Chapter 14

Birmingham. December, the same year.

“Does this make sense?” The speaker looked up from the document he was reading, and around at the other eight men sitting at the large circular conference table.

“I can understand it, and it makes a sort of macabre sense, but I don’t like it,” said another. He looked up and at a third person. “Anthony?”

Admiral Sir Anthony Watts looked up, horrified at what he was reading. “It does make a sort of horrible sense.”

The nine men around the table were the nine most senior of Britain’s military, though none were currently wearing a uniform; instead all wore fairly conservative business suits. General Sir George Wiggin, the first speaker, was the Chief of the General Staff, the most senior professional soldier in the British Army. He was flanked by his two most senior deputies: General Sir Mike Gold, currently C-in-C Land Forces, and Lieutenant-General Tom Stafford, the current Adjutant General.

The three officers to their left around the table were Air Marshal Sir Clive Wilkinson, the Assistant Chief of the Air Staff and the second most senior officer in the Royal Air Force. He was followed by his boss: Air Chief Marshal Sir Simon McCall, Chief of the Air Staff, the professional head of the RAF, and the second person to speak; and finally Air Marshal Gong Craik, C-in-C Air Command and the third most senior officer in the RAF.

The final three officers, in turn moving left around the table, were the most senior Royal Navy officers. Vice Admiral Sir Jeremy Osbourne, Second Sea Lord and C-in-C Naval Home Command, Admiral Sir Anthony Watts, First Sea Lord and more formally Chief of the Naval Staff, the professional head of the Royal Navy; and Admiral Sir Adnan Hussan, C-in-C Fleet and the second most senior officer in the Royal Navy. His was the only post that had never been called a Sea-Lord, even though he was, both by rank and position, more senior than the Second Sea Lord.

There was a single empty place at the table that should have been the place of Air Chief Marshal Sir Nigel Georgeson, the Chief of the Defence Staff and the professional head of all the military services. Unfortunately, as everyone in the room knew, he had been arrested three days previously by a TaF Safety Patrol and had not been seen since. Sir Nigel had been very outspoken in his criticism of Graham Thorn in particular, and Earth First in general.

The Vice-CDS post had been abolished a few months earlier by Thorn, who particularly disliked Moslems, so when Admiral Sir Amjad Hussein had been appointed to the post, having been Sir Anthony Watts’ predecessor as the Head of the Royal Navy, Thorn had deliberately abolished the post. “We no longer need the position as our forces are small enough for one man now,” he had proclaimed. No one knew where Sir Amjad was now, but it had been nosed around that there was a warrant out for his arrest, and though no one knew for certain whether this was true or not, no one was prepared to ask in case they got an answer they didn’t want or like.

As such, the nine men around the table were somewhat nervous, for they had all supported and approved of both Sir Nigel and Sir Amjad.

“It’s a bit risky isn’t it?” said Jeremy Osbourne. “I mean, how the hell does he hope to get away with it? And it puts us all personally into a very scary situation. Even more than we are now.”

Some of the others nodded their agreement.

Gong Craik, probably the darkest skinned individual any of the others had ever seen, spoke up. He had been brought up in a very deprived area of East London, and had a very distinct accent. It had eased off over the years, but in times of stress made a reappearance. Now was one of them. “He’s gonna get hisself, an’ most of us, kilt if’n he ain’t ver ver careful.”

“Yeah,” muttered a couple of the others, nodding.

Adnan was the next to speak. “In one sense I actually like this plan. I’ll have to admit to thinking something along these lines well over a year ago when the Royal Marines and the SAS were all but disbanded. It’s only luck that Thirty Commando and the SBS are still in existence.”

Mike Gold nodded. “Indeed. That was a bad blow for all UK forces, but since most of the SAS were overseas at the time, I attached them to the German GSG 9 organisation.”

Osbourne looked interested at that. “Aren’t GSG 9 police rather than army though?”

Gold nodded. “Yeah, but they’ve worked very closely with the SAS on antiterrorist operations, so although they’re not exactly aligned, it was convenient. And it means they stay on top of their game. Indirectly I’ve kept abreast of what’s happening, and although EF hasn’t become a truly significant political force in the rest of Europe, they are getting just as nasty as any other terrorist group, so my men aren’t wasting their time.”

Tom Stafford leaned forwards and looked at Gold around their boss. “Now there’s an idea. Why don’t we just arrange to have all UK forces outside of our national borders simply transferred, albeit on a temporary basis, to another country’s forces? That way at least they’ll stay together.”

Gold shook his head. “Thorn thinks the SAS has been disbanded. All the HQ staff, and everyone in the UK at the time we were ordered to disband them, were simply transferred back to their home units. Thorn always knew that the SAS wasn’t a huge force, so he saw what he wanted to see. The transfer of the rest to the GSG 9 was done on the sly, worked out by the SAS’s commanding officer at the time and the officer in charge of the GSG 9. With the implicit, but unspoken, permission of myself and George.” He indicated General Wiggin. “Plus, since Evans banned all exchange officers last year, it’s become that much harder to make this sort of arrangement.” Various officers around the room nodded in agreement.

“Okay, let’s just clarify,” George Wiggin spoke up again. “This Brigadier,” he glanced down at the papers in front of him, “Russell Sheard, proposes that we,” he indicated the nine people around the table, “all resign our posts quietly, and set up as a shadow force in waiting for when this alien invasion happens. He seems to think that when that happens Earth First will just quietly wither away, taking Thorn with it.”

“That assessment I can agree with,” noted Simon McCall. “I still have private contacts in the Pentagon and around Europe, and I can tell you all that most of the militaries around the world are gearing up for this. We, and the Aussies, are almost the only countries not to be doing so, and it worries me.” The other officers all nodded their agreement, all of them had unofficial contacts with allied militaries, even though Thorn had banned them from any formal contacts after the unilateral withdrawal from both NATO and the EU. McCall continued, “the RAF, and air forces in general, in theory at least, are likely to be the first to contact the enemy. They are coming in from space, after all.”

“Are you doing anything on the sly?” asked the Second Sea Lord.

Gong Craik grinned. “As of this morning, we’s got a hunnet an’ thirteen Harriers, latest marks with all the upgrades we can think of, hidden around the country.” His accent, along with his grin, faded slightly. “Every single pilot I have is currently cleared on them, though many think it’s just for ceremonial purposes. I’ve had some of my engineering and design staff go through the Confederacy database with a fine-tooth comb looking for useful additions to them as well as to my Typhoon’s and Tornado’s. I also have four machine shop sized Confederacy replicators dotted around the country, and each one can produce the parts for a complete plane in four to five days. It then takes my fitters and engineers another fifteen to twenty days to assemble it all to produce the fully working Harrier, though unarmed and without any fuel. I’ve got a fifth that’s just producing the armaments, but fuel is my main concern for an operational plane. The primary limitation is getting hold of the raw materials necessary to feed the replicators, otherwise I’d have four times as many by now.” He shrugged. “I’d have liked to create an industrial sized replicator, but hiding one of those would be all but impossible.”

“Why Harriers?” asked Watts. “Surely something far more modern would have been better?”

“Just for the vertical take off and landing. We’ve used this Confederacy database to massively uprate and improve the engines as well as the avionics and firepower. They’re still not supersonic, but that’s as much down to the aerodynamics as anything else, but they are faster, even more manoeuvrable and far and away more powerful. They’re at least sixty percent more powerful than the GR9s that were the last operational Harriers way back in 2010, yet weigh the same as the older and slightly lighter GR5. However we’ve hidden most of them where only they, or a chopper, can take off and land.”

“I thought that database had been banned in the UK,” said Wiggin, looking surprised.

“It has, but there’s copies floating around if you know where to look. In any case the Pentagon as well as the French and Germans all have copies and have discreetly allowed us access. We even have access, though I don’t think they know it, to one in the Irish Ministry of Defence.”

A number of the men laughed at that.

“The Yanks weren’t going to let us have access to theirs, citing ‘National Security’, until they discovered we could get access elsewhere. Now I think they prefer we access theirs so they can see and monitor what we do access. It’s why I prefer the German or Irish access points. Especially the Irish access point.” Gong grinned at everyone and got yet another laugh.

“Hmm,” muttered Hussan. “With the total cancellation of the F35C, and the F35B not really quite up to scratch, I like the idea of having some Harriers back. We could hide them on Prince of Wales.” He looked up and addressed the rest of the room. “That carrier was officially taken out of extended readiness status and mothballed twenty months ago and was recently ordered to be scrapped. Queen Elizabeth, which is on active service currently, has now also been ordered into dock to be decommissioned and scrapped.” He smiled slightly. “I said officially, but in fact nothing has actually changed on Prince of Wales, partly because we’ve installed five machine shop replicators on board to help us maintain the ship without it looking like that’s what we’re doing. It’s slight overkill, and it’s not perfect, but it works. Queen Elizabeth currently has just one machine shop sized, and two appliance sized aboard, but I’ve ordered another couple to be fitted as soon as possible once it gets into dock, when I’ll also try and get them upgraded to machine shop sized.”

“I can hide a load of Harriers on board both, but what’s going to happen to your F35Bs?” asked Gong curiously.

“Nothing. Don’t forget budget cuts years ago meant we only ever had two dozen in the end. Five of those have already been lost in service and another three have had to be cannibalised for repairs. Once the ship has docked, I think we’ll have the capacity to get those three repaired and fully operational again. In any case we’ve been ordered to scrap them, however I’ve persuaded the civil servants to sell them to the US instead.”

Tom Stafford frowned. “Will they buy them? Surely they have enough of their own.”

“It’s already agreed. They’ll take them and look after them for us until such a time as we can take them back. And since there’s only sixteen active anyway, maybe nineteen by then, I’m not going to worry if we never get them back. Most pilots apparently hate the damned things anyway.”

Stafford’s frown relaxed as he nodded his understanding.

“So why haven’t you used Q.E.’s replicators to maintain the sixteen you do have?” asked Craik.

Hussan shrugged. “Because we only had three, and the two small ones were designated for the messes. The larger one has been running full stretch just to maintain the ship with the reduced crew and supplies we’re allowed. As it is, without it we’d have had to cannibalise more than just the three we did cannibalise. The replicators on Prince of Wales are all larger and more capable.” He looked over at Craik. “Get me a pattern for one of your Harriers, and I’ll start creating a few more.”

Craik nodded. “Done.”

“What other large assets do you have, Adnan?” asked Clive Wilkinson.

Adnan shrugged and began ticking off his fingers. “Four Vanguard class SSBNs, not that I would know what to do with those in this instance. Their replacement was halted ten years ago, but we’ve managed an in service life extension program and they are now all, effectively, back in service. Vanguard herself is going through a programmed maintenance down period at the moment, Vengeance is at sea, the other two are tied up at Faslane. Seven Astute class fleet subs, though Ajax is a bit late and won’t be formally ready for service for about six months. One Trafalgar class fleet sub, Triumph, was due to retire at the same time as Ajax comes into service, but I’m going to try and hang on to her, if I can find a use for her. Talent was decommissioned last year and due to be sold but is still in dry dock, and if I can get that refurbished and back in service I will. Erm.” He thought for a moment. “Six Type 45 destroyers, four currently at sea, Dragon in a midlife refit and Diamond, I think, berthed in Portsmouth. One Type 42 berthed and awaiting decommissioning. Twelve Type 23 frigates, one in a refit, four at sea and seven berthed of which one is due for decommissioning. One Type 26 in active service and at sea, one is just finishing off its stage two trials and due to be handed over in the next month or so, one just starting its stage one sea trials and three more in various stages of build and fitting out. As most of you probably know, the last three of the 26s have already been officially scrapped, but I think, with luck, I can get one, and maybe even two of them into service.” He shrugged. “But that to a certain extent depends upon how soon Thorn can be removed from office,” he grinned for a moment, “and whether I can get one of my machine-shop replicators upgraded to an industrial class.” There was a ripple of laughter at that.

“I wonder,” mused Mike Gold. “I’ve had to scrap and in some cases physically destroy about a quarter of my vehicles, including tanks and artillery. If I managed to get hold of a decent sized replicator I’m thinking I could push working ones through, and then have the patterns to re-create what I’ve lost later.” He shrugged. “I’ll have the scrap metal.”

“How fast does a replicator produce anything?” asked Jeremy Osbourne looking at Gong.

“The machine shop jobbys produce about sixty-eight kilograms an hour, so just under sixteen-hundred a day. Why?”

“I was just wondering whether,” he paused a moment, “they’re being used in the right way.”

“What do you mean?” Gong looked interested.

“Well, if that replicator was to produce one day’s worth of machine tools, to produce some of the ordinary parts, wouldn’t that amount of machine tools produce more aircraft at a faster rate?”

Gong rubbed his face. “It’s six and two threes,” he said eventually. “Yes they could produce machine tools, and in fact have, but whether we get it to produce a set of tools or another copy of itself, at that point we still only have two production lines, whether one replicator and one traditional, or two replicators. And at the end of the day the replicators produce the aircraft faster simply because it doesn’t matter how the raw material goes in, while machine tools require their input to be...” he paused as by now most of the officers were nodding in understanding. “Our real problem is raw materials. If we had the input that the original factories had, then yes, machine tools would be faster. Probably. As it is, under the current circumstances I’m not convinced.”

“Can you produce a second replicator then?”

Gong nodded. “Easily. And slightly faster than the time it takes to produce a Harrier. Thing is, I don’t need more replicators, I need more raw materials. The replicators I have are not running at anywhere near full stretch.”

“Interesting though this is, it isn’t really getting us anywhere,” interrupted Tom Stafford. “What about this plan of Brigadier Sheard? I know the bloke, and I still think I could trust him with my life. He’s trustworthy and honourable in my opinion.”

“I agree,” said Mike Gold quietly. “I’ve worked with him a few times, and never had any problems with him.”

“So we set up a shadow military command. What happens to the real military command? Who does the job we’re all currently doing?” asked Wilkinson.

“I think he does it himself,” his boss, Simon McCall said softly. “In a way it’s not a bad idea, but it’s this bit at the bottom that has me worried.”

“I noticed that too,” said Wiggin. “He offers the option to have us all arrested, and then claims he has the appropriate contacts, but doesn’t say what they are, to have us all rescued and sent somewhere safely on the quiet.”

Lieutenant-General Tom Stafford spoke up. “I really don’t like that idea, yet in principle, that would be the best option, because, as he says, it clears the way for someone, or multiple someones, all of whom are or at least claim to be loyal to Thorn to come in and take over. And it allows us to get away completely. If we just resigned, especially if it was en masse, we would just get Thorn and his goons watching us. That I get at the moment. I don’t want it if I’ve resigned or retired, no matter what else I may or may not be doing.”

“At least he admits that it may be more dangerous initially, but he then goes on to say that it should be easier and less dangerous afterwards,” noted Craik.

The others all nodded slowly. “If we take Sheard at his word,” added Air Chief Marshal Simon McCall.

There was a few moments silence as the nine men digested this, but then Mike Gold spoke up. “I think on that score, we can trust him. To be honest I don’t think we have a lot of choice, we must trust him.”

Vice Admiral Jeremy Osbourne spoke up next. “It’s his idea of running down the military...”

“It’s not his idea at all,” interrupted McCall. “It’s Thorn’s and that toady defence minister of his, plus, if you remember, that so-called defence review a couple of years ago.”

Everyone nodded. They did remember. Thorn had claimed to have done a thorough review of the defence needs of the country, but in reality all he had done was to slash the defence budget by 20% a year, in real terms, for the last two years, and this would go on for at least another two.

“You know what I mean,” Osbourne said, slightly irritated, “but simply firing everyone, and allowing us to pick them up again as a shadow organisation set up to fight the aliens, and, if it has to, The Truth And Freedom Party, that worries me. There’s too many people for that. It’ll end up being far too public. Someone will have to realise what’s happening, then all hell will break loose. The ‘Safety Patrol’ will be on us in no time flat. I’ve been watching them, they are not a weak and ineffective force. We’d destroy them in the end, but they’ll hurt us if they come after us before we’re ready.”

“Appendix A gives an outline of his methods,” said Gold. “He seems to be suggesting that as he has to reduce the army anyway, he reduces regiments en cadre, one company at a time to, in effect, a single battalion with a single headquarters company which then acts as the skeleton for the entire regiment around which it can reform. In theory that could work. Admiral,” he nodded at Adnan Hussan, “I’m assuming the same sort of thing could, in principle at least, be done with the navy?”

“Not so easily, but yes. In principle.”

“Same with the RAF,” added Gong slowly. “In theory.”

“Hmm,” muttered Stafford. “He hasn’t really made it clear how it’s supposed to work once the men have been made redundant. We need to ensure they don’t get picked up and inducted into the Safety Patrol, but far more to the point, even if we manage that, how do we train? How do we train pilots in particular, but in fact anyone who is more than an infantry man. Tankers. Sailors. Artillerymen. Even engineers and...” he stopped and shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t see how the plan, as a whole, can possibly work.”

“According to appendix B, these aliens are expected to arrive on Earth in about four or five months’ time. What he’s saying is that he thinks we’re on borrowed time, and in practice this situation won’t remain for many months at all, only until they arrive. What it should do is to take the pressure off the forces if Thorn thinks they are being disbanded even faster. We all know just how closely we’ve been monitored the last few months, and quite how you,” Watts nodded at Craik, “managed to hide five industrial sized replicators and over a hundred Harrier Jump Jets is a magic trick you’ll have to explain some time.”

Craik just grinned. “I just wish they were industrial sized. Can you imagine trying to hide one of those? Mind you,” he continued more slowly, “can you imagine just what we could do if we had even one that size?”

“Well,” continued Osbourne slowly, “he does say he’ll do the reducing slowly and in a controlled way, a company at a time, to allow us to pick up the men and women involved at each stage.”