had given him. But it had been confiscated, along with most of the weapons in Mannington – besides, all he could have done with it against such firepower was to die bravely, leaving Nancy alone. Plucking up his courage, he walked to the door and opened it to see a grim-faced Order Policeman. Others lurked, just outside the garden gate, holding their weapons as if they feared resistance.

“Call everyone out of your house and gather in the middle of the road,” the Order Policeman snapped. “Now, damn it. Anyone found trying to hide will be beaten.”

Greg swallowed, then called for Nancy. “Should we take anything with us?”

“No, just get out there,” the Order Policeman snapped. “Now!”

Greg obeyed, holding Nancy’s hand tightly as they walked out into the middle of the road. Everyone on the street seemed to be getting the same treatment, several of them being pushed along when they didn't seem inclined to move fast enough to suit the Order Police. He caught sight, briefly, of one of Mrs Flint’s boys, before he was hidden in the crowd. The young man looked to be on the verge of panic. He wasn't the only one.

He looked over at the armoured vehicles and swallowed again, realising that they were positioned so that they could fire into the crowd if necessary. Nicolas had once told him that they’d had to be very careful to avoid an accidental massacre in Iraq; if half of the rumours he’d heard were true, the Order Policemen had carried out deliberate massacres in America. He looked up at the grim-faced men and wondered, bitterly, just where the aliens had managed to find so many willing collaborators. Who would have thought that there were that many Americans who were willing to cooperate with an invading force?

And who are you to talk? His thoughts mocked him. You collaborated as much as any of them. And you weren't honest about it, were you?

There was a deafening sound as one of the vehicles fired a machine gun into one of the houses, shattering plaster and smashing windows. “March to the centre of town,” a voice ordered, sharply. There was a choking sob, hastily cut off, from one of the people who had lived in that house. “Do not delay. March to the centre of town.”

When they arrived at the sports pitch, where the registrations had been carried out – it felt like years ago, even though it had barely been two months - Greg saw a small army of collaborators waiting for them. They hadn't been allowed a chance to pick up their ID cards, but it didn't seem to matter. The collaborators lined them up, checked everyone’s fingerprints and biometric readings, then pushed them into the middle of the field to wait. Greg looked around at all the gathered firepower and knew that resistance would be futile. The emotionless Walking Dead in command of the operation wouldn't hesitate to gun down anyone who tried to fight.

“Daddy,” Nancy said, “what are they doing?”

“I don’t know, sweetie,” Greg said, although he had a very nasty idea. There were reports of mass slaughters – and worse – posted on the internet. Maybe the aliens just intended to depopulate Mannington and leave the buildings alone, just to make a point. “I just don’t know.”

It seemed like hours before the alien collaborators finally pronounced themselves satisfied. Everyone in Mannington, from the mayor to the youngest child, seemed to have been gathered in the heart of the town. A handful of people who had been caught trying to hide were dragged in, after having been beaten black and blue, and dumped on the edge of the field as another warning. The aliens seemed not to care about the actions of their collaborators, as long as they obeyed orders when it counted.

“Those of you who are unmarried, or without children, come forward,” the collaborators ordered, finally. They repeated the instruction several times, as if they expected people to balk. “Those of you who are unmarried, or without children, come forward.”

Greg watched, one hand holding Nancy tightly, as the first batch of humans came forward. The collaborators searched them, removed anything that might be useful, and then bound their hands before pushing them into a truck. Once the first set of trucks were away, the second arrived, allowing them to keep funnelling people into the vehicles. Greg was reminded of scenes from the Holocaust before the collaborators finally called on people with children. He braced himself as fingers searched his pockets, then bound his hands and shoved him into a truck. Nancy, it seemed, was young enough to be left unbound. Instead, she was merely assisted into the truck behind him.

“Be brave,” he whispered. Everyone seemed to be panicking, particularly the youngest children. They were crying, screaming for their parents to do something – anything – to end the nightmare. But there was nothing their parents could do to help them. All they could do was endure and pray that the aliens didn't intend to kill their children. “Please. Be brave.”

“Shut your brats up or we’ll gag them with tape,” an Order Policeman snapped.

It was a futile effort, Greg saw. The kids were too frightened to be quiet and their parents weren't much better.

Maybe they don’t intend to kill us, he thought, clinging to what little hope he could. They didn't molest any of the girls.

The truck’s engine roared as it lurched into life, heading down through Mannington towards the checkpoints on the edge of town. It was hard to see anything outside the vehicle, but Greg caught enough glimpses of his town to tear at his heart. He couldn't help wondering where they were going, where the aliens were taking them ...

... And if they would ever see Mannington again.

Chapter Fifteen

Mannington, Virginia, USA

Day 212

Nicolas lay on his belly and peered through his binoculars towards Mannington, fighting the urge to run forward and do something to get his daughter out of the trap. But there was nothing he could do. By the time the reports reached the bunker, the Order Police had already surrounded Mannington and planted armoured vehicles in positions that covered every possible angle of approach. All the resistance could do was watch as the town was slowly emptied of human life.

“They brought enough transport along to move everything,” Sergeant Bain muttered. The recon specialist had been attached to Nicolas’s new unit by Oldham personally. “That’s the entire town they’re taking away.”

Nicolas nodded, still unable to grasp what the aliens were doing. They had carried out massacres in the past – he’d avenged several of them personally – but they had never simply emptied a town, at least outside the land they’d stolen for their cities. This was odd, and that bothered him. The closest alien city was hundreds of miles away.

He silently counted the trucks as they left, praying that they wouldn't run into an IED or another surprise. The aliens had sensors that sniffed out IEDs, although the resistance had found some ways to fool them and the Order Police rarely seemed to use them, for no apparent reason. Nicolas suspected that it was proof that the alien rebels were right and resources were actually quite limited. Or maybe they just considered the Order Police expendable.

“Yep, definitely enough transport,” he muttered back, already composing his next message to the alien rebels. Maybe they could provide answers about what had happened to his daughter. And the man he’d once considered a brother. “But what are they going to do with the town?”

Hours ticked by as the alien collaborators searched Mannington thoroughly, moving from house to house with practiced ease. A handful of people who’d remained in hiding were dragged out and shot, their bodies left to bleed out and die on the pavements, but there didn't seem to be any organised looting. Normally, the Order Police took everything that looked valuable and wasn't nailed down. Now, they were brisk, efficient and disinclined to waste time. Either they were growing more professional, Nicolas decided, or they had something else in mind. He rather hoped it was the latter.

“I think they’re getting ready to go,” Bain said, flatly.

Down below, the armoured vehicles were moving back towards the checkpoints on the edge of town. The collaborators were leapfrogging their way out of the town, as if they were practicing a retreat under fire. Nicolas hoped that they wouldn't be so professional if they were actually called upon to perform such a movement for real. It was never quite as easy as the tactical manuals made it sound.

“Looks like it,” Nicolas agreed. Where was Nancy? Where were they taking her? Had she been separated from Greg? “They’re leaving the town empty.”

He gritted his teeth, fighting back the urge to charge directly at the alien collaborators and demand answers. Nancy wasn't old enough to attract attention from the average male, but he knew from bitter experience that there was no shortage of paedophiles in the Order Police. Half of the reason they’d joined, he knew, that that the aliens didn't care what they did, as long as they obeyed orders. The thought of his daughter being raped by one of those bastards was maddening – and terrifying. What if they realised just who her father actually was?

“Look,” Bain said. He pointed into the distance, where a trio of alien craft were approaching, skimming the ground like some of the CAS aircraft Nicolas had called on back when the world made sense. “I think they’re coming here ...”

Nicolas had no time to say anything before the three craft passed overhead and circled Mannington, their pilots clearly ready to hit the drives and race away if a Stinger missile rose up to challenge their control of the air. But nothing happened, apart from birds fleeing the presence of aerial intruders. The aliens seemed to relax, their craft slowing down until they were hanging silently in the air, dominating the skies over Mannington. Nicolas, no matter how much he despised the Rogue Leaders for what they had done to their own race – and were planning to do to humanity – had to admire their technological prowess. The thought of the power needed to keep something hanging in the air so silently was staggering. Nothing human, not even a helicopter, could match it.

“They’re abandoning the checkpoints,” Bain snapped. “Hell, they’re running.”

Nicolas’s eyes narrowed. The Order Policemen were fleeing, taking their vehicles and leaving the checkpoints behind. He hadn't seen so much panic since a Saudi infantry company had run into a band of terrorists near Yemen and fled for their lives, after discovering that the terrorists were prepared to fight. And yet ... what were they running from?

A streak of light shone down from one of the alien craft, blasting a small house to flaming debris. As if that had been their cue, the other craft opened fire, laying waste to the entire town. Nicolas saw a church burst into flame as an alien plasma bolt slammed into the building, blasting chunks of debris in all directions. Piece by piece, the aliens reduced Mannington to burning rubble. By the time they were finished, there wasn't a single house left standing.

Nicolas could only stare as flames destroyed whatever remained of the town. The house Greg had shared with Nancy was gone, along with the memories – good and bad – that the two men had shared. All that Nancy’s mother had left for her was gone as well, he realised numbly; they’d agreed that her jewels and other possessions would be held in trust until Nancy had turned sixteen. They were now nothing more than ashes.

When he looked up, the three alien craft were gone.

“My God,” Bain said, softly. “What did they do that for?”

“It was a message, I suspect,” Nicolas said. “They knew that the resistance had some ties in Mannington” – Greg had betrayed him there, after all – “and they must have failed to find them. So they laid waste to the town instead.”

He looked back down the road, towards where the Order Police were disappearing into the distance. None of them seemed inclined to go back and sift through the ruins, thankfully; they seemed content to leave the burning town as an object lesson. Nicolas settled back and waited for the flames to die down. Without the Fire Department showing up to battle the flames, it might be hours before he could go down to the city.

But he had to try. He had to know.

***

“Hey!”

Judith swore as she heard the person behind her, just a moment too late to avoid revealing her presence. The Order Police had had a patrol moving silently through the woods and they’d seen her. McVeigh pushed her back and turned to face them, weapon in hand. He shot one of the Order Policemen before the others gunned him down and came after Judith. She crawled as hard as she could, but there was no way she could escape before one of them landed on top of her and wrenched her hands behind her back. A moment later, she was their prisoner.

“Let’s have some fun,” one of the policemen suggested, darkly. He reached down to caress Judith’s ass, causing her to squirm away. She’d heard all the tales, but somehow she’d never believed that she could be caught. “Little bitch should have died with the town.”

“She was carrying a weapon,” someone else said. “That makes her an insurgent. You know the rules for insurgents.”

“No one will ever know,” the first voice wheedled. “We have our fun with her, then dig a ditch and bury her body. They won’t know ...”

“They always know,” the second voice said. “We’ll take her to the base.”

Judith gasped in pain as they hauled her to her feet, then searched her roughly, taking every opportunity they could to grope her body. The leader, who seemed to be wearing a somewhat more ornate uniform than the other five, examined her, then looked down at the pistol she’d carried. She would have given her soul just to have her hands free and a weapon in her hand ...

“This way,” he ordered, bluntly. He leaned forward until his eyes were pressed up against hers. “And I suggest that you mind your manners. One mistake and my men can have you.”

Shaking, Judith followed instructions, allowing them to take their prisoner back to their base.

***

It was hours before the skies darkened and rain began to fall, dampening the blaze that had torn through the remains of Mannington. Whatever the aliens used for weapons, it was hot enough to set fire to almost everything; Nicolas was mildly surprised that the blaze hadn't spread outside the town and set fire to the surrounding countryside. The ruins were still hissing as he came down and entered the town, taking care to walk on what remained of the roads. God alone knew if anywhere else was safe.

Hardly a building was anything more than a pile of rubble and ashes. Here and there, half-melted metal bars testified to the intensity of the heat that had raged through the town. The wooden fences that had marked out gardens were gone, gone so completely that there was no trace of them left for him to see. A child’s climbing frame he recalled Nancy playing on once, despite Greg’s admonishments that she was not to ruin her new dress, was nothing more than a puddle of molten metal. The school where Nancy had spent most of her day, to her bitter regret, was a pile of rubble.

She would have liked that, Nicolas thought, numbly. Nancy had always had a somewhat skewed idea of what her biological father did for a living, a legacy of her mother, who had been trying to poison Nancy’s mind against him. She’d made him sound like an arsonist – and, no matter how much he tried to explain, Nancy had kept that first impression. And she had asked him to destroy her school.

Nicolas knew Mannington like the back of his hand. God knew he’d spent plenty of time there, exploring the city with his daughter or even just strolling around to get the lie of the land. Even so, finding Greg’s home was difficult. All of the landmarks he recalled from his previous visits were gone, leaving very little for him to go on. By the time he found the actual house, he was honestly uncertain if it was the right house. It took moments of careful thought before he decided that he was almost certainly right.

He found himself walking up the garden path, as ludicrous as it seemed with the garden and house beyond little more than ash. Memories rose up in front of him; Nancy running to greet him when he came back from the wars, Greg – a little more reserved – shaking his hand as he walked in through the door and into the parlour. Ghosts seemed to flicker at the corner of his eye as he looked down at where the door had been. The wooden door was nowhere to be seen.

The house had collapsed completely. He hadn't seen anything like it, outside of basic training; he suspected that a nuke would have done less damage to the town. There was nothing left of Greg and Nancy’s possessions; the adult-sized wardrobe she’d been so proud of was gone, taking her small collection of dresses with them. And the uniform he’d given her as a keepsake ... grief welled up within him and he sank to his knees, heedless of the smouldering ashes. His daughter was gone.

She might not be dead, he told himself, desperately. Greg was hardly the type for a desperate last stand, witness how quickly he’d betrayed Nicolas just to keep Nancy and himself safe. She might have gone with them ...

But where had they gone?

The collaborators weren't acting typically and that bothered him. What did they have in mind?

There was nothing left, not even one of Nancy’s dolls.

Gritting his teeth, Nicolas stood up. He would work with the alien rebels, and whoever else was prepared to join his side, just to beat the bastards once and for all.

And then he could mourn properly, both for his daughter ...

... And for the man he'd once called his brother.

***

Judith’s wrists were cramping terribly by the time they finally reached the Order Police base, but complaints earned her nothing apart from a slap and a warning to keep her voice down. The sight of the base sent chills down her spine, reminding her that there was nothing she could do to escape. She’d tested the cuffs and discovered that the more she struggled, the tighter they held her. All she could do was wait.

The base itself surrounded a medium-sized alien craft. It was the closest Judith had ever seen one and she found herself staring at it with a sick fascination, admiring the craftsmanship that had gone into its creation even as she dreaded what it had brought to her world. The craft was almost the typical flying saucer; it would have been charming if the hull wasn't studded with blisters that were clearly weapons. And the handful of alien warriors standing outside the craft, weapons held at the ready.

She was ordered to sit on the muddy ground and wait as her captors reported to their superiors. From their careless chatter, she had gathered the impression that resistance captives were particularly important to the aliens – and she could guess why. They’d want to take her, to use her against the resistance ... and then dump her when she’d served her purpose. But there was no longer any point in struggling. Even if she had been able to break the cuffs, she was surrounded by alien warriors and human collaborators.

An alien warrior marched over to her and reached down with one clawed hand, pulling her to her feet. It was a nightmare right out of science-fiction, a strange composite of every barbaric warrior race she’d ever seen on television ... and it stank. A strange, almost vinegary smell surrounded it as it pushed her into the craft. Looking at the muscles rippling under what little of its flesh she could see, she doubted that any human would have a chance in single combat. The alien warrior was specifically bred for war.

Inside, the alien craft was strangely humid, causing sweat to trickle down her back. The passageways seemed almost misty, as if the aliens thought fog was the ideal working condition. There was a faint smell of ... something as she was pushed into a small room, where a table was slowly growing out of the floor. Two alien workers turned to face her; she gasped out loud as she realised that one of them had had his hand replaced by a medical tool. The aliens thought nothing of mutilating themselves to prepare for their work ...

And then she realised what they had in mind.

One of the alien workers pushed her towards the table until she was bent over, her hair spilling over her head and dangling towards the floor. The other pushed a tool against the side of her head. There was a brief moment of pain and then ...

***

Nicolas was still planning the operation in his head when they reached the RV point, dodging a handful of roving enemy patrols as they moved. The Order Police seemed to be pulling out, although it was dangerous to judge their activities by any normal military standard. They were, as a general rule, amateurs, taking their tactics out of a book. But then, running extra patrols before pulling out was taken from a book.

“We will get them,” Bain promised him, for the umpteenth time. He hadn't seen the desolation at close range. “They won’t get away with this.”

Nicolas stopped. Someone was at the RV point, waiting for them. He held up a hand to stop Bain, then inched forward. The person standing there was a young girl with short dark hair, carrying a rifle in one hand. She looked nervous, her eyes scanning around as if she expected to be surprised at any moment. It was a common attitude among the insurgents who had no prior military experience.

Bracing himself, Nicolas stepped forward.

“We’re here,” he said, as she heard the noise and spun around. He raised his hands to show that they were empty, although he was ready to jump her if she looked likely to take a shot at him. “And you are?”

“Judith,” the girl gasped, once she’d lowered the rifle. He’d given her a nasty shock. “My companion got shot and I had to run. I don’t think they tracked me.”

“Let’s hope not,” Nicolas agreed. He didn't know Judith, which suggested that she wasn't cleared to know about the hidden bunker. There were plenty of other resistance bases in the area. “But we’d better move on before it’s too late.”

Judith didn't bother complaining, she just followed them as they headed towards the second RV point. Once there, she could go to join up with the rest of her unit – or be pushed into a new one, if the old unit was completely gone. Nicolas wondered absently if he shouldn't ask for her to join his unit. Every insurgent he’d commanded directly before was either dead or an alien prisoner, according to Oldham.

Get the alien doctor, break the conditioning ... and then wage war, he thought, grimly. And then take them down with us if we can’t win.

Chapter Sixteen

Near Washington DC, USA

Day 212

The lurch from the truck brought Greg back to full awareness, reminding him that he was nothing more than a prisoner, his hands stiff and numb from the tie binding them behind his back. Nancy had drifted off into a fitful sleep, her small body shaking as a nightmare wracked her mind, leaving him to worry endlessly. Eventually, he must have drifted off too.

He shuddered as the truck driver turned off the engine. Outside, he could hear shouts, some of them in a language he didn't recognise. Where were they? They couldn't have slept for more than a few hours, could they? He looked around and saw the same question in the eyes of his fellow prisoners, each one just as unsure as himself. There was no way to know where they were.

The rear doors burst open, revealing that darkness had fallen over the country. Greg peered out as Order Policemen climbed into the vehicle and started helping people to climb outside, spotting a handful of buildings in the distance. The area was completely unfamiliar, which bothered him more than he realised it should. After all, America wasn't exactly a small country and he hadn’t explored more than a tiny fraction of it. Strong hands picked him up and shoved him through the doors, forcing him to jump down to the concrete below. Other policemen glanced at him, then pushed him into a line with the other prisoners and their children. Nancy, shocked awake by the noise, clung on to his arm as they waited, not knowing what was in store. Greg would almost have preferred to know that they were going to face a firing squad.

He glanced around, sighting dozens of other trucks, all unloading their prisoners. It looked as if the entire population of Mannington had been transported to their new destination, wherever it was. He recognised dozens of people as they stood in line, all looking as shell-shocked as Greg felt. But people were clearly missing ... it took him several minutes to realised just who was missing. Teenage girls and unmarried women had gone to a different camp, he told himself. It beat thinking about the more likely alternative.

There was a roar behind him and he jumped, spinning round to see the truck driving away.

“Silence,” a voice bellowed. Greg had barely been aware of any chatter. The crowd had been too worried to talk to one another. “You will wait until you are called.”

It felt like hours before the line started to move, marching over the concrete ground towards one of the buildings in the distance. Up close, it looked like an army barracks, although as Greg had no military experience, he had no way of knowing if it actually was. The small line of guards surrounding it clipped away the plastic cuffs as the detainees entered the building, clearly confident that no one would try to fight. They were so tired and hungry, Greg knew, that they couldn't fight, even if they wanted to risk their lives and those of their children.

Inside, there were hundreds of bunk beds, each one barely large enough for a single half-sized man. There were a handful of complaints, which were simply ignored by the Order Policemen; they didn't seem to care about the accommodations. Greg shuddered as he realised that he – and Nancy – would be sharing with hundreds of other people, all crammed into the same room. Nicolas could probably have tolerated it, but Nicolas was a soldier, used to sharing close quarters with other people. Greg ... had no such tolerance.

“Maybe we can go home soon,” Nancy said, as she claimed one of the higher bunk beds for herself. It was a piece of shoddy construction, flimsy enough to give Greg nightmares. There wasn't even a railing capable of preventing her from rolling over and out of bed, if she turned over in the night. He would never have expected to see anything like it outside a homemade structure. The threats of lawsuits alone would have ensured that it was as safe as possible.

“Yeah, maybe,” Greg muttered. He looked towards the rear of the building, where there were a handful of showers and toilets. They were going to be living in each other’s pockets, he realised dully. Privacy would be a thing of the past. “Or maybe we won’t be able to go home at all.”

He took the bunk underneath Nancy, realising that he could no longer protect her at all. If someone wanted to hurt her, for whatever reason, he was powerless to stop them. They could no longer run off to the hills either and hide in the countryside, not now they were in the barracks with – he was sure – heavy fences and armed guards surrounding them. It was a concentration camp, to all intents and purposes; there was no way out, unless they were allowed to go free.

A whistle blew, calling his attention towards an overweight woman standing at the door. “You will be fed in one hour,” she said, flatly. “Until then, try to get some sleep. There is nothing else to do.”

She was right, Greg realised. There were no toys or games, no books or DVD players – there was nothing to distract them from their imprisonment. Even a real prison would have had more to distract the inmates than the camp. He looked up at Nancy, then around at the other prisoners. God alone knew how long they would remain reasonably civilised.

Nicolas had once told him that society was only two or three missed meals away from collapse. Right now, Greg suspected that Nancy’s father was right.

***

Karen had had plenty of experience, in the months she’d worked at the heart of the collaborator government, in keeping her face under firm control. It wasn't easy, but the thought of being executed – or implanted – provided all the incentive she could possibly require. Besides, the resistance needed their source in Washington and if that meant pretending to be a good little collaborator, it was what she was going to do.

Right now, she was being tested as never before. The aliens had ordered the entire town of Mannington to be transported from West Virginia to a purpose-built camp near Washington DC. The camp had originally been intended to serve as a transit barracks for the Arabs the aliens had recruited as soldiers, before most of them had been killed in Chicago and a dozen other hellholes over what remained of the United States. Now, it was a concentration camp, in all but name. The sight disgusted and terrified her.

She’d seen horror, she’d thought, ever since the giant alien command ship had cast a shadow over Washington. The alien craft might be inefficient, but it had been hellishly intimidating, a droll reminder of alien power. Even after it had been taken down, the memory lingered. And she’d seen people turned into soulless alien slaves, or forced into servitude to the collaborator government ... and much worse. And yet this was shocking enough to force its way past the armour she’d pulled over her emotions.

Endless lines of people, with nothing more than the clothes on their backs, were being unloaded from trucks and marched into the barracks. Some of them had children, who were glancing around as if they couldn't quite understand what was going on; Karen felt her heart break as she realised that the children would grow up in the camp, if they survived long enough to reach adulthood. Would they ever be allowed to leave? Or did the aliens intend to work them to death?

It wasn't unlikely. Daisy Fairchild’s Department of Human Resources had jobs for everyone, even if they were nothing more than cleaning up the rubble from the wars, digging ditches or shovelling shit. There was no shortage of work that needed to be done; Washington, outside the Green Zone, still had mountains of rubble where proud buildings had once stood. Maybe Daisy intended to use the camp’s population as additional workers. Or perhaps the aliens had something else in mind.

She glanced down at the tablet PC in her hand, tracking the trucks as they carried people through the darkening countryside towards the camp. The aliens had insisted on diverting teenage and unmarried girls somewhere else, for reasons that escaped Karen. They’d never shown any hesitation in admitting that they’d sent human girls to Order Police camps as sex slaves, so why were they being coy now? The movement orders, making their way through the bureaucracy Daisy had set up for the aliens, said that the girls were being taken well away from Mannington, heading westwards. There was no final destination listed on the movement orders.

They probably think that it will upset us, she thought, sourly. They’re probably right.

The final truck was unloaded and departed, leaving one final line of stragglers to enter the barracks and find beds. Karen had seen inside one of them before the first trucks had arrived; they were tiny, designed more for school-aged children than grown adults. The prisoners were going to be very uncomfortable ... she made a mental note to see what she could do about getting them some entertainment, something to distract them. If they rioted, with the guards in just the right places to machine gun the barracks, everyone inside would die.

Part of her was proud of the logistics system she had designed for the aliens. It would feed everyone in the camp, providing them with enough nutrition to get them through the day ... but it wouldn't be very satisfying. There had been reports that people had preferred to starve to death, rather than eat the ration bars and slop the aliens provided to keep humans alive. Karen found it hard to blame them. The ration bars tasted truly disgusting.

She turned and walked back towards the gates. The camp was surrounded by no less than three layers of wire and nine guard towers, each one armed with machine guns and guards with a proven track record of shooting when given the order. She caught their gaze and shivered inwardly, even though she knew that she was safe. Civilisation hadn't taken strong root in those men even before the aliens had ripped human society apart; if she’d been alone, without alien protection, she knew what might have happened to her. How could Daisy have found so many willing servants for the aliens?

They wanted to enjoy power over their fellow men, she realised, not for the first time. They don’t care about the source of their power, or the price, as long as they can enjoy it. And all of the laws that would have tried to deter them are gone.

She made a quick note on her tablet PC as she climbed into the car that would return her to the Green Zone. Everything had been completed, precisely as Daisy and the aliens had ordered; two thousand, four hundred and fifty people had been concentrated in the camp, waiting for the aliens to decide what to do with them. And, she’d heard, their hometown had been burned to ashes. Mannington was gone.

It would have been easy to give up, she knew. She could have simply stopped sending messages outside the walls, abandoned the resistance and thrown herself into the luxurious lifestyle of the collaborators ... but she owed the President, wherever he was, more. And yet, she couldn't see how the aliens could ever be dislodged. They were just too powerful and the resistance could do nothing more than sting them.

And in the end, they might just grind the human race down into servitude.

“There was a sniper just outside the checkpoints,” the driver called back. “We’re taking the long way around, just in case.”

Karen nodded. After everything she’d done for the resistance, being shot by a resistance fighter would be the ultimate irony – but it was an ever-present risk.

She watched as the armoured, but still luxurious car made its way into Washington, sucking in her breath as she saw the makeshift camps where the population were gathered, penned in by the aliens. Some of them had jobs, working for the aliens, but others were too far gone to care about such matters. Others were still suffering the effects of drug withdrawal as supplies of drugs, no longer being imported into the city, ran out. Karen wondered, absently, how long it would be until some of the collaborators started selling drugs themselves. They had their own pipelines to Columbia now.

Maybe the civil war will make it harder to ship drugs northwards, she thought. The Mexican Civil War was still raging, spilling over into the Southern US, while most of Latin America convulsed in agony as an ever-shifting mosaic of factions struggled for supremacy. But the rich and powerful can always get their drugs.

The Order Police didn't bother to patrol Washington’s outskirts, not now. Karen knew that the lack of policing only made things worse in the camps; there were endless murders, rapes and other crimes, carried out against a helpless population. Turf wars between small gangs were common, even though there was a greater threat in the Green Zone. The aliens did nothing to stop the chaos, perhaps calculating that it helped their cause. Their allies knew that if they refused to work as the aliens wanted they might be thrust out of the more civilised parts of Washington.

After all this is done, Karen asked herself, will we have a country anymore?

***

Greg sat upright when the bell rang – and bumped his head into the bunk overhead. Nancy giggled as she scrambled down from the bunk; Greg had to hold himself back from swearing out loud, using words that Nancy shouldn't know yet. His head aching, he swung his legs out over the side and stood upright, narrowly avoiding cracking his head for the second time.

The doors opened, revealing that someone had set up rows of flimsy wooden tables and stools outside the barracks. They creaked alarmingly as a cold wind blew over the camp, suggesting that they were on the verge of collapse. Greg scowled as he followed Nancy over to a grim-faced woman standing behind a pot of ... something. It looked rather like a curry that had passed through someone’s digestive system and re-emerged from the wrong end.

“Take a bowl,” the woman droned, as they reached the head of the line. Greg held up a bowl for himself and picked up a second one for Nancy. “Take a glass of water from the dispenser behind me. Walk onwards; don’t delay, just move ...”

Greg sniffed the bowl as Nancy collected water for both of them. It didn't smell much better than it looked, he decided; it smelt faintly of rotten meat. Carefully, he tasted it ... and discovered that they’d used spices to hide most of the favours. The only thing he was sure of was tofu – and he hated tofu. And if the meat was rotten ... he didn't want Nancy to eat it. But there was no alternative.

They found a seat near the edge of the table and sat down. It tasted worse than it smelled, Greg decided; Nancy took a bite, then eyed the bowl with the same kind of disdain she showed for sprouts and broccoli. Greg didn't want to force her to eat, but there was no choice. How many meals could she miss at her age before she got ill? He couldn't recall, yet he was sure that it wasn't that many. If any ...

The water tasted flat, reminding him of the water Nicolas had produced during one of their few camping trips. He’d had something he’d brought from the military, a pill he'd dropped into the water, if Greg recalled correctly. It had cleaned the water, but left it rather flat ... he hoped that the camp wardens were at least boiling the water before serving it to the unwilling guests. If disease hit the camp’s population it would go through them like wildfire.

As soon as she had finished eating, Nancy ran off to play with the other kids. Most of them seemed to have decided that it was an adventure, rather than picking up on the fear the adults shared. It was probably a good thing, Greg decided, as he watched his adopted daughter playing tag with the other children, although he didn't know if it would last. Sooner or later, the kids would realise that their universe had shrunk, that they could no longer go outside the wire ... and then, what? He knew nothing of what happened to children in prison.

“Leave the bowls on the table,” the warden directed. “Collect your children and go back inside.”

Greg sighed and called for Nancy. The kids didn't want to go back to the barracks; some of them ran around, daring their parents to catch them. Greg saw the frightened expressions on some of the adults and shivered. Their kids weren't obeying orders and it was easy to imagine that the guards might start taking pot-shots at them, just to encourage them to obey. Greg was sweating with fear by the time Nancy finally came over to him, her face glowing with life, and walked back into the barracks with him. Some of the other children were less willing to obey.

“I’m sorry,” Greg whispered, as he helped her up into her bunk. Several people were trying to take showers, but apparently the water was cold and merely dribbled onto their bodies. And there was absolutely no privacy at all. “I’m so sorry.”

“It wasn't your fault,” Nancy assured him.

Greg shook his head. It certainly felt like it was his fault. He should have done what Nicolas had suggested and taken his daughter somewhere out of town.

But now it was far too late.

Chapter Seventeen

Over Virginia, USA

Day 213

“The glitch is in place,” the alien worker said. “All is ready for the descent.”

Philip sucked in his breath sharply. NASA’s safety-conscious mentality would never countenance deliberately causing an error, at least outside of simulations where the dangers of space flight could be explored safely. The aliens seemed to be much more casual about it, although from what Philip had seen of their technology it was a great deal more reliable than humanity’s. They might have started with a focus on biology rather than mechanical technology, but they’d progressed rapidly once they’d cracked the basics of steam technology. Philip had a suspicion that if they’d started like humanity, they would have filled half of the galaxy before the first human learned how to tame fire.

He looked over at Theta, the alien doctor. The alien had refused to give any personal name, so Philip had chosen one for him, pointing out that he’d need it to interact with humans. Just because the aliens could tell each other apart didn't mean that humans could do the same, at least for the aliens. The aliens apparently had fewer problems telling humans apart, but then humans were far more variable than the aliens.

Their genetics must be very curious, he thought, wishing he knew more about their evolutionary path. There was no real difference between the different subsets of humanity; hell, one could and did argue that there were no subsets at all. People might be white or black or brown, but they still bled the same colour, had the same average level of intelligence and could interbreed. From what he’d read in the alien files, there were significant differences between the various alien castes.

Theta was as tall as the other alien leaders, but his body was slightly larger and one of his arms had been replaced by a prosthetic that ended in a series of medical tools, reminding Philip of Star Trek’s Borg. Human prosthetics were designed to be as indistinguishable from real arms and legs as possible, but the aliens didn't seem to care if they appeared mutilated to human eyes. Philip wondered if their dark eyes were implants too. It might explain their callous attitude to meddling with human genes – to say nothing of implanting control implants into human skulls – if they honestly saw nothing wrong with improving themselves.

Humans had quibbled over the possible impact of genetic engineering, even though human science had yet to reach the point where it could improve the intellect or even the physical body. The People seemed to have had no such qualms. But then, they hadn't been created equal. Their society might have justified a caste system far more stratified than the Indians had created for themselves. He should have been impressed, he told himself, that the aliens had achieved as much freedom as they had ...

At least until the Rogue Leaders took it away, he thought, and shuddered. Given time, they would create an ant colony in truth, combining both humans and aliens into a society with them as the absolute masters. And that would be the end of everything.

Theta sat down on a hard alien bench and made a hand gesture Philip didn't recognise. “You may begin,” he said, as Philip sat down facing him. “Take us down.”

The alien drive system, Philip had been told, wasn't a perfect antigravity system, although humans tended to think of it as such. He’d listened to the explanation, but he had to admit that he'd lost track of what they were talking about quickly. It was just too different from anything he’d ever used for NASA, or had considered theoretically possible. The craft had more flexibility than anything human, yet they had limits of their own. One of them prevented the craft from actually manoeuvring at high speeds.

His face twitched into a smile. That little weakness might have puzzled humanity, but it had been noticed. Missiles had downed a number of alien craft that had been unable to evade them in time to escape, giving humanity hope that it could actually win the war. And then the mothership had entered orbit and the last of America’s resistance had been smashed from high overhead, well outside their range. Now, even if the mothership were lost, there were millions of aliens on the surface. They could still fight humanity and win.

The craft lurched slightly as the glitch took effect, the gravity field fluctuating around them. One thing he had been assured was that the internal compensator field would keep them alive, at least unless they hit the ground hard enough to destroy the ship, but it still felt uncomfortable. None of the aliens seemed worried, even when the craft tilted and started to fall out of the sky. Maybe the field wasn't configured for human life.

Heading down, he thought, remembering his first astronaut drills. They’d flown up high in an aircraft, then the aircraft had tilted and dived, giving the trainees their first taste of zero-gravity. It had awed him, but it was nothing in comparison to the freedom he'd felt when orbiting the Earth, even when NASA had entangled him in endless checklists and safety precautions. The Russians were so much better off. They weren't strangled by red tape and an endless bombardment of instructions from people on the ground.

The bulkheads turned transparent, allowing him to see the country as it swelled up in front of him. He stared; from his point of view, America seemed to be lunging forwards. It was nothing more than an optical illusion, but it was a very convincing one. None of the aliens seemed to be bothered at all. They’d been born and bred in space.

Lucky bastards, he thought. He knew what he would have done if he’d had their technology; he would have had the solar system settled in ten years, then had colony ships heading out to the stars in fifty. The thought nagged at his mind; even if humanity beat the aliens who had invaded their star system, they would still be behind when it came to settling the other nearby stars. Instead of a long expansion into interstellar space, humanity might be trapped in its own star system, unable to settle other worlds for itself. Or maybe there were other, more dangerous races out there. There was no way to know.

“Landing in two minutes,” the alien pilot said. “Emergency distress signal active, pulsing now.”

Philip nodded. There was no way to avoid sending a distress signal, not unless they wanted the Rogue Leaders to examine everything in order to find out what had gone wrong, but it risked everything. If the alien rescue teams arrived before the resistance had completed its work, the Rogue Leaders would have good reason to suspect that humanity had had alien help. And if they discovered Philip onboard the craft, having somehow evaded their surveillance network, they would know the truth. No lone human could have escaped the command ship.

“Brace for impact,” the pilot said.

Philip braced himself as best as he could.

***

“She’s coming down fast,” Bane muttered, as he peered up into the night sky. “And she’s definitely in trouble.”

Nicolas nodded. The grief and rage that had threatened to overwhelm him in Mannington was still there, still mocking his every step, even though his training should have allowed him to push it aside. But he’d never lost Nancy before, never feared losing her so completely ... even during the custody battles, he’d never been so terrified for her life. God alone knew where she was now, but if half of the rumours were accurate, it wasn't somewhere pleasant.

The alien craft were normally silent, unless one was very close to the craft’s hull, where a faint hum could be heard. It had allowed them to surprise resistance fighters in the past; they were quieter than drones, allowing them to drift through the air utterly unheard and unseen. If there wasn't a sensor node nearby, the first the resistance fighters would know of its existence was when the blue-white bursts of plasma fire started lashing down at them.

This craft seemed to be screaming as it fell out of the skies, wrapped in a brilliant disc of fire that illuminated the area for miles around. There was no way the aliens would miss it, not looking down from orbit as they were; they’d have rescue teams on the way already. They hadn't had during the early days of the war, but that might well have been because humanity had a working air defence network. Now, the aliens controlled the skies and could go where they liked, daring the humans to stop them.

The craft seemed to slow, coming to a halt in the air, before it fell the rest of the way and struck the ground with a loud thud. Nicolas felt the ground shake as he pulled himself upright and started jogging towards the crash site, followed rapidly by the rest of his team. Four of the men were carrying coffins – the sealed boxes that blocked all transmissions, intended for transporting the alien and his human ally – and the others carried weapons. If a rescue mission did arrive, Nicolas intended to give it a hot reception.

Even disabled, the craft was radiating enough heat to darken the grass and threaten to set fire to the forest. A hatch opened in the side of the disc-shaped hull as they approached, revealing a pair of alien workers. The two aliens ignored the armed humans and started to work on the hull, doing something that caused the temperature to drop sharply. Part of Nicolas wanted to know what they'd done, the other part knew that their time was rapidly running out. The alien rescue mission had to be on its way.

He hesitated as he reached the hatch, then realised that the air was cool. Inside, he smiled as he saw Philip and the alien standing next to him, the alien seemingly utterly unbothered by the crash. Nicolas saw Philip gulp as the coffins were placed on the deck and nodded in understanding; the coffins would leave him trapped in darkness for hours, unable to move or speak or escape. People had been known to go mad if they’d been trapped for too long.

“I'm sorry,” he said, “but we cannot risk having you traced.”

“I understand,” Philip said. He held a small alien injector device in his hand. “I’ll sedate myself as soon as the lid is closed.”

“Good thinking,” Nicolas said. The astronaut wouldn't have to do anything until they got back to the bunker and he'd been thoroughly checked out by the doctors, just in case the aliens had given him any unpleasant surprises. “We’ll get you out as quickly as possible.”

Philip walked over to the first of the coffins, lay down inside it and then pressed the injector against his neck. He slumped back a moment later, falling asleep. Nicolas wondered absently just what sort of drug it had been, before deciding that it didn’t matter at the moment. The alien walked over to the second coffin, lay down – it had to be an uncomfortable pose, because the coffin hadn't been designed for the inhumanly tall aliens – and peered up at them until Nicolas pulled the lid over his head.

“Take them out of here,” he ordered, as he pulled the explosive pack from his belt. “Hurry.”

Nicolas placed the pack on the deck, keyed the activation code into the pad and then stepped backwards, almost tripping over someone standing directly behind him. He turned around and saw the two aliens, staring at the explosive pack with wide dark eyes. Nicolas hesitated, unsure of what to say or do; the aliens had to die, just to cover the resistance’s tracks. And yet ... he’d never hesitated to kill aliens before, but this was different. These aliens had volunteered to die.

He’d fought suicide bombers, and idiots who had thought that faith could replace training and experience and that death would win them heaven, but this was different. His throat choked up as the little aliens, barely taller than Nancy herself, sat down next to the explosive pack and waited. They were going to die ... did they have no sense of self-preservation, or did they know that there was no other choice? It struck him, suddenly, that he was looking at the fate of humanity if they lost the war. Endless unthinking servitude to alien masters.

The thought broke him out of his trance. Turning, he sprinted for the hatch and dived back out of the alien craft, back on to solid ground. There was no sign of any alien recovery mission, but it would only be a matter of time before one arrived. Luckily, any observers from orbit wouldn't see anything more than a group of humans looking inside the craft, then running for their lives. There was, in theory, no way to know that there was anything inside the coffins. But Nicolas had learned the hard way never to underestimate the limits of alien technology.

He was still running when the ground shook. The explosive pack had detonated, destroying the craft – and all evidence that the alien rebels had been there. If they were lucky, the Rogue Leaders would never know that the craft had been effectively abandoned when it had been destroyed. And even if they suspected the truth, they would never be able to prove it.

If they care about proof, he thought, as he sensed something racing by overhead. The alien response team had finally arrived, too late. He paused and looked backwards, catching sight of alien warriors as they dropped down to secure the crash site. They looked as ready to fight as ever, but Nicolas knew that it was pointless. Now that the mission had been accomplished, the resistance had no intention of fighting, or even trying to drop a mortar round on their heads. There was no point in simply bleeding the aliens.

Turning, he allowed himself to slip into the darkness. It was a long walk to the bunker and he needed to get there before daybreak. Or else he would have to hole up somewhere and wait for nightfall.

***

Abigail had been pressed into service as a medical orderly. It wasn't a job she enjoyed, but she did have some First Aid training and it gave her something to do. The bunker just didn't have very much to distract her and going outside was completely out of the question. If she happened to be caught, the aliens would realise that she was meant to be a prisoner in a POW camp and start asking questions. Or maybe they would implant her first and ask questions afterwards, when she would have no choice, but to tell the truth.

“Get the coffins open,” the doctor ordered, briskly. He’d been as irritated to have her as she’d been to work for him, but there were few medics in the bunker. Most of them had been assigned to work as combat medics in other resistance camps. “Hurry.”

Abigail opened the first coffin ... and almost screamed out loud when she saw the alien. The alien didn't seem too worried as he sat upright, his mechanical arm whirring and clicking like a living thing. Several of the soldiers pointed their rifles at the alien, even though they had been expecting him. The doctor snapped orders for them to lower their weapons and wait for other instructions.

The alien stood up, stepped out of the coffin and eyed the small array of human tech with what looked like disdain. But it was impossible to be sure. His gait, Abigail couldn't help noticing, was very inhuman. He seemed to be almost dancing forward, rather than striding in a humanlike manner. The doctor overcame his surprise and pointed the first of a series of sensors at the alien, paying particular attention to the mechanical arm.

“Tell me,” Abigail asked, “where are you going to stick the anal probe?”

The doctor eyed her darkly. “I think we have reached the limits of what anal probes can teach us,” he said, dryly. “Besides, I don’t think that the alien has an anus.”

“Our species is considerably better designed than yours,” the alien said. The dispassionate, almost atonal voice sent shivers down Abigail’s spine. There might be some aliens who were humanity’s allies, but she didn't think that she’d ever like them. They were creepy in a way that transcending any merely human racism. “We convert everything we eat to energy.”

“Oh, yeah,” one of the soldiers said. “How do you have sex then?”

“Sex is inefficient,” the alien informed them. “Our children are the products of DNA combining and reforming in a pod.”

Abigail blinked in surprise. That couldn't be true, could it? A race dependent on technology to procreate would never have evolved at all ... unless they’d had help, unless someone else had uplifted them for their own purposes. But maybe the Rogue Leaders would seek to streamline and eventually control the reproductive urge. It was powerful, even among the aliens. Maybe it was one of the factors that prevented the Rogue Leaders from taking complete control.

“That’s as may be,” the doctor said. “Can you remove your arm?”

“No,” the alien said. “I require the arm to handle the nanotech we have provided. There is no longer any purpose in delay. The process must be fine-tuned as quickly as possible.”

“He’s right,” Nicolas said, from where he’d been watching the brief examination. “We have to start experimenting now.”

Abigail nodded.

“Take him down to the lower level,” Nicolas ordered. Two soldiers stepped forwards, their weapons slung over their shoulders. Others would follow at a safe distance. “Once he’s there, we can start work.”

And pray that this isn’t a trick, Abigail thought. Because if it is ...

She left the thought unfinished.

Chapter Eighteen

Virginia, USA

Day 213

Nicolas couldn't help worrying as the alien was slowly escorted into the examination chamber, along with the small pile of devices he had brought with him. He was reasonably certain that the alien rebels were genuine and that they weren't slowly making their way into humanity’s confidence so that they could betray them later, but that wasn't the only concern. It was quite possible that one of the guards would see the alien and fire off a few rounds, either through panic or through a deliberate attempt to hit back at the creatures who’d torn the country apart. There wasn't a person in the bunker who didn't have a good reason to hate the aliens.

Back during training, he'd been told that people were capable of drawing ever more exclusionary circles within their own society, while failing to realise that other societies had their own circles. It certainly made sense within the military; there was a colossal difference between a SEAL and a clerk hiding in the FOB, but an outsider might not realise that there was a real difference, at least not emotionally. He’d seen that in Iraq and Afghanistan; there had been a colossal temptation to regard them all with the same negative brush, even though they were just people. Why couldn't the same be true of the People?

Because they seem a faceless hive mind to us, he thought. His trainers had pointed out how many people were prepared to demonise everyone who happened to belong to a different group. Why shouldn't we see them as nothing, but monsters?

He wished, not for the first time, that he had a team of MPs trained in prisoner handling, even though the alien was not – technically – a prisoner. The MPs took a shitload of abuse from their prisoners, but they never lost control and shot them, or applied more force than was actually necessary. It hadn't stopped the prisoners claiming that they’d been abused, naturally, yet it had been enough to disprove such claims. Not that the world had cared.

The alien stood in the centre of the examination room, waiting. Nicolas had seen some of them sitting down, but it seemed to him that they were just as comfortable standing as sitting. Their chairs were certainly not designed for human backs and buttocks ... he looked at the alien and wondered, absently, just what was going through his mind. The alien acted more like a robot than a living being.

“Bring in the prisoner,” Nicolas ordered. The resistance had snagged a number of Walking Dead over the last couple of days, in the course of operations mounted to avenge Mannington. Not, he suspected, that it would deter the aliens from burning another town to the ground if it suited their purposes. “Let's see what you can do to her.”

He watched as the next subject was wheeled into the room. Brenda Shasta had been a community organiser, according to the handful of witnesses they’d been able to find, a young woman who had organised sit-ins and protest marches over the entire country. Apparently, she’d graduated with a worthless degree, then discovered that she was actually good at organising protests and people were prepared to pay her to do it. It was hard to take such a concept seriously, but then most protests in America weren't serious. And the protesters weren't facing armed men who might gun them down for speaking their minds.

The witnesses had said that Brenda had tried to organise protests after the Order Police had beaten and raped a number of students when they had taken over the college. Nicolas silently gave her points for bravery, but not for intelligence; anyone with half a brain should have been able to understand that the aliens and their collaborators would respond violently to any challenge to their authority. Or maybe she just hadn't realised that the world had changed.

“I’d like to monitor your progress,” one of the human doctors said. “If that is all right with you?”

The alien bowed his head in what had to be an impression of a nod. “That is understandable,” he said, as he produced a set of tools from his bag. “You may monitor the process.”

There was a pause. “I studied the records from your first experiments carefully,” the alien added. “The first batch of nanomachines did too much damage to the host brain to be a viable solution, while the second were unable to control an adverse emotional reaction from the host. This batch should provide more useful alterations to the nanotech. It will continue to control the host’s emotional reactions, but it will prevent them from being controlled directly by their masters.”

“They’ll recover their free will,” the doctor said. “And can this be detected?”

“An examination of the nanotech implanted in their heads would reveal that it had been altered,” the alien said. “However, this would require a proper examination. As long as they do not act poorly, they should remain undetected.”

Nicolas felt a surge of excitement, which he ruthlessly suppressed. The first set of experiments hadn't worked that well, while the second had produced someone who was inclined to panic or break into hysterics whenever he was forced to think about his enslavement. Having the ability to break someone free, without revealing that it had happened, might just be the key to victory. The alien rebels certainly believed it was, or they wouldn't have offered it to their human allies.

“We shall begin,” the alien said, as he bent over Brenda’s form. Oddly, she didn't shy away from him like so many others. “The nanites are being injected ... now.”

Nicolas watched, with a kind of queasy fascination, as the alien’s mechanical arm grew smaller needles and wires that slipped into Brenda’s head. He couldn't tell if the needles were cutting through her skin or if they were thin enough to move between the atoms of her skin. She didn't seem to be in pain, but that proved nothing. The Walking Dead could soak up a terrifying amount of punishment and keep going.

“The nanites are interfacing with the control implants now,” the alien added. It was impossible to see anything, apart from the silver strands reaching into Brenda’s head. The aliens evidently thought nothing of wiring their brains into their computer systems. Nothing human could match it, yet. “I am attempting to reprogram the implants, then disable their automatic reporting functions.”

There was a long pause.

Nicolas felt cold. The aliens hadn’t really seen the potential of their system - but he would have bet good money that humans would see it ... and use it too, no matter what laws were passed against it. Simulating a person’s pleasure centres alone would cause no end of trouble – and if people realised that other people could be controlled ... What would it do to places like North Korea if everyone could be wired to obey the Dear Leader or his heirs? There would be no desire for freedom, or even personal power, just obedience.

We were opening Pandora’s Box, he thought. And now the aliens have shoved us right into the box.

Brenda let out a gasp, then a cry of pain and then something that sounded suspiciously like an orgasmic moan. The alien doctor ignored the noises as he pulled away from her, carefully withdrawing all of his needles and strands. Brenda seemed unable to move, even slightly, until he had pulled away completely, then she let out a cry and fumbled against her restraints.

“Calm down,” Nicolas said, motioning for the alien doctor to walk behind Brenda, where he would be out of her view. “How much do you remember?”

“Everything,” Brenda said, She was shaking, although Nicolas couldn't tell if it was rage or fear. “I remember everything.”

***

Abigail had done thousands of interviews in her life, but she honestly couldn't remember meeting anyone like Brenda before. In some ways, her face was as fixed and immobile as the alien faces, while her voice was flat and cold. And yet there was a liveliness in how she moved that belied her appearance. She was mentally free for the first time in months.

And she didn't seem to have any problems talking about what had happened to her.

“They came for us when we were marching towards the college,” Brenda said. “Knocked us down, killed several of us, dragged the rest away. The next thing I remember is lying on my back in an alien building, watching helplessly as they did something to me. It’s funny, but part of me was almost relieved. At least I wasn't dealing with the Order Police.”

Abigail snorted. She had dealt with the Order Police and she preferred them to the aliens. They might want to rape and then kill her, but it was better than having her mind rewritten to suit the aliens. Or so she told herself. Her opinion might change if she ever fell back into their hands.

“I know the feeling,” she said, dryly. “What can you tell me about the procedure itself?”

“There was a ... needle-like tool that came down from the ceiling and touched my head,” Brenda said. She touched her forehead, but there was no scar visible. “I thought it should hurt, but it didn't, not really. All I felt was stuffy inside my head, if that makes sense. It might have been my imagination, of course.”

“Perhaps,” Abigail said. It was hard to believe that the aliens had placed enough material in a person’s head to be noticeable – she had no idea if she could actually feel anything inside her skull – but it might well be imaginary. “And then?”

“There was a lot of ... weird emotions running through my head, then the world just seemed to fade slightly,” Brenda said. “And then they gave me orders and I obeyed, thinking nothing of them. I would have walked off a cliff if they'd told me to.”

Abigail nodded. “How did they give you your orders?”

“Verbally,” Brenda said. “They tended to give me a task, then leave me to carry it out as I saw fit, as long as I was efficient. I was supposed to do it in the most direct manner possible ... sometimes, when I wasn't sure what to do, they would give me other orders.”

“I see,” Abigail said, feeling a moment of relief. They’re feared that the Walking Dead were directed remotely, as if they were nothing more than remote drones. If that had been the case, it would have been impossible to fake compliance. “And what happened if you didn't know what to do?”

“They’d give more specific orders,” Brenda said. “They were quite patient with us.”

Abigail could believe it. They could trust the Walking Dead completely, so they would know that any attempt to gain clarification came from genuine puzzlement, rather than a deliberate attempt to slow them down. And it explained the mechanical behaviour some of the Walking Dead had shown. They’d literally just been following orders.

“Good,” she said, vaguely. “What were your duties, since you were captured?”

“They had me organising manpower,” Brenda admitted. “There were hundreds of thousands of people who could serve as a source of labour, so they had me rounding them up, classifying them and then dispatching them to where they were needed. The interstates, for example, need a considerable amount of repair work after the fighting. Everyone who had road-working skills had to be dispatched there.”

Abigail frowned. “Why did they want the interstates repaired?”

“I don’t know,” Brenda said. “But they were looking for others too. Anyone with experience in construction, for example, or anyone who had held a whole list of jobs. They wanted computer repairmen and fast food waiters, among others.”

That sounded weird, Abigail decided. Why would the aliens need either? Maybe they would want someone who had worked at McDonald’s to help dole out alien rations – which actually tasted worse than fast food – but she couldn't imagine why they would need computer repairmen. It wasn't as if they were about to let humans loose on their computer network.

“And they wanted more Order Policemen,” Brenda added. “As many as would volunteer, they wanted. They were just sent away in trucks and I never saw them again.”

“They must have a shortage of manpower,” Abigail muttered, although she doubted it. The US had had virtually unlimited supplies of manpower and the aliens had inherited most of it. And there was no reason why they couldn't simply recruit from the Middle East or Africa if they didn't trust the Americans to labour for them. “Did they have any long-term goal in mind?”

“If they did, they didn't tell me,” Brenda said. She hesitated, then looked up at Abigail. “What is going to happen to me?”

“We’re not quite sure yet,” Abigail admitted. The girl was free of the alien control – they thought – but they had no idea what to do with her. “What happened when you were off duty?”

Brenda laughed, but there was an edge of hysteria in the sound. “I was never off duty,” she said, dryly. “I worked sixteen hours a day, spent one eating the rations they gave me and slept for the rest of the time. I was never allowed to get up late, or spend the day in bed, or even find a guy to take to bed with me. I honestly didn't have those desires at all!”

Abigail frowned. “You had no sexual lusts at all?”

“Not really,” Brenda said. She hesitated, as if she was trying to find a way to explain it. “It was like ... you know dogs? They’re naked all the time and you see them, but you don’t feel any attraction to them. You don’t even recognise the fact they’re naked, not really, even though they are. I mean if I was in a room with naked girls, I would realise that they were naked, even though I’m not attracted to girls. And guys would do the same if they were with other guys, wouldn't they?

“But every time I saw someone, male or female, they were just ... an object, something to use,” she added. “I won’t even say that they were sex objects; they didn't even reach that level. They were just tools.”

“I see, I think,” Abigail said. “They really did a number on you, didn't they?”

Brenda nodded. “And the worst of it is that part of me thanks them for it,” she said. “I know it’s stupid, but I was grateful to them for freeing me from my life ...”

“I think that's something they poured into your brain as a failsafe,” Abigail said, tartly. A post-hypnotic command lingering after the implants had been disabled or something more sinister? There was no way to know. “The doctors will want to keep working on you.”

“I'm sure of it,” Brenda said. “But right now all I want to do is sleep.”

***

“She seems capable of maintaining the facade,” Nicolas said. He gave the alien – Theta – a sharp look. “Or is that something you programmed into the implants?”

“They are still regulating her emotional displays, to some extent,” Theta informed him. “That is a requirement to ensure mental stability, particularly if you wish her to pass for one of the implanted. After that, we will slowly dampen down the implants until they are non-functional, completely so.”

Nicolas nodded. Part of him wanted to tear the rest of them out of Brenda’s head, but he knew that it would be disastrous. He looked over at Philip, who was taking a break between being debriefed by the intelligence officers. They wanted to know everything about the time he’d spent on the alien command ship.

“If Brenda remains stable, we might be able to advance our plan forward,” Oldham said. “I’ll have the copies of the results forwarded onwards to higher authority. After that, we should have a clear idea of what to do next.”

Nicolas frowned, looking down at the monitor showing Brenda’s interview. “We’re asking a lot of someone,” he said. “They almost certainly know that Brenda has been captured by now. If she is released ...”

“They’ll suspect that something might be wrong,” Oldham finished. “But we should have an opportunity to capture someone without tipping them off.”

Nicolas looked over at the CO. “Has there been any word on what happened to Mannington’s population?”

Oldham hesitated, noticeably. “Most of them have been shipped to camps near Washington,” he admitted, finally. “I don’t know why – we don’t have anything coming out of the area, not yet. The remainder were taken westwards, all young women. We picked up an Order Policemen who bitched about the waste.”

“They will serve as hosts for the next generation of humans,” Theta informed them. “Once they have a working gene strain for humanity’s replacements, they will deploy it and destroy your genetic heritage.”

“So we need to sabotage that program too,” Nicolas said. He frowned. “Is there anything we can do about it?”

“Those bases are some distance from here,” Oldham pointed out. “The local resistance will have to mount the attack ...”

“I could go,” Nicolas insisted. “I ...”

“Have another task here,” Oldham insisted. “The locals will do the recon and tell us what, if anything, they need from us. Although attacking their research complex may alert them that we know what they’re doing ...”

“It isn't as if their cities aren't priority targets anyway,” Nicolas snapped. “Or are we afraid to go after them now?”

“Israel lost her capital to an alien rock,” Oldham said. “Going after the alien civilian populations may mean that they go after ours ...”

“So what?” Nicolas demanded, sharply. Bitterness welled up in his voice. Nancy was gone, either dead or trapped in a camp. And there was nothing he could do about it. “They’ve already got our civilians in a vice!”

Chapter Nineteen

Guthrie Castle/RAF Machrihanish, UK

Day 220

Under other circumstances, the President would have enjoyed his stay at Guthrie Castle. It had originally been built in 1468 and had a sense of age that few American buildings, no matter how significant, shared. Even the takeover by a business and conversion into a convention hall – and it’s later repossession by the British Government, after the aliens destroyed the global economy – hadn't ruined its charm.

It was, he realised, a place intended to keep him safe – and away from places that might attract alien attention. From what he’d been told, there was a battalion of British troops nearby to provide additional security, but he had his doubts about how long they could stand up to a full alien assault. The aliens had smashed through America’s defences and crushed Israel; how long could the RAF keep the aliens away if they came calling? And that didn't include the danger if the British were simply forced to hand him over at gunpoint.

However, it was a considerable improvement over the bunker – and over the submarine. He’d been able to stretch his legs on the grounds and even visit the nearby village, although he’d had to go in disguise. The internet might be flaky these days, but there were still too many people willing to upload information online that the aliens might use to track him down, if they were monitoring the net. And the only reason he could think of for allowing the humans to keep the internet was so the aliens could use it to gather intelligence.

Britain might not have been invaded directly, but it was suffering its own problems. The international trade system that had sustained the island nation had been crippled by the economic shockwaves that had swept the globe in the wake of the alien invasion. Most of the population was on short rations, while the government worked desperately to grow new food from British soil and reopen coal pits to replace the lost sources of oil. The Middle East’s oil supplies had slowed to a trickle since the aliens had invaded; they were using it to keep the rest of the world on a short leash. Other sources had either been lost too or were only available at a staggering price. Stockpiles of gas – the British called it petrol – were heavily rationed, available only to the military and emergency services.

The population hadn't taken it well. Parts of the country were under martial law, while other parts were uneasy – or starving. The government had reintroduced conscription, both for the military and for farming. If there was a shortage of farm tools, the fields would have to be tilled the old-fashioned, labour-intensive way. From what the President had heard, it was clear that long-lost skills were being desperately rediscovered before winter set in. It was quite possible that, if they didn't have stockpiles of food on hand, large parts of the British population would starve.

“Mr. President?”

The President turned to see Pepper - and Williams. Williams had been introduced as a butler, but the President suspected that he was also a combination of bodyguard and native guide. He was a short man who ruled the castle’s small array of staff with an iron hand, although they seemed to like him anyway. But then, if the government hadn't taken over the castle and its facilities, they would likely have ended up jobless. The economy just couldn't support fripperies any longer.

“There’s going to be a meeting outside the castle,” Williams explained. “A car will come to pick you up at twelve, if that is suitable.”

It wasn’t a request, the President knew. “That would be fine,” he said, as graciously as he could. “Do you know where we will be going?”

“I’m afraid not,” Williams said. “I was merely told to prepare you for departure.”

Pepper scowled. “What sort of security can we expect?”

“Several armed guards,” Williams said. “A high-security convoy might be noticed.”

The President had to smile, although Pepper didn't seem so amused. He was still the number one target on Earth, hunted by the aliens as well as international terrorists, anarchists and all the usual suspects. Hell, one of his daily briefings had included the titbit that several terrorist groups had come to believe that the United States had created the aliens through advanced genetic engineering – and through mystical processes that were one step removed from blood libel. The President couldn't understand why anyone would be so stupid as to believe it – if Earth had had alien technology, there would have been a much-reduced demand for oil – but it had adherents. No doubt the Roswell story was still believed too.

When the car arrived, Pepper relaxed slightly. The driver and two escorts were calm and competent, while the vehicle itself was armoured like a tank, even though it looked purely civilian. It probably couldn't stand up to a Javelin antitank weapon, the President suspected – the exact technical details were highly classified – but terrorists could take pot-shots at it all day with AK-47s and the shots would just bounce off. Besides, it was completely unnoticeable. The aliens would probably not try to track every car on Britain’s streets.

If there were cars, he thought, as they drove away from the castle and moved on to the motorway. It was almost eerily deserted; the only vehicles they passed as they headed west were a pair of army convoys and an ambulance heading east, sirens screaming. Britain had never been as car-mad as the United States – the public transport infrastructure was significantly better – but surely they’d had more than a handful of cars! And then he remembered the fuel rationing and shivered. Human mobility had been cut down sharply, just because they were so dependent on imports from the Middle East.

The car turned into a small airfield, where a large helicopter was waiting for them. Pepper insisted on checking it out first, before waving for the President to leave the car and climb into the helicopter. It looked considerably older than Marine One, he couldn’t help noticing, but the crew seemed competent enough. The President peered down as the helicopter lurched up into the sky, heading out over the waters. It was nearly twenty minutes before their destination came into view.

“Curious,” Pepper said, out loud. “That runway is far longer than the airfield needs.”

The President followed her gaze. Their destination seemed to be nothing more than a control tower, a pair of basic hangers and a runway that was far longer than any he’d seen, apart from a handful of USAF bases. Outside, there was a fence patrolled by armed guards; he couldn't see any settlements nearby, apart from a handful of houses. They didn't seem to be inhabited, as far as he could tell.

He braced himself as the helicopter touched down in front of one of the hangers. Inside, there was a small welcoming committee waiting for him. The President smiled as he recognised Tony Jones, one of his former advisors who had ended up in charge of Area 52 and the project to unlock the secrets of the first crashed alien craft, before he’d had to flee to Britain with many of the base’s scientists. Behind him, there were a handful of others, all unfamiliar to him. He scrambled out of the helicopter and walked into the hanger.

“Welcome to Torchwood, Mr. President,” Jones said.

The President blinked. “Torchwood?”

Jones shrugged. “Everyone calls this base Torchwood, particularly on official communications,” he explained. “It’s from a TV show – and it doesn't actually point anyone in the right direction.”

The President looked around. Apart from the welcoming party, the hanger was empty; there were no aircraft waiting for deployment, not even one of the alien craft that had been shipped to Britain as American defences crumbled under the alien onslaught. It looked as if it were well-maintained, but little else.

“The real base is underground,” Jones explained. He was practiced at reading the President’s expression. “If you’ll follow me ...?”

He explained as they walked into an elevator, which headed downwards as soon as the doors slammed closed. “This base is pretty much the British counterpart of Area 51,” he said. “Or at least it was; the base was largely shut down following the end of the Cold War, when it no longer seemed so important. After the aliens revealed themselves, the base was reopened to serve as the centre of research into alien technology. It’s nicely isolated, so if there's an accident or the aliens come calling, there won’t be any civilian casualties.”

The President nodded in understanding. “How much progress have you made?”

“Quite a bit,” Jones said, “even before we got the data from the alien rebels. We understand the theoretical basis of their technology now, even the FTL drive. Ironically, we could build one, but it would be completely useless at present. We couldn't even get up to orbit, where the drive could be used safely – and besides, generating enough power to make it work is another headache. Even they never solved that problem.”

“True,” the President agreed, remembering the early days of fighting over America. The alien FTL drive could only be used by very small craft, nothing larger than a jumbo jet, which limited its tactical utility. Their fighter craft had had to dock with larger craft to repower themselves before diving down into the atmosphere to engage the USAF. “And the drive fields themselves?”

Jones made a bitter face. “We understand the theory now, thanks to the alien rebels,” he explained, “and we can even work on simulating the ebb and flow of the drives. But actually duplicating them is going to take years. We need to make the tools to make the tools before we can progress, Mr. President. It’s a bit like trying to duplicate a modern laptop with the tools that were available in 1990.”

He shook his head. “I have no doubt that we will crack it in time,” he added, “but I don't know if they will give us the time.

“On the other hand, we have developed other ideas and concepts from their technology. We have a working plasma cannon system now, although it is only capable of firing a few shots before melting down. The designers think that they can fix that, given enough time, but we may not have time to come up with a final version before we have to deploy them. And we have a working energy weapon that should give the aliens a nasty surprise. And quite a few other tricks.

“For example, guns were useless against them during the first battles. They just glanced off their drive fields. Now, the shells have been modified to go right through their defences and strike their hull. It should be devastating. Their hulls aren’t that tough.

He hesitated, then continued. “There are so many bottlenecks, however,” he added. “We don’t have access to our own industrial base any longer, so we’re largely dependent upon Britain, Japan and Taiwan. They’re quite willing to help, but they do have their limits – and we have to be careful how we ship items around the world. If the aliens catch on to what we’re doing, the results are unlikely to be pleasant.”

They stopped outside a heavy metal door. “The Prime Minister is waiting,” Jones added. “I think that you have a great deal to say to one another.”

***

There were people in the British Government, Prime Minister Arthur Hamilton knew, who would have been privately delighted if the American President came to them as a supplicant, begging for their help. It hadn't been that long since Hilary Clinton had provided encouragement to Argentina, suggesting that the matter of the Falkland Islands was a colonial issue, rather than one of freedom and self-determination. As it was, every American ally had had to keep one eye on Washington for the eventual betrayal. It had been the tendency to quit when the going got tough that had made it hard for others to trust the United States.

Now, however, the United States was occupied by a ruthless alien race – and the rest of the world was in big trouble. Britain had been lucky, Arthur knew; a combination of determination and isolation had allowed him to preserve his country from the chaos sweeping Europe. France was in uproar, according to the reports from British observers, while the government played musical chairs to determine who took the blame for the fiasco. Germany wasn't far behind, while Greece and the other South-Eastern nations had collapsed into chaos. Once, genocide in the Balkans would have been front-page news, with demands for intervention shaking governments in the West. Now, they were just a footnote, a tiny tragedy compared to the nuclear holocaust in Pakistan or the civil war in China.

It was impossible to say with any certainty just how many people had died since the aliens had arrived in orbit. The United States had lost hundreds of thousands, but even that was a drop in the bucket compared to India and Pakistan, or China. Millions, perhaps billions, of people had been killed, while more followed as chaos swept the globe. Africa was being shattered by racial, religious and ethnic conflicts, sending thousands of refugees fleeing north into Europe. The massed naval might of France, Spain and Italy, sinking every boat they could, wasn't enough to deter them. And why not, when they were fleeing death itself?

“Mr. President,” Arthur said, standing up. “I wish it were under other circumstances, but it’s good to see you again.”

“You too,” the President said, as they shook hands. “Thank you for arranging this meeting.”

Arthur nodded as they sat down, unable to avoid thinking that the RAF base wasn't quite prepared for a high-level conference. The tables were basic, the seats were wobbly ... maybe it would have been easier to come to other agreements if they’d held the discussions in such uncomfortable rooms. But diplomats demanded their creature comforts.

Maybe we should change that, he thought, ruefully. It had been his observation that diplomats who spent all their time in embassies, or visiting governmental offices, offered advice that was invariably wrong. Or they went native and started supporting the host government instead of the government that paid their wages.

He sat down and studied the President. It had been a long time since they’d last met, but he was shaken by the changes in the President’s face. His eyes were those of a hunted animal, while his hair was greying; if he hadn't been working out every day, it was likely that he would have slipped into depression. The medics who’d examined him when he arrived at Guthrie Castle had warned of malnutrition and other health problems. They weren't uncommon these days. Only last week, there had been an outbreak of scurvy in Britain. Scurvy!

“I haven’t heard anything from any other government,” the President said. “Do you have any contacts with France at all?”

“Very little,” Arthur admitted. He briefly ran through what they knew of the situation in France. “We might be able to get elements of their military to cooperate, but the government keeps changing so rapidly that it’s impossible to make any long-term plans.”

He looked down at the white tabletop. “We have a plan now, I’m told,” he said. “Andrew, do you think that it is workable?”

“I don't think that we have any choice,” the President admitted. “Even if they left Britain alone indefinitely, what happens when they start wheeling out Humanity, V2.0?”

Arthur shuddered. He hadn't wanted to believe the first reports, not until they had been confirmed by covert observation of a handful of alien bases. War and conquest, even mass extermination, were understandable. Creating a whole slave race was not.

But Hitler would have done it, if he’d had the tech, he thought, numbly. Actually making his dreams and delusions real? He would have jumped at the chance.

“The end of the world as we know it,” he said. “But if the plan fails, we lose everything.”

The President smiled, although there was no humour in the expression. “How long do you think they will leave Britain alone?”

Arthur made a face. The RAF had tracked alien craft passing through the UKADR, moving too quickly to allow Eurofighters or Tornadoes to intercept them. Intimidation tactics, the Permanent Joint Headquarters had concluded; Britain and Russia were the only major human states left largely untouched by the aliens or civil war. No one expected them to leave them alone indefinitely. Once Britain and Russia were gone – and Japan and Taiwan fell to starvation – there would be nothing left to oppose the new master race. The insurgencies could sting, but they couldn't defeat the aliens. And, within a few decades, resistance would not only be futile; it would be inconceivable.

“Not long,” he admitted, shortly.

Britain had been desperately preparing for war ever since the aliens had crushed America, but Arthur had no illusions; America had possessed the most advanced and powerful military machine on the face of the planet and the aliens had still won the war. The MOD had quietly concluded that it wouldn't take more than a day or two for the aliens to establish air superiority and then move on to pick off the British military, piece by piece. Even the modified missiles – to say nothing of the alien-derived technology – wouldn’t tip the balance against the aliens. They were just too powerful.

The old theory of MAD – mutually-assured destruction – had stipulated that a nuclear-armed state could never be truly defeated. If it had been beaten comprehensively, what was to prevent it from launching its missiles and destroying its enemy, ensuring that both sides died in a blaze of fire? But the aliens trumped that; they could intercept missiles in flight, or retaliate against human nations that struck at their cities. It was notable that the only time the aliens had deliberately killed civilians had been after the Israelis had nuked a handful of alien cities, during the invasion of Israel. And Israel was effectively gone.

It was a gamble. He couldn't help feeling that Churchill would have approved.

“So we act,” the President said. “And pray.”

Chapter Twenty

Area 53, Nevada, USA

Day 220

Alex Midgard looked down at his notes as the international conference call was slowly set up, each network node checked carefully for eavesdroppers before the next one was contacted and added to the link. It was galling to realise that it would once have taken bare seconds, if that, to speak to someone on the other side of the world, but now it could take hours to establish a secure link. The satellite network that had once allowed the United States to coordinate military operations on a global scale was gone.

And this was true of the world before telecommunications, he thought, ruefully. How would we cope if it was months before we knew that a battle had been fought and won – or lost?

He sat upright as a handful of faces appeared in front of him. The President, looking somewhat the worse for wear, his face grim. No President had been a virtual prisoner in his own country before, not even during the Civil War. Beside him, the British Prime Minister looked grimmer – but then, he had much more to lose. The British had insisted that all information and intelligence was to be shared freely, as the price for their assistance. Alex wasn't too surprised. Concealing the existence of the first alien craft had allowed the aliens to blame hostilities on the United States – and shattered trust between the US and its allies, preventing them from supporting the Americans. Who knew? If the aliens had faced a united front, perhaps they would have been more inclined to negotiate.

It seemed unlikely, Alex told himself. The aliens had started by offering to covertly split the world between themselves and the United States, then manipulated public opinion against the US when the President had turned down their offer. Now they knew about the Rogue Leaders – and the limited supply of alien technology – the alien offer made a great deal more sense. They would have wanted the US to do most of the heavy lifting, after which they would have stabbed a knife into America’s back.

“The secure network is secure,” Jones said. His face could be seen on a different screen. “Or at least as secure as we can make it.”

Alex gritted his teeth. The aliens didn't seem to realise the potential of some of their systems, but it was quite possible that the Rogue Leaders had kept a great deal of information from their fellow leaders. If they had cracked the secure network, they might just settle for monitoring it rather than destroying it outright – and if they did, the entire plan would be exposed before it had even begun. And then the alien rebels would also be exposed.

It was a security nightmare, but there was no choice. It would take months to use couriers to set up planning meetings, even inside the United States. Outside, submarines would have to be pressed into service as couriers – and that risked exposing them to the aliens. It would simply take too long to organise everything, even if the aliens didn't manage to scoop up a courier or two through simple bad luck. They’d done it before and the results had been disastrous.

“I will allow Doctor Hatchery to make the first report,” Jones continued. “Doctor?”

Jane leaned forward, speaking with clear precision. “It has been seven days since we successfully broke the alien control over one of the Walking Dead, while allowing the victim to continue posing as someone under their control,” she said. “We have since repeated the process twice more, in both cases producing a viable infiltrator. It is not a perfect solution – the implants will eventually kill them ahead of time anyway – but it is workable. According to our ... source, the alien leadership will not be able to tell that there’s anything wrong without a direct examination of the implants. As long as they are given no cause to worry ...”

She scowled. “We have debriefed them extensively,” she continued. “As we had assumed, the implants allow the aliens to make use of humans with specialised knowledge, without actually requiring their direct input. Accordingly, an implanted army officer will continue to possess the skills of an army officer, but he will just be devoted to the aliens. In effect, he will be a super-patriot for the alien cause. The aliens are completely confident in their control ... and, under normal circumstances, their confidence would be justified. Human tech is unable to remove or disable the implants without killing the victim.

“A full report will be forwarded to you after this meeting,” Jane added. “However, for the moment, we have a tool we can use against the aliens.”

“We will have to be careful when we use it,” Alex added. “Most of our test subjects were almost certainly reported as dead.”

“So we can’t reintroduce them to the aliens,” the President said. “Couldn’t we claim to have been holding them prisoner?”

“They might ask questions,” Alex warned. “The standard procedure for dealing with the Walking Dead was to kill them because there was no way to hold them prisoner or free them. If we change our patterns so significantly, they might start asking why.”

The President made a face, but nodded.

“The previous test subjects are still unsuitable for anything other than heavy therapy,” Jane continued, grimly. “It is the belief of our ... source that the implants weren't removed perfectly, causing mental health problems. We have transferred them to somewhere where they can be examined in detail, but we don't have a viable program of therapy yet.”

Alex rolled his eyes. Before the war, therapy had been common – too common. The first reaction of schools, colleges and even the military had been to arrange therapy to someone who might have been adversely affected by something that had happened near them. And that didn't include the hundreds of thousands of Americans who had popped pills to get them through the day. But now the drug supplies were gone; people with problems had to deal with them on their own, rather than rely on chemical crutches.

He cleared his throat. “We now have a good idea of just how the aliens are organised – and the true source of our problem,” he said. “And, perhaps, how to beat them.”

The President frowned. “And is it workable?”

Alex nodded and picked up the remote, displaying an organisational chart. “The alien leadership is made up, unsurprisingly, of the leader caste; there are no ... leaders who weren’t born leaders, if you understand the term.”

“Aristocrats,” the British Prime Minister said.

“More or less,” Alex agreed. “From what we have been told, it wasn't impossible for a worker to give birth to a leader or a warrior, although we have yet to comprehend how that is actually possible. Confusing the issue is the presence of hybrids, crossbreeds between two different castes that combine the best elements of both – but are seemingly sterile. That’s a second puzzle; if they weren't sterile, they might have produced a united race by now, as opposed to a number of different castes.”

“I suppose,” the Prime Minister said, “that they are all from the same race? They didn't uplift others to join them?”

“Biologically,” Jane said, “they’re clearly from the same evolutionary line. In humans, evolution produced darker skins where the sun was too bright; it is possible that the alien castes are merely a more extreme version of that process. Or they might have more in common with dogs; there are hundreds of different breeds, but crossbreeds are quite possible.”

Alex nodded. “To sum up centuries of alien history,” he added, “one group of aliens had the bright idea that they could engineer themselves so that they would be leaders in perpetuity. Previously, the genetic lottery didn't always ensure that the children of leaders became leaders themselves, which tended to make their society more democratic than you might expect. Yesterday’s leaders might be replaced by workers tomorrow, if you see what I mean.”

“There wouldn't be a guaranteed succession,” the President mused. “If you passed laws against workers, your children might be forced to live under them.”

“More or less,” Jane agreed. “Like I said, there’s a great deal we don’t understand about their genetics.”

“This group of leaders – the Rogue Leaders – set out to turn their world into an ant colony, with themselves at the top and everyone else fixed in their caste,” Alex continued. “Their natural talents for being persuasive would also be boosted until resistance became unthinkable. Eventually, they were found out and the rest of their world went to war against them. They were wiped out, or so it seemed. A number of them managed to conceal themselves onboard the first interstellar ark.

“They are the ones who caused the war. By the time they reached Earth, they managed to gain control of much of the ark, at least partly through convincing other leaders that humanity was a potential threat. They set up bases on Earth and experimented on humans, but they also built up their own forces in secret. Right now, they effectively control a police state where even those who are aware of the danger find it hard to build any countermeasures. If we give them enough time, they will eradicate independent thought, once and for all, from both races. That will be the end of the world.”

There was a long silence.

“So,” the President said, briskly. “How do we beat them?”

Alex scowled. “We dealt them a heavy blow when we took out the command ship over Washington,” he said. “In some ways, we disrupted their network long enough for the alien rebels to establish a handful of safe zones. However, in order to win, we would have to take out most of the remaining Rogue Leaders and their supporters. At that point, the alien rebels could take over the orbiting network and the war would come to an end.

“There are around one hundred and fifty Rogue Leaders in all,” he continued. “We killed thirty of them on the Washington command ship – if we can take out or isolate the rest of them, we can win the war. But that won't be easy.”

He hesitated. “In human terms, they’re surrounded by fanatics,” he explained. “Each and every one of their warriors will die to protect them, even to the point of waging war on other alien leaders. It is that, apart from their computer network, that makes them so dangerous. The alien rebels simply don't have anything like the level of firepower the Rogue Leaders possess.

“However, they have to remain in close supervision of what happens on the surface. Without that, events might start to slip out of their control.”

The President smiled. “And down on the surface, they are vulnerable,” he said. “We can get them.”

“Precisely,” Alex said. “As our first step, we need to show them that they are not in control of the situation. We have to press them at every point, not just minor skirmishes, but attacks aimed right at the heart of their operations. The more damage we do, the more they will have to respond to us and deploy their leaders to the surface. And then we can get at them.”

The British Prime Minister scowled. “And how do you know that they won't remain safely in orbit?”

Jane leaned forward. “In human terms, all of the Rogue Leaders are incredibly charismatic,” she said. “The aliens are genetically predisposed to obey orders from them. However, apart from the workers, the lower castes do not accept orders unquestionably, unless they are issued in person. The longer a lower caste alien stays out of direct contact with a leader, the more likely they are to start thinking for themselves.”

“Seems odd,” the President observed. “Haven't we seen their warriors anticipating and innovating as well as reacting to events?”

“Yes, but that was all part of their plan,” Jane explained. “Their faith in the overall operation remained unshaken. But if the Rogue Leaders start to lose control, the results could be disastrous for them personally. They will have to go down to the surface and direct operations personally.”

“We may have to help the alien rebels deal with the mothership,” Alex added. “Thankfully, the aliens have offloaded most of their population and supplies down to the surface now, but the mothership is still the core of their operations. Losing the command ship over Washington hurt.”

“Then we might need to take out the others,” the President said. “Can we do that?”

“Perhaps,” Jones said. “We’ve put together a handful of plasma warheads in Britain, but they won’t be taken by surprise again. Getting the warheads to the craft might prove tricky.”

The President clapped his hands together for attention. “So your overall plan is to keep raising the temperature until they boil,” he said. “And force them to deal with so many threats that they take their eyes off the ball. And what if it fails?”

“We lose,” Alex said.

He shook his head at their expressions. “This isn't a war where one side can surrender to the other, then seek revenge later,” he added. “If the Rogue Leaders win, humanity will become part of an ant colony. At worst, we will have helped to unleash a Borg-like nightmare on the universe.”

“There’s always the Sampson Option,” Fields said. “Or the Wildfire Option.”

The President leaned forward. “Is Wildfire a viable tactic?”

Alex looked at Jane, who flushed angrily.

“Perhaps,” she said, crossly. “Producing a virus capable of attacking the aliens – and not humanity – is theoretically possible. However, it would be extremely difficult to get it up into their spacecraft without being detected. We have not quizzed our source on their biohazard precautions, but we dare not assume that they’re not extensive.”

“And if we did try to use biological weapons,” Jones said quietly, “they will unite against us.”

The President and Prime Minister shared a glance. “Perhaps it would be best to keep Wildfire and Sampson in reserve,” the President said, finally. “If we lose the war, at least we can take them down with us.”

“They may go after Britain before we’re ready to start upping the tempo,” Alex said. “I believe that there’s a carrier in British waters.”

“The aircraft are ready to fight,” the Prime Minister said. “But we do need more pilots for the other aircraft we’ve scraped up.”

Alex smiled. The British had been forced to intern an American aircraft carrier as the aliens chipped away at America’s air force, saving the carrier from joining the others under the waves. No one had anticipated defending a carrier from alien plasma bolts and several nuclear-powered carriers, the former queens of the sea, had been sitting ducks. But the aircraft had been flown to British bases, along with their weapons and fuel. They could return to the fight.

“But you can also give them a bloody nose, if the new weapons are deployed in time,” Alex pointed out, mildly. “It might help to add to the temperature if they start taking more damage than they expected from Britain. And if they mass their forces against the UK, we can launch ballistic missiles at the mothership. We might do them some quite considerable damage.”

“There are a handful of modified nukes,” Jones added. “But they have never been tested in combat.”

“There’s a lot of that going around,” Alex reminded him.

“Work out the operational details,” the President ordered. “Drag up what additional pilots you can, then have them sent to the UK. We’ll see if we can shake anything loose from France or Germany as well, although that may be tricky. One way or another, this is going to be our last shot. We’ll throw everything we can at the bastards.”

“We’ll see to it,” Alex promised. There were quite a few surprises that had been held in reserve, including infiltrators and poison gas. No one knew how the gas would affect the alien warriors, but it might give humanity a brief advantage. “They’ll know that they’ve been kissed.”

“Good luck, everyone,” the President said. “And God be with you.”

His image vanished from the display, followed rapidly by the remaining participants.

“Alex,” Jane hissed, as soon as they were alone, “who told them about Wildfire?”

“One of the docs, I assume,” Alex said, carefully. “It is a viable weapon ...”

“No, it isn't,” Jane snapped. She sounded furious. “It might have been a workable concept when we thought we were dealing with a united alien force, but now we know about the rebels ... there’s no way to discriminate between them and the bad guys. It could destroy them all – or make them determined to wipe us out completely. We cannot risk using Wildfire!”

“Let’s hope that it doesn't come to that,” Alex said. “Because, right now, we are on the brink of either victory or total defeat.”

Years ago, he’d read a book where the author had asked just how far humanity was prepared to go to win against a savage alien horde. But he’d cheated, really; the alien threat was so dangerous that any measures were fully justified. The author had offered his characters the choice between doing horrific acts or being eaten. It was no contest. Now, they were in much the same boat.

“I understand that,” Jane snapped, when he explained. “But we know that not all of the aliens are monsters!”

“In the end, that may not matter,” Alex admitted. He’d once dreamed of alien contact. Now the dream had become a nightmare. “All that matters is humanity’s survival. If the Rogue Leaders cannot be beaten, we might have to use Wildfire – or Sampson.”

“Madness,” Jane insisted. She caught him by the arm and swung him around, staring into his eyes. “You’d destroy both races.”

“I know,” Alex said. “But if the situation becomes that bad ... is there any choice?”

Chapter Twenty-One

Virginia/Washington DC, USA

Day 222-225

“I understand that you’re going on a long trip?”

“I’m afraid so,” Carlson said. “But I’m also afraid I can't talk about it.”

Nicolas had to smile. The world of Special Forces was highly compartmentalised, leading to jokes about imaginary countries called ‘I can't talk about it,’ or ‘highly-classified.’ These days, secrecy was a must; resistance cells that weren't careful about their secrets wound up dead.

“I’m going somewhere too,” he admitted. “But I also can't talk about it.”

He stuck out a hand. “Thank you for everything,” he said. “I just hope that you manage to get up to orbit again soon.”

“Me too,” Carlson said. They’d spent last night talking about their future, in a world where the aliens were humanity’s allies. Nicolas wanted to find and raise his daughter, but Carlson had other plans. He wanted to build humanity’s first interstellar starship. “But that may be tricky for a while.”

“Hey, Nicky,” Bane called. “It's time to go.”

Nicolas shook Carlson’s hand firmly, then nodded over at Abigail. “I’ll miss you too,” he assured her. “And we’ll see each other again soon enough.”

“Let’s hope so,” Abigail said. She surprised Nicolas by giving him a tight hug. “And watch yourself. You won’t do your daughter any good if you get killed.”

Nicolas scowled, feeling his emotions darkening. There was nothing about Nancy in any of the reports, not as far as he had been able to tell. But then, would Oldham and his officers have told him if there was? It might have compromised their source if Nicolas knew something he was later forced to spill to the aliens. Practically speaking, he knew too much already. He was mildly surprised that he hadn't been ordered to proceed into lockdown along with Abigail.

But then, if the aliens worked out why the resistance was going to Washington in the first place, they’d be able to put the rest together very quickly. No one had ever accused the Rogue Leaders of being stupid ...

“I know,” he said. “And you watch yourself too.”

“Come on,” Bane snapped. “I want to be well away from here by the time the sun rises, ladies!”

Nicolas sighed, winked at Abigail, and turned to follow the rest of the team out of the bunker. As always, they were blindfolded as they left, an exercise in trust that had always bothered him, even when they’d performed it during SEAL training. Nicolas suspected that it was a waste of time – he already had a good idea of the bunker’s location – but given the network of tunnels under the ground it might give the resistance a chance to destroy evidence and scatter before the aliens caught them. Or it might not.

The blindfold was removed fifteen minutes later, revealing that they were standing in the midst of a patch of woodland. Nicolas glanced around, exchanged brief salutes with the blindfolding party – none of them were allowed to go more than a few kilometres from the bunker – and then allowed Bane to lead them eastwards, towards Washington. They had a long walk ahead of them.

“We don’t want to run into any trouble,” Bane had explained, during the pre-mission briefing. “If we do, we break contact as quickly as possible and pray that they don’t come after us.”

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, Nicolas thought, remembering his first set of instructors. They’d pointed out that a long march seemed impossible, even to SEALs, but if they concentrated on each step rather than on the entirety of the march it came easier. Not that anyone expected to reach Washington before dawn broke over the countryside; Nicolas knew that the plan was to hole up in the countryside and escape alien surveillance as much as possible. Or, for that matter, the bandits who infested some parts of the countryside.

He couldn't help glancing upwards, admiring the stars – and alien spacecraft – high overhead. How large were they, he asked himself, that they reflected light down to the planet that could be seen with the naked eye? And was it his imagination, or were there fewer lights in the sky now? The aliens were completing the task of disembarking the colonists on Earth, displacing vast numbers of humans from their homes and forcing them into camps. It was bad to the west, Nicolas had been told, and worse in the Middle East. The social contract had been completely destroyed there.

But that shouldn't have been a surprise, he told himself, remembering working with Arabs during the war. They were never sold on the concept in the first place.

Dawn was breaking over the horizon when Bane finally called a halt, steering them towards an abandoned barnyard. Nicolas checked it out automatically, finding no trace of the farmer who had owned the building – or anyone else, for that matter. Still, they didn't dare risk using the building; the Order Police had a habit of checking out seemingly abandoned buildings, perhaps considering their use as garrisons. Instead, they found a vantage point nearby, constructed a rudimentary shelter and settled down to rest. After everywhere he’d slept in his long career, Nicolas found it easy to just close his eyes and go to sleep.

“Could be worse,” Bane muttered, as he woke Nicolas five hours later to take his turn watching for trouble. “Seen nothing, but a handful of helicopters.”

Nicolas nodded, thinking hard. The Order Police hadn't been given any aircraft – and the idea of the resistance flying helicopters in alien-controlled skies was ludicrous. Normally, it was the aliens who provided air support for the Order Police – to the point of dropping KEWs from orbit on high concentrations of rebel fighters. But if they were flying helicopters ... did it mean that the aliens were feeling the pinch? It would be years, according to the alien rebels, before they could start producing new fighter craft to replace their losses.

He settled back and watched patiently as the day wore on. There were a handful of people – orphaned children, he suspected – who stopped at the farmhouse and searched it, only to discover that they weren't the first to find and loot the building for food. Nicolas wondered, absently, what those children would do when winter came; it was unlikely in the extreme that they would be able to survive the cold. Maybe they’d find locals willing to take them in, but that would mean that they’d have to explain their presence. Chances were the orphaned children weren't registered.

“Food,” Bane said, as Nicolas woke him. “Is it that time already?”

Nicolas snorted. “Darkness is falling over the land, literally as well as metaphorically,” he said. “Grab some food and then we can move on.”

“Fancy talk,” Bane said, dryly. “Did they teach you that in BUD/S?”

“Along with fifty different ways to kill a man with my pinkie,” Nicolas countered, as he dug into the rucksacks. The cooks at the bunker had provided them with sandwiches rather than MREs, although he couldn't decide if it was intended as a hearty dinner for the condemned men or a reflection on the shortage of MREs. “I saw a handful of children nearby, but they didn't come close to us.”

“Lots of them around,” Bane said, grimly. He poked the person lying next to him. “Wake up; dinner time!”

Once they had eaten, they walked onwards, skirting the remains of several towns that had attempted to stand up to the aliens in the early days of the occupation. He had wondered if they intended to cross the mountains and pass through Quantico, which had belonged to the Marine Corps before the invasion, but Bane pointed out that it was currently strongly held by the aliens. No one was quite sure what they were doing with the bases, yet anyone who went too close to them risked arrest and detention – or simple execution. The aliens guarded them closely.

Probably want to ensure that we can't loot the bases for supplies, Nicolas thought, with some amusement. Pity we stripped out most of the armouries while they were still beating the crap out of the air force.

They paused again when dawn broke, then pressed on again towards the outskirts of Washington. It was strange, Nicolas realised; the wreckage of the alien command ship was blighting the skyline, so massive that it was visible for miles around. He’d directed the drone that had been used to take the giant craft down, yet he’d never grasped intellectually just how enormous it was. It was, he decided, like the officers who failed to realise that maps weren't perfect copies of the terrain until they’d actually carried out exercises on the terrain. They couldn't comprehend the truth until they saw it with their own eyes.

“We’ll hole up here and get closer at night,” Bane said. “The locals will have to help us into the city.”

Nicolas nodded, peering through his binoculars towards the alien craft. It was stunning – and it was surrounded by dozens of other craft, all picking away at the wreckage. According to reports from Washington, the aliens had secured the parameter around the crashed ship and barred anyone from going near enough to salvage anything from the disaster site. Nicolas wasn't surprised. The loss of the command ship had done more than just put a dent in their pride.

“The resistance here takes a few pot-shots at the wreckage from time to time,” Bane said, when he asked. “But the aliens are damn quick to react. There must be something very sensitive in that hulk.”

Nicolas nodded.

It was nightfall by the time they made contact with a handful of people from Washington. There was a brief exchange of signs and countersigns, then Bane nodded, passing Nicolas over to the newcomers. The remainder of his escort would make their way back to Virginia, perhaps taking the opportunity to gather more intelligence along the way. Nicolas waved goodbye and then concentrated on the next part of the mission. Sneaking up through the alien lines would be very dangerous.

“You can call me Joe,” the resistance leader informed him. “No other names, not here.”

Nicolas nodded in understanding.

“We’re going to use part of the tunnel network,” Joe added. “It isn't quite what it used to be, so be wary. Do what you’re told and try not to fall into the shit.”

“The tunnels?” Nicolas asked. “What about ...”

“Parts of them have collapsed after the big tamale went down,” Joe said, as they headed into a small house. “Other parts were closed off by the aliens, but they don’t seem to pay much attention to the tunnels outside the Green Zone. We have to be more careful when sneaking in there.”

Nicolas could understand it. Underground Washington, he'd been told, was riddled with tunnels, ranging from sewers to secret passageways linking the governments buildings together. They were used to allow meetings to be held without the press getting wind of them; back them, anyone entering the White House could expect to be filmed and identified before they’d even met the President. God alone knew how many tourists had been mistakenly identified as diplomats or military officials by overeager reporters. Now, of course, he’d expected the aliens to have destroyed or booby-trapped the tunnels.

Inside the house, Joe led him down into the basement and opened a hatch in the concrete floor, revealing a ladder falling away into darkness. Nicolas wasn't claustrophobic, but he couldn't help shivering as he peered down into the shadows, wondering what was hiding there. All of a sudden, all the stories about alligators growing up in the sewers – to say nothing of turtles and oversized rats – seemed very plausible.

“Here,” Joe said, passing him a pair of goggles and a helmet. “We don’t know if these can fool the bastards, but we can at least try.”

Nicolas smiled. The light mounted on the helmet was designed for Special Forces; it literally wasn't visible unless someone was wearing a pair of matching goggles. A user might find himself in what seemed like broad daylight, while everyone else would be trapped in the dark. But no one really knew if the alien warriors could see the light or not. It was quite possible that they could see it, without equipment. They could already see in the dark better than humans.

He clambered down the shaft, trying to ignore the stench that rose up from the sewers. It felt like miles before his feet finally touched down, allowing him to see a walkway running along a river of shit and other human wastes. Washington’s sewage system, it seemed, still worked, which was something of a relief. Without running water and proper toilets, sanitation would have become much harder and disease would have spread rapidly. It was surprisingly merciful of the aliens to put the system back to work.

“You should be able to see the markings on the walls,” Joe said, as he joined him down below. “Head eastwards, but be careful. Some of these damn walkways are slippery.”

Once, as a young soldier, Nicolas had visited the tunnels in the South Korean DMZ. They had been oppressive as hell, leaving him puzzled as to how the North Koreans had intended to force men and vehicles through the tunnels. But then, as his Sergeant had pointed out snidely, it was amazing what someone would do at pistol-point. The sewers in Washington were larger and yet he found it hard to force himself down the tunnels. It was only the thought of Nancy that kept him going.

As he walked, he saw signs that all was not well in the tunnel network. There were grim-looking cracks in the walls, a handful of minor cave-ins and several small floods caused by falling debris from overhead. He couldn't help wondering if it was really safe to use the tunnels, but they didn't have any real choice. The aliens had Washington surrounded by a ring of steel and challenging it would have meant certain death, at least without bringing along a small army.

And that would just have given the aliens more targets, he thought, grimly. We can’t risk a stand-up fight, not yet.

“We’re past the checkpoints now,” Joe said. The other resistance fighters had remained silent all the way, apart from a muttered curse when one of them had slipped and nearly fallen in the sewage. “But keep your weapon handy, just in case. They sometimes search houses for the hell of it.”

Nicolas gave him a sharp look. “How are you hiding?”

“We call it a drug den,” Joe said. He grinned, tiredly. “Local Order Policemen don’t do shit about them, let alone anything effective. We have contracts with the Green Zone, which we use to get stuff for our customers.”

He chuckled. It sounded odd in the tunnels.

“No one ever sees us hiding behind the criminals,” he added. “As long as we slip them a share of the proceeds, they don’t give a damn about what else we might be doing.”

Nicolas scowled, inwardly. He wasn't too surprised that parts of the resistance were becoming allied with criminals – it had happened in Iraq and Afghanistan too – but what would happen if the aliens remained in control of Earth for years? The resistance would eventually become criminals, forgetting their origins – or only using them when it helped raise money for the cause. How far did Joe and his allies have to fall?

And would there be a time when it would suit them to betray the rest of the resistance?

Better not sleep without my rifle, he told himself, wishing that Bane and the others had been able to join him. And perhaps keep one eye open too.

They stopped in front of another ladder, reaching up into the darkness. Joe slung his rifle over his shoulder, then started to scramble up the ladder. Nicolas followed him, unable to avoid noticing the signs that the ladder wasn't pinned to the concrete very well. Sooner or later, it would collapse, cutting the resistance lair off from the sewers. Joe stopped overhead and rapped out a pattern on the hatch. A moment later, it opened.

“Come on up,” Joe ordered. He cleared his throat as he climbed out of the hatch. “Allow me to present my friend from our other friends.”

Nicolas glanced around. The resistance fighters looked ... tired, beaten down. Several of them looked like gangsters, complete with shoddy ill-fitting suits. It puzzled him until he realised that was the impression they were trying to create. They all held guns, but not all of them seemed to know what to do with them. Whatever they had been, they weren't now.

“You can get some rest in one of the upper rooms,” Joe said, “and then we can see about getting you to your final destination. Do you want a woman?”

Nicolas blinked. “A woman?”

“We have quite a few working for us,” Joe assured him. His face twisted into a lecherous smile. “They’re part of our cover.”

“Oh,” Nicolas said, trying to hide his disgust. Exploiting female refugees was an old story, but that didn't make it acceptable. Maybe it was necessary ... yet it still stunk like limburger cheese. “No, thank you.”

“You should,” Joe said. “It will make you a great deal less uptight.”

“I'm sure it would,” Nicolas said, sharply. It wasn't as if Abigail and he were actually dating, was it? And yet he felt a certain obligation to her. “But I can't afford the distraction.”

“You’ll look like one of their customers anyway,” Joe said. “There are hundreds of visitors each day. No one will see anything odd in you coming to have some fun.”

He looked at the rucksack Nicolas was holding. “Say, what did you bring with you anyway?”

“Supplies,” Nicolas said. He wasn't sure how far he could trust the resistance here, not now. They certainly couldn't be trusted with any real secrets. “Just ... supplies.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Virginia, USA

Day 225

“Are you all right?”

“I’m not sure,” Judith admitted. She hated to admit any kind of weakness, but this bothered her more than she wanted to admit. “I don’t know.”

She gazed down at her wrists, puzzled. They were sore – and yet there was no reason for them to be sore. She’d had problems when she’d typed too much, before the world turned upside down, but she hadn't been writing essays for school since the invasion. She hadn't even been carrying her fair share of combat loads and food supplies. As a sniper, she was exempt from transportation duties. They couldn't risk damaging her hands.

But there was something wrong with her wrists, faint twinges of pain that nagged at her mind.

Clare gave her a sharp look. Unlike Judith, she was nothing more than a regular resistance fighter, without any military or sharp-shooting training at all. Judith was all-too-aware that Clare resented her, even though snipers were unlikely to be taken alive by the enemy. It wasn't a very mature attitude, but Clare wasn't a very mature person. Having to remain in camp or play minor roles in ambushes did that to a person, particularly someone who had never been very mature in the first place.

“If you’re having problems, go see the doc,” she said, crossly. “If not ...”

She picked up a compressed sleeping bag and tossed it to Judith, forcing her to catch it with one hand. “If not, get ready to move out,” she finished. “We’re not staying here for long.”

Judith nodded. Ever since the aliens had emptied and then burned Mannington, they’d been running increasingly heavy patrols through West Virginia, smoking out and destroying a handful of resistance camps. The Walking Dead drove their collaborators onwards at an inhuman pace, while alien craft lurked high overhead, ready to provide targeted fire support on command. Judith hadn't heard anything, officially, but rumour had it that the resistance leadership was seriously considering pulling out of the state altogether and regrouping elsewhere. It would bother her to leave, yet there might be no choice. The alien counterinsurgency effort was gaining steam.

Where the enemy is strong, fall back, she thought, remembering one of the manuals that had been passed around the camp. The resistance leadership had wanted them all to be familiar with the principles of insurgency and counter-insurgency. Where the enemy is weak, attack.

But she had no idea where the aliens were weak.

“You were moaning last night,” Clare added, nastily. “It must have been a very hot dream, because I thought you were going to bring them down on us.”

Judith flushed. She didn't remember her dream; all she knew was that it had been a nightmare, a vision of ... something that refused to surface in the cold morning light. Perhaps it was for the best. Anything that could make her cry out in the night, loud enough to wake a girl who normally slept the sleep of the dead, had to be unpleasant.

“I don’t recall,” she said, tartly.

“Good thing the guard didn't hear you,” Clare said. “Who knows what would have happened then?”

Judith glared at her, feeling her patience snap. “I think that they would have wanted to see you,” she snapped. “You snore too much.”

Clare scowled. “I can't help that,” she insisted. “It isn't as if this is a comfortable place to rest.”

Judith glanced around. The resistance camp consisted of a handful of tents and little else. There wasn't even a stove or any other way to cook meals, not since they’d left their last encampment at a small farm. They had to eat rations; she dreaded the day when rations ran out, leaving them dependent on what they could forage from the surrounding countryside.

“No, it isn't,” Judith said, absently rubbing her wrists. Maybe she’d just had the nightmare about having her hands cut off again. She’d read a story about a girl in some far-off country who’d lost her hands and it had given her bad dreams for weeks. “But unless you want to spend the rest of your life as an alien slave ...”

A faint whistle echoed through the air. “Come on,” she added, changing the subject. “It’s time to go.”

***

Abigail stood in the bunker’s loading bay and watched as the small army of personnel tried to ignore Theta. The alien was standing right next to her, almost completely unmoving; one of the people she’d interviewed had claimed that soldiers standing at attention moved more than the alien. Very few of the bunker’s staff could avoid sneaking a peek, or keeping their hands on their weapons whenever they were near the alien. His presence in the bunker was almost surreal.

But necessary, she reminded herself sternly. The Walking Dead have to be freed.

She allowed herself a tight smile as she remembered what Nicolas had told her, before he’d set out from the bunker. The remaining Walking Dead in the bunker had been cured, giving humanity options for the first time in far too long. Now, the resistance could attempt to capitalise on its success ... assuming, of course, that the nanites worked without Theta’s supervision. The reprogramming, the alien had assured them, should work in most cases, but there would be no on-the-fly alterations if the process failed. Nicolas hadn't been very clear about where he was going, yet there weren't many places in America where one might hope to covertly deprogram one of the Walking Dead. Abigail silently prayed that he would survive the mission.

Oldham bustled up to her, accompanied by two soldiers. “We have completed the preparations to send you both south,” he said, shortly. His soldiers eyed Theta with barely-concealed mistrust. The alien didn't show any visible reaction. “You should be safe, as long as they don’t try to open the rear compartment of the truck.”

Abigail grimaced. She knew more than most about the transport networks struggling to hold what remained of the United States together – and she knew just how many of the truckers were involved in smuggling goods from one part of the country to another. The resistance had made use of the truckers in days gone by, often using them to transport newsletters or weapons from base to base. But now the Order Police monitored them closely. If one alert policeman decided to search the truck, they were sunk.

“The papers should hold up under scrutiny,” Oldham assured her, when she asked. “We actually used paperwork belonging to one of their Area Commanders, so it shouldn't raise too many eyebrows.”

“I suppose not,” Abigail agreed, reluctantly. “But I still don’t like being so exposed.”

The alien-backed collaborator government was, she’d discovered back when she’d been in Washington, largely composed of men and women who wanted to build up private power bases for themselves. Almost all of them were involved in smuggling of one kind or another, shipping everything from drugs to artworks across the country as the whim took them. Abigail had no idea how the resistance had obtained paperwork from one of the Area Commanders, but she had to admit that it should ensure that they were waved through without a search. An Area Commander could have an Order Policeman transferred to Texas or another hardship posting, if annoyed.

But the Walking Dead wouldn't be impressed, she knew. They might ignore the truck – or they might decide to search it, in strict adherence to the letter of the law. And if that happened ... she knew that the resistance had rigged a series of high-explosive charges, intended to blow the truck and its cargo to atoms. There should be no sign that it had carried an alien rebel. Hopefully, the aliens would conclude that the truck had been en route to a suicide bombing when it had been intercepted.

“I don't think there’s a choice,” Oldham told her, firmly. “I doubt that this bunker will remain secret for much longer – and we need to strip everything out before they come down on us.”

“Understood,” Abigail said. “We won’t let you down.”

She hadn’t been told where they were going, but she assumed another government bunker somewhere to the south, perhaps well away from any alien bases or collaborator garrisons. One thing she’d learned in her time as a reporter was that there was a surprising amount of hardware and facilities tucked away in obscure places, an old habit born of the fear of nuclear war.

“We’re sending an escort with you,” Oldham added. “Officially, they’ll be new recruits for the Order Police.”

Abigail snorted. “Just make sure they know to be sloppy when they don their uniforms,” she ordered. “They can't look too good.”

Oldham smiled, but it didn't quite touch his eyes. “We have the coffin for you,” he said, addressing Theta. “Are you ready?”

“Yes,” the alien said. If the concept of entering a coffin while still breathing bothered the alien, he didn't show it. But then, almost nothing was known of how the aliens treated their dead. Their bodies had been recovered from the battlefield and then ...? No one knew. “I am ready.”

Abigail bowed her head. She’d thought that she was courageous, once upon a time. She had worked inside the collaborator propaganda department, trying to get real news out to the people, and then she’d jumped from near-orbit with Nicolas, carrying the news that humanity was no longer alone in the struggle. But Theta had left his fellows and walked right into a world where he was completely alone, with none of his kind near him. That showed true courage.

“Good,” Oldham said. He rubbed his hands together. “Then let’s be about it, shall we?”

***

Carrying the tents, their weapons and other vital equipment, the small party of resistance fighters made their way down a hidden path out of the forest. Judith felt her mind wandering as she walked, trying to ignore the twinges of pain from her wrists. Clare might have urged her to go see the doctor, but she didn't want to risk it, not when he might take her off active duty. There were too many men, she told herself, who already bitched and moaned that the women had it easy. They didn't think that women could be part of the resistance.

Silly bastards, she thought, coldly. I could shoot them dead at range and they’d never know I was there.

Her body was aching when they finally came down out of the forest and walked towards a truckers rest stop in the middle of nowhere. Like so many others, it had been largely abandoned in the days following the invasion – and then looted, when refugees from the nearby cities and towns had needed food and drink for their families. Later, the resistance had turned it into a covert rendezvous point; truckers heading up and down the country could call in, have a bite to eat and pass messages to the resistance at the same time.

“In here,” the CO called, as they reached a large building. Inside, there were a set of showers, a handful of towels – and a number of Order Police uniforms. “Get showered quickly, if you please. We don’t have much time.”

The water was lukewarm, but just having a shower after weeks camping out in the forest seemed like a foretaste of heaven. Layers of filth she hadn't known she had fell off her body, splashing on the tiles and running down the drain. She could have happily spent hours in the shower, just allowing the water to wash her clean, but she had to leave after five minutes and dry herself. It still felt wonderful.

“These uniforms are too tight,” Clare complained, as she pulled her jacket over her head. “And the underwear is ...”

“I think it’s meant to be that way,” Judith said, although she found herself in agreement with Clare for the first time in weeks. The Order Police didn't have a female combat arm; the only women working for them were clerks and whores. Judging by the uniforms, they were meant to be both. “Just put up with it for now.”

“Easier said than done,” Clare muttered, posing in front of the mirror. “Just look at me.”

Judith looked ... and felt a twinge of sympathy. The uniform was tight around Clare’s breasts and thighs, revealing the shape of her body without actually showing anything. But all someone would have to do was undo a few buttons and it would be easy to see her cleavage. Hell, she had a feeling that it was designed to do just that ... whoever had designed it, she had to admit, was an evil genius. The uniform was damn near perfect for the role the Order Police had in mind for their women.

“Keep one hand on your pistol,” she ordered. It was rare for Order Policewomen to be armed – she couldn't think why – but they were travelling through Bandit Country. “And keep telling yourself that it could be worse.”

Clare shifted, uncomfortably. “Oh, yeah?” She asked. “How?”

They stepped out of the changing room into the lobby ... and started giggling. The men didn't look much better; the black uniforms, alarmingly similar to those designed by Nazi Germany, looked to have been sized for men with muscles on their muscles. Even the ones with uniforms that almost fitted perfectly looked absurd. There was a sloppiness about the whole platoon that would have made the CO shout at them, if they’d been real Order Policemen.

One of the men wolf-whistled.

“Dick,” Judith said, without heat. “Try not to trip over your trousers when you run.”

***

The air was cool and the sky was overcast, suggesting that it was going to rain in the near future, but Abigail couldn't help feeling delighted as the escort party led her towards the waiting truck. It was a large vehicle, one of the electric trucks that had never quite lived up to its promise, at least until the aliens had produced a workable power supply. She wondered, absently, if the original owner had been one of the truckers who had been forced into using an electric truck, despite their manifold inefficiencies. Now, at least, the system actually worked.

And all it cost us was our freedom, she thought, wryly. She'd done articles exposing the inner workings of the collaborator government; quite a few of them hailed from Corporate America, where they’d faced ruin in the wake of the economic crash. The alien-backed government had passed laws to help them, in exchange for producing materials for the aliens themselves. And yet the products the aliens wanted seemed to make little sense. It was possible, she’d told herself, that they were just purchasing to give human industry a boost, but that seemed unlikely. They didn't really seem to care about how many humans had been thrown out of work by the war.

The soldiers opened the rear of the truck, revealing – instead of a dirty chamber – a pair of chairs, a handful of books, a small drinks cabinet and a toilet compartment. From what she’d been told, quite a few trucks had been used to move people across the nation in secret, even before the alien invasion. There had been so many trucks on the road that intercepting and searching them all was almost impossible, even in the days after terrorists had struck the United States.

“Open the coffin once the door is closed,” a soldier said, as they placed it in the truck. “Don’t attempt to open the door unless there is no other choice.”

Abigail scowled. She still had no idea where they were going, but she had been warned that there would be at least five days in the truck – and they might well not be able to let her out until the end. She would be a prisoner, effectively, until they reached their final destination. And she would be spending her time with the alien ... she’d heard enough jokes from the soldiers, when they’d thought she couldn't hear them, to last a lifetime.

The door slammed closed. Moments later, she heard a series of clicks as the truck locked.

She swallowed, hard. If someone opened the door without the right code, the entire truck would explode, vaporising her before she knew what had hit her.

Carefully, she opened the coffin, revealing Theta. For a long moment, she thought that the alien was asleep, even though his eyes were open. But then, the doctors had stated that the leader aliens had no eyelids, even though the warriors did. They slept with their eyes open.

“Five days of being confined in this truck,” she said, wondering if the alien would care. “Is that going to bother you?”

“No,” the alien said, as he sat up.

Abigail shook her head. A human who was trapped in such a small space would start going nuts, sooner or later. Even prisoners in jail were allowed to leave their cells and exercise for a few hours each day. It was just another piece of proof that the aliens weren't humans in suits, but genuinely inhuman creatures. She looked at how the alien’s body moved as he stood upright and shivered. No human in an unconvincing suit could have performed such movements without breaking themselves in half.

“I have questions,” she said. The truck shook once, then lurched into life. “Questions about your culture. Does your society have a religion?”

The alien seemed perplexed by the question. “A religion?”

“A belief in a supreme being,” Abigail explained. It wasn't a good explanation, but it would have to do. “Do you worship a god?”

“We know where we came from,” the alien said, after a long moment. “Why would we believe in an answer without proof?”

Abigail considered it, thoughtfully. “But there is no proof that God doesn't exist.”

The alien tilted his head, slightly. “Absence of proof that something exists does not suggest that it does exist,” he pointed out. “That is a contradiction.”

“True,” Abigail agreed.

Smiling, she changed the subject.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Washington DC, USA

Day 226

“... And so we will be deploying additional manpower out to the farms,” Daisy said. “It is vitally important that we build up additional food supplies before the end of the year.”

Karen sighed, inwardly. Like all of the other senior collaborators, Daisy was building her own little empire amid the ruins of the United States. It wasn't efficient; every attempt Daisy made to streamline the process caused the other senior collaborators to push back, hard. Karen had a private suspicion that the aliens tolerated it for reasons of their own, although she couldn't imagine what those might be. There was no logical reason not to implant all of the senior collaborators.

But the process doesn’t always work, she thought, remembering the former Vice President of the United States. Normally, if they failed at turning someone into one of the Walking Dead, they would simply disappear the victim, but that hadn't been possible for the VP. The last time Karen had seen him, he’d been a drooling idiot, staggering around as if he could no longer control himself. She had no idea what had happened to him since that final speech.

“And we also have the issue of the boat people in Florida,” Daisy added. “I propose that they be simply enslaved. They should be grateful for regular food, instead of complaining all the time about having to actually work for a living.”

Karen wanted to roll her eyes, but instead settled for making a note on her pad. Cuba had been consumed by civil war after the aliens had invaded, setting off a tidal wave of chaos that had spread over the region. There were hundreds of thousands of refugees heading for the United States, now that the Coast Guard was no longer patrolling American waters. Most of them were landing and causing even more chaos, despite the Order Police. Those arrested went straight into camps for indefinite detention. It was only a surprise that it had taken so long for Daisy to realise their potential.

“A sensible idea,” another Area Commander agreed. “We will have to take precautions against escape, of course, but additional labour would be very helpful.”

“Make a note,” Daisy ordered. “I want to have the men shipped north; we can keep their women and children as hostages in the camp. Should they cause trouble ...”

Karen nodded, hiding her revulsion. The thought of taking hostages was unpleasant – un-American – but she could see the awful logic. In the parts of the world where the social contract had been a dead letter from the start, like the Caribbean, the only ties holding people together were those of blood. Using family as hostages would ensure good behaviour.

And it would be necessary. The supply of everything American farmers needed to grow food had been cut short by the invasion. Even the full might of the collaborator government hadn’t been able to repair the production and distribution network in a hurry. Now, many farmers were back to the days before tractors and combine harvesters, relying on brute labour to sow fields and grow crops. They needed as much labour as they could get.

Slaves, she thought, darkly. How long will it be until we’re back to plantations?

“On another note, we have several additional units of the Order Police ready for deployment to the south,” Daisy added. “I believe we can start pushing the terrorists out of California and Texas.”

Karen wondered, absently, if she was talking about the insurgents or the gangs that now ruled large parts of the Southern United States. California’s meltdown had taken law and order with it; the situation would have been dire even if the aliens hadn't smashed most of the military during the invasion. Now, to all intents and purposes, the Deep South was a free-fire zone, part of the civil war raging through Latin America. If the aliens restored order down south, they would probably wind up with millions of willing collaborators.

“That will be suitable,” General Howery informed them. The Walking Dead man had no patience for political games. “We have much work to do.”

Daisy nodded and stood up, bringing the meeting to an end. “Karen,” she said, “I have meetings with several corporate executives. You can go type up the minutes and then relax.”

“Thank you,” Karen said, tightly. It wasn't as if there was a shortage of things to do to relax in the Green Zone. Half of the other assistants and aides were hooked on Cocaine or Heroin, while the remainder played computer games or enjoyed themselves with the small army of comfort women held in the complex. “I’ll find something to do.”

She watched Daisy leave, then looked over at General Howery. As always, the Walking Dead man seemed largely unaware of her existence. Karen had once flashed him her breasts and he hadn't even noticed. Karen had laughed, afterwards, and then started to shake. What sort of power did the aliens have if they could reduce a man to a sexless slave?

General Howery had been a good officer, according to her files, and she’d been impressed the one time she’d met him before he’d been implanted. Now, he was an alien slave, all of his skills bent to their service. As far as Karen could tell, he wasn't resisting at all, not any longer. At first, she’d dared to hope that he was holding on. Now, there was no trace of resistance, even in his eyes.

She took a breath as she walked towards him, knowing that she was about to cross the line between passive spying and active resistance. Daisy would have her killed if she ever realised just how much Karen had passed on to the resistance, if only to ensure that the aliens never realised just how badly she had been compromised. But Howery ... if he suspected anything, he could take Karen for interrogation and no one would dare to stop him. They wouldn't need to torture her either. All they’d have to do was stick an implant in her head and she would talk freely.

“General,” she said, “I received a message today, just before the meeting.”

Howery’s dead eyes stared at her. Karen shivered, feeling her nerve start to break. She’d been leered at by drunken men, yet that hadn’t been as terrifying as staring into the General’s eyes. Part of her wanted to run, to use the emergency escape plan she’d worked out with the resistance. She was risking everything on one throw of the dice.

“There are some elements of the local resistance who want to come over to us,” she added. It had taken some careful thought to come up with a story that might get Howery out of the Green Zone. The resistance couldn't stage an attack inside the complex. “They’re willing to work with us, if you talk to them in person and assure them of good faith.”

It was, she hoped, a convincing story. Some of the remnants of the resistance in Washington was slipping into criminal behaviour – according to her half-remembered history lessons, that was how the Mafia got its start – and they wouldn't want to upset the boat by actually resisting. They wouldn't be the first resistance group to seek a local truce with the Order Police too, although such truces had always been very limited. Mainly, they tended to involve betraying any other resistance activity on their patch.

“I see,” Howery said, tonelessly. It was impossible to tell if he was buying her story, or if she should kick him in the nuts and run. “And what are they prepared to offer us?”

“They will report any other resistance activity within Washington in exchange for being left strictly alone,” Karen said, carefully. “But they insist on making the deal with you personally, as a known representative of our masters. They don’t trust the collaborator government.”

Howery looked at her for a long moment, then stood up. “We shall go speak to them,” he said, shortly. “Now.”

Karen carefully kept her face blank. “Now? But ...”

“Now,” Howery repeated.

***

Nicolas had never been very fond of Washington. He’d only visited a few times in his life; mostly, Washington was the city of politicians who issued impossible orders and then complained loudly when they weren't obeyed. He still recalled one anti-pirate mission that had almost turned into a disaster because the watching politicians had insisted on issuing useless orders to individual SEALs. If nothing else, the alien invasion had put a stop to that nonsense.

It still made him angry when he saw how far the capital city, the shining light on the hill, had fallen. Hundreds of buildings had been knocked down, while others looked to be permanently on the verge of tumbling over; countless refugees crammed themselves into camps or squatted in buildings, trying to find some shelter from the weather. There was a palatable aura of fear overhanging the entire city, no matter what some people did to try to dispel it. Nicolas hadn't seen such fear in people’s eyes since a covert mission into Somalia, during the War on Terror. The city had been captured by Islamic militants and everyone had been afraid for their lives. Washington had the same feeling.

No one seemed to trust anyone any longer. Nicolas watched the population scurrying along, never making eye contact with anyone or talking to strangers. What little food there was in the shops, he realised quickly, went to the strong; the Order Police didn't seem to be interested in patrolling the poorer parts of the city. He’d spotted a dozen different street gangs during his first recon around the city block, all glaring at their rivals as if they were about to start a war. The city felt as though it was tipping over the edge into the abyss.

It wasn't much better in the richer parts of the city. The army of bureaucrats who made the collaborator government work were virtually prisoners in gated communities, protected and imprisoned by the Order Police. Nicolas was careful not to go too close; the papers Joe had provided, he'd been warned, might not stand up to scrutiny from one of the Walking Dead – or from a particularly careful Order Policeman.

The only part of the city that seemed almost normal was the Green Zone. At night, it was lit up so brightly that it could be seen for miles around, a mocking reminder to the rest of the city of just how far they’d fallen. Nicolas couldn't help wondering why the resistance didn't simply lob a few mortar shells in every so often, before deciding that it would probably compromise them too much. And he had his suspicions about just how committed Joe and his allies were to the cause.

He scowled as he stopped outside the apartment block and found a place to sit, looking no different from the other beggars who wandered the streets of Washington these days. Most of them, he suspected, had been on some form of medication before the alien invasion; now, there were no hospitals to take care of them, or drugs for doctors to prescribe. The Order Police didn't seem to care what happened to them. Nicolas had a feeling that few of them would survive the winter.

It was nearly forty minutes before a car came down the street and pulled up in front of the apartment block. Nicolas let out a breath he hadn't realised he’d been holding; when he’d been briefed on the resistance’s agent in the Green Zone, he’d worried that she wouldn't be able to lure General Howery out of the safe zone. He smiled to himself as he watched a redheaded girl, barely out of her teens, climbing out of the car. She was followed by General Howery.

Nicolas shivered when he saw the man. Unlike the other Walking Dead he’d encountered, he’d known General Howery before he'd been pushed into taking early retirement and the change in him was chilling. Cold eyes scanned the street, showing no hint of feeling, before he turned to follow Karen into the apartment block. Nicolas stood up as soon as the door closed behind them and walked over to the side door. He would intercept them inside the building, just in case they were being watched. How closely did the aliens supervise the Walking Dead? There was no way to be sure.

Bracing himself, he slipped into the building. There was no more time to hesitate.

***

Karen wrinkled her nose as she led the way into the building, smelling the faint, but unmistakable stench of urine. The building was dark and dingy, hardly the type of place she wanted to live in, or use for anything other than firewood. A small pile of rubbish in one corner caught her eye and she looked before she could stop herself, seeing a handful of condoms, drug needles and other used items carelessly abandoned. Whoever had squatted here after the rightful owners had fled hadn't stayed for long.

“They’re down here,” she lied, praying that the resistance had managed to plan everything properly. If Howery realised that she had lied to him ... she didn't deceive herself that she could escape before he caught her. She’d be dragged back to the Green Zone, implanted and then made to talk. “You have to speak softly to them.”

Howery merely looked at her with cold, lifeless eyes.

“I’m babbling,” Karen said, turning back. Panic was flickering at the back of her mind. “I’m sorry, I have a habit of babbling when I’m stressed. This meeting could ...”

Howery caught her shoulder and jerked her around to face her. “This meeting is important,” he informed her. “I do not require excuses, merely that you do your job.”

Karen saw ... something ... moving behind Howery. A moment later, a cloth was firmly pressed over the General’s mouth, while strong arms held him tightly. She stared, unable to move or speak, as Howery struggled helplessly before collapsing to his knees. His attacker, a pale-faced man wearing a rough outfit, winked at her.

“Well done,” he said, as Howery hit the ground. “You lured him wonderfully.”

Karen felt her knees sag too. “Thank you,” she gasped. “I ... I don’t think he told anyone where we were going.”

“It shouldn't matter,” the man said. He picked Howery up and slung his unconscious form over his shoulder. “If we’re lucky, we’ll be done before they realise he’s missing. And if we’re not lucky ...”

He shrugged. “You won’t have to go back to the Green Zone,” he added. “There’s a way to get you out of the City.”

Karen followed him upstairs, silently marvelling at how strong the newcomer was. Howery was hardly a small man, yet the newcomer was carrying him as if he weighed no more than a child. Upstairs, there was a small bedroom, with the sheets freshly changed. The room still smelled, but it wasn't as bad as the lower levels.

“Duct tape is inelegant, but very useful,” the newcomer said, as he bound Howery’s wrists and legs together, then slapped a piece over his mouth. “You can never have enough of it.”

He searched the General quickly, removed a handful of devices and weapons, then reached under the bed and produced a small leather bag. “If we’re lucky,” he added, “this will give Howery some control over himself. And if we’re unlucky, we will have to run for our lives.”

Karen sucked in her breath as the newcomer pushed the device against Howery’s head and did ... something.

***

Nicolas removed the injector from Howery’s head and watched, grimly, as the man started to twitch. It didn't seem to matter, according to Theta, if the subject was awake or asleep when the nanites were used; there was brain activity either way. But it might make a difference when they tested Howery, afterwards. His bag also contained a stimulant that they might need to use to awaken him.

“Keep one ear open for incoming surprises,” he ordered Karen. The girl was clearly nervous, which wasn’t too surprising. Judging from the briefing, she’d been pitched headlong into the collaborator government, yet she’d had the presence of mind to open a secret channel to the resistance. They were lucky to have her. “And then relax. You’re twitching too much.”

The girl blushed. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m just ...”

Nicolas smiled, remembering some of the odder parts of their training. The key to successful robberies, they’d learned, was looking normal. It was funny how few people, even trained guards, asked questions if someone looked as though they should be there. The proper uniform, the right bearing ... someone’s mind would fill in the gaps, as long as there was nothing overt to rouse their suspicions. If Karen had managed to survive as long as she had in the Green Zone, she should know to keep her feelings under control.

“I can tie you to the chair if you want,” he added, dryly. “But that would make it hard to escape.”

Karen stared at him, then realised that it was a joke. “No, thank you,” she said. “How long does this take to work?”

“As long as it takes,” Nicolas said. Theta had said that the pre-programmed nanites would take around ten minutes to complete their task, unless something went badly wrong. “Just relax. We’re in no immediate danger.”

The girl eyed him as though he were crazy. Nicolas found it hard to blame her. Not everyone could remain cool in a dangerous situation.

“Trust me,” he added. “This will take only a few more minutes.”

Quietly, he started to prepare the stimulant. At least they had proper medical records for the General. The stimulant shouldn't do him any real harm, even though he hadn't used it since his enforced retirement. But no one knew what the aliens might have given the Walking Dead ...

“Here we go,” he said, as he pushed the needle against Howery’s arm. “This should wake him up.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Washington DC, USA

Day 226

General Dave Howery felt ... odd.

He was no stranger to hangovers; drinking hard had been a mark of manhood where he’d grown up. Even after joining the military, he’d maintained his capacity for drinking alcohol, although he had moved to a better class of alcohol as he’d been promoted upwards. And drink had been a consolation after his enforced retirement and then ... his thought skittered away from events after his retirement. All that mattered was that he felt strange.

His face felt odd too, as if it was stiff and worn. He tried to reach up and discovered that his wrists were taped behind his back. Someone had taped up his mouth too, he realised, along with his legs. He was a prisoner? Had the Jihadist fuckers finally caught up with him? The bastards had sworn bloody revenge on every American officer and enlisted man in existence; his outspoken stance against them would have put him high on the list of targets. But his memory refused to work right ...

He blinked as a face appeared above him. “General,” a voice said softly, “how much do you remember?”

Dave shuddered as his memories unlocked, unleashing a torrent of images he devoutly hoped were nightmares. Alien craft approaching Earth, one hovering high over Washington. Media footage of fighter jets battling UFOs and losing. Strange monstrous forms advancing over American territory and ... and ... and ...

... There was a needle, coming down from high overhead. Dave fought and struggled, but the restraints held him firmly in place. There was a stab of pain as the needle slid into his forehead, then ... then an agony that had had him screaming so much that his throat was raw. But had that been real? He couldn't remember. The world had been dim, almost unreal. And now it was bright and clear ...

He tried to speak. But the gag prevented him from saying a word.

“Here,” the voice said. There was a brief moment of pain as the gag was torn off. “What do you remember?”

Howery shuddered as the memories roared through his head. He was a traitor. He’d been made a traitor. The aliens had turned him into their unthinking slave, forcing him to use his talents and experience in their service. He had organised the Order Police and turned them into a weapon aimed at true American patriots. There could be no mercy for one such as he.

He should have fought. But it had been unthinkable.

“Everything,” he said, numbly. “What did you do to me?”

“The aliens put an implant in your brain to ... make you loyal to them,” the voice said. “We invented a medical treatment that crippled the implant. Welcome back, General Howery.”

Dave turned his head. There was a man – a soldier by the looks of him, despite the civilian clothes – and a young girl, standing at the edge of the room. He recognised her, dimly; Daisy Fairchild’s young aide. Was she working for the resistance too? He hoped so ...

“My face feels funny,” he muttered, as he tried to sit upright. “What happened to it?”

“I don’t know the precise details,” the man admitted. “However, the basic idea is that you will still look like one of the Walking Dead.”

“You want me to spy for you,” Dave said, bluntly. His memories were settling down into place now. His time as an alien slave was a nightmare, but he remembered it in every detail. “You don’t want to take me out of here and debrief me?”

“I’m afraid I can't do that,” the man said. “You’re in a very important position right now.”

Dave nodded, even though the thought of going back to the Green Zone filled him with terror. If the aliens realised that something was wrong, they would take him back to their craft and check his implants thoroughly. And when they discovered that something had happened to his implants ... they'd be more careful how they implanted him the second time.

“I understand,” he said. He honestly didn't know how he was going to avoid wringing the neck of Daisy Fairchild and her ilk, but he’d have to do it somehow. God knew that losing control would be disastrous. “What else do you want from me?”

The man smiled. “Everything you can tell us about the aliens, their plans, their deployments ... everything,” he said. “As one of the Walking Dead, you have access to far more intelligence than anyone else, even” – he nodded at Karen “our other sources in the Green Zone. You can also move around without being questioned, even without direct orders from the aliens. That sort of access could be very useful.”

“I dare say it could,” Dave agreed. He hesitated, then lifted his arms. “Would you mind releasing me?”

The man produced a penknife and sliced off the duct tape. “I’m sorry about the lost hair,” he said, as Dave pulled his hands free. “We didn't have cuffs.”

Dave scowled at him, rubbing his face. It felt numb, as if the dentist had overdone the anaesthetic. His teeth didn't feel quite right in his head. He recalled looking at his own face in the mirror, back when he'd been an alien slave, and shivered at the memory. His face had been immobile for so long that he’d forgotten how to smile. Or maybe it was just the side effects of the implants.

“That’s quite all right,” he said, eyeing Karen. She’d taken one hell of a risk luring him out here, knowing that it might blow her cover. “When are we going back to the snake pit?”

“As soon as you’re ready,” the man said. “I don’t know how long it will be before they realise that you’re out of touch.”

“Before you go,” Karen added, speaking for the first time, “could you tell us what these are?”

Dave looked over at the devices he’d been carrying in his pockets. “Communicator, for speaking with the aliens or other ... other slaves,” he said. “Neural rod – stuns anyone who touches the business end. Stimulant injector – used for boosting when we’re exhausted, yet have to keep going ...”

“Thank you,” the man said, as soon as Dave had finished. “Now, about the resistance meeting ...”

Dave leaned forward, interested. “What do you want me to tell them?”

“Tell them that they want some additional guarantees of their safety,” the man said. “And a few other things besides.”

“I don’t think the masters ... the aliens will go for that,” Dave admitted. “Or do you just want to come up with an excuse for a failed negotiation?”

“It will do,” the man said. He looked over at Karen. “Can you wait in the next room? I need to ask Howery a question in private.”

Karen hesitated, then nodded, walking out of the room and closing the door behind her. Dave felt his eyes straying to her ass, feeling a stir he hadn't really felt since he’d been a teenager. The aliens had done something to his emotions, he realised again; Karen had flashed him and he hadn't even cared. Now ... now part of him wanted to follow her into the next room and try his luck, just as he would have done as a teenager.

He gritted his teeth. This was going to be humiliating. He was sure of it.

“We may need you to do more than spying, sooner rather than later,” the man said. “Are you sure you’re up to it?”

“Yes,” Dave said, bluntly. Whatever else happened, he wanted revenge on the aliens – and on those who had collaborated with them of their own free will. “I can handle whatever you need me to handle.”

“Good,” the man said. “Go downstairs and wait just inside the door. I need a few private words with Karen before you go.”

***

Karen couldn't help feeling a little annoyed that they’d excluded her from the final discussions, although she did have to admit that what she didn't know she couldn't tell. It was still galling, after all the risks she’d taken to get General Howery to the resistance lair ... her lips quirked into a smile when she recognised what it meant. With Howery working for the resistance, the aliens were in for a nasty shock.

She stepped into a back bedroom and looked around, feeling as if she was intruding in someone’s private room. It had once belonged to a child, she decided, though she couldn't tell offhand if it had been a boy or a girl. The chest of drawers had been hastily emptied, while the bedding had been abandoned on the bed and left to rot. A handful of Lego toys and a stuffed cat were lying on the ground; two Harry Potter and one Doctor Who posters decorated the walls. The sight of the abandoned room chilled her to the bone.

“Karen,” the man said, as he came out of the meeting room. “There are a few things I need to tell you. One is that you will be handling the General’s communications to us.”

Karen nodded. She’d already guessed as much.

“The second is that you cannot do it completely alone,” the man added. “Your friend Jasmine will assist you.”

“Oh,” Karen said.

She found herself flushing brightly. Weeks ago, Jasmine had joined her in the shower and they’d made love. After that, they’d done it several more times, although they’d always been discreet. Karen couldn't help wondering if Jasmine had reported their lovemaking to her superiors, or if she’d been ordered to get close to Karen. She'd certainly found a good way to do it, if so.

“There are codewords you have to remember,” the man said. He gave her four, two of which were to identify Karen. The other two were for emergencies only. “And don’t write any of them down.”

Karen nodded, impatiently. She knew that already.

“Good luck,” the man added. “You can drive back with the General. He’ll brief you on the way.”

“Ok,” Karen said. “And thank you.”

She couldn’t help slumping into her seat as General Howery drove her back towards the Green Zone. Her shirt was sodden with sweat; she hadn't realised just how badly she’d been sweating until it had all paid off. If General Howery had been normal, he might have noticed that something was wrong before she got him to the resistance lair. As it was, everything had worked ...

So far, she reminded herself, sternly

She listened as General Howery outlined their cover story. The resistance had been contacted, but they had made excessive demands that would have to be cleared by the aliens before they were granted. That wasn't unexpected – and it gave them an excuse to go outside the Green Zone again, if necessary. The General’s face was still as expressionless as before, but she caught him glancing at her from time to time, as if he was interested in her. It was both flattering and a little disturbing.

They passed through the security checks at the gates without incident, much to Karen’s relief. The Green Zone defences had been toughened up after someone had tried to ram a truck filled with explosives into the secure zone, blowing up the checkpoint and a dozen guards when they opened fire. She’d been afraid that someone would notice that something was wrong with the General’s implants, but instead they all kowtowed and obeyed his commands without question. But then, he still sounded like one of the Walking Dead.

“You may return to your quarters,” Howery said, when they were back inside the complex. His voice was stiff and cold, although there were faint changes in his body language. “I will contact you when we can proceed.”

Karen nodded and turned away, heading towards the elevator that led up towards the suites that had been put aside for senior collaborators and their aides. Daisy had arranged for her to have exclusive use of a suite large enough for several people, one that would have been well beyond her means before the invasion. It was easy to see, she thought, not for the first time, why so many had chosen to collaborate. Even the lucky non-collaborators were finding it hard to put food on the table, let alone enjoy the luxury of pre-invasion life. It was funny how little they’d realised how lucky they were until the world turned upside down.

She stepped into her suite and looked around, checking for signs that someone had entered the rooms and searched it while she’d been gone. It wasn't as if she kept anything incriminating in the room, but she still wanted at least the illusion of privacy. As soon as she was satisfied, she walked over to the intercom and asked for Jasmine. The manager assured her that the maid would be up in a few minutes.

Karen shook her head tiredly as she pulled off her clothes, uncomfortably aware that she had picked up some of the stench from the abandoned apartment. Jasmine and her fellow maids would have to do the washing, in-between tending to the every whim of the collaborators. From what Jasmine had told her, the collaborators could be very imaginative – and demanding.

The door opened, revealing Jasmine. She was slightly shorter than Karen, with curly brown hair and a charmingly impish smile. The uniform she wore revealed most of her body and hinted at the rest; Jasmine had admitted, once, that it had been designed by one of the collaborators. Karen had a suspicion that she knew where he’d picked up the idea.

“You called?” Jasmine asked, smiling brightly. “What can I do for you?”

Karen smiled back. “Why don't you join me in the shower,” she said, for the benefit of any bugs that had been hidden in the room. She’d looked, but she’d learned fairly quickly that she didn't have a hope of finding them without some proper equipment and training, neither of which she had. “It should be fun.”

She couldn't help a twinge of envy as Jasmine stripped off naturally, without a hint of embarrassment. The maid’s body was far better than her own, with high firm breasts and perfect skin. She’d heard that the aliens were offering medical treatment to their collaborators as well as everything else; given their skill with genetic enhancement, was it possible that they could engineer beauty into a human form? But beauty was in the eye of the beholder, Karen reminded herself. Jasmine might not have been considered a beauty in the past, before fashions had changed.

“Come on,” Karen said, pushing the thought aside. She stepped into the shower – it was easily the largest shower she’d seen – and turned on the taps. Water sprayed out from all directions, washing away the stench of the apartment. “I don’t have all day.”

Jasmine stepped into the shower and closed the door, allowing water to run over her breasts. Her hands reached out to stroke Karen’s chest ... for a moment, Karen almost gave into temptation and allowed her to go ahead, before pulling her into a tight hug.

“I have something to say to you,” she whispered. “Pabulum. Potomac.”

Jasmine tensed so hard that Karen gasped in pain. “You ... you ...”

“Relax,” Karen hissed. The roar of the shower should make it hard for anyone to overhear them, but they had to be careful. “You didn't tell me either.”

Jasmine turned away. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I felt so ... so conflicted.”

Karen understood. She’d felt a certain loyalty to Daisy, although that had faded after she’d joined the collaborator government and then vanished altogether when she’d realised just how far Daisy was prepared to go to maintain her power base. At least Jasmine had had some feelings for her, if they hadn't just been destroyed. There was no way to know.

“I will need to pass you more information,” Karen muttered, pulling Jasmine close. “What can you get out of the Green Zone?”

“USB sticks, or verbal messages,” Jasmine said, shortly. “Assuming I can get out. We’re supposed to have a day or two as holiday every two weeks, but we’re not always allowed to leave.”

Karen felt a twinge of guilt. The maids were effectively slaves, just one step up from the whores gathered in the comfort barracks for the Order Police. Maybe they did have an agreement that they would be allowed some holiday, but it was unlikely that it would ever be enforced. She couldn't think of any way to get around those problems ...

“I understand,” she said, as she allowed her hands to slip down until they were gently touching the space between Jasmine’s legs. “We’ll take what we can get.”

Jasmine twisted until she was facing Karen once again. “I didn’t know,” she said. “I just thought that ...”

Her voice trailed off. “It’s all right,” Karen said, although she wasn't sure of that. Jasmine might have seduced her under the impression that she was spying on Daisy Fairchild’s aide, rather than making love to a friend. “Don’t worry about a thing.”

Jasmine shuddered as Karen stroked her, then gasped as Karen lowered her mouth to meet hers. “Don’t stop,” she pleaded. “Just don’t stop.”

“I won’t,” Karen said. For the moment, they would take what comfort they could get from each other. It wouldn’t last, but it was a hint of normality in a world gone mad. “I promise.”

Afterwards, she held Jasmine close for a long time, before pushing her back out into the bedroom. She would have liked to keep her in the room – no one would have asked questions, not of Daisy’s aide – but it was a risk. They couldn't be seen to be drawing too close together, or so she told herself. If something happened to Jasmine, Karen would be at risk too.

And that might expose General Howery to the unblinking eyes of his former masters.

Chapter Twenty-Five

RAF Lossiemouth, United Kingdom

Day 229

“It’s bigger than I expected,” Philip muttered, as the helicopter headed down towards the Royal Air Force base. “And there are more aircraft on the grounds.”

His eyes narrowed. “They’re too close together,” he added. “What happens if they attack?”

Colonel Chatsworth, RAF, nodded. “The aliens insisted that we kept the planes somewhere visible,” he explained, grimly. “We’re planning to move them if war does break out over Britain.”

Philip scowled. The walk from the bunker to the coastline had been bad enough, but then there had been the underwater journey from America to Britain, where he’d been joined by thirty other USAF pilots who had survived the war and escaped being rounded up by the aliens after the occupation began. He, at least, hadn't had any real problems with the submarine, but several of the other pilots had been claustrophobic. They would never have been able to fly on the space shuttle.

There were dozens of planes scattered over the airbase. The British had called older Tornado, Harrier and Jaguar aircraft back into service, as well as some of the planes from the Ronald Reagan. He spied a number of Super Hornets sitting on the runway, as well as a pair of Hawkeyes for airborne early warning. From what he’d read in the briefing papers, the British had at least four Sentry aircraft up at any one time, watching for incoming alien threats, but no one expected them to last long when the aliens started their real offensive. Judging by their attack on both America and Israel, radars and radar-carrying aircraft would be priority targets.

Could be worse, he told himself. Our radar network let us down on 9/11.

The helicopter landed in front of a makeshift barracks, allowing him and the other pilots to scramble out of the aircraft and across into a briefing room. It was almost identical to the briefing rooms in America, he couldn't help noticing, apart from a portrait of the Queen that someone had stuck against the far wall. Large maps of Britain and the surrounding coastline, a handful showing aerial patrol routes and other important details, covered the other walls. A small table of coffee mugs was placed right next to the door.

“Help yourself,” Chatsworth said. “I understand that coffee has been scarce across the pond.”

“Tell me about it,” Philip said, as he poured himself a cup. The other pilots crowded round, intent on having some before it ran out. “The squadrons used to run on coffee.”

“Supplies are limited here too,” Chatsworth admitted, ruefully. “There’s almost bugger-all being shipped in from Turkey these days.”

A tough-looking man standing at the front of the room cleared his throat. “If you’re quite finished making small talk,” he said, in a thick Texan accent, “please take your seats and pay attention. We may not have much time.”

Philip took a seat near the front and waited for the speaker to continue.

“For those of you who don’t know me,” the speaker said, “my name is Frank Hardy – anyone who wants to make jokes can see me around the back afterwards. I was the CAG on Ronnie before we sailed into Southampton and pretended to be British prisoners. Right now, I’m in charge of you merry bastards.”

He scowled around the room. “Yes, I know; we have naval fliers, air farce crewmen and even a handful of army close-in support personnel,” he added. “If you feel inclined to pick fights with one another, get over it now. We’re not in a fit place to bicker when the aliens might come breathing down our necks at any moment. Dave?”

A British officer stood up. “Over the last two weeks,” he said, without preamble, “radar sets in the UK have been picking up alien probes of our defences, roughly comparable to alien probes through American airspace before they announced their presence openly. We believe that these are either unsubtle attempts at intimidation or preparations for an all-out assault on the mainland. With most of the world’s nuclear powers ... otherwise occupied, Britain is probably high on their list of remaining targets.”

Philip nodded, glumly. America and Israel were occupied, France was in ferment, China was fighting a civil war, India and Pakistan had destroyed one another ... there were very few nuclear powers left. Apart from Britain, Russia was the only other major nuclear power; he doubted the aliens felt particularly threatened by North Korea. Given that Russia was still a major conventional power, he had a feeling that the aliens might have decided to leave it for last.

“It is the decision of the Prime Minister and the Coalition Government that we will not surrender when – if – the aliens start making demands,” the intelligence officer continued. “We will fight.”

“But victory may be difficult,” Hardy said, with remarkable understatement. “Between us and the Brits, we’ve managed to round up a remarkable number of aircraft – but most of them are not as advanced as we might wish.” He snorted. “On the other hand, the F-22 Raptor was not as capable against the aliens as it might have seemed. We have made modifications to our missiles and other weapons in the hopes that they might prove more effective against the alien craft. However, as before, the defence of Britain will largely fall on the air force. And that, for the moment, includes us.

“We will be practicing from dawn to dusk,” he continued. “Enough fuel has been made available for hundreds of exercises – and when we’re not in the air, we’re going to be in the simulators. We know our enemy now; they may be advanced, but they do have weaknesses. And when they come, we’re going to give them hell.

“I know what some of you are thinking,” he added, glancing from pilot to pilot. “Our country is occupied. Our friends and families are at the mercy of inhuman creatures who are bent on converting us into slaves, quite literally. We’re all exiles from home, fighting to defend another country – risking our lives in defence of that country.

“All I can tell you is this; if we can hold the aliens off now, we may well be able to press them to abandon America,” he concluded. “And even if we don’t, we will show them that we will not surrender, that we will not go down into darkness without kicking and screaming all the way. This may be humanity’s last fight, but if it is, we will not go quietly. We will make them know that they’ve been kissed.”

He smiled. “And now there's someone here who wishes to meet you.”

Philip followed his gaze towards the door ... and automatically straightened to attention as soon as he saw the man standing there. The President looked ... greyer than he remembered, his hair fading to white, just like every other person who had inhabited the Oval Office in living memory. But his eyes were as sharp as ever ...

“Mr. President,” Hardy said. “Thank you for coming.”

***

The President had been surprised when the British had agreed to allow him to meet the pilots – both the pilots from the carrier and the ones who had been smuggled over from America – but it might have made a certain kind of sense. They would have needed reassurance that there was still something worth fighting for, that they were something better than mercenaries ... and meeting the President might provide it. These days, there was no danger that someone would upload a message to Twitter or Facebook to break security, not when what remained of the human military was effectively in hiding. And besides, the RAF base was as secure as anywhere else on the British mainland.

Perhaps more secure, the President thought, as he returned their salutes. The BBC was heavily censored these days, but he’d had access to governmental channels that had admitted that the situation was growing worse by the day. Britain just didn't have the manpower or space America had had to deal with problems – or, for that matter, a tradition of having an armed citizenry. Society was slowly breaking down, either into anarchy or fascism. No one quite seemed sure which one.

“Thank you for inviting me,” he said. How long had it been since he’d visited a military base? He’d tried to do it as often as possible – he’d missed the military life, even though political life was often as strongly regimented – but he’d never been able to visit since the aliens had reached Earth. He hadn't even been able to visit Area 52, where the first crashed alien ship had been hidden. “These are not easy days for our country.”

There was no point in using flowery words and phrases to soldiers, sailors and airmen. The President had been a soldier; he knew that they had unerring noses for bullshit, no matter how much cream politically-minded superiors might try to sprinkle on top. Instead, he chose to be blunt – and admit just how bad things were likely to become.

“We have been occupied by an outside force of overwhelming power,” he said. “Many of us are in exile, many more are alien prisoners – or dead. Resistance seems hopeless, utterly futile. And yet there is a chance for victory.”

He recognised Philip Carlson in the crowd and smiled, inwardly. Carlson had been warned not to discuss anything relating to the aliens with his fellows; thankfully, there had been no public announcement of the names and ranks of the crewmen captured on the ISS during the mothership’s arrival in orbit. Sending him to the UK was a risk, but less of one than keeping him in the US – or so he had been assured. Besides, Carlson had been a fighter pilot before becoming an astronaut and they needed every pilot they could get.

“This is our darkest hour,” he admitted. “But we have a chance. You will buy us that chance, when the aliens come knocking, hoping to defeat us completely before we’re ready to take the fight to them.

“It won’t be easy. Many of you will die, as will others, when the time comes. But we will do more than show the aliens that humanity will not die quietly. We will take advantage of what you offer us to win!”

Afterwards, he found himself wondering if the pilots had believed him. Some of them had had experience fighting the aliens before, during the first invasion of America. Others had heard stories or seen footage from Israel. They knew that the odds of humanity producing a victory were slim, to say the least. It was quite possible that they wondered if they were being sacrificed to win humanity better terms from its new masters.

But there was no alternative. If they could fight, they could give the aliens a bloody nose ...

He looked around as his minders – and Pepper – escorted him on a brief tour of the base, catching sight of a small array of F-16s that the British had dug up from somewhere. Judging by their markings, they came from Italy; he couldn't help wondering just how the British had managed to convince the Italians to send them to the UK. Perhaps there had been a deal concerning the disposition of the Royal Navy’s ships, he decided. There were so many refugees heading towards Europe from North Africa that the South European powers were quite overwhelmed. And F-16s wouldn't be much help against a tidal wave of refugees.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Pepper muttered, leaning in close. “And I forbid it.”

The President smiled, wryly. “And what do you think I'm thinking?”

“You're thinking that you’d like to fly one of the planes into battle yourself,” Pepper said, mischievously. “Be like the President from Independence Day and fire the fatal shot that brings down the city destroyer. Wouldn't it be so much simpler up in the air, where friends and enemies are so clear-cut?”

“I don’t know how to fly,” the President reminded her. There hadn't been much call for it in the 3rd Infantry Division. He knew how to drive a Humvee, a Bradley or an Abrams tank, or how to strip an M16 down while blindfolded. But they’d never taught him how to fly a fighter jet. “Clearly, a ghastly oversight in the list of qualifications to be President.”

“Good,” Pepper said. “Because you’re not going into battle, even if I have to handcuff you to a chair.”

The President snorted. Independence Day had been fun to watch – even if the crowd had cheered when the aliens blew up the White House – but it had sacrificed common sense for special effects and an extremely patriotic plot. But then, he could understand precisely why the movie’s President had wanted to climb into a cockpit and lead his forces into battle. He would have believed himself responsible for the failure to protect the American population, or to defeat the aliens when they first showed themselves.

A day after his election, the President-elect had sat in the Oval Office with the sitting President and talked, candidly, about life in the White House. His predecessor had told him that one of the hardest things to learn was that the most powerful man in the world, as the President was often called, was not all-powerful. There were limits, some clear, some subtle, to the President’s powers. No matter how hard he tried, there were some things he couldn't control, certainly not very quickly. And that simple fact wouldn't stop Congress, the Senate or the media from whining that the President wasn't doing his job.

It hadn't taken long for the President to realise that his predecessor had, if anything, understated the truth. Restraining North Korea alone was impossible and crippling Iran’s nuclear ambitions a dangerous gamble that could easily spread out of control. With outright military intervention not on the cards, the President had few cards he could play ... which, again, hadn't stopped the endless barrage of criticism. And none of his predecessors had had to face an alien invasion.

He’d told himself, time and time again, that the alien invasion hadn't been his fault, that the alien mothership had set off from its homeworld centuries ago ... hell, if Carlson was to be believed, they’d started to visit Earth in 1900! But it didn't stop him feeling if he were to blame, somehow. No wonder previous Presidents, no matter how bombastic they’d been when they’d been elected, quietened rapidly when they realised what it really meant to be President. There was often little they could do about the most important problems menacing the world.

“I understand,” he muttered. The movie’s President might have been young and handsome and had a few dramatic lines, but in the final analysis he’d abdicated his duty. “I won’t need to be handcuffed, honestly.”

He ignored the smirks on the faces of his close-protection detail – SAS troopers, he’d been assured – as they walked into the control tower. A small army of fighter controllers, mostly British, sat in front of computers, babbling instructions into their headsets. The RAF had a large number of fighters in the air at any one time, the President had been told, just in case the aliens decided to launch an attack out of the blue. Given the speed their craft could reach, there was no reason why they couldn’t slip into formation over America and then be over Britain before radars had a chance to realise that they were there. The prospect of a repeat of the Six Days War, with Britain playing the role of the Arabs, had worried quite a few people in London.

“Mr. President,” a uniformed British officer said. “Welcome to our little home away from home.”

The President allowed himself a smile as he was shown into the next room, a small briefing compartment for senior officers and politicians. “I’m General Cunningham,” the officer explained. “Tea? Coffee?”

“Coffee, please,” the President said, as he took his seat. “I noticed that you had huge supplies on the base.”

The General grinned. “When the alien mothership was first sighted, I sent a mob of junior officers to buy up anything useful from the local supermarket,” he said, mischievously. “They bought up most of the coffee in the county, as well as food, drink and other supplies. Caused quite a stir, I can tell you. Luckily, martial law was declared before insane coffee addicts stormed the base.”

The President chuckled. “We had similar problems back home,” he admitted. “But now I rather miss those problems.”

“I can understand that,” Cunningham said. He poured the President a mug of coffee, then looked at Pepper, who shook her head. “You’ll be pleased to know that we have made good progress in strengthening the air defence network around the UKADGE – that’s the United Kingdom Air Defence Ground Environment. Quite apart from the additional radars we pulled out of your ship, we have some ... other weapons too. Given time to practice, I’m sure that we can give the aliens a very bloody nose.”

“Good,” the President said. “Are the missiles fit for service?”

“We believe that our modifications to the seeker heads will ensure that they are capable of tracking the alien craft, no matter what tricks they pull,” Cunningham informed him. “They should always be capable of remaining locked on, heading right for their targets. That won’t stop the bastards from simply outrunning them, but if fired from close range they shouldn't have time to react.”

He shrugged. “Besides, we don’t need to chase them out over the Atlantic,” he added. “They have to come to us to win.”

The President nodded, grimly. That had been true of the alien craft attacking America too – and they’d still won. After 9/11, the American air defence network had been massively upgraded. He doubted the British network was anything like as capable.

But our advanced technology wasn’t a match for the aliens, he thought, coldly. Perhaps a more low-tech solution will carry the day.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Near Area 52, Nevada, USA

Day 235

There were, Abigail had decided, better people to spend a few days imprisoned in a small room with than an alien doctor. Nicolas, for example, or even a random man or woman from her career. The alien made a very odd travelling companion.

Parts of the trip had been interesting, she was prepared to admit. She’d learned a great deal about the alien society, although she had a feeling that she was missing some of the subtle points. A human could aspire to be President if they happened to be born in America – or a rich man, or whatever else they wanted to be. An alien born to a particular caste didn't seem to look for a way to rise above that caste’s limitations, or even seek to better himself. It just didn't make sense from a human point of view.

She’d wondered if the aliens had the same problems as the Russian communists – the rewards for hard work were very hard to get – but her attempt to explain it to Theta met with blank incomprehension. The more she probed away at alien society, the more she thought that their government was a form of paternalistic communism, at least in human terms. It might not be possible for a human to thoroughly comprehend it, although it might explain why the aliens had taken over the care and feeding of millions of Americans and Arabs in the occupied zones. Their leadership felt a certain kind of noble obligation towards their subject populations.

At night, when she’d slept, the alien had just sat there, unblinkingly. Abigail doubted that the alien was aware of the effect he was having on her, but it still bothered her to know that alien eyes were watching her throughout the night. In the end, she’d had to ask Theta to lie down on the other bunk bed, even though the alien didn't seem to need to lie down to sleep. Abigail had heard of humans sleeping while standing upright, but she’d never seen it in real life. The aliens, on the other hand, seemed to sleep in any position. She wondered, absently, if they ever just stopped for a nap in the middle of the day.

It was a relief when the truck finally rattled to a stop for more than a few minutes. According to the briefing, they had paperwork that should get them through any checkpoint, provided that it wasn't manned by the Walking Dead. Abigail hadn't been able to help feeling nervous every time they’d stopped, even though the alien had – as usual – showed no reaction. She was quite prepared to hate the alien for feeling nothing; if Philip hadn't pointed it out, she would have wondered if the aliens even had any emotions. But there was something fatalistic about Theta that made him perfectly suited for a long-term stay in human territory.

She gritted her teeth as she heard someone rattling at the door, opening the locks one by one. If they entered the wrong code, the entire truck was about to vaporise ... she felt sweat trickling down her back as there was a click and the door opened, revealing a handful of men carrying loaded rifles. They eyed Theta with deepest suspicion, barely sparing a glance for Abigail herself. But after several days in the truck, splashing water on herself rather than going for a shower, she had to admit that she wasn't at her best. And she probably smelled terrible.

“Come on out,” one of the soldiers said. “You’re safe now.”

“Thank you,” Abigail said, tightly. “I feel so much better now.”

She stood up, feeling aches in her legs as she walked, and stumbled towards the door. One of the soldiers put out a hand to help her down before she tripped and took a pratfall to the concrete floor below. They were in a large loading bay, she realised, next to a handful of other vehicles. One of them looked like a mobile missile launcher.

The soldier wrinkled his nose as she turned to face him. It was rather more than the standard disdain showed by most soldiers to the media, Abigail realised, ruefully. She definitely smelt terrible. Theta stepped down from the truck with stark dignity and stood beside her, dark unblinking eyes surveying the soldiers. They eyed him darkly, hands on their weapons. None of them seemed inclined to trust him, or anyone else for that matter.

“Welcome,” a voice said. Abigail turned to see a tall dark-skinned man, wearing a military uniform she didn’t recognise. “I’m afraid we’re going to have to process you.”

Abigail snorted, inwardly. “Just get me a shower and something else to wear and I’ll be delighted,” she said, tartly. “But I suggest that you be careful with Theta. He’s fragile.”

The officer nodded. “I will see to it personally,” he said. “And if you will go with Sergeant Cumby?”

Abigail looked up. A butch-faced woman wearing a Sergeant’s uniform was staring at her, as if she could see right into Abigail’s soul. She looked like a wrestler, one of the over-muscled young women who had impressed Abigail’s schoolmates when she’d been a child. Next to her, Abigail suddenly felt very frail. The Sergeant would have no trouble breaking her in half with one hand tied behind her back.

“Come with me,” Cumby ordered. Behind them, the truck’s engines roared as it started to move back towards the doors. “We’ll get you sorted.”

Abigail nodded and followed her through a guarded door into a small room. “Tell me, ,” Cumby said, as she closed the door behind them, “are you carrying anything I ought to know about?”

“Just a notepad and a Sig Saur,” Abigail said. “And a handful of spare clips of ammunition.”

“A wise precaution, these days,” Cumby said. She looked Abigail up and down, then nodded shortly. “Were you alone in the truck?”

“There was Theta, the alien,” Abigail said, crossly. “Apart from him, I was alone. No one opened the truck until we reached here. Where is here, by the way?”

“Classified,” Cumby said. Her voice turned very cold. “I should warn you that any attempt to leave this base or communicate with anyone outside the base without permission is a federal offense. Before the war, there would have been a few years in Leavenworth for anyone stupid enough to ignore some very clear warnings and do it anyway. Now, we’ll just shoot you and dump your body somewhere to the south. There are so many bodies lying around these days that no one will notice one more.”

“I believe that I have proven that I can keep my mouth shut,” Abigail said. “And I’m sure that I know more classified material than you.”

Cumby snorted. “That boast proves that you can’t keep your mouth shut,” she said, dryly. “Now, get undressed. The sooner we start, the sooner you can have a shower and get some” – she sniffed, loudly – “fresh clothes. I’ll have that outfit of yours burned, I think.”

Abigail sighed and pulled off her jumper. “I don’t blame you,” she said. “The aliens are lucky that they don’t seem to have a sense of smell.”

She gritted her teeth as Cumby started to poke and prod at her. It should have been better with another woman performing the search, she’d thought. But it wasn't.

“Don’t worry,” Cumby said, afterwards. “You appear to be clean. Well, clear anyway.”

“Thank you,” Abigail said, tartly. She winced as she started to move towards the shower. “Do you enjoy doing that or something?”

Cumby snorted. “I don’t take chances,” she said, shortly. “It’s the only way to stay alive.”

***

Alex couldn't help a thrill of excitement as he peered down the long tunnel linking Area 52 to the truckers rest stop. It had been abandoned years ago, long before the aliens had lost a craft over America, but it had been – officially – reopened by a group of truckers who wanted a secure place to stop and rest while driving across Nevada. The aliens and their collaborators hadn't paid much attention to it, as far as anyone could tell; they largely ignored the truckers until they approached cities or alien bases. It made the perfect place to slip people in and out of Area 52 without revealing that the seemingly disused airbase was still operational.

The alien came into view, escorted by a handful of soldiers. Colonel Fields, Area 52’s commanding officer, had spoken quite sharply to them about the need to treat the alien with respect, even if he was one of the creatures who had torn the country apart. Thankfully, most of the base’s personnel with families had had them taken into hiding before the aliens put the entire country into lockdown. There shouldn't be any personal reason to take a shot at the alien rebel.

He glanced down at the brief note that had been uploaded into the base’s electronic network. The alien and its – his, Alex reminded himself sharply – travelling companion had been searched carefully, then x-rayed thoroughly. They’d learned a great deal about the autonomy of the alien leadership caste, but as far as they could tell there was nothing that should lead the Rogue Leaders to Area 52. But they were still keeping the alien within secured rooms, even if they weren't quite TEMPEST level. There was no harm in taking precautions.

“Spooky,” Jane breathed, from beside him. “Very different from their warriors, or even their workers.”

Alex couldn't disagree. Alien warriors looked like barbarian aliens from a hundred low-budget science-fiction films. They could easily have been humans in suits, if they hadn't moved in odd ways that would have been impossible for Hollywood in the days before CGI. Alien leaders, on the other hand, were truly alien. Alex felt a shiver crawling down his back as he came face to face with the alien’s unblinking stare. It was worse than staring at a spider, or a crab. He was looking at something that was simply wrong.

“Welcome to Alaska,” he said. It had already been decided that the alien would know nothing about their true location. If he was communicating with his fellows, in some manner human tech was unable to duplicate, it was probably wasted effort, but Colonel Fields had insisted. “We look forward to talking to you.”

Jane stepped forward. “I believe you wished to see our medical facilities,” she added. “I would be honoured to show them to you.”

The alien inclined his head slightly. Alex wondered if it was a nod – everything they knew about alien body language suggested that nodding was a purely human trait – and then decided that the alien was trying to put them at ease. He was probably the wrong caste for it, Alex decided, as the guards started to escort Theta towards the elevator. The alien leaders who had talked to humanity, back when they’d been trying to seduce humanity into surrender, had been far more verbose. But then, they’d also had the benefit of countless years of studying humans, including people who had been abducted from Earth. God alone knew how many missing person cases were the result of alien abduction.

“Have fun,” he muttered to Jane.

“Thanks,” Jane said, sourly.

He looked over at the reporter, who was wincing slightly as she moved. “And welcome to you too,” he said. “If you will come with me, we have some debriefing to do.”

“I’ve already been thoroughly debriefed,” the reporter said, a little sourly. “I’d prefer a chance to get some proper sleep.”

Alex tried to look sympathetic. The procedure for anyone entering or leaving Area 52 was set in stone. And yet, given how many people on the base were suffering cabin fever, it would be a small price to pay for a few days hiking somewhere where there were no aliens, no Order Police and no one who knew there was a war on.

“I’m sorry about that,” he said, sincerely. “And once you have been debriefed, I’ll show you to your room personally.”

“See that you do,” the reporter said. She scowled at him. “I’m starting to get the feeling that no one actually likes me.”

That, Alex suspected, was perfectly accurate. The military disliked reporters as a general rule, fearing that they would blab about something best kept secret, at least until lives were no longer at risk. It was, in his opinion, a valid concern – although maybe not so much now, with the only large-scale media establishment in America controlled by the aliens. There were so many rumours on the internet that there was no way that anyone could pick out the ones grounded in some level of reality from the flights of drunken fantasy.

“We have to take precautions,” Alex said, as he turned and started to walk towards the debriefing room. He’d read the transcripts of the reporter’s earlier interrogations, but it never hurt to go over it again. “And, for what it’s worth, I’m sorry. The Great God Security must be appeased with the sacrifice of our dignities.”

The reporter managed to laugh, tiredly.

***

Judith rubbed her weary eyes as she saw the alien head into one of the tunnels, complete with a small army of guards. They’d been escorting an alien! She’d never dreamed that was a possibility; she’d assumed that they were transporting the President or perhaps someone else from the underground government. The Vice President might be an alien prisoner, but she had no idea what had happened to the Speaker of the House or the Secretary of Defence. They had to be hiding somewhere in America ...

“You really need to take something,” Clare said. “You were screaming so loudly last night that the guys thought that you were being raped.”

“I know,” Judith muttered, tiredly. “Do we have anything?”

She’d been having nightmares nearly every night and waking up screaming ... but she couldn’t recall any of the nightmares. Her only memory was of a horrifying moment when she’d seen aliens, pointing guns at her, only to realise that they were the rest of the guards, who were convinced that she was being attacked. She’d been half asleep and creatures from her forgotten nightmares had bled into her awakening mind. If Clare hadn’t grabbed her rifle, she might have shot one of the men by accident.

“I don’t think so,” Clare said. She hesitated, then winked at Judith. “Brett rather fancies you, you know. Maybe you should go and get laid.”

Judith eyed her, crossly. One rule she had learned about what her superiors in the insurgency had called co-ed combat – he’d sneered as he’d said it – was that female fighters had to be men with tits. They couldn’t sleep with their fellow fighters, no matter how attractive, or the men would never be able to think of them as anything other than either bitches or sluts. He’d gone on to tell them about how the legendary Amazons – it had made Judith think of Wonder Woman – had cut off one of their breasts to prove themselves equal to men. It was a metaphor, he’d explained at the end, for giving up part of their femininity in exchange for being able to fight. It was a trade-off Judith had made without a second thought.

“I think that’s unlikely,” she said, finally. Maybe there was someone about who would be interested in her, but they wouldn't be staying down south for very long. From what she’d heard through the grapevine, they might be heading east and joining the insurgents in Texas, or perhaps heading northwards to Washington State or somewhere else along the West Coast. “Maybe I should see the doc while I’m here.”

“Good idea,” Clare said. She gave Judith a long considering look. “Not that I’m complaining, you understand, but sleeping next to you is becoming something of a nightmare.”

Judith eyed her, sourly.

“All right,” someone wearing an army uniform bellowed. “You’ll be leaving in two hours. Until then, the diner is through there” – he pointed at a large set of doors – “and there are showers and suchlike beyond it. Grab some food, take a break and then get back here for departure.”

“Come on,” Clare said, hurriedly. “We can get a proper shower and then something to eat before we have to go. We don’t want to be late.”

Judith nodded, tiredly. The last time someone in the insurgency had been late – he’d sneaked off to visit his girlfriend on a farm, according to rumour – the cell leader had tied him to a tree and whipped him, explaining all the while that maintaining discipline was important and a single slip in discipline could lead to disaster. Judith had been unable to watch after the second stroke, but she’d caught sight of the young man’s welted back afterwards and felt sick. She didn’t want to know what would happen to her and Clare if they were the cause of the delay.

The diner looked like a modified fast food restaurant, almost completely empty apart from a handful of cooks and a couple of insurgents in civilian clothes. A large window showed bright sunlight outside, even though it felt like night to Judith. She smelled frying burgers and felt her stomach rumble, causing her to hesitate. Surely they could grab a burger first – maybe there would even be Freedom Fries – and then go shower. It wouldn't take that long to wolf down the burger and then shower, would it?

“Fine,” Clare muttered. “I guess I’m hungry too.”

They walked over to the counter and were greeted by a man wearing a chef’s hat and white apron over a military uniform. “Greetings, pretty ladies,” he said, in an accent Judith couldn’t place. “What can I get for you?”

He paused. “It had better be burgers though,” he added. “We don’t have much else.”

“Burgers will go,” Judith assured him, quickly. “How did you get the meat?”

“Got a deal with farmers up north,” the cook said, as he turned to take a pair of burgers off the grill. “They make the mince for us and ...”

He stopped, looking towards the window.

A shadow had fallen over the diner.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Near Area 52, Nevada, USA

Day 235

Sergeant Daniel Conrad (ret.) knew that there was a secret hidden under the formerly-disused service station and trucker’s rest. It wasn't a secret he wanted to know, although he did have his suspicions. There were rumours that various soldiers, when they retired from the teams, had been approached and asked to perform special duties that paid well, but would never be officially acknowledged. Not all of them were mercenary operations, either. His own recall to duty, in the days before the approach of the alien mothership had been detected, had been couched as a chance for him to earn some money for his grandchildren while doing very little.

That had been an understatement, he knew. Money and supplies had been made available to renovate the service station, a task that had been harder than it had seemed. The harsh sunlight of Nevada had ruined what parts of the station hadn’t been looted over the years. Installing new furniture, equipment and suchlike had been a nightmare, particularly when the panic-buying had started. Someone, Daniel suspected, had known in advance about the alien craft. The only alternative was that the whole thing was a wild coincidence – and he knew better than to believe in them.

But he was proud of the work he’d done. The service station was now used by dozens of legitimate truckers, although they tended to travel in convoy these days when they couldn’t get escorts from the Order Police. Daniel had rigged up a handful of concealed firing positions, intended to prevent the bandits who roamed the borderlands between America and Mexico from attacking his territory. It was a definite draw for the truckers to have a safe place to stop and rest – and, oddly, the Order Police had said nothing about it. Given that they normally confiscated all weapons in private hands, it raised a whole series of questions about just what was under the ground.

He stood in the small tower – the control tower, he thought of it – and surveyed his domain. Apart from the service station itself and the large garage, complete with a staff of mechanics from the army, there was a motel and even a small barter hall. It was astonishing what one could find in one of the abandoned towns, if one looked hard enough. The Order Police, thankfully, didn't know the half of it. He was still looking over towards the motel when a shadow fell over the station.

“Shit,” the dispatcher said, staring upwards. “Sir ...”

Daniel followed her gaze. An alien craft was hanging in the air. It had moved so rapidly that he hadn't even been aware of it until it was there. There hadn't even been a sound as the craft moved in for the kill. It hung motionless for a long moment, allowing the humans time to panic, then a hatch opened in the craft’s underside. A stream of alien warriors fell out and plummeted towards the ground.

“Hit the alarm,” Daniel hissed. He had enough firepower to stand off bandits, but he had no illusions about how long his guards could hold off the aliens. How had they even discovered his station? Or had they always known and had simply been biding their time? The last convoy might have been something more important than he’d realised. “And then grab your weapon.”

He sucked in his breath as he saw the aliens hit the ground. It looked as if they should have hit hard and smashed themselves to jelly, but they did something and landed gently. Far better than a parachute, he realised, with a flicker of envy. Even the HAVLO paratroopers didn't fall so rapidly. It would let them get on the ground before the enemy had any time to react.

There was a brief outbreak of gunfire from the direction of the motel. The alien craft didn't seem to move, but there was a flash of light that left spots dancing in front of Daniel’s eyes and the entire building disintegrated into rubble. Unfazed by the noise, the alien warriors kept advancing towards the service station, a handful laying down fire while their comrades advanced. Their hand weapons didn't seem to be quite as powerful, but reports suggested that they had a stun setting. They could just fire wildly and sort the stunned out later.

“Come on,” he snapped, tearing his gaze away from the scene. “We can't stay here!”

***

Judith clutched the side of her head as the alien warriors started their advance, the windows shattering inwards as blue-white flares of light blasted them down. The sight brought back memories, memories – she realised now – that she had repressed ... no, that had been repressed for her. A sudden twinge from her wrists reminded her of how the Order Policemen had marched her back to the alien base, her hands cuffed with a plastic tie so tightly that she had lost all circulation. She’d been their prisoner ...

... How had she forgotten that?

“Judith!”

There was a voice, yelling at her. Judith barely heard it over the roaring in her head, a sound so loud that it overwhelmed the entire world. She’d been one of the Walking Dead, she realised now; she’d been under their control ever since she’d been taken prisoner, a spy in the resistance camp. And she hadn't even known. God, how much had she seen that the aliens had seen through her eyes? She’d seen the alien prisoner they’d been transporting to the hidden base ... Dear God, she was a worse traitor than Benedict Arnold! She’d betrayed the human race.

A hand slapped her face and her mind cleared, briefly. The entire diner seemed to have become a warzone. Blue-white flashes of light burned through the air, crackling like lightning, while the resistance fighters returned fire with guns and hurled grenades. Clare was staring down at her, clutching a pistol in her hand ... she didn't know, Judith realised, discovering that her tongue was thoroughly paralysed. She hadn't realised that her friend was an unwilling spy ...

But of course not, she thought ... or was it the aliens, working through her mind? Even her thoughts couldn't be trusted! Everyone knows that the Walking Dead are inhuman monsters; they don’t laugh or cry or make love. And none of them knew that you’d been a prisoner. How could they even know to look for implants? Nothing you did betrayed yourself because you didn't even know yourself ...

“Judith, we have to crawl out of here,” Clare snapped. “Can you hear me?”

“Yeah,” Judith heard her own voice said. “I'm fine.”

A terrible coldness fell over her as Clare turned, crawling towards the exit at the rear of the kitchen. There was no sign of the cook, but oil was spilling everywhere from where a set of alien blasts had wrecked the equipment. Judith felt her hands clutching her pistol, pointing it directly at the back of Claire’s head. Her friend had no warning before Judith’s finger pulled the trigger and blew her head off. Judith tried to scream and fight as Claire’s body stopped moving, but it was futile. She turned, rolling over, and drew a bead on one of the defenders. He too had no warning before he died ... Judith’s hand moved on to the next target, and the next ...

I’m a puppet, she realised, helplessly. What have they done to me?

***

The sound of firing was slacking off as Daniel ran down towards the kitchen. Unsurprisingly, the aliens seemed to have concentrated their advance there, which made a certain amount of tactical sense. It wouldn't be hard to break into the building through the windows and from there they could fan out to take the rest of the building – and secure the tunnel leading down underground. By now, whoever was in the mysterious bunker would know that they were under attack, wouldn't they? He hoped so.

He stayed low as he entered the kitchen, picking his way through the ruined equipment and biting down a curse as he came face to face with Garrison’s body. The cook had been a good man, even if he had been a cowardly fobbit rather than a proper fighting man. His war time service in Afghanistan might as well have been served in America, for all the danger he’d experienced. And he'd only ever cooked burgers ...

Daniel pushed the thought aside and peered around the counter. A girl was sitting there, her back to him, holding a gun in her hand. Some of the defenders, he realised numbly, had been shot in the back. The girl was sitting there, as if she were a puppet whose strings had been cut. And the aliens were advancing through the windows ...

A spy, Daniel thought, grimly. There could be no other explanation, certainly none he wanted to face. One of the Walking Dead should have been instantly recognisable. He lifted his rifle and took aim at the girl, only to roll backwards as one of the aliens saw him and opened fire. Blue-white lightning crackled around him, but by some miracle he escaped direct touch. Cursing, he crawled backwards, firing a pair of shots towards the aliens to discourage immediate pursuit. The girl, whatever she had been, would have to wait until later.

Behind him, he heard the aliens crashing forward. Wishing for a Claymore, or something else he could use to slow them down, he pulled himself to his feet as soon as he was out of danger and ran down towards the garage. There was an antiaircraft vehicle there, along with some MANPADs. If enough defenders survived, they could give the aliens a nasty shock.

“Sir,” one of the soldiers called, as he ran into the garage. “They’re massing on the other side of the main doors.”

“Then power up the MANPADs,” Daniel ordered, tartly. The aliens might be able to take the base without much effort, but by God they would know that they had been kissed! “And then prepare to trigger the emergency charges.”

Any mechanical door could jam, he knew – and bitter experience in the military had taught him that relying on any piece of technology was asking for trouble. Just in case, he’d rigged up explosive packs to blow the main doors outwards if the system happened to jam. The aliens, naturally, would be trying to blow the doors inwards ...

He motioned for the soldiers to prepare their final positions, then smiled. “Blow the doors!”

***

Judith’s treacherous body refused to move as the aliens came up and surrounded her. It struck her, as she was desperately trying to avoid thinking about what they were doing to her, just how different the warriors were from the other aliens. Even the worker drones looked related to the leader caste, but the warriors looked more ... well, more passionate than the other castes. She had an odd feeling that humanity might have gotten on better with the warriors than any of the other castes, if they had been given the chance.

Her body moved of its own accord, standing up amidst the aliens. Judith wanted to run, but all she could do was stand there and wait. She couldn't even move her head; hell, she was surprised that she was still breathing. But then, breathing was largely an involuntary movement anyway, if she recalled correctly. The aliens might not need to control her every move.

Dozens of aliens moved past her, heading further into the complex. They ignored her, although she was sure she saw a handful of beady alien eyes flicker in her direction before they headed onwards. These aliens had eyelids, the analytical part of her mind noted, and their eyes were much smaller targets than those of the other castes. But maybe that made sense, she told herself; they’d want some kind of protection in case they found themselves staring into a very bright light. Reports from the cities had suggested that flash-bang grenades gave the aliens a very hard time.

One of the aliens – a hybrid, she realised – stopped in front of her. There was a long chilling moment when dark eyes met hers, then she felt her body turning and following the alien as he walked out of the diner. Outside, several smaller alien craft had settled onto the ground, disgorging more alien warriors. She felt a pang of bitter guilt as she saw the human bodies lying on the ground where they’d fallen. They hadn't realised that she’d been a viper in the nest.

Damn you, she thought. It was the only thing she could do to resist. Damn you to hell.

***

Daniel smiled tightly as the door exploded outwards, converted into thousands of pieces of flying shrapnel. The aliens scattered as the human defenders opened fire, driving them back from the doors before they could even start returning fire themselves. Several of them, no matter how tough, had been knocked down hard and seemed to be staying down. The remainder would regroup any moment and start fighting back.

“Get the truck out there,” he barked. It was a risk, but he suspected that the aliens would hesitate to return fire with maximum force. At the very least, they would bury the entrance to the bunker and have to spend hours digging it up, allowing the bunkers occupants a chance to escape their clawed hands. “Hurry!”

There was a roar as the antiaircraft vehicle moved forward, missiles already swinging up into firing positron. It was outdated, at least by the standards of the vehicles that had fought when the aliens descended on America, but it would be firing at point-blank range. Soldiers with grenade launchers and RPGs laid down covering fire as the vehicle moved into firing position, then unleashed two missiles towards the alien craft. The alien warriors destroyed it seconds later, but the damage was done. Their transport flipped over and crashed towards the ground, hitting it hard enough to bring the lamps falling down from high overhead. It probably wouldn’t take them long to bring up additional fire support, Daniel reminded himself ...

Something flew into the garage and landed in the far corner, exploding seconds later. Daniel swore as stockpiles of gas caught fire, sending rivers of flames raging towards the defenders and driving them towards the exit. The end could not be long delayed.

At least we’ll go down fighting, he thought, as he adjusted his aim. The alien warriors pressed forward, firing as they came. He shot one through the head and watched it stumble backwards, before two more took its place. And we’ll make them know that they were hurt.

***

Judith saw the alien craft careering past their position and out of sight, before it hit the ground with a noise like thunder. Even the alien control over her movements couldn’t keep her upright – and she had the pleasure of seeing the alien she was helplessly following stumble too. But the control her body was as strong as ever. She couldn't move a muscle without their permission.

Just for a moment, the sound of firing died away. Were they all dead? It was possible ... but she truly had no idea what the base actually was. Had the aliens decided to liberate the captured alien or was there something else going on. A moment later, her body turned and walked towards the garage. Smoke and fire was billowing out of holes in the roof, but there was clearly still someone alive in there. The aliens had surrounded it, but were holding their fire.

Judith fought – again – to stop herself as she walked right up to the remains of the door and stopped, keeping her hands in view. A handful of alien bodies lay on the ground, leaking eerie green blood onto the concrete; she couldn't help feeling a moment of vengeful pleasure at the sight. Maybe they’d made her a traitor and used her as a spy, but they’d been hurt regardless. If only she’d been able to do it herself.

“Attention,” she heard her voice say, as she advanced into the darkness. “My masters are prepared to spare your lives if you surrender now.”

***

Daniel frowned as he studied the advancing girl. She was clearly the same girl he’d seen before, the traitor who’d stabbed her own comrades in the back ... and yet there was something about the way she moved that set alarm bells ringing at the back of his head. It almost seemed as if she had forgotten how to walk ...

The nasty thought he’d had earlier came back to him in full force. What if the aliens had succeeded in creating a Walking Dead man – or woman – who could pass for human?

He gritted his teeth, wishing that he could ask. But if the girl was a traitor, she wouldn’t tell him ... and if she were under alien control, she couldn’t tell him. There was no way to know. He started to choke as he breathed in the smoke, knowing that escape was pretty much impossible.

And if the girl had been enslaved by the aliens, she didn't deserve to suffer like that. No one did.

Daniel lifted his rifle, took aim, and pulled the trigger. The girl dropped to the ground, dead.

“Good shot, sir,” one of his remaining men hissed.

“Yeah,” Daniel said, as the alien warriors started their final advance. He started to shoot, knowing that there was no longer any point in conserving ammunition. “I just hope we bought enough time.”

Blue-white light flashed and he knew no more.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Area 52, Nevada, USA

Day 235

“What the hell is that?”

“The emergency alarm,” Alex said, sharply. He hadn't heard the howling racket outside of drills – and they’d been warned that if they heard the alarm without being informed about the drill in advance, it was an enemy attack. “We’re under attack.”

Abigail stared at him. “What? How?”

“I don’t know,” Alex said, as he stood up. “We have to get to the emergency tunnels, now!”

He gritted his teeth, thinking rapidly. Every piece of data gathered at Area 52 was backed up in other places, but losing the expertise that had been gathered to research the alien technology and biology would hurt. And then there was the very real risk of someone who knew more than they should falling into enemy hands. The aliens would interrogate them, find out what they knew and then start hunting for the rebels in their ranks.

There was a crash outside and he grabbed for his sidearm, before realising that the aliens were unlikely to have penetrated so far into the complex so quickly. The door opened a moment later, revealing a pair of armed soldiers who glanced at both of them suspiciously. If they had known what Abigail was, Alex suspected, they would have arrested her on general principles. Someone had to have betrayed them to the aliens.

But she didn't have a chance to betray us, he thought, grimly. She was meant to be going into lockdown with the rest of us, the ones who know too much.

“Sir,” the lead soldier said, “you have to come with us.”

Alex nodded. “Coming,” he said. There was nothing in the base he couldn't replace, if necessary. They hadn't intended to stay there for more than a month or two, originally. He’d certainly never anticipated that Area 52 might become both home and prison. “What about the others?”

“We’re seeing to them now, sir,” the soldier assured him. “You have to get out of the base.”

“Yeah,” Alex said. He shot Abigail a sharp glance. “I know.”

No one had quite known what to expect when they’d discovered the first crashed alien ship, back before the war had begun openly. Perhaps the craft would regenerate, assimilate the humans foolish enough to study it, and then take off ... or perhaps the aliens carried a disease that humans lacked any resistance to whatsoever. In the end, the tiger team had taken a whole series of increasingly careful precautions, culminating in positioning a tactical nuke under the base. The aliens would not be permitted to recover anything, but radioactive ashes.

And that meant that they had scant minutes to get out of the blast range before it was too late.

He wanted to go to Jane, to assist her in moving the alien out of the base, but he doubted the soldiers would let him. Instead, he headed for the stairwell leading down to the lower levels. The emergency tunnels could be accessed from level five ... it struck him, suddenly, that he’d wanted to get out of the base. But now the aliens would be crawling all over the desert, looking for other exits. It wasn’t quite what he’d had in mind.

“Come on,” he said, heading towards the door. “Let’s go.”

***

Colonel Fields scowled as he looked down at the live feed from the service station. One of the resistance fighters from the north had betrayed them, he decided, before he pushed the thought aside. The aliens were digging their way through the rubble they’d left behind; it wouldn't be long before they uncovered the tunnel and started probing towards Area 52. Parts of the tunnel had already been sealed, but it probably wouldn't matter. Even if the aliens couldn't break through the tunnel, they’d have a good idea of where it went. A quick glance at a map would reveal Area 52’s location to them.

Let’s hope they do come down the tunnels, he thought, as he monitored the progress of the evacuation. We could give them a very bloody nose if they did.

“I’m picking up more alien emissions,” the ATC reported. “I think they’re coming in our direction.”

Fields scowled. So much for that pious hope.

“Order the MANPAD teams to prepare to engage the enemy as soon as they approach the base,” he ordered, shortly. It was tempting to try to remain hidden, but one way or the other their cover was thoroughly blown. Their only chance to hurt the enemy was now. “And keep funnelling people through the other tunnels.”

He closed his eyes, visualising their emergency precautions. There were vehicles and identity papers and everything else they should need to escape notice, except that the aliens would want to question anyone they saw in the general area. No doubt they would realise just how deserted this part of the state actually was and deduce that it was no coincidence. His people, the people who knew too much, might well end up being captured by the aliens – and yet he didn't dare kill them outright. The human race needed them too.

We’ll have to pray, he thought, numbly.

“And send an emergency message through the network,” he added. “Area 52 has been compromised. We’re preparing for our last stand now.”

***

“Well, you stupid asshole,” Sergeant William Pines muttered to himself, “you wanted action.”

He’d been furious when he’d discovered that everyone on the base would be expected to remain there for the foreseeable future. It had been a common reaction; the soldiers knew that their country was under enemy occupation and wanted to find a way of fighting back, or even to just get out here and tear into the collaborators. Instead, they’d been told that they had to remain on the base for security. William had no idea what they were guarding, but he had a feeling that it was something big. And yet he’d wanted to go elsewhere to fight.

He hefted the Stinger missile launcher as the alien craft made their approach to the base, flying low over the desert. They made an impressive sight, William had to admit – and they were chillingly silent. No wonder so many insurgent camps had been surprised when the aliens appeared out of nowhere and dropped warriors right into their midst. He took aim at the lead craft, smiled tightly as the seeker head found a target and pulled the trigger. The Stinger missile lanced out towards its target ...

... And vanished in a flash of blue-white light, moments from striking the alien hull.

Williams swore, dropped the rest of the launcher on the ground and unslung his M16 as the alien craft opened fire, brilliant streaks of plasma fire lashing down and tearing into the base. The handful of seemingly old hangers disintegrated, followed rapidly by the control tower; the aliens shattered the runway as if they expected the base’s staff to make a daring escape in a small aircraft. He opened fire on the craft with his rifle – other soldiers were doing the same – but there was no apparent effect. Instead, the craft just swooped around and launched missiles towards the base.

Missiles? Part of his mind realised. They never used missiles before.

A moment later, the world went away in a searing blast of white-hot fire.

***

The entire bunker shook violently.

Alex caught himself as he stumbled and almost fell. “What the hell was that?”

“No idea, sir,” one of the soldiers escorting them said. “But we have to keep moving.”

The light started to flicker, just long enough for Alex to worry that the base was about to lose power altogether. Area 52 had enough power, he’d been assured, to last for years even without resupply from the outside world, but he doubted that it was designed to stand up to an alien assault or whatever the hell was going on outside. Further down the corridor, he heard the sounds of panic. Not every scientist in Area 52 had a military background.

And not all of the military scientists saw action, Alex thought, grimly. It wasn't as if the USAF put its scientists on the front lines, even though quite a few soldiers had suggested that it might teach the scientists something about the real world. If people start to panic, we’re sunk.

He scowled as they rounded the corner and reached the airlock. A pair of soldiers were checking off a list of personnel as they made their way out of Area 52 and into the tunnel network that headed eastwards. According to the emergency procedures, there should be transport to Texas, where the resistance was giving the aliens and their collaborators fits. He’d even heard that Texas was considered a hardship posting by the Order Police! It would have been worse if there hadn't been a Mexican Civil War bleeding over the border.

“Alex,” Jane called. She looked tired and badly worried. “I need a little help here!”

Alex looked past her – and saw the coffin. The alien had to be inside it, protected from his fellows ... assuming that he wasn't the one who had betrayed them. But if he had been, Alex suspected, surely the aliens would have rounded up Dave Howery and the other spies by now ... unless they’d secretly converted them back to Walking Dead and were playing a long game.

“Help us carry the coffin,” he grunted to the soldiers.

Abigail gave the coffin a sharp look. “That’s holding our friend from” – she jerked her head upwards – “isn't it?”

“Yes,” Jane said, tartly. “And I’d put you in one too, if we had time.”

Alex scowled as the base shook again. “Come on,” he snapped at the two women. “We don’t have much time.”

***

Fields bit down a curse as the extent of the damage became apparent. The aliens had not only wiped out the defenders on the surface, they’d somehow exposed the uppermost levels of Area 52 without causing colossal damage to the base itself. It would have been difficult to guarantee such a precise strike with human technology, even though Area 52’s defences were flimsy in comparison to the defences surrounding NORAD and other bases that had been destroyed in the last days of the invasion. And most of the base’s sensor network had been taken out too.

“Order troops to move up to slow the aliens down,” Fields ordered, silently relieved that they’d managed to evacuate the uppermost levels before the aliens deployed their bunker-buster weapons. Those were a surprise; previously, they’d used KEWs to take out buried complexes, although those hadn't left any survivors for interrogation. It was just another reminder that the aliens were more innovative than humanity would have preferred. “Then update me on the evacuation status.”

The aide checked the display and then turned back to him. “Most of the people on the Category One and Category Two lists have been evacuated into the tunnels,” he said. “Category Three personnel are being evacuated now ...”

Fields nodded. He doubted that they’d have a chance to get anyone from Category Four or Five – the support staff and the guards – out before the aliens plunged down on them. No doubt they were already dropping their troops into the hole they’d created, seeking to gain a foothold before the humans could push them out of the base. But that wasn't going to happen, he knew; even if he'd had more troops under his command, the aliens could keep funnelling in warriors until they were crushed by sheer weight of numbers.

“Good,” he said. “Keep me posted.”

He turned and walked over to a small secure door, placed at the rear of the compartment. It had its own internal power source, thankfully; if the base lost main power, it would still be operational. He pushed his hand against the sensor and waited while it scanned his fingerprints, confirming his identity. It clicked open with an ominous sound, revealing a small computer station and another scanner. Fields stepped inside, placed his hand against the second scanner and heard a bleep when it came online.

His hand shook as he typed in the code he’d carefully memorised, when he’d been briefed on the extreme security precautions being taken to protect the world. Area 52 hadn’t always been intended to store and study alien technology; it had originally been designed to serve as a biological warfare research laboratory. The nuke was intended to ensure that if something virulent happened to escape the containment rooms, it wouldn't get any further. There was no known disease that could survive the fires of a nuclear blast.

Before the aliens had arrived, there had been only two nukes used in combat, Fields knew, as he finished typing in the code and waited for the system to verify his identity. Since then, one nuke had been used in Antarctica, taking out an alien base, and several more had been used by the Israelis against alien cities. Now, Fields was about to use another one ...

He scowled as the ground shuddered. “Sir,” his aide called, “they’re breaking through the defence line.”

Fields nodded. “Understood,” he said. He hadn't expected much from the defenders, even though he knew that his men would do their best. The aliens were just too powerful. “Break out the sidearms and wait.”

Carefully, he set the timer – ten minutes – and then entered the final code. There was a bleep as the system accepted his authorisation and armed the nuke. Right now, Fields knew, nothing short of destroying the weapon before it detonated would stop it. And it was positioned somewhere under the base; even he didn't know where it was, precisely. The aliens would have to find it before they could destroy it.

He closed the door behind him as he stepped back into the control room. A quick code tapped into the system ensured that no one, not even himself, could break into the nuke compartment. It might waste a few minutes if the aliens thought the nuke was in there – and they didn't have time to waste.

“Gentlemen, it’s been a honour,” he said, as the sound of fighting drew closer. The aliens were clearly picking their way through the base carefully, rather than advancing at once to priority targets. That was a relief, at least. It suggested that whoever had betrayed them hadn't been one of his staff. “And I’m sorry.”

He smiled, tightly, as he lifted his weapon. The aliens didn't know it, but the base had less than eight minutes before it died – and the alien assault force died with it.

***

Alex glanced backwards as he heard a thud and saw a solid metal barricade behind them, cutting the escapees off from Area 52. The soldiers were barking orders for everyone to run now, ignoring the panic it threatened to cause; Alex, who had a pretty good idea of what was coming, ran too. If the nuke was about to detonate ...

He’d been briefed on the nuke, but the briefers hadn't gone into much detail. From what they’d said, if the refugees were far enough away they should be safe ... a statement that would have been more useful if they’d told Alex what a safe distance actually was. Instead, they'd just mentioned a handful of details such as the base’s construction ...

The lights flickered again, casting the tunnel into eerie semi-darkness before they recovered. Alex heard a handful of yells from the other researchers and silently prayed that they would get out before the nuke detonated ... just how long was the tunnel, anyway? Right now, it seemed to be a thousand miles long. He couldn't see any final destination though the people ahead of him.

WHAM! Alex fell to the concrete floor, his mind barely realising that the nuke must have detonated until after he’d sprawled on the ground. The coffin crashed down beside him; everyone, soldiers and civilians alike, had lost their footing. Abigail landed on top of him and, for a moment, just lay there before she picked herself up and stood upright. There was a weird feeling running through the air which he thought might be radioactive, before realising that he was being silly. As far as he knew, people didn't actually feel radiation ... did they?

“Keep moving,” one of the soldiers bellowed, as the crowd stumbled back to their feet. “Not much further to go now!”

Alex looked behind them, half-expecting to see a wall of fire advancing up the tunnel and consuming everything in its path. Instead, he just saw the solid metal plate that had saved their lives. Beyond it, the alien invasion force and any humans left behind in the base would have been destroyed, along with the craft that had started the whole affair. Alex felt a pang of loss; no matter what else happened, he would have liked that craft to take its rightful place in a museum. It was part of human and alien history alike.

Ten minutes later, they reached the end of the tunnel and climbed upwards to find themselves in another disused airfield. This one was clearly even more abandoned than the surface of Area 52, Alex realised, but there was no time to look around, Instead, he looked westwards, back towards where Area 52 had once been hidden. In the distance, he saw a colossal mushroom cloud fading away into nothingness.

“My God,” Jane said, clutching his arm. “That's ...”

Alex shook his head, tiredly. Ever since Hiroshima, the human race had considered nukes to be the ultimate weapons, the final guarantee of their safety. But the aliens had shown humanity just how flawed that concept actually was, at least when the enemy could soak up nuclear explosions and keep coming. Somehow, he doubted that the loss of whatever force had hit Area 52 would detract from the alien ability to wage war.

“We need to find somewhere safe and check in,” he said, finally. “The war isn't over yet.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

RAF Machrihanish, United Kingdom

Day 236

“All right,” the President said, very quietly. “Just what happened at Area 52?”

Jones looked pale. “The aliens have discovered a way to produce Walking Dead who don’t act like zombies,” he said, grimly. “One of them was included in the guard force escorting the alien doctor to Area 52.”

The President grimaced, then looked for hope. “Are we sure that this person wasn't a traitor?”

“I’ve looked at the video recordings from Area 52,” Jones said, “and the Brits have looked at them too. Everyone agrees that the traitor, one Judith Dent, was acting very oddly during the alien attack. At one point, she was shooting her former comrades in the back and at another, she was just sitting there, right in the midst of the alien force. And there was no prior ground for suspecting her.

“I spoke briefly to Colonel Oldham,” he added. “From what he was able to find out, Judith Dent had been having nightmares for several days, ever since the destruction of Mannington. And she certainly spent some time alone before she reported back to the camp. Something could have happened in that time ...”

Pepper leaned forward. “You mean she could have been captured, implanted and then returned to us,” she said. “But is that even possible?”

“Unknown,” Jones admitted. “But Mr. President, if the aliens have a way of producing Walking Dead who aren't zombies ...”

The President had already seen the implications. If the Walking Dead could look like normal humans, the war was within shouting range of being lost. It wouldn't be long before the aliens would infiltrate other resistance cells and then start breaking them open, one by one. And if the new model Walking Dead weren't even aware of their own actions, they might honestly believe that they were still fighting the aliens, even as inhuman minds peered through their eyes. The whole concept was terrifying.

“We can x-ray the heads of everyone working in a complex like this one,” Jones said, waving a hand around to indicate RAF Machrihanish. “But the resistance on the ground couldn't do that, certainly not very often. Paranoia will do the rest.”

“Shit,” the President said.

He could see what was likely to happen. Suspicion and paranoia would start tearing resistance cells apart, as anyone who acted even slightly oddly was likely to be questioned – and suspected – by their peers. And if they truly believed themselves to be innocent, they weren't likely to take the questioning too well. Resistance movements needed some degree of trust between their members or they were doomed. It had been difficult to penetrate Al Qaeda Prime during the War on Terror because the terrorists all knew and trusted one another – and refused to trust anyone outside the group. Later, as constant pressure had worn the group down and forced it to disperse, it had been easier to slip infiltrators into the terrorist groups and destroy them from the inside. But the groups had been so dispersed that taking one of them out didn't always reveal others.

Pepper had a more practical take on the matter. “Is there any way we can detect these poor bastards?”

“I don’t know,” Jones admitted. “We know that x-raying a normal Walking Dead man’s head reveals the implants – the aliens either don’t or can’t conceal them from us. We also know that monitoring their brainwaves often reveals the presence of an implant directing their thoughts. But without proper equipment, I don’t see how we can find them.”

The President frowned, then smiled. “What about those prototype lie detectors they were experimenting with before the aliens arrived?”

Pepper blinked in surprise. “They didn't work,” she reminded him. “As long as someone remained reasonably calm, it was impossible to prove that they were lying ...”

“But they did provide a way to monitor brainwaves,” the President said. “Could we have a few produced here, or maybe located in the States?”

“There is another problem,” Jones said. “What if the implants were only active part of the time? The victim might not be aware of their presence – and there would be nothing in their brainwaves to suggest otherwise.”

“We have to try,” the President said. “Because the alternative is surrendering.”

He scowled. If they’d faced a normal human enemy, he might have considered surrender – there would have been a future, however restricted. But the Rogue Leaders intended to reduce all of humanity to helpless slaves, eradicating even the slightest hope of resistance as they reshaped the human race to fit their plans. There was no way he could surrender and just give up, even though the odds had just tipped sharply against humanity. Maybe there was a solution and they just hadn't realised it yet.

Pepper touched his arm, lightly. “Do you want to tell the other resistance leaders about this?”

The President swallowed a curse. There was a simple way to prevent suspicion and paranoia from spreading through the resistance. All he had to do was refrain from telling them what had happened at Area 52. But that would leave the leadership completely ignorant of the greatest danger they’d yet faced, although there was little they could do about it. And if they found out, it would destroy their faith in the united leadership – and the President himself.

Once, he'd been backed up by the whole weight of American society. Even those who had disliked him had recognised that he was the President, the chief executive of the American nation, the Head of State as well as the Head of Government. But that was gone now; his authority was very limited, if only because he had no way to compel obedience. The resistance leadership wasn't all ex-military, men and women who had gone underground because the alternative was going into an alien camp. Some of the others had regarded Washington with as much fear and loathing as they regarded the aliens.

“If we tell them,” Jones said, “we will just cause a panic. There’s little they can do about it, particularly if the alien victims are unaware of what happened to them.”

“I don’t think we have a choice,” the President admitted, slowly. “But we’ll have to warn them that there’s no easy way to detect the presence of one of these new Walking Dead.”

Pepper smiled, humourlessly. “We can sweep everyone here, for a start, and everyone at the other bunkers,” she said. “And maybe the resistance members can use private x-ray machines to check themselves. How many clinics are there outside the cities with their own x-ray facilities?”

The President smiled. “Thank you,” he said, resisting the urge to kiss her. “That might just save the resistance from destroying itself.”

Jones nodded. “Oldham noted that Judith Dent was out of contact for at least five hours,” he said. “That would seem to give us a minimum time period for the aliens to implant someone and check that the implants bedded in properly. They wouldn't want to release someone who was on the verge of becoming a drooling idiot.”

“True,” the President agreed. Quite a few people had gone into alien clutches and simply vanished. According to the alien rebels, the implantation process failed roughly one fifth of the time, although the Rogue Leaders were constantly improving their techniques. “That would be far too revealing.”

He thought, briefly, of poor Jacob Thornton. They’d been friends as well as political allies; he’d deserved better than to end up an alien slave, if indeed he was still alive. No one had seen him for weeks, as far as the resistance could determine. The President had wondered if the liberation process the alien rebels had developed could do anything for his old friend, but they hadn't been sure when the resistance had asked. There was no way to know what had gone wrong with the original implantation that had turned him into a moron.

“We’ll pass on the warning,” he concluded. “Now ... what could the aliens have pulled from the wreckage of Area 52.”

“Nothing,” Jones said, with some assurance. “The nuke detonated – and the complex was designed to ensure that most of the blast went upwards, vaporising the entire base. Everything should have been destroyed, from computer records to the alien craft itself; we wiped the files beforehand as an additional precaution. And we caught a number of alien warriors in the blast.”

The President smiled. “How many?”

“Several hundred, we believe,” Jones said. “We may never know for certain.”

He cleared his throat. “The bottom line,” he added, “is that the base was completely destroyed. They shouldn't have been able to recover anything that might lead them further up the chain towards us.”

“I hope you’re right,” the President said, tartly. Losing Area 52 was a nasty blow; even if most of the scientists had survived, it would take weeks to transport them to RAF Machrihanish or another research station somewhere in the States. And then there were the old concerns about losing control over any scientific discoveries from research into alien technology ...

He shook his head. They could worry about that when America was a free country once again.

“For the moment, the former research crew have been hidden in Texas,” Jones explained. “We’re currently looking at options for getting them out of the state altogether, but that will be tricky.”

“Yes,” Pepper said, dryly. “Tell me – what did they find out that led them to Area 52?”

Jones looked at her, puzzled. “I don’t understand what you mean,” he said. “They learned about the hidden base ...”

“Assuming that Oldham is right,” Pepper said, “Judith was implanted at the same time as Mannington was burned to the ground.” She shared a guilty glance with the President. “And they didn't use her to destroy that resistance cell immediately, did they? They preferred to bide their time and see what she saw. What made them change their mind and attack Area 52? Judith should have had no idea that the base was even there, let alone what it held.”

The President saw where she was going. “You mean she could have seen the alien doctor?”

“It’s a possibility,” Pepper said. “And if that is the case, they’re going to start looking for someone missing from their population.”

The President felt his blood run cold. “There’s no way they will assume that we simply took a prisoner?”

“Yes, but then they will start wondering where the prisoner actually came from,” Pepper pointed out, sharply. “And then they might realise that they have a real mystery on their hands and, eventually, start uncovering the alien rebels. We need to warn them.”

“We need to move our own plans forward,” the President said. “Give them some time to hide themselves.”

“If they can,” Pepper said, grimly. “Their society is wired to a degree that far outstrips the worst of our own.”

“Then we warn them and hope that they know how to hide,” the President said. “And then we continue preparing for the final battle.”

He looked up at the wall-mounted chart. “Has there been any further progress?”

“Some,” Jones said. “We’re now fairly sure we know where most of the Rogue Leaders are – they’re on the command ships. Most of the other leaders, the ones who don’t know what’s going on, have been distributed over the alien settlements. All we have to do is kill the Rogue Leaders ...”

“Sure,” the President said. “That’s all we have to do.”

***

“Easier said than done,” the Prime Minister said, after he had arrived at the base and had been carefully briefed. “And we may be running out of time.”

The President scowled. “We are?”

“Our Ambassador in Washington has been informed that he will be called to face the alien representative tomorrow,” the Prime Minister said. “I suspect that they want us to sweat a little before they start issuing their demands. Overall ... it doesn't look good.”

“True,” the President agreed. “What has the War Cabinet said about it?”

“There was a great deal of debate in the bunker,” the Prime Minister admitted. “We suspect that we’ll get the same demand they gave Israel; disarm and surrender, or get crushed. If that happens, we will have to choose very quickly. So far, the votes are leaning towards fighting, but not if there’s no prospect of victory.”

The President gave him a sharp look. “Don't they know what is at stake?”

“Of course they know,” the Prime Minister said. “They’re just looking at what the aliens did to your country – and Israel – and wondering if it is really worth sending British boys and girls out to die for the sake of honour.”

“Politicians,” the President grumbled.

They shared a chuckle.

“Overall, it looks like we will have to fight,” the Prime Minister said, when they had finished laughing. “So far, they haven’t made any demands concerning Torchwood – or you – but we think that is only a matter of time. They must wonder what happened to some of the other craft you downed during the fighting.”

“They couldn't all have gone to Area 52,” the President agreed. “And not all of them exploded when they were shot down.”

He scowled at the reminder – yet again – of the true inhumanity of their foe. A human POW could hope for freedom; he might be rescued, or he might be traded back to the enemy in a prisoner exchange. But the Rogue Leaders had made sure that none of their personnel would fall into human hands; every dead alien had had his or her brain liquefied by a suicide implant. There had only been one known survivor.

They’d been luckier with the alien craft. Several had been recovered and shipped to Britain as part of a fallback plan the President had never really expected to have to use. The British had moved them to RAF Machrihanish, where they were being studied ... but the aliens had to have a rough idea of where they’d gone. The fact that they had chosen to ignore the downed craft, so far, was odd. It made the President wonder if the aliens were weaker than the human race had believed.

But the more of their own kind they get involved, the more questions the Rogue Leaders would face, he thought, remembering the briefing on alien society. They might even be hit by a rebellion from within their ranks.

“Anything you can do to distract them would be a good thing,” the Prime Minister said, softly. “We need more time.”

“We all need time,” the President muttered. Given a year or two, he was sure that the remaining human powers could put together a significant challenge to the aliens. They could duplicate the alien drives as well as their weapons technology, using them to hit the aliens in space as well as on the ground. “But we’re working on a plan.”

“Glad to hear it,” the Prime Minister said. He grinned, suddenly. “Does it involve flying a craft up into orbit, docking with the alien mothership and blowing it to smithereens?”

The President laughed. “No,” he said, deadpan. “It involves using an alien with two hearts and a sonic screwdriver to tell them that Earth is protected and they’d better get lost before he gets angry.”

They’d actually considered using the alien craft to fly to orbit, but outside of a bad movie it wasn't going to happen. The craft that had crashed on Earth were damaged, beyond humanity’s capability to repair, and even if they had been usable they would still have been connected to the alien datanet. Instead of being allowed to dock with the mothership, they would have been redirected to somewhere isolated and then blown apart by alien fighter craft.

Or, if the aliens had wanted to take prisoners, they would have been forced to land somewhere where the alien warriors could corral the pilots before they could escape.

He shook his head, tiredly. The news about Judith Dent was already spreading through the internet and the reactions ranged from panic to outright paranoia. Anyone could have been implanted; anyone who might have been alone for more than a few hours was under suspicion, even though most of them were almost certainly innocent. Hell, Judith had been innocent too, the President reminded himself. There was no reason for her to be blamed for what had happened to her, or what the aliens had forced her to do.

The alien rebels had made a very specific request when the resistance had contacted them and admitted that Theta, currently hiding in a safe house in Texas, might have been seen. It was so specific that the President suspected that the rebels had had a contingency plan in place all along, although it depended on the human resistance doing most of the heavy lifting. They might not have had any choice, he knew. The alien rebels didn't have much military power of their own, certainly not when compared to the Rogue Leaders.

Hit the alien breeding complex in Wyoming, the President thought. Rescue the pregnant girls, if possible, and destroy most of the alien habitation complex. Don’t try to kidnap any of the aliens, just kill as many as you can before you have to run.

He shuddered. In all of his time as President, he had never willingly given orders that would get unsuspecting Americans killed ... certainly not at the hands of other states, no matter how friendly. It was just another reminder of just how fundamentally alien the aliens actually were. He could never have condoned such an operation.

But the alien rebels had done it without a second thought.

They’re desperate, he thought. They don’t have a choice.

“We may be short on time,” he said, “but at least we can try to keep the bastards busy.”

“Yes,” the Prime Minister agreed. He frowned, suddenly. “And what happens if we can’t move in for the kill?”

Chapter Thirty

Washington DC, USA

Day 236

General Dave Howery had hated the numbness in his face right up until he faced the collaborator government for the first time since his liberation from alien slavery. The memories he had from when he'd been one of the Walking Dead utterly failed to convey the sheer strength of the emotional reaction he felt as soon as he saw them – but then, he hadn't felt much of anything while his implants had been working properly. Now, he wanted to strangle them all with his bare hands.

None of them gave a damn about America, not unless it helped them to boost their own petty power bases. Daisy Fairchild might have been the worst of the bunch, according to Karen, but the others weren't much better. They looked more like the villains from Atlas Shrugged than governors; hell, even the first provisional government of Iraq had looked more dignified than the alien collaborators!

If his face had been mobile, he wouldn't have been able to hide his reaction, he realised as he sat down. Each of them was responsible for untold misery, for inflicting pain and suffering on their fellow Americans, for making the stresses and strains caused by alien occupation a thousand times worse. They’d released prisoners from jail and inducted them into the Order Police, they’d helped register their countrymen like cattle ... and they’d moved them around the country to suit their alien masters. Compared to that, Benedict Arnold had been a piker. And at least Arnold had had a working brain. No one could say that about half of the collaborator government.

“The most urgent matter at hand comes from the nuclear detonation in Nevada,” Daisy Fairchild said, without preamble. “The mushroom cloud was seen for miles around and word is already spreading. People are starting to panic.”

Dave snorted, inwardly. Most of what everyone knew about nuclear detonations was simply inaccurate. There was no cloud of radioactivity spreading out from where the bomb had detonated and heading, as if it were a living thing, towards the nearest population centres. It had been a clean blast, according to the aliens, although no one knew for sure if they could be trusted completely. Still, even if the bomb had been dirty, it hadn't been in position to spit thousands of tons of radioactive ash into the atmosphere.

“Then we tell them that there is no danger,” Sharon Greenland said. The Director of Public Information looked smug, even though her last two predecessors had been hauled off by the Order Police for allowing the wrong sort of information to go on the airwaves. “They should believe us if we are honest.”

Dave wondered, inwardly, if she was really as stupid as she sounded – or if it was all an act intended to convince the others to underestimate her. Of all of them, Sharon’s position was the weakest, if only because she hadn't had the time to build up her own power base. And, of course, there was the fate of her predecessors to worry about. She knew she was weak ...

“For some reason,” Daisy pointed out sweetly, “they don’t believe what we tell them. They think we’re liars.”

It was harder still to conceal his reaction to that comment, Dave realised. America had once had hundreds of television and radio stations, to say nothing of an endless series of blogs that provided the context that was often missing from the mainstream media. Now, there was just a handful of television stations and – in theory – no radio stations at all. Daytime chat radio had clearly not pleased the aliens or, more likely, some of their collaborators. Maybe that wouldn't have been a disaster, apart from the fact that everyone knew that everything that went on the airwaves was carefully censored by the aliens. There was nothing, for example, about the insurgency at all. At best, they were described as bandits and dead-enders.

“But this is different,” Sharon insisted. “Perhaps we could admit that the other news is censored ...”

“It would be better to have the Order Police cope with any problems the mushroom cloud might cause,” Daisy said. “We don’t want to admit to the truth, do we?”

She looked over at Dave. “Do we?”

Dave’s expression remained blank. The aliens rarely gave specific instructions for collaborator meetings, trusting him to handle matters on his own. As long as issues didn't go too far outside the alien parameters, they weren’t really concerned about it. Dave wasn't sure if that was arrogance or a touching faith in their implants ... which had, he admitted in the privacy of his own mind, been fully justified. Until he’d been liberated, he’d been their devoted slave. Resistance had been inconceivable.

“The news must remain censored to avoid panic,” he said, gravely. There had been no specific instructions from the aliens concerning the nuclear detonation. “Panic will not be helpful or productive.”

He scowled inwardly as the collaborators moved on to other matters. Recruitment for the Order Police was falling slightly, although Daisy had hopes of bringing in newcomers with a combination of threats and promises. The remaining Arab soldiers who had fought for the aliens in Chicago were being dispatched to Texas, where they would be expended on the resistance and the Mexican gangsters who were trying to take control of large parts of the border. Dave had to admire the alien ability to make two problems – the insurgency and the Arab soldiers – solve one another. Both would be weakened, perhaps destroyed, while the aliens built up their own strength.

I wonder how many others there will be in the future, he thought, sourly. The Middle East isn't coping well with the aliens – and with the damage they unleashed.

The thought wasn't a pleasant one. Like they’d done in America, the aliens who had landed in the Middle East had cleared entire populations to make room for their settlements. Countless millions had been displaced, while resistance had met swift and uncompromising defeat from the alien warriors. Now, according to the reports, millions of people were dying; they didn't even have the camps that the aliens had established in America. Dave wasn't sure if the aliens had decided that the population was worthless or if they’d given up after one suicide bomber too many. And then they’d done the same thing to Israel.

“And so we can thank our benefactors,” Daisy concluded, with a simpering smile directed at Dave. It was all he could do not to be sick. “And we shall deal with the other issues after lunch.”

Dave felt his stomach rumble as servants wheeled in cartloads of food and drink. There were people on the streets of Washington who were lucky if they could claim alien rations to eat, yet the collaborators had good bread, meat and vegetables. They even have an entire cart of desserts, each one seemingly more unhealthy than the last. He caught himself staring at a three-tier chocolate cake and scowled, inwardly. It had been too long since he’d eaten anything other than alien-provided rations. Right now, his stomach was insisting on reminding him of just how long it had been.

He wondered, absently, if anyone would notice if he started filling a plate for himself. They all thought him to be under alien control, nothing more than a helpless slave. It might pass unnoticed if he ate something other than rations ... but he didn't dare take the risk. Instead, he stood up and headed towards the office the aliens had put aside for him. There was no shortage of ration bars there ... and, more importantly, information. Information the resistance desperately needed.

And then all he needed was a way to get it to them.

It struck him, a moment later. All he had to do was ask.

***

Karen did her best to watch General Howery as the meeting wore on and on, despite her growing tiredness. Yes, the nuclear detonation was an emergency, but she already knew how the collaborator government would handle the matter. They would deny everything, sneer at the suggestions from bloggers that the aliens had been badly hurt – and use the Order Police to repress panic, if there was panic. And if there had been panic when nukes had started to detonate in the Middle East, there would be more panic now that one had detonated in America.

The General seemed to be coping, but there were ... problems. He looked rather more interested in the meeting than he’d looked back when he’d been one of the Walking Dead, his gaze seemingly moving from face to face. If she hadn't been looking for it, she asked herself, would she have noticed that something was badly wrong? She could only hope that others weren't observant enough to see the problem even though they had no way of knowing that Howery wasn't under their command.

His face definitely changed for a long moment when the servants wheeled in the food. Karen had feared that he would blow his cover by taking food – the Walking Dead never seemed to eat anything other than alien-prepared rations, presumably to avoid poison – but instead the General walked out, leaving the collaborators alone. Karen watched him go, wishing that she could go after him, then turned her attention to the food. Several of the senior collaborators had such appetites that they would happily polish off an entire cartload by themselves.

Daisy caught up with her as she was piling potato salad and cold pasta onto her plate. “Ah, Karen,” she said, bossily. “I have good news for you.”

Karen shivered, inwardly. The last time Daisy had given her ‘good’ news, it had been the assignment to supervise the transfer of Mannington’s entire population into the camps near Washington. It still haunted her nightmares, even though Jasmine had offered to spend entire nights with her – or find her some drugs that might help her to cope. Karen hadn't dared do either. God alone knew what she might say while she was half asleep.

“General Howery requires an aide,” Daisy said. “I have been ordered to loan you to him for several weeks.”

“Me?” Karen repeated. “But I ...”

She stopped and had to fight down an urge to laugh. All Howery had had to do was put in a request – and, knowing that he spoke for the aliens, Daisy wouldn't even have hesitated before agreeing to loan him an aide. Even if she wondered why Karen was the only one who would do, she wouldn't dare argue. Crossing one of the Walking Dead was a good way to end up in the camps – or dead.

Daisy took her arm and half-pulled her outside the conference room, down the corridor and into one of her many offices. Two Order Policemen caught sight of them and smiled, causing Karen to flush brightly. It was just like being dragged home by her mother after doing something stupid – or naughty.

“I want you to keep your eyes open,” Daisy ordered, as soon as the door was closed. “If you hear anything that can be used to improve my position, I expect you to tell me.”

Karen made a show of hesitating. “But the General might not like me spying on him ...”

“Idiot girl,” Daisy snapped. “You are not to tell him, of course.”

“Of course not,” Karen said. “What do you want to know?”

“Their long-term plans, if any,” Daisy said. “And just why they’re buying so much crap from American factories.”

She leaned forward. “And if you find something of value,” she added, “you will be richly rewarded. I can get you a place on the reconstruction committee.”

It would have been the offer of a lifetime, Karen knew, if she’d been a loyal little collaborator. A chance to build up her own power base, a chance to establish herself as an independent personage from Daisy ... she’d still be expected to kowtow to Daisy, but she’d also have much more independence. And, given that some of Daisy’s colleagues expected their subordinates to literally kowtow to them, it would safeguard her if Daisy took a fall and ended up in a camp herself.

But as someone working for the resistance, it would move her away from the centre of power.

“I will do my best,” she promised. She would have to find a way to talk to Howery without anyone listening in, then see what information she could slip to Daisy without compromising her position. “And if I succeed ...”

“If you succeed, you will be rewarded,” Daisy assured her. Her voice turned sickeningly sweet. “And do try not to fail.”

***

Dave was halfway through a series of reports on food supplies for the Order Police when there was a tap at his open door. His memories of being an alien slave reported that visitors were rare, almost always having to be ordered to visit him – or any one of the Walking Dead. That wasn't too surprising, he knew; the other Walking Dead scared hell out of him and he’d been one of them.

And will be again if you make a mistake, old man, he told himself, as he looked up. Or worse.

He would have smiled if he could have smiled when he saw Karen at the door. She looked nervous, understandably so. No one knew just how closely the aliens monitored the Walking Dead, although Dave had a suspicion that the aliens trusted in the implants and didn't bother to do anything else to watch them. If they had, he would have been rounded up and re-implanted as soon as he’d returned to the Green Zone. And Karen would have been implanted right alongside him.

“Come in,” he said. “And sit down.”

His voice was still stiff and cold, no matter how much warmth he tried to push into it. Maybe that was a good thing too. The US had been using voice monitoring software to track emotional states before the aliens had invaded and if the human race could do it, the aliens could probably do it better. A change in tone might alert them that something was wrong.

Karen sat down, folding her hands in her lap. God, she was gorgeous; he felt like an old pervert even for looking at her. He hadn't thought so much of her when he’d first seen her, had he? No, she’d just been another collaborator functionary, leading him to his fateful meeting with the aliens. And after that, she’d been a tool. The Walking Dead weren't permitted sexual feelings – or any kind of feelings. Part of him just wanted to grab her, to kiss her, to make love to her ... he thrust that feeling aside, angrily. He couldn't afford anything of the sort.

“I need assistance in sorting out these files,” he said. Everything was on computer, but he’d never enjoyed using them before he’d been implanted. They made life too easy for someone in a comfortable air conditioned office to look over his shoulder and issue pointless orders. “And then I have a list of other tasks for you to do.”

Karen nodded, her bright eyes studying him minutely. She was certainly braver than most of the others who faced the Walking Dead, Dave realised; most of them didn’t dare make eye contact with the alien slaves. But then, she already knew what had happened to him. Would someone else be able to realise that he wasn't a slave any longer? There was no way to know.

I’ll have to find out if this room is monitored, he thought, inwardly. The aliens did keep an eye on Daisy Fairchild and her ilk, although they preferred to do it through the Walking Dead than any form of electronic surveillance. Dave wasn't sure if that was because they wanted the collaborators to know that they were being watched, or if they simply didn't have the resources to keep tabs on everyone. The more people the CIA had monitored during the War on Terror, the harder it had been to provide the level of comprehensive monitoring and surveillance demanded by the supervisors.

“Yes, sir,” Karen said, finally.

He leaned closer, until he could smell her scent. “Don't worry,” he hissed. “We’ll get through this somehow.”

He passed her a set of USB sticks, pointing out one in particular. No one would have noticed, he hoped, that he had made a set of copies of vital information. Karen could take it and pass it out of the Green Zone ... somehow. Dave wondered, absently, how she did it, but he didn't really want to know. What he didn't know, he couldn't be made to tell.

Smiling inwardly, he turned back to his files and kept reading, allowing her to get on with her own work. She had a good memory, he assumed; she must have if she had spent months working for Daisy Fairchild. All she would have to do was copy it down and get the information to the resistance. And then they could make use of it, however they saw fit.

As long as I get a chance to wring the alien leader’s neck, he thought, remembering his first meeting with the alien leader. He’d been coldly condescending in a manner that had made him think wistfully of REMFs. I could kill him before anyone else knew that I was no longer a slave ...

But the aliens were stronger than they looked, he reminded himself. He had to be careful.

Taking one last look at Karen, he walked over to the window and gazed towards the colossal alien ship in the distance. It dominated the skyline, dwarfing anything of purely human construction. Under other circumstances, it would have impressed him. Even a full-sized aircraft carrier would have vanished without trace into its bulk.

Now, all he could feel as he stared at the craft was a feeling of sadistic pleasure. The craft had seemed invincible until a human weapon had brought it crashing down.

And all we have to do, he thought, coldly, is bring the rest crashing down too.

Chapter Thirty-One

Washington DC, USA

Day 237

The White House, Ambassador Sir James Kingston considered, had seen better days. It had been almost untouchable ever since it had been built, even though the terrorists who had struck on 9/11 had intended to target the White House as well as New York and the Pentagon; it had been well outside the reach of any conventional enemy. But the aliens defied human geopolitics and they’d taken the White House when they’d landed in Washington.

They’d done a surprisingly good job of rebuilding, he noted as he climbed out of the ambassadorial car, but it still looked a wreck. One wing was still nothing more than ruins, pitted and scarred by evidence of the desperate fight to keep the aliens out long enough for the President to escape. The bodies had long since been removed, thankfully, but the remaining damage had been left there, a silent testament to how futile defence was against the aliens. And the White House was now occupied by an alien, rather than a human collaborator. The message was very clear.

Three alien craft sat on the lawn, looking oddly out of place against the human building; five more orbited overhead, providing security for the alien base. Countless alien warriors swarmed the grounds, grunting incomprehensibly to one another as they hunted for intruders who might dare to try to raid the White House. It was technically within the Green Zone, but few humans were allowed to visit. Even the collaborator government was based elsewhere.

“Ambassador,” a man said, as he emerged from the public entrance. Sir James didn't need to see his eyes to tell that he was one of the Walking Dead. “Come with me.”

Inside, there was little evidence of the fighting – but a great deal of evidence of looting. Most of the decorations he recalled from his pre-war visits to the White House had been removed, leaving only a handful in place for the aliens after they’d repaired the building. A large portrait that showed every President from Washington to Obama had been defaced, several faces torn out and ripped apart; he couldn't decide if the aliens had decided to vandalise it or if their collaborators had taken the opportunity to show their contempt for the established order. Whatever else could be said about the aliens, he decided quietly, they didn't seem to have the human capacity for pointless spite.

He shivered as he saw alien workers scurrying everywhere, carrying out the orders of their superiors. It was impossible to tell what the little creatures were doing, although they didn't seem to be working on the White House. Perhaps they were probing into the tunnel and bunker network Sir James knew to exist underneath Washington, or perhaps they were doing something alien that would be beyond human understanding. There was no way to know.

The Oval Office looked almost new, as if the President was about to walk in and greet his guests. There were dozens of different stories about the last stand in Washington, with few of them agreeing on even the basic details. One had claimed that the Secret Service had knocked out the President and carried him out while the Marines fought to buy time, another had hinted that the President had led the defence in person until he’d been stunned by an alien weapon and dragged away from the scene. Sir James suspected that the truth lay somewhere in-between, although he couldn't see any competent close-protection detail allowing their principle to take command of the defence. It wasn't as if they were in a bad movie where the President was the only one who could fight.

Sir James shivered when he saw the alien standing behind the President’s desk. He liked to consider himself a cosmopolitan – he’d shaken hands with dictators, terrorists and even religious fanatics – but the aliens just spooked him in a way that no fanatic had been able to match. They might have been humanoid, yet that somehow made it worse. He would almost have preferred to deal with an alien race that was non-humanoid.

Oh, he asked himself. You would have preferred to meet Weber’s Bugs?

“Ambassador,” the alien said. There was something almost human in his voice, although it might well have been an act. Sir James had met enough aliens to know that they didn't seem to feel the same way humans felt. “Thank you for coming.”

Sir James bowed in acknowledgement as he quietly studied the alien – and the office he had appropriated for himself. They’d removed the chairs, he realised, something that might have been intended as a rude gesture – or as a simple cultural misunderstanding. Humans might prefer to be sitting down; the aliens didn't seem to care if they were seated or standing while holding discussions. On the other hand, it seemed a simple thing for them to master; he found it hard to believe that they truly didn't know.

But there are places where eating with your left hand is considered the height of bad manners, he reminded himself. And yet we still have problems humouring them.

A human might have spent time engaging in small talk before getting to the meat of the matter. The aliens didn't seem to feel inclined to waste time.

“Your country has been preparing for war against us,” the alien stated, flatly. “We find that most disquieting.”

“We are making preparations to deal with the chaos across the English Channel,” Sir James lied, smoothly. It wasn't remotely true, but it might convince the aliens. He’d certainly been told, by the Prime Minister personally, that it was worth a try. “We don’t want the French disease to spread to England.”

The alien wasn't fooled. “Such preparations would not require the use of the American aircraft and equipment you interned on your soil,” he said. “Nor would it require the extensive deployment of your own aircraft. Your preparations have only one logical target – us. We do not regard that as acceptable.”

Sir James kept his face as expressionless as the alien’s own. “You do not have the right to dictate to us what we do inside our borders,” he stated bluntly. “We certainly do not intend to cross the Atlantic and attack your positions here.”

The alien tilted his head slightly, hands fluttering in front of him in a complex pattern. Sir James stared; the briefing notes had stated that their hands were how they expressed emotion, but they hadn't been very clear on how to read the signals. Was the alien pleased, or angry, or amused, or ... what?

“We are the masters of this world,” the alien stated. “You will inform your leaders that they have one week to disarm. Nuclear weapons and their delivery systems will be handed over to us. Fast jets and other such equipment will be handed over to us. You may keep your soldiers and naval ships, save only those intended to serve as air defence vessels. We will not permit you to possess anything that can be used against us.”

Sir James felt rage breaking through his diplomatic mask and fought hard to control it, to keep his face blank and expressionless. Such blunt demands had gone out of fashion long ago on Earth; even Hitler and Stalin, both evil bastards who had cared nothing for the rights of their neighbours, hadn't been so blunt. But the aliens understood the realities behind diplomacy, that in the end the strong dominated the weak. They just didn't bother to pay lip service to human niceties.

“I shall convey your words to the Prime Minister,” he said, when he was confident that he could keep his voice under control. Someone had clearly leaked to the aliens; they might well have set up a spy network during the years they’d kept the Earth under close observation, or perhaps they’d simply inherited a couple of American or Arab spies when they’d overrun their countries. “He will make the final decision.”

“You will also inform him that if your country refuses to disarm, we will come in force and remove your ability to do us harm,” the alien said. There was absolutely no give in his voice at all, no hint that negotiations were possible. “And then your country will be ruined.”

Sir James winced, inwardly. The aliens had occupied Israel; even if they didn't occupy Britain, losing the war would still be disastrous. God knew that the country was on a knife edge, trapped between fascism and anarchy. If the aliens smashed most of the military, the government would lose the ability to keep the rising tide of chaos under control.

“I will inform him,” he said, tightly.

“Good,” the alien leader said.

It was clearly a dismissal. Sir James stepped backwards, turned and allowed the Walking Dead man to lead him out of the Oval Office and back towards his car. It was a struggle to keep himself under control, despite his extensive experience. He’d never been treated so bluntly by anyone, not even his political enemies. Even the world’s dictators showed a modicum of tact when dealing with more powerful nations. A soft answer could often turn away wrath.

But the aliens hadn't bothered with any niceties. They'd simply threatened Britain – and they’d meant every word. Sir James knew what they’d done to the once-mighty American military and the Israeli Defence Force, to say nothing of the combined militaries of a dozen Arab states. He hadn't been briefed on preparations to resist the military confrontation that everyone knew was inevitable – the aliens might take and interrogate him at any moment – but he doubted that they were enough to give Britain a fighting chance. It was much more likely that they would steamroll through the RAF, just as they had crushed the USAF and the IAF. And then Britain would be crushed too.

He climbed into the back seat of the car, feeling his hands shaking. “Take me back to the embassy,” he ordered. “Now.”

The car hummed to life as he settled down into the back seat. His legs felt unsteady; he was silently grateful for the one-way glass that allowed him to collapse without being seen by any inhuman eyes. Assuming, of course, that the aliens hadn't bugged him. The security team at the embassy was good, but they’d warned the diplomats that the aliens might be able to produce bugs that were utterly undetectable. Perhaps they’d slipped a few into Britain and picked up on the preparations that way.

Or perhaps they just kept an eye on us from orbit and figured out that something was up, he thought, numbly. God damn them to hell.

He shuddered as the car drove through Washington’s empty streets. The devastation – and degradation – was terrifying to contemplate; if it had happened to Washington, it could happen to London. Would alien craft destroy the Houses of Parliament and land troops in front of Ten Downing Street? Or would they simply bombard London from orbit in order to crush resistance without risking more of their warriors? God knew there had to be limits to their manpower.

Sure there are, he told himself. We just haven’t found them yet.

***

Nancy was taking their stay in the concentration camp better than he was, Greg had realised after the first day. There was almost nothing to do in the barracks, but sleep; there were no board games, packs of cards or anything else they could use to distract themselves. A number of couples had paired up and were finding what pleasure and solace they could in one another, but he hadn't joined them. He’d been too worried about Nancy seeing him.

But she seemed to be having fun with the other kids. She’d made friends with a whole host of boys and girls and they spent most of their time running around the yard, screaming and playing tag. At first, Greg had feared that the guards would abuse or shoot the children, but instead they just seemed to ignore the kids. Eventually, it had become harder to care about the possible danger. It might almost have broken up the monotony.

He had the distinct feeling that the aliens, having dragged most of the population of Mannington into camps, didn't really know what to do with them afterwards. It beat the other possibility, he’d pointed out when the adults had talked about their situation in hushed voices; the aliens might just have decided to leave them in the camps to rot. But they’d been picky; unattached young men and women had been separated out, right from the start. God alone knew what had happened to them. If the reports of devastation across the country were halfway accurate, Greg guessed, the aliens might want to use the young men for labour. But why take the young women too?

There were several possibilities, none of them good.

He scowled as he stared across the yard, watching the older children as they kicked a soda can around the field. One of the guards had tossed it to them, allowing them to use it in place of a ball; Greg honestly couldn't see why they hadn't provided a real ball, or even a pack of cards for the adults. It wasn't as if they could use either to escape. Nicolas, with all of the training that made a SEAL under his belt, might have been able to escape the camp. Greg, a civilian to the core, had looked around, but hadn't been able to imagine any way to get out without being spotted and killed. The inner fence was too sharp to climb – he had persistent nightmares about Nancy slicing her fingers off by accident – and the ground was solid concrete. He couldn't have dug a tunnel if the guards had provided him with a shovel.

The gate opened, revealing a man wearing a black uniform and a blank expression. One of the Walking Dead, Greg realised with a shudder. He didn't know the man, thankfully, but it didn't make it any easier to look at him. The man’s eyes swept the camp, passing over the children ... and coming to rest on Greg. He marched over to where Greg was sitting, hauled him to his feet and marched him towards the gates. Moments later, he was outside the camp and being shoved into a small office.

“Be seated,” a human voice said.

Greg looked up to see a middle-aged woman with a sickly-sweet smile. She reminded him of the actress from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix – she’d played one of Harry’s worst enemies, if he recalled correctly - and the social workers who had questioned his ability to raise another man’s child. None of them had been sensible ... and somehow he wasn't surprised that they had gone to work for the aliens. If any of them had really thought of the children, he hadn't seen any evidence of it.

“I’ll come right to the point,” the woman said. “You called our masters and informed them that a resistance leader had taken up residence in your house.”

Greg said nothing, but he flushed angrily. Maybe he had saved Nancy by betraying her father, but she was still in terrible danger. What would happen if they realised that her DNA was a direct match for Nicolas’s DNA? They'd have a weapon they could use against him ...

Not that it matters, he thought, grimly. All they'd have to do is implant him and then they would know everything he knows about the resistance.

“Right now, you are in a camp filled with the discontented and the bitter-enders,” the woman continued. “We require you to keep an eye on them for us. If there are any plans to escape, or do something else drastic, we wish you to notify us.”

“Oh,” Greg said, feeling his temper snap. “And how are we meant to escape the camp?”

The woman eyed him darkly. “You will inform us if there are any plans, no matter how impractical,” she said. “Or we will be forced to take steps.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Your daughter, for example, could be taken from you,” she added, “and given to someone loyal to raise ...”

Greg blanched. Nancy was all he had left.

“... Or she could go into a different research program,” the woman added. “She is immature, not fully developed, allowing our masters to experiment with splicing other threads of DNA into her genetic code. Some of those experiments have failed, or created monsters.”

“No,” Greg said, feeling his knees buckle. If he hadn't been sitting, he would have collapsed to the floor. “You can't ...”

“We can and we will, unless you spy for us,” the woman said, flatly. “Should you fail to report any scheme to us, your daughter will be transferred elsewhere. She will never be allowed to see you again. Do you understand me?”

Greg clenched his fists, feeling helpless rage burning through him. The bitch was just like a goddamned social worker, wielding her power for the sheer pleasure of wielding it ... not for the good of the child or anyone else. There were countless parents whose only qualification for parenthood was passing the practical exam; somehow, they were considered sacred, untouchable, while adoptive parents were treated with suspicion.

He could hit her. Maybe he wasn't Nicolas, but he could still slam his fist into her face ...

... And Nancy would face the consequences.

“Very well,” he snapped, bitterly. “I will spy for you.”

“Excellent,” the woman said, clapping her hands together. “We look forward to your reports.”

Greg shuddered. Somehow, he would have to report without people noticing and growing suspicious ... and he honestly didn't see how that was possible, not now. There was no privacy in the camp. After several days, almost everyone had lost their modesty. But he would have to think of something. Nancy’s life – and worse – was at stake.

The woman looked up. “Take him back to the camp,” she ordered. “He has a job to do.”

Chapter Thirty-Two

Alien Base, Near Casper, Wyoming, USA

Day 238

“The child is developing as predicted,” the alien doctor said. “You should give birth soon.”

Dolly stared at him, too tired to glare. She couldn't remember what she was supposed to feel like when she was pregnant, but right now she was tired all the time, barely able to keep her eyes open, let alone waddle around the complex to get some exercise. God – how had the baby developed so fast? What had the aliens done to her to accelerate its growth?

Or had she been their prisoner for nearly nine months?

The thought terrified her. They’d drugged her, they’d experimented on her ... she could easily have simply lost track of time so completely that it had actually been years since she’d been taken prisoner. Chicago seemed almost like a nightmare at times, except whenever she opened her eyes she was still in the alien base, a helpless brood mare for their long-term program, whatever the hell that was. All she knew was that she was pregnant and the child was developing abnormally quickly.

“Well, that’s a relief,” she managed to sneer. “And what happens then?”

The alien ignored her sarcasm. “We will continue the procedure,” he said. “The development of your child will be closely monitored.”

Dolly touched her stomach, feeling the baby kicking in her womb. What did the alien mean? She’d always assumed that they’d simply take the child away when she gave birth, a prospect that disturbed her more and more every day, but might they intend to have her raise the child? Or did they have something else in mind? What were they even doing?

She’d tried to think about the possibilities, every time her mind was reasonably clear. The aliens couldn't want to breed human slaves, could they? It wasn't as if there was a shortage of humans who could be enslaved, even before the invasion. Dolly had even collected charity for children who’d been abducted in Africa and sold into slavery, even though her father had pointed out – rather snidely – that paying slavers for slaves only encouraged the bastards. If Americans could adopt children in Africa without attracting legal attention, surely the aliens could just do the same.

But what else could they want?

Two other aliens appeared and helped her off the table, holding her upright until she was sure that her legs would support her. She had no idea what a normal pregnancy was supposed to feel like, but right now she felt fragile, unstable and she constantly needed to go to the toilet, almost all the time. The aliens, at least, had been understanding, once they’d realised the problem. It was something she’d found hard to explain.

“Tell me,” she said, desperately, “why are you doing this?”

There was a long pause, long enough for her to wonder if the aliens were really more talkative than usual.

“We are creating the future,” the alien said, finally. “You are helping us to shape our shared destiny.”

Dolly sighed, bitterly. More inanities, meaningless phrases that provided absolutely no useful information. How did a child help shape the future of two separate races? Surely the child couldn't be an alien-human hybrid, could it? And yet it was developing remarkably fast, unlike a normal human child ... unless, of course, it really had been nine months since she had been taken prisoner. It was so hard to be sure.

Her escorts helped her out of the chamber before she could say anything else, leading her through a series of corridors that seemed to twist and turn in on themselves. It was a maze, one that she knew she couldn't navigate without alien assistance; there was no way to know how they found their way through the corridors. As always, there were no signs to mark their location, nothing they could use to find their way. Maybe they just memorised the plans of the complex, she told herself. Or maybe they had something else up their sleeves.

She stepped to one side as a set of aliens advanced down the corridor. They seemed more machine than living beings, each one plugged into cyborg implants that flashed and flickered oddly under the brilliant light from high overhead. Several of them, she noticed, had had their eyes removed altogether and replaced with ocular implants. They were aliens ... and yet she winced in sympathy. How could anyone do that to themselves?

But I knew people who had breast implants or eye surgery, she thought, as the aliens passed her by. There was a faint scent of decayed flesh in the air for a long chilling moment. Maybe the aliens consider implants a fashion accessory.

It didn't seem likely, she knew. But anything that made the aliens seem more human was welcome.

Her escort led her outside the complex, into what she had come to think of as the alien garden. The sky was darkening rapidly – it had been morning, she was sure, when she had been taken for her check-up – but the alien workers were still buzzing over the plants, inspecting their growth and pruning where necessary. The scents were strange, utterly alien to her, and yet she rather liked them. If only the planets weren't so eerie.

A handful of other girls, all in various stages of pregnancy, sat in the garden or wandered through the building that had been put aside for them. None of them were modest now, not after weeks – or months, or years – of being poked and prodded by alien doctors. Dolly wondered, absently, why she wasn't more outraged than she was about their treatment. The aliens had effectively raped them, getting them pregnant in the process. Did it really make a difference if they were artificially impregnated, rather than being raped by a man? She honestly couldn't remember if anyone had ever been taken to a fertility clinic and impregnated against their will. The closest thing she could recall was a court case where a man had refused to pay child support on the grounds that his girlfriend had made herself pregnant by recovering his condom and transferring the still-fresh sperm into her vagina.

Her escort gently pushed her into her quarters and motioned towards the bed. Dolly sighed, but obeyed. She needed to sleep again – and besides, the more she slept, the more she forgot what she had once been. After everything she’d endured, she couldn't help wondering if that would be a relief.

***

“Little bastards,” Edward Tanaka muttered, as he scraped the insects away from his shoes. “Lousy little fuckers.”

“Language,” Lieutenant Markus Heimlich said, mildly. “I don’t think that helps reassure anyone.”

Edward gritted his teeth. The aliens had, naturally, brought along elements of their own biosphere from their homeworld to Earth – and it had started to spread outside the areas they had colonised. He wasn't sure if the tiny creatures – they looked like crosses between spiders and crabs – were poisonous or not, but they definitely seemed to find humans tasty. The scorpions they’d had to endure in Iraq looked positively friendly by comparison.

He stamped on one of the little creatures and smashed it into the earth, only to see it scurry off moments later, apparently unharmed. The blue creatures – pinchers, the men had started to call them, rather unimaginatively – were tougher than they looked. They weren't the only alien creatures roaming the countryside either. He'd heard reports of buffalo-like creatures being spotted in the wild further to the west, or giant reptilian camels being sighted in the Middle East. It looked as though the aliens not only intended to take the Earth, but to adapt it to suit themselves.

“I’m not reassured,” he said, looking towards the alien base. Even in twilight, it was apparent that the level of activity hadn't slowed in the slightest. The aliens could definitely see in the dark, like cats. It had been a nasty surprise for several resistance groups before they’d wised up and realised that they had to take precautions. “And nor should anyone else be reassured.”

Years ago, back when he had been preparing for a career in the military, he’d read an article that suggested that if the introduction of rabbits to Australia had been planned as an act of ecological warfare, it would have been the greatest success in history. Rabbits had caused no end of trouble for the Australians; lacking any natural predators, their population had expanded rapidly and devastated the countryside. He couldn't recall what the Australians had done to cope with the problem, but he had no idea if their solution would apply to whatever new species the aliens had introduced. Even if mankind forced the aliens to accept a stalemate rather than humanity’s submission, the planet would never be the same again.

He watched the tiny pinchers as they scuttled away. They were tough, seemingly indestructible, and thought nothing of attacking humans, who were much larger than themselves. It was easy to imagine them attacking ... well, rabbits, along with everything else, and he honestly wasn't sure if there were any animals that could stop them. Given time, they might be able to bring down a dog, a sheep or even a cow. God alone knew how they bred.

“Never mind,” Heimlich said, dryly. “Are you ready to go?”

Edward nodded. It had taken several days to slip a major resistance force through the checkpoints and up to the alien base, but it had all paid off splendidly. There were over two hundred men, most with current military experience, lurking near the alien base, ready to attack. And, not too far away, there were a handful of others who would launch diversionary attacks on the other alien installations and checkpoints in the region, If they were lucky, the aliens would have no idea which one was the real target until it was far too late.

According to intelligence – which had been so unusually precise that Edward was suspicious on general principles – the alien breeding complex wasn't actually a civilian installation, or what passed for a civilian installation in the alien caste-based society. He had no idea how intelligence had deduced that, but assuming that they were correct, the aliens should be more worried about the attacks on the nearby city rather than the breeding complex. It was odd to realise that the aliens might have their own version of the home defence first complex, yet it seemed to make sense. Alien civilians would surely bitch and moan as much as human civilians if they seemed to have been abandoned to the tender mercies of the enemy.

“Everything is in place,” he said. “All we need to do now is wait – and keep one ear to the radio.”

He gritted his teeth as the seconds wore onwards. The alien patrols didn't seem to come far away enough from the city to spot them, but they definitely varied their patrol routes every so often, a touch of professionalism that Edward would have admired under other circumstances. Every fool knew that a routine patrol route, followed slavishly every time, was just asking for someone to hit the patrolling troops at the most vulnerable moment.

“Two guardhouses, I think,” Heimlich said, studying the alien complex through his night-vision binoculars. “And plenty of guards.”

“The snipers should take care of most of them,” Edward muttered back. “And the missiles will take out the guardhouses.”

The snipers had been issued with heavier ammunition, just to ensure that the alien warriors were either killed or crippled when the fighting began. It was damn hard to kill the bastards with conventional bullets, almost as if they had been engineered for fighting. Having seen something of what the aliens were capable of doing, Edward was inclined to believe that was exactly what had happened. The aliens just didn't fight fair.

And any of us could be an unwitting spy, he thought, sullenly. How the hell do we defeat someone who can do that?

His radio buzzed. “Tango! Oscar! Charlie!”

Edward smiled. The first attacks were underway – and the aliens would be reacting, scrambling forces towards the installations that were under attack. Given the speed they could move, he had no doubt that they’d be on top of the resistance fighters before they could break contact and escape, but it might give them a few nasty surprises. A new shipment of MANPADs had arrived from Canada, complete with the latest developments in seeker heads. The aliens might lose a few craft before they realised what they were up against and adapted their tactics.

“Go,” Heimlich ordered.

Edward lifted his flare gun into the air and pulled the trigger. The flare detonated high overhead, casting an eerie pearly-white light over the scene. Moments later, the snipers opened fire, picking off the aliens who were visible in front of their base. Several aliens dropped before the remainder realised that they were under attack and dived for cover, moving at terrifying speed out of the line of fire. They could run, at least for short periods, far faster than any human, even an athlete.

There was a loud roar as the two missiles were launched towards the guardposts. Edward tensed as the missiles, designed to take out tanks, slammed into the buildings. No one was entirely sure of what they would do to the material the aliens used for their constructions; most of the reports had suggested that it had the weight of plastic and yet it was stronger than concrete or steel. Edward wasn't sure how that was even possible, although he’d read the suggestions online by countless chemists and structural engineers. Some of them had even wondered if the aliens had developed a binding field that simply held the material together, even though if they’d had such technology surely there would be other signs of its existence ...

He smiled as one of the guardposts disintegrated with a thunderous explosion. The other was luckier; the missile detonated against the wall instead of punching through it and detonating inside. Even so, the aliens were clearly shaken; he saw several alien warriors evacuating the guardpost before other missiles could take it out. Several of them were firing back towards the snipers, although they couldn't quite make out their positions. Most of the blue-white flashes of light were missing their targets.

“Go,” he snapped, and led the assault force down towards the alien base.

Overhead, an alien craft snapped into position and started spitting fire down towards the missile firing position. Two Stinger missiles rose up to challenge it, one slamming directly into its drive field and sending it careening over and over until it slammed into the mountainside and vanished in a blinding flash of light. The other Stinger had vanished, somewhere. Edward formed a mental picture of it flying upwards until it acquired one of the orbiting alien craft, but he had to admit that it was unlikely. It was relatively easy to avoid a MANPAD if the aircraft stayed high in the sky.

Alien warriors loomed up in front of him as they charged out of the base, desperate to drive the humans back as mortar shells started impacting the rear of the city. Edward took aim and fired, blasting two of them down before the others started returning fire. In the confusion, it seemed hard for both sides to coordinate their operations; he saw a pair of alien warriors running towards him before they were gunned down, their comrades starting to fall back to more defensible positions in the complex. Blue-light lightning left spots dancing in front of his eyes as the aliens sprayed fire, seemingly at random. Unlike human weapons, theirs made ‘spray and pray’ a valid tactic. No one had ever observed one of their weapons running out of ammunition.

Another explosion billowed up from the city as the mortar shells hit something that detonated when they struck it. Edward cursed as he saw the alien warriors taking up position in a building that looked like a half-melted burger made of plastic, sniping back at the humans through the exposed windows. He barked orders and the resistance fighters launched grenades into the building, sweeping the alien warriors out of existence. The explosions shattered the building, sending it crashing down into rubble. He caught sight of a honeycomb like structure before it fell apart. It reminded him of a beehive ...

... Or an anthill, he thought, as the aliens fell back. They seemed more inclined to bleed the humans than actually stop them, although it was impossible to be sure what they had in mind. All that really mattered was that the fighting was being driven away from where the human captives were being kept. They had to break them out. He glanced upwards as another alien craft scythed overhead, bolts of brilliant light sweeping the mountainside, but ignoring the humans in the alien base. They had to be worried about accidentally calling fire down on their own position.

“Group one, keep driving the aliens back,” he barked, hoping that they could hear him over the racket. They couldn't use their radios any longer, not when they would have advertised their presence for the aliens to come kill them. “Group two, with me!”

The eeriness of the alien city reached out to touch him as they advanced down towards the heart of the complex. Edward had fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, where the culture had produced radically different buildings to America, but the alien city was a nightmare. Everywhere he looked, he was reminded of the inhuman nature of its designers; the doors that seemed more for children than grown men, the complete lack of decoration or street signs ... part of him just wanted to turn and run.

But there was no time to waste.

“This way,” he ordered. The sound of shooting was growing louder as the resistance pushed its offensive. “We have to get them out of here before it's too late.”

Chapter Thirty-Three

Alien Base, Near Casper, Wyoming, USA

Day 238

Dolly started awake as she heard the sound of shooting. It was a sound she had become intimately familiar with, during the battle for Chicago, but she hadn’t heard it since she’d become an alien captive. She'd dared to dream of rescue, yet she had realised that wherever they were, it was very secure. It was even possible that they were on another world.

But the sound of shooting was unmistakable.

Somehow, staggering slightly under the weight of the baby in her womb, Dolly stood up and headed towards the door. If the resistance was attacking, it would be a good opportunity to escape and flee as far as she could from the aliens. And if she was cut down as she fled ... somehow, the thought didn't seem to bother her very much. Maybe it was the drugs, but still ... survival no longer seemed a concern, not really.

Outside, she heard the sounds of panic from some of the other girls. From chatting to them, during her more lucid moments, she had discovered that none of them had any background in fighting. They’d never been in any real danger, either, until the aliens had arrived. Some of them seemed to have adapted quickly to their new status as brood mares, seeming almost relieved that the aliens had a use for them. Dolly shook her head in disgust and staggered away, heading down towards the garden. They could save themselves, if they realised the danger in time.

***

Edward barely saw the alien workers before they came lunging out of the shadows and threw themselves on the advancing humans. The tiny creatures had never fought before, as far as he knew; they tended to make themselves scarce as soon as the shooting started, leaving the warriors to fight to defend them from harm. This group, however, fought; he barely managed to fend one of them off before another sent him flying backwards with a punch he felt even though the body armour. The alien workers were strong.

He lifted his rifle as the worker advanced on him, cyborg claw clicking menacingly, and shot the alien through the head. It’s oversized dome shattered as the bullet struck it, sending it falling backwards to the ground. Edward shot two more in quick succession, rallying his own forces before advancing into the garden. If the workers had been armed, he realised suddenly, they would have wiped him and the rest of the force out before they reached their destination.

They crashed through the alien garden, shooting down another pair of worker drones who had hidden in the plants, waiting for a chance to dive out and attack the humans. According to their intelligence, the breeding complex was the building dead ahead, although it was hard to be sure. The alien complex was just too alien. Shaking his head, he kicked down the door and jumped inside, searching for possible threats. There was nothing in the corridor, but a handful of doors.

“Get them open,” he barked, as he tore at the first door. “Hurry!”

Surprisingly, it opened at once; he’d expected it to be locked. Inside, there was a black-skinned girl who appeared to be midway through pregnancy, staring up at them with fear in her eyes. The quarters were so drab and bare that he had difficulty in believing that the girl was anything but a prisoner. Surely, she would have wanted something other than momentous grey walls.

“We’re here to take you out of here,” he said, reaching for the girl’s arm. She drew back, clearly unable to speak. “Don’t worry; we’ll get you to a proper hospital ...”

The girl hesitated, then stumbled forward. She was naked under the sheets, Edward realised; there was no sign of anything she could use as clothing. Cursing, he ripped the sheet free and passed it to her, motioning for her to use it to wrap herself in and provide some protection from the elements. He took a long look at her belly, wondering just what was growing in there, then pulled her towards the door. Outside, where the sound of shooting was louder, the girl flinched backwards. She was frightened half to death.

And she might have been implanted too, Edward reminded himself. There was no logical reason for the aliens to bother implanting the humans they’d selected as brood mares, but they might just have decided that controlling them might be useful when the time came to take the children away. But the girl had been in the complex longer than the new brand of Walking Dead had been in existence, hadn't she? It was impossible to know.

He gently pushed the girl towards the garden, where a handful of other girls were waiting. Several more refused to leave, even at gunpoint; Edward briefly considered taking them by force, then dismissed the thought. They didn't have time to flee the combat zone while carrying unwilling captives. The girls who didn't want to flee would have to take their chances with the alien warriors when they surged forward and recovered the base.

There was a blinding flash from outside, followed by an explosion so loud that Edward felt his ears ringing for moments afterwards and a earthquake that shook the entire base. One of the MADPAD teams had downed another alien craft, he realised, and it had plummeted right into the base itself. Flames were now spreading through the complex, threatening to cut the resistance fighters off from their lines of retreat. At least the complex would have been crippled and most of the alien doctors would have been killed. The orders from higher up the resistance food chain had been very clear. They were to kill as many of the alien doctors as possible.

“Start pulling out of the city,” he ordered, briskly. The soldiers might have to carry the girls, if there was no other choice. “And keep the girls moving!”

***

Dolly flinched as she ran into the soldiers, experiencing flashbacks to the moment she had been captured by the Arab soldiers the aliens had used as expendable. They’d raped her, repeatedly, before they’d dumped her into a POW camp, expecting the aliens to dispose of her in short order. Instead, they’d turned her into a brood mare ... she held up her hands, hoping the newcomers wouldn't shoot her on sight. What would they do if they knew she was carrying an alien baby?

“This way,” one of them said, gruffly. “Keep your head down and do as you’re told.”

He passed her a sheet, which she wrapped around herself gratefully. She hadn't really cared about modesty while she’d been a prisoner, but now being naked bothered her. The sound of shooting was growing louder and louder; she walked in the direction they indicated and found herself back in the garden with the other girls, several of whom were clearly in shock. They were staring at the flames tearing the complex apart, melting it down into scrap. The alien base would take years to repair, she hoped.

“All right,” someone barked. There was a note of command in it strong enough to make her stand to attention and listen. “I want you to head down this street and straight up into the mountains. There are people there ready to grab you and keep you moving in the right direction. Don’t worry about anything you hear or see behind you; just keep moving.”

Dolly had to bite her lip to keep from laughing. Two alien craft were swooping high over head, flames were consuming the city and – it seemed – half of the mountainside and she could hear both human and alien weapons spitting out fire behind her. And he thought that they weren't to worry about it? She couldn't help thinking about one of the fighters drawing a bead on her back and blowing her into the next world.

“Move,” the man snapped. “Go!”

The girls started to run. Dolly winced as she realised that she was barefooted and unable to do anything, but run, despite the growing pain in her feet as she ran over uneven ground and the rubble of alien installations. She almost slipped and threw up as she realised that she’d trodden on what remained of a dead body, then smiled darkly as she saw that it was one of the creepy little worker aliens. The little bastard’s head had been almost completely shattered by a human bullet.

Several of the girls were complaining, loudly. The soldiers slapped at their bottoms to force them to run faster, despite the pain. Dolly yelped as one of them slapped her and ran faster, gritting her teeth against the pain. The world seemed to narrow down to the building buildings and the mountains, illuminated by the flare hanging high overhead. She staggered, feeling the baby kick again, wondering suddenly if she was about to give birth. The thought almost brought her to a halt ...

... And then she concentrated on running as fast as she could.

***

“Everyone’s out who’s coming out,” Corporal Pollack reported. “Sergeant?”

Edward nodded, sharply. “Start pulling back now,” he ordered. Two alien warriors showed themselves and he fired at them, but they jumped back and managed to evade the shots. The other warriors, he suspected, would be working their way around, trying to surround the humans before they could escape. They had to leave before the trap slammed shut. “And then call Group Three. I want as much covering fire laid down as possible.”

The soldiers started to move back, firing shots behind them to discourage pursuit. Given enough time, Edward would have left booby traps behind to prevent the aliens from coming after them without taking casualties, but there was no time. Instead, a handful of mortar shells cracked down, one coming alarmingly close to their position. The aliens had to be taking cover against incoming fire.

He gritted his teeth as they moved back down the streets, keeping a close eye out for additional aliens. The burning buildings had to be forcing them to leave, unless they’d already pulled out and retreated towards the rear of the city. But then one of their own craft had landed right on top of them. Who knew what the aliens were thinking right now?

There was a crash as a line of alien warriors appeared to one side, trying to ambush the humans before they could escape. Edward levelled his rifle and fired back, forcing them to dive for cover; the humans ran before the aliens could collect themselves. They ran outside the complex, past the remains of the guardpost, and headed back towards the mountains. A handful of aliens gave chase, but the snipers picked them off before they could run the humans down. Edward smiled to himself as they ran up the hidden path, steering well away from the flames burning brightly on the mountainside. The aliens seemed to have tried to burn the snipers out of their nests. It hadn't worked very well.

He paused and looked back towards the alien complex, fighting an urge to let out a war whoop as he saw the devastation. A good two-thirds of the base was on fire, burning so savagely that Edward doubted that anything could be done to prevent the flames from destroying the buildings utterly. The remainder of the base might be salvaged, if the aliens managed to dump water on the flames before it was too late. Or started knocking down buildings to provide a makeshift firebreak. Half of the mountain seemed to be on fire; several alien craft had been shot down during the attack and they’d crashed amid the trees. One way or another, the aliens were going to have real problems rebuilding the base.

High overhead, he saw alien craft circling, clearly unsure of what to do. In their place, he would have harassed the retreating insurgents, but they had to be feeling wary after they’d lost so many craft to MANPADs. Instead, the aliens seemed inclined to watch and see if they could track the insurgents back to their lair. Edward smiled, darkly, as he turned away from the glowing flames and started to walk back to the RV point. Let them try.

***

Dolly had lost all sensation in her feet by the time someone barked an order to halt. She stopped – and staggered as the pain suddenly blasted through her mind, as if she’d blocked it out long enough to survive. Her feet were cut and bleeding, covered in mud and alien blood and other liquids she didn't want to even think about, raising the very real danger of infection. The aliens had assured the human race, if she recalled correctly, that there was no danger of an alien disease moving from their bodies and attacking humanity, but there was no way to be sure. Besides, even if she didn't catch an alien disease, there were plenty of other infections she could catch through running barefooted through the countryside.

Someone pushed a metal can into her hand and she sipped gratefully, her eyes going wide as she tasted canned coffee. It had been too long since she’d been able to drink any coffee, even though she’d preferred hot coffee to cold. Now, it tasted like manna from heaven.

“Dear God,” a voice said. The speaker sounded rather flabbergasted. “You’re all pregnant.”

“You knew that,” a rougher voice said. “Or weren't you paying attention at the briefing.”

Dolly looked around. The men who had rescued them looked rougher than the insurgents who had fought like mad bastards in Chicago, but that didn't mean that they were bad people. They were clearly military, like many of the leaders from the doomed city – and there was pity, not hatred, in their eyes. Several of the girls seemed almost more frightened of them than they were of the aliens, something Dolly found easy to understand. Several women in Chicago who had lain down with collaborators had been tarred and feathered by their outraged neighbours. And they’d been the lucky ones.

“Yes,” she said, slowly. “We're all pregnant.” She hesitated. “How long has it been since Chicago fell?”

The two men exchanged glances. “Two and a half months,” the older one said, finally. “They took you from Chicago?”

“I killed one of the alien leaders,” Dolly said. She’d never dared admit to that in the alien base, not when it might well have convinced the aliens to kill her. “And then they captured me ...”

“Dolly,” the man said. “Oh, the Sergeant is going to be pleased to see you.”

Dolly felt her legs buckle underneath her. Two and a half months since the fall of the city? Maybe it had been a little longer ... although she was sure that the city wouldn't have been able to hold out for long after her capture. The aliens had simply been pushing in too hard, hammering the resistance whenever they tried to make a stand. And in two and a half months she’d somehow brought a baby to the very edge of birth? What had they done to her?

“Don’t worry about it,” the man said, as he caught her. “We’ll get you somewhere safe.”

Dolly shook her head, despite the despair that threatened to overwhelm her. There was nowhere safe, not now. The aliens had done something to her and she doubted that they’d just let her go. Which of the lights in the sky were alien craft, peering down at her from high overhead? The thought tormented her for a long moment ... and then she slid down into darkness.

***

“I’m not an expert on pregnancy,” the corpsman explained, crossly, “but I honestly don’t understand what happened to any of them.”

Edward nodded, slowly. Marine medics had had to deliver children before, but they didn't have the equipment with them to handle complications. Or, for that matter, to discover just what was growing inside Dolly’s womb. Edward was no expert either, but he did know that babies didn't grow that fast, no matter what the mother did. Dolly should, logically, have been pregnant before the aliens closed their ring of steel around Chicago, in which case she would have been smuggled out of the city along with the other pregnant women.

And she wasn't even the most extreme case. One girl had been there for barely two weeks; she’d been taken from Mannington, back when the town had been emptied and then destroyed. And she looked to be at least five months pregnant. Edward couldn't help wondering just what growing so rapidly would do to the children, if they were normal human children. He'd once read a book where a girl had grown up while sleeping in suspended animation and she hadn't been prepared for the hormones of her adult body. She’d been a child in the body of a grown woman.

“We move them to the clinics,” he said. Setting up emergency medical clinics had been difficult – they hadn't wanted to risk exposing more of their infrastructure than they could avoid exposing – but there was no choice. There was some proper equipment there and they could round up a few midwives if necessary. “And we can examine them properly there.”

The corpsman caught his arm. “Sergeant,” he said, slowly, “these kids aren’t human.”

Edward nodded, impatiently.

“It might be in our best interests,” the corpsman said, “not to let them be born.”

“Oh,” Edward said, darkly. “Are you suggesting that we abort them? In their current state of development?”

“We have no idea of what is going to come out of their wombs,” the corpsman said. “It’s like that Star Trek episode where the counsellor got knocked up by an incorporeal entity and had a baby ...”

“I would have thought that V was the better example,” Edward said, although he had to admit that the series had never lived up to its promise. “But these are kids. We are not going to kill them.”

The corpsman leaned forward. “Even if they’re monsters?”

Edward had no answer.

Chapter Thirty-Four

Safe House, Texas, USA

Day 239

“Those babies are definitely not human,” Jane said.

Alex nodded, wishing he knew more about medicine. He’d taken basic First Aid because it might be useful, but he had never wanted to go into a medical career. Although, looking at the images, he wasn't sure if a vet wouldn't be more useful than a standard doctor.

“The head is oversized, for a start,” Jane continued. “There may be something odd about the brain too, but this equipment isn't good for a look inside without actually cutting the poor woman open and pulling the child out. The rest of the child’s body seems to be more normal, apart from some of the bones; I’d actually say that this child had more bones than the average human being. There are other oddities around the eye and facial structure as well.”

She shook her head. “Overall, I think we’re looking at a genetically-modified human rather than a human-alien hybrid, but we won’t know for sure until we have a chance to test the baby’s DNA properly. That won’t be possible until after the mother gives birth.

“I don’t know how they accelerated the child’s growth so rapidly either,” she continued, softly. “There were theoretical studies on speeding up pregnancy, but none of them ever came to anything; quite apart from the ethical dimensions of experimenting on human children, the most promising theory suggested that the children would continue to age rapidly after they were born. They’d have a lifespan of ten years, at best.”

Alex shuddered “Like that little girl alien from Star Trek?”

“Just like her,” Jane agreed. She snorted, rudely. “Although the producers obviously didn't think through the implications very well. If her race can only have one child at one time in their lives, they’re going to die out sooner rather than later. A population of ten would become a population of five, then two, then one ... and that would be the end.

“In this case, there’s no way to tell if whatever accelerated the baby’s growth will continue to function after their birth,” she admitted. “From the files we obtained on alien society, even the worker caste live for at least seventy years on average. There’s no reason to believe that they would create a set of engineered humans who lived much shorter lives.”

“Unless they intend to have a constant replacement,” Alex muttered. “How long will it be until the kids mature?”

“I believe that there is another question,” Colonel Juanita Seguin said. The woman didn't look very professional, certainly not a senior officer in the Texas National Guard, but there was no mistaking the snap of authority in her voice. Besides, looking professional these days was asking for attention from the Order Police. “Are these children actually dangerous?”

Jane’s lips thinned noticeably. “It’s hard to imagine that they pose any actual threat,” she said, sharply. “They’re babies in the womb!”

“Who will pop out in a few days, at best,” Juanita said, sharply. “At that point ... what will they be capable of doing?”

“They’re kids,” Jane said. “A human baby is perhaps the most helpless creature in all of creation. Without an adult, or even an older kid, to take care of them, they die – quickly.”

“But that wasn't true of the kids from Village of the Damned,” Alex said, softly. “They had mind control powers that made people do ...stuff.”

“That was a movie,” Jane snapped, giving him a look that promised trouble later. “There is absolutely no reason to assume that these kids are dangerous.”

Juanita held up a hand. “Really? What if they carry a disease that is immediately fatal to the rest of the human race?”

“The aliens could have produced a disease and distributed it on our planet a long time before they introduced themselves to us,” Jane snapped. “I don’t think, Colonel, that you appreciate what the aliens have done here, or what they have created.”

She pointed a finger towards the x-ray. “At the very least, they have created an new strain of humanity, something far ... stranger than a mixed-blood child,” she snapped. “And they have done it again and again; we pulled thirty girls out of that base and they all have the same kind of child growing in their womb. The level of expertise in genetic modification that shows is far beyond anything we have managed to produce. Dear God, if we had those capabilities, we could eradicate most of the world’s diseases once and for all.

“Or they might have successfully mixed DNA from two very different biological systems together,” she continued. “Do you understand that it is impossible for us to breed naturally with chimpanzees, our closest living relatives in the natural world? And those are tiny differences compared to the vast gulf that separates us from the aliens. If the aliens have somehow managed to bridge that gap, they’d done something that we always considered flatly impossible.

“If extermination was their goal, Colonel,” she hissed, “they could have produced something extremely lethal and sprayed it all over the Earth by now. It would have been easy to produce a disease that took a year to take effect, while becoming contagious almost at once. And then the entire human race would just have ... dropped dead. That would have been the end and they wouldn't have needed to risk a single life to do it.”

She shook her head, firmly. “I don’t believe that these kids are dangerous, at least not at birth,” she concluded. “I just think that we should try to learn from them instead of condemning them out of hand.”

“I have a question,” Alex said, before Juanita could say a word in response. “If these babies have oversized heads, can the mothers give birth naturally?”

“I’m not sure,” Jane admitted. “Sometimes children come out feet first and that tends to cause complications; in theory, at least, there should be no reason why the womb can’t stretch wide enough to allow the child to be born. However, I think we will need medical teams on standby to intervene, just in case.”

“Organising that might be difficult,” Juanita pointed out. “The aliens will certainly be hunting for the lost girls, once they get over the shock at having their base so thoroughly devastated.”

Alex nodded, knowing that the raid had achieved two of its objectives; the girls had been recovered and the alien doctors had been killed, allowing the alien rebels to fudge the question of what had happened to Theta. The alien doctor was currently hidden in yet another bunker and, assuming that the Rogue Leaders believed that he’d been among the dead, they were unlikely to start looking for him. But there was no way to know what else might have leaked out of Area 52’s unwitting spy before the aliens attacked.

“There’s also the issue of the girls themselves,” Juanita added. “Do they want to keep the children?”

Jane winced. “Some of them were demanding abortions,” she admitted. “The doctors on site had to tell her that they had gone too far to abort the kids safely. Now the drugs have worn off ...”

Alex had wondered how the girls had adapted so calmly to being alien brood mares. It was clear, now, that the aliens had drugged them with something that kept them calm, easily suggestible and obscured their sense of time passing. Quite a few of the girls had acted more like witless animals when they’d been rescued, unable to believe that the world had changed so radically within a few short seconds. And then, when the drugs had finally started to wear off, the full horror of their situation had dawned on them.

“It isn't as if they had a one-night stand and got pregnant,” he said, slowly. “They were raped, to all intents and purposes, and they’re now carrying their attacker’s baby ...”

Jane slapped the table. “This is not the time for a debate on abortion,” she said, firmly. “Right now, the babies – whatever they may be – are too far along to abort without causing major health complications. Even if they weren’t ... we should balance the rights of the mothers with the understanding that we could learn a great deal from these children ...”

“Or maybe we should just kill them the moment they emerge,” Juanita said, softly. She held up a hand as Jane rounded on her. “Look, I understand the plight of those poor girls – and I understand why you might want to study the children, just to see what the aliens actually did to create them. But the fact that I can't wrap my head around the concept of a threat posed by little children doesn't mean that there isn’t a threat. We should take every possible precaution. Assume we’re dealing with a biohazard and work from there.”

She looked over at Jane. “Apart from being pregnant,” she asked, “how are the mothers?”

“They’re in reasonably good health,” Jane said. “The aliens treated them well – we think that some of them actually got proper medical assistance from them. Several of the girls had past injuries that didn't show up when we examined them; one of them, in particular, had a plate in her arm after she broke her wrist. That plate is now gone.”

Alex leaned forward. “How the hell did they do that?”

“Good question,” Jane said. “As far as we can tell, the arm is in perfect shape, as good as new. How they did it? Nanites, we assume. I don’t think anything else could have fixed it so perfectly.”

She stared down at the x-ray for a long moment. “Mentally, however, most of them are in poor shape,” she continued. “They’re all pregnant, which plays marry hell with hormones at the best of times, and they were, as you say, effectively rape victims. Some of them have had to be placed on suicide watch; one of them managed to slit her wrists before she was caught and hastily bandaged up by the guards. Another was about to try to cut her womb open ... overall, if we could, I would recommend abortion. They might well have been better off with human rapists.”

Juanita lifted her eyebrows. “Oh?”

“There are two sorts of deliberate rapist,” Jane explained, dryly. “The first one merely wants sex; he would be delighted if the girl enjoyed herself too, but his priority is enjoying himself. At worst, as far as he is concerned, the girl is nothing more than a blow-up doll. But the second type gets off on pain and suffering. He wants the girl to suffer, so he can enjoy himself properly. It wouldn't please him if his victim just submitted at once. He wants to beat the resistance out of her personally.

“But the aliens treated their captives as ... tools,” she added. “There was no empathy, not even the twisted form indulged by the most warped rapists in existence. The girls were impregnated against the will by monsters, creatures who weren't even human. And they were so drugged that resistance was futile.

“People respond differently to rape. In this case, the horror of effectively carrying a rapist’s child is blurred with the realisation that they did absolutely nothing to resist and that they were – and still are – effectively helpless. I expect that there will be more disturbances to come; some of them may reject the children completely, while others will try to hurt or kill them ... both behaviours are not uncommon among rape victims.

“The only odd point here is that none of the girls shy away from men,” she concluded. “It is far from uncommon for a rape victim to unconsciously blame all men for her experience, even though cold logic would suggest otherwise. They flinch away from any expression of masculinity, no matter how harmless. However, these girls show no sign of being more than moderately worried by the presence of the soldiers on the base. There is much interesting research into psychology to be done here.”

Juanita didn't smile. “You think that happened because it was the aliens who impregnated them?”

“It isn't impossible,” Jane agreed. “There have been cases where women were raped by other women – those victims don’t flinch away from women so much. It seems to reverse itself, however, where male-on-male rape is concerned. Men seem more inclined to flinch away from their fellows after rape ...”

“Thank you,” Alex said, quickly. “I didn't want to know that, really.”

Jane smirked. “You’re welcome.”

“That leaves us with one question,” Juanita said, smoothly. “Do we risk allowing the babies to be born, or do we simply kill them and take what care we can of the mothers?”

“I think we need to study them,” Jane said. “And besides, they are innocents. They are not guilty of any of the crimes carried out by the rest of their race. We cannot hold them to account for those crimes.”

“Very well,” Juanita said. “I will so advise the resistance high command.”

She swept out of the room, leaving Alex and Jane alone.

“I’ll run the question of just what they were trying to do past Theta,” Jane said, once the door had clicked shut. “He might have some insights into just what they intend for their new babies.”

Alex shook his head. “Assuming the Rogue Leaders told him what they had in mind,” he said. “I don’t think they told their doctors everything.”

Jane nodded. “Do you remember when they offered us cures for diseases and suchlike, back before the war started in earnest? They could have won all kinds of friends if they’d simply taken their time to worm their way into our society, rather than starting a war.”

“I remember,” Alex said. “That sort of information was way too revealing.”

And it had also been a quiet threat, he’d realised at the time. Anyone who could produce a workable cure for AIDS, or Cancer, or Bird Flu could also produce a virulent disease that could wipe out the human race. And it had also suggested that many of the stories about alien abduction might have had some basis in fact. The existence of the alien base in Antarctica had more than proven that when the war began openly. They’d discovered hundreds of abducted and imprisoned humans there.

“I keep thinking about the promise of their technology,” Jane said. “I don’t think they know the half of it, not from what Theta says. Can you imagine what it would be like to have a cure for Down’s Syndrome? Or all those other problems that come from living in the wrong place, breathing in the wrong air? Or what if we were to ensure that everyone had the same skin colour, all the time? Or stronger, more resistant to disease? We could reshape the world!”

“Or destroy it,” Alex said. Science-fiction had showcased both the promise and terror of genetic engineering. He’d devoured those books avidly when he had been a child. Now, he spent his days combing through alien invasion novels and films, looking for insights. “And God alone knows what the children will really be like.”

“We’ll find out soon, I think,” Jane said. “According to the midwives, at least three of the girls will be giving birth within the week. They don't know for sure when, because of the child’s odd growth rate, but it will happen. Doctors are standing by ...”

She looked over at Alex. “I should go there,” she said. “They’re going to need me.”

Alex understood the impulse, but shook his head. “Jane ...”

“This is a unique event,” Jane insisted. “I should go.”

“You know too much to risk being captured,” Alex pointed out. “Right now, the bastards know that we used the truckers to move people from state to state and they’re raiding them, looking for evidence of resistance connections. We cannot risk slipping you into a truck and then having them pick you up.”

“I could pose as a driver,” Jane said. “Or as a passenger ...”

“You’d need permission to leave your state to be a passenger,” Alex reminded her, “and you wouldn't have the papers to show them. And you couldn't pretend to be a driver, I think. Or a driver’s escort. They’d know you were trying to fool them and then the shit would hit the fan. Besides, even if the aliens didn't see you, the bandits might.”

He scowled. Texas – all of the southern states – was a battleground these days, a problem not made any easier by the panic the nuke had caused. Thousands upon thousands of people had tried to flee, breaking through the Order Police lines and heading in all directions. Most of them, Alex knew, would die in the desert. A lucky handful might be rounded up and placed in the alien camps.

You know the world has gone to shit when the best thing people can hope for is a concentration camp, he thought, sourly. What’s going to happen when the next hurricane hits Florida? Or New Orleans?

“No,” he said, flatly. “And I’m sure that the Colonel would say the same thing. It’s far too dangerous to try to get you up north in time for the babies to be born. There are plenty of midwives and doctors there already. You’ll have full access to the live feed and everything ...”

“But it won’t be the same,” Jane snapped. She glared at him, then stamped towards the door. “I’ll propose a list of procedures for them. You can make sure they’re followed.”

Alex watched her go, feeling a twinge of sympathy. He would have hated to be excluded from something he found interesting too, even if his presence wasn't strictly necessary. But there was no choice. Jane simply knew too much to risk allowing her to fall into alien hands.

And if they turned her into an unwitting spy, he thought, glumly, she could show them everything.

Chapter Thirty-Five

South Wyoming, USA

Day 241

“Well,” a southern voice asked. “You’re going to have a baby, my dear. How does that make you feel?”

Dolly opened her eyes to see an incredibly fat woman with dark skin and a big smile leaning over her bed, one hand holding a medical device Dolly didn't recognise.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I just don’t know.”

The first day had been almost tranquil as the drugs worked their way out of her body, allowing her to sleep and rest normally. On the second day ... she’d realised, truly realised, what they’d done to her and she’d screamed and cursed, demanding help, demanding that they tear the baby out of her womb and destroy it, before slumping back onto the bed in a dead faint. She’d woken up on the third day to discover that she’d been strapped to the bed, with a nurse waiting to explain that it was far too late to abort the child. Reluctantly, Dolly had agreed to give birth ... and then let them take the child away from her.

But she felt odd. Part of her wanted to keep the child, even though it was quite possible that she was nothing more than a host mother for an alien children. It was unlikely, the doctors said, that there was anything of her in the baby. And yet she felt a certain love for the child in her womb. Perhaps she would have felt the same way if she’d given birth under alien supervision or perhaps they would just have kept drugging her until she forgot the first child and thought herself perpetually pregnant. From what the doctors had said, some of the drugs the aliens had fed their captives were nasty.

“That’s normal, my dear,” the woman assured her. “I remember being all worried about my Aggie. Would having her ruin my life as it had already ruined my figure? Would that worthless deadbeat who had knocked me up ever shape into a good and decent father for my child? But when she was born, I held her in my arms and knew that she was mine.”

She winked, mischievously. “That’s our little advantage over the men,” she added. “They can never know that the child is really theirs, but we know ... because we carried the child in our womb for nine months ...”

“Thank you,” Dolly said, tartly. Anger and shame fought for dominance in her mind. Anger won. “You have the bedside manner of a ...”

She stopped, unable to think of something awful enough.

“Clap-ridden whore?” The woman asked. “Politician bent on grabbing a few more votes?”

She laughed, not unkindly. “At least you’re fighting back, child,” she added. “Some of the others have just been ... broken by the experience.”

Dolly sagged, feeling grief threatening to overcome her. She hadn't put anything into the child. There was no assurance that she had actually carried her husband or boyfriend’s child, no secret amusement at fostering a child from a brief affair outside the family ... just the awareness that she had been turned into a host mother for an alien child. But it was almost over and then ....

She looked down at the bulge in her stomach and, beyond it, the cuts and scars on her feet. The doctors had told her that she’d lost a great deal of weight and muscle tone while she’d been an alien prisoner, the effect of some of their drugs. But she could get it all back, she told herself, and then go hunting the aliens again. The resistance already knew her to be a capable sniper and even if her hands didn't stop shaking, they could surely find something else for her to do. Even if it was just hewing wood and drawing water to free someone else up to fight.

Her entire body jerked as the baby kicked. “I think you don’t have much longer to wait,” the woman said. She smiled, suddenly. “I wish your family could come here, but we couldn't get in touch with them. Sergeant Tanaka did offer to come sit with you, if you would like ...”

Dolly flushed, remembering the short sparkplug who’d commended her for shooting an alien leader, and then commended her again on escaping the alien base. She barely knew him, yet he was the closest thing to a friend she had in the hidden clinic. And it was nice of him to stick around to take care of the girls.

“Yes, please,” she whispered, suddenly feeling very tired. The baby kicked again, harder this time. “I think he wants out.”

“Definitely a boy, then,” the woman said. She grinned and extended a hand. “My name is Shanna, a midwife of fifteen years experience. I’ll take care of you.”

Dolly must have drifted off, for the next thing she knew was that she was in an operating room. A handful of lights glared down at her naked body from high overhead, while a handful of shadowy figures stood around her bed. She shuddered, feeling panic bubbling up inside her; their presence was far too like the aliens as they’d poked and prodded at her body, impregnating her with their spawn. Had she really escaped or had she imagined it? Maybe one of the drugs had made her delusional ...

A hand took her hand and squeezed, gently. “Bring up the lights,” a gruff voice ordered. “You’re scaring her.”

The room brightened, revealing that the shadowy figures were human doctors wearing masks that covered their entire faces. Dolly opened her mouth to ask if they were worried about disease, but a stab of pain from her womb distracted her. She clung on to the hand she was offered for dear life as a second stab followed ...

“Hold on,” someone said. “Everything seems to be going just fine.”

Dolly screamed as another burst of pain threatened to force her into the darkness. If this was what giving birth was like, how could she ever face it again? How could any woman have anything more than one child? Or was it the alien child? The doctors hadn't said anything about what it looked like, but she’d seen their faces and clearly there was something wrong with the child. But what? The next burst of pain forced her entire body to convulse ...

“Get the straps,” someone ordered. “And then inject her ...”

“No needles,” Dolly managed to say through the pain. “No needles ...”

“Don’t worry,” a soothing voice said. “They’re taking good care of you.”

Dolly convulsed, her body twisting so badly that she was half-convinced that she’d snapped her own spine. A moment later, there was a prick in her arm; they’d injected her with something, she realised, just before a faintly inhuman calm settled over her. They strapped her hands to the edge of the table, pinning her in place ... and it didn’t bother her at all.

“I’m sorry,” the voice said. “It will all be over soon.”

***

Edward shuddered as he watched the doctors working on Dolly’s womb. Seeing the girl like that was bad enough, but he had a nasty feeling that half of the doctors were more interested in what came out of her body rather than protecting the girl herself. Behind them, a pair of armed soldiers carried M16s and flamethrowers, ready to eradicate everything in the room if the shit really did hit the fan. It made him think that someone had been watching Alien too many times.

He recoiled as the first flow of liquid oozed out of Dolly’s vagina, bringing with it a ghastly abnormal stench that reminded him of fighting in Iraq’s less well-developed cities. Judging by what the doctors were saying, that wasn't even remotely normal; they hastily cleared the liquid away from her, moving it into sample bags for later analysis. Edward looked back at the girl’s face and realised that she had slipped into a dazed state where none of this was actually happening. He just hoped that it lasted long enough to keep her from feeling anything as she gave birth.

“I see the head,” one of the doctors announced. “It's coming out, right and proper.”

Edward stood upright and watched, grimly, as the baby’s head started to make its way out of the girl’s womb. There was no trace of hair on its head – he couldn't recall if that was normal for a baby or not – but it stopped, moments after it had started to emerge. Dolly’s body shuddered as she tried to push the baby out, yet nothing happened. Edward realised, to his horror, that the baby’s head was too big to escape the womb. And how long would it be before it suffocated to death?

One of the doctors leaned forward, holding a knife. Edward looked away, horrified. He’d seen battlefield medicine, but this was something different, something that sickened him right to the core of his being. Dolly’s entire body seemed to jerk, then make one final push. The baby appeared between her legs, followed rapidly by a piece of ugly blue flesh that seemed to be ridden with green specks. He had no idea if that was normal or something that the aliens had included. The doctor bent forward again and cut it away from the child, then picked it up and dropped it in another sample bag.

The baby started to gasp for breath, then cry. One of the midwives picked up the child, very gently, and patted him on the back. Edward stared, unable to quite believe his eyes; he’d known that the baby’s head was larger than any normal human head, but he hadn't realised just how large it was. It was bigger than the baby’s chest; the nose was tiny, almost like a button, while the eyes were large and dark. Alien eyes, he realised, and shuddered. What had they done to the child?

Medics surrounded Dolly, one injecting her with a sedative while the others worked frantically on her womb. The blood was still flowing freely, Edward saw; if they didn't manage to sew her up, blood loss would kill her as surely as a shot to the head. Her face was twisted with bitter pain and relief, even though she’d been sedated. He couldn't help wondering if she would ever want to face her own child.

But he isn't her child, he said, looking back at the baby. The midwife was washing him gently, removing the blood from his pale skin. There was definitely a penis between his legs, Edward noted, but it looked odd. The midwife didn't say anything, so he assumed that was normal for human children too. But she did look rather pale.

A doctor caught his arm. “We’re going to be moving her into a recovery room,” he said. “We’ve done all we can for her now; we just need to let her have time to heal up and recover from the abuse those bastards heaped on her. I’ve delivered babies by c-section before, but this was worse. I don’t think that any of the others are going to be able to give birth without medical assistance.”

Edward shuddered. He’d wondered if some of the other girls, the ones who hadn't come with them, had fled into the mountainside on their own. The aliens might just have hunted them down – God knew they’d spent the last few days sweeping the area with a fine-toothed comb – or they might have found shelter elsewhere. But without proper medical attention, they would die when the time came to give birth.

“They want them dependent upon medical aid,” he said, slowly. “Do you think that some of the babies will be female?”

“Some of them definitely are,” the doctor said, as a pair of orderlies pushed Dolly’s bed into the next room. “But I don’t know if they can give birth without medical assistance either.”

Edward shuddered. He’d heard of humans who had given birth in the wild – hell, until humans had realised what germs actually were, every childbirth was risky to both mother and child. Pompey the Great, for all of his vast wealth and power, hadn't been able to save his wife from an infection that had killed both her and her child. These days, there were parts of America where childbirth was hazardous once again.

But if the hybrid females couldn't give birth without medical assistance, what did that mean?

Control, he thought, numbly. They want control over the birthing process.

On deployment, he’d read a series of books about a very inhospitable world, where the ruling power had kept control by occupying the places where women could give birth to children safely. If the alien hybrids needed medical attention to survive giving birth, they’d have a stake in society beyond the obvious. No doubt the aliens had assumed that there wouldn't be any independent human medical centres for much longer.

I can just imagine one of them trying to use a hospital controlled by the collaborators, he thought, as he followed the trolley into the next room. They’d be handed over to the aliens at once.

Oddly, the thought made him hopeful. If they felt that they needed to keep the hybrids under control, it suggested that they weren't as confident of dominating them as they seemed. And that meant ... he had no idea, but it was something to pass up the chain. Maybe someone smarter would have a better idea of how it could be turned to humanity’s advantage.

***

Dolly opened her eyes, dazed.

Her body felt ... tired, as if she had run a long race, but there was no pain. Wonderingly, she reached down towards her chest and touched the folds of skin that remained after she had given birth. Part of her thought that they looked ugly, as if she'd lost weight too fast for her own safety, part of her was merely relieved to have given birth at last. And then she tried to sit upright and discovered that there was a heavy series of bandages and tubes wrapped around her waist.

“Welcome back to the world,” Edward Tanaka said. “How are you feeling?”

“Funny,” Dolly admitted. One of her arms had a tube stuck in it too, she realised suddenly. “What happened to me?”

There was a long pause. “There were ... complications,” Tanaka said, finally. “I’m not sure that I know exactly what happened ...”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Shanna’s voice said. The overweight midwife marched into the room and sat down at the end of the bed. “Don’t scare the child. She isn't so ignorant of what happened to her.”

Dolly scowled at her. “So,” she said. “What did happen to me?”

“The baby’s head was too large to get out without medical intervention,” Shanna said, briskly. “They cut into your skin to widen the gap, allowing the child to be pulled out without further complications. After that, they drugged you so that they could repair the damage as best as they could.”

She nodded towards the bandages. “You should be fine,” she added, “but we’d really prefer you to have several months to rest and recuperate. And try not to get pregnant for another year or so.”

Dolly shuddered. “I don’t think that would be possible,” she said, looking at the bandages. “What are the tubes for?”

“Piss and shit,” Shanna said, dryly. “We need you to stay as still as possible. Don’t worry, we have a rich selection of DVDs and we can bring you a laptop, if you would prefer. The only thing missing is an internet connection.”

“Naturally,” Dolly said. She hesitated, then asked the question she hadn't wanted to ask. “My baby?”

“Is currently being held in the ward,” Shanna said. “Don’t worry, we are taking good care of the little tyke, but we’re not quite sure what to do with him in the long run. The doctors who analysed the placenta said that there were quite a few alien genetic markers in the blood. God alone knows what that means in the long run.

“And then there’s the head,” she added. “Do you know that a baby’s skull is normally soft and that it takes several days to harden? This child was born with a hard skull. On the other hand, his emotional development seems to be normal ...”

“Bring him to me,” Dolly said.

Shanna hesitated. “You do realise that ...”

“Bring him to me,” Dolly snapped. “He’s my child. Or is he?”

“We’re not sure what, if anything, you contributed,” Shanna admitted. “Normally, we would be able to run a paternity test at once, but his genetic code is a little scrambled ...”

She broke off as Tanaka laid a hand on her arm. “Nurse, Dolly gave birth to the child,” he said. “He’s hers, as much as he is anyone’s. And I don’t think you can ask the other partners to come and visit him in the ward.”

Shanna gave Dolly a long look, then stood up. “I’ll ask the doctors,” she said, shortly. “And see what they have to say.”

Dolly watched her waddle off, then looked over at Tanaka. “Will they let her bring the child in here?”

“Perhaps,” Tanaka said. He frowned, thoughtfully. “Most of the fears of airborne infection were proved to be groundless. Even so ...”

It was nearly thirty minutes before Shanna returned, accompanied by several doctors and a pair of armed guards. Dolly barely noticed the guards; she only had eyes for the child in the basket, the child who looked up at her with dark alien eyes. And yet the flesh tone was very human ...

“A hybrid, it would seem,” Tanaka said. He seemed equally fascinated by the child. “What are you going to call him?”

Dolly hesitated. “Matthew,” she said, finally. “My grandfather was called Matthew.”

One of the doctors snorted. “You can't take ... Matthew home and introduce him to your parents,” he said. “He’s ...”

“He’s my child,” Dolly said tartly, “and I will thank you to take that into account.”

Chapter Thirty-Six

Washington DC, USA

Day 242

The aliens must be pleased about something, Nicolas thought, as he wandered through Washington’s suburbs. They’ve gone and turned the power back on.

He pushed the thought aside as he approached the building the local resistance had turned into a link to the sewer system, checking the surrounding area to ensure that he was unobserved. Not that it might have mattered; if merely human technology could allow a drone to monitor a single human from high overhead, he didn't want to think about what alien technology could do. But there were other reasons to be careful this time, apart from the obvious. The local resistance was far too closely linked to the criminal underground – and, through them, to the collaborator government.

It hadn't been hard to ferret out the connections at all, once he'd known to start looking; indeed, Joe and his friends hadn't really been trying to hide them. They’d claimed, when he’d asked, that the connections helped them monitor how the aliens were acting, but they definitely seemed more involved with distributing drugs, operating protection rackets and making life on the streets more miserable than necessary for the helpless population of Washington. Indeed, they’d even helped the aliens to confiscate weapons, claiming that they intended to use them against the occupiers at a later date. Nicolas suspected that they really wanted to keep the population helpless. It was harder to extort money from people when they were armed and ready to fight.

He tapped on the door as instructed and waited. An eye winked at the peephole, then the door was pulled open and he was yanked inside by a large Chinese man with a tattoo covering his eyes. Nicolas heard the sound of feminine giggling from upstairs as the guard frisked him, not unkindly, then growled a command in his ear, demanding the password.

“Woody,” Nicolas said.

It was a stupid password for a whorehouse, but he supposed it made a certain kind of sense. The resistance operated a dozen such buildings in their part of Washington, ranging from quick liaisons with girls for fifty bucks to more elaborate arrangements, where the price was negotiated in advance. Apparently, there was also no shortage of demand for young women to go work in the Green Zone, something the resistance had taken advantage of in the past, before part of the leadership had become criminal. Reading between the lines, Nicolas suspected that quite a few of the girls ended up dead, or dispatched to camps where the Order Police used them until they were all used up.

The guard released him at once, then led him down a long corridor and into a large room. It was decorated in a style that suggested over a hundred years in the past, perhaps from the South during the civil war. A handful of French Postcards hung on one wall; back then, they would have been considered pornography, but now they were just laughable when compared to internet porn. He looked over at a large fancy sofa and wondered, absently, what sort of person demanded their sex on it. It didn't look strong enough to hold two people even when they were only cuddling.

“This way,” the guard muttered, as he pushed the dresser to one side, revealing a hatch in the floor. He pulled it open and shone a torch down inside. “They’re on their way.”

Nicolas wrinkled his nose as he smelt the sewers far below. “Is this place safe?”

The guard snorted. “Yes, and it has facilities for washing too,” he said. “They’re going to need them.”

Nicolas broke into a smile as Brad McIntyre’s head appeared out of the hatch, looking around carefully. McIntyre had worked with him before, during operations in Pakistan and the Middle East; he knew he could trust him and his team. The other resistance fighters swiftly followed, then ropes were lowered to allow them to lift up several heavy backpacks. Nicolas allowed his smile to widen as he saw the weapons. Apparently, the local resistance had no mortars or MANPADs left.

“God, you stink,” he said, when he spied Rufus Dudley. “What the hell happened to you?”

“Fell in the shit,” the Force Recon Marine muttered. “But I’m all right.”

“And to think we got rid of Shit Pond in Afghanistan,” Nicolas grinned, even though he wanted to gag at the smell. “Where are the showers?”

The guard was holding his nose and keeping his mouth firmly closed, but he managed to point them towards the showers at the end of the corridor. Thankfully, the local resistance had also agreed to provide fresh clothes. There was some ribbing as Dudley pulled off his clothes and dived into the shower, but not as much as Nicolas had expected. The march through the sewers would have affected all of them.

“Clothes in the next room,” he said, as Dudley scrubbed himself down vigorously. “And don’t worry, the smell will go away.”

He listened to Dudley’s stream of obscenities with something reassembling pleasure, then watched as the backpacks of weapons were unpacked and transferred into smaller containers for transfer through Washington. By the time they were done, most of the newcomers were clean and dressed; he tossed them copies of the identification papers Karen had produced for them and watched as they went through them, piece by piece. The only thing lacking was fingerprints or genetic data.

“Don’t get caught by the Walking Dead,” he said, as he briefed them. “You can probably bribe the Order Police, but the Walking Dead will take you into custody quicker than you can say a word. They’re the ones who will check your fingerprints and suchlike, so if they catch you ... your only choice is to fight and run. Those of you who were on the ground in Yemen may recall how many precautions we had to take. This is going to be much worse.”

And they may have copies of our secure databases, he thought, grimly. No one had ever expected Washington to be overrun by an enemy force, so it was quite possible that the emergency procedures to destroy sensitive files – including ones identifying SF personnel – had failed, allowing the aliens to capture the documents intact. If so, they would have plenty of ways to identify possible resistance ringleaders – and catch them, if they ever ran their fingerprints or genetic codes against a central database.

“Now,” he said, once they were ready, “time to move.”

The local resistance had been annoyed at how little information they’d been given on the true purpose of the team Nicolas had summoned. Joe had demanded, angrily, that they consult with him before launching any operation, just to make sure that they didn't step on his toes. Or so he had claimed; Nicolas suspected that the real reason was to give him a chance to decide if he should allow the operation to go ahead, or if he should betray them to the aliens. It had been too much of a risk allowing him anywhere near General Howery ...

Nicolas waited until they were outside the building, then led them down towards the warehouse Joe used as his nexus of operations. It was right next to a surprisingly luxurious motel, although it was clear from Nicolas’s first explorations that it was really mainly used for housing the more upmarket whores rather than Joe and his innermost cronies. Joe probably didn’t want to look too wealthy or it might arouse suspicions, either in the minds of his own people or in those of the outside resistance organisation. Or, for that matter, in collaborator minds. They might see what Joe had and decide to take it.

“That’s the building,” he said, shortly. “Is everyone clear on the first part of the mission?”

There were nods. They’d been briefed on the outside, after Nicolas had sent an encrypted report back to the resistance leadership. Their first priority wasn't to make contact with the infiltrators in the Green Zone, or to raid the alien positions, but to deal with the criminal gang pretending to be a resistance unit. Nicolas had been in Iraq during the Sunni Awakening and he knew – as did Oldham and his other superiors – that the terrorists had turned into criminals so vile that the Sunnis had turned around and joined the Americans. Had the aliens tolerated Joe and his gang, he wondered, because they soured the image of the resistance? It didn't seem like an alien scheme, but it was possible that one of their collaborators might have thought of it.

“Good,” he said. He drew the baton from his belt and held it upright. “Hit hard, hit fast ... but we want as many of them alive as possible. And we don’t want attention, so only use guns if there is no other choice. Remember, most of these guys are street thugs who push around defenceless women and children. Let's show them what we can do.”

He smiled at their expressions, then turned and led the way towards the warehouse door. It was locked, but a few seconds with a lockpick opened it, allowing him to lead the way inside. Two guards, playing cards rather than watching the door, turned to stare at him as he entered, then grabbed for their pistols. It was far too late; Nicolas knocked the first one down with a hard blow to the head, while Dudley took out the second with a hard kick to the chest. They stepped over the stunned bodies and advanced into the warehouse itself.

Joe had been busy, Nicolas realised, as they tore through the man’s guards and workers. Some of them were probably slaves, in all but name; there was no time to stop and check before they struck. Besides, Stockholm Syndrome had been known to affect prisoners as well as hostages. Some of them might fight for their captors rather than for the people trying to free them.

They ran up the stairs and into a small set of offices. Joe was in the largest one, desperately fumbling with his phone while a girl cowered in the corner; Nicolas threw his baton, shattering the phone, and advanced on Joe with slow, menacing steps. The resistance leader opened his mouth, but no words came out. Nicolas growled in rage at the horror and fear in the man’s eyes, then slapped him down hard. Joe sprawled on the floor, blood leaking from his mouth.

“I think you broke his jaw,” Brett Holmes said. The corpsman eyed the former resistance leader with some interest. “You want me to try to fix him up?”

“Tie him to a chair first,” Nicolas said. “And then you can let me know how hard I can hit him to get some answers.”

He turned and walked out of the office, onto the balcony that allowed the managers to survey their empire. Joe had definitely been busy; the interior of the warehouse was crammed with precious goods, including a handful of items he recognised from the Smithsonian. Right now, the remaining members of Joe’s gang were being dragged into the warehouse, secured and left to lie there until Nicolas could decide what to do with them. Normally, hostages and other innocents would be shipped somewhere where they could be cared for properly, but that wasn't an option now.

“Hell of a mess,” Dudley said, carrying a long-haired girl past him. “They had several poor bitches in that room, just waiting for the call. I could get to dislike these guys, boss.”

“Me too,” Nicolas said. He turned and went back into the office. Joe was looking up at him, his eyes still fearful. “Let’s talk, shall we?”

“You’re not resistance,” Joe said, quickly. “You’re ...”

“Can the crap,” Nicolas snapped. After everything he’d seen, he wanted to snap Joe’s head with his bare hands. “You were trusted to continue to fight, or at least make preparations for a future insurgency. Instead, you make buddies with the collaborators and criminals and turned your group into a bunch of criminals too. And you betrayed your country. Do you know what we can do to you?”

Joe shuddered. The censored media hadn't carried any mention of what happened to collaborators who were captured by the resistance, but word had still spread widely. Everyone agreed that the Walking Dead were not responsible for their own actions, yet that didn't apply to real collaborators. A number turned up dead every week, often killed in a whole series of inventive ways. It didn't seem to deter others from joining up, but at least they weren't always the most intelligent of humans ...

Maybe some of them have an excuse, Nicolas thought, remembering the reports from Saudi Arabia. The guest workers – slaves, in all but name – had been the most loyal collaborators the aliens could have hoped for. But Joe has none.

“I have a number of questions,” he continued, drawing his knife and pressing it to the collaborator’s throat. “You are going to answer them. If I think you’re lying to me, I will cut you somewhere delicate. But if you answer all of my questions without delay, I will let you go afterwards.”

Joe stared at him, then nodded slowly. He had to know that Nicolas was lying, that he had no intention of letting Joe just walk off into the sunset, but it was the only hope he had of any kind of survival. The aliens wouldn't be interested in saving him, even if they burst in before Nicolas started cutting. They’d consider him expendable now that his cover as a resistance member in good standing was thoroughly blown.

“All right,” Nicolas said. “Question number one ...”

It was nearly an hour before he stepped back and surveyed Joe, feeling the urge – once again – to simply cut the bastard’s throat. He hadn't really grasped just how far Joe had spread his criminal network, both by working with the collaborators and muscling his competitors around – or, in one case, betraying them to the aliens. Joe controlled nearly a third of every criminal operation in Washington DC, as well as a small army of private thugs much larger than the men he’d declared to be part of the resistance. And, with his links to the collaborators, he could have done a great deal more to help the cause than reluctantly helping Nicolas to enter the city.

Very good thing he doesn't know about Karen or Howery, he though, grimly. How could someone commit treason on such a scale? Even Benedict Arnold had had a better reason to betray his country.

“All right, boss,” McIntyre said. “What do you want us to do with them?”

Nicolas walked back outside and stared down at the bound criminals. Some of them were nothing more than thugs, hired to keep their fellows in line. Others were very definitely whores, dragged into the motel and used to service visitors. None of them had deserved what had happened to them, had they? But there was nothing he could do about them ... he caught sight of a girl who reminded him of his ex-wife and shuddered. No, she was not a criminal and she didn't deserve to suffer.

He considered, briefly, trying to get them out of Washington. But it would be impossible, he suspected; even if they could all be forced through the sewers, there would be no place to hide them without some prior arrangements. On the other hand, some of the whores might well know more than they let on. His time at BUD/S had included a series of harrowing tales about security breaches by young men who’d picked up girls in bars, unaware that they had been carefully singled out for such attention. And then there was the young soldier who had fallen asleep in a whorehouse in Panama and woken up to find himself handcuffed to the bed.

And some of the others might be useful ...

“Talk to them,” he ordered. “Sort out the ones who are prepared to work for us from the ones who aren't, then move the latter down to the basement and secure them there. We can dispose of them if necessary. No one would notice a few more bodies lying around the place.”

Once, that would have horrified him. He’d never understood why the Iraqis had been content to leave dead bodies – both belonging to insurgents and people who got caught in the crossfire – lying on the ground, but it wasn't something he shared. Indeed, dead bodies spread disease; he was no expert on medicine and even he knew that. Now, he found it hard to care. So many people had died in Washington that rumour had it that parts of the Potomac had become red with blood. And they were collaborators and parasites and monsters ...

He saw a young man struggling as two of the soldiers picked him up, reading his story almost effortlessly. Born in a ghetto to a single mother, with no decent male father figure in his life ... and with none of the education that might have given him a pathway out to a better life. Instead, he’d joined the gangs, wasting his life ... and he would still have wasted it, even if the aliens had invaded Earth. A single bullet at the wrong time would have cut his life short, if he didn't wind up arrested, or took a drug that killed him.

Poor bastard, he thought. Military discipline might have made something of him, but he hadn't even had the motivation or courage to try. Now, at best, he would be a prisoner until Washington was liberated. At worst ... the resistance would kill him. What a waste of a life.

He shook his head, then walked back to study Joe. They’d take over his contacts and string them along long enough to get his force into position. And then they would retake Washington DC or die trying.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Washington DC, USA

Day 242

“This room should be safe,” Howery said, as Karen closed the door behind her. “I have given orders that no one is to disturb us.”

Karen nodded, relaxing slightly. “And any ... bugs?”

“There were none, as far as I can tell,” Howery said. “I checked very carefully and found nothing. I’d prefer to talk elsewhere, but time isn't exactly on our side.”

“I know,” Karen said, eyeing Howery carefully. Her resistance contact had warned her that some of the ex-Walking Dead broke down, or had emotional storms at the worst possible moments ... and either one would be far too revealing. If the aliens happened to take a careful look at Howery’s brain, they'd know that someone had managed to free him from their bondage. “How are you feeling?”

“Like I’ve had a stroke,” Howery admitted. He glared down at his hands. “Or like I am permanently on the verge of throwing a tantrum if I don’t get my way in every detail. Do you think that’s normal?”

“Only for a five-year-old kid,” Karen said, although she was more worried that she wanted to let on. Some of the others had shown the same symptoms. “But you had your emotions bound up for so long. They have to come bubbling out of you now.”

“No doubt,” Howery said. He gave her an oddly twisted look; it took her a moment to realise that he was trying to smile, but his face was still largely immobile. “But I shall keep myself under control.”

He shuddered, slightly. “I better had,” he added. “I had to supervise the interrogation of a number of prisoners taken from Wyoming yesterday. None of them were willing to talk until the aliens started manipulating their brains. I think they’re getting better at it all the time. They were inducing pain and pleasure upon command.”

Karen blinked. “Torture?”

“Or brainwashing,” Howery said. “Given enough time, they would have those poor bastards twisted around their little fingers, without ever having to use implants. I don’t know if that sort of tampering would even be noticeable afterwards ... God knew the Russians experimented a lot with brainwashing during the Cold War. I just don’t know how far they actually managed to get before the war ended.”

Howery’s fingers touched his face, lightly. “We’re being ordered to prepare several regiments of Order Police for travel overseas,” he explained. “Apparently, our Lords and Masters are reaching the limits of what they can do with warrior manpower – which, by the way, is something no one without an implant is supposed to know. The warriors will be largely reserved for shock troops, while the main body of the occupation force for Britain will be made up of Order Policemen. Plenty of them will die ...”

Karen saw another implication. “And relationships between British and American resistance fighters will suffer,” she said.

“Almost certainly,” Howery agreed. “We had problems making friends with the Iraqi troops when so many of them had family and friends on the other side. Even when the poor guys were completely vetted they still had to suffer the weight of our mistrust. Now, with the Order Police serving as an occupation force, it will be harder for the Brits to trust us – and vice versa. No doubt they’d round up a few thousand Brits to occupy us too.”

“Bastards,” Karen said. She hesitated. A few regiments sounded like plenty of manpower, but compared to the requirements it was tiny. “Are they not expecting much resistance?”

“I think they’re expecting Britain to get thoroughly banged up by the invasion and occupation,” Howery admitted. “From their point of view, smashing Britain down just gives them more time to build up their own positions – once they deal with Russia, of course. The last great human power will have to fall afterwards. And then there won’t be much left to slow them down, but resistance fighters. And you know what they’re doing now.”

Karen shivered. A day after the successful attack on the alien complex in Wyoming – which had somehow gone utterly unmentioned on the alien-controlled news channels – the aliens had forced the refugee camps further away from their bases and settlements. Millions of people, already displaced once, had been displaced again, completely without warning. From what she’d read on the internet, the aliens had tightened security around their complexes to the point where anyone who went within a mile or two of them was taking his life in his hands. They’d done the same in the Middle East and Africa, the reports had added; even some of their collaborators had been displaced to give their cities a zone of security. Repeating that attack might prove tricky.

“I know,” she said, softly.

“The troops will be ready for dispatch within the week,” Howery continued, briskly. “They’re going to be gathering at various airports, where they will be loaded into captured jumbo jets for the flight across the Atlantic, once the aliens secure a foothold on the British mainland. For some reason, they’re not considered important enough to fly on alien craft. For several weeks, Order Police forces in the US will be drawn down ...”

They shared a long look. “However, they are still running additional patrols,” Howery added, “and trying to intimidate everyone into believing that they’re stronger than they actually are. Fairly standard trick; one of them must have actually read the manual. Or a good military novel.”

Or was one of the Walking Dead, Karen thought, grimly.

“I downloaded a complete copy of their planned deployments for the next two weeks,” Howery explained, passing her a USB stick. “They’re not good at reacting to unpleasant surprises and there will be fewer warriors backing them up, so we may be able to take advantage of it in a few cunning ways. On the other hand, they will also be thoroughly paranoid. Warn your contracts to take that into account.”

“Thank you,” Karen said, taking the USB stick and hiding it in her belt. “And Washington itself?”

“There’s a copy of every Order Police base on the stick,” Howery assured her. “But I don’t have access to the alien deployments themselves, not completely. What I do have is also on the chip, but there may be surprises ... unlike the Order Policemen, the warriors seem willing to change their tactics and positions every second day. Damn bastards are born with martial talents.”

Karen frowned, thoughtfully. “Do you think that is actually true?”

Howery shrugged. “I’ve seen some families produce great soldiers for several generations,” he said. “Back when I was in the army, I knew someone who had an unbroken line of soldiers that had started somewhere back during the days of Robert the Bruce. In Scotland” – he added, seeing her puzzlement – “back before America was more than a vague rumour across the horizon. But I honestly don’t know if it was hereditary or environment that shaped his family.

“But the warriors definitely seem almost designed to fight,” he mused. “Just like super-soldiers from a science-fiction movie, complete with massive strength and endurance. If they didn't have some limits, I might believe that they had been engineered right from scratch.”

He shook his head. “I’ve also discovered that the aliens keep two of their command ships far up north, near the North Pole,” he added. “That’s where they fly their fighter craft from for this part of the world. The third seems to be in the Middle East, which makes sense; they’re currently expanding their settlements there as fast as possible. Unfortunately, there are no hard figures on just how many fighter and transport craft they have left. They don’t share that information with anyone, even the Walking Dead. What little I do have is on the stick.”

“Thank you,” Karen said. She’d spied in the heart of Washington ever since the city had fallen, but she couldn’t imagine the kind of courage it took to continue posing as one of the Walking Dead. “How are you feeling?”

Howery hesitated, then stroked the side of his face. “How do I look?”

“Cold,” Karen said, slowly. “Just like one of the Walking Dead.”

“I have no feeling here at all,” Howery said. “I poke my chin and feel nothing. Other parts of my body seem to have no feeling at all; other parts seem to just feel too much. And I feel naked even though I’m not.”

Karen nodded in understanding. The thought that someone – everyone – knew her secret had kept her frozen from time to time, even though cold logic told her that if they knew what she’d been doing, they would have taken her in and implanted her by now. She couldn't understand how a spy could remain in place, day after day, when he could just run for his life. The stresses of being a spy would eventually overwhelm him, just as they were threatening to overwhelm her.

“I have to listen to the inanities of the collaborators and cold orders from the aliens, when they can be bothered to intervene,” he continued, standing up. “One of them bows before me and trembles when I speak, the other considers me little more than a useful object. The only person I can hold a normal conversation with is you.”

“The Walking Dead don’t converse,” Karen observed, feeling an odd twinge of unease. “And we can only talk here because it’s safe ...”

“I know,” Howery said, as he stopped in front of her. “But it’s a fucking nightmare.”

He bent down and kissed her before she could react, then stepped backwards. “I felt nothing,” he said, sourly. “I want you – or anyone – and yet I feel nothing.”

Karen swallowed, unsure of what to say or do. Unlike many of the other assistants, she’d never been called upon to share her body with her superiors – but then, the thought of Daisy wanting anything other than power was absurd. Maybe Daisy would have slept with her superior if it had gotten her one step closer to power ...

“I’m sorry,” Howery said. His voice was almost completely toneless, barely hiding a hint of shame and regret. “I ... I lost control, just for a second.”

“It’s alright,” Karen told him. She’d been warned of some of the possible after-effects of being an alien slave, controlled by an implant that had suddenly been deactivated. “You don’t have to worry.”

But that wasn't true, was it? The Walking Dead had no sexual feelings at all. No one had ever managed to seduce one, even though the internet was overloaded with stories of those who had tried. Howery, on the other hand, was coping with the sudden release of desires and lusts the aliens had kept firmly bound up inside him. What if he tried to seduce someone else? They’d know that something was badly wrong.

She hesitated, torn between the desire to get out and the conviction that she might have to sleep with him, if only to preserve his sanity. There was a shower in the next compartment, she could wash up properly ... and even if she didn't, it was hardly unknown for the collaborators to summon their assistants for sexual gratification. Karen had been lucky; if she hadn't been Daisy’s assistant, she suspected she would have been forced into someone’s bed by now. And yet, if anyone realised that it had been Howery she’d slept with ...

“Go,” Howery said, pushing her away. “We’ll talk later. I promise.”

Karen took a long look at him, then left the room.

***

Dave gritted his teeth as the door closed behind her, breaking the view of her ass in the tight little skirt her superior had made her wear. He should never have let it get so close to absolute disaster, but his emotions had driven him onwards. It had only been when he’d felt – without really feeling – her lips against his that he'd regained control. And even then it had been a close-run thing.

He locked the door and marched into the next compartment, pulling off his uniform and dumping it and his underwear on the chair. The endless flood of sexual lusts had to be controlled, somehow. He’d been lucky that it had been Karen who’d been there, not one of the other girls. As sexy and winsome as they were, they weren't spies ... and they had superiors, all of whom would be very interested in an atypical Walking Dead. Dave didn't want to think about what one of the collaborators would do with the knowledge that the Walking Dead could be freed.

Cursing, he stepped into the shower and turned the water on, wincing slightly as a torrent of cold water washed the lusts away. It wouldn't last, he knew, but it should get him through the rest of the day. And then ...?

And then you hold on as long as you need to, he told himself, firmly. And after that you can think about finding a girl.

***

Karen managed not to jump as her contact stepped out of the shadows, but it was a very close-run thing.

“Good to see you,” he said, seriously. It was the same man who’d liberated Dave Howery from alien control, although he seemed to look older now. “Come with me.”

He led her into a tiny apartment, empty apart from a table, a pair of chairs and a small coffee pot. Karen wrinkled her nose as he poured her a cup of coffee; judging from the smell, it was actually cut with something to make it last longer. She’d heard stories of some experiments, most of which – according to the internet – ended in tummy aches and other problems. But right now she just needed something sour to drink.

“You probably don’t want to know what they put in it,” her contact said. “Some of the ... people here had quite a stockpile, but I had to leave it there for later use.”

Karen took a sip, grimaced at the taste, and then took another one. “We got the information you wanted,” she said, unsnapping her jeans. Her contact’s eyes went wide as her hand delved into her panties and emerged a moment later with the USB stick. She smiled and explained. “The Order Police frisk everyone who leaves the Green Zone, but I have enough clearance to keep them from poking too closely.”

“Oh,” her contact said, as he took the stick. “And what happens to everyone else?”

“It depends on how bored the guards are,” Karen admitted. She wouldn’t have come herself if she hadn't been asked to do so. “I’ve heard horror stories.”

“So have I,” her contact said. He scowled, then looked up at her, eyes alight with a strange expression. “Did you find the other piece of information I wanted?”

“It's on the stick,” Karen said. “A complete list of everyone who went into the Mannington Detention Camps nearby – and who was sent elsewhere, based on the alien criteria. I don't know why they wanted so many young women ...”

“You don’t want to know,” the contact said. “Just ... just try not to be captured. And if there is no other choice, kill yourself before they place you in restraints.”

Karen shivered at the tone in his voice.

“There was another ... problem, of sorts,” she said, slowly. “General Howery has largely managed to play the role of a Walking Dead man to perfection, but there have been some problems.”

She outlined everything that had happened in careful detail. “I don’t know how to handle it,” she concluded. “What do I do?”

“The other liberated Walking Dead have had similar problems, male and female alike,” her contact said, after a long moment. “Somehow, the aliens control their lusts ... which does, I am assured, make sense. Sexual desire can be a powerful force for shattering discipline and forming new relationships between people. Now, all of those lusts are released at once. The results may not be good.”

“The understatement of the millennium,” Karen said, coldly. “And how many others are in a position where any form of sexual activity will alert the aliens that something is dreadfully wrong?”

“None, as far as I know,” the man said. He looked oddly uncomfortable. “Do you like him?”

Karen couldn't help giggling. “Are you suggesting that I should sleep with him for the good of America?”

The man blushed and muttered something under his breath about Fallujah. “My daughter will probably kill me if she ever hears of this,” he said, after a moment. “But would you consider it?”

“Well ...” Karen sad, drawing it out as long as possible, “I suppose I could be talked into it.”

She shook her head, tiredly. “But even if I do sleep with him, we still run the risk of being detected,” she added. “The Walking Dead don’t have sex or rape ... hell, they literally don’t have the emotions and desires that drive such acts. Howery isn't Osborne or Adam or one of the other senior collaborators who call for a new girl every few hours, then go back to work as if nothing had happened. If someone notices us together ...

“I could say that I tried to seduce him,” she mused, “but that might get me in trouble anyway, just for trying to distract him from his work. And that wouldn’t explain all of the details. If I had one other ally in the upper levels ...”

Her contact frowned. “I can't tell you,” he reminded her. “What you don't know, you can't tell ...”

“I know that,” Karen snapped. “But some comfort would be nice.”

“You have my sympathy, for what it’s worth,” her contact said. “And my respect. And it isn't easy to impress someone like me.”

He cleared his throat. “I suggest that you be very careful,” he added. He held out a hand, which Karen took and squeezed gratefully. “One way or another, it will all be over soon.”

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Guthrie Castle, United Kingdom

Day 244

The Prime Minister looked exhausted, the President realised, as he was shown into the secure conference room underneath the castle. But that shouldn't have been a surprise; news of the alien ultimatum had broken only two days ago, despite the best efforts of the British Government. Right now, there was rioting on the streets and questions in Parliament as the British Government sought a solution that didn't involve humiliating surrender or being crushed by alien firepower. Nothing had presented itself, apart from a largely untried plan.

“There was a lot of argument in the House of Commons,” the Prime Minster said, sitting down in front of the President. “Several members of both parties who felt that they were kept out of negotiations formed a front with parties that weren't part of the Coalition and demanded answers – or at least a greater say in affairs. If the Leader of the Opposition had taken advantage of the situation to bolt ...”

The President nodded. One advantage the British Government had in wartime was the ruling party could form an alliance with its rivals, sharing power in exchange for guaranteeing political stability. It was something he’d often felt would be useful in America, certainly among the saner wings of both the Republican and Democratic Parties. Locking out the extremists on both sides might actually lead to some common sense. Unfortunately, as Britain also demonstrated, those left out in the cold could form alliances of their own.

“Overall, we’re determined to resist when the alien ultimatum runs out,” the Prime Minister added. “Not that we would have much chance to resist later, when the aliens present us with their next set of demands after we disarm.”

“Good,” the President said, although he wasn't sure if it was good. Ideally, Britain would have been left alone for much longer, long enough to build a genuine threat to the aliens. “And you have everything we could send you.”

“Not enough,” the Prime Minister said. “Dear God – I could strangle one of my predecessors if he hadn't been caught in the Middle East and lost somewhere in the fighting. We’re short on aircraft, short on ground-based missiles to defend our airbases, short on just about everything. At least we managed to talk the French into sending us some additional war material and aircraft – we had to trade some CAS aircraft for their fast jets.”

“To help the loyalists win their civil war,” the President observed. He had no idea what sort of France would come out of the fire; even if the French put down the remainder of the insurgency without further problems, the French economy was shattered, completely beyond repair. Spain, Greece and Italy were even worse off. “At least they sent something.”

“Yes,” the Prime Minister said. “But we need more than just something.”

The President nodded, ruefully. America had been able to soak up a great deal of damage before the alien mothership had arrived in orbit and ended the fighting. Britain was much smaller, with fewer facilities that could be turned to military purposes. The aliens would wear the British defences down, even if they did have a few nasty tricks up their sleeves for the attackers. And if the aliens pushed hard enough, the only plan for overall victory would collapse before it had even begun.

He glanced at the endless series of reports. Every day since the aliens had issued their ultimatum, there were reports of alien craft penetrating British airspace, evading air defence aircraft and coming close to the mainland. They’d been doing that ever since the fall of America, but they’d really stepped up the tempo over the last few days. The analysts suspected that they were trying to wear down the pilots and their aircraft before they actually had to go into battle. It wasn't a bad tactic, the President had to admit. Britain just didn't have the reserves to sustain a long war without outside assistance.

And there was little prospect of that, he knew. The United States was crushed, Canada and Australia were too far away to help and Europe was in ferment. The only power that might be able to help was Russia, but the Russians were being non-committal in the talks taking place in Moscow. With chaos spreading up from Central Asia, ever since NATO forces had been pulled out of Afghanistan completely, they might feel that they had too many problems elsewhere.

But they won’t exist at all in a few generations, he thought, feeling helpless rage burning through him. The alien-human hybrids prove that, if nothing else.

“They sent us an updated report from the facility studying the alien hybrids,” he said, grimly. “Did you have a chance to read it?”

The Prime Minister scowled. “Yes – and showed it to a handful of the War Cabinet,” he said. “None of them found it very encouraging.”

“It’s disastrous,” the President said. “Five children, so far - all clearly part alien.”

He pulled up the report and looked at it, reading the disastrous words. The children were not, according to the doctors, going to develop along standard human lines. For one thing, they’d said, their skulls didn't seem able to expand properly. If their brains grew, like human brains, they would find themselves confined within a solid skull. The doctors had speculated that the brains were already fully developed, with the children only needing rudimentary education to learn how to talk, write and do maths. A minority opinion had warned that these were the first alien-human hybrids, as far as anyone knew, and that the process could have gone wrong. The President, who had read the reports from Antarctica, suspected that the aliens had already carried out their experiments before starting the process more openly. But there was no way to know.

There was also no way to know just how rapidly the children would develop in the future. The report stated that two of the children seemed to have far better hand-eye coordination than the other children – and far better than purely human children at the same age – while a third was actually starting to crawl already. At that rate, the President couldn't help wondering if they would be walking by the time they reached their first birthdays – assuming that they didn't grow so rapidly that they died young. But, once again, there was no way to know.

The detail that had bothered him most was that the hybrid reproductive system seemed to be far more mature than those of any purely human baby. While the doctors had hesitated to suggest when the female hybrids would be ready to produce children, the male hybrids were apparently already producing sperm. The President shuddered at the thought; their emotional development was likely to be badly stunted, even without adding early sexuality into the mix. And what sort of child would be produced, he asked himself, if the hybrids mated with normal humans?

“And to think that we were revolted when we heard about the Nazi experiments,” he muttered, out loud. “The aliens left them and the Japanese in the dust when it came to performing atrocities.”

“We do awful things to animals,” the Prime Minister pointed out, dryly. “In the name of science, we allow animal testing, testing we wouldn't carry out on a living human. And we already know that the aliens don’t think like us.”

“No, I suppose not,” the President said.

One of the more useful pieces of advice his predecessor had given him had been that regimes that were prepared to do awful things to their own populations would have no qualms about doing them to anyone else. The aliens, according to the alien rebels, had been meddling in their own evolution as soon as they realised that they could breed themselves like humans bred horses or dogs. Genetic engineering hadn't seemed quite so dangerous to them – and they’d considered someone acting like the Rogue Leaders to be unthinkable. It had taken a war that made World War Two look like a minor spat to teach them otherwise.

It was tempting to hope that someone else would be coming from the alien homeworld to bring the aliens to justice, but he knew better than to believe it. Even if the aliens back on their homeworld found out that the Rogue Leaders had escaped, it would be impossible to mount a mission to hunt them down and extract revenge, not unless the aliens had somehow improved their FTL drive. No, humanity and its allies had to win on their own. Besides, he would prefer to be in a stronger position when they encountered other aliens. And it would happen, he was sure.

“Which leads to a different question,” the Prime Minister said. “Do we let them live?”

The President hesitated. It had been debated by everyone in the know, ever since the first baby had been born successfully. Did the children represent a threat that had to be destroyed, or a boundless opportunity to expand the frontiers of human knowledge. God knew that studying the babies had already yielded enough data to fuel genuine, original science for hundreds of years of research. Destroying them would make it impossible to learn from them.

And yet ... who knew what sort of threat they might pose?

He’d read the reports carefully. Almost all of the mothers, after recovering from the ordeal of giving birth, had accepted their children, even if they were somewhat inhuman. Those who weren't host mothers had reported feeling repulsed by the babies, citing their oversized heads and weird alien eyes. And even if they had been able to overlook that, there was the fact that the babies were clearly developing rapidly. One nurse had had to be taken away after suffering a panic attack and claiming that the babies were monsters, all out to get her.

“I don’t know,” he admitted.

If they’d had total freedom of movement, he would have had the babies – and their mothers, if they’d wanted to go – moved to an isolated island, where they could be studied and, if necessary, destroyed. But they didn't have total freedom of movement ... and moving the babies would be a great deal harder than moving a single alien. They would just have to be held in the hidden medical clinic and studied as best as possible.

And deciding to wait was a choice too, of course.

“I don’t believe that the children, in and of themselves, pose a threat,” he said. “But it would be better to keep a close eye on them.”

The other reports made disquieting reading. Apparently, the alien hybrids would be immune to all human diseases – and, they assumed, alien diseases too. Their skins seemed to change colour automatically, darkening in response to bright sunlight and lightening when they were in darker rooms. They didn't seem to have any difficulty seeing in the dark; in fact, the doctors believed that they weren't really light-sensitive at all, not like humans. And they seemed to be stronger than the average baby already.

“They’ll be making more,” the Prime Minister agreed. “Advance warning of what they’re going to be like would probably be helpful.”

The President nodded. The last report from Mannington had noted that upwards of three hundred girls in the right age range to be turned into host mothers had been taken elsewhere, while there were countless other missing persons all across America – and, he assumed, everywhere else that had been occupied by the aliens. And now that the aliens had blanketed their facilities in heavy layers of security, it was unlikely that the resistance would be able to take them out. The aliens had definitely learned a lesson from the first attack.

“But that’s very much a secondary concern right now,” the Prime Minister said. “Have you made any preparations for the future?”

“Pepper and I discussed it,” the President said. “There’s nowhere to go.”

He scowled. Pepper claimed that the mere fact of his freedom was enough to inspire the resistance in America, but the truth was that he was becoming increasingly irrelevant. The resistance cell in Washington that had gone bad, he suspected, was merely the first crack in an edifice that had never been very secure in the first place. As the aliens deployed more and more Order Policemen, along with undetectable Walking Dead, the resistance was likely to melt away ... particularly as winter gripped the United States. The population might become so completely dependent upon alien supplies that the resistance would be smoked out.

Outside America, there were few safe places for the American President to go. Britain was about to be attacked, France was unlikely to play host to him ... the only safe place in Europe might be Switzerland, but the Swiss had their own problems. Part of him was just tempted to find a quiet place to spend the rest of his days, or take up a rifle and join the forces defending Britain. Or maybe going back to America and dying there.

“There’s always Ireland,” the Prime Minister pointed out. “Or Iceland.”

“Neither of which would be safe for me,” the President observed. “And apart from that, where could I go? Russia?”

They shared a smile. “I have to go to the bunker,” the Prime Minister said, softly. “The die is thoroughly cast.”

He held out a hand. The President shook it firmly.

“Thank you for everything,” he said. “And I’m sorry if this was my fault ...”

The Prime Minister snorted. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned in this job, it’s that apologising for things that are completely outside your control may make for good publicity, but also makes for lousy politics,” he said, stiffly. “Your only mistake was in concealing the existence of the first crashed ship – and that only delayed things by a few weeks. We still couldn’t have done anything to help when the United States came under attack.”

“I know,” the President said. “Good luck.”

“Your guards will help you go somewhere less ... noticeable if the aliens come here,” the Prime Minister said. “So far, we don’t know how they will react when they face the new weapons. They may choose to be more methodical than they were when facing your countrymen.”

***

The President found Pepper in the living room, curled up on the sofa watching a television program. There had been a time when he’d watched the BBC as often as he’d watched FOX or CNN, but all three of them had either gone off the air or had been radically changed since the aliens had landed. The BBC announcer was warning the population that alien attack might be expected at any moment and that they should take precautions, as set out by the government. Judging by some of the reported riots, the population didn't find his words very comforting. Neither did the President.

Europe had been used to thinking of the United States as invincible and untouchable. 9/11 hadn't shattered that illusion; they’d preferred to think of it as a freak incident rather than a serious threat. And it hadn't been, not really. Losing the Twin Towers had been a pinprick compared to the immensity of the United States. But the aliens had crushed the United States and thoroughly intimidated everyone else. No wonder, the President had to admit, that some voices were advocating surrender. If the United States couldn't stand up to the aliens, who else could hope to stop them?

Once, back when he'd been reading as much as he could on alien invasions in fiction, he’d read a book where the aliens had landed in France and marched eastwards, giving the United States time to plan a desperate defence against the aliens. In the end, the United States had stood alone. But that hadn't been realistic, not against a thinking enemy. Just because the aliens didn't think like humans didn't mean that they weren't capable of drawing understandable conclusions. Crushing the strongest human power had crippled humanity’s ability to resist them – and an accident of geography had made it even easier for them. They must have been delighted, the President thought, when they’d realised that America’s greatest strength was also its most dangerous weakness.

“There isn't going to be much time left,” Pepper said, softly. “The ultimatum runs out soon – and I don’t think they’re going to waste time before they attack.”

The President nodded. Reports from the hidden tracking stations had reported that one of the massive alien craft was starting to inch towards Britain. Thankfully, not even the aliens could make something that big move very quickly; it would take them several days to reach London. By then, their fighter craft would have punched their way through the British defences, clearing the way.

Hell of an intimidation tactic, he thought. But I would have thought that they’d learned better from what happened at Washington.

“I know,” he said, tiredly. Right now, he was just a spectator. “Did the resistance send any messages?”

“Just that the final stages of planning are still underway,” Pepper said. “It may be several days before they can act. And if they fail ...”

The President scowled. There were too many elements in the plan for his liking, a blatant violation of the KISS Principle. But there was no choice. If only the Russians were prepared to cooperate openly, if only the Chinese hadn't gone under, if only ...

He shook his head. There was no point in worrying over what might have been, not now.

“The latest news from Japan came in too,” Pepper added. “They’re moving south.”

“And so the world changes again,” the President muttered. The Japanese needed the raw materials in Indonesia to survive. Once, simply taking them would have been impossible. Now, the Japanese were acting – and the aliens weren't trying to stop them. “What sort of world will we have left when this is over?”

Pepper had no answer.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Over Britain, United Kingdom

Day 245

“Now this is real flying,” Philip said. “Who needs the space shuttle?”

There was a very feminine snort over the radio. “Apart from anyone who actually wants to see orbit?”

Philip rolled his eyes. It had been too long since he had been in a fighter cockpit, but between endless simulations and practice exercises in the air all of the old skills had come back to him. The scratch squadron of American exiles had been pushed hard by their superiors, both British and American. Everyone knew that the ultimatum was ticking down the last few seconds. It was why nearly a third of the combined air force was in the air and the remainder were on the runways, ready to take off at a moment’s notice.

“Yeah,” he agreed, as he rolled the F-16 over slightly. “I suppose that would do.”

He glanced down at his scope, showing the live feed from a pair of British E2 Sentry aircraft holding position over Scotland, their powerful radars scanning the skies for miles around. All civilian aircraft had been grounded, leaving the military the only people in the sky – as far as the equipment could tell. If the USAF had been able to spoof human radar sets, it was dangerous to assume that the aliens couldn't do the same. But then, it hardly mattered. The alien craft could form up over America and be over Britain seconds later.

It felt strange to be flying such an old aircraft, although the space shuttles had been older before the aliens had put the last of them out of service. He’d often wondered what, if anything, the aliens had pulled from the wreckage of the ISS, but their captors had been reluctant to discuss any such matters with him. Given their own technological powers, he’d wondered if they were just trying to be polite. The space shuttle had been a joke by purely human standards, let alone compared to a spacecraft the size of a city.

And you could die up here, far away from your country, he told himself. It wouldn’t be the first time volunteer American airmen had fought beside the RAF, but America hadn't been occupied back then. Part of his mind insisted that he should have gone to Canada instead, where he might have been able to join the RCAF. But that would have been too risky, he’d been told. You could die up here all alone.

The radio bleeped. “Alpha-one, Alpha-two, we have approximately nine contacts making their way towards you,” the flight controller said. “You are cleared to engage; I say again, you are cleared to engage.”

Philip grinned, nastily, as the alien craft closed in. Previously, from what he’d heard, the USAF had been unable to engage the aliens until they’d shown blatant signs of hostility, although that hadn't taken very long. Now, the human air forces had a hunting licence to engage the enemy as soon as they showed themselves. The only puzzle was why the aliens were coming in slowly, rather than fast enough to buzz past the human aircraft at escape velocity.

“Hold fire until you see the whites of their eyes,” he reminded the squadron, as they fell into a loose formation. It would have horrified their instructors back in America, but the only way to hold the line against the aliens was to dogfight. The pre-contact concept of engaging the enemy from as great a distance as possible was simply useless. It gave the aliens plenty of time to evade or shoot down the incoming missiles. “And evade as soon as you fire.”

The alien craft came closer. It seemed almost slow, even though he knew that the combined speed of the two forces was many times the speed of sound. He visualised the almond-shaped alien fighters in his mind, remembering the handful he’d seen in the alien hangers, then smiled as his missiles locked on to their targets. The alien craft were entering weapons range now ...

“Fox-Two,” he barked, pushing the trigger. “I say again, Fox-Two.”

The Fighting Falcon shook as a missile was launched from under its wing, heading right towards an alien craft. Seconds later, brilliant streaks of blue-white light flared through the sky as the aliens returned fire, raking through the atmosphere in the hopes of striking a human target through sheer weight of fire. Philip gritted his teeth – he would have loved a weapon like that, one that could be fired indefinitely – and threw the Falcon into a dive. A streak of light shot past his cockpit, close enough to nearly blind him, then vanished.

“Alphas, we verify that you have made two kills,” the flight controller said.

Philip ignored him, feeling gravity tearing at his body as he flung the Falcon around the sky. An alien craft materialised ahead of him, already spitting out fire; he launched another missile towards it and then flung his craft to one side. A blinding explosion flared out behind him as the missile struck the alien craft, destroying it. Moments later, he saw another F-16 vanish in a ball of fire. He depressed his triggers, firing his guns towards the alien killer, but saw the enemy craft vanish rather than explode.

“I can't shake the bastard,” someone snapped. Philip caught sight of an F-16 corkscrewing madly as an alien craft ruthlessly chased it down. “A little help here, perhaps?”

“On my way,” Philip said, twisting his own craft in hot pursuit. Normally, there was no point in trying to chase the alien craft, not when they could easily outrace any merely human aircraft. But this alien pilot wanted his kill. “Fly straight for a moment, would you?”

His targeting system chimed as the missile locked on to the alien craft. He pushed the trigger, watching as the missile lanced towards its target; the alien craft wobbled, then turned and fled, leaving its target alone. Philip found himself hoping that the missile would lock onto another alien craft, but he knew that it was unlikely. It was much more likely that the missile would simply lose power and fall into the sea, far below.

“Finally,” another pilot said. “Guns that work!”

“They’re gone,” a stunned voice said, moments later. “They’re just ... gone?”

Philip looked around. Five Falcons were gone – one pilot had managed to eject in time, her PLB squawking her position for search and rescue teams – but the skies were clear. The alien attack seemed to have ended as quickly as it had begun.

No, he realised, grimly. The live feed from the two AWACS aircraft told the whole story. They got tired of playing with us and went after bigger game.

***

“Get our personnel into the shelters,” Group Captain Sir William Gale ordered, as the air raid sirens started to howl. “Hurry!”

He scowled down at the live feed from the integrated air defence network. The aliens had started with a conventional attack on the outermost defenders, but they’d suddenly changed tactics and were now heading in towards the mainland – and the RAF’s fast-jet fighter bases. It was almost exactly what they’d done in America – and why not, seeing it had worked for them there. The RAF would be ground down, aircraft by aircraft, base by base, until it could no longer function. And then the aliens would move on to the next step.

There was no mistaking the data. RAF Lossiemouth was one of their first targets on the ground. Other craft were going after other fighter bases, or radar stations – they didn't seem to have realised that the RAF didn't need active radars to track them any longer. But no one had any illusions about how long that would last. The giant radar stations that protected British airspace wouldn't stand up to the aliens for long, even through air defence units had been deployed to protect them. And then it would be obvious that they were no longer required.

I wonder what they’ll do then, he asked himself. They can't track the passive sensors so easily.

Thankfully, most of their aircraft were already in the air or under shelters – although he had some doubts about how well the RAF’s concrete shelters would stand up to alien weapons. Fuel and ammunition stocks were well-shielded ... he shook his head, dismissing the worries he’d confronted ever since the war had begun. One way or another, they were about to find out just how good their precautions actually were.

“Sentry-five reports that the aliens are closing in on her position,” the flight controller said. “PJHQ is ordering her to evade.”

Sir William nodded, absently. The aliens would concentrate on the radar aircraft, which were protected by a swarm of Eurofighters and F-35s. It was funny how no one had ever really considered that a problem since the end of the Cold War. Afghanistan and Iraq had never managed to come close to an AWACS, let alone threaten to down one. But the aliens just came in to close range, blowing through the fighters assigned to defend the radar aircraft.

Their tech turns our former best practice against us, he thought, with grim admiration. We have to close with them to win and that gives them the advantage.

It was clear that the aliens had spent years studying the Earth, no doubt monitoring humanity’s wars and technological development. They’d had years to prepare themselves for the fight. The RAF had learned from what had happened to both America and Israel, but even with the new techs and concepts there were limits to how much could be deployed in time. Given a few years, things might have been different ...

“Colonel Anderson reports that the RAF Regiment is ready to defend the airfield,” his radio buzzed. “All non-essential personnel have been evacuated or moved to shelters.”

“Good,” Sir William said. “Turn that damn siren off. I don’t think we need it any longer.”

The alien craft were bare seconds away from the airfield, now that they’d left the American flyers hopelessly out of place over the ocean. There were additional patrols closer to the mainland, but he doubted that they could do more than fire a missile or two at the aliens in passing. Unless, of course, the aliens chose to dogfight with them. Facing an enemy who got to choose the time and place of an engagement was ... frustrating, to say the least.

But we know where they have to go, he told himself. There’s no other choice.

“And tell the Regiment that they are cleared to fire,” he added. They’d cleared the airspace directly above the airbase, just to ensure that the only targets that got shot at were alien craft. But accidents happened, particularly when there was only a second or two to decide if the trigger should be pulled. “They may engage at will.”

***

Corporal Carolyn Brume glared at the air defence system as though she could convince it to start showing targets by force of will. The system was new, shipped up from London when it had become clear that the balloon was about to go up – and naturally the boffins hadn’t worked all of the kinks out of the system. Like so many other pieces of high technology, it had refused to work properly when she’d turned it on ... which wouldn't have mattered so much if the aliens weren't on the verge of swooping down and reducing Lossiemouth to rubble.

“Come on, Carolyn,” Corporal James Plummer insisted. “I could have fixed a damn Rapier by now.”

“Not so much to go wrong on a Rapier,” Carolyn snapped back, finally giving into frustration and slapping the system as hard as she could. The screen flickered and came to life. “Hah!”

She smiled as the live feed from the passive sensors appeared on the display, just in time. Dozens of red icons were advancing towards the airbase with murderous intent, bobbling up and down as if they were riding along the crest of a wave – or, more likely, trying to evade fire from ground-based soldiers. Apart from untested devices like the Dalek – as some wag in R&D had dubbed it – there were pre-positioned missile launchers and RAF Regiment soldiers swaggering around with MANPADs, ready to engage their targets. It looked formidable and it would have been formidable, if their enemies were human. Instead, they had tech that gave them all kinds of advantages.

Her lips curled into a cold smile as she patted the Dalek. This piece of tech might give humans the advantage, if it worked as advertised.

“The system is online,” she said, as she clambered out of the vehicle. Automatics could handle most of the shooting now – and besides, as soon as the enemy located it, they’d make the Dalek a primary target. “I’ve got the controller with me.”

“Just in time,” Plummer snarled, as she heard the roar of missiles being launched in the distance. “They’re coming in now.”

Carolyn had seen the videos from America, where humans and aliens had first clashed, but none of them had conveyed the sight properly. A dozen alien craft were racing towards the base, blue-white streaks of light raining down towards the ground, ignoring or evading the missiles launched by the outermost defenders. Clearly, the idea of placing a Rapier missile launcher along the most likely approach route hadn't worked out against the aliens, even though it would have done well against a human enemy. The aliens didn't need to worry about fuel, or time in enemy airspace.

“Engaging now,” she said, as she keyed the remote control. She couldn't resist. “Exterminate!”

There was a snap-hiss from the Dalek as the first human-designed directed energy weapons system opened fire. The air seemed to glow for a long second – although she knew that it had to be little more than a microsecond – and her hair stood on end, before a single pulse of light shot out and struck one of the alien craft amidships. There was a colossal explosion and the alien craft tilted to one side, then fell out of the sky and crashed into the ground. Its companions scattered, clearly unsure of what had hit them. The Dalek didn't hesitate; it kept firing.

Carolyn smiled as she realised that the boffins had definitely got something right. Whatever the aliens did to keep their weapons stable, it slowed down the plasma and allowed humans and aircraft to actually dodge the blasts. The Dalek lacked that subtle touch; even an alien craft spinning around madly, had great difficulty in evading the blasts of light; two more were blasted out of the sky, a third exploded high overhead, so loudly that Carolyn was sure that windows had shattered for miles around. A fourth, ducking and weaving to avoid the pulses from the Dalek, ran right into a Stinger launched by a RAF Regiment soldier and staggered away, trailing smoke from its underside. Seconds later, it crashed down outside the base.

The all-clear sounded moments later. Carolyn checked the Dalek quickly, relieved that the system hadn't overheated and exploded. The boffins had warned that was a possibility, particularly if the aliens pressed the offensive and forced the Dalek to keep firing and firing until it was too late. Instead, the air inside the cab was boiling hot – sweat flowed down her body after a few moments of exposure – but there was nothing she needed to fix. The Dalek had done extremely well.

Plummer clambered up into the cab beside her. “CO wants us to move,” he said, gruffly. “They’ll figure out where we were and come after us next.”

“Get us moving, then,” Carolyn agreed. She ran a basic diagnostic on the Dalek, then relaxed as she realised that nothing vitally important had melted. They would have to keep an eye on it, but it seemed to be surviving its first trial. “We don’t know when they will be coming back.”

She glanced out of the window as the vehicle lurched into life. The aliens hadn't managed to bombard Lossiemouth too badly, thankfully, but parts of the base were still burning. A fire truck had taken a plasma bolt dead on and exploded into flames, scorching parts of the buildings. The runways, on the other hand, looked fine. No doubt the aliens would be back to finish the job, but for the moment she could take some hope from the sight. They were not invincible.

“Look at that,” Plummer muttered. There was raw envy in his voice, the envy of a man who had tried out to fly fast jets, only to discover that he was unsuitable. Instead, he’d been pushed into the RAF Regiment. “I want one of them.”

Carolyn followed his gaze. The alien craft had crashed on top of the fence protecting the base from unwanted guests, smashing it down effortlessly. Armed soldiers from the RAF Regiment surrounded it, probing the wreckage. Carolyn couldn't help wondering if the aliens would come stumbling out with their hands held high, before realising that was unlikely. All the reports from America said that no one had ever taken an alien alive.

The craft had been badly damaged, but it was still substantially intact. Plummer looked awed and Carolyn found it hard to blame him. Human jet aircraft were beautiful, in their own way, but there was a crudeness around them that made it hard to see them as truly elegant. The alien craft, on the other hand, seemed almost perfect. She couldn't help admiring the level of craftsmanship that had gone into building the vehicle, even as she cursed its designers for their attacks on Earth. What did they want from the human race?

They trundled to a halt in their next firing position. Plummer jumped outside to check that everything was secure, while Carolyn checked the display screen. So far, it was clear, but she knew that wouldn't last. The aliens had suffered a setback, yet it wouldn't be enough to stop them. They would be coming back.

Chapter Forty

Over Southern England, United Kingdom

Day 245

“That’s affirmative,” Ginny Lesage said. “We have incoming. I say again, we have incoming.”

The aliens seemed to be everywhere over Britain, sometimes slowing to engage the defenders, sometimes racing past them to attack targets on the ground. Their tactics were predictable, in a way, but also difficult to handle. There was no way to tell what sort of target the aliens considered too heavily defended to attack. But it was clear that whatever standards they used didn't rate the Sentry aircraft as worth avoiding.

“Nine alien craft on direct approach,” she added, as the screen focused in on the incoming craft, ignoring the overall picture. “They’re closing in ...”

The aircraft lurched, then dived for the ground. Ginny winced, feeling her stomach constrict as gravity seemed to shift around them. The massive jet needed to seek cover from ground-based defences while its escorts struggled to fend off the alien attack, but diving so hard always hurt. At least the pilots had done it many times before, they claimed. It was easy as long as one was careful. Ginny wasn't sure if they had been trying to reassure or impress her.

She fought to maintain her grip on events. The alien craft were firing on the RAF escorts now, forcing the mixed force of Typhoons and Tornadoes to evade their fire and giving them a chance to get into firing range of the Sentry. Two alien craft appeared to have vanished, both downed – she hoped – by the escorts. The alternative was that they’d hit whatever the aliens used for afterburners and vanished into the distance to escape human missiles.

The plane creaked violently as the pilot pulled it out of the dive, flying as low to the ground as he dared. Ginny swallowed the urge to be sick – a noise from behind her told her that not everyone had been so lucky – and looked at the display. The aliens were still coming after them, closing in rapidly. Maybe they weren't very good shots, she knew, but they only needed one hit to blow the Sentry to flaming debris. And they could fire as many shots as they liked ...

***

Flight Captain Jacob Gresham gritted his teeth as he pulled the Eurofighter out of his dive and hunted for the alien craft that had gone after the Sentry. The pilot of the bigger aircraft had nerve, he acknowledged, or maybe he was pretending to be Luke Skywalker flying down the Death Star’s trench. But the alien craft was closing in rapidly, spitting balls of blue-white fire towards a target that was not among the most agile of aircraft. One hit would be all it needed to take down the Sentry, damaging the RAF’s ability to coordinate its forces and defend British airspace.

“All right, you bastard,” he muttered, as his missiles locked on. “Die!”

The Eurofighter lurched as the missile lanced away from its wing, heading right towards the alien craft. For a moment, the alien pilot seemed torn between pressing his advantage and killing the Sentry or evading and saving himself, a human-like reaction that left him feeling an odd sense of kinship with the alien flyer. It almost reminded him of the time they’d met a flight of Russian pilots and found that they had more in common with the Russians than they did with the civilians and political leaders who had accompanied both sides. And then his missile struck home and the alien craft lurched to one side, then fell out of the sky and hit the ground.

He switched channels. “Cricket Two, this is Charlie One; I have a confirmed Fallen Angel,” he said, and gave the approximate location of the alien craft. “It looks fairly intact from up here.”

Thankfully, it wasn't too close to a major population centre – several alien craft had come down in Washington, during the fighting over the United States – which would make it harder for civilians to get there before the police and the military. There were crash-recovery teams on standby all over the United Kingdom to handle the remains of any crashed alien craft.

“Understood, Charlie One,” the flight controller said. “Local authorities are being alerted now.”

She didn't go into details – no one knew who might be listening in to the radio exchange – but they’d been briefed on the plans for dealing with crashed ships. They would be surrounded, then searched ... and then taken elsewhere. Unlike fighting the Russians, studying alien craft might help produce more surprises ... Jacob, like most of his fellow pilots, had his suspicions about the origin of the Dalek weapon system. It just seemed to have come out of nowhere.

He grinned as the Eurofighter skimmed over a town, remembering all the people who had written in to the base to complain about low-flying pilots. According to the base’s PR officer, most of them had been shown their homes during the weekends, when there was little or no flying outside wartime, and hadn't realised what living near a base actually meant until the following morning, when they had been woken up by jet aircraft being put through their paces. There were times when Jacob wondered if the civilian-military divide had simply grown too wide for safety; without training, the pilots wouldn't know what to do if they were ever really tested. He’d spent a few weeks with a Royal Saudi Air Force squadron once and their training levels had been appallingly bad.

The Sentry had shut down its radar and was heading back towards its base, a handful of other fighters moving to escort it. Jacob had his doubts about the aliens losing track of it after it stopped sweeping the skies with powerful radars, but there was little else they could do. Besides, the aliens had learned to be wary of RAF bases after their first encounter with the Dalek. They might well let the Sentry go and concentrate on fighting elsewhere.

His radio buzzed. “Charlie One, radar has detected alien craft advancing towards London,” the flight controller said. “You are ordered to join the defence.”

Jacob winced. His family lived in London.

“Understood,” he said. Other planes and pilots would also be directed towards the capital city, hoping to fend off the aliens before they could do real damage. “I’m on my way.”

***

The alarms went off in a single deafening howl, echoing through the MOD Building in Whitehall. Sergeant Glen Cheal, Royal Military Police, turned them down, then took the intercom for himself.

“Emergency evacuation, now,” he ordered, knowing that time was rapidly running out. They’d dispersed as much of the building’s functions as they could, but there were still hundreds of people working in the MOD – and the rest of Whitehall, for that matter. “This is not a drill. I say again, this is not a drill.”

He scowled. They’d held dozens of emergency drills in the years since 9/11, but there was no shortage of idiots who thought they could refuse to take them seriously because they were drills, rather than real emergencies Now, the staffers were almost running as they moved down the stairs, out of the building and headed for the emergency RV point in St. James Park. Glen had no idea if that was truly safe – the nuclear and other WMD training they’d done had suggested that it wasn’t – but at least it would get them out of the building. Everyone knew that the MOD had to be high on the list of alien targets.

The planners had studied the tactics the aliens had used against America carefully, looking for patterns that could be used against them. Glen had heard that the aliens had tried to weaken the United States by going after power plants, communications nodes, bridges and other places where a single hit or two might have a disproportionate impact. He’d done enough work moving troops over London in the wake of the declaration of martial law to understand just how difficult life would become if the aliens took out the bridges crossing the Thames. They might be able to cut one part of the city off from the other.

“This is Ron on Floor Nine,” a voice said. “All clear; I say again, all clear. I’m on my way down now.”

Glen allowed himself a sigh of relief. The floors were being checked, one by one, and anyone stupid enough to linger being pushed down towards the ground floor. Once the building was completely empty, the military police could lock up and then leave, hopefully before the alien attack began in earnest. He’d seen the mobile missile launchers moved into position near the Houses of Parliament and Buckingham Palace, but he had little faith in their ability to force the aliens to withdraw. The grapevine had suggested that the launchers had been placed there for political reasons, rather than because the military believed they could actually serve a useful purpose.

“Caught these two snogging in a cupboard,” John said, as he came out of the stairwell dragging two staffers behind him. Both of them looked terrified at the thought of facing the military police. “God help us all if they have children.”

“Get them to the park,” Glen ordered. He gave the two staffers a grim look. “We’ll discuss your conduct during an alert later.”

Now that the building was empty, they could shut it down. And hope to God that they were in time.

***

Wendy perched on a rooftop and looked towards Whitehall, where hundreds of thousands of people were flowing out of the buildings and heading away from them as fast as they could. The reports had been right then, she told herself, the aliens were coming to London – and the fat oaf from the security services who had censored every news story the BBC had put on the airwaves was nowhere to be seen. Wendy wasn't too surprised; she’d been in dangerous places before, broadcasting live from riots, revolutions and terrorist attacks. The minder, like most of his ilk, had no nerves at all. He was probably halfway to France by now.

“Set up the camera,” she ordered. “And then link it into the network.”

It was risky, she had to admit; technically, she was in violation of the new regulations the government had laid down under martial law, but it would put her name in front of the public once again. They were so fickle! The BBC was censored, foreign news was hardly worth a damn and yet the public seemed more interested in the latest version of Big Brother than in the slow collapse of the freedom of the press. Honestly! Who cared if two of the girls went to bed with the same guy at the same time when important freedoms were at stake? She glared over towards Ten Downing Street, wondering vaguely which of the Prime Minister’s flunkies had come up with the idea of using porn to distract the population. It worked like a charm.

“The camera is ready,” her cameraman said. He hesitated. “This is our last chance to ...”

“Oh, don’t be such a wet blanket,” she said, sharply. Her cameraman wasn't the one at risk of arrest and permanent detention if they were caught. No, that would be her – and she knew better than to think that her bosses at the BBC would stick their necks out for her if they were caught. “Start filming in ten seconds.”

She struck a pose, running one hand through her long dark hair. Generations of marketing research had told the BBC that the public wanted their serious reporters to look serious, so she’d worn a simple business suit rather than the military uniforms affected by some of her fellows. No one was fooled; besides, a reporter in a military uniform merely looked silly. A red light glowed on the camera and she smiled, counting down the final seconds. The problem with live reporting, she knew, was that there was no time to edit one’s words.

“Good afternoon,” she said. “We are currently near Whitehall, where reports of a rumoured alien attack have caused the workers to scatter and ...”

The camera dipped suddenly. Wendy bit down the sharp response that came to mind, realising that the cameraman was looking at something behind her. Wendy turned and saw four dark objects racing over the city, seeming to head right towards her. She had enough experience with military aircraft to know that they weren't human ...

“Those reports have now been confirmed,” she said, fighting to keep a tremor out of her voice. In the distance, she saw rockets being launched up towards the alien craft, which evaded them with practiced ease. “There are at least four alien craft over London ...”

***

Jacob cursed as he saw the alien craft closing in on Whitehall, already firing down towards the ground. If he fired on the alien craft with his remaining missiles, he ran the risk of bringing one of them down in London and doing more damage to the city than a precise strike on Whitehall. But he couldn't just leave the aliens alone to keep wreaking havoc ... they had to be stopped before they could retreat.

One of the alien craft turned and advanced towards him, spitting deadly fire. The others continued blasting ground targets, ignoring the handful of missiles hurled up from the ground. Jacob noted flames rising from the direction of Buckingham Palace and wondered why the aliens had decided to target it, before pushing the thought aside. One of the alien craft was trying to kill him.

He launched a missile directly towards it and threw the Eurofighter to one side, avoiding a burst of deadly light that came within millimetres of wiping him out of existence. The alien craft turned – to his eyes, it seemed to flicker, altering position in a blink – before the missile slammed home into its drive field. There was a brilliant flare of light around the alien craft, before it tilted and plunged to one side, heading right for Tower Bridge. Jacob watched in horror as the craft slammed into the bridge, smashing it into rubble. Somehow, the main body of the craft survived the experience.

The instant of distraction almost killed him. An alien blast slammed into the rear of his Typhoon, sending it spinning out of control. Jacob reached for the ejector handle and pulled it hard, praying desperately that he wouldn't be slammed out towards the ground. There was a thunderous roar as his cockpit disintegrated around him, blasting him free. Moments later, the parachute deployed and he stopped, hanging in midair. He was just in time to see the remains of his aircraft slamming down into the London Eye. The giant Ferris Wheel folded over and collapsed into the river.

For a long chilling moment, he was convinced that the alien craft were going to blast him and his parachute out of the air. They seemed to be hovering nearby, heedless of whatever other RAF aircraft were on their way ... and then they vanished, so quickly that it was a moment before he saw them disappearing into the distance. Tearing his gaze away from where they’d been, he stared down at London. Whitehall had been devastated.

“My God,” he muttered, unable to believe his eyes. “And this was just the first day of war?”

Ten Downing Street and most of the surrounding area was nothing more than burning ruins, flames spreading rapidly to destroy whatever was left of the buildings. More flames were rising up from Buckingham Palace and a dozen other locations over London – the military garrisons, he suspected, and perhaps some of the bridges. He looked back towards the ruins of Tower Bridge and saw a boatload of policemen trying to see into the crashed alien craft. No doubt the aliens were dead already, but he hoped that the policemen were armed, just in case. Crowds of sightseers would descend on the alien craft as soon as they realised what it was.

The river came up below him and he braced himself. Water landings were never fun at the best of times and this was the first time he’d done it outside the tank on the airbase, where they’d practiced and practiced until they were sure they knew what they were doing. And this was a river ...

***

Wendy found herself speechless as the alien craft faded into the distance, leaving behind nothing but burning ruins. The RAF’s lone aircraft – and where, she asked herself, were the others – had been unable to prevent the destruction of London’s centre of government. It was unlikely that the PM was dead – he was at a secure location, according to the minder – but morale would take a glancing blow. All the jokes about the country running smoother and having more money without the government, or at least the civil service, suddenly seemed much less amusing.

Her cameraman had filmed it all, live. A quick glance at her BBC-issued tablet had confirmed that the broadcast had gone out all over the country. The government’s measures to prevent news from spreading had failed ... normally, she would have been delighted. But now?

She looked back at the burning rubble and scowled. London’s fire brigade was already responding, but it looked as though they were having problems holding back the flames. Judging from the other pillars of smoke in the distance, Whitehall hadn't been the only place targeted either. Military bases, power plants, shipping on the river, the bridges ... in barely a few minutes, the aliens had done more concentrated damage than Adolf Hitler. And it was just the first day of war.

“I think we have company,” the cameraman said, pointing to a pair of police cars that had driven up the road and screeched to a halt outside the building they were using as a vantage point. “You want to run?”

Wendy shrugged, remembering hair-raising escapes from policemen in the Middle East. But it seemed far less important now.

“Why not?” She said, finally. “What else can we do?”

Chapter Forty-One

Classified Joint Headquarters, Near London, United Kingdom

Day 247

The Prime Minister had taken a dislike to the Classified Joint Headquarters as soon as he had stepped inside it for the first time. It was a bunker, buried under an unmemorable warehouse on the very edge of London, but it was crude, as if the designers had never expected to actually need it. As it was, most of the other emergency bunkers couldn't be regarded as secure. The aliens might well have pulled information on British emergency procedures out of American databases after they’d overwhelmed Washington, months ago.

And they could go after the bunkers too, he thought, bitterly. The aliens had smashed NORAD – and NORAD had been buried under a mountain, intended to stand off a direct nuclear strike. Nothing in the British Isles was anything like as heavily defended; the only real protection some of the bunkers had was being in the midst of the civilian population, using them as human shields. The Prime Minister had had his doubts that was a workable defence even before the aliens arrived to take the planet. None of Britain’s recent foes would have lost sleep over civilian casualties.

He had to admit that it was unlikely that anyone would be able to locate the CJHQ from orbit. There was nothing on the surface, but a warehouse that apparently belonged to an electronic company before the economy had crashed. The district was being redeveloped and gentrified at the time, which had allowed the government a chance to use a few cover companies to establish a secret command and control base without anyone noticing. If something happened to Whitehall, the CJHQ would take over, according to the operational plans. As far as the Prime Minister knew, those plans had never covered alien invasion or military attacks on British soil. It had seemed so unthinkable in the wake of the cold war.

The base was linked directly into the hardened military telecommunications network, which was still operational despite several alien attempts to take out its communications nodes. Most of the system was buried underground, with few betraying radio signals to lead the aliens to its their location; the handful of parts that had been dependent on the satellite network had been hastily replaced after the aliens had destroyed the American military satellite network. It wasn't as advanced as it had been, the Prime Minister thought sourly, but it still worked. And it wouldn't lead the aliens directly to his location.

“Prime Minister,” General Brentwood said, once the communications link had been established and verified. It should have been impossible for someone to tap into it, but the Prime Minister was ruefully aware that the aliens had done the impossible before. “I'm afraid the news isn't good.”

The Prime Minister nodded. Two days of near-constant fighting over British airspace was slowly wearing down the RAF, while the aliens were demonstrating their skill at distracting the defending aircraft and then sneaking raids through the network against targets on the ground. Several airbases had been knocked out completely, despite the improved ground-based air defence systems, forcing the RAF to start pressing civilian airports into service as emergency fields. But they in turn weren't designed to stand up to all-out attack ...

“They're slowly pushing us out of the north entirely,” Brentwood said. “It’s difficult to be sure, but they seem to be focusing their attacks on airbases north of the border, as well as road and rail links we’d use to move troops northwards. They’ve also been targeting military bases, although that hasn't been as effective as they might have hoped. There was plenty of warning and most of the bases were evacuated before the attacks had even begun.”

The Prime Minister looked over at the map someone had pinned on the wall. It wasn't an automatic display, responding to his touch, but somehow it seemed to work better when he wanted to visualise the situation. He was no military man, yet it looked as though the aliens intended to land in the north of Scotland and advance south.

“That’s one possibility,” Brentwood agreed, when the Prime Minister said that out loud. “There are plenty of targets up north that they would want to secure – the nuclear dockyards, for example, or various other military bases. But it’s also possible that they’re planning an attack on London and they’re currently trying to draw our forces out of position by making us think they’re actually heading north.”

He smiled, thinly. “Or they could be trying both,” he said, “and what they actually do depends on our reaction.”

“Crap,” the Prime Minister said. He could see the man’s point. If the military moved north to confront an alien invasion, which would be difficult as the aliens were slowly taking command of the air, the aliens might land behind them, in London. But if the military stayed in the south, the aliens might land in Scotland and build up their positions before advancing southwards. “Can we stand off an invasion if they land?”

“We wargamed it out, using the intelligence we drew from America,” Brentwood said. “It will be very hard to stop them from establishing a foothold, not given their mobility. Back in the Falklands, a couple of enemy regiments at the beaches would have given us a very hard time, but now the aliens could land on top of Ben Nevis if they wanted and march down from there. And if we spread out our forces to provide rapid reaction forces all over Scotland, we risk being defeated piecemeal.

“Right now, we have the Scots Guard positioned to move in Scotland, as well as several of the new conscript regiments. Those lads are trained as best as we can, but they don’t have any real experience yet ...”

The Prime Minister held up a hand. “I will assume that you know what you are doing,” he said, tiredly. Military matters were not his area of expertise. “I think, however, that we will need to safeguard London first. The aliens may well come for the city if they think we’ve weakened her.”

“That may be several more days,” Brentwood warned. “So far, we’ve managed to keep a fairly secure line over England, apart from a handful of raids. But they’re steadily chipping away at it. Did the French have anything useful to say?”

The Prime Minister snorted, remembering the brief conversation he’d had with the new French President. “They’ll cut loose the rest of their air force to support us in exchange for future political considerations,” he said. “But they’re short on weapons and fuel ...”

“So are we,” Brentwood said. “And I think they know that too.”

The Prime Minister gritted his teeth. No one really understood how rapidly military forces could burn through their stockpiles of ammunition until they actually saw it – and by then it was far too late. The MOD had noted that the Americans had run short of ammunition during the Iraq War, but the bureaucrats had stalled when the time came to allocate money to build up British stockpiles. Right now, the exact number of air-to-air missiles ready for deployment was highly classified, yet it didn't take a genius to realise that they could be fired off much quicker than they could be replaced.

Particularly now that we can't ask the Americans for emergency supplies, he thought, coldly. What the USAF didn't fire off the aliens confiscated and destroyed when they landed.

Brentwood was right, the Prime Minister suspected. All the aliens had to do was maintain the same tempo for a week or two and the RAF would literally run out of weapons, along with fuel. The stockpile of fuel that had been amassed at great expense was already running low. Sooner or later, they would have to start cutting back on operations, which would allow the aliens a chance to punch through the defences and catch planes on the ground. They’d already figured out that going after the RAF’s small force of tankers was a neat way to cripple the RAF without risking too many of their craft.

And if they were willing to come blazing in, throwing caution to the winds, they might have beaten us by now, he thought. Thank God for the Dalek System.

“The Dalek shouldn't be dependent on fuel,” he said, slowly. “And they seem to fear it ...”

“Yes, they do,” Brentwood said. “But they’ve also realised that it has weaknesses too. We lost one near RAF Waddington when the plasma conduits overloaded in the midst of battle and exploded, killing ten men. And they’ve also discovered that flying very low allows them to sneak up on us and get some blows in before we can react. I’m afraid that they’re adapting just as quickly as we are.”

He shook his head. “Overall, Prime Minister, we are being ground down,” he concluded. “We may have to bring Operation Hammer forward.”

The Prime Minister nodded. It was a risk, particularly if the American resistance wasn't ready to act – to say nothing of the alien rebels – but they were running short of options. Once Britain fell, the aliens could deal with Russia ... and then there would be nothing left to stop them. He’d seen the images of the alien children from the United States. There would be no normal children left in a few generations if the aliens won.

He closed his eyes for a long moment, trying to meditate. Had Churchill ever worried so badly when the Nazis had been trying to bomb Britain into submission? But Churchill had known that the Nazis couldn't have invaded Britain, even though it had seemed otherwise at the time; he’d known that things could get worse, but the game couldn't be lost. German stormtroopers weren't going to march through London and end British independence once and for all.

But the aliens could land in Britain – and they could land anywhere in Britain. Hitler’s forces had been badly limited; the only halfway plausible point for landing was near Dover, the closest part of Britain to occupied France. The British defenders had massed their forces there to compensate, ready to intercept when the Germans landed. But the aliens could land anywhere. There was no reason why they couldn't land in Cornwall, or Southampton, or even Cardiff. Or London itself.

“Start making preparations,” he ordered, finally. He would have to talk to the President and plan to bring the joint operation forward. “General Jones?”

General Dawlish didn't look happy – but then, the Prime Minister had never seen him show anything apart from a dour frown. He’d been in command of the conscript program, then moved to home defence when it became apparent that the aliens were about to engage. He also had overall authority over martial law, although police superintendents handled as much of law enforcement as possible. There just wasn't the military manpower to go around.

“Most of the country is quiet, Prime Minister,” he said, bluntly. “We issued plenty of warnings, so people had a chance to stock up on water, rations and other emergency supplies. The BBC did manage to broadcast some live footage from the first attack on London, but thankfully that did encourage people to take the whole matter seriously rather than just riot like they did after Washington fell. I guess the devastation in London brought home the fact that our country is no longer inviolable.”

The Prime Minister nodded, tartly. It would seem an odd war to the civilians; those living near military bases or other alien targets would see evidence of alien attacks, while others wouldn't really see or hear anything more than distant thunder. He’d even seen a report, after the fall of Washington, that had suggested that part of the population didn't even believe in the aliens and thought that the government had created a facade for sinister reasons of its own. The Prime Minister would have found it amusing if he hadn't known that the government simply wasn't competent enough to create such a facade and then hold it in place indefinitely.

“However, there are a number of riots in various areas, including London,” Dawlish continued. “The police managed to quash or seal off most of the rioters, but if it gets worse we might have to deploy troops to help the police. And if that happens we will be drawing them away from their positions in case the aliens try to land. I’d prefer to take quick and decisive action right now ...”

“I see your point,” the Prime Minister said. “Can we contain the riots indefinitely?”

Just after the Fall of Washington, he’d had to act fast to quash a number of riots. Now, there were thousands of young men in detention camps, held indefinitely under martial law. In the long run, there was no way to know what to do with them. The illegal immigrants from Pakistan no longer had a homeland to go back to, while India was unlikely to welcome its share. Most of them had been put to work on various projects that required brute labour, but there was no longer any manpower to supervise them. They had been abandoned in the camps.

“I believe so,” Dawlish said. “Riots do tend to burn themselves out, once they run out of food, drink and drugs. However, that won’t help anyone caught up inside the area they control. They may well end up dead – or worse.”

The Prime Minister rubbed his forehead, feeling a headache coming on. How the hell had his predecessors allowed the country to get into such a mess?

Because they believed themselves secure, he thought, and shuddered. How could they have made such a mistake? Because they didn't think that there might be a threat from outside our atmosphere ...

What would Churchill have done? What would Thatcher have done?

Smash the riots – risk having the troops out of place. Leave the riots alone to burn themselves out – abandon the people caught up in the middle of the fighting.

“Smash the riots,” he ordered, finally. He couldn't abandon the population. “If you have to deploy troops, take the gloves off completely. The rioters are to be rounded up and imprisoned.”

“It is quite likely that many of them will end up dead,” Dawlish said, tonelessly.

“Then let them die,” the Prime Minister snapped.

He shook his head. “Admiral?”

“The Royal Navy is taking a beating too,” Admiral Vancouver admitted. Perhaps he too was glad of the change in subject. “The aliens have sunk ships indiscriminately wherever they found them; thankfully, mounting one of the Daleks on a handful of destroyers and frigates forced them to keep their distance. However, they’ve mastered the art of low-level attacks now, so we think that losses are going to keep rising. We’ve actually had to ground an air defence frigate at Portsmouth to keep her from sinking after the aliens caught her in the harbour. At least we can still use her guns and missiles against the aliens when they come back.

“They’ve pushed us completely out of Scottish waters,” he added. “As far as we can tell, they sunk everything; there was a tramp freighter from Brazil making its way through the area when the aliens pounced and sank her, according to the distress call. They’ve also shot down SAR aircraft in Scotland, although they generally ignore them elsewhere. I think we have to assume that the aliens intend to land in Scotland.”

That was a nasty twist, the Prime Minister thought. According to his briefers, even the Japanese fliers during World War Two had hesitated to shoot at men bailing out of stricken aircraft and parachuting towards the ground. The aliens had seemed to ignore them too, as well as SAR helicopters that didn't carry weapons or pose a threat. But if that was changing ...

They don’t let us take prisoners, he thought, coldly, and now they’re preventing us from recovering our own people. But only in Scotland. Why? What does it mean?

“We have to assume the worst,” the Admiral concluded. “They’re planning to start their landings in Scotland.”

The Prime Minister found himself caught in the agony of indecision, again. Sending troops north might weaken the defences elsewhere ... the mocking refrain ran through his mind, time and time again. But not sending troops north might allow the aliens to gain a foothold in Scotland, allowing them to advance south. There was just no easy solution ...

“See what reinforcements you can scrape up without denuding the southern defences,” he ordered, finally. “I need to talk to the President.”

***

“I wish I could offer better advice,” the President said, over the intercom. There was a direct link from Guthrie Castle to the CJHQ. “All I can really say, based on my military experience, is that Scotland looks like the most likely landing target for the bastards.”

The Prime Minister nodded. “But they could land anywhere,” he pointed out, grimly. “I’m surprised they haven’t tried to take out the London bunker network yet. We know they can blow them right out of the ground.”

“Bad idea to kill the people who can surrender,” the President said. “It’s possible that they learned that lesson after Washington. They were certainly careful to take the Saudi King and his merry men alive.”

“And they went on the airwaves and told their men to surrender, which most of them did,” the Prime Minister said. He hadn't been surprised. No one had expected much from the Saudi military if it was ever involved in a major war. Iran had put up a much better fight against the aliens. “I take your point.”

He rubbed his forehead, again. “We need to move ahead with Operation Hammer.”

“I feared as much,” the President said. His face twisted, bitterly. “But it will still take a few days to get ready.”

“The sooner the better,” the Prime Minister said. He remembered Churchill’s famous speech and smiled, wryly. “We’re about to start fighting the bastards on the beaches.”

Chapter Forty-Two

RAF Lossiemouth, United Kingdom

Day 249

The howl of the klaxon awoke Philip as he desperately fought for sleep. He rolled over, despite his training, and tried to bury his head in his pillow. A moment later, a strong hand grabbed his ankle and yanked hard, pulling him halfway out of his bunk. Cursing, Phillip rolled over and caught himself before he fell all the way to the hard floor.

“Show a leg, you bastards,” the Flight Sergeant ordered. Rumour had it that he was old enough to have fought in the first Battle of Britain and had stuck around long enough to serve his country again. Philip had heard of Vietnam vets still in the US military, but the Battle of Britain had been over sixty years ago. It didn't strike him as very likely. “They’ll be back here at any moment.”

Philip grabbed for his flight suit and started pulling it on, wishing – again – that he could just go back to bed. The operational tempo was killing them all slowly; tired pilots made mistakes, mistakes they couldn't recover from before they died. A Tornado pilot had slammed into a mountainside at supersonic speed two days ago; the other pilots believed that he'd been too tired to fly properly. There hadn't been an inquest into the matter yet, Philip knew; if the aliens won, there might be no one to hold it. Maybe the RAF was better at holding inquires than NASA, but he wouldn't have put money on it. Large organisations were always poor when it came to assigning blame.

He stumbled into the kitchen and gratefully scooped up toast, eggs and a large mug of coffee, sitting down at one end of the long table to eat. There were several dozen pilots coming in and out at any one time, including French, German and Spanish pilots as well as British and American. Quite the United Nations force, Philip had joked privately, although it was no laughing matter. If the aliens had tried to fight the entire human race at once, they might well have lost – or at least have been forced to resort to planetary bombardment to win.

“Better than the south,” Monique said, as she sat down facing him. She was one of a handful of female fliers in the French Air Force, flying the Dassault Rafale. “We were dropping bombs on our own damn cities.”

Philip eyed her as she took a sip of her coffee. Her makeshift squadron had been routed over to Lossiemouth after the aliens had smashed the civilian airport they were using as a base – and she knew that she’d been facing the same punishing schedule as himself – but she still managed to look breathtakingly attractive. Short dark hair framed a cute little face that might have had some Arab blood in it somewhere, while her dark eyes sparkled with mischief. If he hadn't been so tired, Philip considered, he might have made a pass at her. There were plenty of stories about what female pilots did between missions.

But he was barely awake enough to drink his coffee and the stories were probably lies anyway. The RAF’s culture seemed to be less formal than the USAF’s; he’d heard jokes and stories that wouldn't have been shared quite so openly on an American base. One of them had talked about a Para who’d been told that the massage girls in Afghanistan offered special services if they were offered extra money. He’d make the mistake of believing the joker who’d told him that story.

“Speak for yourself,” he muttered. Some of the stories out of America were horrific. “I want to go home and rest.”

“Me too,” Monique agreed. “But that isn't likely to happen.”

The klaxon changed its note and the pilots scrambled to their feet, leaving their food and drink on the table behind them. Philip grabbed his coffee and swigged it as he started to run down towards the hangers, where the Falcon was already waiting for him. The pilots weren't allowed to sleep close to the aircraft, a precaution against them being caught up in an alien attack. Right now, Philip suspected that safety precaution had come back to bite them on the ass.

“Good luck,” Monique called, as she ran towards her own aircraft. “Get one for me!”

Philip smiled, threw the plastic mug into the nearest bin and scrambled up into the Falcon’s cockpit. The ground crewmen had already replaced the missiles on the craft’s wings, but rumour had it that stockpiles were running short. No one wanted to face wave after wave of alien craft armed with nothing, but guns alone. Rumour also had it that someone was designing a laser weapon that could be carried on jet fighters, yet nothing had actually come of it. Philip would have been surprised if any usable hardware arrived in time to do any good.

The standard precautions for taking off seemed to have been pushed aside by the wartime emergency, he realised, as the flight controllers pushed them down the runway and up into the air. One glance at the live feed from the passive sensor station told him why; the aliens were massing a major attack, circling around Scotland to come at Lossiemouth from the sea, forcing the base’s defenders to get everything into the air before it was too late. He caught sight of a line of ambulances parked at one end of the runway and shuddered, before falling into formation with the rest of the exiles. This time, they wouldn't be allowed to engage the aliens over the water.

He listened to the orders as the fighter craft fanned out, ready to meet the alien offensive. The aliens didn't seem to be trying to be subtle; looking at their formation, it seemed more like they were ready to take a few losses in order to wear down the defenders. There were a handful of other craft apart from the standard almond-shaped alien fighter in the force, he realised, making a mental note to keep an eye on them. Non-standard aircraft sometimes produced non-standard threats.

“On my command, prepare to engage,” the flight leader ordered. “Choose your partners and prepare to dance.”

“And remember to use the force,” someone else added. “It’s the only way to win.”

“Shut the fuck up,” the flight leader snapped. None of them felt much like humour after days of heavy fighting, broken only by snatched hours of sleep. “Stand by ...”

Philip fought down a yawn, keeping an eye on his equipment. It wasn't just the pilots who were being subject to punishing schedules, but their aircraft as well. Any military aircraft required constant maintenance to keep it operational, yet there hadn't really been time to give the Falcon the servicing it needed. It was alarmingly possible that something would fail at the worst possible moment. If the aliens had similar problems, he'd heard nothing during his stay on the alien craft to suggest it.

“Fire,” the flight leader snapped.

“Fox-two,” Philip said, unleashing a Sidewinder towards the mass of alien craft. They seemed to come to a complete halt, then opened fire, spitting lethal light towards missiles and human defenders alike. He swore as several missiles exploded as they were cut down, then threw the plane into an evasive pattern to avoid an alien craft that seemed to be firing at him specifically.

“We confirm four hits,” the AWACS said. “I say again, we confirm four hits.”

Philip cursed as the alien craft suddenly moved forward, charging right at the human aircraft. They’d fired seventeen missiles and they’d only scored four hits? The alien tactics suddenly made sense; they’d worked out a new way to force the humans to waste some of their missiles and now they were coming in for the kill.

“Go free,” the flight leader ordered, giving up control. But no one could hope to provide useful instructions in a dogfight. “Engage at will; I say again, engage at will.”

***

“They’ve started dogfighting with the flyboys,” Plummer called. “They must be trying to wear them down this time!”

Carolyn nodded. The RAF Regiment soldiers, male and female alike, were sleeping in tents, while the pilots slept in barracks, but from what she’d seen of them it was clear that the soldiers were getting more rest. But all she had to do was maintain and operate the Dalek, while the fighter pilots had to handle a far more complex job with far greater risks. Most of the aircraft that were hit by alien weapons exploded so rapidly that there was no hope of escape for the pilot.

“I’m putting the Dalek on alert,” she said, clicking a switch. Anything without the proper IFF signal would now be engaged without warning. “And you might want to ...”

There was a deafening roar as something passed by overhead, so low that she could make out the details on its hull as she threw herself to the ground. The alien craft had completely evaded both the radar network and passive sensors and made it to Lossiemouth without being noticed. Streaks of blue-white light blasted down as it fired on the airfield, blowing apart barracks and hangers with equal abandon. The Dalek whirred as it brought its weapon to bear on the alien craft, but it was already too late. A thunderous explosion marked the destruction of one of the weapons storage points near the hangers. The entire airfield seemed to shake as the weapons were destroyed.

Carolyn cursed out loud as the alien craft shot away, having completed its mission. A handful of missiles chased after it, but it was moving too fast for them to intercept it and too low for the Dalek to take it out. Plummer was shouting something at her, yet her ears were ringing so loudly that she couldn't hear anything else. She pointed to them in irritation, then realised that he was demanding to know why they hadn't tracked the alien craft. Carefully, she signalled back that the alien craft had come in too low.

She rubbed her ears, wondering if she’d permanently lost her hearing. That would ruin her career, all right; only an complete idiot would think that a deaf person could serve in the military. They wouldn’t be able to hear orders barked by a Drill Sergeant, let alone anyone else. She relaxed, a moment later, as the ringing started to fade away. Plummer still had to shout at her to be heard.

“We need to move the Dalek,” he shouted. “They’ll come here again!”

Carolyn scowled. RAF Lossiemouth was clearly no longer usable as a front-line air force base, not without some heavy repairs and resupply. And, given what she'd heard about the aliens picking off bridges and damaging roads, resupply might no longer be an option. One of the pictures on the television that had somehow escaped the censors had shown the Forth Road Bridge shattered, both towers collapsed into the river. Routing supplies up north was going to be harder in future.

She glanced down at the live feed and froze. There were more contacts heading towards RAF Lossiemouth. A lot more contacts.

***

The alien craft ended the dogfight as soon as they’d entered it, slipping away to join the rest of their force. Philip watched them go, knowing that they’d chosen to abandon the fight rather than been driven away. Seven jet fighters had been shot down, for only two alien craft. It wasn't a worthwhile exchange rate, even though he knew far more about their limitations than anyone else on the base. The RAF was steadily losing the fight.

“Attention,” a tired voice said, over the radio. “RAF Lossiemouth is Case Omega; I say again, RAF Lossiemouth is Case Omega.”

Philip felt his blood run cold. Case Omega meant that the base had been hammered beyond all hope of immediate repair. Planes could neither land there nor take off, let alone receive maintenance and resupply. Combined with the lost civilian airfields, the RAF might just have lost its ability to hold the north of Scotland. He glanced down at the live feed and swore again. The vast force of alien craft advancing towards Scotland suggested that they had something in mind apart from continuing to pound on the RAF.

“Understood,” the flight leader said.

“Head to Leuchars,” the tired voice said. “There are other planes forming up there to escort you in.”

“Joy,” a voice – Philip barely recognise it as Monique – muttered.

He couldn't disagree. The jets were running low on fuel – and if the aliens prevented them from landing, they would fall out of the sky. They’d already forced the RAF to pull its remaining tanker aircraft out of Scotland. No, all they could do was fly to RAF Leuchars and hope that the airbase could refuel and rearm the jets. And that the aliens left them alone long enough to get ready to resume the fight.

“And such a force, that almost certainly means invasion,” Monique added. “What happens now?”

Philip had no answer.

***

Carolyn grimaced as the alien craft came into view, advancing towards what remained of the airbase. They’d already swept around the area, shooting at anything that even looked suspicious – but they’d missed the Dalek, hidden in the trees and the soldiers with portable missile launchers. According to a brief update from the network, a company of Scots Guards were already on their way, yet they wouldn't be in place for hours. The RAF Regiment was all there was in place to defend the airbase.

“We want to bleed them rather than stop them, because we can't,” Captain Falkner had said. He’d given Carolyn the ultimate compliment of treating her like one of the lads, back when she had been assigned to his command. “We get in a handful of blows, then we run. Don’t try to be a hero now, just give them a bloody nose and run.”

She peered at the landing craft through her binoculars. It looked rather like an oversized F-117, although it was larger than a RAF Hercules transport aircraft. She couldn't help thinking that it looked deadlier than the alien fighters, even though no one was entirely sure what weapons it carried. A human transport rarely carried anything more than countermeasures, but aliens might have different ideas.

It came to a halt over the runway and Captain Falkner snapped out a command. Carolyn pushed the button, activating the Dalek, and it spat out a bolt of plasma towards the alien craft. For a long moment, she was convinced, as energy twisted around it, that it had a force field protecting its hull from humans weapons – and then it tilted and fell out of the sky, hitting the ground with a thunderous crash. But it had survived almost intact, she realised, as alien warriors came boiling out of it.

The RAF Regiment fired Stingers at the alien fighters as they came back to deal with the resistance, then opened fire on the alien warriors with rifles and emplaced submachine guns. Carolyn stared as the alien warriors advanced, already laying down covering fire to allow their comrades to attack forward with commendable speed, then she flicked the Dalek onto automatic and joined Plummer in crawling backwards through the woods. The aliens lost another craft as it came too close to the Dalek, then sprayed the woods with plasma fire, seemingly at random. Something struck the Dalek and it exploded in a brilliant white flash, followed by a fireball rising up into the sky. Carolyn scowled – without it, there was absolutely no hope of defending the airbase – and then kept moving. They had to reach the RV point before the soldiers there pulled out, ceding the ground to the aliens.

“Keep moving,” Captain Falkner hissed, as the sound of fighting began to die away. “We don’t have far to go.”

Carolyn nodded, hearing other sounds in the distance. Now that they had secured the airbase – she couldn’t hear any human weapons being fired now – the aliens would be landing all over Lossiemouth itself. She flinched as she saw a flight of alien transports high overhead, no doubt intending to land troops in positions to block egress from the town. From what she’d been told about how they’d secured Washington and other American cities, they would block the roads, then concentrate on dealing with any resistance inside the town itself ... if there was any resistance. Threatened alien invasion or not, the British Government still wasn't keen on handing out weapons to its people. Much of the civilian population would have no way to resist the occupier.

Luck was with them; they reached the RV point, where a handful of SF soldiers greeted them and pointed them towards the next RV point. Several soldiers groaned at the thought of more walking, but Carolyn hid her own dismay as best as she could. It was easy to acquire the reputation of a weak and female woman, even if none of the men looked very enthusiastic either.

“Just heard a report from HQ,” one of the newcomers said. “Apparently, there’s landings all around the north of Scotland and one of their big ships – those really big ships – is on the way. The flyboys have been forced to pull out completely, along with the navy. Things are getting a bit sticky, right?”

Carolyn nodded in agreement.

“We’ll get to the next RV point and report in,” Captain Falkner said. He sounded as if he was trying to keep them focused, rather than worrying about the future – or their families. “They’ll have some use for us, even if only as infantrymen. And we’ll get better data there.”

“Have a good one,” the SF soldier said.

It wasn't until they were walking away that Carolyn realised that the SF troopers intended to recon the alien positions – or die trying. And if they failed to get their intelligence back to someone who could use it ...

She didn't even want to think about the possible consequences.

Chapter Forty-Three

Guthrie Castle, United Kingdom/Texas, USA

Day 251

“I think that’s the latest data, Mr. President,” Lieutenant Danielle Grove said. “It doesn't look good.”

The President scowled in agreement. On the map, the aliens appeared to have secured control of the north of Scotland, a line of control that put nearly a third of the country in their hands. He knew from his own experience that most of the occupied zone wouldn't even have seen an alien, but by concentrating their forces at choke points and military bases the aliens could exert control over the remainder of the area without spreading themselves too thin. Their command of the air gave them the ability to move troops around without interference from the remains of the British forces on the ground.

“So far, the Scots Guards and Territorial Army units are trying to hold a line here, in front of Dundee, but thousands of people are trying to flee the aliens and making it harder to move military convoys around the country,” the Lieutenant continued. “Luckily, civilian stockpiles of fuel are almost non-existent or it would be a great deal worse. Even so, the aliens are still chipping away at the RAF, which makes it harder for the British to provide air cover to their troops ...”

“Which allows the aliens to grind them down, piece by piece,” the President said. It was straight out of the same playbook the USAF had written for the war in Iraq, with the added advantage of alien transport craft. They were carrying out the ultimate airborne invasion of another country, with a speed and manoeuvrability no human military force could hope to match. “And then they can head north.”

A human military force might have been limited by terrain – the President still remembered the battles to capture bridges in Iraq before the defenders could knock them down – but the aliens didn't have that particular weakness. Every time the British lost a bridge, it made it harder for them to move their forces around their country ... while the aliens just flew over the obstacles and landed wherever they pleased. If the British hadn't taught them respect for the makeshift plasma weapons they’d assembled, they might well have overrun all of Scotland by now. Their speed was terrifying.

But they’re being more careful too, he thought, grimly. When they landed in the US, they ignored National Guard units or militia that became the core of the resistance. Here, they’re trying to sweep up as much organised opposition as possible.

He remembered his brief conversation with the Prime Minister, only an hour ago. Alien forces had surrounded Aberdeen and were driving hard towards Dundee, trying to overrun the RAF bases on the other side of the River Tay. So far, they weren't trying to secure any big cities – they lost many of their advantages in urban combat, just like a human force – but they’d sealed off the cities they had overrun, trapping hundreds of thousands of civilians as well as a handful of military units. And there was a vague report from Aberdeen that indicated either treachery or another undetectable Walking Dead. How many others might have been caught, implanted and released to spread havoc?

The President scowled at the thought. Unsurprisingly, the aliens had scattered the forces that had opposed their early landings, forcing the British troops to make their own way back to the lines forming further south. But some of those escapees could have been implanted ... and there was no way to tell, short of x-raying them all before putting them back on the front lines. Paranoia was making it hard to trust anyone, which made the alien task easier. And there was no way to be confident that x-rays would pick up everything.

Time was running out for Britain, the President knew. One of the giant alien ships was inching further south, daring the RAF to stop it, all the while providing logistic support to the alien forces on the ground. Sooner or later, the aliens would advance southwards, as soon as they felt the RAF was crippled. And then Britain would fall. If Operation Hammer wasn't launched by then, ultimate victory might become nothing more than a dream.

He looked over at Ambassador Hill. “Did you manage to speak to the Moscow Embassy?”

Ambassador Hill scowled. Technically, he’d been interned in Britain, along with the remainder of American personnel in the country. He hadn't taken it well, even though the President had ordered him to cooperate. It hadn't been easy going from representing the most powerful country in the world to a state of powerlessness, no matter what orders he’d been given. On the other hand, right now he was effectively the Secretary of State. The President had promised him the post formally if he still wanted it after the war was over.

“The Russians drove a hard bargain,” Hill admitted. “They want access to everything the British drew from the alien craft – and several of the crashed ships for themselves. And they want a promise of economic and political support in the future.”

The President scowled. “What sort of economic and political support?”

“They didn't specify,” Hill said, “but I think we will have to formally recognise that they have regained their sphere of influence – if not control – in Eastern Europe. They may also want to operate in Central Asia, although right now their presence there might be an improvement.”

“True,” the President agreed. “Besides, Central Asia isn't a priority right now.”

The Western-backed government of Afghanistan hadn't lasted longer than a month after the NATO troops had departed the country. Kabul had fallen relatively quickly, followed by a prolonged series of civil wars that had yet to end. It had sent ripples of chaos running over the whole region, made worse by the nuclear war that had destroyed Pakistan. If the Russians wanted to try to impose order, the President considered, they were welcome to it. Besides, they would be brushing up against the aliens in Iran. It might be useful, in the long term, for the Russians to have to watch the aliens.

“We’re in a terrible position to bargain,” Hill added. “I think the Russians know that, Mr. President, or they wouldn't have hit us so hard.”

The President snorted, rudely. A quarter of the world was held by an alien force, half of the remainder was in chaos ... and the Russians were bargaining. Not, he supposed, that he could blame them too much. Given a few years to recover from occupation and integrate the alien technology and the United States would be in an excellent position for future development, particularly if the country was closely allied with the alien rebels. Britain too would be in a good position – and Russia, already struggling under problems that had existed before the alien war had begun, would be left behind. He couldn't blame them for trying to leverage their temporary advantage into something that would last for decades.

“Right,” he said. “What exactly are they offering?”

“Almost all of their missile submarines,” Hill said. “They were reluctant to make any offers concerning their ground-launched missiles; I think that they are hoping to escape blame if the entire operation goes to hell. And besides, they’d want some additional weapons held in reserve to bolster their position in the future.”

The President nodded. Putting together the nuclear strike force had been the hardest piece of diplomacy in his life. It had taken nearly a week of negotiation to get a firm commitment from the current French Government – and he was ruefully aware that the government might be replaced at any moment by another government, one that might be less inclined to be helpful. But then, the French had received a great deal of assistance from Britain over the last few weeks. Two French ballistic missile submarines would be assisting the combined force.

And then there were the British submarines, and the American submarines ... and he still couldn't help thinking wistfully of the Chinese and Indian submarines. But no one knew what had happened to the former and the latter had launched their missiles at Pakistan. There was no way they could join the combined human force. Even so, there was enough nuclear firepower to destroy most of the world ... and yet it might not be enough. The aliens would start shooting the missiles down as soon as they were launched.

“Then tell them that we agree to their terms,” he said. “Operation Hammer will be launched in two days. By then, they have to be ready.”

There would be people who would see the decision to accede to Russia’s terms as a betrayal of America’s allies in Eastern Europe, he knew. Poland and the Baltic States had been pressured by Russia ever since the alien war had begun. The only thing keeping the Russians from launching an invasion, the British speculated, was fear that the aliens would take advantage of their operation to catch them on the hop. Now, Russia would have a chance to claim hegemony over the region.

But there was nothing he could do to stop it. The once-mighty American military was shattered and broken, while Germany and France were dealing with civil unrest. All he could do was take advantage of the Russian desire for formal recognition and hope that there was an opportunity to reverse it later.

Hill nodded. “They insist on sending out the targeting data themselves,” he said. “Once it’s worked out, they’ll have to handle it themselves.”

“Bastards,” the President muttered. “Anyone would think that they didn't trust us.”

But it did make sense, he knew. The nightmare of a ballistic missile submarine receiving faked orders to fire on an unsuspecting target had kept countless Admirals awake at night. There was a whole series of precautions for verifying that the orders were genuine before the missiles were actually fired, precautions that were tested and modified regularly. If the Russian skippers believed that their orders weren't from Moscow, they might well sit on their butts and refuse to fire their missiles.

As if we didn't have enough to worry about with our own boats, he thought, coldly. The American launch verification system had been shot to hell by the aliens. It was quite possible that several American skippers would refuse their orders too. They had linked into the British system, but no one fully trusted another country to handle their submarines. But there was no way to know who would fire and who wouldn't until the orders were issued.

He cleared his throat. “And the other stages in the operation?”

Lieutenant Grove hesitated. She was a NSA official assigned to a NSA-operated listening post in the UK, not someone who would often find herself briefing the President. But the regular channels were a joke these days, or under alien control. She was the best they had right now.

“We’ve confirmed that several regiments of Order Policemen have been landed in the UK from the States,” she said. “That matches what we were sent out of Washington. They’ve already been making themselves unpopular with the locals.”

“I’m not surprised,” the President said. “They’re good at making themselves unpopular.”

The aliens had definitely learned how to take advantage of human disunity. Whatever qualms the Order Policemen had about keeping their fellow Americans under control – and he was sure that some of them had thought better of it almost as soon as they had signed up – they wouldn't have them about the British. No doubt the aliens would recruit British Order Policemen soon enough and send them to serve in America.

But it also meant, he hoped, that their reserves in the United States were growing thin ...

Unless they’ve rounded up more Arabs to help bolster their forces, he thought, sourly. Or perhaps Iranians or even Pakistani refugees. This could still go to hell.

“Then let us pray that everything will go well,” he said. He wished he could be back in America for the operation, but Pepper would never have allowed it. “And hope that the aliens take the bait.”

***

“That’s the next part of the operation ready,” Ben Santini said. “Half of the infiltrator cells have been activated and primed for their role when the balloon goes up.”

Alex nodded, feeling his head pounding. Coordinating a military operation wasn't something he’d ever trained to do, yet Area 52’s staff had been serving as the linchpin of combined operations before the aliens had overrun the base. At least there were more experienced officers working to turn the plans into reality, thankfully. Alex knew he couldn't have handled the whole operation on his own.

But then, not everyone is keen on the idea of cooperating, he thought, bitterly. It had taken days of arguing, in some cases, to convince local resistance leaders to cooperate with the government. Maybe it would have been easier if he’d been able to give them the full story, but they didn't dare take the risk. God alone knew who might be an unwitting alien spy.

“Good,” he said, finally. What was it that Oldham said? “We want absolute chaos when we send the signal. They have to really feel the pressure.”

Santini nodded, gazing down at the map on the table. The main alien cities were untouchable – they were simply too heavily guarded after the raid on the breeding centre – but there was no shortage of garrisons, both alien and collaborator. When the signal was sent, almost all of those garrisons would be attacked. The aliens would have to defend everywhere at once,

And we’re committing everything we have to the offensive, Alex thought. There might have been no shortage of small arms, but the resistance was running short of heavier weapons, including the antiaircraft weapons needed to take down the alien craft. If the operation failed, it might prove impossible to build up stockpiles again before the aliens started breeding their replacement humans in earnest. The war might well be won or lost in two days.

It wasn't just weapons either, he knew. The resistance had pulled together thousands of experienced fighting men, men with experience in actual war. If the operation failed, many of those men would die, making it impossible to pass their experience on to the next generation of resistance fighters. Assuming that there was a next generation, of course. The alien rebels had warned – and the doctors had confirmed – that the alien DNA would be dominant in any children the alien hybrids sired. Alex had some difficulty in imagining women being willing to lie with the hybrids, but they might not be given a choice.

Besides, he thought, there are plenty of men and women who make a habit of sleeping with the wrong person.

And then there were the infiltrators, the people who had volunteered to join the Order Police and the other collaborators, despite the very real risk of being shot by their own side. If they revealed themselves, the aliens would be unlikely to trust any uncontrolled human again, no matter what they did to prove themselves. Humanity would sacrifice yet another advantage if the operation failed ...

... But the alternative was a long slow slide into slavery and extinction.

“I’ll send out the next batch of orders,” Santini said. “And then I will see if the Texas National Guard has any use for me.”

Alex scowled. He understood how Santini felt; they might have left Area 52, but they were still effectively prisoners. But they knew too much to be allowed to roam free, where the aliens might capture them and discover just how much the human race had concealed from them. There was no way that either he or Santini could take part in the coming operation, unless it was blown completely. And if that happened, they might as well die bravely. There would be nothing else they could do.

“Concentrate on alerting the resistance cells,” he said, gruffly. He envied the people on the outside, even though they were about to put their lives at risk yet again. “Did we hear anything from Canada?”

“They’re sending more MANPADs, but it’s the last we’ll get for a while,” Santini said. “If the aliens figure out where the weapons are coming from ...”

“I would be surprised if they hadn’t already figured it out,” Alex admitted. It wasn't as if they were firing Russian-designed weapons at the alien craft. Canada was a NATO country, licensed to produce the Stinger and countless other weapons systems. “But Canada might not be very important to them.”

He had a feeling that would change, once the aliens had overwhelmed Britain and dealt with the French nukes. They had to know that the insurgency would keep going as long as there was a secure source of weapons and ammunition – and most of the insurgency’s heavy weapons came from Canada. Nor would Canada be able to put up much of a fight; they hadn't been able to duplicate the Dalek weapon systems for themselves. A few quick passes and the Canadian Air Force would be rapidly destroyed, allowing the aliens to push north from America. Or, perhaps, they would just settle for destroying infrastructure and watching most of the population freeze.

“It doesn't look very important compared to the nuclear-armed countries,” Santini agreed. “But there aren't very many of them left, are there?”

Alex nodded. After Operation Hammer was launched, humanity would have expended a large percentage of the remaining nuclear weapons – and the aliens would know it. God alone knew what would happen then. Perhaps the aliens would just move in and overrun Russia as well as Europe and America, before the nuclear weapons could be rebuilt. Or perhaps they would just be patient and wait for their genetic modifications to take root.

“All we can do is wait,” he muttered, looking down at the map. “Wait and see what happens when the shit hits the fan.”

Chapter Forty-Four

Washington DC, USA

Day 252

“That,” Dave said, as Karen straightened up, “was weird.”

“Yeah,” Karen agreed, sardonically. There was something ... oddly wrong in her voice. “I thought that older men lasted longer.”

Dave would have flushed, if whatever the aliens had done to his face would allow it. He hadn't meant to let himself go, but when Karen had walked into his office wearing a skirt so short he could practically see the undersides of her ass he had simply lost control. A few quick kisses and then he’d bent her over his desk and taken her from behind, biting his lip to keep from crying out as he fucked her as hard as he could. It hadn't been more than a few minutes before he’d come inside her ...

“I’m sorry,” he said, feeling oddly conflicted. He’d felt it, all right, and yet his mind had seemed to split in two. One part that had lost itself in pleasure ... and one part that had watched, coldly and analytically, as he’d taken her. “I ...”

“Don’t worry about it,” Karen said, tightly. She still sounded odd, as if she was in two minds herself. “I need to use your shower.”

It couldn’t have been very good for her, Dave realised, cursing himself for acting like a teenager with more hormones than common sense. He should have engaged in foreplay to help her get ready for him, but the wash of lust had been so strong that he hadn't been able to help himself. And he wasn't even sure if she had wanted it. She hadn't tried to resist, but had she decided that there was no point in trying? Was he a rapist?

He clenched his fists, feeling his hatred of the aliens growing ever stronger. They’d turned him into their puppet, used him as a traitor against his own country ... and whatever had been done to free him from their control had left him a hormone-ridden teenager with the body of an adult. Had it also turned him into a rapist? He shuddered as he heard the sound of running water from the washroom. Karen would be washing away the evidence of what he’d done to her.

If he’d been in a genuine relationship, he would have joined her in the shower ... but he didn't dare. God alone knew how she felt about him now. Instead, he buttoned up his uniform trousers and looked down at the final set of operational instructions for the Order Police. As anticipated, the aliens had withdrawn a surprising number of their collaborators from the Green Zone, sending them to Britain to join the invasion force. They must be running low on warriors, he told himself. There could be no other explanation.

Unlike the other girls he'd known, Karen was surprisingly quick in the shower – but then, they’d had sex in the midst of the enemy camp. If anyone realised that Karen had used his shower, they might start to ask questions ... he shuddered again as he realised just how close he’d come to exposing both of them. The aliens wouldn’t hesitate to take a close look at what remained of the implants in his brain if they heard about what they’d just done ...

He looked up at her as she stepped back into the room. Her face was pale and wan, as if she’d cried a little in the shower, but there were no other signs of what they’d done. Crying wasn't uncommon in the Green Zone, the coldly practical part of his mind pointed out. Some of the human collaborators made their assistants cry on a regular basis. Even the Walking Dead did it, although not for the same reasons. They sometimes pushed their assistants further than they could go.

“I’m sorry,” he said, as she sat down facing him. He couldn't help noticing that she pressed her legs tightly together. “I ...”

“Don’t worry about it,” Karen said, again. At least her voice sounded closer to normal. “What do you want me to do now?”

“I need you to pass on a message to the resistance,” Dave said. Planning an attack on the Green Zone had been difficult; even with several Order Police units withdrawn, the zone was still heavily defended. But there was a simple way around the defences, if done properly. “And then I need you to be ready to assist me when the time comes to move.”

Karen nodded, slowly. “What message do you want me to pass on?”

Dave wanted to smile, but his lips refused to even twitch. “Merely that they’re going to be arrested,” he said. “And that they have to cooperate.”

And then he explained the rest of the plan.

***

Karen gritted her teeth as she walked up to the checkpoint blocking the way out of the Green Zone. Somehow, it was no longer so easy to tolerate the leers of the guards, or the way they searched her to make sure that she wasn't carrying anything out of the secure zone. By the time they passed her through, she felt like a nervous wreck –worse, perhaps, because she couldn't express it. A hint of nervousness might attract the wrong sort of attention.

She barely paid attention as she found a car and ordered the driver to take her downtown, towards the rendezvous point. Evidently, quite a few of the collaborators went to the clubs and drug dens there, enjoying themselves while the rest of the city’s population suffered. No one would notice, she hoped, if she went herself. Or so Howery had assured her. These days, it was harder for anyone without good connections to find a safe place to relax in Washington.

Her skin felt odd as she shifted on the seat, feeling the ghostly impression of Howery’s hands touching her. It had been a deliberate decision to wear something sexy – and to have sex with him, if he had shown interest – and yet she couldn't help wondering if she had allowed herself to become a whore. Sleeping with Jasmine – or any of her past boyfriends – felt purer, more innocent, than what she’d done with Howery. Even the fumbling of her first time, when her boyfriend had been no more experienced than herself, had felt better. Was she a whore?

But he needed to let it go, part of her mind insisted. What would have happened if he’d tried to have sex with someone else?

She shook her head, cursing herself. It was a distraction right now, one she couldn't afford – and nor could Howery. The message from the resistance had been clear. Everything they’d done, everything they’d worked for, was about to be put to the test. The battle for humanity’s future was about to begin. And she was wasting time wondering if she was a whore or merely someone willing to make a sacrifice for humanity’s future!

The car stopped outside an unmarked apartment block. Karen ordered the driver to remain where he was, then climbed out of the car and walked up to the door. It opened as she approached, revealing a grim-faced man wearing dark overalls. She stepped inside and braced herself as she was quickly and efficiently frisked. The resistance was taking no chances with its security.

“Welcome,” the man said, finally. “He’s waiting for you.”

He led her down the corridor and into a small back bedroom. Any doubts Karen might have had about what the building was used for were dispelled by the sounds she heard coming from behind the doors she passed on the way. Men were grunting in passion, while women were crying out ... or were they faking it? Karen had felt little when the General had had sex with her, but she’d had no time to consider pretending to come herself. The General hadn't seemed to care.

The man she’d met before was lying on the bed, looking calm and relaxed. “Good to see you again,” he said, as the door was closed tightly. “This place is secure, by the way.”

Karen hoped that he was right. General Howery had learned a great deal about how the aliens conducted surveillance, although their technology for monitoring their own people actually seemed to be inferior to technology developed by the CIA or KGB. It was an odd point, given how advanced their technology was in other areas, but the General had speculated that their society was more tolerant of intrusive monitoring than most human societies. Karen thought the whole concept was rather creepy. It hadn't been that long since one of her friends had accidentally left her webcam on while getting undressed and discovered, to her horror, that the footage had been distributed around the school.

She shifted uncomfortably as she sat down. It had been months since she’d had anyone inside her and Howery had left her feeling a little sore, even though she knew he hadn't meant her real harm. Her contact didn't seem to notice. Instead, he just sat upright, leaned forward and started asking questions. As always, Karen found herself reciting what Howery had told her to pass on, culminating with the details of the Order Police being moved to the UK.

“That’s been confirmed,” her contact said, when she had finished. “There was a report that several thousand of the bastards were joining the march on Dundee.”

“The General thinks that you would have problems getting through the Green Zone’s defences,” Karen said. “But he has an idea.”

Her contact scowled. There were two rings of steel in Washington; one surrounding the city itself, preventing the population from spreading out into the countryside, and one surrounding the Green Zone, preventing the resistance from attacking the collaborators openly. Both of them would be hard to crack, particularly before the aliens could respond ... and that risked drawing their direct attention.

“He thinks you should start the attack inside the Green Zone,” Karen explained. “He plans to have your team arrested, then shipped inside – seemingly as a plan to burnish your resistance credentials. Once inside, your weapons will be given to you and you will launch your attack, wiping out the core of the collaborator government.”

Her contact frowned. “Chancy,” he said, finally. “What happens if something goes wrong?”

“There's only a handful of us inside the Green Zone,” Karen reminded him. As far as she knew, there was herself, Jasmine and General Howery. She wouldn't be surprised if there were others, particularly among the maids and other assistants, but no one had told her if they were part of the resistance. What she didn't know she couldn’t be made to tell. “We won’t be able to get the guards away from the defences before it’s too late.”

Her contact hesitated. “We’ll have to think about it,” he said, finally. “How long do we have?”

“The plan is to have you picked up within five hours,” Karen said. “You’ll be in there for a day before the balloon goes up.”

There was a long pause. “Give us some time to decide,” the contact said, finally. He hesitated, then asked a different question. “Did you find the names I asked you to look for?”

Karen nodded. “They’re both listed as being in Camp #4,” she said. She had no idea why her contact was interested in a middle-aged man and a young girl from Mannington, but she’d looked up the records as he'd asked. “The man is listed as a potential collaborator.”

“He would be,” the contact muttered. “Are they both in good health?”

“There’s nothing in the files,” Karen said, although she knew that the regime in the concentration camps was not designed to keep people healthy. “If they had died, I imagine that the bureaucrats would have updated and closed the files.”

“Always knew bureaucrats were evil,” her contact said. “Can I leave you here for a few minutes?”

Karen suspected that it wasn't a request. “I can wait,” she said, “but we need an answer soon.”

Her contact stood up and walked out of the room, leaving her alone. Sighing, Karen shifted position and settled down to wait. God alone knew how long this would take, how long it would be before they decided if they should accept Howery’s plan – or move ahead with a conventional assault on the Green Zone. How many fighters were there in Washington anyway? She had no way to know.

It was nearly half an hour before her contact returned. “We will be arrested,” he said, “or at least some of us will be. Where are we going to be picked up?”

Karen grinned. “Pick an address,” she said. Howery had been reluctant to specify anything, although she wasn't sure why. Perhaps he'd feared that the resistance fighters would wonder if he was still under alien control. “They can pick you up anywhere.”

“I know,” her contact said. “That’s the problem.”

***

“Hell of a gamble,” Brad McIntyre muttered, as the resistance fighters gathered in the deserted house. “You sure this is a good idea, boss?”

Nicolas scowled. The hell of it was that Howery, who had been a pretty good officer before the aliens had stuck implants in his head, was right. A direct assault on the Green Zone, even with the additional weapons they’d smuggled in or confiscated from Joe’s stockpiles, would be chancy as hell. If the rest of the plan worked and the aliens were distracted, they might still have a chance to break through, but they’d take heavy losses in the process. The alien counterattack might throw them back out again.

But it was equally risky to be taken into custody, even if it was Howery who was supervising the process, Rendering himself helpless was never a very attractive tactic; offhand, he couldn't remember the tactic succeeding outside of Taliban raids on posts manned by the less trustworthy elements of the ANA or ANP. But then, they’d had inside help too.

“You're all volunteers,” he said. The rest of the resistance fighters in Washington had dispersed to locations he didn't know, just to ensure that he couldn’t betray them to the aliens. “If you want to back out ...”

There was a loud noise from outside as a pair of trucks screeched to a halt, dispersing Order Policemen onto the streets. Nicolas smiled inwardly as the policemen raced towards the door, thinking ruefully of all the traps they could have set for such an unthinking enemy. A claymore mine attached to the door would claim at least four lives, he told himself, and would have slowed them down long enough for the soldiers to escape. The Order Police hadn't even bothered to surround the building.

“Oh, we’re busted,” Rufus Dudley muttered. “Oh fie, oh horrors, oh whatever shall we do ...”

“Quit hamming it up, you bastard,” Nicolas said, dryly. “We don’t want to overdo it.”

The door burst open and the Order Policemen stormed into the building, waving guns around wildly. Nicolas felt a twinge of regret at surrendering to such incompetent foes as he raised his hands, watching with grim amusement as the policemen crept closer. They seemed to believe that they were facing superhumans rather than average resistance fighters, judging by the way they inched forward. Everything seemed to hang on a knife edge before the junior policemen were pushed forward and started shackling the resistance fighters.

Idiots, Nicolas thought. The policemen relaxed the moment the last of the fighters was shacked, although they could still have given a good account of themselves. In their place, Nicolas would probably have knocked the resistance fighters out or bundled them so tightly that they couldn't move at all. Instead, they were pushed out of the building, moving carefully forwards as the shackles restricted their movements. Nicolas saw a handful of people staring from windows, but most bystanders seemed to have made themselves scarce. It was very hard to blame them.

He gritted his teeth as they were searched, then pushed into the trucks. The policemen were still relaxing, laughing and joking as they searched the house and confiscated a handful of weapons Nicolas had left there to find. Judging by their conversation, it was clear that Howery had hinted that the resistance cell had been betrayed by a criminal gang. They didn't seem to take them quite seriously.

Maybe they think that we’re just another criminal gang, he thought, dryly. The Iraqis and Afghanis had been fond of manipulating the Western forces into inadvertently taking sides in local disputes. Whoever managed to brand their enemies as terrorist-supporting shitheads first gained one hell of an advantage, particularly as the Western troops didn't know what the fuck was actually going on. I’m sure Joe betrayed a few others who wouldn't fall in line when he turned into a criminal.

The truck roared to life and started to head towards the Green Zone, taking them into the heart of the enemy defences. Nicolas closed his eyes, trying to snatch what rest he could before they reached their new home. This could work brilliantly, he told himself, or it could be a complete disaster. And there was no way to know which one it would be until it was too late.

But at least he’d had news of Nancy. She was alive! And Greg was with her!

He clung to that thought as the truck passed through the Green Zone’s outermost checkpoints, the guards taking the opportunity to search them again before they were admitted into the secure zone. Inside, it looked almost like Washington was meant to be; there were dozens of people thronging through the streets, looking healthy and happy and prosperous. But there was something in the air that bothered him, an atmosphere of fear that was somehow worse than the atmosphere in the rest of the city. The collaborators knew that they could lose their protected status at any moment.

And your lives too, he thought, savagely. You’re going to lose those too.

Chapter Forty-Five

Washington DC, USA

Day 253

“I’m hungry,” Nancy said, as night started to fall over the camp. “Dad, I'm hungry!”

Greg winced. The food supplies to the camp had been cut over the last three days, as if the aliens were intent on slowly starving them to death. Maybe the whole thing was an experiment to see what happened when a number of humans were shoved into a camp and then deprived of food and drink. He'd given Nancy half of his rations, but there hadn't been enough for a young girl, let alone a grown man. His stomach was protesting angrily too.

Nancy wasn't the only child who was complaining either. Almost every child in the camp was complaining, no matter what their parents said or did. Several parents had actually started snatching food from other people to feed their children, resulting in fistfights and angry shouting matches. It wouldn't be long, Greg realised, before no one had the energy for such battles. Hunger was wearing them all down.

He looked over towards the guard towers and shivered. The guards had been watching the fights without bothering to intervene; for some reason, the only time the guards ever entered the camp was when they were serving food to the prisoners. Greg wondered if they were amusing themselves by watching, or if they had some other motives to keep an eye on the prisoners. It wasn't as if anyone could hope to escape. A handful of men had formed an escape committee two days after they arrived in the camp, but it hadn't managed to do anything more than establish that there was no way to climb the fence or dig through the solid concrete and pass under it. Elaborate schemes to produce a hot air balloon had floundered on lack of materials or expertise. They were thoroughly trapped.

Maybe they have worse motives to watch us, he thought, bitterly. Most of the teenage girls had been separated from their parents before they reached the camp – no one knew why – but some of the other girls were growing up. Greg didn't want to think about the possibilities, yet compared to some of the rumours about the Order Police paedophilia was almost normal. He looked down at Nancy and shuddered. He’d break her neck before he allowed one of those bastards to so much as look at her ...

... But the brave thought was meaningless, he knew. He was powerless. They were all powerless. The guards could do whatever they liked, as could the stronger prisoners, and there was nothing he could do to stop them. They were all helpless prisoners.

He led Nancy back towards the barracks as another fight broke out over the last few crusts of bread. The population of Mannington might have been friendly, a genuine community where they knew and trusted one another, but that was slowly wearing away under the endless pressure from the guards. It wouldn't be long before people started fighting in earnest over food and drink, or worse. How long would it be until the social contract wore away entirely, even though they shared a common enemy?

But they can't lash out at the guards and they can lash out at their former friends, he thought, bitterly. It's human nature to lash out at the weak.

The thought made him shudder. Some of Nicolas’s tales of service in foreign parts had definitely not been suited for Nancy’s ears. The population of Iraq had been weak, oppressed by Saddam and then by religious fanatics who had believed that faith in God was a substitute for training, preparation and experience. Instead of turning on their tormentors, they’d oppressed their womenfolk and children, as if they were to blame for their suffering. It required some measure of bravery, Nicolas had said, to attack American troops with a rifle and a handful of bullets. But it was the act of a coward to beat up a helpless women, the act of someone too scared to lift a hand in his own defence.

And how long would it be, Greg wondered, until the camp dissolved into chaos?

He put Nancy on her bunk and hugged her, tightly. She looked on the verge of tears; her stomach had to be feeling the pain too. Gritting his teeth, Greg tucked her into bed and lay down on his own bunk, trying to mentally convince himself that he wasn't really hungry. It didn't work.

In the rear of the building, he could hear a couple making love. Part of him envied them for finding a chance to enjoy themselves before they died, part of him wondered where they got the energy. Right now, he felt too tired and hungry to climb out of bed, let alone have sex with someone. It seemed too much to ask.

Slowly, he fell into a fitful sleep.

***

The aliens hadn't been very imaginative, Edward Tanaka realised, as he surveyed the camp from a safe distance. It was nothing more than fences surrounding a set of barracks, guarded by a handful of watchtowers and a couple of dozen guards. Like other POW camps he’d seen in the US, there didn't seem to be anything intended to control the prisoners after they were firmly trapped inside the camp. Unlike the Americans who had operated POW camps in Iraq, the aliens didn't seem to be concerned about radicalising their inmates. But then, anyone who had to spend time in a concentration camp would be radicalised anyway by the time they left.

If they ever do, he thought, as he plotted out the assault. Unarmed and unarmoured, the prisoners wouldn't be able to get past the first fence without being cut to ribbons – and the Order Policemen would have no trouble gunning them down. It was, he had to admit, a highly economical design. The prisoners vastly outnumbered the guards, yet there was no way they could leverage their advantage in numbers into something they could use to escape. And most of the prisoners were civilians, anyway. If any of them were former military, they’d escaped alien notice.

He glanced at his watch as he crawled back towards where the assault force was waiting, hidden in a deserted building. There were twenty minutes left before the operation began, by which time they had to be in position to mount their attack. If the rest of the plan worked out, the aliens would not be in a position to respond quickly, but it wouldn't be the first time something had gone wrong and caused a chain reaction of failure that led to the ultimate collapse of the mission. Their orders were simple enough; take out the camp’s guards, free the prisoners and then join up with other resistance bands near Washington. After their last mission, it wasn't anything spectacular.

“Get ready,” he hissed, as he crawled back into the lair. “We have to move out in two minutes.”

He scowled as the team picked up their weapons and ran through a final check. There had been no MANPADs left for their part of the operation, nor had they been allowed to take any antitank rockets that could have smashed the guard towers before the Order Police even knew that they were under attack. Instead, they had been armed with RPGs someone had put together in their garage, a grim warning of what the future held. Stockpiles of advanced weapons were running dry.

And if we are attacked from the air, we will have no choice, but to run, he reminded himself.

“The weapons are ready,” Sergeant Benton assured him. “What about the plan?”

Edward snorted, produced a sheet of paper and drew out a rough sketch of the camp. “This is the plan,” he said, bluntly. “I want RPG teams to take out the towers as soon as the signal is sent, then concentrate on bringing down the fence. Everyone else is to engage the guards and take them all out before they can scream for help. Get their barracks sealed off; trap the bastards inside if you can.”

He glanced from face to face, willing them to understand. “These are civilians who have been through hell,” he warned. It was far too like the girls from the breeding camp for comfort. “Get them moving, whatever it takes, but don’t waste time trying to talk them into moving. Use force if necessary. Try to make sure that they run away from Washington, either south or west.”

“And where,” Benton wondered out loud, “will they go from there?”

Edward winced. Winter was coming on; the temperature along the east coast was already falling sharply. Some people were already muttering about a nuclear winter after the nuclear detonations around the world, although Edward knew that was exaggerated. There simply hadn't been enough weapons detonated to cause permanent changes to the planet’s biosphere. But it hardly mattered; the real problem was that millions of people, including the former inhabitants of the camp, would likely freeze as the temperature dropped still further. Feeding and warming them all would be a nightmare even with the country not under alien occupation.

“We’ll cope with it somehow,” he said, grimly. God alone knew how. Millions of people were already displaced and struggling to survive; thousands more joining them wouldn't help the situation. “But until then ...”

He glanced at his watch. “Time to move out,” he ordered. “Let's go.”

***

Greg jerked awake as he heard the sound of a slap and a woman crying out in pain. He opened his eyes and looked around, finally catching sight of Mr. Tobias and his wife arguing in the far corner. The entire town had known that Tobias and his wife were on the verge of a nasty divorce – there were few secrets in a place like Mannington – but they hadn't separated permanently before the aliens arrived. Since then, they had somehow shared the same house without speaking to one another. Now, whatever had kept the peace between them had worn thin.

“You don’t fuck around with this, not now,” Tobias said, loudly enough to wake everyone else. “This isn't the fucking time.”

His wife gave as good as she got. “And you think that there’s ever a fucking time?”

Greg hesitated, unsure of what to do. All around him, he saw others staring at the couple, equally unsure what – if anything – they should do. No one wanted to intervene; Tobias was a strong man, even though he was as hungry as the rest of them. And no one knew just what the fight was actually about. Greg hoped that Nancy wasn't listening, although he suspected that was unlikely. Like everyone else, Nancy would have been sleeping very lightly, if she’d slept at all.

“Shut up, the pair of you,” someone snapped, finally. “We’re trying to sleep.”

“And we are having a discussion,” Tobias thundered, waving one meaty fist towards the speaker. He grabbed his wife by the hair and started to drag her towards the door, pulling her hard enough to make her cry out in pain. “You shut the fuck up ...”

“That will do,” someone else said, jumping down from their bunk. “Put your wife down ...”

Tobias punched him, right in the mouth. He fell backwards, just as someone else jumped forward and threw himself at Tobias. The entire barracks seemed to dissolve into chaos, everyone punching and kicking at everyone else; Greg cringed back as several middle-aged men ran past his bunk, then swung his legs over the side and stood upright. Nancy was staring with fearful eyes as the fight spread towards them.

“Come on,” Greg hissed, picking Nancy up and running towards the door. They’d never been told that they couldn't go outside after darkness fell, although few people had actually dared. But right now it seemed safer than anything else. “We have to run ...”

He was just outside the door when the first guard tower exploded into a fireball.

***

Edward grinned nastily as the guard towers exploded one by one, silently blessing the man who had designed and produced the RPGs. He'd done an excellent job, although the guard towers had not been as heavily armoured as a tank or an alien strongpoint. The remainder of the assault force opened fire seconds later, picking off the remaining guards before they could escape. They honestly hadn't expected such a savage assault out of nowhere.

And this isn't the only one, Edward thought. The remaining guards had started to fall back to their barracks, only to come under attack there. It would have been simple for them to run, but it seemed that they trusted their barracks more than their legs. Idiots.

“Take down the fence,” he ordered, sharply. Moments later, the first RPGs landed amidst the strands of metal, blowing them into shrapnel. The fence might have been designed to cut the hands of anyone who touched it – Edward had heard stories of people losing fingers by touching it without enough care – but it wasn't designed to stand up to explosives. “And launch the flare.”

There was a flash of light in the sky, followed by an eerie green glow that cast the entire scene into perspective. Several people were already fleeing the prisoner barracks, while the remainder of the guards were fleeing ... but some were already in the camp. Edward blinked in surprise; they had to be guards, he realised grimly; they were armed. The aliens weren’t likely to arm prisoners, were they?

“Must have been having some fun with the other prisoners,” Benton muttered. “I think their CO will be pissed.”

Edward scowled. “Take them out,” he ordered. If the guards became mixed up with the prisoners, the whole operation would become a whole lot harder. “Hurry!”

***

Greg stopped and stared as explosions ripped through the camp. He knew that it was dangerous, he knew that both Nancy and himself were in terrible danger, but he couldn't help being frozen to the spot, utterly unable to move. His mental horizons had sunk to the camp’s fence and he hadn't even realised, not until the camp had been attacked. He kept tight hold of Nancy and just stared. Behind him, the sound of the fight faded away into nothingness.

A moment later, someone slammed into him from behind, knocking him to the hard concrete ground. Greg grunted in pain as he hit the ground, then forgot it entirely as Nancy cried out. His attacker, a man wearing the uniform of the Order Police, had grabbed her and was pulling her close to him, using her as a human shield. Greg stared in horror; after all they’d survived, was this how she was going to be taken from him?

Somehow, he found the strength to lunge forward and slammed into the Order Policeman. The man staggered and let go of Nancy, then turned and hit Greg in the chest. He doubled over, hacking up the remains of his last meal, then fell over and slammed into the ground. The Order Policeman came forward – Nancy had vanished, part of Greg’s mind noted in relief – and placed a foot on his throat. Greg opened his mouth, unsure of what to say or do, but it was already too late. There was a terrible crushing sensation ...

... And then nothing.

***

Edward practically ran into the little girl as he led the charge into the camp. Her father had saved her life, sacrificing his own to save her. He shot the guard who’d killed him through the head, then scooped up the girl and flung her over his shoulder. She yelled and hollered in protest, but he ignored her. There was no time to waste.

“Get out of the camp,” he shouted at the civilians. The sound of shooting was dying away as the remaining guards were hunted down and exterminated, but the aliens might already have a rapid reaction force on the way. Or perhaps the rest of the plan was working perfectly. There was no way to know until they got to the RV point. “Hurry!”

Some of the civilians looked to have been fighting, he realised, as they ran past him. None of them stopped to ask where they should go, thankfully. Instead, they just ran out of the camp and scattered in the darkened streets. Most of them would be rounded up later, he knew, if the aliens won the fight. Others might choose to sell their lives dearly instead of returning to the camp.

He looked inside the barracks and shuddered. It reminded him of some of the pictures he’d seen in church, where they’d been taught about the Holocaust. One heavily-conservative pastor had claimed that the Jews had been so broken that the fight had gone out of them completely; he’d even claimed that the SS guards had been unarmed and the prisoners had never realised it. Instead, they’d been marched into the gas chambers willingly and slaughtered. Six million had died instead of resisting ...

“That’s everyone,” Benton said, once they’d checked the other barracks. “I think we got them all out.”

Edward nodded. The girl had quieted down, but he wasn't about to force her to fend for herself, not with her father dead. Besides, the aliens hadn't shown up in force. Maybe the rest of the plan was working out as well as they'd dared hope.

“Good,” he said. He moved the girl to a more comfortable position, then joined the others as they started to flee the remains of the camp. Once they were back at the RV point, they could check in and see where they should go next. “Let's move.”

“I think you have a new daughter there,” Benton said. “You want to do something for her father?”

Edward hesitated, then shook his head. “No time,” he said, glumly. He would have liked to have buried the man, but there was no time to hang around the camp or drag his body somewhere where a grave could be dug quickly. “We have to run.”

Chapter Forty-Six

Washington DC, USA

Day 253/254

Karen could hear her own heartbeat pounding so loudly that she was surprised that she hadn't woken the entire building as she crept along the corridor to Daisy’s centre of operations. It was supposed to be deserted – Daisy only allowed a few people to enter and only normally during the day – but everything was changing. If the resistance had started its attacks, Daisy was going to be alerted at any second now. And that would give her time to come into her office and start issuing orders.

The door was locked, she discovered as she tested the handle, but the skeleton key General Howery had given her worked perfectly, allowing her to slip into the office and click on the lights. Inside, there was a large set of computers mounted on a desk and several filing cabinets, the very core of Daisy’s operations. The luxurious office Daisy normally used was spectacular, but this was where she did her work and coordinated her empire. She couldn't be allowed to destroy her records or issue orders to her collaborators.

“They don’t encourage people to actually think for themselves,” General Howery had told her, when he’d given her the key and her specific instructions. “If the collaborators don’t receive any specific orders, they will sit on their hands rather than actually acting.”

Karen silently prayed that he was right as she sat down in front of the computer and pushed a USB stick into the slot. The machine hummed to life at once, trying to read the program stored on the stick; it should, according to her contact, paralyse the collaborator computer network, making it impossible for them to coordinate their actions. Karen suspected that the aliens could probably override the network – no one had yet succeeded in figuring out a way of infecting their system with a virus – but it would take hours before Daisy and her fellow collaborators asked for help. They wouldn't want to tell the aliens that they had allowed a spy access to their computer records, which included a list of every collaborator in America.

The door crashed open. Karen jumped as two guards stormed in, weapons raised. She had to have tripped a silent alarm, she realised in horror, as the guards saw her. Daisy might have trusted her, insofar as she trusted anyone, but absolutely no one was allowed access to her innermost office without her presence. She must have suspected that someone was spying on her, even if she had considered Karen above suspicion. That was about to change.

“Hands in the air,” the lead guard barked. “Stand up, now!”

Karen obeyed, shaking. The guard caught her, pushed her against the wall and frisked her, removing a second USB stick, the skeleton key and the pistol Howery had given her. It wasn't unusual for senior collaborators to carry weapons, but the skeleton key was far too revealing. At least it was too late for them to prevent the network from being locked, she told herself as he dragged her hands and yanked them behind her back; the resistance would have its chance to break into the Green Zone and secure the data it needed to exterminate the collaborators. Once way or another, the collaborator government was about to be crippled.

She winced as she felt metal cuffs clicking around her wrists. “Call Director Fairchild,” the guard ordered his companion. “Tell her that we busted the spy.”

He held Karen against the wall until Daisy arrived, blinking sleep from her eyes. Karen had known that her superior had retired to bed; she’d hoped that Daisy would sleep through everything until the resistance stormed the Green Zone. But instead ... she saw a surprising look of disappointment in Daisy’s eyes and shuddered, inwardly. Was Daisy really so far gone that she saw resistance activities as a personal betrayal?

“We caught her at your computer, Director,” one of the guards said. He caught hold of Karen’s arm and pulled her forward. “I think we sealed the security breach.”

Daisy studied Karen, coldly. “How could you?”

Karen shook her head. She wanted to spit defiance, but she didn't dare be tortured or implanted; she simply knew too much. The thought made her smile; it wasn't as if she had any real control over the situation, now that she'd been caught. They might decide to torture her purely for being there, even if there had been a legitimate reason for her presence. It wouldn't be the first time the Order Police had tormented someone purely for the hell of it.

Daisy slapped her, right across the mouth. Karen tasted blood, feeling her gorge rise as Daisy’s rings cut into her face. The guard’s grip on her arm tightened; she met his eyes, briefly, and shuddered at what she saw there. He wouldn't hesitate to do far worse than torture her, if only to indulge himself. Like so many others who served the collaborator government, and through them the aliens, he was too badly tainted to have anywhere else to go.

“Take her to the dungeons,” Daisy ordered, once she had calmed herself. “And ...”

“Let her go,” a cold voice ordered. Karen looked up to see General Howery standing in the doorway. “Release her hands.”

“General,” Daisy said, in surprise. “What is going on ...?”

“My aide was testing your security,” Howery said, in the toneless voice of the Walking Dead. “It was deemed vitally important by our masters that security be tested in all quarters. Your security system appears to have worked.”

Daisy almost simpered. “But Karen ...”

“Was doing precisely as she was told,” Howery informed her. His gaze moved to the guard holding Karen. “Release her at once.”

The guard was shaking so badly, Karen realised with grim amusement, that it took him several tries to get the key in the handcuffs, let alone release her. She rubbed her hands as soon as they were free, then recovered her pistol and other equipment. Were they simply going to be able to walk out of the room without hindrance.

“Dismissed,” Howery ordered the guards. They left the room without even glancing at Daisy. “Director Fairchild?”

Daisy leaned forward. “Yes, sir?”

Howery hit her, knocking her to the ground. Daisy let out a strangled yelp, then fell silent as her head hit the floor. Howery inspected her briefly, then rolled her over and bound her hands and feet together with plastic ties. Karen looked around, found a large piece of cloth, and passed it to him, who shoved most of it into Daisy’s mouth. When she recovered – if she recovered – she would be thoroughly helpless.

“You must have triggered an alarm,” Howery said, as he picked up the bound woman and dropped her behind her desk. “Luckily, I was in the security office at the time.”

He looked over at her. “We need to go see to the resistance fighters,” he added. “You’ll have to stay with them once the fighting begins.”

“Yes, sir,” Karen said, automatically. Now that the immediate danger was past, she was starting to shake. She’d come so close to absolute disaster. “And you?”

“I have somewhere to be,” Howery said. He took one final look around the office, then made a show of glancing at his watch. “We have ten minutes before the attack is supposed to begin. I want the resistance fighters primed and ready by then.”

Karen followed him as he led the way down the corridor and into the elevator, inputting his command code into the security keypad. There were levels in the building that were closed to all, but the Walking Dead and the most trusted collaborators; one of them, Karen had been told, was a prison block. Some of the most important prisoners in the country had been brought there for processing after the aliens or the Order Police had captured them. Most of the poor bastards had ended up as Walking Dead.

It struck her, as the elevator headed downwards, that they could be trapped in the elevator, but there was no other choice, not really. Most of the other access points had been sealed off or were heavily guarded, just to keep the less-trusted collaborators out of the prison block. It would have surprised her if the aliens and their collaborators hadn't realised that there had been some penetration of the Green Zone, although they clearly hadn't realised just how high-ranked some of the spies actually were. But then, if the resistance hadn't freed General Howery, their faith in their brainwashing techniques would have been entirely justified. She was still mulling it over when there was a ding and the elevator came to a halt.

Outside, there were a set of brightly-lit corridors, reminding her of a hospital rather than a prison – although she had to admit that she’d never set foot inside a real prison. Howery led her forward and into a guard room, where a pair of guards were watching the screens with unblinking eyes. Both of them, Karen realised suddenly, were Walking Dead. It seemed that the aliens didn’t trust anyone to guard their prisoners unless they had already been implanted and placed under their control.

Howery drew his pistol and shot the two Walking Dead in the head, before either of them could react. The gunshots seemed deafeningly loud in the confined space; Karen was surprised that their skulls hadn’t disintegrated from the force of the impact. Howery ignored the bodies as they hit the ground; instead, he walked over to a computer display and tapped it with his fingers, unlocking a set of cells.

“Their weapons were stored in a nearby compartment,” he said, as he walked back towards the door. “Terrible security, simply terrible.”

Karen found her voice. “What ... what about these guys?”

“The system is largely automated,” Howery explained, “and isolated from the rest of the Green Zone. There will be no alert until the changing of the guard, in forty minutes. By then, the guards will have other things to worry about.”

He walked down the corridor and stopped in front of a heavy metal door. “You’d better go in first,” he added, as he passed her an electronic key. “They may react badly when they see my face.”

Karen scowled, but she had to admit that Howery had a point. His features were still unmoving; indeed, she had the feeling that they were numb too. He’d kissed her a few times yet there hadn't been any real passion behind the kisses. Shaking her head, she reached for the door and pulled it open, staring into the cell. Twenty men sat there, looking back at her with suspicious eyes; their hands, she realised, had been shackled to the railing to keep them immobile. Bracing herself, she pushed the electronic key against the reader and watched as the shackles unlocked themselves.

“It worked,” her contact said, as he stood upright. He didn’t look to have been tortured, but Karen knew all-too-well that the Order Police were very good at hurting someone without making it obvious. “Where are we now?”

“Underneath the main collaborator base,” General Howery said, stepping into the cell. “You’ll have a chance to get at them as you head to the White House.”

Karen’s contact nodded. If seeing the General’s face bothered him, he didn't show it. “And our weapons?”

“Come with me,” Howery said. He glanced at his watch as they vacated the cell. “There’s three minutes left. Once the attack begins, you know what to do. Make sure you take care of Karen too. Far too many people on both sides will want her dead.”

Karen shivered. The collaborators would consider her a traitor – and so would most of the resistance, the ones who knew nothing about her. God alone knew how long it would take for word to spread that she’d actually been a covert resistance agent.

“Don’t worry,” her contact assured her. “You won’t be hurt. We won’t let it happen.”

***

Jasmine smiled to herself as the collaborator party grew louder. Director Kent wasn't quite as successful as Daisy Fairchild when it came to building up a private empire, but he’d done a remarkable job of forming links with the security officers and senior commanders in the Order Police. Jasmine suspected that he intended to leverage those connections – and the patronage he could grant, through the aliens – into a position that would allow him to influence his superiors, if not overrule them at will. At least, unlike some of the others she’d served, he wasn't a sadist. He just wanted to enjoy himself.

The party would have been fun, she had to admit, if she’d been there of her own free will. Wine and beer flowed freely, music was playing loudly, a trio of naked girls were dancing on three large tables they’d pushed together and the maids, like Jasmine, were either wearing French Maid outfits or nothing at all. Jasmine was used to being naked in public by now – compared to some of the more sadistic members of the collaborator government, Kent was almost normal – even though it exposed her to the gropes of half-drunken junior collaborators. Kent clearly believed that sex, drugs and rock and roll were the key to controlling them.

And he might be right, she thought, as she poured the wine into the glasses. At least she’d been able to get wine pouring and serving duties for herself; several of the other maids hadn't been so lucky. One of them was having a line of coke snorted off her breasts, while several more were being pulled into a cumbersome dance with three drunken Order Policemen who had received merit awards. Jasmine had no idea what someone had to do to receive a merit award from the Order Police. Extra brutality, perhaps. In the darker corners, she could make out naked bodies writhing, their owners clearly unconcerned about privacy.

“Wine,” Kent bellowed. He was definitely halfway to being drunk himself. “More wine!”

Jasmine picked up the tray of glasses and made her way through the crowd, skilfully avoiding a few of the more drunken revellers. The wine itself hailed from the South of France by way of the Vice President’s residence; it was, she’d been told, one of the handful of bottles left in existence. Kent was clearly pleased about something if he was serving it to his guests. Jasmine stopped in front of him, bowed low with practiced ease – allowing him to get a good view of her breasts – and held out the tray to him and his guests. One by one, they took a glass and prepared to sip.

“To wealth,” Kent shouted, as he lifted his glass. “To power!”

Jasmine smirked inwardly as she watched Kent take a sip, then turned and made her way towards the door. It wouldn't take long for the poison to take effect and by then she wanted to be somewhere else. The collaborators would panic in their drunken state, she was sure, but sooner or later they would realise that someone had poisoned Kent and his closest allies. And then they’d identify Jasmine and start hunting for her ...

Behind her, she heard the sound of someone hitting the ground. The poison was fast-acting in any case, she’d been told, but it had clearly reacted poorly with the alcohol and drugs that Kent had been handing out freely. She heard someone scream as another person collapsed, followed rapidly by a third. There had been twenty-one glasses on the tray and she’d given them all to a separate person ...

Shaking her head, she walked out of the room. She didn't look back.

***

There were seconds left when Dave stepped into the command and control room, deep beneath the Green Zone. The collaborators, aided by the Walking Dead, had set up a fairly good defence network, he had to admit. Part of it had been his work, back when the aliens had controlled his mind. They’d forced him to put his expertise to use on their behalf.

Bastards, he thought, coldly.

The CO looked up as he entered, then saluted.

“General,” he said. “There were a pair of security alerts earlier, both from the outskirts of Washington.”

Dave felt, just for a moment, a flicker of relief at how the aliens had damaged his face. It would have been hard to conceal his relief without it. Given how large the projected operation was, he would have expected a hundred security breaches, no matter how carefully the resistance covered its operations. Under the circumstances, they’d been luckier than they deserved.

“No need to worry,” he said, as he placed his hand on his holster. “Our masters ...”

The main display lit up like a Christmas tree. Dave smiled inwardly as he realised that the resistance was definitely pulling out all the stops. There was a suicide bomb attack on the main gates into the Green Zone, incoming mortar fire and snipers taking shots at the guards. Outside Washington, heavier weapons were being brought into play against the garrisons, including several artillery pieces that had been hidden away since the invasion. And further afield ...

They’re hitting everywhere, Dave realised, as he drew his pistol. Everyone is getting hit.

“We need to sound the alert,” the CO said, as the heavy door slammed shut. There was a loud click as it locked itself, sealing them off from the rest of the building. “Sir ...”

Dave shot him. The man’s eyes widened in surprise and horror a moment before he hit the ground, but Dave was already moving on to the other targets. None of them had expected the resistance to attack the command centre – and even if they had, they would have found it difficult to wrap their heads around the concept of a rogue Walking Dead. Dave reloaded his pistol and sat down in front of the main command system, already planning what orders he was going to issue. The defenders of the Green Zone, he told himself, were thoroughly screwed.

They just didn't know it yet.

Chapter Forty-Seven

USS Nebraska, Atlantic Ocean/Over Britain

Day 253/254

Captain Ryan had known that this day might come, even though it had seemed unlikely prior to the arrival of the alien mothership. He'd always assumed that his SSBN would simply serve as a deterrent, convincing dictators that actually launching nuclear warheads at the continental United States was the last thing they would do before their countries were transformed into piles of radioactive ash. The stories the old sweats had told about the Cold War, when a launch order never seemed too far off, were just alien to him. But now there were real aliens.

He swallowed hard when the final set of launch orders came in, silently grateful that they’d taken the time to set up so many fallbacks when the alien approach had first been detected. A missing link or two in the message would have forced him to refuse his orders, no matter the situation on the ground. And it didn't look good; what little news they’d picked up from the British, or through listening to radio transmissions, said that the United States was under enemy occupation. And the aliens might well be able to shoot down the missiles in flight.

“I have a set of launch orders,” he said, grimly. The targeting coordinates were set for the Middle East, thankfully. They’d heard that there were alien cities in the heartlands of America now, but he wasn't sure if he could have fired missiles towards the United States. “Do you concur?”

The XO looked pale. They’d spent the last hour retargeting the missiles, then waiting for the final order. During that time, his XO had become a sweating wreck – and Ryan was grimly aware that he didn't look much better. If nothing else, merely launching their missiles would tell the aliens exactly where they were. No one knew what the aliens could do to submarines, but he was pretty sure they had something that could be used against an underwater target. Hell, merely dropping a small rock from orbit would kill them all.

“I concur,” the XO said, finally.

Ryan nodded, then looked at the other three officers. It took all five of them to actually arm the warheads and launch the missiles – and if even one of them refused, it was supposed to be impossible to fire. There had been some very quiet discussions on the subject of what to do when someone refused the firing command back when he'd been promoted to Captain, none of which had been very reassuring. He’d never had to hold one of his crewmen at gunpoint before and he didn't want to start now. One by one, they gave their concurrence.

“Confirm location,” he ordered, addressing the navigation officer.

“Confirmed,” the navigational officer said. Locating themselves was harder without GPS, but the USN had never lost the skill, fortunately. If they hadn't known where they were, the missile was quite likely to go off course and come down in the wrong place – assuming, of course, that the aliens didn't shoot it down in flight. “The missiles are programmed with the correct navigational data.”

Ryan swallowed, hard. “Insert keys,” he ordered. He pressed ahead as soon as all five keys were inserted. “Turn on three. One ... two ... three.”

The green lights on the missile status board turned red. “Tubes opened,” the weapons officer reported. “All tubes open and ready to fire.”

“Begin firing sequence,” Ryan ordered.

There was a dull rumble as the first missile was ejected upwards from the launch tube, its booster igniting a moment later. The entire submarine shook violently. Moments later, the second missile launched, followed rapidly by the third. Ryan had a sudden vision of how it must look from orbit; each individual launch marking the submarine’s course and speed as clearly as if they were signalling the aliens directly. How long would it take them to respond?

Time seemed to slow down until the final missile launched from the tubes and vanished into the atmosphere. “Alter course as planned,” Ryan ordered, sagging in relief. Somehow, he’d never expected to get all of their missiles off before the aliens responded. “Get us out of here!”

***

“The missiles are in the air, Prime Minister.”

The Prime Minister kept his reaction under tight control. Hundreds of ballistic missiles, almost every submarine-based missile left on Earth, were rising up from the waves, aimed directly at the alien population centres. A handful had even been fired at the mothership, although there were problems in hitting a target in high orbit with ballistic missiles. Even so, the aliens would likely interpret the whole display as attempted genocide. If only a third of the missiles made it to their targets, the alien population was about to drop sharply.

He looked down at the string of reports from America and the Middle East. The UK had been backing insurgents in the Middle East in the hopes that it would keep the aliens busy long enough for Torchwood to produce a viable defence. Now, primed with promises of more aid in the future, the insurgents were adding to the chaos, piling still more pressure on the aliens. What would they do?

They’d wargamed it out, time and time again. It hadn't been a useful exercise, the Prime Minister had decided – but then, he hadn't been sold on the concept even before the aliens had arrived to upset all of his calculations. If the aliens were human, they would respond in a logical manner ... except humans weren't always logical. Nor, for that matter, did they share the same incentives and desires. How could Saddam have kept his population in bondage for years?

And if a human could act so unpredictably, how much more so an alien?

“Good,” he said, finally.

One way or the other, they were committed now. They’d have to fight it out to the bitter end.

***

Philip shuddered as he saw the alien craft hovering over Fife, advancing with ponderous intensity towards Edinburgh. It was so vast that it was difficult to wrap his head around its mere existence, no matter that he’d been an unwilling guest on one of the other alien command ships before he’d been returned to Earth. From what he’d heard, the craft was causing panic among the civilian population who found themselves under its shadow. It was hellishly intimidating.

And very well protected, he realised, as he saw the swarm of alien fighter craft fanning out to deflect the RAF and its allies. The RAF had put every remaining aircraft in the air – British, American, French, German, even a handful of Spanish aircraft that had somehow made their way north – and yet he knew with cold certainty that it wouldn't be enough to stop the monster. His Falcon was already lightened because there hadn't been enough missiles to go around; this battle was the RAF’s last throw of the dice. If it was lost, there would be nothing left to stop the aliens from pounding Britain into the dust.

“Hold position,” the fighter controller ordered. “Let them come to us.”

Philip scowled, darkly. All of the evidence from Washington suggested that nothing short of a tactical nuke would be even able to scratch the damn city-sized craft and yet the controllers wanted them to wait? What the hell were they waiting for? Someone to finish sipping their tea and order the attack? It wasn't as if the aliens could just ignore the RAF fighters for long ... but they could hold, just long enough to allow the humans to burn through their fuel. And then they could engage and trap the humans between two fires.

“Hold your mouth,” he snapped at a pilot who was complaining too loudly. Whatever distinctions had been held between the different national squadrons had faded away under the tempo of near-constant fighting. Now, he commanded a mixed squadron of American, French and British aircraft. He would have been happier if he hadn't received the post because the last CO had been blown out of the air. “Let them come to us.”

The alien fighters seemed to hesitate, as they always did when facing large numbers of humans, then twisted on their axis and shot towards the human fighters with a determination Philip could only admire. Brilliant streaks of blue-white light shot out ahead of them as they fired randomly, trying to wipe several human aircraft out of the sky before they could return fire. A brilliant explosion somewhere behind Philip testified to the success of their plan, even as the combined force started to fall into a series of random evasive patterns. The one human attempt to fight the aliens according to plan – over Saudi Arabia – had been a failure so horrific that everyone else had learned from the experience. There hadn't been any Saudi pilots left to try.

Philip bit down a curse as he fired a missile towards the first alien craft, then flung the aircraft into an evasive pattern as the alien craft exploded in midair. It crossed his mind that he might have killed a secret rebel, then he pushed the thought aside bitterly. Everything they’d learned about the aliens suggested that if the rebel leaders were killed the remainder would just fall in line with the Rogue Leaders. They couldn't afford to hold back.

Not that we are, he thought, as an alien craft zipped in front of him. He depressed the firing trigger, but the shells went wide of their target. It spun around with terrifying speed and charged right at him, playing chicken at supersonic speed. Philip felt a moment of absolute terror as he dived, catching sight of the alien craft’s hull as it missed him by bare millimetres and vanished somewhere behind him. He heard the Falcon’s airframe groan as he forced it into another evasive manoeuvre. The aliens had their own version of the Immelman turn, which involved literally reversing course and speed instantly. It wasn't unknown for a human pilot to think that he had a few minutes to evade, only to discover that the alien was right on his tail, out for blood.

He scowled as he caught sight of the massive alien craft. It looked like a thunderous storm approaching their position, but it was far too solid to be so easily dismissed. How could anyone seek to challenge such power, it seemed to say; how could anything merely human even touch it? But humans had brought one such craft down before ...

An alien craft appeared in front of him, corkscrewing through an elaborate manoeuvre that allowed it to spit fire in all directions ... and vanished. Philip blinked in surprise, unable to believe his eyes, then looked down at his scope. The massive alien craft was still there, dominating the skyline, but the smaller craft were gone. All of the smaller craft were gone.

“All fighters, we assess that the diversionary operation has succeeded,” the fighter controller said. “Close and engage; I say again, close and engage.”

Divisionary operations? Philip thought. What the hell had they done that had drawn away all of the alien fighters? They’d fled so rapidly that there was no sign of them left on the scopes, not even the live feed from the two remaining Sentry aircraft. But they would be back, as quickly as they left ... the RAF had to press the offensive now, or risk losing everything.

“Form up on me,” he ordered. By now, their formations looked like bad jokes – and would have been bad jokes, if they hadn't been so necessary. The aliens were just too good at taking advantage of predictable flight paths. “And clear the way for the bombers.”

The alien craft grew rapidly as the jet fighters closed in. It was surrounded by a faint haze that, according to the briefings, was the drive field that somehow kept it in the air. Philip realised, suddenly, that if they did manage to down it the craft was going to crash-land on Fife, but there was no choice. Besides, most of the civilian population had been evacuated.

Up close, there was something eerily beautiful about the alien craft. Most of its hull was smooth, broken only by blisters that were the size of aircraft hangers. Philip heard the airwaves go silent as the pilots were struck dumb with awe; they’d flown off nuclear aircraft carriers in the past, but the largest carrier America had launched could easily have fitted into one of the alien craft. It struck him, suddenly, that the aliens could literally have abducted an entire carrier ...

The alien hull glittered with light and he yanked the Falcon to one side, just as a spray of plasma bolts blazed through the air where he'd been. They hadn't left the craft entirely defenceless after all, he realised, as his targeting systems locked on. The massive ship was very capable of taking care of itself. He fell into formation with several other pilots and fired his second missile, watching grimly as it slammed into the alien craft’s drive field and exploded harmlessly, hundreds of metres from its hull.

“Just like Independence Day,” someone said.

“Shut up,” Philip snapped. He barked orders, clearing a pathway for the ground-based missile launchers and artillery. Offhand, he couldn't recall any pilot being accidentally shot down by long-range artillery, but there was always a first time. “Give the groundhogs a chance to engage.”

The alien craft didn't seem to hesitate as the missiles and shells slammed into its drive field, although even they might have problems altering course quickly. No matter how capable the alien crafts were, surely they still had to worry about mass and suchlike ... didn't they? They weren't gods, Philip reminded himself, as the drive field glowed with deadly light. The aliens could do things humans couldn't do, but they were still mortal. They could be hurt.

They can be killed, he thought, grimly.

“Alpha flight is moving in,” the fighter controllers said. “All aircraft, move to cover them ...”

Philip nodded, catching sight of a handful of RAF Tornadoes as they made their way towards the alien craft. They’d been briefed on Alpha Flight; they carried cruise missiles, each one tipped with a special warhead. It might well have been a tactical nuke, the pilots had decided afterwards, although the briefers hadn't specified. But it was hard to imagine what else might have damaged the alien craft ...

Another streak of plasma shot past him, narrowly missing his cockpit. He swore out loud as he saw that some of the alien fighters had returned. They must have sensed the danger, he realised, as the craft raced towards the Tornados. Had they some kind of technology that allowed them to detect nuclear warheads?

He pushed the thought aside as he opened fire on the alien craft with his guns, blowing one of them apart and forcing the other one to break off. Just for a moment, the Tornados broke into clear space and launched their missiles, directly at the giant alien craft. Philip smiled in delight, then yanked his aircraft to one side. If a nuclear warhead was about to detonate right on top of the alien craft, he didn't want to be anywhere near it.

A brilliant white light flared out as one of the missiles struck its target. For a long chilling second, the light just seemed to hang in the drive field like a flare high over the battlefield, then the drive field flickered out of existence. Explosions billowed along the hull of the giant craft as it slowly started to fall out of the sky, gravity reasserting itself as the drive field’s effects faded away. Philip watched, no longer caring about the fight, as the craft slammed into the ground, brilliant fireballs flaring up from where it had crashed. The earthquake would have been felt for miles around, he realised in horror. Edinburgh and Glasgow would probably be in ruins ...

“They’re breaking off,” the fighter controller said. “Let them go.”

Philip watched mutely as the alien fighters vanished into the distance, leaving the destroyed ship behind. It was burning merrily, the flames rising up into the sky; no doubt their ground forces would move in and do what they could for the surviving crewmen. If there were any survivors, he told himself. No matter how it had looked, the craft had to have hit the ground hard enough to kill everyone onboard.

“All units, return to base,” the fighter controller ordered. “I say again ...”

***

The bunker echoed with the sound of cheering as the first images of the crashed ship came in from the SAS recon patrols. Large parts of Fife might have been devastated – God alone knew what sort of pollutants might result from crashing the alien ship – but the aliens had taken a bloody nose. Their invasion of Britain would falter, he was sure, now they’d been hit so badly.

But they’d stopped most of the nukes, he saw. Only a handful of rockets had survived long enough to approach their targets – and the aliens were mad. If the other half of Operation Hammer failed ...

“Prime Minister,” General Brentwood said, “the CO of the Scots Guard is requesting permission to launch probing attacks. We could push them back hard while they’re still stunned ...”

The Prime Minister hesitated. Even if the aliens were short on air cover now that they’d lost their command ship, they were still formidable and the road network had been shot up badly over the last few days. Advancing tanks forward to engage the enemy might well result in them being picked off by alien fighters.

But they had to keep pushing at the bastards, forcing them to respond to humanity.

“Do it,” he ordered. They were still committed. “And is there any word from America?”

“Nothing from Washington,” General Brentwood said. “But we know that the shit hit the fan ...”

“Yes,” the Prime Minister said, tiredly. Had there ever been a Prime Minister who had come so close to losing the entire country? “We do.”

Chapter Forty-Eight

Washington DC, USA/Guthrie Castle, UK

Day 254

The Green Zone was under heavy attack, Nicolas realised as he led half of his force out of the building and started to run towards the White House. There were mortar shells landing inside the complex, snipers taking shots at anyone who showed themselves along the walls; indeed, fratricide was a very real possibility. But there was no choice. The ground shook as another bomb detonated, right on top of the walls. They’d be coming over as soon as the breach was widened enough to allow them to advance.

He glanced back at Karen, who was holding her pistol in shaking hands. If it was entirely up to him, he would have shoved her into a panic room where she could have remained until the fighting was over, but Howery had been right. There was too much danger of a resistance fighter, unaware of her true allegiances, gunning her down before she could escape. Or worse. There were some rumours about resistance groups that had made Joe’s band of criminals look nice and normal.

A pair of alien fighter craft shot overhead, shooting blasts of light towards the ground. He winced as he saw the explosions billow up from the other side of the wall – they had to have targeted the mortars, he realised – and then smiled as a Stinger missile lanced up towards one of the craft, blasting it out of the sky. It came down somewhere in the city, exploding into a giant fireball that drifted upwards before fading away. The remaining craft drew back and vanished into the distance.

The sound of shooting was growing louder as they approached the White House, weapons at the ready. A small group of alien warriors was standing outside, looking oddly disconcerted as they looked around for possible threats. It dawned on Nicolas that the rest of the plan had to have worked – every alien and collaborator garrison in the country was under attack – and that the aliens were aware that they were at the sharp end ... and unlikely to receive any help in a hurry. He had to smile, feeling a moment of kinship with the aliens. He’d felt the same way, more than once.

One of the aliens turned ... and saw the advancing humans. Nicolas opened fire, scything them down with deadly accuracy. One of the aliens leapt forward, trying to cover the others, only to be shot down in seconds. Nicolas heard Karen being noisily sick behind him, but ignored her. They had to get into the White House before the aliens realised that there was a much closer threat than the insurgents besieging the walls. Five more aliens, worker drones, appeared in the entrance as they ran up, their cyborg arms extended as makeshift weapons. They would be intimidating, Nicolas knew, to someone who didn't know them, but he knew that they weren't as dangerous as the alien warriors. The soldiers shot them down and advanced into the building.

Inside, it was as dark and silent as the grave. Nicolas snapped his NVGs over his eyes as he inched forward, searching for signs of life. The aliens had power in the White House, according to the report he’d heard from the British Ambassador; they had to have turned the lights off deliberately, hoping to make it harder for his force to pick their way through the building. He detailed a soldier to remain behind at the door, then led the remainder of the force upwards towards the Oval Office. The aliens really had done a remarkable job of reconstructing the building, he couldn't help realising. If they’d had a few more months to work, it might have been impossible to tell that it had ever been knocked down.

A blinding flash of light from the shadows caught one of his men, throwing him backwards. Nicolas unhooked a grenade from his belt and hurled it towards the hidden alien, then jumped in as soon as the grenade detonated, blasting the alien to bloody chunks. An ambush, he realised, as he scanned down the corridor. If the alien had waited a few seconds longer, he might have wiped out half the team on his own.

There was no one outside the Oval Office. An eerie feeling of unreality ran down his spine as he paused outside the door and waited for the rest of the team to catch up, then kicked down the door and advanced into the room itself. Even with the goggles, it was hard to see the alien seated – seated? – behind the President’s desk. But the wretched creature could see perfectly in the darkness ...

He pulled the flashlight from his belt and flicked it on. Several of his team, the ones who hadn't seen alien leaders before, gasped in surprise. The alien’s massive dark eyes stared back at them; if it was disturbed by the sudden change in lighting, it showed no sign of it. Indeed, it’s body was so still that it was easy to wonder if the alien was just a dummy, left behind while the real alien made its escape. And then the alien tilted its head, very slightly.

“This will avail you nothing,” it said. Instead of the atonal voice he'd heard aliens use before, there was something deeply ... reassuring in his voice. “Your war against us is already lost.”

Nicolas found himself lowering his rifle before his mind quite realised what was going on. He wanted to trust the alien, he wanted to obey the alien ... all of a sudden, he understood just how easily the Rogue Leaders had dominated the rest of their race. And why their fellows were so terrified of the mere possibility of something like the Rogue Leaders coming into existence. If the aliens could influence a human so easily, the rest of their own race had to be completely vulnerable to them ...

“No,” he said, somehow catching hold of himself. Now he realised what was going on, the alien sounded more like a slimy politician or a used car salesman, one who specialised in making someone feel good about themselves while they were robbed blind. “You are our prisoner.”

“Think about it,” the alien oozed. The pressure in his head grew stronger. “We hold your country in the palm of our hands ...”

Nicolas lifted the rifle, realising to his horror that his hands were shaking. Had he ever had shaky hands when he’d held a weapon before? He couldn't remember, but he was sure that he wouldn't have survived his first week in the military if he had. The alien’s head tilted again as dark eyes met his, somehow daring him to fire. For a moment, Nicolas had a vision of the future, of what would happen if the Rogue Leaders won outright. Resistance would be utterly impossible to even imagine, let alone get off the ground.

“You can't shoot,” the alien said. “You won’t ...”

The trigger seemed to be solid, but somehow Nicolas managed to pull it, just enough to fire. There was a loud noise and the alien’s head exploded, scattering green flesh all over the office. The pressure in his head vanished at the exact moment the alien died, suggesting that there was more to their influence than just their voice. Behind him, he heard a moan; almost everyone, it seemed, had been just as badly affected. Karen seemed to have held up better than some of the men.

“The gates have fallen,” Dudley said. He looked over towards the flames burning through the Green Zone. “The Green Zone is ours!”

***

Dave keyed a switch as the Green Zone’s defenders crumbled under the resistance attack. Between his orders and the general level of absolute confusion caused by the inside attack, the defenders hadn't really stood a chance. Now, a handful of them were trying to surrender while others were sneaking out into Washington, hoping to hide somewhere in the streets. He privately doubted that many of them would be taken prisoner, even though the resistance needed them for interrogation. Too much hatred had built up over the long occupation for a peaceful end.

“I’m still monitoring their tracking network,” he said. By now, the aliens would have realised that he’d been liberated from their control – somehow. None of the Walking Dead would be trusted any longer. Dave had no idea if they would simply kill them all or order them to stay out of the fighting, but it hardly mattered. The alien grip on America was crumbling and they would have to take drastic action to save it. “They’re rerouting the other giant ship towards Washington.”

He smiled, darkly. The aliens had lost one of their ships near Washington. Now ... another was coming. And if it didn't meet the same fate, humanity was about to face the wrath of aliens with nothing more to lose.

***

“Don’t go wandering off,” Brad McIntyre said. “Most of the people here don’t trust you.”

Karen nodded, grimly. The shooting was dying down as the resistance occupied the Green Zone, dragging everyone out of hiding as they searched the collaborator buildings. Everyone, no matter who they were or what they had done, was secured and dumped on the White House Lawn and guarded by heavily-armed soldiers. The guards were there to protect the prisoners as well as guard them, Karen saw. Many of their former servants had taken the opportunity for some revenge as the defences crumbled.

She caught sight of Jessica, one of Jasmine’s friends, and ran over to her, dragging a reluctant SEAL in her wake. The maid was naked and badly bruised, her hands tied behind her back with a plastic tie. Jessica looked up at Karen, then lowered her eyes.

“She’s dead,” she said, quietly.

Karen didn't have to ask who she meant. Jasmine had volunteered to do something to help the resistance, something more direct than spying on the collaborators. Whatever it was, she’d died, caught up in the fighting as the resistance stormed the complex. Karen wished she’d been there, that she had been able to do something to help, but it was futile. She hadn't even seen her friend and lover die.

“I’m sorry,” McIntyre said, softly.

Karen slowly began to cry, pressing her face into his chest for what comfort she could snatch from him. Countless men and women had died since the aliens had arrived; on that scale, Jasmine’s death was meaningless. But she’d been a friend and comforter and ... somehow, it brought all of the death into perspective. Jasmine had deserved so much better than to die, her death not even noticed until afterwards ...

It wasn't over. It would never be over, no matter what happened in the future, no matter if the United States won back its independence from the aliens. She would bear the scars for the rest of her life, as would the entire country. The story never really ended with a victory parade and the hero getting the girl. In its wake, there would be countless broken lives and an entire society struggling to survive and rebuild itself.

And they want to kill me, she thought, bitterly. Perhaps I should let them.

“Come on,” McIntyre said, pulling her away. “There’s work to do elsewhere.”

***

“We’ve got them bang to rights, Captain,” the weapons officer said. “They’re crawling towards the States, right over our heads.”

We’ve got them right where we want them, Captain O’Bryan thought, remembering Chesty Puller’s famous words. But then, Chesty had never had to face an alien ship that was over ten kilometres in diameter. How lucky he’d been to only have to face the Japanese ... and how lucky the United States had been, facing terrorists and insurgents after 9/11. He rather missed Osama now.

After dropping off the President, USS Mississippi had sailed northwards to pick up some specialised warheads from Britain, then headed back towards the Atlantic Coast. Their orders had been simple; they were to lurk near the United States until they received a specific signal, then engage any alien targets with extreme prejudice. The orders hadn't mentioned that they would be engaging one of the giant alien ships, but someone had clearly had an idea of what to expect. They’d given the submarine missile warheads that were modified versions of the warhead that had brought one of the city-sized ships down over Washington.

They can't be planning to fly back over land, he thought, as he peered at the image of the alien craft. It was a nightmare right out of science-fiction, perhaps from a movie more interested in special effects than realism. Or do they think that they don’t have a choice?

He considered the best way to engage the alien craft quickly, running through possibilities in his mind. Normally, they would launch their cruise missiles well out of enemy range, but that wasn't a possibility here. Launching from directly under the alien craft was the most likely tactic to ensure a hit, yet that would bring the craft down on top of the submarine ...

“Prepare to fire,” he ordered. The alien craft was still inching westwards. If the missiles hit, the submarine would have a chance to escape. “Lock weapons on target.”

“Using cruise missiles as antiaircraft weapons,” the weapons officer said. At least without nuclear tips they didn't have to go through the rigmarole of verifying everything. “It goes against the grain, Captain.”

O’Bryan smiled. There had been proposals to use nuclear weapons as antiaircraft missiles, using airbursts to sweep enemy aircraft out of the sky, but they’d never actually been developed as far as he knew. NATO had been confident of retaining control over the air during the Cold War, although the Russians might well have considered the weapons worth developing. Now, there would be no time to prepare America’s final nuclear weapons for airbursts.

“Fire,” he ordered.

The submarine shook as the first missile blasted out of the tubes. They’d had to do some heavy reprogramming to prepare the missiles for the operation; if half of what he’d heard about Russian missiles was true, they would never have been able to reprogram them successfully. It wasn’t normal to fire at a target so close to the submarine, not with the latest developments in cruise missiles. Everyone had thought that dogfighting and battleship duels were outdated until the aliens had taught them differently.

He gritted his teeth as he watched the missiles rising up towards their target, which was already spitting plasma fire towards them. Whoever was in command of the alien ship had the reactions of a cat! There was no point in trying to run, he knew; if the alien fighters came after them, there was no way they could escape in time. He caught his breath as two of the missiles vanished, then a third slammed right into the alien craft’s drive fields and detonated. Brilliant white light blazed out high overhead and the viewscreen darkened automatically.

When it cleared, he saw the alien craft sinking towards the water. For a moment, he forgot that it was an enemy craft, that its crew were bent on the enslavement of humanity ... all that mattered was that the aliens were struggling desperately to save their stricken craft. It was falling faster now, he saw, as the last remnants of the drive field faded away to nothingness ...

“All hands, brace for shockwaves,” he ordered. “I say again, brace ...”

They’d cleared for depth charges, although if the alien craft came down hard the tidal waves would massively increase the pressure on the hull. He couldn't recall if a submarine had been trapped under a tidal wave before ... moments later, the alien craft hit the water. The submarine’s hull creaked under the sudden strain, rolling as if they were floating on the surface of the water ... and then the sound just faded away.

“I think we made it, Captain,” the weapons officer said.

O’Bryan peered through the periscope towards the alien craft. It was large enough to float, he saw, at least for a short period. He wasn't sure, but it sure as hell looked like the giant ship was slowly sinking under the waves. Countless aliens were swarming over the hull, trying to escape the water that had to be rushing through the interior of the ship. If their hull integrity had been breached ... it wouldn't be long before the entire ship was lost forever.

“Sir,” the XO said, “should we try and take on survivors?”

O’Bryan hesitated. It would be the decent thing to do – and he wouldn't hesitate to pick up Russian and Chinese sailors in wartime, at least if there was no risk to his boat. But there were just too many aliens to save ...

“No,” he said. “All we can do is watch.”

***

“News just in, Mr. President,” Lieutenant Danielle Grove said. “The Mississippi just wasted another alien city-ship!”

The President nodded, staring towards the east. Smoke had been seen in the distance all day where the giant alien craft had been shot down. Indeed, Pepper had been on the verge of ordering the castle evacuated before they’d confirmed that they were in no immediate danger from earthquakes or vengeful alien warriors. Right now, the fighting in America seemed to have destroyed the collaborator government, but the rest of the aliens were still a threat.

It was nearly an hour before the second message came in from London. “We picked up a message from the remainder of the alien leadership,” the Prime Minister said. “They want to talk.”

Pepper let out a rebel yell and gave the President a hug. “I think we won,” she said, as she swung him around. “We ...”

The radio buzzed. “Mr. President,” Alex Midgard’s voice said, “we have a situation.”

Chapter Forty-Nine

RAF Marham, UK/Washington DC, USA/Earth Orbit

Day 254

“You have got to be fucking kidding me.”

Philip removed his flight helmet as he stared down at the radio. The flight back to RAF Marham had been straightforward after the alien command ship had been downed; the aliens didn't even try to harass the returning pilots as they retreated from the combat zone. Even if the rest of the operation hadn’t worked, they were still clearly stunned by the sudden loss of the command ship. The RAF ground crewmen had greeted the pilots as heroes when they’d landed and marched into the squadron mess. Monique had even given him a deep kiss as soon as she’d seen him.

“I wish I was,” Midgard said. “But one of the bastards is still alive.”

“I see,” Philip said. He gritted his teeth, hearing the sounds of revelry drifting through from the next room. Judging by the sounds, half of his pilots had already had too much to drink. “Tell me everything.”

“The alien rebels moved in and started to take over as soon as we downed the two Command Ships,” Midgard explained. He’d taken over communications duties with the alien rebels once Philip had been returned to active duty and sent to Britain. “They took most of the command authority without problems, but one of the Rogue Leaders is still holed up on the mothership.”

Philip winced. The unmodified leader caste aliens could dominate the other castes, but the Rogue Leaders could induce unquestioning obedience ... and if one of them was on the mothership, it would be extremely difficult for the alien rebels to wrinkle him out. They could destroy a facility on the planet’s surface, if necessary, but destroying the mothership would send millions of tons of debris showering down upon Earth. The entire planetary biosphere might be ruined.

“So far, he doesn’t have control of the ship’s functions, but he seems to be working on taking them,” Midgard continued. “Once he has the drive ...”

He didn't need to spell it out. The mothership might be exhausted, no longer capable of leaving planetary orbit, but there was enough power left in the drive to send the colossal craft spiralling in towards Earth. Once it hit the planet ... the impact would do colossal damage, worse than any asteroid strike. The human race might be destroyed along with the remaining aliens on the surface.

Philip swallowed, hard. “How do we go after him?”

“The alien rebels are sending ships,” Midgard said. “But they can't send any of their own warriors.”

“Of course not,” Philip agreed. Sending alien warriors to face the Rogue Leaders would be effectively sending them reinforcements. The warriors would simply be talked into switching sides. “Who do we have on hand?”

“You, resistance fighters from Washington and whatever the British can scrape up,” Midgard said. “London’s willing to help, but most of the British military is deployed to face the aliens, not to jump on a flying saucer and head into orbit. Besides, there aren't many people who have been to orbit.”

“I’m a pilot, not a commando,” Philip pointed out.

“But you have experience onboard an alien starship, which is more than can be said for most people,” Midgard said. “Grab your gear; the alien craft will be with you shortly.”

“Understood,” Philip said. He looked over at the wall, where he could hear the faint strains of someone playing the piano in the squadron mess. They thought they’d won the war and he couldn't bring himself to disillusion them. “I’ll be waiting.”

***

“This is going to be fun,” Nicolas muttered, as he issued orders. Washington was a mess, slipping into chaos as people realised that the collaborators were no longer in charge ... and he was still required to send a detachment of troops to orbit. “Sergeant, round me up some volunteers from the teams for an incredibly dangerous mission.”

Sergeant McCoy nodded and headed off to where the soldiers were trying to pull security or guard prisoners, leaving Nicolas to think fast. A handful of warehouses had been secured and would serve as makeshift prisoner holding facilities; the alien POW camps around Washington had been so badly damaged that they wouldn't be usable as prison camps without some heavy repair work. After that ... the plan had been to either don uniforms and start reminding people of the government’s existence or fade back into the surrounding area. That plan had just been smashed into a million pieces.

“Spread the word,” he ordered, keying his radio. They could use them safely now, at least for the moment. “Any alien craft entering the area are not to be engaged unless they fire first; I say again, any alien craft entering the area are not to be engaged unless they fire first.”

He gritted his teeth at the outbreak of incomprehension over the airwaves. Not that he could really blame the doubters, he supposed. Allowing even one of the smaller alien craft into firing range was asking for trouble. They had all seen bolts of blue-white light searing down from the sky to rip resistance positions apart. But there was no other way to get to orbit. The last thing they needed was a friendly alien craft shot down over Washington.

And besides, most of them don’t know that there’s any such thing as a friendly alien, he thought grimly. Quite apart from the Rogue Leaders, a number of warriors and workers had fought to the death rather than allow the humans to take them prisoner. They will engage them all, given a chance.

Sergeant McCoy returned with a small army of volunteers. Nicolas surveyed them quickly, noting that they’d all had experience with facing the aliens at close quarters. Even now, months after the war had begun, there were resistance fighters who had never actually seen an alien and might freeze if confronted by a creature who was quite literally not of this Earth.

“All right, listen up,” he said. “The war is almost over, but we have one more battle to fight.”

He explained briefly about the alien rebels – and the Rogue Leaders. There was no point in keeping it secret any longer, not when the remaining Rogue Leader would be perfectly aware of their rebellion. And the human race needed to know – now – that there were good aliens mixed up with the bad. Whatever guilt most humans might feel at the thought of mass slaughter of their fellow human beings might not apply to aliens. The war might be needlessly prolonged.

“Holy shit, sir,” Edward Tanaka said, finally. He’d been in Antarctica, where they’d seen just what the Rogue Leaders had done to the humans they’d abducted over the years. “Are you sure?”

“It was a set of alien rebels who freed me and gave us the key to saving the Walking Dead,” Nicolas said, briskly. They’d tried to take the Walking Dead in Washington alive, but it hadn't been easy. Most of them had fought fanatically and had to be shot down rather than taken captive. “If it wasn't for them, we wouldn't have gotten back into Washington. Now they need our help.”

Dudley looked doubtful. “Why can’t they just deal with him themselves?”

“The Rogue Leaders can simply take control of the rest of their kind,” Nicolas explained, remembering the alien in the White House. It was easy to believe that the Rogue Leaders would be able to dominate their fellows if one had come so close to controlling him. “They have ... for want of a better term ... some kind of super-charisma.”

“Super-charisma,” Tanaka said, dryly. “How much did he have to roll to get that?”

“Nerd,” Dudley muttered.

“It’s up to us,” Nicolas said, ignoring the by-play. “Besides, it gives us a chance to put some of our people in space, on the mothership. The President thinks that it’s worth the risk and I, for what it’s worth, agree with him.”

Tanaka nodded. “Space,” he said. There was a hint of awe in his voice. “But we know nothing about the damn mothership!”

“Plans are being downloaded,” Nicolas said. He scowled. “All we have to do is kill the Rogue Leader before he manages to drop the mothership on our heads. If that happens ...”

He shook his head. “If that happens, we’re talking something worse than Deep Impact,” he explained. “We could be looking at the end of all life on Earth.”

“Oh good,” Brad Macintyre said. “No pressure.”

“No planning either,” Nicolas pointed out. Ideally, SF missions should be carefully rehearsed ahead of time, although there had been no shortage of missions that had effectively been improvised from beginning to end. Even so, there had normally been more planning time than this. “We really don’t have long to get to grips with the material.”

***

“Been a while since I’ve seen these,” Edward said, as he pulled the pair of goggles over his head and peered through them. A ghostly map of Washington appeared in front of him, marking his position. “I always thought that they were fucking useless in combat.”

“No fucking argument,” Sergeant McCoy agreed. “But there isn't much choice here.”

Edward nodded. The goggles displayed information to their users, ranging from a simple location map to detailed background information on captured terrorists. It was a cool concept that had never worked out so well in the field, like so many other ideas. Unsurprisingly, the procurement department in the Pentagon had ordered a few thousand of the goggles for the teams. Edward had heard that the manufacturers had called in a favour from their congressman to ensure that the devices were purchased by the military. He had no idea if it was actually true, but it had certainly happened before. Congress had a habit of funding weapons systems the military didn't actually need for domestic political reasons.

On the other hand, he told himself, the goggles might actually come in handy this time. They weren't jumping into the badlands of Afghanistan or somewhere else they knew well, but boarding an alien mothership. None of them – not even Nicolas Little – had set foot inside the mothership; given its colossal size, they could spend years roaming through it without ever encountering their target. The goggles would steer them directly to the Rogue Leader.

He shook his head as he pulled the goggles away from his eyes and started to inspect the rest of the gear they’d liberated from the alien supply dump. Apart from a handful of rumours too far out to be generally believed, there had never been a serious military operation in orbit – and nothing in the way of specialised equipment for orbital fighting. There had been some prototype powered exoskeletons, the forerunners of science-fiction’s armoured combat suits, but no one knew what had happened to them. Besides, if the rumours he’d heard were to be believed, they had never worked out as well as their designers had hoped.

Sergeant McCoy joined him in rooting through the shelves of equipment. “Weapons, armour, medical gear ... what do you think they wanted this for?”

Edward shrugged. “Maybe they’re packrats,” he said, softly. “Or maybe they just thought their collaborators could use it later.”

***

Nicolas couldn't help smiling as the alien craft descended to the ground and settled down beside the White House. No one would have called any of the resistance fighters cowards, but it was clear that some of them were nervous at willingly setting foot on an alien craft, no matter who was flying it. Not that Nicolas could blame them, he had to admit; there had been joint operations in Central Asia where he’d felt more vulnerable to his so-called friends than to the terrorists and insurgents who were his targets.

There was a faint hiss as the hatch opened, revealing a human figure. “Come on in,” Philip Carlson said. “The water’s fine.”

“Coming,” Nicolas said, as cheerfully as he could.

He led the way up into the hatch, finding himself in a large compartment that was almost completely bare. A handful of men wearing British uniforms looked up and nodded politely as the Americans entered. Nicolas grinned, more openly, as he realised that he recognised a couple of them. It hadn't been that long since British and American forces had worked together in Afghanistan.

“Mike Yates,” he said, in delight. “How have you been?”

Yates grinned back at him. “They told us that we were being put in reserve,” he said, dryly. “And to think we were dead pissed at the time.”

Nicolas nodded, understanding the SAS trooper’s resentment. He’d been told to prepare to go underground too, when the alien mothership had reached Earth and started to offload its vast army of warriors and colonists. It still gnawed at him that he hadn't taken part in the final defence of Washington, or Fort Hood, or any of the other last stands the American military had made as the aliens closed in for the kill. He knew he would have died there, or wound up an alien prisoner, but cold logic couldn't dispel the sense that he had failed his country. Yates would have felt the same.

“Got something else here,” Yates continued, tapping the bag between his legs. “You might recognise it.”

Nicolas felt his blood run cold as he saw what was inside the bag. “Had all the kids you want, then?”

Yates shrugged. “Christopher and David and Matt are such fine boys,” he said. He tapped the bag meaningfully. “My wife keeps saying that I should have the operation, but how will I ever survive without my balls?”

Nicolas shook his head in disbelief. “What will happen if you detonate that on the mothership?”

“The head sheds weren't sure,” Yates admitted, using the SAS slang for senior officers. “Their general feeling was that allowing one of the bad aliens to remain in control of the mothership was a very bad idea. So ... maybe we can blow it to dust before it can enter Earth’s atmosphere.”

“As a final recourse,” Philip Carlson said, softly. “It would still be very bad for the Earth.”

“Tell me about it,” Tanaka said. He sounded uneasy. “When are we taking off?”

Carlson made a strangled sound. “We’re in the air,” he said. “And we’re on our way.”

Nicolas smiled at their reactions. He’d felt the very brief shift as the craft’s drive fields propelled it upwards, but no one else had noticed it. They were used to helicopters and other human aircraft, not the alien spacecraft. Moments later, the entire compartment started to turn transparent.

“Estimated time of arrival; seven minutes,” a cold voice said. There was an immediate grab for weapons as one of the alien leaders stepped into the compartment. “From that moment on, you must kill or be killed.”

Nicolas relaxed, slightly. The alien in the White House had tried to control him – and he had had a far stronger impact than the alien rebel. Or was the rebel not trying to control him?

“Hey,” Tanaka said. “If we’re going up into space, does that make us the space marines?”

Dudley snickered and started to sing. “From the burning ruins of Washington to the cold dark reaches of space ...”

“Mercy, mercy,” Yates called. “I’ll talk, I’ll talk!”

McIntyre snorted. “I guess we have a new tool to convince prisoners to talk,” he said. “Didn’t we play them pop songs to weaken their nerves?”

“It doesn't scan,” Tanaka pointed out, ignoring McIntyre’s comment. “But we can write the next stanza of our hymn later.”

Silence fell over the compartment as the mothership came into view. Nicolas had seen the command ships up close, but the mothership was far larger, so large that it was hard to comprehend its true size. It was suddenly easy to believe that a billion aliens had travelled from one star to another on the ship, even if parts of it looked to have been dissembled. But they would need to get building materials from somewhere ...

They were building bases on the moon too, he thought. Even if we win the war and take out the Rogue Leader, nothing will ever be the same again.

“The Rogue is attempting to override the isolated parts of the computer network,” the alien rebel informed them. “We have locked him out, but he has numerous workers under his command with direct access to the computer cores. Once accessed, he will be able to power up the drive or activate the ship’s weapons. Either one would be disastrous to your planet.”

Yates looked up. “Can’t you talk him down? Offer him something in exchange for surrender?”

“He knows that we could not leave him alive,” the alien said, simply. “They are just too dangerous to be allowed to live.”

Nicolas could imagine it. If one Rogue Leader could dominate so many aliens ... just taking him prisoner might be disastrous in itself.

“We could take him and hold him,” he said, although he suspected that would be asking for trouble too. If the Rogue could control humans too ... but they couldn't, not perfectly. Or was it a talent that would improve with practice? “Keep him prisoner somewhere on Earth ...”

“Too dangerous for both of our races,” the alien said. A faint hum ran through the craft as it altered course, heading in towards the docking port. “Prepare to disembark.”

Nicolas took one last look at the blue orb of Earth, half-eclipsed by the mothership, and then picked up his rifle, slipping the goggles over his eyes. A plan of the mothership appeared in front of him, dimmed down to prevent it from blinding him at the worst possible time.

“Here we go,” he said, out loud. “Mike, keep that weapon of yours at the rear. We don’t want to use it unless there is no other choice.”

“There might be a reception committee,” Tanaka pointed out. “Do they know we’re coming?”

“They shouldn't,” the alien said. “But they may already have taken direct control of the sensors.”

Nicolas shivered. This could go horrifically wrong.

Chapter Fifty

The Alien Mothership, Earth Orbit

Day 254

“Creepy,” Dudley muttered.

Edward nodded in agreement as the two marines inched their way down the corridor towards the heart of the massive starship. It was a disconcertingly alien environment, far more so than the alien base. The proportions were subtly wrong, the air was hot and dry and the gravity field kept fluctuating. Edward suspected that the mothership was large enough to generate its own gravity field, even without whatever gravity manipulation technology the aliens had, but it didn't seem to be stable. Or the aliens were trying to use gravity to trap and kill the human intruders.

“Like a freaking Borg ship,” McCoy said, softly. “Do you think the workers will ignore us if they see us?”

“Better not assume that,” Edward said. “That would be just dumb.”

The noise pervading the ship’s hull was growing louder, hurting his ears. It was a dull droning rumble, almost too low for him to hear it, yet it seemed to fluctuate in line with the gravity field. At times, it was joined by a screech that sounded like two pieces of metal being forced together. He rubbed his ears, then gritted his teeth and pressed onwards. They couldn't go back now.

Sweat trickled down his back as they reached the end of the corridor and stared into a massive compartment. It was larger than any barracks he’d ever seen, crammed with small boxes that reassembled coffins. A glance through the transparent lids revealed alien faces, all of a caste he didn't recognise. There was something oddly feminine about them, even though the briefing papers had pointed out that the aliens, for all the differences between the castes, didn't seem to have any size or strength differences between the sexes. He reminded himself that he could be completely wrong, then inched away from the coffin towards the other end of the compartment.

“We need a stake and some garlic,” Dudley suggested. “What is happening to them?”

“Suspended animation,” Carlson said. He had stayed behind with the alien pilot, who would – they’d been told – attempt to assume command of the mothership once the Rogue Leader was dead. “Most of the aliens were sleeping during their time in interstellar space.”

“I suppose that makes sense,” Edward muttered. He lifted his voice as they reached the end of the compartment. “Do we proceed?”

The alien craft was staggeringly vast. Edward knew just how easily a city like Baghdad or even Kabul could swallow up a military patrol, but the alien craft was far larger than many countries. It struck him, as he peered down the next corridor, that the entire pre-war military – soldiers, sailors and airmen – could rattle around inside the mothership for years, looking for their target. Occupying the entire ship might prove as challenging as occupying a full-sized city.

“No choice,” Little said. “Proceed.”

Edward nodded and advanced into the next compartment. This one was crammed with equipment, some easy to understand, some completely alien. Several vehicles – the alien counterpart to Humvees, he decided - were piled next to a set of equipment that looked rather melted. If he hadn’t had experience with alien designs, he would have thought that the equipment was damaged and had been shipped back to the mothership for repair. Even so, it was impossible to deduce its purpose.

He froze as he saw movement at the other end of the corridor. “Contact,” he hissed. “Wait ...”

Four alien workers appeared, carrying a blocky object the size of an Abrams tank between them. Edward reminded himself, yet again, not to take the tiny aliens lightly, even if they were no larger than the child he’d rescued from the POW camp. Picking up a tank was well beyond the abilities of four humans, no matter how developed. The aliens were terrifyingly strong.

The aliens stopped and stared at the humans. There was a long moment of absolute silence, then they jumped aside and allowed the object they were carrying to land on the deck. The clang almost deafened Edward, almost distracting him as the alien workers rushed forward, their cyborg arms glittering with deadly light. Edward levelled his rifle and shot the first one down; the other four were gunned down by the other soldiers. None of them had stood a chance.

“I think they know we’re here,” he said, grimly. Maybe the Rogue didn’t have full control over the command network – the alien rebel had explained that it responded to the leaders, and right now most of the surviving leaders were rebels – but he’d surely notice four deaths. “Time to move faster, sir.”

“Understood,” Little said. “Take point and advance. Don’t hesitate to engage anyone you meet who isn't human.”

***

Nicolas was having a hard time coming to grips with the interior of the alien mothership. He had spent time on aircraft carriers and other giant ships, but there was a logic to their design that was understandable, something that made them easy to navigate. Even the cramped houses and markets of Fallujah had been comprehensible, once they had been thoroughly scoped out by the American forces. But the alien craft seemed to have been designed by a madman.

Corridors that turned back on themselves, passageways too small for any adult human, fluctuating gravity fields ... Nicolas was honestly uncertain if the aliens had intended to create a maze or if they had merely been indulging a design aesthetic that was thoroughly alien. There didn't seem to be any logic to it at all. Entire sections seemed to be isolated from the rest of the ship, or on lower levels. There were even compartments that one seemed to need to go miles out of one’s way to access.

And then there was the disconcertingly alien design of just about everything they encountered. It wore on his men, reminding them that they were in an alien environment, one that had not designed for humans. They had grown used to the Middle East – and even to the surreal experience of fighting in America itself – but this was different. He couldn't help thinking that they would never grow used to living in such an environment.

“Damn it,” he heard Tanaka swear, through the radio link. “They’ve blocked our path, sir.”

“Dug in damn well too,” Dudley agreed.

“Hold them there,” Nicolas ordered, studying the diagrams of the alien craft. The aliens had blocked the quickest path to the computer core, but there were ways around it. Unless, of course, the aliens had blocked them too. “Team Two will try to flank the enemy.”

The fighting rapidly became intensive as the alien workers emerged from tiny passageways to throw themselves on the advancing humans. Nicolas lost two men after an alien worker dropped from overhead and ripped them apart before any of their comrades could react, then a third to another worker who had somehow turned his cyborg arm into a deadly weapon. He rapidly abandoned any thought of securing lines of communication into the ship’s interior. There was no way that his tiny force could hope to hold them all secure, not when the workers could slip through passageways no human could use. How many of the little bastards were there?

“We need to bring up reinforcements,” he snapped, as they pushed through another makeshift barricade. Thankfully, the workers didn't seem to have the same intrinsic understanding of military tactics as the warriors. Even so, they were burning off ammunition at an alarming rate. Fire discipline didn't hold when the targets moved so quickly that spray and pray was the only viable tactic. “And we need more troops.”

He gritted his teeth. Down on Earth, other forces would be being assembled, but it might be some time before they were ready to join them. If they kept using ammunition at this rate, they were likely to be overrun before reinforcements arrived. The alien workers seemed even less mindful of their own safety than the Taliban’s most fanatical warriors.

“Got another nest dead ahead,” Yates said. “I think they’re blocking us completely.”

Nicolas checked the map. He was right. The only way around the aliens would be go back for miles, then pick a different route towards the computer core. They had the advantage of the interior defence as well as overall numbers, being able to shift their forces to meet the humans no matter where they came from. Normally, it would be possible to grind the defenders down, but they just didn't have time.

“Use grenades,” he ordered. “Clear the way.”

He’d worried, at first, about using automatic weapons and grenades on a starship, concerned about accidentally punching through the hull. The alien rebels had dismissed the concerns, pointing out that they would be deep inside the ship’s hull. Besides, they’d learned from experience that whatever metal the aliens used to line their corridors was tough. One of his men had been injured by a ricochet that had almost killed him.

“Grenades away,” Yates said. Up ahead, explosions shook the corridor as they blasted the alien warriors apart. In confined spaces, the results were devastating. “It’s clear.”

Nicolas nodded, but kept his rifle at the ready as they advanced forward. The aliens were too crafty to depend on just one group of warriors to block their advance ... he scowled as streaks of blue-white light appeared ahead of them, blazing down the corridor. He hadn't wanted to be proved right quite so quickly.

“Got a message from Earth,” Carlson said. His voice sounded faintly tinny through Nicolas’s earpiece. “They’re loading up the 16 Air Assault Brigade in the UK – they should be with us in thirty minutes. Apparently, the Paras will also be on their way, but no clear time yet.”

Nicolas scowled. Given just how much notice the resistance – and the British military - had had of the need to deploy forces to orbit, they were doing far better than anyone had a right to expect. And yet it was far too likely that the reinforcements would arrive too late to save his ass. They might not even have the equipment they needed to fight and win. Ammunition supplies were critically low everywhere.

“Tell them to bring as much ammo as possible,” he ordered. Another pair of alien workers appeared out of nowhere and lunged towards the humans. He shot them both and watched dispassionately as their bodies hit the deck. “We need to push through as quickly as possible.”

“Yes, sir,” Carlson said. There was a pause. “I’ve had an idea.”

“Oh,” Nicolas said. In his experience, ideas by someone standing at the rear weren't worth the paper they were written on. But he had to ask. “What do you have in mind?”

***

Edward frowned as the new orders came in over the tactical net. “Hold the line? Sir ...”

“Trust me,” Little said, sharply. “Hold the line and wait.”

“Fucking brilliant,” Dudley muttered. Up ahead, yet another group of aliens were massing, either to bleed the humans when they advanced forward or preparing a charge of their own. It was sheer madness to give them any time to reform and press the advantage. “I really have a bad feeling about this.”

“Thank you, Han,” Edward said. “Just remember to shoot first and you should be fine.”

***

“You sure this is going to work?” Nicolas asked. “This isn't a human system.”

“Did five years with the Royal Engineers before I passed Selection,” the gruff-looking British trooper said. “I still remember which end of a screwdriver to hold. Could do with a sonic screwdriver right now.”

Yates snorted. “Are you sure ...?”

“The basic concept of this system is the same as one of ours,” the engineer-turned-SAS trooper said, tartly. “I can use it, if necessary. I’m just not sure how long it will be before it starts to work.”

Nicolas nodded and keyed his radio. “Everyone, find something to hold on to,” he ordered. “Do it now.”

“One moment,” the engineer said. A dull rumble echoed through the bulkheads. “Now!”

***

Edward heard the rumble and looked behind ... to see a wall of water racing towards his position. He grabbed onto a piece of alien equipment and held on for dear life as the water hit him and smashed onwards, raging towards the alien position. It didn't seem to be flowing quite right – perhaps it was the fluctuating gravity field, he realised dully – but it was heading into the alien ship. The fire from the aliens cut off abruptly.

“Forward,” he snapped. Water seemed to be scurrying down the corridor, as if it were running down a very slight slope. It would be slippery, but they were used to that after Camp Pendleton. What sort of Marine slipped on running water? “Take them out!”

***

“The emergency system is designed to cope with fire inside the hull,” the cold alien voice said, as Nicolas advanced down the drenched corridor. The alien warriors didn't seem to have enjoyed their unwelcome bath, but thankfully they’d been knocked out of position and weren't able to fight back so effectively. “In the event of it being triggered, the water is directed inwards.”

It seemed an odd precaution to Nicolas – fire didn’t actually burn in space, so venting part of the hull might make more sense – but the aliens had been in space for generations and so he assumed they knew what they were doing. Instead, he ran onwards until he reached the computer core itself. The airlock was sealed; a pair of explosive charges took care of it, blasting it inwards. Inside, he saw a colossal compartment, dominated by something that looked like a giant crystal pillar. The computer core, he guessed, although it was hard to be sure.

A small group of worker aliens were plugged into the computer core, ignoring the humans completely. Several warriors and two of the unidentified caste were standing next to them, all holding weapons, but none of them opened fire. Nicolas realised, with a sudden sense of relief, that they weren't willing to risk a firefight in the heart of the mothership; their weapons would probably do more damage to the core than any mere M16. And, behind them, he saw the Rogue Leader.

The one he’d faced in Washington had been powerful. This one seemed somehow ... less capable, although it was clear that he was in charge of the small group of aliens. It was impossible to read any emotion in the alien’s dark eyes, but judging by the way his hands were moving the alien was quite agitated. It was impossible to blame him. The Rogue Leaders had started the day ruling two civilisations. Now, they were reduced to a single one.

“Get the grenades,” he muttered. The alien had nowhere else to run, nowhere to hide. He didn't care if they destroyed the computer core; indeed, doing so would safeguard Earth. “And get ready to move, if I fail.”

He stepped forward, carefully moving his rifle so that he wasn't pointing it directly at any of the aliens.

“There’s no way out,” he said, trying to push as much conviction into his voice as he could. Talking a reluctant terrorist down wasn't easy ... and there, if he could see the terrorist, he could at least pick up on his cues. Reading the alien was much harder. “You are the last of your kind.”

He couldn't help thinking of the time he’d watched Wrath of Khan on DVD with his comrades, out on a FOB in Afghanistan. Khan had been a superhuman, engineered to be a mighty leader – and he’d been judged too dangerous to reintegrate into civilian society. But he hadn't managed to seduce anyone, apart from a single rather odd crewwoman. The Rogue Leaders had been far more dangerous to their own people – and humans too.

“You can stand down and surrender,” he said. “We can take you to a place where you can spend the rest of your days in peace.”

“A prisoner,” the alien said.

“A prisoner,” Nicolas agreed. They’d have to take extreme precautions, but the ‘super-charisma’ the Rogue Leaders used didn't seem to work over telecommunications links. It should be possible to keep one prisoner indefinitely. “There is no way out for you, no way for you to recover your control over your population. At worst, we blow the entire mothership and get rid of you.”

He shivered inwardly as he looked down at the aliens. If they had been human, one of them might have turned his gun on his leader and then surrendered. It had happened before, when fanatical leaders had discovered that their followers were less inclined to die for the cause. But the aliens ... just obeyed. Resistance seemed to be futile.

The alien stepped forward, dark eyes still meeting Nicolas’s eyes, boring into his very soul. For a moment, Nicolas was spellbound ... and then he pushed the control aside, lifting his rifle. The alien didn't try to jump back, or hide. He just stood there as Nicolas pulled the trigger, blowing alien brains all over the computer core.

Nicolas couldn't help thinking that the alien had wanted to die.

***

“The Rogue is dead,” the alien rebel said. “We are currently attempting to assume command of the mothership.”

Philip barely heard him. He’d been listening to the reports from Earth. All, but two of the missiles fired towards alien bases and cities had been shot down. Two warheads had detonated on top of an alien base in Iran, just two. The remainder had been wasted.

He looked up at the image of Earth, floating against the sea of stars. From so high up, there was no trace of the war that had marred Earth’s surface, or of the damaged and destroyed cities that had been obliterated by the fighting. It looked so safe and tranquil.

We’ve won, he thought, as the next flight of craft from Earth finally appeared. Once reinforcements were on the mothership, the aliens would have problems continuing the war, if the two sides couldn't agree on peace terms. So why doesn't it feel like a victory?

Whatever else happened, the world would never be the same.

Chapter Fifty-One

Washington DC, USA

Day 260

“Feels rather weird to be in uniform again, doesn't it?”

Edward Tanaka had to agree. After what felt like a lifetime wearing civilian clothes and fighting an insurgency against the aliens, it definitely was odd to be wearing Marine BDUs again. He was surprised that any uniforms had survived the alien occupation, but they’d apparently stored a great many pieces of equipment near their bases, just in case they might come in useful someday. Instead, they had been distributed to the resistance as the aliens pulled out of Washington.

It felt equally odd to be patrolling Washington and pulling security as they’d patrolled Baghdad, back when the world had made sense, but the Washington PD was long gone. The Order Police had fragmented and scattered, those who hadn't been able to convince the aliens to take them with them when they left had fled, hoping to hide in the countryside. Washington had threatened to collapse into chaos completely in their absence, as the recriminations began among those who hadn't joined the resistance – or had joined in the hour of victory, no matter how incomplete. Edward couldn't help thinking that the issue of who had and who hadn’t fought in the resistance was going to blight the political landscape for years to come.

“And we’re going to have to rebuild the Corps too,” Dudley continued. “This won't be the end of war.”

Edward nodded, grimly. The aliens might have pulled out, but there was still a civil war in Mexico that had spread into the United States and countless criminal gangs and Order Policemen who had seized territory for themselves. Once, dealing with them would have required nothing more than the political will to use deadly force. Now, the political will was there, but the force was very limited. Edward had heard rumours that his particular unit would be heading down south as soon as they had secured Washington, hoping to reclaim control of the southern United States. Failure was a very real possibility.

He scowled as he turned the corner and saw the bodies lying in the centre of the road. Collaborators, perhaps, or merely a handful of people who had been massively unpopular; their neighbours had taken advantage of the chaos to lynch them and leave their bodies for everyone to see. None of the dead looked familiar; he certainly couldn't recall seeing their names on any wanted list, although the lists did keep growing longer as the investigators dug through the collaborator files. But they’d been murdered without even the pretence of a fair trial.

“Maybe we won,” he said, although he knew that it had been a draw at best. “But the country is never going to be the same.”

He flinched as he heard a helicopter flying overhead, before realising in embarrassment that if he could hear the aircraft, it certainly wasn't an alien craft. It was heading north, towards the remains of the Green Zone – and the White House. It felt strange to see any human aircraft in the air so long after the invasion. As far as he knew, only a handful of American aircraft had flown since the aliens had landed. They’d wiped out almost all of the once-proud USAF.

“No,” Dudley agreed. “It isn’t.”

***

The President had known, intellectually, that Washington had been seriously damaged by the aliens. He’d even seen photographs and videos that had been uploaded onto the internet by resistance fighters and newsmen. But seeing it in person was somehow worse. Hundreds of buildings were nothing more than piles of rubble, while others had been damaged in the fighting and bore their scars proudly. The Pentagon had been destroyed, while the Capitol had been taken over by the collaborators, only to be blown up in the final hours of the fighting. And the White House was a shambling mockery of its former glory.

Maybe coming in by helicopter was a mistake, he thought, as the aircraft descended towards the White House lawn. I can see too much of the city from high overhead.

He sucked in his breath as he saw the remains of the walls surrounding the Green Zone. The resistance had knocked them down in a dozen places, allowing them to storm the compound, but the surviving pieces were a grim reminder of how the aliens had partitioned Washington and protected their collaborators, while the remainder of the population had been left to suffer and starve. They might still starve, he knew, even though the resistance had taken over the alien-operated soup kitchens. Winter was getting closer and far too many people had nowhere to shelter from the oncoming storms.

“There was more gunfire down south,” Pepper said, softly. “And quite a few threats against your person.”

The President shrugged, finding it hard to care. His declaration of martial law hadn't sat well with everyone, particularly the resistance fighters who wanted to round up and execute every collaborator they could get their hands on. The President didn't blame them, but he wanted to try to ensure that only genuine collaborators were executed; so far, he knew of at least nine resistance infiltrators who had died at the hands of their fellows. And then there were the local authorities who had made accommodations with the aliens, rather than see their towns occupied and administered by the Order Police. Did they all deserve to die?

And there were the resistance fighters who were calling him a traitor for leaving Washington, even though he hadn't had a choice. They were even talking about putting up a challenger in the next elections, whenever they were ...

“Hell of a mess,” he muttered, grimly. Lincoln had overseen a Civil War that had devastated large parts of the country – and his successors had had to handle a reconstruction that hadn’t been a complete success. Jim Crow might be dead now, but there were other nightmares that might rear their heads in the wake of the alien withdrawal. “The only thing costlier than a battle lost is a battle won.”

“Marine One, landing,” the pilot’s voice said, through his headphones. There was a dull thump as the helicopter touched down. “Welcome back to Washington, Mr. President.”

Yeah, the President thought, bitterly. Welcome back.

***

Alex hadn't wanted to take a few hours off to see the President return to Washington, but Oldham – who had been promoted to General and placed in overall military command of Washington and the surrounding states – had insisted. It was a historic moment, the General had said, and besides the reconstruction team did need a break. But there was just so much to do.

The collaborators, thankfully, had kept extensive files. Alex and the remainder of the team had been working their way through them, accounting for many whose fate had remained unknown – and identifying collaborators for future retribution. That hadn't been the main problem, however; large parts of the country were starving and the government needed to move food from the collaborator stockpiles to where it was desperately needed. With the transport network shot to hell, it wasn't going to be easy.

And there’s no help coming either, he thought, as the President’s helicopter settled down on the lawn. No one can help us, even if they wanted to.

Apart from Canada, which had sent food and some troops to guard supply bases, there had been little help from the country’s former allies. Britain was trying to rebuild too, after the alien invasion and the crash in Fife, while the rest of Europe was struggling to pull itself back together. And Russia, further east, was quietly securing control over large parts of Central Asia and Eastern Europe. They’d been smart enough not to try a direct military invasion of Poland and the Baltic States, but no one was in any doubt that the Russians were in charge.

And they have a couple of alien craft and our research notes, Alex reminded himself. God knows how that will end.

He looked over at Karen, who looked exhausted. She hadn't looked any better since she’d been asked to help with post-war reconstruction, although the death threats might have had something to do with that. There were far too many resistance fighters out there who hadn't heard that she’d actually been working for the resistance – and Daisy Fairchild had made herself so unpopular that the fighters wanted to lash out at any remnants of her administration. The SEAL standing next to her was her bodyguard, Alex knew. Without him, she might end up lying in the gutter with her throat cut – or worse. Security in Washington, even in the former Green Zone, was a joke.

Poor girl, he thought. The war is over and she’s still a prisoner.

***

Philip waited, as patiently as he could, for the President to finish shaking the hands of various resistance fighters and leaders and reach him. The Americans who had fought in Britain had fought bravely, everyone agreed, but they weren't feted like the Americans who had fought in their own country ... well, not in America at least. His memory of the celebrations they’d held after the aliens had withdrawn from Britain would comfort him in his declining years.

“Mr. President,” he said, when the President finally reached him. “Thank you for trusting me – and them.”

“Mr. Ambassador,” the President replied. “Congratulations on your new post.”

Philip smiled. Once the last of the Rogue Leaders had been taken out, the alien rebels had managed to assert control of the command network and end the war. Hammering out a truce hadn't been hard; the aliens had simply withdrawn to their bases, leaving the humans alone. It had taken two more days to sort out a semi-permanent treaty, a remarkably quick negotiation compared to some of the discussions the United States had held in the past. The British diplomat he’d worked with had noted that it normally took weeks to decide the shape of the conference table, let alone anything of actual substance. But the alien rebels were just as keen on bringing the war to an end as the humans themselves.

“If congratulations are in order,” Philip said. “Did we really come out ahead?”

The alien rebels might not have wanted the planet, but they had a strong position in negotiations that had threatened to drag the discussions out endlessly. In the end, the human race – or at least the parts of it that had signed the treaty – had conceded that the aliens would have domain over a region stretching from North Africa’s Atlantic coast to the Indian and Turkish borders. There were humans living within their territory, of course, but the outside powers had agreed not to support any future insurgencies. The only major concession the aliens had made was to agree to resume oil shipments, although those wouldn't be necessary for much longer. Once alien tech entered the mainstream in a big way ...

He shook his head, tiredly. The world was awash in refugees again and God alone knew where most of them would end up. Europe was trying desperately to close its borders, while refugees from Israel were struggling to make their way to the United States. At least they might be useful, Philip had to admit; the anti-Arab feeling in America was so strong that it was unlikely that any of the Arab refugees would ever be given sanctuary. Just after the aliens had withdrawn, the Arab community in Dearborn had been attacked by a resistance cell. The ensuring slaughter would have been shocking, if it hadn’t taken place against the backdrop of war.

“We have our country back and we have access to tech that will allow us to spread through the solar system,” the President said. “I think we have a future now.”

Philip nodded. Whatever else happened, he was damned if he was going to allow the politicians to forget just how dependent they had become on space – and just how vulnerable they would become if they lost control of the high orbitals again. NASA was dead and gone, but a new space agency, one organised by sensible people instead of bureaucrats, would rise from the ashes and lead the human race onwards to destiny.

“Assuming the alien babies don’t overwhelm us,” he said. “Or alien livestock doesn't destroy our crops.”

The President snorted. “Assuming as much,” he agreed. “And good luck in the alien city. Just don’t forget what country you represent.”

“I won’t,” Philip promised. Whatever seductions a human society could offer, there was something deeply unsettling about the alien society. He might enjoy studying it, but he would never allow it to draw him in so deeply that he forgot his job. “And good luck to you too, sir.”

***

Dolly sat upright as the President and a pair of bodyguards entered her room, one hand reaching out to touch her child protectively. The President smiled at her, a little sadly, and then looked at Mathew, who stared back at him with alien eyes. Dolly was used to seeing such reactions from the medical staff, but it bothered her to see the revulsion that flickered, briefly, over the President’s face. It was quite possible, one of the less friendly doctors had told her, that the hybrid children would simply be destroyed. They weren’t just inhuman, he'd said, but they posed a threat to all of humanity.

“Mr. President,” she said, tightly.

“I wanted to see the children for myself,” the President said. He stretched out a hand towards Mathew, who caught one of the President’s fingers with his own. “How old is he, now?”

“Not very old,” Dolly admitted. It was easy to lose track of time passing in the ward, just like she had in the alien base. But Mathew was clearly developing faster than any human child. It wouldn't be long, she thought, until he started crawling around the floor and getting into things. “But he’s mine.”

“I didn't dispute it,” the President said, quietly. He looked her in the eye. “Do you want to raise him?”

“He’s my child,” Dolly said. “Of course I will raise him.”

Once, long ago, she’d wondered how mothers could bring themselves to love babies, who were ugly and smelly and noisy. Now, she understood; Mathew might have looked inhuman, but he was still her child. She would have given her life to protect him from the world, if it had been possible. But she knew that the government might take him away and murder him and there was nothing she could do to stop them.

“He does pose problems for us,” the President said. “They all pose problems for us.”

His gaze hadn't moved from her face. “We’re going to move the children to a place where they can be brought up properly,” he said. “If you want to go with him, you would be welcome.”

Dolly didn't even have to think about it. “I will,” she said. “And I will bring him up. He won’t be a danger to anyone.”

The President bowed his head. “I hope you’re right,” he said, quietly. “I really do.”

***

The President was still shivering inwardly at the sight of the alien-human hybrid as he stepped into the next room and looked down at the man in the bed. Jacob Thornton had been a friend as well as a political ally; he’d certainly been more involved in politics than most Vice Presidents, who were normally about as useful as tits on a bull. And now he was a drooling mess, unable even to control his bodily functions.

“There is nothing we can do to fix the damage,” an atonal voice said. “He is too far gone.”

The President tensed when he saw the alien doctor, so out of place in the hospital room that he’d looked right past him. Behind him, Pepper reached for her pistol before catching herself. The alien doctor wasn't a threat, even if he was the only alien left in the United States outside their cities.

“I see,” the President said, coldly. “What happened to him?”

“The implantation process caused disruptions within his brainwaves that produced mental feedback,” the alien doctor said. “In the end, they were reduced to controlling him directly, a task made harder by the damage to his brain’s automatic functions. He is gone.”

The President sighed. Thornton’s wife had gone missing when the aliens had descended on his hiding place; no one knew what had happened to her. His parents had died years ago and he’d never had children, leaving him without any next-of-kin. The will, buried in the files under Washington, had left everything to his wife – or the President, assuming that Thornton and his wife died together.

He could leave his friend on life support indefinitely, he knew. It wouldn't be a major drain on resources, but if there was no hope of recovery ...

“God damn them,” he muttered. He raised his voice. “Pull the plug.”

Two minutes later, Jacob Thornton breathed his last.

“Godspeed,” the President said. His political enemies would use it against him, but he had been in politics long enough to know that there wasn't anything that couldn’t be used as a weapon against him. “I’ll miss you.”

Feeling a million years old, he took Pepper’s hand and led her from the chamber.

***

There was far too much to do in Washington – and Karen had been allowed to busy herself with the reconstruction – yet there was one ceremony that she had decided that she was not going to miss. Her bodyguard had asked her if she really wanted to attend – she suspected that he was really trying to forbid her from attending – but she had insisted. After everything she’d done, she wanted to watch the end.

General Howery stood in the courtyard as she entered, nodding politely to her. His face looked different now, almost slack; the doctors had warned that it might be months, even with alien technology, before the nerves regenerated enough to allow him to smile properly. And to think he was one of the lucky ones. Some of the other Walking Dead looked as if they were permanently drooling or sneering as they walked.

I wonder how many of them are sex-mad too, she thought, as she stopped next to the General. Or suffering from other problems ...?

She pushed that line of thought aside as the guards dragged in the prisoner. Daisy hadn't endured her stay in prison very well; her normally-perfect hair was ragged, while her face was covered in bruises. Karen had heard that many lesser collaborators had tried to earn favour from the guards by attacking the senior collaborators, leaving several dead before they could be tried. The government just didn't have the resources to provide proper guards.

General Howery stepped forward as the guards cuffed Daisy to a post at the other side of the courtyard. “Daisy Fairchild, you have been found guilty of needless collaboration with the enemy, treason and aiding and abetting the abuse of countless Americans,” he said. “For your crimes, you have been sentenced to death. Do you have anything you wish to say before you die?”

Karen watched as Daisy struggled helplessly against the cuffs. Daisy’s own files had convicted her; Karen’s testimony hadn't been necessary in the end. It was hard to feel any pity for her; unlike others, she hadn't been forced into complete collaboration. She’d worked hard to earn herself a place in the collaborator government – and she’d done it by betraying her entire country. There could be no mercy.

“Take aim,” Howery said. The firing squad lifted their rifles. “Fire!”

Shots rang out.

Daisy Fairchild fell to the ground, dead.

Karen looked up as Howery rested a hand on her shoulder. “It had to be done,” he said, gently. “They have to see that the system works.”

“I know,” Karen said.

But she still felt conflicted. And she knew that it would last the rest of her life.

***

Nicolas had never cried in his life, or so he’d told himself. Being a SEAL was about mental toughness, not just physical strength, endurance and skill. One had to be capable of carrying on even if one was completely exhausted, no matter what happened. And yet he felt tears prickling at the corner of his eyes as Nancy threw herself into his arms. He’d missed her so much.

“She’s lovely,” Abigail said. “And sweet too.”

“I know,” Nicolas said.

“Dad saved my life,” Nancy said, her arms wrapped around Nicolas’s neck. “And I ...”

Nicolas scowled. Nancy was barely seven; she shouldn't be seeing death, let alone lose a parent to violence. But he knew all too well that violence was no respecter of childhood. American children had been lucky to live in such a peaceful world, a world that had been ripped apart by the aliens. There had been other places on Earth where children were unlikely to reach their fifth year. Now, there were a lot more of them.

“This is Abigail,” he said, as Nancy looked over at his companion. “She’s my friend ...”

Nancy giggled. “Is she my new mommy?”

Nicolas laughed as Abigail flushed. They'd shared drinks in the aftermath of the battle of Washington, which had ended with them sharing a bed. But it was way too early to talk about marriage, even if his last experience hadn't soured him on the whole concept.

“I’m Nancy,” Nancy said. She gave Abigail a sweet smile. “I have two fathers ...”

Her face fell as she remembered that Greg was dead.

Nicolas held her tightly, wondering what he could say. Greg had betrayed him, but he hadn't really collaborated in any other way – and he’d died to save Nancy’s life. Nicolas had envisaged strangling the man he’d once thought of as a brother, before he’d realised that the alien rebels had managed to reroute him to their command ship. It was strange to realise that Greg might have betrayed Nancy’s father to save her life.

But in the end, he would have seen no alternative.

It’s easy to make those judgements when we’re not involved, he thought. Now, everything is complicated again.

“Come on,” he said, swinging Nancy around so that she was perched on his shoulders. “Let’s go see how much of Washington is still standing.”

The President had given him two days leave, thankfully. There would be time to ensure that Nancy wound up somewhere safer than a refugee camp or one of the abandoned buildings that were being pressed into service as emergency shelters. And to see if she and Abigail got on well ...

And then ... they had a country to rebuild. There was still so much work to be done.

The End

Afterword

“Space will be colonised - although possibly not by [Americans]. If we lose our nerve, there are plenty of other people on this planet. The construction crews may speak Chinese or Russian - Swahili or Portuguese. It does not take "good old American know-how" to build a city in space. The Laws of Physics work just as well for others as they do for us.”

-- Robert A. Heinlein

The term ‘outside context problem,’ as I noted in the book of that name, refers to an encounter with a force that exists right out of one’s frame of reference. Iain M. Banks, who invented the term, suggested the example of a tribe on an isolated island – with nothing more advanced than wind-powered canoes – coming face-to-face with a massive iron ship, automatic weapons and other advanced technology. For them, the experience would be devastating.

True Outside Context Problems are actually quite rare in human history, but when they occur they can shatter a previously stable society. The Native Americans had no conception of what would happen when they first met Europeans; their primitive weapons were no match for the European weapons and tactics, nor were their immune systems prepared for the impact of smallpox and other diseases. (It wasn't the only shift; the idealised image of noble braves riding on horseback simply didn't exist until horses were introduced to the Americas by the Europeans.) Both Japan and China found it hard to come to grips with just how advanced the Westerners were when they made formal contact; Japan managed to modernize, to some extent, but China had to go through hell before she could stand up for herself.

If we did encounter aliens, it would be the ultimate Outside Context Problem for many of us. What would we do if a giant starship entered our solar system? What would happen if the aliens were friendly of hostile? Or what if they were simply uninterested in us? Even if they didn't have hostile intentions, they might do untold harm to human society simply by existing. What would happen, for example, if the aliens had conclusive proof that there was no God? Or if humans started converting to their religions?

But I’m not going to discuss the implications here (well, any more so than I have done in the text.) I have something else in mind.

I wrote the first draft of Outside Context Problem in 2006 and the second version (the one on Kindle) in 2009. In that time, the space shuttle was still a valid program and I had hopes that the Bush Administration programs would help to push the human race further into space. Now, Outside Context Problem seems dated. The space shuttles have been grounded permanently (an immensely stupid decision, when they could have been left in orbit instead) and there is no immediate replacement in sight. NASA appears more concerned with producing pretty artwork than actual hardware. Right now, getting to the moon within five years would be extremely difficult.

This is potentially disastrous.

There are several different reasons for this, three of which are vitally important.

First, we live at the bottom of a gravity well that attracts objects in space towards it. That gravity well tugs at asteroids that drift through space, luring them into trajectories that will eventually bring them close enough to Earth to hit the planet. Does this seem like the synopsis for a blockbuster movie? Consider; every year, thousands of meteors and shooting stars crash into Earth’s atmosphere, some surviving their passage through the atmosphere to hit the planet’s surface. What would happen to us if a large asteroid hit the planet?

If the asteroid hit water, it would throw millions of tons of water into the atmosphere and send tidal waves washing out in all directions. If the asteroid hit land, it would throw dust into the atmosphere instead. Every exaggerated statement ever made about nuclear winter might well be true if the asteroid was large enough. And if the asteroid was too big, the entire human race would die that day. It would be the end.

Right now, if we knew that an asteroid was plunging towards us, what could we do about it?

The standard suggestion is to launch nuclear missiles at the rock. It might work, assuming that everything went according to plan. Or it might result in thousands of tiny radioactive rocks falling on the planet instead. Ideally, we would want to deflect it so it missed Earth by a comfortable margin. Can we do it with today’s space program? I don’t think so.

It would be comforting to assume that this would never happen. I don’t believe that to be true. If an asteroid can seriously damage the dinosaurs, contributing to their extinction, why can't one do the same to us? Perhaps we should learn a lesson from the prior rulers of Earth.

But even without asteroids, there are other reasons to get into space.

As a society, we are dependent upon space technology. Satellites bind us together, provide everything from GPS to television channels and the internet; it’s hard to look at our modern society and see something that isn’t related, in one way or another, to space. Yet, at the same time, we do not seek to defend what we have – or prevent others from threatening our space facilities. This isn’t rocket science; potential enemies like China and Russia (and even Iran and North Korea) have put a lot of effort into space-based weapons. Space gives us so many advantages that they have no choice; in the event of a war over Taiwan, for example, the Chinese will certainly attempt to blind our satellites. Failing to do so would be effectively admitting defeat.

This barely scratches the surface of what is possible, given the right level of technology and political determination. The nation that controls space will control the world. Imagine, if you will, that China manages to deploy an orbital bombardment system – something akin to Project Thor. This would give them a formidable advantage over the United States, if the US failed to match their development in time. They might also deploy a Brilliant Pebbles antiballistic missile system, crippling the United States nuclear deterrent. This would give them the world.

There’s also the simple fact that our planet’s resources are limited and/or not always under our control. Space, on the other hand, offers an endless bounty of resources, ranging from asteroid mining to solar energy and HE3 from the moon or Jupiter. Whoever stakes their claims first will be in a strong position against everyone else.

And yet there is a third reason to get into space.

As a society, we have made our greatest strides forward when we were exploring, colonising and growing outwards. Americans who had a lust for adventure, to do something new, could go west; Britons could go to India or other parts of the British Empire. Now, there is nowhere left on Earth to explore - and we are tied down by endless pettifogging rules to ensure ‘safety.’ Our schools are governed by desperate attempts to avoid liability (imagine not being allowed to play on swings because someone might get hurt), our courtrooms have been stripped of common sense and politicians are not allowed to be blunt because it might hurt someone’s feelings. This is killing us, piece by piece.

Space offers us a way out, a way to expand and start growing again.

It will be costly, of course it will. But the investment is worth it ...

Because the only alternative is permanent stagnation.

And stagnation brings death – or Outside Context Problems

Christopher G. Nuttall

Kuala Lumpur, 2013

Table of Contents

The Slightest Hope of Victory

Cover Blurb

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter Forty-Three

Chapter Forty-Four

Chapter Forty-Five

Chapter Forty-Six

Chapter Forty-Seven

Chapter Forty-Eight

Chapter Forty-Nine

Chapter Fifty

Chapter Fifty-One

Afterword