Darkest Hour 1: Their Darkest Hour

by Christopher Nuttall

  “Lie still,” she said, sharply. The wounded man in front of her had been one of the guards in front of Buckingham Palace when the bomb – or whatever – had blown it into a pile of rubble. His leg was clearly broken in two places and it was quite possible, judging from the bruises, that he had internal injuries as well. She’d bandaged him up as best as she could, but he really needed an operation. It didn’t look as if he was going to get one any time soon. “I said, lie still!”

  “They need me,” the man insisted. He sounded delirious, or perhaps he was going into shock. Fatima put her hand firmly on his chest and held him down gently. “I need to…”

  “You need to get better,” Fatima said. She’d heard stories of what happened in Pakistan and other less-developed countries when bombs exploded without warning, but she’d never expected to see it in Britain. Someone should have taken control at once and started coordinating all of the emergency response teams. Instead, everything was chaotic and the only people who were trying to establish order were a handful of policemen, who looked as frightened and helpless as the rest. “You can’t go back to your unit with a broken leg.”

  She wanted to give him something for the pain, but there were no painkillers left. A pair of civilians pressed into service as stretcher-bearers appeared and gently lifted the wounded man onto a makeshift stretcher. Fatima checked his leg carefully, warned them to ensure that their charge didn’t try to sit up, and then waved for them to go. There was no time to rest – she had to deal with the next wounded person. It seemed that there was no end to the wounded; men, women and children, half of them looking as if they didn’t quite believe what had happened to them. This was Britain, not some Third World country where the natives killed each other at the drop of a hat. Disasters weren’t supposed to strike the British mainland.

  A hand fell on her shoulder and she jumped. “You need to get on your way,” a policeman said. He looked about as worried as Fatima felt, but he seemed to have it under control. “You need to escort the patients back to the hospital. This place isn’t going to be safe much longer.”

  Fatima looked up. All over the area, policemen and soldiers were shouting at civilians to move. The wounded were being carried off, followed by those who could walk on their own and the remaining medical staff. She started to follow them automatically, and then stopped dead. This was London. What the hell was going on that meant they had to risk moving so many wounded people at once?

  “All I know is that this place is about to get very unsafe,” the policeman warned. He was holding something back. Fatima had done a course in reading people back when she’d been studying to be a doctor. “I think you’d better start moving – now.”

  He sounded so earnest that Fatima picked up her bag before quite realising what she was doing. She could hear the sound of thunder in the distance and see plumes of smoke rising up into the sky. Something was clearly badly wrong…shaking her head, she started to follow the wounded. They’d need her when they reached their destination, wherever that might be. It seemed as if the police and soldiers were closing off all of Central London…

  ***

  “I think that’s most everyone out,” Constable McEwen reported, grimly. The sound of thunder was growing closer. Robin hadn’t been able to stop himself from scanning the horizon, looking for incoming aircraft. God alone knew what was heading their way. “Sergeant…”

  “Time for us to leave, then,” Robin said. The armed policemen might be a help, but it was far more likely that they’d just get in the way. It wasn't as if they’d trained with the soldiers – hell, all the plans to hold major exercises had been curtailed by the shortage of cash. He remembered his wife, suddenly, and shivered. At least Helene was out of London, safely away from the chaos that had gripped the city. God alone knew how long it would be before the more rowdy element of the city’s population decided that it was a great opportunity for looting, raping and burning. “Get everyone back to the cordon and keep moving the civilians further away…”

  He covered his ears as something screeched by overhead. A tiny black dot, seemingly flying as low as it could over London, flashed by and headed into the distance. No missiles arose to challenge it, although Robin had no way of knowing if the soldiers had held their fire or if they didn’t have enough antiaircraft missiles to spend them freely. Given how much it cost to produce equipment for the Met, he suspected the latter.

  “Jesus Christ,” he whispered, as he started to run. He’d hoped that it was nothing more than a terrorist bombing, even though the officer he’d spoken to had seemed certain. “It’s really happening.”

  ***

  Trooper Chris Drake perched on the roof of the Ministry of Defence’s Old Admiralty Building and peered down towards Green Park. Smoke was rising up from all over London, suggesting that the enemy – and he still found it hard to believe that the brass took the stories of little green men seriously – hadn’t concentrated their attentions on Buckingham Palace. From what he’d heard before the CO had dispatched him and a handful of others to vantage points where they could see for some distance without being seen, the enemy had bombarded the railway stations and several junctions. The result of one attack away from the Palace was easy to see. Westminster Bridge had been hit by…something that had knocked it effortlessly into the water. Chris didn’t need to be a CO to know that that ensured that it would be harder for any reinforcements to reach Whitehall. Of course, if some of the other stories he’d heard were true, there was little left to reach Whitehall.

  He’d seen action in Afghanistan, but he’d never expected to have to fight a war in England – no one had. Some of the lads had been worried about their wives, girlfriends and children and in truth Chris knew that he couldn’t blame them. The CO had worked hard to keep them focused on the incoming threat, but without it Chris suspected that some of his comrades would probably have seen to their own families. They’d expected months – perhaps years – of warning before Britain itself came under threat. No one had expected an attack that had crushed them under its treads within a few hours.

  The sound of engines pulled his attention back to the here and now. One of the tech guys down on the streets below had been able to rig up a passive detection system – or so he’d heard – but radar coverage was a thing of the past. It was possible that their enemy – little green men or whatever – would manage to get tactical surprise, even though the troops were dug in about as well as they could given the short notice. He started scanning the skies with binoculars, looking for trouble. Who knew what alien landing craft would look like? Flying saucers, or something humanity might have built itself, or maybe even tiny blue boxes that were bigger on the inside. There were just too many possibilities.

  When he finally caught sight of the craft heading towards London, he was almost disappointed. They were big, all right; larger than any aircraft he’d seen in his career, massive shapes that seemed oddly unsteady in the atmosphere. The wings seemed too stubby to keep the craft in the air, although the roar of their engines suggested that whatever was powering them was more advanced than anything on Earth. In fact, they reminded him of something out of Thunderbirds. Despite himself, he felt a little relieved. They might not be as badly outmatched as he’d feared. The thought of facing the aliens from Independence Day had scared hell out of the soldiers.

  The craft roared closer, moving with deceptive ungainliness. He formed a mental picture of a SAM blasting one of them out of the air, but realised quickly that the CO would want to hold off on that if possible. God alone knew how much damage a crashing alien transport would do to London, or to the civilians who happened to be caught in the blast. He reached for his radio, checked the channel quickly, and keyed the switch twice. They’d discovered that they could beat the jamming to some extent, if they used higher frequencies. Chris suspected that the aliens might be relaxing the jamming – whatever they used to coordinate might not be too different from what the humans used – but it hardly mattered. The entire
city would have seen those craft making their final approach.

  They flew over Hyde Park and started to shower tiny objects down towards the park below. Chris peered at them through his binoculars, trying to make out shape and form. They looked like paratroopers, but there were no parachutes. He wondered if they’d smash themselves into bloody ruin on the ground below, before realising that they had to have some way to slow their fall. Some of the SAS operatives had talked about opening their parachutes at terrifyingly low levels, barely slowing their fall before they touched down.

  Other paratroopers were falling now, heading towards St. James Park. Chris leaned forward as the first of the black objects touched the ground and straightened up. The sight was so surreal that, just for a moment, he was convinced that he had to be dreaming. He hadn’t wanted to believe it, but it was true. The aliens had landed.

  Chapter Five

  London

  United Kingdom, Day 1

  Tra’tro The’Stig braced himself in the cramped confines of the landing shuttle as the pilot started to count off the final seconds. Like most of the other assault formations, Assault Landing Unit #352 had been tasked with decapitating the prey – the humans, he reminded himself – before they could rally their troops and counterattack. The Kyg’pa - the Land Force – had had plenty of experience carrying out assault landings on hostile worlds and much of that experience suggested that the prey were easier to beat if their leaders were dead. In all of the endless briefings after they’d been pulled out of their stasis pods, they’d been warned that the humans – although primitive – were dangerous. Anything that weakened them before their world was occupied and their new position as Workers of the State was explained to them was all right by the Land Force. The concerns passed down to them about capturing the human infrastructure intact were irritating. It meant that the starship crews were unlikely to fire down at the planet’s surface without authorisation from the Command Triad.

  He kept his concerns to himself. Anyone who served the State knew that dissent was not considered welcome, at least from the lower ranks. The people at the top had the right to determine everything from troop dispositions to attack strategy and they didn't need his input. If he kept working away, and survived the coming war, he might just reach the higher levels where he could actually influence policy. And it was just as likely that the humans would roll over and surrender without a shot being fired.

  The alarm echoed through the transport as it started to slow down over the human city. The’Stig had seen images taken by spy drones during the briefings and had to admit that the humans didn't seem to know when to stop building. Their city seemed completely disorganised, while their buildings would be alarmingly tight for his soldiers. They’d probably have to start establishing their own headquarters on the surface rather than using human buildings, if only because of the size difference. Humans seemed to be shorter and thinner than his people and their buildings had been built for their comfort. They hadn’t thought to widen them for their new masters.

  He flinched as the drop field caught him and propelled his unresisting form towards the hatch, followed by the remainder of the Assault Landing Unit. As always, there was a moment of sheer terror as he tumbled down towards the planetary surface, just before the counter-gravity field caught hold of his form and cancelled his motion, a mere second before he would have slammed face-first into the ground. Earth smelt funny – it was clear that the human disunion even affected their older cities – but he pushed that aside. The Assault Unit was spreading out, looking for trouble. Intelligence had stated that the humans had already lost their command and control networks, but the next thing Intelligence got right would be the first. They were really nothing more than well-connected officers who had the ability to avoid being assigned to front-line combat missions.

  A dead human lay on the ground, not too far from his position. He glanced down at the body, recoiling in shock from its oddly-disjointed form. The humans looked as if they were permanently on the verge of falling over when they moved, with a suppleness that was alien to his people. A brief glance at the frontal area confirmed that they were looking at a male. There was no way to tell how the human had died.

  The radio network hissed, suddenly. “Contact,” it snapped. The sound of human weapons almost drowned the coordinator’s voice out. “Engage and destroy!”

  The’Stig cursed and dived for cover. Intelligence had made its usual flawed assessment – they’d landed right in the midst of a Grisna nest and the wretched little creatures were stinging like mad. Hefting his weapon, he led a small detachment forward, towards the buildings that served as the human centre of government. The human leaders were probably long gone, but taking their buildings would show their impotence. Or so Intelligence promised...

  ***

  Chris Drake couldn't believe his eyes. He was still half-convinced that he was dreaming, perhaps after a night of too many curries or kebabs. The aliens – and they had to be aliens, not men in funny-fitting suits – were landing in St. James Park, right in front of him. He keyed the switch on the camera that should have sent a live feed back to the CO, wondering what the straight-laced officer would make of it all. The aliens...were very alien.

  His first thought had been humanoid dinosaurs, but they moved with an eerie grace that belied their hulking forms. They were larger than humans, carrying weapons that looked too ungainly for humans to use, wearing camouflage uniforms that seemed to automatically blend with their surroundings. What little skin he could see was gray and leathery, reminding him of elephants in the jungle, but their eyes were dark and very cold. Their faces seemed to be almost immobile, although he couldn't tell if they were naturally inscrutable or if he just couldn't recognise an alien expression when he saw it. One of them seemed to be the leader on the ground, using hand motions to advance his troops forward; the others seemed to be grunts. He reminded himself not to count them out too soon. The British Army used its best troops in the Air Assault Role and he had to assume that the same was true of the aliens.

  He looked down at their weapons, trying to see what they were carrying. They didn't look that fancy, certainly not compared to weapons he’d seen in a hundred different alien invasion movies; indeed, he was sure that they weren't much more advanced than anything he’d seen on Earth. There was a crudeness about their design that reminded him of some of the makeshift weapons they’d pulled out of caves in Afghanistan, or weapons produced with a Russian eye towards functionality rather than appearance. Some of the weapons seemed to be almost portable machine guns; it struck him, suddenly, that they could probably carry more weight than the average human. Their transport aircraft were heading off in the distance...

  The CO gave the order and the fighting began. A number of British soldiers had been positioned in nearby buildings, using them to pour fire down onto the hapless aliens, while a team of mortar gunners started to lop shells towards their landing zone. It was a shame that they hadn't had a few days to prepare, Chris thought, as he saw a couple of aliens hit the ground, dark blood staining the grass around their bodies. The Household Division had never expected to be fighting a major action in the heart of London. Some equipment that they’d used in Afghanistan was outside the city. It might as well be on the other side of the moon.

  For a moment, he was sure that the aliens were doomed, before they started to return fire with surprising accuracy. Their handheld weapons had the same rate of fire as a GPMG and their aim was better than anyone would have expected. A pair of their leaders – he assumed, seeing they seemed to be in charge – were slipping forward, leading a direct assault against Whitehall. One of them was shot down by a sniper, while the other managed to take cover against a damaged car. It exploded a second later – the IED team had been putting their expertise to work – blowing the alien backwards. Chris watched dispassionately as it crashed back down to Earth and lay still, presumably stunned or dead. The remaining aliens had taken cover and were laying down fire towards the def
enders. From what little Chris could pick up on his radio, they’d managed to pick off many of the soldiers through heavy fire. A handful of buildings were burning as alien grenades set fire to their interiors.

  A dull roar echoed overhead as a second flight of alien transports roared down the Thames. This time, a team with a Stinger was cleared to engage the enemy craft, launching their missile at almost point-blank range. Whatever countermeasures the aliens had were ineffective at such a distance and the missile struck the alien craft on the side of its fuselage. For a moment, it seemed to have survived...and then it flipped over and came crashing down into the river. A colossal fireball blew up from where it had come down, throwing debris everywhere. If any aliens had survived, Chris couldn't see how they could get out of the water and into the fight. A second alien transport was hit just before it could start unloading its cargo. This one was damaged and managed to stagger away over London before coming down in the suburbs. Chris breathed a silent prayer for the civilians living where it had crashed before dragging his attention back to the main battlefield. The remaining alien transports had started to deploy alien tanks.