Christopher Nuttall - Invasion

A thin whistle echoed through the air from the lookout; the aliens were coming. Sean gripped his weapon in one hand and checked it, again, as he heard the strange noise of alien vehicles. A few weeks ago, the religious police would have been on the whistler and beaten him, but now… now, the young men could whistle all they liked. The aliens wouldn’t notice until it was too late. He saw them turning the corner, a handful of armoured fighting vehicles… and pushed hard down on the detonator. The IED exploded with colossal force.

“Now,” he barked, and opened fire, spraying bullets across the alien forms. The blast had been more powerful than he’d anticipated and the alien convoy had been dented, although the two armoured vehicles had survived. Their gun barrels traversed with frightening speed to bear on the insurgents, but two of the young men hurled satchel charges onto the vehicles and detonated them, caught in the blasts themselves. The handful of remaining aliens took cover with commendable speed and returned fire, but knew that they were trapped. Their only hope was to hold out long enough for help to arrive and, hopefully, wipe out the insurgents.

He waved across at Kalid, a young man who was slightly more responsible than the others, and gave the retreat signal. Five of the men obeyed at once and came running, while a series of detonators and firecrackers exploded high above, trying to convince the aliens that they were still under attack. Sound-wise, it would be as if an entire Company was attacking their positions, although the absence of bullets pinging off their armour would be a bit of a giveaway. The remaining men continued to fight, trying to get as many aliens killed as possible, but Sean knew that they would all die. He wanted to stay and fight himself, but they would just end up trapped; grimly, he led the retreat though the streets, heading for the safe house.

“We can’t leave them,” Kalid protested, as they ducked under cover. A flight of alien helicopters passed overhead with menacing speed. A moment later, he heard the scream of rockets as they pummelled hell out of the surrounding buildings, apparently still under the impression that the buildings were occupied by dangerous insurgents, firing down at trapped aliens. “Sir…”

“There’s no choice,” Sean snapped back. He missed the remainder of the platoon desperately at such times; he would have welcomed a Royal Marine or even a Paratrooper, rather than such poor raw material. The other lads were likely to get killed by the people they were meant to be training. “They knew the dangers and they knew what would happen if they disobeyed.”

He looked back as the sound of human weapons cut off abruptly. The Saudi culture, as far as he could tell, was a bizarre mixture of Islam, machismo and a superiority complex that dwarfed anything else he’d ever met. He could imagine what the idiots he’d left behind had thought — there was no reason why proper Saudi lads couldn’t do the job of the infidel and probably better — and, in doing so, they’d gotten themselves killed. He wouldn’t shed any tears over them, not now, even though he saw a hint of the young teenager he’d been in their eyes. They’d never had to learn the way the world worked until it had been far too late.

The walk back to the safe house was easier as the streets filled with people again. They might have realised that several of the insurgents were returning to their base, but Sean had taken the precaution of ordering his men to keep their weapons hidden, both from the humans and the aliens. A collaborator could be anyone, and, unlike Texas, the collaborators were more often genuine than not. He’d taken a more complex precaution as well — none of the boys, apart from Kalid, knew the location of the safe house, but they would have to be more careful in the next few weeks. The aliens might have taken prisoners… and everyone broke eventually. There were more horror stories than hard fact about the alien methods for interrogation, but no one doubted that they worked, although the cynical part of his mind suggested that it had more to do with hard cash than anything else.

“Check the traps,” he ordered, as they entered the house. The noise of alien helicopters was growing louder, but they didn’t seem to have picked up any scents, just buzzing around to see who reacted. He refused to be panicked by them. “Once that’s done, we’ll lay low for a few hours, understand?”

The house had once been owned by a wealthy man, although none of them knew who, and he had had an astonishing — and probably illegal — collection of DVDs, some of which were borderline pornographic. He also had a collection of drink, including some quite rare vintages, all of which Sean had poured down the sink. The young men would have tasted alcohol before, on trips to Bahrain and Europe, but the last thing he needed was for them to get drunk near weapons. That was asking for disaster.

“Not a bad days work,” he said, once they’d checked the traps and confirmed that they were undisturbed. The aliens would have gotten a surprise if they’d tried to burst in. “We might just make soldiers out of you yet.”

“They’re not happy,” Captain Harper reported, that evening. The Marine seemed more excited than normal, almost smiling. “It seems that several attacks were made against their forces in the city and they want answers.”

Carmichael smiled thinly. “And are they blaming the attacks on us?”

“Not yet, but they do have their suspicions,” Captain Harper said. “They might not want to disturb the embassies, but I think it’s going to be harder to move around now. Hell, we don’t even know why they let us stay here…”

Carmichael had been giving the matter some thought. There seemed to be no logical reason for it, but the aliens had actually treated them as a semi-official delegation, although they seemed unwilling to say so out loud. “They don’t have an embassy in… America,” he said. He’d been about to say Washington, but that was too painful for words. “Or anywhere else, for that matter, unless they have one in Russia and the Russians haven’t told us. Perhaps they want to have some way of communicating officially with us…”

He broke off as a dull rumble echoed over the city. “Are we under attack?”

“No, that’s coming from further away,” Captain Harper said. He tilted his head for a second as the rumbling grew louder. The entire building, as large as it was, was shaking slightly under the pressure. “I think… I think we’d better get up to the roof.”

He led the run up the stairs and onto the roof. The sky was alight, not with the strange twinkling of the first battles in space, but with a thousand glowing engines. He thought of fireflies, hanging in the sky, but these were falling down towards the south. It wasn’t like the first invasion, or other alien activities, but something else…

Captain Harper put it into words. “My god,” he breathed. “They’re landing their population! We’ll never get rid of them now!”

“Are you sure that this is a good idea?”

“Nup,” Brent said, happily, as he mounted his bike. “You do know all the dangers, don’t you?”

Joshua gave him what was supposed to be a reproving look, although he suspected that after having faced flying bullets, it wasn’t that terrifying. “Yes,” he said. Brent had spelled them all out in precise detail. “Are you sure that this is a good idea?”

“It has to be done,” Brent said, dryly. “You’re the only other person I can take with me, so… you’re coming. Besides, you can write about it for your blog.”