Chapter 6

"Sir, I'm afraid I have to relieve you of command," Griff stated, gruffly. "I'm arresting you on the charge of treason,” the cauterized stump of his neck continued as a blue flash removed its former adornment.

“No, Mike,” Private Lenny Church replied, his pulse rifle levelled, its vent still slightly illuminated. “You’re not.”

“Thank you Church,” said a relieved Morgan, gratefully. He directed his query to the building’s former residents: “I don’t suppose you’ve installed any underground access routes since you took over? We want to avoid being tracked by a Martian ship or military satellite, if at all possible.”

An old woman in the corner responded, “Yes – the one we were planning to evacuate through. I’ll lead the way out.”


“I need you to grit yer teeth,” the soldiers’ medic, a vaguely attractive Scotsman with a few days’ bristle on his cheek, told Jeanne as he held the large circular metallic plate of a gun-shaped device to her wound, “because I won’t humour you – this will hurt a lot, and you need to be alert so I can’t give you any strong painkillers.”

Jeanne braced herself, and felt what could best be described as being ‘un-shot’ – the bullet, blunt end first, stormed angrily out of her shoulder, widening the wound in the process. “Have…” she gasped through her set jaw, wincing sharply, as he withdrew the instrument and let the bullet fall to the ground, “have you done zis before?”

“Well…not on a real person,” came the answer she had half-expected as he stitched the wound up.

She strained a laugh, “Hah, I’m so privileged.”

“I’m glad ya feel that way, lassie,” the medic replied with a smirk.

“So doc,” Jeanne inquired while she was waiting for him to finish stitching, “you got un name?”

“Jimmy,” he responded. “Jimmy James…”

“That’s… an interesting name,” she remarked, with a hint of irony.

“Yeah well…me parents have an interesting sense o’ humour,” he snorted.

"Mon name est Jeanne."

"A nice name, that is lass," Jimmy commented. "Like Jeanne d'Arc?"

"Oui," she answered. "Mon mére, she gave me the name."

"Mére? Mother? An interesting perspective. I suppose you could say Aneurin Bevan was like that to me, although I've never really thought of it that way."

“What made you join ze army?”

“I didn’t,” Jimmy replied, finishing the last stitch and tying the thread. “I joined the Medical Department, and was transferred to the Military Department a few weeks after I qualified. Probably some sick, sadistic bastard’s idea of a joke,” he speculated, with obvious contempt, “because he knew I was a pacifist.”

“Zat is stupid,” Jeanne commented as he produced a dressing. “Why didn’t you just quit and go back to the Medical Département?”

Jimmy raised an eyebrow. “Cos I can’t. I dunno if you’ve ever experienced life outside the LSF, but what happens to you in Corporate society if you get fired, or if you quit your job… it isn’t pleasant. You get kicked out of your home, and you don’t get any money so you can’t even get the most basic necessities, like food or clothes. And there’s no ‘ope at all of going back. Actually,” he supposed, “probably the only option would be pretty much what I’m doing now. ‘Sides which, I’ve defected now ain’t I? In the resistance, I can be just a doctor… right?”

“Oui. I suppose so,” she replied. “How long have you been un doctor?”

“Only about three months actually… Plus five years of university, of course.”

She looked at his belt. “How good are you with un fusil?” she asked, then added when she saw his puzzled expression, “Que l’on l’appelle? Ah… a gun. How good are you with a gun?”

“Good enough to pull the trigger,” he replied, reservedly, “but I hope I never have to…”

Jeanne saw the man she assumed from the various hand and power tools on his belt was the troops’ engineer lift the man who had come in with the blastgun onto his shoulder in a fireman’s lift. “Uhh, O’Malley?” she heard the troops’ commander say. “Not him, please. He’s staying here. Our gift to the Martians.”

She turned to Jimmy again, while he was bandaging her shoulder. “Do you like him? The man over there,” she pointed to the commander. “He has some very,” she paused while she thought of the word. “Strange morals.”

“Like him!? Hell no! And I don’t exactly agree with him either. Warrior’s honour my arse, you can’t moralise about killing! But I respect him, because he has beliefs, and he sticks to them when it would be more benefit to him pay lip service.”

She grabbed the hand he offered and pulled herself to her feet, leaning on the wall. “Really? It looks like he keeps changing them…”

“How so?”

“He’s with the army, but he’s helping us now,” she gave Jimmy a confused look. “Je ne le comprends pas…”

“Yeah, but his views haven’t changed – at least I don’t think so, anyway. He abandoned the military because he was ordered to execute you, which violates his sense of soldier’s honour. I think to him, that confirmed an impression he’d had for a while, that the army had become dishonourable.” He added, “most of us were just about ready to jump ship too ta be honest with you, for our own reasons.”

“Ah… sorry.” She was still confused about why he had left the man with the blastgun for the Martians to kill, but she had a sense that it had to do with the code of honour Jimmy was talking about, and thinking it would make her seem dense, her deep-seated pride would not allow her to ask.


When Morgan saw that Private James had finished treating the most badly wounded of the rebels, he asked the old lady – Adriana, he had found out her name was – to show them the escape route she had mentioned. She led them out of the fire door, which he noted was under an overhanging part of the building, which would shield people using this route from visual detection by surveillance satellites. The access route, they discovered, was part of the old sewage network – now dry since being replaced by a more hygienic sanitation system, and in some parts in disrepair – and the entrance was a simple manhole, hollowed out to make it easier to get in and out.


At the rear of the refugee column, Lenny Church’s heart began to pound as he heard a terrible scream from the warehouse, which was now directly overhead. A few minutes later, he heard heavy, metal-booted footsteps on the iron stairs and concrete floor above. The Martians had arrived, and obviously they had found the manhole.

If they chose to give chase, he might be the first to die.