The Yeomen of England (Posleen in England)

Chapter Thirty-Four: Standing At Armageddon

Nr Oxford, England

20^th April 2007
Oxford had fought bitterly against the Posleen, but in the end it was all for nothing; the defenders simply didn’t have the firepower necessary to defeat the foe. Even as the famous universities died in fire, the Posleen munched their way though the humans who had been unable to leave, heading towards London. They were in no hurry; why should they be? What was there to stop them?
Sarfraz checked his display as the sun went down. The ACS unit, of course, had no problems at all with darkness; the sensors could see perfectly through the night. They didn’t need lights or anything else that might alert the Posleen to their presence, their holographic generators projected shadows over their armoured forms.
“Sir, I think I can see some Posleen,” Derek whispered. There was no need to whisper – the AID transmissions were supposed to be undetectable by the Posleen – but somehow the night forced silence upon them. It was heavy and oppressive, lit only by the stars and the flames where the Posleen lurked.
“No shit,” Sarfraz muttered, as the AIDs shared the images. The Posleen were standing near a burning barn, watching as it burned. He hoped that they hadn’t found food there, and then…”
“No,” John said, and the ice in his tone was shocking. “Sir, look here.”
He sent over his view, from his suit. In one of the pens that had been used for swine, humans were gathered, penned in like sheep. He watched grimly as his AID magnified them, developing them into human faces, with human feelings. There were at least fifty of them, penned up and guarded by several Posleen, and…
He swung his sensors back to the bonfire. Shapes could be seen at work, cooking meat. He peered carefully; some of the shapes were clearly cattle and some were…some were human.
“I thought that all of the livestock was meant to be moved out of the way,” Derek protested. “What happened here?”
Shelia coughed. The only one of three women in the 1^st Armoured Combat Suit Regiment, she was tough and strong and very independent. Sarfraz wasn’t sure what to make of her; his Madonna-whore complex had taken a beating over the past few years. His wife had laughed when he’d told her that, and he could never understand why.
“There’s a lot of corruption here,” she said grimly. “If you send off your livestock, you’re lucky to be able to go on rations this far from a major city, and you can almost count on losing the livestock, rather than simply being able to move up to Scotland or Ireland.”
“Idiots,” Derek said. “Sir, what are we going to do about them?”
Sarfraz adjusted himself for a better position, studying the Posleen position. Was it his imagination, or were the Posleen holding back on feeding the two hundred or so normal Posleen there? A God King stood by a saucer craft, feeding on a haunch of meat – human meat. The shape of a leg was unmistakable in the flickering light.
“We’re going to get them out of there,” Sarfraz said grimly. He checked his map; as far as SAS reconnaissance teams could determine, this Posleen force was the closest to London, with more at Oxford itself. He shuddered at the thought of the carnage the Posleen could cause within the city itself; he’d been once with Anisa on a trip his parents had known nothing about.
“Corporal Ahmed, are you confident that you can extract them?” Yates asked, when he flashed his plans back to London. “You do realise that all your suits are valuable.”
“We can’t have the Posleen feeling safe here,” Sarfraz pointed out. He flashed an image back to Yates; a Posleen bit off the head of a little girl, swallowing it in a gulp. He felt sick, even as his mind worked on the tactical problem of extracting the humans. “Sir, we have to try, at least.”
“Permission granted,” Yates said. He sounded reluctant. “Good luck.”
“Thank you, sir,” Sarfraz said, and broke contact. He considered the problem for a long moment, the main Posleen force was grouped together in a field, eating he didn’t like to think what. The God King sat to one side, attended by more normal Posleen.
“John, Sandy, take your HVM launchers and stand by to use them on the main Posleen mass,” he ordered, and nodded as they acknowledged. His display flickered and changed, offering him the ability to coordinate the entire force…and he knew better than to use it. It was too dangerous when he himself would be fighting.
“Alan, your task is to take out the God King,” he ordered. “Use an HVM yourself and sight it yourself. Everyone else, with me.”
His sensors marked out the perfect path down to the Posleen encampment. They moved slowly, carefully, praying that they remained unseen. The Posleen might not be very bright, but they knew to recognise danger when they saw it and then they would direct the full force of their rage against them.
It’s a good thing they’re not bright enough to lure us in and then kill us, he thought, as they reached the closest safe place to the Posleen. This close, the AID audio-discrimination programs could pick out the sounds of humans, screaming or pleading with the uncaring Posleen.
“Bastards,” he muttered. “Derek; John, are you in position?”
“Yes, sir,” they said together. “Sir, we can fire when you’re ready to attack.”
Sarfraz made one last check of his team. The readouts from the twenty-one armoured soldiers were calm and ready; no one was about to panic. They would be outnumbered ten to one, but them were calm. And besides, if the fire teams did their job right…
“Fire,” he commanded, and tensed himself to spring.
***

Registered Nurse Patty Archer had been regretting her decision to stay with her relatives for the last three weeks, ever since the transport network had broken down. Her uncle, the owner of the farm, had been reluctant to leave – he’d practically forced his wife to stay – and the local council had refused to let Patty leave. When the Posleen had overrun the farm, they’d scooped up all the humans and sealed them in the pen.

“Look,” she said. “Can’t we talk about this?”
The Posleen ignored her, just as it had ignored shouts, pleading and screams from its human captives. They’d been held in the pen for two days, fed only on undercooked beef and some grass that the Posleen seemed to believe that humans could eat. A couple of the children had eaten it and promptly become ill, ill enough to die. The Posleen had taken the children and eaten them.
I hope you got ill, she thought, forgetting the oath she’d taken as a trainee. She was almost sure that the Posleen were not covered; monstrous aliens who had penned her up and were intent on eating the humans, one by one.
“I’m dying, Patty,” her aunt said. Her uncle had tried to fight the Posleen, along with several other men who had been missed by the army conscription organisation for one reason or another. The Posleen had eaten them first, and then turned on the remainder of the humans.
“I know,” Patty said. At least the Posleen gave them clean water, seeming to understand that humans needed that to live. She suspected that the Posleen were genuinely interested in how humans bred; they’d taken care to put a lot of young men and young women in together. So far, the hunger had prevented anything from happening.
Her aunt snorted. “I’m sorry we kept you here,” she said. “Jacob never meant for you to get hurt…”
“I know,” Patty said again, feeling useless. She glared mutely at the huge form of the alien as it marched past again, looking for a human to eat. The larger alien that seemed to be in charge was clearly forcing rationing; only seven humans had been eaten since the nightmare had begun.
An alien claw reached out and caught hold of her hair. She screamed, making the alien shudder, and then it lifted her out by her hair, carrying her out of the pen. It’s breathing was spooky, far more so than a really bad date she’d had when she was younger and innocent. It made a noise, a strange noise, as it carried her over to the larger Boss Posleen.
Did you just say yum? Patty wondered, staring up at the Boss Posleen. It made a second noise and the first Posleen drew a knife, preparing to…
A streak of light flashed across the sky, slamming into the main Posleen encampment. Patty took her life in her hands and hurled herself away from the Posleen, saving her life as a second streak of light targeted the Boss Posleen directly, blowing its flesh all over her. She screamed as she hit the ground, only realising that she was wounded when she felt her wound start to bleed.
“Get down and stay down,” a voice was shouting. Patty rolled over onto her back, to see massive dark humanoid shapes slicing through the Posleen. Most of the aliens had been killed in the first missile attack, the remainder were very uncoordinated, firing madly back at the humans. More explosions followed, but there was no doubt as to the outcome, particularly when an armoured suit tore open a Posleen with ease.
Patty closed her eyes. “Are you all right, madam?” A voice asked. She opened her eyes to see a massive form leaning over her. Seconds later, the suit cracked open and a black face peered out. “Private Sidney Caribbean, at your service.”
“Patty Archer,” Patty said. She stared up at the darkly handsome face. “I think I’m in love.”
***

Sarfraz spoke through the private AID channel; there was no need to embarrass Private Sidney Caribbean more than necessary. “Sidney, stop trying to score, get back in your fucking suit, and start cleaning up the Posleen.”

He didn’t wait for a reply, instead moving to crack open the pens. The Posleen hadn’t modified them at all, but they were still impossible to open from the inside, much to his surprise. Pigs weren’t that intelligent, even though they were very definitely off the list of permissible foods.
“Come on out,” he said, as gently as he could. “We have to get you out of there.”
“Sir, SAS Recon reports several Posleen forces coming this way,” John interrupted. “They’ll be here in ten minutes.”
Sarfraz thought quickly. “We need to get them out of here,” he said. “How many?”
“At least two thousand, boss,” John said. “Sir…”
“I know,” Sarfraz said. John wasn’t a coward, but he was practical to a fault. The Regiment was already running lower on power than Sarfraz cared for, and the platoon could not afford to be cut off and destroyed. The regular army, dug in nearer London, would be unable to provide support.
“Colonel, we’re coming back with” – he glanced around the former thresh – “nearly a hundred prisoners,” he said. “We’ll need new power and perhaps artillery support.”
“Understood,” Yates said. “The 7^th and 8^th Platoons will divert to assist you.”
“Thanks,” Sarfraz said. An idea had occurred to him. “Are there any lorries in this place?”
The crowd of former thresh looked embarrassed. “No, sir,” an older man said finally. “The monsters destroyed all of the vehicles.”
“The monsters killed my father,” a young boy said. Sarfraz ignored him. “When I grow up, I want to be like you…”
Sarfraz snorted. “You can’t move fast enough to escape the Posleen,” he said grimly. He considered; if there were no vehicles, then…
“Sir, we can’t leave them,” Derek said.
“I know,” Sarfraz snapped. Suddenly, he had it. The Posleen had been kind enough to blow the roof off a barn; it lay on the road, almost undamaged. “Everyone onto that roof, now!”
They looked at his as if he was mad, before obeying. Sarfraz gave orders, detailing four troopers to carry the roof, linking their AIDs together to ensure that they remained in formation and perfect step. “Now, up we go,” he said, and they lifted.
“Bloody brilliant, sir,” Derek said, grinning. “Now, all we have to do is…”
“Get home,” Sarfraz said. “Colonel, we’re on our way.”
The four troopers lifted up the barn, using a combination of the armoured strength and the anti-gravity units to carry the entire group of people on the barn. It was a tight fit, but Sarfraz had seen the roof of the barn; he was certain that it could carry a larger weight than that of the starved people.
“Let’s go,” Sarfraz said. “There’s no longer any time to lose.”