“Welcome back to Earth,” the French President said, as soon as he was shown into the small meeting room. They were alone, without even an aide or one of the President’s many mistresses. President LePic had had more than his fair share of scandal. “I trust that you had a pleasant journey?”
Philippe bit down the comment that came to mind and started to talk, carefully outlining everything that had happened from the moment the aliens had opened fire to the failure of Operation Lone Star. The President listened carefully, asking a handful of questions from time to time, while looking almost vague and uninterested. Philippe wasn’t fooled; LePic was known for looking unconcerned…until he revealed that he had been thinking hard all along. Governing France wasn't an easy task and even knowing, as he did, where many of the bodies were buried, it wasn't a task for a weak man.
“And so they’ve come for us all,” LePic said, finally. “Some of my advisors believe that they only wanted to attack the Americans and don’t intend to attack us.”
“No,” Philippe said, flatly. LePic was testing him, pushing forward a viewpoint that might have been shared by advisors, or perhaps his own. “They picked on the Americans, we think, because the Americans were the greatest – well, certainly the most powerful – nation on Earth. Having beaten the Americans, they will use the time they’ve won to come for us. We have to prepare for them landing here.”
LePic frowned. “You may not have kept up on the news from home,” he said, dryly. “The economy collapsed days after the aliens opened fire. Millions of Frenchmen are now on the streets, despite the…legal difficulties in firing so many at once. Millions more have decided to blame their problems on the Arabs, who in turn blame their problems on us. We’re this close” – he held up a finger and thump – “to outright civil war.”
Philippe winced. Summers in France were often marked by civil unrest. He hadn’t even realised how badly the French economy, indeed, that of the remainder of the European Union, would have been hit by the invasion. The United States had been hit hard as well, but it had been distracted by a landing and, in any case, it was much larger. The Americans might manage to hold on, barely, but he wasn't sure that France could survive without major upheaval.
And that was an irony. LePic had been the most determined person in France to tackle the country’s problems. It hadn’t been easy to start breaking down some of the labour laws, but he’d been succeeding, barely. Now millions were out of work as companies folded, one by one, and without the high military presence, France would probably have seen more riots by now. The government was getting blamed, but truthfully…the aliens had caused the nightmare, and the aliens were untouchable.
“The aliens want us to join them,” LePic said, finally. He’d clearly taken the time to go through some of the documents before meeting with Philippe. “Do you think that we should accept their offer?”
Philippe took a breath. “No,” he said, as calmly as he could. “I think that it would be a bad idea, both for France and for the world.”
LePic lifted an eyebrow. “Do you really think that the country can continue like this?”
“It’s not going to make a difference,” Philippe said. “Even if the aliens stopped harassing us tomorrow, how long is it going to be before we can rebuild everything they destroyed? Years, at best. Submitting to the aliens won’t do more than putting us firmly in their camp, which means that the entire human race might lose the war.”
“The war looks pretty hopeless already,” LePic countered. “I hate to admit it, but it is a reality that must be faced, squarely. If the Americans cannot defeat the aliens, there is no way that we can do so. I have ordered the mass production of additional nuclear weapons, but even with them…”
“Getting them up to the aliens might be a problem,” Philippe conceded, ruefully. The American internet had been full of people condemning their President for whimping out – their words – and not using nukes when launching the attack on Texas. In their view, scorching Texas down to bedrock would have killed all the aliens and improved the real estate value no end, a point of view that ignored all of the humans – American citizens – who would have been killed as well. “If they come down here…”
