Darkest Hour 1: Their Darkest Hour

by Christopher Nuttall

  He walked over to the van and opened the door. “When you turn the corner onto the road, push down on the switch there,” he said. “That arms the bomb. When you want it to detonate, take your hand off the switch and it’ll explode. Don’t try to brake once you’re around the corner – just drive for the gate as fast as you can.”

  The young man nodded. He looked confident, at least. Abdul silently pitied him – and his family. It was rare to see a suicide bomber blessed by his family, at least in Britain. Their deaths tended to come as a shock to their friends and relatives, giving them the grief of losing someone while dealing with increasingly pointed questions from the security services. Part of his mind pointed out that such a young fool would find a way to harm himself sooner or later, perhaps lashing out at a member of his family. At least this way his death would count for something. He told himself that, time and time again, but the dirty feeling refused to fade from his mind.

  He reached out and touched the young man’s sleeve. “You don’t have to go through with this,” he said, flatly. “If you want to back out...”

  “I know what I’m doing,” the young man said. Abdul sighed inwardly at his tone. He’d heard it before from young recruits, the kind who needed to be broken down before they could be built up again. But that required dedication and determination – and the young would-be bomber had neither. “It needs to be done, for what they did to us. You have the video?”

  Abdul nodded. He’d used a simple civilian camcorder to record a brief statement, a message to be uploaded onto the internet after the bomb exploded. The young fool would explain why he’d bombed the college, stating that it was in response to the occupied mosques. He seemed to believe that the aliens had meant to insult and degrade Islam. Abdul suspected that they simply didn't care. Given their size, they needed larger buildings – and mosque prayer halls were wide open, easy for them to use. A church would need to have the pews removed before it would suit the aliens.

  “It’s ready for uploading,” he said. Actually, he’d moved the uploading laptop somewhere else. He had no way of knowing what surveillance capabilities the aliens had in place, which meant that they might be able to trace the van back to the garage. And if they caught him...he was sure that there were other soldiers operating within London, apart from his small cell, but he hadn’t been given any details. He had to assume that their death meant the end of resistance within London. “Remember; push down on the switch once you turn the corner, and then keep your hand on the switch! You let go of it early...”

  “Understood,” the young man said. He turned the key and the engine rumbled to life. It was lucky that the garage owner had kept a small reservoir of petrol under the building, or they wouldn't have been able to fuel the van. Civilians had almost no petrol in London these days. The air was cleaner already. “And thank you.”

  Abdul watched him go, silently wondering if God would hear his prayers in the future.

  He’d just sent a young man to hell.

  ***

  Aashif knew how to drive, but he’d never taken the formal test and he had never tried to drive a van before. It felt heavy and unwieldy compared to his father’s car and if the roads hadn’t been almost empty, he was sure that he would have crashed – or at least scraped off some of the paint – by now. His sweaty hands felt slippery against the wheel, forcing him to keep a tight grip. He could hear his heartbeat pounding inside his skull. A collaborator’s car pulled out ahead of him and he had to push down on the brakes to avoid a collision. He’d been warned that if he did crash, for any reason, he had to abandon the van and run. The moment they saw the explosives, the police would know what he had in mind...

  His breath was coming in patches, leaving him feeling unwell as he turned the corner carefully. There were no traffic lights in London these days either. He’d been told that he would feel calm, that the peace of God would overwhelm him, but instead he just felt frantic, almost terrified. It would be easy to park the van and just run...he could walk away from his own death. But there was nowhere to go. The people he knew were the ones he had bragged to about his role in the Jihad. It had seemed so easy at the start to use his inflated claims to gain power and influence – God knew that the younger Muslims had had enough of older clerics telling them what to do. Pakistan was on the other side of the world – gone, if some of the more alarming reports on the internet were true – and it wasn't right that they should be controlled by village elders who couldn't even protect them from racists or the police...

  And then there were the temptations of the West. Women leaving the homes and working for a living, instead of doing their duty as mothers, daughters and wives. Music, drugs...everything that polluted the mind and wore away at faith. And homosexuality...how could anyone tolerate a world where men could love men? It was disgusting how the West prided itself on its own tolerance. Even though it provided a shield for the faithful, for those determined to turn back the clock...how could anyone stand to live like that?

  And then there were those who suffered while he lived in luxury...

  It had been easy to pretend, until his dream had become a nightmare. And yet he couldn't back out. He’d recorded the video, the one where he’d damned the aliens and their collaborators for what they’d done to Islam. If he left the van and ran, he knew what would happen. The video would be released and everyone would laugh at him. He'd know that they were laughing, even as they pretended to be sympathetic. How could he ever show his face in their company again?

  His heart beat faster as he turned the corner. The college was just up ahead, a place for smarter kids who didn't want to spend the rest of their lives flipping burgers at McDonalds, or claiming benefits. He reached for the switch and hesitated. It wasn’t too late. He could park and run away and maybe find a new home somewhere else. There were always possibilities for those with the determination...but he’d lacked it. In a rare moment of self-assessment, he realised that he’d never had the determination to make something of himself. Instead, someone else had made something out of him. He wanted to run and yet he didn't quite dare...

  He pushed down on the switch, hearing an ominous click. His hand felt as if it were drenched in sweat as he gunned the engine, sending the van forward faster. The aliens hadn't bothered to put up a gate, merely a pair of guards. He saw their ugly forms and pointed the van right at them, wondering if they had the sense to jump out of the way. It wouldn't save them, though. There was enough explosives in the van to reduce the entire building to rubble...or so he’d been told. Maybe they’d lied to him...

  There was a popping sound. It took him a moment to realise that they were shooting at him. A burst of pain spread over his chest, sending him flopping backwards against the seat. It was suddenly very hard to think. His chest was warm...blood was pouring from a hole...he slumped forward, his hand falling off the switch. He had a second to realise that he’d released the switch...and then the world went away in a flash of white-hot flame.

  Chapter Eighteen

  London

  United Kingdom, Day 15

  Robin and Constable Riley had been parked in a police car when they heard the explosion. It was thunderously loud in a city where most noise had dimmed away to almost nothing. The cars that had once produced a constant backdrop were silent; no massive jumbo jets flew in and out of the city. Indeed, it had been so quiet that Robin had wondered if the penny was ever going to drop. And the massive fireball rising up in the distance suggested that it had. Someone was striking back at the aliens...

  “Start the car,” he ordered, grabbing his radio. The aliens had allowed them to use them, although Robin suspect that they intended to use them to monitor their collaborators. “This is Zulu Bravo; we are heading to the incident site. I say again, this is...”

  “Trouble,” Constable Riley commented, as he flung the police car around a corner. “They were doing something at that college...”

  Robin stared, not quite believing his eyes. There had once been a la
rge building, home to a technical college producing graduates with degrees that should get them good jobs in the computer industry. It had been smashed by the explosion, along with several other buildings nearby. A number of cars were burning brightly – he keyed his radio to summon the fire brigade – and an alien armoured vehicle had been tipped upside down. It was a weakness in their design, he guessed; their hover-cushion gave an unexpected blast the leverage to throw the vehicle right over. He doubted that it would happen to a human-built tank.

  “Dear God,” he breathed. There seemed to be hundreds of people caught in the blast. Most schools hadn't reopened in the days following the invasion, but the aliens had been very interested in the technical college. No one had quite been able to figure out why. “How many people did they kill?”

  “It really makes you wonder,” Riley said, as they climbed out of the car. The whole scene was overwhelming, worse than Buckingham Palace. “Which side are we supposed to be on?”

  Robin glared at him. If he’d been alone, if no one else had been in danger, he might have joined one of the resistance cells being talked about on the internet. But there was his wife...and there was the simple fact that innocent civilians were going to be caught in the midst of the fighting. The police existed to protect civilians...which didn’t change the fact that they’d effectively started working for the aliens. But if they hadn't, who knew what the aliens would do in response? If they used live ammunition to respond to broken bottles, what the hell would they do in response to a bomb that had slaughtered upwards of twenty of them?

  “Call ambulances,” he ordered. He wasn't sure where to begin. With the wounded – or with two bodies that were very clearly not human? The aliens didn't seem to have survived the blast. Maybe they had some wonder-technology that could resurrect the dead, but he wouldn't count on it. “Call medics. Call everyone.”

  He shook his head. Where the hell did they even start?

  ***

  Fatima had been trying to relax when her pager went off, alerting her to a medical emergency. It had come just in time. Her stepmother had been boring her again with more suggestions for suitable boys, even though they’d lost touch with the old country. The internet said that India and Pakistan had nuked each other in the wake of the invasion and, despite her best hopes, she suspected that it was true. Too many sources were repeating the same claim time and time again.

  She picked up her overnight bag and ran out of the door, glancing down at her pager to see where she was going. A massive plume of smoke was rising up over London, reminding her of the hellish first days when the aliens had arrived. At least they’d managed to get most of the wounded to their own homes, she told herself as she started to run. Five minutes later, she saw an ambulance and flagged it down, hoping that the driver would have time to stop. He did, allowing Fatima to climb onboard before he gunned the engine again, heading towards the plume of smoke. She felt sick as she realised where they were going. Gilmore Technical College had played host to several of her friends, back when they’d dreamed of careers. And now it was just a pile of rubble.

  A number of Incident Coordinators had arrived and taken charge, thankfully. They’d been missed during the desperate attempt to treat the wounded in Central London, during the invasion. Fatima didn't even bother to throw them accusing glances – they were collaborators, after all – as she scrambled down from the ambulance and ran towards their position. Police and firemen were helping the wounded away from the fires, trying to get them processed and into the queue for medical treatment. She closed her ears to their screams and pleas, knowing that there was little she could do to help. God alone knew if they had enough medical supplies on hand.

  She rapidly found herself assigned to triage. It wasn't something they’d practiced before, outside of a pair of paranoid exercises they’d done before the invasion. She glanced at the first casualty, swiftly assessed his condition, and marked him down as category two. He had a broken leg and was probably in shock, but he’d survive without immediate medical treatment. It broke her heart to leave him without help, yet there was no choice. The next person, a young girl barely out of her teens, was too badly wounded to live without immediate hospital treatment. Fatima marked her down, knowing that she would probably never be taken to hospital and receive the treatment she needed. At least she was too badly injured to be aware of her surroundings. If God was kind, she would pass away without ever waking up.

  The hours seemed like days as they tried to clear up the mess. Over two thousand humans had been in the building when the bomb exploded, along with a number of aliens. Most of them were dead, or so badly wounded that the only thing the doctors could do was inject them with painkillers and watch them slip away. One of the bodies, plonked down in front of her, was clearly inhuman. She forgot her fear and helpless anguish as she stared down at the alien body. The inner bone structure was very different from a human skeleton, as far as she could tell; despite their great size, they seemed almost weaker than the average human. But the internet insisted that the aliens had an advantage in hand-to-hand combat...their leathery skin, far tougher than human skin, might help hold them together. Perhaps they were less used to trauma than humans.

  A leathery hand pulled her away from the body. She jumped...and found herself staring up into an alien face. The alien pushed her aside with casual ease, allowing two of his – she assumed that it was a male, although there was no way to tell – comrades to pick up the body and cart it away to one of their floating trucks. They weren't bothering to tend to any of the human wounded, or even help moving away the dead. As far as she could tell, they only cared about themselves.

  “Don’t get angry at them,” a soft voice said. She looked up to see a policeman, staring down at her. There was something damned and suffering in his eyes. “Just be grateful they’re letting us handle this.”

  Fatima opened her mouth to deliver an angry retort about collaborators – and then she swallowed it, knowing that it would do no good. What choice did they have? And what choice did she have? She had opened herself to charges of collaboration by coming to help the wounded, even though most of the wounded were humans. And to think she’d wondered why Iraqis had had so much trouble deciding which side to support during the war...

  She pushed the thought aside and returned to work. There was an unending stream of casualties to tend to, and hopefully save. And then perhaps she might find something else to do with her time.

  ***

  From his vantage point, Alan Beresford watched as the plume of smoke slowly faded away. It had been nearly four hours since the blast and the emergency services had worked like demons to cope with the damage. There was no threat to any other building, at least as far as they could tell, and they had a preliminary list of the dead. And as far as they were concerned, Alan knew, they’d done an excellent job. It was a pity that there was nothing left of the bomber, but the blast had been powerful enough to bring down a fairly large building. The bomber himself would have been reduced to atoms.

  But that wasn't the important point, Alan knew. The aliens didn't share details about their security – or their long-term objectives – with him, but he did know that they had taken a handful of losses recently. Small, compared to the casualties they’d suffered during the invasion itself, but irritating. And all the more irritating because they’d trusted Alan to provide security for their people. They’d given him power and responsibility and all they’d asked was that he kept his word. What would happen to him, Alan asked himself, if they decided that they no longer wanted him to control the country for them? Somehow, he had no doubt that the aliens would simply kill him and put an end to it.

  The thought was intolerable. He’d risen high in pursuit of power – he wasn't going to let it end without a fight. And if the aliens decided that he was expendable...no, it was unthinkable. He wasn't going to look as ineffective as the British Government had looked against the IRA, or the more recent threat from Muslim fundamentalists. He’d show t
hem that Alan Beresford was still a good investment. And if a few innocents got mashed in the gears, well...one couldn't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs.