Jihad on their Arse (Posleen in Saudi)
Prologue

This is a true story.

Nearly three hundred years ago, the representatives of a new Islamic sect – the Wahhabists – imposed themselves upon the Holy City of Mecca. Unwillingly, they were invited to debate with the leading scholars of Islam, where they proved themselves to be lacking in understanding. The leaders of the city pronounced them unbelievers, for their disgraceful actions in condemning others as non-believers without any evidence, and banished them from the city.

They refused to heed the words of warning. Years later, working in an uneasy alliance with the House of Saud, the Wahhabists returned to Mecca, shattering years of history and destroying the remains of the core of debate, of intellect, that had lit the fuse of Islam. Since then, Islamic thought has declined into madness, falling ever further into an abyss that can only result in destruction.

There is a moral in that, somewhere.

***
The eyes of the Saudi Minister of Defence flickered nervously back and forth across the room, his long beard matted with sweat. Only a few days ago, Iraqi forces had marched across the border into Kuwait, and no one knew if Saudi Arabia was the next target. The Minister of Defence knew, perhaps more than anyone else in King Fahd’s councils, just how weak Saudi Arabia really was. The battle-hardened veterans of Iraq’s Republican Guard would roll over the Saudi Army and reach Riyadh before they could be stopped – if they could be stopped.

He lifted his eyes and focused on the dark eyes of the man facing him. There was an intensity, a commitment, in the man’s eyes that scared him; the Minister of Defence possessed little faith himself. A lifetime of extreme luxury, a post that came more through family connections than any competence, all had contributed to his state of mind. The man he faced had built his company into a force to be reckoned with; his force of Afghanistan freedom fighters the private and unvoiced terror of the Middle East. The Minister of Defence found it hard to meet his eyes; he was grimly certain that the man was laughing at him behind his grave face.

“The situation is dire,” he agreed, neutrally. His visitor’s lips didn’t twitch into a smile. The Minister of Defence silently damned his own weakness. “In fact…”

“And time is running out,” his visitor snapped. “It won’t be long before they come into the holy land and take the holy cities from the stewardship of your family.”

The Minister of Defence winced. The contempt that lurked under the fine words had shown itself, just for a moment, just long enough to chill him. Had he the ability to smite his guest and all of his works, he would have purged him from Saudi society, but it was politically impossible. All of the interlocking power bases would join forces against the central core of the House of Saud…and Saudi dominance would come crashing down.

“His Majesty has given thought to activating our treaty with the Americans,” the Minister of Defence said finally. It was true; the King had been talking to President Bush almost since the first units had rolled across the border. “With American help, we can defend the holy city.”

“You will ask infidel men to defend the holy cities?” His visitor demanded. The Minister of Defence decided not to point out that some of them would be women. “Allah will deliver us all into the hands of Saddam Hussian.”

The Minister of Defence allowed some of his own helpless anger to show. “An interesting charge, particularly since you had some support from Saddam,” he snapped. “Do you have a better option?”

His visitor dropped a folder, ten pages of handwritten notes, in front of the Minister of Defence. “We defend the holy cities ourselves,” he said, his voice shifting to sudden earnestness. He was charismatic, unfortunately; his talks had been known to influence people who were the inevitable losers in Saudi society. He gave them someone to blame – mainly the Royal Family. “We have the forces and we have the men – my entire organisation would be at your disposal, committed to this great jihad against the Iraqis.”

His voice became softer. “Say the word and my companies will start building defence lines along the border,” he said. “My men will fly into Saudi Arabia, move up to the defence lines and reinforce the army and the National Guard. One trained man, experienced in the caldron of Afghanistan, a survivor of the Great War against the Russian unbelievers, would be worth dozens of the Iraqis! How will they stand against the thousands of men, their hearts fired with faith and determination to die in the defence of the Holy Cities?”

The Minister of Defence lifted a single eyebrow. “I can raise four thousand men now, from Saudi Arabia itself,” his visitor said. “In a week, I can have six thousand holy warriors flying in from Afghanistan, where they will take the role of training the young men of Saudi and exposing them to the full rigours of Islam and holy war against the infidel. Such an army could do anything.”

The decision had been made. The Minister of Defence knew exactly what that army could do; it would be unstoppable if it decided to overthrow the House of Saud. Saudi popularity was bought with money, but no one had any doubt at all as to how loved they actually were – half of their military problems were caused by trying to coup-proof the entire state. Given half a chance…

“Such a decision is not made quickly,” the Minister of Defence stalled. “There must be consultations, decisions; the King must pray to Allah for guidance…”

“The next time that that man prays will be the first time,” his visitor sneered.

The Minister of Defence ignored the comment. “I expect that the King will make whatever decision he feels is best for the situation,” he said, already knowing what the decision would be. “You would be informed, naturally, of what is decided.”

His visitor bowed and left the room. The Minister of Defence watched him go, feeling calm only when the door had firmly closed behind him, knowing exactly what would happen. There were no way that they could allow a ten-thousand-man army, composed of people who had been brought up to believe that the House of Saud was a corrupt entity that had systematically betrayed Islam – to say nothing of the man who led them, whose dreams of power would finally lead him into a struggle with the House of Saud for dominance. He didn’t play by the rules…

The Minister of Defence picked up his phone and started to dial a number. Within a week, American troops would begin to arrive in Saudi Arabia; they would guarantee the regime against its enemies. All of its enemies. As long as the alliance with America held, people with ambitions of their own for the Saudi oil money – and, at bottom, the Minister of Defence believed that it was all money – would be held firmly in check. The alliance would hold.

The Minister of Defence smiled. What could break the alliance?

Chapter One: The End of an Era

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
20th November 2002

General William Morrigan hated Saudi Arabia.

The General followed his guide through the Royal Palace that served as the Saudi Ministry of Defence, concealing his thoughts behind his dark face. The knowledge that the Saudi Arabs regarded him as little better than an uppity nigger kept his mind focused; Saudi Arabia was a land of hypocrisy, far from the holy land that Saudi propaganda claimed it to be. He knew, better than anyone else in the months since the human race had suddenly woken up to the news that an army of rampaging alien centaurs was heading towards Earth…with blood in their eyes and hungry stomachs. Morrigan wouldn’t have believed it – like so many others – he hadn’t believed it…until after seeing the first medical reports on dead Posleen.

The thought made him smile inwardly. The Posleen seemed to be capable of eating humans, let alone human food crops; they would care nothing for human foolishness. The Americans were trying to prepare as best as they could, along with Britain and the former Anglo nations; the French and the Germans were in denial about the entire impending invasion. Saudi Arabia…well, the Saudis had been notified about the Darhel contact, along with the other nations on Earth, but they had clamped tight restrictions on the distribution of the information. Rumours had spread into Saudi, or course, but so far the Government had managed to prevent an open panic. That would cost them, later; the invasion was likely to kill almost the entire population.

He nodded once to the footman, a man wearing flowing white robes, as he opened the door into the Minister of Defence’s office. The sight brought back memories of stories his grandfather had taught him, stories of Arabic warriors and glories, stories of valiant men living a honourable life out in the desert, away from the horrors of civilisations. He had trilled to the stories – his grandfather had been of Arabic descent – and had lobbied hard for a posting to the gulf during Desert Storm. The reality…

The reality had not matched his expectations. The little boy inside the older General wept, even as the General adjusted his own personal strategies to reflect reality, rather then romantic dreams. His very posting, the slightly unusual post he held, was a reflection of an inability to accept reality…but now, all of that could change.

“Bill,” Prince Salim said.

Prince Salim was one of the few Saudi princes whom Morrigan actually approved of, although it was in a disconnected kind of way. Unlike many Saudi Princes, who were content to waste their lives away on wine, women and song – all strictly banned by fundamentalist Islam - Prince Salim actually had tried to make something of himself. A man who lacked a ready-made power base – he was the younger son of a prince on the edge of the family – he held the post he held through the fact that he could never build a power base that could challenge the entire family.

In appearance, he was little different from the remainder of his family, a tall man wearing flowing robes. A single neatly-cut beard hung down from his chin; he wore no head covering at all. He was married, with only one wife; Morrigan knew that he had a habit of patronising the whorehouses that weren’t supposed to exist. They existed in Bahrain, a country that often played host to young Saudi royals; the religious police had no presence there.

His eyes, at least, glittered intelligence. He would need all of that in the days to come.

“I have heard sad news,” Prince Salim said, as Morrigan took a sinfully comfortable seat. The prince’s natural…over-acting – he had once burst into artfully managed tears – was supposed to be something useful in Saudi; Morrigan found it merely irritating. He reminded himself, once again, that there actually was a brain hidden behind those eyes. “Is it true? Can it be true?”

Morrigan suppressed his irritation with an effort. They made an interesting pair; the Saudi Prince and the American General, the Prince who had tried to modernise Saudi Arabia and the American General who had attempted to warn Congress of the dangers of following Cold War theory in post-Cold War practice. He suspected that that was why he had been stationed in Saudi for years; the proponents of military orthodoxy had to show that they could not be challenged without taking some revenge.

“You know – already – about the sheer size of the threat that is bearing down on our planet,” he said, without exchanging formalities. Prince Salim didn’t hang on formality like most of his kind. “What you may not know is that we had the first reports from the planet with the unpronounceable name.”

“Barwhon,” Prince Salim said, not exactly to Morrigan’s surprise. The American Government – and the governments involved in the allied mission to Barwhon to aid the Galactics – had attempted to classify most of the combat information involved; the Saudis had friends in the American State Department. It was whispered, at times, that they were the State Department. It would certainly have explained a lot about the functioning of the department. “Some ships returned, five days ago.”

Morrigan nodded. The report from Mike O’Neal had been clear and concise; the Americans would have to gear up far more than they already were to face and defeat the Posleen. The massed power of NATO – and Russian and Chinese units – had been hammered by the Posleen; doctrine itself would have to be changed to defeat the Posleen. All of a sudden, geopolitics took a back seat to survival.

Prince Salim nodded as his secretary came in, holding a tray of coffee cups and a single jug of coffee. The Saudis rarely had female secretaries; it would have been considered…unpleasant, to say nothing of insulting. Women were supposed to have little role in public life, even though they handled some jobs; the religious elements in Saudi society wanted them to stay home and have children.

“So,” Prince Salim said, after the coffee had been poured. “What exactly does this mean for us?”

Morrigan sipped his coffee, considering how to proceed. His position – commander of all American forces in Saudi Arabia – was a child of the Posleen Crisis; the Saudis had wanted reassurance and Washington had given it to them…in the form of General Morrigan, Military Liaison to Saudi Arabia. On its own, it would have had all the effect of an airgun against the Posleen; the real purpose had been to keep Iraq quiet while America prepared.

“I have been ordered to give you a message,” he said. The message had been given to him personally by the President; there was no way that the Ambassador could give the message. Ambassador Jackson had his moments, but as a career diplomat he couldn’t give the message and make it stick. The Saudis were experts at worming their way out of commitments they didn’t like. “It comes directly from the highest levels of American Government.”

“Which means the President,” Prince Salim said. “Pray, proceed.”

“The crisis has become far too dangerous to continue to divert American strength by placing combat units in Saudi Arabia,” Morrigan said flatly. Prince Salim’s poker face vanished; his face was twisted with shock. Morrigan realised that he must have known what was about to happen, but he hadn’t quite believed it, not really. “As you are aware” - Prince Salim had taken part in the discussions – “the soldiers based in your fair country were intended to provide part of a force capable of deterring Saddam Hussian, along with air and naval units based here and in the gulf.”

He took a breath. “Following…First Contact, the units were designated as an active reserve for Continental Command, to be redeployed back to America as required, or to be dispatched to contain an incursion on the ground in the Middle East or the Pacific. You requested certain guarantees, which were met to the best of our ability, but…well, with the new information, all of the forces here will be about as useful as farting into the wind and expecting it to stop dead.”

Prince Salim’s lips twitched at the obscenity. Morrigan smiled to himself, despite the bitterness; few Americans had really understood the impact of a single Posleen lander, let alone a combat globe. The planners had intended, at first, to rely on new units raised from American citizens, while using the deployed soldiers to intervene against Posleen landings elsewhere on Earth. It was good old Cold War logic…and worthless against the Posleen. Morrigan had his doubts, after reading the reports from Barwhon, as to what the entire American army could do against the Posleen on American soil; the efforts of America had been refocused on bare survival. What price the Middle East and the oil reserves when America itself was threatened?

“It is the decision of the President, acting with the advice and concurrence of the Joint Chiefs of Staff” – ignoring the fact that the Joint Chiefs had been opposed to the entire continued deployment of American troops – “that American troops are to be withdrawn from Saudi Arabia – and, indeed, the rest of the world. The forces in Germany were already slated to be pulled out; they will be joined by the forces based in Japan, Australia, Britain and the other NATO countries. This…”

“This is a breach of the treaty,” Prince Salim snapped, trying to overcome his shock. Morrigan was unsympathetic. “You agreed to guarantee our security against Saddam and Iran, in exchange for the oil that will suddenly be a lot harder to provide…”

“Oil is being drilled now and stockpiled from American sources,” Morrigan said. The concerns of American environmentalists aside, he took some pleasure in Prince Salim’s expression; Saudi’s main weapon for making the United States do what it wanted had just been knocked from his hand. “While we expect that Saudi will continue to fulfil its obligations, its continued participation is no longer necessary.”

Prince Salim’s face flashed anger. “Our continued participation was dependent upon your…protection,” he snapped. “Washington will hear of this…”

Was it more overacting or genuine rage? Morrigan didn’t care. “You will honour your obligations,” he said. The flatness in his voice seemed to calm Prince Salim down. “American air units will remain within Saudi up until the final moment, where they will support your ground forces…in the event of Saddam trying to rattle his cage.”

“You should have removed the bastard while you had the chance,” Prince Salim snapped. “Send a force of Armoured Combat Suits to Baghdad. End him, once and for all.”

“And who was trying to stop us when we wanted to move, and encouraging us when we didn’t want to move?” Morrigan asked dryly. He caught a grasp on his own feelings, his own spinning rage, and forced it down. A General could not afford to get angry…and, despite appearances, this was as much a battleground as Kuwait had been. “It no longer matters, Prince Salim; America must look to its own defence.”

Prince Salim’s face was bitter. “And when the Iranians cross the Gulf, or Iraq attacks us…?”

“They would have to be insane to try that with the Posleen breathing down their necks,” Morrigan said. Truthfully, it was one of his private concerns; human combat power could be burnt off in skirmishes that had suddenly become utterly meaningless. What mattered it if North Korea conquered South Korea, when the Posleen would eat both sides indiscriminately? “Like you, they would do much better to prepare for war against the Posleen.”

“The information we will need to fight against them has been classified by the American government,” Prince Salim said. His voice was icy. “Your forces have fought the Posleen and no one knows what happened.”

“The information will be made available through the TERDEF network,” Morrigan assured him. The TERDEF network, an attempt to coordinate the orbital defence of Earth, would have considerable openness, just to save as much of the human race as possible from the Posleen. Morrigan knew that American officers provided a vast percentage of the crews who would man the PDC centres and the ships that the Galactics had provided for Earth’s defence, but he also knew just how thin a line it actually was. The Posleen would be certain to make at least some landings on Earth…and then, all hell would be out for noon.

One thing was certain, Morrigan thought…and carefully did not say. No Arab army had a chance in hell against the Posleen. Idly, his mind began to consider options and tactics, all the while listening to Prince Salim’s ranting, waiting for him to say something useful or productive. So far, he hadn’t blamed everything on Israel, but Morrigan was sure that that would be coming soon.

“I see,” Prince Salim said finally. Morrigan was mildly impressed. “And why, exactly, will we continue to supply you with oil?”

Morrigan smiled grimly. He had expected that. The President had provided him with very firm instructions on the subject. “It is a strategic interest of the United States that as many countries as possible are prepared to face the Posleen,” he said. It was true, at least as far as it went; the United States might not mourn the loss of China, but a Posleen victory meant the extermination of humanity. “We would take grave offence at any attempt to damage the capabilities of any nation to resist.”

He leaned forward. “We might even prevent your people from taking their homes in the Caribbean and the other islands you have been trying to convert into new mansions,” he whispered.

He saw the expression in Prince Salim’s eyes and part of him recoiled. The House of Saud had been following the practice it had used during the Gulf War; it had launched its women and children out of the Kingdom, sending them to places that would be safe from the Posleen invasion, safer at least. Morrigan privately believed that their homes on Cuba would last as long as Fidel Castro wanted them to last, but that wasn’t an American problem. There just wasn’t much that America could threaten the Saudis with that wouldn’t divert their forces from facing the Posleen.

“I will defend my people,” Prince Salim said. “I will stay here to fight for them, whatever else happens.”

Morrigan believed him, oddly enough; Prince Salim had a sense of honour. “Perhaps you will,” he said, standing up. “I have been obliged to inform you that American forces have no choice, but to withdraw from Saudi and work towards the defence of the homeland. I have completed my mission.”

“So you have,” Prince Salim said. “What do you think of Saddam’s latest initiative?”

Morrigan wasn’t surprised at the sudden change of subject. It was standard practice. “It’s interesting,” he said, after a moment. Saddam Hussian had offered to supply the Darhel with as many soldiers as they could possibly want, in exchange for Galactic technology. “I don’t think that the Darhel will get their money’s worth.”

“Perhaps not,” Prince Salim agreed. He held out a hand. Morrigan shook it. “It’s been interesting, I suppose.”

Morrigan nodded. “I suppose,” he said. “There will be some help, but you’ll have to do much of it for yourself.”

Prince Salim grinned suddenly. “We will see,” he said. “We would be interested in continuing to maintain relationships with Washington.”

Which meant, Morrigan supposed, that the Saudis would try to pressure their allies into having the President’s decision revoked. “Relationships,” he said, thinking of all the ways that that word could be used. “I’m sure you would be.”

He placed his cap on his head, saluted once, and left the office. Behind him, Prince Salim was staring out of the window, lost in thought. Morrigan smiled, despite himself; it would be so good to be back in the USA. After all that he’d done, he deserved a combat command, at least. General Horner would owe him a favour, or two; a combat command would be easy for him to fix.

A pair of veiled women scuttled past him as he stepped into the official car. “Poor bitches,” Morrigan muttered, as the driver took them onto the main road. “They have no idea what sort of hell is coming their way.”

Chapter Two: Deal With The Devil

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
23rd November 2002

“Allâhu akbar Allâhu akbar,
“Allâhu akbar Allâhu akbar,
“Ash-hadu al-lââ ilâha illa-llâh,
“Ash-hadu al-lââ ilâha illa-llâh,
“Ash-hadu anna muhammadan rasûlu-llâh,
“Ash-hadu anna muhammadan rasûlu-llâh…”

The Call to Prayer echoed across the city, summoning the faithful – and those who wished to appear faithful – to the Mosques and prayer houses to pray to Allah. Now, the Imams had included a special prayer, for the salvation of Saudi Arabia from the Posleen. It was about the only constructive measure that the Government of Saudi Arabia – or what was left of it – had been able to take. Public opinion had celebrated the decision of the Americans to pull out, but…

The news had finally started to break in Saudi Arabia, aided by Al Jazeera and a handful of other stations – completely ignoring the fact that CNN, Fox and the BBC had been reporting on the Posleen right from the first open declaration of interstellar contact – and interstellar war. Prince Salim found it bitterly amusing, in some ways; prayer was likely to be all they would have.

He wondered, absently, what Morrigan thought, as his aircraft flashed home to America. Prince Salim had been to America – he had attended a training course for the American military – and one thing he knew was that Americans had an almost obsessive compulsion to be liked. Prince Salim would have been happier with the older saying – ‘let them hate, so long as they fear’ – but Americans were reluctant to use the main force that that would demand, at least until it was too late. In Saudi, there could be no question of ruling like Saddam; the Royal Family was in a very weak position…and it could not afford both a civil uprising and internal unrest. All it would take would be the masses moving to the streets, with the Mullahs and Imams leading them on…and the House of Saud would melt away.

Let them hate, so long as they were divided, but now…

But now, the people would be expecting solutions to the problem of a Posleen invasion, and Prince Salim knew that there were few solutions. Half of the House of Saud had already fled – a move gleefully reported by Al Jazeera – and the others were either unaware of the sheer scope for disaster, or hiding their heads in the sand and hoping that it would go away. Power was slowly concentrating itself around Prince Salim’s coalition, but that power was rapidly collapsing as the House of Saud weakened. It would be questionable if he would have enough power, when it was all in his hands, to do anything at all, and then…

Any Saudi Prince could get an inflated opinion of his own worth from sycophants. The American Sergeant he’d met when on the training course had been blunt, honest, and entirely too truthful to have an upward career, at least in Saudi. He’d told Prince Salim in no uncertain terms that he wasn’t – on the basis of six months – qualified to command an infantry force, an armoured force, a joint operations command…or, in fact, qualified to win a battle and a war. Prince Salim was honest enough with himself to know that the Sergeant had been right…and part of him wished the Sergeant well, wherever he was. He wondered, absently, just what was happening to Sergeant Duncan these days – where was he now?

There was a quiet tap at his door. “Come,” Prince Salim said, without turning around. An assassin could not have gotten so far inside the palace without being noticed. He felt more than saw the presence of his chamberlain, who had worked for him for years; his presence was distinctive. “Well?”

The chamberlain’s voice was grim, disapproving. “He has arrived, Your Highness,” he said. “He is currently waiting to see you.”

Prince Salim fought the temptation to make him wait longer. The message hadn’t surprised him, not in hindsight; powerful elements within both the royal and religious aspects of Saudi society had remained in contact with the man since he had fled Saudi. That boded ill for the future, Prince Salim feared, but…so did a Posleen invasion.

“You might as well show him in,” Prince Salim said. “Have refreshments brought to us. We might as well be as welcoming as we can.”

The chamberlain bowed and left the room. Prince Salim continued to wait. Moments later, he returned with another tall man, one with a longer beard and a grim flickering intensity in his eyes. His face was older, more rugged, than Prince Salim remembered, but then, it had been years since they had last met in person. He wore a standard rope, with no ornaments; he moved like a man who had been used to carrying a weapon. Prince Salim didn’t know why; the man had never taken part in any of his famous – and completely ineffectual – terror attacks.

“Osama,” he said, holding out a hand.

“It has been years since I was last here,” Osama said. His voice was different, more confident, more…dangerous. He hadn’t mellowed at all since their last meeting. “I was here just before the Americans were invited into this holy place.”

Prince Salim swallowed. He had known, of course, that the meeting between Osama and the then Minister of Defence had taken place, but it was a closely-guarded secret. Officially, it had never happened, particularly since America had become aware, no matter how dimly, of Osama’s existence. He would have thought – he had hoped, although he should have known better – that the beating that Osama had received with government backing had put him off…silently, he cursed the inherent weakness of the Saudi system.

“I offered to save you from yourself,” he continued. “I could have saved the holy places from American control. I could have turned this place into the land of Islam, but your family rejected me.”

One hand touched a delicate spot. “Your family chose to allow the Americans to defend you, but where are the Americans now?”

Prince Salim waved his guest to a chair. Osama had terrified the Saudi Royal Family…and at the same time some elements of that family had supported him, just for whatever reasons they found fitting. Power. Influence. Bare survival. The man had gone to Afghanistan, picking up the remains of the network that had been built to fight the Soviets…and now he was back in his home country.

“The American withdrawal was announced yesterday,” Prince Salim said. It hadn’t been announced on the Saudi news network, but Al Jazeera and CNN had picked up on it. How could they not have? “Up until the first Posleen landing, we are committed to remaining within the trade network, assisting the rest of the world to defend themselves against a Posleen invasion.”

“Aliens,” Osama said. His tone was vastly amused. “Who would have thought of it?”

Anger surged through Prince Salim’s mind. “You were skulking in the caves in Afghanistan,” he said. “I doubt that one American in a million knows your name. Why are you here, anyway? I thought that you were aiding the Taliban consolidate their control over the country.”

Osama gave him a long lazy smile. “I had something planned for America,” he said. “Something that would have shocked them to the core, but…there are new opportunities in this alien invasion, opportunities to…”

“Die,” Prince Salim said. “I saw the reports, even the ones the Americans don’t know that I have access to. The entire human race is in trouble.”

“I was asked to remain in Afghanistan, but the holy places are in danger,” Osama said. “The Americans would have destroyed them, in the long run, but now…now the aliens will destroy them, unless we stop them.”

“I see,” Prince Salim said. He suddenly felt very tired. “And what, exactly, can we do about it?”

“You should be at prayer,” Osama noted calmly. The call of the Imam could be heard, echoing through the walls as thousands of people prostrated themselves before Allah. “Have you no faith, my prince?”

The mockery was almost intolerable. “So should you,” Prince Salim snapped. “You have waged war for your version of the faith for years and you’ve managed to achieve nothing!”

He waved a hand at the tactical map on the wall. It was the only map in existence, the only one with the exact details of Saudi military deployments; the very fact that there were deployments was a state secret. Almost all of the regular army was strung out along the Iraqi border, with a handful of deployments near the south; the National Guard was deployed near the cities. If someone attempted to launch a coup, they would have few forces at their disposal.

“The aliens won’t find much impediment in our deserts,” he snapped. “We cannot even launch a massive military build-up without causing…”

“Massive civil unrest at actually having to do something for their bribes,” Osama supplied. His eyes glinted sudden mischief. “How horrifying; they’ll have to actually do something or get eaten.”

Prince Salim bit down on his anger. “Close enough,” he said. “We have too many places to defend and too little ability to actually hold them. In the north, Saddam licks his lips and thinks, hard, about sending his Republican Guard across the border into Kuwait – again. Iran considers what it can get away with – they, at least, have not hesitated to start preparing to defend themselves against the Posleen. And, of course…”

“You dare not build up a military force that can actually challenge the Posleen without risking losing control,” Osama observed. “The last time I was in this room, your predecessor rejected my offer of assisting in the defence of this land against the secular Iraqis. In fact, he allowed me to leave, believing that the House of Saud would finally live up to its responsibilities, but instead…”

“He invited the Americans in,” Prince Salim said. “I remember.”

“But the Americans proved just how easy it would have been to have defended Saudi Arabia,” Osama said. His voice was becoming more earnest. “If the infidel Americans could handle Saddam so easily, what could thousands of young Muslims, trained and fired in the faith, handle? They could have crushed Saddam and marched to Baghdad and replaced the regime with one built from pure faith! Would that not have been a better outcome?”

Prince Salim smiled. “You don’t think that overwhelming American firepower helped?”

Osama ignored the question. “Would that not have been a better outcome?”

It would have been the worst possible one from the House of Saud’s point of view, but Prince Salim knew better than to point it out. “Perhaps,” he said, keeping his voice neutral and flat. “However, only Allah can rewrite the past, and until He sees fit to do it…”

“You want me to concentrate on the here and now,” Osama said. “I will place the men of my organisation at your disposal, committed to the defence of Saudi Arabia and the holy cities.”

Prince Salim lifted an eyebrow. This was the meat of the matter, the only reason for Osama to have made the decision to risk the trip into Saudi Arabia. He risked much, including sparking off a civil war within Saudi itself…and this was why. The offer, Prince Salim knew, would be dangerous to accept…and just as dangerous to refuse.

“The men of your organisation,” Prince Salim said, after a moment. “I would have thought that the Taliban would have preferred for you to have remained in their land, assisting them in concentrating their grip over the country.”

“The Taliban has two viewpoints,” Osama admitted. “Half of them do not believe in the Posleen; they call it an American trick to take over the world. The other half does believe, but sees the defence of Mecca as far more important than anywhere in Afghanistan.”

And I can believe as much or as little of that as I choose, Prince Salim thought coldly.

Osama’s voice was growing stronger. “I have been building for years,” he said. “Thousands of men, veterans of the holy wars in Afghanistan, could come to Saudi to take part in the defence. Thousands of other young men from Europe, men who have been longing for the true faith, could come to Saudi – we can train them in the ways of fighting that would hold the cities against the aliens. It will be easy to fight the aliens - after all, they’re not human and our men won’t have any reluctance at all to shoot at them.”

“Yes, it is quite hard convincing young men that they should shoot other young men for daring to disagree with them on one minor interpretation of hadith,” Prince Salim said dryly. “Is it not harder when they have known the other men for years.”

“And most of your religious policemen come from the jails,” Osama reminded him dryly. “Can you imagine it? The exiles of Islam, returning home to defend the holy cities against the aliens! How can Allah fail to grant us victory?”

Prince Salim scowled inwardly. It would be politically impossible to refuse him. At the same time, accepting the offer meant taking the man holding the knife into his house and allowing him one free stab at his own back. If Osama made his bid for power at the wrong moment, it could lead to civil war, or worse…but what other choice was there?

“It would be considered useful,” he said, thoughtfully. No, refusing the offer was not an option, particularly with Saudi Arabia in such an uncomfortable state. The thousands of princes fleeing the country had unnerved the common rabble – and they wouldn’t be slow at expressing their displeasure. He fought the temptation to draw his pistol and shoot Osama down dead, knowing that it would only cause more upheaval – Al Jazeera would make much of yet another Saudi betrayal.

He looked up into Osama’s eyes. “There would be conditions,” he said, after a long moment. “Tactical command will remain with the Ministry of Defence” – which meant him – “and your people will obey orders, regardless of what they are.”

Osama smiled. “We have been training people to serve as soldiers in the Great Jihad,” he said. “We know about obeying orders.”

“Your people will behave themselves and remain in military camps,” Prince Salim continued. “They will not go into the cities, nor will they attempt to preach to the masses.”

Osama’s grin grew wider. “You would seek to deny Muslims access to the holy cities?”

Prince Salim felt cold. “There will be opportunities for that later,” he said, knowing that there wouldn’t be if he had his way. “There is no time to start off a confrontation with the clerics already in the cities.”

“Ah, but what if they want to come to the camps and hear the sermons?” Osama asked. “You will have to raise more men and firepower; the Posleen will take everything we have to stop them in their tracks.”

“If they make the trek to the camps, they may hear the sermons,” Prince Salim said, knowing just how large the looming disaster threatened to become. If he was lucky, the Posleen would kill and eat most of the young Jihadis – and, if he was very lucky, their sacrifice would actually mean something. “We do not have time for social unrest.”

“Of course not,” Osama said. He reached inside his robes and brought out a book, wrapped in plastic, and placed it on the table. The Qur’an was battered and damaged; part of Prince Salim’s soul recoiled at the damage, even as he understood it to be the evidence of Osama’s devotion. “We wouldn’t want that, would we?”

He placed one hand on the book. “I swear to you that I will carry out all the conditions and swear loyalty to your house, as long as the Posleen threat exists,” he said. His hand was on the Qur’an; Prince Salim didn’t see him shudder or recoil. “I swear before Allah, the merciful, the compassionate…”

“Thank you,” Prince Salim said, when Osama had finished. He knew that it was meaningless; someone like Osama could – and would – break oaths as it suited him to break them. “We will start making the arrangements through military command to have your people flown in and set up in the former American military camps.”

“Of course,” Osama said. He bowed and left the room. Prince Salim half-expected to hear a maniacal laugh echoing down the corridor as Osama walked out. Instead, there was only silence, silence while Prince Salim thought desperately. He’d made a deal with the devil, to avoid being eaten by the Posleen, but the devil had its own agenda…

On a sudden spurt of inspiration, he picked up his secure phone and dialled the number of one of his closest friends in the American State Department. There were always options, after all, and perhaps Osama could be countered, just long enough for him and his men to die in the defence of the House of Saud.

He shuddered. There was a very long hard road ahead.

Chapter Three: The Man From The State Department

Washington, USA
26th November 2002

The man from the State Department smelt of fat and powder. General Morrigan disliked him on sight.

The return from Saudi had been quicker than he had expected, although he had wondered if General Horner had been pulling strings on his behalf. He’d been flown into Washington four days after his meeting with Prince Salim, leaving the final matters of moving the soldiers back to America with CENTCOM. It wouldn’t be that difficult; the shipping had already been chartered…and, frankly, Saudi didn’t figure prominently in Washington’s concerns any longer. The soldiers and their combat equipment – what equipment would be useful against the Posleen – would be loaded on ships over the coming month, before being dispatched back to America. The British contingents had already been recalled to Britain; within a month, Saudi would be free of the infidels that it had railed against, at the same time as begging them to stay.

“I understand that you have not yet been given any command,” the man said. He hadn’t even bothered to introduce himself; Morrigan wasn’t surprised. The State Department treated the military with barely-concealed contempt, except when they relied upon the military to back up their threats and promises. “Washington has another task for you.”

“Really,” Morrigan said. Somehow, he wasn’t surprised, although he was surprised at the man coming to see him in person. Normally, orders would be issued from the Pentagon and he would leap to obey. “Might I ask as to your name?”

“Call me Randolph,” the man said. Morrigan wasn’t exactly surprised; Randolph looked a Randolph. It would probably be his real name, even though the State Department loved cloak and dagger missions. “There are important concerns concerning the development of American influence across the world in the face of the Posleen threat.”

“Really,” Morrigan said again. “There are important concerns concerning the defence of America from the Posleen threat.”

He smiled grimly. He’d been in Washington long enough to sort through all of the material that he had access to – and the situation was grim. The USAF would be almost useless against the Posleen, even though there were plans for a handful of fighters that might be able to survive Posleen ground fire for a few short moments, just long enough to relay some information to the defenders. The war would be tooth and nail, with the Posleen rampaging across America until they met something big enough to stop them dead in their tracks. It would be a war of positions; the Americans would have to dig in and break a Posleen charge the hard way.

He didn’t understand the Posleen, not even after the first battles on the alien world. They didn’t seem to understand the potential of their own technology; they certainly didn’t seem to use orbital bombardment on anything like the scale he would have used it, they just seemed to land, occupy a world and destroy it. Earth, when the Posleen population died out, would be a ruined world. They had to be stopped.

He dragged his attention back to Randolph with an effort of will. “The State Department is very concerned about the long-term effects on the American position in the world, once the war is concluded,” Randolph said. His voice remained excessively calm; the kind of voice that made a person want to make the speaker scream. “As you may be aware, all of our forces are being withdrawn to the continental United States, and, with the exception of a handful of advisors, America will not be assisting many states with their own defence.”

Randolph took a breath. “There will be some operations in Panama and elsewhere, but most of our attention will be concentrated on America,” he continued. “This has a worrying effect on American position in the world.”

“So you have said, twice,” Morrigan said, unwilling to take the discussion further. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but at the moment, we have to focus all of our efforts on just remaining alive and defending America. We could hardly spend the forces to defend South Korea, when Florida might fall to the Posleen and American citizens turned into thresh.”

Randolph seemed to recoil slightly at the suggestion. “Of course not,” he said. “The defence of America takes priority. However, we must secure our own position for greater influence in the world. Are you unaware, for example, that Saddam Hussian has been making deals with the Darhel?”

Al Jazeera had reported on it, with some alarm; Saddam Hussian was very much the bogeyman of the region. The thought of him armed with GalTech and other weapons would make the smaller states of the world terrified of him…and terrified of doing anything that might oppose him, for fear of his response. On the other hand…

Morrigan allowed a smile to crack through his lips. “The Posleen will eat his men for breakfast,” he said. “Unless Saddam is sending one of his few disciplined units to Barwhon or wherever, they’ll break and run when they see the Posleen, or even on the Darhel ships.”

Randolph looked concerned. American soldiers – and the soldiers of almost every other nation – had come close to mutiny, and in some cases had crossed the line, simply because the Darhel had taken very little care of them while they were in transit. The State Department had been very concerned, although Morrigan suspected that relations with the aliens was its main concern, rather than anything to do with such minor matters as the health and morale of the soldiers.

“Perhaps they won’t get their money’s worth,” Randolph conceded. “However, the prospects for a post-Invasion world are not looking good.”

Morrigan snorted rudely. “If the Posleen land in the Middle East, they will eat the humans there in short order,” he said. “American influence will mean nothing to them.”

“The point remains,” Randolph said. “South Korea is rearming. Japan is rearming, which worries all of the others in the region. Taiwan is rearming, which worries China, but they have other problems at the moment. Australia is rearming. Indonesia is rearming, which upsets our allies to the south of…”

“Very well,” Morrigan snapped. “You have made your point. However, the plain fact remains that we cannot reinforce them and at the same time guarantee the safety of America. If we lose here, then our influence in the world becomes worthless.”

“Exactly,” Randolph said, changing tack with suspicious eagerness. Morrigan felt a flicker of concern. “However, we have to make at least an effort, and that, General, is where you come in.”

“Finally, we get to the point,” Morrigan said. He felt his time running out. “What exactly do you want?”

“You may have heard about the recent claim that our old friend Osama has surfaced in Saudi Arabia,” Randolph said. Morrigan nodded; Al Jazeera had made that claim as well…and the Saudis weren’t denying it. If it had been a lie, they would have screamed to the heavens that it was a lie, a damned lie. “We have some good reason to believe that he will be offered command of at least part of the defence of Saudi Arabia.”

“Good luck to him,” Morrigan said gruffly. All Osama Bin Ladin and his men could accomplish against the Posleen would be dying bravely. Or, more likely, pointing other young men towards the Posleen to die bravely, while hiding in a bunker somewhere. “How exactly does this concern us?”

“The State Department has received a request from the Government of Saudi Arabia, now that events have settled down a little,” Randolph said. “They have reminded us of how hard it is to pump oil towards us with all of the unrest in Saudi Arabia…and they have made a single request.”

Morrigan lifted an eyebrow. “A single request?”

“They have requested that America dispatch a small team of advisors to Saudi Arabia to help them reform their army,” Randolph said. “We believe that that will provide a counter to the…fundamentalists in Saudi Arabia, and make them grateful to us, grateful enough, perhaps, to continue to support us and our presence in Saudi…”

Morrigan laughed. “We have been trying to advise them for years,” he said. “We have, the British have, the French have…and, do you know what? They have not listened to us, ever, because they’re more scared of their own army than they are of So Damn Insane. All the advice in the world will not save them – because they lack the ability to reform their army without fatally compromising their position.”

Randolph scowled. “Experts on Saudi Arabia believe that we could make significant changes,” he said. “Even if they lost, at least we would have tried.”

Morrigan, who was not only an expert on Saudi Arabia, but an expert on Islam, the region and a fairly competent General, laughed again. It was a bitter laugh; the Saudis had been working so hard to neuter their own army – just for their own safety – that now they would be dependent upon the radicals to defend their country. He knew he wasn’t the best General in the world, or even the American Army, but all of his advice would be useless unless the Saudis listened to him…

“That, my friend, is not the problem,” he said, when he had finished laughing. “The Army has produced dozens of studies on how the weaknesses in the Saudi Armed Forces can be compensated for, or corrected. I’m sure that you people have done the same; hell, I’m sure that some young man sitting at a keyboard, blogging away, can produce such an analysis. Do you know what the problem is?”

Randolph blinked. “The problem is that anything that makes the Saudi Army more efficient will turn it into more of a threat to the regime,” Morrigan said. “The higher officers, you know, the Generals like me, are all members of the Saudi Royal Family or, in some cases, their clients. No one who is not related to the Al Saud gets a shot at higher-up command, my friend…and, despite that, there have still been dozens of attempts to seize power in Saudi.

“That’s one problem,” he continued, before Randolph could interrupt. “The second is the quality of the men who make up the army. Most young Saudi men live in a world where they have to do very little; the government actually runs a social service that takes care of most of their needs. Now that the economy has hit problems, it’s going to get a whole lot worse – pause for hollow laughter – but they have few recruits for their army. Sure, thousands of new recruits actually did volunteer during the Gulf War, but most of them knew very little about actually fighting…and some of them couldn’t read Arabic, let alone English. The dumb bastards considered fighting a menial trade; they were reluctant to learn.”

He shrugged. “Oh, some units fought well in the Gulf, but only a few of them,” he concluded. “The Saudis don’t have any system set in place to study their defeats – read their history of the Gulf War sometime, you’ll find it instructive. When they lost at that border town, did they study their defeat? No – they lied to themselves and they lied to us and they did it in such a way as to make certain that they would believe their own lies. They don’t trust half of their own people; there is no way that they will be able to raise an army that can stand off the Posleen.”

Randolph’s expression hardened. “Unfortunately, the United States has little choice, but to assist them in raising such an army,” he said. “Our influence in the region demands it.”

Morrigan lifted an eyebrow. “And what poor worthless bastard has been lumbered with that task?” He asked. Randolph grinned suddenly. “Oh no, don’t tell me…”

“By order of the President of the United States, you have been assigned to the Saudi Ministry of Defence as an advisor and general assistant,” Randolph informed him. “The Saudis requested you personally.”

Morrigan moved to his feet. “I refuse,” he said flatly. “It will be a total disaster.”

“You will have a great deal of assistance from us,” Randolph assured him. “We might even be able to supply Saudi with advanced weapons…”

“Why don’t you dig up weapons from the First World War?” Morrigan asked tartly. “They will be about as helpful – and the stupid bastards might be able to use them.”

“We might have to,” Randolph said. “However, for the moment…”

Morrigan stood up and paced over to the bookcase, looking for a particular book. “Have you ever heard of General Stilwell?” He asked, trying to find that book. “He was in China during the Second World War, where he spent far too much time and effort attempting to convince the Chinese to build a proper army. Far too much lend-lease was wasted on the Chinese, who sold much of it onwards, or stole it, or stockpiled it for the civil war that everyone could see coming – everyone, but the American Government.

“Stilwell tried and failed to convince the Chinese, or the American government of the colossal waste of time and resources that China represented,” Morrigan continued. “He failed, despite much effort; the Chinese finally asked for his removal…and they got it too, bastards. They were unwilling to do anything that might build a proper army, for fear that their leader would lose his grasp on power. We all know what happened in 1949, Randolph; the Communists took over and they were welcomed by the population.”

He found the book and passed it over to Randolph. “Oh yes, the government failed to convince themselves that it was all their fault,” he concluded. “They spent time whining about the failure to hold China – as if China had ever really been ours – and blamed it all on the people there, who were working for the communists, or so they said. None of them realised that the problems happened because America wasn’t willing to demand good value for the weapons and supplies it pushed into China. None of them forced China to reform…and because of that the war was lost, both wars, and China was lost.”

Randolph glared at him. “We would not put you out there to fail,” he snapped. “We will support you…”

“No, you won’t,” Morrigan snapped back. “I will go there. I will review the plans that they will have drawn up to mobilise to face the Posleen. The plans will be useless. The attempts to implement them will be even more so. I will tell them that and they will ignore me or demand my relief. I will appeal to you and you will try to push me down because I will be ‘damaging US influence.’ I will either remain there or I will be thrown out of the country in disgrace…and when the Posleen arrive, the Saudis will be turned into Shish Kebabs.”

“The Prince in the Ministry of Defence has said that he will listen to your advice,” Randolph said. “He will even attempt to make changes that you will propose. If he complains, we will back you up. The President himself has promised that…”

“He won’t be able to keep that promise,” Morrigan said, feeling his voice darkening. “We will have no influence in Saudi; remember that. Everything that they have to do to survive against the Posleen will be utterly contra-survival. I will advise that…and I will be ignored. I will have to leave Saudi soon enough.”

Randolph smiled grimly. “General Horner and the Pentagon have already cut your orders,” he said, passing over a sheet of paper. “General Horner insisted on giving you considerable authority over the handful of remaining American forces in Saudi; that will give you a bargaining chip, if nothing else. You will return to Saudi day after tomorrow, long enough to start making a few plans to help the Saudis resist Saddam…”

“And the Posleen,” Morrigan said dryly. “Don’t forget them.”

Randolph laughed and headed towards the door. Morrigan opened it and allowed the man from the State Department to leave, resisting the temptation to kick him in the behind as he left. It would not have helped the situation. Grinning bitterly, he returned to his sitting room and skimmed through his orders, wondering just what General Horner was thinking, agreeing to this rather than sending him to command a division. There weren’t that many experienced combat commanders, after all.

The orders were unhelpful in that regard, but they had other advantages; General Horner had given him considerable authority, authority that transcended his service. He would not only command the remaining USAF stations in Saudi Arabia – which would be about as useful as spitting into the wind when the Posleen arrived – but also a set of attack submarines that would remain deployed in the Gulf. Quite why the Navy thought that keeping them was a good idea…? An idea occurred to him and he smiled; perhaps he could find a use for them, after all.

Morrigan shrugged to himself. He would go to Saudi, explain what they needed, and then they would reject his suggestions and send him back to the United States. What could be simpler?

Chapter Four: Standing His Ground

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
29th November 2002

“Did I ever tell you that I hate Saudi Arabia?” General Morrigan asked, as a hot dry wind blew past the two Americans. “This place stinks worse than Iraq.”

Captain Adam Denton smiled grimly. “Only about seven times, sir,” he said. “I have never had the pleasure of serving here before.”

Morrigan looked up at his aide, young and fresh-faced. He would have preferred an experienced American officer, preferably one who spoke Arabic and took no shit from anyone, but all of the non-REMF officers had already been snapped up by combat units. Captain Denton was competent enough, but he didn’t understand Saudi – few Americans understood Saudi. He’d looked for Sergeant Duncan, but the NCO had been assigned to an ACS regiment in the United States.

“It’s no pleasure,” he said, remembering the problems that they’d had with female personnel. That, at least, had been solved with the withdrawal of most of the American soldiers. He waved a hand towards a market street. “Down there, there is a coffee house, and American soldiers were taunted there by Saudis before the Gulf War got moving. They said that we were hired guns, and of course they were right; we placed American lives on the line to maintain this shithole of a nation.”

Denton stared at him. “But that’s not what’s in the history books,” he protested. “Everyone talked about how we had to prevent Saddam from overrunning the oil reserves and sending the world into a depression, or liberating the Kuwaitis from his occupation, or…”

“Winners write the history books,” Morrigan reminded him. “Sometimes they rewrite the history books, just so their right to victory remains unquestioned. This place…we kept it running, Captain; the people here don’t like us much. Why should they? It is our presence that’s maintaining the House of Saud.”

Denton looked thoughtful as they passed through a market. Both Americans wore their uniforms, with service weapons at their belts; if anyone tried to give them trouble, they would have to pay for it. There was a dark vibe in the air; the news of the Posleen had fallen badly on the city, with opinion divided between meaningless optimism and horror-struck panic. A preacher was standing on a box and screaming to the crowd; Morrigan paused to listen as the preacher blamed everything on America and Iran and disbelief in high places.

“That means the House of Saud,” Morrigan muttered, as they passed by. “It’s sickening; anyone who stood for democracy would be thrown in jail, but the religious element can say what they like. The House of Saud does not have long to live.”

The thought cheered him as they walked past a small group of religious policemen, who glared at them, noticed their weapons and the obvious competence of both Americans, and thought better of whatever they had been considering. Morrigan wasn’t surprised; like all Secret Police thugs, the Saudi religious police were completely incapable of fighting someone who knew what they were doing. A force of Marines could have taken the city within an hour; the Posleen would regard it as a gourmet buffet.

“Once we’re inside, let me do all the talking,” he said, as they reached the Ministry of Defence. Two armed National Guardsmen saluted as they stepped into the lobby; there were only a handful of security checks as they passed into the centre of the building. Morrigan wouldn’t be surprised if a bomber – or one of Osama’s men – got into the building and killed the nerve centre of Saudi defences. “In fact…”

He broke off as a pair of dark-skinned women, their faces uncovered, passed him. They cleaned the floors as they passed; Morrigan stepped aside to allow them to continue with their work, knowing that they were little better than slaves. Lured to Saudi Arabia by the promise of work, they were almost the personal property of whoever had invited them into Saudi – they would be beaten if they went out on the streets by the religious police. There were thousands – perhaps even millions – like them; no wonder that they hated the House of Saud. They could never return to their homelands again.

One of them gave him a shy smile at the unexpected courtesy. Morrigan felt a flicker of shame as they proceeded along the corridor, allowing him and Captain Denton to walk into the elevator and ride up to the top floor. It was a very bad design – any enemy could use a mortar to put a few shells into the building and kill the people who were charged with the defence of Saudi Arabia – but at the moment he found it hard to care.

A thought occurred to him and he smiled. Perhaps there were possibilities, after all…

“Ah, General Morrigan,” a voice said. “Come on inside.”

Prince Salim had come to meet them personally, his face a curious mix of pleasure and apprehension. Morrigan scowled at him absently, knowing that he’d already decided to carry out the President’s orders – if, perhaps, in not quite the way the President intended. Prince Salim had little to fear from him – at least, at the moment.

“Prince Salim,” Morrigan greeted him. He saw no reason to change the habits of a lifetime and use flowery terms and titles. “Thank you for your invitation.”

Prince Salim looked surprised for a moment, before he wiped the expression off his face. “This is my new aide, Captain Denton,” Morrigan continued. “His expertise is in logistics and other matters of interest.”

Prince Salim shook Denton’s hand. “A pleasure to meet you,” he said, leading the way into his office. Denton exchanged a long glance with Morrigan; Morrigan kept his face totally bland. It would do the young officer good to see the public and private sides of Saudi Arabia; in a week, he would introduce Denton to the fleshpots that weren’t supposed to exist. “I am pleased that you decided to return to our country, General.”

Morrigan remained in character. “You gave me little choice in the matter,” he said, rather sourly. If he showed any pleasure, Prince Salim would wonder why. “The State Department was rather insistent that your requests be honoured.”

Prince Salim took a chair and waved the Americans into chairs on the opposite side of a large table. A single map of Saudi Arabia and the other countries lay on the top of the table, marked with tactical icons. Morrigan, who knew that intelligence gathering was not high on Saudi priorities, was dimly surprised at seeing the icons for Iraqi forces placed along the borders.

“It looks as if they are thinking about an invasion,” he commented dryly. “What intelligence do you have on the subject?”

“Information on Saddam and Iraq’s regime is not easy to obtain,” Prince Salim said. His voice remained lightly amused. “We do not know what he is thinking, but we hope that the regular army will be able to stop him, should he come over the borders.”

Morrigan studied the map for a long moment. “You will need a strategic reserve,” he said, after a moment’s thought. “At the moment, if Saddam punches out one of your divisions, you will have nothing to plug the hole short of Riyadh itself and the National Guard there. And, of course, he might go for Kuwait instead.”

“If he does that, we don’t think that we can push him back out,” Prince Salim said. Morrigan lifted an eyebrow at the sudden display of competence. “The Emir of Kuwait has called a state of emergency and is arming up his men to prepare to fight to the death against either the Posleen or the Iraqis – or us.” Morrigan laughed. “We have fewer options than he does.”

Morrigan nodded. The Kuwaitis had lost their national independence once – and things like that tended to concentrate the mind. The Emir would have to be mad not to have his forces in defensive positions, none of which would help him if Saddam concentrated his own forces and pressed against the border defences. Kuwait was well defended, but, like all Arab armies, there was a question mark hanging over their competence.

Denton’s voice echoed through the room. “Why do they think that you will invade them instead?”

Morrigan answered for Prince Salim. “There is some bad blood between Kuwait and Saudi,” he said, without concern. Kuwait would be almost indefensible against the Posleen; that was all that mattered. “Our problem involves defending Saudi against the Posleen.”

“Or Saddam,” Prince Salim injected. “If he comes over the border, then what?”

Morrigan frowned. “You have access to satellite images, don’t you?” He asked dryly. CENTCOM gave the Saudis that access, despite Morrigan’s protestations over the years in Saudi. “If Saddam concentrates, you will have enough notice to allow the USAF units in Saudi to intervene against him…if you put your forces in positions where they will not be targeted at once.”

He allowed Prince Salim a moment to consider the prospects. “But they’re not the main problem,” he said. “The RSAF can handle the Iraqis, although not easily; that is not a problem. The problem is the Posleen…and they will not prove so easy to handle.”

He’d spent enough time in America to familiarise himself with the details. “There has been enough experience gained on the two main alien worlds to allow us to learn more about the Posleen,” he said. “Their standard invasion pattern appears to consist of a series of massive battle globes – to use the standard term – each of which holds upwards of five to six hundred landing craft, each of which holds a large Posleen force. In effect, each globe carries around four million Posleen – and each of them is a combat soldier.

“The Posleen globes and landing craft have weapons,” he continued, refusing to allow anyone to butt into his discourse. “Sometimes they use their weapons to sweep the enemy from the skies and the ground, sometimes they don’t and sometimes they fire at odd targets for no obvious reason. The landers are, in effect, air support for the Posleen troops – they are almost unbeatable with everything short of very heavy weapons. Sometimes they send them into combat, sometimes they just land, disgorge their soldiers…and wait for them to return. Again, we don’t know why, although we expect that it might have something to do with the actual danger that the landing craft is in at any moment.

“Each Posleen…company, for want of a better term, has around four hundred Posleen, complete with a God King commanding the force, armed with a heavy floating craft. This force will be extremely powerful, armed with weapons including heavy lasers, rocket launchers and probably several more that we haven’t seen. The individual Posleen appear to be armed with several different types of weapons; they also appear to be very good at putting down snipers who fire at their God Kings. That said, Barwhon combat experience suggests that a dead God King sends his troops into a state of shock until another God King takes over, so…”

“Osama and his merry men were talking about raiding the Posleen supply lines,” Prince Salim injected. “That might help.”

Morrigan thought about pointing out that the Posleen had no supply lines, at least in the conventional sense, and then decided not to bother. “This has certain implications for us,” he concluded. “Do you want to hear them, or are you depressed enough for the morning?”

Prince Salim laughed bitterly. “I think I had better hear them, don’t you?”

“The Posleen force will be very difficult to stop,” Morrigan said. “If a Posleen globe descends over this city, there will be a slaughter and it will become impossible to prevent the Posleen from killing and eating everyone they can get their hands on. The antiaircraft systems were designed for human weapons – human aircraft will be almost useless against the Posleen – and I do not expect that the crews will be able to accomplish much beyond dying gloriously. Your main problem is that you will not be able to get many GalTech weapons.”

Prince Salim frowned. “Why not?”

Morrigan wanted to laugh. “The Galactics are basically paying for human soldiers and human expertise,” he said. “They pay for combat forces on a complicated rating system, from American, British, French and German forces at the top, to Russian and Chinese forces, to everyone else below that. Israel actually has the highest rating, but they’ve been reluctant to send many troops off world, so their troops are rare outside their borders. In short, you need to send soldiers offworld to get Galactic currency – and Saudi soldiers are not rated highly.” He smiled grimly. “In short, you have no bargaining power with the Galactics – and Saudi money cannot be exchanged for Galactic currency.”

Prince Salim’s face darkened. “You are saying that we cannot stop the Posleen?”

Morrigan shrugged. “It can be done,” he said. “It will just be…difficult.”

He tapped the map. “If the Posleen land in Saudi, you’re fucked,” he said flatly. “No active Saudi force can handle an impact like that. You have to build an army now, moving as fast as you can, just to give yourself a hope of survival. That’s the first priority. The second is to accept the fact that manoeuvre warfare against the Posleen is impossible without ACS units or super-tanks…and you have neither.”

“We could buy them,” Prince Salim protested.

“You can’t buy ACS units from anyone who has them,” Morrigan said. “They’re needed at their homes for their own defence. The Germans are building a super-tank – or so the rumour mill goes – and the British are working on a Challenger conversion, but I don’t think that either power will agree to sell you tanks at any price. Politically, it will be unacceptable. The Russians might just sell you older tanks, but they would be useless against the Posleen.”

He paused. “The only hope is an infantry force, fighting from prepared positions,” he concluded. “Building that is the only way to survive.”

“And Osama thinks that faith is enough to stop them,” Prince Salim said bitterly. “A conscript army is going to be very unpopular.”

“Not the only problem,” Morrigan said. “I have been looking for people who can train the thousands of conscripts that you will need. Basically, you will have to suck everyone who is not in an essential job into the infantry force – and you will have to buy thousands of artillery weapons from Russia. Shellfire can degrade a Posleen force before it reaches the defence lines; the weapons mounted on the defence lines can break a Posleen force, given time and brave soldiers.”

“Osama is good at inspiring people,” Prince Salim said. His voice was thoughtful; Morrigan could almost read his thoughts. “Still, the problem does remain of convincing people to fight…”

“Start by conscripting all of the guest workers,” Morrigan suggested. He was grimly aware of Denton’s shock behind him. “There are thousands of men who can make themselves useful – and I’m sure that Saudi men will not let them take the lead in their own defence. It would also provide a useful counterbalance to Osama and his men – speaking of which, what is going to happen to them?”

Prince Salim smiled grimly. “I share your thoughts,” he said, allowing himself a smile. “There will be thousands, if not millions, of young men coming to defend the holy cities; perhaps the Jews will even agree to allow them to assist with the defence of Jerusalem. They will be kept in camps and trained and armed by us, before being deployed against the Posleen.”

“There’s so much else that needs doing,” Morrigan said. He took a breath. “We may have to start putting women into every role, but actual combat.”

“That will not go down well,” Prince Salim said flatly. Morrigan sensed the moment of concern behind his eyes and understood that Prince Salim understood. “The religious people would not care for it and they…well, we have them working to declare a Jihad against the Posleen. We don’t want to offend them now…”

“Not when their support is going to be crucial,” Morrigan agreed. “Otherwise, can I start recruiting people to assist with the defence?”

Prince Salim nodded tiredly. “Old friend, there is one other request,” he said. “Can I ask you to hire an American to handle the arms purchases?”

Morrigan understood the unspoken undertone. Corruption was a way of life in Saudi Arabia; half of the money would find itself somewhere else to go, rather than Russian arms merchants. Prince Salim would never be able to make so public a request, but Morrigan knew just who would be able to help him find the weapons the Saudis needed.

“It will be expensive,” he warned. Prince Salim shrugged. The House of Saud had more money than it knew what to do with. The problem would be avoiding dealers who hiked up the price when they figured out how much their stuff was worth with an alien invasion breathing down everyone’s necks. “I’ll get started at once.”

“Thank you,” Prince Salim said. He leaned forwards. “Soon, we have to talk about this in more detail, but for now…”

Morrigan understood. “I think I’ll do my best,” he said, and knew that everything would change. Perhaps the Saudis could give the Posleen indigestion, or, perhaps, if the Posleen didn’t land at all…there would be armed guest workers, used to military discipline and armed to the teeth. “I’ll do the best I can for your country, old friend.”

Prince Salim smiled.

Morrigan mentally sheathed the knife he had been thinking about in his belt, nodded to Captain Denton, and led the way out of the room. Behind him, Prince Salim seemed lost in thought; he wasn’t the worst of the Saudi princes, not by a long shot. Without him, God only knew what would happen to Saudi Arabia. The two women were still cleaning as they left the building; one of them carried a new bruise on the side of her face.

Bastards, Morrigan thought, knowing that hell was coming for them all. There isn’t time for this…

Chapter Five: Rich Men and Poor

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
5th December 2002

Abdullah Al-Hassid was not a Prince, although he had connections to the Royal Family, which were a requirement for actually conducting any business in Saudi Arabia. His eldest daughter was married to a prince – and the marriage was actually a happy one – and his son was a candidate for becoming the husband of a lower-level princess. Al-Hassid didn’t really care about the princess, but if his family became more involved with the Royal Family, it would be easier for the Al-Hassid Construction Firm to gain more contracts to build Saudi Arabia.

He grinned. There was a great many contracts to go around. Each and every prince wanted a royal palace, one suitable for an Emperor; they all demanded perfection and massive expenditures. If that hadn’t been enough, there was the endless stream of contracts to build equipment for supplying Riyadh with water and other supplies, or even the military defences that had been built along the Iraqi border. The defences were looked down upon by many construction companies, but Al-Hassid had been relieved to have the work. Defences lasted; his company had the contract to constantly update and expand the defences.

Still, he knew that the economic chill would affect even the heart of Saudi Arabia, despite all the money that he had been salting away since he had become a rich man. He had always feared that someday, someone would manage to overthrow the Princes, and when that happened, their hangers-on – and Al-Hassid knew that he would be considered one of them – would be purged. The fifty years of princely rule had left memories; the citizens would take the payment in blood and terror. And, of course, the Posleen would be coming soon…

He hadn’t believed in them at first, but the American reaction – and their decision to withdraw – had been all too real. The broadcasts from Al Jazeera – which was technically banned in Saudi – had sounded hysterical; the official announcement had been chilling. The government had classified much of the information, but Al-Hassid had managed to put enough of the information together to know terror; the declaration of jihad against the Posleen hadn’t impressed him.

He looked up, into the eyes of Prince Bandar. Bandar was one of the few princes who cared more for Saudi Arabia than his own wealth, a fact that had not prevented him from acquiring both a massive fortune and an ample stomach. His recent promotion to Minister of the Interior seemed to have suited him; Al-Hassid, who knew that he would always be Bandar’s client, hoped that Bandar would continue to smile on him.

“Welcome to my home,” he said, as his servant withdrew from the room, returning moments later with coffee. Bandar, in the old days, hadn’t been adverse to sharing wine and beer; Al-Hassid knew better than to rely on that now that Bandar was ‘respectable.’ “My congratulations on your promotion.”

Bandar’s ample face twitched into a jovial smile. “Thank you, old friend,” he said. “My cousin seemed to believe that I would be good for the role.”

He took a sweetmeat from the tray and ate it with every sign of gusto. “I’m sure that you will be,” Al-Hassid said. It wasn’t just flattery, although there was a considerable amount of that in there; he meant what he said. “With all the disruption, we need a strong hand at the tiller of the state.”

They exchanged meaningless pleasantries for several minutes, enquiring after the health of each other’s relatives, before Bandar turned to business. The business had come quicker than Al-Hassid had expected; Bandar wasn’t an evil prince, nor was he self-centred, but he was indolent. He had once claimed to have spent an entire week in bed. Al-Hassid believed him.

“The King is very determined that we prove that we can resist the alien invader,” Bandar said. There was something in his voice that gave Al-Hassid pause; the rumours that the King was ‘ill’ might just have had some truth in it, or perhaps something more sinister had happened. “With Osama returning to the fold, we are going to need a great deal of support from our clients to prove that the defence can actually happen.”

Al-Hassid sipped his coffee thoughtfully. He wished, suddenly, that his wife was in the room; she might not have had royal blood, but she had killer business instincts. If she had been born a man, she would have owned a company far larger than anything Al-Hassid could have aspired to own, but the slight problem with her plumbing kept her out of any formal role in the company.

“That seems problematic,” he said, after a moment. Discussing politics with a Prince was always dangerous. “You know the kind of message he spreads.”

Bandar nodded. The motion set his chest to rippling. “We would prefer not to have anything to do with him and the thousands of fighters that he will be bringing to Saudi,” he said. “However, political concerns mean that we will have no choice, but to accept his people and try to use them to our best advantage.”

Al-Hassid nodded. Translated, the Saudi Princes knew that the choice was accepting the foreign fighters or being overthrown by desperate citizens and the religious factions involved in power politics. With the Americans leaving Saudi Arabia – some of the clerics were even claiming that Allah had worked a miracle for them – the position of the House of Saud had never been weaker. Faced with a choice between the detested Princes and the religious factions, who were stupid enough to believe that an untrained Saudi man could do any job held by a foreigner – and probably better – he knew which side his bread was buttered on.

He smiled grimly. Doubtless the religious and nationalistic factions believed that if all of the foreigners were to be thrown out, the Kingdom would solve all of its employment problems at a stroke. Al-Hassid knew that it wouldn’t work, for the very simple reason that the majority of Saudi youth was untrained and unenthusiastic for entering the business world; he used his guest workers because no Saudi wanted their jobs. After all, he had been trying to hire Saudis…

“This means, of course, contracts,” Bandar continued. No, Al-Hassid reflected, he wasn’t a bad sort at all. “Naturally, I took the liberty of securing some contacts for the people who are my clients, including yourself.” One eyebrow twitched. “You are interested, are you not?”

Al-Hassid smiled. Even if he hadn’t been interested, the smile was safe, the smile was non-threatening. “Of course,” he said. “My company stands at the disposal of the country – and yourself, of course.”

Bandar smiled. “Of course,” he said, shifting his body. Al-Hassid reflected in a moment of cruelty that he looked very much like a beached whale. “However, there will be other requirements as well. The first problem, of course, is that you have to build us a series of camps for military men, both soldiers and Osama’s fighters. For the latter, the camps have to be difficult to enter or exit.”

Their eyes met. They shared a single thought. Al-Hassid smiled inwardly. If Bandar wanted to keep the fighters as prisoners, more or less, it suited him fine. If they started to rouse the rabble, Allah alone knew where it would end.

“Naturally, we want you to give that the highest priority,” Bandar continued. “My staff and the Ministry of Defence are currently preparing the list of sites for the camps and we expect you to have most of the camps ready within six months. You’ll have a large slush fund and considerable authority to obtain materials for building the camps, from both inside and outside the country. Once the first task is completed, we have a second task; we need you to build defences around this city, perhaps others as well.”

Al-Hassid lifted an eyebrow. “Defences?”

“The details are in the briefing pack,” Bandar said. “Suffice it to say, now, that we expect that the enemy, the Posleen, will attempt to force their way into the cities and we have to stop them. We need massive defence lines – and we have at least four years to build them. There will be dozens of other little projects, but the defence lines are the most important.”

Al-Hassid nodded slowly. His faith in the Saudi Army was not high, nor was his faith in the National Guard. Perhaps it was time for moving some of his family out of the country.

Bandar grinned. “There are other problems,” he continued. “A lot of young men will be drafted into your company, where they will be expected to learn some discipline. Your people will have to teach them, largely because many of your guest workers will be conscripted into the military and…used to defend the country. We hope that others will come to replace them, but it will take time to make some of them useful, or perhaps some of them will go directly into the army.”

Al-Hassid frowned. “Your Highness, is that…wise?”

It was as close as he had ever come to openly questioning Prince Bandar. “I have no idea,” Bandar admitted, oddly enough. Al-Hassid had expected that he would be annoyed. “The problems require solutions, and some times the solutions are rather less than perfect themselves.”

It sounded like something someone had taught him to say. Al-Hassid decided that it would not be wise to question him further. “I see,” he said, after a moment. It was definitely time to get some of his family out of the country. The possibilities of an uprising were growing stronger every moment…and an uprising of guest workers was perhaps the worst danger of all. “I’ll get the company organised…but Prince Kafish will be unhappy.”

“Don’t worry about him,” Bandar said. His eyes had become grim. “Prince Kafish will do as we tell him, or he can flee and leave the country. Salim is determined on this point, that of defending the country…and Kafish won’t be able to stand in his way.”

Al-Hassid smiled inwardly. Prince Kafish was the type of man who gave Saudi Arabia a bad name. He combined stupidity with malice and the expectation that things would never change and nothing would ever happen to make him regret his evil ways. In a rational world, he would have sunk rapidly to the bottom, rather than being held up by the remainder of the Royal Family.

“There is a final point,” Bandar concluded. Al-Hassid felt a flicker of concern. “As you know, building the defence works will involve creating an army to man and defend them – to defend the country, in other words. You are a born leader of men and I was asked to ask you if you would be interested in a commission. Are you?”

Al-Hassid picked his words carefully. “I cannot handle a military career and the company as well,” he said. “If I take time off to become a soldier, I will have to leave the company without its head.”

“Even with your lovely wife?” Bandar asked. His face twitched into another smile. “Can’t she handle such matters?”

Al-Hassid stared at him. “Aaliyah would be perfect for handling the company,” he said. “However, the prevailing opinion…”

Bandar laughed. “I was joking,” he said. Al-Hassid wasn’t sure that he believed him. “Your son, however, is a fine young man…and one of those who might be marrying Princess Fatima. Would he be interested in a commission?”

Al-Hassid felt his mind spin. Kalid was a fine young man, true, but a military career? For his son? What about his prospects later in life if all he knew was soldiering? Who would want to marry their daughter to Kalid if he was a soldier? Or, was that what Bandar was hinting at?

“I would approve the marriage, in exchange for your son committing himself to a military career,” Bandar said, reading his thoughts. Al-Hassid blinked; he hadn’t realised that Bandar was that interested, but he supposed it made sense. Bandar would want to ensure that his people received the best opportunities, because it would both add to his own wealth and his reputation. “Would he be interested?”

“I believe that he would be interested,” Al-Hassid said, knowing that his son had something that most Saudi children lacked; a decent secular education. Islamic studies had their uses – and his old friend from the mosque had seen to Kalid’s religious education – but a businessman required more; Allah helped those who helped themselves, after all. “I shall make enquires and let you know.”

After more meaningless pleasantries, Bandar stood to leave the house. “I shall await your call with interest,” he said, as the footman opened the door. “May Allah watch over you and keep you safe.”

“May he indeed,” Al-Hassid muttered, after Bandar’s car and its police escort had left the building. Bandar had opened up dozens of possible options…and someone like him could take advantage of them with ease. “May he indeed.”

***
Aaliyah Al-Hassid was still utterly attractive at thirty-six, nearly twenty years after they had been married. His father had wanted to make a marriage link with another family and the price of that had been marrying off a sixteen-year-old girl who was both beautiful and headstrong, a dangerous combination anywhere, but particularly in Saudi Arabia. Al-Hassid had heard enough about her to know that he didn’t want to marry her, but his father had insisted…and, in the end, it had worked out well.

Her father had given him a belt when they had married, informing him that he had used it frequently on her when she was growing up. Al-Hassid had laughed nervously at the time; years later, he was glad that he had never used it, because Aaliyah had blossomed as his wife. As the mother of seven children, she had still retained her figure, her long dark hair and…

The thought made something stir, but Al-Hassid ignored it. Aaliyah was angry, really angry; he knew that because she wasn’t shouting at him, like many women would have done, but talking in a voice so cold as to freeze his bones. She looked wonderful when she was angry – he had never even thought about another woman in all the time that they had been married – but telling her that had never helped at all.

“Our son is not going to be a soldier,” Aaliyah said firmly. She’d actually played a role in evaluating their daughter’s husband before they’d been married; the poor Prince had never known what had hit him. Bandar had thought that it was hilarious. “He is a young man of great promise…”

“I know,” Al-Hassid said. “However, the fact remains that the country is going to come under attack very soon, sweetheart.” Aaliyah glared at him. Her face darkened sharply. “These…Posleen…”

“They cannot exist,” Aaliyah snapped. “How can…giant man-eating monsters exist out in space, coming here? Our son should not be…forever tainted by serving in the military, wasting his brains…he’s our only son and he will have to cover for his sisters.”

Al-Hassid nodded grimly. Unless the religious restrictions were somehow washed away, their daughters would never be able to do much with their lives; Kalid would have to ensure that their lives meant something, somehow, once Al-Hassid himself had gone to face Allah.

“Very well,” he said, changing tack. “The point remains that the Government thinks that the threat is real. I have been making some quiet enquires of my own and they are issuing thousands of contracts to everyone – and we dare not attempt to avoid them. Furthermore, if war is coming – and everyone seems to think that it is – the soldiers will become important and in five years our son could rise high in the ranks. He has the ability, he has the talent…and he has the right connections, once he gets married.”

“So he is to marry Fatima,” Aaliyah said. She wasn’t a social climber, not in the American sense of the word, but she wanted the best for her children. Marrying into the Royal Family was one way to ensure that they would have the best that they could have, at least in Saudi Arabia. “That is what you mean, is it not?”

Al-Hassid knew husbands who kept their wives in the dark. He would never have dared. “Prince Bandar said that he would give his assent to the marriage provided that Kalid went to the army,” he said, after a moment. “That would ensure that the wedding went ahead.”

“True,” Aaliyah agreed. She wasn’t happy – she was far from happy – but she had agreed. Al-Hassid knew what that meant to her. “And the rest of the family?”

Al-Hassid smiled as he relaxed into his wife’s arms. “Samira will be safe with her husband; the last I heard he was planning to send her and their children out of the country to one of the Caribbean islands. The others – and you – will be able to go to one of the Pacific islands where the Posleen won’t land.”

“I’m not leaving you,” Aaliyah said firmly. Her face took on its stubborn look again. “My place is beside you.”

Al-Hassid scowled. “I think that you should,” he said, but he knew that the argument was lost right from the start. He kissed her instead, feeling the warmth of her body as he relaxed further. “But I’m glad that you’re staying, at least for a few more years before the Posleen come.”

“Forever,” Aaliyah said firmly. Her hands were touching him now. “Forever…”

“Forever,” Al-Hassid agreed, and gave himself up to her caresses.

Chapter Six: What is Strangely Arousing?

Bahrain, Middle East
10th December 2002

A young Saudi man stumbled out of the bar, dead drunk, in the hands of a woman whose headscarf in no way detracted from her…assets. She looked astonishingly gorgeous, with what had been intended to be modest robes pulled tight around her breasts and thighs; the young Saudi would never know what had hit him. Morrigan, concealing a smile, stepped aside and allowed her to take her new conquest away with her, before turning to face the entrance to the bar.

“That girl will introduce him to a whole new world,” he said, mischievously. Perversely, the sight had cheered him up no end. “The world of social diseases and other unpleasant things that come from dipping your wick at random.”

He laughed. Captain Denton looked shocked. “But, this place, these people, they’re…”

“Muslims?” Morrigan asked. “If you spend time here, you will discover that the number of real Muslims is lower than it is anywhere else; India, Britain, America…the religious police see to that. It’s kinda hard to pray to Allah and mean it when the people who call themselves His servants are beating you for trying to learn anything about Islam that detracts from their orthodoxy.”

He laughed again. “There was a time when Mecca was the intellectual capital of the world,” he said. “Thanks to the religious police, it will never be that again.”

Denton blinked. “And the religious police don’t come here?”

“This is Bahrain,” Morrigan said, as he pushed open the door. “If the religious police raided here, they would take home thousands of Saudis, including most of the Royal Family. The spectacle of young Saudis, drunk on a glass or two of wine, or several pints of beer, is not one for the faint of heart.”

He smiled grimly. “Of course, it only starts here,” he said. “They used to consider sexual diseases as a sign of sinful behaviour, did you know that? The British did, at least; so did we. Of course, as anyone with half a brain could have told them, the soldiers concealed their…condition until it was too late. Here, the same thing happens, particularly with the religious police watching the doctors to see what they cure – and why. You should hear some of the excuses.”

Suddenly aware he was speaking too much, he pushed open the door fully and stepped inside, to be hit by a blast of strangely alien music. On a massive screen in one corner of the room, a set of seven Indian girls were dancing, singing songs in a language Morrigan vaguely recognised as Bengali. They were unclothed to a degree that would have given the religious police a collective heart attack; Morrigan could see the swells of their bra-covered breasts with ease.

Denton frowned. “The religious police do come here, don’t they?”

Morrigan smiled as they pushed through several tables, ignoring the clients, who were watching the girls with expressions that could not be described as mere lust. The Bollywood video was not the main attraction; that was further inside. He was grimly aware of armed men watching them; the people who owned the bar would have taken precautions against a raid by a vigilante group. With the Posleen breathing down their necks, a lot of people were turning to Allah.

“Oh yes,” he said. “You’re learning.”

The main attraction on display was a group of girls; real girls, one white and blonde, one Indian and dark-haired, one black with dyed white hair. They were really present, standing on the stage and making out with one another. As Morrigan’s eyes scanned the stage, the Indian started to kneel down and kiss the black girl in a sensitive place; the audience went wild.

“This is disgusting,” Denton murmured. “Why do they let this happen?”

“Sexually repressed culture,” Morrigan muttered back, scanning the room. “Ah.”

He led the way over to a large table in the rear, sitting down and facing the table’s single occupant. The man looked up at them, took in their uniforms, and his eyes widened; his blonde hair seemed to grow white with shock. His blue eyes took in everything; Morrigan was relieved to notice that they had lost nothing of their sharpness.

“Captain Denton, might I present Colonel Lombardi, formally of the United States Army?” Morrigan said. “Colonel, it’s been a long, long, time.”

“Oh hell,” Lombardi said. “I think you two had better come with me.”

He stood up, swaying weakly; Morrigan knew that that was a pose. He led the way to a small stairwell, nodding absently to the bouncer as they passed, and headed up the stairs. At the top, he peered down to the stage – where the blonde girl was attaching a strap-on to her thighs – and then led the way into his office.

It was mercifully quiet inside the office; despite the heavy glass windows that peered down onto the stage and the CCTV cameras that displayed what was happening in a series of rooms, from basic sex to displays that made Morrigan feel sick. The entire complex was a dark invasion of everything Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Islamic World claimed to stand for; many of the people who came would have powerful allies in their home countries.

Lombardi was living dangerously, to say the least.

Lombardi himself opened a drawer, took out a flask and took a long pull. He held it out to Morrigan, who shook his head, and then Denton, who sniffed it and refused. As soon as he had taken a second pull, he took a chair, waved them both to other chairs, and sighed.

“So, you found me,” he said. “Well done. What now?”

“This is a man who was once an excellent officer,” Morrigan said, more to Denton than Lombardi himself. “He joined the army, served in Panama and Kuwait, and then lost it all. There was an unfortunate incident with the Swedish woman’s swimming team, two vats of warm custard and a general’s daughter. He resigned rather than be discharged, ending a very promising career.”

Lombardi was moved to protest. “She asked me to do it,” he said. “And there was only one vat of warm custard.”

Denton looked as if that raised more questions than it answered. “Perhaps,” Morrigan said. “I am rather surprised that they haven’t recalled you to duty.” He examined Lombardi’s body with cold clinical interest. “You look fine and healthy and even if you weren’t, well they’re taking people who have served in the world wars, Korea and Vietnam. You wouldn’t even have to be retrained.”

“I doubt that they want me,” Lombardi said. “How did you find me anyway?”

Morrigan scowled. “Oh, it was tricky,” he said. “You came here, you set up this place, and used it as a cover for other business. Classic Poe, really; the best place to hide criminal activity is behind other criminal activity, such as this…excuse for a whorehouse. Of course, considering what you have been doing for the last five years, did you really think that the intelligence agencies would miss it?”

Lombardi snorted. “The CIA couldn’t find its ass with both hands, a radar and a series of GPS locations,” he said. “Of course they missed me.”

“The Mossard didn’t,” Morrigan said, and noted the surprise in Lombardi’s face. “You know, the feared Jewish intelligence service. It’s amazing what homicidal maniacs right next door will do for one’s sense of paranoia. They knew about you ever since you set up shop here, Bruno, and if they hadn’t had some sense of gratitude, they would have killed you by now.”

“So I saw to it that the Jews got some weapons they used against their enemies,” Lombardi said. He shrugged. “If Washington objected to that, you would have been here before business was booming. Now that the Posleen are on their way, everyone wants what I’m selling.”

Denton blinked. “And what, exactly, are you selling?”

Morrigan and Lombardi exchanged glances. “Weapons,” Lombardi said. “Hundreds of weapons, thousands of weapons, weapons that can be used by anyone. I was running guns into the Sudan, Kuwait, even the land that seems to have hired you to tell them how to defend themselves against the aliens. How does Saudi cock taste in your mouth?”

Morrigan felt a hot flash of anger. “Washington seems to feel that assisting the Saudis to defend themselves should have some importance,” he said, waving Denton down. Smashing Lombardi’s head in would have been unhelpful. “At the moment, the Saudis are supplying us with enough oil to build up a strategic reserve, along with almost every other state in the world. Did you know that the Japanese have sent their first warships to the Gulf, their first foreign deployment, just to deter pirates? Of course, you might have been supplying the pirates with their weapons.”

“I hear that the GCC has ordered that all pirates be shot on sight,” Lombardi said, and laughed. “I doubt that that problem will remain for much longer, eh?”

Morrigan stared at him. “Perhaps you’re right,” he said, unwilling to argue. “Still, when Washington calls, we answer.”

“You answer,” Lombardi said, taking another swig of his flask. A particularly interesting scene on one of the CCTV cameras caught his attention; a woman was being savagely raped by her customer, her hands bound firmly behind her back. “What do you think Washington wants with me?”

Denton stared at the scene. “Can’t you stop it?”

“Why should I?” Lombardi asked. “It’s what he paid for; it’s what she knew she was getting into – or getting into her.” He laughed again. “I don’t ban anything from here.”

Morrigan slammed his hand down on the control panel. The images cut off; the scenes went black. Automatically, the lights in the room came up, illumining all of them; himself, angry, but in perfect control. Denton, young and horrified. And Lombardi…cold and ashamed. He felt a moment’s pity; Lombardi – the young Lombardi – hadn’t deserved it.

“I need your help,” he said, shortly. “I need someone to do a job for me and you’re the best person I know.”

“Or at least the best you can lay your hands on,” Lombardi said. “What exactly would you like me to do?” He laughed. “I could give you tapes of Princes, performing acts that are banned by all major religions, if you want.”

“You live dangerously,” Morrigan said. “I need weapons, lots and lots of weapons.”

“Fuck you,” Lombardi said. His face darkened; he reached for his flask, but Morrigan picked it off the table first. “If you need weapons, then the Saudis have plenty of people who know where to get them. They have defence contractors everywhere so far up their bums that they’re crawling out of their mouths. The British or the French will supply them, if the jerks in Washington won’t give the Saudis whatever they ask. If they don’t, the Saudis will simply cut off the oil supply.”

“No, they won’t,” Morrigan said, quietly, but with great force. “The President is determined on this. If they try to bugger up the United States, a force of ACS soldiers will roll in and slaughter every Saudi they can find. Nukes have been threatened as well – would you want to try to assume that it was a bluff?”

Lombardi reached for his flask. “The President doesn’t have the nerve,” he said. “He’s also no good in bed. Anyway, they can still get tons of weapons from places, eh?”

Morrigan reached forward in one smooth motion, grabbed hold of Lombardi’s shirt and hoisted him into the air. “I am through playing around,” he snapped, nose to nose. “You know as well as I do that most of the European defence production is being funnelled towards their own defence; Poland is going to have real problems, even without sending tons of weapons and hardware to Saudi Arabia. Who cares about Saudi Arabia when Poland and Europe is going down the shitter?”

Lombardi coughed. “You?”

Morrigan scowled. “You also know – as you made most of your first fortune that way – that the Saudis are as corrupt as they come,” he snapped. “If we give the literally billions of dollars in oil money to one of the Saudi procurers, we will lose much of it in transit when the bastard starts to feather his own nest. It’s been a problem for years and it’s still a problem; God alone knows how many weapons vanished over the border or into an accounting haze.”

Lombardi laughed as Morrigan slowly lowered him to the floor. “And you think I’m honest?” He asked. “Give me billions of oil money and…”

“Well, for a start, it will be worthless when the Posleen actually land,” Morrigan pointed out dryly. “The Saudis seem to have missed that little detail; if there was more GalTech available, Saudi money would be only good for wiping one’s ass by now. But, for the moment, someone like you could buy weapons from Russia for us, from guns – lots of guns – to heavy weapons that would actually make a difference and vehicles that could actually prove themselves in the desert.”

“And you will pay me worthless money for that,” Lombardi said. “I fail to see the incentive…”

Morrigan suppressed the desire to land a haymaker on Lombardi’s nose. “You are a former officer of the United States Army,” he snapped. “I would expect you to act like it. Seeing that seems to be impossible, you will be paid in Galactic credit and other hard currencies and products, including some artworks that will fetch a great deal of Darhel money. Interested?”

He saw the light of greed in Lombardi’s eyes and smiled inwardly. “I guess I could be interested,” Lombardi said. “You do realise that I can’t get you armoured suits on the black market?”

Morrigan nodded. “They don’t work for anyone, but their authorised user,” he said. He couldn’t remember, offhand, if anyone had actually stolen one, but he hoped that they had enjoyed the experience. The MPs would have laughed their heads off, if nothing else. “I don’t need fancy weapons; I need simple ones and plenty of ammunition.”

“Because the Saudi soldiers need time to learn before they’re more of a danger to the person standing next to them than they are to themselves,” Lombardi said. Like many American officers, he held the Saudi army in absolute contempt. “Shooting at the enemy…do you want me to dig up running shoes or trainers as well?”

“You read my mind,” Lombardi said. “We need everything, basically, from weapons to earth-moving and digging tools. You can find it and get it shipped to Saudi; by then, we should have an active logistics base in place. God help us all if we can’t; we already have far too many compromises built into the plan because of brainstorms by certain Princes.”

He scowled. “Would you believe that one of them wanted to build a line along the border that the entire population of Saudi Arabia, male and female alike, could not have held?”

“Wonderful,” Lombardi said. “The Posleen would go ‘YUM’ and land in the centre of Saudi.” He paused. “I wonder about their logistics.”

“You can think about that while you’re closing this place up,” Morrigan said, firmly. “I need your exclusive services until after the Posleen come, at which point you will be paid and sent offworld, should you want that. No drink” – he looked down at the flask – “what the hell is this stuff, anyway?”

“Bootleg Gin,” Lombardi said. He cracked a grin. “I won’t drink any more than your precious princes, eh?”

“No drink or drugs,” Morrigan said firmly. “You might be needed to actually fight and stand at my back and I’m damned if I’m trusting or paying a drunkard.” He looked up at Lombardi, and then dropped the flask in the bin. “Don’t let me down, not now, Bruno.”

Lombardi sighed. “I was fond of this place,” he said. “Is there anything else you want from me?”

“I want you to start using your contracts with the Israelis,” Morrigan said. “We might need to have some joint defence planning, rather than allowing them to start lashing out with nukes when the Posleen start to land.”

Lombardi snorted. “They won’t be keen on that,” he said. “They’re already honked out about you calling Palestinians out of Palestine to train as Jihadi fighters. You know why.” Morrigan nodded. “Joint planning? They’ll insist on tactical control, at least.”

Morrigan laughed. “I’m not seeing a problem there,” he said. “General Abdullah is not a bad sort, as Saudis go, but as an army commander he has his…problems. Damn it, I would sooner trust an Iranian in command, or a Russian. I think I’ll have to find him an aide.”

“Someone to actually issue the orders in his name,” Lombardi said. “Gotcha.”

Morrigan shook his head. “And this place,” he said. “What in heaven’s name possessed you?”

“What can I say?” Lombardi said. “I found it strangely arousing.”

Chapter Seven: The Mark of the Beast

Near Mecca, Saudi Arabia
3rd January 2003

Mullah Bihar had never expected to see Mecca again.

In the endless dance of power and responsibility in Saudi Arabia, everyone knew the rules; the senior people on every side could not – ever – be interfered with, or punished. The Government had broken that rule once, even though it had denied responsibility; who else would have had the power and the nerve to have sent young men to beat Osama? Mullah Bihar had wondered about that; the Government would have been delighted if the entire movement spontaneously combusted, but it lacked the strength to simply purge the movement from Saudi Arabia. No government could be trusted with that much power; the King, for all the claims of supreme rule, governed by consensus, rather than dictating his orders.

Mullah Bihar smiled. Enough people believed in the movement to make it impossible to smash it flat without sparking off a civil war. The sudden expansion of the military had made it easier to extend their control into the Saudi military, although not the higher ranks. Osama had been dismissive of that, calling it a useless precaution; the higher ranks could be wiped out at need. Given time, the political situation would allow them to just walk in and take over – given enough time. Osama was planning for years.

But Mullah Bihar, himself not a senior member of the movement, had expected to die. A term spent funnelling money to Osama had marked him for death on trumped-up charges – not even Prince Salim had the nerve to be honest about what was actually happening – and he had fled the country ahead of a hit squad. He’d spent time in France, hiding from the Saudis, and time in Palestine, helping the natives to organise themselves into combat units. He hadn’t had that much success – the native Palestinian leadership wanted a united front, which was very opposed to what the movement wanted – but he'd laid the grounds for later expansion. He was mildly surprised that the Israelis hadn’t made him, let alone killed him, but he supposed that they had more public figures to work off their anger on.

And then had come the news of the threat to the Holy Cities. Mullah Bihar had known, of course, that the Saudi regime spent as little on defence as it could get away with – and the Americans had made that possible – but now…now the Americans were leaving and the Saudis would have to defend the Holy Cities. Mullah Bihar had no doubts at all; they would fail, badly…and Mecca and the priceless relics in the city would be eaten by the Posleen.

“I hope that you’re right, Osama,” he said, thinking cold thoughts. The Saudis had seen fit to impose restrictions on his people, restrictions that made them little better than prisoners, but Mullah Bihar found it hard to be worried about it. The guards – who were guards, no matter what they said – were becoming aware of their duties to Islam, rather than their duties to the Saudi Royal Family. Even if they stayed loyal, well…whoever had heard of a prison that allowed its prisoners arms and weapons? The supply of ammunition might not be what it could have been – and more had been promised – but he would have bet his forces against an entire infantry division, something that might just happen.

He marched across the camp, appreciating the simplicity of its design; there were ten massive barracks, with room for thousands of soldiers, and room for them to practice their combat training. Mullah Bihar was confident that Allah would grant his people victory; they were holy, they knew what they were doing…and they were certainly better than flesh-eating monsters from hell itself. The camp itself would be expanded as time went on and his people learnt more about building defences; thousands more fighters would be making their way to Saudi to fight in the defence of Mecca. Afterwards…

He grinned. Afterwards, his forces would sweep the House of Saud out of existence, march on Israel and push the Jews back into the sea, before placing Osama on the throne of Islam, a state that would absorb all of the remaining Islamic lands. Then the great work of purging the weakness – the Shia, the Kurds, the Christians, the Jews – from the body of Islam would proceed. Once that had been completed, the possibilities would be endless.

“You have to place the mine just below the surface,” an instructor was saying, as Mullah Bihar passed one of the instruction areas. In Palestine, they’d trained on real mines, but after several accidents he’d changed the policy. Sending the young men into battle, armed with faith and little else, was bad enough; he would have been delighted to be assigned one of the armoured units to assist his people. If they started to lose too many people through accidents, then…

He nodded once to the instructor as he demonstrated the technique. Osama had been very insistent on learning from the Americans, who might be politically weak and ill-mannered, but they knew how to fight. The Posleen just marched on and on; the Americans were already planning to lay thousands of mines in their path. The Posleen would run into the series of mines and drop dead.

And then they’ll just march over their own dead bodies and keep coming, part of his mind whispered. The thought was horrifying; the Europeans had already been trying to have mines banned for years, but the Americans had the right idea. Mines might not be able to stop the Posleen, but they would slow them down…surely. What sort of force could march across a minefield without even slowing once?

Mullah Bihar, who knew that such losses would cripple even his own forces, refused to believe that the Posleen couldn’t care less.

A pair of F-15 fighters flashed overhead, escorting a small aircraft; Mullah Bihar knew, from experience, that the Prince in question would be flying his own transport. The Princes loved their air force, enough to lavish money and training on it…and it still wasn’t even remotely a match for the Americans. The waste of money irritated Mullah Bihar; no one got into the movement without competence, and no one rose within the movement without showing that they could handle the job.

The aircraft fell down towards the landing strip and landed perfectly, lowering its landing wheels at the last possible moment. Mullah Bihar felt a flicker of envy that he tried to suppress; he understood, just for a moment, the pressures that drove the prince as he flew freely in the sky. Up there, he was free; on the ground, he had demands to face and handle. He walked towards the landing strip; there would be plenty of time to meet his visitors – and it was important that he seemed to be their equal, despite his vast superiority.

Mullah Bihar smiled.

***
The escorting fighters would meet a tanker back over the desert, Prince Salim knew; they would ensure that they were refuelled and prepared for possible combat. He wasn’t expecting trouble, not on a fairly simple inspection flight, but he was determined to get in at least one visit to the training camp before it became overcrowded. The American advisors had advised that the camps hold fewer people, but Prince Salim knew that that was impossible; far more wanted to come than could ever be accommodated.

He’d heard, once, the darkest of secrets. The Saudi Military was not set up for rapid deployment around the country; that would have been far too dangerous for the regime. When Iraq had marched into Kuwait, the then Minister of Defence had ordered MRE packages from the Americans, and they had been haram. Half of them, the ones that Muslims would know they couldn’t eat, had been funnelled to the American forces; the others had been fed to the Saudi soldiers. Prince Salim wasn’t sure if the story was completely true, but if even a rumour got out…

He pulled the aircraft to a stop, enjoying the last moments of freedom, before he stood up. General Abdullah, the titular head of the Saudi Army, stood up and followed him; he was a good-natured man whose competence was something in question. It was one of the paradoxes of Saudi Arabia that that did not disqualify him for the post. His American advisor, Hank Fletcher, smiled wryly; he had been loud in his objections to the entire scene. Prince Salim rather understood.

The hot air blowing across the desert testified to one of the worst problems that the army was likely to face; the shortage of fresh water and food. Pipelines were already being laid, using a Galactic-produced desalination plant, but the Posleen could break it without ever knowing what it actually was. Food would be another problem, along with women; the foreign fighters would be in Saudi for years before the Posleen arrived, getting meaner and meaner as time slipped past.

Prince Salim shrugged. They would solve the problems or die trying.

Mullah Bihar’s beard was of regulation length; like all of his kind, he placed far too much stock in appearances. Prince Salim had once heard of a skilled and experienced – and dedicated – Islamic teacher who had been denied a place, just because of a poor beard. He wore simple white robes; his body, what could be seen of it, was hard and tough. He claimed to have been tortured by the Zionists, in his public speeches; Prince Salim knew that that was nonsense.

“Salaam,” he said, without further ado. Hugging Mullah Bihar was an alarming experience; he half-expected to feel a knife in his back at any moment. Fletcher seemed to be amused by the entire display; General Abdullah accepted a hug himself. “Thank you for coming to assist in the defence of the Holy Cities.”

Mullah Bihar grinned. “We will do what we can and Allah will give us the rest,” he said, as a trio of swaggering dirty-faced men with AK-47s marched past towards the fence. “What do you think of our little home away from home?”

The mockery was almost unendurable. “It looks acceptable,” Prince Salim said, shortly. “How are the first batches of defenders shaping up?”

“They need more training,” Mullah Bihar said, his face still amused. “When do we get our tanks and guns?”

Prince Salim winced. Lombardi had worked miracles, but it would still be months before enough weapons arrived…and was there any such thing as ‘enough?’ “The guns will be coming soon,” he said, having already decided to employ the Jihadis as a slowing-down force, something he expected would only be partially successful, at best. “A force of fast tanks has been ordered from Russia, along with their ammunition; they should be here within five to seven months.”

Mullah Bihar looked disappointed. “Seven months, brother,” he said. “Have you no commitment to defending the Holy Cities?”

Prince Salim, who had spent time inspecting the first set of earthworks around Riyadh, smiled at the charge. Given five years, perhaps more, they would have miles of defences around their cities, which would give even the Posleen pause. Once the weapons had been placed in their carefully-prepared revetments, they would be able to make the Posleen very miserable, if not stopping them entirely.

“The Posleen are expected in five years,” he said, knowing what would happen to most of Mullah Bihar’s fighters. “We have five years to do it properly, from ordering all the weapons we need to organising them into forces that can rapidly seal off any Posleen incursion and then destroy it. It’s very much a task of preparing the defences, using the trained men to train other trained men, and then having them all ready to handle combat against the Posleen.”

“We have been working on that,” Mullah Bihar said, smiling that disturbing smile again. Prince Salim would have distrusted him on sight, were that necessary; Osama’s choice of the man as his representative said far too much about Mullah Bihar’s character. “Teaching people how to fire an AK-47 is quite easy, while we have also been working with mortars and mines, which will be laid along the borders or in the line of the Posleen advance. We could even mine the entire border…”

Prince Salim sighed. No less than seven Princes had put that particular idea forward, and each time he had patted them on the back, informed them that he would see to it, and dumped the idea in the bin. He hadn’t even needed Morrigan to tell him that mining the entire border would take more mines than they had – probably more than existed in the entire world – and if the Posleen landed on top of the cities, it would be completely useless.

He smiled grimly. If that happened, the task of the Saudi armed forces would be to kill as many Posleen as they could before they were wiped out.

“We can’t guarantee where the Posleen will come,” he said. “We have plans for defending the border, plans for defending the cities and plans for sealing off a small landing of Posleen forces. If we knew in advance…but we don’t, so we will have to keep your force as a large active reserve.”

One of the F-15’s, piloted by a young prince, flashed overhead. “Aircraft,” Mullah Bihar said. “Can’t we use aircraft against the Posleen?”

Prince Salim shook his head. “It won’t work,” he said. The Americans had been experimenting with aircraft of various types, but he knew that Saudi Arabia wouldn’t be able to get its hands on them. “The Posleen would just blast them out of the sky.”

“That could be a problem,” Mullah Bihar agreed, rather dryly. “What about food?”

“That’s a problem,” Prince Salim admitted. Romantic dreams of living off the desert were just that; romantic dreams. Saudi Arabia wasn’t self-sufficient in foodstuffs; much of what it needed was imported. “We have been working to move more and more food into the nation, and also some other ways of producing food. Most of our suppliers are running short of money, so we have an advantage, but they also need more for their own people. The British, for example, have rationalised their food production to the point where it provides more than enough to feed their people, but they don’t send much outside the country.”

Mullah Bihar scowled. “Can we feed the thousands of fighters?”

It was an astonishingly practical question, Prince Salim reflected, rather maliciously. “We should be able to feed them all, through building up food stocks in each of the cities and the base camps,” he said. “The problem is avoiding the danger of giving the Posleen a free lunch, after they have stuffed themselves on us.”

“One of my people will remain with the bunkers, which will be rigged for destruction,” Mullah Bihar said, very firmly. “If the Posleen reach the bunkers, they will be destroyed and contaminated.”

It would also put the bunkers out of the control of the House of Saud. “I think that that will have to wait until we know more,” Prince Salim said, knowing that they couldn’t allow Mullah Bihar to control the food supply. “It appears to be hard to find something that will stop the Posleen, after all.”

“The Iraqis have been developing chemical weapons,” Mullah Bihar said. “Can’t those be used against the Posleen?”

Prince Salim was worried about them using them on another target. “It seems that most chemical and biological weapons will be useless against the Posleen,” he said. “The Americans have been conducting research, but it seems as if the Posleen might have been engineered for their purpose, which seems to be conquest.” He snorted. “One British man even suggested that the Posleen were really intended to kill off the natives and then drop dead, allowing their masters to take over. That won’t do us any good, I fear.”

Mullah Bihar scowled at him. “How do we make them drop dead?”

“Short of actually shooting them?” Prince Salim asked. He laughed bitterly. “We could let them kill everyone, and then run out of food.”

Mullah Bihar looked as if he didn’t know how to take that. “Perhaps,” he said, finally, unknowingly copying Morrigan. “I have several reporters from Al Jazeera who will be coming to observe the training of the men. I trust that that meets with your approval?”

Prince Salim forced a smile at the sudden change in the subject. “How could I disagree?” He asked. “They would even be allowed to accompany a combat unit” – and he hoped fervently that the Posleen would get them, although even they would be reluctant to eat them – “into action.”

Mullah Bihar beamed. “Allah is on our side,” he said. “How can we lose?”

Several answers came to Prince Salim’s mind.

He said nothing.

Chapter Eight: Learning the Oldest Trade

Near Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
20th January 2003

“All right, you young men, listen up,” the voice demanded. The Arabic was oddly accented, but understandable. “This is the first day of your career within the army, so pay attention. The mistakes you make today won’t count; the mistakes you make when you actually go into combat will hurt you. It could even kill you. If you place all of your attention into fighting, you will survive and hurt the enemy. If you make mistakes, you will get yourself killed and get your men killed.”

The officer cracked a whip. “If you learn now, you won’t get yourself killed,” he repeated. “If you don’t prove suitable for a military career…too bad; the King of Saudi Arabia has called for a total effort – and you sorry boys have been selected at not-exactly-random to serve as the first cadre. By the time the Posleen arrive, all of you should have graduated to the rank of Captain, if not higher; those of you who show real promise will be groomed for rising faster. I expect nothing less than your complete and total devotion to the defence of this land and its people. Anything less and you’ll wish that the Posleen got you before I did, do you get that?”

Kalid Al-Hassid shouted out his agreement along with the other five hundred young men who had been gathered in the training camp. They hadn’t had much time to chat to each other, but he had managed to establish that all of them were either from families or tribes known to be especially loyal. They were also well educated men, from the ages of sixteen to twenty-two, at least those he’d had a moment to chat to before the western officer had grouped them up into the line standing before him.

“For your information, I am Sergeant Philippe Laroche, formerly of the Canadian Army,” Laroche continued. “I am not an officer; I am a sergeant. Those of you who want to get far as platoon leaders, if nothing else, will discover that your sergeant is the one who really keeps the force organised. Those of you smart enough to listen to him will benefit; unless you’re the reincarnation of Stonewall Jackson, you will discover that not listening to the sergeant is a good way to get killed.”

He glared indiscriminately at them. “A sergeant is not a ‘sir,’” he continued. “I imagine that each of you will make that mistake at least once – so once will be all you get. Calling me ‘sir’ twice will result in a punishment duty, something unpleasant; how many of you are reasonably fit, eh?”

His gaze swept the assembled group. Some of the young men were thin, others were slowly expanding into corpulence, still others looked unwell at the thought of exercise. “Some of you would have been rejected, had I the authority to reject you,” Laroche snapped. His voice thundered out across the camp. “Some of you might just be made into officers and men. Your selection is out of my hands, as is the way that this is going to go. For political” – he made it a dirty word – “reasons, you will be largely trained by the scratch group formed here, then formed up into new units, while your main army, with the combat veterans it possess, will remain on the border. Our old friend So Damn Insane” – there were some chuckles, all quickly suppressed – “might just cause trouble…and if that happens, the regulars will have to send him running back to Baghdad.”

Kalid remembered what his father had told him and wondered. The real reason for not using Saudi personnel to train the newer soldiers was that the Saudi personnel had to be kept away from the cities as an organised group. With the unrest ever-bubbling below the surface, armed men might start having ideas about the distribution of power within the state.

He remembered his wedding – and his wedding night – with a faint smile. It had been wonderful, even though it had also been nerve-wracking. The Princess had been beautiful, once she’d taken off her veil, and their time together had been…fantastic. There would be a great deal to get used to, as a married man, but…

“And what exactly are you thinking about?” Laroche demanded. His face was very close to Kalid’s face, who recoiled. “Don’t recoil, boy; answer me!”

Kalid almost stuttered. “I was thinking about my family,” he said. “Sir…”

“I am not a ‘sir,’” Laroche thundered. “If you call me that again, you’ll be running ten miles with a heavy pack on your back! I have to make men out of you children – and that won’t be easy for any of us.”

He stepped back and stared around the line of men. “The enemy is terrifyingly powerful,” he said, his voice softening. “Your task, should you make it through the years of training, drilling and more training, will be to defeat them…and if you can’t defeat them, your task is to claw them hard enough to give someone else a chance. The entire planet is under threat; no one is going to save this place, but you!

“Your mothers, sisters and daughters – assuming that any of you have daughters – will be turned into thresh if the enemy wins,” Laroche said. “Do you know what that means? It means that they will be eaten and used as human rations for the monsters! Your job is to save them, to fight for them, if necessary, to die to buy them time to escape! You will be standing on the walls around your cities, pouring fire into the Posleen hordes, until you are dead or they are dead! Do you understand me?”

“Yes, Sergeant,” the recruits shouted back. Kalid shouted as loudly as any of them; the sheer…impact of Laroche’s words had an impact that his father’s quiet, grave warnings hadn’t had. All of a sudden, he knew what he was fighting for…and knew that many of the higher ranks would be held by Princes, which would mean trouble.

“Good,” Laroche said, his voice suspiciously soft. “You all took the oath, so you know what you are fighting for in theory, and your people are what you are fighting for in practice. Allah helps those who help themselves; you are going to be trained to the highest standards I can train you, just to ensure that when your time comes, you are not found wanting! Good luck to you all.”

He pointed to the running track. “Now, ten laps,” he snapped. “Move!”

Kalid was astonished, but followed two of the other recruits who understood quicker what the Sergeant wanted. He forced his body forwards as he ran onto the track, pushing himself to the limits…and feeling his body weaken after nearly completing one lap. Laroche shouted advice, from time to time, calling each of the recruits by name; Kalid wondered just how the hell Laroche knew all of them already. He couldn’t be just calling out names at random, could he?

“Faster, you slugs,” Laroche was shouting. Kalid risked a glance to see three overweight young men puffing and panting, clearly fearful of the whip that Laroche was waving in the air. “This is serious; there’s a horde of angry Posleen right behind you and they’re going to eat you unless you run now – run!”

Kalid completed his lap and found himself racing towards the overweight recruits. “Give them room,” Laroche bellowed; Kalid tried to nod, but found that it was hard to concentrate. The pain was starting to build up in his body. “Pace yourself; don’t force yourself to move too fast, move!”

***
“I was under the impression that the last thing we wanted was for them to be running from the Posleen,” Morrigan said, from his position watching the first recruits learning. Silently, he cursed the politics; he would have preferred to have taken only people who were actually fit for the first batch of genuine Saudi soldiers. Prince Salim had been very firm, however; only people regarded as politically reliable – which meant either princes or people linked to the princes – would be in the first training batch.

Lombardi shrugged. “That fat guy there and his two friends are going to have a heart attack soon,” he commented, unconcerned. “If they don’t die, they might just make it as combat soldiers; they’re trying, at least. As for running, they have to get basically fit and this is one of a few ways to do it. Give Sergeant Laroche time, him and the others; they’ll get them into shape or kill them trying.”

Morrigan looked down again; one of the other would-be soldiers had collapsed, crying. Laroche was shouting at him, forcing him back to his feet; the young man staggered to his feet and ran onwards, while others were coming around for their third and fourth laps. The young man seemed to be forcing himself onwards, but he was moving faster and faster; Morrigan was almost impressed.

He shrugged. “I don’t ever recall having these sort of problems back in training myself,” he said. “I don’t think that even the SEALS have problems like that. It’s been a while since I was at the Marine post in California, but I’m sure that they don’t have problems like this, do they?”

Lombardi sighed. “No, they don’t,” he said. He grinned suddenly. “They might have now, you know; they’re calling in everyone who meets even the basic requirements, and for those who don’t and could, there will be a special group of very unsympathetic sergeants to break them of their bad habits. But normally, sir, we – or the Marines – get volunteers who meet basic criteria, rather than just taking people for political reasons.”

He paused, looking down at one of the recruits. “Oh, I guess it was more than fat and bone could stand,” he said, nastily. “He’ll be fixed up by the medics and put back in the field, unless its something really serious and then he’ll be placed on some duty that won’t actually involve real fighting.”

“He should be so lucky,” Morrigan said. “What about the training doctors and nurses?”

Lombardi shrugged. “Do you have any idea how much demand doctors and nurses are in these days? The British NHS has been cheerfully raiding India, Pakistan and several other places for medically-trained people. We haven’t been that much better; Mexican doctors have actually been invited up into the US of A. Hell, once the Posleen get here, they’ll lose all of their clients anyway.”

Morrigan wondered, absently, if there were American advisors working with the Mexicans and then dismissed the thought. Under the circumstances, it hardly mattered; his problem was assisting the Saudis in defending their country. He smiled grimly; with a little imagination, one problem could be solved – if Mexicans wanted to head north, they could at least be scooped up by the US Army and trained to fight the Posleen.

“The French – and I really think that the British should put up signs saying ‘French food that way’ near the Channel – have not been taking the matter so seriously, but they’re still in the market,” Lombardi continued. “Frankly, we can get some people on short-term contracts to train others, but I don’t think that they’ll stay here unless we forced them to stay here.”

“I think that Stalin had it easy,” Morrigan said, after a moment. The great dictator could have simply ordered his people to train as whatever he wanted them to train as. “I pay you to find solutions, so solve; how do we solve this problem?”

Lombardi gave him a droll look. There were times when it was hard to remember that Lombardi was a trained and fairly respected American officer; now, with him walking around without a uniform, it was almost impossible. Of course, there were also times when Morrigan wondered about the story about the two vats of custard – perhaps it had only been one vat, after all.

“Women,” he said, showing a remarkable ability to pick words that could be misinterpreted. “These bastards aren’t going to let them train as soldiers, anyway, so let them train as doctors and nurses.”

Morrigan smiled. Sergeant Laroche had finally managed to get the young men into one line again, with most of them looking as if they would drop dead on the spot. For all of their fearsome reputation, most Arab men knew little of real fighting – and Arab armies were kept purposely weak and under-equipped with what they actually needed. A dose of discipline, matched with some proper weapons, might just make real fighting troops out of them – or it would kill them.

Of course, the Posleen had plenty of experience killing real fighting troops.

“Women,” he said, meditatively. “That might be difficult to convince people to accept.”

Lombardi blinked. “Do they actually want to survive?”

“I think that many of them don’t really believe in the threat,” Morrigan conceded. “They want to keep their women in the home, treating them like chattel, because that’s what they want. Control of women speaks to the deepest, darkest, nastiest sections of the male mind; why do you think bondage movies are so popular?”

Lombardi muttered something, through which the words ‘strangely arousing’ could be heard. “One of the most popular movies in my old place involved a pair of Japanese girls, wearing innocent outfits, and two men with horny thoughts,” he said. “They were tied to a tennis net and…”

“Raped,” Morrigan snapped. His disgust was almost overpowering. “You see what I mean.”

Lombardi shrugged. “Prince Salim will understand,” he said. “He seems to have a brain on his shoulders, rather than a mass of confused and self-centred responses.”

“Yes, he will,” Morrigan said. “How many of the others in this pathetic excuse for a country will understand?”

Lombardi’s expression hardened. “It’s that or die,” he snapped. “They can make their own choices.”

“It might be very well that and die,” Morrigan reminded him. “I’ll discuss the matter with him later, but…for the moment, what’s happening with our little commissioner system?”

Captain Denton would not have understood, which was one reason why he’d sent him to study the Saudi excuse for a logistics system. Lombardi understood perfectly, although understanding the problem and solving the problem were still two very different things.

“I think Stalin really did have it easy,” Lombardi said, after a moment. “I could kill for a drink.”

“No drinking,” Morrigan reminded him. Lombardi gave him a resentful look. “What about the Commissioners?”

Lombardi laughed. “We don’t have enough, really,” he said. “The people we really need, American officers who know what the hell is actually going on, are in short supply – and the White House won’t thank us for stealing some of them. I have a small group, including Hank, but we will need more, sir; more than we can actually find.”

Morrigan scowled. The Saudi Army was prone to misreporting what was actually happening to save face, something that prevented it from actually learning from its own mistakes. In the Gulf War, small unit commanders had been known to report success when they had managed to barely avoid losing, pilots had reported successful bombing runs when they’d managed to miss the target completely. A small group of American officers, reporting directly to Morrigan, might be the difference between success and failure, caused by bad information.

“Work on finding more,” he ordered. “I trust that you have enough weapons in the pipeline?”

“I hope so,” Lombardi said. “The prices are actually rising, although I have managed to buy an entire factory from Russia and its machine tools. It’s going to be transported here and we can set it up somewhere in Saudi.”

Morrigan laughed. “You don’t think small, do you?” He said. “Can we actually run it?”

“It comes with its own staff,” Lombardi said. He grinned. “Once we find a building and set it up, we can start making bullets and shells. The Saudi industry is hardly enough for what we need, sir; it might have cost through the nose, but its going to be worth every single dollar.”

Morrigan shook his head. “I just hope that it works,” he said, looking back down towards the fields. The young men were now doing push-ups and probably wondering when the hell they would get their guns. “I have a nasty feeling that we are running out of time.”

Chapter Nine: Planning For War

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
20th February 2003

General Morrigan looked into the room and groaned silently. “Have I told you that I detest Saudi Arabia?” He asked. “The men in there are a good explanation of what is wrong with the place.”

“Only about fifty times,” Denton said, trying hard not to smile. Morrigan gave him a sharp look. “Sir, are they really that bad?”

Morrigan nodded, placed his cap firmly on his head, and marched into the room. The Saudis who wore military uniforms wore more medals and awards than any serving officer in the United States – with the exception of Mike O’Neal – had a right to wear…and most of the awards were worthless. Chasing the occasional tribal raid and smuggling gang did not constitute a test of an army’s worth.

The room itself certainly bore no resemblance to an American planning room. Instead of banks of computers and a tactical display, the inhabitants sat or lay on chairs, watching each other with more concern than they would watch an armed Posleen in the room, hungry for blood. Aides carried cups of coffee – some of them fortified with enough alcohol to knock out an elephant – to the various political and military heads of Saudi Arabia. The worst of it all, Morrigan knew, was that these men were the best that Saudi Arabia had.

He scowled inwardly as he took his seat. In a compromise to his sensibilities, Prince Salim had ordered his aides to hang a major tactical map of Saudi – a paper one, rather than one displayed by a computer – on the wall; he knew that that decision alone would blow operational security out of the window. If Saddam Hussian had spies in the city, he would know the details of the plan before too long, although Morrigan had made a few minor changes that would give any Iraqi attack a surprise. It was a good thing, however, that the Posleen didn’t have spies within the human command structure.

The meeting drifted towards something reassembling order. One of the other problems with Saudi Arabia was that it was impossible – socially – to be rude, or even blunt. He’d heard dozens of ideas from Princes about how to run the war – most of them would have handed Saudi Arabia over to the Posleen with only a handful of shots being fired – but he couldn’t tell them that. Each of them had a war-winning suggestion, or two, or ten…and most of them were worse than useless.

He hadn’t brought Lombardi to the meeting. It would only have upset the ones without guilty secrets.

Prince Salim, finally, noticed Osama’s representative’s irritation and brought the meeting to order. Osama himself had hidden his location quite well, although Morrigan suspected that the religious police already knew where he was hiding. He hadn’t come in person, curiously enough; he seemed to be more of a shadowy figure rather than someone trying to take control of the inner council.

“I believe that we should now engage in a small prayer,” Prince Salim said, and led them through a simple dua. Morrigan watched with interest; only a handful of them, including Osama’s representative, Mullah Bihar, showed any real conviction. Others seemed almost unconcerned about anything, but appearances; their prayer was slapdash and shoddy. “Now, we have to make the final decisions. General?”

General Abdullah spoke from his chair. He was short and very fat; a good-natured man who lacked anything reassembling competence or ambition. In a sensible world, he would have been a shopkeeper, or a bartender; the post of commander of the Saudi Army didn’t suit him at all. He was a minor Prince himself; Morrigan was vaguely surprised that he hadn’t fled the country already.

“We believe that we have around two years to prepare for the Posleen arrival,” Abdullah said. His voice was soft and harmless; there were no hard edges to him, or if there had been, they had been ground away. The ‘we’ was telling; Hank Fletcher had briefed him. “Once they arrive, the forces of the regime will be devoted to the task of exterminating the Posleen that land within Saudi…”

Mullah Bihar interrupted, something that was almost unheard of. “And what of other places?” He demanded. “Are we going to aid other Muslims if they are attacked by the Posleen?”

The correct answer to that was ‘no;’ nothing short of an ACS regiment or one of the German super-tanks could advance against the Posleen and survive the experience. Morrigan had been watching the training of the fighters and knew that most of them would die for nothing, although they might just slow the Posleen down a little. Politically, doing the right thing…

“We have contingency plans to advance into Iraq or Kuwait or the smaller states if they are invaded,” General Abdullah said, after a moment of bemusement. “However, we cannot spend too many of our people trying to save countries while the Posleen could land at any moment. At best, we have to save ourselves first, before anything else.”

And men might mutiny if they were being driven away from their homes, or men might react badly, or the Posleen might catch a force in the open, or the notoriously bad Saudi logistics system would break down, or…

Morrigan smiled grimly. If nothing else, they would hurt the Posleen.

“Thank you,” an unnamed prince said, after a moment. “What about the air force?”

General Abdullah seemed nervous. “The air force has been placed in a support role,” he said, after a moment. “It will remain fully subordinate to the army and will concentrate on supporting the army.”

“That is unacceptable,” the prince said. Morrigan still couldn’t remember his name, but he was one of the Saudi princes who was also a fighter jock, one of those who had actually sponsored a squadron on his own…one that had been slaughtered by a British force in a war game three years ago. Watching the prince rant and rave about British perfidy had been one of the more amusing aspects of Morrigan’s own career in Saudi. “My squadron stands ready to administer a series of blows to the Posleen as soon as they land. We will bomb them into little chunks of yellow flesh…”

General Abdullah wavered. “A forward role can be considered later,” he said. “However…”

Morrigan stepped in. “The Posleen have air defences that make Israel’s look weak,” he said, quickly. The men in the room held the Israeli armed forces in a mixture of fear and awe; they would understand, he hoped. “Your force will go into action and die before you can reach bombing position.”

“My men will not be happy at being left out of the war,” the prince said. He looked up at Prince Salim. “I insist…”

“You will have your fighting role,” Prince Salim said. Morrigan laughed inwardly; the prince had just condemned himself to death, along with his people. That said, given the performance of the RSAF in the Gulf War, the Posleen would have been perfectly safe if they had no air defences at all. He was a little disappointed in Salim, though…

Prince Salim looked around the room. “And the manpower problems?”

Prince Bandar, Minister of the Interior, answered that. “We have been inviting thousands of new men into Saudi to serve as builders, freeing up true Saudis for the army,” he said. “The army should be able to reach its intended strength within a year, once we have training cadres up and running, using the newly trained people to train others. The…guest workers will serve us until the Posleen arrive, at which point they will be used as soldiers or defence workers.”

He leered. “Their women, of course, will have other uses…”

The room seemed to shimmer from shock. “Perhaps one should spend more time reading and praying,” Mullah Bihar observed acidly. Morrigan could have told him that it was worthless; the Saudi Princes were as hedonist as they came. “As for the suggestion to train women as medics, the Great Sheik has offered no objection.”

Morrigan blinked. He had heard nothing of the plan to arrange for carefully-selected Saudi women to receive medical training; he’d assumed that it had vanished into the morass of the various Saudi ministries, along with many of the ideas from the princes. He had also expected Osama to oppose it tooth and nail; the fundamentalist – although Osama was no fundamentalist – view on women was strict. They were daughters, wives, mothers…and that was the end of it.

“Please inform the Great Sheik that we accept his assistance with thanks,” Prince Salim said, his voice very droll. He too had clearly expected opposition. “Now…General, please would you outline the battle plans?”

Morrigan stood up, using a laser pointer to mark out locations on the map. The attitude in the room, as always, was contradictory and confusing; they wanted him – needed him – to solve their problems, and at the same time they resented him saving them. They claimed that any Saudi man could do the job of an infidel – and probably better – but Morrigan knew how wrong they were.

Of course, if any Saudi officer had existed with his training and experience, they would have killed him off a long time before he could use his training against the Posleen.

“This is a Posleen,” he said, holding up a picture of a yellow-coloured scaly centaur-like creature. “Don’t be fooled by the appearance” – the Posleen was crunching its way through an elf-like alien who had gotten too close to the fighting – “this is a killer. The average Posleen is not very clever, but they are commanded by their God Kings, who have considerable intelligence. The average Posleen also seem to learn most of what they need directly; the God Kings, unfortunately, are capable of learning as they go on. One thing that we are going to ensure is that as few as possible are capable of passing on what they learn.”

He paused. “We know very little about the Posleen,” he said. “We know from battle experience and Federation records that they land on worlds, proceed to snatch up cities and loot, and then get back onboard their ships and head off to the next world. How the God Kings relate to one another is not something we understand; we think that they move in the equivalent of clans, rather than a vast unified force, but we have no way to be sure until we actually manage to talk to them. So far, there have been no confirmed reports of human-Posleen communication.”

He paused again. “What, you might ask, does this mean for us?” He asked. “It means that a large force of those creatures is going to descend on this world within a few years…and, when they come, they’re going to hurt us badly. Just how we cope with that will affect the outcome. There are details, again, that we don’t have to discuss here; the only thing that matters is destroying the Posleen.”

His eyes met Prince Salim’s. “The basic fact is that no human armoured force can meet the Posleen and win,” he said. “We can use hit and run raids and we are going to use them, but the Posleen will kick our asses in a stand up battle. We are going to build fixed defences around our cities – most of the defences are already underway – and the Posleen are going to butt their heads against them and get smashed. However, we have to take account of other possibilities.”

He scowled. The plan was a political compromise. Like all such plans, it had more weaknesses than he felt comfortable with, starting with the strange combination of initiative and a complete lack of the same that the Saudi Army possessed. Princes had the ability to act on their own, without comeback; this, of course, was not always a good idea.

“TERDEF believes that the Middle East will not be a major target for the Posleen,” Morrigan said. “The Posleen might take one look at the deserts and decide to go pick on India instead. Despite that, there are few natural obstacles that will slow their offensive, and they will look on our cities as pre-packaged food. Sometimes the Posleen march around to a concentrated plan, sometimes they just rampage around…and we have no way of knowing which we’re going to be faced with. There are three basic situations, however; the Posleen can land in Saudi itself, they can land in a neighbouring country, and they can land well away from us.”

“Allah grant that it be so,” another unnamed prince said. There was a mutter of agreement. “If we were left alone, it would truly be a miracle.”

“The TERDEF network will give us warning of any Posleen incursion into Earthspace,” Morrigan continued, his voice calm. “When the warning is sounded, we will go to full alert; weapons and ammunition will be issued from the sealed dumps.” They were also guarded by hired soldiers, who might cost money, but they were less corrupt than the Saudi military policemen. “Our forces will take up their positions and stand by to repel aliens.”

He waved his pointer at the map. “The National Guard and the newly-raised units will have the responsibility for sealing the cities and defending them,” he said. “The fighters will have the task of harrying the Posleen invaders and fighting them in the desert, while the regular army will have the task of defending the borders. In the event of the Posleen coming down right on top of us, we should be prepared to meet them with as much firepower as we can prepare. That will represent a unique opportunity to destroy the Posleen force before they can deploy. A landing in the desert will be probably impossible to degrade before they reach a city, but the fighters can handle them in the desert.”

Mullah Bihar smiled. “Allah’s warriors will crush the alien threat,” he said.

Morrigan smiled. Most of them would die. “The most dangerous situation, in some ways, would be the Posleen landing nearby, in Iraq or Iran. If that happens, they will probably attempt to take and eat the cities here quickly; there is no reason to expect them to respect national borders. They will be looking for food – and they consider human beings food.”

He looked around the room, wondering which of them would be the first to break. “The Posleen use their landing craft, from time to time, as air support. We have only a handful of weapons that could make an impression on landers; they must not be wasted while we are defending ourselves.”

“But our air force could engage them,” the fighter jock prince said.

“Perhaps,” Morrigan said, giving up the argument. The prince would lead his men to their deaths and good riddance. “The only way to win is to kill as many Posleen as we can, until they’re all dead. Once we know what they’re doing, we will be attempting to kill as many of them as we can, concentrating our forces against them. It is of the utmost importance that all orders from Riyadh or the alternate command post be obeyed and proper reporting be observed; we cannot assume that the Posleen will be as foolish as the Iraqis were back in 1991.”

He smiled. “Any questions?”

“The King has given his support to this plan,” Prince Salim said, before anyone could say anything else. “The plan will be adopted and used to defeat the enemy.”

Mullah Bihar looked concerned. “And my people?” He asked. “What is our role in the plan?”

“Making a detailed plan is difficult,” Morrigan reminded him. “At the moment, your people have been tasked with fighting the Posleen; we will be vectoring you towards them once we know where they are. And then, you fight.”

It was, he concluded later, the best plan that they could devise, short of running away and he couldn’t face doing that. All he had to do was make the Saudis make the plan work…and that would be difficult. They had planned for the worst…and he couldn’t help, but think that that would be exactly what would happen.

Chapter Ten: Press Power

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
20th March 2003

Riyadh had started life as a fairly common town for the middle of the desert…and then the House of Saud had become involved. In the years since the oil boom had begun, tasteless buildings mingled with buildings that attempted to hearken back to days that had never really existed, tall skyscrapers contrasted with attempts to give an Islamic sheen to the entire city. Every Prince in Saudi wanted a palace of his own; every princess wanted enough shopping malls to last her a lifetime. Riyadh was not a comfortable place to live, nor was it a town of grace and charm like Tehran. Mohammed Zahir had never expected to visit Riyadh, except perhaps as part of a conquering army.

And now, irony of ironies, he came as a licensed reporter from Al Jazeera itself. Not even the Saudi regime had been able to prevent its people from watching Al Jazeera – despite several attempts to ban the channel as something ‘unislamic’ – for fear of civil unrest; the people loved Al Jazeera, perhaps even more than they loved Osama. The West might have slandered his channel, called it a mouthpiece for terrorists, if not worse, but the Saudis feared what would happen if they tried to prevent people from watching the channel. They had threatened Qatar, from time to time, just to attempt to get the Qatari’s to do the dirty work for them, but that too had failed. Al Jazeera went on and on; no other channel in the Middle East could compare.

The thought had never creased to amuse him. The Saudis – and many other nations in the Middle East – had treated the reporters badly, but now…but now they needed them. Zahir, who had been regarded as a spy for the Iranian leaders long-possessed desire to invade Saudi and recover Mecca for themselves, had spent time inside a Saudi jail; he walked with a slight limp because of ill treatment while inside. Now he walked through the streets of the Saudi capital, unseen and unremarked, except by the three secret policemen following him through the streets.

Al Jazeera gave its people training in escaping surveillance; Zahir could have evaded them with ease, but why would he want to? He’d been invited by the Saudi Government, in hopes that Al Jazeera would do some of their dirty – well, tricky – work for them, the hard task of convincing their people that they knew what they were doing. As months went past and the bad news from the Federation worlds mounted, everyone knew that the Saudi Government wasn’t up to the task of defending the nation…unless Al Jazeera could convince them otherwise. If not, the Saudis might just be destroyed in the panic…

Riyadh sprawled across the desert for miles. Its very existence was a testimonial to the Saudi determination to tame the desert; water and other supplies were pumped or transported in every day. The citizens of the city were taken care of by the government, provided they didn’t get ideas above their station; it had been intended as a neat place to live. Naturally, intention and outcome hadn’t matched.

The wailing of the clerics, calling the faithful – and everyone else – to prayer echoed across the city. It was time for afternoon prayer. Zahir smiled and kept walking; he would sooner have eaten raw pork than share a mosque with a Saudi cleric. He was unsurprised, but slightly disappointed, to note that his escort kept following him, ignoring the call to prayer. As the streets emptied, with a group of veiled women being pushed out of shops while the storekeeper answered the call, he walked faster, heading towards the outskirts of the city. The roads were growing rougher the further he walked from the centre of town; heavy vehicles moved past him, carrying supplies of building materials and construction equipment, right towards what was intended to be a defence line around the city.

Zahir made no claims to being a military expert, but surely there was a flaw in the defences when most of the food was on the outside of the wall?

The construction hadn’t slowed, much to his private disappointment; the men who worked to defend the city weren’t Saudis, but Third World guest workers, slaves in all, but name. The Americans who whined about Iran’s human rights record should have been watching; Zahir knew that Al Jazeera wouldn’t be broadcasting that into Saudi. What rights did the guest workers have? None – not even freedom of religion, not even when that religion was Islam.

“Allah,” he breathed, as he walked up a slope and saw the awesome size of the defences for the first time. The dozens of construction teams were working away, building a massive series of trenches, ditches, walls and bunkers; there were no weapons in evidence. Given the treatment that the workers received, Zahir wasn’t surprised; a revolt from their ranks was one of the larger fears that the Saudis shared.

For what seemed to be miles, teams were digging and working, preparing their positions and laying concrete. It looked as if they intended to just keep working away, heading further and further away from the city; digging machines were building tunnels towards some of the outer bunkers, which wouldn’t have any surface access for the Posleen to reach in and take the humans out to eat. Armed guards watched the workers, sometimes issuing orders; he saw a female worker taken away behind a building. It didn’t take much effort to guess what for.

A man, wearing very western-style clothing with a skullcap, waved to him. Zahir smiled and walked towards him, knowing that a camera crew would never be allowed to record the man’s appearance. The workers, those that appeared on the film that would pass thought Saudi censors, would be wearing decent clothes; they would also be Saudis. There were times when Zahir wondered why he bothered.

“You would be the reporter,” the man said. He held out a hand and they shook firmly. He sounded more western than Zahir had expected, even though his Arabic was genuine Riyadh. “I’m Abdullah Al-Hassid, industrialist and co-ordinator of this massive project.”

Zahir had expected a prince, rather than an industrialist. “I’m from Al Jazeera,” he said, noting the care that flickered over Al-Hassid’s face for a second, before his face froze into a smile. The deafening noise of a truck drowned them both out for a long moment as it rumbled past. “I understand that you hope that you can defend this city?”

Al-Hassid led him over towards a trailer. “This is the greatest project I’ve ever been involved in,” he said, as they reached the trailer and stepped inside. Zahir smiled; his escort had been firmly locked outside. He didn’t expect much in the way of scoops from Al-Hassid, who had to have connections to the Saudi Royal Family, but he hoped for some insight. “Defending the people from the Posleen is the highest priority.”

It sounded like something written by an unimaginative PR hack. “That is true, of course,” Zahir agreed. “How do you rate your own defences?”

Al-Hassid laughed. “I am hardly a military expert,” he said, his voice very light. “At the moment, we’re still laying the groundwork, but we hope to have massive defences in place within the next year or so. It was decided on the original plan that forming a line around the city was the important part, then we would continue to seal off the city, bit by bit, until we had utterly massive defences.”

Zahir lifted an eyebrow. “There is a defence plan?”

Al-Hassid blinked. “Of course there’s a defence plan,” he said. “Everything is being directed by the government.”

“Ah,” Zahir said. “That would be the plan to continue the slaughter until everyone is dead, but the handful of princes who had fled abroad?”

Al-Hassid didn’t get the joke. It had been a weak version of the original joke anyway. “No,” he said firmly. “The plan is the one to defeat the Posleen, when they come to try to kill our people and then eat them. The plan for handling that is going ahead fairly well.”

Zahir smiled. “And what is it that we’re hearing about delays in the project?”

Al-Hassid looked…not guilty, but astonished. “This is a project of unprecedented scope,” he said, his voice remaining light. “Much of the delays were caused by some small problem with allocating the resources for building the defence walls, but we remained well within our schedule.”

“I see,” Zahir said. “Can I see the plan?”

Al-Hassid stared at him. “That is a military secret,” he said, very firmly. “I can give you an overview, but that’s it.” Zahir nodded. “There will be a line composed of bunkers with heavy weapons, trenches and ditches, backed up by heavy weapons set within the final part of the line. If the Posleen land on top of the city, we will pour fire into them until they die. If they land outside the city, we will pour more fire onto them until they die. While they are trying to break through the defence lines, we will keep hammering them and hammering them…no human force could withstand something like that.”

“I believe that’s the point,” Zahir misquoted. “And what happens when the line falls?”

***
Abdullah Al-Hassid looked up at the young reporter and wished, just once, that he could tell him the truth. The real reason he couldn’t show him the defence plans was very simple; the plans didn’t exist. Half of the confusion had not been caused by materials shortages, although that had played a role, but dozens of different companies being assigned different parts of the defences to build. If that wasn’t bad enough, substandard materials had been used in half of the defence lines; Al-Hassid would have been astonished if they had stood up to a single shotgun blast.

“The line is not going to fall,” he said, and wished that he believed himself. “The whole concept of the defence lies in stopping the Posleen directly; they will throw themselves into our guns and get wiped out. Should they manage a breakthrough through one set of the lines, they will blunder into a second set of the lines, where more fire will be poured into them. The line itself will work as a series of fortresses; the Posleen might break through a section, but they won’t be able to even roll up the rest of the outer line.”

He grinned. “Those fortresses can hold out for weeks, if they have to,” he said. “Once we have them all built, we will have tunnels leading to and from them, which the Posleen will be unable to breach. They will be massacred.”

Privately, he knew that no plan of the defences existed; he could only hope that one could be drawn up once the main body of the defences had been completed. The army would have enough problems just finding their way around, let alone fighting the Posleen in unfamiliar territory. His son would be lost if he failed in his work…

Zahir smiled. “These fortresses might be cut off,” he said. “What about weapons?”

It was a perceptive question. The original fortresses had actually held no space for any weapons, let alone their ammunition. A Prince had made that mistake, an amateur whose designs had been accepted, then quietly dumped in the nearest bin. Prince Bandar had helped with that, convincing the other Prince to go train on his fighter craft.

“There are going to be several options,” he said. “Massive underground bunkers containing weapons, others brought in from the city or perhaps even smuggled overland…”

Zahir coughed. “I was driven into the city myself,” he said. “I noticed that you haven’t been establishing the defence lines across the main roads, eh? Don’t the Posleen use roads?”

Al-Hassid silently cursed that particular flaw in the plans. “We intend to keep the roads open as long as possible,” he said. “The material to close the roads has been stockpiled and it will be moved into place once the rest of the defences have been completed.”

“That will be a relief,” Zahir said. “What do you think about your government’s chances in the coming war?”

Al-Hassid scowled. The right answer to that would get his head taken off. “I think that they’re preparing for the invasion with everything that the soldiers will need,” he said, after a moment’s thought. He needed exactly the right choice of words. “Although some people whined about the cost of the defences, we need them, just to keep the Posleen away from our womenfolk.”

Zahir shifted tactic quickly. “And the womenfolk,” he said. “What do you think about training women in medical techniques?”

“I think we’ll be very glad that we have them once the fighting starts,” Al-Hassid said. For once, the official line and his own feelings coincided. “Any other questions?”

“Just a few,” Zahir said, ignoring the hint. “What do you think about employing the fighters from Afghanistan in the defence of Saudi Arabia.”

Several answers came to mind, none of them particularly helpful. “I think that we’re going to need all the fighters we can get,” Al-Hassid said. It was almost truthful. “Will Al Jazeera be sending people to report on the fighting?”

Zahir looked surprised to have been asked a question himself. “I expect that we will,” he said. “Perhaps we’ll see one another there.”

Not if I see you first, Al-Hassid thought coldly.

He took Zahir on a tour of the compound, describing to him how some concrete blocks, carefully placed in the ground, would serve as bases for the heavy weapons that had been purchased and were on their way. Other places would hold teams of sappers, who would mine places the Posleen would believe that they had already taken, shocking them through surprise attacks in the rear.

“A smashing frontal attack on the enemy rear,” Zahir commented.

“Indeed,” Al-Hassid agreed.

They ended up near the ground of one of the fortresses, which looked like something out of the middle ages. Zahir was almost impressed, Al-Hassid could tell; he certainly seemed to be awed by the sheer scale of the industry. If nothing else, Al-Hassid was certain; the Posleen would be driven mad by studying the defences. That, of course, depended on what happened to the rest of the money; would it be used to aid the defence, or would it be used to line to pockets of some feckless prince?

“Well, it looks impressive,” Zahir said finally. He pointed a long finger at some narrow slits in the walls of the fortress. “What is the point of those?”

“Machine guns,” Al-Hassid answered, flatly. A force of helicopters flew overhead, carrying more iron girders for the construction effort; he watched them fly with some envy. “We poke them out and spray the Posleen with bullets.”

“How…American,” Zahir observed. His shadows had returned; Al-Hassid could see at least two of them, watching from a safe distance. Zahir shook his head slowly. “It’s going to be hard, isn’t it?”

“I have faith,” Al-Hassid said, neglecting to say in what. With some effort, he should be able to get his wife out of the country before the Posleen came. “I think, in truth, that that is all we ever had.”

He thought about the defences and knew, with his engineer’s soul, that they were far from perfect. In a couple of years, they would be a lot better, a lot tougher, but the Posleen packed a powerful punch. Who knew what faults there were in the defences that the Posleen would see…and he had not?

“And your princes,” Zahir said, after a moment. “Did they help to design the defences?”

Al-Hassid silently damned himself for his hypocrisy. “They put forward suggestions and all of them were adopted,” he said, knowing that that was not a good thing. “Thanks to them, the defences are what they are today.”

That, of course, was a double-edged comment.

Chapter Eleven: Plotting Within Plots

Mecca, Saudi Arabia
23rd April 2003

Mullah Bihar had once heard a western- an American – saying about people being threatened by their own success. He had thought it stupid – until now. The movement might have been granted a degree of legal legitimacy – as opposed to being underground in name, if not in fact – and even responsibility for the defence of Mecca itself, but all that had done was cause them to get embroiled in disputes with other Islamic groups, each of which had their own claims to fame. If that wasn’t bad enough, foreign fighters often proved to be disorderly; several rapes had been reported to him and dealt with by the Religious Police.

In his darker moments, he wondered if Prince Salim had expected it, perhaps even arranged it that way. He wasn’t blind to the implications of the presence of a SANG unit – Saudi Arabian National Guard – sitting near the city, without any form of communications with the men in the city. If his forces decided that they would make better overlords of Mecca than the Saudi Royal Family – it would be hard to find worse overlords of Mecca – he had no doubt that that force would advance into the city and put the ‘revolt’ down. Mecca was swiftly becoming a pressure cooker…and his people were caught right in the middle.

“It’s not that much of a problem,” Osama assured him, when they met in what was becoming the movement’s headquarters. It had once been intended as a hotel for pilgrims who came to Mecca; there had been thousands in the last year, trying to see the Holy City before the Posleen War reached Earth. It was bare and simple; Mullah Bihar approved of it, in a distant form of way. It might have lacked the sheer elegance of his rooms in the capital, but it certainly gave the right impression to visitors. Given what some of the movement’s foot soldiers were into…

He dismissed the thought by sheer force of will. Allah’s tools were His tools; they could hold whatever form they liked.

“In fact, it might be an opportunity,” Osama continued. “If we can forge a genuine mass movement out of it, we would be certain to win the ensuing civil war once the Posleen are defeated.”

Mullah Bihar quirked an eyebrow. He’d spent enough time trying to get everyone marching in the same direction to know that it wouldn’t be easy. It wasn’t just minor matters such as overthrowing the government of the land and its replacement with an Islamic state, but major matters – such as who would run that Islamic state. It wasn’t something that could be discussed easily; everyone knew that the House of Saud would have scattered its spies throughout the city.

It also wouldn’t be easy to tell Osama that. The man ranged between fits of sheer brilliance and fits of sheer stubbornness, often about the wrong things. It had taken a great deal of pervasive energy to convince him that men marching out to face the Posleen with only AK-47s would be a bad idea; he had believed that Allah would grant them victory. So did Bihar, but he knew that Allah would expect them to work for it.

He grinned. If the direction of prayer hadn’t been ordained long ago, civil war would have broken out by now.

“There are far too many problems with the Afghanistan fighters,” he said, changing the subject slightly. He understood Osama’s point, of course; his inner circle consisted of men he had known and trusted for years, preventing someone with bad intentions from slipping a spy into his ranks. At the same time…

“Many people here feel that they have too much prominence,” he warned, and wondered if Osama would listen. “They’re not the only ones with combat experience, and then there are local politics to consider. The people in other groups and the local councils all expect commands in line with their station – and they’re not getting them.”

“We are the forefront of the Islamic rebirth,” Osama said, after a moment. “We cannot allow people who have not been tested in battle to command the defence of the Holy Cities.”

“At the same time, the people from Afghanistan have been out of Mecca for a very long time,” Mullah Bihar said. Some of the native Afghanis had been so badly behaved when not actually in training that he’d wondered if the Taliban had taken the opportunity to unload a group of troublemakers. “They don’t have the local contacts.”

“They also have great faith,” Osama pointed out.

“It’s not enough,” Mullah Bihar snapped. “We have dozens of groups coming into the city, all armed and demanding a role in the defence, and they want commanders they know and trust…and none of them expect us to treat them as soldiers. The people from Algeria don’t trust the people from Libya” – Gaffidi had definitely taken the opportunity to get rid of a few thousand miscreants – “while the Palestinians are terrified of a Zionist plot, the Egyptians think that the Syrians are cowards, and the Iranians think that we’re out to get them.”

The last one was actually accurate. The irony didn’t amuse him. “Each and every one of them considers themselves to be the first and foremost…and their leaders consider their people to be their power base,” he continued. That too was true. “They’re nervous about us throwing away every last man who isn’t one of the movement, leaving them in a weakened position in the future.”

It would also lead to their execution. “We do not have time to risk the defence of Mecca because of their fears,” Osama sneered. Mullah Bihar nodded grimly; had there been an Arab military genius, liked and trusted by everyone, he would have summoned him to Mecca at once. There was none; the last people who had some experience with a full-scale war were in Iraq…and no one trusted the Iraqis. “We will have to give them roles consummate with their power, while ensuring that most of the reins of command remain in our hands.”

He stood up and smiled. “So, my brother, how are the defences proceeding?”

Mullah Bihar hesitated. If there was one thing he would have agreed upon, with the Americans who were advising the House of Saud, it was that the plan to defend the main cities of Saudi Arabia was a shambles. He would have preferred to have had the army closer to the cities, where he could have worked to subvert it; a fighter from Afghanistan had drawn up the defences for Mecca and everyone had agreed on the plan. It was the last thing that they had agreed to before the arguments started.

“They proceed,” he said, seriously. Mecca would be defended by thousands of trained and armed Jihadis; their faith and weapons would stop the aliens in their tracks. “We have been working on building dozens of defences, including using the weapons that the Princes don’t know we have.”

Osama laughed darkly. “Some of the chemicals should have an interesting effect on the aliens,” he said. “That will terrify them.”

Mullah Bihar frowned. “The Americans think that chemical warfare won’t work against the aliens,” he said. “I can’t remember if they were effective or not, or if they were even tried.”

“It is a Zionist trick to prevent the Muslims from developing and using the weapons, now that they have been forced to abandon their attempts to prevent us from becoming a united nation,” Osama said, calmly. “We will use every weapon at our disposal to defeat the Posleen when they test the defences of Mecca.”

He smiled. “And how is the training going?”

Mullah Bihar sighed again. “They have been armed and trained on dozens of different weapons,” he said. “There is a shortage of actual weapons – which is being blamed on us, naturally – so we will have a confusing assortment of weapons unless the Princes actually come through with the weapons we were promised. The tanks, at least, have come through, so we have people practicing tank tactics.”

He paused. “The tank tactics are very different here than they were in Afghanistan,” he warned. “Some of the Algerians, fortunately, have a good grasp of what they need to do to use them, but…again, this causes us political difficulties.”

Osama was staring out the window. “They will have to be dealt with,” he said. His voice became very firm. “Remove those causing problems.”

They’d done something like that in Afghanistan, Mullah Bihar remembered, killing the leader of the Northern Alliance before he could seek an alliance with America or Russia against the Posleen. It hadn’t been very effective then – nothing could have mended the breach between the Afghani forces – but here it would be disastrous. With so many armed men around, in such close proximity…

He wasn’t sure that he dared cough, for fear that someone would take it as a sign to start a bloodbath.

“That would be ill-advised,” he said, after a long moment. Osama looked annoyed and bitterly furious. “If we try to purge the opposing factions, they will start fighting us, and then we will have to suppress them…”

“That bastard of a cow-fucking prince gave me the task of defending Mecca,” Osama snapped, ignoring the fact that Prince Salim had been presented with what amounted to an ultimation. “I won’t let anybody get in my way!”

Mullah Bihar sighed. “We can settle accounts with them later,” he said, his voice as placating as he could speak. “If we manage to disarm them without starting a fight, which is unlikely, we would then have thousands of unarmed men waiting for the Posleen to eat them. That would be…unfortunate.”

“I’ll destroy Mecca before I let the Posleen have it,” Osama snapped. His voice hardened. “I want a plan for demolition of the city as a final resort.”

Mullah Bihar felt his mouth fall open at the blasphemy. “I don’t think that that would be wise,” he said, noting the defeatism within Osama’s voice. There were times when he wondered if Osama was really as crazy as he seemed, sometimes. “The others would not approve of it.”

He changed the subject quickly. “One thing we have decided upon is to charge each of the groups with defending part of the defences,” he said. “That will ensure that all of them have an equal chance to fight the Posleen, with reserves held back to seal any breaches the Posleen will make. If the Posleen intend to put us under siege, we can hold out for weeks using the food that we have been bringing in from the surrounding nations, including Sudan.”

It didn’t bother him that Muslims and Christians alike were suffering because of the draw-off of food to Mecca. Their leaders had sworn that they would be honoured to have their food used by the defenders; who else had an opinion and mattered? The West, for once, had no time for whining that only gave the oppressors the giggles. The West would never have worked up the nerve to attack one of the tyrants on their own soil – and that, if nothing else, would guarantee that the movement would win in the end.

“The Posleen might land on top of Mecca, and if that happens they will run directly into the massive collection of guns that we have worked into position to defend the centre of the city,” he continued. “If they land nearby, we will wait for them to attack and then burn them away with our guns. They might go for Medina, which has fewer people defending it, but I believe they will go to the largest city, or at least the one with the most people. These days, that’s Mecca – we must assume that Mecca is a priority target for them.”

“They are creations of the devil,” Osama muttered, looking back down out of the window. Mullah Bihar followed his gaze; he was looking directly at the Black Stone at the heart of Mecca. The centre of Islam shone in the sun; Muhammad himself had built it, using its construction as a lesson to his people – a lesson that they had forgotten, over the years. “We will defeat them.”

“Of course we will,” Mullah Bihar said, looking down at the Black Stone. For a long chilling moment, it seemed to look back…and he felt his body start to shakes. The impression it left him was terrifying; the Stone had almost spoken to him. He shook himself, hard, and returned to the discussion. He had to have been imagining things, right?

***
Mecca had been the crowning glory of the Islamic World once, Mohammed Zahir knew; a city of enlightenment, discourse and religion. These days, the city was scared; a pallor of fear hung over the entire city. The streets were almost deserted of real natives to the city, but thousands of armed men, wearing dirty clothes and smoking strange cigarettes, paced around as if they owned the place. The city was already starting to suffer; he could see the signs of thousands of people deserting the city and heading outwards to other cities. They, clearly, had no faith in the fighters.

Silently, he wished them well. The House of Saud had placed population control measures into action, but somehow he expected that they would be ineffective against such a torrent. A handful of cars drove past as he walked, carrying an old man he didn’t recognise; the man waved to the armed men as he passed them. Zahir wondered who he was and why he was here; was he a military leader, a fighting cleric, or merely a spiritual guide for someone more practical?

There were no women on the streets at all. Mecca – a disgusting thought to any real Muslim – had had a nightlife before the armed men had arrived, even despite the religious police’s attempts to close it all down and flog the men and women involved. These days, the streets were unsafe for women – or, at least, more unsafe – and fathers and husbands were keeping their womenfolk off the streets. It was wise of them, Zahir figured; the armed men had shown no trace of reluctance to have their way with whatever woman took their fancy.

He made a mental note in his list of impressions and moved onwards, heading further into the city, noticing how buildings had been taken over to serve as barracks for the armed men – he refused to call them soldiers – and how they were defended by other armed men. The handful of people walking by avoided those buildings; he gave a fleeting thought to what fate had befallen the people who had owned the houses, once upon a time. The armed men didn’t look as if they would be kind to anyone who dared to stand in their way. A list of signs, announcing the imposition of rationing, compulsory service in the work force, and a whole series of new Islamic laws, were posted on one wall; he wondered if the guards had been posted to keep order, or to prevent vandals from defacing the signs.

A dead body lay up an alleyway as he walked on towards Al Jazeera’s headquarters in the city. The sense of threat grew more and more imminent as he paced onwards; his hand clutched the gun in his pocket. Perhaps his unknown followers saw the weapon and were deterred, or perhaps…

He walked on, wondering who the body had been before someone had let the life out of it. Perhaps it had been someone who opposed Osama, whom he was supposed to be interviewing later, or perhaps it was someone who had been murdered by sheer bad luck. Zahir had seen more death in his world than he had ever learned to accept, but the sheer randomness of murder stunned him, in a city on the brink. Who knew what would happen, when the Posleen arrived? Would the armed men actually fight, after years of terrorising the city, or would they run away?

There were times when Zahir felt that Allah was very angry with Islam.

Chapter Twelve: Standing On The Brink

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
23rd June 2003

“Ambassador Jackson was informing me that Washington was nervous about the influx of fighters into Mecca,” Morrigan said, to his small war cabinet. It was ironic that not a single visitor was Saudi, or even Arab; Sergeant Philippe Laroche was the only non-American present. Their hosts would not have considered a Canadian much different from an American. “It is not, of course, something we can help.”

Captain Denton frowned. He’d lost some of his stiffness, much to Morrigan’s relief; a subordinate who would not speak his mind had no future in the American Army. It would have made him perfectly qualified for service in an Arab army, where blind obedience to orders, no matter how insane, was commended. He’d also made himself useful by organising a rebuilt logistics system; Lombardi had actually commented favourably on it.

“But they’re terrorising the population,” he protested. The reports from Prince Salim’s spies had been very clear. “Can’t we do anything to stop them?”

Lombardi laughed bitterly. “We could drop a nuke on the city, you know,” he said. “That would stop it. It would also, of course, piss off everyone else, but that’s life. Do you really think, at the moment, that even Prince Salim could exert any authority at all in Mecca now?”

Morrigan scowled. It was true, more or less; Osama and his…allies, for want of a better word, had practically turned Mecca into an independent fiefdom. As long as they refrained from doing something obnoxious – obnoxious to the Saudi Government, that was – they would be left alone. If they tried to declare independence, they would have to be squashed…and Morrigan doubted that even one of the reformed battalions could accomplish that task without a great deal of bloodshed on all sides.

“I think that we will have to hope that they live up to their boasting and defend the city,” he said, and knew that they would fail. “Ambassador Jackson has a point, but it’s not actually something we can help at the moment, not with trying to get the armies of the Middle East into something reassembling a shipshape defence force.”

He looked over at Lombardi. “What did your contracts say in Israel?”

Lombardi smiled grimly. “The Israelis are willing to consider a non-aggression pact with us; that is, the Arab states surrounding or near Israel. The problem is that they don’t trust the Arabs one little bit, even with the influx of Palestinians into Saudi to work to build defences. They have Christian and Jewish factions coming together to form an ‘Alliance of the Books’ to defend Jerusalem; I don’t think that they would accept an Arab force as well.”

“And we don’t have it to spare in any case,” Morrigan said. He smiled grimly. “And under the table?”

“The Jews have agreed to share some intelligence with us,” Lombardi said. He smiled, perhaps remembering a Jewish sergeant he’d met once. “The Mossard has also been muttering about supplying some weapons to Shias here, but that would upset the people we work for in this godforsaken country. Practically, I think that they would be able to share information for longer than any Arab state; they have the discipline that will actually allow them to beat the Posleen.”

Morrigan nodded slowly. “I’ll get back to you in a minute,” he said. “Sergeant, what’s the word with the soldiers?”

Sergeant Philippe Laroche smiled bitterly. “Good iron is not used to make a nail and good men are not used to make soldiers,” he said, his voice grim. Morrigan recognised the Chinese quote and scowled. “The men you gave me, most of them, couldn’t have made more than cannon fodder for armies in the Thirty Year War.”

“Yes, well all I know about that came from reading Eric Flint,” Lombardi snapped, before Morrigan could say anything. “Please, get on with it; I want to get back to my lesbian porn.”

Morrigan scowled at him. “This is not the time,” he snapped. “Sergeant?”

Laroche laughed. “The original three hundred recruits has produced around five to ten people who might make a number of good middle-ranking officers,” he said. “It is rather less than I had expected, but after having weeded out some of them, who wouldn’t know healthy living if it jumped up and down in front of them naked, I hope that I should be able to force them forwards faster.”

He sighed. “We’re going to be promoting them faster than I feel comfortable with, even with the hired guns and the bare handful of people we could draw from the SANG,” he said. “If they’d let us bring people from the regular army, we would actually be laughing, but instead…”

“Prince Salim feels that the regular army is better placed watching Saddam Hussian and bringing itself up to full strength,” Morrigan said. “Of course, practical exercises like wargames and even study of the enemy would be a waste of time.”

“I hear that they haven’t even practiced the tactical strike without arms,” Lombardi commented, using the old sarcastic phrase for surrender. “Of course, against the Posleen, that is not an option.”

Morrigan nodded. “I know what you mean,” he said, suddenly feeling very tired. Silently, he damned the princes and the State Department; it looked as if he would be remaining in Saudi until the Posleen hit, if not long after then. “Overall, how do you rate their combat training?”

“Lousy at the moment,” Laroche admitted. “They don’t have much in the way of discipline. Those that do are often members of the middle class, insofar as that exists here; those who are princes or related to princes need to have that attitude knocked out of them before it causes a disaster. Against a group of Marines, or the NYPD, they would have their bottoms soundly spanked…and if you say that that’s strangely arousing, I’ll murder you.”

Lombardi chuckled. “You can’t fight in here,” he protested. “This is the war room.”

Laroche favoured him with a grim look. “Most of them have nothing in the way of technical training; some of them even had servants to cope with all of the hard work like that. Perhaps we should recruit the servants instead; that would actually be more useful. Anyway…we have most of them learning, some of them learning very fast.”

Morrigan nodded slowly. “That should be enough, I hope,” he said. “And the expansion program?”

Denton sighed. “Officially, we have every man jack of them lined up ready to go into the training camps,” he said. “Unofficially, we have around half the number we should have; the rate of desertion, unsuitability and exempted personnel is rising. Some of the Princes have actually moved into roles that would exempt them from military duty, others have just up and left the country. Bottom line; we should be able to have a force capable of holding a line against an unimaginative opponent…and a smaller, mobile force that will have some extra ability to act quickly.”

“And discipline must be maintained,” Laroche repeated. “In the last war, Princes changed their orders at will. They cannot be allowed to do that here.”

“I’ll speak to Prince Salim about that,” Morrigan said, wishing – just once – for a full American force to back him up. The force of jet fighters just wasn’t enough. It might deter Saddam, but the Posleen wouldn’t even notice blowing them out of the sky. “Now, our logistics?”

“Officially, again, we have enough to feed the entire country,” Denton said. “The media – at least the media controlled by the state – has been pushing that forward as hard as they can. Unofficially, we have a serious problem; there just isn’t going to be enough food stored for when the Posleen are likely to land. I have been trying to get them to create massive food supplies, but the global economic problems are causing us to have less food than we would have normally…”

“This is going to be normal from now on,” Lombardi injected.

Denton coughed. “It doesn’t help that half of the people overseeing the process are selling on food and supplies to the black market and pocketing the difference,” he continued. “There seem to be few people capable of actually being honest here, and they are often in bad positions. Overall, I think that this city and a couple of others will have enough to withstand a Posleen siege for a few weeks, but the other cities are going to starve. The attempts to improve the farming here, although some units of Galactic tech have been applied, are unlikely to produce many results in time.”

“Welcome to the Middle East, kid,” Lombardi said, not unkindly. “The people here would sell their own countries to the Draka in exchange for money. They’d sell it to the Posleen if we could just talk to the damned Posleen.”

Morrigan sighed. “Bottom line, that’s not really our problem,” he said. “Adam, I’ll talk to Prince Salim about it and get him to try to stop the rot, but frankly…as Bruno says, this is a fact of life in this part of the world.” He shook his head. “Bruno, seeing you’ve been interrupting all day, what’s the weapons situation?”

Lombardi smiled. “I have been spending money like water,” he said, looking for the entire world like a kid in a candy shop. “The Russians have proven most accommodating, selling us more than I would have expected, although of course the UN hasn’t been poking its long nose in at the moment. We have thousands of weapons of various types, including some heavy tanks, antitank weapons – and thousands of long-range weapons. I’ve also managed to get some anti-lander weapons from the Russians, which have been developed jointly with the United States.”

He laughed. “As for ammunition, we will have thousands and thousands of shells,” he continued. “My teams have been testing the samples, seemingly at random, but there is a danger that they might try to slip us dud shells. Incidentally, one thing we did manage to obtain was a few briefcase tactical nuclear weapons.”

Morrigan felt his eyes widen. “You’re fucking me,” he said. “You have just got to be fucking me.”

Lombardi shook his head. “Seven tactical nuclear warheads, three long-range nuclear shells,” he said. “The Russians claimed that they had…forgotten about them when they promised the Americans that they’d been destroyed, but my bet is that they were just put aside for a rainy day.”

Morrigan looked at him. “You’re American too,” he reminded him. “What have you done with the weapons?”

“I left them on one of the supply ships,” Lombardi said. “I didn’t want to bring them here.”

Morrigan briefly entertained the fantasy of placing one near Osama and detonating it. “Good,” he said. “I want them to stay there, firmly under control, until war breaks out. By then, we should have some teams ready to deploy them if we need them.”

Laroche shook his head. “Our combat logistics are going to be a pain,” he said. “At the moment, if the Posleen occupy the countryside, but get kept out of the cities, then we’ll lose the ability to resupply across the country. I’m not convinced at all that we could hold the borders, no matter what General Abdullah thinks; the logistics will be fouled up right from the start.”

He sighed. “I have been trying to install some sense of logistics into the young men,” he continued. “I cannot say that I have succeeded; some of them have the ability to learn, others seem to think that guns and ammo grow on trees. General Abdullah has been placing ammunition and supply dumps up near the border, just to ensure that his forces are well supplied, but…”

Morrigan considered the difficulties in recovering supplies though a force of angry Posleen and shuddered. “We could always rig the dumps to blow when the Posleen captured them,” he said, thinking of the nightmare that would have resulted if Saddam had driven across the border in 1991. “I think that recovering them would be impossible against prepared Posleen.”

Laroche nodded grimly. “It also means that those men out there are going to be cut off rather quickly,” he said. “Once they’re cut off…”

“They will fall and get eaten,” Lombardi said. He leaned forward. “Have you thought about their logistics?”

Morrigan lifted an eyebrow. Contemplating the Posleen logistics hadn’t been a major priority. “No,” he admitted. “What do you know about them?”

“They don’t need reloads as much as we do, but they do need to eat,” Lombardi said. “Teams on Barwhon and elsewhere reported that Posleen not only eat those little blue aliens, but also each other; they are cannibals in the true sense. Unlike humans, they do not seem to suffer any ill effects or social stigma from this, although any conclusions along those lines are basically guess work, deduction, and SWAG.”

“Simple wild-assed guessing,” Morrigan remembered. “And what effect does this have on us?”

“Only that the Posleen will have limitations of their own,” Lombardi said. “It’s harder to guess at their limitations – and how they see their limitations - than anything human, but I think that they will certainly manage to get imagery of the region when they land. They will know where the cities are…and they will have to come to the cities quickly, just to eat their fill. They don’t like the heat very much, it seems, and they won’t have a use for oil, but they will come for the people.”

Morrigan nodded slowly. “And much of Saudi’s population is in its cities,” he said. “They’ll also be stripping the land as they move, won’t they?”

“I assume so,” Lombardi said. “The reports differed on just how the Posleen eat vegetables, but we must assume that they can and will. If they come here, however, they must take the cities quickly and start eating, just to stay alive. If they land in Saudi itself, we will be fighting right from the start.”

“I worked that one out,” Morrigan said. “Any other insights?”

“They will be desperate to prevent us from leaving the cities,” Lombardi added. “We might expect them, if they thought anything like humans, to surround the cities first, then come pouring in. They might also use their landers to supplement their assault, or they might accept their losses to cut down on the numbers of mouths they have to feed. Heartless…but humans have done the same.”

Denton shook his head. “We have never done anything like that,” he protested. “We wouldn’t…”

“Russia, during what they call the Great Patriotic War, brought on by Stalin’s refusal to recognise reality when it kicked him in the nuts,” Lombardi said. His face brightened. “It is possible, of course, that the Posleen won’t land here, but…no, I think that they’ll come for the food, if nothing else.”

“They’ll come for us,” Morrigan said. The problem would be keeping the Posleen from eating the population long enough for them to drop dead of hunger. “We might want to withdraw everyone into the cities…”

“That will not please the Saudis,” Lombardi said. “They’re already having problem with tribesmen who don’t want to do more than they have to of what Riyadh tells them to do. Asking them to come into the cities would be like striking a match in the middle of a gunpowder mine. My name is Lombardi, not Yosemite Sam.”

“Oh, shut up,” Morrigan said. “What about the other supplies? Coming to think of it, what about Iraq?”

Lombardi scowled again. “According to the CIA, Iraq is still preparing to defend itself,” he said. “DIA doesn’t give it a hope in hell. NSA believes that Saddam and his sons are preparing to run for it if they have a chance…and guess where they might go?”

“Here,” Morrigan said. Saudi was the most friendly country to Iraq, which really meant it was the least unfriendly, as long as Saddam remained in power. “That might set the pussy cat among the pigeons.”

Lombardi laughed. “Saddam seems to be following about the same basic strategy as we are,” he said. “He’s moved most of his forces into the centre of the nation, digging into the land and preparing defences. The Kurds are nervous, despite America’s guarantee, but they’re getting some arms from certain people.” They exchanged glances; Prince Salim would have been upset to know that some of his money was supplying the Kurds with weapons. “The Shias don’t seem to be able to do anything at all.”

“One would be expecting Iran to stick its oar in somewhere,” Morrigan commented. He stood up. “Thank you all for coming; we’re in the same boat and…”

“As long as it’s not the Titanic,” Lombardi injected.

“We have to keep this country going, despite everything its rulers can do to prevent us,” Morrigan said. “Time, I fear, is not on our side.”

Interlude

Time passed…

Humanity prepared for the oncoming storm. It was a time of great heroism and rank cowardliness. It was a time of suffering, a time of grim determination, a time of reluctance to admit anything was wrong with the world. The Darhel were everywhere and nowhere, helping humanity in their curiously twisted way; the elven aliens had their own agenda.

And then the Posleen came.

The Posleen knew little of humanity; the very concept that humans might have something to keep them going beyond food and loot was alien to them. Some of the Knowers were slowly starting to figure out details about humanity, using information that had appeared in the Net, but far too slowly to help the first scattered showers of the invasion.

The handful of Posleen that reached Earth first had risked everything to attempt to seize more loot before richer groups could arrive to lay claim to Earth’s resources. As they broke into orbit, they were gratified to see that humanity’s promise, at least, had not been matched in space. A handful of small ships and fighters couldn’t stand off the Posleen; they just smashed their way through and down to the planet below. As the God Kings selected their landing zones, humanity trembled…

One force landed in Fredericksburg, where it was quickly destroyed. Two luckier Posleen forces arrived in Africa and South-East Asia; the natives were numerous, but ill-armed. A final force fell out of the sky, picking its location almost at random; Uzbekistan. That force didn’t have the slightest idea of what it was jumping into…

…But in the end, it didn’t really matter.

Chapter Thirteen: Playing At War

Near Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
9th October 2004

It was very near dawn.

Ten miles from the city, the sky was clear, with stars glinting in the night. It seemed so safe and tranquil; Kalid allowed himself a moment to look up at the stars, enjoying the moment as the trucks roared on towards their destination. A year and a half in the army had toughened him, even as it left him aware of just how much he didn’t know; the small team of American advisors regularly handed the newly raised Saudi force its collective head. Kalid, who knew that there were more people in the regular army, or the SANG, who could command the small force, felt stunned by the responsibility; how could he command an entire Company on his own?

The Company was actually oversized, at five hundred soldiers, all armed with the same basic mix of weapons. They’d been drilling for nearly a year as a newly formed group, with only a pair of veterans from America and France with any combat experience at all, and he was growing more aware of their problems. He was confident that they could hold a position, at least until they ran out of weapons, but they had a tendency to straggle when attacking a position. Even with the umpires on their side, they still lost much of the time…

“You’re learning, boy,” Francis said, when he’d asked. The burly French Sergeant had once been part of the French Foreign Legion, something that had surprised Kalid when he’d heard of it; he had expected that the Foreign Legion would be composed of non-Frenchmen. The American had made a sneering remark about that being the reason that Foreign Legion was the toughest French force on the planet, almost starting a fight; Kalid had tried to prevent it – and, somewhat to his surprise, he’d succeeded.

It had been only later that he'd realised that the entire incident had been staged to allow him a chance to develop his command skills.

Francis had alluded to ‘difficulties’ with his government, admitting that he liked to fight and had few outlets for that in France, except for cracking the skulls of what he called treacherous lefties. As France seemed to frown on such behaviour, despite the protests against gearing up to fight the Posleen War, Francis had left France for one of General Morrigan’s teams.

“At least you know to scout,” Francis continued. He’d regaled them all with tales of his service in Vietnam and Iraq – and several countries that Kalid had been surprised to learn that French soldiers had fought at all – using them to illustrate his points. He’d warned Kalid to always watch his back – the back of his force’s movement, that was – and to not let his rank get to his head. “Half of your friends in the regulars couldn’t scout if there was a brothel in the next town.”

Kalid had laughed nervously at that; the religious police were a constant problem to young men in their endless quest to find young women. They had little hesitation in flogging men whom they suspected of causing trouble, or just because they didn’t like their face, or because they were working out their class anger. Now, of course, many of them were openly mocked by the young men in the army; more than a few nasty fights had broken out in the streets.

Francis continued his lecture, watching his GPS projector as the driver drove them further into the desert. “It’s important, always, to hit the enemy at the weakest point,” he reminded Kalid, once again. “You actually took advantage of that, although if we’d had spy satellites we would have seen the trap you set – and if your forces had had better coordination, you would have wiped the force out of existence, rather than just sealing the breach and embarrassing us.”

Kalid laughed. “Was that the first victory of an Arab army over a Western army?”

Francis snorted. “If we were fighting for real, you would be dead several times over,” he said. “Now, we’re coming up on Defence One.”

Defence One was the imaginatively named location to the south of Riyadh. The main highway from the city ran towards the south…and would be a tempting line of advance for the Posleen, should they land in the south. The mission that the unit would have been assigned, should the war actually touch Saudi Arabia, was simple; they were to build a defence line and hold as long as they could. It was suicide, but everyone knew that they didn’t dare let the Posleen have time to settle in. If there was one thing that Arab armies were consistently bad at, it was evicting a prepared enemy from fixed positions…and no one wanted a permanent Posleen presence on their soil.

Kalid blew his whistle once; the men in the other trucks echoed the blast as the truck came to a halt, near Defence One. Like all such locations, it had been scouted out; the Posleen tended to butt their heads against fixed defences, rather than try flanking manoeuvres…at least until they’d had time to learn. Kalid had seen enough videos of the aliens to know that they were dangerous enough, even stupid as they were; there was no time to allow them to start a brutal Darwinian process in their ranks. He grabbed his rifle – unloaded, of course – and jumped out of the truck, followed quickly by the other men in the unit.

He smiled grimly as the Company spread out, weapons held in safe positions, but in ways that they could snap them up into action in a moment. They had their equipment, from hand shovels to even a small amount of blasting explosives; they could prepare a small defence line for their heavier equipment with only what they had on hand. Defence One was just a line – literally – in the sand; only the small bumps and humps in the land made it a viable defence line against an enemy who used no tanks, just their bodies.

“The Posleen are coming from the south,” he reminded them. Opinion had differed over just how much warning they would actually have when the Posleen landed. The aliens moved very fast, but they wouldn’t be that fond of the heat, and they would need water. Wouldn’t they? All forms of life needed water. “Get the defences set up now, move!”

The force wasn’t as inexperienced as their youth and general lack of protocol made them seem. They had been taught the rudiments of making defences, from trenches to heavier positions, and they had been taught how to use terrain to their advantage. Of course, there wasn’t much in the way of terrain here, but they could use what they had. He checked that everyone was working in a sensible place and started to work himself, leading a small group to dig a firing pit for a machine gun.

Francis worked beside him. That too had surprised him; the handful of Arab sergeants he’d met had shown little interest in actually getting their hands dirty. The Frenchman dug with a slow, measured pace, not forcing himself past his limits in the heat. The dawn was breaking as they continued to dig, fixing in their weapons as they prepared the location; Kalid was pleased.

They might just hold the Posleen up for ten minutes.

“Scouts,” he said, calling some of his people away from their work. There was some good-natured grumbling from the others who had to keep digging, but everyone understood the stakes. It was, Francis had assured him, a far sight better than the regular army, when the princes held all of the power and none of the responsibility. “Come on, I need you to scout.”

Abdul-Hakam, Fakhir and Ghassan were short, wiry men. Fakhir was of princely blood, but he at least had some sense of duty, the other two were common soldiers. All three of them were excellent scouts, although not on the standards of people who lived their entire lives in the desert; they would be watching for the Posleen. Francis had warned him, several times, not to trust to radio or even contact with other units; the Posleen weren’t known to be targeting radio transmissions, but there was no reason why they could not destroy radio transmitters with ease.

“You know the drill,” Kalid reminded him. “Get out there, get into position and signal back to me if they’re coming.”

They bowed and vanished into the deserts. All three of them wore camouflage uniforms, perfectly blending into the ground; they would find positions from where they could see the enemy, and then signal back using their mirrors. It was an old military technique and Kalid had borrowed – stolen - it; if the Posleen didn’t let them use radios, then they would use line of sight.

He helped Francis pull a large machine gun out of one of the trucks, carefully placing it in the hole they’d prepared for it, sitting it to avoid it falling backwards when it opened fire. They’d fired off plenty of ammunition, attempting to discover the weaknesses of their own defences; he liked to think that they had fixed most of them through trial and error.

A light, blinking on the horizon, caught his attention. The coding was basic Morse Code, warning him of vehicles proceeding north along the road. He wasn’t surprised, he’d known that there would be more supply convoys heading into the city; even now, Riyadh imported much of its food and drink. The Posleen, unfortunately, would find it good eating, should they get that far into Saudi Arabia. Francis had warned him, very clearly, that they had to assume that the Posleen would arrive and land within Saudi; if that happened, his force would have to surround and destroy the Posleen landing. It was a tall order, at best; it sounded like something a prince would think up.

“Captain,” Haytham said. The team’s sniper was already the most conceited of the force; he could shoot with awesome accuracy, although he had the help of an American-made weapon, rather than the Russian weapons that had been distributed to the soldiers. The rifle was much admired; Haytham insisted on keeping personal control of it, cleaning and loading it himself.

Kalid nodded. “Yes, Sergeant?”

Haytham smiled. “I have found my position,” he said. “Do you want to see?”

An Iraqi training manual, used for toilet paper at Francis’s suggestion, had ordered snipers to use the palm trees as sniping locations. The idea had given Francis the giggles; it couldn’t work unless the sniper was very lucky, or very stupid. The Americans were more practical; they suggested finding proper cover and using it to best advantage.

Haytham had neatly sited a concealing blanket just behind a sand dune, using it to position his rifle in a place hopefully invisible to Posleen sensors. The God Kings were priority targets, but at the same time the Posleen would do anything to protect them; sniping at a God King could result in every Posleen turning his weapon to the sole task of destroying the sniper. In a combat zone, this could actually win the soldiers time…at the cost of losing the sniper.

“Good work,” Francis said, examining it. A dull roar announced the arrival of a force of trucks, heading north; Kalid waved them on, past the defences. “Heh,” Francis said, after a moment, “you’re lucky that that wasn’t the attack incoming…”

Kalid stared at him. “You did say that they wouldn’t be using non-Posleen tactics,” he protested. “Are you telling me…?”

Francis leered. Kalid spun around, seeing the lorries disappearing into the distance, and swore. “You three, watch the rear,” he ordered, noticing that three soldiers had completed building their mortar pit. “Watch out for the enemy sneaking back behind us.”

Francis poked him in the shoulder and pointed back to the south. Kalid turned and saw the light flickering in the distance, only one of them. The small force that would be testing the defences – he’d heard that American units had holograms of Posleen to train on, but Saudi couldn’t afford them – was intending to sneak up on them and attack. The presence of only one light suggested that the attackers had actually managed to find and ‘kill’ the other two scouts before they could sound the alarm. That, at least, was worrying and…

“Defensive positions,” he snapped, shouting his commands out to his people. There were no arguments; the tendency of some people to argue, even on the battlefield, had been broken out of them all a year ago. “Drivers, get the trucks out of here!”

Francis withdrew to an observing position as the drivers pulled the trucks back, away from the battlezone. They had orders to prepare to pick up any soldiers if a retreat was called, but given the speed of the Posleen advance, they could hardly be faulted if they ran for their lives. Kalid nodded once, preparing himself as best as he could, and turned to peer into the distance with his binoculars. The heat haze flickered all over the desert, hiding whatever it pleased, almost as if it were hiding Jinn and other magical creatures from the storybooks the religious police banned.

It all seemed so safe and tranquil.

Faster than he would have believed possible, a collection of tanks – Russian-designed modified main battle tanks – came over the dunes, avoiding the road and charging right at the Saudi position. It was unnerving, in a way; he knew that his forces couldn’t harm the tanks, but the tanks could run over them. Even without shells, they could be hurt, and that would be…bad.

“Mortars, fire,” he snapped, wishing that they had some proper equipment. The handful of laser sensors simply wasn’t enough. Even as three of the tanks skidded to a halt, faking a hit reasonably well, the infantry was coming up towards their position, ‘firing’ as they came. To make up for the sheer mass of Posleen, they wouldn’t ‘die’ if they were shot; they would continue to come up until the fighting had reached knife-range. If he’d had his way…

Up close, the tanks had been rigged with rapid-firing machine guns, each one almost as large as he was. It was intended to deal with a Posleen charge, pouring fire on them until even the Posleen had to break. Smoke grenades and blank cartridges added to the mayhem, giving the impression of real danger – a game that could become all too real. The tanks came on, behind the infantry, which was now reaching the main defence lines. One touch from an infantryman, the rules said, and the soldier would be out of the fight.

A machine gun fell backwards as an infantryman jumped forwards. He wore no trace of identity, but Kalid knew that he was not one of his people; he lifted his gun and ‘shot’ him through the chest. The infantryman grinned, went through a hilariously funny ‘death’ scene, and collapsed. It was not very convincing.

Another smoke grenade burst inside the trench itself, sending Kalid diving for cover. The line of defenders was breaking, as more men were rendered ‘dead,’ but they’d practiced for such a situation; the reserves were already going into action. Kalid never even saw the infantryman who slapped his back, pushing him out of combat, but stumbled to the ground anyway as the reserves cleared the attackers back out of the trenches…

“Not too bad,” Francis said, afterwards. Kalid rubbed his arm from where he had stumbled against the ground and tried to listen. “The sniper killed the God King, of course” – he nodded to a tank that had a picture of a Posleen, holding a blade, painted on the front – “and that helped to disable the enemy. We cannot do that for humans, of course, but for the Posleen it will disable them for a while.”

Kalid nodded. The Posleen who lost their God Kings were known to attack each other instead of the human forces. They were still dangerous, but they became a wild card, until another Posleen God King took over and steered them back against the humans.

“Other than that, you did pretty well,” Francis continued. “In fact…”

Something flashed in the sky. Kalid glanced up automatically, just in time to see a series of pinpricks of burning bright light flashing across the sky; he winced as his eyes hurt under the impact. Thunder rolled across the sky; he saw…something moving, very high in the sky. Another flash, another; something launched itself into the sky…

“I think that you’re about to find out just how good you really are,” Francis said, after a moment. The series of flashes of lights was growing more active. “The Posleen are here.”

Chapter Fourteen: Really Playing At War

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
9th October 2004

General Morrigan was dreaming, softly, of a world he’d thought long lost. The West had lost some of its idealism during the long hard road to victory in the Cold War – when they had had to compromise with regimes that had no commitment to democracy – and he knew that it could never be regained. He was mortally certain that, one day, the West would have been slapped in the face by those who had been oppressed for so long, but he could dream of better days. He could remember being a young idealist…

Many in the world had dreamed of better days…and they hadn’t come. Morrigan hadn’t been surprised; the end of the Cold War had only unleashed forces that had been held firmly under control by one or both of the superpowers. Thousands might now march in protest of the draft, of the preparations for facing the Posleen, but they would have no choice, but to fight or die. Fight and die, in the case of many of them; those who didn’t want to fight rarely made good soldiers. Saddam Hussian had never learned that.

The buzzing cut through his dreams. It was a noise perfectly tuned to awaken the dead, let alone one middle-aged General; he started awake at once. The presence of the girl in his bed wasn’t a surprise, of course, but he shook anyway as the noise cut through the last vestiges of sleep. There was only one reason to use that alarm; the Posleen were entering orbit now. The planet was about to come under attack.

“Bill?”

Yasmeena’s soft voice echoed through the room. She’d been sent to Saudi along with dozens of other Bangladeshis, in her case intended for nothing better than a sex slave for a prince. She’d been trained as a secretary, however, and she’d been smart – or desperate – enough to make that clear to the immigration officers. Morrigan had been given her, almost as a present, by Prince Salim; they’d become lovers soon afterwards.

“They’re here,” Morrigan said, grimly. It wasn’t in his nature to sugar-coat bad news, something that had kept him from being promoted further up the ladder. He slapped the alarm button with one hand, pulling himself out of bed with the other, grabbing his clothing before he realised just how early it was. The Posleen hadn’t been expected for another year. “The TERDEF network wouldn’t sound that alarm for anything else.”

She sat up. She was a beautiful chocolate-coloured woman, short and neat like many of the women from that part of the world. Her eyes glittered the intelligence that had gotten her sold into what was effectively slavery; she was too independent to have made a good wife. Her breasts held his gaze for a second, then he tore his eyes away; there were too many other things to do.

“They’re coming here?” She asked, her face concerned. She had no doubts as to her fate in a Saudi Arabia that was under attack; part of him suspected – feared – that she had become his lover to ensure some protection for herself…and not just from the lecherous princes. “Should we run?”

Morrigan finished pulling on the bare minimums of clothing, picked up his sidearm, and shook his head. “No,” he said. “I’m going to the war room. You stay here. I’ll call you if there’s an emergency.”

He kissed her once and ran out of the door, meeting Captain Denton just outside. The young man gave him a concerned look, noticing his superior’s rumpled appearance, but was wise enough not to comment. Morrigan forced himself to move slowly through the corridors and into the stairwell, leading down into the basement. The decorators had been here too, he noted, with a sudden wave of bitterness; the stairwell could have fed an entire town for years, had its decorations been removed and sold.

The guard at the entrance to the war room saluted once; not unlike Yasmeena, he was a Bangladeshi who lived in Saudi, serving as part of the Royal Family’s final line of defence. Most of them served for money; Morrigan had his doubts about just how trustworthy they were, in the final analysis. They used western equipment, but he’d watched them drilling once; it hadn’t been impressive.

“Thank you,” Morrigan said, and stepped into the war room. He’d had a hand in designing the room, and while it didn’t live up to the best of American designs, it had enough to make it reasonably capable, assuming that the operators knew what they were doing. He’d had them trained specially for the role, using American trainers; they’d been running drills all year. He could only hope that it would be enough.

General Abdullah hadn’t arrived yet. Nor had Prince Salim.

“Report,” he snapped, using his uniform to best advantage. His actions on his worst days were some of the best treatment that Saudi workers had received; loyalty was something beyond price. “What’s going on?”

A young man looked up from his display. “We had an alert forwarded to us from the TERDEF network,” he said, after a moment. “At least four Posleen battleships – those globe-carrying craft of theirs – appeared out of space drive ten minutes ago. At the moment…”

He waved at the display in the centre of the room. The TERDEF network would have horrified American political and military leaders, pre-Contact; it displayed more tactical and strategic information than anyone would be comfortable sharing with nations that had been America’s sworn enemies, until the Posleen came. Now, Iran and North Korea, Russia and Vietnam, would have the information that showed what was happening, high above in space. But, for all the displays, he could do nothing to affect what was happening high overhead.

He winced as a Posleen missile vaporised the International Space Station. The Posleen were sweeping human satellites out of the sky, duelling with the space fighters as they struggled to oppose them. Morrigan could tell, watching the red icons of the Posleen battleglobes and the blue icons of the human forces, that the human forces were losing. The Posleen were firing missiles down towards the surface; he winced, seeing a missile heading for the Middle East, then allowed himself a treacherous sign of relief as they struck Egypt. The Great Pyramid was destroyed in a moment, along with much of Cairo; he wondered just how much of the Egyptian Government had survived the strike.

“Allah,” a grim voice breathed at his shoulder. Prince Salim stood behind him, his face drawn and pale. “What about our defences?”

General Abdullah hadn’t arrived yet. Morrigan shook his head – typical – and started to check the displays. The units were coming awake now as the defence network fired off warnings to all of the military units in Saudi Arabia, calling men away from the morning prayers to report for duty. The Islamic Council had cleared them from punishment, issuing a blanket dispersion; how would they have any power at all if their followers were Posleen chowder?

“They’re coming to alertness,” he said. They had planned a full drill for the end of the year; the Saudi Armed Forces were already showing some weaknesses, more than he felt comfortable with. Units were reporting in as ready, according to the official channels, but his underground channels were reporting that they had manpower problems, even ammunition problems. “I think that you had better issue the warning, and the orders that we agreed upon.”

It had taken time and argument to devise the orders. Prince Salim, to his credit, didn’t argue. He took a microphone and issued orders directly to the units, placing authority in the hands of General Abdullah, who had finally staggered into the room. His face was pale enough to qualify as a mime’s face; Morrigan didn’t blame him. He might well be watching the destruction of his country.

“Get me a full status report,” General Abdullah snapped, looking at his subordinates. He clearly wanted to appear perfectly in control; Morrigan considered that the effect had been spoiled already. It might have been unreasonable for him to have slept in the command room, but he should have been there within the first minutes of the alert. He withdrew slightly, just so he could observe from a distance, wishing that he had an AID with him. The Galactic-built artificial intelligence device would have been very useful.

The communications system was breaking down. Morrigan had expected that, he’d ensured that Saudi Arabia would live up to its global commitments, along with its internal problems. General Abdullah seemed surprised, despite the effort that had been put into creating an independent internet-like network covering large parts of the country, and connected into the global system. It would be more robust than the rest of the Internet, now that the Posleen had killed the satellites, but General Abdullah was starting to panic.

“We have the internal communications network,” Morrigan reminded him. Radio was still an option, but if the Posleen started targeting radio transmitters – which was what he would have done – they would have to fall back on the network and hope. “I think that we will be fine…”

“This is Bob Argent, at the Pentagon,” a new voice said. Someone – he realised with amusement that it had been Prince Salim – had turned on CNN. Morrigan tuned out the noise of the irritating reporter, watching the TERDEF display with one eye and the internal displays with the others. The American-designed system should have worked perfectly; he knew that far too many commanders were uploading garbage into the system. If the higher command thought that a unit was ready, and it was not…

Time passed. The Posleen continued orbiting the Earth, tossing missiles down towards the planet from time to time, blasting targets that seemed…odd, to say the least. Some targets made sense, such as the human defences, others seemed picked just because a God King wanted some fun. What was the point of blasting uninhabited sites in Central America? The Panama Canal would have made a legitimate target, but empty jungle?

“All units have reported in,” Hank Fletcher reported to General Abdullah, who looked pleased. Morrigan and Fletcher exchanged a long glance; both of them knew that it was far from perfect. “Some units are reporting problems with manpower, but others are working perfectly. They’re asking for orders.”

“Order them to hold in place and wait,” Morrigan said, before General Abdullah could say anything. He was more than capable of ordering them to do something useless, just to appear busy; Morrigan wouldn’t have minded if he’d taken the credit, as long as he had allowed Morrigan to run the defences himself. “There’s no point in wasting ammunition and supplies at the moment.”

He checked his private display again. The defenders, even now, would be rushing into positions that had been built in one of the most slipshod fashions imaginable, and often for the strangest of reasons. A Prince wanted a swimming pool for his harem; he took concrete and workers from the defences and used them to build the pool. He silently thanked God that Saudi Arabia had no PDC on its soil; the thought of what the princes would have managed to do to it was horrifying.

The main display was changing; the Posleen were zeroing in on their targets. One massive cone of red light was shadowed over the eastern coast of America; Morrigan felt his heart shake as it finally sank in that America itself was going to be invaded. He cursed the State Department with every swearword he knew, running through them in his mind; what had they been thinking? He should have been back in America, defending the American people, not playing nursemaid to…

Prince Salim’s eyes were concerned. “Bill, are you all right?”

Morrigan hated him at that moment, hated him, hated his country, hated his sorry excuse for a military that couldn’t have possibly defended their country without help. He wanted to invite the Posleen in, wanted them to burn the country to the ground, wanted…he controlled his anger, trying to calm himself; the effort cost more than he had expected. Somehow…

“I’m fine,” he managed to gasp out, focusing on the CNN broadcast. He saw General Horner in the background, talking to a reporter; silently, he wished his old friend luck when the Posleen came for him. The Posleen might just land directly in Washington itself. “You have to see to your people.”

Prince Salim’s eyes darkened. “I can see that,” he said. “You may notice what’s happening in Mecca…”

Morrigan nodded. The fighters had been alerted…and they’d been trying to take up defence positions. Someone had pulled a trigger…and then there had been a small firefight in Mecca itself. The foreign fighters had enough sensible people to stop the fighting from developing into a bloodbath, which was fortunate, but somehow Morrigan suspected that building any kind of united front was going to be even harder now…

Silently, he wondered if they could start the crisis ahead of time…

Prince Salim had other thoughts. “I wonder if we could take defence of the city back into our hands,” he said. “That National Guard force…”

“It would be torn to ribbons,” Morrigan said. He smiled grimly at the thought. Capturing a defended city wasn’t easy at the best of times; even a full ACS unit would have problems tearing the city apart to dig out all of the holy warriors, who would resist with a fanatical fervour. “Just leave them there.”

Bob Argent’s voice was becoming more hysterical. Morrigan understood his feelings; reporting on something that was coming closer and closer to home could hardly be easy. He would have preferred to have banned the reporters from the Pentagon altogether, but General Horner had clearly had other ideas. The display of the landing in the Middle East was drifting east; as the moments passed, it was clear that Saudi would almost certainly escape a landing.

He heard General Abdullah’s sigh of relief and moved to depress him. “They could still come down in Iraq,” he commented dryly, although that too looked unlikely. It was more like Central Asia now; he watched grimly as a PDF centre in Pakistan opened fire and was fired upon, blown out of the ground by superior Posleen firepower. The Posleen battle force was settling into its final descent pattern…

“Uzbekistan,” the TERDEF controller said, though the sudden silence. “Uzbekistan is target four.”

“The target, ladies and gentlemen, is Fredericksburg, Virginia,” Bob Argent said. “God help us all.”

There was a long silence. “May Allah have mercy on all of their souls,” Prince Salim said, after the TERDEF controller had confirmed that, for the moment, Earthspace was clear of Posleen incursions. The Posleen were landing around the world, in their chosen landing zones…and very little would be able to stop them. “The threat, General?”

Morrigan brought himself back with an effort. “Minimal, at the moment,” he reported crisply, knowing at what price their safety had been bought. If the Posleen had landed in Saudi, rather than America, he would have cheered. It would have confirmed his own fate, of course, but what did that matter? “The Posleen are hundreds of miles from us.”

He waved a hand towards the map. “The force in Uzbekistan is the closest to us, but it will have to force its way through Iran and Iraq to reach us,” he continued, working out the options. “We will have plenty of warning of its coming, if they do crumble under the pressure, but we should remain on low-level alert, just in case more Posleen ships arrive. If they do, they’ll have an unopposed landing on Earth; a lot of the PDC centres got hammered, along with the units of Fleet in orbit.”

“I understand,” Prince Salim said. Morrigan realised, just for a moment, that he did understand. “General, how did our forces perform?”

“Not that well,” Morrigan said, unwilling to spare any detail. “Dozens of little problems, a handful of major problems; we’re going to have to have a major spring clean. And then, of course, there is the problem in Mecca.”

“That’s Osama’s problem,” Prince Salim said. There was a sudden hint of rage in his tone. If the Posleen had landed, the near-breakout of civil war could have been fatal. “He can sort it out and he can do it without help from us.”

Morrigan smiled at the sudden display of will. “Not a bad statement,” he said, seriously. His eyes strayed back towards the reports coming out of America; he saw the Posleen ships arrive, a massive display of fire and power…and then the Posleen rampaged out of their ships, heading right into a crowd of people. Some of them were shooting back, others were running…until the Posleen opened fire and cut them all down. Bodies were ripped apart by the Posleen weapons; he winced…and then the image vanished.

“We’ll be trying to get back to Gordon as soon as possible,” Bob Argent said, in the Pentagon. Morrigan doubted that it would be possible, outside of a séance. “We go now live to the White House for a statement from the President…”

Morrigan heard Captain Denton gasp as the images returned to replaying what had happened in the city. He hit the control and turned the vision off; he didn’t want to see any more of it. Prince Salim’s face was grim, but determined; General Abdullah was staring at nothing. Morrigan resisted the temptation to wave his hand in front of the General’s face; it was all too easy to imagine someone worse in his seat.

“Well,” he said. “That’s the threat you will face, soon.”

Prince Salim looked shocked. “What the hell do we do?” He asked. “Can anything stop those things?”

“You put enough firepower in place,” Morrigan said. “It’s like using a fire hose to put out a fire; you can do it if you have enough water. We are going to clean up the mess that is our defence forces…and then we are going to chase them out of this land for good.”

“Allah Ackbar,” Prince Salim echoed. “Welcome to Saudi Arabia, General.”

Chapter Fifteen: The Iranian Revolution

Tehran, Iran
20th October 2004

Lieutenant Mashood Farmazan was the hero of the hour – and Morrigan found it hard to blame him. Few people, perhaps only Mike O’Neal, could claim the honour having stopped a Posleen advance dead in its tracks, fighting until the last of the aliens lay dead on the desert sands. A scratch force of Iranian units, commanded by such a young officer, had found a nearly-perfect defence position and held against the Posleen. Farmazan’s attempt to flank the Posleen had been perfectly timed; the Iranians had trapped the Posleen in a caldron and slaughtered them, and slaughtered them, and…

No one with eyes to see could dispute that the Iranians had won a great victory, killing over ten thousand of the aliens, but all indications were that that Posleen force had been a tiny attempt to test the borders of Iran. It had cut through Turkmenistan, after the Globe had come down in Uzbekistan, slicing apart several attempts to destroy it before the Iranians destroyed it. The remains of that force – ‘only’ three million Posleen – were running around in Central Asia, eating whatever they caught. The terrain might be bad for them, but the humans just weren’t armed enough to stop them in their tracks…and the normal methods of fighting were…rather less than effective against the Posleen. As the Posleen spread out, they depopulated the land in ways that would have made a Draka shudder; they, at least, didn’t eat human flesh.

To hear the Iranian President – a puppet of the Mullahs and the religious council – talk, Iran had won the sole victory against the aliens. America had been hurt, but the main Posleen force on American soil had been destroyed; others hadn’t been so lucky. The Posleen were running rampant in Asia, while their response to Africa had been educational, to say the least. The Posleen had probably taken one look at the African armies and thought ‘YUM!’ The infestation in Africa would take years to take out, but Morrigan knew that they didn’t have that sort of time; it wouldn’t be long before the main Posleen force arrived.

The massive parade stamped its way down the main street, thousands of Iranian soldiers, some of them firing their guns into the air. Missiles, Scuds and indigenous Iranian designs, followed them on trucks, their surfaces covered with markings in Farsi. Morrigan’s lips tightened; some of them read DEATH TO AMERICA. He wondered absently if CNN, which was covering the entire march, had anyone who could read Farsi on their staff; he wondered if they would report that for the benefit of the lucky Americans who had remained in their houses. Tanks and guns followed, the latter, at least, devastatingly effective against the Posleen; the missiles wouldn’t have any real effect against the Posleen energy weapons.

He winced. If that force in Central Asia turned its march towards Iran, the Iranians would be unable to stop it, no matter their previous success.

“I think its winding down now,” he said, to Captain Denton. He’d wanted to bring Yasmeena with him, as she had taken over some of Denton’s work, but the Iranians would have enough problems talking to an American. Morrigan couldn’t have cared less what they thought of the ‘Great Satan,’ but there was no point in antagonising them for nothing. “Once the last weapon goes past, we are going to visit one of their safe houses.”

The last weapon, another missile, larger than the others, was marched past, to the accompaniment of cheers and shouts. Morrigan smiled, wondering just who the Iranians thought they were going to launch that missile at; the Posleen would hardly notice it when they shot it down. These days, with the PDC centres, they couldn’t launch it at America…and he knew that a handful of American submarines would be ordered to eradicate Iran once and for all, if the Iranians tried.

“Come on,” he said, leading Denton away from the crowds. There would be more soldiers and more cheering – Iranian national pride had taken a boost from the events – but nothing important would be marched past. The man he had come to see had been marched past in the first moments of the march; the Iranians weren’t keen on him giving a speech. There was too much danger of him telling the people the truth, always a dangerous habit.

Away from the main streets, Iran seemed somehow…nicer, with smaller homes and smaller markets, selling what little food they possessed. He’d heard that Posleen weapons were already on the black market, but he hadn’t intended to acquire any; the Americans had plenty of samples of their own. Prince Salim had been sending out feelers to have a look at the Posleen tech, but Tehran was stalling and Washington had other problems.

“There,” he said, pointing towards an anonymous house. He’d spent time in Tehran before, something that would have surprised his hosts; Tehran hadn’t been known for welcoming visitors, American military people at least. He had always expected to be paying a visit to Iran on an Abrams tank; it had seemed only wise to make what preparations seemed reasonable. “That’s the place we want.”

The entrance of the house was dark; the presence of the Revolutionary Guard officer hardly a surprise. Morrigan slipped off his shoes, when asked, and motioned to Denton to do the same; most Iranians didn’t wear shoes inside their homes. Inside, the house was well-lit, with three Iranians waiting for him. Two of them, high-ranking officers in the Iranian Army, he knew; the third made a surprising appearance. He looked older than his rank suggested, with light brown skin and haunted eyes; his hair almost seemed to be shading to grey.

“Lieutenant Mashood Farmazan, I presume,” Morrigan said, and held out a hand. The Iranian officer’s hand was very firm; his eyes assessed Morrigan without seeming to move. “It’s a honour to meet you at last.”

“And an American finally grants us some military honour,” General Ahsok said. His voice was…oily, a political general, a fighter with pens and memos and backbiting. His kind were useful during peacetime; during wartime, they were worse than useless. General Ahsok had been granted his role for loyalty and it showed. “We managed to do more than you did, eh?”

Morrigan smiled. “You also had less to deal with than we did and the Posleen in the north might yet turn south,” he said. “Shall we try to avoid history at the moment and talk of the future?”

The other general smiled. “We can pretend to try,” he said. Morrigan tried to place him and couldn’t; the CIA’s penetration of the Iranian regime had been iffy, at best. “I am General Abraham.”

Morrigan lifted his eyebrows at the name. It might have been his real name, but that was unlikely; Arabic had its own version of Abraham. His voice, at least, suggested reasonable competence; he was more than just a political general. Intelligence, perhaps; there was an endless struggle between the different groups with responsibility for intelligence in Iran.

“I think that we have more fish to fry,” Abraham continued. “You asked for the meeting; what did you want to talk to us about?”

“I asked to talk to Farmazan,” Morrigan said. “I need to discuss the techniques he used for destroying the Posleen.”

“I had to force a village out,” Farmazan said, before either of his senior officers could say anything. His voice was hushed and broken. “They didn’t want to go; I explained what was happening and they still didn’t want to leave. I had to tell them about the Mongols to get them out, and…

“I set up a position in what looked like the best place,” he said. His voice wavered. “The Posleen had to pass through the Bajgiran Pass to reach Tehran, you see, and they had to be stopped there before they broke out into open country. So I had my forces set up, placed my tanks in reserve, and saw the Posleen coming. They came for me, charged right at my position, as if they didn’t even know we were there. Or if they didn’t care. Someone fired at them, I don’t know who, and they opened fire towards my people, pushing on against them. A Posleen was guiding them, we tried to kill him, but he survived.”

His face flickered, and then stiffened. “They just kept coming right into the pass,” he said. “They didn’t try to flank me, they didn’t try to starve me out or to probe for further attacks, they just raged into the pass and fought. We fired on them, pouring fire on them like water, and they just kept coming. They overran the first defence line, then the second; my tanks were firing antipersonnel shells into their masses just to prevent them from overrunning the third defence line.”

His eyes met Morrigan’s eyes. “They launched missiles at my tanks and killed three,” he said. “My guns were firing, tearing massive chunks out of their lines, and they still came on. I sent my people around to flank them, drawing in fire from other places, and finally they seemed to slow…when we killed their leader. My snipers had been killed, but a shell had a lucky hit and killed him. They were still fighting, but we were winning and suddenly they were all dead. The pass was piled high with bodies and the stench was appalling. Yellow blood was running everywhere, General; they’ve poisoned the ground for a thousand years.”

“Exaggeration,” Ahsok said quickly. Morrigan wouldn’t have been so quick to dismiss it; the Posleen were nasty bastards under any circumstances and it would be just like them to have surprises even after death. “The clean-up groups are already at work.”

“Some people died after trying to eat some of them,” Farmazan said. His voice was very tired. “They went all…funny and then they died.”

“The Posleen are poisonous,” Morrigan agreed. “I need to ask you some more questions…?”

Farmazan nodded. “Ask away,” he said. “I’ll try to answer.”

Morrigan composed his mind. “Did the Posleen send out an advance party or did they just hit you?” He asked. “Why did they come at you anyway?”

“They just came over the horizon,” Farmazan said, after a moment’s thought. “If they had spies or scouts, they were never seen, they certainly made no attempt to outflank us. They came, they saw, they charged at us.”

Morrigan smiled, noticing Ahsok’s agitation. Telling the truth was a capital crime in Iran, from time to time; they wouldn’t want Farmazan suggesting that they had won through sheer luck, rather than Posleen incompetence. A few million Posleen would overrun almost any position. Still, he needed answers and he needed them soon.

“That’s interesting,” he said, and meant it. “Were there any stragglers?”

Farmazan’s eyes looked haunted again. “There were few of them,” he said. “Just a few, wounded Posleen who had somehow escaped their own kind. They had torn through villages that had never even known of the threat; they’d eaten the humans, the goats, everything.”

“They didn’t even bugger the goats,” Ashok said. If it was a joke, it was in very poor taste; the city-dweller talking to the mountain-dweller. “They just killed and ate them.”

“Right,” Morrigan said, sensing Farmazan’s rage boiling under the surface. “Lieutenant – why are you a Lieutenant anyway?”

Farmazan laughed bitterly. “I have far too many of my own opinions,” he said. Morrigan wept for him; in a Western army, he would have gone far. “They can’t trust me with a Captain’s rank, let alone the sort of rank that would have made it easier to defend that pass.”

“It had been my experience that rank alone makes little difference,” Morrigan said, rather dryly. “Would you agree to be debriefed at the American Embassy?”

And if he took the opportunity to defect, Morrigan wouldn’t mind in the slightest. “No,” Farmazan said, after a barely detectable pause. “My place is with my men.”

“You will have higher command in the future,” Abraham assured him. He looked up at Morrigan, his eyes very grim. “You must inform Washington; we will not allow the President to do anything stupid.”

Morrigan nodded slowly. At least one Arab army was coming to grips with the Posleen threat. “Were there any other points of interest?” He asked, after a moment. “Anything that we should know about?”

Ashok hesitated. “We sent some of the Iraqi aircraft” – Iraq had sent most of its air force to Iran during the Gulf War – “to bomb the Posleen. They were all lost in action.”

“I rather thought that they might have been,” Morrigan said. He shook his head. “We did warn you.”

“And the Air Force didn’t listen,” Abraham said. “We will be more than willing to share information with you, if you want to trade.”

Morrigan nodded. “Let’s talk,” he said. “There is so much that we can share.”

***
The Saudi monarchy was fond of Gulfstream transports, often buying entire production runs for their personal use. Now that the Posleen had been driven out of Earth’s sky and contained or destroyed, they could fly again, although not for that long. Few people wanted to risk being in an aircraft when the Posleen returned to Earth. Prince Salim had sent his personal aircraft to recover Morrigan and Denton; Morrigan wasn’t blind to what this meant for Salim.

The aircraft contained something marked MOST SECRET, a report from Lombardi. Morrigan, once the aircraft had taken off from Tehran, opened the report and read it quickly; it assessed the reaction of the Saudi military to the sudden possibility of Posleen attack. In short, the report concluded that the Saudi military was far from ready for action at the short notice – two hours – of a Posleen landing. He read the conclusion twice, collecting his thoughts, and then started to read again through the entire report.

It made grim reading. Several Saudi units, it seemed, had only existed in paper; they had never materialised for action. A handful of higher-ranking Princes had manufactured them, collecting the funds and pocketing them, without producing anything to show for what they’d done. Arms and weapons, purchased by Riyadh, had vanished into the international arms market; the Posleen might have landed in a place where there was nothing to defend it…and the people charged with coordinating the defence would have known nothing…

He couldn’t believe it. Any open scrutiny of Saudi accounts would have revealed the disparity, but such a survey had never been carried out. It was carelessness that Mussolini’s army would never have been capable of, let alone the Iraqis; how could the Saudis not know that it was happening? Did they intend to lose the war? Did they think that they could buy off the Posleen?

He turned back to the report. Other problems became glaringly clear; one division had managed to lose all of the keys to the ammunition store…and there was a good reason for that, as the ammunition had vanished. Lombardi noted that he suspected that some of the soldiers had taken it for the defence of their own people, or the tribesmen, or…but in the end, motive didn’t matter. All that mattered was defending the nation…and that seemed almost impossible now.

Lost soldiers. Desertion. Several commanding officers had fled; Allah alone knew to where. Locked bunkers. Broken communications systems. Racial problems. Missing weapons. A handful of blue-on-blue incidents. Commanders bullying their soldiers. Some soldiers fragging their commanding officers. A prince leading his division into southern Iraq, without orders, to take up defensive positions; that, at least, showed some care. A prince using his soldiers as his personal bullyboys…the list went on and on.

Morrigan, offhand, couldn’t remember any army that had such problems – and won a war. History was full of examples of wars that had been lost through such problems…and Morrigan suspected that the Saudi War was going to go the same way. Lombardi’s handwritten note, at the bottom, was chilling; boss, this army is going to lose.

Morrigan couldn’t disagree. The reports from Mecca, in some ways, were even worse; the entire city was primed to explode in an orgy of terror and violence. The fighters had been preventing civilians from leaving the city, for whatever reason, and that was making the entire problem worse. There had to be some way to keep a lid on the city, or to use Saudi resources to end it, but he knew that none of them would work. With any luck, they would get the fighting part over quickly…and then they could start again on the defence of Mecca…

He shook his head. The aircraft was heading on its way back to Saudi Arabia…and Morrigan had already made up his mind. Something had to be done, or it was hopeless and he might as well return to America, taking the rest of his people with him. Something had to be done.

Something would be done.

Chapter Sixteen: The Saudi – Sorta, Kinda, Maybe – Revolution, Take One

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
21st October 2004

“Out of idle curiosity,” Morrigan asked, “are you really intending to turn your people into Halal Posleen chow?”

Prince Salim glared at him, his face becoming suffused with rage for a long moment, before relaxing slightly into droll simmering anger. He'd been putting off the meeting for a day, just to buy time and cover his own ass; Morrigan felt no pity. Saudi Arabia had to improve itself, or else the Posleen would come and eat them.

“Do not insult Islam,” Prince Salim snapped, after controlling himself. “That carries the death penalty here, Bill.”

Morrigan laughed. After seeing what the Posleen had done, he would almost prefer to be beheaded than fall into their hands. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but there was a time that Muslim soldiers marched from India to Spain, remember? Since then, have you ever won a significant battle?”

“We always win the political victory,” Prince Salim pointed out. Hunched behind his desk, he seemed weaker, nervous; Morrigan wasn’t amused at all. “What about your defeat in Iraq?”

Morrigan hit the table hard enough to make it jump. “This is not the Gulf War,” he snapped. “This is not a war against someone whom half your people were stupid enough to think was a good man. This is not a war on behalf of oil, or to get people back to places they never left, or to liberate one fucked-up corrupt dictatorship from another fucked-up corrupt dictatorship. This is not a war when one side is led by a bunch of wimps who got their panties in a bunch at the thought of a single poor soldier getting a hangnail while on detached duty fifty fucking kilometres from the warzone!”

He glared down at Prince Salim. “This is a war of extermination,” he snapped. “It’s very simple; either we kill all of the Posleen, or they will kill all of us. There are no ‘save the human’ marches on whatever world the Posleen spawned, no public opinion for you to whine to, nothing…but the endless hunger. They are coming here, Salim, and when they come, they will smash through the defences. The fleet will not be ready in time, and when the fleet is actually ready, Saudi Arabia will be teeming with Posleen – unless we kill all of them first!”

Prince Salim seemed about to speak. “There is no other option,” Morrigan thundered, overriding him effortlessly. His first drill sergeant had been very keen on the matter of shouting in a commanding manner; Morrigan had never forgotten that lesson. “We kill them all or they kill us. And you are not taking that seriously!”

Prince Salim banged the table himself. “We have spent billions on defending ourselves,” he snapped back, losing his temper. To do that in front of almost anyone else, it would have been a major loss of face. “We have armed soldiers trained in your manner, General; we have prepared massive defences all around the city…”

“Did you ever hear of a place called Tobruk?” Morrigan asked. “It was defended, during 1941, by a bunch of very tough Australian servicemen. In 1942, they were pulled out and replaced by a mixed bunch of second-line units…and the Nazis managed to invade the fortress. The defences weren’t any weaker, on paper, but the quality of the forces carrying out the defence was very different. You are facing the exact same position – and I assure you that there will be no rescue if you fuck up!”

“We will not…fuck up,” Prince Salim said. His voice was harsh and strongly controlled. “An Iranian force held the Posleen back, dirty Persians; we can hold them just as well.”

“Ah, the old fallacy,” Morrigan said. “Anything the highly-trained infidels can do, an untrained Saudi man can do better.” He sighed. “It’s nonsense, Salim, and always was. You should know better, or has the taste of real power dented you?”

Prince Salim’s eyes flashed. The reminder that his power base had been formed from the princes who were brave enough – or foolish enough – to remain in Saudi Arabia wasn’t pleasant; no one could wield enough power to really make changes, or perhaps that had changed. Morrigan knew what he was asking Prince Salim wasn’t easy, but he no longer cared…

“The Iranians stopped the Posleen dead in their tracks,” Prince Salim said, keeping his voice under control. “They did it, using a small force using inferior equipment. We have some of the best equipment in the world and…”

“The Iranians had geography on their side,” Morrigan reminded him. “The Posleen had to come at them from a very restricted angle…and a bit of tactical thought could have easily – easily – reversed the effect of the entire battle. A single moment of Posleen imagination, something they do have, and the Iranians would have been rapidly fucked up the butt, thrashed and threshed.”

“That joke was old when CNN first made it,” Prince Salim said. “General, you do not understand.”

Morrigan hammered the twin reports on Prince Salim’s desk. “There are two reports there,” he said. “According to the first, using what was reported to Riyadh, the ‘defence…exercise’ went perfectly and everyone played nice. The world is in no danger; the population can sleep soundly in their beds and…all’s fine with the world. According to the second, reaction time was bloody pathetic, half the soldiers on the books failed to materialise from nothingness, commanding officers had the collective intelligence of a slug – and those who showed some initiative almost made the situation worse – and weapons were missing. There are over nine hundred separate cases of corruption, leading back to dozens of Princes.”

He took another breath. “If the Posleen had landed on us a fortnight ago, we would be dead by now,” he said. “The reaction time was appalling, to say nothing of the friendly fire incidents. God knows that your two armies don’t like one another, but shooting at each other in the middle of a war is not helpful, is it? The misreporting was worse, Salim; we could have been issuing orders to units that were missing, or, worse, never in existence at all. We could have been counting on those units to defend a city…and God only knows when we would have realised that something was badly wrong.”

He sat down sharply. “The next Posleen wave is expected within a year,” he said, as calmly as he could. “The Posleen still running around in Central Asia might still cause problems, if they decide to hammer their way through Iran and then into Iraq; we do not have the time to find out most of our weaknesses the hard way.”

Prince Salim clasped his hands together hard enough to make the skin pale. “I see,” he said finally. “And, having caused a diplomatic incident, what do you think that we should do about it?”

Morrigan was incensed. “I have been sent here to this shit-tip of a country to help you bloody defend yourselves against a race of aliens who look kind and decent next to you,” he snapped. “The State Department seems to think that you’re worth something. Just how much do you fucking pay them anyway?”

Prince Salim’s face twitched into a smile. “Ten billion dollars over the last three years,” he said. “It does come in handy.”

Morrigan scowled. “You wanted to change things,” he snapped. “Are you now so corrupted by power that you can do nothing to handle the problem?”

Prince Salim rose to his feet. “You make it sound easy,” he snapped back. “These princes, the ones listed in your report, are pretty powerful in their own right. My power base will not withstand or stand for an attempt to purge them from the nation. If I try to wipe them out, or punish them, they will try to strike back against me – and they will succeed!”

Morrigan looked at him with open hostility. “And your people will die for nothing,” he said, fighting to keep his voice level. “The Posleen will kill and eat them, all of them. Are you going to allow the ones weakening the defences to continue their sabotage?”

He tapped the report with one long finger. “There are soldiers there who are bullying other soldiers,” he said. “Many of them are commanding officers, supported by the military police…what the fuck do you think that does for morale? There are some units, Salim, that never reported for duty within three fucking days of the Posleen arrival – some of them would start an internal bloodbath if issued weapons. Salim, with people like that, do we really need the Posleen?”

“It’s not that bad,” Prince Salim said desperately. “It can’t be that bad, not if the Iranians stopped the Posleen…”

Morrigan leaned back in his seat. “The Iranians fought in a pass and held it against the Posleen,” he said. He counted off points on his fingers as he talked. “The Posleen, as I have said, had to come at them from only one direction. A small flanking action could have exposed the Iranian rear for buggering. Their lack of intelligence saved the Iranians. Do you know that that will happen in Saudi? Let me assure you that it won’t.”

He waved a hand at the wall. “The landscape here is flat as a pancake,” he said. It was an exaggeration, but not by much. “The Posleen will not have to follow a route that is more or less predetermined. They could walk over the border at any point they chose – just because they preferred a road in America doesn’t mean that they’ll prefer roads here. At that point, your men will be hip deep in shit; the Posleen don’t have to come at them head-on and might not do that, they might fan out and – accidentally or deliberately – force your people into a caldron.”

He paused for effect. “At that point, Your Highness, it’s just a matter of time.”

Prince Salim had gone very pale. He had shown promise once, Morrigan remembered; he wondered if Prince Salim would live up to that promise. If he hadn’t been born in such a poisonous atmosphere, he might have accomplished much; he certainly had the potential. It was true, Morrigan supposed; giving children everything they could possibly want was bad for them.

“You remain as imprudent as ever,” he said finally. Morrigan, recognising the forced lightness of the comment, remained silent. “What do you want me to do?”

Morrigan smiled. “Do you really want to win this war?”

“I want to live,” Prince Salim admitted. “I want to actually win this damned war.”

“Do you?” Morrigan asked. “You are going to have to spring clean, everywhere.”

Prince Salim lifted an eyebrow. “Those who were known to be corrupt have got to be punished,” Morrigan said. “I don’t mean a slap on the wrist, I mean real punishment. Half of your regular soldiers would just as sooner go over to the Posleen, except the Posleen would eat them; you have to repair morale. The problems with the supply systems have got to be fixed, Prince Salim; you have got to ensure that your troops are actually fed – and no pork MREs this time.”

Prince Salim’s eyes glittered. “How did you find out about that…little blunder?”

Morrigan shrugged. “I know you people,” he said. “You’ll do anything in search of some money.”

“You should have been in Dixie,” Prince Salim sneered. “Fine, you want me to purge a section of the Royal Family. It’s a splendid idea, except it won’t work, because I’ll lose my power if I try. If I lose my power, the others will take over from me, the ones who want to get rid of the foreign fighters and hunker down and hope that the Posleen will leave them alone.”

“It’s a vain hope,” Morrigan snapped.

“I know that,” Prince Salim thundered. Morrigan allowed himself a moment of sheer calm. “If I deal with the three worst cases, at least of the royal blood, and some of the commoner people who were implicated…”

“That will not restore any faith in your justice,” Morrigan reminded him. “What, might I ask, has Osama been claiming, ever since the Posleen were beaten off?”

“You mean, apart from the bit about his prayers having reached Allah directly and interceded with him?” Prince Salim asked. It was literally blasphemy to claim anything of the sort. “He’s been claiming that the princes in the ranks have been stealing all of the weapons and ammunition for themselves and their palaces.”

There was a nasty amount of truth in that, Morrigan knew; far too many princes had insisted that their palaces be heavily defended. They were well within the defence zones, protected from every possible threat…except that of Posleen overwhelming power. Morrigan had a worst-case scenario for the Middle East, and he had a nasty feeling that it would be realised. Osama…was only throwing petrol on what was becoming a bonfire…and he wouldn’t even be able to realise his dreams of caliphate.

The thought made Morrigan smile. Osama had said, let them come, to the Saudi princes, and they’d replied, let them all come. The civil war that would follow any attempt by Osama to gain power would rip the country apart; he had enemies, as well, as friends, and far too many of them wanted him dead. The Saudi princes would be avenged, by those who hated and despised them; the irony was chillingly funny.

“And, as you well know, he’s right,” Morrigan said. “Campaign rhetoric has always been aided by having some basis in truth.”

“I have not noticed American politics following this pattern,” Prince Salim observed. “Why…?”

Morrigan looked at him for a long moment. “Come on, Salim,” he said. “I know you’re not stupid. You must know exactly what sort of effect Osama’s claims are going to have on the soldiers in the front line…and they might just try to get rid of you and the princes who are generally abusing them. All right, some of the princes are actually doing quite well, and some of them are even shaping up to be very competent commanding officers, but which ones do you think they’ll remember?”

He scowled, stood up, and started to pace the office. “You can’t hide the fact that the Posleen landed and kicked the shit out of many of the world’s armies,” he said. “The forces in Washington were hammered” – he paused, remembering soldiers who had died to defend Arlington – “by the Posleen. We won – big fucking deal! Your people are going to hear about what happened to the army that hammered Iraq, they’re going to look at you and their army, and you know what conclusions they’ll draw.”

Prince Salim looked up at him. “Osama,” he said. “I should have just had him shot.”

“There’s no Baldrick to pull the trigger,” Morrigan said. The joke fell flat. “Where would you find a man willing to shoot Osama in the head?”

“Your man Lombardi, perhaps,” Prince Salim said. “Bill, I will do what I can, but you know that it’s not easy. If we take out the three worst offenders…”

It wasn’t enough, Morrigan knew. He also knew that he’d pushed things as far as he dared. Ambassador Jackson would be sure to make a fuss about ‘interfering’ in the internal affairs of Saudi Arabia, ignoring the fact that a bit of interference might just have prevented a growing global crisis…of course, the Posleen had prevented it themselves. He made a mental note to thank them with a case of high explosive.

“It will have to do,” Morrigan said. He paused. “A number of other officers will have to be found other stations, places outside the firing line.”

Prince Salim nodded. He looked tired and wan. “I think that we can do that, carefully,” he said. “You never know; the punishment of the three worst offenders might just teach the others the errors of their ways.”

“Perhaps,” Morrigan said doubtfully. “In any case, I have taken up enough of your time…”

“Yes, thank you for coming,” Prince Salim said, quickly. Morrigan smiled at the all-too-predicable reaction. Prince Salim was clearly determined to get rid of him, almost as determined as Morrigan was to be got rid of. He bowed once, saluted, and left the room, allowing the guards to escort him out of the building and back to his car. The American Embassy had provided the car; it was designed to be bullet-proof, hijack-proof and cost as much as a large tank. Morrigan would have preferred to have ridden in a tank, but that would have given an all-too-accurate impression of his thoughts about Saudi Arabia.

“You’re clean, sir,” Denton said, running a slim metal wand over Morrigan’s body. “Sir, what happened?”

“Later,” Morrigan said, waving his aide into the car. His driver, a trained bodyguard who had been recommended by the Secret Service, started the engine at once. “I think it’s time for Plan B.”

Denton blinked. “Plan B?”

Morrigan smiled. “It is better than Plan C,” he said. “But then, Plan C consists of running away and kicking everyone we meet in the balls. I think, however, that there’s no longer any time to fuck around.”

He picked up his mobile phone, silently grateful for the upgraded network he’d convinced the Saudis to buy, and dialled a secure number. It rang for four times, and then a familiar voice came on at the end. Morrigan smiled; his old friend sounded as crabby as he had when they’d talked last.

“Hello,” he said, without further comments. “Are you safe? Yes? Good. I think I want you to proceed with Medusa, understand?”

There was an affirmative noise down the line. “Good,” Morrigan said. “I expect to hear from you soon.”

He looked up at Denton. “There’s no choice,” he said. Denton looked very pale. “There’s no choice at all.” He paused. “You can leave if you want, Captain…”

“I think I would like to stay,” Denton said, after a moment. “I want to know how it all turns out.”

Morrigan scowled. “Badly, I expect,” he said. “The problem with a lot of people here is that they think that God’s on their side, when he’s really on the side of the people with big battalions and the training to use them. The war could be very short indeed.”

Chapter Seventeen: The Saudi – Sorta, Kinda, Maybe – Revolution, Take Two

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
23rd October 2004

The sand was very warm, some few miles outside Riyadh; the tribesmen in the distance seeming like ghosts in the mist. Sergeant Philippe Laroche watched them through his binoculars, wondering just how the Bedouin saw the Posleen invasion, before turning his attention to the SANG camp just below him. No American – or French, or British – army would have tolerated such a position for a moment; Laroche had managed to move into sniper range without being detected.

There was no sign yet of his target, but he was patient; he could wait.

He watched closely as the Saudi National Guardsmen performed their daily business. They were intended as the final line of defence of the nation, but they really served as the final line of defence for the regime, something very different. They actually had better equipment than the regular army; in effect, they were an army in their own right. Unlike the United States National Guard, they were not – ever – intended to perform as part of the regular army; it was far too important that they remained pure.

He smiled, grimly, knowing that the unit below him would be brushed aside by the Posleen, when they came. A small Company of United States Marines would walk right through them without noticing more than a small speed bump; some SANG units were very tough, but this unit…what it gained in advanced weapons, it lost in the quality of its leadership. An armchair general from America could have done a much better job of deploying the unit…and as for commanding the unit; he could hardly have done worse.

Laroche would have laughed, had the situation not been so dire. There were, he’d been told once, three different kinds of political officers – officers who’d gained their positions through their political connections. Some were competent or very competent indeed; they were no danger at all. Some were smart enough to remain in the background and allow the NCOs to command the battlefront; they were irritating, but they could be lived with. Finally, there were those stupid enough to believe that their connections automatically translated into battlefield competence. They were the worst danger, they were something that every army had to live with…but the Saudi Army was absolutely riddled with them.

He traced his binoculars over the camp and waited. A comedy science-fiction novel had once noted that after the alien enemy had kidnapped the top military commanders, unit efficiency had doubled. It would have been a bad joke in the American Army, but in the Saudi Army, there was a great deal of truth in it. The commander of the division in front of him was one of the worst princes – and one of those who would escape punishment, just because of his connections.

Laroche ground his teeth. That would not happen.

The political implications had not escaped him, nor the attempts to place the blame on the nearby tribesmen, strong supporters of one section of the House of Saud. Laroche, used to armoured divisions, found it absurd that tribesmen could influence the House of Saud, but he knew enough to know that it was true. They had relations within the Royal Family…and, the nasty part of his mind suggested, the Princes had bastard children within the tribes themselves. Even so, it was going to be chancy.

He had never stopped watching the camp. The handful of luxury vehicles housed the General and his staff – along with a group of harem slaves. Laroche knew that the soldiers resented that particular princely honour fiercely, even though few of the women were Arabic; religious faith and sexual jealously went hand in hand. If the Saudi Army, like the French Army, had taken a relaxed attitude to such things, morale would have been much higher…

But it was not to be.

A door on the trailer opened. A young man, a divisional staff officer, already astonishingly fat, stepped out. His face possessed the kind of supercilious sneer that Laroche had thought only appeared in bad movies; he expected to hear maniacal laughter at any moment. The man wasn’t the target, but Laroche knew that that was the trailer that should have held the General. He adjusted his rifle and waited. There was plenty of time.

The young man was talking to a group of people; Laroche peered at them quickly, recognising none of them. All of them wore Saudi Army uniforms, instead of robes; none of them seemed remotely happy with their lot in life. Laroche grinned suddenly, understanding what was happening; the General had given his orders to his subordinate, who was now passing them on to his subordinates.

“Send two and sixpence, we’re going to a dance,” he muttered to himself. “Where are you, you bastard?”

On cue, the trailer opened again, revealing an older man. Laroche studied him carefully, making sure of his target; the General reassembled a younger fitter version of Saddam Hussian, but with a longer moustache. His target had the exact same style of face, but his moustache was, if possible, even eviller than Saddam’s was. Laroche smiled, remembering the panic that had spread through Iraq when some elements of the Iraqi military saw the Posleen in action; he knew that Iraq would be unable to handle the Posleen at all.

“I’ve got you, you bastard,” he said, as the General…posed. There was no better word for it; the General was posing in front of the handful of troops doing menial tasks near the trailers that held the command staff. They were lucky if they got to sleep in a tent, or under a tank; the General had enough luxury to turn the Marquis DeSade green with envy. “Just stay standing there and…”

His finger squeezed the trigger. The gun was perfectly constructed, one of thousands built to take shots at Posleen God Kings; it hardly jerked in his hands. The General was standing there…and then half of his head exploded as the bullet detonated the tiny charge as it passed through his head. Against a Posleen, extra firepower was vitally important; against a human, it was overkill. Laroche found it hard to care. Blood and brains – or something that had passed for brains – splattered over the sand.

“Time to leave,” he muttered. The soldiers were still in shock, something that irritated him almost more than a hail of shellfire being thrown at his general location, but there was no time to waste. He would have preferred to have ridden off on a camel, but there was little point; his vehicle was positioned not too far away. He crouched low, avoiding all contact, sneaking away from the scene of his crime, just as outraged screaming could be heard, followed by shooting.

Laroche tensed, expecting to feel bullets flashing past, but there were none, only confusion and outrage. He ran, knowing that his robes would be seen by any pursuers; they would take him for one of the tribesmen. The shooting fell into occasional bursts of fire, almost like an Army house-clearance operation, but none of the bullets were coming towards him. What the hell was going on?

He reached his motorbike, mounted, and kicked it into action. A handful of soldiers had finally come over the sand dunes towards him; he raced away from them on the bike, wondering exactly what had happened. Had they started shooting uselessly into the air – he made a mental note to send them an acidic comment from a safe distance, if that were the case – or had they started a mini-civil war?

Whatever the case, pursuit was desultory and unenthusiastic.

Laroche grinned to himself as he found his second vehicle, quickly dumping the bike and rigging it to explode, hiding all traces of his presence. An hour later, he was back in the city, heading for the safe house. He dodged some traffic on the roads, knowing that it had been a good day’s work.

A political general had been killed. A hindrance to building a proper army had been removed. Others would draw a lesson from the events. And if it led to an open break between part of the House of Saud and its tribal allies, so much the better.

A very good day’s work.

***
The square in the city was nicknamed ‘chop-chop square’ by the inhabitants; the House of Saud performed public executions there, watched by anyone unlucky enough to be in the square at the time. In more recent years, punishments ranging from stoning to flogging had been administered there, despite howls of protest from the west. Mohammed Zahir had known that they would come to nothing; Tehran had faced such howls of protest and carried on anyway.

It was hardly unprepossessing. A wooden platform had been neatly placed on the centre of the square, with an executioner’s block placed in the loose centre, along with a grindstone for sharpening the blade. It was pure psychology; the entire proceedings were intended to create an impression of firmness, determination and resolve – something that Zahir had believed the House of Saud lacked. It was only natural that they would strike back in whatever way they could.

As the appointed hour approached, more reporters flooded into the square, to be sure to claim good positions – not even the House of Saud would try to sell tickets – to watch the proceedings. Zahir himself had been invited, along with almost every reporter in the city and the most prominent ones in the country. Television cameras were already being set up, with the intention of broadcasting to the entire world; Zahir knew that Al Jazeera would be picking up on the signal as well as any of the more common Saudi channels. It might not change the opinion of the masses – Zahir had heard unpleasant rumblings – but they would certainly try to change the people’s opinion of the ruling family.

Zahir smiled. They faced an uphill struggle. The princes were hated.

Twenty-one young men, wearing army uniforms – the SANG was not in evidence – led the way into the square, followed by the executioner and two clerics. The clerics looked shifty, to Zahir; they would probably have been happier in Mecca, trying to swing the outcome of what was starting to shape up into war. The executioner was greeted with cheers from some parts of the crowd; this time, the religious police were not in evidence.

They would only have upset people.

A line of seven men walked forward, their hands bound tightly behind them, wearing uniforms that had had all of their insignia torn off, leaving ripped clothing behind. Their escorts wore the uniforms of military policemen; they regarded the condemned men with a confusing variety of expressions. A mummer ran through the crowd as they recognised some of the men, some of them were princes! Others were unfamiliar; a woman on the edge of the square began wailing in shock, she clearly recognised him.

“In Iran, Arab forces won a great victory against the Posleen,” a lead cleric said. Zahir felt a flash of anger; Iranians were not Arabic, by any stretch of the imagination. The conflict between eastern Islam and western Islam had included a nasty racial factor as well as more normal reasons for hatred. “They fought and destroyed a large Posleen force, numbering over ten thousand, just to save the holy lands from invasion. Allah Ackbar!”

The crowds echoed him. “Praise be to Allah, with whose permission and mandate the Holy Cities are in the hands of their custodian,” the cleric continued, clearly unable to resist the chance to play politics. “Praise be to He who saved the Holy Cities from destruction, using as His instruments the forces of Holy Islam.”

There was no mention of the Shias who would have made up much – if not all – of the Iranian force. There was also no mention of the other victories over the Posleen, in America, or the Posleen forces that was gobbling its way through Central Asia and the Muslims there. The cleric would have avoided mentioning America if he could have done so – Zahir understood that – but not to mention the other Muslims under threat was inexcusable.

“But there were those who were also charged with responsibility by Allah Himself,” the cleric continued. His voice was growing louder, more insistent. “There were those who could have done so much to protect His people. Strong men, strong in faith and blood and determination, could have done much, but they were not strong men. They were found wanting; they would have delivered the Holy Cities, all of the Peoples of the Book, into the hands of the enemy. Before Allah! Allah the Compassionate, the Merciful, they would have done that thing! Whom did they serve? Allah is more pleased with the Zionists than with them!”

He pointed his finger directly towards the prisoners, who shrank back under his gaze and the sudden hostility of the crowd. Some of them looked stunned, the former princes in particular, others seemed resigned. Zahir hoped that the cameras were watching closely, his mind already planning how he would comment on each and every one of the dead men. Each of them would have to be firmly slandered after they were dead.

“A Judgement must be passed,” the cleric thundered. “For these men, they knew that they should not do the things they did, but they did them regardless! They chose, when every Muslim was required to spend his time fighting a holy war against the Posleen, to waste away their time with wine, woman and song, betraying those under their command, selling the weapons to defend the heart of Islam to people who cared nothing for the sufferings of the Muslim people. A Judgement must be passed!”

His mouth was almost frothing. “A Judgement has been passed,” he thundered. The crowd roared. He was working them rather well, Zahir noted; he wondered if the cleric had other ideas beside a really good rant. Ranters were a dime a dozen in the Middle East. The reference to Zionism was interesting, however; ritual hatred for the Jews and Israel was a requirement of what passed for politics in Saudi Arabia. Did it mean some collaboration with the Jews? “For their crimes, these men are sentenced to death!”

There was a long shocked pause, then a howl of approval. Zahir blinked in shock; it just wasn’t done to execute princes – princesses were another matter – as it might give the commoners ideas. The people seemed delighted – “Allah Ackbar, Allah Ackbar,” they shouted, time and time again. The cleric seemed amused by the response; he was encouraging it, causing it to shake the ground. One of the prisoners fainted under the impact of the hate…

Someone fired a shot into the air.

The crowd quietened; no such crowd could ever be perfectly silent, but they fell towards quiet now, watching as the policemen pulled the first prisoner forward, up towards the block. The executioner started to sharpen his axe, keeping the ritual slow and terrifying; the first prisoner fouled himself. There were mutters of disgust as the military policemen forced him to kneel.

Zahir frowned. All of them had been given their fair chance to repent; he vaguely remembered, however, that a final chance should be given. The cleric said nothing as the policemen pushed the prisoner forward; the executioner picked up his axe and moved into position.

“You may now repent your sins,” the cleric said. His voice became softer, but also more mocking. “Allah is all-Merciful, all…”

The prisoner said something obscene. The cleric’s face purpled with anger. The policemen kicked the prisoner in the back; he fell forward, over the block. The executioner lifted his axe and swung down, hard. The prisoner’s head fell off and fell into the basket below.

“Allah Ackbar,” the cleric bellowed. His voice howled across the square. “Allah Ackbar!”

Blasphemy, Zahir thought coldly.

Two more men were dispatched in quick succession, one of them placing his head neatly on the block, the other twisting his head even as the axe came down, slicing his head in half instead of neatly removing it from the body. Blood and brains went everywhere, spattering on the wooden platform; the policeman dragged the body away. A van had appeared, driving up to the podium; the first body was unceremoniously dumped in the rear.

“Try and do a better job of it, this time,” the next prisoner said. The cleric said nothing; the executioner sniggered. There were some chuckles from the crowd. The policemen held the prisoner firmly down as the axe fell; moments later, another man was dead. Two more died reasonably well; the final man, a prince, had to be dragged to the podium.

“Curse you all,” he howled, into the sky. There was no crack of thunder, no sign that anyone high above was listening. “Damn you to hell for what you’ve done to us, Salim. Damn you to the deepest crack of the hellfire…”

The man struggled desperately, despite his bound hands; finally, he had to be held down by the policemen as the final axe swing was conducted. His head shattered when the axe hammered down, more blood and brains littered the sand. The crowd cheered, but there was markedly more…hatred in the voice. The dread cry – “Allah Ackbar, Allah Ackbar” – went up again; this time, there was a new and dangerous note to it.

“Allah Ackbar, Allah Ackbar…”

The crowd surged forwards as the bodies were dragged forward into a van. They tore the final bodies from the hands of the military policemen, who saw the crowd’s mood and decided not to interfere, and tore it apart. The cleric stood back, shouting hatred, shouting rage, into the air; Zahir, a devout Muslim, wondered why a bolt of lightning didn’t strike him down on the spot. The crowd grew louder and louder…and the note was only growing uglier, darker.

Zahir feared for the future.

Chapter Eighteen: The Saudi – Sorta, Kinda, Maybe – Revolution, Take Three

Mecca, Saudi Arabia
1st November 2004

The city was on a knife-edge.

Everyone could feel it. The strange sensation in the air, echoing through the heads of people in the Holy City; they knew that open fighting would be just around the corner. Hundreds of people had already starved to death in their homes, mainly women and children; Mullah Bihar mourned their sacrifice towards the Holy War. Some of their menfolk had tried to trigger off the final struggle for supremacy in revenge; how long would it be before the fighting began?

He knew just how weak their position really was. There were over four million people stuffed into the city and the hastily erected buildings outside the main defence region, and only a small number actually owed allegiance to Osama. Admittedly, the Afghanis provided much of the firepower – they had a discipline that exceeded that of much of the other Jihadi fighters – but even they couldn’t hold off thousands of outraged members of the other factions. These days, everyone in the city was armed and everyone could be counted upon to destroy Mecca if they couldn’t have it for themselves.

Why not? He was planning such an action himself.

The panic – and limited fighting – that had resulted when the Posleen had arrived on Earth had concentrated a few minds. Unfortunately, what it had concentrated them upon was that the Posleen were heading towards Earth…and their chance to seize supreme power was going out of their hands. The Iranians might have destroyed a Posleen force – and Mullah Bihar would have been delighted if the Posleen destroyed the Shia holy sites – but that wasn’t reassuring.

After all, the Iranians had their own designs on Mecca.

He followed his two bodyguards down the road, grimly aware of just how vulnerable he was in the open. Someone – he suspected another of the Jihadi factions – had sniped a handful of princes from afar, killing important figures in the SANG. No one knew who was doing that, but Mullah Bihar knew better than to assume that his status would protect him. Three princes had been executed, watched over by a cleric who kissed the behind of the government; Osama’s advantage might just slide out of his hands. If that happened…

If that happened, the movement was in serious trouble. Far too much of its fighting strength was in Mecca, from the trained and experienced fighters to volunteers from the streets of the Middle East. He was trying to make sure that they were trained to fight the Posleen house to house, if necessary, but time was running out. Not even the Americans knew when the Posleen would land, but he knew that they were far too short on time…and if some idiot fired a shot, all hell would break loose.

The building ahead of them had been built in the classic style for the region; a large lumpy house that held no adornment or display of wealth. It was surrounded by armed men – Mullah Bihar knew that the same faction occupied the entire block – and they looked suspiciously at him as he approached. He knew the risk he was taking – some of those men believed that Al Qaida had stabbed Palestine in the back – but he saw no other choice. Bloodshed had to be avoided…but everyone knew that it would be coming soon, unless something was done.

“Salaam,” he said, trying to project sincerity. “Take me to your leader.”

The Palestinian laughed. He clearly hadn’t believed that Mullah Bihar would go through with his offer to meet the Palestinian leader. “You came,” he said. “You have to go in unarmed and alone.”

Mullah Bihar had expected as much. “Lead on,” he said, waving to his bodyguards to remain behind. They looked unhappy – they wouldn’t be able to put up much of a fight before being overwhelmed by sheer firepower – but there was little choice. The Palestinians had taken over this region of the city, setting up roadblocks and firing positions; fighting in a city was something that they knew a great deal about doing. Mullah Bihar wouldn’t have objected if the city became a series of armed camps – as long as fighting didn’t break out - but he knew that such a situation would never have remained stable.

Inside, the guards searched him roughly, removing everything that could possibly be used as a weapon. Mullah Bihar allowed them to proceed – resistance would have been futile, after all – and wondered; they would clean him more than his ritual wudu would do. The guards were astonished at his bravery, but Mullah Bihar wasn’t too pleased with himself; the servants of Allah were expected to be brave.

“You’re clean,” the guard said, in such a manner than Mullah Bihar marked him down for later attention. There was something in his voice that suggested that he had enjoyed the experience of shaking Mullah Bihar down more than strictly necessary. “Come with me.”

The room to which he was led was plain and simple; a table in the middle of the room, lit by a naked bulb, dominated the room. A chart of Mecca, updated to a degree that suggested an obsessively careful mind, sat on the table. Mullah Bihar noted all that in one moment, and then looked up at the two people facing him. Surprise flickered through his mind; he tried to conceal it…and failed.

“Mullah Bihar,” the man said. Mullah Bihar knew him; Yusef Hussian, leader of the most extreme Palestinian movement on Earth. He was widely believed to be a relative of Saddam Hussian, in the west, but Mullah Bihar knew that that was nonsense. “How…interesting to see you here.”

“How…strange,” the woman breathed. Mullah Bihar knew her to be perhaps the most dangerous woman in the world, her name a carefully concealed secret; not even the Mossard had figured that out. She called herself simply ‘Sara,’ a reference to something Mullah Bihar didn’t want to think about; she had a ghastly task in the endless war against Zionism. Her task was to recruit and train young women to act as fighters, perhaps even suicide bombers.

In appearance, with a black veil covering her face, she could have been any woman on the streets. Her organisation had a surprisingly modern view of women – but then, a woman died just as easily as a man – in its war against Zionism; Sara would hold real power within the organisation, perhaps even power over Hussian. She…felt wrong, different; Mullah Bihar, no stranger to extreme people, had the impression that he was in the presence of absolute evil. There was just something about her that poisoned the air.

No one knew what she looked like…

A number of women in Mecca had vanished. Mullah Bihar had assumed that they’d been taken by the fighting men – boys will be boys, after all, and there was no point in making himself unpopular; they were only women, after all – but now he wondered; had Sara been teaching them to fight? There was something about the concept he hated; a woman who could fight could fight her husband.

Hussian took the lead, drawing Mullah Bihar’s attention back to himself. “You came right into our headquarters on your mission,” he said, not bothering with any pleasantries. “I must admit that that impressed me.” He paused. “Why did you come?”

There was no point in evasions. “We have a problem,” Mullah Bihar admitted. “In as little as a week, perhaps sooner, we will start a war for control of Mecca.”

“And, perhaps, Medina as well,” Hussian said. His voice was almost atonal. “That is a problem, yes.”

Mullah Bihar kept himself calm. “If we start shooting at each other, we will tear the city apart,” he said. “Each of our groups have brought thousands of weapons and trained fighters into the city – and each of us feels that we should hold control of the Holy City.”

“All that matters is the liberation of the lands held under occupation and the driving of the Zionists into the sea,” Sara said. Her voice was…fundamentally wrong. Mullah Bihar understood, suddenly, just how she had gained her power; who would dare to stand against her? Had she been born a man, she would have drenched Israel in blood by now. “Who holds control of Mecca is merely a tactical problem, a tactical advantage for the glorious war against the Zionists.”

Mullah Bihar frowned at what was almost blasphemy. Negotiating with a woman was a new experience for him and not one he liked. His group kept women as mothers, daughters and wives; only a handful of women had ever participated in their actions as partners…and they had never been equal partners.

“At the same time,” Hussian said smoothly, “the possession of Mecca would make it considerably easier to gain resources to proceed with wiping Israel off the map.”

Mullah Bihar smiled grimly. Hussian was clearly the good cop; Sara was the bad cop. “An interesting idea,” he said. Al Qaida might have been more focused on Kashmir than Palestine, but Palestine was an excellent rallying call; Hussian might just actually win, given half a chance…and then the rallying call would be gone. “There are, of course, a few problems.”

He ticked them off on his fingers as he spoke. “One, there is a massive army of flesh-eating aliens coming our way,” he said. “These…creations of the devil won’t hesitate to eat up everyone in Palestine, Jew, Christian and Muslim alike. If that force comes down in Palestine, they will kill and eat everyone in the region…”

“Israel would be destroyed,” Sara said. She didn’t scream, or whine; she simply stated a fact. “The Zionists would be destroyed.”

“Along with the Palestinians,” Mullah Bihar pointed out dryly. He smiled at the irony; the Jews would be gone, replaced by the Posleen. The Jews, at least, had not tried for total extermination of their opponents. “I fail to see the value in the land, if it is occupied by a much worse opponent.”

“It’s the principle of the thing,” Sara snapped. Her voice was fire and ice. “Don’t you understand that?”

“Allah will not forgive us for losing again,” Mullah Bihar snapped back.

He pressed on before she could interrupt again. “The second problem is that you cannot hold Mecca,” he continued. “There are plenty of fighters here at the moment, but there is also a SANG force nearby, which is intended – I suspect – to remind us of the power of the Royal Family. That same force is also in a position to block our supply lines…and if they’re cut, we will have enough food to keep us alive for two weeks at most.”

He paused. “And that, of course, is optimistic.”

Hussian steepled his fingers. “You do not feel that your people are reliable?”

“The Saudis are never reliable,” Sara snapped, including Mullah Bihar in that number. He shrugged and let it pass. “They have betrayed the Muslim cause for far too long.”

Mullah Bihar nodded slowly. “There are those of us who want to change it,” he said. “However, they have been very clever indeed and put us all together in this pressure cooker.” He neglected to mention that the original idea had been Osama’s. “When we start fighting, it will go on until we all starve, therefore ridding them of all of the trouble-makers. Once we are all shot, or dead in any number of horrifying ways, Mecca will have been levelled.”

He leaned forward, imposing his presence upon Hussian. “And, if by some miracle you manage to keep much of your force alive when we fight, that SANG force is not going to allow you to keep Mecca,” he concluded. “They can starve you out, if they have to, or they might even call in the Zionists to bomb Mecca with a nuclear warhead. If that happens…”

“They would not dare,” Sara thundered. “They would face the fury of the Muslim people unleashed!”

Mullah Bihar, who had already considered tipping off the Mossard to their locations, smiled. “They might, yes,” he said. “Of course, they are more likely to blame it on the Americans or the Jews, without saying anything about their involvement. The point remains – you will not be allowed to keep Mecca as a rallying point.”

Hussian frowned. “We could make them pay for trying to attack us,” he said. His voice was very firm; he believed what he was saying. “We could…”

“They could call in the Americans, or the French Foreign Legion,” Mullah Bihar snapped. “They called the French in once before” – he remembered that with rage – “and they could easily do that again. If that happens, if they can be bothered to act with the Posleen breathing down their necks, then you are dead, along with the hopes of Islam.”

Hussian leaned forward. “You might well be right,” he said. Sara snorted. “However, we have been betrayed by your group before. What do you have to offer us, in exchange for us fighting beside you.”

“We want you to prevent a war, not to fight one,” Mullah Bihar said. He wanted to fight, but not now, not when the Posleen were coming. “We want you to join us in forging a unified command structure, something that we can use to defend Mecca. We…would also be willing to put command in your hands.”

Hussian stared at him. “You would put command in my hands?”

Sara snorted again. “And what do you offer us to make it worthwhile?”

She had more balls, Mullah Bihar suspected, than her comrade. It was a shame that she couldn’t command the fighters. The thought made him smile; Sara might have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but she…would be taken for exactly that by every man in the defence force. She would be lucky to be only raped.

“We would use our influence in Saudi Arabia, once the Posleen are defeated, to continue holding Mecca,” Mullah Bihar said. One of Osama’s scenarios had been the Posleen ignoring Mecca altogether and only hitting Riyadh, leaving them as the strongest power in the land. “Our…coalition would continue to dominate and would do it in such a way as to place control over the country into our hands.

“Once that happened, we would make a major commitment to freeing Palestine from the Jewish yoke,” Mullah Bihar continued. He heard their indrawn breath and smiled at the victory. “You would have the remaining weapons at once, along with money and support bases. Once Jordan fell to your forces, you would have a national power base, along with tanks and guns. Syria is already weakening under the pressure of the Posleen War – without ever having seen war yet – and that nation will fall quickly as well, bringing Lebanon into your side.

“With that at your disposal, you could wear down the Zionist entity in a year of constant warfare,” he concluded. “You would have access, further, to our stock of non-conventional weapons, using them to destroy their will to resist. Within a year, you would have driven them into headlong flight from Israel, or…you will be merciful in victory, of course; there will be no demands for compensation or conversion. That can come later.

“Your Palestine would become a state in a global Islamic nation, with your own manner of Islam,” he said. “You would become part of the United States of Islam, controllers of the Suez Canal and the wealth that comes from that. In the future, you would be aiding Europe to rebuild – and taking over. The world would be green…”

They looked at him. They had just been told a plan for redesigning the Middle East and the entire world on a massive scale, one that they hadn’t even believed possible. He was tempting them with fabulous power, power on a scale that astonished them, but…

“And the Americans,” Hussian said, after a moment. “What about them?”

Sara slapped him. Mullah Bihar, who would have turned a woman over his knee and spanked her as hard as he could for that sort of action, was amused at Hussein’s apparent unwillingness to punish her at all. He wondered, with more than a hint of malice, if she was a lesbian; she was certainly very involved with training the ‘Army of Roses.’

“The Americans could do nothing,” she snarled. The sheer hatred in her voice was horrifying. “The Posleen would sweep them away like dirt!”

She, at least, was convinced. “It would be an interesting idea,” Hussian said, after a long moment. He didn’t seem put out at all by the slap. “We might well agree to it, if you made a public commitment.”

Mullah Bihar nodded. “Osama himself will make the broadcast,” he said. “We will tell them exactly what’s coming their way.”

“So,” Hussian said, after a moment. “What do you want us to prepare?”

“With you, we can convince the other groups to go along with us,” Mullah Bihar said. “If we can get them all to agree, we can get you elected as the commander of our forces when the Posleen land; they will attack Mecca and we will crush them under our weapons. Afterwards, we can carry out our plan to divide the Middle East between us.”

“I see,” Hussian said. He would greet the plan with care, but he could hardly afford to pass up such a face-saving solution to the problem. Afterwards, well…

“One final question,” Sara said. Her voice was thoughtful. It sounded almost normal, now; it was as if slapping someone had let off some of her concern. “What are you promising the other groups?”

Mullah Bihar had expected that question. “The Iranians will get Iran, basically, and Shia Iraq, along with Shia refugees from Saudi,” he said. “The Kurdish group will not get much as they are not well represented here; we ourselves will absorb Kuwait and Sunni Iraq. We’ll leave the Kurds alone, assuming they survive; they might make a deal with us or they can stay there. The Pakistanis will get Kashmir, along with chunks of India; afterwards, we will have the firepower to enforce our will on India. Once we have done that, we will move onto Africa and end the centuries of Muslim weakness.”

He smiled. “What could possibly go wrong?”

Chapter Nineteen: The Saudi – Sorta, Kinda, Maybe – Revolution, Take Four

North of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
1st October 2004

“You should never take the great force of cliché too lightly,” Morrigan said, as they stood together watching the action in the desert. “They have improved a lot.”

“After some of their commanding officers happened to meet an unexpected fate,” David Bar Ellis said. The Israeli wore no uniform, only a vaguely military-style outfit, something that was fairly common in the Middle East. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”

Morrigan gave him a bland look. A force of Saudi infantrymen was marching forward, practicing its ability to reinforce the defence line, should it be challenged. There were enough defences around the city to require rather more men than they had to defend them…and he knew that even fully-manned, it would be impossible to defend such a large area. The Posleen would be able to choose their point of attack…

“Nothing,” Morrigan lied smoothly. “It was a power struggle between some elements of the House of Saud and their supporters, breaking into the open.”

“And that isn’t even a lie,” Bar Ellis observed. Morrigan had to smile. “Still, many of these men are going to die.”

Morrigan nodded. The United States had taken a beating from the Posleen, despite being several orders of magnitude better than the Arab forces he had been trying to raise. The Saudis were trying to make up for training with enthusiasm, manpower and lots of weapons…and he knew there just wasn’t enough time.

He said nothing. “That young man,” Bar Ellis said, nodding to a young Arab who was trying to organise the defences. “Just how old is he?”

“He won’t have spent most of his life in the army,” Morrigan admitted. They had had to promote faster than anyone would have believed possible – or wise. Every private might have a general’s baton in his knapsack, as Napoleon had said, but they needed training and experience…and there just wasn’t time. The handful of unexplained deaths, the more officers relieved for cause; experienced officers were in short supply in the Saudi Army. “Far too many of them were never even drawn from the regulars.”

“Which remain on the borders of Iraq,” Bar Ellis said. “Anyone would think that you don’t trust them.”

“Anyone would be right,” Morrigan agreed. Saddam’s torrent of bravado and boasting, spearheaded by a man who seemed to believe every last word he was spitting out onto the airwaves, had gone on to describe how Iraqis would pound the Posleen invaders with little shoes. The thought was curiously amusing; the Iraqis would try to sneak up on the aliens and whack them on their backs with the shoes. As a military tactic, it sucked wind through a straw.

“I was talking to my superiors,” Bar Ellis continued. Morrigan lifted an eyebrow; Bar Ellis might have worn no uniform, but he was certain that he was from the Mossard. “They’re rather more than reluctant to hop into bed with your…allies.”

“And to think, you have strange bedfellows, these days,” Morrigan needled him. “The Germans – the Nazis.”

Bar Ellis’s eyes flashed anger. “They know how to make the tanks that we need to defend ourselves properly against the Posleen,” he snapped. “The British might have gone in for the conversion route, but Israel cannot afford such gambles.” He waved a hand at a line of Russian-built tanks that were moving up to reinforce the defences. “That force will be eaten for breakfast – literally.”

“Not before they get in a few blows,” Morrigan said, pointing to a set of modified tanks. “As long as a lander doesn’t show up, that force there will take a bite out of the Posleen.”

Bar Ellis followed the tanks, mounted with enough machine guns to put out an awesome rate of fire, and nodded slowly. “Perhaps,” he said. “How did you manage to do the conversions so quickly?”

Morrigan laughed. “The idea was British,” he said. “The Russians stole it and copied it for their own tanks and sent us a few sample models. You have no idea how few car mechanics there are here, let alone people qualified to work on tanks…if nothing else, Saudi youth should have gotten back the habit of working after this. We had to train them very quickly, and there were more than a few accidents, but…”

He grinned. “That force might just prove worth its weight in gold,” he said.

Bar Ellis shrugged. “Perhaps,” he said. “I wonder; these young men, will they fight or try to flee?”

“I have no idea,” Morrigan said. “It’s confusing enough trying to keep track of all the units, even with that new force of American soldiers – and a handful you might know from elsewhere – working to keep everyone in order. That force below is the 1st Riyadh Corps; the force nearby is the 1st SANG. Confused yet?”

Bar Ellis frowned. “There are more important matters,” he said. An MLRS opened fire, blasting a stream of high explosive projectiles over the defence lines, into nothingness. When the war came, the Posleen would be targeted by so many rockets that even their point defence systems would be overwhelmed. “You must have heard about Osama…?”

Morrigan had expected as much. The Internet – ironically due to his work – remained strong and active; the Posleen would have a hard time shutting it down, even if they developed a sudden attack of brains to the head and tried. Osama’s new alliance – which had somehow prevented Mecca from being swept up into civil war, worse luck – had declared its views to everyone who would listen.

The plan had been greeted with the standard Arabic respect for the truly mad. A United States of Islam, no less, with Israel offered subordinate status – but everyone knew what that meant. The rulers of the nations brushed aside, with smaller states for the different Islamic groups – Morrigan would have been inclined to accept it, were it not for the fact he knew that it would lead to disaster. Wahhabism was dedicated to forcing everyone, Muslims or non-Muslims, into its way of belief – or destroying them. Privately, he gave it about a year before civil war broke out.

Israel might not give it a year to ferment. “My superiors are very concerned,” Bar Ellis said. “The thought of what might happen if the Saudi oil wealth – despite Galactic technology reducing the need to use oil – were to be used for war against us is alarming. Considerable thought has been given to the need for a preemptive strike.”

Morrigan lifted an eyebrow. “there’s only one form that strike could take,” he said. Bar Ellis nodded. “Your leaders must be going mad.”

“You Americans are allowed to think like that,” Bar Ellis snapped. “You don’t have to live next to them. Time and time again, the United Nations rules against us – but only when we’re winning. When we lose, do you know what fucking happens? When do the calls for ceasefire come in, eh? When we’re winning!”

He took a breath. “Your media treats us as the villains,” he thundered. “We’re not the ones who take pot-shots at women and children for the fun of it, are we? We’re not the ones who use human shields. The media says that we dumped millions of tons of bombs onto various places – the entire air force couldn’t have done that in a year’s worth of effort! Why the fuck should we trust to your fucking good will?”

Morrigan felt his own temper rise. He forced it down. “I am on your side,” he reminded him dryly. “The Posleen will take care of Osama for us.”

“We should be so lucky,” Bar Ellis said. His voice darkened. “Cowardly worms like him always find some way to get out of it. If he hadn’t been boasting that he would remain in Mecca and command the defence personally, he would be somewhere in the Pacific Ocean by now. How are you feeding them all anyway?”

Morrigan shrugged. “With difficultly,” he said. “These days, every patch of farmland we can is being used for food; we’re actually managed to expand what is grown in Saudi and purchasing much more from Africa. Enough is being stored in the cities to ensure that we have a fair chance of fighting off a Posleen force.”

He scowled. “Osama has his own food lines, as well as what he’s getting from the government,” he said. “Anyone would think he doesn’t trust us.”

“And is he right?” Bar Ellis asked. “Why don’t you use one of your nukes on the city?”

Morrigan blinked. “That was supposed to be a secret,” he said. “I haven’t even told the government about them, let alone Osama. I assume that the Mossard found out in Russia?”

Bar Ellis nodded. “We have some interest in arms sales to this region,” he said. “Your purchase was noted. Are you sure they’ll work?”

“I had an expert take a look at them,” Morrigan confirmed, remembering the stories about how terrorists had bought atomic bombs, only to discover that they’d been sold a mock-up, or even a real bomb without any explosive material at all. “There are plenty of those in America.”

“Plenty of idiots reluctant to use them as well,” Bar Ellis observed. “If the Posleen do not wipe out that force, Israel will make a strike against Mecca and end it that way. There are too many leaders and their fighters in there to let the chance slip past.”

Morrigan nodded. “Duly noted,” he said. Israel would look very bad indeed…but, in the end, did that matter? “You can do that if you feel that you have to do that.”

They watched the manoeuvres for a few minutes. Morrigan was pleased and disappointed at the same time; the Saudis were clearly learning, but at the same time there was a cumbersome feel to their entire practice, something caused, he knew, by hesitant commanding officers. They were young, hardly aware of what command meant…and those who felt born to command were often worse. He would have preferred to have taken regular officers out and promoted them, but Prince Salim had refused.

“They have also been considering your other offer,” Bar Ellis said, after a moment had passed. “They would be happier if they had a formal approach from the Saudi Government.”

“I know that the Israeli government places great faith in the ‘Alliance of the Books,’” Morrigan said, carefully. “Politically, however, Prince Salim cannot be seen to be making such an offer, even in the name of the King.”

Bar Ellis smiled. “And just where is the King these days?”

“Good old King Unpronounceable,” Morrigan said. “He took his country right back to the fifth century. He’s in America, under the care of a team of doctors and watched closely by the CIA. It would be better, I feel, if he stayed out of the country for the moment.”

“I see,” Bar Ellis said, after a moment. “What exactly do you want?”

“An alliance,” Morrigan said, wondering just how much authority Bar Ellis actually had. He reminded him of General Horner, who was a respected friend of the President, and one of the highest-ranking American military officers. “We need some assistance from the State of Israel.”

“You do,” Bar Ellis agreed. “The question is; are we inclined to give you that help?”

He studied the tanks as they moved into a flanking manoeuvre. Morrigan followed his gaze and scowled; that could only work if the Posleen were battered and beaten. He took a look down at his PDA and knew that they weren’t beaten, not yet. The Saudi forces were about to be handed their heads; this time, at least, it was only a drill. The next time it might be for real.

“You do realise, of course, that there is no way that we will put our forces under your command?” Bar Ellis asked. “You might have a honourable American military record, but the people you are trying to save…”

“I know,” Morrigan said. No one in their right mind would put the 1st Marine Division under the command of General Abdullah, who might be well-meaning, but lacked a certain competence. Half the Marines in the force could have commanded an entire army much better than he could. “We do need some assistance from you.”

“I see,” Bar Ellis said. “I assume, of course, that you do not want a command cadre. What do you want?”

Morrigan paced away from their vantage point. “There is one fatal weakness in the Saudi Armed Forces,” he said.

Bar Ellis snorted. “Only one?”

“Everything else can be fixed, given time and a few more accidents,” Morrigan said firmly. “The problem, of course, is that there is so few anti-lander weapons. We have a few from Russia, but they’re keeping most of what they have for themselves. The black market doesn’t have many Galactic-class weapons, and of course the Galactics themselves don’t need oil. In short, Saudi is dirt poor in the one currency they need.”

Bar Ellis considered the point. “The Posleen do not always use their landers,” he said. “They only used one big one at Barwhon, remember.”

“I never had the honour of meeting Mike O’Neal,” Morrigan replied. “He managed to plant an antimatter mine on the surface of the lander, using that to bring down the lander. We have no ACS units – I know you have one reserved for the defence of Israel – and we have far too few anti-lander units. We need some help.”

“That would have to be taken back to my superiors,” Bar Ellis said. “Tell me, at the risk of being rude…what’s in it for us?”

Morrigan smiled. He had expected that. Bar Ellis was interested. “A shit load of money?” He asked. “There are still billions of dollars in Saudi accounts, including the discretionary account that Prince Salim gave me. All that money could help fund the defence of Israel. How much could you buy for that?”

Bar Ellis considered it. “We couldn’t buy Galactic stuff, as you pointed out,” he said. “The weapons market has started to dry up, now that Earth took a clobbering from the Posleen; the Russians and the Chinese have started to use their weapons for their own defence. The Russians, at least, have even started to raise new units. They keep talking about regaining Central Asia, but…”

Morrigan shrugged. There was nothing in Central Asia worth the effort of trying to recover the land, not when European Russia was still in danger. Once the fleet had been produced, the Posleen could be hammered from orbit and the ACS units could clean up whatever Posleen remained. In the meantime, he hoped that they would starve in the mountains.

“No money, then,” Morrigan said. Some of Osama’s people had talked about a jihad to Central Asia; Osama himself had talked them out of it. “What do you want?”

Bar Ellis studied him for a long moment. “Jordan,” he said. “We want you to help us stabilise Jordan.”

“The connections between Jordan and Saudi aren’t that great,” Morrigan observed. The King of Jordan had fled for his life after seeing what the Posleen did to Iran; the Crown Prince was a feckless youth who gave some of the Saudi princes a run for their money. The native and Palestinian factions were clashing, even though half of the Palestinians were heading to Mecca; civil war was looming on the horizon. “Even if they existed, they could hardly be used to prevent the war from beginning.”

Bar Ellis scowled. “The unrest is spreading into Palestine,” he said. “It’s easier to work now without the world watching you like an elderly relative who thinks that you’ve just passed wind, but it’s still a pain. The last thing we need as a Jordan wrecked by civil war, seeing they might just slow the Posleen down for a few moments.”

Morrigan waved a hand towards where the war games were being conducted. “So might that army,” he said, after a moment. “They still need some support against the landers, you see.”

Bar Ellis stretched. “I will take your offer back to my superiors,” he said. “I assume that they cannot disavow Osama?”

Morrigan shook his head. “Not without starting a civil war here as well,” he said. “Once the Posleen come, much will become possible that wasn’t possible before.”

“You’re riding a tiger,” Bar Ellis observed. He held out a hand. “I will ask my superiors, but I think they will consider carefully before acting. You’re a braver man than I am, American General.”

Morrigan smiled. “I just want to win,” he said. “That’s what I want to do.”

“You will be welcome in Jerusalem,” Bar Ellis said. “Do you really think that this army will provide more than a speed bump to the Posleen?”

“I don’t know,” Morrigan admitted. “Time will tell, David. It always does.”

Chapter Twenty: The Saudi – Sorta, Kinda, Maybe – Revolution, Take The Last

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
17th October 2004

It was called a ‘tactical exercise without troops,’ Kalid had been told; it was an American expression for what was basically an exam for commanding officers. It wasn’t a perfect example – the officers got as many attempts to carry it out as they needed in order to work out what they had to do – but it was close enough. His recent promotion, stepping into the shoes of a man who had died in a training accident, was recent enough to make him remember just how much he didn’t know.

Sergeant Philippe Laroche, when they’d discussed it, had muttered something about someone having ‘accidentally brutally cut of his head while shaving,’ but Laroche was always a gloomy person. He’d given Kalid as much additional training as he could, forcing him to work hard; the fact that a mere Sergeant should not have been lecturing a Colonel had passed unnoticed by either of them. His command, commanding ten Company-sized units, was bigger than anything he had dreamed possible.

It had been Sergeant Francis who’d given him the best advice. “The greatest mistake my country made was in assuming that a commander could command each of his units in a comfy room far from the front,” he said. “With modern commanding systems, it might be possible, but it’s a very bad habit. Your regiment has Captains commanding the individual sections and you have a Lieutenant-Colonel to assist you with commanding half of the force so…”

He’d gone on to talk about France’s shame in grim tones. “You have to trust in your Captains to handle themselves according to your orders,” he said. “Tell them to take a target and let them work out how to do it – and don’t shoot them if they tell you that it cannot be done. General Gamelin never learnt that and the Germans hacked his communications network to shreds. By the time he issued orders, well they might have been good orders, but they were orders that were no longer useable because the situation had changed.”

Kalid blinked. “But then, why have me in the driving seat at all?”

“Your country has promoted you faster than any other army would have dared promote you,” Francis had explained. “You have very limited experience, despite the number of exercises that you and your men have carried out; it would have been better to have brought in people from the regulars, or the SANG, but that…that was impossible.”

Kalid had heard about that from his father. The wave of unrest sweeping the country had caused enough paranoia to keep the regulars firmly out of much of the defence preparations, leaving them strung out along the Iraqi border. It wasn’t necessarily a bad idea – Saddam had been moving between pronouncing himself the defender of Arabism and threatening Kuwait with menaces – but it meant that the new regiments, such as the one Kalid now commanded, were…

Well, they were literally children led by babes in arms.

“I see,” he had said. “I won’t let them down.”

The tactical exercise lay in front of him. It was surprisingly simple, and yet it was complex…and not exactly what he had expected at all. Some problems had been simple – he had to work out how to defend a particular target against the enemy – but this one was more confusing. The background was very simple; the Posleen had landed in the south and were marching up towards Riyadh. His job was to move his force to the defence lines fifty miles south of the city and hold for as long as possible.

“I do not understand,” Kalid said, thinking hard. The regiment had around three thousand men, comprising several infantry companies, a tank company and a set of artillery guns. They also had enough trucks and gas to move them – fuel was hardly a problem in Saudi Arabia – but roads were far from perfect. They hadn’t even had the trucks until recently; the American advisors had insisted on building some flexibility into the Saudi military. Moving the men would be simple, wouldn’t it?

He outlined his plan and then showed it to Francis. “What about weapons?” Francis asked. “They’re going to need weapons, aren’t they?”

Kalid swore, using a word his father would have beaten him for, had he used it in the house. “They’re going to need more than that,” he said. The briefing paper had specified that there was nothing along the defence lines, but the defence works themselves. “They’re going to need additional weapons and ammunition.”

He updated his notes and cursed. “We have to prioritise,” he said, after a moment’s thought. If they took enough weapons and ammunition along, they would have to leave behind at least two companies of men. A thought struck him. “We could move the men first and then send the trucks back for the ammunition, or…”

He worked it out on the map. The Posleen didn’t seem to have any fixed speed; they sometimes charged at their targets, at other times they just walked around, ignoring the humans until the humans opened fire. Human scouting parties on occupied worlds had proved that; the Posleen just didn’t bother with half of the precautions that humans would bother with when facing a dangerous threat.

On the other hand, the God Kings didn’t really care how many they lost, and their technology made up for a lot of their problems. If they had been as intelligent as humans, the human race would have been soundly thrashed and threshed by now, including the Galactics as well. Their tactics were very basic, but there were so many of them that they actually had a fair chance of beating humanity – and if they did that, game over. Kalid’s wife was expecting; he was damned as if he was going to let her die with her child, feeding the Posleen.

“It would be easier to send half the men and as much ammunition as possible,” Francis injected. “Moving the men on their own is asking for a disaster; moving the ammunition on its own would make a tempting target for any tribesmen out there, particularly since some of the tribesmen fell out with the Royal Family.”

Kalid nodded. Whatever had happened when the General was killed, the result had been a shooting match between the tribesmen, who were very accurate shots, and some units of the Saudi Army. He’d heard a rumour that the unit the General commanded hadn’t bothered to make more than a token pursuit of the assassin; the General had been universally disliked, if not hated. Some of the tribes had been forced away from the cities, others had ignored the whole thing.

“There is a second problem,” Francis continued. “If the Posleen catch you in the open, your force will be in serious trouble. Giving them weapons might just make the difference between providing the Posleen with a quick meal and giving them indigestion. It will also allow them to beat a quick retreat if the Posleen attack in the middle and break through the defence line.”

Kalid privately doubted that there was any such thing as a quick retreat when the Posleen were around. Sometimes the aliens gave chase; sometimes they didn’t. Sometimes they had small forces running around, screening the larger forces, sometimes they just had one massive horde charging across the land. If his men had to run for it, the Posleen would give chase. In the desert, there was so little else to eat.

“We could just ask for extra transportation,” Kalid said. “There are other regiments out there, with their own trucks; we could borrow them and use them for the transport.”

“That would increase your fuel consumption,” Francis pointed out. “You’re getting there, however; what happens when the Posleen hit your lines?”

Kalid knew that there were only two possible answers. “We fight and win, or we fight and die,” he answered. The Posleen wouldn’t surrender; humans couldn’t surrender to them without being eaten. The Posleen didn’t even seem to recognise the concept. “They’ll come into our position and try to kill us.”

Francis nodded. “That’s one reason why you have to work to prevent them from getting around you and stabbing you in the back,” he said. “The defences were designed for such a purpose, but they have to be manned and you have to keep scouts out to make sure that the Posleen don’t try to slip around you. Aircraft are out of the question and they tried balloons in India. They didn’t work for long; the Posleen saw them after a while and blew them out of the sky.”

“They keep talking about sending the RSAF into action against the Posleen,” Kalid said, dully. He’d wanted to be a pilot once. “They’re all going to die, aren’t they?”

“I’m afraid so,” Francis said. “Low-level attack runs are next to useless against the Posleen; the minute an aircraft pops up over the horizon, they fire on it automatically. A high-attitude craft would be swatted out of the sky before it even knew what had hit it, so we cannot depend on satellites or anything else. The handful of satellites that were put into orbit following round one – when all of the others were destroyed – won’t last more than a few minutes when the Posleen arrive; we cannot rely on support from the ships in orbit. The Posleen will crush them.”

Kalid sighed. “Then it’s hopeless?”

“I don’t know,” Francis admitted. “Galactic stealth shuttles remain hidden, the Posleen don’t seem to be able to track them, but we don’t have any. Some projects in America and Russia provide some possible encouragement, but again – we won’t have any of them before the Posleen arrive. There are the modified Scuds…”

Kalid lifted an eyebrow. “Won’t the Posleen engage them as well?”

“Yes, but they’ll have some time to see what they can see before the Posleen engage them,” Francis said. “It won’t be perfect, but it will have to do.”

Kalid looked down at one of the books that Francis had loaned him. “Drones,” he said, suddenly. “What about drones?”

Francis gave him a sardonic look. “There is, of course, the minor problem that the Posleen will shoot them down with as much ease as they shoot down normal aircraft,” he said. “I think that that will limit their usefulness, eh?”

Kalid was still thinking. “But the drones can fly low,” he said. “The Posleen would have to be fairly nearby to even see them, let alone shoot at them; we would have some limited intelligence from them, even just from knowing that they had shot down the drone. Right?”

Francis thought. “That might work,” he said, after a long moment. “I’ll bump it upstairs to higher authority; they’ll have to decide if it’s worth the problem of obtaining more than the handful of drones purchased before First Contact. Good thinking, but…”

He changed the subject sharply. “What happens if the Posleen have your position surrounded?”

Kalid knew the answer to that one. “When escape is impossible, fight to the death,” he said. “If we can blow up our bodies, we should try to do that to prevent the Posleen from eating them. If we can rig the defence lines with a dead man’s switch, we are to do that as well; we are not to run or try to escape.”

“Given enough time, we could have tunnels dug out to all of the defence lines,” Francis mused. “At the moment, however, it’s impossible; it would take far too much effort. It’s a pity that we cannot really build much in the way of sub-urban cities, but Saudi Arabia doesn’t really have much in the way of Galactic digging equipment.”

“Blasted Americans,” Kalid said, with sudden anger. “Why don’t they share the digging equipment?”

“Look out for Number One is a principle that Americans only remember when they need to remember it,” Francis said. “You haven’t done badly, today; in the next few months, we’ll be practicing it with every soldier under your command, time and time again, until we get it right.”

Kalid nodded. “I understand,” he said, wanting only to end it all. He stood up. “I have some leave this evening.”

“Lucky you,” Francis said dryly. “France would hardly welcome me home, even if I wanted to go.”

“I know,” Kalid said. “I am sorry.”

He headed towards the door. “One thing,” Francis said, just before he left. “You have to remember that the vast majority of your soldiers have never seen a shot fired in anger. There is very little that we can do to prepare them for the sheer intensity of fighting the Posleen; we lack that experience as well. The Iranians and Americans held and did not break; the Indians and Vietnamese broke under the pressure. What will our soldiers do, when the fighting finally reaches them?”

“I do not know,” Kalid said. His voice became firm. “I will not run, Sergeant.”

***
It was common, in most Saudi houses, to keep the men and the women firmly separate. Young men had to be induced into treating their sisters as their inferiors, perhaps even their servants; long tradition firmly stated that man was the head of woman. The Prophet had made progress in the field of women’s rights, but in the end those who ruled Saudi Arabia had crushed even that progress. It wouldn’t do to have men sympathising with their sisters; it was only a short step from that to fighting in their defence. It wasn’t a coincidence that the most devout Muslims were women; they had fewer opportunities to trespass into sin.

Aaliyah Al-Hassid had paid only lip service to the concept of female subordination; her strong will had influenced her husband, perhaps even her son. Kalid and his wife, naturally, lived with his parents; Princess Fatima was starting to feel the relative freedom and even enjoy it. The small dinner, set out neatly on the floor, had only four people eating; Al-Hassid himself, Kalid, Aaliyah and Fatima. The food was basic, but good; Al-Hassid had never fallen into the trap of demanding better and better food. Aaliyah herself no longer cooked – that was left to the servants – but she had insisted on teaching Fatima how to cook for herself.

“Finding food these days is harder,” she said, without any lip service to male supremacy. “A lot of supplies are harder to find and they don’t get as much as we might want. We’ve been hoarding some imperishable foodstuffs, of course, but hardly enough of them to feed us if we had a real shortage. The rations just aren’t enough for all of us.”

Kalid didn’t feel surprised at his mother confessing to hoarding food. It was forbidden, technically, but who listened to such laws? No one followed such a law, not when no one trusted the princes who controlled the rationing system. It was bad enough that many of the guest workers were starving because they were illegally present within Saudi, but many of the princes were selling food on the sly.

He shared a smile with Fatima. Like many princesses, she had good taste in clothes, something that surprised many as she couldn’t go outside without a veil. Her red dress was decent and seemingly indecent; her pale skin contrasted neatly with the dress. She had been everything he could have desired and more; the slight bulge in her stomach confirmed that she was worth fighting for. Allah had blessed her womb.

“I need a honest answer,” Al-Hassid said, after the meal was finished. The family’s silent Filipino servant, a young woman whose eyes refused to lift themselves from the floor, cleared the dishes away. “Can the Posleen be defeated?”

The entire family had been delighted at Kalid’s promotion. They didn’t understand just how inexperienced he was, seeing it as natural talent. It gave them confidence in the army, a confidence that was sadly lacking beforehand, knowing that their son was out there defending them from the alien enemy.

Kalid paused to consider his answer. He had been warned against discussing the military situation with civilians, but these were his family, his wife. They deserved a honest answer…but the truth was he didn’t know what a honest answer would actually be. Would they win, or not?

“We have plenty of weapons and we’re learning more about using them,” he said, after a long moment. He met his wife’s eyes and knew that it wasn’t enough. “We have knowledge of the enemy and we’re determined to hold against them. We have our faith and hope…”

“I take it that that’s a no,” his father said. His voice became probing, the sort of voice that reminding Kalid of sessions when he was being punished for one…crime or another. “Kalid?”

Kalid hesitated. “The Iranians defeated the Posleen with worse weapons,” he said. He forced some confidence into his voice as their servant returned with dessert. “We can defeat them too.”

“I do hope you’re right,” his father said, after a moment. “The defences are being reworked, did you know that? We’re actually expanding them out further for trapping and destroying the Posleen, but…some people say that they won’t hold for long at all. There’s going to be flaming rivers of oil and flamethrowers and other weapons, but no one seems to think that they will hold for long. Kalid, is that true?”

“The defences depend upon the troops assigned to holding them,” Kalid said, trying to evade the question. “The defences around this city will have the best soldiers in the army trying to hold the Posleen. It can be done.”

“Of course it will be done,” Fatima said, suddenly. She rarely interrupted the men while they were talking. “My husband is commanding the defence.”

She turned a brilliant smile on Kalid, who melted. “He will keep us all safe,” Fatima said. “What could possibly go wrong?”

Interlude Two: Time’s Up

April 12, 2006
Second Wave 45 Globes:
Primary Landings: China, South America, West Coast N.A., Middle East, S.E. Asia.

***
Space twisted, shuddered, and disgorged a massive wave of Posleen battleglobes. It was not the first major wave that humanity had faced, but it came at the worst possible moment; far too many ships, of the handful that had been built in time, were still licking their wounds from the first round. This time, Titan Base was too far from the arrival site to interfere with its own defences; a handful of human starships were all that stood between the Posleen and Earth. They failed.

Licking their own wounds, unconcerned about losses, the Posleen pushed onwards towards Earth. Human defences in orbit, so chillingly inadequate against the mass of Posleen power, fought, killed and were killed. The Posleen swept the new satellites out of the sky, fired a handful of missiles towards the planet, and carefully selected their targets. Hasty discussions between God Kings, arguing over who should land where, followed; some locations on Earth were already controlled by Posleen tribes, others had proven to be inhospitable to Posleen life forms. The Posleen didn’t draw distinctions between human enemies and the terrain; some humans were too dangerous to mess with, other humans lived in places that even the Posleen couldn’t tolerate for long.

The Net whispered to them, telling them of some human groups and systems, and the Posleen listened. It never occurred to them to doubt the information in the Net, or wonder where it was coming from; the Net was the Net and that was all there was to it. One group listened in particular, carefully considering the future; there was a group on the planet below that had been defeated in all of its recent wars. That group would make an excellent target. The Posleen were not cowards, didn’t even understand the concept as humans understood it, but they understood the need to get firmly established before challenging other clans. Clans that failed to grasp that died.

There was, of course, the minor problem that the target group lived near a group that had never been defeated in its wars, but the Posleen knew how to handle such groups. Most of them involved extreme violence.

Actually, all of them involved extreme violence.

But then, imagination was never a Posleen trait.

The battleglobes fell into orbit, scanning the terrain and noting where the largest supplies of thresh were to be found. The Net hummed in their ears, telling them comforting statements about how the thresh mainly lived in cities, where they would live all of their lives; they would be easy to round up and eat. The land was bad, the temperature and water supplies would be limited, but the Posleen had no problems drinking salt water. A target, one perfectly placed for later expansion, shimmered in front of them.

Slowly, calmly, four Posleen globes detached themselves from the fleet and descended towards their target.

Iraq.

Chapter Twenty-One: Ready Or Not, Here They Come…

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
12th April 2006

Morrigan had never believed that the Middle East would dodge the bullet when the first Posleen wave arrived, almost a year ago. The East Coast of North America, Australia and India had taken the brunt of the Posleen landings; the Middle East, Europe and South America had avoided being attacked. A handful of Posleen had landed in Africa, reinforcing the Posleen that were rampaging around the continent, others had landed in scattered showers in smaller locations. They, at least, had been quickly wiped out.

He’d studied the long war in Australia in some detail. The Australians had made a magnificent effort to raise an army that could stand off the Posleen, but the Posleen had landed in massive force. Seven globes had come down, around the continent; the Australian cities had fallen quickly. A single attempt by New Zealand to come to its ally’s aid had failed badly and the Posleen swarmed around the coastlines of Australia. An attempt to land on Tasmania had ended badly – for the Posleen. The defence forces there had managed to beat off the attack and destroy the Posleen.

The Australians, at least, had prepared. Sub-urban habitats had been prepared, dead in the centre of the Australian dessert and, for a few months, it had seemed that the Posleen had been balked. Morrigan had taken heart from watching the Posleen struggle with the desert environment; they needed water, even polluted water, and there was less in the centre of the continent. The war seemed to have stalemated…and then the Posleen had advanced inland.

The idea had been as old as warfare; no one had expected it from the Posleen. The Australians had sniped at the Posleen from time to time, trying to kill off the God Kings, but apart from that they had expected that the war had effectively ended and that time was on their side. The Posleen had floated inwards, moving supplies of water inland, and building up massive supplies in the desert. By the time the Australians caught on, it was too late; the Posleen were marching directly towards Alice Springs. The sheer scale of the event – nearly twenty million Posleen – was chilling; for once, the Posleen limitations had worked out in their favour…

Alice Springs, the final human habitation in Australia, had fallen on August 15th, 2005.

He dragged his attention back to the screens as the TERDEF network constantly updated the reports on the Posleen incursion. This time, he was relieved to see that the Saudi forces were improving; a handful more officers had been relived for cause after the First Wave had descended upon Earth. The overall competence of the force had risen, along with some of the reporting; the reports from individual units were progressing closer to the truth.

The swarm of red icons was pushing closer and closer to the Earth. He saw the pale face of Colonel Denton, who’d been promoted, and wished that Lombardi could be here. He knew that he couldn’t be with him; he’d issued Lombardi with very specific instructions and could only hope that they could be carried out. Prince Salim was watching from his corner of the room as the display updated itself with chilling slowness; the Posleen were gliding closer and closer to Earth. This time, far too few defenders stood in their way.

“The alert has been sent to all units,” General Abdullah said. He’d been the one to suggest that Morrigan be breveted as a commanding officer in the Saudi Army, fourth in line to the commanding post. “They’re reporting in now.”

Morrigan said nothing. This time, there had been hours of warning that the Posleen were approaching Earth; they’d dropped out of hyperspace far from Earth. Morrigan had wondered if that Posleen had meant to engage Titan Base and merely gotten the calculations wrong, or if something else was at work. The Posleen could hardly have avoided engagement with the human forces, had the humans had the fighting power to make a real attempt to stop the Posleen in their tracks.

He watched the computer screens as unit after unit reported in. He was pleased to notice a high decree of efficiency from the SANG units, who considered themselves to be the best of the best; they hadn’t appreciated the fact that they weren’t taken very seriously by anyone who had served in a real army. They had started a heavy training program, once the deadwood had been burned away; they might even stop the Posleen for around…oh, around ten minutes. They still intended to engage the Posleen in open field battle…and Morrigan knew that trying that would lead to disaster.

The regulars had reported their readiness as well; Morrigan could only hope that they hadn’t been wasted, placed so far from the main cities. They had also been training hard, but morale was low; far too many of their commanding officers were amiable, but useless. Morrigan had arranged for some of them to be removed, some openly, others in the darkness of the night, but others remained. Far too many of the subordinate officers were also useless.

Prince Salim met his eyes. “Perhaps we’ll be lucky again this time,” he said. He hadn’t been encouraged by Osama’s open gloating about what had happened to America, India and Australia, all countries that were on his shit list. The fact that India had a large Muslim population, which was now in the process of being devoured by the Posleen, mattered nothing to him. The final desperate nuclear attacks from India hadn’t stopped the Posleen at all; the flood of refugees into Pakistan had terrified thousands of inhabitants, who knew that the Posleen would be coming for them soon.

Morrigan shrugged. He had expected the Middle East to be targeted first; it had good land communications, poor defenders and hundreds of thousands of people pre-packaged in cities. The Posleen, upon taking the Middle East, would be able to pour into Africa and India, but no; the Middle East had survived round two of the Posleen War. It hardly mattered; apart from Israel, no country in the Middle East had more than a tiny arms industry. Europe, at least, was producing weapons, despite all that self-delusion and poverty could do to prevent it. The Middle East was useless.

“I think that everything is in God’s hands now,” he said, as the Posleen drew closer. The defenders were just being pushed aside. TERDEF kept updating – it was almost like a video game – and the planet below trembled. “They can’t be stopped; we’ll have to fight them on the hills, the beaches, and up and down Mrs Dale.”

Prince Salim gave him an icy look. “Why don’t they just hurry up and land?”

“Be careful what you wish for,” Morrigan said, as the Posleen engaged the PDC network. A hail of firepower screamed up from the surface towards the Posleen ships; the Posleen returned fire with kinetic weapons and missiles of their own. Humanity had learned much from the first Posleen attacks; human weapons swept the Posleen weapons out of the sky before they could cause damage. There were so many weapons, so little time…a handful of PDCs went silent as the Posleen sailed past overhead…

On impulse, Morrigan called up a CCTV image of the sky overhead. It was bright and sunny, but flashes of light could be seen in the sky as the Posleen struggled with the PDCs. Something exploded in space – he hoped with a sudden wave of fury that it was something important to the Posleen – and then something else fired a stream of fire towards a target on the ground.

“Impact on PDC Sudan,” someone said softly. Morrigan winced; the main PDC centre had been built in the Sudan and guarded by a force of Chinese commandos. Despite Osama’s mediation – and Morrigan had reason to believe that the Jihadi leader had kept his word for once – the Sudanese had resented the presence of the PDC on their soil. The Chinese had kept the centre safe, using tactics that would have shocked the Waffen-SS and Heinrich Himmler.

Morrigan’s lips twitched into a cold smile. With rejuvenated SS men marching around in Germany, the Germans might just be about to invent some new atrocities, such as charging a group of peace protesters with batons lifted. He’d seen a cartoon from the Second World War, with Hitler complaining that the Japanese had been committing more new atrocities and they had better invent some more…or the Japanese would show the Nazis up. Morrigan wondered what the Nazis might come up with…

…And then remembered that they were unlikely to be able to match the Posleen for atrocities.

“The Posleen are forming up into their locations,” the TERDEF controller said. Morrigan admired his calm; he knew that he could hardly have remained so calm. The Posleen had blasted the world’s satellite communications network again; he silently blessed the Internet and what humanity had managed to do with it. Posleen defence sites were second only to pornographic sites, which left them pretty far down the list of accessed sites…

“I hate waiting,” Prince Salim commented grimly, to Morrigan. His voice attempted to be firm and soft and got the soft bit right. “I honestly don’t know how people are going to stand this happening time and time again. Every time we issue warnings, we scare people who might do something stupid when nothing happens.”

Morrigan looked up at him. Prince Salim had worked wonders, he had to admit; he’d managed to hold his government together and firmly in power. It had too many problems, however, starting with the fact that Osama was more or less in practical control of Mecca – and he’d blocked the pilgrims from going there for the last two seasons. Osama had gotten most of the blame, largely through his request that only those willing to join the defence of Mecca came for each season, but…it had also rebounded badly on Prince Salim. The tiny number of refugees, fleeing Mecca, told grim stories; the place had become more and more of an armed camp than before.

He looked at the map. An entire region, loosely between the two Holy Cities, had been occupied by the fighters. Their camps would be less than a speed bump to the Posleen – hardly a Sleeping Policeman – but he imagined that Osama intended to cram them all into Mecca when the Posleen arrived. They were already building walls around the city, walls that a single HVM would knock down in seconds; how long did they expect to stand and fight before something unfortunate happened? Where they expecting Allah to send a force of Angels to defend the Holy City?

He thought of the report of how they were behaving in the city and shuddered. The Angels would be more likely to be assisting the Posleen. Perhaps the Posleen themselves were a judgement on mankind, punishment for mankind’s sins…

“You get used to it,” Morrigan said bluntly. “Warfare is often a matter of hurry up and wait; you rush to get into defensive positions…and then you wait for the enemy to show up and actually start the fight. The only time when you’re hip deep in shit right from the start is when you’re under attack and you’ve been stupid enough not to have scouts out to provide some warning.”

He grinned. “In this case, we have to wait for them to land, while we can make all the preparations we want,” he said. He nodded at the map, which was being updated by one of the controllers. “All our units are hunkering down and waiting for the word.”

Prince Salim looked down. “Our forces could roll to engage the Posleen at once,” he said. His voice took on a nervous whine. “Why are we waiting?”

Someone in the United States had asked if they could perform an amphibious landing on Barwhon and Diess. Morrigan had laughed at the sheer insane stupidity of the comment; Prince Salim’s question was almost worse, although not by that much. Not only were the orbiting Posleen well out of reach, but…

“That would be dangerous,” he said. “Only ACS units can take on the Posleen in a face-to-face confrontation. If the Posleen catch one of our forces outside their defended bases and the defence lines, there’s going to be a massacre. We don’t have any of the modified Merkava tanks, or even some of the Challenger tanks…and even those units have problems handling a Posleen force.”

He shook his head. “We hunker down, learn where they’re landing, and then we act,” he concluded. He knew that it would be harder than that; the Posleen had to come to the Saudi forces, no matter how many times they’d practiced moving up quickly to seal off a Posleen landing site. It reminded him of the joke about where an elephant was allowed to sit – anywhere he wanted to sit. With four million Posleen per globe, sealing it off would be…tricky, to say the least. They would have to move guns up, blasting the Posleen to little pieces from outside their own range, and that depended on the Posleen remaining still.

Morrigan knew that the Posleen would take the offensive.

“The Posleen landing formations are forming up,” the TERDEF controller said, into the silence. It was like watching an absurd sporting event; the tactical icons of the Posleen craft were glittering on the display as they formed up. One massive force was clearly shaping up over China, its weapons flaring as the Chinese fired on it with their PDC centres and a hail of older ICBM missiles. Another was shaping up over the United States, mixed in with a second group that seemed to be forming over South America. Morrigan scowled; he’d heard strange things about the defences there. Defences badly planned, things left undone…

It was almost as if they wanted the Posleen to win.

“Shit,” Colonel Denton said suddenly. A larger Posleen force was circling over the globe; it was splitting up into smaller forces, separating…part of it seemed to be considering India before heading west. He saw what Denton had seen and cursed; one Posleen group seemed to have its eye on the Middle East. He tapped controls, adjusting the display; the Posleen seemed to have at least a dozen globes, and some of them were breaking orbit…

“Posleen force, confirmed descending towards central Asia,” the controller said. Morrigan thought cold thoughts about Afghanistan and the remains of Osama’s organisation, and smiled. “Posleen force, considering the Middle East; possible targets include Iraq, Iran, Western Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Sudan and Israel.”

“The bastards are doing this on purpose,” Prince Salim hissed. His beard was dripping with sweat. Morrigan, who had accepted the fact that they would be in combat soon, perhaps within hours, said nothing. Did the Posleen even have a concept of malice? “They want us to panic.”

The massive red circle was moving over the map. The Posleen were descending slowly, almost furtively; they fired a handful of weapons down towards the surface as they descended. A pair of oil wells in Kuwait were blown open by the attack, Karbala took a missile for no obvious reason; a small town in western Saudi Arabia was struck and almost flattened by a strike. He heard emergency broadcasts, swiftly silenced by the security services, and scowled; the people in Saudi would never know how bad the situation was until the enemy was at the gates.

“They’re trying to tempt us into firing on them,” he realised. It made sense, perhaps far too much sense. The God King in command was clearly a smart cookie. He knew he could be over-estimating the enemy, but he felt, deep within his bones, that he was right. “They’re trying to get us to expose our weapons to their fire.”

“We don’t have any weapons,” Denton said. His uniform, too, was streaked with sweat. His voice, however, remained firm; a combat veteran could hardly have done better. “We don’t have anything that can hurt them while they’re in flight.”

“I know,” Morrigan said. The circle was tightening now; it passed over Israel, Syria, Jordan…and northern Saudi…

The controllers voice was flat, uninvolved. “The target is Iraq and western Iran,” he said. Morrigan noted a new note slipping into the controllers voice and wondered if he had served in Desert Storm. “I repeat, the target is Iraq and Iran.”

“Well, that tears it,” Morrigan said, as sensors began revealing the emissions of Posleen ships as they made their long descent towards Iraq, where Saddam Hussian had been boasting of his forces being ready for action against the Posleen. He felt curiously relieved now; the waiting was over, it was time for action. He’d done the best he could for Saudi Arabia, he'd found them weapons and helped them to overcome some of their weaknesses; everything now depended on how well they’d learnt their lessons. “This time, in a few days, we’ll be fighting to the death here.”

Prince Salim’s voice was nervous. Morrigan, knowing that Prince Salim was looking at the death of his country, said nothing. “They’re going to be coming here?”

Morrigan almost smiled. “This is where the food is,” he said. The Posleen couldn’t survive on Iraq alone; seven globes were making their final approach to Iraq. That meant upwards of twenty-eight million Posleen; they would be eating themselves within a week, perhaps sooner. He made a mental note to ensure that he had access to the intelligence feed from the British and American intelligence networks within the country. “They have to come here, just to survive.”

Denton looked calmer now. “And the Iraqis can’t stop them?”

Morrigan shook his head. “The Posleen are coming right down on top of them,” he said. “They haven’t got any time left to make final preparations.” He shook his head. “It sure is going to be hot in Baghdad, Iraq.”

Chapter Twenty-Two: We Will Welcome Them With Bullets and Shoes

Baghdad, Iraq
12th April 2006

Al Jazeera had never been unwelcome in Iraq.

During the Gulf War, Saddam had blundered badly with his publicly machine, finally being defeated by the forces that had been gathered to oppose him. Unaware of what motivated the West, unable to comprehend that there were more ways of killing a cat than shooting it, Saddam had been portrayed as a tyrant, a bully, and a common or garden thug. The Emir of Kuwait, by contrast, had hired a publicity firm and used them to put his case forward. He’d been restored to his throne, despite having fewer democratic credentials than Saddam.

It had not escaped Saddam’s notice, no matter how much he might believe that the resistance of the Republican Guard had saved his regime from overthrow in 1991, that America could be defeated by its media. As the uncertain triumph, if not outright failure, of the Gulf War was savoured, opinion in the Middle East shifted towards Iraq; the incident when Egyptian units had hailed the launching of missiles at Israel – despite being on the same side for once – had been noted in Baghdad. Saddam had been duelling with the Americans – whose shameful weakness puzzled and perplexed him – when news of the Posleen fell upon the world. As American forces withdrew, Saddam – not unlike Osama – had seen opportunity in adversity.

Baghdad, Mohammed Zahir had been amused to note, was perhaps the only city that had actually benefited from the arrival of the Posleen threat. As sanctions collapsed, and Saddam started to supply oil to all and sundry, the city had actually started a rebirth process; the citizens were actually smiling more than normal. Still, the air of fear hung over the city; Saddam’s men were everywhere. Zahir, who, like all reporters, had to be escorted around the city by a minder, could taste it in the air. People said horrible things about Iran’s mullahs, but even they had never created such an aura of fear.

Images of Saddam were everywhere, in defiance of Islam’s edict on the subject; it had not surprised Zahir to know that Saddam treated Islamic law with the same disregard as he treated any law that interfered with whatever he wanted. He said nothing, not even committing it to his notebook computer; Saddam’s agents were everywhere. He had executed a reporter, before the Gulf War, on questionable grounds…and Zahir knew that even Al Jazeera couldn’t do anything to save him if Saddam’s people arrested him.

Lights flashed and flared in the sky, some blindingly white, others dull and faded, as his escort hurried him along into Iraq’s Ministry of Information. He knew who he was being escorted to see. The undisputed king of spin – not even the British Prime Minister could match him – Mr Mohammed Saeed al-Saheh, known to the western world as ‘Comical Ali’ for his pronouncements on how Iraq would handle the Posleen invasion. Suggestions such as endless war using the cities for cover and massed tank charges had been greeted with hilarity in the west, gearing up for altogether another type of war. In Iraq, however, daring to question Comical Ali could lead to execution, at best.

Zahir had heard, once, that some Iraqi units had been altered, just to convince Saddam that the Darhel were paying through the nose for them. An Iraqi unit had gone to one of the Posleen-occupied worlds, commanded by one of Saddam’s favourites; the Posleen had literally had it for breakfast. Saddam either knew it, or didn’t care, or his people had kept the truth from him. Whatever the truth, Iraq was in serious trouble.

Another light flashed across the sky as his escort hustled him into the Ministry of Information. He wondered, absently, what was actually happening in orbit; his mobile phone had been disconnected ever since the Posleen arrived. The camera team was ahead of him, already setting up their equipment; they would be transmitting back to Qatar when Comical Ali started to speak.

“Salaam,” he said, as he reached the cameramen. There were dozens of reporters, some of them western, others from Iraq’s tame media, filing into the room. “Have you heard anything from…?”

He jerked a finger upwards. “Nothing, just battles in orbit,” his cameraman said. Zahir’s minder was listening in; Zahir shrugged and waited. It wouldn’t be long before Comical Ali came in; he did so like to make an entrance. People were filling the room right to capacity, dozens of reporters; doubtless Comical Ali was about to explain how Iraq had frightened the Posleen off again.

“The Posleen will never dare to challenge the might of Iraq,” Comical Ali pronounced. He was a thin weedy man, with a pair of large spectacles; who could be scared of such a man? No wonder Saddam allowed him to play with the media; one arm-twist and he would be begging for mercy. “If they come to Iraq, we will beat them with old shoes, we will throw shoes at them, those insane aliens who eat their own flesh and…”

He spoke on, and on, and on. Zahir heard…something over the sound of Comical Ali’s voice, something that could be heard, right on the edge of perception. He knew that the Posleen sometimes ate themselves, something that disgusted him more than them eating humans; they had to recoup some of their food supply somehow, but like that…? It was…

The ground seemed to be trembling. Someone ran in the door and over to Comical Ali, whispering a message in his ear. Comical Ali paled until he was whiter than the leader of the KKK. The strange noise was getting louder, the room seemed to be shaking, something was happening. It looked familiar, as if it had happened before, and then it struck him. Independence Day! He’d watched the movie, he’d seen what happened when something incomparably massive passed overhead…and he knew what was happened. The Posleen were here!

Comical Ali’s voice was suddenly a great deal weaker; he clung to the podium for support. “The Posleen have finally decided to try their puny attacks against the power of Iraq, against the noble and worthy soldiers of the Great Saddam, upon him be peace and justice and…”

The ground shook again. “We will push them back into the swamp,” he proclaimed, as the windows seemed to bend inwards…and shatter. Glass crashed down towards the assembled reporters as lights flashed across the sky, Zahir could sense the sheer presence of the Posleen craft as they descended. Comical Ali made a brave attempt to continue. “Those dogs, those…”

The shaking grew louder. As one, the reporters surged towards the exit, carrying much of their cameras with them. Only the Iraqi reporters remained, casting longing looks towards the foreign media as they ran towards the doors. The guards hesitated, lifting their weapons, and then stepped back as the press of reporters forced them aside. Comical Ali was still talking, but it was lost and even he knew it; he sighed and waved for the guards to follow the reporters out. Zahir ran with the others, hoping that his cameramen were following him, out onto the lawn in front of the ministry. He looked up…and stared.

“Allah,” he breathed. Some of the reporters forgot themselves entirely, throwing themselves down in prostration to Allah; he wanted to join them as his eyes took in the sheer sight of the Posleen landing. “Oh Allah, what has happened…”

For an insane moment, he thought that the Posleen were coming down right on top of the city. The sky was filled with craft, hanging in the air to the south of the city, far too close for any comfort at all. They glowed from the heat of entry, their shapes distorted by whatever they used to land, falling slowly towards the ground. They felt absurdly silent, falling…and he realised that his ears had failed. He rubbed them, trying to force them to hear….and wished he hadn’t as the deafening sound of the landing forced itself into his ears.

He fell to his knees, covering his ears, as the Iraqi antiaircraft defences opened fire. Hundreds of guns, firing towards a target that they had never even imagined, never mind the footage from Fredericksburg, firing as one. The Posleen hung in the sky, seemingly unconcerned…and then they returned fire. He covered his eyes as streaks of brilliant white light flashed down, sweeping in towards the Iraqi guns, as the landing craft finally fell to the ground…

…Silence fell…

…And then the sound of Iraqi guns could be heard again. The Posleen had landed within a mile of the city, perhaps less; Zahir realised suddenly that they had landed right on top of one of the Republican Guard bases, near Baghdad. He hated Saddam, he hated the Iraqis, and he prayed that they would succeed in stopping the Posleen. He could hear defending explosions, and the sound of weapons of a type he’d never heard before, and knew that they were Posleen weapons. The entire city seemed to be coming alive with shellfire, firing towards the Posleen positions; he wondered just how many globes had landed. It had felt like every Posleen in the world was heading towards Baghdad.

He grabbed his minder’s sleeve. The secret policeman had thrown himself to the ground, trembling, as the sheer power of the Posleen became apparent. The noise in the air was fading, or perhaps Zahir’s ears were fading; he saw children, in the streets, screaming from the noise. Civilians were streaming out of their houses, panicking; men waving AK-47s were trying to reach the defences around the city, women were running around after their children. He saw a soldier, wearing the basic black Ninja movie-star outfit of the Fedayeen Saddam, grab a woman and pull her to the ground. Her shrieks echoed even above the Posleen; a guard on the Ministry of Information watched and laughed as the woman lost her dignity, her honour, and her life.

Zahir felt sick, horrified; he wished he had some kind of weapon. The noise of the fighting seemed to have faded, even though the guns were still firing; his ears were ringing. His minder, cowering on the ground, irritated him; he grabbed the man and pulled him upright.

“I need information,” he screamed in the minder’s ear. He could barely hear himself talk. The minder seemed to have the same problems with his ears. “I need to know what’s happening!”

Another wave of gunfire echoed across the city. Soldiers in the uniform of the Fedayeen Saddam were issuing orders; Zahir saw one of Saddam’s sons, looking neat and tidy…and somehow utterly obscene in a military uniform with more medals than Zahir had ever seen before, issuing orders. The son saw the rapist and his work, laughed, and the soldiers laughed with him. The rapist buttoned up his pants and moved on, leaving the woman dead in the dirt.

“They’re trying to organise the defence,” the minder said, though his tears. One of his eyes was bleeding; Zahir couldn’t understand how that had happened at all. “They’re trying to get everyone up into the defences, should it be necessary.”

“It won’t be necessary,” another voice said. The assembled reporters, beaten, battered, shocked by the Posleen arrival in what they had believed to be a safe city, turned to see Comical Ali. His face was paler than it had ever been, his uniform was stained, but he managed a brave face none the less. “I have been in communication with the military forces defending Baghdad.”

On cue, the guns fired again, a single sounding barrage against an unseen target. Explosions lit off in the distance, great gusts of black smoke rose up and drifted across the sky. Something caught fire and launched itself into the air, flaring around until a burst of…something wiped it out of existence. Three black helicopters flew overhead, heading directly towards the battlezone; three bursts of brilliant light smashed them out of the sky. Their flaming wreckage fell towards the ground.

Comical Ali was still speaking. “The Posleen attempted a major landing, but our brave men annihilated the crew of a lander,” he said. His voice sounded absolutely confident; Zahir remembered just how many landers each battleglobe carried and wasn’t reassured. “Our glorious forces have won a great victory, smashing lander after lander with as much firepower as we need to defeat the Zionist Posleen.”

There were some chuckles, quickly suppressed. No one knew if the Posleen had a religion or not, but it was fairly certain that they were not Jewish, or Muslim, or Christian or anything else. Comical Ali was an equal-opponent propaganda-spreader, just as Saddam was an equal-opportunity despot; terror and oppression – and lies and slander – were spread around on an equal basis. Only the Sunnis had marginally more rights than anyone else.

That low noise was in the air again, thrumming just below his ability to hear it. Comical Ali was still speaking, but Zahir turned to look south, and almost fainted. Hanging in the air, a black mass could be seen, moving low over the ground. The noise of firing was rising again, small guns, big guns, weapons of all descriptions…and the black mass came on. He saw it clearly in one chilling moment; a Posleen lander, firing as it came.

They came onwards, one, two, three landers, firing down at the ground. There was an awful moment of semi-silence…and then an entire chain of explosions ran up, right outside the city. Zahir turned back to see Comical Ali, who was staring at the Posleen craft with a massive loom of stunned disbelief on his face, and then turned to watch as the firing grew even louder.

“I think we’d better get out of here,” his cameraman bellowed. Zahir couldn’t disagree, but he was rooted to the spot; the immensity of the Posleen craft drifting over the city was paralysing him. A helicopter appeared in the distance; a spear of light flashed out and blasted it from the sky. “I think…”

A tank, an older Soviet model, raced around the corner, driving right over the lawn. The cameraman grabbed Zahir and pulled him out of the way; other reporters were not so lucky, knocked down and crushed under the tank tracks. The reporter from FOX, by some ironic miracle, was spared; the reporter from CNN lost her legs to a tank. As other tanks charged across the square, heading into battle, the FOX reporter tried to pull her clear; Zahir saw the blood flowing from her legs and knew that she would be one of the dead today.

An entire series of shattering explosions enveloped part of the city. Zahir was knocked to the ground as it shook, the Posleen had to have hit something explosive. The city was under attack by a force so powerful that it was knocking even the stronger buildings down; he saw a skyscraper, one of a handful built years ago, topple to the Earth. Allah alone knew how many had died then.

He pulled himself up and saw his first Posleen. The alien was standing at the end of the street, holding a human girl in one claw, a massive alien weapon in the other. Others appeared, firing into buildings as the defenders tried to escape; one scooped up a child and bit her head off in a seemingly random gesture. Zahir was suddenly, utterly sick; Comical Ali was standing, somehow having kept his footing, and staring at the Posleen in a blank haze.

“Allah Ackbar!”

The tanks opened fire as one, launching high explosive shells right into the heart of the Posleen mass. The Posleen seemed to fall back slightly as the shells detonated, scattering yellow blood and gore everywhere…and then a dozen more pushed into the street, holding weapons of their own. The tanks fired again, and then the Posleen fired…and three tanks were simply blown apart. Zahir kept his head down and prayed as the Posleen fired madly, almost as if they wanted to flatten the entire city; a black-dressed man leapt at the Posleen, carrying enough explosives to hurt one, and a Posleen wheeled round and fired at him, detonated him in midair.

Two more tanks exploded, sending molten metal cascading over the reporters; some screamed and fled. Zahir saw the CNN reporter take her last breath as a Posleen bullet punched right through her head; part of him wondered what the hell had happened. What was the point of shooting a woman who couldn’t run away? She could have been caught and eaten with ease.

His cameraman was dragging him away; Zahir allowed himself to be dragged away, remaining low and trying to escape the Posleen as they spread out through the city. He caught a glimpse of them dragging a couple of older women along by their hair, pulling the rich women out of their homes. He looked back, and caught the eye of one of the Posleen; somehow, he knew that it had seen him…

…And then a force of black-suited men in cars raced past, directly towards the Posleen. The Posleen opened fire as one, ripping the cars apart; their lander fired pulses of light down into the city, blasting the suicide charge directly to a halt. The Fedayeen Saddam didn’t stand a chance; they tried to fight and the Posleen simply brushed them aside. Their weapons were tearing entire buildings apart; some of them were even snatching up the dead and eating them quickly.

He saw, as they prepared to round the corner and run for it, another Posleen sitting on a mobile floating platform, high above the lesser Posleen below it. Comical Ali was kneeling on the lawn, staring up at the Posleen, pleading for his life. The lesser Posleen reached out with a knife…and the last thing Zahir saw of the man who had spoken for Saddam Hussian was a Posleen ripping him apart.

Chapter Twenty-Three: War In The Desert, Take One

Near Iraq-Kuwait-Saudi Arabia Border
13th April 2006

Seen from the observation tower, the line of refugees streaming into Saudi Arabia seemed never-ending, people fleeing the Posleen. Smoke could be seen in the far distance – and the wind brought the sounds of endless fighting towards the Saudi position – but there was no sign of the Posleen. After the first nasty skirmish between desperate refugees, including former Iraqi soldiers suddenly as helpless as the rest, the Saudi Government had made the decision to open the borders. Kuwait, which had worked hard to transform itself into a military hedgehog, had refused; refugees were unceremoniously forced back into Iraq, or pointed towards Saudi Arabia.

Paul Kelly, formerly of the RAF Regiment and currently serving on detached duty, looked up at General Mujahid as he watched through binoculars. A handful of Saudi scouts were already deep within Iraq, using telephone cables to remain in touch with the regular army units on the border, but Kelly knew that General Mujahid was nervous. Hell, he was nervous; nothing in sixty years of the RAF’s ground forces had prepared him for anything like this.

He’d given up explaining to General Mujahid about rejuvenation. The fact that Kelly had literally seen service during World War Two meant little to the Saudi, who was acclaimed as one of the best Saudi field generals. It was true, in a sense; General Mujahid was actually fairly competent and had assembled a capable team around the headquarters, along with nearly one hundred thousand combat personnel. Two Armoured Brigades, three Mechanised Infantry Brigades and several reserve infantry formations were backed up by four of the most modern and capable Saudi Artillery Battalions. All in all, it was a powerful force…but it had a bitch of a task to handle.

Worse, Kelly knew that General Mujahid was perhaps the worst choice of General for the task. It was one of the rare occasions where the Saudi Royal Family had actually produced someone considered a military genius who actually had some competence. General Mujahid was an aggressive commander who was more than capable of acting on his own initiative…but he wasn’t a defending commander. He thought in terms of attack, attack, attack…and, against the Posleen, that was asking for disaster.

He thought he was the reincarnation of Erwin Rommel.

The real Rommel would have probably been asking for disaster as well.

“We have been rounding up all the former Iraqi soldiers,” General Mujahid commented, as Kelly entered the command tent. It was a supreme irony that the one general who actually shared the sufferings of his troops should be so unqualified to fight a battle against a Posleen force. “They have been offered a choice between joining my forces or being interned.”

Kelly nodded grimly. The Iraqi…situation was utterly shrouded in the fog of war. TERDEF reports placed a handful of operating Posleen landers – which meant that thousands more remained on the ground – but no one knew exactly what they were doing. Kelly had some communication links with Basra and the Iraqi forces there, but the city was in a massive state of upheaval. Iran was reporting that a heavy mass of landers had landed within their western regions, the territories that they’d fought so desperately to save from Saddam, years ago. They were claiming that they had killed thousands of Posleen; they might even be telling the truth. It didn’t look as if it would save them.

General Mujahid was studying the map. “We can rely on the Kuwaitis,” he said, confidently. He had commanded one of the few competent regular infantry battalions on joint exercises following the Gulf War. “They can hold the Posleen once they reach Basra and challenge the Iraqis there. Your SIGINT still claims that Basra is free of the Posleen vermin?”

Kelly nodded. “The CIA surveillance systems are damaged, but they’re still picking up Iraqi transmissions from the city, mainly trying to raise Baghdad. No reply.”

“Poor bastards,” General Mujahid said. Baghdad had been very near the landing site of a globe. The transmission from Al Jazeera and the other commercial had cut off, their final pictures that of a swarm of Posleen rushing into the centre of the city; Kelly knew exactly what that meant. The Al Jazeera reporter, whoever he was, had died heroically; his images had been broadcast all over the world. “Nothing official from Iraq?”

“Chemical Ali seems to be trying to assert control over the remaining units,” Kelly said, after a moment. “Units seem to be losing their transmissions; either they’re going silent or the Posleen have killed them. There’s a large force up near Triket, commanded by one of Saddam’s sons, but they’re reporting heavy pressure.”

He grinned. “Oh, yes, and they’re screaming for help,” he said. “Us, the Turks, the Iranians, anyone. The Kurds are digging into the mountains now – they’re claiming autonomy now that Saddam is in no state to press the point – and the Turks are furious. They’re even threatening to intervene.”

“They need help,” General Mujahid said, without looking at the map. “The refugees need help, some of them can even help us.”

Kelly privately doubted that. Only a handful of the Iraqi soldiers had seen combat against the Posleen. The remainder were people who had seen the reports, heard wild rumours, and voted with their feet. Rumours were flying thick and fast; the Posleen were in Turkey, the Posleen had made a deal with Saddam, the Posleen were eating everyone they could catch as they spread out from their landing sites. No one seemed to know what was really going on in Iraq.

“There’s nothing we can do,” Kelly said. General Mujahid had a large force, the largest force ever deployed by Saudi Arabia under a single commander. Had he not been a Prince, he would not have been trusted with such firepower – or soldiers who actually liked him instead of detesting him. It was still tiny compared to the mass of Posleen – or the long borders that needed defended.

“There is plenty that we can do,” General Mujahid said. He thumped the map for empersis. “Our Arab brothers are under attack and we are doing nothing to help them!”

General Mujahid was also, Kelly knew, the only real romantic in Saudi Arabia. “We can do nothing to help them,” Kelly said. “What do you propose that we do?”

“We advance,” General Mujahid snapped. “We have the largest and most powerful army in the Middle East. We have the tanks and guns and even some new weapons. We move forward to Basra and assist them in defending the city!”

Kelly paled. “If the Posleen catch us in the open, we’re finished,” he said. The Posleen would smash right through the Saudi force without stopping for breath. “We have fixed defences here, right along the line between here and cities. We can hold them here, but we can’t face them in open battle.”

“We cannot do nothing,” General Mujahid said. “We have plenty of weapons. We could arm the Iraqis and use them to assist the advance.”

Kelly lifted an eyebrow. “You would use untrained amateurs to hold the Posleen?”

General Mujahid’s eyes flickered. A moment later, he burst out laughing. “I see your point, American,” he said, slapping Kelly on the back.

“British,” Kelly corrected. “We cannot rely on forces that have broken once, can we?”

“And to think, such a young man as yourself knows so much,” General Mujahid boomed. Kelly, who suspected that even General Percival would have put up a better fight against the Posleen, didn’t rise to the bait. “Even so, a forward defence would be so much more useful, eh?”

Kelly said nothing. A forward defence could only hold if the defending force had speed and manoeuvrability…and the Saudis had neither. The Posleen might flank them, or they might just punch right through them, or…or they might just bypass the Saudi force altogether and fall on the Saudi cities like ravenous…well, Posleen. There was no point in relying on the remains of the Iraqi army; if half of the transmissions were accurate, the Iraqis were on the verge of civil war as well.

“Still, I think its time to see how many men we can summon into our armies,” General Mujahid said, leading the way outside the tent. A jeep, made in America, waited outside; the general drove himself. Kelly, who had been in Saudi cities, knew that that was hardly reassuring; the Saudis had no concept of driving safety. The British – since his time – might insist on ‘safe, legal and convenient;’ the Saudi Government’s only contribution to driving safety was to ban women from driving.

Kelly, who knew that his granddaughter was the best driver in the family, considered that nonsense. Young girls had been caught behind the wheel; they had been flogged for their defiance. It was just one of the reasons why he would have preferred to have been fighting in the defence of Great Britain, or even signing up with General Mulenkamph.

General Mujahid’s driving was as careless as any other driver; Kelly closed his eyes as the jeep rocketed along the road, until reaching the refugee camp. In a remarkable display of forethought – made more understandable by the fact that the Saudis had been half-expecting Saddam’s regime to collapse at any moment – they had stockpiled supplies of wire and water near the border; they had been turned into makeshift refugee camps. Kelly, whose attitudes about Arabs had been rooted in the 1940s, was disgusted; the camps had been in operation for less than a day and they were already foul.

The guards, members of a SANG infantry force that had been intended to keep an eye on General Mujahid, saluted as he rocketed up to the camp. Inside, the Iraqis sat, or stood and paced; men, women, children, a handful of animals, older people…their eyes all black and hopeless. The Saudis, armed with AK-47s, watched them carefully; Kelly knew that the Iraqis would end up revolting against their treatment. Waves of bitterness, of fear, of resentment, rolled over the camp; he met the eyes, just for a long moment, of a teenage girl and recoiled from the fear and despair in her eyes.

He knew her fate. If she were lucky, she would die in the camp, or perhaps even be eaten by the Posleen. If she were unlucky, she would become a sex slave for a Saudi; he was already certain that it wouldn’t be long before the guards started taking advantage of the refugees. The arrival of the Posleen might be seen as a relief.

The military men – mainly soldiers from Saddam’s regular army and the militias – had been separated from the other prisoners. The guard explained in rapid-fire Arabic – unaware that Kelly spoke it reasonably well – that the others had tried to lynch the soldiers, the ones who had dropped their weapons and fled. Some had managed to keep their weapons; the Saudis had disarmed them as they crossed the border. General Mujahid had commented that the border was large enough to make effective patrolling impossible; there would be thousands of bandits within Saudi soon.

The camp already seemed overflowing. Kelly didn’t want to think about what would happen when the Posleen reached the camp. They would probably be grateful to the Saudis. General Mujahid studied the prisoners for a moment, looking for a senior officer, and then motioned for the gate to be opened. Horrified, two SANG infantrymen escorted him; Kelly took a moment of dark pleasure in thinking how Riyadh would react to the eagerness with which the SANG men moved to cover him. Their willingness to put their lives on the line for him would bode ill for them.

“Men of Iraq, Arab brothers,” General Mujahid thundered, his voice echoing over the camp. Up close, the Iraqis were a pathetic sight; they were underfed, hardly-clothed and the stench was appalling. He didn’t want to think about what the toilets were like. Disease would start spreading through the camps pretty soon. “You have been driven from your homes by the aliens! You have been defeated, while the aliens eat your people, you came here!”

There was a low murmur of anger, swiftly suppressed as the SANG men lifted their weapons. “Is this what Allah wants of you, on the day when Islam faces its most testing struggle yet?” General Mujahid snapped. His voice was growing louder. “The aliens came to eat your wives and children and you ran away! You have brought shame upon your people!”

This time, the murmur of anger grew louder. Kelly remembered his service revolver – he had never adapted to modern weapons – and prevented himself from reaching for it by sheer force of will. The Iraqis, like the Italians he had seen in the Second World War, were growing touchy about their honour; the same honour that they had lost by surrendering so readily. The Posleen, at least, didn’t accept surrenders; Kelly believed that Italy would have been improved enormously if the British had followed the same practice. Of course, France would also have been improved if the American troops hadn’t been issued with condoms.

General Mujahid was still speaking. “We offer you a chance to regain your lost honour and save what remains of your people,” he snapped, over the dull murmur. “If you want, you can join the defence forces here…and assist us when we return to Iraq and drive the alien monsters out once and for all. If you agree to join us, your people” – he waved a hand towards the civilian camp – “will be cared for and your nation will live on. If you agree, we will arm you, train you, and assist you in recovering your country! Will you join us?”

The shout of acclaim was overwhelming. Just then, Kelly understood Osama’s power; he offered back people their pride that their rulers had taken from them. He didn’t understand, not really, why the world governments had allowed Osama to exist, but now he understood more. You couldn’t fight someone like that unless you had balls…and the last time someone in the British Government had balls, it had been during Thatcher’s time in office.

General Mujahid lifted a hand and the shouting quietened. “You will all have your chance,” he promised. His voice grew even louder. “Come with me!”

The SANG forces seemed astonished at this development, but they followed orders, escorting the cheering Iraqis out of the camp. General Mujahid’s aide had been issuing some orders of his own; trucks pulled up with a small army of medical personnel and supplies, giving the Iraqis a good meal. The civilians were also fed; the young men in the camp were invited to join the Iraqi force. Many did, others refused to cooperate; General Mujahid made scornful comments and left them there.

“With such a force of men, who could stop us?” General Mujahid asked, as he walked back with Kelly towards the main base camp. Some of his own soldiers were working with the Iraqis, issuing them with weapons or returning the ones that they had lost. The whole scene was one of comradely pan-Arab feeling…and would have given a heart attack to anyone watching from Riyadh. Kelly rather suspected that it didn’t matter; even the SANG men had been pulled into the general good feeling.

“Bows and arrows against the Posleen,” he commented, misquoting. With a real alien invasion breathing down humanity’s neck, he didn’t feel that HG Wells would object. “How many of them do you think saw the Posleen?”

General Mujahid blinked. “Are you saying that they would dare to lie to me?”

“They lied to Saddam,” Kelly reminded him. Saddam was a despot who could have been thrashed by a force of British tars; he wondered why no one had done it before. So much about the final years of the twentieth century made no sense to him. “Do you think that they would hesitate about lying to you?”

General Mujahid looked thoughtful. The command tent looked busier than it had been as units reported in from their scouting patrols; the Posleen hadn’t pushed towards the Saudi border yet, despite the thousands of refugees who were trying to cross the desert and escape the Posleen. The sound of firing and Posleen weapons could be heard in the distance, the patrols had reported, but no one knew what was actually happening.

“Around ten thousand additional men,” General Mujahid exulted, after an hour had passed. Saudi personnel would be bringing the Iraqis up to speed as quickly as possible, arming them with older weapons and forming them up into combat groups. Kelly had seen them practicing and knew that it would be a disaster. “We could leave two of our infantry battalions here, along with some of the heavier weapons, and then move into Iraq towards Basra.”

“It would be dangerous,” Kelly reminded him. A thought struck him. “Don’t you think that you should ask Riyadh first?”

“They would hem and haw and the opportunity would pass,” General Mujahid said. “I still need a few days to make all of the preparations” – during which time the Posleen would be completing their conquest of Iraq, Kelly knew – “but once I have finished, I will be…”

“Jihad on all of their arses?” Kelly suggested. General Mujahid gave him a dirty look. “General, it’s far too dangerous; you would be leaving parts of Saudi exposed to Posleen attack, perhaps even shortening the war.”

“That’s the point,” General Mujahid said. His voice became more confident; Kelly felt his heart sink. Riyadh might just approve the attack, just to get rid of General Mujahid and his men. “If I attack now, I could shorten the war.”

“Yes, and the Posleen would win,” Kelly snapped. His voice became angrier; General Mujahid was talking about throwing away the one advantage the human forces had. “General…”

His phone buzzed. “Excuse me,” Kelly said. He lifted the phone. “Go ahead.”

He listened quickly to the message. “Thank you,” he said finally. “I’ll keep you updated.”

He put down the phone. “More news?” General Mujahid asked. “What’s happened?”

Kelly met his eyes. “Basra is falling to the Posleen,” he said.

Chapter Twenty-Four: War In The Desert, Take Two

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
13th April 2006

Image; a massive tearing series of explosions, one powerful enough to pick up a tank and toss it casually into the city. Image; Iraqi guns firing madly onto their own positions as they fell to the oncoming attack. Image; an Iraqi soldier firing blindly towards the shape of a Posleen lander, floating high in the air. Image; a tide of humanity, running to escape the monsters behind them. Image; a suicide bomber exploding in midair as the Posleen fire struck him. Image; a Posleen horde coming over the buildings, weapons firing…and the screen went black.

“That cameraman, whoever he was, is surely blessed by Allah,” Prince Bandar said. The corpulent Minister of the Interior looked as if he had lost some weight; his skin was pale and saggy. “Those images…”

Morrigan was only grateful that there was no sound. America itself was under attack; he could only hope that American forces maintained enough of their discipline to hold under the Posleen attack. The Iraqi defences had crumbled and the Posleen had swarmed into the city, smashing, looting and devouring as they raged inwards towards the centre of the city and the port facilities, where the last of the refuges was desperately trying to scramble onboard boats to flee into the Gulf. It wouldn’t be long before the Posleen moved onto their next target, Kuwait itself.

He studied the laptop computer grimly. The CIA had developed extensive electronic surveillance and intelligence gathering systems – and they were useless when the enemy was the Posleen. The Saudis had developed an extensive intelligence network, using their vast wealth to bribe people into supporting them…and that too was useless against the Posleen. The handful of intelligence operatives could track Iranian units by their signals, but when the signals were gone, did that mean that the units had been destroyed?

The map kept changing, but no one was sure of just how accurate it was. Baghdad had fallen; Al Jazeera’s final broadcast from the city had made that clear, along with what had happened to at least one of the senior Iraqi officials. The Posleen didn’t differentiate between humans; they had eaten Comical Ali with as much pleasure as Chemical Ali, who had attempted to use chemical weapons against the Posleen. It hadn’t worked; the Posleen had walked through the mustard gas and smashed the Iraqi defences. Basra was burning…and no one was in any doubt that Kuwait would be next, unless the Posleen came directly towards Saudi.

The centre of Iraq was covered in red; a massive red blot of light, covering almost all of the country and reaching into Iran. Now that Basra had fallen and been eaten, the Posleen could head up north towards the final Iraqi force – and the Kurdish defenders, or they could head west into Saudi, or Jordan, or Syria. He thought about it; where would he go if he were a Posleen? What did the monsters need to live?

“There is still nothing from Saddam himself,” a senior Prince said. Morrigan had never caught his name, but he was the de facto head of the Foreign Ministry. His face had the right sort of look, a kind of shiftiness, combined with disdain that would have suited a British official from the early 18th Century. “The Posleen must have gotten him.”

“One hopes that it would have given them indigestion,” Prince Bandar commented. Morrigan wouldn’t have placed money on it; Saddam was a survivor, unfortunately for the world at large. He might well have evaded the Posleen and escaped to join his son. “The matter of the Iraqi refugees remains the most important of our problems.”

Morrigan felt a wave of disbelief. He would have said that the horde of man-eating aliens was the most important of their problems. “Precisely,” the unnamed prince said. “We do not wish for them to contradict the official line on what was happening, do we?”

“Prince Qutaybah has got it right,” Prince Bandar agreed. It was like an unholy duet; the thought of just how well the name fitted Prince Qutaybah made Morrigan smile. “The crisis is something that we must handle, not least because of our duty to our Arab brothers.”

“General Mujahid has already begun to impress the Iraqis into his forces as a volunteer force,” Prince Salim said. Morrigan caught the grim note under Prince Salim’s voice and silently cursed the Saudi political system. General Mujahid was doing the only thing he could – although Morrigan knew that they didn’t have the years that would be needed to get the Iraqis into something reassembling a proper fighting force – and his brother princes would be happy to stab him in the back. An independent power base in the hands of a genuinely popular general would be a threat to their positions. “We must continue that as the price for feeding refugees, but further inside the borders; we could not rely on Iraqis to defend the borders.”

Prince Bandar coughed. “I hate to disagree with my brother,” he said. Morrigan wondered if Prince Bandar was about to disagree…but he knew better. Power was all that mattered to those who led the House of Saud. “We cannot afford to feed many Iraqis in Saudi, not with the…problems in Africa.”

The problems, Morrigan knew, involved the final collapse of many North African governments, who had been taking their Saudi blood money and sending food to Saudi Arabia – starving their own people in the process. Shorn of western whining over destroyed lands, the Africans had worked hard to produce more food, but very little of it had gone towards those who worked for it. A revolution had been prevented only by Osama’s pressure; the religious leaders in the Sudan had finally revolted against him and tossed his people – and the government – out on their ears. Under other circumstances, Morrigan would have welcomed it, but now…

“We cannot just send them on,” he said, into the silence. “Where would we send them?”

There was a long awkward pause. There were few places that might take the refugees in; the smaller Arab states had even less food and water than Saudi itself, and Iran was part of the war zone. India was under attack, Pakistan might take some refugees, but Morrigan doubted it. Southern Africa?

“That is hardly our problem,” Prince Qutaybah said. “The boat people, in particular, are causing us problems in the Gulf; they actually prevented the Iranians from sending a ship up the Gulf to shell the Posleen positions.”

They had probably saved the life of that ship’s crew, had the story actually happened. The United States had used battleships against the Posleen, but no one else had battleships with the firepower required to face off against the Posleen. Morrigan had heard rumours that the Russians were planning to put some of their older ships into action, but even if they were, the ships would hardly be sent to the Middle East. It was only a matter of time before the Posleen took the war into Russia itself.

Prince Salim looked around the room. “I believe that adding the Iraqi men into our defence units is a course that we have little choice, but to follow,” he said, reluctantly. Morrigan could almost read his thoughts; the Saudi Government could not afford to disavow the only competent commanding officer the Royal Family had managed to produce. Morrigan, who knew General Mujahid’s limitations, worried; what else might he do that Riyadh would feel compelled to support? “However, the units will be armed and trained elsewhere, rather than along the borders.”

It was a compromise. As normal, it pleased no one. “Fine,” Prince Bandar said shortly. “I still refuse to feed more than actual fighting men.”

Morrigan looked at him. “You would let the women and children starve?”

Prince Bandar glared at him. “We have only a limited supply of food and other priorities,” he snapped. “We cannot afford to feed them all.”

Morrigan eyed his stomach. “I’m sure,” he murmured.

Prince Qutaybah looked around the table. “The smaller nations have proven unwilling to send their forces to take part in a joint defence,” he said, his voice indignant. The Saudi Government had considered, for far too long, the smaller Gulf kingdoms its servants and vassals; the thought that they might have defence priorities of their own had never really penetrated. “They must be punished for their rudeness. I move that we cut off all support to them.”

Morrigan shook his head. Talk about fiddling while Rome burns…

Prince Salim clearly had similar thoughts. “That is hardly a problem at the moment,” he said, and killed a renewed attempt by Prince Qutaybah to raise the issue with a sharp look. “Our problem remains the fact that the Posleen have landed and are likely to come for us at any moment.”

He looked around the table. “Anything that stops the Posleen is worth doing,” he continued. “General Morrigan?”

Morrigan smiled. General Abdullah would normally have briefed the inner circle. Prince Salim had insisted on Morrigan giving the briefing because, unlike anyone who had served in the Saudi Army and bureaucracy, he would tell the truth. No American President had ever shot anyone for bringing him bad news, not even Nixon or Clinton. The Saudi Royal Family – and almost every other set of Arab rulers – had a long habit of doing just that…when they were actually told the bad news.

“The Posleen have landed,” he said, winning the prize for stating the bleeding obvious. “The majority of landing sites that we need to worry about are in Iraq and Western Iran; that places the Posleen within a few days of this city. As yet, TERDEF has recorded no new stragglers from the wave appearing and coming in to land, but it remains a possibility.”

He nodded towards the map. “Intelligence gathering is difficult at the moment,” he said. “The Iranians claim high success against the Posleen, but it has not escaped our notice that radio transmitters have been failing across Western Iran. The only real conclusion we can draw is that the Posleen have been pressing out from their landing sites – the only reasonable thing they can do, both to collect food and to prevent us from destroying their forces with nuclear weapons while they’re on the ground.”

Prince Qutaybah’s voice was irritable. “And your people have enough nuclear warheads to shatter the world,” he said, inaccurately. “Use them, now; they’re only Shias and Iraqis under the targets.”

“The Posleen would shoot down any such attempt to use missiles to do that,” Morrigan said, relieved to note that the fact he had a handful of warheads remained a secret. The Posleen ground-based weapons were interdicting almost all transport between Earth and the bases out in the belt. The Iraqi attempts to attack the Posleen in the air had been bloody failures. “There are also other problems.”

He pressed on before Prince Qutaybah could interrupt further. “It will not be long before the Posleen march into Kuwait,” he said. “We have almost no information on how the Posleen are distributing their forces; they could be anywhere under the red, or even outside it.” He waved at the map and the red area of occupation. We do know, however, that they will be spreading out to occupy places that they can loot and strip of humanity – such as cities. Those are unfortunately in greater numbers down south, towards here.

“Therefore, we must expect that the Posleen will come for us or for Kuwait, perhaps both,” he concluded. “The Posleen landed near Basra, but it took them nearly a day to decide to march into Basra, so we have really no idea how long it will be before they turn southwards. They need the food, however; they will hunt us down like rats.”

There was a dead silence in the room. “We have – now – to begin expecting a Posleen attack within days, at most,” Morrigan said. “We have to start to carry out the emergency plan.”

“It’s too early,” Prince Qutaybah said. The emergency plan called for a mass evacuation of everyone who couldn’t fight – mainly women and children – from the border regions, from anywhere that the Posleen could reach without much in the way of warning. The religious factions – who saw it as placing thousands of women well away from their menfolk – were very much against using the plan. “If we do it now, there will be panic.”

“There will be panic everywhere,” Morrigan said, remembering the final images from Baghdad. That Al Jazeera reporter would be feeding the Posleen now, but his reporting would have been seen by far too many people; panic was already starting to grip the streets of every Arab city and town…at least those that were not already overrun by the Posleen. “It cannot be helped.”

Prince Bandar frowned. “We are having enough problems with feeding the refugees and those of us who have already fled the border areas,” he said. “Do we really want to take people away from the stockpiles of food that had been placed to feed them?”

Those stockpiles had been mined to prevent them from falling into the mouths of the Posleen. The same could not be said of the Saudi towns. “If we leave them there, the Posleen will take them and eat them,” Morrigan said, trying to keep his voice calm. He understood their problem – the Saudi Royal Family did everything they could to prevent large gatherings from forming – but there was no longer time to worry about such details. “We cannot feed the Posleen further; they already have enough to save them from needing to eat each other.”

He could see that they were not convinced. “We also have to reinforce General Mujahid,” he continued. “If we can hold the Posleen along the Kuwaiti border, we would have a very good chance of stopping them from reaching the heart of this country.”

Prince Salim’s words fell on him like a shock. “General Mujahid has already requested permission to move forward and engage the Posleen,” he said. “If he feels that he can do that, then are additional soldiers needed?”

Morrigan stared at him in horror. “Relieve him, now,” he snapped. The urgency in his voice shook even him. “Don’t leave him there!”

Prince Bandar hauled himself to his feet like a beached whale. “And who are you to demand that we remove one of our best commanding officers?” He snapped. “If he feels that a victory is possible…”

“It is not,” Morrigan said sharply, remembering just what had happened during the first battles with the Posleen. General Mujahid was about to cause an even worse disaster. Why couldn’t he have been a coward instead? “The Posleen are far too close to allow us to even take up additional defence lines inside Iraq, let alone try to engage them. If the Posleen punch out Kuwait, they will trap General Mujahid outside his fixed defence lines, or they will be sweeping around Kuwait…and bump into General Mujahid. Either way, the force will be destroyed and General Mujahid will be killed.”

Prince Salim met his eyes. “We will order General Mujahid to stand on the defensive,” he said, after a moment. Morrigan allowed himself a moment of relief. “However, any reinforcements will not be under his command.”

Prince Bandar nodded enthusiastically. “I second the proposal,” he said. His chest wobbled with his delight; Morrigan was disgusted. “We would not wish to give so much firepower to one man.”

That had to be the most honest remark made by a Saudi - ever. “Good,” Prince Salim agreed. “We will stand on the defensive, use the Iraqis as additional manpower, and eventually crush the Posleen offensive when it comes.”

The meeting adjourned.

Colonel Denton looked up at Morrigan as he led the way out of the meeting room. “Sir?”

“Later,” Morrigan said, making his way towards his quarters. He swept the room for bugs everyday, just to ensure that no one was listening to what he had to say. As soon as they were inside, he gave Yasmeena a kiss and went directly into his office. “What do you think?”

Denton hesitated. “Sir, I…”

“Spit it out,” Morrigan snapped. He allowed his voice to soften. “I think you’ve earned that right.”

Denton looked gratified. “Sir, I think they’re going to have their heads handed to them,” he said. “They’re not taking the Posleen seriously at all.”

“Perhaps we should have had a harder victory in 1991,” Morrigan mused. “I think I need to give Lombardi a call. It’s time for Plan D.”

Denton looked horrified, and then accepting. “Sir, has it really come to that?”

Morrigan laughed briefly. “You heard them in there,” he said. “Do you think that the Posleen are going to notice the resistance when they walk in and take over?”

Denton shook his head. “No, sir,” he said. His voice became more hopeful. “They might hurt the Posleen.”

“They can’t stop the Posleen and that’s all that matters,” Morrigan said, pulling out a mobile phone. The network was something else new; the original network had been blown out of space along with the satellites during the first Posleen landings. American technology had been used to create a network that was not only very capable, but was almost impossible to hack into by the Secret Police. “I need to talk to Lombardi.”

He thought for a moment as the phone rang. “Fetch me my files, and then continue to observe in the war room,” he ordered. There were things he didn’t want Denton to know about. “I want to know as soon as one of these idiots does something else to bugger up the war effort.”

Lombardi answered. “Good afternoon, Bruno,” Morrigan said. He’d sent Lombardi out of the city when the Posleen approach was detected. “I have a special task for you.” He laughed. “I think you’ll find it strangely arousing.”
__________________
Chapter Twenty-Five: The Earth Under The Posleen

Near Baghdad, Iraq
13th April 2006

The Posleen had not occupied Baghdad. They had flattened Baghdad.

Mohammed Zahir had fled, along with his cameraman, out of the city, staring behind them as the Posleen tore the city to bits. Thousands of Iraqis had weapons, if not military training; the Posleen were paying a high price for the city, but in the end it was a price they were willing to pay. Screams and howls echoed through the city; the Posleen were rounding up humans and scooping up dead bodies to eat right on the spot.

They had fled as if the devil himself was after them, finding a lorry and spending the night cowering in an old village not that far from the capital city. The villagers had fled, along with a tidal wave of other refugees fleeing into the night as the Posleen completed their grizzly task. They’d met a pair of families, two women and their children, and shared what food they found in the village. It wasn’t much.

“I was in Palestine not that long ago,” Zahir said, staring towards the lightening sky. He'd wanted to continue to flee during the night, but he’d made a commitment; he wanted to try to send what footage he could from the warzone. His cameraman had considered him insane, but had reluctantly stayed as well; in the distance, Baghdad burned and alien ships drifted overhead.

“We used to say that the Jews were violent and brutal and horrible,” he said, knowing that the three older women were listening to him. It had turned out that they were both former wives – and one teenage daughter – of higher-up Party officials; their husbands had probably been killed during the battle. The daughter, nearly sixteen, was beautiful; Zahir had felt something stir that hadn’t stirred for a long time. “They hunted our brothers in Palestine and treated them like dirt.”

He looked back towards Baghdad. “We didn’t even know what horrible was,” he said. Mullahs in Iran had accused the Jews of drinking menstrual blood, accounting for a horrific stench that was said to surround each and every Jew; Zahir, who had actually been to Israel, had smelt nothing of the sort. Jews smelled the same as any other human; the only Jew he’d met who had smelt bad at all had been a whore in Israel. “The Jews never did anything like that.”

There was a sound in the distance. He turned and muttered a curse under his breath. “Get down and stay down,” he hissed, pushing the children to the ground. He peered into the semi-darkness as the cause of the sound grew closer; a small group of Posleen was circling around the city, passing through the village. He knew that running was futile – and they were unarmed; he kept low and prayed to Allah that the Posleen would miss them as they swept through. He watched and tried to learn…

It was his first chance to see a Posleen up close without the distraction of a battle, when they had just been indistinct shapes. They were horrible, massive yellow centaurs, covered with scales that glittered slightly when they walked. They carried massive strange weapons, larger than ones humans could carry…and humans walked with them. He almost gasped as he saw them, wondering if they were collaborators, and then he realised that they were prisoners. Some of the Posleen carried human bodies, others watched the humans, forcing them forwards towards the city. Men and women alike walked, as if they were in a trance; the handful of children looked traumatized by what had happened to them. The Posleen were merciless; a young boy fell to the ground and a Posleen picked him up and bit down, hard.

Zahir felt his fists squeeze hard enough to draw blood. He wished – oh, how he wished – for a nuclear weapon or even a grenade; the sun was rising in the air as the Posleen marched onwards, finally coming to an end. A handful of stragglers – he realised suddenly that one of them was wounded – marched past; the line had come to an end.

“Oh, Allah,” one of the women said. She broke down into silent sobs; her companion placed an arm around her. Both of them knew just how lucky they had been; the Posleen might well have seen them and added them to their haul of humans. A burst of shooting echoed out in the distance, followed by a burst of Posleen weapons fire; a scream sounded and faded quickly.

His cameraman, Fahad, had other problems. “Why did they leave us?”

Zahir shrugged. “They must have missed us,” he said. Just by landing where they had, the Posleen had ripped the guts out of Iraq, along with much of the Iraqi combat power. The Euphrates Defence Line would have been shattered before the Iraqis ever had a chance to get into position to fight. He tried to imagine what he would do if he was a Posleen; what did they want? It was hard to think of the Posleen being interested in oil, although given what they ate, they might well consider oil to be a suitable condiment.

The sun was rising now, shedding its light over the land. “We can’t stay here,” Fahad said. The women looked nervous; the thought of being trapped with two strange men horrified them. One of them held her teenaged daughter close; the other three children still seemed shell-shocked. “Where do we go?”

“I’m trying to think,” Zahir said. A human force could be bribed, or they would at least have some motive to keep the woman aside. The Posleen weren’t interested in rape. “Just how many Posleen are there out there?”

He pulled himself up to the window and peered out. There were no Posleen in sight, but the village was set in a dell; the Posleen could be right next to the village and they would have no way of knowing. He waved to Fahad to remain behind and climbed up quickly to the second floor; whoever had owned the house had been very rich, by the standards of the village. The bedchamber had been ransacked in a hurry when the owners had departed; he glanced around for anything useful and found nothing. Shaking his head, he climbed up the ladder onto the roof and looked across the land.

The fires were still burning in Baghdad; the Posleen probably viewed it as a cheap way to cook their food. He could see a handful of Posleen landers, massive blocky shapes, nearly half a mile away; they were surrounded by a force of Posleen. Three God Kings were floating over the land, discussing something amongst themselves; other Posleen seemed to be going in and out of the city. As he watched, a normal Posleen brought the God Kings some food and…

Zahir was violently sick. The Posleen didn’t seem to have interfered with the main road out of Baghdad, nor the vehicle they’d used to get this far. The Posleen were sweeping around the city, looking for humans who might pose a threat; Zahir wondered just what they would do with the city once they held it completely in their hands.

He slipped back downstairs and told Fahad what he’d seen, missing out only the details of how the Posleen fed. It would only have upset the women. “We can’t stay here,” he said, after finishing his explanation. “The Posleen will find us sooner or later, and then they’ll add us to their larder.”

Fahad nodded. “Are there any weapons upstairs?”

Zahir shook his head. “We could stay here,” one of the women – Nabihah – said. “It’s safe here. We could just keep our heads down and no one would bother us.”

“They’ll find us, or we’ll run out of food,” Zahir said. He passed over the last of the food they’d found in the village. “I think its time to move.”

“We really need weapons,” Fahad grumbled, as they headed outside. Zahir took a sniff of the air and recoiled; the air stank, of fire and burning flesh and filth and something…indefinably alien. Where the Posleen had walked, he could see their marks and even some of their wastes; the Posleen polluted wherever they walked. “Something that we can use to hit back at them.”

Zahir checked the map. “We get onto the road and head north,” he said, wishing that Fahad would crease to speak of weapons. They had none and were unlikely to ever get any. “Once we get onto the road, floor it; they’ll have to hear the racket, if nothing else, and then…”

Fahad nodded, peering though the lorry. “Everything looks fine,” he said. “Come on.”

Nabihah stepped forward, holding her younger daughter, and passed her into the truck. The two boys scrambled up on their own, followed by the teenaged girl. She had said nothing to Zahir; he didn’t even know her name. She sensed his eyes on her and turned away; Zahir felt a moment of shame, quickly washed away by circumstance. The other woman, Kabirah, climbed up; Zahir slipped into the front seat.

“Move,” he insisted. The lorry made a terrible racket, causing Zahir to worry about Posleen ears, but it lurched forwards, heading out of the village. The dirt tracks – this was one part of Iraq that hadn’t changed in centuries – crunched under the wheels; he started to wonder about petrol. They should have plenty, but…what happened if they ran out?

“We would die,” Fahad said dryly, when he put the question to him. “What can we do about it?”

The route out of Baghdad was well made, but deserted; a handful of dead bodies, smashed into pieces, covered part of the road. Fahad ignored them and drove onwards, pushing them as far from the city as he could. The roar of the truck contrasted with the noises that were starting to rise out of the city, screams and moans; Zahir peered behind him, expecting to see a horde of Posleen chasing them. There was nothing, only the echoing sounds of humans dying…and, he now realised, Posleen eating.

Time passed. Zahir kept a look-out, asking the two women to help with that while the children slept; there was no sign of the Posleen. As the terrain grew worse and worse, he allowed himself to hope that the Posleen wouldn’t be coming up after them, but he knew that it was all too likely. The Posleen wanted food…and humans were their food. An hour passed; he took over from Fahad in the driving seat and drove on, further north. It was deserted. There were no signs of any humans, but signs that humans had fled from the Posleen…

A single shot cracked out in the air. The front tire burst. Zahir struggled to control the lorry as the vehicle began to move out of control, knowing that whoever had shot at them was a very good shot – or just lucky. The women screamed as the lorry heeled over, but didn’t collapse; it landed on the deflating tyre and came to a half. Zahir cursed as the lorry halted, wondering just what they’d run into, and why they’d been shot at.

“Boss,” Fahad said, looking outside. A group of men, wearing brown uniforms, had materialised out of nowhere. They were armed, holding AK-47s in their arms, pointing them at the truck. “I think we’d better get out.”

Zahir nodded, seeing the grim resolve on the faces of the men, and wondered just who they were. Soldiers? Deserters? Bandits? The difference wasn’t that easy to see in Iraq. He saw their motioning weapons and climbed out, followed by Fahad; he ordered the women and children to remain in the truck. The leader came right up to Zahir and shoved his gun in his face.

“Hands up,” he snapped. Zahir reluctantly complied. “Everyone out, now!”

The women climbed slowly out of the lorry, holding their children. Zahir didn’t miss the looks that the troops cast at the women, at least the three who were of raping age. He focused on the leader, noting that the uniform he wore was that of the Republican Guard; he wondered which unit he belonged to, or even if that mattered any longer.

“I am Colonel Abassi,” the leader snapped. “Who are you and what’s happening in Baghdad?”

Zahir explained as carefully as he could, explaining about how he’d been reporting from Baghdad when the Posleen arrived, then their night in the villages and their long drive to…well, wherever they were now. The leader asked probing questions about Baghdad and the Posleen, good ones for the most part; he was shocked to hear that the city had been penetrated and destroyed within an hour, if that.

Zahir frowned. His arms were starting to ache. “If I may ask a question,” he said slowly, “what are you doing up here?”

Colonel Abassi looked at him long enough for Zahir to feel unnerved. “My unit was ordered to…secure the north,” he said, referring to what was generally considered a Kurdish autonomous zone. Zahir had been expecting Saddam to have tried to smash the Kurds when Washington was hit by the Posleen, but instead Saddam had been content to leave them alone. It was…odd. “Yesterday, we saw the lights in the sky…and then we lost contact with Baghdad. There was a tide of refugees and then nothing and I was ordered to picket the road to see what came up towards us.”

“I see,” Zahir said. “I have to make my report to Al Jazeera to report on what’s happened here, about how the brave defenders of Baghdad fought to the last.”

One of the soldiers made an obscene suggestion. Colonel Abassi, without looking back, cuffed the offender with his fist. “There are plenty of sluts in the region,” he snapped, and looked up at Zahir. “I have to arrest you and transport you towards what remains of higher authority,” he said. “I expect that you will be well treated, but…”

There was a rumble of thunder towards the south. Zahir had a sudden chilling presentiment of what that sound might mean. Colonel Abassi didn’t waste any time; two of his men quickly handcuffed Zahir, then Fahad, and then the three adult women. The children were left free. The soldiers marched them quickly away from the lorry towards another lorry, one that had been well hidden in a cave, and quickly secured them in the back. Despite the women’s protests, they were groped several times until Colonel Abassi pistol-whipped the soldiers to make them comply.

“I honestly don’t know what will happen,” Colonel Abassi said, as the noise of thunder grew nearer. Zahir wished that he could see more from the van, instead of just the scared faces of the women and Colonel Abassi’s back. “They might not want to talk to you, or they might want to simply shoot you.”

“You’re very kind,” Zahir said dryly. Colonel Abassi laughed. “What’s happening behind us?”

“I really don’t want to know,” Colonel Abassi said. He braked the lorry to a stop. “Time for you to get out.”

He helped Zahir, whose hands were still handcuffed, to get out of the lorry, leaving the women behind. Zahir looked around to discover that they had parked inside a large military base, with Republican Guardsmen everywhere, their faces set and determined. It was fairly typical for its type, with low buildings and heavy weapons everywhere, but he knew that it wouldn’t be enough to stop the Posleen. How could it be when so much else had failed?

“This is a base near the hometown of the great leader himself,” Colonel Abassi explained. His voice became pleading. “Have you heard anything about him?”

Zahir shook his head. “Nothing since Baghdad fell,” he said. Saddam’s fate remained a mystery. “Whose in charge here?”

Colonel Abassi led him into a war room. A massive map of Iraq lay on the table; a large staff of well-dressed officers were updating it, showing a massive red arrow heading out of Baghdad, right towards the base and the cities in the north of Iraq. The Posleen were on the move.

“Your Excellency, this is the Al Jazeera Reporter,” Colonel Abassi said, to a young man who looked somehow…wrong. Zahir noticed that Colonel Abassi said nothing about the women in the lorry. “He was the last person to escape Baghdad.”

“Was he?” The young man asked, not much interested. The march of the Posleen did tend to concentrate the mind somewhat. “What happened there?”

Zahir explained as best as he could. “My father said that he would fight to the last,” the young man said. Zahir realised just with a sudden shock who the man actually was…and then remembered about his sexual habits. He might have wanted the girl for himself…but he knew they would all be better off dead than in his hands. “And, as for you, what should I do with you?”

Zahir took a breath. “I have to tell the world about the heroic defence of Baghdad,” he said. He searched desperately for arguments he could use to convince a man who had been known to snatch women off the streets for amusement. “They all need to know.”

“True,” the young man said. He looked up at Zahir; it was like locking eyes with a snake. The malice in those eyes was overpowering. “We will stop the Posleen here, but you will go on to Syria or Jordan - Colonel Abassi will see to it – and find your people there, where you will be able to return to the home of Al Jazeera and tell them what happened here. You will tell them how we stopped the Posleen when the Great Satan couldn’t handle them…”

Zahir nodded. “Yes, Your Excellency,” he said, remembering how Colonel Abassi had used that term for him. His handcuffs clinked; Colonel Abassi unlocked them for him and let him go. “May I take my people with me as well?”

The young man smiled. “Of course,” he said. “We want the world to know everything about how we will stop them here.”

Chapter Twenty-Six: Preparing For The Jihad

Mecca, Saudi Arabia
15th April 2006

The existence of the computer system that had been set up in the heart of Mecca would have surprised and horrified the House of Saud, who – having set up a computer system to face off against the Posleen – would have been a lot happier knowing that only they had access to the system. Morrigan wouldn’t have been surprised at all; the system had been practically designed to be easy to hack. Destroying the system would have been difficult, actually reading the information contained within the system was easy.

Mullah Bihar had been amused to discover that there was a massive cache of Japanese pornography on the network, and less amused to discover that some of the fighters had found it and watched it in Mecca itself. Osama hadn’t been surprised – the foot soldiers of Al Qaida were regarded as expendable – and had ordered him not to make too big a fuss; there were other things to worry about. Sara had been training the women of Mecca to fight as a female martyr’s brigade, with the net result that the women were more disrespectful to men and more willing to use the weapons that they weren’t supposed to have. It was…not right, but Osama hadn’t been willing to rock the boat; the Posleen were finally here and they would soon be approaching Mecca.

Osama had hailed the fall of Iraq and the purging of most of its people as a sign from Allah. Under the rule of the secular non-religious Saddam, Iraq had wandered away from the true path; had they placed their faith in Allah, they would have survived. Or, Mullah Bihar thought, with more than a touch of cynicism, they would have been assured entry into Paradise. The fall of Saddam’s hometown, along with Uday Hussein, had assured that the remains of Iraq would fall; the Posleen seemed unwilling to chase the Kurds too far into the mountains. It wasn’t good terrain for them.

Al Jazeera was showing on one wall, a plasma screen that had been produced in Japan and sold to Saudi Arabia for an exorbitant price; Mullah Bihar despised it. The Japanese were godless heathens or idol-worshippers; they spread their commercial doctrine into East Asia, trying hard to push out Islam as a means of running their lives. The irony of using Japanese technology hadn’t escaped him; he forced down his disgust and watched as the reporter showed the footage from Baghdad and Saddam’s hometown.

“The Posleen overwhelmed the Iraqis by sheer force of numbers,” the reporter said, as the footage altered slightly. A helicopter flew into battle…and was disintegrated by a burst of light from one of the Posleen formations. Tanks exploded, one after the others; Comical Ali died on his lawn, staring at the aliens he had never really believed would come. Mullah Bihar watched as the Iraqi soldier raped a Muslim woman; she might have converted to Wahhabism rather than face that fate, given a choice. “The Iraqis were unprepared for the power of the Posleen.”

The screen focused in on the image of a Posleen reaching out towards Comical Ali, and froze. A professor with a boring voice and lots of letters after his name started to explain what was known about the Posleen, starting with the fact that chemical weapons had proven ineffective against them at Basra. The clouds of chemical weapons, from Mustard Gas to nastier concoctions whipped up with the collapse of sanctions, drifted over the Posleen…and the aliens came on regardless. The gas drifted back towards the Iraqi positions, killing some of them; the professor didn’t seem to think that that would have stopped the Posleen from eating them.

“And the death of Uday Hussein, along with the final large formation of Iraqi forces within Iraq, means the end of organised resistance,” the Al Jazeera presenter said. Like CNN and the other global news networks, Al Jazeera was trying to keep people updated on the movements of the Posleen…until the final moments when the Posleen rushed into Qatar, perhaps, not unlike the Saudis themselves, to silence the controversial station. “The Iraqi forces held for a day before the Posleen forced their way through the defence line and crushed them.”

Mullah Bihar tapped a control and the screen went blank. A tap on the button of his keyboard brought up the TERDEF’s public access page – an interactive map of where the Posleen had landed and were expanding. TERDEF was short of information – Al Jazeera had made it clear that the Posleen were moving about within the occupied regions – but it was clear that Iran was in serious trouble. So was Iraq.

“I have sources within Riyadh,” Mullah Bihar said. Beside him, Osama nodded; a complex agreement involving face and harmony – two demons of working within the Middle East – meant that Mullah Bihar spoke for Al Qaida. Yusef Hussian would not be challenged by being addressed by Osama; his post could not be questioned. At least, not until the Posleen were defeated…

He shook his head. “Riyadh is doing a great deal of running around with its collective head in the sand, as usual, but some of them have taken over the direction of the war, including that American General,” he continued. There was a collective mutter of dismay; some of them had expected a quick coup in Riyadh, followed by them being invited in to take control of the country. “Among other things, they have started to conscript male Iraqi refugees, using them as soldiers; they’re being armed and trained as quickly as possible.”

There were more mutterings of dismay. The men – and the one woman – around the table had no problems with the concept that a man could be given a gun, trained for a day, and then expected to fight; the concept of years of training meant little to most of them, although for different reasons. The fact that Iraqi women – apart from a handful of truly gorgeous ones – were being shoved back into the sea mattered less to them; woman hardly mattered to all of them. Even Sara, whom Mullah Bihar suspected of being a lesbian, cared nothing for their lives.

But there was another problem. “This has a fairly obvious benefit for the hypocrites,” Mullah Bihar continued. “They will have new forces that will not have had the benefit of any indoctrination from us. If Prince Salim chooses to deploy them in the streets, they could hold the country firmly in their hands. The loyalty of the regular army hardly matters when it’s the SANG, the militia and now these new units that matters.”

“Then we must encourage them to spend them like water,” Sara said, her voice icy. She wore a full burka, rather than a headscarf; Mullah Bihar had been outraged ever since the first time he’d seen her like that – there was no way of knowing exactly what she looked like under the shroud. The dangers were endless. “Can they be used for that?”

“The American” – Mullah Bihar, who had considered plans for Morrigan before discarding them, allowed a note of disdain to creep into his voice – “believes that Kuwait will be targeted next; there have already been exchanges of fire along their borders with small groups of Posleen. If that happens, then General Mujahid has developed a plan to move into Saudi and cut the Posleen off at the neck and cut their supply lines.”

He paused. “The American does not approve of this plan,” he said. “I believe that we should try to encourage it, carefully. We wouldn’t want the blame, of course, but we could use it to…encourage General Mujahid to use the Iraqis to liberate their home country.”

“The man is a romantic fool,” Osama said. His voice was cold and hard; he’d met General Mujahid before his fall from grace in Saudi Arabia. “He believes that he is one of the warriors of old, unaware that no one touched by the contamination of the House of Saud could ever hope to be a true Jihadi. He sees himself as one of the holy warriors who brought the word of Islam to distant lands, unaware of the contamination spreading behind him. Allah has ordained that he will lose.”

There was a pause. “And then?” Sara asked. Her voice was very calm. The sense of…wrongness had never faded. “What happens then?”

Osama turned his gaze upon the hidden woman; Sara didn’t seem fazed at all. “The American believes that the Posleen will make a lunge for the populated regions around the Gulf, starting with Saudi Arabia,” Mullah Bihar said quickly. Sara might be a woman and therefore worth much less than a man, but there was no point insulting her; women bore grudges longer than men. “If that happens, they will come here and challenge us.”

“Then we must study what we know,” Hussian said. His voice was very firm and insistent; his neat beard moved to point at the map as he stroked it. “Baghdad fell in less than an hour; why was the son of the tyrant able to hold out for so long?”

Mullah Bihar frowned. “The American believes that it was because this time the Iraqis fought from a defensible position with a clear Posleen angle of attack,” he said, reluctant to give Morrigan any credit. “They knew that the Posleen were coming and they shelled them mercilessly as they came into range, forcing them back by sheer weight of shellfire. Eventually, the Posleen grew so numerous that they pushed back the defence lines, outflanked – accidentally or otherwise – the defenders, and then crushed them. Once they fell on the town, there was an attempt to hold it, but…”

He shook his head, stroking his beard. “They failed,” he said, wondering how Osama was coping with the news from Afghanistan. The Posleen were giving them a harder time now. The remains of the Taliban were fighting the Posleen in their mountains and, with the terrain, might manage to hold out for years. “We have to learn from that and use it against the Posleen.”

Hussian studied the hand-drawn map of Mecca. A united force was dug in around the centre of Mecca, but that was the only place that held a united force; the remainder of the city was divided into sections that were held by one group or another. It was like living in a tiny macrocosm of Africa, after the western imperialists had left; one cough could be taken as the symbol to start extreme violence. It didn’t help that food supplies had dwindled down to nothing; the new Islamic Defence Force in Africa had broken all ties with Osama after they had overthrown the governments…

Mullah Bihar ground his teeth. Didn’t the ungrateful bastards understand that the defence of Mecca was all-important? What did simple tribesmen, who would have to be introduced to the true Islam, matter compared to defending the most holy sites of the religion…?

“We have to learn from what happened,” Hussian said. Mullah Bihar felt a flicker of anger – Hussian had almost repeated him – but he forced it down. Hussian was speaking. “We learned much from fighting the Zionists, but in this case I think that we have to adapt further; you may have noticed that the Posleen don’t care about civilian deaths in their attacks.”

“They eat us,” Sara added. Hussian nodded grimly. Al Jazeera had caught enough footage of Posleen eating habits, without often cooking humans first, to convince him that being taken alive was a really bad idea. “They consider humans nothing more than their food, its like we’re cattle, or…”

“Pork,” Hussian said dryly. Mullah Bihar felt his stomach heave; a long time ago, he had rebelled against his parents and eaten the forbidden meat. “We have to give them a bellyache they’ll never forget and that will be harder than it was against the Zionists, who were weak enough to care what the rest of the world thought about them.”

He studied the map. “We will have to redistribute our long-range guns,” he said, after a moment. “We will have to wear down any Posleen force on its long march towards the city, perhaps even hammering it outside the city, and then force them to come against the walls we’ve built around the city. They’ll have to punch their way through…and they’ll do it into the teeth of our firepower.”

His fingers traced out lines on the map. “We will have to expand the tunnel network and remove some of the blockades,” he said. Mullah Bihar winced; the tunnels under Mecca had been divided up into sections, just like the surface world was. The different factions didn’t want their rivals trying a series of sneak attacks, did they? “Once the Posleen force their way into a section, we send people underground to attack their backs, forcing them backwards. The Posleen will howl in rage, but they’re larger than we are; they won’t be able to get back into the tunnels.”

He smiled. “It can be done, but we will all have to work together,” he said. “Perhaps we should share some of the information from the network that Al Jazeera didn’t – couldn’t – show. That might convince them to join up to the main defence effort.”

Hussian stood up. “We will discuss the main defence plan once I’ve had a chance to work through it with some of my more experienced people,” he said. Osama nodded; Mullah Bihar fumed at the dismissal, even though he knew that the Palestinians had more experience defending cities than Al Qaida. “We will be back in touch with you once we have worked out a proper plan, then we can practice, and practice, and…”

He walked out, followed by Sara, walking three steps behind him.

Mullah Bihar spun around. His voice was harsh with anger. “Put us in our place, didn’t he?”

Osama shrugged. “He knows what he’s doing,” he said. His voice was very weak. Mullah Bihar looked into his friend and mentor’s eyes and blinked; Osama was on the edge of despair. “You know, part of me had never really believed in the Posleen; I thought that they were a Zionist trick.”

Mullah Bihar had heard that the French and Germans were having problems with protesters who thought that the Posleen were an American trick. “I had such thoughts myself,” he said, noticing how Osama’s eyes were wandering. His face was twitching mercilessly. “However, it seems that they are all too real.”

“Fifteen years ago, I thought I knew what I was,” Osama said, shaking his head slowly. His beard was streaking with white tuffs of hair; he was growing old. Mullah Bihar didn’t like to see him like that. “I knew that I would liberate Islam from the shackles of the west…and this seemed like a perfect opportunity to purify Islam. Millions of unbelievers would die; the faithful would live on, go forth, and multiply.”

Mullah Bihar looked down at the table. “We hold control – part control – over the Holy Cities,” he said. That, in particular, had delighted him. Their control of Mecca was something that would give them special status in the eyes of Muslims around the world…and if they controlled the oil wealth, how could they fail? The West was so easy to corrupt by money. How else had the House of Saud lasted so long?

He allowed his voice to soften. “That was one of the war aims, was it not?”

Osama shrugged. “We do not have perfect control,” he said. “Prince Salim has the backbone his predecessor lacked. He called in an American general, American advisors; he’s actually managed to build a much better army. I would be willing to bet good money – if I bet, of course – that the Americans suggested recruiting Iraqis. It’s just the sort of stupid idea that Americans would come up with, and it will serve them well.”

His dark eyes met Mullah Bihar’s eyes. “If the Americans remain in Riyadh, what will Allah think of us?”

Mullah Bihar hesitated. “The Americans have proven useful,” he said, nodding towards the network-connected computer. Once the war was over, that would come in handy – very handy – for the spreading of Jihad. The Americans had also helped to expand the number of armed Saudis; they would also fight for Islam. “They no longer have air force units in Saudi, nor more than a handful of Army people…and their land-raping corporations have gone elsewhere…”

Osama’s eyes blazed. “Exactly,” he said. His voice grew in pitch and fervour. “This is the perfect opportunity to rid this land of Americans, once and for all! Once the Americans have been destroyed, the Royal Family will quickly collapse, the members loyal to me will secure control before traitors and wreckers can smash the army…and the land will be pure at last! We will purge the land of every trace of evil, bring forth the true light, punish the Shia for their innovation, and punish those in Africa who dared to sabotage the defence of Mecca…”

Mullah Bihar paused. “Great Sheik, is that wise?” He asked, nervously. Osama wasn’t known to be kind to those who dared disagree with him. “We cannot take the blame for disrupting the defences at such a vital moment…”

“I am an older man,” Osama snapped. That, unfortunately, was true; living in what could become a war zone at any moment wasn’t a particularly comforting experience. “I let one opportunity slip past my hands because I believed that the House of Saud could be brought to face the truth. Now, I no longer hesitate…and Allah will not forgive me for missing one final opportunity. I would see this done before I finally pass into the light of Paradise.”

Mullah Bihar bowed low. “I understand, Great Sheik,” he said. He would have to draw up his plans – again – and then put them into action. “I will see to it personally. The Americans will die!”

Chapter Twenty-Seven: War in the Desert, Take Three

Border Region, Saudi Arabia
20th April 2006

“My forces are not under your command,” General Najd said. His voice was what passed for upper crust in Saudi Arabia; a voice so convinced of its user’s rightness and everyone else’s wrongness, that it grated on Kelly’s nerves. The General’s appearance was downright diabolical; a neat moustache that somehow managed to convoy impressions of Satanic thoughts and actions. “You have no authority over my people.”

General Mujahid looked ready to explode. He had been working overtime to form the Iraqis up into a force that could actually march in the right direction without straggling; he looked as if he was prepared to shoot General Najd in the face without further ado. Kelly understood and even sympathized; mine-laying was important and necessary, but it was hardly the stuff of which great adventures were written.

“I have orders from the Ministry of Defence itself,” General Najd continued. His voice took on an almost-whiny tone. “You are ordered to support my forces in defending the border from the Posleen.”

General Mujahid’s face darkened still further. “Your men are not going to remain miles behind the front, doing nothing,” he snapped. “If you will not join in the offensive, when it comes, you will do something more than watching people who are going to help me recover their homeland.”

General Najd scowled. His force, three infantry units and two heavy SANG units, were clearly intended to do more than reinforce the border; they would have been placed under the command of one officer if that had been all that Riyadh had in mind. Kelly knew that the real purpose was to watch over General Mujahid; his reinforcements and use of the Iraqi personnel had sent alarm bells ringing in the capital city.

“We do not have orders from Riyadh to attack,” General Najd said, truthfully. General Mujahid said nothing. “We have orders to remain firmly in place and defend the borders, using all the weapons and manpower at our disposal. The Iraqis are to be used for the purpose of expanding our defences, nothing more.”

General Mujahid’s eyes flashed. “They have agreed to fight beside us,” he said. “I am confident of a victory over the alien enemy, opening entire new vistas of conquest to us, once we clear the Posleen out of Iraq. I am not going to use them to dig trenches – or at least not only digging trenches. Or, perhaps, you would like me to disarm them again?”

“Yes,” General Najd snapped. “They are a danger to the entire country!”

They locked eyes for a long moment. “I will not disarm them,” General Mujahid said. “I will have my permission for the offensive, and then I will use them in that offensive.”

“Fine,” General Najd hissed. “My forces will remain where they are – obeying orders.”

He turned and stormed out. On the map, one of the junior Saudi officers – who had been cringing back from the storm of disagreement between the two princes – updated the display; everyone knew that the Posleen were shifting back towards Kuwait. It wouldn’t be long before they brought their hammer into action, and then Kuwait would be crushed. The symbols for the new Saudi units, hanging back, officially as a tactical reserve, glittered on the map.

“Bastard,” General Mujahid snapped, with the true disdain of the combat soldier for the REMF. “Paul, I want to launch the attack as soon as possible.”

Kelly felt a wave of true alarm. “Sir…call me a bluff old traditionalist, but I was always taught to wait for the order to attack before actually attacking,” he said. “Riyadh has forbidden offensive operations…”

“Riyadh is run by a group of men who couldn’t find their way into a woman in the dark of the night without spotlights and armed assistance,” General Mujahid thundered. He banged the table. “Aziz, I want a full outline of the attack plan!”

Aziz, General Mujahid’s intelligence officer and general aide, looked up. He loved General Mujahid; most of the men admired him for being willing to share most of the hardships of the enlisted men. His hands traced the outline of the plan on the map as he talked, noting what little information the Saudis knew about the enemy. The Posleen had not – yet – charged Saudi’s borders, but they were clearly up to something. Saudi had only a handful of sensors that could track the emissions of the Posleen craft; they had to rely on TERDEF and TERDEF had other problems.

“The Posleen have been massing near Kuwait’s border,” Aziz said, after a moment. The Saudi scouts had located some enemy units near Kuwait; it wasn’t a coincidence that the flow of refugees had died off to a trickle when the Posleen grew closer. Basra had fallen, along with its stockpiles of human supplies – and human flesh; the Posleen would be gorging themselves in preparation for their next conquest.

Kelly wondered, suddenly, if the Posleen would start to farm humans. Would they breed humans as farm animals, or would they just eat and eat until there were no more humans left. Saudi scouts had spoken of humans being penned in cages, taken out and eaten by the Posleen; were the Posleen even now forcing them to mate to produce more children for their food?

Aziz was still speaking. “That force is, we believe, preparing to move against Kuwait,” he continued. “The Posleen have been observed to dig in before, but this force seems to have done nothing of the sort, so we expect that they will be sent against Kuwait soon. They certainly don’t seem worried about a counter-attack. We have the load of new shells to use against them – if we can get our guns into range.”

His finger traced a line of advance. Kuwait had forbidden Saudi units to operate on their soil – they, too, were looking to the post-war world – but there was plenty of room to manoeuvre armoured forces…apart from the minor problem that that had never worked against the Posleen without ACS units. General Mujahid had even contacted Israel – without mentioning that to Riyadh – and asked for the loan of the Israeli ACS unit, but the Israelis had not even bothered to reply. The path wasn’t that different from the Gulf War; a major hook coming through the neutral zone and charging up towards the Posleen forces massing to attack Kuwait.

“The main attack will be made by the armour,” Aziz said. His voice became more confident as he spoke further. “They will spearhead a major push up towards the main Posleen force, destroying any smaller Posleen force as they come across them. Once we reach gun range, the infantry will deploy and the heavy guns will target the Posleen force, pounding them well outside of their own range. The Posleen will come looking for us…and come right into the teeth of our infantry. The infantry will chew them to pieces.”

“Marvellous,” General Mujahid said. His voice boomed across the tent. “Paul?”

Kelly looked up bleakly. “It will be a disaster,” he predicted. “The Posleen will lose thousands, perhaps millions, but they have them to spare. Your force will hold out as long as the weapons hold out…and at that point.”

“At that point we use the armoured forces to clear us a path out again,” Aziz said, his voice very firm. Kelly wondered just who Aziz really worked for…and then decided that it didn’t matter. The Posleen would literally eat the human force for breakfast. “The Posleen will be outrun, if necessary.”

“Oh,” Kelly said. “General, don’t you think that it would be a good idea to contact Riyadh and ask for support?”

“General Najd is not going to support us,” General Mujahid said. Kelly suspected that he was right. If General Mujahid won, by some miracle, he would get the credit; that would be horrifying to General Najd and the rest of the House of Saud. “That…goat buggering bastard would go telling them all that the operation is impossible.”

Kelly sighed. “You might lose your position,” he said, and knew that it wouldn’t happen. The House of Saud was trapped between a rock and a hard place; they were scared of General Mujahid – or General Najd, for that matter – playing at Caesar, and at the same time they couldn’t afford to suggest that they wouldn’t back him up if necessary. Princes had a long habit of taking independent action, secure in the knowledge that they would get away with it; General Mujahid would be no different.

General Mujahid slapped him cheerfully on the back. It was, as he had mischievously admitted, a habit cultivated to irritate the more reserved members of the House of Saud and the clergy. The clergy didn’t like him, not least because his men liked him and – more importantly – trusted him. Saudis might behave like the worst of American Texan stereotypes in private, but in public? Perish the thought!

“They would find it hard to relieve me for actually having the gall to win,” General Mujahid proclaimed. “Those filthy Posleen infidels have stayed on Arab soil for far too long, Allah will grant us the success that we need to punish them for daring to set foot on Arabia!”

Kelly blinked. “Surely you can’t believe that?”

General Mujahid winked. “It only matters what people think,” he said. “You can get anywhere in this country by a show of religious fervour.”

Kelly kept his thoughts to himself.

***
A handful of discrete questions, in several different languages, had produced enough evidence to convince Kelly that the majority of the Iraqis who had been drafted into the Saudi Army knew nothing about the Posleen, and had never even seen a Posleen. He wasn’t surprised; most Iraqi units that had survived Round One had done so by not being anywhere near the Posleen when they landed. A few had seen the Posleen landing, tossed away their weapons, and just started to run.

They made a worrying sight, even to Kelly; they trained and drilled endlessly on AK-47 weapons and antitank weapons that had been outdated even before Kelly had left the RAF Regiment. They were scruffy, and dirty, and they kept casting worried glances over to the camp that held many of their womenfolk. There had actually been several fights over women already, few of them ever having anything to do with actually defending the women. Most of them, as far as Kelly could tell, had been over who had the right to rape them. General Mujahid had put a very quick stop to that by shooting the first offender and warning the others that they would die as well.

The Saudi infantrymen training them seemed equally amused by the Iraqi conduct. He was, unusually, more than willing to talk to someone he took to be an American; perhaps he was glad of a little strange in his life. The Iraqis, he said, knew nothing of defensive tactics…and they had been intended to defend the country against an overwhelmingly powerful enemy who could only be defeated in a defensive war! The Saudis were working to teach the Iraqis good trench-digging techniques – Iraqi trenches left a lot to be desired and were prone to collapse at the wrong moment – and other techniques, but in the end…Kelly feared for the future.

Not, in the end, that there was much that he could do. He’d seen to it that General Morrigan knew about the impending attack, but he suspected that even a direct order from Riyadh wouldn’t prevent General Mujahid from launching his attack. Thousands of men were about to be tossed in to face the Posleen, the most powerful enemy ever encountered by humanity, and they would do it in the face of all conventional military wisdom.

“You are brooding,” General Mujahid said, coming up from behind him, smoking a cigar that was longer than any that Kelly had seen in his life. “It is not good to brood.”

Kelly felt his lips twitch into a smile. “How true,” he said, without saying anything else. It wouldn’t have helped matters. A flight of Saudi Tornados flew past, high overhead; they were maintaining a combat air patrol over the border. Kelly knew that they would die the minute they strayed into the Posleen air defence range. “I was just thinking; this war is going to change everything.”

“Of course,” General Mujahid said. “Saddam is dead – or at least no one has heard anything from him since the Posleen landed – and that gives us an opportunity. If we can liberate Iraq of the Posleen, we can rebuild it along different lines, better lines.”

His eyes shone with the joy of true dreams. “I can conquer it for the House of Saud,” he said, almost a whisper. “I will be the first Muslim conqueror since…since someone a long time ago.”

The thought made Kelly smile. “You know what the Posleen can do,” he said, wishing that Morrigan had sanctioned a hit on General Mujahid. “They will smash your force.”

“No, that won’t happen,” General Mujahid said, very seriously. “Look; the Posleen will be shelled from long distance, right? Judging by combat records from the Federation worlds and the other waves, they will either ignore the shelling, or they will advance towards us. If they do that, we will be firing on them every step of the way, cutting them down as they run on towards us – and we will be doing that from positions that they would find hard to hit until they’re very close to us. They will come on and on into the teeth of our fire and…”

“Overwhelm you,” Kelly interrupted. “The Posleen do not care how many Posleen die, so long as they punch though your lines.” He felt his voice rise with frustration. “They will come on and on and the bodies of the dead will shield the live from your bullets. You will have your tanks firing into the mass and they will keep coming, until they target your tanks and destroy them. They respond quickly to threats, General Mujahid; your force will be caught out in the open and destroyed.”

General Mujahid’s eyes flashed. “And what else can I do?” His voice was acidic. “The Posleen will be able to take all the time in the world to mass anywhere along the border – they don’t even respect borders – and flood into this country. The refugees will already be leading them on into here, Paul; the Posleen have been hunting some of them down.”

There was a hail of sound, alien and unfamiliar, drifting across the desert. “That might be another Posleen force, hunting down humans,” General Mujahid said. “I cannot allow that to go on.”

If Saudi Arabia had possessed nuclear weapons, targeting and blasting Iraq from end to end might have looked like a sensible option. Kelly looked around, watching the visible evidence of the attack being prepared, and knew that there was no longer any point in arguing. He thought, seriously, about refusing to join the attack, but he knew that his duty would take him directly to join General Mujahid.

A row of tanks rumbled past him; Saudi sappers would be laying mines behind them, trying to prevent the Posleen from charging across the desert. The tanks seemed all-powerful, certainly compared to the Matilda and Sherman tanks he remembered from his youth; the Posleen would be able to crack them open like nuts, for the fleshy goodness inside.

“I love tanks,” General Mujahid said, sounding almost like a little boy as he watched the tanks rumbling past. “Is there anything in the world that could stand up to them? Nothing human could defeat them in an open battle.”

“I think that’s the point,” Kelly said. “General Mujahid; the Posleen are not human.”

General Mujahid shook his head. “We’ll see,” he said. “What are you going to do now?”

Kelly smiled at the subtle offer of a way out of certain death. “I have to report on what happens to your force,” he said, noting the respect in General Mujahid’s eyes. The Arab had expected him to quit the force rather than go into battle. “When are you going to launch the attack?”

“Perhaps in two days,” General Mujahid said. His voice was thoughtful. “I want to have enough weapons on hand to slow and stop a Posleen charge. Why?”

Kelly sighed. “I need to update my will,” he said. “You know, I have to leave my granddaughters enough money to secure them good husbands.”

“I refused to allow my daughters to leave the country,” General Mujahid said, seriously. “I will stop the Posleen here, whatever it takes.”

Kelly grinned suddenly. “I hope you’re right, General,” he said. The thought was bitterly amusing. “If not, you will have improved the gene pool enormously.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight: The Nation Formerly Called The Lesser Satan

Tel Aviv, Israel
21st April 2006

“You gave us all quite a scare, Mr Zahir,” David Bar Ellis said. The Israeli officer, who had introduced himself as a Colonel in Military Intelligence, smiled rather dryly. “It’s not everyday that one sees the city of a hated enemy torn apart by an even worse enemy.”

Zahir eyed him carefully, refusing to blind himself to the razor-sharp intelligence hiding behind Ellis’s eyes. The nightmarish trip out of Iraq, into Syria, had been a wearing experience; seeing Israel – even Israel – had been a welcome relief. He’d brought Colonel Abassi along with him, as well as the women; the Iraqis had given him little choice in the matter. Al Jazeera’s name, at least, carried some weight in Syria; Israel might be an entirely different matter.

“No,” he agreed, neutrally. Learning that his footage from Baghdad had been broadcast over the entire world had pleased him, even though it had included a report that he’d been killed, with millions of people sending messages to Qatar to express their disappointment. He had half-expected Al Jazeera to disown him, once he’d heard about his sudden fame; the subscription rate had gone through the roof.

“You’ve quite a history with us, as well,” Ellis continued, his smile forming more into one like a shark’s smile. “You were in Palestine during 2000; need I say more?”

Colonel Abassi, at least, had been placed in detention as soon as they crossed the border. Zahir took some quiet relief from that; the Iraqi officer had been unnerving, even to him; he might have been a reasonably decent man, but he had been interested in the women and…somehow, getting the refugees out of Iraq had become important to him. Even so, it was wartime…and if the Israelis chose to shoot him out of hand, what could possibly happen to them?

“I went where the action was,” he said, carefully. He had also regurgitated the information supplied to him by Palestinian fighters, including some that he should have known better than to believe at face value; the Israelis had not been amused. “That’s what I do for a living.”

Ellis smiled thinly. “I suppose that you do,” he said. “Did it ever occur to you that it was impossible for the entire Israeli air force to drop a billion tons of explosives within a week?”

Zahir said nothing. “But, that hardly matters now,” Ellis continued. “You are something of a celebrity, and that offers possibilities. You saved the lives of those Iraqis, despite being Iranian; that seems to have been translated into a new determination to resist the Posleen with a show of unity. The Posleen won’t be impressed, but…”

Ellis shrugged. “What do you want to do with yourself now?”

Something more important had occurred to Zahir. “Iran,” he said, remembering his family. “What’s happening there?”

Ellis sighed. “The Government unleashed a few of the nukes they didn’t posses,” he said, his voice icy. “The Posleen marched through the radiation and kept on moving anyway; they’re growing closer and closer to Tehran. Refugees are heading out to sea from the ports, apart from Abadan, which was knocked over by the Posleen after Basra fell. Some Iranian units are holding out, but we don’t expect that to continue; the Posleen are all too likely to smash through them.”

Zahir felt as if he’d been punched in the stomach. “You’re pleased about this,” he accused. “Thousands of people are dying and you’re delighted!”

“It’s an ill wind that blows no one any good,” Ellis said, unpleasantly. Zahir wanted to hit him as hard as he could. “It’s amazing what you’ll condone, if you are forced to watch your mortal enemies slip closer and closer to nuclear capability without being permitted to do anything about it. For all their oaths, sworn on the Qur’an, your people had enough nukes to slow the Posleen for around…two days.”

Zahir took a breath. “My family?”

“I have no idea,” Ellis admitted. “We can put a request out for you, if you want, but everything is very chaotic out there and it won’t be long before the Posleen destroy Tehran and tear your country apart. They don’t seem to like mountains much – the Kurds are giving them hell – but they’re expanding firmly into Iran now. The Saudis believe that they’re also preparing to rage into Saudi Arabia; we’re even hearing rumours that one of their officers is preparing to attack the Posleen.”

Zahir stared at him. “I’ve seen them,” he said. “Have you?”

Ellis shook his head. “Only their remains, after Fredericksburg was hit,” he admitted. “They tore the American city into little pieces, flattened much of it…the damage was enough to convince the Germans to bring back some members of the SS to fight for them.”

Zahir’s reporter instincts were aroused. “The SS?” He asked. “Weren’t those the bastards who tried to wipe you lot out?”

Ellis nodded grimly. “I think that that will come back to bite them on the behind,” he said. He grinned. “On the other hand, they have shown the right sort of attitude to those who keep thinking the world is all sweetness and light, and everything is the fault of Israel.”

“I won’t ask,” Zahir said. “Does Al Jazeera still have an office here?”

Ellis nodded. “Yes, we left them in place, despite everything that’s been happening at Mecca,” he said. He grinned. “And what, exactly, do you want to do?”

Zahir shook his head slowly. “I want to go home and pretend that all of this is a nightmare,” he said, looking up at the map. The red-shrouded area now covered almost a third of Iran. Iraq was almost completely covered; judging by Ellis’s comments, only the Kurds would remain alive under the red shroud. Just what, he wondered, where the Posleen thinking. Did they think at all, as humans understood the term? “I take it that’s not an option?”

“I’m afraid not,” Ellis said. “The Posleen have advanced too far to be stopped easily. There were some people in the War Cabinet who wanted to launch nuclear missiles into the occupied territories, but they were shouted down on the grounds that the Posleen would probably shoot the missiles down before they actually managed to detonate, or there would be no way of knowing just where we should be targeting. We have commando and observation teams in Iraq, watching for the Posleen, but its too dangerous to get too close to the horses.”

He smiled. “If an American SF team can watch the Posleen for some months without being noticed and eaten, then we can do it,” he said. “The problem is in actually learning something useful.”

Zahir lifted an eyebrow. “And what are they learning?”

Ellis tented his fingers and studied Zahir. “Between you and me?” Zahir nodded reluctantly. “The Posleen appear to be rounding up the remaining humans and the dead bodies, using them to feed their troops, along with their own dead bodies. We don’t know just how many were killed before they stormed Baghdad, we know that the final defence lasted just over an hour; we don’t even know just how hungry the Posleen can get before they keel over and die.”

He paused. “We believe, however, that they will have to launch offensives of their own, or they will all starve,” he said, after a moment. “They’re not in somewhere as lush and green as…well, Fredericksburg. Perhaps we’ll get lucky and the God Kings will fuck up the timing and drop dead.”

Zahir sighed. “I don’t get it,” he admitted. “How do they have a long-term presence on any world?”

“They don’t,” Ellis said. “As we understand the process – and do bear in mind that you could fly a fleet of Posleen ships through the holes in our knowledge – they land, strip the planet, and move on. The levels of remaining Posleen probably – I say probably – drop to a level where they can sustain themselves; there is some evidence that they actually farmed those little blue aliens, perhaps even Darhel or the crabs. They might well start farming humans before too long.”

Zahir felt weak. “My God,” he breathed. “Can they even be beaten?”

“Of course they can,” Ellis said. He narrowed his eyes. “I ask again; what do you want to do?”

“I want to go to the Al Jazeera headquarters here, report in, get a shower and a sleep in a proper bed, and then I want to go where they send me,” Zahir said, keeping his voice light. “Is that acceptable?”

Ellis shrugged, as if it mattered little to him. “I would ask you to make yourself available to some of our debriefers,” he said. His voice became lazy, almost unconcerned; Zahir caught a flash of intelligence hiding and shivered. “Please do not leave the country without permission.”

“I won’t,” Zahir said. He paused. “What will happen to the others?”

“The Iraqi will have to remain in detention,” Ellis said, after a moment’s hesitation. “The woman will be housed with their children at a hotel, at our expense; you may do what you please with them. Sending anyone out of the country is proving difficult at the moment, but they might be able to go to Turkey, or perhaps Italy.”

Zahir stood. “Thank you,” he said. “How do I find the Al Jazeera place anyway?”

***
Israel, Zahir quickly realised, was the most prepared of the Middle Eastern nations to resist the Posleen. The entire city had been turned into a massive fortress, with guns and armed guards everywhere; female Israeli soldiers patrolled the streets, watching out for trouble. Despite that, there were more men and women on the streets than he had expected; the Israelis clearly didn’t expect the Posleen to appear out of nowhere.

“Of course not,” his guide explained. Rivka was an Israeli soldier; Zahir still found the idea of armed women to be amusing and not a little worrying. An armed woman was one who could…dispute the terms of the marriage with her husband. A famous Arab saying involved how dangerous women were – to themselves – with weapons; Rivka held hers as if she knew exactly what she was doing with it.

“The Posleen are on the other side of Syria and Jordan,” she continued, as they walked past a series of barricades, intermixed with shops and bazaars. “It will take them at least a week to reach the outer defence line, by which time we would be able to call up the remainder of the soldiers and get them to the defence lines.”

She smiled. She was a hauntingly beautiful woman, with long dark hair falling down over her uniform; Zahir was almost tempted to make a pass at her. The sexual capabilities of Israeli women were discussed endlessly at Arabic male bonding sessions, along with the rewards for any man who tried to ‘tame’ one. Zahir eyed the weapon she carried and decided that their relationship should remain professional.

“We have a great deal of practice in doing that,” she said, as they passed a line of massive tanks, larger than any tank Zahir had seen before. The tank crewmen were clearly on an exercise of some kind; he marvelled at their skill at controlling the tanks, pitying any driver who encountered them on the roads. “We believe that with tanks like that, we can hold off the Posleen long enough for the fleet to arrive and save our butts.”

Zahir forced down several remarks that rose to his lips. “Thank you,” he said, as they reached a building with the logo of Al Jazeera in front of it. “What are you going to do now?”

Rivka shrugged. The motion seemed almost natural on her. “I am supposed to remain with you,” she said. Her voice became a mockery of mild. “Please don’t try to leave me behind; you really don’t want to experience prisons in this day and age.”

“I won’t,” Zahir said, as another tank, smaller and bristling with machine guns, drove past them. The shape of the tank reminded him of a car, albeit one larger than any he’d ever seen before. The nimbleness of the vehicle astounded him. “What are those things like to drive?”

Rivka followed his gaze. “Well, once the designers saw the wisdom of designing them for drivers with breasts, they became much more fun to drive,” she said. Zahir coloured. “Have a good time inside the office.”

Zahir had been inside Al Jazeera offices that were the height of luxury, and offices that were little more than a basement under a war-torn city. The office in Tel Aviv managed to look professional and slightly crazy at the same time; the small staff rose to their feet to meet him as he stepped inside.

“A pleasure to meet you at last, Mr Zahir,” the director said. Zahir knew him by reputation, although they’d never met; Abdul Rakan, a Jordanian, had been stationed in Jordan during the events of 2000…before the Posleen had arrived to force old enemies to become friends, or at least to pretend to become friends long enough to deal with the new problem. “Your reputation precedes you.”

“Thanks,” Zahir said, after a moment. The office had two children in it; he looked at the typist, demure in an olive-green headscarf, who looked back at him and gave him a small wave. Al Jazeera, unlike many other Arabic news services, did try to be equal opportunity when it employed people. “What’s happening?”

Rakan shrugged as they went into his office. “The Emir is having a panic fit,” he commented. “Qatar is busy preparing for war, or even more war and fighting than he was expecting; the news of what happened in Iraq horrified him. The downside of that is that a lot of the people in our offices at home have been pressed into the army; the Americans have only provided minimal support to the defence.”

“They have their own problems,” Zahir said. “I don’t seem to be able to leave Israel.”

“They will want to think carefully about what to do with you,” Rakan warned him. “The Jews are crafty, Mr Zahir; they might decide to let you go, or they might decide to press you into their armed forces, or they might decide that you’re better off cooling your heels inside a jail. They seem undecided about us; there are times when they want to close us down, and times when they’re almost willing to have us embedded with their fighting units.”

He shook his head. “It’s a confusing life, Mr Zahir.”

“I see,” Zahir said, after a moment. “What do you advise?”

Rakan smiled grimly. “Enjoy the break,” he said. “It’s not as if you could be spying for the Posleen, although there were those odd reports from America; they’re more than likely to let you go, if you want to go.” Zahir lifted an eyebrow. “Has it occurred to you, Mr Zahir, that this is the safest place in the Middle East to be?”

Zahir frowned. “Is anywhere safe these days?”

Rakan smiled. “The Israelis have drawn up a massive force to defend their country,” he said. “They have almost abandoned parts of the occupied regions to concentrate on the rest of their country; many Palestinians have headed out to join the defence of Mecca, which really caused a lot of paranoia up here. Log into their website sometime; you’ll love it.”

“Thanks,” Zahir said. “Will they let us stay?”

“I honestly have no idea,” Rakan said. He opened a draw, pulled out a box of cigarettes, and offered one to Zahir. Zahir shook his head; Rakan took one, struck a match, and lit it. “They would be wise to watch Osama and the others in Mecca closely, but they also think that the fighters will start shooting at each other, but…it’s a shit of a time and I’m loving every minute of it.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Zahir said, tartly. “Did Qatar have any special instructions for me?”

“Nothing, not a peep,” Rakan said. “You’re a free agent; I would like to add your cameraman to my group here, after those shots he took of Baghdad. Shame you couldn’t watch the fall of the sicko in Iraq, but…no matter, you’re still famous. Have a few days break, see the sights, then decide; you might even want to join the Jewish army.”

Zahir stood up. “I believe that I shall have a few days break,” he said. “You’ll let me know if anything happens, won’t you?”

“Of course,” Rakan said. “We still have streaming broadcasts over the Internet, so we’re still in the news business.” He grinned. “Truthfully, I believe that we could continue even if the Posleen overrun this city.”

Zahir paled. “No,” he said, “you couldn’t. I saw them, monsters beyond imagination. They eat humans, Rakan; they killed and ate a child right in front of me. If they come here, all that will be left of you is bones, drying in the sun.”

Rakan stared at him. “But the Jews are the best fighters in the Middle East…”

“The Posleen have so many numbers that they don’t care about tactics,” Zahir hissed. “Rakan, if the Posleen get into Qatar, Al Jazeera is finished!”

There was a knock on the door. The typist poked her head around the corner. Her face, so pale as to be almost Caucasian, was decorated with a tiny splash of make-up; Zahir noticed that she was very slim under the dress she wore. He felt something stir and cursed himself; would he never be free of his body’s desires?

“Director,” she said, lowering her eyes. “We just received a flash report from Qatar.”

Zahir had a horrible presentiment of doom. “I see,” he said. He fought to keep his own voice down. “What’s happened?”

The woman spoke to the director. “Sir, we just heard,” she said. Her voice was rising in pitch; her accent was one that Zahir couldn’t place at all. “Kuwait is under heavy attack!”

Chapter Twenty-Nine: War in the Desert, Take Four

Kuwait-Iraq Border
22nd April 2006

Iraq wasn’t a human land anymore. He could feel it in the air.

Dust rose up around the tanks and lorries as they spearheaded the charge into Iraq. The force of tanks spread out, moving around the sand dunes and the remains of a dirt track as they moved forward, covering a larger force of mounted infantry. General Mujahid hadn’t stinted himself; he’d had everything that could carry a man dragged out into the desert and deployed to aid the offensive. General Najd, he’d boasted, would wake up to discover that nearly thirty thousand men were heading into Iraq, intending to hit the Posleen in their flanks – the flanks that the aliens didn’t really possess.

Kelly considered the map and frowned. The Posleen were hammering at Kuwait without particular subtlety; one massive force had launched itself from Basra, another had made the trek across the desert, not unlike Iraq’s own offensive into Kuwait, years ago. The Kuwaitis had learned much in the years since they had been forced to endure life under Iraqi occupation; the Kuwaitis were fighting like demons and currently holding the Posleen.

Kelly winced. The equation was a simple one; Kuwait had to hold out until every last Posleen was killed, or the God Kings had a sudden attack of brains to the head and decided that a tactical withdrawal was in order. No one knew what language the Posleen spoke; no one knew if they even had a word for ‘withdrawal’ in their language. They certainly didn’t have one for ‘mercy.’

“Ten minutes,” General Mujahid commented cheerfully. The Posleen seemed to be using what remained of an Iraqi base near the border as a staging post of some kind; a conventional army would be particularly sensitive to any threat that aimed at the base. The Posleen, of course, were hardly conventional in anything; would they even care? “The scouts are reporting a massive Posleen position there, just waiting to be attacked.”

Something…drifted over the land. For a long chilling moment, the sensation of being watched by unseen eyes flickered over Kelly’s mind. “The scouts,” he said slowly. “Are they maintaining a close watch over our own flanks?”

General Mujahid nodded. “If they see the Posleen coming, we’ll have plenty of time to get into position,” he said. The noise of fighting in the distance could be heard for a moment; the Kuwaitis hadn’t given up, yet. Kelly had read some of the reports and knew that Kuwait would be a tougher nut than Saudi. They had no flanks for a Posleen attack to turn. “However, they won’t notice us until we’re in position for the attack.”

Kelly nodded slowly as the minutes crept by. He’d served under Monty, years and years ago; he knew something of desert warfare. It was almost ideal for tanks, apart from the endless dust; an enemy attack could come from anywhere. The massive Saudi force stretched out as far as he could see, tanks, trucks, self-propelled guns, missile launchers, even a handful of towed weapons; it looked invincible, but the thought of the disaster that would happen if the Posleen got loose in the rear was chilling. The mounted infantry couldn’t react fast enough for preventing a lethal breakthrough…

“Here,” General Mujahid said. He’d picked his spot carefully; it wasn’t exactly flat desert, not like the border. There were ridges and small ravines, all within shooting range of the Posleen. The men knew what they were doing; they worked rapidly to turn what Kelly slowly realised had once been an Iraqi defence post into a place their units could use to stand off the Posleen.

The tanks moved out of the way, into a location that could be used as a defence line, when Kelly heard a noise in the distance. He reached for his binoculars, peering across the desert, and saw a series of black shapes in the sky, heading in towards Kuwait. The Posleen God Kings seemed indifferent to the use of landers as supporting units most of the time; the losses in Kuwait must have convinced them to deploy the landers.

“We’d better hurry,” General Mujahid said, looking through the reports from the scouts. The Saudi gunnery was indifferent at best, but he had forced his gunners to practice time and time again – whatever Riyadh had to say about it. “I think…”

His radio buzzed. He used a word that would have had the religious police demanding that he be flogged at once. “There are human prisoners with the Posleen,” he said, his voice chilled. “We have to rescue them.”

Kelly felt his blood run cold. “They have to have brought them here to use as food,” he said. “That Al Jazeera guy reported that that was what the Posleen were doing.”

“Never mind him,” General Mujahid snapped, already issuing orders to Aziz. “The bastards are moving some of their troops out to deal with Kuwait; we’ll attack at once and liberate the prisoners. Once that’s done, the bastards can starve…”

Kelly grabbed his arm. “Don’t be a romantic fool,” he hissed. “Those people are dead! The Posleen will murder any attack we send in!”

“We can soften the bastards up with a hail of shellfire,” General Mujahid insisted. Kelly thought cold thoughts about pointing out that the Saudi artillery, never very accurate at the best of times, would be just as likely to slaughter the prisoners and save the Posleen the trouble, with the added bonus of slaughtering some Posleen for the others to eat. “Once we hit them, we move in under the cover of the shellfire and polish off the remains!”

Kelly stared at him. “Sir, with all due respect…”

“You can stay behind if you like,” General Mujahid said, his voice droll. “I won’t take anyone who doesn’t want to come.”

Kelly glared. “I have orders to stick with you,” he snapped. “If you insist on getting yourself killed, then…fine! We can die together!”

General Mujahid slapped him on the back. “That’s the sprit,” he said. “Come on; let’s get this attack organised.”

Ten minutes later, Kelly rode in the back of a jeep, watching as the combined force moved forward. On paper – or verbalised, to be exact – the plan looked good; the artillery would give the Posleen a hammering, while the infantry and the tanks moved into attack position, and then attacked. There were ‘only’ a few hundred Posleen present at the…supply base; they could be routed, were they human. Of course, what was there to stop them calling back the force that was moving off towards Kuwait, or…

More sand dunes rose in front of him, but the sense of…wrongness was growing; he could see Posleen tracks in the sand, Posleen wastes lying where they’d been dropped. Bones – human and animal bones – littered the ground; the Posleen had taken the concept of eating on the march to a whole new level. Strange sounds drifted over the ridge, the noises made by the Posleen, and human sounds, mainly screams and pleas.

“Sniper, kill that God King when the firing begins,” General Mujahid ordered, his voice very quiet. “Make sure you take him out.”

The sniper nodded. “Yes, sir,” he said. “I’ll shoot once the artillery opens fire.”

General Mujahid had determined, beforehand, not to go into visual range of the Posleen before the attack began. It was true that sometimes the Posleen ignored humans close by, but sometimes they attacked…and he’d decided that it wasn’t worth the risk of gambling on them ignoring a heavily-armed force moving towards them. Kelly took hold of the jeep’s machine gun in one hand, aware of the target that they had to present to any Posleen in the area, and waited.

“Go,” General Mujahid said. “Allah Ackbar!”

A hail of shellfire crashed across the sky, followed by a missile barrage from the MLRS trucks. Posleen counter-fire rose to dispute the skies with the missiles; the shellfire crashed through and down onto the Posleen. Explosions flashed and flickered, just out of sight; the noise of the Posleen suddenly was drowned under the explosions. General Mujahid didn’t hesitate; he muttered a command to the driver and the jeep lunched forward, leading the tanks over the sand dune and down towards the Posleen.

It was Kelly’s first sight of the Posleen and for a long moment he thought he was looking at insects, before seeing the Posleen closer up through his sights; at first glance, they resembled massive horses. None of the horses he’d ever known had carried so many weapons, or looked so…unpleasant. The Posleen were…evil, evil on a scale so vast that it made merely human problems minute. The Posleen were already whirling around to face the new threat, their weapons snapping into effective firing position…and a hail of fire lanced out towards the humans.

“Allah Ackbar!” The Iraqi infantry shouted, as they charged to the attack. They had their honour back, now; they fought for their country. “Allah Ackbar!”

The Posleen didn’t bother with being subtle; they charged at the humans, firing as they came. Kelly found himself uncaring of the danger as Posleen and human charged at one another; he jammed his hand down on the trigger and swept the machine guns across the Posleen mass. Alien blood, chillingly yellow, splashed across the desert sands; human red blood splashed as the alien bullets tore the infantry apart. The noise grew louder and louder and he didn’t care; the Posleen were coming right for them and he didn’t care! All that mattered was the bloodlust, and the killing…

A Posleen HVM struck an Abrams tank in the front; the blast smashed right through the tank and sent it exploding in a massive fireball. The other tanks were firing, seeming to explode as their machine guns, newly mounted on their hulls, tore through the Posleen. Their heavy guns fired directly into the Posleen as they came within range of the infantry, their knives slashing out to add to the mayhem; Kelly saw one Posleen scoop up an Iraqi and take a bite, even while turning to deal with another Iraqi soldier. More tanks exploded as the Posleen continued to fire their missiles…

…And then it was all over. Silence fell like a thunderclap. The Posleen bodies were scattered right in front of the Saudi units; the burning shells of dead tanks littered the desert. The Posleen hadn’t broken, they hadn’t fled; they’d charged to the attack with a suicidal courage that Kelly had never seen in his long years. Not even the Japanese matched the Posleen for fanaticism…and they’d hurt the force. God, they’d hurt the force.

“Allah,” General Mujahid said, his voice very soft. His face was pale and wan; the sheer power of the Posleen had finally tangled with the Saudi regular army and neither side had liked the taste. “What has He done to us?”

Kelly said nothing. “Get the human fodder out of there,” General Mujahid bellowed. “Have them moved to a truck.” His voice dropped, speaking to Kelly alone. “There’s going to be plenty of room in the lorries for them.”

“I’m afraid so,” Kelly said. Recriminations rose to his lips, but he ignored them. That could – and would – come later; someone would have to take the blame for the disaster. “We have to get back quickly before something else happens.”

The Posleen weren’t great prison wardens. They’d simply put their human captives inside a pen and left them there, taking them out when they felt like a snack. Judging from the comments made by some of the prisoners, the Posleen normals had just gone inside from time to time, biting off parts of dead bodies when a human had dropped dead from hunger.

“Perhaps they’ll breed rabbits,” Kelly commented, trying to forget the horror of the slaughter pens. The place had stunk to high heaven; the Posleen simply hadn’t cared much about the welfare of their captives. Why should they have? Unlike humans, they couldn’t catch anything from eating bad meat. Rabbits bred like…well, rabbits; they could replenish themselves quickly and feed the Posleen at the same time. “I think that…”

Something…impinged on his awareness and he looked up, into the distance. A massive horde of Posleen was making its way across the desert, heading directly for them. Their scales glittered yellow-white in the sun; they advanced purposely, not in a charge, but in a casual march that suggested that they had no idea that something had gone wrong. God Kings floated high above their soldiers, their hovercraft seeming to dance in the sky; the sense of sheer threat was overwhelming.

General Mujahid’s cigar fell out of his mouth. “How many are there?”

The Posleen horde seemed to have no end. “Millions landed,” Kelly said. Years of experience asserted themselves. “I think we have to retreat back, now!”

General Mujahid started to bellow orders. At that point, the Posleen saw them. Just as Kelly was climbing back into his jeep – which had miraculously survived the brief fight – they moved, charging forwards towards the humans. The Saudi line fell apart; General Mujahid shouted orders, but some men were running back towards the remainder of the force, others were scattering into the desert. The Posleen tide seemed to have no end; the God Kings were directing their forces towards the imprudent human force.

“Get us back to the main camp,” General Mujahid snapped, bellowing into his radio. Kelly admired his presence of mind, wondering – again – why the Saudis hadn’t trusted him to run their entire army. “I need a zone call; I want a major bombardment of the Posleen forces at…”

He recited a string of coordinateness. His second babbled questions at him; General Mujahid overrode him with sheer force of personality – and near panic. The Posleen force started to explode under the pressure of the sudden hail of artillery – it was hard for any force to miss such a large target – but they just kept coming. They were spreading out now, presenting a harder target; the God Kings started to fire with their own weapons…

“Move,” General Mujahid snapped. The driver spun the jeep around just as a line of HVMs lanced out and destroyed the remaining tanks. The jeep dodged madly, along with the straggling infantry; the Posleen came on faster than any human could match. As Kelly was borne towards the main force, which was shelling the Posleen with sheer determination, the Posleen overran the infantry. Kelly couldn’t bear to look.

“They must have overrun the scout before he noticed,” General Mujahid babbled. He was shaking; Kelly didn’t have any time to help him. “They can’t keep coming under that weight of fire…”

If the Posleen felt that way, they didn’t stop; Kelly could see them moving faster now, heading directly towards the dug-in positions. Even as the jeep reached the safety of the positions, the Posleen rounded the sand dunes after them and opened fire, sending all manner of weapons fire flashing through the air. Something struck near the jeep and tossed it over, throwing all three of them out of the truck; Kelly felt his leg break as he landed badly, just inside the defence position. Drawing his weapon, he pulled himself into a firing position…and watched the battle rage on.

“Fire,” General Mujahid shouted. His voice was starting to break down. “Allah Ackbar!”

The Posleen marched on into the teeth of the Saudi fire, just like a force from the First World War, but they just kept coming. The falling Posleen, Kelly realised with a moment of shock, were actually shielding their brethren; their bodies soaked up fire meant for live Posleen. This close, there was little point in Posleen anti-missile weapons; the missiles from the MLRS systems were finding targets, but the Posleen came on, and on, and…thousands died, perhaps even millions, but they came on. They just kept coming!

The tanks, those that had been left in reserve, rumbled into battle. Kelly saw them firing shells into the heart of the Posleen force, and then the Posleen whirled around, almost as one, firing back with their own strange weapons. Moments later, a line of burning tanks littered the desert; the Posleen hadn’t even been slowed down by the attempted flanking attack. The God Kings floated high overhead, their weapons flaring; snipers shot at them…and the entire Posleen force fired as one towards the sniping positions. The snipers died.

Something – Kelly didn’t see exactly what – slammed into one of the main strongpoints. A massive gout of fire blossomed forth, sending a wave of heat and fury right into the heart of the defence…and reaching the stockpile of explosives. Moments later, Kelly found himself on the ground, his ears ringing; the explosion had blasted a hole right through the defence line. Moments later, countless Posleen charged through the gap. The lines crumbled before Kelly’s eyes; the noise had passed overpowering long before.

“Die,” Kelly screamed, unable to even hear himself. The Posleen moved with blinding speed, lashing out with their weapons; he fired several times into one and saw it fall, before another swooped in, knife extended. Kelly groped for a grenade, just as a hail of bullets tore the Posleen apart; he saw General Mujahid standing there, firing madly into the hail of Posleen, his eyes glinting with madness.

“Allah Ackbar!” General Mujahid shouted, proclaiming it to the world. He stood there like a warrior of old, fighting to the last, shooting with no concern for his own survival. “Allah Ackbar!”

A Posleen cut him down. Kelly could still hear human weapons, some part of the defence was holding out, but he knew it would only be a matter of time. The Posleen closed in on him and he clutched his grenade in one hand. A Posleen held out a knife, preparing to cut him apart for butchering…and Kelly let go of the grenade. The resulting explosion blew them all to hell.

A day later, Kuwait fell to the Posleen…

Chapter Thirty: Fiddling While Rome Burns!

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
24th April 2006

The room was filled with outraged shouting.

Jokes and stereotypes aside, General Morrigan had never heard anyone called a ‘son of a syphilis-carrying she-cow before,’ but that insult, among others, had been flung around the room. Had the offensive into Iraq produced results, the Princes would have been falling over themselves to simultaneously hail the victory and stab General Mujahid in the back; as a defeat, the entire mission was an orphan. They couldn’t even blame General Mujahid for the defeat; that would have opened the entire Royal Family to the charge of being incompetent.

Not that anyone had any doubt about that, Morrigan thought coldly, as the shouting went on. He spoke Arabic perfectly, along with several other languages from the region; the entire display of sheer anger – and sheer terror – was adding considerably to his vocabulary of Arabic swearwords and phases. The Princes had little discipline, hardly even an organised chain of precedence; defeat was indeed an orphan. If the loss of General Mujahid – one of the handful of competent Saudi officers – wasn’t bad enough, the Kuwaitis had finally been crushed after bitter resistance – and refuges were flooding into Saudi Arabia as the Posleen broke through the final defence lines. Kuwaiti warships, purchased in the sudden glut of war materials on the market when Russia attempted to raise the cash to fight the Posleen, had performed heroic deeds covering the final escape of the last refugees, including bombarding Posleen positions on the shore. A Posleen lander and a hail of HVMs had put a stop to that.

Morrigan sighed. The Emir and his family, of course, had fled at the first sign of disaster. Even as General Mujahid and his men were meeting their fate – and the Posleen in open battle – they had run for their lives, leaving their people to their fate. Just like in 1991, they had abandoned their people…and this time there would be no Gulf War to free them. The Posleen would eat Kuwait clean before anything else could happen.

Prince Salim was running out of patience. “Colonel Denton,” he said, addressing Morrigan’s subordinate, “please hand me your pistol.”

Denton looked at Morrigan, who nodded. Prince Salim took the weapon, carefully took aim out of the window, and fired once. The sound of the gunshot drowned out everyone talking; the talking stopped as the entire room stared at prince Salim, who was rubbing his hand. Denton’s weapon had been modified to kill a Posleen with a single good shot; the recoil had hurt.

“Thank you,” Prince Salim said. The assembled princes stared at him as if he was holding a live scorpion; they were staring at the gun as if it were a poisonous snake. No one, but no one, brought live weapons to a meeting, not when tempers were running high; Denton shouldn’t have had the weapon at all. There was a dull mummer of anger as the princes worked that out for themselves.

“Good,” Prince Salim said, his voice silky. “I am no military man, despite having actually spent time in a real military school, but I believe that we do not have the time to waste arguing about what happened in the past. General Mujahid and his force were lost with almost all hands” – the scouts had returned to report disaster – “and we have a different situation to deal with, eh?”

His face stretched into a smile with little real humour; perhaps the thought of holding a gun on the princes delighted him. Morrigan, who privately believed that someone tossing a grenade into the room would improve the government no end, wondered if Prince Salim would simply fire and fire until he ran out of ammunition. He didn’t; he settled for only lecturing them in an angry voice.

“We do not have the time,” Prince Salim said. “We have to concentrate on saving our country…and at the moment, the score is Posleen one, Army nil. General Morrigan, can you give us an overview of the military situation?”

General Abdullah – and Hank Fletcher – were not present in the room. Officially, they were trying to work out tactical options and salvage what they could from the disaster; unofficially, General Abdullah was in disgrace. It was something that would never have happened in America; the soft-spoken, essentially decent General Abdullah would suffer for the actions of his princely subordinate. Morrigan pitied him, at the same time feeling relief that – perhaps – someone competent would be taking over. If only Prince Salim would let him direct the war effort…

“The situation is grim,” Morrigan said, knowing that ‘grim’ hardly described it. “The losses in men and material in Iraq were almost total. The scouts were only able to observe part of the battle, but it seems fairly clear that the probe to free the Iraqi prisoners – who were almost certainly killed in the crossfire – was what turned an idea that looked good on paper into a disaster. The Posleen charged the defence lines, were killed…and just kept coming anyway. The men fought bravely and well, but the line was breached…and at that point the entire situation collapsed.”

He sighed. There really was no way to be sure of what had actually happened in the last fatal moments. “The commanding officer and his advisor were killed very quickly in the fighting. The remains of the force broke and tried to flee, but it was far too late for that. The Posleen crushed the force and were last seen rounding up the bodies for later eating.”

A nasty thought occurred to him. “In the meantime, they broke through Kuwait’s defence lines,” he said. “They landed in a fairly dispersed pattern over Iraq and Western Iran; they seem to have spent the days concentrating their forces, which means that they might well be able to bring thousands – perhaps millions – more into action over the next couple of weeks. It’s difficult to predict what will happen, but they might well intend to move out of most of Iraq; it literally cannot support millions of Posleen for very long.”

Prince Salim looked hopeful. “Does that mean that they will all starve?”

“No, it means that they will come looking for more food supplies,” Morrigan said, harshly. He’d advised against launching the offensive, argued and demanded…and the attack had gone ahead anyway. “Thanks to what happened in Kuwait, they not only have a great deal more food, but they also have flanked many of our defences. The refugee flight will draw them on, after them; they will hit the border defences soon, perhaps as soon as today. The attempts by the RSAF to gain aerial reconnaissance have been…failures.”

He’d given up reminding them about what Posleen weapons did to aircraft; the Princes who flew many of the aircraft were firmly of the belief that nothing could ever go badly for them. He’d seen enough to be convinced that a single F-15, manned by a USAF pilot, could have taken on the entire RSAF and won; the princes treated it as a massive version of a joust, rather than a war.

“This has certain implications,” he said, wondering if they would listen. “The first one is that several thousand men and their weapons have been lost; the Posleen weapons proved even deadlier against tanks than we had expected. The second implication is that the Posleen have turned our defences; they could launch an attack from Kuwait and we would have less in place to handle it. We have to move forces up to plug the hole, or we fall back on the cities.”

“Unacceptable,” Prince Qutaybah said flatly. He looked up at Prince Salim. “This was all the fault of the American advisor attached to the General. All such advisors should be removed, at once, before they cause a greater disaster…”

“British,” Morrigan snapped. “Paul Kelly was British. He came out here to show you what you needed to do to defend yourself, just like me, and General Mujahid didn’t listen to a word of his advice. Just like you; we cannot stop the Posleen at the border! We couldn’t do it before Kuwait fell and we cannot do it now; the Posleen could hit us anywhere along the line, or everywhere along the line.”

He glared around the room. “The losses in long-range guns were not as bad, but almost all of the mobile guns, both towed and self-propelled, were lost. The guns that remain need time and effort to move; we have no choice, but to move them to cover the suddenly open flank. If you insist on trying to hold the border, you need a great deal more firepower up there, trying to hold. Almost all of the modified tanks are gone, so there will be no mobile reserve – not, of course, that it matters.”

There was a long pause. “The public, so far, knows nothing of the disaster,” prince Bandar said. Morrigan doubted it and knew that the secret would be out soon, even if it weren’t out already. A group of talking heads in Canada – Generals who should have been commanding their nation’s forces in battle – had started their own discussion on what General Mujahid should have done, on the Internet. Just how long would it be before some Saudi man, or woman, looking for information, stumbled across the truth, or even a wild rumour?

“At the moment, the news stations are only reporting on battles,” Prince Bandar said. “Kuwait’s fall, of course, will cause some unrest, but we have reported that we are taking in refugees – true – and we’re actively engaged in assisting them to return to their country. At the moment, however, we don’t have enough supplies to feed the millions pouring across the border – and we don’t have the weapons to arm them, thanks to…”

His voice broke off. “I understand,” Prince Salim said, dryly. Prince Bandar had come very close to an open attack on General Mujahid. That, Morrigan suspected, would remain politically impossible – now that the General was safely dead. “So, do we not tell anyone for the moment?”

The light-hearted voice couldn’t conceal the concern behind it. “I believe that it would not be in our interests for the public to hear of the disaster, at least until we have a victory to set it right,” Prince Qutaybah said. His voice was very firm; he was trying to claw back influence over Saudi policy – at the cost of Saudi lives. “Once the Posleen are repulsed from the border, then we can tell them about the heroic defeat of our forces…”

“Which were mainly Iraqis anyway,” an unnamed prince said. His voice dripped contempt. “The Iranians are having trouble with the Posleen anyway, are they not? That could not happen to us.”

“Yes, it could,” Morrigan said, softly. “The Posleen can bring overwhelming force against any part of your border defences. Once the defences’ crumble, they’ll smash through and then start ripping the line apart. Once that happens, they’ll have broken the defence. And once that happens…”

“We understand,” Prince Salim said, before an argument could break out. “Still…”

“We cannot be seen to be abandoning the border without a fight,” Prince Qutaybah said, his voice obstinate. “Public opinion would not stand for it.”

Morrigan was rather amused to hear a Saudi prince refer to public opinion. They were not noted for caring about such details. “Would that public remain alive to complain, once the Posleen break through the defence lines?”

“In any case, we couldn’t pull the refugees out,” Prince Salim said. “We have to arm them and train them, in the hopes that they will actually be of some use in the coming fight. The Iraqis that we have here are needed here for…other purposes.”

He meant suppressing dissent, Morrigan suspected; the Iraqis had plenty of experience in that. Despite all the secrecy, enough would leak out to convince the common man and woman that there had been a disaster – and they would know who to blame. If the public, perhaps egged on by the religious leaders, went onto the streets, all hell would break loose.

“In that case, we will need a line between the border and Riyadh,” Morrigan said, mentally noting that his only real choice was to press for quick action of the kind that they would tolerate. “Move the newer regiments forward, arm them and get them in position. They might just be able to stop a Posleen thrust.”

Part of him believed that the Posleen would never venture far from the sea, towards Riyadh, which was almost in the centre of the country, but he knew better than to assume anything. A city was easy to see from orbit; the Posleen could well have seen it and marked it for later attention. A defence line in the way might just hold them for long enough to be actually useful.

“That, at least, we can do,” Prince Salim said, glancing around the table. The scent of fear was rising in the room; Morrigan wondered how many of them would have fled the capital, perhaps even the country, before the Posleen marched over the borders. “Is there any other business?”

There was a long pause. “Feeding the refugees,” Prince Bandar said. His voice took on a studious edge. “As you know” – with the underhand suggestion that no one knew anything about it – “we intended to have enough food for two years in place; unfortunately, owing to political…developments, we had barely half of that in place when the Posleen fell out of the sky onto our heads.”

He sighed. Morrigan didn’t envy him his tasks. “The refugees are proving an unexpected drain on our food,” he continued. “Not only feeding them openly, of course, but in transporting the food; the transport network is already overstretched with the military requirements, and then aircraft are far too dangerous near the Posleen. It is a problem we need to solve, quickly.”

“Move them away from there,” Prince Qutaybah said. His voice was filled with lordly disdain. “They do not have to remain near the border, where they will take up food and water from our gallant fighting men.”

“There is not the transport to handle that,” Prince Bandar said. He gave Prince Qutaybah a blunt look; he’d considered that possibility already. “Some of them, mainly those who can work in…various places, have been removed from the war zone, but there just aren’t enough vehicles to move them all from the war zone.”

“Then shoot them,” Prince Qutaybah said. There was a mocking tone in his voice. “Or, send them walking back over the border.”

Morrigan felt his mouth fall open. “You have got to be joking,” he said, his voice like ice. “If you send them back into the Posleen jaws, you might as well feed the Posleen directly. They’ll take the refugees, eat them, and then come into here refreshed. If we can get them out of the war zone, that would be useful, but sending them back?”

“The General is correct,” Prince Salim said. “We cannot help the Posleen that way.”

“And then the refuges will eat all of the food,” Prince Qutaybah said mildly. His eyes glittered. “What then?”

“You will not go hungry,” Morrigan snapped. His voice rose. “You have to worry about the man-eating monsters right next door.”

“True,” Prince Salim agreed. His eyes swept the room. “Is there any other business?”

There was none. “Then we will proceed,” Prince Salim said, and the meeting broke up. There was no final prayer; no religious person was present. The room cleared swiftly, leaving Morrigan alone with Denton and Prince Salim.

“Thank you for the loan,” Prince Salim said, returning the pistol. Its blocky shape hadn’t fitted well into his hand. “It came in handy.”

“You’re welcome,” Denton said wryly, checking the pistol. The weapon seemed undamaged, more of a comic-book weapon than anything that might be used in a real war. “Where do you think that shot came down?”

Prince Salim peered out of the window. “Does it matter?”

Morrigan looked up at him. “Your people haven’t learnt anything,” he said, dully. “We’ve been in your…country for the last eleven years and you have learnt nothing from us. You’re about to repeat the same mistakes, again.”

“General Najd will have his orders,” Prince Salim said, firmly. “He will dig in and prepare to withstand the Posleen, rather than going haring out on a wild Posleen chase.”

Morrigan lifted an eyebrow. “Like General Mujahid said that he wasn’t planning an offensive until the hour after the offensive was launched?”

Prince Salim sighed. “I cannot believe that you do not understand the political realities,” he said. “You have been in this country for nearly eleven years, give or take a few, and…”

“I understand realities, all right,” Morrigan snapped. “I understand that the Kuwaitis, who were perhaps the best Arab army in the region, were trashed by the Posleen in a bare handful of days. I understand that the string of refugees heading here will lead the Posleen on, like dogs to dogmeat; I understand that General Najd doesn’t even begin to have the firepower he needs to hold the line against ten million ravenous Posleen. If we can hold out long enough, they’ll starve; your decisions are making it easy for the Posleen to do the right – or rather the wrong – thing!”

Prince Salim stared at him. “Political realities…”

“Politics be damned, buggered and fucked up the arse,” Morrigan shouted. His voice rose alarmingly; he wanted – needed – to fight. “Your reality is this; there are a million flesh-eating alien monsters about to come pouring over the border and you can’t do anything to stop them with the decisions you’re making! If you can’t take the fucking hard decisions, then hand it over to someone who can, before you only exist as Posleen shit!”

He stormed out, leaving Denton to trail along in his wake.

Behind him, Prince Salim watched him go, his eyes thoughtful.

Chapter Thirty-One: They Just Keep Coming!

Kuwait-Saudi Arabia Border
3rd May 2006

General Najd knew that he wasn’t the kind of hard-charging officer of which legends were made. Such Generals rarely lasted long in Saudi Arabia and his own recent post, head of the combat engineers, hardly made for operational experience. In a very real sense, his people had been starved of the training and experience they needed to support an attack; their training in defensive tactics was first rate.

The Kuwaiti border had not been a big defence priority since 1991, when Saddam had been chased out of Kuwait; the border dispute might never have been settled, but not even the Al Saud would risk getting entangled with the Kuwaitis when it might annoy the Americans. General Najd had few feelings about the entire relationship with the Americans, which was something else that allowed him to win promotion; many officers were nationalist and resentful of American primacy in Saudi affairs.

It was a vicious circle. The officers and their fighting forces were nothing compared to the American forces, because the Saudi Royal Family had a vested interest in keeping them that way. The presence of the Americans allowed the Royal Family to play fast and loose with their own security, secure in the knowledge that the Americans would step in if necessary; the army became more and more resentful. Resentful of American sneers, resentful of the incompetents promoted for their blood; there were times that General Najd suspected that he held his rank because he was a token mustang. He had no royal blood running through his veins.

He cursed, silently, General Mujahid. General Najd had advised against the offensive and held back some of his own forces, hoping that they could be used to cover the borders. All of a sudden, he’d been confronted with two problems; the loss of thousands of soldiers and the need to expand the defences to cover the Kuwaiti border as well. Kuwait had simply not registered as a priority; mobile forces had been dispatched to cover it – the same mobile forces that had been destroyed in the recent battle, which had also been proven totally inadequate.

Standing near his command trailer, he allowed himself a moment of pride, and a stronger moment of relief. He’d expected – feared – that the Posleen would come charging out of Kuwait on the heels of the defeat of the Kuwaitis, or that they would launch an attack against the Saudi border as well. They didn’t seem to enjoy the northern deserts towards Israel – few Posleen had been sighted there – but there was no reason why they couldn’t have backtracked General Mujahid. The fortnight he’d had, the fortnight he’d spent trying desperately to get some form of defence lines built along the border, had been a gift from Allah himself.

The sight was impressive, he had to admit; thousands of combat engineers, refugees, civilians and others, working hard on building a network of defences. The limitations imposed by the sudden loss of the Iraqi soldiers, along with their weapons, meant that he couldn’t use so many refugees for building defences, but he didn’t care. He’d never trusted them anyway. Thousands of refugees swarmed over the lines, digging trenches deep into the ground; the combat engineers were preparing bunkers and placing heavy guns behind the line. If the Posleen tried to attack, they’d get a bloody nose…assuming, of course, that the aliens had noses. There were times when General Najd wondered if he’d fallen into a nightmare.

Still, he had some reason to be pleased with himself. The Posleen would kill, yes, but they could also be killed.

An alarm sounded.

General Najd felt his blood run cold. For all his rank, he had never seen combat, never faced an enemy in armed warfare. He felt himself shiver, wanting to run, wanting to flee; his mouth went dry as all of the horrific possibilities flashed through his mind. He wanted to run so much…but he took a grip on himself and turned to meet the signaller, who was scrambling out of the command truck.

“Report,” General Najd snapped, forcing his voice to remain steady. “What’s about to hit us?”

The signaller looked far too calm for someone his age. “The scouts are reporting a major Posleen advance, three prongs,” he said. He gasped for breath; the desert air didn’t agree with someone who had been born in the opposite side of the country. “They’re matching towards us at a massive speed, sir; millions of them!”

“Show me,” General Najd said, leading the way back to the command track. His subordinates were already plotting out the Posleen lines of advance; General Najd felt his mind spin as he saw what the Posleen were doing. They hadn’t been idle either; three lines of Posleen were closing in on his own lines, aiming to shatter the line by hitting it in three separate places. He cursed slowly, suddenly; the Posleen were all too likely to punch through somewhere…and that would be the end.

He took a breath. “How long?”

“Around ten minutes to the first contact, here,” his aide said. “The others will hit the lines within fifteen and twenty minutes respectively.”

General Najd closed his eyes. “Send a warning to Riyadh,” he said. “Ask them…ask them to pray for us.”

He barked orders as he scrambled to a location from where he could observe the battle. His own guns had been moved into optimum firing positions; the Posleen would be hammered as soon as they had moved into range. Their ranks seemed endless – millions of Posleen seemed to be coming directly towards him – but he knew that his people had done well with what they had. Refugees, unarmed and helpless, scrambled for cover; he ordered some of them to stand ready to take over guns if the soldiers were killed. A SANG armoured division was moving up to support his people; he knew that the tanks, unmodified as they were, would get only one shot against the Posleen before they were all killed.

He smiled, slightly. He’d done something that might – might – give his people a few free shots. All that counted was pulling it off…and trusting that the Posleen wouldn’t learn from experience. They did learn, the Americans had said…but who trusted the Americans in this day and age? What use had their security guarantee been against yellow alien monsters from beyond the stars?

His aide saluted. “The Posleen are coming into weapons range now,” he said. “The gunners are requesting permission to open fire.”

General Najd hoped – prayed – that he was about to fight a set-piece battle. If that happened, he might have a chance. If the Posleen pulled something unexpected out of their alien behinds, his people were doomed…and the defence of Riyadh would rest on utterly untested men.

He lifted his radio to his mouth. “Fire!”

***
The trench had been quickly dug out of the sand dunes, reinforced with a little concrete and some other materials, excavated for the positioning of a small number of machine guns. Abdul-Majid, who had been offered the choice between the army or prison – with all the horrors that Saudi prisons included – had accepted the army and spent five years regretting it. The army was an unpleasant place, even at the best of times; he hadn’t wanted to spend years soldiering for one incompetent commander after another. Who’d want to marry their daughter to him?

He took a tighter grip on his AK-47 as the alarm sounded. He hadn’t believed in the aliens at all, thinking that it had to be an excuse to keep soldiers in after their periods of enlistment – imprisonment – had ended. The trench system had taken nearly a fortnight to dig, with refugees who were touchy about their honour at the same time as having been forced from their homes by something straight out of an American science-fiction novel. The women, in particular, were uppity; they were certainly reluctant to share their favours with the soldiers. Fights had broken out over that; Abdul-Majid took some pleasure in knowing that his fist had broken the jaw of Kuwaiti man after a dispute over his daughter.

He ran, quickly, to his position in the trenches; second trench from the front. His sergeant, who he was convinced hated him, had placed him in the first trench; some effort and horse-trading has placed him in the second trench, aided by the fact that he was big enough to get what he wanted most of the time. His trusty AK-47 would see him through anything; the Arab warrior needed nothing more than an AK-47 to scare enemies into behaving themselves. Carefully, he placed the weapon on the trench’s side, aiming out towards Kuwait; the Kuwaiti girls were resistant to the charms of a Saudi man – a Saudi man who was about to risk his life in their defence.

He spat, once. There was no justice in the world.

“Fire,” the General snapped. A handful of shots were fired off from rifles, longer bursts from machine guns, before shamefaced soldiers realised that General Najd meant the artillery only. Sergeants and Captains moved among the trenches, restoring orders with kicks and blows; Abdul-Majid felt his finger squeeze the trigger before slowly relaxing. He wanted, like nothing ever before, to blow the sergeants away; they were going to get them all killed, for what? A bunch of princes and refugees, who wouldn’t cross the street to piss on a commoner if they were burning?

A flash of light in the distance drew Abdul-Majid’s eyes back towards Kuwait. Explosions, some blinding, some almost like fireworks, could be seen in the distance. The sound rolled over him moments later, a roaring crescendo of thunder, echoing across the land. The guns fired, again and again, merging into a single continuous sound; Abdul-Majid felt his mind start to tremble under the impact of the noise. The lights grew closer and closer…and then he saw the dust rising up as…things moved across the land.

Something warm and wet trickled down his legs as the Posleen came into view. It was as if Allah had kicked the demons out of hell; a roaring tide of alien flesh and blood surged towards the human outpost, which suddenly looked weak and useless before them. The Posleen were running now, firing as they came; blasts of energy and projectile weapons flashed over the heads of the Saudi infantry men…and, for the first time, Abdul-Majid was glad that they’d built the trenches.

“Fire,” the Sergeant roared.

A scattering of fire poured from the Saudi trenches, growing more and more powerful as soldiers overcame their shock and poured fire towards the Posleen. The aliens charged on, regardless; Abdul-Majid saw bullets ripping them apart as they closed in, trampling over their own dead bodies and firing their own weapons. A HVM struck near a machine gun post, sending a massive blast of fire billowing along the trenches; another went directly into a trench, a lucky shot blasting the soldiers within the trench apart. Sheets of lighting crackled over their heads…and then the bunkers opened fire.

Abdul-Majid had cursed the SANG; the national guardsmen had the bunkers, common soldiers were forbidden to use them on pain of death. Now they opened fire finally, just to allow some more commoners to die; they poured fire onto the Posleen mass. Abdul-Majid wanted to hide, he wanted to cringe; his weapon slipped from his hands as the sheer force of the bullets flying over his head flashed over and hit the Posleen. He saw them, dying in droves, their weapons flaring in their hands; he thought for a moment that they’d stopped the offensive…

…And then a HVM scored a lucky hit and blew one of the bunkers wide open. Abdul-Majid saw it, a single blast that shattered the bunker, killing the SANG soldiers before they knew what was coming at them. The Posleen leapt over their own dead bodies and piled into the trench; Abdul-Majid broke and ran. The panic spread, right through the trenches, some men tried to carry on the fight, others pushed past them as the Posleen slammed through the first trench and on into the second. Hand-to-hand combat broke out in places; in others, humans fought at point-blank range, firing into the Posleen as they fell on them. Their lines seemed endless as they charged though…and one of them landed right in front of Abdul-Majid.

He didn’t have time to scream before the Posleen decapitated him with a single slash of its knife. The Posleen didn’t even notice; it just carried on fighting until a shell blew it into thousands of very tiny pieces.

***
“Order the guns to fall into firing pattern four,” General Najd ordered, trying to remain calm. He didn’t sound calm; he felt as if the world was coming apart around him. He could see his lines breaking and shattering; the radio reported that a second Posleen thrust was right on the edge of producing a second victory. “I repeat, go into firing pattern four.”

“Sir, you should get out of here,” his aide said, as the guns shifted their aiming. Firing pattern four was targeted on the trenches themselves, pre-targeted for handling a Posleen breakthrough; moments later, carefully placed charges exploded, tearing great holes in the Posleen lines. Yellow blood and gore splashed everywhere; live Posleen licked it off their bodies as they kept moving. “Sir…”

“I know,” General Najd said, swearing to himself. The main defence line had been broken; the second defence line, covering the guns, was much weaker. Again, he cursed the attack that had scraped up almost all of the mobile reserve, for all the good it would have done. “Anything from the scouts?”

“They’re reporting more Posleen moving in towards us,” the aide said. His voice was growing nervous. General Najd didn’t blame him. “Sir…”

“Call the retreat,” General Najd ordered, starting to head back towards his vehicle. He noticed something moving out of the corner of his eyes. The Posleen were spreading out, making a harder target; perhaps – just perhaps – they were becoming sensitive to losses. “Order the armoured units into action…and tell the snipers to get shooting now!”

He’d hidden several snipers under camouflage netting, well concealed, and armed with the best sniping rifles under Saudi control. He’d hoped that the snipers would be able to kill all of the God Kinds, but there were too many God Kings; the Posleen would only be confused for a short period of time, hardly enough to kill them all on such a large battleground. He muttered orders as the tanks flowed into position, a Posleen HVM blew one apart, and then he saw a God King’s floating platform spin out of control. Almost as one, the Posleen swung around, firing a massive hail of fire into the sand dunes…and the tanks threw shells into their mass. Confused, the Posleen spun around, before turning to engage the tanks. Shells rained down into their formations, trapping them, killing them…and then they charged out of the trap, heading right for the tanks. Moments later, all of the tanks were burning. Not one of their crews escaped.

Something flashed right over General Najd’s head. “Move,” he snapped, forcing the aide forward towards his staff car. The driver was already revving it up, slamming hard down on the gas, knowing that it would only be moments before the Posleen came over the ridge and saw them, microseconds before a missile or plasma burst blew them into the next world. “Get us out of here!”

The hail of shellfire grew louder as the car raced away from the Posleen. General Najd cursed, yet again, the Princes; they would have insisted on not practicing more exercises, wouldn’t they? He cursed, forgetting everything; the battle was as good as lost. What did it matter now? The princes had doomed Saudi Arabia before it had even begun to fight!

Shells flashed past them as the second defence line opened fire, pumping shells directly into the heart of the Posleen, which seemed content to ignore them while firing back at the guns, some of which were struck and destroyed in blinding sheets of fire. The car sped into the defence line, flying over the trench and falling down, crashing into the ground. General Najd was stunned, just for a moment, and then he pulled himself together. The sound of the gunfire was utterly terrifying; he didn’t even want to leave the car. He trembled, unable to help himself; blood streaming down from his ears as something shattered his eardrums. He could only hear the shelling; he wanted to close his eyes and die…

Duty asserted itself. He clutched his sidearm as he pulled himself out of the car, turning to see the Posleen charging the defence line, having destroyed most of the guns. The longer-ranged guns were firing at less than point-blank range, trying to slow the sheer force of the Posleen attack; the Posleen seemed angry, angry at humanity, angry at the desert, angry at…who knew? What did the aliens think of, beside killing and eating any of a dozen intelligent races?

“I’ve lost,” he said, to himself. The Posleen kept coming; they just kept coming. He'd underestimated the threat, he saw now, but so had the princes; he’d done what he'd been ordered to do and lost. General Mujahid had broken his orders…and lost anyway. Once the Posleen were through the line, they would fall upon the refuges, upon the town of R’as al-Khafij, upon his wife and children there, upon…

An explosion, far too close, knocked him to his knees. The Posleen slashed forwards, pouring into the second defence line, their weapons sweeping the humans away. The final struggle was over almost as soon as it had begun; five bullets tore General Najd apart before he knew what had hit him. His body fell on the sands, bleeding to death; the Posleen barely noticed – or cared.

Twenty minutes later, they fell on the refugee camps…and the slaughter began.

Chapter Thirty-Two: Panic In Riyadh

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
4th May 2006

Afterwards, no one would know how it all started.

Abdullah Al-Hassid rarely paid open attention to rumours; knowing his own people like he did, he knew that a hangnail or an in-growing toenail could rapidly become a disaster worse than the cyclone in Bangladesh. Rumours were the only way that information could be disseminated, until recently; everyone spread rumours, despite endless attempts to crack down on the practice. How could even the religious police throw the entire population into jail?

Al Jazeera had been reporting in a vaguer manner than normal; the station had concentrated on the fighting in Iran, where the Posleen were closing in rapidly on Tehran, but there were mentions of…troubles near the border between human territory and Posleen-occupied territory. Rumours spread rapidly, and were believed; the city was starting to boil. The Posleen were at the gates. The Posleen had eaten the entire army. A prince had stolen all the weapons; the army had been unable to fire a shot. The princes had fled, leaving the remainder here to be eaten by the Posleen; the Americans had emptied their embassy, their people had returned to America. They expected Saudi Arabia to be eaten by the Posleen.

Al-Hassid had heard nothing from Kalid, who was on the middle defence line; the last defence line if some stories were true. If the army had been wiped out, the Posleen could be on Kalid and his unit in hours, perhaps less; perhaps his son and all of his men were dead, defeated by inexperience and princely treachery. The rumours spread throughout the day; the princes had sold the nation to the Posleen and had deliberately sent the army to face the Posleen to feed them. The rumours grew and grew…

Aaliyah hadn’t wanted her husband to leave the house. The feeling in the air scared her, and she was not a person who scared easily. Al-Hassid had kissed her goodbye, taking a moment to admire the western clothes she wore under her veil; she looked as lovely as she had years ago, when they’d been married. He wouldn’t have changed a single day.

“I have to know,” he said, as he left the house. His servants offered to drive him; acting on instinct, Al-Hassid chose to walk. The streets seemed somehow darker, more ominous, than normally; there were dozens of people on the streets, heading towards the Ministry of Defence. The crowds swelled rapidly, becoming thousands, perhaps tens of thousands; Riyadh had never seen such a day. The mood was grim, becoming darker and darker; Al-Hassid wanted to know what had happened. The crowds wanted to know what had happened.

They didn’t chant, they didn’t sing; both of those traditions belonged to a different world. Al-Hassid found himself in the rear as the crowd moved forwards, pushing vehicles off the streets and forcing women to step out of the way. Some women were joining the march, the men didn’t object; the mood took them and swallowed them into the crowd. Groups of soldiers, who should have been manning the defences around the walls, were joining the march; their faces grim and worried.

“We want to know,” someone shouted. “What have you done?”

Someone else took up the cry. Moments later, the entire crowd was shouting, a wave of power that washed forwards, ahead of them. A force of religious policemen – the more normal policemen had vanished – were preparing to bar the path of the crowd; the crowd saw the weapons levelled at them and hesitated, just long enough…

“Get out of our way,” the ringleader shouted. Al-Hassid hadn’t even realised that he – whoever he was – was the ringleader; he was rubbing shoulders with guest workers and women, of all things! “Get out of the way!”

The lead policeman pointed and fired; the ringleader fell back, dead. The crowd howled with anger and lunged forwards…and the soldiers in the crowd opened fire with their own weapons. Religious policemen died…and the crowd lost the final shackles on its behaviour. They had seen their tormenters killed. They lunged forwards, smashing through the barricade; the policemen tried to run and were torn down and torn apart. Al-Hassid saw a woman, her face no longer covered, using her veil to strangle a religious policeman.

“Death to the Princes who have killed our young men,” the woman shouted, her voice rising above the crowd. Al-Hassid caught a glimpse of her eyes in one moment; there was something behind them that terrified him. A series of explosions echoed all over the city, damaging the mood of the crowd; they surged forwards towards the centre of the city, looking for…what? Revenge? Retribution? He saw a mosque torn apart by a group of younger men; soldiers fired into buildings as the crowds came onto the streets.

The shout grew louder and louder. “Death to the Princes,” the crowd shouted, growing louder. They had found a voice. “Death to the Religious Police! Death to the Princes!”

There were fires growing all over the city. Al-Hassid pulled back from the madness, finding himself in his own body again, watching the chaos as the crowd plummeted towards the Royal Palace. He could still hear some shooting, as the handful of soldiers battled religious policemen; someone had brought out a massive box of alcohol – something banned on pain of death if the culprit was insignificant enough – and was distributing it around the crowd. Rules shattered; women marched as well, screaming out their hate as their tormentors faded into the woodwork. Al-Hassid wondered, just for a moment, what would happen when the Princes were destroyed; would Saudi Arabia even have time to prepare for a war against the Posleen?

Something made him look up towards the Royal Palace.

There were men on the streets, unfamiliar men, wearing a dull-green uniform. They were armed and they held themselves with a stern competence. He thought for a moment that they were American, but the Americans wouldn’t have any units that were wholly Arabic. They had appeared out of nowhere; they wore no insignia, no hints as to who they were…and silence seemed to fall.

They opened fire, shooting with heavy machine guns, right into the crowd. Al-Hassid, on instinct, had fallen to the ground; the spray of bullets passed over him, weapons designed for use on massive alien monsters tore right through the protesters. Blood and gore fell everywhere; a woman, half her body blown away, fell on Al-Hassid, who whimpered. Screams and moans could be heard everywhere; he knew that he was screaming in panic, in fear, in rage…

Silence fell.

“This is your only warning,” a voice thundered, in Arabic that was oddly accented. Al-Hassid recognised the accent and recoiled at this new proof of princely treachery. “You will return to your homes and obey all orders issued by the legitimate government, or you will die.”

A quick burst of firing.

“Or you will die,” the man repeated. “Or you will die…”

Al-Hassid pulled himself up and crawled away, trying to escape. He glanced behind him as he moved, seeing the newcomers working to clean up the mess and sometimes put a bullet through someone’s head. He felt himself being watched and refused to show weakness, trying to escape, knowing that they wanted him to crawl. As he reached the corner, he looked back quickly, seeing for the first time just how many people had been killed. Blood and bodies littered the square.

A bullet cracked past his head.

He turned and ran.

***
“Which fucking orifice did you pull them out of?” Morrigan demanded, staring down at the chaos in the streets. America, no matter what people moaned about, had never had anything like that, ever. Not during the draft riots, not during the Civil Rights Era, not during the Civil War…never. Morrigan had known that such violent suppressions happened, he’d spent much of his life in the Middle East, but to see it here, now…it was horrifying. “Who are they?”

Prince Salim’s face was perfectly serene. “They’re the Iraqis I held back, here,” he said. “You practically suggested as much to me…”

Morrigan spun around, wanting nothing more than to grab Prince Salim by his robes and throwing him out the window. “Don’t you fucking seek to blame this on me,” he snapped. “I didn’t fucking tell you to mow down protesters like they were blades of grass, did I?”

“You said that I had to be more responsible,” Prince Salim said. “I had a fortnight, but I’d already laid some of the basic steps…hell, I didn’t even know what I was really doing. Agitators have been breaking the agreement between us and Osama, or perhaps Osama is telling the truth when he says that they’re nothing to do with him. It hardly matters, old friend; we had to take control back from them and the only way to do it was by demonstrating my power to everyone.”

“We are not friends,” Morrigan snapped. “Not after…”

“But it will work,” Prince Salim said. There was a curious indifference in his tone. “The Iraqis owe no loyalty to anyone, but me; the Religious Police will be broken with ease, now that they are no longer needed. The crowd already broke their sprits; I will have the remainder rounded up and killed quickly, perhaps as traitors.”

“You’re riding a tiger,” Morrigan said, trying to keep calm. “Do you think that you can establish yourself as King?”

“I have moved to arrest some of the other factions within the House of Saud,” Prince Salim said. He leaned forward, his eyes glittering; Morrigan saw, for a moment, the steel hidden behind the smile that Prince Salim kept permanently pasted on his face. “Prince Qutaybah will be arrested quickly, before he can become a problem, and then Prince Bandar and myself will control and coordinate the defence of the city – and the defence line to the north…”

“Pull the troops back,” Morrigan snapped. He waved a hand at the map. “That young Kalid hasn’t done badly at all, but he doesn’t have the manpower any longer to hold that line. He might have the other surprises up his sleeve, but they’re not going to be enough.”

“That…is not exactly possible at the moment,” Prince Salim said. Morrigan let out a terrific snort. “If we pull back the armed soldiers, they might try to stage a coup, or perhaps even seek revenge against the Iraqis for what just happened.”

Morrigan surprised even himself; he threw back his head and laughed. “Yes, that is something of a worry now, isn’t it?” He asked dryly. “You go to all that trouble to make the regime practically coup-proof and look what happens; you go and knock some of the anti-coup measures away, just to keep some of your power. How long will it be before one of the Iraqis decides that he would make a much better King?”

Prince Salim’s eyes darkened. “That will not happen,” he said. “The Posleen are coming…”

“The Posleen are coming, true,” Morrigan agreed. “The Posleen are coming towards the last real combat force on Saudi soil; the next active combat force is Israeli or Syrian. Do you really believe that Osama’s forces are going to do much more than provide a speed-bump for the Posleen?”

“I hope that the Posleen will do us the favour of killing them all,” Prince Salim hissed. His voice darkened with agony. “I was foolish, to make that bargain, not now that I know that it would have been so easy to make secure my own grasp on power.”

Morrigan lifted an eyebrow. “Secure?”

He looked at the map. “The Posleen have crushed the main force that was covering the border,” he said. “The survivors have been retreating and there is almost nowhere that they can make a stand, is there? They’ll reach the defence lines and then…what? The Posleen will hit the defence lines, punch through, and then they’ll come for the city. They cannot help it; they have to come for the city. I don’t understand why they waited a fortnight before moving in to this country after Kuwait, but I do know that they will have logistic problems of their own. In short, Your Majesty, they will come here and then you will have to stop them.”

He laughed. “Secure? Your reign won’t last a year.”

Prince Salim glared at him. “If you feel that way, you can leave,” he snapped. “You’ve done enough for us and we can hold them now.”

Morrigan seriously considered the offer for a moment. “No,” he said finally. “I want to know how it all ends. And, as for the Iraqis…”

He broke off. “Yes?” Prince Salim asked acidly. Morrigan wondered why he’d ever dared to like Prince Salim. “What about them?”

“Well done, Comrade Napoleon,” Morrigan said. Prince Salim didn’t understand the allusion. “Just be careful they don’t bite the hand that feeds them.”

Prince Salim shrugged. Morrigan nodded, once, and paced out of the room; there was no way that he was going to shake hands after the bloodletting on the streets. He thought as he walked, thinking hard; just how long could Prince Salim hold his new government together? Fear was a powerful weapon, true, but the others princes wouldn’t be happy at all about what had just happened. Given some time, they would seek to redress the balance, whatever it took; they would attempt to create armed forces of their own…

“Colonel,” he said, as Denton appeared, once they were back in his suit. “Is this room secure?”

“Yes, sir,” Denton said, his voice grim. “Sir, what happened, outside…”

“I know,” Morrigan said. “Contact Washington and inform them of what has happened. With the Posleen trying to make mincemeat out of the east, I doubt they’ll be too concerned, but they have to know. The Embassy can be pulled out, now; you can go as well, if you like.”

Denton blinked. “Sir?”

“Think about it,” Morrigan said. “Riyadh is in the middle of a bloody great desert; the Posleen are going to be hungry, thirsty and pissed when they reach the city. The defences were being built for years, given a competent force, they could have been held for long enough for the Posleen logistics to catch up with them and fuck them up the arse. Now, do you think that the Saudis will field a competent force?”

Denton shook his head. “No, sir,” he said, after a moment. “There’s just not enough force here to hold the city, is there?”

“Exactly,” Morrigan said. “Prince Salim is head and shoulders above the others, and massacring most of the princes can only improve matters. Pretty bad for the Islamic concept of family love, but who cares about such trifles when the entire human race is under threat? That said, the remains of the regular army and much of the SANG has just been eaten by the Posleen, and all that remains is the conscript army, commanded by someone who would set a record for promotion in any sensible army, and the Iraqis who seem to have allied themselves with the regime.”

He took a breath. “Would you like to place your bets here?”

Denton sighed. “Sir, I chose to remain here,” he said. Morrigan felt himself, almost against his will, smile. “I would appreciate remaining here until you leave yourself.”

Morrigan had given some thought to his own escape. “There are the newer units training out in the desert,” he said. “Prince Salim seems to have forgotten about them; he didn’t even think of moving them forwards, even though some of them have barely a week’s training. It’s possible that their guest worker status has made him nervous about bringing them here…”

He grinned. “I have wondered about going there and taking command once Riyadh falls.”

“If Riyadh falls,” Denton said. His voice became hopeful, a hope that Morrigan knew was worse than delusional. “Prince Salim might just manage to produce a miracle.”

“There are three chances of that,” Morrigan said. His own voice was sardonic; his black mood refused to lift. “Thin, fat, and none.”

He smiled grimly. “I have to talk to Yasmeena,” he said, “and then I want you to go talk to Lombardi. He should get himself into position for intervening, which might well be necessary; the Posleen are unlikely to give dear Prince Salim time to get the bugs worked out of his new government.”

He issued other orders. Denton nodded and left the room. Morrigan sat alone.

Presently, he stood up as Yasmeena entered the room, fresh from her medical training. Morrigan expected, now that the religious police had been introduced to people nastier than them, that Prince Salim would start to insist that women took an active role in the defence of Riyadh. She smiled at him, unaware of the day’s events; he gave her a hug and relaxed into her arms.

Afterwards, they held each other in the room. “You should leave,” Morrigan said, feeling her warmth against him. He explained briefly about what had happened. “God knows, Jack Horner could get you into America, and any of the Sub-Urbs would be happy to have you. It’s going to get…dangerous around here soon, love…”

“I know,” Yasmeena said, and kissed him. Her mouth was very sweet. “I want to stay with you.”

Morrigan looked up at the map. The Saudi reconnaissance capabilities, at least, had been upgraded during the preparations for the Posleen invasion. The scouts were reporting on the activities of the Posleen in the refugee camps, mainly involving lots of eating and moving human prisoners around. He wondered, bitterly, if they should be trying to gas the humans with chemical weapons; they could be marched to anywhere the Posleen wanted them to go before they were eaten.

He took one soft warm breast in his hand. “It’s your choice,” he said, knowing that it was likely to be her funeral. He felt her shiver against her and knew one truth. “I love you, sweetheart…”

“I know,” Yasmeena whispered, from deep in her throat. “I love you too.”

Chapter Thirty-Three: All Quiet on the Saudi Front, Take One

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
10th May 2006

There were a lot of stereotypes about Arab women and how they were treated by their brothers, ranging from practically treating them as slaves to pampered, indulged, and ultimately worthless princesses. Like all stereotypes, there was a grain of truth within the preconception – but Sara’s brother had been nothing, but kindness himself. He had been moderately religious, he'd always been kind to his younger sister – and he’d been killed at the age of sixteen by an Israeli ambush. It had been an accident, but no one really believed that; not his family, not the media, not anyone.

Sara had vowed revenge. At thirteen, she had walked into the headquarters of one of the most violent Palestinian groups and offered her services. One of them had seen potential in the young girl, whose innocent looks hid a devious and twisted mind; he’d provided her with more training, rather than using her as a suicide bomber. Nearly ten years later, Sara knew that she was the most powerful woman in the shadowy underworld of the endless struggle; the struggle was her life. No man would ever have her as his wife; she knew something that most Arab women never learned – a woman could get by without a man.

The thought made her smile under the heavy veil she wore. Nearly a week ago, the planned strike to decapitate the government of Riyadh, as planned by Osama and Hussian, had failed. Prince Salim had brought an unexpected weapon out of his sleeve – Sara, who had known that Prince Salim was working to make regiments out of the refugees, still cursed the oversight that had allowed him to do it without being noticed – and crushed the revolution. Sara had managed to get most of the strikes called off; Riyadh had been damaged enough, but the new government had managed to hold on to power.

She walked behind a man, Omar. Even now, with Prince Salim’s new rules on women helping with the defences, and the sudden explosion of female power in the rout of the religious police, it was safer to have a man around. Omar was one of the fighters who had been trained in Syria; he also knew enough to let her issue orders from behind her veil. No one knew what she looked like; it was safer that way. Groups of Iraqi soldiers, on constant patrol, glanced at her as she moved past them; there were already some stories about Iraqi rapes. They’d been soft-pedalled by everyone, even Al Jazeera; Sara knew that Al Jazeera would not remain onside forever. One day, she would control Palestine, the Jews would be pushed back into the sea, and then she would control the media.

The house she reached was in one of the poorest areas of the city, one used by guest workers and the poorest of the poor. It was a natural breeding ground for extremism, one that Osama had found welcome and dangerous; welcome because it was easy to recruit, dangerous because the guest workers didn’t always believe in a pan-Arab destiny. Why should they? It wasn’t their heritage.

Naturally, it still had two separate doors; one male, one female.

She felt her lips twist into a flicker of annoyance; the religious police were servants of the Americans, who wanted to hold the establishment of a State of Palestine back. What else explained their endless persecution of the women? Sara knew that she lacked warm sisterly feelings towards other women, but they too had a role to play in the liberation of the holy land. Women could contribute much more than the occasional suicide bombing to give Israel more bad press…

“The network has been damaged,” Omar said, as he entered into the living room. She would not have endured any pretence at keeping the two sides of the house separate; the religious police rarely risked coming into the houses. Now, of course, she’d heard that the remainder of the religious police were being sent to the front; she could only hope that the Posleen appreciated the endless lectures…did the Posleen even have women? She couldn’t remember.

“Unsurprising,” Sara said, without preamble. The owner of the house, a Palestinian guest worker, brought them both coffee. Saudi Arabia made an excellent place to train fighters; Israel didn’t dare alarm the Americans by launching a preemptive strike, and the Saudi Royal Family didn’t dare irritate their own fundamentalists – who would be quite happy to assist in shoving Israel back into the sea – by cracking down on them. “The bombings took up too many people…”

“Those damned Iraqis,” Omar hissed. His voice grew into a furious whisper. “We should have killed them all in their barracks.”

Sara shrugged, safely aware that it couldn’t be seen under her veil. “That was an unpleasant surprise,” she agreed, rather dryly. She wasn’t worried about irritating Omar; the last man who’d tried to flog her had gone to Allah without his penis. She cursed Prince Salim; who would have thought that he had the nerve to come up with something like that? Or…had the American suggested it? An American would care nothing for Arab lives, not when they could fight the Posleen to the last Arab. It had actually occurred to her – and it had become a major point in propaganda – that the Americans might not have stopped the Posleen because the Posleen could wipe the oil fields clear of life.

“We did manage to let Hussian know,” Omar said, after a moment. Sara frowned; Hussian was likely to be unhappy about it, although not as unhappy as she was. “He has as yet issued no orders.”

“The American ordered the crackdown,” Sara said, in the certain knowledge that she was correct. Imagination was not a trait of the House of Saud. “He must be the person pulling Prince Salim’s strings; note how people like Prince Qutaybah, who opposed the American, have been arrested and in some cases…been shot while trying to escape. He might also have been the person who ordered the Iraqis armed; they might even be Iraqi exiles, rather than refugees.”

She paused to allow the thought to slip into Omar’s head. “That means that the American remains our priority target,” she said. Her voice became thoughtful; she’d never failed yet, whatever her goal, and she didn’t want to disappoint Hussian. She was fond of him, although not enough to tempt her into abandoning her virginity. Sexual pleasure was something she had to deny herself if she wanted to be treated as a man. “We have to…dispose of him.”

“One would expect him to have run for his life,” Omar said. His voice dripped with contempt. “After all, several Americans have been killed along the borders; the Americans normally cannot bear to take more than one death.”

Sara gave him a dry look. Of course, all he saw was the mesh in front of her face. “Listen,” she said. She’d studied America, as carefully as she could; she would never understand it, but there were details she’d picked up which had made her careful over the years. “The Americans are not weak. Their problems, before the Posleen arrived, were caused by the conviction that they should never use their strength, or when they should use it, they should try to do good – you might remember how confused our Bosnian cousins were, years ago.”

Omar nodded. The Bosnians hadn’t been able to understand it; the United States didn’t even have a puppet state, puppet group, or even interests in the region. They still felt that the United States had to have had some deeply-laid plan in the region, but none of them knew what it had been. None of them would have lifted a finger out of an attempt to be nice!

“They had elites that had their own idea about how the world worked and that didn’t correspond to reality,” she continued. “They believed that if they played nice, everyone else would play nice as well; what utter nonsense. Now, of course, most of those elites will have been eaten by the Posleen – and the Americans will be using everything they have to fight the Posleen. Prick America, they go ‘ouch;’ kick America in the nuts and they will do everything they can to make you regret it.”

She shook her head. He should be able to see that. “The American here is a very skilled puppet-master,” she said. Rumour had claimed that Morrigan and Prince Salim had had a falling out over the lockdown; the source, which was normally reliable, had to have been turned. Americans had never raised more than token objections to Arab rulers gunning down their people before. “He has to be removed, whatever the cost.”

Omar, at least, was a skilled assassin. “It will not be easy,” he said. “The American is in the Ministry of Defence compound, one built to withstand an attack. We might not be able to get a bomb-carrying truck near enough to guarantee success.”

Sara nodded. “I thought that out for myself,” she said. Omar’s face darkened with a moment’s rage. “I think we might just manage to slip a team in under cover of some confusion.”

Omar’s brow furrowed. “You mean another bombing campaign?”

“No,” Sara said. She’d considered it, but after the first series had failed, the authorities would be watching for other attempts, creating a security risk. She smiled grimly as an idea occurred to her. “The Posleen will make their charge at the final defence line soon…and when that happens, we’ll have our chance.”

***
Riyadh had never felt like a good city, not to Mohammed Zahir. Al Jazeera’s information on what had happened in the desert, when the Posleen attacked, had been incomplete, but the Israelis had been more than willing to supply the information. It hadn’t surprised Zahir that the Mossard was keeping a very close eye on events in nearby countries…and, of course, the Posleen invasion.

“There was a total rout,” Rivka had said. “Some units panicked and broke, others were crushed under superior numbers. The units that panicked had no time to reform before they were overrun by the Posleen or shot in the back. Unit cohesion came apart, shattering the army…and the Posleen won. Since then, they’ve been digging in and preparing something we probably won’t like when we see it.”

Zahir winced as the aircraft came in to land at the airport. The Posleen were interdicting direct airlines between Israel and India, his hosts had informed him; the flight to Saudi had been diverted over the desert, using smaller aircraft and a pilot who had once been in the IAF. Commercial air travel had pretty much sputtered to a halt, but Zahir had pressed for permission to make the flight; surprisingly, the Israelis had agreed. They had insisted on debriefing him afterwards, of course.

The airport itself had been called a marvel of engineering, once. Now, as he walked across the landing strip to meet his escort, he was amused to see tanks drilling on the landing strips, preparing to meet the Posleen. The entire city felt…weird, as if it was still attempting to come to terms with what had happened, but there was a new air of grim determination. There were fewer cars on the streets – making them safer for everyone – and he was astonished to see women walking openly on the streets, without veils.

“We threw out the pig-fucking bastards,” his escort said, when he asked. He waved a hand at a billboard, which had been turned into a makeshift crucifixion scene; all that was missing were the crosses. A handful of bodies hung from them; he felt his gorge rise and turned away. “They ran like women when we charged them.”

Zahir smiled. “And then what happened?”

“We had a sharp lesson,” the escort admitted. “His Excellency has promised that there will be more real changes once the Posleen have been defeated.”

“No change there, then,” Zahir commented, as the car swept on. Women were not only walking in the streets; some of them were carrying weapons, others were practicing with construction machinery, trying to turn the entire city into a fortress. The grim feeling seemed to fade slightly, as he looked at them; they proved, perhaps, that Saudi Arabia had a future after all. The change was astonishing…and, perhaps, Prince Salim meant what he said.

Zahir smiled. After the riot, after using Iraqis against his own people, after targeting some of the most irritating Princes for arrest and death, Prince Salim had better keep his word. His own people had tasted their strength now. Who knew what would happen, later? He noticed, as the muzzin called the faithful to prayer, that fewer people were going to pray; there seemed to be fewer clerics on the street than he remembered.

“Here we are,” his escort said. He hadn’t told Zahir his name; they never did. He pulled up in front of a large building, which was becoming a fortress as teams worked on it; allowing Zahir to enter the building. He was searched, roughly, by three Iraqis, and then escorted up three flights of stairs into a larger room. A single figure sat at a desk, reading through reports of the new series of defence efforts…and he looked up as Zahir entered.

“Good afternoon,” Prince Salim said. He looked older than his photos suggested; his hair was becoming unkempt. His beard…he’d shaved off his beard! He looked almost western without it, despite the robes; he looked…almost handsome. He was married, of course, with three wives and Allah alone knew how many mistresses; Zahir wondered what they thought of it.

“Ah, good afternoon,” Zahir said, wondering why Prince Salim had avoided the standard Islamic greeting. It was deliberate; it had to be, so why…? “Thank you for inviting me.”

“You’re welcome,” Prince Salim said, his face becoming a smile. “I have always had the greatest of respect for your organisation.” Zahir lifted an eyebrow. The House of Saud had spent half their time dismissing Al Jazeera and the rest of their time trying to shut it down. “However, I need you to convoy a message to the world.”

“Al Jazeera exists to show different points of view,” Zahir assured him. He took the seat that Prince Salim waved him to with one long finger. “I would be honoured to pass on whatever message you wanted, provided you understood that people will comment on it.”

“Good,” Prince Salim said. He stood up and paced around the room. “Is your recorder going?” Zahir nodded. “Good; that will save you some trouble. What you have to know is that certain treacherous elements within Saudi Arabia, including a handful of princes whose contempt for the common man knows no bounds, attempted to prevent us from mounting a successful defence of this nation.”

He paused. Zahir felt his mouth fall open; Prince Salim had just turned years of history on its head. The Saudi Royal Family never accepted blame for anything; it would only weaken their position. Prince Salim was playing a dangerous game…and it suddenly suggested that he might – just – win.

“In order to ensure that this nation remains intact, I took the harshest measures against the conspiracy and against those who were duped into trying to aide the conspiracy,” Prince Salim continued. “While I regret the necessity of the deaths that happened as a result of my actions, I saw – and still see – no other choice. What matters now is taking actions against the Posleen; they are the real danger here. From this moment, I have ordered total war mobilisation in Saudi Arabia.”

His voice was almost hypnotic. “The religious police were torn apart by the anger of the crowd,” Prince Salim said. “They will not be permitted to arise again, nor will the Islamic restrictions on female activity become anything, but optional. It will annoy the clerics, but after their involvement in the defeat of the army, I find it hard to care. Those who hold Mecca will hold it against the Posleen; should they survive, then there will be a reckoning…”

He smiled suddenly. “But that’s something in the future,” he said. “For the moment, I swear to you, before Allah Himself, that I will take Saudi Arabia into the future. We already had the beginnings of a consultation council” – which Zahir knew was little more than a talking shop – “which will be expanded, along with the elections to a new parliament. While the Royal Family will continue to hold a position, from the moment the Posleen War ends, the Parliament will hold control over part of the oil revenues.”

Zahir stared at him. It was so…un-Saudi that he found it impossible to believe…and then he understood in a flash of insight. If he created the Parliament, Prince Salim and his immediate family might continue to hold vast influence…while the rest of the Royal Family would hold almost nothing. Parliament’s control over the finances would lead, rapidly and completely, to the end of every prince too stupid to adapt.

“Women will, of course, have the vote as well,” Prince Salim said, almost meditatively. Zahir wondered suddenly if the prince was placing so many time bombs into the picture just to make life impossible for the other princes, should they try to resist. “Saudi Arabia will go forward, once the Posleen are defeated.”

“A quid pro quo,” Zahir said, lost in admiration. It was more than impressive; it was brilliant. “Everyone works together to defeat the Posleen, they get the reward.”

“Exactly,” Prince Salim said. He smiled. “You have questions?”

“Several,” Zahir said. They floated around in his mind, demanding precedence. “The first question is the most important one; can you – we – defeat the Posleen?”

Prince Salim frowned. “We can, but try,” he said. “Everything is in Allah’s hands…and in him we place all of our trust. All we can do is try to be worthy of him – and, let’s face it, our track record is not that good.”

Chapter Thirty-Four: All Quiet on the Saudi Front, Take Two

Mecca, Saudi Arabia
14th May 2006

The television was showing an image, right in front of the three men facing it. Prince Salim’s photograph was displayed as the recording continued, seemingly unending in its shaking the foundations of the world right to their roots. “We can, but try,” he said. “Everything is in Allah’s hands…and in him we place all of our trust. All we can do is try to be worthy of him – and, let’s face it, our track record is not that good.”

Mullah Bihar hit the control hard enough to break it. “That…”

Words failed him. He coughed several times and forced himself to calm. “That bastard has wiped away years of progress towards generating a proper Islamic state,” he hissed. “Our track record is not good, indeed! His people, the Princes, corrupted the people…and now he’s stuck the knife in our backs!”

Al Jazeera had been surprisingly reluctant to broadcast the entire recording, which wasn’t like them at all, but they had managed finally to broadcast parts of it. Complete copies had been circulating on the Internet for days; Mullah Bihar had known the content long before he’d seen it himself in person. Even so, his horror was genuine, if overacted. It was important to impress that on them.

“You saw what had happened,” he said, turning to Sara. His anger was great enough to forget that she was a woman, even if the sense of overwhelming…wrongness remained. “What have they done to the city?”

Sara’s voice was very dry. Her very return was proof that some of the old constants continued to dominate Saudi life; a quick infusion of money and she’d been permitted to leave Riyadh, whatever she’d been supposed to do. Her report had been quick and factual; Hussian had summoned her back to take her place at council.

“Prince Salim has been organising the defence of the city personally,” she said. “In some ways, he has actually stripped defenders from the other cities, just to try and hold Riyadh. All men and women have been declared liable for conscription; women have actually been drilling with rifles and becoming more independent.”

There was a strong note of approval in her voice. “The mosques have the most faithful going there to pray,” she continued. “Others, mainly the young who evaded the first round of conscription, have been refusing to go at all, concentrating on newer entertainments. The defences, at least, will be fully manned and ready to fight; the mood on the streets is surprisingly upbeat.”

“See what I mean?” Mullah Bihar asked. He looked down at Osama; he looked greyer than ever before, his beard streaked with white hair. “They have shattered years of progress in developing the perfect Islamic state.”

Hussian smiled grimly. “Now you know what it means to be betrayed by the people who were supposed to lead you,” he said. His face grew into a mischievous smile. “What, exactly, does that mean for us?”

“It means that Prince Salim will mount a sustained assault upon our power base within the Kingdom,” Mullah Bihar said. He glanced at Osama again; the Great Sheik said nothing. His thoughts were elsewhere. “His people do know where many of our supporters are; they will attempt to destroy them, to force them out of the circles of power. Indeed, he has no choice; they will seek to fight him and…”

“The Iraqis give him an edge,” Sara said. There was a hint of admiration in her tone. “As long as they remain loyal to him – and, after what happened, they will remain loyal to him – he can use them to smash open dissent. He won’t need the religious police anymore – he’s sending them out of the cities, those that escaped the crowds – and he won’t even need his fellow princes. He’s won; it’s as simple as that.”

Mullah Bihar thought cold thoughts about women. They never knew what was good for them. The movement didn’t treat them the way it did out of sick amusement, whatever some of the lower-ranking members of the organisation thought; it was necessary to preserve their modesty and the honour of their families. Their outburst at the religious police – outdoing even the Afghani women for sheer violence – hadn’t surprised him; was it not written that something good could sometimes look evil?

“And that, I take it, is your opinion,” he sneered. He got a sudden flickering sense of boiling rage from behind Sara’s burka. “I believe that you were talking about plans to remove the American behind the throne?”

Sara’s voice remained even, but with an undercurrent that suggested a fight to hold her temper in check. “We would be unsuccessful at the moment,” she said. Her voice became thoughtful. “The American is well protected, both in his quarters in the Ministry of Defence and the Embassy, which has been downgraded since the Posleen landed in America.”

“He is throwing the opportunity away,” Osama said, suddenly. His voice was distant, far from reality. “This is the perfect opportunity, with America under constant attack from the Posleen, to build a perfect state. Old certainties are falling everywhere, but the scourge of Allah will remain, unless we strike against the Americans behind the throne.”

Mullah Bihar blinked. Under other circumstances, he would have ignored such a statement; coming from Osama, it had to be taken seriously. “Striking at the American will be difficult,” he said, carefully. “The Posleen are the greater threat…and they will reach Mecca soon.”

“I have considered striking at the American during the Posleen attack on the defence lines,” Sara injected. “It would be fairly simple to launch the attack while the American is under pressure and the city is panicking; if that line falls, Riyadh will fall as well.”

“Unless the Posleen don’t challenge the defence line at all,” Hussian said, after a moment. “They need…food too, along with water; they don’t have that much outside the cities here, do they?”

“They’ll come to Riyadh,” Osama said. His voice sounded more collected now. “They have to come because they are Allah’s punishment upon the fallen ones. If they fail in their duty, they will displease Allah; they will go to Riyadh…unless we take over first.”

Sara’s voice sounded astonished. “We could not take over the city,” she said. “Prince Salim has purged many of our supporters” – she didn’t mention that most of their supporters had faced a howling mob, out for revenge – “and it would be impossible for us to continue to claim to be working with the government. We don’t have enough people to impose ourselves by main force, either.”

Osama’s voice grew stronger. “Shut your mouth, slut,” he snapped. The sudden outrage in his voice shocked even Mullah Bihar. “This is a question of faith, woman; we have to show that we are willing to Allah and he will reward us!”

Sara’s hand, under her robe, seemed to show the shape of something hard. Mullah Bihar doubted that she was pleased to see Osama, or even himself. He wondered, in a moment of black humour, if she intended to shoot all of them and declare herself bitch queen of the universe; she certainly was crazy enough to try. She might even get away with it too.

“Allah will not reward us for throwing away our advantage,” Sara said. Osama’s eyes widened; he’d suddenly seen the weapon hidden under her robes. Her voice grew harder. “I was there when we tried to claim back what we deserved from the Jews; we launched our strike too soon and we were crushed. Were it not for western public opinion, the Jews would have exterminated us – and that would have been the end of Palestine.

“Yes, we could attempt to take over,” she continued. “I do not believe that we would succeed. We could kill Prince Salim and his bodyguards, but then the Iraqis would run rampant all over the city. Once that happens, any hope of a united defence will be lost, along with the coordinating system.”

“Allah is on our side,” Osama insisted. His voice had almost become pleading. “He will see to it that the people take up arms in the defence of Islam.”

Mullah Bihar winced. Tens of thousands had indeed come – to Mecca. The fighters had other problems; despite a strict rationing system, they were running low on supplies – and, if Riyadh fell, even the small amount coming in from the Saudi Government would be lost. It wasn’t the time to make a bold strike for power, not with the Posleen only a few days from Riyadh; what would happen if the Posleen attacked during the coup?

Sara’s voice darkened. “I will not spend our lives and weaken our defence here because of your delusions of grandeur,” she snapped. Mullah Bihar winced at her tone. Madness seemed to flicker through her every word; his head seemed to hurt when she spoke, as if the world had turned upside down. “We can – and we will – take out the American; that should force Prince Salim to take part in a proper alliance against the Posleen. We will, for the moment, make a tactical concession; we will not insist on rebuilding what we have just lost over the last few days. That will not last, but once we have defeated the Posleen, we should have the ability to impose our will.”

Mullah Bihar spoke quickly. “Then I believe that we should agree to kill the American,” he said. “A further attempt to gain power would be counter-productive at this time.”

Osama’s face flickered, but he said nothing. “Good,” Hussian said. “Sara, please would you see to it?” Sara nodded. “Now,” Hussian continued, “what about the food supply?”

Mullah Bihar scowled. “We are very short of sources of supply,” he said, and felt the temperature of the room drop. “The…events in the Sudan have never been patched up, and of course the Sudanese leader, that man Floid, refuses to send us any food.”

“They are refusing to take part in the defence of Mecca,” Osama said. His voice seemed to be regaining its strength. “They have to be punished for falling aside from the true path!”

“I don’t believe that that is going to be a problem,” Mullah Bihar reassured him. “The Posleen are grinding their way through the African nations, one after the other, after all. They will catch Floid and eat him, and then they will eat the rest of them.”

“That is not helpful,” Hussian said, his voice sardonic. He spoke as if he were speaking to a child. “We need to eat, my dear Bihar; if we do not eat, we get hungry and then we die.”

Mullah Bihar’s eyes flashed daggers. “I understand that,” he said. “Where do you intend to get food from? The Egyptians don’t like us and they have little enough as it is; they certainly don’t want to have food riots and revolutions. The Jews wouldn’t bother to pass water for us to drink, let alone anything else. The Syrians would praise Allah to the skies if we all dropped dead. The Iraqis have dropped dead. The Iranians are in the process of dropping dead, with some help from the Posleen. Where else?”

Hussian sighed. “I do not know,” he admitted. “Indonesia?”

“I very much doubt that they would be willing to feed us,” Mullah Bihar said. “In fact, they have a dangerously independent line of thought on…”

“The Posleen,” Osama said, suddenly. “There are thousands of Posleen bodies around, are there not?” Mullah Bihar nodded. “Then we can have them brought here, roasted, and eaten,” Osama said. His voice was very reasonable.”

There was a long pause.

“I would sooner die,” Sara said, her voice icy. “The Posleen are unlikely to be edible.”

“The Americans say that they are not edible,” Hussian said, softly. “They cause brain damage, internal damage, and death. Eating humans is bad enough, Osama; humans carry diseases that can be…unfortunate to other humans. Pork, in its own way, is similar; that is why those who eat pork have to cook it thoroughly. People who don’t get ill; its as simple as that.”

His voice tightened. “I do not believe that eating Posleen will be good for our health,” he concluded. “We could always throw out those who can’t or won’t fight; the children, some of the women, even some of the men…”

“All the men will fight for Islam,” Osama said firmly. “The women can go, if they want to go; the children can be sent to camps in the centre of the desert, where they will be raised in the proper manner.”

Hussian’s voice was shocked. “And what, exactly, will they eat?”

“It hardly matters,” Osama said. “Our task, here, is to defend Mecca; we will do it using every resource we have on hand, including chemical weapons.”

“Which the Iraqis proved are ineffective against the Posleen,” Sara said softly. Her voice was disdainful. “We might as well gas ourselves and save them the trouble.”

“We will defend this city, whatever it takes,” Osama said. “Allah Ackbar!”

***
Somehow, I don’t think that Allah is going to be too pleased with him, Sara thought coldly, as she walked back to her personal rooms in what had once been the hotel for the Royal Family when they had come on Haji. She cared little for the lives of the children – who had been eating food that was better saved for fighting men and women – but the use of them was a waste; they would have been used better in some attack on the Posleen. Evicting them into camps that didn’t exist and were likely to lead to them swiftly dying, was…wasteful.

Her bodyguards stood aside as she approached, revealing an overwhelming weakness of the Saudi system, one that she’d taken care never to point out. Her burka was hardly as unique as a General’s uniform; she could have been anyone, under the veil. She had been, on occasion; more than once, she had used other women in her place. Inside, the luxurious room was completely soundproof; the princes had used it for engaging in forbidden sexual acts in the Holy City. The guards couldn’t have heard her if she’d screamed at the top of her voice.

She looked into the bedroom and nodded to herself; a moment later, her robes dropped to the floor, revealing a body that was tough and well-formed. She would never be gorgeously beautiful – her scars meant that she could never stand to look into a mirror – but she was fit and toned for the life she led; a single scar stretched across her breast. The girl on the bed looked up as she entered, her eyes revealing her panic; well brought-up girls just didn’t act in the way that Sara had made her act.

“Come here,” Sara said, her voice commanding. The girl, a Saudi native who had shown promise, climbed out of bed; moments later, Sara had forced her to her knees, commanding her to lick. As her tongue started to work its magic between Sara’s thighs, she relaxed slightly, but not enough to let go of the girl.

“Good,” she said finally. The girl scurried away, leaving a naked Sara to lie on the bed, plotting. She wasn’t foolish enough to sleep with the girl, no matter how much she would have liked that; she had actually considered arranging for a male sex slave. It would not have done her reputation any good, however; it would have given Osama a heart attack. “Bring me water and some food.”

The girl’s bare behind winked at Sara as she headed into the kitchen. It still bore the marks of her last punishment; Sara had soundly strapped her for disobedience. She had also told her, that if she disobeyed again, Sara would throw her to the men; they would use the girl up without a thought. As she ate, Sara thought cold thoughts; she was starting to become really sick of Osama. He might have been a rallying point at one time, but now he was just a nuisance…

“Sexist bastard,” she muttered under her breath. The plans to remove the American – along with several others who would get in her way – were well advanced; Osama hadn’t known, but the plans were going to go ahead anyway. “I should kill him now and save everyone a lot of trouble in the future.”

It would have horrified Hussian, who had placed a lot of faith in Osama; Sara knew that Osama would betray them as soon as he could. Oh, he talked a good game, but in the end a person like that would never be satisfied until he controlled everyone, no matter where they were. Nothing could hide the fact that his brand of Islam was tailor-made for conquest; it had literally been made that way.

Sara, at least, knew when to stop. Osama knew nothing of the sort.

Her mind danced backwards and forwards, considering possibilities; her group of warrior women could fight for her and – with a little training – would be equally as good as any of Osama’s forces. Used properly, they were a power base that no one suspected; not even Hussian knew the extent of Sara’s plans and preparations for the liberation of Palestine. Osama – and his right-hand man – were literally incapable of even conceiving of the possibility. For them, women had been placed on Earth to be used and then discarded; they didn’t understand that if Allah had not intended women to reason, he would not have made them reasonable.

The thought of what had happened to the religious police made her smile. Osama hadn’t drawn the right lesson; Sara herself could and did. The time of Osama and his people was coming to an end…

She summoned the girl back to her presence and opened her legs. As the girl bent to obey, her tongue simulating Sara towards orgasm, she relaxed into a series of happy thoughts, starting with Osama’s head on a pike. Once he was dead, who knew what would happen then…?

Chapter Thirty-Five: All Quiet on the Saudi Front, Take Three

North-East of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
20th May 2006

Kalid had seriously expected to die days after the Posleen had overrun the border defences; he knew all too well that the defence lines near the capital city were weaker in almost every category than the border defences, despite the extra surprise that his men had been preparing. The Posleen would have a terrible shock, but he had no illusions as to how long it would hold them; hours at best.

Now, perhaps, there was a chance. Kalid had heard from his father – and his wife – what had happened in Riyadh. He wasn’t sure at all how to feel about it; like most young men who weren’t actually Princes, he hated the Princes and disliked the religious police, but at the same time…did he really want his wife walking about on the streets, unveiled? The decision had been taken for him, he hadn’t been surprised to hear; Fatima had been volunteered to work as an assistant medic.

It was that, more than anything else, that had finally brought it home to Kalid that the Saudi Government, now under the control of one man, was finally taking the war seriously. Thousands of additional labourers - guest workers, citizens, even a handful of princes under probation – had been dispatched to work on the defence lines, along with dozens of additional weapons. There would be two main defence lines, according to the plan; one in front of the city on a least-time walk, at Posleen speeds, a second along the eastern coastline, hopefully preventing the Posleen from surrounding the city. The second defence line, he knew, existed largely on paper; the Posleen might not even notice if they went charging past.

The map in front of him worried him. Tribesmen had been recruited to spy on the Posleen from a far distance, along with army intelligence officials and – he’d heard – Mossard agents, all communicating their reports to Prince Salim. Francis had been full of praise, at least, for the decision to share everything with Kalid, who had been appointed the tactical commander of the defence line. That, more than anything else, showed just how far Saudi Arabia had fallen.

“You shouldn’t have the job,” Francis had told him, bluntly. “You have only been in the army for what? Six years? Your people have killed off most of the experienced generals they had, insofar as any of you have any real experience at all.”

Kalid smiled, remembering; he had understood the comment. Now, finally, some experienced foreigners were actually being ordered to take on roles within the defence force, rather than just serving as advisors; Sergeant Philippe Laroche had been practically commanding an entire section of the front. Other additions to his force had been welcome, including additional guns dragged up from Oman and even some soldiers from the Gulf States. As the Posleen expanded along the coastline, they were still forcing people to flee; thousands had been heading towards Riyadh, trying to find safety there.

“That is what they have to do,” Francis had said, relaying what the Americans had figured out from studying the Posleen. The Americans had taken a beating from the alien enemy, but they were still in the fight; Africa was swiftly becoming hollowed out as the Posleen force smashed anything that humanity could place against it. “They need water and they need food; they can’t risk blundering around in the desert, not when they’ll be eating themselves within a week.”

Kalid remembered overlaying two maps; an Iraqi population distribution map and a chart showing where the Posleen had landed. They matched perfectly; the Posleen had landed in the most densely population regions of Iraq, spreading out towards the mountains and Iran, where they were munching their way towards Tehran. The Iranians had had a larger, more experienced army than Saudi Arabia…and they were losing. The thought didn’t amuse Kalid at all, knowing what could happen when the Posleen hit Saudi Arabia could be worse than what had happened in Iran…

“Brooding, lad?” Francis asked. Kalid looked up sharply; he hadn’t even noticed Francis slipping into the tent. The ex-French Army officer gave him a twisted smile. “It is not good to brood.”

“I was just thinking about the war and what will happen,” Kalid said, waving for Francis to take a seat. Somehow, he found it hard to put on airs and graces in front of Francis; the Sergeant had known him when he’d been a young cadet, then a Captain, and then being kicked all the way up to General. He’d done all that without seeing the Posleen as more than lights in the sky; the thought chilled him. He’d gotten the job because most of the others were dead or princes.

Francis shrugged. “You haven’t made many mistakes in your planning, lad,” he said, seriously. Kalid smiled; praise from Francis made everything worthwhile. “You need more weapons and defences, of course, but no one ever has enough of them. Remember that; you don’t want a fair fight between a good big un and a good little un. You want to be the biggest, baddest bastard on the block; you want to fight tiny midgets, ones that you can crush in your first blow.”

He sighed. “And if France had paid more attention to that advice, the military history of France wouldn’t have included so many defeats,” he said. “We always have a habit of getting into fights with people whom we were confident that we could thrash – and a few years before, it would have been right too.”

Kalid felt his lips twitch. “That seems…unsporting,” he said, after a moment. “What about the glory of war and all that nonsense?”

Francis shook his head slowly. “In Europe, there are people who talk about how wonderful medieval France was,” he said. “We talk about how we thrashed the British during the time of Queens Mary and Elizabeth, as if thrashing a woman made it easier to win. We talk about knights in armour, about jousting before the King and his men, about how Paris was worth a mass, and…

“Complete bloody bollocks, as an old friend of mine from the SAS would have said,” he continued. “The British might be bastards, but they’re tough bastards; I imagine that when the Posleen finally land in Britain, the British will be the last to be defeated by the Posleen. Coming to think of it, the bastards might actually be able to destroy the Posleen force on the ground pretty quickly; their land is shaped fairly well for that.”

He shook his head. “It was complete bloody bollocks,” he said. “Back then, war was harsh and unpleasant and if someone got scratched, it would kill them. The lords ruled everything – the last real government France had was Napoleon; now there was a man to fear – and the peasants had to obey, or else. The soldiers came into a region, devastated it, took the women and the food…and the commoners starved and died as the fighting raged on. We learnt bugger all from that; the lords and masters never cared about how many people were killed in their fighting – the shits even had special rules for how princes could be treated.”

He spat, once. “It wouldn’t do to have the common people seeing aristocrats dying,” he said. “It might give them ideas.”

Kalid felt moved to protest. “But princes were torn apart by the mob in Riyadh,” he said, aware that he had revealed a detail that proved that he had a source in the city. That detail hadn’t been discussed on Al Jazeera. “Won’t that give us ideas?”

“You’re married to a princess,” Francis reminded him. “Did you have ideas?”

Kalid said nothing. “This new government you have is not going to last,” Francis said. “You know this as well as I do; your government was weak, too weak to control its own people. Now you have a government that is all too willing to interfere…and lacks the precedents that allow it to get away with doing it. There will be opposition – do you know why you haven’t been called back to man the walls?”

The official explanation was that the Posleen could be stopped before they reached the walls, Kalid knew; Prince Salim had explained it to him personally. It was also a flawed explanation; his force simply wasn’t large enough to man the defence line and adapting the newcomers to the force was taking time. It would have been a total disaster if the Posleen attacked a week ago; now, Kalid could only hope that he'd done enough.

He smiled, suddenly. The Posleen wouldn’t be expecting his surprise. The only question was why no one had thought of it before.

“No,” he said. Prince Salim’s claim had been unreasonable; the force would be far deadlier if concentrated in a target that the Posleen had to attack, such as Riyadh. The trail of refugees would lead them on to the city, even assuming that they didn’t follow any of the roads on their murderous march along the coastline. He’d wondered if Riyadh’s position would save it, but he knew that it would be dangerous to rely on it.

He looked up at Francis. “I see,” he said slowly. At least one conclusion was inescapable. “Why were we not called back to the walls?”

Francis took a breath. “It’s obvious,” he said. “Prince Salim doesn’t trust you and he doesn’t trust your men. If he trusted you, he would have brought you back to the city…and if he only distrusted you, he would have had you killed by now.”

Kalid felt his blood run cold. “I have always been loyal,” he protested, rewriting history a little. “When did I last commit treason?”

Francis snorted. “Did you never wonder what life would be like if the Princes all dropped dead?”

“We knew how badly the Princes behaved,” Kalid said slowly. They’d known about it all the time. “We knew what they did – my father had to pay massive bribes just to get what he needed to run his business, from permits to resources. We knew that they broke the rules with glee; we knew that they all soaked up money. Yes, we knew…and we hated.”

“And yet you did nothing,” Francis said. His voice darkened. “Choice must be limited, I suppose.”

“Enough,” Kalid said, sharply. “Yes, I did wonder; now, I have some actual power in life…”

“And you don’t want to rock the boat,” Francis said. “Except…if you lose this battle, the Posleen will kill you, and if you win, Prince Salim will kill you. He won’t have a choice; one-man rule depends on keeping everyone else down, including military officers who have showed themselves to be dangerously competent.”

Kalid flushed. “I have not yet proven myself in battle,” he said. “I have no victories to my credit.”

Francis leaned forward. “You could have spent your childhood reading Nathan Elliot, your teenage years reading Tom Clancy and your adult years reading Dale Brown…and you would be far more prepared than any of the people that the Princes allowed to reach high rank,” he said. “If there is one thing that people like Prince Salim fear, it’s someone with genuine competence and genuine popular appeal. I think you had better start thinking about some options for that day.”

Kalid stood up. “I have a battle to win,” he snapped. “If the Posleen come here…”

“When the Posleen come here,” Francis corrected, mildly.

“I will have to command this force in battle,” Kalid continued, ignoring the interruption. “It’s going to be hard enough to coordinate this force without worrying about something like that.”

“You have no choice,” Francis said. “You see, I know that Prince Salim is already considering that…and you have to keep the army reasonably intact, just to hold as much of Saudi as you can. You have to start thinking about fallback options.”

“A retreat under Posleen attack seems to be tricky, Francis,” Kalid reminded him. It was lethal; the Posleen could run faster than humans and they took more killing. There had been hand-to-hand fights between humans and Posleen; the Posleen have almost always won. “We have to hold them, or die…”

Francis smiled. “And your new weapon?”

“It might just work,” Kalid said, thinking about the concept. “Come on; I wanted to inspect the defence lines before lunch, anyway.”

Francis smiled, but followed him out; he assumed a subordinate position as they came into the sunlight. The defence line had been built in the middle of a flat plain, something that Kalid regretted; the Posleen might not be that imaginative, but surely even they had to see the foolishness of hurling themselves against a defence line. On the other hand, he supposed, the desert was bare; the humans had all fallen back towards Riyadh, hiding behind its defences. Perhaps…

He accepted a salute from the commander of a construction company, watching as the blockhouses were lowered into position. The whole idea had seemed crazy to him, when he’d first heard about it, but right back at the start a Prince had accepted the idea and funded it; concrete bunkers and blockhouses, all of which could be lowered into a pre-dug trench and secured firmly in position. Once a team was inside, with a set of weapons, even the Posleen would have problems penetrating it without a direct hit.

“We found inexcusable weaknesses in some of the bunkers,” Francis commented grimly, speaking out of the side of his mouth. A group of religious policemen passed by, under the grim eyes of Sergeant Philippe Laroche, who seemed to be having too much fun drilling them. Catcalls and insults followed them, echoing out of the trenches; Kalid had heard that their former victims among the armed men had assaulted some of them, even killing a pair. He found it hard to care.

“I see,” Kalid said, dragging his mind back to the here and now. He didn’t think that the former religious police were much good for anything, but perhaps they would soak up a few Posleen bullets or energy blasts. “What’s the outcome?”

“Some of them will have to be broken up and worked into the trenches,” Francis said. “I think you have to ensure that the owner of the company receives a quick trip into the hellfire for that; he’s put the lives of the men at risk.”

“I’ll see to it,” Kalid said. General’s rank had to be good for something, after all; the Prince behind the scheme might be dead, but if he was, Kalid could still drop a hammer on the person who did the construction. “Now, what about the other defences?”

Seen from his watchtower, as they scrambled up the ladder, the defence lines were impressive; a massive series of trenches, intermingled with bunkers, blockhouses, and the occasional heavy weapon designed to bring down a lander. Israel had sent a few along, with the droll comment that they needed field-testing; Kalid wasn’t sure if he should be grateful, or severely irritated at the idea that the weapons needed testing. Pre-positioned artillery had been placed outside the defence line, when attached to trailers; the Posleen would be hammered right from the moment they walked into range.

“The mining department reports that they have exhausted their supply of mines,” Francis said, as they surveyed the scene. “They have requested more from Riyadh, but there’s a shortage of mines; some cities have actually been refusing to release the weapons they have stockpiled – see what I mean about people opposing the new government?”

Kalid was horrified. “Don’t they care about stopping the Posleen?”

Francis smiled. “I believe that some of them consider the aliens less of a threat than your new government,” he said, rather dryly. He nodded towards the road, leading directly through the defence position and straight towards Riyadh. “That road needs to be mined, General.”

“I know,” Kalid said. If the supply of mines ran out, then mining the road would be difficult – and the Posleen tended to follow roads. They had come close to leaving them a clear pathway through the mines. “I trust that we have plenty of weapons?”

Francis waved a hand at the masses of support vehicles. “Less than I would like to have, but more than I expected,” he said. “God only knows where that American dug up those rocket launchers, but…we’ll give the Posleen one hell of a fight, if nothing else. Perhaps…you’ll win the battle after all, and then what?”

Kalid rounded on him. “What is your game?” He demanded. “What is the point of all this?”

“I love Arabia,” Francis said, looking at the ground. “I have been in here, working for one group after another, in a lot of petty small wars that few people have heard about, let alone know who’s fighting and why. I would like, for once, to meet an Arab country that was something reassembling decent. Most of them engage in brutal verbal attacks on the western world…and are sinful beyond belief.”

“I see,” Kalid said, unsure if he believed him. There was something about the entire discussion that set off alarm bells in his mind. “Sergeant…”

“General,” his communications officer shouted, from below the watchtower. His voice sent an electric tingle down Kalid’s spine; he knew, before he was told, what the message was. “Urgent report!”

Kalid took the pole down to the ground; it was quicker. “Thank you, Lieutenant,” he said, unable to believe that he’d been of the same rank, not so long ago. “What’s happening?”

“A report from the scouts,” the Lieutenant said. Kalid was only dimly aware of Francis behind him as the news fell on him. “The Posleen are on the move…and they’ll be here in a day or perhaps two.”

“Thank you,” Kalid said, as calmly as he could. He looked up at Francis. “I think that we need to move faster on the defences…and the secret weapon.”

Chapter Thirty-Six: It’s Always Fun…

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
21st May 2006

“They’re coming,” Morrigan said. The War Room was very quiet – not just because a number of officers who had been there before had been summarily dismissed from the service and sent to handle commands hopefully out of the battlezone. The handful of remaining dispatchers had been promoted; efficiency had more than doubled.

The information remained scanty; all of the normal methods for tracking attackers had been destroyed by the Posleen. Satellites had been wiped out of the sky, human intelligence agents had been eaten by the Posleen, the tribesmen had retreated from the area. The Posleen advance was noted by scouts alone – and the loss of small villages as the Posleen overran them. There were thousands – millions – of refugees, leading the Posleen directly on towards the city; Morrigan knew that some of the Princes had actually urged ordering the refugees shot, just to prevent them from leading the Posleen on.

Prince Salim, whatever else he had done, hadn’t agreed with that. Refugee bodies would only feed the Posleen anyway; Morrigan had agreed with him, although not for the same reasons. He would never have ordered soldiers to fire on innocent citizens; he knew that some bridges had had to be blown near Washington, along with the people on them, but that wasn’t likely to be a problem in Saudi Arabia; bridges over rivers that might slow the Posleen down were few and far between.

“This will be our finest hour,” Prince Salim said, softly. Morrigan’s lips twitched; Prince Salim was unlikely to be a future Churchill. Final hour, more like; if the Posleen weren’t stopped at the defence line, they would overrun Riyadh with ease. “Allah grant that we are victorious upon this day.”

“Perhaps,” Morrigan commented, watching how the Posleen were deploying. A massive bulge of red was stretching out towards Riyadh, passing along the roads that had been built in the aftermath of the first Posleen invasion, while the main force was marching along the coast. Bahrain might survive – it was an island, after all – but Morrigan wouldn’t have placed money on Qatar, or Dubai, or the UAE. None of them had been able to raise a proper army, despite the vast wealth that many of them possessed; Kuwait had been smashed, after all.

He shook his head slowly. The Posleen would march along the coastline, their weapons brushing aside all opposition, eating until they reached Mecca. Along they way, they would exterminate all human opposition; their forces had marched into Tehran and proved, once and for all, that human attempts to use the wave tactic against the Posleen failed. The Posleen had simply slaughtered them, along with suicide bombers and the fanatical Revolutionary Guard. The Posleen would link up with other Posleen forces – if the aliens even thought that way – and continue the conquest of Earth.

Once that had happened, he knew, only the human settlements on Federation worlds would be left…

“I have issued the orders,” Prince Salim said softly. He was still his own Minister of War; he’d altered the title to suit what they now faced. “Everything will be used to take on the Posleen and win.”

Morrigan nodded slowly. “If the Posleen break through the lines, what then?”

Prince Salim smiled. “We will stand here, fight, and die, perhaps,” he said. He hesitated. “It’s too late to order a withdrawal?”

Morrigan looked up at the map, updating itself as the Posleen overran human settlements, sending scouts fleeing for their lives. “Yes,” he said, flatly. Prince Salim’s political concerns might just have cost him the war. “If you do it now, the Posleen will catch the army on the hop and slaughter the men.”

He looked into Prince Salim’s eyes. “It’s too late,” he said, wishing that he had managed to convince Salim earlier. “We have to stand and fight now…”

“Your people have left the Embassy,” Prince Salim said. Morrigan nodded; the Ambassador and his staff would take a fast, low-flying aircraft to Oman, where they would board an American submarine for the trip home. Whatever happened, they would have no one left to ambassador to; the Posleen wouldn’t be interested in respecting American citizenship, and some of the extremists would be delighted to slaughter Americans.

“And you’re still here,” Prince Salim continued. “You could leave, if you want…”

“I want to see how it all ends,” Morrigan said. The map altered itself again; the Posleen clearly knew exactly where the city was, they would have seen it from orbit when they were landing. Finally, they were beginning their grab for the rest of the middle east – and the human population that would feed them on their long march, a long march that would terminate when every human was dead.

“Very brave,” Prince Salim said. “Perhaps very stupid, but very brave…”

“Thanks,” Morrigan said. “Don’t worry, I’ll run for it if the Posleen come to eat the city.”

“You should,” Prince Salim said. “Someone has to tell what happened here.”

Morrigan looked up at the map, shrouded in red, and shuddered. “I think the world will know,” he said. “The Posleen came, saw, and devoured.”

North-East of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
21st May 2006

Kalid sensed the Posleen long before they came into view, a strange feeling of…alienness, something that chilled him to the bone. The scouts had been reporting as the Posleen marched directly towards them; either the Posleen wanted to engage the defences directly or they just didn’t care. He wasn’t sure which thought chilled him more; the determination to exterminate the army or the unconcern. Did the Posleen even notice their losses?

He wanted to make a speech, but words failed him; he issued orders from his bunker and waited. The watchtower would make a Posleen target right from the start, along with his handful of vehicles; remaining low was the only way to remain alive. He scowled, refusing to show the fear that gripped at him; treating the entire battle like a tactical exercise seemed to be the only way to remain calm.

“They’ll hit the eastern side of the defences,” Francis said, his voice surprisingly eager for the fight. He’d told Kalid, once, that he liked to fight and France had never provided him with a proper war. Despite the endless threat of the Posleen, the French hadn’t worked to their utmost to produce an army; the force they had was limited in size and scope. “Reinforcements will have to go there.”

Kalid nodded, issuing orders. The Posleen would be entering gunnery range soon; he wanted to hammer them right from the start, wearing them down before they could reach the lines and engage themselves at point-blank range. Could the Posleen use human weapons? He didn’t know – he couldn’t think of any example – but just because they had no artillery of their own didn’t mean that they couldn’t use human weapons. If they had brought some from the border defences…

Impatient, he led the way out of the bunker, standing outside, staring towards the Posleen location. Dust was rising up, as if a massive line of vehicles was advancing towards him; the Posleen were coming and they were greedy. The sense of an alien presence only grew stronger; he wondered, suddenly, if the dust was doing anything to Posleen weapons? It certainly damaged human weapons; tanks and trucks had to be adapted for use in the desert.

“The Posleen are approaching the first shelling range,” the artillery commander reported. A complex network of pre-calibrated guns had been laid down, targeting across a wide range of possible approach paths; the Posleen were advancing into a trap, but their superior firepower might give them the ability to blast their way out of the trap. “General?”

Kalid had to smile. The commander had served longer than he had, by an order of magnitude. He hadn’t hidden his concern about his youthful commander, Kalid had noticed; he found it hard to blame him. His rugged face concealed a mind that was cunning and devious; Kalid had listened to some of his suggestions and loved them. It was the first time that the commander had ever been able to practice his art…

“Fire as soon as they enter bombardment range,” Kalid said. The Posleen themselves had logistic problems; they would need water and food, and only the food was easy to obtain. Scouts had tried to poison each and every oasis, but the Posleen had drunk them dry anyway. Poison seemed not to affect them at all.

“Yes, sir,” the commander said. “Weapons ready and…”

BOOM! The guns fired, as one; shells whistled though the air. Kalid’s ears rang; he pressed his ear protectors closer to his ears. The guns had been carefully positioned to hammer the Posleen were more firepower than they had ever faced; the only question was who would run out first. Would the Posleen be wiped out before the gunners ran out of shells? BOOM! BOOM! It seemed that nothing could resist such an attack; humans would melt away as if they were nothing. BOOM!

The sound of explosions echoed back, in between the rumble of the guns. Black smoke drifted up from where the Posleen marched, sending Kalid’s hopes souring. Perhaps the Posleen were dying now, under the guns; perhaps…

“There,” Francis said. Kalid saw and winced; the Posleen had clearly survived the first attack. As other guns opened fire, the Posleen drawing closer and closer to their targets, he saw the Posleen clearly for the first time. They marched on and on, moving faster and faster as they charged towards the minefield, and then they leapt into action. Seeing the humans, perhaps directed by the God King hanging high over their heads, they spread out and charged.

The first mines exploded.

“Die, you bastards, die,” Francis shouted, into the air. The mines were exploding, shattering Posleen bodies…and they kept coming. A wounded Posleen forced himself further on, dragging his body across a second mine, clearing the mines by force of numbers. Kalid felt his mouth fall open; no one had warned him…and no one could have expected it. As the Posleen came on, they cleared the mines by pressure alone. The Posleen moved over their bodies and…they just kept coming.

“Clear all guns to fire,” Kalid said, seeing what was developing. The Posleen were far too likely to punch through the first trench, which would give him time to use the special weapon, but at the same time, it would certainly disrupt his people. Almost all of them were untested, even fewer had actually seen the Posleen…he looked at the alien mass, charging on, its weapons flaring out towards the humans, and knew terror.

Shells exploded within the Posleen mass, and they kept coming. Alien blood and gore splashed everywhere…and they just kept coming. Their own weapons were having an effect; they’d certainly learned much from their previous battles. He wondered if one of the God Kings had been at the border battle, or even the fatal battle in Iraq; the Posleen were using their HVMs to pick off human targets with ease. The sheer weight of fire, much of it landing in the trenches, was having an effect; how could it not? Trenches were ripped apart, blown open, and hundreds of humans were caught in the blasts and killed.

He’d dared to hope that they could stop the Posleen before they reached the defence line, but he saw now that that was not to be. Some of the Posleen were even using their weapons to clear paths through the mines and he felt chilled; what happened if they accidentally destroyed their secret weapon?

“Keep firing,” he ordered. He lifted his own weapon and added his own fire to the stream pouring onto the Posleen, who died in the hundreds, the thousands, and kept coming. “Don’t let them have a moment to think!”

A sniper picked off one of the God Kings. Confusion seemed to grip the Posleen for a long moment, and then another reasserted control; the Posleen poured fire towards the snipers location. An entire sand dune was literally blown away, along with the sniper; the sheer violence almost sent Kalid out of his senses. The Posleen were reaching the first line of defences…and he knew that it wouldn’t be enough. They just kept coming!

***
Captain Abdul-Hakam told himself that he wasn’t scared; he had the formidable Sergeant Philippe Laroche beside him. At the moment, he didn’t envy Kalid either; the young man would have to handle the entire war front somehow. Abdul-Hakam’s problems were quite bad enough; the Posleen were charging the first set of trenches, moving faster than he had believed possible.

“Focus the machine gun fire,” Abdul-Hakam snapped, to some of the younger conscripts. The Posleen – and this was yet another unfairness in life – were tough enough to take an entire burst of machine gun fire and keep coming. Experiments with explosive bullets, he’d heard, hadn’t been successful; they certainly hadn’t provided anything that would affect the Posleen. “Concentrate your fire!”

The Posleen raged on towards them. He fired desperately as the Posleen smashed into the first trench, slaughtering his people as they strove to fight them off. He’d planned for that, expected it; some of his men held AK-47s and used them to fire on the Posleen in the trenches, trying to keep the heavier weapons away from the Posleen. The Posleen brushed them aside, their own weapons tearing great chunks out of the human soldiers.

“Clear them out,” Laroche was shouting, somehow contriving to have his voice heard over the deafening racket of guns, guns, and more guns. Grenades were thrown, aimed right at the Posleen; Abdul-Hakam saw a Posleen literally bite a grenade out of midair, before exploding when the grenade burst in its chest. The Posleen lashed forwards, through the trenches, and Abdul-Hakam knew that they’d lost the first set.

“Pull back,” he snapped, hoping that the gunners would be able to provide covering fire. The Posleen seemed to have some basic instinctive understanding of some tactics; they were crouching down in the trench, using it to shield themselves from human weapons. They moved swiftly, slaughtering their way through the human forces; Abdul-Hakam saw how they chased retreating men. Humans couldn’t outrun a creature that could run faster than a horse.

“Fire,” he said, softly. The bunkers couldn’t possibly have heard him, but they opened fire anyway, firing along the trench and slaughtering Posleen who were creeping through the trench. A Posleen God King appeared through the smoke, only for a brief minute; he – it – fired a series of HVMs into the bunkers. They exploded, one after the other; human shellfire rained into the trench.

He cursed aloud. They’d put a great deal of thought into preserving a line of retreat that didn’t involve getting mown down by the Posleen as they ran across open ground; that line of retreat had just been blocked. Worse, they’d lost much of the trenches, and the Posleen were spreading out, slaughtering their way right through the final defenders of the first trench network.

He lifted his radio. “The first trench system has fallen,” he said, nodding grimly to Laroche. The Posleen would prevent any remaining humans from making their escape…and they were literally using the trench themselves to escape human weapons. A brief moment of absolute silence was broken by human guns, pouring more shells directly into the first trench network…and the blasts sent Abdul-Hakam flying to the ground. He blacked out, just for a moment; he was aware of Laroche grabbing him and pulling him along the retreating trench…

A Posleen landed right in front of them. It fired, once, at the same moment as Laroche fired his own weapon. The Posleen jerked back as a bullet hole appeared in its head, but its weapon had struck Laroche and sent him down to the ground. More Posleen appeared, with their knives…and a shell landed right on top of them, blowing them and Abdul-Hakam into the merciful arms of Allah.

***
The thunder of the guns was dimming slightly; Kalid knew that they were running out of ammunition, let alone the others supplies they needed. The Russian guns were sturdy, but they had never been designed for endless fighting; the need to include the outer trenches within the target list had delayed them from pouring fire into the oncoming mass…which seemed endless. Millions of Posleen had landed; were they all coming to Riyadh?

“The trench line is breaking,” Francis said, calmly. The Posleen had taken advantage of the slight delay in firing; thousands of them were swarming over the outer trenches, using them as shields against human fire. He cursed the decision to build the trenches so well; only a direct hit into the trench would kill Posleen…and there were thousands more when the dead Posleen came from. “I think its time.”

“Sound the retreat from the first line,” Kalid agreed, knowing that it was already too late. His old friend Abdul-Hakam was dead; he had no time to mourn. He thought of the human soldiers and winced. Was there time to get the men out before he had to use the newer weapon, or…

The shape of a God King hovered over the trench, defying the few remaining snipers, and Kalid knew that time had run out. The Posleen were already swarming forward; there could be no human survivors in the trench any longer. He could see alien forms, and knew that he needed to buy time; time was something they needed desperately. Once the Posleen punched through the defence line, Riyadh – and his wife – was as good as dead. The Posleen wouldn’t even notice who they were killing.

“Trigger the weapon,” he ordered. The thought of his wife spurred him on. “Now; don’t hesitate!”

“Yes, sir,” Francis said, his voice heavy with anticipation. He pressed a button. “Weapon engaged.”

A moment passed

Then another…

And then all hell broke loose.

Chapter Thirty-Seven:…Until Someone Loses an Eye

North-East of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
21st May 2006

The Posleen swarmed over the first trench network and moved forwards, laying down fire as they moved across open ground, distracting attention from the Posleen moving through the trenches, keeping their heads down and then…

…A massive wall of flame burst up in front of them. The wave of heat was so strong that humans in the second line of defences recoiled from the heat, watching as the Posleen were caught in the sheet of fire, blasted out right at them; the Posleen howled in pain, their discipline broken. A fearsome stench arose as the Posleen lashed around, their bodies burning under the heat; flames slashing away at them. Some of them, maddened by the sudden unexpected pain, ran towards the trenches, their bodies burning, howling alien words, alien sounds; Kalid watched as quick shots put them down.

The overall problem with mines, Kalid had known, was that the Posleen just walked across them. Some Posleen died, but they cleared the way for others; they needed a minefield that was reusable. The Americans had developed something like that, but Saudi Arabia had none; Kalid had invented his own idea. After all, if there was something that Saudi Arabia had no shortage of, it was oil. Refined quickly, placed in underground tanks, carried through a network of pipes between the two defence lines…the flames were scorching hot. The idea was the same as any gas cooker; ignited, the fuel would burn until the source of fuel ran out.

It wasn’t the only surprise. Rivers of burning fuel cascaded over the ground, spreading rapidly; the Posleen in the trenches seemed to jump out of the trenches as the flames reached them, igniting weapons and ammunition that had been left behind by the retreating soldiers. Human flesh and blood would be burnt as well; the Posleen would have nothing left to eat.

“My God,” he breathed, staring into the wall of flame. The Posleen seemed to have balked, at last; they weren’t charging through the wall as if it were a minefield. The flames reduced slightly, leaving the charred corpses of Posleen and humans behind, he strove to peer through the smoke to see what the enemy were doing. “What have we done?”

“Stopped them, lad,” Francis said. “Not for long, of course, but you’ve won yourself some time.”

“A report from the scouts,” his communications officer called. “Sir, the Posleen are falling back!”

Kalid stared at him. Falling back just…wasn’t a Posleen thing to do. They never retreated, nor did they surrender; they just…didn’t give up until they were all dead. For the first time he could remember, from all the battle reports, a Posleen force was trying to refuse battle. Normally, they charged to fight; this time, they were actually falling back!

They hadn’t been unscathed, had they? He smiled, staring at the few remaining Posleen, normal Posleen wandering around as if they had been stunned senseless. Bodies littered the desert, Posleen and human; the small wafted across his nostrils and he felt sick. Soldiers were being sick, everywhere; the smell got into everything.

“Allah Ackbar!” Someone shouted. Kalid never knew who had started the cry, but it was taken up by everyone else, soldiers, citizen volunteers, and even the foreign advisors. “Allah Ackbar!”

“Get the resupply teams up,” Kalid snapped, watching the reports from the scouts as they came in. The Posleen were massing – he noticed grimly that the God Kings had had the presence of mind to snatch up Posleen bodies for eating – just outside artillery range; it wouldn’t be long before they made another try at the defence lines. He had plenty of fuel for the flame-throwing device, but he had an uncomfortable feeling that the Posleen had something else up their sleeves. “I want everyone rearmed and ready for the fight.”

There were some mutters of disappointment, but everyone set to work; Francis issued additional orders to some of the workers. Kalid watched grimly as the guns were reloaded; he thought about reoccupying the first defence line, but the Posleen had torn it to pieces. A small team of soldiers, armed to the teeth, checked out the remaining Posleen bodies; some of them were still alive. A handful of shots put an end to that.

“Twenty-seven Posleen terminated, sir,” Francis reported, afterwards. The Posleen were still massing; they covered the desert without pressing further against the defence lines. Kalid knew that if they tried to be clever and circled around the defences, his people were dead; the Posleen could march directly on the city and he'd have to stop them – without any real ability to face the Posleen without defences.

He thought, quickly, about breaking his orders and falling back to the city anyway, but there was no time; if the Posleen caught them doing that, they would all be slaughtered. The soldiers were working hard, but he knew that time was very short…

“Uh-oh,” Francis said, studying one of the small devices he carried. American-made, it contained a direct link to TERDEF, which was still trying to monitor Posleen activities on the surface of Earth. “I think that we have trouble.”

Kalid turned to see. Red icons were flickering on the display. “No,” he said. “What are those?”

Francis’s voice was grim. “Posleen landers,” he said. “I think they’re coming to get us from the air.”

Kalid swore. “How long?”

“Around twenty minutes, but they can go faster,” Francis warned. “Sir, it’s been a honour to serve with you, assuming that we don’t survive the experience of meeting a Posleen lander face on.”

Kalid barked orders, knowing that the Posleen had brought a new surprise to the fight. He didn’t understand why the Posleen didn’t use their landers all the time – they would actually have a much easier time of it if they did – but now a lander was gliding towards them, perhaps more than one. He had weapons that were supposed to handle Posleen landers, but the Jews hadn’t made any guarantees – and, he saw now, had no real way of knowing just how effective they would be.

“Get the weapons into position,” he barked, noticing that the Posleen landers were actually approaching from the east – Iran – rather than the north, from Iraq. He wondered what that meant, even as the gun crews fought desperately to prepare their own weapons. A C-Dec or a B-Dec would eat them for breakfast; he could only hope that it was something smaller coming their way. “Move!”

There was little panic. The men knew that they’d won round one; Kalid could only hope that the Posleen knew that as well. They worked, desperately, to repair the damage to the defence lines; he used the time to update Riyadh on what had happened. Prince Salim sounded pleased; Kalid remembered what Francis had said and wondered – just how pleased was Prince Salim? Pleased enough to do the right thing?

Ah, a treacherous part of his mind whispered, but what is the right thing?

He sensed the Posleen ship as a dull thrumming passing through the air before he saw it, a black shape moving along, above the ground. It seemed to be moving slowly, slowly enough to let him make out details; it reassembled a massive blocky skyscraper floating in the air. He recognised it; a Lamprey. A shimmer flickered around it; the craft’s drive was working overtime. It came on and on, seemingly implacable in its power and glory; he wished for a RSAF flight to distract it.

Stupid, of course; an attempt by the RSAF to attack it would result in a lot of dead airmen.

The air had fallen silent, apart from the noise of the oncoming lander and the two new landers, appearing behind the first. The guns were moving into position and the entire world held its breath; the men were silently praying, or lifting their own weapons as the Posleen ship came closer and closer. Kalid prayed that no one would fire a shot at the lander; the Lamprey was armed to the teeth and the Posleen always returned fire.

“Fire,” the artillery commander snapped.

A single shell lanced out towards the Posleen craft, which opened fire, lashing out at the targets on the ground. The shell struck the Posleen craft as Kalid fell to the ground under the shockwaves caused by the weapons; the Posleen craft titled, burning, and then fell out of the sky. It crashed onto part of the defence line…and thousands of Posleen boiled out. There was a moment of absolute panic…and then the shooting began.

“Pour it on,” the artillery commander bellowed. Kalid realised in a sudden shock that the commander had made a ghastly mistake; Lamprey-class landers carried weapons designed to suppress artillery…and there were two more in the air. They opened fire as shells flashed through the air towards them, exploding harmlessly around their hull; a hail of plasma fire blasted the main artillery encampment. A series of explosions shattered the position as the guns exploded, triggering their stored weapons, and slaughtering the men who held them. The Posleen on the ground were being ripped apart – there weren’t enough of them to win by weight of numbers – but the craft in the air were laying down suppressive fire.

“Take that craft out,” the artillery commander snapped. A second Israeli weapon spoke; this time, the shell crashed into the side of the lander, damaging it, but it remained in the air. It returned fire, seeming to explode as plasma weapons fired on the human position…and then it exploded in the air.

“Must have been a delayed reaction,” Francis said, puzzled. His voice was grim as the last of the Posleen from the lander was cleared away; the final lander was still firing. “That one has to be destroyed as well.”

“I know,” the artillery commander snapped. “Those guns are not easy to use…”

Kalid ignored him. “How else can we take one of them down?” He snapped. The single lander was on the verge of defeating them all, single-handily. “How did the Americans do it?”

Francis laughed bitterly. Kalid had heard about Mike O’Neal’s trick, but would it work twice? “Do you have an antimatter mine handy?”

“You know that I don’t,” Kalid shouted, over the noise. The lander was firing down into the trenches, explosions ripping entire parts of the defences apart…and then he saw the Posleen on the ground moving to support the landers. He stared, wondering why the scouts hadn’t reported, and then he looked at his radio. The scout’s radio was no longer transmitting.

“I think that we’d better take that craft out,” Francis said, unhelpfully. Kalid wanted to hit him at that moment. “Get the…”

The final Israeli weapon spoke. The lander shuddered as the shell slammed into its rear, and then it nose-dived into the ground. Its weapons spat out fire as it crashed, maintaining a position on the ground; five hundred Posleen charged out to do battle. The human artillery, that which was left of it, poured fire onto the Posleen mass; human defenders on the ground fired madly, and…”

“Ignore the lander,” Kalid snapped, shouting as hard as he could. He was starting to wonder if his ears were permanently deafened…and then he realised that it probably didn’t matter. He laughed, feeling free for the first time in his life; the Posleen were about to kill them all. What did little things like landers and their small forces matter? It was the main Posleen mass that was the real threat!

He repeated his order. “Pour fire onto the Posleen mass!”

He turned to see the Posleen racing towards the human position. They’d massed their forces and they’d come closer before they’d been noticed – he cursed himself for the oversight of only using one scout to watch them. It had cost them; the Posleen had gained an additional advantage, one they didn’t need to win. Even as human shells began ripping them apart, they reached the first defence line and…

“Fire the fuel,” he ordered. A sheet of flame cascaded up in front of the Posleen…and then a burst of plasma fire from the grounded lander ploughed into the ground. For a long moment, Kalid thought that the lander had missed…and then the ground seemed to explode in an earth-shaking explosion. He found himself on the ground with no clear memory of how he’d gotten there; his head was ringing from the pain, and the burning desert was swiftly running out of fuel. It wouldn’t be long before the entire fire burned itself out.

“Kalid,” Francis snapped. His voice was concerned; Kalid was almost touched. All he wanted to do was close his eyes and go to sleep forever. A slap across his face brought him back to himself; Francis hadn’t held back at all. His face hurt! “Wake up, you bastard; look!”

Kalid looked back, towards Riyadh. A massive towering plume of smoke, boiling with the curiously-coloured flame of oil and gas, could be seen in the air. The tanks, carefully positioned for the final defence, had been blown; the Posleen had just taken their final weapon from their hands. The view was shocking, horrifying, fascinating in some ways; the enemy had hammered them.

“Bastard?” He asked, not thinking quite straight. He turned back towards the fight…and saw disaster unfolding. The grounded lander was still firing, pouring fire into the trenches; no human could go near it, but at risk of his life. Kalid didn’t think that normal shells could even affect it…and he had only a few shells for the Israeli weapons left after the Posleen had crippled his artillery. It was all needed elsewhere, anyway; the real threat was developing right in front of him.

The first set of trenches lay in ruins. Burning fuel still burnt, but the fires were failing; they were nothing like hot enough to actually affect the Posleen. The God Kings were urging their slaves onwards, pushing them against the second line of defences; their hovercraft were launching missiles into the bunkers as they revealed themselves to their counterforce fire. Bunker after bunker was located and blown open; the God Kings directed their servants to slash through and attack other bunkers from the rear.

The entire defence line was coming apart.

“Inform Riyadh,” Kalid said, knowing that they had lost. The waves of burning fuel might have stopped the Posleen, but now…now, it was down to their own flesh, blood and weapons…and sheer bloody-minded determination not to take a step back. It wasn’t possible, anyway; how could they go backwards when they had so little defences past their final line? The Posleen would kill them…for nothing.

“I will,” Francis said. He seemed stunned, too, by the scale of the disaster. “Sir, I think that…”

An explosion cut of his words. The Posleen were hitting the second line of defences, hundreds of human soldiers trying to fight them off; grenades and other weapons were being thrown about as the Posleen sought to punch their way through, dying in their thousands as they threw themselves at the defences. He saw, suddenly, very clearly, a Posleen leap forwards, throwing itself into the trench, firing rapidly with its terrible weapon. Humans struggled to kill it, even as more jumped in; Kalid stared as hand-to-claw combat raged in the trench.

A bunker exploded; the weapons in the bunker adding to the explosive blast. The Posleen had punched through the first trench, moving faster as they cleared the trenches; he saw one Posleen tear a human apart with its knives. The Posleen looked…angry; he wondered if they really felt emotion like humans felt emotion. Did they have mates and children, or did they have only a sexless existence? The remaining guns were firing as hard as they could, but the TERDEF network was reporting more landers on the way…and he knew that time was up.

He lifted his weapon and prepared to die.

He muttered a prayer under his breath as he prepared to join the defence of the headquarters. There wasn’t time for a proper prayer, or anything like that; he hoped that Allah would understand. As he prepared to walk towards the final trench, Francis caught on to his arm. Kalid gasped in pain; Francis’s grasp hurt!

“It’s time to go,” Francis said. His voice was very firm; for a moment, Kalid almost obeyed without question, and then he remembered himself. He was a General and he had responsibilities.

“No,” he said. “I can’t leave now.”

“You have to come with me,” Francis said. “There are people with plans for you and…”

“No,” Kalid snapped. “I led these men to their own defeat and I’m not running from them, not now! I mean it; I promised my father I would stay to defend the city to the last and I will…”

Francis smiled. “Why couldn’t you have one trait of most Arab commanders?” He asked. “This is not the time for die for a point of principle.”

Kalid glared at him. “I am not going to run,” he snapped. Something exploded, far too close to him for comfort. “I don’t know what your game is and I’m not playing!”

“I’m sorry,” Francis said, and hit Kalid neatly on the side of his head. Darkness exploded within his head and reached out to claim him, no matter how much he struggled against it. “You’re needed elsewhere.”

Darkness.

Francis hefted Kalid onto his shoulder, took care to ensure that the self-destruct system had been armed and was ready for the first Posleen to arrive, and carried Kalid out of the battlezone. As soon as he was clear, he started to run, leaving the Posleen behind. A hail of explosions followed; he knew what they meant. The Posleen would swiftly finish the job of destroying the remaining defenders and then they would gorge themselves on the humans who had so conveniently roasted themselves for the eating and then…

The road to Riyadh lay open…

Chapter Thirty-Eight: Things Fall Apart, the Centre Cannot Hold

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
21st May 2006

“I think its time,” Morrigan said, more to himself than anyone else. They hadn’t seen it, not yet; the dispatchers, the coordinators, General Abdullah – or even Prince Salim. Morrigan was more experienced than any of them; he could see just what it meant when the Posleen started to throw landers at the defence force. The Posleen would punch through…and, now they had a means of dealing with the oil weapon, they would make swift process.

He stepped outside the room. Colonel Denton waited there, along with Sergeant Joe Buckley. Buckley was one of the Embassy’s bodyguards – the old Saudi Arabia had been a dangerous place for diplomats and the new Saudi Arabia wouldn’t have the time to develop anything new – and Morrigan had asked him to remain just long enough to let Denton go on his other task.

“It’s time,” he said, noting Denton’s concern and Buckley’s caution. “Adam, you know what you have to do; go now. If you don’t hear anything different from me, pick her up, and then head out of the city. If you don’t meet me at the rendezvous point, go meet up with Bruno, and then report back to the US. Good luck.”

Denton didn’t bother with any false platitudes. “Yes, sir,” he said, and departed. Morrigan watched him go, his heart grim; Denton would only have a few minutes, an hour at most, before all hell broke loose on the streets of Riyadh. He wondered what Osama would make of it; would he flee the city of Mecca, or would he fight to the death, as he had promised to do?

“That won’t be easy,” Buckley observed. “Do you still want to move ourselves?”

Morrigan nodded. “Yes,” he said, and motioned for Buckley to remain outside. He stepped back into the War Room and saw several dispatchers arguing with General Abdullah. Prince Salim’s eyes were grim; he couldn’t be blind to what was happened, far too close to Riyadh. The Posleen could be on them in hours, perhaps less; they were coming…and nothing could stop them, not any longer.

Prince Salim’s eyes missed nothing. “You’re leaving,” he said, without a question. “Where are you going?”

Morrigan wanted, just for a moment, to draw his sidearm and shoot everyone in the room. All of them, even Prince Salim, had done enough to make a bad situation worse – and now the Posleen were baying at the gates. They would push forwards as hard as they could, unaware that there was no longer anything between them and Riyadh, and they would reach the city. Once they reached the city…

“It’s over,” Morrigan snapped. “You know that as well as I do. You didn’t listen to a word I told you and this is the result!”

Prince Salim’s eyes flashed fire. “You American…”

“Yes, American,” Morrigan snapped. “Home of the brave, the free, and all that jazz. The land that protected you worthless bastards because we were too fucking stupid to see just what bastards you are!” He leaned forwards. “This is your punishment, raghead; you have inflicted indignities on everyone who tried to help you and you fought tooth and nail to prevent the world from changing around you.”

Prince Salim recoiled. “We should have nuked your cities after you used the oil weapon for the first time,” Morrigan thundered, forcing his face forward. “Instead, a series of stupid Presidents sucked your cocks and sold out American interests and security because they were unwilling to admit that something was deeply wrong. We won the cold war and…damn it…we didn’t handle you as we should have handled you. Just how stupid were we?”

Prince Salim groped for words. “I can order you detained, or worse,” he snapped. Morrigan laughed in his face. “Allah promised us…”

“He promised Muhammad,” Morrigan snapped. “You know, the Prophet. Remember him? You are not him; you never were him, and no one held that post after he went onwards. Except…you acted as if you did and finally Allah ran out of patience! Be grateful; at least you will be unable to sin any more.”

“But, he said that we would be safe,” Prince Salim said. Morrigan wondered if he’d finally lost it, or if he was putting on a show. “We tried…”

“Yes, you tried,” Morrigan said. “You were quite right, weeks ago; it’s not much of a track record. Maybe He just doesn’t like you anymore; did that occur to you?”

He stormed out of the room and nodded to Buckley. “It’s time to move,” he said, leading the way down the corridor. He wouldn’t have been surprised if a group of armed Iraqis burst out, trying to kill them; no Saudi Prince would allow himself to be humiliated in front of everyone without taking revenge. He grinned suddenly. “I think I burned my bridges.”

Buckley slipped ahead of him as they reached one particular door, guarded by an Iraqi soldier. Traditionally, he should have been an eunuch; Morrigan privately doubted that he was anything of the sort. Buckley walked up to him, looked him up and down, and punched him once in the balls. The Iraqi kneeled over and Buckley kicked him quickly in the head.

“Come on,” Morrigan snapped. He led the way into the women’s quarters, unsurprised to note that it was much less luxurious than the rest of the Palace that doubled as the current Ministry of War. Most of the women would be out, becoming medics; a policy that would have actually been helpful a few years ago, but now…

An older woman looked up at them and screamed; she shouted for a teenage girl to run. Morrigan tipped his hat at her and headed down the stairs; it was the only way out that Prince Salim wouldn’t consider him using. Buckley followed him; Morrigan stopped dead as he sensed people coming up the stairs, and then saw four women climbing up towards him. There was something about them that was…wrong, it struggled to take form in his mind…and then he jumped aside as one of the women levelled a pistol at him and fired.

“Fuck,” Buckley said, with unintentional irony. Morrigan’s mind was working overtime, drawing connections; the women hadn’t been veiled, nor were they dressed as Princesses; they…they had to be here to do something other than just sleep. Buckley’s pistol was in his hands; he fired down at the woman, hitting her in the head.

“The American,” one shouted. Morrigan cursed; the accent wasn’t Saudi, but Palestinian. Buckley’s target screamed as his bullet tore through her shoulder; a grenade came bouncing up the stairs. On impulse, Morrigan kicked it back down the stairs, and then ran up to the floor. An explosion shook the building.

Buckley’s face was astonished as more explosions started to go off in the distance. “What the fuck is going on?”

Morrigan winced. “Osama is making his fucking move,” he snapped. There couldn’t be any other explanation, although he was surprised that Osama had entrusted the assassination mission to women. It just wasn’t in his character. “He wants to kill Prince Salim!”

He led the way down the stairs, pistol lifted, and shot another woman holding an AK-47. He scowled, understanding even as Buckley scooped up the weapon and clutched it close to his heart; under women’s clothing, anyone could have gotten into the Palace. An alarm was ringing as he passed through another door; a motion caught his eye…and he relaxed as he realised that it was a Princess and her servant doing…stuff.

“Bruno would love it,” he said, winking at the Princess, who didn’t seem to know if she wanted to scream or laugh. “Keep the door shut; there are hostiles in the palace!”

Buckley laughed. “We could go join in,” he said. The Princess looked horrified. Morrigan slammed the door and led the way down the stairs, knowing that there would be more guards down on the ground floor…and then seeing the bodies. The door was designed to be locked – from the outside – but someone had left it open, and he could see the guards there, dead. A telephone was ringing endlessly; he stepped forward, into the lobby, and looked around.

“No hostiles,” Buckley said. He kept the AK-47 lifted as he watched. “When do we get out of here?”

“One moment,” Morrigan said. He lifted the phone, unsurprised to hear that it was Prince Salim’s head of security on the end of the phone; an Iraqi-accented voice could be heard in the background. “Hello?”

The voice on the end spluttered. “Shut up,” Morrigan said. “You have a group of hostiles in the building” – an explosion shook the walls, right on cue – “and you have to deal with them. Terrorists, I think; Osama is up to no good. Some of them are women, remember that; women.”

He put the phone down. “Now we go,” he said. He’d planned his exit with some care; the Saudi Princes each had massive collections of cars, more than the entire city of New York possessed, each of them collector’s editions. All of them were worth more than Morrigan took home in a year. The garage, a massive building itself worth more than an entire USAF base, was at the back of the building; Morrigan watched as most of the guards were called away to defend the rest of the building, where shooting was breaking out.

Buckley checked the lock quickly. “I can get in,” he said, pulling out a series of electronic devices. “Just give me a moment.”

“No need,” Morrigan said, leaning forward to type in the code. He grinned at Buckley’s expression. “You know, I always had the idea that I would make a remarkably competent thief.”

Buckley laughed, holding his weapon, as the door opened. The garage was brightly lit; a group of mechanics looked up in astonishment as they stepped in. “Hands up, against that wall,” Buckley bellowed, and kept talking to Morrigan without missing a beat. “You were wasted as a General, sir.”

Morrigan laughed, searching the mechanics quickly, while cursing Salim for keeping them back when they were needed to build defences. “After this, Jack Horner is going to want me to be re-certified as a cadet, let alone a General,” he said. “I’ve picked up bad habits.”

Buckley nodded. “Yes, sir,” he said. Morrigan gave him a sharp look. “Which car?”

Morrigan had already decided that. “That one,” he said, pointing to a silver Rolls Royce. The car was a miracle of engineering…and it was almost as tough as an Abrams tank. “You; give us the keys!”

Trembling, the lead mechanic found the keys, passing them over to Buckley, who shoved the mechanics into a locked room. Morrigan doubted that they would come to any harm; they would probably be safer there. Chuckling, he found the control for the garage door and opened it, hearing the noise of more shooting over the sound of the engine. He climbed in beside Buckley, enjoying the feel of the car, and grinned.

“Home, Jeeves,” he said. Buckley gunned the car and it lurched forwards, towards the gates, which opened as the car approached. Another security flaw, which Morrigan had taken care not to point out; he’d always known that he would have had to take advantage of it one day. There were fewer people on the streets than he’d expected; either the city hadn’t yet realised that their defenders had died, or they remembered what had happened the last time they tried a small revolution.

A spray of machine gun bullets bounced off the rear window; Buckley laughed and drove the car faster, heading directly towards the exit to the south of the city. There were few vehicles on the road, most of them had been confiscated for adaptation into military vehicles; Morrigan remembered arguing that the Prince’s cars should be adapted as well, but Prince Salim had never pressed that point.

At the moment, it was the only piece of advice that he was glad that Prince Salim had never followed.

“Out of the main gates, right?” Buckley asked. “What about Adam?”

“At the moment, we’re doing him a favour,” Morrigan said, relaxing slightly. Buckley’s driving would have had the NYPD trying to arrest him and lock him up for the rest of time; it was much better than most Saudi driving. Other drivers saw the car, knew who owned it and got out of the way; there were only a few drivers anyway. “If we’re doing all this, he can get out without much trouble.”

Buckley hesitated. “I hope you’re right,” he said. Morrigan nodded. “What about when we get out of the city?”

“We head for the rendezvous point,” Morrigan said. He scowled to himself. “Everything depends on Bruno now.”

***
Colonel Denton could hear the chaos starting in the city as he pulled the car up to the building, noticing with some concern the presence of a handful of armed men outside the door. The building was unmarked sandstone, one that might actually be useable as a strong point; the guards were there to deter soldiers from going in and…having some fun. It was no brothel – Denton had learned enough to know that some brothels existed in Saudi despite religion and religious police – but a place for respectable women to learn new skills.

In this case, Denton knew, they were learning medical skills. General Morrigan had demanded this, using all the oratory skills at his command, but at the end of it, the Saudis had only started the program after the Posleen landed, way too late for it to be useful at all. The women might be good for bandaging, if they managed to avoid being converted into out and out sex slaves, but anything else? Morrigan doubted it – and Denton, who respected Morrigan, believed him.

He kept one hand on his gun as he stepped up to the guards. Their eyes flickered nervously; none of them were combat soldiers, but Denton knew that he wasn’t one either. His promotion qualified him for command of an army unit, but he knew that he hadn’t anything like enough experience for the role. Even so, Morrigan had insisted that he kept up with his shooting; he could have taken all of the men down before they could have fired back at him.

He restrained himself. It wouldn’t have been helpful.

“I have permission to enter,” he said, producing an artfully forged paper. It wasn’t – exactly – a forgery; Morrigan had stolen an idea from a thriller novel he’d once read. The paper was genuine; the seals were genuine; only the actual words had never been approved by Prince Salim. Gunfire echoed over the city; he could taste the nervousness of the guards.

“You may enter,” the guard said. He hesitated. “Sir, is there any news from…?”

He waved a hand in the direction of the gunshot. “None,” Denton said, wishing he knew what had happened. Morrigan had given him very specific orders, hoping to save what they could from the death of Saudi Arabia, and other orders to carry out in the event of Morrigan dying in the escape from Riyadh. “I know nothing.”

He slipped inside, passing through two doors, and blinked as he confronted a woman hidden behind a veil. She was somehow…he was certain that she was old, old enough to be his grandmother; she seemed old to him, even though he couldn’t see her face. He knew that she was looking at him, her voice, when she spoke, was filled with disapproval.

“You may not enter,” she said. “I am charged with guarding the…honour of the girls and…”

“I have permission to enter,” Denton said, wondering exactly what the women were doing inside. “You will let me pass.”

Eyes flickered behind the mesh of the woman’s veil for a moment. “You will not enter,” she said. “You will not…”

Denton stepped around her and entered the women’s room. He’d half-expected to catch them in a state of undress; the old woman’s fluttering behind him suggested that she expected exactly the same thing. The girls, ranging from sixteen to thirty, were all decently dressed; they followed the instructions of a female doctor for bandaging a wound. The old women looked at them, clad in modest robes and headscarves, and started to howl outrage.

“Silence,” Denton said, running out of patience. The girls seemed amused; he saw the little smiles they shared when the older woman was looking away from them. “I have been sent to take Princess Fatima Al-Hassid out of here to her husband.”

A girl stood up. She was older and plumper than Denton had expected; her eyes seemed to look into his soul. “I am Fatima,” she said, holding herself regally. “Where is my husband?”

“Near the city,” Denton said, turning to lead the way out of the building. The old woman was whining, about shamefulness and indecency and how Fatima really should wear a veil. Denton ignored her; he was amused to notice that Fatima was also ignoring her. They stepped out onto the street…and he understood, for a moment, the old woman’s horror. The guards were looking at her as if she was Alyson Hanningan. He half-expected a crude comment…and reached for his pistol carefully.

“Hop in,” he said, wondering if Fatima could drive. It hardly mattered, under the circumstances; he needed to do the driving himself. All they needed was to be stopped by some irritating traffic cop. “Thank you.”

The guards leered at him. Denton drove off, muttering words under his breath; the sound of shooting was growing louder. Whatever was happening, it wasn’t good at all. The streets were starting to fill up as people spilled out onto them; a dull sound could be heard in the distance, growing louder. The Posleen were on their way.

Something flashed behind them. “Keep your eyes shut,” Denton snapped, as a thunderous noise crashed over them. “Stay down!”

The United States Army manual had all kinds of instructions on what to do when a nuclear weapon went off nearby, starting with kissing one’s arse goodbye if one was at ground zero. Denton knew that they didn’t have time, even for arse-kissing; all they could do was pray…and hope that Bruno Lombardi had placed his weapon just right.

If he had fucked it up, Denton thought, with a moment of dark humour, they’d never know about it.

Chapter Thirty-Nine: Mere Anarchy Is Loosed Upon The World

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
21st May 2006

Humans had feared nuclear weapons above all other fears.

It was an irrational fear, in Lombardi’s view; a nuclear warhead could solve a great many problems, if used properly. Contrary to popular belief, a nuclear warhead did not make its possessor all-powerful, and they didn’t poison the ground for a thousand years. There were fates, and worse fates, and many of them could be avoided by using nuclear weapons. Humanity’s fears had kept it from progressing. It was as simple as that.

Ironically, when faced finally with a threat that demanded the focus of every possible weapon, humanity found many of its most dangerous weapons useless. Chemical and biological weapons, as Chemical Ali had found out, were useless against the Posleen; unlike the Martian invaders of The War of the Worlds, they could and did eat humans without ill effects. Nuclear weapons did have an effect, but there were practical problems; Posleen weapons fired automatically at missiles and aircraft…and even using tactical nuclear weapons – as the Chinese had found out – was difficult. Nuclear weapons destroyed, yes, but not enough; mining an entire country with nukes might have worked, but Lombardi knew no one would be stupid enough to do anything like that.

It had astonished, although it had not surprised him, that many humans would have preferred to become Posleen fodder rather than use nuclear weapons, from standard blast weapons to enhanced radiation weapons. He felt that, as far as he was concerned, that the ‘moral minority’ could go talk to the Posleen about it; he was all in favour of anything that could stop the Posleen. No one, but no one, had a right to strip humanity of defences; he would have used those who objected to clear minefields, rather than let his people die. If only nukes were as dangerous as those who objected believed…

He had considered using an artillery shell to launch the nuke, but in the end he’d settled for planting one between the defence line and Riyadh. Morrigan had ordered him, in particular, to remain well clear of the defenders; stealing an idea from an alien invasion book, he’d hidden the nuke and waited. When the Posleen reached the nuke’s site, with their endless ranks and their landers hovering high overhead, he’d thrown himself to the ground and triggered the nuke. There had been a spine-chilling delay, just long enough for him to wonder if the Posleen had destroyed the command wire…and then the world went white. He cowered on the ground, shaking, wishing for someone to share the moment with, and then, once the shaking ended, he pulled himself out of his shelter and looked down towards the bombsite.

“My God,” he breathed, taking in the extent of the devastation. The nuke had been purchased from the Russians, one intended for tactical use against a Chinese army, and placed near the Posleen mass. The landers seemed in shock, but they had survived…and he realised with some horror that some of the Posleen had survived as well; the nuke couldn’t wipe out the entire force…

But he’d bought Riyadh some time.

He shook his head in awe. “My God,” he said again. Not even lesbians dipped in chocolate could compare to the rush he got from triggering the nuke. “Now, that was strangely arousing.”

***
The Iraqis were brutal, efficient and through; the terrorists, whoever they had been, were cleared out with brutal swiftness. Prince Salim, having dismissed General Abdullah to take command of the defences, stood in the centre of his Palace, looking at the map. The flash of the nuclear weapon caught him by surprise; he thought, just for a crazy moment, that the Posleen had resorted to using nukes against humanity. It took him several moments, staring at the site of the nuclear blast, to realise that it had occurred outside the walls…and that it had bought Riyadh some additional moments.

Prince Salim knew that that wouldn’t be enough. Morrigan had been right – and humiliation and shame burned through him when he thought of the American officer – to tell him that they’d failed. He knew, of course, what had gone wrong; he’d also known that there had been no other choice. He’d pulled off his little coup in perhaps the only time that such a coup could have succeeded; it just hadn’t been enough. The Posleen were coming and they would devour all of humanity. He wondered, bitterly, what would happen to the other Princes; the ones who had taken up residence well outside Saudi Arabia, in places where the Posleen would take limited interest at best. Would Morrigan do anything to them? Would America do anything to them? Or, would they remain on their island paradises until the war was over and Fleet cleared the Posleen from Arabia?

Morrigan had been right. The thought hurt, hurt him on levels that a mere physical stab could never reach, but he accepted it. The Saudi Royal Family hadn’t been able – hadn’t dared – to lift the controls on its own people; it had even encouraged more fundamentalists to pour into the country, just to keep its tattered Islamic mantel. Those who could have handled the defence had been kept down; the Government had often punished commanding officers for daring to be competent. General Abdullah meant well, Prince Salim knew, but he wasn’t anything more than a mouthpiece for the House of Saud.

Why, Prince Salim asked himself, had Allah allowed it to happen? Perhaps, he wondered, perhaps Morrigan had been right; perhaps they’d been given their chance and they’d blown it. They’d used Islam, used it for their purposes, and swiftly found themselves riding a tiger they’d trained. The tiger had been fed on human meat; like the Posleen, it had rapidly developed a taste for human meat. Perhaps all of this was for the best, after all; Allah alone knew what would happen if the corrupted version of Islam had gone further than it had. Perhaps…

As the first Posleen lander drifted into view, Prince Salim lifted his phone and started to give instructions. There was much to be done before the Posleen arrived.

The questions he faced would be answered soon, now and forever.

***
Abdullah Al-Hassid had had faith in his son; it gave him enormous pride to think that his son was commanding the defence of Riyadh. He’d heard rumours – again – and this time he'd stayed inside with his wife. Aaliyah had been thriving in the new environment; she had taken the opportunity to start learning all manner of things that normally would have been denied to a Saudi woman. He had actually been teased, by his friends, about her weapon training; he’d been warned that if he didn’t take care of her in bed, she would use her new weapon on him.

The sight of the nuclear blast had chilled him; it had told him that all was far from well outside the city. He’d been assigned to one of the newly-formed militia groups, just to provide a final line of defence; he expected that he would be asked to report to the militia soon. He made a choice, kissed his wife goodbye, and took his new weapon; he wasn’t going to wait for anyone to come find him. He would be waiting for a long time.

“Call first,” Aaliyah objected. Al-Hassid lifted the telephone, only to discover that it was hissing; a voice came on the line and asked if he wanted to buy some cheap kitchen replacements. Al-Hassid had sworn down the phone, banged it down, and picked it up again; this time, it was dead.

“The system is down,” Al-Hassid said, as the rumble of gunfire began. Aaliyah’s face took on the manner it always took on when she was about to argue with him. “I have to go.”

He ran into his sergeant outside; a man who had once been in the army before being dismissed and recently ordered to return to command one of the militia groups. The sergeant brought him along, along with several dozen others; the male citizens of the city would provide the final line of defence. The noise of gunfire grew louder; he looked up and saw a Posleen lander floating over the border fortresses, the ones that he had helped build. He wondered, briefly, how they were doing; his own unit wouldn’t be assigned to the fortresses. They had only a few weeks familiarity with their weapons.

One of his fellows had similar thoughts. His voice was mild and thoughtful, revealing no tension; his face was calm. “Where the hell are we supposed to be going?”

“I don’t fucking know,” the sergeant snapped. The raw fear in his voice shocked Al-Hassid to the bone. He clutched his weapon tighter to his chest, thinking of his wife and children; he would protect them. “The telephone lines are down, the radio isn’t working…I don’t fucking know.”

Something exploded, right on the edge of the city. The ground shook, Al-Hassid fell and hit the ground, hard enough to hurt. His weapon poked into his chest; he realised with sudden terror that he could have easily have blown his own head off, rather than shooting at any man-eating aliens. He pulled himself to his feet and stared in awe; there was a massive fireball rising into the sky.

“The Americans,” one of his fellows said, with confidence. “They nuked the enemy before they reached the walls…”

“That’s not a nuclear weapon,” the sergeant said. He was sweating with absolute terror, shaking slightly; Al-Hassid realised that, contrary to his claims, he’d never seen combat before. They were standing, right in the centre of the street; the Posleen were coming. He wanted to scream; they were about to die, and if they stayed where they were, they would die for nothing. “That’s…something else.”

More explosions. The sound of alien weapons grew closer and closer; a Posleen lander drifted by, high overhead. Saudi guns were firing, targeting their shots on the edge of the city; the lander fired down with its own weapons, silencing the Saudi guns. Something struck the lander, sending it spinning down towards the ground; it smashed into a skyscraper and brought it down crashing on top of it. The building crumpled like a model building. There was an almighty noise, everything hidden behind the cloud of dust…and then the dust settled, revealing the rear of the spaceship. The remainder of the spaceship was buried under the rubble.

“Shit,” the sergeant snapped, as the dust started to move. Moments later, a yellow monster burst out of the craft, scales glittering in the sun. The sergeant snapped off a burst of fire towards the Posleen, Al-Hassid fired as well; the Posleen was caught in the blasts and torn apart. More Posleen bubbled out of the craft, their weapons lifted; Al-Hassid threw himself to the ground as the Posleen opened fire – blast after blast lanced through the space he’d been, moments ago. He fired, time and time again, noticing that the Posleen seemed confused and then…

The sergeant had pulled loose a belt of grenades, hurling them towards the Posleen. They detonated with a blinding flash, sending the Posleen reeling; Al-Hassid took the opportunity to move back. The others followed him, running for their lives, and soon they were in headlong flight; the Posleen, oddly enough, didn’t chase them. They found a defence checkpoint – the Sergeant was trying to explain about the Posleen following them – and then the ground shook again.

“Oh, Allah,” Al-Hassid breathed. The entire eastern side of the city seemed to be coming down; he hunkered down behind the defence checkpoint and waited. The noise of the Posleen grew louder, and louder…and then a flight of HVMs lanced into the buildings near them, detonating inside the buildings and sending them exploding in a wave of dust and mortar. He realised suddenly, with a shock, that the Posleen had penetrated the entire eastern part of the city…and that they would be coming his way.

The commander of the defence checkpoint, at least, was calm. “Keep your weapons ready,” he ordered, motioning for them to present their weapons to the Posleen. Al-Hassid took aim and waited; the sound was growing ever-louder…and he could see explosions. Thousands of citizens, running for their lives, came towards them; he realised with sudden bitter amusement that they included thousands of soldiers, as helpless as the rest…

…And behind them came the Posleen. He’d seen them once, already; this new group moved with much more coordination than the first group. Hovering overhead, a God King directed activities; the Posleen were rounding up humans, men, women and children, sending them back to the rear of their lines. He felt a thrill of fear, and then horror; that was what awaited Aaliyah, if they failed to stop the Posleen. How could they stop them, if Kalid and his entire force had been unable to do more than delay them? How could they…?

“Take your targets,” the commander said. Al-Hassid could only smile; their sergeant was obeying orders and trying not to be noticed, cringing away from the real commander and at the same time trying to look confident. It wasn’t working. “When I give the command, fire.”

The Posleen seemed unaware of their location, or perhaps they just didn’t care. Al-Hassid saw a pair of women, forced along by the Posleen; one of them was almost naked under the sun. He wondered, suddenly, if the Posleen actually saw humans as sexually-interesting creatures; had they worked out how humans reproduced, or…?

“Fire,” the commander said, calmly. Al-Hassid fired quickly at a Posleen, seeing it collapse slowly, even as the God King’s chariot toppled over, the God King falling from the side. The Posleen launched a hail of fire towards the building that housed the sniper, and then they seemed to become confused; Al-Hassid picked off three more before a new God King floated up, launching HVMs towards the defence point. The blasts tore the defence point apart; the Posleen charged the remains, their weapons flaring.

Al-Hassid fired, taking down two, and then the Posleen were upon them. His last thought, as a Posleen round impacted firmly in his chest, was of his wife…and of the doom to which she had been left, by his failure…

Darkness.

***
From his Palace, Prince Salim could see everything. Flames and smoke engulfed much of the city, hiding it from his view, but he knew what it meant. The military command network had fallen apart very quickly; it was clear, now, that it had never been intended to handle such a battle. Who could have predicted such a battle? They had happened at Fredericksburg, and cities in other places, but…

Prince Salim blamed himself.

He could actually run for his life, he knew, even now. His Iraqi bodyguards would be delighted to escape the chaos tearing the city apart, shredding the core of Riyadh as the Posleen marched on towards the centre of the city. The scouts continued to report, noting that the Posleen were learning; they were setting fire to buildings to force the humans from whatever safety they provided, then butchering them or forcing them to walk back to Posleen camps. The nuke, whoever had actually set it off, might just have poisoned enough people to poison the Posleen as well; did radiation have any effect on them at all? They were biological monsters, after all; they had to have some weaknesses, surely.

He still blamed himself. This was his repentance, his one offer to Allah, who had turned His back on His people. They had strayed from the path and the Posleen were their punishment; he had passed into religious mania without even noticing that he had fallen. What had happened had happened because of him; Morrigan had been right, all along. He could have prevented the disaster, and he’d done nothing. Mecca would be purged and destroyed; perhaps, if Allah willed, it would be rebuilt by true Muslims. Allah alone knew all.

The Posleen pressed on towards the centre of the city. A massive lander, a C-Dec, was heading over the city; its weapons flared down towards centres of resistance. They were becoming fewer and fewer as the Posleen spread out, surrounding the city; they didn’t want any of their fodder to escape into the desert. Why should they die of thirst when they could die of Posleen and get eaten? This far from the water, the Posleen would need all the fodder that they could get. The God Kings who hadn’t worked that out would have died by now.

The button sat in the centre of his desk. In a touch of morbid humour, it was red.

The building shuddered. The end wouldn’t be long in coming. He could see the Posleen now, from this height they looked like ants scurrying along the ground, fighting the last of the defenders. Streaks of light flashed as the landers destroyed parts of the city, forcing humans to flee towards the Posleen. He saw flames leaping higher and higher as explosions tore through the rocket launchers; the Posleen had been made to work to handle them, but they had succeeded. Even the Katushas, bought at very low cost, hadn’t been effective; it was nothing like that German computer game at all.

The building shuddered again and started to collapse.

As calmly as he could, Prince Salim said a final prayer and strolled over to the big red button. It felt warm in his hands as the building shook further, the tearing noise of the collapse shaking him to his bones; he pressed it before something could go badly wrong. There was a heart-stopping moment…and then all the charges under the government complex, placed there to frustrate any fundamentalist grab for power, detonated. Caught in the blast, thousands of Posleen died as explosions ripped apart the centre of Riyadh.

Prince Salim’s last thoughts were of Allah…and of perhaps how he might have made amends for his sins. Soon enough, he found out.

Chapter Forty: Picking Up The Pieces

Refugee Camp, Saudi Arabia
5th June 2006

“Bruno,” Morrigan said. He was more relieved than he had ever been before; he had worried that Lombardi had been caught in the blast. The lack of word, in the fortnight since Riyadh had fallen to the Posleen, had worried him; who knew what might have happened to a lone westerner in the deserts of Saudi? “It’s good to see you alive.”

“You have a curious definition of good,” Lombardi said, waving a hand around the refugee camp, which normally served as a training camp. Thousands upon thousands of refugees, mainly women and children, sat on the ground, conserving what merger supplies they had. Past them, dozens of former guest workers, armed and trained as soldiers, watched warily; few of them trusted anyone from Saudi blood. “This place is slow death, boss.”

The normal note of wry humour was gone from his voice. Morrigan understood; the food supplies, cached here without the knowledge or approval of anyone in authority, wouldn’t last long enough to keep them all alive, even though the Posleen showed no signs of knowing that they were here. The entire camp was isolated, hidden in bad terrain; Morrigan didn’t know how many had died on the long trek to the camp. He also knew that even the most determined of the guest workers, who might have had other ideas besides fighting for Saudis, couldn’t hold the Posleen for long.

“There’s also the minor matter of the radiation cloud,” Lombardi continued. “Many of the people here breathed in some of the cloud, and you know what could happen to them. These are kids, boss; some of them won’t last very long at all, even with proper medical care.”

Morrigan nodded slowly. Riyadh had been an island in a sea of sand; once the Posleen reached it, it had rapidly become impossible to defend. The final images from Riyadh had been chilling; Prince Salim had blown up the government complex, along with the Posleen swarming over it, and in the end it had been futile. The Posleen had been rounding up humans, munching their way through the dead and the crippled, before withdrawing back towards the Gulf and starting their expansion to the south. They now had enough food to spread out, just a little; they didn’t seem to be interested in the interior of Saudi Arabia. What was there for them?

This camp, Morrigan thought, and shivered. As the Posleen headed south, following the coast, they punched out the remaining defenders of the nation – apart from the fundamentalists gathered at Mecca. None of them could do more than slow the Posleen; many of them actually lasted longer than Riyadh, but in the end, it just didn’t – couldn’t – work. The Posleen pressed on, finally coming into their full strength…and Morrigan knew that the world was trembling. Nothing short of Israel could even hold them for long.

“I know,” he said, thinking hard. He’d hoped to bring out some of Kalid’s army as well, but he accepted Francis’s explanation; the army had been too deeply involved in the fighting to bring out more than their commanding officer. He hadn’t seen Kalid yet; he was held in one of the tents, under suicide watch. It spoke well of him that he was considering it, that he even felt guilty for abandoning his command, but in the end there was no time for such luxury. Without the army, all they had left was the guest worker force – which wouldn’t take kindly to a Saudi commanding officer, not any longer.

Lombardi’s face brightened slightly. “On the other hand, we did manage to evacuate a few thousand people,” he said. “There must be some lesbians in there somewhere.”

Morrigan snorted. “I don’t think that this is the time for thinking about lesbians,” he said, rather sardonically. “There are none in Saudi Arabia; the figures provided by the government say so, and the government would never lie.”

“Now, I knew a guy called Lee once,” Lombardi continued, ignoring Morrigan’s droll rebuke. “He had thousands of weapons, millions of them – and I don’t exaggerate. He was fond of telling me how he’d ended up in a threesome with two other women, and how he’d had so much fun.” He snorted. “He also was in the militia, preparing for the arrival of the UN and the black helicopters…and now I bet he’s having the time of his life. Probably leading a resistance army against the Posleen, or something.”

Morrigan sighed. “That is…very interesting,” he said, in a tone that shouted that it was anything, but. A militia wouldn’t last very long against the Posleen at all. “Bruno, what the hell are we going to do?”

Lombardi blinked. “I thought that you were the man with the grand plan,” he said. “Don’t you know what we’re going to do?”

“I…am not certain,” Morrigan admitted. Self-doubt was a new feeling for him; part of him wanted to head south, to reach the submarine before the Posleen overran Oman, and another part of him wanted to hit the Posleen as hard as he could. The Posleen had no centre of gravity, no mass…and, in any case, his army couldn’t launch an attack against the Posleen. He thought through the ideas.

“We could head to Mecca, to join the…bastards there, and help them for when the Posleen reach them,” he said, after a moment’s thought. “That wouldn’t be hard to sell to the guest workers – many of the defenders won’t be Saudi – but I don’t think that Osama would be glad to see us, or the women warriors here.”

He wondered about that; someone had used women to attempt to attack Prince Salim. “Even so, that is probably out of the question,” he concluded. “Do you have any faith in their ability to hold off the Posleen?”

He looked up and smiled gratefully as Yasmeena brought him a cup of coffee. There was no milk, not any longer; he drank it black and steaming hot. The refugee camp had raided a handful of SANG ammunition dumps and supply bases; there still wouldn’t be enough for everyone for more than a few days. The official authority in Saudi Arabia had come to a halt when Riyadh had fallen; no one could exert any authority any longer, outside of Mecca itself.

He smiled, suddenly feeling very liberated. No more Princes, no more fanatics, no more incompetents in places of power…he had done what he’d promised Jack Horner and the State Department man that he’d do…he had helped them to hold out as long as possible. He could take Yasmeena and his surviving Americans and leave…

Duty, cursed duty, reasserted itself. “The second option is to head to Jordan,” he said. “The place is in a mess at the moment, but Prince…what’s-his-name has asserted control over much of the country and will be delighted to see us. They don’t have much food either, but they would be interested in having our fighting skills.” He paused. “The same goes for the Israelis; they would be interested as well, particularly since they’re the last real power in the Middle East. They would be the better option; no one, but no one, doubts their competence.”

He paused. “The third option is to stay here,” he said. “I doubt that we could last that long. Any thoughts?”

Lombardi shrugged. “You’re the boss,” he said. “Personally, I think that we couldn’t stay here for more than a few days at most – but at the same time, transporting all of these people will be difficult.” He paused. “We could abandon some of them…”

Morrigan shook his head. “We leave no one behind,” he said, sharply. “If we can do it, then we keep them alive…”

Lombardi stared at him. “There are three thousand people here, not counting the soldiers and ourselves,” he said. “Of them, nearly two-thirds are children and the rest are women; none of them have the training to endure a long march through the desert, even using the handful of vehicles that we have here. We will have to use the vehicles to transport what food we have, and at the same time we will have to somehow carry the people who can’t walk on their own. They will be eating food and dropping dead on the trip, leaving a trail for the Posleen to follow – and we really cannot stand and fight against them, should they find us.”

“There is no Posleen force for miles,” Morrigan said, quietly.

“That we know about,” Lombardi said. “We’ve missed smaller Posleen units before, you know that, and we don’t have any network of scouts any longer. Ok, the desert is not good terrain for them, but…”

“Enough,” Morrigan said. “We take as many people as we can, or at least Adam and Kalid will take as many people as they can.”

Lombardi lifted an eyebrow. “You and I have a final task,” Morrigan said. He smiled grim thoughts; this way, he would kill several birds with one stone. “And no, it doesn’t involve lesbians.”

“Aww,” Lombardi said. He looked up as Denton arrived, a pretty Saudi woman in tow. “That’s her?”

Denton nodded. “I got her out, sir,” he said. His face was streaked with sweat and effort. “I got her out before the nuke went off.”

Morrigan stood up. “Good,” he said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go make a few apologies…and then discuss the future of what remains of this nation.”

***
The camp bed was uncomfortable; the tent was bitterly hot and dark, with only a few hints of light streaming in through cracks in the fabric. Kalid lay there, as he had laid there for the week since awakening to discover himself miles from what remained of his home, with a concerned nurse bending over him. He had wondered if he was in hell; it hadn’t been long before Francis had admitted what had happened…and what had happened to his city. Since then, he’d stayed inside the tent, waiting for death. Apart from strange visions of a girl with very black hair, death hadn’t come for him; he’d been left alone.

“Stay here,” a voice said, outside the tent. The voice spoke Arabic, but with an odd accent; Kalid recognised an American hint to the voice and wondered. The tent flap pushed itself open, allowing a man to enter; a man tall and slightly tanned skin. He wore a battered uniform; Kalid recognised the rank as General, but it was a far less…decorative uniform than the one he’d been issued with, weeks before.

He winced. That uniform had probably been taken for scrap.

“General Al-Hassid,” the man said. He could hear him properly now; he was very much an American. There was no attempt to tone down the accent; no hint of concern for Saudi sensibilities…Kalid almost liked him on sight. “I am General Morrigan.”

Kalid sat up, so quickly he almost brushed his head against the fabric of the tent. He was uncomfortably aware of his own unwashed body, the smell rising from under the covers, and ignored it as best as he could. General Morrigan, Francis had informed him, had ordered that his life be saved – at the cost of many of his men. Why?

Kalid tried to ask. “Why?”

Morrigan sat down on a campstool. The pose reminded Kalid of his father; the old man had sat the same way, normally before preparing to pass judgement on Kalid or any of his siblings for their sins. His father…something caught at his throat as he thought of his father; had his father managed to escape the city?

Morrigan looked grim. “Why what?”

Kalid fought for words. “You saved my life,” he snapped, feeling rage tearing though him. “Why?”

“You’re needed,” Morrigan said, his voice calm and perfectly composed. “You are the last of the regular army officers, insofar as the army exists. You might even have a claim to the throne…”

“I don’t fucking want a fucking claim to the fucking throne,” Kalid said. He’d never dared swear at his father; old anger surged out of him, claiming its toll on his body. “My men died because of orders I gave! I should have died with them, but you fucking kept me alive!”

Morrigan’s eyes flickered. “You gave the Posleen one hell of a beating,” he said. “Few other commanders, fighting from such a bad position, could claim so much.”

“I failed,” Kalid said. He felt pain rising through his body. “Why did your man keep me alive?”

“I told you,” Morrigan said. He leaned back. “Riyadh has fallen, General; what remains here is the final active force, apart from Osama’s lot in Mecca. There are guards in the other cities and towns and I would pull them out if anyone would take my orders. They won’t; the Royal Family was always terrified of Shia subversion, and Prince Salim wasn’t able to change that before he…died. They’ll stand, and fight, or flee into the desert; perhaps a few tribesmen will remain, the remainder of what was once a human land.”

“My wife is dead,” Kalid said. Morrigan’s face remained expressionless. “What is there left for me?”

Morrigan stood up, pacing around the tent. “Do you know what your tragedy is?”

Kalid glared at him. “I survived and my men are dead,” he snapped. “Is that what I owe you?”

Morrigan shook his head. “This place, this nation, is – was – almost an inversion of America. You and your father would have gone far in America; his wife would have been so much more than she ever could be here. All of you, poor old General Mujahid, General Najd, even Prince Salim himself, could have risen high. Instead, you were forced down; you did well, Kalid, but you should never have held that command. The nation didn’t dare bend, not even slightly; the dangers of a competent officer were too great.”

He grinned. “Do you know that they actually wanted to split up the responsibilities of a commanding officer? One to attack, one to defend, one to handle logistics…and all of them to remain ignorant anything outside of their speciality. It wouldn’t have worked at all, not without a basic grounding, but then…it wasn’t uncommon to have Generals and others with no experience at all.”

“I don’t care,” Kalid said, knowing that it was futile. “What now, American? Do we wait now for the Posleen to complete the task of exterminating Islam and us?” A child’s cry, at the unfairness of the world, burst out of him. “Why did Allah allow this to happen?”

Morrigan very visibly bit down one answer. “Do you know what a forest is?”

“I may live in this country you detest, but I am not ignorant,” Kalid snapped. Morrigan had the grace to show a flicker of embarrassment. “My father took us on trips outside the country, from time to time; I went to the Amazon once.”

“The Posleen are eating them now,” Morrigan said. Kalid winced at the thought; he’d liked the South American cities he’d visited, now nothing more than fodder for the Posleen. “In a forest, a tree dies; in time, the other trees die as well, deadwood litters the ground. To all appearances, the forest is thriving, but it’s an illusion; the trees are rotting away, inside. Corruption spreads; the entire process only speeds up, growing faster and faster as it takes hold. Humans pass by and say, in sweet voices, how lovely it is, but the entire region is dead.

“Or is it? Under the trees, new shoots are poking through, pressed down by the deadwood. Green shoots grow, or try to grow; the deadwood makes it hard for them to grow. The deadness spreads, attacking some of the shoots; they’re dying and they cannot even reach the sun. The deadness keeps spreading, keeps wiping out the new shoots, while it dries…and dries and…someone drops a match.

“The flames spread rapidly, quickly, through the deadwood,” Morrigan’s voice whispered. “The deadwood has no resistance to the fires. Some of the dead shoots are exposed to the air for the first time; they have some life in them yet, and they try for life. Others are dead and die with the deadwood; they never really stood a chance at life. The flames rage on, to all appearances destroying, when actually they’re clearing away the deadwood. Nature must have its day…and all debts have to be paid. The flames finally abate, leaving only wreckage behind…and green shoots, poking up into the sunlight.”

“Until they die as well,” Kalid said. Morrigan’s voice was almost hypnotic; he spoke to break the spell. “That’s what you mean, isn’t it?”

Morrigan smiled. “I admired your people until I met them,” he said. “The Posleen are the fire, and the deadwood…well, I’m sure you can work it out for yourself. Islam made a choice, freely, to walk away from endless questioning; you abandoned the intellectual foundation Mohammad left you with, years ago. Why? Did you believe that Allah, the all-powerful, the all-seeing, couldn’t know the shape of the future? What possible nonsense is that?”

He leaned forward. “Islam was always intended to adapt,” he said. “When your people allowed it to ossify, well…some idiot had to strike a match.”

Kalid sighed. “My people here are going to die,” he said. “What does it matter?”

Morrigan smiled and raised his voice. “You might as well come in now,” he called. There was a moment’s pause and then a woman stepped into the tent; Kalid felt his mouth fall open as his wife smiled down on him. She leapt for him and he caught her, feeling her body in his arms as she broke down and cried…and Kalid cried too. Morrigan smiled down at them, once, and then left the tent, leaving them alone together.

***
Lombardi met him outside. “How did it go?”

Morrigan smiled. “We’ll see,” he said. “Perhaps something new will be born here.”

“Or perhaps we’ll all be killed by the Posleen,” Lombardi said. He smiled. “When do you want to leave?”

“We’ll sort everything out and then Adam and Kalid can lead the refugees to Israel,” Morrigan said. Israel was almost certainly the best choice for the refugees – if they were serious about the Alliance of the Books. “You and I will leave tomorrow, I think.”

He smiled. “We’re going to Mecca…”

Chapter Forty-One: Countdown To Armageddon

Mecca, Saudi Arabia
15th June 2006

“This is the Brigade of the Martyrs,” his guide said. Mohammed Zahir nodded thoughtfully, watching the young men as they went through voluntary prayers. It spoke well of them that they prayed, and yet there was something in their eyes, showing through the robes they wore that covered their entire faces, that chilled him. He’d seen faces like that in Palestine, during the war between Israel and Palestine. Those young men had a Cause and they were prepared to die for it.

And, he knew from bitter experience, if someone was prepared to die for something, they were even more prepared to make other people die for it.

The entire situation was filled with irony. The Posleen had marched into Qatar, finally doing something that the Americans, the Israelis, the Saudis and the Indians had been unable to do – silencing Al Jazeera. The entire population had been killed and eaten as the Posleen rampaged on, heading around the southern coast before making the run up towards Mecca. The remains of Al Jazeera now broadcast from Tel Aviv; the irony almost killed him. Certainly, it had puzzled his new hosts; they were determined that their resistance would be broadcast to the entire world.

“Each of these young men is willing to fight the Posleen face to face when they come for Mecca,” his guide said. Mullah Bihar had been more than willing to show Zahir around the city, showing him how entire divisions had been dug in around the holiest sites of Islam. Thousands upon thousands of young men were there, ready to die when the Posleen finally marched into Mecca; they would stop the Posleen or die trying.

The men jumped up from their prayers when their instructor blew a whistle. As one, they raced for their weapons, placed by the side of the Mosque’s walls, and jumped to attention; their eyes glinted behind the masks. They moved rapidly out of the mosque – Zahir and Mullah Bihar stood aside to let them pass – and headed towards their defensive positions. The entire set of houses had been converted into a strongpoint; armed men were everywhere.

“There are a surprising amount of tunnels under the city,” Mullah Bihar commented, for the benefit of the mobile camera at Zahir’s shoulder. It had been made by the Israelis – Zahir wouldn’t have been surprised if it sent transmissions back to the Mossard. He found it hard to care. “The Posleen, we hope, will be stopped at the walls of the city, which we have built up, but they got into Riyadh, so they might be able to get into the walls.”

He led the way outside. The city seemed darker than last time, almost tired, almost…as if it was ready to meet its fate. Armed men kept moving around, watching for trouble; Zahir could almost feel the Posleen mass, moving towards them. It would be a week, at most, before the Posleen reached Mecca, driving refugees in front of them.

“We studied what happened at Riyadh with some interest,” Mullah Bihar continued. “The final transmissions were very helpful, telling us what happened there; the Posleen punched through the defences and piled through, making it harder for the guns in the city to target them enough to slow them down. Their landers didn’t help the defenders, even though they only fired at a handful of targets; we should have enough weapons to actually hold them back.”

“If the Posleen were human,” Zahir commented. “So…how do you plan to stop it?”

“The Posleen, if they punch through, will pile through the gap in the wall,” Mullah Bihar said. “Unless they punch through in several places, they will smash through and surge into the city, attacking the defenders from the rear. At that point, we will start slipping people though the tunnels, into buildings that the Posleen will think are empty, firing on them from the rear.”

“Interesting,” Zahir said. “Didn’t they try that in Riyadh?”

“Not exactly,” Mullah Bihar assured him. “There were two major differences; they didn’t have some of the buildings undefended at the start, and they didn’t have men willing to die to hurt the Posleen firing from them. We have both of them; some buildings will look innocent and undefended…until my people pop up and start firing.”

He grinned. “The Fall of Riyadh actually did wonders for one thing,” he said. “The groups have actually started to work together properly, under the command of that Palestinian.” His eyes flickered. “We did consider having the city divided up between the different groups, indeed to some extent that actually happened, but now we have unity. If the Posleen break through the walls, they will get into the streets…and they will run into a curtain of fire, hacking away at their living flesh. They won’t stand a chance.”

He walked down a long road. Makeshift bunkers, sandbags and heavy weapons were scattered along it; men tested them and retested them. “We have been mining parts of the city as well, on the off-chance that that will clear the Posleen from parts of the city and allow us to reinforce. The Posleen, unlike the Jews, do not bother with a bombardment first; they just charge into the city. That allows us to concentrate more of our people than we would dare against the Jews – it’s good that people are prepared to die for the cause, but their deaths have to be useful.”

Zahir kept his face blank. Mullah Bihar reminded him far too much of Colonel Abassi, who remained in the Mossard’s detention centre. The Israelis would hold him until he proved himself to be useful, or they would send him onwards, or perhaps they would just shoot him. The Iraqi was unlikely to be useful to them; the remaining Iraqis had been assimilated into Syria’s defence forces.

“We are aware, of course, that the Posleen always fire on rockets in flight,” Mullah Bihar said, as they passed a line of cheap rocket launchers. “In this case, we will be launching enough of these to actually take a toll on the Posleen; they will have to shoot down all of these in flight, while the noise should be…distracting them to them as well. If we pile on, hopefully we can pinch off and destroy any Posleen incursion into the city itself, if Allah grants that we have done enough to deserve victory. At worst, we have sections of the city wired and ready to explode upon command – blowing up and taking the Posleen with them.”

He smiled. “You seem impressed.”

“I am,” Zahir admitted. He was, too; the only problem was that he doubted that faith was enough to stop the Posleen. “How many defenders do you have here?”

“Almost half a million,” Mullah Bihar said. Zahir wasn’t sure that he believed him. “Most of them camped outside the city, but they’ll be coming in and manning their posts once the Posleen get near enough to be engaged. We’ll allow the Posleen to come close, and then start ripping them apart.”

Zahir nodded. The Israelis had agreed to let him go, provided he asked one question. “There was a SANG division nearby,” he said, remembering. It was one of the divisions optimised – such a bloodless word – for crowd control, which meant suppressing a riot. The Israelis had wondered what had happened to it. “What happened to that?”

Mullah Bihar’s face darkened. “They split up after Riyadh fell,” he said. “Some came here to join the defence, along with their tanks and guns. They’re going to be a mobile reserve for us. Others headed off to try to reunite themselves with their families – Allah’s punishment will follow them through time.”

“Thank you,” Zahir said, truthfully. The Israelis would be pleased to know. “So, how long do we have?”

“We have to rely on the TERDEF network and what remains of our own people,” Mullah Bihar admitted. “The Posleen are moving forward in vast numbers, but their logistics are not…good; they seem to have drawn the line at moving right across the desert. At the same time, we are aware of Posleen landers flying over the desert; it’s possible that they are re-supplying their entire force with dead humans.”

He winced. “They also seem to be literally devouring themselves to force themselves onwards,” he said. “We have videos; dead Posleen are devoured. That…is pretty unpleasant to watch.”

He sounded shaken, but he seemed to become calmer. “Perhaps they will eat themselves up completely before they reach here,” he said. “Perhaps…I would not want you to worry, but…if they come, we will fight them right to the end.” He paused. “A week, we think, before the first Posleen mass reaches us.”

“A week,” Zahir said. He had half-planned to desert Mecca and report from a safe distance; several hundred miles should have been perfect. Even Israel wouldn’t be safe against the Posleen; Iceland had been one of the favoured hiding places, until the government had sealed it off from the rest of the world. “That should give me just long enough to set up my people…”

“To record our glorious victory,” Mullah Bihar said. He waved a hand at some bodies, hanging from a wall. “People who spread defeatism are defeated and hung.”

The muzzin started its wailing, calling people to prayer. “I see,” Zahir said, after a moment. Suddenly, he didn’t want to pray with Mullah Bihar at all. He’d wanted to bring Lama, the teenaged girl he’d brought out of Iraq, to Mecca; suddenly, he was very glad that he hadn’t done anything of the sort. “Where should I pray?”

“I give the sermon in the mosque,” Mullah Bihar said. He took Zahir’s arm. “Come on; prayers are about to begin.”

***
Sara sat back on her bed, and then lay back, thinking hard. She’d failed, she knew now, to kill the American; one report had placed him with a refugee camp before losing track of him entirely. Osama had said sharp things about it, angering her; she’d come very close to drawing her pistol and shooting him right in the middle of the meeting. Cold logic, something that Osama’s kind claimed that women could never possess, had kept her from starting a civil war; they needed to remain united.

“Girl,” she snapped. She didn’t know her slave’s name and she didn’t care. “Fetch me my maps!”

The girl did as she was told, allowing Sara to study the map; her nakedness didn’t bother her in her own rooms. She’d learnt, long ago, to suppress anything that distracted from the endless war against Israel; she knew what some Israelis did to women who fell into their hands. Between the different groups, they’d managed to work up a massive series of defences, concentrated on the centre of Mecca itself. The Black Stone would be defended to the last, if the Posleen even cared about it; Sara herself intended to join that defence line.

Hussian had done well, with his command, even if Osama was trying hard to attach strings to his body. Osama’s attacks on her, Hussian’s closest advisor, never stopped; Sara knew that he wanted to get rid of her, or to rape her. Despite her own actions, she feared rape more than anything else; it was the final end of her own control over her own actions. She had something few women in Arabic countries had, control of her body; rape would have torn it away from her. Osama would never have the courage to try to rape her himself, which part of her considered a shame, she could have killed him then and no one would have dared to question her.

Killing him now, on the other hand, would start a civil war. The Posleen would walk in and…not take over, they’d eat everyone.

Sara knew – and wondered if Mullah Bihar knew – just how different the Posleen were to the normal enemies of Al Qaida and the Palestinians. The Israelis tried to play by the rules, something that Sara didn’t quite understand, but accepted and was more than willing to take advantage of; the Americans kept most of their weapons firmly out of the fight. The Posleen would come for them all, armed, unarmed, men, women, children…could weapons and tactics designed for fighting such a foe really work against the Posleen?

Her intercom buzzed. She’d insisted on claiming male quarters, but the truth was that separation of the sexes was a joke in this hotel, one used by the Royal Family’s minor branches. She lifted an eyebrow, thinking cold thoughts about what would happen if Osama were to walk in when she was…using her slave, and tapped the intercom with one finger.

“Yes?”

“My Lady,” Omar said, “Mullah Bihar would like to have a discussion with you.”

Sara lifted one eyebrow. “Ask him to wait five minutes,” she said, reaching for her robes and pulling it on. She wore no underwear, one of the few methods for resisting and defying the religious police; she was half-tempted to invite him in while she was naked. She ordered her slave into the backroom – her nakedness would only irritate Mullah Bihar – and checked her appearance before inviting him in.

“Coming into a lady’s room alone?” She asked, as he entered, his eyes grim. Omar would have searched him, alliance or no alliance, before allowing him to enter; there was no point in taking stupid chances. “Don’t you know who walks beside you?”

“I did earn my title,” Mullah Bihar said, mildly. His voice held little of the sexism that dripped from every word Osama uttered towards Sara; it was too much for him to even treat her as someone important. When a man and a woman were alone together, she knew, Islam said that the third person was Satan. Privately, she wondered if Osama needed help in the evil department.

Mullah Bihar was still speaking. “I do wonder if you are really a woman.”

“If that is the explanation that you have come up with for my independence, I can only say that I am astonished,” Sara said, tartly. “I can reason, you know; if you prick me, I bleed. If I took this robe off, you would see my body.”

Mullah Bihar’s face twisted. “I would deny myself pleasure for the coming war,” he said. His face settled into a grim expression. “Time is almost up, My Lady.”

Sara almost smiled behind her veil. “How true,” she said. “It doesn’t help that your mentor makes life difficult for those women who are willing to stand and die for Allah.”

“He is…rather set in his ways,” Mullah Bihar admitted. His face twisted. “It is irritating to myself, as well, My Lady, but there is no one else who has the vision to handle what we need.”

Sara sighed. “Does it matter now?” She asked. “The Sudan…made it certain that the movement would fragment; your promises for a future Palestine became weaker and weaker, thanks to Prince Salim taking power for himself. The Posleen might have eaten him now, but it makes nothing easier, does it? Freedom blew and it will sweep away you as well.”

“And you,” Mullah Bihar said. “Palestine’s independence depends upon us.”

“Does it,” Sara said, very coldly. She knew better than to trust any of Osama’s lot further than she could pick up and throw the entire city. “Why have you come here?”

“I have been forced into making a decision,” Mullah Bihar admitted. His voice darkened. “Osama has been…acting strangely, recently; the Posleen are coming. He wanted to purge everyone’s sins, including flogging and so on, and he wanted all of the women out of the city.”

“Really,” Sara said. The rage boiling within her surprised her; she wanted to murder Osama with her bare hands. “And does he intend to sell us out to the Posleen, as well?”

“I know,” Mullah Bihar said. “He fought in Afghanistan, according to some stories.” Sara snorted; she wouldn’t have placed money on the story. “He feels…that we have to be purified to face the Posleen and…”

He took a breath. “But this is not Afghanistan, and we cannot afford to have an internal…”

“Civil war,” Sara supplied. Her anger was growing. “Please, don’t make excuses for him.”

“Civil war,” Mullah Bihar said. “Your Hussian” – there was something about the way he said that that irritated Sara – “has been becoming more and more annoyed with Osama about it, largely because he thinks that Osama is trying to break up his faction. I need you to control him.”

“I see,” Sara said. Her voice took on a darker edge. “What exactly would you like me to do? Perhaps you would like me to make love to him? Perhaps you would have me throw away my virginity for your…needs?”

Mullah Bihar’s eyes flashed. “No,” he said. “All I need is you to keep him quiet long enough for me to remove Osama from the command network. Can you handle that?”

Sara lifted an eyebrow. Mullah Bihar couldn’t see it, of course. “I could,” she said. A thought occurred to her and she smiled inwardly. “There’s a price tag of my own; you will not attempt to interfere with the women warriors.”

“Hussian was very much in favour of them,” Mullah Bihar said. He held out a hand; Sara blinked, and then held out her own gloved hand, then, on impulse, pulled off her glove and matched bare skin to bare skin. Mullah Bihar looked at her scarred feminine hand and nodded slowly. When he looked up, she saw respect in his eyes. Her own reaction surprised her.

“I will do as you ask,” Mullah Bihar said, a husky tone to his voice. Sara felt an unexpected flush spreading through her body. “You will fight beside us as equals.”

There was a new urgency in Sara’s tone. “Good,” she said. “Time is running out, after all; one week until the Posleen arrive.”

She saw an answering urgency in his eyes. “One week,” he said, thoughtfully. “A lot can happen in a week.”

Chapter Forty-Two: The Scourge of God

Mecca, Saudi Arabia
20th June 2006

Non-Muslims were not allowed within Mecca itself, despite endless breaches of that rule, ranging from a French commando team, dozens of members of the Saudi Royal Family, and - Morrigan reflected – Osama himself. The rule meant nothing to him, but there was no reason to enter the city, not when they could find a vantage point and watch as events unfolded.

The journey across the desert had been nightmarish; their attempts to navigate by the stars confused by the debris in orbit, falling out towards the ground. The nights were very clear, but he heard noises as the Posleen continued their advance; there had been times when they’d stood outside, weapons ready, confident that a Posleen force was about to march across the sand dunes. They’d seen nothing of the Posleen and little enough of their fellow humans; the remaining tribesmen had fled further into the desert. They’d stumbled across the last resting place of some of the refugees from Mecca, on the final leg of their journey; the dead bodies lay in the sun, proving, at least, that the Posleen weren’t anywhere nearby.

“We should burn them,” Lombardi had said, uncharacteristically depressed. “They didn’t have to die this way.”

“Leave them,” Morrigan had ordered. They couldn’t have started a fire without risking giving away their position; they’d searched the campsite for anything useful, before driving on. The trailer had held up well to the journey; he was pleased. Dozens of scouts had used them, hunting the Posleen; he was relieved to note that they’d had enough comfort to keep them going in the desert. Days had merged together until they reached a spot near Mecca; even the burst-transmission from Israel, reassuring him that Kalid and the rest of the refugees had found safety, failed to relax him.

They’d taken a day to carry out their own preparations, finding the vantage point and making the final checks of their position. The hills had some of Osama’s men on them, but both of them had some special forces training and enough practice to remain unseen. Morrigan had taken the precaution of rigging their vehicle with a bomb, just in case; if necessary, they would walk down to the Red Sea and be picked up by the submarine waiting in the waters.

Dawn rose, glinting on the domes and spires of Mecca, and with it came the Posleen. It was the first time that Morrigan had seen the enemy close up and the reports from Barwhon didn’t do them justice. They stood there like a medieval host, glaring towards the city; he wondered what they thought that they were doing. Did the Posleen fight at night? Did they even care about such details?

He turned his head to watch. The God Kings were conferring, their saucers floating very close together; he wished for a missile, or something that could win Mecca some additional hours of time before another Posleen mass marched up from Jeddah. The Posleen had struck Jeddah early, cutting off the retreat; perhaps they had even thought of that deliberately, rather than a happy accident.

Lombardi, beside him, was watching through his binoculars. “They’re talking,” he said, in some surprise. “I wonder what they’re talking about?”

“I don’t think that it includes lesbians,” Morrigan said, after a moment. The defenders of the city weren’t firing on the Posleen with the long-range guns Lombardi had sent them; he wondered why they were doing that, before understanding. The defenders needed time themselves to prepare…and the longer the Posleen gave them, the more preparation they could get in. “They’re not dumb beasts who only think with their dicks, you know.”

The thought worried him. The Posleen didn’t normally bother to learn, but they’d been learning from the Iranians, the Iraqis, and yes, even the Saudis. Far too many Posleen God Kings had survived their first battles, allowing some of them to learn more than he felt comfortable with; the defenders of Mecca might be facing the first Posleen army to know exactly what it was doing.

“Got a signal,” Lombardi said. They’d been reluctant to risk entering the city itself, but they’d launched bird-shaped spy robots into the air, using them to spy on the defenders. The Posleen systems would probably fire on them – Morrigan didn’t know if any of them had actually been tested against the Posleen – but the Jihadis wouldn’t even know what to look for, even if they suspected their presence. “Want to hear the incitement to murder?”

Morrigan nodded. A wailing voice, speaking in Arabic, assailed his ears. He felt a flicker of sympathy for the fighters in the city; the Posleen, at least, were only going to kill them, cook them, and eat them. They had to listen to Osama’s shrieking; he told them about the Posleen, and, finally free of any limits, told them about how the Americans and the Jews had created the Posleen – never mind that America had been one of the first states to feel the wrath of the Posleen, although, to be fair, Israel had never been hit at all. He wondered, suddenly, why anyone would feel so…put-upon that they would take such ranting as the gospel truth?

“I think that many of them would be doubling over with laughter by now,” Lombardi observed. Morrigan shook his head. “Boss, they can’t take it seriously, can they?”

Morrigan nodded. “That man…could tell them that black was white, the world is flat and that sex is wrong and they’d believe it,” he said. “Most of them have been indoctrinated to believe everything he tells them.”

“Sex is wrong,” Lombardi said, shaking his head. “They’re really going to die, aren’t they?”

A movement caught Morrigan’s eye. “Yes,” he said, as the Posleen host started to move. The guns in the city started to sound, hammering out thousands of shells towards the Posleen; the sound grew rapidly into a deafening cacophony. Explosions sparked up amongst the Posleen as they made a run for the city, rapidly breaking into a charge…and aiming directly at the city walls. “They’re all going to die.”

Posleen weapons started to flash now, sending out bursts of fire towards the human positions. Something exploded within the human walls, and then something else exploded, and the Posleen poured towards it.

Lombardi shook his head. “This would be the time for angels to show up,” he said. “They could save the city.”

“I never knew you believed,” Morrigan said. He shook his head. “There’ll be no angels because they don’t deserve them. It’s just them and the Posleen and may Hell take them both.”

***
The tower loomed high over the city, a perfect vantage point for watching what was happening. Mullah Bihar knew that Osama was in his element; his rage and fury at being practically pushed out of the command had faded when the Posleen had arrived. He smiled, just for a moment, at what he and Sara had done together, before turning to watch as Osama spoke rapidly into the microphone. They’d linked the entire system together, just so that they could warn the fighters of what was coming…

“Keep the guns quiet,” Hussian ordered. His voice was very firm; there was no longer time for argument. “Once the Posleen move, then we hit them.”

Osama was still talking. Mullah Bihar heard the power in his voice and responded; he wished he knew what Sara’s face looked like. In the depth of their passion, she’d kept her veil on, hiding herself from him; he hadn’t dared to tear it off. He didn’t understand how that had happened; how he’d somehow fallen into a relationship…it was something that he would never dare discuss with Osama.

He looked up at her, her face hidden, as always, and smiled. He had the strange sense that she was smiling back. The sense of wrongness…hadn’t faded, but it was tempered now; he knew her…and, at the same time, he didn’t own her. She might be his…sexual partner, but she would never be his woman. He felt confused, unworthy, and…

“Here they come,” Hussian said, his voice effortlessly breaking over Osama’s endless speech of encouragement. Mullah Bihar turned to stare; the Posleen were on their way, an endless host of alien bodies, heading for the city. Osama saw it and stared, breaking off his speech; the Posleen were finally here…and Mullah Bihar saw terror in his eyes. For a moment, Mullah Bihar shared that terror, and then he forced himself to be confident.

Alarms sounded all over the city. “All batteries, commence firing,” Hussian ordered, his voice still calm. Parts of the city seemed to explode as they rained shells onto the Posleen, firing time and time again; the city swiftly became shrouded in smoke as the guns fired. “Continue firing.”

He lifted a weapon, listening to reports. “The Posleen are targeting the southern wall,” he said, rather obviously. They’d expected that, drilled for that; the noise of actual combat was having its effects. The tower shook as the guns fired, time and time again; Mullah Bihar could only hope that they were having some effect on the Posleen. The building moved, swaying from left to right, and he shivered; the Posleen might not be needed for his death, after all.

Something larger exploded, the blast appearing through the smoke as a massive fireball. Hussian looked down at his telephone and scowled; the Posleen had managed to kill the person reporting to him, or perhaps they’d managed to knock out part of the communications network. A new resolve rose within him as the shape of a Posleen lander hovered into view, floating high over the city; a hail of tiny rockets raced up to meet it, exploding all around it…

…And then its weapons flashed out, sweeping the rockets from the skies, and then lashing down towards the ground. The Posleen lander seemed undamaged; the explosions shook the building. A skyscraper, not too far away, built to house Princes, fell to the ground in a tearing explosion; the Posleen might not be targeting them, but the effects of their weapons were being felt. Arrogantly, the lander floated back, over the city, firing down from time to time; its unconcern about the human weapons was manifest.

“Sara, Hussian, Osama, get the hell out of here,” Mullah Bihar snapped. He hadn’t known that he had it in him. “Get to the second command centre; I’ll command from here until you take over.”

Hussian nodded and stood up; Osama followed him like a dog. “I’m staying,” Sara said. Mullah Bihar had only a moment to notice the betrayed look on Osama’s face before Hussian hurried him out of the room, leaving them both together. Mullah Bihar felt a sudden wave of lust and laughed at himself; it was hardly the time or the place.

“I know,” Sara said, sounding almost like a little girl. Perhaps she’d had the same kind of thoughts. “I think…”

“One moment,” Mullah Bihar said. He was peering down at the Posleen, boiling over the southern wall and heading into the mined regions of the city. He tapped buttons on the console, relieved to note that those connections, at least, remained intact. “We have to blow that up, now.”

Sara came up beside him, her hands pressing binoculars to her face. There were still humans there, fighting the Posleen, but she nodded anyway; her face was very grim. Mullah Bihar tapped the code into the computer system, felt himself praying as he had never prayed since he was a little boy, and then…

A massive explosion billowed up from the walls, shattering Posleen and humans alike. The Posleen swarmed forwards, but the rocket launchers were already fighting, pouring their little rockets into the Posleen mass. Posleen weapons were cutting them out of the sky, but there were too many of them for even the Posleen to stop completely; he cheered and hugged Sara as explosions hammered at the Posleen and…

Something exploded, far too close to their building. The building shook, as if it were caught in an earthquake. The ceiling crashed in on them.

***
The walls around Mecca had never been intended to deal with such punishment, even though those who had designed them had known what the Posleen had done to other cities, from Riyadh to Fredericksburg. From his position, Mohammed Zahir watched as the Posleen slammed missiles into the massive structures, finally shattering them with a barrage of HVMs. There was a heart-stopping moment of pure fear, and then the Posleen advanced through the breach, their weapons flaring ahead of them.

He’d taken the precaution, this time, of ear protection. He’d given up the running commentary; he was no longer sure if anyone in Israel was hearing the signal, let along broadcasting it to Al Jazeera. The noise was still overwhelming; time and time again, Posleen advanced, died…and more came on. Finally, a Posleen weapon struck something important; an explosion killed some of the defenders. The Posleen forced their way forward, more HVMs shattering the walls, and they came on and on. Something exploded, far too close to Zahir for comfort; the Posleen charged onwards, through the defenders…and the entire defence point collapsed.

“Allah Ackbar,” he heard voices calling. Some of the young men he’d seen earlier charged the Posleen, riding cars and trucks to the battle; one of them was even driving a land rover. They charged towards the Posleen, spinning their vehicles as fast as they could move. “Allah Ackbar!”

For a moment, even the Posleen seemed stunned, and then they opened fire. Their weapons smashed into the vehicles, ripping them apart and destroying them, along with their drivers. The explosives, placed into the vehicles, exploded…and the Posleen went crazy. Their weapons flared out, scything down every vehicle within range; buildings, struck by other weapons, exploded into piles of dust and debris. The Posleen were clearing themselves a space…and humans died…and…

There was a massive explosion. Zahir found himself on the ground; by some miracle, the camera was undamaged, it was even reporting a signal. He stood up, feeling his head spin, and carefully peered towards where the Posleen had been; there was no sign of them now, but a massive burning crater. Flames licked along the buildings, rapidly spreading to the human weapons and vehicles that had been discarded…and then the first Posleen advanced into the wreckage. He watched as a Posleen reached down to pick up a living human, clearly with dinner on its mind; the human detonated explosives and blew them both to bits. The other Posleen seemed unimpressed; a God King, hovering over their heads, seemed to be issuing orders.

The dull rumble of Posleen weapons grew louder; he sensed the presence of landers high overhead, even through the smoke and the noise. The landers opened fire, clearing the Posleen a way into the main heart of the city; some of them actually landed, using their weapons to wipe out resistance. Posleen forces spilled out, eager to do battle; Zahir saw the ground in some places simply…cave in, revealing the tunnel network. The Posleen didn’t seem to like tunnels; they fired along them, igniting the sewage without attempting to use them. Zahir was almost disappointed; the Posleen would have had a hard time down the tunnels, rather than fighting on the surface.

A hail of shellfire crashed down on the Posleen. Someone in the city was still fighting. The Posleen were expanding outwards now, securing themselves before pressing further into the city; the fighting seemed to have reached a lull. Zahir, choosing not to question, stood up and scrambled down to the ground. It was definitely time to move.

The final battle would be fought at the centre of the city and he wanted to be there for it. Armed men waved to him as he ran towards them; they all knew him. Zahir, relieved not to have been shot at, answered their questions; he wasn’t surprised to notice that few of them were eager to try to advance forward against the Posleen. He bade them farewell, and good luck, and headed further into the city.

It wouldn’t be long now.

***
The ceiling crashed in on them, the shifting building knocking Mullah Bihar to the ground. He prayed as the building shook, knowing that if it decided to collapse it would kill both of them, and then the building found a new state. He looked up, noting that windows had shattered and the computers had died, and then looked at Sara. She had been caught by some of the falling debris; he saw red blood staining her torn garment.

He leapt towards her, forgetting his own pain, trying to drag her away from the debris. Her eyes, barely visible though the mesh, were filled with pain; he realised very quickly that it was futile. Her body had been badly mangled by the debris; there was no way that he could move her. She was whimpering, very slightly, he took her hand and squeezed it.

“Sara, I…”

Her voice was broken by pain. “Take off my veil,” she ordered. “Do it, now.”

Mullah Bihar stared at her, and then gently unwrapped her face, revealing a scarred face, damaged by what looked like a knife. Her eyes looked up at him, bright, pain-filled, and somehow unconcerned; her lips were twisted. He wanted to recoil, but forced himself to remain where he was; she didn’t need to see his horror.

Her voice was distant. “In the end, we all wear the face we deserve,” she said. “I never saw that, not until now…”

She fought to clear her voice. “Get out of here and kill them all,” she said. “Kill them and…”

Her body shook once; her eyes became lifeless. Mullah Bihar reached out and tenderly closed her eyes, and then moved quickly to pick up his personal weapon. The final battle would be fought around the centre of Mecca and he would lead the defence.

He silently said his goodbyes to her, kissed her dead lips once, and left the room.

It wouldn’t long now.

It wouldn’t be long until Judgement Day.

Chapter Forty-Three: Judgement Day

Mecca, Saudi Arabia
20th June 2006

A line of tanks appeared around the city, making their way along the road towards the Posleen. Morrigan watched them with some amusement, noting the expensive and decorative markings on their hulls; they’d once been commanded by a Prince with tastes for tanks that looked good in photographs and were far too visible on the battlefield. Anyone not fighting at night would find it easy to see the tanks; in the end it hardly mattered.

Like many tanks, post-First Contact, they had been modified to serve as anti-personnel units; a poor man’s ACS or Tiger tank. The idea was sound in theory…and useless in practice; they were easy targets for the Posleen under any circumstances. Prince Salim, he knew, had tried to keep the Mecca covering force ignorant of what was happening in the rest of the country; they were paying for that now.

“They’re all going to die,” Lombardi said. Hours had passed and neither man had noticed, watching as the Posleen seemed to pause, their weapons spitting into the smoke and flames that covered large parts of the city. The second Posleen force was drawing closer and closer to the city, reinforcements for the first wave of Posleen soldiers; Morrigan could see them moving now, God Kings hovering above their forces with cold deadly intent.

The Posleen were angry…

The Abrams tanks opened fire, their shells slamming into the Posleen, blowing some of them to bits. The sheer mass of Posleen limited the effects; they tended to concentrate the blast against only a handful of Posleen, rather than tearing through the entire mass. Their machine guns chattered, scything through more Posleen; Morrigan dared to hope that it would be enough…

…And then the Posleen spun around, moving faster than their eyes could follow, and wiped the tanks from existence with a series of missiles, tearing the force apart. A handful of SANG infantrymen, suddenly caught in the open, turned and ran; the Posleen ran them down with ease, cutting them down…and then silence fell again, broken only by the occasional bursts of gunfire and the sounds of the dying. The city was burning now, burning brightly; Morrigan wondered if the Posleen were waiting until the humans were all cooked and ready for eating.

“Here,” Lombardi said, nodding towards the second Posleen force. It advanced towards the city and the remains of the first force merged in with the second, swiftly becoming one force. “I think that this is it.”

Morrigan nodded. There were other Posleen forces nearby, including the force that had overrun and eaten Jeddah; they would all be converging on the city. Posleen logistics were very simple; they would take as many humans as they could and eat them, unless they had some other use for them. What possible use could they have that would spare the people in the city?

“God help them all,” he said, looking down at the small device they’d brought with them. “May He have mercy on their souls.”

***
Mullah Bihar had nearly been shot twice by guards as he ran from the tower, only moments before it collapsed into a heap of rubble. The entire city had rapidly become a hellish sight, with flames and burning buildings everywhere; he’d seen what the Posleen were doing to every vehicle they encountered. Soldiers were running everywhere, with the old Afghanistan hands trying to form them up into an armed force; panic was starting to take its toll on the defenders. What would happen when the Posleen broke through the inner circle?

The guard recognised him in time to avoid shooting him; his Palestinian face grinned mischievously at Mullah Bihar, just as the sound of Posleen weapons and explosions echoed over the city. A Posleen lander, perhaps unaware of what the humans were doing around the Black Stone, floated by overhead, shooting down towards some of the remaining guns. Mullah Bihar glared at the guard, cursing the gunners; they knew that they had strict orders to stay quiet when the Posleen craft were overhead.

“I didn’t shoot you,” the guard protested. Mullah Bihar barely resisted the temptation to unsling his weapon and shoot the guard down. “He’s in the command post.”

The entire inner circle had been converted into a defence station; guards with weapons and grim faces were dug in around the Black Stone, prepared to fight and die to preserve the land where the Prophet had once stood. Mullah Bihar stepped carefully through the first minefield, hoping that the Posleen were unable to see the markers, and headed into the small command post. It was half-underground; the Princes had built a bunker underground, near the Black Stone, for reasons that made sense to them, but not to anyone else.

Mullah Bihar’s lips twitched. Perhaps they had seen it as the final defence against their fellow Muslims.

“Sara’s dead,” he said, as Hussian looked up at him, and then past him. “She was caught in the collapse.”

Hussian winced, his face twisting; Sara had been his comrade, after all. Mullah Bihar wondered if they’d been more than that, and then dismissed the thought; she’d been a virgin, after all. Hussian shook his head, and then waved to the map; the Posleen had been occupying the entire southern side of the city.

“There are more Posleen on the way, fresh Posleen,” he said, by way of explanation. “This lull, this unofficial truce, isn’t going to last long, just long enough for the Posleen to get the newcomers integrated and then march on us. If that happens, they are likely to win.”

Mullah Bihar stared at him. “There is no hope?”

“The SANG’s counterattack failed utterly,” Hussian said, his voice cold. He’d never trusted the SANG forces. “Now that there is nothing else stopping them, the Posleen are likely to press in around the centre of the city and reach here.”

His voice darkened still further. “If that happens, we have rigged the entire place with explosives,” he said, lifting out a detonator. He passed it over to Mullah Bihar, who studied it; it was a boxy American-made device, with a clear plastic lid over a red button. “If I get killed and the Posleen reach the centre, push that button.”

Mullah Bihar nodded. “We can still try to hold them off,” he said. “We can fight to the end…”

“Of course,” Hussian said. “We fight to the end, and, if we lose” – he held up the detonator – “we can at least give the Posleen a good clawing as we go down.” His eyes shone with an unholy glee. “You never meant it, did you?”

Mullah Bihar looked over at Osama, who was sitting on a chair, staring at nothing. “We meant it,” he said, meaning the promises they’d made about Palestine. They all seemed so foolish now. “We just…would have done it on our terms.”

Hussian nodded slowly. “It was an interesting time,” he said, seriously. The ground shook suddenly as the Posleen resumed their advance. “Thank you for everything.”

Mullah Bihar took the detonator, placed it neatly in a pocket within his robes, and then looked over at Osama. Something – pity, perhaps – took a hold on him; he’d betrayed his mentor, at the last, and knew that it was time to make amends. Osama looked up as he stepped close, his eyes burning with a grim resigned sadness.

“I’m sorry,” Mullah Bihar said. Mere words seemed so…inadequate, somehow. “I never meant to hurt you.”

Osama looked up at him. “You betrayed me and you betrayed Allah,” he said, standing up. He looked so much older than he had, years ago, when they’d first met. “You have cost us the war.”

His hand fell to an AK-47. He picked it up, checked the ammunition, and led the way out of the bunker. Mullah Bihar looked around the bunker one final time, and then followed his former mentor out of the bunker, towards the final battle.

***
The building was large enough to hold thousands of pilgrims – and indeed had done so from time to time, every year. The building had dozens of soldiers inside, shooting at the Posleen as they marched up the road; the Posleen fell by the dozens, their yellow blood staining the ground. A handful of RPGs were fired, arcing out towards the Posleen; their ranks were torn and broken…but there were always more.

Sheltering behind a stone, only barely able to see what was happening, Mohammed Zahir tried to keep up a running commentary. He didn’t know, any longer, if anyone could hear him; he didn’t know if the Posleen themselves were listening, homing in on his signals. He no longer cared; the Posleen would kill him once they reached his position; the endless attacks by suicidal fanatics hardly worried them at all.

“Allah Ackbar,” a group shouted, as they charged across to attempt to retake a battered building. Posleen missiles had blown through the walls, now they roasted the defenders in their tracks; other missiles shattered the defence line that had sheltered Zahir for long enough to try to check his camera. Blood poured down his face; a Posleen weapon had knocked debris into the air and some of it hit him, cut him. “Allah Ackbar!”

The Posleen turned. Their alien faces showed no expression; their weapons lashed out, silencing the fanatics. A handful reached the building and opened fire from it, the others were torn apart in the streets. Moments later, a Posleen lander targeted the building and ripped it apart.

“Allah Ackbar!” More fanatics, more shellfire; more attempts to kill Posleen. “Allah Ackbar!”

Zahir picked himself up and ran as the large building was targeted by a Posleen God King. A hail of missiles impacted with the building, detonating the explosives stored within it and shattering the defence line; Zahir felt bricks and debris crashing down around him as he fled. Other defenders joined him as the Posleen recoiled from the debris; some sixth sense made him throw himself to the ground as the Posleen fired at the suddenly uncovered humans, sweeping them from existence. Ahead of him, a wall of sandbags waited; he crawled towards it as fast as he could.

“Allah Ackbar,” someone – one of the defenders shouted. A hail of machine gun fire emerged from the sandbags, sweeping into the Posleen; they were shredded by the attack, and then they fired themselves. The sandbags hadn’t been built into position; Posleen weapons blew them away and then shredded the defenders – Zahir kept his head low and prayed not to be noticed.

“Over here,” someone shouted. He looked up and saw a man, beckoning to him as the Posleen advanced more carefully up the street. He moved as fast as he dared, reaching the man, who beckoned him into a small passage in the defences. “Quickly!”

The tunnel made him feel awfully claustrophobic. “Hey,” he said, trying to keep himself calm, “what is this place?”

The man looked at him sharply. “It’s a servant’s tunnel,” he said. Zahir stared at him. “The people who lived here wanted their servants out of sight, out of mind, so they built these tunnels.”

Zahir looked around. The tunnel wasn’t large enough for him to stand upright; no one over the age of twelve would be able to stand up comfortably. It was crowded, as well, by boxes; one of them was marked in English. EXPLOSIVES. He felt a flicker of alarm, and then he decided that it didn’t matter; he was a dead man anyway.

“This way,” the man said, leading him out of the tunnel into what was very obviously a woman’s quarters, and then through into a side street. The noise of fighting hit him like a physical blow, but all he could see of it was the glow over Mecca. A shadow fell over him and he looked up; the shape of a Posleen lander fell on him, just long enough to scare him. “Now…”

The man pulled out a detonator, pushed the button, and grabbed Zahir. “Run,” he snapped. “Move!”

Zahir took the hint and ran. Moments later, a massive blast caught up with him, blowing him to the ground. His saviour was thrown further by the blast; Zahir winced in horror as the man’s head cracked against the ground, shattering it enough to kill him. Behind them, a massive cloud of fire was rising; the Posleen had been badly hurt, perhaps even crippled.

His camera had finally given up the ghost, he realised; it had hit the ground hard enough to shatter it. He looked at it, knowing that no one would know what had happened at the end…and then he heard a sound. A Posleen, on its own, was standing there, looking at him. It’s eyes locked with his, Zahir saw madness glittering there, somehow…and then it lifted a weapon. There was a moment of absolute nothing…and then it fired.

Darkness.

***
The last of the shells from the long-range guns, those that had survived the attack of the landers, had been fired long ago. Mullah Bihar knelt where he’d been kneeling ever since the attack had begun, seeing the Posleen advancing towards the Black Stone. The greatest and holiest site in Islam, one of the holiest sites in the world, was under attack. By some miracle, the monument itself was undamaged, but the same couldn’t be said for the city. Flames and smoke could be seen rising from all parts of the city; a man who had scrambled to the top of a watchtower, moments before the Posleen had targeted it, reported that the city was burning.

Mullah Bihar wondered if they were the last of the defenders. The Posleen didn’t seem to know or care about the Black Stone; they advanced against the defenders wherever they found them. The Posleen landers, high overhead, seemed to be waiting; the forces on the ground, creeping closer, were advancing.

He knew, then, as he fired a shot at a Posleen that was trying to crawl forwards, what they were doing. They wanted the Black Stone; they wanted it for some alien purpose of their own. The Stone seemed to be speaking to him – he had the vision of a middle-aged man looking at him with unlimited sadness in his eyes – but he knew that it was a delusion, a trick of the devil. The Posleen were the servants of the devil…and they could never be allowed to obtain the Black Stone.

“Allah Ackbar,” he shouted, seeking, at the end, forgiveness. He would lay down his life for Allah; he saw now that he had never really intended to do anything of the sort. He had never really believed, not until this moment, not until death was so close that it was practically kissing him on the shoulder. “Allah Ackbar!”

An explosion showed that some grenades were left; the Posleen recoiled from the blasts. Hussian stood up, to shout encouragement to the remainder of the defenders, and a burst of fire cut him in two; blood and guts splattered on the Black Stone. Mullah Bihar would have been horrified at the blasphemy, except that pain and blood was all that any of them had to offer their master. It was all that they could offer Allah…

A Posleen leapt forward, almost reaching him; a sustained burst from his weapon tore the Posleen in half. He fell backwards as burning hot blood fell over him; it wasn’t acid, as he’d half-expected, but something about it hurt him. It was the blood of the devil…and suddenly he knew what he had to do. The Posleen encircled them, pushing closer and closer; his hand reached down for the detonator.

He looked around for Osama.

But Osama had gone.

He saw it, then, as the Posleen closed in. He fired his final blast, uncovered the red button, said a final plea for forgiveness…and pushed the button. The explosives went off almost at once, blowing the Black Stone, thousands of Posleen, and Mullah Bihar to bits. Mullah Bihar’s last thought was of Sara, before the darkness swept him away.

***
The explosions threw him to his knees, sending a trickle of warmth down his legs. Something struck his back and he hit the ground, unable to move. He lay there, gasping for breath, his ears permanently damaged from the sound of the war. His mind filled with a single thought, escape, and how to rationalise it, somehow. He had to regroup, he had to rebuild, it was important that he survived. The pain in his back refused to fade; he pulled himself forward using his hands alone.

Something skittered near him. He looked up, into the eyes of a Posleen, its hands already reaching down for him. He thought, then, of his weapon; it was too late. The weapon lay on the ground, far out of reach. Osama screamed then, screamed as the Posleen drew its knife, and thrashed around in the alien grip. The knife slashed into his chest, spilling his guts out onto the desert; annoyed, the Posleen tightened its grip and slashed once across Osama’s throat. Pain surged up; the darkness was almost a relief.

Judgement.

***
The Posleen were closing in, Morrigan could see. They knew that Mecca was the place where the refugees had gone; millions of Posleen, coming to convert Mecca into their base. The thought was coldly amusing; they would convert Mecca – if Morrigan chose to allow it to happen. He’d heard enough about the Prophet to admire him; he hoped, if Allah held Muhammad’s soul, that he would be kind enough never to show him what had become of Islam.

He didn’t deserve it.

“I think it’s time,” he said, picking up the detonator. Lombardi nodded, taking cover; Morrigan smiled and pushed the detonator. His hands leapt to his ears as a thunderous blast went off, several blasts; they’d placed the remaining nuclear weapons in locations where they’d expected the Posleen to reach. A wave of radioactive fire cascaded out towards the Posleen, washing over the remains of Mecca; the Posleen had no time to run before the blast caught them.

Lombardi opened his mouth.

Morrigan pointed a finger at him as silence fell. “If you say one word about it being strangely arousing,” he said, “I will strangle you.”

Lombardi shook his head. “The thought never crossed my mind,” he said. Morrigan shrugged. “I was wondering more about radiation.”

Morrigan hefted himself up and peered down towards where Mecca had once been. The nuclear warheads had been tactical weapons, so they hadn’t had enough power to take out the entire city, but the city had been near the blasts. The Posleen had been badly hit – he could see the wreckage of a lander nearby – and he hoped, perhaps, that they’d done enough.

His lips quirked. “You knew the job was dangerous when you took it,” he said. The Russians had never been people for building clean nukes. He stared at the wreckage and shook his head sadly. “There,” he said. “That’s your fire, Kalid; I’ve burnt away the deadwood for you, and bought you what time I could, and the rest is up to you.”

Together, the two men walked away from the city of Mecca.

Epilogue

The two men walked away from the city. Behind them, the remains of the Posleen force completed their grim task, exterminating human life from the city. Jeddah had fallen; Medina fell, hours after Mecca itself. Battered and bruised, recoiling in their strange alien way, the Posleen licked their wounds. Soon, it would be time to march again.

Two days after they started their walk, their vehicle destroyed by the shockwaves, they were picked up by an Israeli Special Forces team, coming to catalogue the devastation. The Israelis checked them both, using Galactic technology to cleanse their bodies of radiation. Under the Posleen interdict, they travelled further away towards Jordan, before an Israeli aircraft met them and transported them the rest of the way to Israel. Their friends met them there; Morrigan had eyes only for his lover.

That night, Morrigan and Yasmeena lay together…

Kalid and Morrigan talked, once, before Morrigan and his new wife returned to the United States. They spoke of God, of prophets and kings and how aliens might fit into religious affairs – they wondered, did the Posleen have a religion? The Arabs would join the defence of the final Holy City; they would fight side by side with Christians and Jews. Perhaps, in the struggle, old hatreds would be laid aside…

Or, humans being humans, they would keep the old hatreds stored for a later day.

The world took a breath.

Morrigan watched as the submarine slipped away from Halifa. It all seemed so safe and tranquil.

Perhaps the Allies of the Book would stop the Posleen, finally.

Or perhaps not.

Time would tell.

It always does.

And Allah alone knows all…

The End