The Yeomen of England (Posleen in England)

Chapter Five: Politics

Ten Downing Street

London, United Kingdom

19 March 2001
The Prime Minister studied the room as the War Cabinet filed into the meeting room. The Press, so far, hadn’t managed to put all of the pieces together, but there had been questions, less than two weeks since First Contact. There were only three hundred or thereabouts Britons in the know, but the number of people who knew that something was up was far larger. Secrecy had to be maintained, at least until the military of the world powers was ready, and yet…cracks had appeared within the secrecy already.
He smiled to himself. Their inability to declare a state of emergency meant that the War Cabinet had very limited authority. Technically speaking, it shouldn’t exist, but the support of the Leader of the Opposition and a handful of his MPs was vital, just to prevent the secret from breaking out before they were ready to handle it. He grinned; could anyone handle it? The predictions had ranged from calm acceptance – which the Prime Minister thought unlikely – to outright panic. Most likely, it would be somewhere in between.
“Thank you all for coming,” he said, as soon as the doors were sealed. London was as calm as ever and he shuddered to think of what it might look like, five years hence. “I concede that this is…somewhat irregular, but given a month or so, we’ll formalise the arrangements.”
“One would hope so,” the Leader of the Opposition said. “My Party already has suspicions that I’m being unfaithful to them.”
The Prime Minister smiled, feeling the room relax briefly at the comment. “I suspect that we’d better let them keep their impression for a while,” he said. “However, time is running out, so we had better press on while the iron is hot. General Mathews?”
General Mathews stood up and walked to the end of the room, activating a PowerPoint projector, which displayed a map of Britain. “I have been very involved with constructing plans to repel the invasion and certain facts have become clear. First, we will almost certainly be unable to prevent the Posleen from gaining a foothold on Earth, most likely in South America and Europe. Even if every man and woman on Earth was under arms, we just don’t have the manpower.”
“Wonderful,” the Leader of the Opposition muttered. “Not only do we have to worry about UFOs landing and dumping alien soldiers onto our lawns, but we have to fight a land war as well.”
“Effectively, yes,” General Mathews said. The Prime Minister smiled; there would be time to correct the misunderstandings later. “That said, sir, we are an island. If we can destroy the Posleen that land on our shores, we have an excellent chance of holding them off from the rest of the world.” He coughed. “We can prevent them from crossing the channel, if necessary, and we can blow up the Channel Tunnel.”
He adjusted the map. Great circles of red appeared on it. “Unfortunately, we cannot guarantee keeping the land free of Posleen. While the conference in America, which was attended by some of our own people, was very creative indeed – I’ll get onto the specific details later – we may not be able to prevent a Posleen craft from landing. Once they land, they will each disgorge around four million Posleen, each armed to the teeth.”
“You can’t simply send in the RAF and bomb them?” The Foreign Secretary said. The Prime Minister frowned; the all-powerful weight of NATO’s air arm had been too important too long.
“No,” General Mathews said, and explained. “Aircraft cannot fly anywhere near them,” he concluded. “We will be forced to fight them on the ground, and that will be…difficult.”
He pointed with his stick at the map. “We have only the barest hints of intelligence on where the Posleen will land, assuming that they do indeed land in Britain. Based on the Federation’s past experience, we can expect them to land near cities and march on them almost at once.” He indicated the red circles. “They could land anywhere within Britain, gentlemen, but they are most likely to land there.”
The Prime Minister watched as the room went deadly cold. London to Oxford, Manchester to Liverpool, Cardiff to Southampton, the men and women in the room knew them all. The concept of a bitter land war fought all across the mainland was chilling; it was more than any of them were prepared to handle.
“There is only one thing that we can do,” General Mathews said, into the deathly silence. “We can – we must – destroy them while they are concentrated. That task can only be accomplished by the army. Even tactical nuclear weapons are not…certain.”
The Prime Minister frowned. He’d hoped to avoid mention of the nuclear option. He watched their faces change, knowing their thoughts. Disgusting. Our own people. Our own soil. Poisoning the land for evermore.
“We therefore have a number of problems,” General Mathews said. “We have to build up our own army as fast as possible, concentrating on infantry and artillery. In the five years we have, we must prepare for a land war across the mainland, one that could start at any time and any place.” He tapped the map again, changing it to France as it had been in 1917. “We cannot rely on having secure land borders, or the Posleen having to attack across a narrow front, although naturally we will work towards that happy outcome.”
He spoke over a babble of sudden comment. “We have to reintroduce conscription,” he said.
“Out of the question,” the Home Secretary said. The Prime Minister, who would have expected such a comment from Margent Hammond rather than his stable Home Secretary, lifted an eyebrow. “We cannot ask our young men to go fight for us against their will.”
“And our young women,” General Mathews said remorselessly. “We need – we must have – total mobilisation.”
There was another uncomfortable silence. The Prime Minister was getting sick of them. “We have very little choice,” he said, suddenly very tired. “If we are not armed to the teeth, they will eat us alive, literally.”
The Home Secretary spoke with quiet deliberation, his thoughts clearly elsewhere. “In the long run, no state deserves to survive through conscription, and none ever has,” he said.
“If we’re tossing quotes around, what about this one?” A backbencher asked. “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”
The Prime Minister snorted gently. “I do not see that we have a choice,” he said. “Carry on, General.”
“We have to meet the Posleen on the ground as soon as they land,” General Mathews said flatly. “Once we do that, we have to shell them relentlessly, hammering them even as they come on against our trenches. The Galactics have never been able to make the Posleen run, but we might be able to; we might be able to kill them all quickly enough to save some parts of Britain. In order to do that, we will have to spread out our own forces.”
The Secretary of State for Defence had spent some time in the army himself. “General Mathews, I don’t wish to question your competence, but is it not true that dividing our forces is asking for a defeat in detail?”
“Unfortunately, you’re right,” General Mathews admitted. “That’s one of the reasons we need conscription; we have to be able to meet them at any point with sufficient firepower to make sure they know that they’ve been kissed. Once the landing sites have been identified, we can move forces towards them and crush them, relaying on the forces onsite to hold them.”
He frowned. “Quite frankly, once they break out, we’ll be forced to fight them in the cities, and that would destroy them.”
The Prime Minister nodded. “Conscription,” he said. “General Mathews, am I correct in assuming that there are plans to implement conscription if necessary?”
“Most of them were drawn up by our old friend, Prime Minister,” General Mathews confirmed. “They’re basically simple; we just have to work out what constitutes an essential job or not.”
“I cannot say that I approve of this,” the Home Secretary said. “However, what do you envision as the timescale, should Parliament grant its approval?”
The Prime Minister winced. The last thing they needed was a long drawn-out fight with Parliament over the issue of conscription. He scowled; there was also the danger that facing such a large threat to Britain, Parliament would try to assert its supremacy over the defence of the realm. Under normal circumstances, a good political catfight would clear the air a little, but with the Posleen breathing down their necks…
General Mathews seemed to be thinking along the same lines. “We cannot simply conscript everyone at once,” he said. “For the first six months, we will be rejuvenating combat veterans and soldiers from the previous wars; soldiers, sailors and airmen, and then policemen and the other services. We’re already making preparations for that, along with devising a faster training program for the recruits we already had in the pipeline.” He frowned. “That part of the program is difficult, but most of the reservists were delighted with the offer of new youth.”
The Prime Minister smiled. He’d thought about using rejuvenation as a way of enticing some older non-military people to come fight, before realising that supplies of the rejuvenation equipment would be limited. He shuddered; Parliament would be likely to press for rejuvenating therapies for all, which would only weaken the effects.
“After that, we would begin conscription of the unemployed, eighteen to thirty,” General Mathews continued. “That should take us time, but we have five years, and then we move on to the rest. The only serious problem is simple; given how deadly the Posleen are, what about the rest of the population?”
The Prime Minister coughed. Again, the question had been carefully planted, to concentrate a few minds. “The population of Britain is around fifty-six million,” he said. “That population has to go somewhere, and that somewhere is Scotland.”
“The Scottish Parliament is going to love that,” one of the backbenchers observed. “What did the First Minister say?”
“He wasn’t too happy,” the Prime Minister observed. He nodded to General Mathews, ordering him to change the map. “Working with the Americans and the Europeans, we have decided that the only way to safeguard a large percentage of our population is to build sub-Urbs, massive housing complexes under the ground. These will be constructed with Galactic technology, at least to some extent, and they will be in mountainous territory.”
“Where the Posleen will be at a disadvantage,” General Mathews injected.
The Home Secretary snorted. “General, it seems that you are planning for defeat,” he said.
“It’s a wise precaution,” General Mathews said, without showing any annoyance. “No one would be more delighted that me if the Posleen landed away from us, or if the ground forces on the spot managed to destroy a landing before it managed to deploy, or even if the Fleet was ready before the Posleen arrive – which it won’t be. However…”
He flipped the map back to the original map, red circles covering the land. “I wish I could promise you a victory, but, dealing with so many unknowns…”
He allowed his voice to trail off, making the point for him. “I trust that the point is understood,” the Prime Minister said. “Now, what about our overseas commitments?”
“I still think that this is a very bad situation,” the Foreign Secretary said. “We are talking about giving up a large percentage of our influence in the world.”
“What price the jewel in the crown if the crown itself is lost?” The Prime Minister quoted. “Quite frankly, we can no longer afford to worry endlessly about Saddam and his threat to Kuwait. Under the circumstances, the Americans can handle it, or they can use a nuclear stick to force him to play nice.”
“We have commitments to the Americans and the Irish,” the Foreign Secretary said.
“All of which are irrelevant compared to bare survival,” the Home Secretary said. “If the Posleen land in Ireland…so what? It’s not our problem, not any longer.”
“We do train besides the Irish from time to time,” General Mathews said. His voice was grey, detached. “Still, we need the troops in Ireland for home defence. Without Irish cooperation, holding Ireland becomes impossible.”
And the Irish are one of the governments not involved with the Secret, the Prime Minister thought.
“On the other hand, we have to hold on to the Falklands,” the Foreign Secretary said. “If I understand correctly, the Posleen will not be interested in them.”
“All of the evidence suggests that,” General Mathews said. The Prime Minister lifted an eyebrow; General Mathews sounded tired and worn. “I have to remind you – again – that we’re dealing with aliens here. The Darhel might have misinterpreted the signs, and as for the Himmit, they don’t stick around long enough to be useful.”
“There are teams going out to the stars,” the Prime Minister reminded him. “We will have enough evidence of our own soon enough.”
He caught the signs of tiredness on their faces and made a decision. “We will adjourn,” he said, and knew from their looks of relief that it had been the right decision. “Tomorrow, God willing, we’ll continue making political contingency plans.”
He watched as they left the room, too tired to be insulted by the speed of their departure. There were so many problems to handle, so many matters that had to be decided before the entire secret became public, so much that had to be done to convince the public that the government knew what it was doing.
He shook his head slowly. The government had had an easy time so far. Their majority had been powerful enough to allow for internal dissent and still maintain control. That wouldn’t last, he knew; the trick was to maintain the balance between centre-left and centre. Extreme-left would oppose him for good and decent reasons; extreme-right would oppose him for dark and dangerous reasons.
Can I gainsay them? He asked himself. Can I say that they are wrong?
Deep inside, the Prime Minister knew that he was not Pitt, or Churchill, both men who had led Britain through dangerous wars and faced down sheer threats to the survival of Britain. He felt the weight of the world settling around his shoulders and knew that he couldn’t bear it…and yet, who else was there?
Standing up, knowing that he needed his own lunch, the Prime Minister pulled his authority and position around him like a shroud. Standing tall, he marched out of the room, trying to project an impression of endless power and confidence. Perhaps, if he held it long enough, it would become reality.
***

Although it was rarely acknowledged, Margent Hammond’s commitment to democracy was absolute. Naturally, the failure of the people to elect a sensible government was a result of propaganda by the moneyed classes designed to lead them away from their interests, but it was their decision. Hammond, who knew more than most about the effects of subversion from the former Soviet Union, would never have dreamed of tampering with their decision; she fully supported the results of the trial that had exposed it for the first time.

Like many other MPs, she kept a small office in London, near the Houses of Parliament. Some of her supporters were the people who happily branded as class enemies those who sat in the House, an exercise in doublethink that would have amused Orwell. It wasn’t a particularly good office, but that was part of its charm; it looked very working class.
“Thank you for agreeing to see me, Miss Hammond,” the man said. He’d introduced himself simply as John Griffin. “I come on behalf of my sponsors.”
“I see,” Hammond said. “Might I ask who your sponsors are?”
“Concerned citizens,” Griffin said. “You are aware of a secret your leaders are concealing.”
Hammond felt her mouth drop open. “Ah, you know what I’m talking about,” Griffin said. “While there are many peaceful civilisations out there in the galaxy, your leaders have plans to disrupt the peace of the universe.”
Hammond narrowed her eyes. “If the tale of the Posleen is true,” she said, “then the peace of Earth will be disrupted anyway.”
“Of course,” Griffin said, as if to ask how she could ever have doubted. “Are you aware, however, that some of your leaders are already dividing Posleen-occupied works up between them?”
Hammond shrugged. “I’m surprised that you are aware of such issues,” she said carefully, her mind racing fast. What was he? Someone genuine? A plot by MI5 to discredit her? “Might I enquire as to the source of your knowledge?”
“We’re fairly well-connected in America,” Griffin said. Hammond scowled; the latent anti-Americanism of the left didn’t blind her to America’s strengths. If the secret had gotten out in America, the entire world would know by now. “However, we have only limited connections here and we would like your assistance.” He smiled. “A mutually beneficial agreement, you might say.”
Hammond considered. Griffin was classically handsome, with short dark hair and bright eyes, but he smiled too much. “I’ll think about it,” she said finally. “How do I contact you?”
Griffin passed over a card. “Just call this number,” he said. “Good day.”
He left the office, walking briskly down towards the Thames. Hammond watched him go, thinking fast. She’d had enough experience of inner-power politics to sense a trap, but whose trap was it? The Government could have simply locked her up somewhere; under DORA any person suspected of impeding the war effort could be locked up. Which suggested…what?
The old firm is out of business, she thought wryly, and yet the approach had all the hallmarks of an attempt by Russian agents to worm their way into the organisation. It had happened before. Which meant…
Hammond came to a decision and picked up the phone, dialling a number from memory. “Hello,” she said, as soon as the phone was answered. “Prime Minister, I need to see you as soon as possible.”