And three of her patients really shouldn’t be moved.
“Go tell the patients upstairs that we might have to move,” Fatima ordered. Given time, she was sure that she could get all of the patients out, but could they do it without alerting the aliens and their collaborators? “Is anyone else coming to help?”
“The Big Man says he’s sending some of his men,” Lucas said. He grinned. When he wasn’t passing on messages, he spent most of his time with the soldiers. They were teaching him tricks he might need when he finally joined the fight. “Anyone who can’t move under his own power will be helped.”
Fatima nodded. And after that, she knew, they’d leave an IED behind, just in the hopes of bagging an alien or a few collaborators. They’d done it before. Abdul had pointed out that creating an impression of a network of IEDs slowed down enemy deployment, even if there were only a handful of real IEDs in the area. It had worked in Afghanistan and now it was working in London. Absently, she wondered how men who’d fought in Afghanistan liked using their enemy’s tactics against the enemy of the entire planet?
“Come on then,” she said. “Let’s start moving the patients.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Alien Detention Camp
United Kingdom, Day 36
The first few days in the detention camp were unpleasant. Alex wasn’t sure why the aliens hadn’t bothered to provide shelters for their prisoners, which meant that when it rained — as it did every night — the bedding became soaked and refused to dry until the morning. A number of the prisoners were already suffering from exposure and were at death’s door, but the aliens didn’t seem concerned. When she was feeling charitable, which wasn’t very often, Alex guessed that the aliens liked the rain and believed that the humans would like it too. The other explanation was that the aliens were deliberately torturing their captives and breaking their will to resist. It seemed as likely as any other possibility.
She had spent the first day studying the alien base, what little she could see of it from behind the wire. It seemed to be a small military base, although it was definitely not as active as Bastion or any of the other major bases she’d deployed to before the aliens had invaded and turned the entire planet upside down. Judging from the way they’d extended the wire several times since the invasion — several of the prisoners admitted to have been behind the wire since day one — they might just have intended it as a prison for rebellious types.
The next few days had been worse. She’d wondered endlessly who’d betrayed them — and why? Had the traitor been terrified for his life, or the lives of his family — or had he merely wanted thirty pieces of silver? The conditions outside the cities were better than inside the cities — at least if the internet was to be believed — but no one had been very safe. Perhaps the traitor, hearing stories about entire towns being blasted from orbit for daring to harbour resistance fighters, had decided that Long Stratton would be left unmolested if the resistance was handed over to the aliens. Absently, she wondered if Archer or any of the others had made it out safety, or if they’d been caught by the aliens. She tried to form mental pictures of them blasting their way through entire alien formations, but she had to admit that they weren’t particularly likely. Archer had suggested heading into the national parks or other undeveloped parts of Britain and setting up long-term bases there. She hoped — prayed — that they managed to get out and carry on the fight. They would have to do it without her.
Every time she heard a noise in the sky, she looked up, wondering what she would see. Sometimes she saw the massive shuttles the aliens used to land troops from orbit, too large to fly without some kind of antigravity device; sometimes their attack helicopters, larger than the outdated Russian helicopters that had been flown around Afghanistan. She allowed herself to hope that one day she’d see a streak of light shooting down one of the helicopters, but the resistance seemed to be very thin on the ground around the detention camp. The aliens, according to some of the older prisoners, had simply uprooted thousands of humans and ordered them away from their bases. Remembering some of the havoc caused by dickers — civilians who reported British military movements to the enemy — in Afghanistan, Alex couldn’t blame them, even though the mobile phone network had never been restored.
She shook her head. The Taliban had never scored a major victory, but they’d kept up the pressure and they might have won in the long term — if the aliens hadn’t invaded. But the Coalition had been bound by rules of engagement dreamed up by decent — if ignorant — politicians. The aliens didn’t seem to care about civilian casualties and they were perfectly willing to obliterate entire towns to punish resistance. Weaker forces had defeated stronger forces before — or had at least convinced them to withdraw — but Alex couldn’t remember if they’d ever done it when the stronger forces had also been the barbarians.
When the call came, it took her by surprise. A pair of aliens were standing by the gate, bellowing for her in their toneless voices. She hesitated, considering hiding within the crowd, before realising that it was pointless. Bracing herself, she strode out with as much dignity as she could muster and stopped in front of the aliens. One of them pointed his cannon-like weapon at his chest, as if he imagined that she was a threat. Alex couldn’t keep the giggles from forming deep inside her chest. She was half-naked, half-starved and completely unarmed… and he thought she was a threat?
“Turn around and place your hands behind your back,” the alien ordered. Alex obeyed, unsurprised to feel a metal tie contracting around her wrists. They weren’t taking any chances, all right. Their voices were almost robotic. “Walk with us. Do not attempt to escape.”
The alien strung her around and marched her towards the gate, which clanged shut behind them. Despite her growing nervousness, Alex was privately glad of the chance to inspect the rest of the base. A number of human-designed buildings were still intact, but others had clearly been knocked down and were being replaced by prefabricated alien buildings. She caught sight of what looked like a futuristic car at the end of one building, before her escort marched her onwards, half-pulling her whenever she tried to slow them down. The sound of alien voices speaking what had to be their own language — it sounded like grunting to her ears — caught her attention and she looked up. A small group of aliens was staring at her, their dark eyes wide. Surely she wasn’t the first human they’d seen…
And these aliens were smaller. For a moment, she wondered if they were children, before realising that they were differently proportioned than her escort. Alien females? She’d assumed that the aliens had their own version of keeping women barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen, but maybe they made better use of female labour than some human societies. Their clothing was different too… she wondered, absently, how the aliens mated, before pushing the thought aside. It was clear that she was about to have far more serious problems.
A human designed building loomed up in front of her and the aliens pushed her right into the darkness. For a moment, Alex was completely disorientated before her eyes adjusted to the gloom. There was a chair in the centre of the room, bolted to the floor, and the aliens pushed her down onto the cold metal. She yelped as they stubbed her bound wrists, before, fixing a bar around her chest and walking away. The door closed behind them with an audible clunk.
“Well, well, well,” a voice said, from the darkness. “What have we here?”