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.“You’re masters at unarmed combat, sneaking about.and Chess?”“There was a trooper up at Hereford who was a five-star chef,” Butcher said.Gabriel couldn't tell if he was being serious or joking.“And there was a little old woman who knew absolutely everything about plants and kept massive greenhouses.Every six months, a dozen lads from Hereford would gather around this tiny old lady and learn what they could safely eat in the wild.She never had any problems with vandals either.I wonder why.”Gabriel opened his mouth, and then looked up as the butler entered the room.“Pardon me, sir,” he said, “but the Brigadier has returned from his trip.He is waiting for you in the library.”“Good,” Gabriel said, standing up.Butcher moved ahead of him, watching for assassins lurking in the corridor.Gabriel had tried to talk his close-protection detail out of being so paranoid, but Butcher had pointed out that the aliens had human collaborators who might be more adroit at tracking him down.Haddon Hall’s small staff had just had to get used to the three men watching their every move.They were all security-cleared, positively vetted, yet none of them had expected to be suddenly living in an occupied country.Gabriel hadn't expected it either.Lightbridge-Stewart stood up when Gabriel entered the library.“We got the consignment underway,” he said.The alien was on his way back to his people, then.“I wanted to discuss a possible operation with you, while I was here.My staff have been putting together a plan we’ve entitled Operation Hammer.”Gabriel frowned as he took his seat.The Americans loved bold and purposeful operational names – Operation Enduring Freedom, Operation Iraqi Freedom – but the Ministry of Defence preferred to assign names at random, on the grounds that anyone who heard the name wouldn't automatically know what it meant.Using a purposeful name was unusual and it suggested that someone intended for it to become public sooner rather than later.“The core problem, Prime Minister, is that we cannot prevent them from moving wherever they please – and, if necessary, bombarding us into submission,” Lightbridge-Stewart said.Gabriel nodded, concealing his impatience.“They have the ability to hit us wherever they want, put bluntly, and it cripples our ability to mount a sustained insurgency.We need to show them that we are not going to roll over for them and surrender.”“Particularly after we returned their captive,” Gabriel agreed.“How do you intend to hammer the message into their heads.”“We can cripple their command and control network,” Lightbridge-Stewart said.“Maybe not for very long, but we can bring it down long enough to mount a series of attacks on their bases – and the collaborator government in London.At the very least, we would force them to fall back and rebuild their collaborator force from scratch.We might even give them enough of a bloody nose that they pull out of Britain altogether.”“I doubt they will feel inclined to surrender,” Gabriel said, dryly.“It's much more likely that they’ll take a step back and hammer us from space.”“It’s possible,” Lightbridge-Stewart agreed.“The problem, however, is simple; do we take advantage of the one chance we are likely to get to hurt them, and smash their collaborator government, or do we surrender the initiative to them? We know they’ve been working on building networks for controlling our civilians and putting them to work on alien projects.How long is it going to be before the last resistance fighters are pushed to the Highlands, or the North Yorkshire Moors, or.”Gabriel nodded.“We’re stuck,” he said.“We can keep irritating them, but if we piss them off too much they might just decide that they’re better off without us.”“Maybe not,” Lightbridge-Stewart said.“We were talking to the alien captive about them committing genocide – about them wiping out the entire human race.From what we were told, they can’t – there are interstellar laws that prohibit genocide.”“There are human laws that prohibit genocide,” Gabriel pointed out.“I don’t recall anyone actually stepping up to the plate and stopping the slaughter in Sudan.The laws aren't enforced, so.”He shrugged, remembering how frustrated he’d felt before the aliens had landed and shown him just how helpless many people in undeveloped countries must have felt over the years.It was easy to get governments to condemn genocide, but much harder to actually convince them to do anything about it, no matter how clear-cut the case for intervention.He had no doubt that they could have stopped the slaughter in Sudan or any of the other stricken countries in Africa, yet the cost would have been horrific and there was no hope that anyone else would pick up the tab.“Apparently, the interstellar races do enforce the laws,” Lightbridge-Stewart said, slowly.“There’s no law against invading a planet that can’t defend itself, it seems, but there is one against deliberately causing a genocide.That’s something we can use against them.”“They can kill a hell of a lot of us without committing genocide,” Gabriel pointed out, sourly.Dear God – had he ever wanted to be Prime Minister? One less scandal and he might have died in London when the aliens landed, or perhaps found himself drafted into the collaborator government.The entire weight of the world rested on his shoulders.“How sure are we that the aliens wouldn't exterminate us?”“I think we are reasonably sure,” Lightbridge-Stewart said.“But they will certainly push back hard when we start pushing them.”“True,” Gabriel said.They needed a victory.They needed something they could use to inspire resistance all over the country.And after the aliens had forced them to surrender their captive, they needed one desperately.“I authorise the operation.”He hesitated.“And I hope to God that we’re not making a terrible mistake,” he added.“The aliens won’t hesitate to hammer us if we push them right out of the country.”***Tra’ti Gra’sha kept one eye on the countryside around him as his small patrol skimmed down the human road, looking for trouble.It all looked peaceful, apart from the handful of birds flying through the air, but the undergrowth had been known to hide all kinds of surprises over the past few weeks.The humans were past masters at burying an IED and using it to hit a patrol, and then bringing in armed bands to catch the survivors before they had a chance to escape
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Tematy
IndexChristine Amsden [Cassie Scot Cassie Scot ParaNormal Detecti
Christie Craig [Divorced, Des Divorced, Desperate
Moore Christopher Ssij, mała, ssij (II)
Stasheff, Christopher Wizard in Rhyme 6 Haunted Wizard
Christine Feehan Mroczna Seri Mroczny Demon
Cidney Swanson [Saving Mars Saving Mars (epub)
Stasheff, Christopher Rogue Wizard 04 A Wizard in Peace
Feehan Christine Mroczna Seria 01 Mroczny Ksišże
Stasheff, Christopher Warlock 01 The Warlock in Spite of Himself
Christine Feehan Mroczna Seria 13 Mroczne Przeznaczenie