Darkest Hour 1: Their Darkest Hour

by Christopher Nuttall

  Tra’ti Gra’sha kept one eye on the countryside around him as his small patrol skimmed down the human road, looking for trouble. It all looked peaceful, apart from the handful of birds flying through the air, but the undergrowth had been known to hide all kinds of surprises over the past few weeks. The humans were past masters at burying an IED and using it to hit a patrol, and then bringing in armed bands to catch the survivors before they had a chance to escape. Some of the Land Forces patrolling the ground around their bases had taken the opportunity to burn as much as they could of the local foliage, making it impossible for the humans to use it as a hiding place.

  The armoured vehicle slowed as the driver caught sight of a group of animals blocking the road. Gra’sha hefted his weapon, alert for trouble; it wouldn't be the first time that some enterprising human had used animals to block a patrol’s route while preparing an ambush. The driver had similar thoughts and turned the vehicle onto the embankment, relaying on the hover-cushion to keep it upright and moving. A fence splintered as the vehicle brushed against it, but they ignored it and kept moving. The humans knew better than to complain about their damaged property. If they wanted to keep their property and their lives intact, they could stop harbouring the rogues who ambushed patrols.

  He heard the sound of the animals protesting as the vehicle skimmed past them and back down onto the road. A pair of young humans – females, judging from their increased frontal development – jumped back in shock, clearly not having heard their approach until it was far too late. Gra’sha resisted the temptation to wave in their direction, knowing that they would probably be planting bombs or taking shots at him in the next few years. At least this bunch of humans seemed reluctant to send their young to war. There were tales of human children carrying bombs right up to patrols in some other parts of the world, although they could be just rumours. Rumour-spreading was officially forbidden, which didn't stop troopers from exchanging rumours and survival tips at every opportunity. Even the newcomers from the homeworld had finally learned to listen to those who had landed on Earth with the first invasion force. They’d survived the worst that the humans could throw at them.

  Two aircraft flew overhead, matching course with the armoured vehicle for a few moments. It always made Gra’sha feel better to know that there were aircraft overhead, watching and waiting to provide support if they ran into trouble. They were supposed to run a random patrol, but there were only a handful of possible routes from the base they could run and the humans knew them all. Even if they didn't run into an ambush this time, they were likely to run into one the next time...and some human ambushes had been nasty.

  He was still watching the environment when he saw a single naked Eridiani standing by the side of the road. For a moment, Gra’sha refused to believe what he was seeing – and then he connected it with the missing intelligence officer the Command Triad had warned them to look out for. It was just typical of intelligence to insist that the troopers on the ground poured out all the stops for a missing intelligence officer – not that he would ever dare say that out loud, of course. Intelligence officers tended to spend more time watching their subordinates for disloyalty rather than monitoring their human enemies. Absently, he wondered if that were true of the human intelligence organisations too. Probably. Certain things were universal, even among the non-humanoid race that had been the State’s first major foe.

  The vehicle pulled to a halt near the missing officer and Gra’sha dismounted, quickly. It was quite possible that the humans were using their captive as the bait in a trap, although quite what they hoped to gain from it was beyond him. The intelligence officer seemed rather disorientated as Gra’sha reached him, but looked very relieved to see a friendly face. How had the humans treated him while he was their captive? They did all kinds of horrible things to their fellows, according to the briefings they’d received – what would they do to a captive trooper, let alone someone who could actually tell them what they needed to know.

  “It’s all right,” he said, as the intelligence officer staggered towards the vehicle. It looked as though the humans had just dumped him, presumably some distance from their base. They’d take a look at the orbital coverage and see if they could trace the humans back to where they’d kept their captive. “You’re safe now.”

  He helped the captive into the vehicle and remounted, hefting his weapon as he surveyed the horizon for human threats. Somehow, he was sure that none would materialise. The humans had wanted to give them the captive – they wouldn't blow them up now. He smiled as the vehicle hummed back into life and started heading straight back to the base. Whatever the humans had had in mind, there was a good chance of promotion or a bonus from their superiors. And that would give the small crew a chance with the females when mating season rolled around.

  And if they managed to trace the humans back to their lair, they might just be able to decapitate the resistance in a single blow.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  London

  United Kingdom, Day 47

  “Maz’Bak’s debriefing has been completed,” the intelligence officer informed Oheghizh. “The humans treated him fairly well by their standards. They did, however, interrogate him quite extensively.”

  “And as an intelligence officer he had a great deal to tell them,” Oheghizh said. Curiosity was not encouraged by the State, but intelligence officers were an exception to that rule. Indeed, rather than stamping on excessively curious youths, the intelligence service preferred to recruit them. Their curiosity could be put to work on behalf of the State. “What did he tell them, precisely.”

  “It’s all in the report,” the intelligence officer said. “They know a great deal more about us than they knew before they raided the detention centre.”

  Oheghizh skimmed through the report, barely keeping himself from swearing out loud. The humans weren't supposed to know anything about any of the other races out among the stars – but now they did, along with far too much information on the galactic geopolitics that had led the State to Earth. And they knew how the command network on Earth was organised, the location and identities of the Command Triad...anywhere else, the information would have had a disastrous impact. If the humans had climbed into space, like any halfway sane race, it would have given them a decisive advantage. Instead, they were still trapped on the bottom of Earth’s gravity well.

  The Command Triad was not going to be pleased. Nor was the State, when superior authority heard about it. Earth had already soaked up more resources and combat power than anyone had anticipated, which meant that reinforcements had to be diverted from other planets. The human military personnel they'd taken off-planet and sent to disputed worlds might redress the balance, but how could they be trusted completely? They weren't even mercenaries; they’d been pressed into service. And they’d know it.

  “On the other hand, we did manage to trace the humans back to their lair,” the intelligence officer added. “They must have a fairly major command post of their own hidden in the general area. If we wait a couple of days, and then attack...we might be able to cripple the human resistance.”

  Oheghizh nodded, sourly. In truth, he wasn't sure that it would do more than hamper the human resistance organisation. The American command and control structure had been shattered by the opening blows of the invasion, but they were somehow still managing to mount a creditable challenge to the State. Intelligence was fairly sure that there was no overall commanding authority, which raised worrying questions about how far the Americans took the concept of leaderless resistance. It was an idea alien to the State.

  “Prepare an assault force,” he ordered, finally. “And have the former captive shipped to orbit for a more extensive debriefing. I want to know everything he told his captors – and I’m sure that the Command Triad will too.”

  He watched the intelligence officer scuttle out of his office, and then he turned to look out over London. The riots that had threatened their grip on the city had died away after
the BBC had reported that the alien captive was safe and well, back with his own people, but they’d come alarmingly close to overwhelming their ability to govern the city. Part of him was tempted to just pull out and leave the humans to slaughter each other, yet he knew they needed as much of the local economy functioning as possible. The registry was already being used to earmark humans for clean-up efforts – and if they refused to work, they would starve.

  And if they did manage to cripple the human resistance, perhaps they could bring the whole campaign to a successful conclusion.

  ***

  Robin lay on his bed, staring up at nothing. It wasn't his bed, not really. The flat had been abandoned in the opening days of the invasion and the police, needing living space for policemen who had been forced out of their homes, had commandeered it. Robin had no idea who had owned the flat before he’d moved in, but they had had excellent taste in wine. He’d downed no less than six bottles over the last two days and was seriously considering finishing off the rest. It could hardly have made his life any worse.

  Back before the invasion, he’d been a loyal policeman, upholding the law even when he’d wanted to forgot proper procedure and just kick some young thug’s head in, or turn water cannons on protestors who had no idea how lucky they were. And then the aliens had invaded and he’d told himself that he had to go to work for them, just to keep the public safe. His own justifications rang hollow in his ears, mocking him; how safe was the public in a world at war? Outside, parts of the city had been torn apart by rioting, dead bodies lay everywhere and what remained of the police force was working for the aliens. And they weren’t the only ones. Some of the special constables the aliens had recruited weren’t policemen, or even soldiers. They just wanted to get their kicks by pushing around helpless civilians.

  He reached for the bottle and cursed when his trembling hand knocked it down onto the floor. Somehow, he managed to roll over, just in time to see the red wine draining out of the bottle and soaking the carpet. It would probably drip down to the flat underneath, giving the inhabitant a scare. He pulled himself upright and rubbed at his head. Maybe a few more drinks would make him drunk and then he could forget the world for a while. If he could go home, if he could see his wife...but she didn't want anything to do with him now, not after the chaos in London. The entire world hated the policemen, those who had joined up to serve the aliens. If he’d known...

  ...Perhaps he would have gone underground too.

  The thought was a bitter one. There were policemen, unmarried policemen, who had deserted their comrades and gone off to join the resistance. But they were the ones who had no hostages to fortune – or to the aliens. The married men knew that their wives and children were known to the aliens, and that they would be killed if their husbands or fathers showed any signs of disloyalty. Perhaps his wife could have evaded them if he’d vanished in the early hours of the invasion, when so many had gone missing, presumed dead, but it was now far too late. He reached for another bottle, struggled with the cork, and then took a long swig. Who cared about going on duty now? Maybe they’d just kill him and that would be an end to it.

  How long had it been, he asked himself, since he’d walked his first beat? Not long at all, really; he’d known that he didn't want to go anywhere else. The endless red tape that strangled real policing, the politically-correct rules invented and enforced by politicians that made it impossible to nick real villains or monitor terrorists...despite all the trials and tribulations of modern policing, he’d loved his job. And now he was nothing more than a filthy quisling. They didn't need to drag up examples from France or Norway any longer, not when there were thousands of collaborators in the United Kingdom. They’d be calling them Robins in the future, no doubt.

  His hands started to shake and he put the bottle down, quickly. He should get up and shower before donning his uniform, but he really didn't care any longer. The weapons they’d stashed away...maybe he should go to the stash, pull out one of the pistols, and put a bullet through his own brains. What else could he do? Resistance was futile. He was halfway to his feet before realising that suicide would probably mean doom for his wife, if the aliens decided to view his suicide as a kind of desertion. Did they even have suicide as a concept? There was no way to know, although given their tough bodies, killing themselves probably required poison. Or maybe they just jumped out of their starships and burned up in the atmosphere below. The thought made him giggle, a sure sign that he was drunker than he realised.

  “You know,” a voice remarked, “there’s little sillier than a drunken policeman.”

  Robin’s eyes snapped open. He’d been alone. Unlike some of the other policemen, he had no intention of bringing a whore back to his flat. He still loved his wife, despite everything – and besides, at least some of the whores had murdered their policemen and vanished into the underground. No one loved the police these days. Through his rather hazy vision, he saw a young Asian man standing by the door, wearing a policeman’s uniform. Robin didn’t recognise him – and there was something about the way he wore his uniform that suggested that he wasn't a policeman at all. But someone wearing a policeman’s uniform could walk around the complex without being questioned...

  “Don’t worry,” the man said. “I’m not here to kill you.”

  “Right,” Robin growled. His head felt as if someone had smashed it with a brick, repeatedly. Mixing the different kinds of alcohol had probably been a mistake. It was hard to form words in his mind, let alone say them out loud. “What do you want then?”

  “My name is...well, they’ve been calling me Abdul,” the man said. Despite his light, almost flippant tone, his brown eyes never left Robin’s face. “You may have heard of me. I believe the reward on my head is currently enough luxury food to keep someone eating for the next few months.”

  The name seemed to shock Robin out of his drunken haze. Of course he’d heard of Abdul – he was supposed to be one of the ringleaders behind the resistance, linking together groups as disparate as National Front racists and Islamic Fundamentalists. The name had been mentioned by captured insurgents during their interrogation, but none of them had known where Abdul based himself. Some policemen had thought that the name was a joke, yet the aliens had taken it seriously. The reward on Abdul’s head was massive.

  “Don’t worry, they don’t know I’m here,” Abdul assured him. One hand rubbed the uniform, mockingly. “It’s amazing how many people spy the uniform and don’t look past it to the face.”

  “We don’t know what you look like,” Robin managed. Up close, Abdul was almost unmemorable. He had no beard, but otherwise he could simply have faded into the crowd and vanished. Bearded Asian men had often been targeted by the aliens, purely on suspicion. One of Robin’s fellow policemen had joked that the aliens found beards intimidating because they couldn’t grow them themselves. “And now...why are you here?”

  “I was told that you might know where some weapons are stashed,” Abdul said, lightly. “I think that it is time we talked, don’t you?”

  Robin staggered to his feet and stumbled over to the shower. The water in London was often turned off and then on again by the aliens, purely to remind Londoners who was in charge, but there was never any problem with the water in police complexes. He turned the knob and blasted cold water over his head, shocking himself awake. Part of him wanted to sound the alert and call for help, but the rest of him...if Abdul knew that Robin had been involved in hiding weapons, what else did he know? It wouldn't take much to alert the aliens to his betrayal – and they’d definitely see it as a betrayal. All weapons were supposed to have been surrendered to them.

  “Fuck,” he said, as his mind finally caught up with him. “Who told you?”

  “Does it matter?” Abdul asked. “All that really matters is that we need to talk.”

  Drying up the water dripping from his hair gave Robin a moment to think. He hadn't been the only copper involved in hiding weapons, and two of the ones who had had de
serted after the first riots. One or both of them could have found Abdul and shared confidences with him, naming Robin as someone who had hoped that he would be in the position to do something about the aliens one day. But that day had never come...

  “Very well,” he said. “What do we have to talk about?”

  “You know that the aliens won’t ever leave on their own,” Abdul said. “Do you really believe that that collaborator asshole they have speaking for them can influence them in any way?”

  “No,” Robin said. He’d never trusted Alan Beresford, even when he’d been MP for Haltemprice rather than a collaborator claiming to be Prime Minister. The man smiled too much, among his many other failings. There had been rumours of shady dealings, but nothing had ever been proven. And now it was too late. “Do you believe that fighting them will make them give up and go away?”