Their Darkest Hour

by Christopher Nuttall

  Alan Beresford’s face appeared on the screen as the message started again. “I have been informed that the bitter-enders have taken one of our alien friends captive,” he said. The collaborator-in-chief sounded as if he sincerely believed every word he said, although that was a necessary skill for a politician. “They have informed me that they no longer intend to allow the bitter-enders to frustrate Earth’s admission to the galactic state. Therefore, if this captive is not released, a large number of humans will die.”

  He leaned forward. “I understand that change always worries those who do not want to see any change in how the world is run, but I appeal to those who are still fighting the aliens,” he added. “They are not bluffing. Unless the captive is released within two days, they will take punitive measures against a city on the British mainland. Please, for the love of God, release the captive before millions die.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  London

  United Kingdom, Day 45

  The entire city had gone crazy.

  “Damn it,” Robin yelled, as he ducked to avoid a hail of rubbish being thrown at them from the flats. “Where the hell is our backup?”

  “Caught up in their own riot,” Sergeant Wiggin shouted back. They’d entered the East London housing estate looking for a suspected resistance organiser. And then the entire estate seemed to have exploded around them. The alien threats against a human city had triggered off a whole series of riots. “They’re stuck for the moment!”

  Robin gritted his teeth. The housing estates had been slowly decaying into criminality for years, despite programs designed to give the inhabitants pride in their community. They were notoriously unfriendly to the police, even before the invasion. Their police car had been tipped on its side and they’d had to flee into an alley in the hopes of escaping the crowd. It was apparently worse along the outside of London, with humans desperate to escape the city clashing with police and alien guards equally intent on keeping people in. The internet had named a hundred different cities that might be targeted and they’d all gone crazy.

  Outside, there were over five hundred youths, probably all members of the same gang. The gangs had been defending their territory ever since the invasion, even though they were drawing food and drink from the aliens. If they were waiting before giving chase to the policemen, it suggested that they were expecting others to arrive and fall into the same trap. Or maybe they were just biding their time. Robin wished, once again, that the aliens had allowed them to carry firearms. The crowd outside was better armed than the police.

  He looked around and saw a drainpipe leading up to a window. Quickly, before he could think better of it, he ran over to the pipe and scrambled up it. It was a harder climb that he’d expected, but the crowd outside the alley was a powerful motivator. He managed to push the window open and fall face-first into the flat, gasping for breath as the stench of death reached his nostrils. Someone had been using the flat to smoke drugs, but had overdosed – or perhaps it had been a murder. Judging from the condition of the body, it had been at least a fortnight since death had taken place. He leaned back out of the window and waved frantically to Wiggin. Wiggin was older and fatter than Robin, but with a little help he made it into the flat.

  “Jesus,” he muttered, as he tried to avoid breathing. “What the fuck happened here?”

  “No idea,” Robin said, shortly. He glanced around the flat as they came out of the bedroom and up to a bolted door. Someone had attached no less than five bolts to the door, making it much harder for anyone to enter without breaking down the door. Drug dealers tended to be paranoid, not without reason. Their list of enemies didn't stop at the police. “I bet you that the back door outside is blocked off too.”

  “That’s a fire hazard,” Wiggin said. They shared a droll look as they opened the door. It didn't smell much better outside. An overpowering stench of urine almost sent them staggering backwards. Robin had never been able to understand how anyone could willingly live in such a dump, although he had to admit that most of them never stood a chance. The gangs were simply too powerful for ordinary people to overcome. Who would bother cleaning the stairwell if they knew it would simply be vandalised again within the week?

  Robin glanced outside through a broken window and saw that the mob was getting stronger. There was little hope of anyone coming to help on the ground, unless they were armed and willing to cut down enough of the gang members to convince the others to flee. It wouldn't be long before they decided to go after the two trapped policemen – and it wouldn't take their leaders long to guess where Robin and Wiggin had fled. He glanced down at the crowd again before heading up the stairs. There should be a way to get onto the roof from the stairwell.

  The stench seemed to grow stronger as they raced up the stairs. Robin had made arrests in places like the estate before and knew that the closed doors hid all sorts of crimes – and people living their lives of quiet desperation. A drug dealer, a prostitute and her pimp, terrorists, racists...all hidden behind closed doors. The BBC might prattle on about the benefits that alien rule would bring to the country, but he doubted that any benefit could help those trapped on poor estates. Very few people born and bred on such an estate ever managed to climb out and build a proper life for themselves. The pressure just to sink into criminality was overpowering. There were some girls who were grandmothers at thirty, assuming they lived so long.

  At the top of the stairs, he glanced up and saw the hatch leading to the roof – and a small set of metal climbing handles. Quickly, he climbed up and pushed at the hatch, before making the mistake of looking down. Dizziness almost overcame him, but he closed his eyes and pushed at the hatch again. It opened and fell to one side with a loud bang, almost as loud as a gunshot. He scrambled out onto the roof and peered out over London. A dozen fires were burning brightly in the distance, towards the centre of the city. He could hear the sound of alien weapons being fired, suggesting that the rioters were trying to take out the alien patrols. Maybe they’d even succeed...

  “Call for a helicopter,” he ordered, as Wiggin scrambled up beside him. Peering over the side of the building brought on another fit of vertigo, but he managed to overcome it long enough to realise that the crowd had realised that its hostages were missing. They were thronging around the block, looking for trouble. “Tell them we need an emergency pick-up right now.”

  He closed the hatch and dragged a number of fallen bricks over to make it difficult for anyone to reopen it from inside the building. The rioters had probably used the rooftop as a place to defend their territory in the past, throwing bricks down towards their enemies. Wiggin joined him and between them they stacked up nearly fifty bricks. It would be almost impossible for someone to open the hatch, Robin told himself, and hoped that he was right. After their escape, the crowd wouldn't be feeling merciful to the policemen if they caught up with them.

  The sound of helicopter blades grew louder and he allowed himself a moment of relief as a police helicopter came into view. A rope ladder was already falling down towards them as it slowed and came to a hover directly over the estate. The sound of the crowd grew louder as Wiggin took hold of the ladder and started to scramble up into the helicopter. Robin heard a series of bangs and thuds from under the hatch that suggested that someone was trying to push the hatch open and come climbing out onto the roof. He took tight hold of the rope ladder and climbed up himself, following Wiggin. The helicopter seemed to bank in the sky the moment he reached the top and was helped into the cabin, tilting away from the estate and heading back towards Central London. From overhead, entire streets seemed to be jammed with rioters, or protesters. He could see riot teams unleashing CS gas on some mobs, while leaving others to shout themselves hoarse. It looked as if London was dissolving into chaos.

  “They want every available officer out manning the barricades,” the pilot called, as they flew lower. “The Leathernecks are moving up forces from outside the city. If we don’t put the rioters back in their
box, they’re going to start mowing them down!”

  Robin wasn't alone in believing that more vigorous policing and less politically correct bullshit would do more for the city than any amount of urban improvement schemes, but there were limits. And the aliens wouldn't hesitate to gun down thousands of humans to convince the remainder to do as they were told. He sat back and covered his eyes as the helicopter slowly came in to land at the makeshift New Scotland Yard. They’d be expected to go back out on the streets at once and he didn't know if he had the energy. All he wanted to do was crawl into a bottle and die.

  ***

  “Well, mighty master of all you survey,” Catherine said, dryly. “I think that some people are a mite upset.”

  Alan Beresford ignored her. The new seat of government for the collaborators was a small fortress, protected by the aliens. It said something about how effective they were at dealing with urban mobs that no one had risked attacking them, even though the deadline for the return of the alien captive was counting down towards zero. But the remainder of London didn't have that immunity to the chaos gripping the city. The entire city seemed to be out of the streets, trying to get out or to take down an alien or two before it was too late.

  “You might have done better not to tell the world about the threat,” she added. “Just think about how long it is going to take to clear up the mess...”

  “Shut up,” Alan snapped. He didn't want to let her get under his skin, but there were limits to what he was prepared to endure. Catherine was preparing herself to challenge him and perhaps become the next Prime Minister – and tool of the aliens. “You know as well as I did that there was no choice.”

  The aliens had made their feelings quite clear. They wanted their kidnapped officer back – and they were prepared to threaten mass murder to be sure that they got their way. Alan knew them well enough by now to know that they weren't bluffing. In fact, he wasn't sure that they had the ability to bluff. They seemed to prefer the simplest and most direct way of doing things possible – and if that meant a great many humans got hurt, they didn't seem to care. Alan might have admired their ruthlessness if he hadn't been all too aware that they would turn on him if he stopped being useful. And his usefulness might just have run out.

  Alan had managed to get most of the city’s workers back to work, particularly ones who could help the aliens administer their new territory. The registration process had identified a vast number of people who could join the alien government and work overseas, perhaps in France or America. Alan had calculated that the aliens wouldn't want to bring in locals if he could produce servants, even if they would be at risk from the local resistance fighters. But now most of his civil servants seemed to have gone on strike, or were being hunted down by mobs in London. The rest of the country wasn't much better. Every city or large town that didn't have an alien ring of steel keeping the population trapped was emptying out into the countryside, spreading panic and disorder over the entire country. It wasn't as if they could all be fed outside the cities.

  He glanced down at his watch. Two days, the aliens had said; two days for their kidnapped officer to be returned or else. And one of those days was nearly over. If he’d had a link to the resistance, he would have begged them to return their captive, if only because his usefulness would expire if the aliens decided that he’d lost control of his people. But there was nothing he could do, apart from waiting and hoping. It had been a long time since he’d prayed.

  Catherine walked up behind him, looking out over the darkening city. “Do you remember when we thought that we were in control?”

  “We will get back into control,” Alan said, flatly. He was not going to let her rattle him. They were on the verge of losing everything – if the aliens bombed a city, it would be the end of his provisional government – and the damned woman was making a power play! “The resistance will release their prisoner.”

  “But how do you know?” Catherine said. “They might just believe that chaos is better for their goals than a country under your foot.”

  Alan prided himself on his self-control, but the woman was driving him insane. “And what happens if the aliens decide to administer the country themselves?” She asked. “What use will they have for us then?”

  A hot flash of anger boiled through Alan’s mind. He slapped her, right across the face. She staggered backwards, one hand raised to the ugly red mark where he’d struck her. Alan stepped forward and slapped her again, knocking her to the floor. He bent over her and put his hand on her throat, ignoring her feeble attempts to push him back. A sense of dark power roared through him as he stared down at her. He could do anything to her; rape her, choke the life out of her...and who could stop him? The old order had died the day the aliens had landed in Britain and the rest of the world.

  “You will do your fucking job or I will kill you,” he hissed, finally. Part of his mind pointed out that it would be unwise to let her live, but the feeling of triumph overruled it. “Now get out and find a way of convincing the sheep down there to go back to work nice and peacefully.”

  He took his hand off her throat and stepped back, half-expecting her to lunge at him. Instead, she pulled herself to her feet and walked towards the door. Alan watched her go and then turned back to the window, shaking his head. He’d mounted a tiger when he’d made his bargain with the Leathernecks. They didn't care how he ruled the country, provided that he ruled it for their benefit. But the moment he stopped being useful, they’d kill him.

  Outside, the fires were growing brighter. Alan watched, feeling cold despair replacing the exultation he’d felt when he’d humbled the bitch. If he stopped being useful...

  “Damn you,” he muttered, knowing that no one would hear him. “Why did you have to go and spoil it?”

  ***

  “They shot up a crowd as they headed to Whitehall,” one of the resistance fighters said. “At least thirty wounded, fifty dead – should I have them forwarded to here?”

  “Only if you get me more supplies,” Fatima said, tiredly. She’d been working like a demon, almost non-stop since the riots started to tear London apart. Hundreds of wounded had been brought in, passed across her table and then sent somewhere to recuperate. Many of them wouldn't survive, no matter what she did. They needed a proper hospital and one wasn't available. “Didn’t Joe get some from the nearest hospital?”

  “Only a few,” the fighter said. “They’re inundated with wounded too. We’re trying to slip some of our own into their system, but if they’re not registered...”

  Fatima nodded, and then yawned. Tiredness caused people to make mistakes – and yet she hadn't been able to get any rest since the day had begun. She wasn't the only medical doctor in the resistance, but the others were scattered out over the city; like her, they were fighting to keep people alive who really needed proper treatment and a hospital...

  She yawned again, feeling the room spinning around her. Had it only been last year when she’d taken the last two weeks of Ramadan off because she had worried about what would happen if she grew too hungry? What a joke! She’d worked herself half to death over the last few days and now she could barely keep herself together.

  “Bring them in,” she ordered, tiredly. Her last patient, someone who had been shot through the shoulder by one of the alien bullets, would probably never recover the use of his arm. One of the soldiers had commented that the aliens seemed to use elephant guns, something that made sense given how tough they were. Ordinary ammunition wasn't quite good enough against Leatherneck skin. “I’ll have a look at them as soon as I can.”

  “You’d be better off getting a nap,” a new voice said. She looked up to see Abdul. “You look too tired to work properly.”

  “I feel dead.” Fatima admitted. She hadn't seen Abdul in days, ever since he’d brought her to the first of the makeshift hospitals. From what she’d heard, he’d been too busy organising attacks on collaborators and the alien patrols. “Can you have someone else take care of the patie
nts?”

  “I’ll do my best,” Abdul promised. He hesitated. “I think you need at least five hours of sleep, so get to bed and stay there. We’ll wake you up if we have to vacate this place in a hurry.”

  Fatima looked up at him, nodded, and then stumbled into the next room. God alone knew what it had been originally intended for, but they’d set up a cot for her beside the window. Outside, she could see fires in the distance. London was burning – absently, she wondered if someone on the other side would realise that the resistance hadn't set any fires near its hideouts. But judging from the chaos, the collaborators had too much else to worry about before they started hunting the resistance again. They’d have to put out the fires, calm the rioters and – if the aliens carried out their threat – provide help to a destroyed city and its stricken population.

  She closed her eyes and felt sleep overcome her.