Their Darkest Hour

Chapter Twenty-Five

London

United Kingdom, Day 35

“No, I don’t know why they want you,” Robin said, as patiently as he could. “All I know is that we have been ordered to pick you up and hand you over to them.”

Silently, he cursed his orders under his breath. The aliens had ordered their puppet Prime Minister to round up several hundred people from London, people who seemed to have little in common. They certainly didn’t have any links to the resistance as far as Robin could see. Once rounded up, they were to be handed over to the aliens and then… there was no clear answer. It didn’t sound very good, but what choice did they have? The aliens wouldn’t be anything like as patient with reluctant humans.

The young man they’d been sent to pick up didn’t look very healthy. In fact, like most of the city’s population, he’d clearly been losing weight now that he had nothing to eat, but the tasteless mush the aliens supplied. Real food was only available for collaborators and on the black market and their target lacked the contacts to obtain something that would have been readily available a month ago. Robin couldn’t think of any reason why the aliens wanted him in particular, but they had clearly made up their minds. The young man’s mother and father looked just as worried, even though they weren’t coming with him. And the looks they were casting at Robin when they thought he wasn’t watching…

He shivered. It was normal for people to be a little nervous around the police. Everyone had something weighing on their minds, even if it was comparatively minor compared to serial killing or paedophilia. The police represented law and order. But now…? Now the entire city — the entire country — was afraid of the police. The slaughter in Central London had broken their reputation once and for all. On their drive to the young man’s house, they’d avoided several stones thrown at them by youths — and there were parts of the city that were no-go zones for them now. Robin hated conceding anything to the thugs who called themselves community leaders, but the alternative was to ask the aliens to help. And that would mean another slaughter.

Some policemen, including several he knew personal, had deserted, vanishing into London’s overcrowded city blocks. Several others had killed themselves, swallowing vast quantities of painkillers or hanging themselves from the ceiling. Even those that had tried to remain on duty had been demoralised, after the slaughter. They knew that they were forever tainted by what the aliens had done, even though they’d never ordered it or wanted it to happen. How could they ever seek forgiveness from an angry population?

“It’s going to be fine,” Robin said, although he suspected otherwise. “You’re allowed to take an overnight bag with you, so pack clean underwear and anything else you think you might need.”

They waited while the young man and his mother packed a bag. Robin half-hoped that their target would take the opportunity to vanish out of the back door and into the side streets before they could catch him, but he didn’t seem to have the nerve. He returned to the door with a large bag slung over his shoulder and an expression that suggested that he was going to his own funeral. Robin, who’d had a moment to study the awards pinned to the wall, suspected otherwise. The aliens had lost one of their projects when the suicide bomber had blown up Gilmore Technical College, but they were still interested in human computers. And the people on the list they’d been ordered to bring in had vast computer experience. It made little sense to him — the aliens could cross the stars, which suggested they should have better computers — but it was the only reason he could imagine. Or maybe they just wanted hostages to shoot.

He escorted the young man down and into the police car, scowling at the rotten egg someone had smashed across the windscreen while they’d been in the house. A quick check around the vehicle revealed no signs that anyone had tried to place an IED under the car, like the bomb that had killed two policemen three days ago. The resistance seemed to be conserving its weapons, which hadn’t stopped it and various criminal gangs improvising weapons and using them to attack the police. Who would have thought that something would unite London’s disparate political and religious factions against a single target? Robin would have been mildly impressed if he hadn’t been the target.

The drive through London’s empty streets took longer than he had expected. Several cars had been moved out of place and used to block or divert police traffic, while several groups of young men looking for trouble had made threatening motions towards the car. At least the gangs weren’t trying to attack the alien base in Central London, not after they’d realised that the alien guards had authority to return fire with live ammunition. It hadn’t stopped the resistance from setting up a mortar every few days and lobbing shells into the alien positions.

He winced as he caught sight of the prostitutes on one street corner. So many women had been rendered homeless or broke by the invasion that there were currently thousands of prostitutes in London. Many of them would have preferred to be doing something — anything — else, but the aliens weren’t interested in relief programs. They doled out their tasteless food and otherwise left the population to live or die on its own. Robin knew that some policemen had suggested finding roles for the women within the civil service, but the suggestion hadn’t found favour with the collaborator government. Perhaps the civil servants had managed to cobble together a union and get a ban on scab labour. The thought made him smile. If there was anything capable of working through an alien invasion, it was the British civil service.

“So,” the young man said, “where are you taking me?”

“We’re taking you to the aliens,” Robin said. He wanted to tell a comforting lie. “I don’t know what they want to do with you.”

“And you work for them,” the young man asked. “How do you sleep at night?”

Robin bit down the response that came to mind. The truth was that he didn’t sleep very well at night, something shared by almost all of the policemen he knew. When he closed his eyes, he saw the slaughter the aliens had unleashed, or the helpless looks on their prisoners as they marched them off to an unknown fate. He thought about his wife, safe yet isolated outside the city, and shivered. If she knew what he’d done in the name of the aliens, she would never want to sleep beside him again. Some policemen had started popping sleeping pills and antidepressants, just to keep themselves going. He wondered how long it would be before he found himself doing the same thing, or perhaps taking one of the concealed weapons and putting a bullet through his own brain.

“Badly,” he said, finally. He took firm hold of his temper before the urge to lash out grew too overpowering. The young man wasn’t to blame. Several policemen had given into the stress and started beating their suspects, but he didn’t want to fall that far. “If I’d known what they would be like back then…”

But they hadn’t had a choice, had they? How easily they’d clambered onto the slippery slope! And how hard it would be to wash the blood from their hands. They’d told themselves that they were protecting the people, but they’d become the tools of the aliens — the same aliens who had slaughtered thousands in London just to keep the peace. They weren’t protecting the people any longer, were they? They’d become another alien tool.

And yet… what choice did they have?

He remembered the weapons and shivered again. They could take them and fight back… and be destroyed when the aliens started using heavy weapons on London. There were reports that the aliens had already destroyed a number of small towns for daring to fight when the aliens arrived, or that they’d wrecked havoc in other parts of the world. Against such firepower, what could they do? The only thing they could do was die bravely. And every day, the thought of death seemed more and more attractive. He looked down at his hands and wondered if he would ever be able to wash the bloodstains off his soul.

They came to a halt by the alien fence and waited for the alien guards to confirm their identity. Once they were satisfied that they had the right person, the aliens took the young man away, leaving Robin and Constable Jasper to their own devices. Robin watched the gate swing closed behind them and then ordered Jasper to take them back to the station. He had a bottle of brandy he’d picked up from one of the abandoned houses in his locker. If he drank it all, perhaps he would get drunk and forget about the rest of the world. Or perhaps he’d just wake up with a hangover and have to go back on duty anyway.

And tell me, he thought, rather sourly. Bitter self-hatred welled up within him. How many had died because he had chosen to collaborate with the aliens? Each of his justifications felt less and less logical every time he thought about them. What exactly do you deserve?

“I can’t do much for the wound,” Fatima admitted. “The best I can do is separate it properly and bandage it up.”

“You mean amputate my arm,” the man in front of her said. He’d taken an alien bullet that had punched right through his upper arm, shattering his bone to dust. His arm now hung limply from what remained of his flesh, bound up with cloth to prevent it from tearing loose and falling to the floor. “There’s nothing else you can do?”

Fatima shook her head. The resistance had gathered what medical supplies they could, but London had been short on medical supplies and equipment ever since the invasion. There were wounded that would have made a full recovery — if they had the right equipment — who would almost certainly be cripples for the rest of their lives. The man who’d lost an arm was hardly the worst of them. She honestly didn’t know how some of them had held on to their lives. Determination to hurt the aliens before they died, perhaps.

“I’m afraid not,” she said, as she started to wash her hands. The NHS had a poor reputation for keeping hospitals clean, but none of the ones she’d worked in had been anything like as bad as the abandoned house they’d turned into a medical centre. It had taken her hours to clean the place to a minimum standard and even then she had a feeling that it was still alarmingly unhealthy. “We don’t have prosthetics we could use to give you a new arm, or replace the shattered bone. Even if we did have, I’m not sure you could recover after that level of trauma.”

The man nodded, scowling down at the floor. He’d been given a large dose of painkillers, but they clearly hadn’t been enough to keep the pain from making it harder for him to think. Fatima wasn’t too surprised. Taking too many of the painkillers would have been bad for his health too.

“And if I chose to stay like this?” He asked, finally. “I could…”

“You wouldn’t recover any function in your lower arm or your hand,” Fatima said, flatly. She didn’t really blame him for refusing to realise the truth. Humans hated losing parts of their bodies. Trauma victims never fully recovered. “You would be left with a useless dangling piece of flesh - one that would have to be bound to your body at all times. My best advice is to have it taken off, which would at least prevent the wound from becoming infected.”

“Take it off, them,” he said, finally. He smiled, although Fatima could see the pain written over his face. “I guess there’s no hope of a proper rest afterwards?”

“Probably not,” she said, as she prepared the local anaesthetic. He should have been put out completely, but she preferred to avoid doing that if possible. They had had to abandon two other makeshift hospitals and unconscious patients were difficult to move. “Just lie back and let me get on with it.”

An hour later, she headed downstairs and washed her hands under the shower. The small apartment had been abandoned, according to Abdul and his men, which made it an ideal place for a resistance cell. Fatima hoped that they were right, if only because she didn’t want to have to abandon her patients. Most of the wounded resistance fighters were scattered over London, but the seriously wounded fighters were kept near her. She was their doctor, after all.

She sat down on the sofa and closed her eyes, fighting back tears. As a medical student, and then as a doctor, she’d taken pride in her work. She’d saved lives. Men and women who would have died a century ago had lived because of her — and the medical knowledge of hundreds of years. Now… she hated doing a bad job, but the truth was that there were limits to what she could do without proper equipment and supplies. Many of her patients needed a real hospital, not a makeshift set of beds which they might need to flee at any time. She’d asked if they could find a way to slip a patient into a real hospital, but Abdul had vetoed the idea. The aliens had insisted that the NHS doctors check their patients details and if they stumbled across a resistance fighter…

Fatima shook her head, wondering — again — what had happened to her family. There’d been no announcement of their fate on the BBC, just a terrible silence that was somehow far more terrifying than anything else. Anything could have happened to them — the aliens could have killed them, or enslaved them, or simply dumped them in a detention camp outside the city. After the bloody slaughter the aliens had unleashed, few dared to ask them — or to demand that the prisoners be returned to their families. For all she knew, they could have been shipped to Africa and dumped there.

The only thing keeping her from crying was the knowledge that her patients needed her — for all the good she could do for them. She had to watch many of them die because she didn’t have the equipment to save them — and as they died, a little of herself died as well. If they hadn’t needed her, she would have volunteered to drive the next truck loaded with explosives into the alien base. And that would be the end of her.

“Hey,” a soft voice said, “are you all right?”

Fatima glanced up to see Lucas, a young man who’d been serving the resistance as a runner, ever since his family had been caught up in the invasion and killed. He’d wanted to join the fighters, but his knowledge of the area made him far more useful as a runner. Or so he’d been told. Privately, Fatima suspected that Lucas wouldn’t have made a good fighter. He only wanted to hurt the aliens and didn’t care if he got hurt himself.

And he was attracted to her. She found him attractive too, and attentive, but how could she afford more emotional ties with anyone? Her family was gone, perhaps dead… anyone else she invited into her heart might go the same way. She didn’t dare take the chance.

“Just tired,” she said, pulling herself to her feet. She should have a rest, but there was no way she could sleep long enough for it to do her any good. “And yourself?”

“I got told to bring you a warning,” Lucas said. “The aliens did a sweep through a few blocks a mile or so away. They may have caught someone who knows about this place.”

Fatima swallowed a curse. Her stepmother would have slapped her if she’d realised that Fatima even knew such a word. The aliens had the services of the police — and the police knew how to get suspects to talk and implicate more people. If they knew who they’d bagged, they might uncover the makeshift medical centre. Abdul had made it clear that no one — even himself — was to know everything, but the aliens might uncover more than one cell if they managed to capture the medical centre.

And three of her patients really shouldn’t be moved.

“Go tell the patients upstairs that we might have to move,” Fatima ordered. Given time, she was sure that she could get all of the patients out, but could they do it without alerting the aliens and their collaborators? “Is anyone else coming to help?”

“The Big Man says he’s sending some of his men,” Lucas said. He grinned. When he wasn’t passing on messages, he spent most of his time with the soldiers. They were teaching him tricks he might need when he finally joined the fight. “Anyone who can’t move under his own power will be helped.”

Fatima nodded. And after that, she knew, they’d leave an IED behind, just in the hopes of bagging an alien or a few collaborators. They’d done it before. Abdul had pointed out that creating an impression of a network of IEDs slowed down enemy deployment, even if there were only a handful of real IEDs in the area. It had worked in Afghanistan and now it was working in London. Absently, she wondered how men who’d fought in Afghanistan liked using their enemy’s tactics against the enemy of the entire planet?

“Come on then,” she said. “Let’s start moving the patients.”