Chapter Thirty-Five
London
United Kingdom, Day 47
“Maz’Bak’s debriefing has been completed,” the intelligence officer informed Oheghizh. “The humans treated him fairly well by their standards. They did, however, interrogate him quite extensively.”
“And as an intelligence officer he had a great deal to tell them,” Oheghizh said. Curiosity was not encouraged by the State, but intelligence officers were an exception to that rule. Indeed, rather than stamping on excessively curious youths, the intelligence service preferred to recruit them. Their curiosity could be put to work on behalf of the State. “What did he tell them, precisely.”
“It’s all in the report,” the intelligence officer said. “They know a great deal more about us than they knew before they raided the detention centre.”
Oheghizh skimmed through the report, barely keeping himself from swearing out loud. The humans weren’t supposed to know anything about any of the other races out among the stars — but now they did, along with far too much information on the galactic geopolitics that had led the State to Earth. And they knew how the command network on Earth was organised, the location and identities of the Command Triad… anywhere else, the information would have had a disastrous impact. If the humans had climbed into space, like any halfway sane race, it would have given them a decisive advantage. Instead, they were still trapped on the bottom of Earth’s gravity well.
The Command Triad was not going to be pleased. Nor was the State, when superior authority heard about it. Earth had already soaked up more resources and combat power than anyone had anticipated, which meant that reinforcements had to be diverted from other planets. The human military personnel they’d taken off-planet and sent to disputed worlds might redress the balance, but how could they be trusted completely? They weren’t even mercenaries; they’d been pressed into service. And they’d know it.
“On the other hand, we did manage to trace the humans back to their lair,” the intelligence officer added. “They must have a fairly major command post of their own hidden in the general area. If we wait a couple of days, and then attack… we might be able to cripple the human resistance.”
Oheghizh nodded, sourly. In truth, he wasn’t sure that it would do more than hamper the human resistance organisation. The American command and control structure had been shattered by the opening blows of the invasion, but they were somehow still managing to mount a creditable challenge to the State. Intelligence was fairly sure that there was no overall commanding authority, which raised worrying questions about how far the Americans took the concept of leaderless resistance. It was an idea alien to the State.
“Prepare an assault force,” he ordered, finally. “And have the former captive shipped to orbit for a more extensive debriefing. I want to know everything he told his captors — and I’m sure that the Command Triad will too.”
He watched the intelligence officer scuttle out of his office, and then he turned to look out over London. The riots that had threatened their grip on the city had died away after the BBC had reported that the alien captive was safe and well, back with his own people, but they’d come alarmingly close to overwhelming their ability to govern the city. Part of him was tempted to just pull out and leave the humans to slaughter each other, yet he knew they needed as much of the local economy functioning as possible. The registry was already being used to earmark humans for clean-up efforts — and if they refused to work, they would starve.
And if they did manage to cripple the human resistance, perhaps they could bring the whole campaign to a successful conclusion.
Robin lay on his bed, staring up at nothing. It wasn’t his bed, not really. The flat had been abandoned in the opening days of the invasion and the police, needing living space for policemen who had been forced out of their homes, had commandeered it. Robin had no idea who had owned the flat before he’d moved in, but they had had excellent taste in wine. He’d downed no less than six bottles over the last two days and was seriously considering finishing off the rest. It could hardly have made his life any worse.
Back before the invasion, he’d been a loyal policeman, upholding the law even when he’d wanted to forgot proper procedure and just kick some young thug’s head in, or turn water cannons on protestors who had no idea how lucky they were. And then the aliens had invaded and he’d told himself that he had to go to work for them, just to keep the public safe. His own justifications rang hollow in his ears, mocking him; how safe was the public in a world at war? Outside, parts of the city had been torn apart by rioting, dead bodies lay everywhere and what remained of the police force was working for the aliens. And they weren’t the only ones. Some of the special constables the aliens had recruited weren’t policemen, or even soldiers. They just wanted to get their kicks by pushing around helpless civilians.
He reached for the bottle and cursed when his trembling hand knocked it down onto the floor. Somehow, he managed to roll over, just in time to see the red wine draining out of the bottle and soaking the carpet. It would probably drip down to the flat underneath, giving the inhabitant a scare. He pulled himself upright and rubbed at his head. Maybe a few more drinks would make him drunk and then he could forget the world for a while. If he could go home, if he could see his wife… but she didn’t want anything to do with him now, not after the chaos in London. The entire world hated the policemen, those who had joined up to serve the aliens. If he’d known…
…Perhaps he would have gone underground too.
The thought was a bitter one. There were policemen, unmarried policemen, who had deserted their comrades and gone off to join the resistance. But they were the ones who had no hostages to fortune — or to the aliens. The married men knew that their wives and children were known to the aliens, and that they would be killed if their husbands or fathers showed any signs of disloyalty. Perhaps his wife could have evaded them if he’d vanished in the early hours of the invasion, when so many had gone missing, presumed dead, but it was now far too late. He reached for another bottle, struggled with the cork, and then took a long swig. Who cared about going on duty now? Maybe they’d just kill him and that would be an end to it.
How long had it been, he asked himself, since he’d walked his first beat? Not long at all, really; he’d known that he didn’t want to go anywhere else. The endless red tape that strangled real policing, the politically-correct rules invented and enforced by politicians that made it impossible to nick real villains or monitor terrorists… despite all the trials and tribulations of modern policing, he’d loved his job. And now he was nothing more than a filthy quisling. They didn’t need to drag up examples from France or Norway any longer, not when there were thousands of collaborators in the United Kingdom. They’d be calling them Robins in the future, no doubt.
His hands started to shake and he put the bottle down, quickly. He should get up and shower before donning his uniform, but he really didn’t care any longer. The weapons they’d stashed away… maybe he should go to the stash, pull out one of the pistols, and put a bullet through his own brains. What else could he do? Resistance was futile. He was halfway to his feet before realising that suicide would probably mean doom for his wife, if the aliens decided to view his suicide as a kind of desertion. Did they even have suicide as a concept? There was no way to know, although given their tough bodies, killing themselves probably required poison. Or maybe they just jumped out of their starships and burned up in the atmosphere below. The thought made him giggle, a sure sign that he was drunker than he realised.