General Edward Windsor turned out to be fairly young - mid thirties at most - and full of enthusiasm.

“You’ve done an amazing thing,” he told me. “You and your colleagues - and the American troops with you, of course. Normally getting this much armor close to an enemy position is tough.” He smiled. “Now we just need to shell their outer defences to pieces, and then we can go in.”

There were fourteen ultras around the table with me and Chikaradzuyoi - all frontliners - and one of them spoke up. “I understand you’ve got HMS Resolute shelling them?”

A shadow passed over the General’s face. “I’m afraid the Resolute had to withdraw. The alien fighters hit them really hard. We’re still dueling them for air superiority, but they get to any fixed positions - or large artillery formations - fairly fast.” He shrugged. “That’s why the tanks are important.”

I nodded in acknowledgement. “What can we do to help?”

“Well, getting the tanks through the door is going to be a - challenge,” remarked Windsor. He spread a map out on the table. “This is Bramley-Moore Docks stadium.”

The stadium was massive - a football field, multiple large screens, and tiers upon tiers of seats. “It’s meant for 62,000 fans at a time,” explained the General, “so it’s not just the field, massive as that is. Getting through the stands itself is tough. There are large doors meant for trucks and construction equipment to go through; the aliens have blocked some, but not all.” He pointed to one such entrance. “They haven’t mined the entrances, either, so the tanks can just roll through. Except.”

“Except?” asked Chikaradzuyoi.

“Except that they’ve put up one of their shield generators in place in the centre of the stadium. It’s meant to repel shells of any kind - artillery, tanks, bullets, everything. And they can fire out of it. So once the tanks roll in, they can hit us but we can’t hit them.”

“So we need to take down the shield,” mentioned one ultra. I decided to call him Mr. Obvious.

“Exactly. The shield is in the centre of the stadium, protected by a fairly large number of aliens. We need someone who can get in undetected - or fairly fast - deactivate the shield, and then survive long enough to escape or be evacuated.”

The assembled ultras looked crestfallen at the prospect.

“Alternatively, we need someone who can provide protection to a small squad of soldiers to slip under the shield. Concealment, rather. Ten, maybe fifteen minutes of masking to make them invisible - then they blow the shield.”

“Wait a minute,” said one ultra. “No way ordinary soldiers will survive once they trip the shield.”

“I have volunteers ready for the job. Three teams, so if you have a device or power that’s got a thirty per cent or higher chance of keeping a small party of troops invisible for fifteen minutes, we’d welcome that.”

I winced. The outspoken ultra hadn’t been wrong - soldiers who got into the shield wouldn’t survive if their masking failed. And with the aliens on alert, any masking tech an inventor happened to have handy had a good chance of failing…

As for the other method, there were few ultras who could survive for the time it would take to breach the shield and reach the alien centre.

But there were a few.

“How long from the time the shield fails to the time you can get some support to the ultras at the centre?” I asked.

General Windsor looked puzzled, then brightened. “We can get an airstrike on the position in seconds. Tanks will punch through within a minute. If the ultra - or ultras - can hold out that long…..”

“Can you get a Traveller in-and-out in that much time?”

“Travelers can’t get through shields,” responded one of the ultras. Windsor, however, seemed to understand. He turned to a nondescript soldier in the corner. “Samuel.”

The soldier seemed pained. “Your Highness, I’m specifically here for your safety only.”

….Highness?

“Samuel. I am giving you an order necessary for the defence of the realm. Can you carry it out?”

“As you command.”

Windsor turned to look at me. “Belessar. Are you volunteering?”

I nodded. “I - may - be able to get to the centre of the stadium. But I’m going to need some help - and a quick evacuation.”

“You can get in there?”

“With a little support from one of your exhibits.”

“This is a bad idea,” Nanocloud told me.

“It’s not how I’d planned to spend the day, that’s for sure,” I remarked as the massive trebuchets were set up.

The Merseyside Museum had three medieval trebuchets on display. Fully functional ones, as the earlier billboard had mentioned. I’d asked for them to be brought to just outside the stadium.

No, I was not planning to be hurled into the stadium on a trebuchet. I wasn’t that durable.

Chikaradzuyoi, on the other hand, was.

The Japanese ultra had been delighted at the idea. “I am indestructible,” he had said, “but I have never flown. This will be close.”

Shadaras and Tormitten, two other ultras from Germany, had volunteered to fill in the other two trebuchets. All three ultras were indestructible to physical force, but excessive plasma fire would overwhelm them eventually.

Which was where I came in. And the Sikorsky helicopters of the Royal Army.

Chikaradzuyoi, Shadaras and Tormitten would go over the wall first, in trebuchets, as the first wave. Their job was to splatter against the shield and - essentially - draw fire. For a few seconds.

Four choppers would carry me and several other ultras over the wall next. We’d be over in seconds and would glide in, along with some soldiers.

We’d have radios, the jetpacks, and my personal contribution - several metres of nanofibre weave cord to tie the gliders to us. Between the chaos of sixteen ultras crossing the wall in seconds, we’d create enough havoc to focus the aliens’ fire on us. For a few minutes.

That was the second wave.

Which was the time that would be available for Quintana and Verschwiden to get in and hit the generator. Small bombs that would blow it apart, carried by two invisible ultras.

They were the third wave.

The aliens had tech to detect masked - and hidden - ultras, we knew that. However, in the middle of the chaos of a full-fledged battle, the ‘invisible intruder’ alarm would hopefully be ignored.

Once the shield was down, the tanks would roll through and start firing. At which point all ultras would disengage and fall back - a not insignificant feat in mid-battle - and the rest of the troops, the air support, and the remaining frontliners would come up and start hitting the aliens. That would be the fourth wave.

Fifty frontliners were in the tent when I explained the plan.

Forty-three volunteered to be on the fourth wave.

Chikaradzuyoi, however, was quite philosophical about the whole experience. “It is not the worst tactic to be used against the aliens,” he assured me.

“Is it close?”

“I would not comment. However, you will note that no-one else had a better idea.”

“The other option is to wait till we get more troops,” pointed out Nanocloud.

Chikaradzuyoi shook his head. “The soldiers do not wish to wait. Nor is it a good idea. Given time, the alien may well be able to turn the stadium into a fortress of their own and wage war against the entire world.”

Nanocloud frowned. “Is that likely?”

“It is a possibility, and one that we cannot ignore. In Turkmenistan in 2065, the local authorities argued for a day about who should attack and in what order, while the aliens fortified. The cost was nearly a thousand dead ultras and two million citizens lost.”

I winced. Liverpool didn’t even have two million people. “Where in Turkmenistan was this?”

“The fortress the aliens built in seventy-two hours was able to hit every city of Turkmenistan. They do not always build fortresses - but we cannot give them the chance. Hence the urgency.”

“Were you at Turkmenistan?” I asked.

“Indeed. I would share with you one truth, though. In war, a clever idea that does not work is not clever. Conversely, an idea that sounds stupid but works is no longer stupid.”

“If only stupid ideas worked in war,” grumbled Nanocloud.

“You’d be surprised,” came General Windsor’s voice from behind us. The general had strolled up to where we stood, two other soldiers in his wake. “In 1982, British paratroops sent to liberate the Falkland Islands from Argentina were supposed to land at Goose Green. The BBC was told to announce it on the news after they landed. There was a mixup, and the BBC announced that the troops would be landing at Goose Green - before they’d actually left on the mission. The Argentinians were able to learn the invasion plans over the radio.”

“My god,” I muttered. “That must have been a disaster.”

“Far from it. The paratroops went ahead with the mission anyway. They won.”

“What?”

“The Argentinians heard the broadcast, but figured it was fake. After all, nobody would be stupid enough to leak their actual plans to the media before launching an attack. So they didn’t reinforce the position. When the British attacked, the Argentinians were taken by surprise and eventually surrendered.”

I stared at the General dumbfounded. “That’s unbelievable.”

“But true. So I think you may be able to wing something. And that’s why Captain Donald Green is going with you, along with fifteen commandos from the Special Air Service.” He nodded to one of the men standing behind to him. “Good luck and Godspeed, Chikaradzuyoi, Belessar. All yours, Captain.”

The officer - Captain Green - extended his hand. “Belessar. Pleasure to meet you.”

“Nice meeting you, Captain. Special Air Service?”

“We’re specialists in commando operations. I have fifteen men with me who want to take back their stadium.”

“Their stadium?”

“We’re all Everton fans.”

I smiled. “I see. Then it’s personal.”

“Absolutely.”

“Give me five minutes and I’ll join you in the briefing tent.”

As the Captain walked off, I turned to Nanocloud. “You got the stadium seeded with nanobots?”

“Twelve thousand and sixty-seven. Go on, you don’t want to keep General Windsor waiting.”

“Yeah, he’s pretty intense. I wonder why Samuel called him Your Highness, though.”

“Because of who he is, silly.”

“Huh?”

“You realize that Windsor is the son of the Prince of Wales, right?”

I…. hadn’t known that. “He’s a member of the British royal family?”

“Indeed,” murmured Chikaradzuyoi, “and a respected warrior too. Second son, hence not in line to inherit, but well known for his courage in battle. If I cannot serve my Emperor directly, then I shall take honour in serving him.”