The Yeomen of England (Posleen in England)

Chapter Twenty: The Battle For Manchester

Ten Downing Street

London, United Kingdom

27^th March 2007
The Prime Minister disliked the command bunker immensely; it was cold and sterile. As soon as it had been confirmed that London was in no immediate danger, he returned to his office and watched as the display updated itself, with entire sections going dark as the Posleen advanced.
“How bad is it?” He asked, without looking around. General Mathews was the only other person in the room. “How much worse is it likely to get.”
Mathews tapped the map. “We hit them hard with artillery, until they killed most of the spotters,” he said. He allowed his hand to drift over the map. “We might well have defeated one of them outright, the one near Bath,” he said. The Prime Minister looked up. “We battered it pretty badly and they’re nowhere near as frisky as the others,” Mathews said. “We’re moving in some units to see if we can destroy them now.
“Unfortunately, the other three globes have done better,” he said. “The Posleen are advancing on Manchester now, blasting their way through the opposition and killing the spotters for the long-ranged guns. They’ve also started to shoot the drones out of the air; we underestimated their ability to track burst transmissions. So far, over ten thousand people are confirmed dead, and thousand wounded.”
“Hellfire,” the Prime Minister said. Britain’s biggest disaster ever, and he was the one presiding over it. “Please, tell me something helpful or useful.”
“There’s a scattering of Landers heading for Ireland,” General Mathews said. “We passed the warning on to the Irish and General Whitehouse, but there’s nothing else that we can do for them. The Churchill attempted to engage the landers, but they blew her out of the water.”
“Shit,” the Prime Minister said. “What’s the situation on the ground?”
“The Posleen appear to be consolidating their advantages,” General Mathews said. He ran a hand over the map, considering. “They’re going to take Manchester, at least they’re certainly trying to take Manchester, and by the end of the day they’ll have Birmingham, Strafford and possibly Oxford.”
The Prime Minister thought of all the people in the North West and the Heart of England and shuddered. “They’re tearing us apart,” he whispered.
“Anderson believes that’s what they’re trying to do,” Mathews agreed. “They’ve landed in the most vital areas of our population; they’re in a position to cut the country in half if we let them keep Manchester, but we can’t stop them. Hurt them, yes; stop them, no.”
The Prime Minister scowled. “We can’t cut them up now?”
Mathews shook his head. “We don’t know enough about the situation on the ground,” he said grimly. “We know that they’re advancing on Manchester, but we don’t know enough about Birmingham because the bastards came down practically on top of the town and started slaughtering everyone. The entire situation is fucked up beyond repair.”
“We can’t send the ACS units in, then?” The Prime Minister asked. “The House is going to want answers.”
General Mathews snorted dryly. “I would have thought that they would have other things to worry about than politics,” he said. “No, we don’t have enough intelligence to start sending in unsupported units; we’re having to fire blindly into Bath and the other Posleen concentrations. It’s a nightmare.”
“It always was,” the Prime Minister said dully. “Barely three hours after the Posleen land and we’re already on the verge of losing.”
“We are not on the verge of losing,” General Mathews said. He traced out the positions on the map. “We’re moving into defensive positions, moving to seal off the Posleen landing sites even now,” he said. “Once we have the lines in place, we can start preparing to remove them from our soil.”
The Prime Minister nodded. “And our civilian refugees?”
“They’re flowing out of the area and anywhere too close to the Posleen,” General Mathews said. “We’re lucky we made as many plans as we did; we ended up with more refugees than we expected. There’re still flowing out of Manchester, but it won’t be long before the Posleen enter the city.”
“The French are taking a beating,” the Prime Minister said. “We may end up with some Frenchmen coming here.”
“If they’ll fight for us, then bring them on,” General Mathews said. “I don’t want to commit the ACS units until we’re certain what we’re dealing with, Prime Minister, but we may end up without a choice.” He scowled. “Anderson thinks that they’re moving to link up their holdings and keep us out,” he said. “It won’t be long, then, before they seek to expand further.”
***

“The Darhel definitely passed on some information to the Posleen,” Sir Robert said, half an hour later. “They didn’t pick too many of the vital targets, but they did get some of the decoy ones. In fact, I suspect that the Manchester Globe intended to land on top of our headquarters, rather than on top of the battalion they did land on.” He scowled. “There were no survivors, of course.”

“Of course,” the Prime Minister snapped. “So, what do we do now? Look at all the damage they caused.”
“Too much,” Sir Robert agreed. The Posleen didn’t seem to have had a coordinated fire plan for hitting the British defences; they’d hammered the PDCs and some artillery units that had attempted to engage the falling landers, but they had refrained from the ‘shock and awe’ bombardment that British or American generals would have used as a matter of course. Kinetic bombs had fallen across Britain, but few seemed to have been targeted to destroy the defences; they’d hit rail yards, junctions, motorways, some factories and – for a reason no one could understand – Woburn Abbey.
They don’t want to kill us when they can eat us and in fact they’re depending on us to feed them with our bodies, the Prime Minister realised, with a flash of sudden insight. Do they even care about the information the Darhel are feeding them? Are they bright enough to understand its value?
“Do you think that it’s the time for dealing with the Darhel we have resident in London?” Sir Robert asked, breaking into his thoughts. “He is rather a…nuisance.”
“I would have thought that you would have an opinion on that,” the Prime Minister snapped. “Intelligence work is your bailiwick.”
The ground shuddered violently. “A strike on HMS Belfast, from orbit,” an aide called.
“It’s not safe here,” Sir Robert snapped. “Prime Minister, I have one opinion, and that is that you are risking yourself up here. Some Posleen are still in orbit, preparing to descend to God knows where.”
“Very well,” the Prime Minister said, and headed for the emergency shaft to the bunker. “What is your opinion?”
“Keep him for now,” Sir Robert said, falling into the Prime Minister’s stride. “We might have an opportunity to feed the bastard enough information to lure the Posleen into a serious mistake. Hammond can help us to ensure that nothing…unfortunate happens to the information.”
The Prime Minister stepped into the elevator. “I hope you’re right,” he said. “I hope that you’re right.”