Christopher Nuttall - Invasion

“The truth,” he said, and smiled. The aliens called their religion the Truth. It probably had a subtle meaning in their own language, but so far the only people who’d heard the alien language had been a handful of collaborators, who’d reported that it seemed to be impossible for human throats to duplicate. “What else do you think I should tell them?”

“How many aliens there are here,” Loretta said. “Is it just me, or are there fewer aliens these days?”

Joshua frowned at her. “No,” he said flatly, and then he stopped. It was true that the aliens had been patrolling heavily, but what did that prove? It only proved that the aliens were patrolling heavily. It was odd, but in a sense, she was right; there did seem to be fewer aliens on the streets. “They could all be in the Green Zone…”

“Yes, they could,” Loretta agreed. The name for the alien-controlled centre of Austin had stuck, somehow. The insurgents occasionally lobbed mortar shells and homemade rockets into the complex, an irony that the aliens probably didn’t appreciate. “Do you believe it?”

“I think it would be crazy to jump to any conclusions,” Joshua said, considering it. It was possible that she was right… but if it were true, what could they do about it? Could they use it as a chance to mount another attack… and, if they did, what would the aliens do in response? It was a moot point, in any sense; he was pretty sure that the insurgents read his blog page, but he didn’t know any of them personally. “Do you want to post it as an observation…?”

“That’s not the point,” Loretta said. “If the aliens aren’t here, then where are they?”

“Good point,” Joshua agreed, and then it hit him. “You think they’re preparing another strike against the outside world?”

“It’s possible,” Loretta said. “They could also be conducting anti-partisan operations, or… hell, boss, I don’t know. I just think that its something you should post and see who agrees with you, or not.”

“There could be people — hell, there will be people — agreeing with it because they want to believe,” Joshua warned, but she was right. “I’ll post a note to that effect and see who agrees, or not. For all we know, they’re barracking thousands of aliens in the green zone, just waiting for us to get uppity again.”

“Maybe,” Loretta agreed. “In fact…”

She broke off as a crashing noise echoed up from downstairs. Joshua knew what that sound meant; they’d taken a few precautions to warn the residents of an alien raid, precautions that weren’t triggered by anyone with the right to live in the apartment. He heard the sound of harsh alien voices as they flooded into the apartment, running up the stairs, and froze in panic. Loretta, quicker thinking, dived for the laptop and tried to hide it again, before the aliens burst in, weapons ready.

“Halt,” the leader snapped. Loretta fell on the floor in shock. “Do not attempt to escape.”

The aliens marched forward, their black helms hiding their faces, and grabbed Joshua with their gloved hands. Before he could make a single protest, they tied his hands behind him and thrust him against the wall. A moment later, Loretta joined him, a nasty bruise developing on her face where she’d hit the ground. Joshua tried to meet her eyes as the aliens searched the apartment, smashing their way through everything to find all of his secrets, but she kept her face turned away from him. He could hear her sniffling, just loud enough to hear, but he couldn’t even touch her to comfort her.

“You will accompany us,” the alien leader said, finally.

A handful of aliens carried the evidence — the laptop, Loretta’s computer junk and his handgun — as they were hustled down the stairs. Joshua saw a pair of residents, staring at them… and then he saw Mr Adair. One look was all it took to know what had happened; he had, for some reason, betrayed them. Joshua couldn’t think why, or even care, not when they were being hustled off to some unknown fate.

Bastard , he thought, and let the aliens drag him onwards.

There was no escape.

Captain Mohammad Karim leaned back as the line of prisoners were marched past towards one of the security camps outside Basra, where they would be interrogated and — eventually — punished. The Iraqi police had been watching this particular group for several weeks, confirming that they were actually involved with smuggling weapons and explosives into the country, before sending in his Company to arrest the men. Some of them had tried to fight it out, hoping, like so many others, that poisoned faith could provide a counter for training and experience, the others had shown their ‘willingness’ to die for the cause by surrendering at once. Karim and his men had bound their hands, searched the warehouse quickly and effectively, and found enough proof to ensure that the men spent a few uncomfortable years in the desert.

Idiots , he thought, as he lit up a cigarette. His men had been recruited in the chaotic years of the insurgency, first working for the Americans and then for the Iraqi Government, and between them they had nearly a hundred years of experience in street-fighting. The terrorists they’d captured were nothing more than untrained punks from a madrassa somewhere in Saudi or Pakistan, dangerous only in numbers and only then if their targets were unarmed. The explosives they’d had with them might have killed a few dozen Iraqis, but it was much more likely that they would kill themselves when they tried to plant them. The Iraqi citizen who’d called in the tip, one of millions who was sick of the violence that kept trying to rear its head in his country, had probably saved their lives. They wouldn’t be thanking him any time soon.

“All yours,” he said, as the policemen came and took custody of the terrorists. It made sense to have the army conduct the arrests, but the police had to hold them in custody, before they were tried and sentenced. The police weren’t a soft option; they lived and worked in Basra and loathed the terrorists who’d tried to tear the city apart. They would be more likely to accidentally shoot the prisoners while trying to escape, rather than letting them go, something that had been a persistent problem back in the early days. Now, Iraq was finally starting to stand on its own two feet.

He looked over towards the single American advisor. The man had been distracted lately, worrying about the fate of his fellow countrymen in America… and it was hard to blame him. The terrorist internet had been shouting the praises of the aliens to the skies for destroying the Great Satan, but Karim was fairly sure that the aliens didn’t mean Islam any favours either. They’d casually destroyed mosques along with churches in America, after all, and they probably intended to do the same in Iraq. The only saving grace, as far as he could see, was that the aliens probably didn’t have the numbers to take on the entire world. By the time they reached Iraq, they might even be ready for them…

But in the meantime, there was work to be done. The main Iraqi supporters of terrorism had been either beaten or brought into the government, where they found it much harder to get to grips with the problems they’d claimed had easy solutions, but there were still thousands of terrorists out there. The alien invasion had brought more of them out of the woodwork, whereupon they’d started to attack Americans and their allies all across the Gulf. They’d also started another campaign to bring down the Iraqi Government, although this one had failed spectacularly… even though the world media would probably hail it as a great terrorist success. Karim had a private blacklist of reporters, mainly American, who always exaggerated in their reports… and not in the favour of the good guys. It was a complex war, an endless struggle that had been, mercifully, coming to an end… and one where enemies could become friends, or vice versa, at the drop of a pen.