Darkest Hour 1: Their Darkest Hour

by Christopher Nuttall

  A streak of lights fell to the ground some distance from their position, followed rapidly by a series of explosions that shook the world around him. The humans had made a stand – but in making a stand, they’d revealed their own location. At least they had no means to avoid bombardment from orbit, or the assault unit might have been chewed to ribbons before it finally broke through the human defences.

  He led the charge at the human building, relying on speed to protect him from any human fire. Some of the infantry unit followed him, holding their own weapons at the ready, while others seemed stuck and unwilling to proceed further. The’Stig cursed their cowardice in the face of the humans, even as he tried to restrain some of the others from charging onwards. One of them ran through a doorway that seemed too large for mere humans, detonating a trap hidden within the building. His body was flung backwards and he landed on the ground, torn to bloody ribbons.

  “You can’t trust anything human,” he snarled, angrily. A human vehicle seemed to be heading away from them, probably carrying the human soldiers who had stung his people so badly. He pointed his weapon at the vehicle and fired off a long stream of bullets, watching as they slashed through the human vehicle and killed its passengers. “Keep an eye on where you’re walking – and don’t relax, ever!”

  The fighting seemed to be slacking off, but he knew that it was far from the end. They hadn't beaten the humans at all, not really – they’d fallen back to new positions they’d prepared for the next engagement. He wanted to know what was happening with the other assault units, but there was no way to know – it wasn't as if the Command Triad was going to bother to brief an ordinary infantry soldier. Rumour, however, suggested that there was fighting going on all over Earth. At least the humans would burn through their stockpiles of advanced weapons sooner rather than later. But of course they’d know that themselves...

  He wanted to relax, but he didn't dare, not when so many units had been mangled together. It crossed his mind that he had probably shown that he deserved promotion – not that anyone would have noticed. The commanders who should have been watching their troops for potential officers were either at the rear or had gotten themselves killed heroically. He wondered, absently, if the humans had the same problem. Maybe they weren't so alien after all.

  ***

  “Dirty murdering bastards,” Corporal Tommy O’Neill muttered to himself. From his vantage point, he could watch helplessly as an alien patrol stumbled over a group of human refugees – and murdered them in cold blood. The humans hadn't even tried to fight, but it hadn't mattered. They’d been shot down and their bodies left abandoned on the side of the road. “Dirty fucking filthy murdering bastards.”

  He hadn't known that the refugees were there either, until two of them had started to run. No doubt they’d thought that they were well-hidden, unaware that the war was about to break right over their hiding place. He cursed his own oversight as he prepared himself for the coming engagement, promising to make the aliens pay for what they’d done. Civilians tended to shy away from soldiers, at least in his experience, but it was his duty to protect them. And if he couldn't protect them, he would at least avenge them.

  It had taken several hours to lay the trap and it looked perfect, at least unless the aliens decided to start shooting human vehicles up at random. But even aliens from outer space had to have logistic needs; the briefing they’d received on the battle in London and other brief engagements between human and alien forces suggested that there was nothing magical about their weapons. They shot projectiles, just like human guns. Some of the troopers had wondered why the aliens – who could clearly cross space with ease – would limit themselves, but Tommy suspected that he knew the answer. Their weapons would be far simpler than directed energy ray guns right out of science-fiction. He smiled, feeling a moment of kinship with the aliens before it faded away. No doubt they’d had ‘wonder-weapons’ devised by boffins and tested in laboratories that hadn't worked anything like so well in the field too.

  He reached for the detonator as the aliens passed the single abandoned vehicle. Gambling that they wouldn't know how to inspect the human-designed car, he’d stuffed it with explosives and laid a cord to the detonator, which he’d placed near his vantage point. Uncapping the safety, he waited until one of the alien tanks was right next to the car and jammed down on the button. The results surprised even him. A colossal explosion flipped the enemy tank right over and literally vaporised most of the alien infantry. The remainder looked stunned and disorientated. Tommy allowed himself a tight smile and picked up his rifle. A new alien patrol was advancing towards their stricken comrades, watching carefully for any more traps. Tommy took aim and opened fire. The lead alien staggered backwards, inhuman blood flowing from its forehead, while the remainder opened fire in Tommy’s general direction.

  Poor shooting, he thought, as he moved to the next target. The aliens seemed to be learning quickly, although they seemed oddly reluctant to take cover. It took Tommy a moment to realise that they were scared of other booby traps, which was a crying shame – he hadn't had time to set up any more. He fired a final shot and started to crawl backwards. He had already marked out an escape route back to the RV point and he intended to be gone before the aliens gave chase. And if they didn't...well, that was good too.

  ***

  “Go.”

  Captain Danny Jackson knew that he was lucky to be alive. He and his wingman had been on exercises with the British Army when their base at Middle Wallop had been destroyed by the aliens. As far as he knew, the two Apache helicopters they were flying were the last in Britain – perhaps the last in the world. There had been some Apache helicopters in Afghanistan – although never enough – but the aliens had probably clobbered them too. Danny couldn't do anything for his mates who were either dead or trying to fight their way out of a country that was probably swinging back under Taliban control, yet he could try to avenge them.

  The two Apaches had been flown under cover of darkness to a location where they’d been hidden under camouflage netting, awaiting their chance to take the offensive. It seemed that they were about to get their chance; the aliens were shipping in more ground forces as they attempted to push their occupied zone further to the west. They were also shipping in armour – the direct feed from the orbiting UAV reported that there were at least fifty hover-tanks heading west – but the pilots had been given clear orders. Their principle targets were the alien troop carriers. If they were really lucky, they would kill a great many aliens who hadn't realised that the safety offered by their vehicles was really nothing more than an illusion.

  He took control of his aircraft and pulled her into the sky. There were no illusions about their chances of surviving the battle, but they were going to be operating right on top of the enemy forces. Surely, the aliens wouldn't call in orbital strikes that would be dangerously close to their own forces. Or perhaps they would. Humans had done all kinds of horrible things to other humans in their long history and why shouldn't the aliens do the same? What cause did humanity have to complain?

  Because they’re not human, he thought, wryly. And because we didn't pick a fight with them.

  They flew low and fast, only coming up above the treetops when the alien troops came into view. Danny didn't give them any time to recover from their surprise; he took the Apache in a firing run right over the alien position, allowing his gunner to unleash hell on the aliens. There was no time to aim properly, but it hardly mattered – the only targets on the ground were hostile. Hellfire missiles slammed into alien troop carriers, while the chain gun raked down entire columns of alien soldiers. He yanked the helicopter upwards as an alien-launched missile lanced by them with bare meters to spare. Part of his mind noted that the aliens hadn't keyed their missiles for proximity detonation, an odd oversight. Human missiles were capable of detonating close to their targets and taking them out with shrapnel.

  An alien helicopter came into view, looking rather like a larger version of
the Apache. It opened fire on the two British craft, launching a spread of missiles towards them. Danny retaliated by launching a Sidewinder – the only one they had – and deploying flares in the hope of decoying the alien missiles. The alien missiles were fooled long enough for him to take them low and fast away from the ambush sight, hopefully heading for a place where they could set down. They might not be able to rearm and resume the attack – if there were any more Hellfire missiles in Britain, they were probably misplaced – but they might escape with their lives...

  He cursed as his threat receiver lit up. An alien missile crew had fired a missile from directly below them and it was climbing right up their tailpipe. There was no time to escape; the alien missile struck the Apache’s armour and blasted through into the compartment beyond. And the world went away in a blast of red-hot fire.

  Chapter Thirteen

  London/Near Salisbury Plain

  United Kingdom, Day 2

  “What in the name of the seven hells is happening?”

  Ju’tro Oheghizh stared down at his updating display. The damned humans simply didn’t know when they were beaten. Any sensible race would have sought to come to terms with its new masters by now, but the humans kept fighting – even threatening to kill their fellows who did have a modicum of sense in their heads. The advancing Land Force spearheads, convinced that they were mopping up the remains of the human military force, were being ambushed and forced back with chilling regularity. And the humans didn’t even stick around long enough for his starships to pound their positions into dust.

  “They don’t have many resources left to throw at us,” J’tra Mak’kat pointed out. He’d served with Oheghizh in previous campaigns and didn’t bother to mince his words. The State didn’t approve of officers being too familiar with their subordinates, but Oheghizh found it hard to care. “They’re burning up what they have left rather than abandon it. And many of our troopers haven’t been in combat before. They’re making mistakes through simple unfamiliarity with the alien landscape.”

  Oheghizh couldn’t disagree. In hindsight, it was clear that the humans – who hadn’t started uniting themselves, unlike almost every other race in their stage of development – had plenty of experience fighting each other. The sociologists were still trying to discover exactly why the humans hadn’t advanced into space, but it was clear that space-based forces hadn’t played a significant role in their internal struggling. They’d have had a much better appreciation of how badly they were outmatched if they had, he told himself, although it was a case of not being grateful enough for what they had. A space-faring race would have been a far tougher morsel to digest.

  “Order our forces to take extra care,” he said, slowly. “And pass me the figures on their advanced weapons. Let me see what they have left.”

  The planners were right about one thing, he thought, as he studied the figures and compared them to their projections. It was clear that the humans were running out of advanced weaponry. Their tanks were holding their ground rather than falling back – as their own tactical doctrine ordered – and the advancing spearheads were reporting fewer and fewer contacts with human armour. The aircraft backing up the ground forces, after a handful of embarrassing losses, reported that the humans had been reduced to deploying portable antiaircraft weapons rather than the sophisticated weapons they’d deployed in the opening hours of the invasion. And soon enough they’d run out of those too.

  He watched through a set of advancing sensors as yet another human habitation was carefully explored. The humans had a whole series of unpleasant surprises for the troopers that first entered their dwellings – and a nasty sense of humour. He didn’t want to think about the hundreds of injured or dead troopers that would have to be reported to the Command Triad. They would look down from high overhead, see the amount of casualties he’d suffered taking a relatively small area, and draw unpleasant comparisons with the Land Forces in the region the humans called the Middle East. It was hardly his fault that the terrain in the desert was far better suited for land warfare – and that the humans there seemed to have no idea of how to fight properly.

  It could be worse, he told himself, dryly. The Chinese humans, after what looked like a successful opening strike to the invasion, had fired nuclear rockets at their own cities to destroy as many Land Force units as possible. Most of their primitive missiles had been knocked down by point defence units, but a handful had got through the network – and several more tactical nuclear weapons had been deployed by enemy ground forces. They didn’t seem to care about the suffering they were inflicting on their own people, or the fact that they just couldn’t win. At least the humans in Europe and America seemed smart enough to refrain from using nuclear weapons. The Conquest Fleet had gone to considerable trouble to decapitate the enemy command and control systems to prevent one or all of them authorising a nuclear strike.

  Or they could be waiting for us to get into position, he thought, grimly. Who knows what these humans will do?

  ***

  Yunt Ra’Sha watched in astonishment as humans fled their habitations, swallowing down the urge to hurry them on their way with a few rounds from his cannon. They’d been told to try to avoid engaging humans who weren’t part of their military, but how was a lowly Yunt meant to tell the difference? Some of the smaller humans were clearly younglings, yet they seemed willing to throw rocks at the invasion force – and their seniors had all kinds of nasty surprises up their sleeves. His unit was still reeling after the death of their commander – killed by a human who’d driven a vehicle right into his position. They’d killed the human, but that hadn’t brought their commander back.

  “Ugly creatures,” one of his fellows muttered. It was true. The humans seemed to half-run, half-walk wherever they went…and they were covered in fur! At least they had the decency to wear clothing rather than show off their strange bodies, moving in ways that no civilised race could ever duplicate. “We should just kill them all and leave their bodies piled up high.”

  “Better not let Ha’She hear you say that,” Ra’Sha said. Orders were orders – and the lowly sluggers who did most of the work weren't allowed to question their orders. “He thinks he’s officer material, the fool. Just because his father has a medium-ranked position in an industrial combine he thinks he walks on water. Maybe the humans will kill him and that will be an end to it.”

  He braced himself as they advanced on the first human dwelling, a two-story house surrounded by an oddly-shaped garden. The houses they built were too small for him to feel comfortable, even the rooms that were large enough to house a fully-grown trooper. They just made him feel claustrophobic, even restrained – while the damned humans had complete freedom of action. The beasts could nip down corridors that were too thin for him and set up their next ambushes by the time they finally reached their lair. And then they’d just keep falling back, and back…

  They’ll run out of country soon, he told himself firmly, trying not to think about some of the injuries he’d seen on the other wounded. The humans seemed to prefer to wound rather than kill, although some of the wounds he’d seen would probably have killed a grown human. But then, they didn’t have any experience with other races. They were probably still thinking in terms of killing their fellows, rather than bigger tougher aliens with excellent medical technology. He snorted at his own thoughts as he slipped up to the human house and peered through the glass window. If he started thinking so deeply, he’d probably qualify for officer material himself. Not that there was any hope of promotion, of course. The officers looked after their own first and foremost, with newcomers only accepted if they were a cut above the rest. And all he wanted was to survive the war and return home in time for mating season.

  The interior of the human habitation looked empty, but he threw an explosive pack inside, just in case. It exploded with a satisfying flash and he leapt inside, holding his weapon at the ready as he scanned for threats. There was nothing, apart from piles of smashed furn
iture and a handful of fires. He ignored the heat and checked the rest of the house, pushing his way up tiny staircases that creaked alarmingly under his weight, and allowed himself a moment of relief when he found nothing. The remainder of the patrol inched outside and waited for him. There was still the rest of the human village…

  They checked two more houses before coming up on what looked like a human shop. Small piles of canned food lay everywhere, suggesting that the population had made a hasty departure. He caught sight of a half-opened packet of meat and had to resist the urge to taste it. The scientists swore blind that there was nothing on Earth that could kill them – at least they could eat everything the humans could eat – but it might have caused him to fall sick. And the penalties for rendering oneself unfit for combat were severe…

  “Look,” May’tha said, pointing to a large white container. It was smaller than the smallest member of the patrol, but it was clearly large enough to hold an adult human – maybe two, if they were very friendly. Adult Eridian didn’t like being crammed so close together, yet the humans seemed to enjoy it – at least if the sociologists’ interpretation of some of their videos was accurate. Or maybe they were nothing more than the human version of sexual movies. He’d enjoyed watching many of them when his childhood scales had started to fall off, revealing the adult skin below. “Do you think one of them could be hiding there?”