Christopher Nuttall - Invasion

Below, the prisoners were gathering. Mainly young and very scared men, their enthusiasm for the fight had vanished the moment the aliens opened fire, their clothes stained with the blood of their fellows. Most of them had been wounded, sometimes badly, in the lopsided fight; Naseer saw, now, just how stupid they’d been. Out in the open like that, it had been easy for the aliens to cut them all down; all they’d had to do was point and shoot. They could hardly have missed ! The prisoners cringed inward as the aliens threw them out of their hiding places, trying to combine sullen defiance with a desire to avoid being noticed by their captors, the black-garbed aliens who had beaten them. The leaders…

The thought gnawed at him. Where were the leaders? Where had they gone?

It struck him, suddenly, that they’d been betrayed. The leaders had pushed them into a position where they could fight — and die — while they’d remained behind. The Royal Family’s tame clerics had been right all along! The attack hadn’t, as far as he could tell, harmed a single alien, while hundreds of young men were prisoners… and it looked as if the aliens had wiped out the entire population. Surely so much blood and gore had to come from thousands of people!

He heard, below him, alien stormtroopers, moving through the building and flushing out the inhabitants. The young fighters — so long ago it felt like another life, one lived by an idiot — had ordered the families within the building to remain, confident that the aliens wouldn’t put their lives in danger. The leaders had had some reason to believe that, one that they hadn’t shared with their young charges, but whatever their reason, they’d been wrong. The aliens hadn’t hesitated to burst into the buildings, drag out everyone involved, regardless of their sex or clothing, and throw them out to join the other prisoners. He felt a cold burst of helpless anger when he saw the young women being added to the bag, even though the aliens didn’t seem to be interested in them that way, but coming on top of all the other shocks, it hardly seemed to matter. The aliens would find him, soon enough; he had to be visible from their position, standing up and looking stupid. He hadn’t even sought cover when the aliens had opened fire.

He sighed and turned to face the aliens as they came out of the rooftop door. He wasn’t sure what he wanted to do, but he no longer wanted to fight; when the aliens appeared, he started to hold up his hands in surrender… and then they shot him. A hot burst of pain, right in his chest, sent him staggering backwards and crashing to the ground.

“Why?” He tried to say. A clinking sound as the remains of the bottle hit the roof answered his question. He’d forgotten all about the bottle and they’d shot him for it. He would have laughed, but suddenly it hurt so badly…

Darkness came for him, finally, a child lost in an adult world.

Ambassador Simon Carmichael watched grimly as the aliens completed the suppression of Riyadh. The American Embassy within the city had been almost under siege from the first alien landings in Texas, when the radicals had realised that they would probably never have a better chance to take complete control, but the month hadn’t ended with a repeat of the Iranian Hostage Crisis. Somehow, in defiance of all of his predictions, the Saudis had managed to hold on, barely, until the aliens had landed. They’d rapidly crushed the Saudi Army and National Guard, before moving in on the cities…

Idiot stupid prince , he thought, taking a puff on his cigar. He had the feeling that it would be a long time before any more cigars came in from Cuba, assuming the aliens let him live. No one knew if they had any concept of an Ambassador, even if they had treated the folks in orbit well enough, but they might seek to make an example of him. Judging from the complete collapse of the defences, they wouldn’t need to make any more horrible examples — the Ambassador’s Saudi aide had slipped through the streets and returned with tales of horror — but who knew how the aliens thought? What was he thinking ?

He shook his head, watching the fires swelling in the distance; the fire brigade couldn’t cope with so many at once. The Saudi Prince in command of the Army hadn’t had any proper training; the Princes that actually did have such training were rarely allowed to actually put that training to use. There was too much fear, apparently, that someone who was genuinely popular and linked to the Royals might launch a coup… and that fear had led to a quick and complete disaster. The Americans attached to Saudi HQ, before the telephone links had been lost, had reported that the General in command had led his tanks out to do battle. He might as well have shot all of his men himself. It would have been quicker and perhaps kinder.

Redshirt bastards probably couldn’t believe their luck , Carmichael thought. There they are, knowing full well that they stomped us and that everyone else has been learning from those lessons, and here’s a complete dumbass leading his men out for the slaughter …

He turned, slightly, as Captain Harper entered. “Sir,” the Captain said. The Marine Protection Detail in Riyadh was much bigger than most cities. The thought of losing the ambassador and all of his staff had focused a few minds at State and they’d ensured that the embassy defenders were armed to the teeth. They couldn’t have hoped to hold off a full assault, not long enough to matter, but a rampaging mob might have been beaten off. “The gates are closed, but…”

Carmichael understood his problem. If the aliens took it into their heads to take the Embassy, it was going to happen… and the best the Marines could do was go down fighting. They might not even have that chance; several buildings in Riyadh had been destroyed from orbit and the aliens might just do the same to the American Embassy.

“Tell them not to open fire unless attacked,” he said, grimly. There was little point in trying to pick a fight with the aliens. Washington’s orders, before the aliens had knocked out the landline — had been simple enough; burn the documents, then do what seemed necessary in the circumstances. His lips twitched, suddenly; the Ambassador in South Korea was probably in worst circumstances. The North Koreans had gone over the border and had taken Seoul. “If the aliens want us, they’ll have us.”

“Sir,” Harper said. Despite knowing the man for nearly a year, and spending at least an hour with him each day since the invasion, Carmichael still found it hard to read him. Did the Marine wish for a final, glorious last stand, or was he silently grateful that his men would be spared a hopeless fight? “What do we do about the natives?”

Carmichael blinked. “The natives?”

Harper nodded. “Sir, we have already had hundreds of men coming to the embassy and begging for sanctuary,” he said. Carmichael lifted an eyebrow. He honestly hadn’t thought that that was a possibility. “Some of them are… well, just civilians, others are actually important figures in the government.”

“I doubt they even have much of a government now,” Carmichael said, looking out towards the towering flames. He wondered, idly, what to do. The compassionate answer would be to take as many in as possible, but the practical answer was to keep them out, reserving their stockpiles of food for the Americans. Part of him, he was unwilling to admit aloud, took a certain amount of pleasure in watching the former government suffer, the rest of him knew that it would be bad publicly. The practical side won out. “Keep them all out, unless they are actually working for us… yes, them and their immediate families.”