“Thank you,” the President said. He looked over at Paul. “We caught some prisoners, right?”
Paul winced inwardly. The President sounded as if he were coming apart. “Yes, Mr President,” he said. “We took eight prisoners alive. We had a ninth prisoner, but he died on us while the medics were trying to save his life. We’re still not sure why. Two of them speak English and are talking to us, the remaining six don’t speak English…”
“Unless they’re playing possum,” Deborah growled. Paul had to admit that she had a point. They knew so little about the aliens, let alone the difference between real illness and faking it. The doctors would certainly refuse to try drugging the aliens with human truth drugs. “What sort of information are we getting from them at the moment?”
Paul frowned. “They’re still a little in shock,” he said. “The two females – those are the ones who speak English – are rather stunned by being captured. One of them seems to be a researcher into humanity; the other…we’re not sure what her role is, yet. The males appear to have been their escort.”
“Find out what they know,” the President ordered. Paul suspected that the aliens would know very little that was tactically useful, but the President was right; they had to find out what the aliens had in mind. “If only what will happen now.”
“They’ll attack northwards,” General Hastings said. “There’s fuck-all left to oppose them now, apart from the militias and the survivalists. It’s going to take weeks to rebuild the shattered force from the survivors. They knew we’re weak, so they might come after us…”
“Then we have to go nuclear, now,” Deborah said, firmly. “What other choice, young man, do we have?”
Paul had no answer.
“Find one,” the President ordered. “Do whatever you have to do.”
He left the room, a broken man.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Nations do not have permanent allies, only permanent interests.
-Anon
Ambassador Philippe Laroche tried to remain calm as the F-15 raced over the Atlantic Ocean towards Europe – and France. The American fighter might be the first aircraft since the invasion had begun to actually fly over the sea; the aliens had picked off every aircraft that had been in flight since the war began and then tried to keep the remainder of the human aircraft firmly grounded. No one dared to fly, he’d been told, apart from very short trips, although there were plenty of American daredevils willing to risk sudden death from above in making flights across America. The death rate was apparently high; a handful of people who’d tried to fly into the alien-controlled red zone had disappeared without trace.
He’d barely listened to the pilot’s occasional chatter, lost in his own thoughts. The American assault on the aliens had failed – and badly. The loss of so many American soldiers and their equipment was going to have a serious effect on their ability to continue fighting. At worst, it might even prove fatal. The aliens would, everyone expected, start expanding the red zone soon…and there was very little to stand in their way, but partisan resistance. They’d done something that no one had done for a very long time and beaten an American army in the field.
And, by doing so, they had scared hell out of the rest of the world.
The flight from Washington to France had been carefully planned, but the F-15 was on its last legs when it finally started to descend over France, towards a little airfield in the west. The French Air Force, like almost every other air force in the world, had taken a beating and lost all of its tankers, leaving the American fighter completely dependent on its drop tanks for the flight. If the aliens had engaged them, despite the message informing them that one of the ambassadors was going to convey their message to his government, no one would ever have known what had happened to the aircraft. They would have been lost somewhere over the Atlantic. According to the pilot, the aliens had not only taken out the satellites, but most of the beacons as well, leaving him to compute their course by dead reckoning. Philippe could only hope that he was being teased; the thought of losing their course somewhere in the cold waters and vanishing wasn't a pleasant one.
“There’s the airfield,” the pilot said, suddenly, breaking into his thoughts. “We’ll have you down on the ground in a moment.”
France looked dark from high above. Like Britain – they’d flown over the south coast of Britain – the cities, towns and villages looked dark, the power permanently out. The aliens might not have invaded, but with a few hundred carefully-targeted projectiles, they’d brought Europe to a standstill. From what he’d seen on the Internet, or what was left of it, railways, motorways and power stations had all been destroyed, crippling Europe. The shortage of power and fuel meant that the continent would have a very cold winter…assuming, of course, that they lived through the summer. They might not have invaded Europe, but they’d caused quite enough devastation, simply by closing down most of the transport network.
The F-15 touched down on the tarmac and screeched to a halt. A set of ground crewmen appeared at once and helped them move the aircraft into a small hanger, one that would have normally held a private business jet or two. Once inside, they began the task of preparing the aircraft for its return flight, while helping the pilot to a bunk and providing him with a good meal. Philippe almost envied him; while the pilot was eating, drinking, and sleeping, Philippe would be reporting to the President of France himself. It wasn’t a meeting he was looking forward to having.
“Mr Ambassador?”
Philippe nodded. “That’s me,” he said, too tired to say anything else. “I trust that transport is laid on?”
“Yes, sir,” the army Captain said. “If you’d like to follow me?”
Transport, as it turned out, was a black security car, armoured against all reasonable contingencies. It was soft and sinfully comfortable inside, so Philippe leaned back and started to doze while the car, and its military escort, drove off into the night. He awoke when the car entered Paris and looked around, unable to believe the change. French paratroopers were patrolling the city, their weapons and equipment in full view, and armoured vehicles were everywhere. It looked like he was driving though one of the more unstable countries in the world, not France; he wondered, despite himself, if someone had tried a coup or uprising or something. France had changed…and, he decided, not in a good way.
There weren't as many destroyed buildings in the centre of the city, but it wasn't a surprise when the car was rerouted to a secured building, rather than the more normal residence. Philippe was escorted out of the car, where his papers were checked by a tough-looking paratrooper who examined every line carefully, and helped into the building, where he was shown to a room. A change of clothes sat on the bed, so he showered, got dressed, and almost felt human again. That, given the nature of the war, was a profound irony. He skimmed quickly through the television channels, but, unsurprisingly, there was nothing on at all. The aliens had shut that down as well.
That probably did us a world of good, he thought, in a moment of humour. He had never been a big fan of watching everything on the television, regarding most of it as trash. There had once been a big campaign to have American trash removed from French television, but in his view they had merely replaced American trash with French trash. Politics was so much more interesting if you had the insider view, but the newsreaders and talking heads could suck the excitement and real news out of anything. When the escort arrived, again, he went with them quite willingly.
“Welcome back to Earth,” the French President said, as soon as he was shown into the small meeting room. They were alone, without even an aide or one of the President’s many mistresses. President LePic had had more than his fair share of scandal. “I trust that you had a pleasant journey?”
Philippe bit down the comment that came to mind and started to talk, carefully outlining everything that had happened from the moment the aliens had opened fire to the failure of Operation Lone Star. The President listened carefully, asking a ha
ndful of questions from time to time, while looking almost vague and uninterested. Philippe wasn’t fooled; LePic was known for looking unconcerned…until he revealed that he had been thinking hard all along. Governing France wasn't an easy task and even knowing, as he did, where many of the bodies were buried, it wasn't a task for a weak man.
“And so they’ve come for us all,” LePic said, finally. “Some of my advisors believe that they only wanted to attack the Americans and don’t intend to attack us.”
“No,” Philippe said, flatly. LePic was testing him, pushing forward a viewpoint that might have been shared by advisors, or perhaps his own. “They picked on the Americans, we think, because the Americans were the greatest – well, certainly the most powerful – nation on Earth. Having beaten the Americans, they will use the time they’ve won to come for us. We have to prepare for them landing here.”
LePic frowned. “You may not have kept up on the news from home,” he said, dryly. “The economy collapsed days after the aliens opened fire. Millions of Frenchmen are now on the streets, despite the…legal difficulties in firing so many at once. Millions more have decided to blame their problems on the Arabs, who in turn blame their problems on us. We’re this close” – he held up a finger and thump – “to outright civil war.”
Philippe winced. Summers in France were often marked by civil unrest. He hadn’t even realised how badly the French economy, indeed, that of the remainder of the European Union, would have been hit by the invasion. The United States had been hit hard as well, but it had been distracted by a landing and, in any case, it was much larger. The Americans might manage to hold on, barely, but he wasn't sure that France could survive without major upheaval.
And that was an irony. LePic had been the most determined person in France to tackle the country’s problems. It hadn’t been easy to start breaking down some of the labour laws, but he’d been succeeding, barely. Now millions were out of work as companies folded, one by one, and without the high military presence, France would probably have seen more riots by now. The government was getting blamed, but truthfully…the aliens had caused the nightmare, and the aliens were untouchable.
“The aliens want us to join them,” LePic said, finally. He’d clearly taken the time to go through some of the documents before meeting with Philippe. “Do you think that we should accept their offer?”
Philippe took a breath. “No,” he said, as calmly as he could. “I think that it would be a bad idea, both for France and for the world.”
LePic lifted an eyebrow. “Do you really think that the country can continue like this?”
“It’s not going to make a difference,” Philippe said. “Even if the aliens stopped harassing us tomorrow, how long is it going to be before we can rebuild everything they destroyed? Years, at best. Submitting to the aliens won’t do more than putting us firmly in their camp, which means that the entire human race might lose the war.”
“The war looks pretty hopeless already,” LePic countered. “I hate to admit it, but it is a reality that must be faced, squarely. If the Americans cannot defeat the aliens, there is no way that we can do so. I have ordered the mass production of additional nuclear weapons, but even with them…”
“Getting them up to the aliens might be a problem,” Philippe conceded, ruefully. The American internet had been full of people condemning their President for whimping out – their words – and not using nukes when launching the attack on Texas. In their view, scorching Texas down to bedrock would have killed all the aliens and improved the real estate value no end, a point of view that ignored all of the humans – American citizens - who would have been killed as well. “If they come down here…”
They shared a single thought. France had a long history of resistance to outside occupation, but it was as chequered as any other such history, and, at the moment, France was more likely to tear itself apart than fight the aliens. They’d have no choice, but to organise an insurgency – knowing that the population might turn their weapons on the government, rather than the aliens.
“We don’t have a choice,” Philippe said, as forcefully as he dared. “Mr President, the aliens are not humans in suits, but…something other.”
“You sound like one of those National Front bastards talking about the Arabs,” LePic said, toying with him. “What makes the aliens so different?”
Philippe ignored the jibe. He’d never had much time for the National Front. “When the Nazis invaded France, there were Frenchwomen who had affairs with German soldiers and often became quite fond of them…”
“And had their hair cut off afterwards,” LePic pointed out.
“The Germans and us are sexually compatible,” Philippe said. “Given time, Europe might blend into one civilisation, one society, with children born to mixed parentage. Hell, given enough time, the same might be true of the entire world. The entire human race might abandon such follies as racism and sexism – maybe even nationalism – to unite as one race.”
“And maybe the horse will learn to sing,” LePic said. He sounded disturbed, now. “Carry on…”
“In an alien world, humans will be marked as forever human,” Philippe pressed. “They claim to have a billion settlers on their mothership and, just by landing anywhere, they will have a massive influence on the world. In time, they might take over the entire planet, or at least the important parts of the world…and create a nightmare where humans are permanent second-class citizens. We will never be able to breed with them, or create a new race, but we will be doomed to permanent inferiority. How could we reach a position of power and responsibility when we will be forever marked as human?”
He paused. “The damned SS actually recruited Frenchmen and even Russians,” he added. “Why should the aliens even allow us to do that? Aliens will have the best jobs. Aliens will control all the weapons and defences. Aliens will accept us into their faith, but God damn me if they ever give any of us any control, or even a priesthood! If we surrender now, we are going to be under them forever.”
“Nothing lasts forever,” LePic said. The confidence in his voice was a surprise. “Their control will weaken, eventually.”
“Why?” Philippe asked bleakly. “They don’t have to worry about little details like internal revolt from their own…and if we do, we’d be crushed. At best, we will be second-class citizens. At worst…at worst, we will be their slaves forever.”
“A powerful argument,” LePic concluded. There was a bitter helplessness in his voice. “But then, really, what can we do? If we fight, we get squashed. If we surrender, we get melded into their self-image. What can we do?”
***
The High Priest and his immediate subordinates gathered below a massive image of Earth, floating in space below the Guiding Star. It had been a busy few cycles, but once the main thrust of the American assault had been blunted, the warriors had been able to cut up the remaining insurgents who dared to show their faces. The occupied zone was peaceful again, for now.
“We have studied the human writings extensively,” the researcher informed him, after they had briefly discussed the situation on the ground. “The human religions, their dominant religions, all appeared in the same general area, here.” She touched a place that humans would have identified as the Middle East. “Their dominant religions – Judaism, Christianity and Islam – are actually related and have their centres in that area, apart from this centre here.”
Her finger touched Italy. “Other religions exist on Earth, but they are less likely to conflict directly with the Truth,” she added. “They can be dealt with later. This part of the world has an added advantage in that it is the source for much of their oil, although it escapes us as to why they have allowed the dependency to continue when they could build solar platforms in high orbit and get all the power they need…”
“Humans are more inclined to consume resources than ourselves,” an Arbiter said. The scorn in his voice was unmistakable. He might have been awed by how much each individual hu
man had, but as a race, they were remarkably poor. “They do not practice self-discipline when it comes to deciding what they want and what they need. Their failure to ensure proper use of resources has crippled their development as a race.”
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