The thought made him snort in disgust as he paced the massive library. Two years ago, he’d been a junior MP with ideals, ideals that were being worn down by contact with real-life politics. How could he hope to achieve anything without compromise — and by compromising, he was steadily turning into a true politician, a man who compromised everything for the sake of power and position. A man like Alan Beresford.
He snorted again as he picked up a book, glanced at it and put it down again. His host had given him the run of the house, and the use of an extensive collection of books, DVDs and even old-fashioned records, but it was still a prison. He couldn’t concentrate on anything, apart from his feelings of hopelessness. His position as Prime Minister was meaningless, save in name only. The invasion that gripped the country proved that, whatever he told himself; he could hardly command the aliens to leave, could he? Their forces held the entire country now, surrounding cities and trapping the civilian population within their homes. God alone knew what they would do when the resistance went to work. They’d certainly shown no sign of any scruples when dealing with unarmed civilians.
The television remained bland, with old movies and soaps being played regularly, rather than the BBC’s news programs. Gabriel knew some of what was going on all over the world, but it didn’t help his mood. The aliens were tightening their grip — Dear God, had it only been eight days since they’d revealed themselves and descended upon a shocked and paralysed Earth? Gabriel almost wished that they would discover his hiding place and try to snatch him. At least running away would be doing something. Instead, all he could do was wait and hope that someone — somehow — found a way to hurt the aliens enough to make them leave. The military hadn’t been too hopeful. As long as the aliens dominated space above Earth, they could call down strikes against rebel towns and cities — or, if worst came to worst, exterminate the human race. Gabriel remembered all the films he’d seen with asteroids crashing into the planet and shivered. The aliens would have no trouble pushing an asteroid towards Earth and the human race wouldn’t be saved by a patriotic scriptwriter. It even made him long for Independence Day.
There was a cough behind him and he jumped, one hand falling to the pistol he’d been told to carry at all times — and save the final bullet for himself, if the aliens caught up with him. Brigadier Gavin Lightbridge-Stewart seemed rather amused — Gabriel hadn’t even realised that he’d entered the room — but Gabriel was pleased to see him. He hadn’t been allowed an internet connection, not when the aliens might use it to track him down. Outside news — accurate outside news — only came in fits and starts.
“Prime Minister,” Lightbridge-Stewart said, gravely. “I trust that you are well?”
“I’ve told you to call me Gabriel,” Gabriel said, impatiently. He didn’t know where Lightbridge-Stewart had made his headquarters or even any operational details at all. What he didn’t know he couldn’t tell — and he had no illusions about his ability to hold out under torture. Or perhaps the aliens had perfect lie detectors and truth drugs. “What have you heard from the… outside?”
Lightbridge-Stewart smiled. “Elements of the Royal Scots are preparing fall-back positions in the Highlands,” he said. “The aliens may control the cities, but they’ll find extending their control into the Highlands a little harder than they’d prefer. They may even decide to abandon the Highlands altogether.”
Gabriel nodded, half-wishing that he could go north and join the Scots. There were plenty of areas in England where humans could hide out from the aliens, but Scotland had a smaller civilian population at risk. But he knew that he could never take an active role in the fighting to come. They couldn’t risk their Prime Minister, even if the position was meaningless.
“King Harry isn’t adjusting well,” Lightbridge-Stewart added. “He wants to fight back, not hide out somewhere in Scotland. But I’m afraid we don’t have much choice.”
“I can’t disagree,” Gabriel said. He hadn’t even been in politics when there had been an almighty political struggle over deploying then-Prince Harry to Iraq and Afghanistan. In the end, he’d been allowed to go — as long as it wasn’t made public. It was ironic, really; the British Monarchy had held mostly ceremonial roles, yet Harry hadn’t been allowed to be a public sign that the Monarchy was willing to fight too. What made Harry any better than the hundreds of other soldiers who’d lost their lives in Iraq or Afghanistan? There had been no good answer, save that the enemy would have made capturing him a priority. His presence would have risked the lives of other soldiers.
Lightbridge-Stewart shrugged. “There’s some good news,” he said. “And some bad news as well, I’m afraid. We managed to recover a dead alien body in the retreat from Salisbury Plain and get it to a… well, a covert military medical research establishment. The doctors there took some time to dissect the body and draw a number of conclusions. I brought copies of their reports, but the interesting detail is that they’re really not that different from us.”
“They look like leathery dinosaurs,” Gabriel observed. It still pained him that he hadn’t seen any of the aliens at first-hand, but his minders had been clear. He couldn’t risk being recognised. “And yet they’re not that different from us?”
“Compared to what we were expecting, yes,” Lightbridge-Stewart said. “Which isn’t really good news in the long run. They can make use of our planet and presumably eat our crops — although I don’t know if they’ll actually like them. However, the doctors believe that they cannot catch our diseases — which rather puts the leash on any War of the Worlds scenarios we might have been hoping for.”
Gabriel frowned. “And can we catch their diseases?”
“They don’t think so,” Lightbridge-Stewart said. “But they don’t really have any samples of alien diseases to study.”
“No,” Gabriel agreed. “They wouldn’t.”
He’d studied history, back when he’d thought about becoming a historian. Back when Europe had discovered America, they’d brought their diseases with them — diseases that the Native Americans had had no resistance to. Smallpox alone had killed millions, leaving a void for the Europeans to expand into and eventually control. The empires built on native labour had collapsed; the empires based on settlers had survived and prospered. And if an alien disease got loose on Earth…
It might not even have to be natural, he realised. He’d certainly had enough briefings about the dangers of biological warfare, up to and including genetically-modified diseases that were resistant to every known vaccine. The aliens didn’t have to reshape one of their own diseases to produce a monster that would exterminate humanity. They could simply rely on a simple human disease, with a little modification. Britain had no — official — stocks of Smallpox, but if the aliens had captured the stores in Russia, or America…
He pushed the thought aside. There was no point in worrying about it. They were at the mercy of the aliens and would be for years to come.
“The analysts think that the aliens will probably start growing their own crops on Earth sooner rather than later,” Lightbridge-Stewart said. “Unless they’ve somehow managed to produce stable wormholes that reach from planet to planet, their logistics have to be rather touchy. Growing their own food will allow them to send more weapons and military supplies instead…”