Invasion

been shot by someone on the same side! You need a special mindset for that and most soldiers don’t have it.”

“Oh,” Joshua said. “Why is it that half the time I can’t tell if you’re telling the truth or lying through your teeth?”

“I’m a very dishonest soldier,” Brent said, with a wink. “That story about the General’s daughter, the Swedish woman’s naked badminton team and the six vats of hot custard was all true, as I live and breathe. Besides, if it weren’t for all the tall tales, terrorists wouldn’t get so scared and do something stupid when they hear we’re after them. Did I ever tell you how I managed to get a terrorist cell to kill itself?”

“No,” Brent said. “Does it have anything to do with those Iranian girls you were telling me about?”

They rode onwards, towards the alien landing sites. Joshua fell silent as the scale of the invasion became clearer, with destroyed vehicles and houses everywhere, as far as the eye could see. Someone, probably work gangs, had cleared the roads of vehicles, but otherwise there had been very little clean-up work done, even removing the bodies. Most of them had been picked clean by now, probably by animals – he didn’t think that the aliens would eat human flesh – but the white skeletons seemed to mock him. They had died, perhaps bravely, perhaps shot in the back…but they had died.

The sight was a bitter reminder. The soldiers had charged that Joshua and other reporters had gotten fat on the carnage caused by fighting, but that hadn’t happened in America, not since the Civil War. The United States had had internal troubles, but there had never been a danger of an invasion and its population had been allowed to forget how unpleasant the world could be. Now, war and devastation had torn the United States apart, with the population fleeing burning cities, carrying what little they could with them.

“We’d better be careful,” Brent warned, as they detoured around a particularly large cluster of destroyed buildings. “I thought they were burying all the bodies, but if they’re leaving them here, they’re probably Club Med for diseases now. We might even catch something really nasty.”

“I would, you mean,” Joshua said, absently. “You’re too tough for any disease.”

The sounds of alien activity had been growing louder, loud enough to convince them that they were close, so they hid the bikes and proceeded on foot, seeking a vantage point. A pair of alien patrols, armed to the teeth, passed them, but seemingly missed picking them out from their surroundings. Brent led the way up the ridge, and then swore softly under his breath. Joshua followed him, careful to keep his head, and peeked over the top. What he saw shocked him.

As far as the eye could see, the aliens were building, constructing strange buildings from the remains of the massive conical craft that had landed on American soil. Aliens, thousands of aliens, were everywhere, directing the construction process as hundreds of massive robots established their cities. A small army of human prisoners, chained and shackled together, were carrying massive containers around, aiding the aliens as they built their base.

No, Joshua realised, as terror sank into his mind. That’s not a base, not any normal base. That’s a city.

His eyes caught a rising puff of smoke. A human town was being demolished by the robots, smashing the remains of the town and pushing them aside. He’d never seen activity on such a scale before and so he had no idea how long it would take them to complete their city, but it had barely been days since they had landed. The city already seemed kilometres wide…and it was still growing.

Brent caught his arm and nodded towards a group of aliens. For a moment, Joshua didn’t see what was different about them, and then he saw the breasts. He almost laughed, despite himself; topless alien women were prowling the streets of the alien city! The aliens hadn’t set any clothing rules, he remembered, although they’d banned openly religious clothing, and it was very hot…but looking at them, he wondered if it was a cultural thing. Did bare breasts mean the same to them as they did to humanity?

“You could use your charm on them,” he muttered, barely above a whisper. “Perhaps you could seduce them into joining our side.”

“I think that needs Captain Kirk, or maybe Captain Sheridan,” Brent replied. “I don’t know if I could…perform with any of them.”

“You did see some of the girls Kirk had it off with, right?” Joshua pressed. “That girl with the skull-bone in her hair was pretty hot…”

“Focus,” Brent muttered, pulling a small device out of his sleeve. Joshua had seen the camera back in the safe house and had admired it; Special Forces really did get all the best toys. It was tiny enough to pass completely unnoticed, and yet provided excellent images for later analysis. The images of the alien construction work would come in handy for someone, although at the moment, Joshua wasn’t sure who. How could they even get them back to independent human territory? The Internet was unreliable at the best of times. “Keep an eye out for any alien patrols.”

Joshua looked. The aliens seemed to be almost unconcerned about the possibility of danger, although they had at least four patrols orbiting the construction site, and probably others that he couldn’t see. They had been lax to allow the two of them so close to the construction, although they might have let them through, just to show off their work. Paranoia, never far from his mind these days, blossomed; the aliens might have allowed them close to show the human race that they weren't going to leave. The thought was maddeningly taunting.

“Got all we can,” Brent said, finally. Joshua, who had been feeling a growing tingling between his shoulder blades, allowed himself a sigh of relief. “I think we’d better make tracks before they realise we’re here.”

“They may already,” Joshua said, and outlined his reasoning. “What if they let us this close?”

“After Washington, they have to be worried about someone like me sneaking up with a suitcase nuke,” Brent said. “It’s piss-easy to hide a nuke of you know what you’re doing, so unless they have something we don’t have, they would have to intercept us well short of the city. Hell, I might volunteer to come back here with a nuke and blow them to hell.”

Joshua looked back down at the strange buildings. They seemed utterly alien, a strange mixture of pyramids, oblongs and pointy spires, blended together into a very alien mass. The aliens had sometimes had problems with human buildings, he recalled, but if merely looking at their buildings made his head hurt, he didn’t want to think about what it would do to anyone living inside for any period of time. The slaves had to be going mad down there, or perhaps they had gotten used to it.

“Yeah,” he said, thinking. “I reckon that that’s going to be one of their first major settlements on our world. If we could blow it up…”

“We’ll lose another city,” Brent said, grimly. “I think I need to take this one upstairs.”

Somewhat to Joshua’s surprise, the trip back to the city was accomplished without incident, even passing through the checkpoints. The aliens didn’t seem interested in what they were doing outside the city, although they did remind them to report to the meeting hall the day afterwards for a new briefing. The real collaborators would have to go in, find out what the aliens wanted, and then report back. There was no way they would allow either Joshua or Brent into the meeting. The resistance had blown up two previous meetings and security was tight.

“We can’t send these over the Internet,” Brent said, once they’d finished outlining what they’d seen. The images had been downloaded to a laptop, but they were not only huge, but easily recognisable. “The government needs them, but we can’t get them to them, not directly.”

Joshua frowned. “How do we get them out, then?”

Brent winked. “I guess I’ll have to start walking,” he said. He winked at Joshua and grinned at the others. “It’s only a few kilometres to the human lines.”

“It’s over two hundred kilometres to the human lines,” Joshua burst out. “You won’t stand a chance!”

“Of course I do,” Brent said. “It’s the last thing anyone in their right mind would expect, so they won’t be prepared for it. There are plenty of people who do make their way out of the Red Zone without my training or advantages, so…”

“You’re mad,” Joshua said. The very thought struck him as completely insane, even if there weren’t any alien patrols watching for people doing just that. “You’re completely loopy!”

“And that’s why we will win,” Brent assured him. He opened one of the cupboards and started to pile up the contents. “We once had to force-march five hundred kilometres merely for the hell of it, all around Fort Hood. Damn sadists thought it would help us build character.”