Outside Context Problem: Book 02 - Under Foot

by Christopher Nuttall

“They didn’t know,” General Williamson said. They shared a quiet laugh. “It may be possible that one of the factories the aliens are setting up on Earth is designed to produce drive field units, so we might be able to get someone inside and start stealing drive units…but it’s not particularly likely.”

  “Make producing the drive units your top priority,” the Prime Minister ordered. “Ditch everything else. Put everyone to work on top priority – get them beer and prostitutes if you have to – and get me some results.”

  “Yes, Prime Minister,” General Williamson said. He started to stand up, and then paused. “Tony was wondering about America, sir. Is there any news?”

  “Real news, you mean,” the Prime Minister said. The official broadcasts from Washington suggested that the aliens had turned America into a paradise. The reports from the British Ambassador suggested that they’d actually turned America into a police state. The Prime Minister believed the Ambassador, but knew that the British Press had started to pick up on the alien lies. “Chicago is still being invested, the aliens are still registering the entire country…what more does he want to know?”

  “He’s worried about his family,” General Williamson said. “So are most of the rest of the Yanks we have at the facility.”

  “They have my sympathy,” the Prime Minister said, grimly. “Can’t we sneak most of their families out?”

  “We’ve been trying, but it’s a long slow process and several have vanished en route,” General Williamson said. “Ever since Cuba decided to throw the Americans out of their base on Cuban soil, the entire Caribbean has been a nightmarish war zone. I bet they miss Uncle Sam now.”

  “Doubtless,” the Prime Minister agreed. “I want updated reports whenever anything changes.”

  “Of course, Prime Minister,” General Williamson said.

  He saluted and left the room, leaving the Prime Minister looking down at the remaining folder on the table. It was marked DUSTBIN – British operations were given computer-generated names, rather than something that might give the game away too soon – and it was depressing as hell. The plans to create a set of stay-behind units to continue the war if Britain were invaded and occupied by the aliens were proceeding smoothly. If the worst came to the worst…

  Churchill had faced the possibility of invasion, but Operation Sealion had never been launched. He was the first British Prime Minister of the new century to face the prospect that Britain would be invaded by an enemy who had already defeated the most powerful nation on Earth. He had no illusions about the outcome if the aliens decided they wanted to put a stop to Britain’s desperate attempts to crack their technology. The underground resistance would be all that was left to fight.

  Chapter Thirty

  Virginia, USA

  Day 154

  The airfield had once belonged to a wealthy flying enthusiast who’d spent millions of dollars building up a fleet of unique aircraft and flying them at air shows. The aliens had landed on the airfield several weeks after the Fall of Washington and pressed it into service as a forward operating base for their warriors, evicting the owner and his fleet of aircraft. The owner had been quite happy to provide Nicolas with detailed plans of the airfield in exchange for help in finding an empty home to live in. The small assault team took up position near the airbase and waited for his signal.

  Get in, do some damage, and get out again, Nicolas thought coldly. The resistance had been upping the tempo of their operations after the aliens and their Arab allies had started attacking Chicago in earnest, but nothing they’d done so far had slowed the Arabs as they ground their way through the city. He’d hoped that the aliens would at least redirect their warriors or the Order Police to come after the resistance units, yet the aliens had seemed remarkably unconcerned about losses. He suspected that it was because most of the dead were human collaborators, not aliens. The aliens attempted to keep their people as isolated as they could from possible human attack. The horror stories from the west proved that.

  He peered through the darkness to make out the shape of five aliens on patrol. The aliens were better than they’d been in the early days of the occupation; their patrols were seemingly random, and they were spread out, watching for any sign of trouble. The Order Police and the Arabs were happy to consort with the locals – although the Arabs had developed a habit of only doing so in groups – but the aliens kept humans away, often with warning shots. Sneaking up on them wasn't going to work, so he reached into his belt and pulled out a trigger, removing the safety and pressing down hard. A brilliant white flare leapt up into the air, suddenly illuminating the entire scene.

  The alien warriors hissed in shock, their clawed hands coming up to cover their eyes, but it was too late. The doctors who’d dissected the aliens claimed that they actually had a greater sensitivity to light than their human enemies and the magnesium flare had to have blinded them, just for a few seconds. Nicolas lifted his rifle and shot the first one in the head. The other four dropped a moment later as the team went to work. One of the aliens turned, half-lifting the weapon he carried before he was killed, leaving Nicolas cursing under his breath. Their body armour was far too good.

  “Open fire,” he ordered, keying his radio. The resistance had discovered that the aliens could pick up and track even tiny broadcasts, but secrecy was no longer an option. The mortar teams he’d placed in the rear opened fire, launching high explosive into the alien base. He saw alien ground-to-air weapons systems firing bursts of superheated plasma into the air, trying to destroy the mortar shells before they hit the ground. Their shooting wasn't bad either. Only two shells reached the ground and exploded, one on top of an alien tank. The vehicle looked undamaged, but Nicolas was sure that anyone inside was having a really bad day. “Move!”

  The fence, according to the former owner, was merely designed to give any intruder a nasty shock, but Nicolas took no chances and used grenades to knock it down, allowing the team to enter the base. A line of alien warriors appeared out of one of the buildings and opened fire, sending brilliant green flashes of light spinning towards them. Nicolas hit the deck and returned fire, taking down two of the aliens while the remainder dived for cover themselves. A savage firefight broke out as the snipers added their own fire from their positions nearby, shooting down any alien foolish enough to show his face. He heard an inhuman voice hissing in pain before another explosion cut them short. Pinned down, the aliens didn’t have much hope, but Nicolas would have bet his bottom dollar that reinforcements were already on the way.

  They’d planned to hit as many of the alien bases as they could simultaneously, but anyone who’d ever served knew how quickly Murphy could put in an appearance. The aliens would probably act to save their own hides first, rather than assisting their collaborators, which meant that the alien craft were already on their way. Their speed allowed them to base their rapid reaction force on the other side of the continent and still deploy it to any trouble spot within seconds. It wasn't a fair fight.

  Time to make it even more unfair, he thought, as he slipped back. The others could hold the aliens pinned down for the moment. He picked up the resistance-built RPG – a better design than anything he’d seen in Iraq or Afghanistan, produced in an American garage by a resistance worker – and sighted it on the target. The heavy RPG erupted from the expendable launcher and slammed into the alien position. The explosion lit up the area and sent the aliens falling back rapidly.

  “At them,” someone shouted, as the humans moved forward, covering one another. A pair of alien warriors were too badly wounded to be saved and taken prisoner, so Nicolas dispatched them both with merciful headshots. The remainder seemed to have been killed or attempted to flee back into the buildings, but they were death-traps now. A spray of RPGs were launched at their windows and detonated inside the buildings, blasting out the doors and surviving windows. Nicolas glanced inside one of them and saw alien workers scattered and broken on the ground, keening like little children. An image of Nancy flashe
d in front of his eyes and he found himself inexplicitly shaken.

  “Sir,” someone said. Nicolas winced as the ground shook again. “Sir, are you all right?”

  “Never better,” he snapped, harshly. The stench of dead aliens was rolling across the field now, somehow worse than dead humans. If the rumours about alien warriors actually eating humans were true, perhaps it could go the other way too…no, he refused to even think about that possibility. “Clear the remaining buildings!”

  He turned the corner and glanced into one of the hangars, coming face to face with an alien of an indeterminate caste. The alien lashed out at him with a cyborg arm and he jumped back, bringing up his rifle and shooting the alien in the chest with two quick shots. The alien’s chest disintegrated, revealing a mixture of flesh, blood and mechanical implants before it collapsed onto the ground and died. Nicolas saw it’s implanted systems twitching before they powered down as well. The sight was sickening and a remainder of just how alien the aliens were. No human could have endured losing so much of their body to mechanical implants.

  Beyond the alien, he saw a pair of alien transports resting in the hangar and waved up two of his men. They inspected the craft quickly, but found nothing apart from a handful of dead aliens lying on stretchers. There was no clear sign of how they had died and Nicolas found himself keeping one eye on them, just in case they returned to life suddenly and attacked his men. In a bad movie, he would have been able to fly the alien craft out of the area and escape, but real life wasn't that simple. A quick glance at the control panels in the alien craft revealed that he had absolutely no idea how to fly it. Even his experience with light aircraft and helicopters was useless.

  “Place the charges and let’s get out of here,” he ordered tersely. He was surprised that the alien reinforcements hadn’t already arrived. They had to be distracted by one of the other attacks, or maybe they were suffering from being unable to determine which attack was the real attack, or prioritising the most important targets. “Hurry!”

  He ran back outside to see the first alien craft arrive and start shooting, launching blasts of green light down towards the ground. Two of the sniper nests were blown away in seconds, a third – narrowly missed – was shut down as the sniper ran for cover. Four Stingers rose up towards the alien craft and slammed into its drive field in quick succession, sending it spinning away before it came down on top of one of the hangars. Nicolas hit the deck again as the craft exploded, devastating the airbase. The fireball roared up in the darkness. The base was completely wrecked.

  Nicolas keyed his radio again and muttered a single command. “Bug out, now,” he ordered, and repeated it once. There would be no acknowledgements; everyone else, under orders, would break off and run into the surrounding area. There was no point in sticking around to engage the aliens in a stand-up fight, not when they’d all be slaughtered. “Now!”

  Something grabbed his leg and squeezed hard. He looked down to see that one of the little worker aliens had caught hold of him. The alien’s legs were completely missing, yet the dark eyes showed no hint of pain or rage, just icy determination. Nicolas kicked out at the alien, and then drew his pistol. The alien held his eyes for a second and then let go, closing his own eyes. Nicolas held his pistol for a long moment, and then pulled himself to his feet, leaving the alien alive. His ankle hurt badly, but he’d been through worse in SEAL Training. The training program that turned a man into a Navy SEAL was dreaded and rightfully so. He limped out as fast as he could go, turning to look back at the former airfield. It was a burning wasteland. The charges his men had placed in the two alien craft detonated seconds later and completed the task of destroying the base. If there were any aliens left, they were keeping their heads well down and trying not to be noticed.

  Turning his back, he headed to the rendezvous point. It had been a good night’s work. Now all he needed was a rest and some medical attention. They’d hide up until the following night, and then find another base of operations. He had the feeling that the area was about to become remarkably hot.

  ***

  Jason Pickering checked his rifle quickly as the stream of Bradley AFVs and commandeered civilian trucks motored down the road towards the small town. The Order Policemen were all tired and worn after a night where they had been blown up, shot at and even poisoned. Each individual base had come under attack and it hadn’t been until hours later that they’d realised that their little attacks had only been part of the wider picture. The Order Police had grown used to being hated, but for so many of them to die in a single night…it made him wonder if he’d made the right choice.

  But there hadn’t been a choice, he told himself, time and time again. The system had never allowed him a chance. It had taken any chance of a normal life, an education and a future and turned them all into garbage. What choice had he had? A lifetime of petty crime and jail sentences had loomed ahead of him when the invasion had begun and he’d realised that there were whole new vistas of opportunity opening up in front of him. He could become a Big Man, gain all the power and women he wanted, and all he had to do was serve the aliens without question. He’d signed the deal at once and, as a reward, had used the Order Police’s control over work duties and rationing to convince his old sweetheart – she’d never even heard of him, she’d said – to share the wonders of her body with him. It hadn’t been much of an encounter, not compared to the whores who sold their bodies to the Order Police, but at least he’d had her first. No one had realised, apart from him, that she was just a tease.

  He looked over at the Walking Dead man who led the patrol and shivered. It was yet another reason to be loyal, for he didn’t want to end up like him. The Walking Dead showed no interest in women, or money, or power. They just lived to serve the aliens and do whatever they were told to do. They had no conscience, no sense of right or wrong…he’d seen one of them shoot his own daughter when she’d started begging her father to return to normal. They were inhuman monsters. Jason couldn’t imagine a life without women and all the things that made life worth living.

  “When we enter the town, you will obey orders at once without question,” the Walking Dead man said. His voice was as cold as his eyes, as cold as the winds that blew off the sea. There was no humanity hiding under them. There was nothing, but cold alien thoughts in a human body. “Do not hesitate. It will cost you your life.”

  Jason didn’t know the name of the town they drove into, but he’d seen a hundred like it, enough to know the general details. There would be around a thousand inhabitants, many of them probably involved with the resistance…no, the terrorists. Rumour had it that the aliens could read minds and branding the enemy anything other than the officially-approved line could get him shot, or worse. The population eyed them with sullen indifference. They would be counting the seconds until the patrol left and they could get on with their lives.

  They stopped in front of the Sheriff’s office and the Walking Dead man barked orders, telling the Sheriff to gather his people at the local baseball field. He then barked orders to the Order Police, telling them to separate men from women and perform weapons checks on everyone as they entered the baseball field. Jason angled for a shot at searching the women – always good for a quick grope – but he was unlucky and ended up pulling security instead. The looks he got from the men he was guarding chilled his blood, but he reminded himself of the gun in his hand and the heavy machine guns mounted on the Bradleys. They could resist, but it would be the shortest and nastiest slaughter in history. Most of them, he couldn’t help noticing, were white. The handful of non-whites among them seemed to hate him and his fellows even more.

  He’d expected orders to search the town – which was fun, if destructive – but instead the Walking Dead man got up on one of the vehicles and glared down at the men. “Last night,” he said, in his dead voice, “hundreds of Order Policemen and People were killed by terrorist attacks. The vile perpetrators of this crime came from this area. One of you knows who they ar
e. Tell us now and you will be rewarded.”

  There was a long silence. “This is your last chance to make a stand against the evil gripping our country,” the Walking Dead man said. His voice was still cold; Jason would have shouted. “Choose now or face the consequences.”

  Seconds passed as the tension rose. “You made your choice,” the Walking Dead man said. “This entire town will suffer for your decision.”

  He drew his pistol and shot a man at random, followed by another. “Open fire,” he ordered, as Jason’s jaw hit the ground. “Kill all the men!”

  The crowd lunged forward like a wild thing. Jason panicked and levelled his rifle, firing madly into the heaving mob. They seemed not to notice the dead and kept coming, howling in pain. His rifle ran empty and he lashed out at one of the men, knowing that it was too late…a second before the machine guns opened fire. The mob dissolved into a bloody mass screaming in pain, their screams joined by those of their womenfolk and children. He saw a little boy’s head explode as a stream of bullets flew through his head, his body collapsing to the ground and bleeding into the field of blood. The shooting ended suddenly and his legs wobbled. It was all he could do to remain standing upright.

  One of the Order Policemen was loudly sick. The Walking Dead man casually levelled a pistol and blew out the young man’s brains, adding them to the blood on the ground. Jason swallowed hard to prevent himself from being sick as well, knowing that the Walking Dead man would kill him at any sign of unease. The others drew the same lesson, staring at their leader…and at the women, who were staring at them with horrified eyes. None of them would have seen anything like it before. Such things didn’t happen in America. They happened in Third World countries no one cared about unless they had some importance, not America. It couldn’t happen here…but it had. He looked away, unable to meet their eyes. They all knew what was coming.