deployed them against the aliens. The assault failed. The figure might be too high, Mr President; the guards at the border have been discovering hundreds of stragglers trying to make their way out of the red zone.”
“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
– 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.
“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 handful 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.
