The Yeomen of England (Posleen in England)

Permanent Joint Headquarters

London, United Kingdom

21^st April 2007
The image of the humans being carried on a massive roof had made General Mathews laugh, before he returned to his work. There really was no question about it; the noose was tightening around London. The Posleen were moving forward, slowly picking up the pace as they closed in.
He cursed silently to himself. The Posleen were learning, or perhaps it was sheer coincidence, but they were clearly learning more about how to deal with a human defence line. Perhaps the knowledge was integral to them, or perhaps they learned it from the human brains they ate, but whatever the cause, they were closing in on London.
He stared down at the map, produced by the SAS, by the ACS, and by the sensors they’d strewn around the region. One thrust, proceeding towards the north of London. A second thrust, to the south. A third, the most powerful of all, proceeding directly towards London.
“How long do we have?” He asked himself. With their landers, the Posleen would be in London in several hours, assuming they had to kill resistance first. Yet…they were playing it smart and keeping the landers back, waiting for the troops to catch up. In two days, then, assuming they continued their slow pace, they would hit the main defence line.
Hit it and bounce, General Mathews thought, and hoped that he was right. They’d been trying desperately to get as many people out of the city as possible, but there were still millions of civilians within the city. The Posleen would hit the defence line along the M25, the line that had been built through a combination of waterworks and human construction, and then they would…
“We won’t break,” General Mathews muttered, as the images of the Posleen, captured by remote cameras, continued to play out on the screens.
“General,” his aide said. “General, its time for your interview.”
Mathews scowled. The aide had said it in the same tone of voice used to announce a prolonged and humiliating medical treatment. The principle was the same. “Send her in,” he said tiredly, and wondered why it could not have been passed on to Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart.
Charlene Jackson entered. The BBC reporter still looked hot – she managed to look gorgeous even in the PJHQ – and she looked bright and bouncy. Mathews envied her almost; she seemed oblivious to the threat that was bearing down on London.
“Thank you for seeing me,” she said, shaking his hand.
I had no choice, Mathews thought, noticing that she had a firm grip. Her lips quirked; clearly she understood his unspoken words. “I’m always happy to talk to a sensible reporter,” he said, and smiled.
Charlene didn’t call him on the implication. “The reports of the situation are grim,” she said. Mathews cursed inwardly; the woman had had plenty of time to get used to working the military for comments. “Is it true that the Posleen are finally coming for London?”
“It seems that way,” Mathews said, wishing that he could lie directly to her. It wasn’t done; the Prime Minister would have to sack him, and he knew that no senior general, apart from himself, remained in London. “They’re certainly advancing again.”
Charlene paled. “Why?” She asked. “Did they decide that they’d had enough of the midlands?”
“I cannot speculate,” General Mathews said. In fact, he had several theories, but he wasn’t inclined to share any of them. “The sheer fact, the main fact, is that they’re coming for us.”
Charlene didn’t press him on the subject of the Posleen motivations. “When will they be here?”
Mathews sighed. “In around two days, at their current rate of progress,” he said. “We will, naturally, be doing what we can to impede them.”
Charlene’s voice was firm, but perhaps there was a tiny hint of a shake in it. “Can the defences stop them?” She asked. “Can they be kept out of London?”
“We certainly aim to give it the old college try,” Mathews said. He sighed. “There are too many unknowns, young lady; we just don’t know.”
“And will you be moving people out of the city?” Charlene asked, ignoring the ‘young lady’ comment. “What about evacuation?”
“We’re going to be taking care of that as best as we can,” Mathews said.
Charlene smiled. “Would you not agree that keeping people in the city is practically the same as waving a sign saying COME EAT ME in front of the Posleen?”
Mathews smiled back. She was an intelligent woman, he conceded. “No,” he said. “On foot, refugees can and will be hunted down and eaten,” he said. “While we will do our best to get people out of the city, as best as we can, we will be better off pressing them all into the defence.”
“So everyone will be armed,” Charlene said. “I don’t like the sound of that.”
Mathews grinned openly. “Do you like the thought of feeding a Posleen?”
“Not really,” Charlene admitted. “Is there any truth in the rumour that the Posleen are trying to breed humans?”
Mathews shook his head. “There isn’t enough evidence to be certain,” he said. “There has been some suggestion that that is what some Posleen holding pens have been trying to do, but they clearly don’t understand the theory very well.”
A distant explosion echoed across the city. “If you will excuse me,” Mathews said, “I have to go see the Prime Minister. London will soon be under martial law.”

Chapter Thirty-Five: Armageddon Rising

London, England

23^rd April 2007
The Prime Minister was determined about one thing. The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain would not die cowering in a cellar, or escape the fate of his people like so many tin-pot dictators had done. Africa had been almost digested by the Posleen, but its leaders had escaped. Even as the Posleen came for London, escape was still possible, but the Prime Minister had made up his mind.
BOOM! An explosion, not too far away. The Posleen were pressing hard against the main defence line, with two other smaller attack prongs passing out around the city, preparing to close the vice. They weren’t hurrying; why would they? There was no longer any place to go, except…
BOOM! Another explosion. How many had died in this war? The Prime Minister knew that estimates for Britain alone reached upwards of twenty million, soldiers and civilians alike. How many more would die, killed outright or eaten, over the next few days?
BOOM! No, the Prime Minister knew, no one would be eaten. He looked across at the red button on his desk, almost begging him to push it. It would be pushed, when the end came for London.
The telephone rang. The Prime Minister picked it up and listened to the message without batting an eyelid. Time, it seemed, would be more limited than he had expected.
***

The men of the 44^th Infantry Regiment (London) had received their first surprise when the Posleen began their attack. They were not complacent – they had officers who’d fought the Posleen before – and yet…they had grown accustomed to the Posleen being stupid. Tactical dullards, to be sure, and yet there had been times when a God King demonstrated a flash of true genius, often at the worst possible time. They had prepared their minefields and their dug in positions, and then…

“Here they come,” Captain Snubb snapped, as the first Posleen appeared. The 44^th Infantry Regiment opened fire at once, raking the Posleen with a hail of machine gun bullets and canister fire from the short-range artillery. Snubb blinked; the Posleen were not charging at the defenders, but only firing their HVMs.
“Keep shooting,” he snapped, and then the Lampreys arrived. The landers had always glided slowly across the sky, convincing thousands of people that that was all they could do. These Lampreys had no need to slow down; they charged directly at the human position and the shockwave of their coming slammed through the lines. Men fell to their knees, permanently deafened, as the landers slammed down to a half, just beyond the lines.
“They’ve landed behind the lines,” Captain Snubb screamed into his radio. The Lampreys’ weren’t hesitating either; their weapons were lashing about them, wiping humans and their machines from the city with equal abandon. Even as a plasma blast killed Snubb, the Posleen in the Lamprey landers began to boil out, heading further into the city.
***

“Sir, they’ve torn a hole in the outer defence line,” Colonel Rather reported, in a voice like death. “The artillery wants to know what to do.”

“Why did they have to chose this moment to be innovative?” Mathews demanded, ignoring the hovering presence of the BBC reporter. He scowled. “Order the artillery to open fire on the landers.”
“But sir, they’re within our lines,” Colonel Rather protested. “Sir…”
“Do it,” Mathews snapped, and felt something die inside him. “Do you want those landers releasing all of their Posleen?”
***

“Driver, move us up slowly,” Lieutenant Robins said grimly. “The artillery is engaging now…”

An explosion blasted out ahead of them. “We have lander emissions,” Private Douglas reported. “Sir…”
“Take us forward,” Robins snapped. The tank rounded the road and gazed upon a field of devastation, with hundreds of Posleen swarming across a minefield towards the landers. The landers themselves were preparing to launch.
“Fuck,” Douglas reported, as three more landers appeared, heading toward them at the more normal speed. “Sir…?”
“Slip the grounded lander coordinates to the artillery,” Robins ordered grimly. “Gunner, target the landers in the air.”
“Yes, sir,” the gunner said. “Incoming…”
A hail of small explosions blasted out over the grounded landers, crippling them and slaughtering the Posleen. “Fire,” Robins snapped, and the tank fired once, crippling a lander as it tried to see the new threat. “Lock on the second one and…”
A Posleen HVM tore through the tank and killed them before they ever knew what had hit them. The tank exploded and the Posleen passed through over its wreckage, heading deeper into the city.
***

Colonel Higgins scowled as the sensor contacts expanded. The Posleen had torn a hole in the outer defence line, managing to destroy a large enough space to force their way in without tacking the other parts of the outer defence line. The other two prongs of the Posleen advance were moving out around the city…but the main group of Posleen were charging in along the A40, heading directly for Westminster.

“Do they know that’s where our centre of government is?” He asked, as his men took up their defensive positions. He wished that he had an ACS force with him, but they were being held in reserve, waiting for the Posleen to over-commit themselves. He glanced around at their positions; they’d done well, in a city that was hardly designed for street fighting.
“Order the police to hurry up,” he snapped, as yet another crowd of refugees went by, heading further into the city. He’d heard on the grapevine that thousands of ships were leaving London and never coming back, heading away from the doomed city. He wasn’t sure that he blamed them; a more rational evacuation might save thousands more lives, but they would be risking their own lives and in some cases their livelihoods.
“Some people are refusing to leave,” the police liaison said. “They want to fight the Posleen…”
“God save me from amateurs,” Colonel Higgins swore. “Please, tell me they have weapons, at least…”
“They have the distributed AK-47s, sir,” the police officer said. Colonel Higgins had never bothered to learn the man’s name. “They’re taking up position before Ealing. They might blunt the Posleen a little…”
A series of explosions rang out behind them as the Posleen stumbled on the mines. The shellfire didn’t abate; the Posleen were taking one hell of a pounding. It sounded like every Posleen in the galaxy had been killed several times over, but Colonel Higgins knew that they would be lucky if they killed three fourths of them.
“Some of them are running,” he said, as several armed men ran past. His men jeered at them, but the men just ran on as explosions shattered entire tower blocks behind them. He wondered absently how the Posleen were coping with the Grand Canal, and then checked the reports from the CCTV cameras.
“That’s one smart God King,” he muttered. The Posleen were forcing rubble, in some cases knocking down entire buildings to provide the rubble, into the canal. The horde pressed on and on, and they smashed through the civilians as if they weren’t even there.
“Sniper, see if you can identify their leader,” he muttered into his radio. There was no sign of a Posleen God King saucer, which suggested that the Posleen were either being led from the front, or being directed at long distance. Human shellfire, which was becoming more accurate as the Posleen punched their way through London, suggested the latter.
“No luck, Colonel,” the SAS sniper said, after a moment. “They all seem to be normal general issue Posleen.”
“Bugger,” Colonel Higgins muttered. He scowled as he realised how close the Posleen were to his position. “Here they come!”
The first Posleen appeared at the end of the road and a hail of fire lashed into it, killing it within moments. Dozens more appeared, and they were cut down in moments, slaughtered and swept aside like nothing on earth. Yellow blood spurted out, and then the Posleen returned fire. HVMs and plasma blasts slammed against the trenches, hammering at buildings that might hold the imprudent humans.
“Kill them all,” Colonel Higgins bellowed, and fired madly into the Posleen mass. They didn’t seem to have grasped the idea of trenches; they fired madly back at the humans, but mainly over their heads. “Kill them…”
Just like that, it was over. The Posleen stopped their advance. Colonel Higgins peered suspiciously over the top of the trench and stared. The Posleen seemed to have fallen back. He exchanged a puzzled glance with the machine gunner, further down the trench, and then the thrumming sound of enemy landers appeared in the air.
“Uh-oh,” a soldier commented. Colonel Higgins couldn’t disagree; landers were bad news. At least the three landers were behaving conventionally this time, rather than coming in faster than the speed of sound.
“Order the anti-lander guns to fire as they bear,” he commanded. “Take those bastards down!”
Seconds later, the first gun fired, striking the lander dead on and destroying it. The other two landers returned fire, their missiles slashing into the human position, but there were more guns and the two landers fell quickly, crashing to the ground and exploding in a blast of fire.
“We got the bastards,” Private Chant shouted. “We beat them back!”
Colonel Higgins scowled. The enemy was doing what he wanted the enemy to do…and that was very suspicious. What the hell did the Posleen – assuming they thought at all – think they were doing?
***

General Mathews looked at the developing situation and saw disaster unfolding. The Posleen action in breaching the main defence line had been more successful than he’d feared; the Posleen follow-on echelons had punched their way through the defences from the rear, shattering most of the outer line. The Posleen that were surrounding the city were starting to press in, scenting victory, and one prong was heading directly for the PJHQ.

“Do they know?” General Mathews asked. It wouldn’t be the disaster that it would have been in earlier years, now that there was a complete back-up system on the other side of the city. Irony indeed; the one time that Northwood had been seriously attack, and the foe didn’t have the decency to come from the east.
“There’s no way to tell,” the Prime Minister said, though the radio link. “Can you withdraw?”
“Not with enough men to matter,” Mathews said. The PJHQ had been stripped of all, but essential personnel anyway. “Sir, we have to order the ACS units to cut the units in Enfield a way out, if they can.”
The Prime Minister sighed. “Conserving them for the final battle?” He asked. “Neither of us will live to see it.”
“I know,” Mathews said. A distant explosion announced the arrival of the Posleen. “Sir, it was a honour to be working with you.”
“You too,” the Prime Minister said. “Good luck.”
Mathews put down the phone and chuckled. “I’m sorry, Miss Jackson,” he said, and meant it. “The Posleen are coming to this site.”
Charlene’s eyes went wide. “Are they coming here because they know what it is, or because it’s in their way?”
Mathews shrugged, thinking cold thoughts about elfish aliens. “I have no idea,” he said. “I’m sorry that you’re going to die here.”
“I’m sorry too,” Charlene said. She held out a hand. “I hope you don’t mind if I film everything?”
Mathews took her hand and shook it. “Security hardly matters now,” he said. “Come on.”
He led her out onto the lawn. The main building itself had been abandoned when it had become clear that the Posleen were coming. He’d only insisted on keeping a skeleton staff because there were few sites that could handle the complex task of controlling the military forces in London.
He smiled. “Take a weapon, Miss Jackson,” he said. “It’s time to stand and die.”
The trees caught fire as a Posleen force opened fire on them, blowing them out of the way. Mathews nodded in understanding; after numerous tiny skirmishes in the Peak District, the Posleen were taking care to avoid being ambushed in the trees. The PJHQ staff opened fire, targeting the Posleen with care.
“Spread out,” the Marine Commander snapped. He shrugged as Mathews nodded; tactical command was his responsibility. Charlene followed him, using the weapon as if she was born to it, firing as the Posleen came across the lawn. HVM missiles smashed the main building, destroying it in a blaze of explosions, and then the Posleen were upon them.
“Die,” Mathews howled. This was his ground and the Posleen would cross over his dead body. He fired madly into an alien, watching the yellow blood spurt as the Posleen reeled over backwards, and ducked a Posleen blade. He didn’t duck fast enough. The Posleen slashed his head off, and then bisected Charlene Jackson. Her camera recorded everything before it was smashed under a Posleen foot.
***

Colonel Yates had gathered almost the entire regiment, or what remained of it, together. “We have special orders,” he said grimly, and there was something in his voice that stifled dissent. “The men in the force here are not to be sent into the main battle.”

Sarfraz gaped at him. The Posleen had come on faster then they’d feared, but they could be beaten; he was certain of that. The ACS, in their first major attack on the Posleen, had smashed an entire Posleen force. With the units that had been placed at Enfield, he was certain that they could have taken on the entire Posleen army – and won.
“We have to cut a way out of London,” Yates said, and held up a hand to stifle any disagreement. “We’re going to be needed elsewhere.”
“Where will we ever be used?” Derek asked. Sidney nodded in agreement; he’d managed to have Patty Archer attached to the unit as a nurse. Sarfraz smiled inside; it showed just how badly off the country was if little things like that got past the Sergeant.
“Are you that eager to die?” Yates asked. Derek flushed. “We have a mission, as I said; we have to get the anti-lander tanks out of London.”
Sarfraz blinked. Out of London before…what? He thought, and came up with an answer he didn’t like. “Sir, can’t we…?”
“This isn’t a debating society,” Sergeant Benton snapped. “Move out!”
***

One by one, the defence lines fell as the Posleen smashed their way through London, hammering on the doorstep of British democracy. Kensington Palace held out for nearly an hour, the Tower of London held out for longer. The Prime Minister watched grimly, yet strangely calm, as the bastions fell, one by one, and millions of Posleen poured into the city. From the west, from the south, from the north, they poured in, thousands of them, millions of them.

How many of you bastards are there? The Prime Minister asked himself. He knew the standard formula; four landers at four million or thereabouts Posleen each, equals sixteen million Posleen. The Bath globe was hammered badly, he knew, but the Posleen seemed careless of their losses. How many of them had died?
He shook his head as the roar of explosions came closer and closer. In the end, did it matter? They couldn’t have lost more than a couple of million in Manchester and Liverpool, even with the Enhanced Radiation Weapons, perhaps four million overall. They’d gotten lucky in Birmingham; they’d come down right on top of the city and taken it before the defenders had managed to recover.
Bastards, the Prime Minister thought. He wanted to peer through the windows, but he refrained; the Posleen had disintegrated Buckingham Palace for housing a sniper. The Prime Minister mentally cursed the Darhel and all they stood for; they’d told the Posleen enough to let them know where they had to destroy to win the war.
How many of you bastards are within London? The Prime Minister asked. His fingers caressed the big red button. Would enough Posleen die to make recovery of England – for almost all of England had been lost – possible? He knew that it would not, unless all of the Posleen were destroyed; the units that could have challenged them successfully had been chewed to bits by the Posleen. The ACS units, the modified Challengers, the new Challenger-IV units…all were unready for the task at hand.
“On the other hand,” he said aloud, as he watched the Posleen closing in, “if enough of you die here, perhaps Scotland will survive the experience.” He smiled. “What a change it will make if the Scots are the ones determining the shape of the new British nation.”
The entire building shook. He smiled sadly. He’d imagined many scenes where he was forced to surrender his country, but the Posleen would be uninterested in formal surrender. His hands danced over the box, tapping in the arming code, and setting the dead man’s hand behind him. The Posleen, by luck more than judgement, might have destroyed a few of the devices, the rest would be untouched.
He looked at the cameras and knew that his time had come. The Posleen were pressing through the gates, smashing the buildings with ease. Perhaps they were puzzled; perhaps they didn’t understand why the Darhel had sent them here. The final defenders fought bitterly, angrily, knowing that it was futile. The Prime Minister took his seat, determined that the leader of the world that had given the world democracy would die with dignity, and pressed the button.
The sappers had placed no less than twenty nuclear warheads in London, overkill designed to prevent the Posleen weakening the effect by accidentally destroying a device. Only three devices had been wrecked, not enough to prevent the Posleen from being destroyed. Some were underground, contaminating the land for years to come; some were on the surface, expanding their blast as far as they could. The weapons detonated as one, and the Posleen wilted before the blast.
The Prime Minister, surrounded by the tools of democracy, died at his desk, smiling and unaware.