The main body of the base would survive — he doubted fire would melt the material they’d used to build it — but it would be a blackened shell. Humans all over the world would take new hope from the story, as they would from all the other stories. The global counteroffensive would have hurt the aliens badly. Maybe, just maybe, they’d hurt the aliens badly enough to convince them to retreat and leave Earth alone.
He keyed his radio one final time, sending the signal to retreat, and then turned it off. It was time to make themselves scarce.
“Impressive,” Abdul muttered.
Chris followed his gaze. Great plumes of smoke were rising up over London, revealing where resistance fighters had mounted attacks on the police and the other collaborators, as well as a handful coming from alien bases outside the city. He’d only known snippets of the overall plan, but it was clear that they’d hammered the aliens hard. God alone knew how many Leathernecks had died in the last few hours.
“Yeah,” he said. “That’s something they can take for granted. Humans don’t ever give up.”
Battered bloody, the remains of The’Stig’s force finally broke through the human resistance and reached London Base. It was already too late. The base was a broken ruin, flames licking out through portholes that had been intended to allow the defenders to fire out at human opponents. There seemed to be no living thing left alive, not even the small collection of animals some of the command staff had kept as pets, despite edicts against it. Some humans — the Russians, in particular — were very good at using pets and other trained animals to take out tanks and other armoured vehicles.
He dismounted from the command vehicle and stared at the devastation. The entire base would need to be torn down and rebuilt from scratch. He cursed the humans as he realised that they’d wiped out vast quantities of equipment, all of which would need to be replaced from the homeworld. With all the other demands on the homeworld’s resources, it was possible that they’d decide to slow Earth’s progress into becoming part of the State. The humans would have a chance to prepare themselves for the next round of fighting, and the next.
The human collaborator government had been totally destroyed. Somehow, the humans had sneaked explosives and insurgents into the building — perhaps through using some collaborators who hadn’t really decided to collaborate. They searched the remains of the human building as best as they could, but found that almost all of the senior collaborators were dead. It was clear that they’d been shot down by the insurgents in cold blood. The destruction of most of the records would make it much harder to be sure of who was still alive, or of who could be trusted. Personally, he wouldn’t have trusted any human. They were a shifty treacherous race. Even their collaborators had been treacherous.
There was no sign of any living human. They’d done the smart thing and made themselves scarce. The’Stig couldn’t blame them, not really. His troopers were in a murderous mood, intent on taking it out on the first group of humans that they encountered. Their city almost felt deserted, even though he knew that it was an illusion. The gunfire he could hear in the distance proved that some humans had been left alive.
“I managed to get a link to the Command Triad,” his aide called. “The command network has been crippled, but they’ve managed to clear some functions.”
The’Stig nodded and made his slow way back to the command vehicle. The Command Triad would not be pleased. Someone was likely to take the fall for everything that had happened to the Conquest Force. He wondered, mordantly, if they’d try to blame him. It was possible, although almost unthinkable, that he was the senior surviving officer in Britain.
But that couldn’t be true, could it?
“I think they’ve probably got their network back up now,” Abdul said, as they gathered in the estate after the battle. “They’ve certainly been coordinating the forces they’ve been moving around the city more effectively.”
Chris nodded. The Leathernecks hadn’t been shy about re-establishing order, even though their collaborators had been killed or forced to flee. It would take them weeks to calm London down, weeks before they started rebuilding the collaborator government. Assuming, of course, that they could find anyone willing to become collaborator-in-chief. The last one had been gunned down by a policeman who was supposed to be loyal to the new government.
The reports on the internet kept changing, but it certainly looked as if Operation Hammer had been a success. They’d hit the Leathernecks all over the world, despite problems with international communications; the Leathernecks had to be badly shocked by the experience. The PM and several other world leaders, hiding out, had already uploaded messages of congratulations to the fighting men. Some of the soldiers had been contemptuous of the PM remaining in hiding, but Chris had reminded them that the aliens wanted him dead — or alive, serving as a collaborator. They needed to keep the PM alive and free. Defeating the aliens was all that mattered. The Leathernecks wouldn’t give up easily, but they had been hurt. They knew they’d been hit hard…
And if they didn’t know that they’d lost a senior officer… Chris smiled at the thought, before realising that getting the prisoner out of London would be difficult. The Leathernecks were searching lorries, they’d never be able to get him down the tunnels… maybe they could float him out on a boat. He had a brief mental vision of a submarine slipping up the Thames before realising that it was absurd. After the Americans had lost a submarine when it came too close to the surface what remained of the Royal Navy wouldn’t take the risk. They’d need to find a boat to get the prisoner out.
Standing up, he headed outside and walked down the stairs to the basement. The estate, like many others in East London, had once had a gang in effective control, before the resistance had moved in and taught the gangs what real organised violence was all about. Now, it was guarded by soldiers in plain clothes, watching against collaborators and alien spies. They had no hope of stopping the aliens destroying the base if they discovered its existence, but there would be time to destroy the computers and escape.
The alien prisoner was held in the basement, guarded by three soldiers. Like the previous alien prisoner, he had been stripped of everything that might have carried a transponder, but his living quarters weren’t so good. They didn’t have the equipment to make it as hot or humid as the alien would probably have preferred. Chris looked through the window set into the door and scowled. The alien looked thoroughly miserable. It was dangerous to ascribe human thoughts and feelings to the Leathernecks — they weren’t even sure what an alien smile or frown looked like — but he was fairly sure of his ground. The alien looked very unhappy.
Chris opened the door and stepped inside. The alien looked up at him, his dark eyes seemingly expressionless. Maybe the alien was hungry. All the experts claimed that the aliens could eat human foods — they wouldn’t want Earth if they couldn’t — but he hadn’t touched the food he’d been given. Perhaps he was trying to starve himself to death.
“You do realise that they will come for me?” The alien said. He had to repeat himself twice before Chris understood. His English, spoken through an inhuman mouth, was mushy. “You won’t be allowed to keep me.”
“They don’t know we have you,” Chris said. The aliens had certainly not demanded his return. But then, they’d said almost nothing to humanity since Operation Hammer. “And even if they did, there’s one thing about humanity that you folks need to understand.”