The briefing tent was occupied by nearly a hundred soldiers and ultras. Chikaradzuyoi and I took the centre stage as General Windsor began to explain the plan.

“Thank you for coming, everyone,” Windsor said. A projector behind him lit up with the image of the shield generator - a squat, ten foot tall tower. “We have to take this down, no matter what. So we’re going to send in four waves.

“First wave is Chikaradzuyoi, Shadaras and Tormitten - they’ll go over the wall in the trebuchets. They're all volunteers, and all part of this great, big noisy diversion. We expect that after a couple of seconds of standing around in shock, the aliens will focus their fire on them - which is why they're all Herculeans.

"Five seconds after that is the second wave, which is most of us.

“The second wave will be the Special Air Services, air troops from all four squadrons, and four inventors in combat armor who will be leading from the front. The inventors are Belessar, Jetstream, Falcao, and Adelaar, embedded with A, B, C and D squadrons respectively. Inventor and troop will be on a Sikorsky Skylift chopper, which will cross the stadium edge - as soon as you clear the edge, you deploy. The inventors will launch first, and the rest of you will follow in glider wings.

“The shield ends a few feet before the audience stands begin. You will land just short of that point. Inventors will draw fire and create havoc. SAS operators will cross the shield boundary and then launch rockets at the shield generator. You’ll have to unload, aim and fire the rockets in a matter of seconds.

“In case all of you miss - we’ll need to increase the budget for SAS training.” A quick laugh broke out amongst the troops. “If the rockets are not able to take down the generator tower, SAS operators are to take up positions of cover and lay down covering fire for the third wave. Create chaos. In the middle of that chaos, two ultras with invisibility powers will try to get close to the generator and blow it up. Those ultras are Quintana, from the United States, and Verschwidden, from Germany. Let’s have a round of applause for them.”

A quick round of clapping broke out amongst the troops.

“Finally, if all that doesn’t work, the backup plan is - charge. Get in there and knock the generator out. Good luck, Godspeed, and God save the King.”

“God save the King!” shouted the British soldiers.