Gabriel nodded. “We’re stuck,” he said. “We can keep irritating them, but if we piss them off too much they might just decide that they’re better off without us.”
“Maybe not,” Lightbridge-Stewart said. “We were talking to the alien captive about them committing genocide — about them wiping out the entire human race. From what we were told, they can’t — there are interstellar laws that prohibit genocide.”
“There are human laws that prohibit genocide,” Gabriel pointed out. “I don’t recall anyone actually stepping up to the plate and stopping the slaughter in Sudan. The laws aren’t enforced, so…”
He shrugged, remembering how frustrated he’d felt before the aliens had landed and shown him just how helpless many people in undeveloped countries must have felt over the years. It was easy to get governments to condemn genocide, but much harder to actually convince them to do anything about it, no matter how clear-cut the case for intervention. He had no doubt that they could have stopped the slaughter in Sudan or any of the other stricken countries in Africa, yet the cost would have been horrific and there was no hope that anyone else would pick up the tab.
“Apparently, the interstellar races do enforce the laws,” Lightbridge-Stewart said, slowly. “There’s no law against invading a planet that can’t defend itself, it seems, but there is one against deliberately causing a genocide. That’s something we can use against them.”
“They can kill a hell of a lot of us without committing genocide,” Gabriel pointed out, sourly. Dear God — had he ever wanted to be Prime Minister? One less scandal and he might have died in London when the aliens landed, or perhaps found himself drafted into the collaborator government. The entire weight of the world rested on his shoulders. “How sure are we that the aliens wouldn’t exterminate us?”
“I think we are reasonably sure,” Lightbridge-Stewart said. “But they will certainly push back hard when we start pushing them.”
“True,” Gabriel said. They needed a victory. They needed something they could use to inspire resistance all over the country. And after the aliens had forced them to surrender their captive, they needed one desperately. “I authorise the operation.”
He hesitated. “And I hope to God that we’re not making a terrible mistake,” he added. “The aliens won’t hesitate to hammer us if we push them right out of the country.”
Tra’ti Gra’sha kept one eye on the countryside around him as his small patrol skimmed down the human road, looking for trouble. It all looked peaceful, apart from the handful of birds flying through the air, but the undergrowth had been known to hide all kinds of surprises over the past few weeks. The humans were past masters at burying an IED and using it to hit a patrol, and then bringing in armed bands to catch the survivors before they had a chance to escape. Some of the Land Forces patrolling the ground around their bases had taken the opportunity to burn as much as they could of the local foliage, making it impossible for the humans to use it as a hiding place.
The armoured vehicle slowed as the driver caught sight of a group of animals blocking the road. Gra’sha hefted his weapon, alert for trouble; it wouldn’t be the first time that some enterprising human had used animals to block a patrol’s route while preparing an ambush. The driver had similar thoughts and turned the vehicle onto the embankment, relaying on the hover-cushion to keep it upright and moving. A fence splintered as the vehicle brushed against it, but they ignored it and kept moving. The humans knew better than to complain about their damaged property. If they wanted to keep their property and their lives intact, they could stop harbouring the rogues who ambushed patrols.
He heard the sound of the animals protesting as the vehicle skimmed past them and back down onto the road. A pair of young humans — females, judging from their increased frontal development — jumped back in shock, clearly not having heard their approach until it was far too late. Gra’sha resisted the temptation to wave in their direction, knowing that they would probably be planting bombs or taking shots at him in the next few years. At least this bunch of humans seemed reluctant to send their young to war. There were tales of human children carrying bombs right up to patrols in some other parts of the world, although they could be just rumours. Rumour-spreading was officially forbidden, which didn’t stop troopers from exchanging rumours and survival tips at every opportunity. Even the newcomers from the homeworld had finally learned to listen to those who had landed on Earth with the first invasion force. They’d survived the worst that the humans could throw at them.
Two aircraft flew overhead, matching course with the armoured vehicle for a few moments. It always made Gra’sha feel better to know that there were aircraft overhead, watching and waiting to provide support if they ran into trouble. They were supposed to run a random patrol, but there were only a handful of possible routes from the base they could run and the humans knew them all. Even if they didn’t run into an ambush this time, they were likely to run into one the next time… and some human ambushes had been nasty.
He was still watching the environment when he saw a single naked Eridiani standing by the side of the road. For a moment, Gra’sha refused to believe what he was seeing — and then he connected it with the missing intelligence officer the Command Triad had warned them to look out for. It was just typical of intelligence to insist that the troopers on the ground poured out all the stops for a missing intelligence officer — not that he would ever dare say that out loud, of course. Intelligence officers tended to spend more time watching their subordinates for disloyalty rather than monitoring their human enemies. Absently, he wondered if that were true of the human intelligence organisations too. Probably. Certain things were universal, even among the non-humanoid race that had been the State’s first major foe.
The vehicle pulled to a halt near the missing officer and Gra’sha dismounted, quickly. It was quite possible that the humans were using their captive as the bait in a trap, although quite what they hoped to gain from it was beyond him. The intelligence officer seemed rather disorientated as Gra’sha reached him, but looked very relieved to see a friendly face. How had the humans treated him while he was their captive? They did all kinds of horrible things to their fellows, according to the briefings they’d received — what would they do to a captive trooper, let alone someone who could actually tell them what they needed to know.
“It’s all right,” he said, as the intelligence officer staggered towards the vehicle. It looked as though the humans had just dumped him, presumably some distance from their base. They’d take a look at the orbital coverage and see if they could trace the humans back to where they’d kept their captive. “You’re safe now.”
He helped the captive into the vehicle and remounted, hefting his weapon as he surveyed the horizon for human threats. Somehow, he was sure that none would materialise. The humans had wanted to give them the captive — they wouldn’t blow them up now. He smiled as the vehicle hummed back into life and started heading straight back to the base. Whatever the humans had had in mind, there was a good chance of promotion or a bonus from their superiors. And that would give the small crew a chance with the females when mating season rolled around.
And if they managed to trace the humans back to their lair, they might just be able to decapitate the resistance in a single blow.