The Yeomen of England (Posleen in England)

Chapter Thirty-Three: Dance of the Darhel

Ten Downing Street

London, United Kingdom

18^thth April 2007
The Prime Minister watched on television as the antimatter blast swept over Dublin, scorching the trapped Posleen invasion force and utterly destroying it. The Irish Parliament was still howling over the decision, but what other choice had there been? The Posleen infestation on British soil could not be destroyed, short of feeding a third of the country into the fire, but Ireland would survive.
Sir Robert coughed. “Sir, we have the details from the interrogation,” he said. “We now know what was happening.”
The Prime Minister shrugged. “Do I really want to know? He asked. “What did you do to him?”
“Classified interrogation techniques,” Sir Robert said. He frowned. “The little bastard has a great deal of GalTech in him, stuff designed to help a soldier at work. We got very lucky; he woke up in the van and had to be sedated again.”
“I see,” the Prime Minister said, not much interested. “What did he have to tell us?”
“He’s been a busy bee,” Sir Robert said. “Apart from Hammond, he has been developing other sources, as well as working the black market and generally driving prices up. You want the really interesting news? We found out who he really is; he’s Peter Middlebrow, from Arkansas, America.”
He paused for that to sink in. “We don’t have that much access to the FBI records these days, but they were copied over here as part of the information sharing that took place after Fredericksburg, and we were able to scan them. Peter Middlebrow raped and tortured, then killed, several small children, while working for one of the drug lords. Two weeks before the First Contact, his records were hacked and he was released into the care of the US marshals.” He smiled. “Needless to say, the entire incident was completely fictitious, as were the US marshals.
“The FBI apparently was never aware that Middlebrow had managed to escape, apparently with help, until a check on the physical records proved that Middlebrow had escaped. The computers in the Hoover Building, before the Posleen remodelled it, believed that Middlebrow was safely in jail; all of the records of the jail service swore blind that Middlebrow was in the hands of the US marshals.” He grinned. “Guess who has the ability to manipulate records like that?”
“The Darhel,” the Prime Minister said. “Why? Why use one of the few people that would be guaranteed a quick noose when we caught him?”
“I don’t know and we won’t know until the Darhel himself can be made to talk,” Sir Robert said. “My guess is that they believed that Middlebrow, who might well have been practicing his perversions on refugee children, would have every incentive to work for them, as they could dump him back in the shit anytime they felt like it. On the other hand, they seem to have promised him a life off-planet when the Darhel left Earth.”
“I will not stand for that,” the Prime Minister said, coldly and clearly. “The Darhel have been buying him access to children?”
Sir Robert shifted uncomfortably. Both of them knew that London was a powder keg, with millions of people packed in too tightly to breath and the Posleen breathing down their necks. Anything could happen in the shadows, and the police would never know about it. He scowled; with corruption the way it was these days, the police might be doing it.
“I think that he’s been trading with some of the crime lords,” Sir Robert said. “We’re working on extracting information now on his connections; he seems to have used his AID to hack into some of our computers and obtain extra rations, which have then gone into the black market. In exchange, they gave him access to orphan children.”
The Prime Minister nodded. “Have your people find out what they can,” he said. “We’ll send in the army units, perhaps the SAS, rather than relying on the local police.”
“Yes, Prime Minister,” Sir Robert said, understanding the point. “Sir, what about the Darhel?”
“It – he – wants to leave England,” the Prime Minister said. “The idiot didn’t even make me an offer in exchange for providing him with assistance.”
“He’s also made contact with Hammond again,” Sir Robert said. “As Griffin failed to deliver the information – never even got close to getting it – he wants to have it directly from Hammond. I wonder, sir; should we be thinking about trapping and arresting the Darhel?”
“He has diplomatic immunity,” the Prime Minister said grimly. He scowled. “Is there a legal way of arresting him?”
“We’re under martial law,” Sir Robert said. “If we were to demand that he surrender himself…”
“His people would know about it,” the Prime Minister pointed out.
“They’re not going to be able to use Fleet against us,” Sir Robert pointed out. “We make up nearly a fourth of Fleet, along with Germans, French and Americans. The Darhel don’t fight themselves, they can’t.”
The Prime Minister nodded slowly. “The Posleen are coming for London,” he said. “Perhaps we could arrange an incident…the Darhel gets caught in a trap, or attacked by the Posleen…”
Sir Robert laughed. “That’s what Hammond is going to tell him,” he said. “The Posleen have sneaked closer and closer, and they’re interdicting the air lanes, particularly stealth shuttles.”
“But the Himmit stealth shuttles are undetectable,” the Prime Minister said.
“Not completely,” Sir Robert said. He rubbed his hands together with glee. “That’s what we’re going to tell him, that if he takes such a shuttle he’ll be killed.”
“Too complicated, I would have thought,” the Prime Minister said. “The other option, of course, is to just walk into his embassy and arrest him.”
“That would require diplomatic coordination,” Sir Robert said. “The Germans, at least, know that something is going wrong with the Darhel.”
“We’ll take him into protective custody,” the Prime Minister agreed. “When the Posleen come for London, the bastard can meet his fate, perhaps at the hands of the Posleen.”

Sir Robert shook his head in awe. “That’s cold blooded and ruthless,” he said. “I like it, sir. I’ll make the arrangements at once.”

***

The Tir finally made a connection with Hammond, cursing once again the human problem known as a technophobe. The AID could have put them in touch at once, but instead he’d had to wait several days, just for the wretched woman to bother to look at the AID and…

The Tir felt madness howling at the corner of his mind and shuddered. The Ghin, the superior Darhel in the Earth system, had ordered him to prepare for immediate evacuation, and he knew that the Ghin had meant at once. Disobeying the Ghin, even though he had a very good excuse, was just not done; his position would be destroyed, unless he succeeded.
It is a good thing that he cannot simply send soldiers to pick me up, the Tir thought, and muttered a calming mantra under his breath. The dull red flickers of madness receded slightly, to be matched by an equally unpleasant gnawing worry, pounding at the corner of his head. His cowardice – and he was too self-honest to refuse to recognise the problem – had saved London, and his own body from Posleen teeth. Now, the Posleen were running out of ideas, and so were the British.
He smiled. Hammond had been very clear on the subject; the British intended to make their last battle, their last stand against being threshed, in London. The massive growth of their military here, drawing units in from across the British lands, meant only one thing. When the Posleen came, it would be one final brutal battle…and the Posleen would win.
Absently, the Tir ran though the calculations, wishing that the Posleen were truly careful about loading information onto their own Net. Four globes had landed; that much was certain. Unless the Posleen God Kings had been truly…bloody-minded about shoving Posleen into the globes, around sixteen million Posleen had landed on British soil. How many of them had died? How many of them were spread out over the land, armed with their weapons that killed and rend and tore and…
The Tir repeated his mantra again. The white hot flashes of fire in his brain receded. Trying to forget about the Posleen, he looked down at the message from Hammond. It was enough to make him panic again; it was grim and disturbing.
WARNING; A Classified intelligence report has revealed that the Posleen have learned how to track Himmit ships. The government is keeping it a secret for the moment; stealth shuttles are one of the weapons that have to work, and they’re planning to share this with no one, not even the Federation.
“Your Ghin, how could you keep this a secret?” The Tir asked himself, and knew the answer. The Ghin had vast interests in the manufacture of Himmit shuttles, the ones used by Fleet – and if their protection were to be compromised, his holdings would decrease in value. He smiled once, showing his teeth; information was power, and his possession of it…
“He meant to leave me here to be shot down,” he realised, as his eyes ran further down the message. Hammond had warned of Posleen units closing in on London, defying the humans, just to interdict the airlines. Of course, apart from the Darhel, how many people would want to use the aircraft when the Posleen were around?
The Tir’s paranoia ignited. The Ghin had seen his work and felt threatened by it, threatened enough to engage in the time-honoured pastime of killing-without-killing. And yet…there was room to escape the trap, room to turn it to his advantage by…
“Signal the Darhel Embassy in America,” the Tir ordered. “Inform it that I am unable to leave…”
His secretary, a human female that Griffin had assured him was considered beautiful, spoke on the intercom. “My Tir, there are two men from the Foreign Office to see you,” she said. “Shall I send them in?”
“Certainly,” the Tir said, and sat down in his chair. The two humans entered and the Tir smiled at them. “What can I do for you?”
The older, or so he thought, of the two humans spoke first. He gave no name. “Tir, as you know, the Posleen are closing in on London.”
More than you know, the Tir thought, even as he nodded gravely. “The aliens are destroying a great deal of valuable property,” he said. “I was under the impression that I was to be evacuated…however, I would like protective custody.”
The two humans exchanged glances. The Tir knew little about human expressions, but they seemed astonished. “Might I ask you, Your Tir?” The older human asked. “We were charged with placing you into protective custody.”
“I no longer feel safe here,” the Tir said, which was fairly true. “I imagine, however, that you can provide transport to the consulate on Iceland.”
“Of course,” the elder said. “If you would come with me?”
The Tir picked up his AID. “Unfortunately, we cannot provide any space for valuables,” the younger said quickly. “If you would please provide a box of valuable items, we will provide transport at a later date.”
The Tir showed his teeth, something that always impressed the Indowy. The humans didn’t flinch. “Some of the items of GalTech in this embassy are very valuable,” he said. “I cannot be parted from them.”
“Unfortunately, we are providing a ship and transport for all the diplomats,” the elder said. It took the Tir several moments to realise that he meant a ship on the sea, rather than a spaceship. “We cannot show favouritism.”
The Tir scowled, gnashing his teeth. “You will put a guard on the embassy,” he said, and was rather pleased when the two humans nodded together. “Now…I’m all yours.”
***

“More than you know, you alien bastard,” Sir Robert muttered, as the Darhel climbed into the van of its own free will. He’d had a few nasty moments when the alien had insisted on informing his senior officers, but the Darhel had limited itself to confirming the protective custody status, and then come along quite willingly.

“A shame about the diplomatic plates on the van,” his aide said. Captain Reece specialised in issues that the British public didn’t want to know about, such as forcible interrogations. Reece had interrogated Griffin, the man who was now being drained of everything he knew about the Darhel.
“Yes, a great shame,” Sir Robert agreed, as the van passed slowly through the shantytowns that were the lot of many refugees. The police watched them carefully; the crowds seemed moribund, but if a fight were to break out, it would be very nasty very quickly. He waited as patiently as he could until the van arrived, in the sealed courtyard.
“Come on,” Reece said. He took no pleasure in what he did, for which Sir Robert was quietly grateful. “Let’s go see the alien.”
Sir Robert nodded and walked through the long corridors, pausing only to nod to people he knew and to accept salutes from some of the military personnel subordinated to him for the duration of the crisis. The building was not new – there was no new building being done in London apart from defences – and it had a history. Lives had been made and broken; secrets had been revealed and dark truths had seen the light of day.
“The Darhel Tir is waiting for you in this room,” the guard said. “He’s getting a little annoyed.”
“Sue me,” Sir Robert muttered, and swept in, Reece in tow. The Darhel’s bright eyes fixed on his face; the alien recognised him. Sir Robert would have bet his knighthood on it. “Good afternoon, Your Tir.”
The Darhel’s eyes glittered. Sir Robert wished that he had more information on how the aliens thought. In a human, he would have interpreted the expression as anger…and some fear.
“Human chief of intelligence,” the Darhel said. Sir Robert smiled; the Darhel had recognised him. “What are you doing here?”
“We want answers,” Sir Robert said flatly. “You have been engaged in hostile actions against us and…”
“Sergeant Reece, interrogator,” the Darhel said. Sir Robert blinked; Reece’s career file did indeed list him as a sergeant. “What do you want with me?”
***

The Tir felt the flickering of lintatai around his mind and for the first time welcomed it. The humans had managed to break though the carefully-woven tissue of lies that the Tir had constructed, perhaps going far enough to reveal everything, from Darhel hacking of the Posleen Net to the deliberate limitation of weapons heading to the human Fleet.

“We found Mr Griffin, badly beaten by muggers,” Sir Robert said. The Tir hardly heard him, wondering how lintatai was supposed to be brought on. Now that he actually wanted it to happen, it was harder than he thought. “He told us everything, Your Tir; we have Hammond, we have the network she created, and we have you. You will tell us everything about the Darhel and their plans for Earth.”
All was lost! Red fire bubbled up in the Tir’s mind and he laughed suddenly, harshly. Before the human Reece could react, the Darhel was on him, his inhumanly strong arms ripping off his head. He spun around, laughing, and two human soldiers burst in. Lost in the madness, the Tir never even noticed the bullets that blasted though his body and killed him outright.
***

“Bother,” the Prime Minister said mildly. “So that’s what lintatai is like?”

“For this particular Darhel, yes,” Sir Robert said. “We’ll have to burn the body, of course; it would be far too revealing to have it handed back to the Darhel in that state.”
Margent Hammond sighed. The two politicians – it had almost slipped her mind that she was one too – seemed to be taking the death of a living creature far too calmly, even though the Darhel was almost certainly responsible for the deaths of thousands of humans. It was a massive difference in her thinking; she almost didn’t recognise herself.
“We’ll also dissect the body,” Sir Robert continued grimly. “The Darhel have been so unforthcoming about how their bodies work that this represents an opportunity to learn more and more about them.”
“A good idea,” the Prime Minister said calmly. “I want a total information concealment over the entire incident and…”
“Is that it over?” Hammond asked suddenly, breaking into the conversation with rudeness she would never have been capable of, six years ago. “Is that it over?”
“For you?” The Prime Minister asked. He smiled, almost sadly. “Yes, it’s over.”
“It won’t ever be over,” Sir Robert said. “Yes, Margent; you’ve won this part of the war, but whatever the Darhel are up to, it won’t be stopped by losing their main agent in London.”
“We’re going to have to make arrangements with the other nations, then,” Hammond said, surprising even herself. “Make covert plans to deal with the Darhel before they can do something too drastic.”
The Prime Minister studied her almost sadly. Innocence, once lost, could never be regained. “We will do so, covertly,” he said. “There’s General Horner, in America. There’s that O’Neal guy, in America. There’s the BND, in Germany, and the SS goons, much as dealing with them turns my chest inside out.”
He sighed. The Posleen had landed several waves upon the Earth, slowly forcing humanity back into redoubts while preparing their final offensive. Hammond nodded grimly; she’d seen enough of the Darhel to know that they didn’t have the best interests of humanity at heart.
Bought and paid for, she thought.
“Prime Minister, what is going to happen to me?” She asked. “I can’t stay in London; the other Darhel might seek to contact me.”
The Prime Minister nodded. “We’ve got you an express ticket to Edinburgh,” he said. “The Shadow Parliament there could use you.”
Hammond smiled tiredly. “Thank you, Prime Minister,” she said.