Their Darkest Hour

Chapter Thirty-Nine

London

United Kingdom, Day 55

“If this fails…”

“It won’t,” Abdul said. “Have a little faith in your fellow man.”

Chris nodded, watching from his vantage point as the alien patrols headed towards their checkpoint. They were very careful with their routines these days, even though he was sure that there was a pattern in their movements. He couldn’t blame them for that, or their decision to exclude human vehicles from their bases. The resistance had attempted to capture and drive a handful of alien vehicles, but the experiments hadn’t been successful. They’d found the alien vehicles difficult to operate with human drivers.

The alien base loomed over London, a brooding metal shape that mocked humanity’s pretensions to historical monuments. They’d built it on the remains of Buckingham Palace, just to illustrate the fact that the Earth belonged to them by right of conquest. Chris had heard that they’d done the same with the White House and the Kremlin, knocking them down to make room for their buildings. Perhaps it made sense from their point of view, rather than waving a red flag in front of the human bull. They’d certainly shown no particular willingness to give a damn about what humans thought. There was a certain blunt honesty in their actions that contrasted oddly with human political thinking. All the politicians who’d talked about not giving offense to people who harboured terrorists intent on killing British troops…

Abdul tapped his shoulder. “The policeman should be moving by now,” he said. “Two minutes left. You ready?”

“Yes,” Chris said. He glanced back at his team. They looked ready, even though they knew that challenging the aliens on their own base was incredibly dangerous. The aliens might just cut their losses and start dropping rocks from orbit. “Get the Javelin teams into position.”

The laptop buzzed once. They’d spliced it into one of the underground telecommunications links that had made up the backbone of the British communications network before the aliens had arrived, using it to link into the internet. The final countdown had begun. All over the world, countless computers were being linked into the alien communications system, attempting to hack into it and bring it down. Chris wasn’t sure if he believed any of the more extreme promises, but they should certainly disrupt the alien response. It was all they’d need to get in, hit the bastards and get out again. The final seconds ticked down to zero.

He clicked his radio. “Go,” he ordered. The snipers positioned on nearby rooftops opened fire, picking off the aliens within view. Their patrollers fell to the ground or dived for cover, trying to bring their own weapons up to return fire. They’d have some problems spotting the snipers, Chris hoped. “Javelin teams — go!”

The Javelin teams ran forward, taking up position to launch their antitank missiles directly at the alien gates. Chris had seen them used before to take out bunkers and other fortified positions, but as far as he could recall no one had ever used them to take out a gate. The missiles were fired before the aliens had a chance to react, blasting down towards the alien positions and slamming into their heavy gates. Chris watched as the gate he could see personally toppled inwards, squashing a couple of aliens who had been behind it when the attack began. The alien defences had been crippled.

He keyed his radio again. “Mortar teams, go,” he ordered. “Fire at will.”

The sound of mortars started to echo out over London as the teams opened fire, lobbing shells into the alien base to force the defenders to keep their heads down. Other teams all over London would be assaulting alien patrols, hoping to prevent them from turning and charging to the rescue of their leadership. In the early hours of the invasion, human military and police forces had been badly scattered, their command and control networks broken down and fragmented, leaving them facing their individual nightmares. Now the boot was on the other foot. The aliens were going to have to deal with an unfolding crisis as individuals.

He glanced over at Abdul, who was monitoring the results of the mortar strikes. “Not too bad,” he commented. “Shame we couldn’t get into the tunnels — we could have popped up right in the midst of them.”

Chris shrugged. “Alpha team,” he said, picking up his rifle, “go!”

As one, they started to run towards the alien gates, covered by the snipers. Up close, the sound of the mortars was louder. A single shell falling short might take out friendly soldiers, yet there was no time to call off the strikes. No one was entirely sure what the aliens used to build their base, but they did know that it was strong; alien bases across the world had stood off everything from RPGs to guided missiles. They had to keep the aliens pinned up while they deployed into position to assault the base itself.

He smiled as he saw a pair of wounded aliens staggering back inside the base, only to be shot down before they could escape. They took cover behind what remained of the gate and glanced around, taking out any remaining aliens outside before they advanced into the base proper. Maybe they’d die without ever knowing what had hit them, but the aliens faith in their own invincibility was about to suffer one hell of a knock.

“Go,” he ordered.

Ju’tro Oheghizh had been reading the report from the latest round of interrogations when the attack began. There had been rumours that something was being planned, but an attack in the centre of London hadn’t been expected. Everyone had known that the aliens and their collaborators controlled the city and attacking their base was merely a way to get encircled, trapped, and then exterminated. But it was clear that the humans hadn’t gotten the message. The hooting of the aliens was growing louder, just as the first shells started impacting on the metal shielding.

He lunged towards the command room, expecting to see his officers already reacting to the crisis and summoning assistance from the other garrisons scattered over the city. Instead, the big board had lit up with glowing icons — and then frozen. His officers were trying desperately to reactivate the command network, but it had clearly crashed. Or hacked — the humans were marvels with computer technology. They’d developed entire libraries of tactics for attacking and defending their own computer systems — why wouldn’t they be able to come up with something targeted against his computer systems?

And if they’d taken down the systems assigned to him, had they taken down everything?

The sound of the human bombardment grew louder. They didn’t have a properly-trained computer tech at the base and they couldn’t assume that someone who was only familiar with their own systems would be able to fix the damage the humans had inflicted, even if they had had a tech. And that meant that they’d been thrown back on their own resources. The higher commanders had loved the communications systems — it allowed them to supervise operations from on high — but the humans had turned it into a colossal weakness.

“Leave the computers,” he ordered. There were emergency procedures for computer failure, although he had no idea how many would have the time to implement them if the humans were attacking everywhere. “Get the radios passed out” — unless the humans had managed to set up a jamming system — “and then arm yourselves. This base is under attack.”

He picked up a weapon himself to illustrate the point. The command techs were unused to being in danger — they certainly hadn’t been on the first drop into London, or on any of the more dangerous landings after the pre-invasion bombardment — but there was no choice. They’d be able to summon help from the bases surrounding London, if they could hold out long enough for help to arrive.

Another explosion shook the base. The command techs, almost on the verge of panic, cried out in shock. “If they had anything that could break through the shield, they’d have used it by now,” Oheghizh snarled at them. A nuclear weapon could have broken through — they hadn’t been able to account for some of the human tactical weapons, let alone the devices they’d installed on their missile submarines — but the humans had been oddly reluctant to use nuclear weapons against the invaders. Apart from the Chinese… and China was now a wasteland of competing warlords, trying desperately to survive. “Get out of here and down to the inner defence lines. We don’t know how long we have until they start breaking in.”

The first warning of attack had come when the shells started landing inside the base. U’tra The’Stig, who had been preparing for the latest sweep against human insurgents, had taken immediate action, ordering the base’s own counter-battery weapons to return fire. He didn’t realise that the entire command network had been taken down until he’d deployed two Assault Units to sweep the area around the base and capture, kill or drive away the human insurgents. It was only when higher command had failed to take command that he’d discovered the truth.

“Get the radios out,” he ordered. He was supposed to direct his units from the mobile command vehicle, but half of its communications functions had been disabled. There was no way of knowing what the humans had done and they didn’t have time to try to fix it. The handful of reports they had had before the system failed had warned that the entire network of bases around London had come under attack. “And then prepare for immediate deployment.”

For a moment, he found himself lost in indecision. There was clearly a major attack underway, yet he didn’t know what was being targeted — which meant he didn’t know where he should send his troops. The base itself had only been lightly shelled, but the humans were tricky. It could have been an attempt to force them to stay in the base, a division… or merely the prelude to a more intensive bombardment. He’d have to keep shifting his troopers out and hope that the humans hadn’t anticipated his actions and taken precautions. There were horror stories from many other bases about deploying their forces in pursuit of human raiders, only to walk right into an ambush that bled them heavily before they fell back.

“I managed to get a radio link to the London Base,” one of the techs reported. They’d been working on the radios, the only system they could fall back on if the command network had gone down. “They’re under heavy attack. The humans are threatening the base itself.”

The’Stig cursed. It was bad enough having the humans gloating over how they’d pulled their people — the ones who were due to be executed — out of the detention camp, but if they managed to take out the central base in London it would give them a major propaganda victory. And if they’d learned better than to try to take prisoners, they’d wipe out the administrative staff — human and alien — who were trying to assimilate the humans into the State. The entire program would be set back weeks, if not months.

“I want us moving in five minutes,” he ordered, finally. There was no choice — they had to assume that they were the only ones available to relieve the London Base before it fell. The radio operators still hadn’t established contact with half of the nearby bases. The’Stig hoped that the bases had merely had problems establishing their own radio links, but he had to assume the worst. The humans might have taken the bases — and the troopers guarding them — out. It was a horrifying thought. “We need to head into London.”

There was a pause. “And get the helicopters up too,” he added. “We’re going to need air cover.”

Chris ran to the next piece of cover, heading towards the main entrance to the alien base. A number of aliens had taken up positions just inside, firing towards the humans as they came closer. Their shooting didn’t seem to be particularly accurate, but they were definitely forcing Chris and his men to move carefully. He fired twice and then ducked down as a burst of alien bullets nearly took his head off.

Two men ran closer, holding grenades. They pitched them into the alien building and then ducked for cover themselves as the grenades detonated. A number of aliens were caught and wounded by the blasts, but the others kept firing, determined to keep the humans from getting inside. Chris waved to the Javelin team as they reached a position where they could fire directly into the doors, ordering them to take their shot. The missile blasted into the base and exploded, smashing through their defences. A handful of grenades polished off the remaining aliens.

“They’re trying to snipe from the windows,” his radio buzzed. “Our snipers are sniping back.”

Chris nodded as he ran forward, into the wreckage of the alien front door. They’d been paranoid enough to set up firing positions inside, but the grenades had wrecked them. A single alien seemed to still be alive, yet he was so badly wounded that there was nothing anyone could do for them. Chris shot him and led the way forward, into the alien base. He’d crawled through Taliban hideouts before, seeing some of the horrors they unleashed upon their own people, but there was something oddly inhuman about the interior of the alien base. He laughed at himself a moment later. Of course there was something inhuman — it had been built by aliens who needed more space than their human counterparts. Their rooms and doors were far larger than anything a human would build.

There had been no way to get an accurate picture of the base’s interior layout, but he headed towards the centre on the assumption that the alien command staff would be in the safest place on the base. The aliens seemed to have vanished, leaving the soldiers glancing nervously from side to side, looking for the next threat. It came in a burst of alien gunfire as the Leathernecks sprang an ambush, taking down two soldiers before they were forced to retreat by Chris and his men. Chris unhooked a grenade from his belt, tossed it into the side room, and headed inside as soon as the grenade had exploded. One alien was dead; the other, somehow, was completely unharmed. His shot missed Chris by bare millimetres. Abdul put three bullets into the alien head, shattering his skull.

One by one, the remaining rooms on the lower level were swept. Some of the rooms were completely bare, with nothing to show what the aliens had done in them. Others were packed with alien equipment, sleeping cots and other gear that was vaguely recognisable. A handful of aliens tried to surrender, but there was no time to take prisoners. All they could do was gun them down. Chris knew that it would bother him later, yet there was no time to worry about it now. They had to keep moving.

“I think this is the way up,” one of the soldiers called. He’d kicked down a plastic door, revealing what looked like a bumpy ramp leading upwards. Chris had visions of disabled aliens trying to make their way up the stairs in wheelchairs before realising that the aliens probably found human stairs uncomfortable. There had certainly been some reports of aliens either becoming trapped or simply ignoring the upper floors, although no one had been quite sure why. “There’s a blockage at the far end.”

Chris smiled. It would have been an effective defence against the aliens, but humans were smaller and nimbler. Grenades cleared the way, allowing them to get up to the second floor and start pushing the aliens back. They didn’t seem to be particularly well coordinated, reminding him of the times that headquarters staff had found themselves in contact with the enemy in Afghanistan. They’d found themselves roughly handled by the Taliban. It stood to reason that the aliens had similar people in the rear. He wondered, absently, if they had their own word for REMFs.

He glanced down at his watch as alien bullets snarled overhead. There had been no way to calculate how long it would take before the aliens started sending in reinforcements from the bases outside London. One theory had claimed that the aliens would wait for orders before doing anything — orders which were never going to come. Chris suspected otherwise; some alien commanders were clearly more capable of acting on their own initiative than others. Assuming that they left their base as soon as the attack began… there were too many variables to calculate any likely ETA. They’d just have to assume the worst and push on as fast as they could.

They punched through a plastic wall and came into what looked like a control room, almost comparable to the stations Chris had guarded while on active duty. The aliens fought back savagely, but it was too late. Grenades shattered the room, leaving most of the aliens dead or wounded. The remainder seemed stunned, unable to resist effectively. And one of them was clearly in charge.

Oheghizh stared at the human, wondering what the humans would do to him. Did they even know his rank? Probably, he told himself. They’d certainly be able to read the gold buttons and know that he was important. But they’d never be permitted to take him prisoner. The Command Triad would simply repeat the threat of bombarding a human city if he wasn’t returned, alive.

Two human soldiers marched him back down the ramp and out towards the open air. There was a brief pause, then one of them produced a black bag and pushed it down over Oheghizh’s head. The command network was down, but the satellites would still be watching… and all they would see, he realised in horror, would be a black mass. They wouldn’t know he was a prisoner…

He wanted to fight, but it was far too late.