Their Darkest Hour

by Christopher Nuttall

  “We need to tighten our grip on their planet,” Tul’ma Jophuzu said. “I want all resistance crushed before they have a chance to find help from outside the system.”

  That, Oheghizh thought in the privacy of his own head, would be easier said than done. Humanity just didn't respond like a rational race, which raised the question of how they’d ever managed to develop atomic weapons without blowing themselves and their world into radioactive debris. Some of the observers had seen human claims of alien contact and wondered if someone might have been covertly assisting humanity’s development, but the starships hadn't picked up any signs that anyone else might have visited the system. But how else could one explain a development that defied all of the understood rules?

  They’re alien, he reminded himself. They might play by different rules.

  ***

  The Land Force Base near the human city of London was immense. It had been built on top of a human air force base, once the ground had been swept for hidden surprises, and simply expanded outwards. Three fences prevented human insurgents from getting into the base itself, while the outer edge was patrolled regularly by elite infantry units. A series of drones floated high overhead, backed up by attack helicopters and strike fighters. It should have been impregnable.

  Tra’tro The’Stig walked across the human runway and up to the prefabricated building. Two guards checked his identity before allowing him to proceed, even though no human could have disguised himself to look like an Eridiani. The very thought was absurd, but the humans were full of nasty surprises. It was better to be paranoid than dead.

  The interior of the building felt pleasantly warm and damp to his skin, a change from the cold breezes outside. There were parts of Britain where it never seemed to stop raining, but the rain was always cold and uncomfortable. Even the humans seemed to find it unpleasant, which didn't stop them from using the rain to cover their movements. The interior was also large enough for him to move freely, without needing to worry about holes torn in human walls or tiny humans lurking in holes too small for an adult Eridiani. It was definitely better than staying in one of the human buildings that had been adapted for their purposes. He saw a pair of females and concealed a wry smile. The seniors were making sure that they were in the right place when the females entered their mating seasons. If he’d smelt the scent that marked a female in heat, he would have fought any other male – superior or not – who tried to prevent him from mating with her. Outside mating season, it was a matter of amusement rather than irritation.

  He stepped into the office and thumped his chest with one hand, claws sheathed. Ju’tro Oheghizh was far superior to his lowly position, which made the summons rather more than a bit worrying. He hadn’t done anything wrong, as far as he knew, but it wasn't always necessary to screw up before being raked over the coals. And yet...he had found himself in command of a scratch Assault Unit made from the remains of several other Assault Units that had been ripped apart by the humans. Had he exceeded his authority badly enough to warrant punishment?

  The State demanded nothing, but obedience from low-ranking officers and males. In the privacy of his own head, Tra’tro The’Stig wondered if that was the best way to handle fighting a war. It took time to call for orders from higher authority, time that the humans used to good advantage. How many human insurgents had escaped death because the KEW bombardments had to be ordered by superior officers, rather than the ones on the ground? But if he’d vocalised any of those thoughts...the best outcome would be remaining forever frozen at his current rank. At worst, he would be sent to a punishment unit or a re-education camp.

  He waited for his superior to speak, as was proper. “You have served well during the course of the invasion,” Ju’tro Oheghizh said. His superior officer didn't seem angry. “You fought well and survived the experience.”

  The’Stig wondered, just for a moment, if he was being mocked. Yes, he’d survived – and he’d learned never to take anything for granted. The humans had plenty of skill at concealing IEDs in apparently harmless positions, while they were learning how to hurt unwary Assault Units with simpler weapons and tactics. Officers fresh from suspension on the starships, assuming that the war was already over because the human cities had been occupied and their militaries hammered from orbit, had been caught by surprise. Many of them hadn't survived their first encounter with human insurgents.

  “You are promoted to U’tra,” Ju’tro Oheghizh said, almost casually. The’Stig forgot himself and stared at his commanding officer. He was being jumped up two grades...? It had to be a mistake. But then, hadn’t he been serving as an U’tra even without the rank? “You will take command of the reformed Assault Units and commence sweeps for enemy insurgents. I expect you to find them and destroy them. Do you understand me?”

  The’Stig saluted, hastily. Yes, he understood all right. The reformed units wouldn't be neat and orderly, certainly not as orderly as a more conventional commander would have expected. And if he failed in his mission, he could be demoted just as easily. He almost started to laugh at himself. Hadn’t he been sure that he could do better, if he’d been in command? And now he was in command. Failure wasn't an option.

  “I understand,” he said. “I will not fail the State.”

  ***

  The alien helicopter touched down in the centre of their base and one of his guards half-pushed Alan Beresford towards the hatch. He scrambled out with as much dignity as he could muster, unable to prevent himself from staring at the massive shuttles and other aircraft scattered over the base. The alien buildings seemed dauntingly large, as if they’d been put together by designers without a sense of proportion. He winced at the sound of a jumbo jet coming into land, wondering if it was being piloted by humans or aliens. It seemed unlikely that aliens could fly a human craft, but they’d have to be insane to allow humans to land on their bases. 9/11 had proved just how much damage a crashing jumbo jet could do.

  His escort marched him up to one of the alien buildings and into a network of corridors that looked large enough to hold hundreds of aliens at once. The smell was all around him, a scent that reminded him of mucking out a barn on his grandfather’s estate. He’d never realised that the aliens smelled before, but then he’d never been in a building that had housed so many of them at one time. Human buildings probably smelled rank to them too.

  He shuddered as they pulled him through a door and into an office. The aliens couldn't have been very happy with the recent riots in London, or the fact that part of the city had become a no-go area for the police. Their system for controlling the city – and the human population – was breaking down sharply. God alone knew how they planned to respond. He looked up at the oversized desk and saw one of the aliens crouching behind it. They didn't seem to need chairs, unlike humanity. Or perhaps it was a way to tell him that he wasn't important to them any longer.

  “Your people have proved most disruptive,” the alien said. Was it the one he normally dealt with, or was it another one? There was no way to easily tell them apart. “We are not pleased. We will be launching sweeps to catch human insurgents and we expect you and your people to cooperate fully with us. Failure to cooperate will have the most disastrous consequences.”

  Alan didn't need to be a politician to realise that that was a threat. “I will be honoured to cooperate,” he said, quickly. “Perhaps if you could outline what you wish us to do...”

  “We will carry out the sweeps without your assistance,” the alien informed him. “We wish you to round up a number of humans and their families. We have a use for them.”

  “But of course,” Alan said. There was no point in refusing now. The aliens would simply kill him and move on to another collaborator. “Might I enquire as to the purpose you have in mind for them...?”

  “You will do as you are told,” the alien said, flatly. “If you are incapable of carrying out your orders, we will find someone who is more capable.”

  Alan hesitated. If he started rounding peo
ple up without explanation, there would be resistance. People would start thinking that the aliens intended to eat them or something equally stupid, which would naturally provoke more resistance. And then his police force, already demoralised, would find itself unable to proceed further. But how could he explain that to the aliens?

  “I will carry out your orders,” he said, finally. “I await your command.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Near Dereham

  United Kingdom, Day 32

  Alex lay on her belly and considered the town below her. The aliens had arrived in force, coming up at Dereham from Norwich and surrounding the town before anyone quite realised that they were there. Dereham had been ignored by the aliens after the population had been registered, leaving the people to try to get on with their own lives in a world turned upside down, perhaps even to pretend that the world hadn't really changed. Their delusion, if they’d indulged themselves, had come to an end. The town was surrounded and the aliens were moving in.

  “We can't just stay here and do nothing,” Henry hissed. He was too young – but then, there had been younger soldiers fighting and dying in Afghanistan. “What are they going to do to the people down there?”

  Alex shrugged. The aliens had been alarmingly active over the last few days, sweeping through parts of the countryside without anything that looked like a clear plan of action. Alex’s best guess was that they were looking for insurgents – the internet noted hundreds of attacks carried out against the aliens – but she wasn’t sure why they had returned to Dereham, or why they hadn't attempted to track her down. Perhaps they were following a doctrine formed on another world. Or perhaps they believed that there was a centre of resistance in the town and they intended to destroy it. There was no way to know.

  “We can't do anything, but get ourselves killed if we go charging into the town,” she hissed back. They’d carried out three strikes at the aliens so far, but she’d insisted on being very careful. If the aliens had decided to sweep through the area for insurgents, it was possible that they’d catch someone who wasn’t registered or uncover an arms dump. Either one would be disastrous. “All we can really do is hope and pray that they don’t find anything that justifies a massacre.”

  The images from London had been broadcast over the BBC. Alex had watched in horror as hundreds – perhaps thousands – of humans had been shredded by alien guns. The entire country had seen the bloody suppression of a riot, galvanising resistance to the alien occupation. If the internet was to be believed, there had been hundreds of strikes against the aliens over the last few days. It certainly explained why the aliens were being so determined to sweep for insurgents. Anything was better than waiting to be hit, hoping that superior firepower would allow them to slaughter anyone foolish enough to attack their positions.

  There were upwards of 15’000 people in Dereham. It looked as if the aliens were systematically pulling them out of their homes and ordering them to gather in the roads, waiting for their fate to be decided. The aliens were ransacking the buildings, searching for weapons and anything else that might imply a link to the resistance. Alex could see a handful of policemen looking uncomfortable as the searches continued, unsure of just what they were feeling. Some policemen had been pushed into collaboration, no doubt about that, but others had been willing to serve the aliens without threats. It was hard to blame someone who served because his family was at risk, yet how could they tell the difference between that and a man who was serving the aliens for personal gain? Some of the rumours on the internet were shocking.

  “Come on,” she hissed. “We can't stay here.”

  It had taken nearly two hours to walk cross-country to Dereham and they’d arrived just in time to see the aliens establish themselves in the area. Alex had no illusions about what they would do once they’d secured the town; they’d sweep out, probably in the direction of Norwich. They had a major presence in that town and given enough time, they could probably safeguard the roads as well. A few of Alex’s allies had been placing IEDs in the area, but that had its own dangers. The last thing they wanted to do was accidentally catch a farmer with an IED.

  She scowled as they made their way across a field, which had recently been planted with an alien crop. One of the stranger points about British farming before the invasion had been that the government had paid a number of farmers to leave their fields lying fallow, rather than growing crops. It had been cheaper, apparently, to bring in food from overseas, which had worked perfectly until the country had been cut off from the rest of the world by the aliens. The aliens, on the other hand, had made a list of every farmer with fallow fields and ordered them to start growing seeds they’d provided. They hadn't gone into details, but they seemed to believe that the crop would be grown before winter, allowing it to be harvested and a second crop planted after the winter snows had faded away. Alex wasn't too surprised to see that they were planting crops from their world, but Smith had been furious. Adding something new to the ecology could cause chaos across the entire country.

  “It was bad enough when they started planting those damn genetically-modified crops,” he’d said, holding up one of the alien seeds. It hadn't looked very alien, but someone down in the town had looked at it through a microscope and confirmed that it bore no resemblance to something from Earth. “These things are likely to spread further and there won’t be anything we can do about it.”

  The thought was chilling – and the internet speculation had been downright horrific. Introducing rabbits to Australia had been disastrous because the rabbits had had no natural predators and had bred like...well, rabbits. Alien plants might be resistant to Earth’s formidable array of crop-destroying pests, while alien animals might be tougher than foxes or weasels or the other predators that hunted rabbits and field mice. Alex had tried to imagine an animal from the alien homeworld, but had drawn a blank. They could look like anything.

  She could hear the sounds of alien helicopters in the distance as they walked onwards, watching carefully for any sign of an alien or collaborator patrol. They’d had some close calls in the days since they’d started trying to ambush the aliens, but the aliens seemed to have preferred to keep their distance. Maybe their current sweep was intended to change that – no matter what some of the young men thought, she had no illusions. They were barely pin-pricking the aliens. The aliens might not consider them significant enough to bother killing.

  “You could come to the dance with me,” Henry said, breaking into her thoughts. “It would be a fun time to let your hair down.”

  Alex rolled her eyes. Henry was seventeen; she was twenty-five. And she wanted to minimise the contact between her and the townspeople as much as possible. Officially, she was Smith’s niece from across the country, but it wouldn't be long before someone guessed at the truth. There had been quite a few fugitives who had found new homes in the countryside, yet the aliens were alarmingly good at using human files to track down military personnel. And if they caught Alex...no one knew what would happen to her.

  And Henry was clearly interested in her. Part of her was tempted, despite the age difference – Henry wasn't a bad person at all. But the rest of her knew better. She’d been between boyfriends when she’d been shot down during the opening days of the invasion and...if she opened herself up that far, it risked creating emotional ties. One day, she would have to leave Long Stratton if the aliens threatened to take over the area directly – and then she would have to avoid looking back.

  “It wouldn't be a good idea for me to be seen,” she said, finally. There were younger girls in the town, she told herself firmly. He’d find someone closer in age to himself. “I need to spend more time at the hole anyway.”

  The thought made her smile. Smuggling guns and explosives to hiding places well away from the town had been a challenge, but once they’d completed the program it had been easy to separate the different resistance cells. The aliens might catch one of them, only to discover that they had no leads to
the next one. Or so she hoped. If someone had defied orders...she shook her head. The RAF had tried to control every aspect of her life as a pilot, but the resistance needed a much looser organisation. She would just have to trust that they knew what to do – and knew better than to contact her.

  Henry said nothing for the rest of the walk back to the coppice that served as a rendezvous point. Alex’s RAF training hadn't included building shelters, but Archer had uncovered a couple of ex-poachers who were remarkably talented at slipping unseen through the night, or building hidden dumps for the weapons. She knew she could live alone out in the countryside for quite some time, but that would mean giving up the fight and walking away, forgetting her oath to the country. They dumped most of their weapons in the stash and headed down towards Smith’s farm. He’d been spending the last few days planting the alien seeds in the ground, cursing the aliens all the while. At least they’d gotten a petrol ration out of it.

  “That’s funny,” Henry commented. “Where is he?”

  Alex looked over at him, and then down at her watch. It was early afternoon, the time Smith normally worked in the fields. Henry was right. Where was he? More carefully now, Alex walked forward to the farmhouse and quietly peered around the corner. There was no sign of his Range Rover in the shed. He had to have gone out and...she touched the door and it opened, revealing that it was unlocked. Alarm bells ringing in her head, she inched into the farmhouse and looked around. There was no sign of Smith, or his wife.