The Yeomen of England (Posleen in England)

Chapter One: The Oncoming Storm

Ten Downing Street

London, United Kingdom

12 March 2001
The room was cold and grey, a fitting scene for the discussion at hand. They entered the room, in groups or on their own, the military leaders of Great Britain and the politicians who controlled her destiny. The senior MPs of the majority party; the representatives from the backbenches, chosen by lot, and finally the Leader of the Opposition. It was a grim atmosphere; few men understood the purposes of such a gathering, and those who suspected didn’t quite believe it.
After all, the Threat Board was clear; there were no international problems waiting for the attention of the helmsmen of Great Britain, and why would the Leader of the Opposition be invited to a simple Party meeting? No cabinet meeting – except one – would have the Leader of the Opposition present, for many different reasons. The MPs twitched and muttered to themselves; there had been no earthshaking change in the British political situation, no sudden formation of a coalition government. They would have noticed, wouldn’t they? They would have heard about it on the grapevine, long before it made the News At Ten.
They looked around the room. The Prime Minister was standing with his back to them, staring out of the window at the cold dank weather. The military personnel were a mixture of grim resignation or shock, or confusion; the…incident, whatever it was, hadn’t been explained to them. Puzzlement grew, and so did the silence, as all cast their eyes upon the Prime Minister’s famous back.
For his part, the Prime Minister was wondering, his thoughts straying all over the room. Who would agree to support the government in the sudden crisis? Who would refuse to believe, even unto the invasion itself? Who would insist that it was somehow all his fault? The Prime Minister’s famous lips twitched, but he couldn’t summon his famous smile. Deep inside, he wondered; was he fit for the task at hand?
The silence lengthened, broken only by a cough from the Leader of the Opposition. Along in the room, he was immune to the Prime Minister’s wrath, safe from any political pressure that could be brought to bear. The Prime Minister smiled wryly, the expression a flickering horror against the window, and took his seat at the head of the table.
“You may as well show yourself now,” he called. A section of the wall seemed to flicker, changing colour even as they watched, and an alien being appeared from the wall. The assembled movers and shakers stared at it, all those who hadn’t been in the know. The alien’s skin was almost like a chameleons; it pushed back against the wall, flicking in and out of visibility.
“What the fuck?” One of the uninformed military men gasped. “What is that thing?”
At the sound of his voice, its tone harsh with fear and horror, the alien merged completely with the wall and vanished. The assembled politicians stared at the wall, trying to track the invisible entity as it moved around the room, hiding from their view.
“Silence,” the Prime Minister said, keeping his voice calm. “I apologise for the little showmanship I employed…”
“You had better be sorry,” one of the backbenchers^th snapped, interrupting the Prime Minister. “When I think about the effort involved in creating the Party out of the fragments…”
“I believe that I was talking,” the Prime Minister said. He reminded himself to give the assembled group some slack; he’d had a few days to get used to the concept of extraterrestrial intelligence. He’d watched Independence Day and Invasion Earth, but the Himmit made a mockery of such human conceits - and as for the Darhel…
“Himmit Alarlas, please show yourself again,” he said, abandoning his muses. The Himmit faded back into existence, giving an impression of cowering behind the Prime Minister’s chair. Up close, standing still, the Himmit seemed frog-like, with four eyes and two mouths. There was a complex honeycomb formation above the mouths and between wide-set eyes; it could have been an ear or a nose.
“It is always a pleasure to meet such distinguished guests,” the alien piped. Its voice was a high tenor. “I hope that we will be working together through the dark days to come.”
The Prime Minister took a breath. “Five days ago, we were contacted by an alien…well, the Yanks are calling it a Federation,” he began. “For various reasons, the Federation quarantined Earth and refused contact…until now.”
“You are dangerous carnivores,” Himmit Alarlas said. It’s mouths opened and closed in quick succession, revealing strange misshapen flat teeth. “Dangerous, dangerous…”
“Thank you,” the Prime Minister said. The expression on some of the senior MPs’ faces made the aggravation worthwhile. Some of them, peaceniks to a man or woman, found the alien’s judgement offensive. “You may go to the recovery room if you wish.”
He waited until the Himmit was out of the room before continuing. “As I said, I must apologise for introducing you to an alien life form this way,” he said. “There simply is no time for disbelief. We have a serious crisis on our hands.”
“Doubtless the Yanks will sort it all out,” the Foreign Secretary muttered. “I’m surprised they even let that…creature come here.”
“The Americans are in trouble, along with the rest of us,” the Prime Minister said. He gazed around the room. “I won’t go into too many details, as they are included in the briefing folders prepared by the Federation, but the short version of the story is that the Earth is about to be attacked by an alien race.”
There was a sudden silence. The Prime Minister found that more worrying than argument. “They seem to be Mongols in space,” he said. “For reasons unknown, they have been moving across space in an unstoppable mass, taking whatever worlds are in their path. They have been attacking the Federation for the past one hundred years and now they’re coming our way.”
***

The silence grew and lengthened. Finally, Margent Hammond, one of the backbench MPs, broke the silence. The Prime Minister sighed inwardly; Hammond was a firm peacenik, one of the older members of the party, and one of those who had never reconciled themselves to the compromises that had been required to make the party a genuine competitor for the leadership of Britain.

“I do not believe a word of this,” she said. She was an MP whose reputation had never been sullied by being offered a post in Government. “All people know that all people want peace. By the time that a race reaches the stars, they will have achieved a united peaceful state and an ability to empathise with other beings, allowing them to co-exist with the other races in the universe, all of whom will have reached a similar state.”
The Prime Minister wanted to cut her off sharply, but this was no time for a split within the party. “The Federation believes that all races that are…irredeemably hostile destroy themselves before reaching the stars,” he said. “The Posleen, however, seem to have managed to reach the stars – and they’re coming our way.”
He spoke over Hammond’s protests. “The Federation believes that we have as little as four years to prepare for the defence of Earth,” he said. “Worse, they have…certain requirements of their own. They want – need – us to send some of our soldiers to fight on two of their worlds, ones that we might be able to save from the Posleen.”
“And so we will be weakened,” the Secretary of State for Defence commented. “Why can they not hold their own worlds?”
It said something about the seriousness of the situation that he hadn’t been in the loop beforehand. The Prime Minister hoped that he wouldn’t hold it against him; Hammond alone would cause problems for Britain. This was too important for party politics to play a decisive role.
“The Federation…is composed of races like Margent suggests,” he said. “In effect, one race – the Himmit, which you’ve seen – are cowards, two more cannot fight even to save their own lives, and the final race can launch one attack – and then the person launching the attack goes cationic. They have been hoping for the best, and the best hasn’t happened. What little resistance they have been able to offer in space has not slowed the Posleen at all – and their resistance on the ground, to all intents and purposes, may as well not exist.
“We can go into further detail later,” he said. “Suffice it to say that the Federation would like to trade. They will hire some thousands of our soldiers – ours, the Americans, the other NATO nations, the Russians, the Chinese and whatever other nations have the capability to contribute – to fight on two not-quite-fallen worlds, and perhaps later to defend other Federation worlds. In exchange, they will contribute Federation technology to assist us in preparing for the coming invasion, including a small fleet of ships converted for military use.” He held up a hand. “For the moment, as per the agreement made between the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, the Fleet will be a global project, recruiting men and resources from all over the world.”
He nodded at the First Sea Lord. “I expect that several thousand of our RAF and Royal Navy personnel will be slated for serving in Fleet,” he said. “It’s going to be a nightmare, but with the Posleen on their way, perhaps we can make some clear decisions. Unfortunately, Fleet will almost certainly not be ready in time to hold off the first wave of invading Posleen, and it may not be able to stand the second or third waves off from the planet.” He sighed. “So much of this, you understand, is speculation, but its informed speculation. We have to proceed on the worst case…and that means a Posleen invasion on the ground.”
There was a diffident cough from the Chief of the Air Staff, General Mathews. “Prime Minister, with all due respect, how can we hope to hold the ground when the…ah, Posleen will control space?”
The Prime Minister smiled. The Chief of the Air Staff had been involved, right from the start. The Permanent Joint Headquarters, the PJHQ, would spearhead Britain’s military response to the oncoming storm. The question had been planted; the Prime Minister hoped that it would focus a few minds on the problems of survival.
“The Posleen…do not seem to place as much reliance on space installations as we do in our science-fiction,” he said. “In effect, they seem to concentrate on landing and setting up an impregnable position on the ground – impregnable to Federation soldiers, such as they are. They seem to concentrate on seizing the cities, and then eating the population and taking all of their wealth.”
He was dimly aware of Hammond nearly being sick. “We seem to have very little choice,” he said. “We have to prepare for a land war that will make World War Two look like a tea party. This one...it will be fought on the beaches, on the hedgerows and on the streets…and we have to win it, just to keep enough of the population safe.”
He nodded to General Mathews. “My office has already begun to consider our best way to meet the massive task ahead,” he said. “However, I must warn you that the cost will be enormous and it will require total focus with no guarantee of success.”
“God, you’re fun to have around,” someone muttered from the rear.
The Prime Minister smiled ruefully. “Which brings us to the purpose of this meeting,” he said. “We will have to declare a state of emergency when the news breaks out, which it will, sooner or later.”
“People will start leaking,” the First Sea Lord commented. “When are we going to tell the public the truth?”
The Prime Minister smiled. At least they had accepted it as truth, but then, Himmit Alarlas made a convincing argument. He suspected that many others would refuse to believe in the threat, but the men and women in the room had to believe. Between them, they were the directors of Britain.
“The Americans and the French insisted upon a two-month period of secrecy,” the Prime Minister said. “Personally, I believe that that is…unlikely to last that long, as we’re going to be preparing for military operations on a massive scale, but…needs must when the devil vomits on your toenails.”
As he had hoped, the comment drew some chuckles. “We have to form a War Cabinet,” he said, nodding to the Leader of the Opposition. “The normal democratic process will have to be suspended for a while, until we can get a handle on the problem and confront it.”
“That’s why you wanted me here,” the Leader of the Opposition said. For the first time, the Prime Minister wished that his opponents had been able to come up with a more inspiring man; the Leader of the Opposition was a grey man with a grey soul. “You want me to take on the role of Deputy Prime Minister.”
The Prime Minister nodded. The entire Cabinet would have to be reshuffled to meet the new threat. “I need you on the team,” he said. “Three Cabinet posts would be yours, should your party require them as a sign of good faith.”
The Leader of the Opposition smiled. “If you’re willing to go that far, it must be real,” he said. He held out a hand. “Very well; I accept.”
The Prime Minister shook his hand. “Thank you,” he said. “Margent?”
“This is a complete and total fallacy,” Hammond snapped. “This is nothing more than an attempt to distract attention from the economic disasters you are causing by…”
“Margent, don’t be a fool,” one of the backbenchers snapped. “You saw that thing; it was an alien, all right!”
“Shut up,” Hammond snapped. “This is nothing more than a cheap power grab. Now you’ve gotten into power on our backs, you want to throw us true believers out of the party! Well, I won’t go without a fight, you…”
The Prime Minister sighed. “Margent, can I at least ask you to remain quiet about this until the two-month period is over?”
“When you try to force this lie down the throats of the people, they will reject you,” Hammond snapped. “I will watch and wait.”
She left the room. “Well, that went well,” the Prime Minister muttered. Several people chuckled. “If there is anyone else who does not believe, speak now or forever hold your tongues…”
“I saw the aliens,” the Leader of the Opposition said. “On the condition that I have access to the entire process, count me in.”
The Prime Minister sighed inwardly at the man’s need to play politics, even though he understood it, but nodded. He watched as several other people, then the entire room, made their final agreements and commitments. The process of drawing up a War Cabinet didn’t take long; the process was well-understood, even though it hadn’t been used for nearly four decades.
“For the moment, this will be an unofficial gathering,” he said finally. “Once we make the announcement, we can form the cabinet properly.” He scowled; all the British forces overseas would have to be brought home and prepared to defend their own homes. “Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming.”
“I wish I could thank you for inviting us,” the Leader of the Opposition said wryly. The Prime Minister chuckled. It would be the last bit of levity they would have for many strange and terrible days.
***

The Prime Minister and the Chief of the Air Staff, General Mathews, hadn’t moved in the same circles before the last election. In their first meetings, when the Prime Minister had ordered RAF units to take part in Operation Desert Fox and British Army units to deploy into several hotspots across the world, both men had come to respect the other, if not outright liking.

“You handled that well,” Mathews said, after the meeting had ended. “Using the Himmit was a stoke of genius.”
The Prime Minister shrugged, “I shall have to make many fulsome apologies to Himmit Alarlas afterwards,” he said. “Still, it was the only way to convince them all quickly, even Margent.”
“A shame about her,” Mathews said. “Should she not be taken into protective custody?”
“No,” the Prime Minister said. “We have other problems at the moment; preparing for war. We have study teams active already, and it’s only going to get worse.”
Mathews nodded. “I think we have to bring Tom Anderson in on this,” he said. “He is the only person who has been thinking about threats to Britain itself.”
The Prime Minister laughed bitterly. His honest belief in the essential benevolence of the universe had taken a severe beating. “We should have listened to him,” he said. “Brief him in, my authority. Have him come up with an overall plan for a campaign within Britain itself, one that preserves the lives of as much of the population as possible.”
He sighed. “Have the teams now working with the Americans copy all of their data over to him and vice versa,” he said. “The Americans, at least, are our allies; God only knows which way the French are going to go.” He scowled, his mind racing everywhere. “Coming to think of it, we’d better stockpile oil as well. The oil suppliers are going to be up shit creek.”
“And it couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch,” Mathews said. The Prime Minister laughed. “Sir, we can stop them.”
The Prime Minister looked up at him. “I hope that you’re right,” he said. “The hell of it, General, is that Margent was right; I don’t see how such a species evolved.”
“Perhaps a evolutionary specialist will be able to provide you with an answer,” Mathews suggested. “Or perhaps…”
The Prime Minister completed the thought. “Or perhaps the Darhel are lying to us,” he said. “They seem to have made contact with us very easily.” He paused. “The Tir reminded me too much of a used car salesman.”