Darkest Hour 1: Their Darkest Hour Read online

  Another scuffle caught his eye, one that seemed to spring out of nowhere – and then he saw the ID card. It was a military ID, one that identified its bearer as a serving member of the Royal Navy. He didn't want to act, but there was no choice. The policemen closed in rapidly and led the sailor away, leaving his wife behind. They’d been given no choice in the matter – all serving members of the military, whatever the service, were to be arrested and handed over to the aliens. He told himself that the sailor would have a chance to escape – they’d carefully not secured the holding area they’d made in one of the classrooms – but it was small comfort. The eyes of the sailor’s wife and baby child would haunt his nightmares for the rest of time.

  Dear God, he prayed, silently. Please let this be over soon.

  He ran through the figures in his head. The population of Greater London was estimated at around eight million. Some would have died in the fighting, or in the chaos, or...maybe of simple starvation. The remainder were all expected to register within the week, or face arrest. How long would it take to register eight million people? It could take weeks, or even months.

  Silently, he damned himself. But what else could he do?

  ***

  Doctor Fatima Hasid had never liked crowded rooms, even as a child. She’d skipped classes at the mosque because there were too many girls crammed into the small room put aside for women – the boys had a far larger room, and a better teacher – and she’d stopped going to them shortly after she entered secondary school. The NHS had had its fair share of crowded rooms, but as a doctor she’d been able to avoid them and see patients one by one. Entering the registry office was a foretaste of hell.

  The lines seemed never-ending and she was silently relieved that she’d managed to convince her superiors to give her the afternoon off. London still had thousands of wounded on its hands, but they’d finally managed to get the worst of the wounded into proper hospitals – even if they had had to distribute them over Britain. The remainder, the ones who hadn't been seriously injured, had had to be sent home. It had broken her heart to do it, but there’d been no choice. Their supplies had dropped to dangerously low levels.

  Ahead of her, some boys were pushing and shoving. She hated to think what it was going to be like when her stepmother and her overweight sons and their relatives came to register themselves. Some of them were talking about refusing to register – after all, they’d had as little to do with the British Government as possible, except when it came to claiming benefits. Fatima suspected that if they tried to defy the aliens – the aliens they didn't really believe in – they’d find that the aliens hammered them into the ground. The stories she’d heard from some of her patients were horrific.

  She pulled her arms around herself as the queue kept inching forward, finally allowing her to catch sight of a desk. It was no surprise to see a human – a set of humans – standing behind it, trying to handle the paperwork. The aliens wouldn't have wanted to waste their manpower on such a piddling task. Whatever the claims that they were all-powerful – the radio had certainly been assuring the British population that resistance was futile – there had to be limits on their manpower. Alien-power? She was still mulling that over when she finally reached the desk and sat down in front of the civil servant.

  “Name, address, proof of identity...”

  The words rattled out and Fatima did her best to answer. It seemed that no one else from her family had registered yet, which was hardly a surprise. The amount of data the aliens were collecting puzzled her for a long moment, before she realised that they probably had sophisticated computers capable of mining through the vast datafiles and drawing conclusions in a way that no human could match. It struck her that they were experienced at invading and occupying planets – and if that was the case, who else had they fought? There had always been stories of UFOs flying around and kidnapping people, flown by little grey men with anal fixations. Maybe they were real after all...

  “You’re a doctor,” the civil servant said. “You’re in one of the protected categories.”

  Fatima frowned, leaning forward. “Protected categories?”

  “They’re looking for people with certain skills,” the civil servant admitted. “Doctors and nurses...they’re needed right where they are, so they probably won’t send for you and put you to work somewhere else. Others...they’re not so lucky. The men who register today who aren’t in a protected category will probably find themselves ordered to do brute labour in a week’s time.”

  “I see,” Fatima said. “And you know this...how?”

  “I don't,” the civil servant said, “but I think it’s a reasonable guess, don’t you?”

  Fatima couldn't disagree. A machine on the desk buzzed and whirred, and finally discharged an ID card. Fatima studied it, trying to keep her consternation off her face. She hadn't even noticed the camera, but there was a picture of her on the front of the card. It seemed that there were limits to alien technology after all, part of her mind noted. Every photograph she’d had taken for official purposes had managed to make her look bad, mad, dead or some combination of the three. The alien technology was no better.

  “Carry it with you at all times,” the civil servant warned. “There’s a hefty fine if you lose it – and failing to produce it on demand could mean arrest, or worse. I don’t think they have lawyers telling them what they can and cannot do to prisoners...”

  Fatima thanked him and left. Outside, night was already starting to fall and so she hurried home. A curfew had been declared and there were already terrible rumours about what happened to those caught outside by the aliens. And her stepmother would bitch and moan if she was home late. They were supposed to be hosting guests soon and she was required to help. She would almost sooner have faced the aliens.

  ***

  Alan Beresford stood in an office that had once belonged to a banking CEO and stared out over London. The city was finally coming back to life at nights, even though the curfew meant that many who would once have been outside partying would be tucked up safe at home, doubtless wondering when their world would shatter around them once again. It was his world now...well, his and a few aliens, but it seemed they didn't care about the perks he claimed for himself as long as he did a good job. And he had done a good job. It had been his idea to put the civil servants back to work, along with the men who ran the electricity and water companies. London was coming back to life – and so was the rest of the country.

  The aliens were ruthlessly pragmatic, but they clearly didn't have the manpower to govern all of Britain, let alone the world. Alan was still unsure of what they actually wanted in the long run, but he was confident that he would be able to find a way to be useful to them. And he had his own long-term plans. He’d put friends and cronies in positions of power all over the country, laying a network that could be used in his own interests as well as those of his masters. It helped that the Prime Minister appeared to have vanished somewhere in the chaos of the first few days. Apart from a single message which was proving alarmingly persistent on the internet, no one had heard anything from him. It was quite possible that he was dead.

  Losing Prince Harry was equally annoying. Harry was King now that his father and brother were both dead. Alan doubted that the population of Britain would rise in outrage at losing their King, but Harry could have made an excellent figurehead for a new Britain. Or perhaps not. He’d been a soldier and would probably have old-fashioned ideas about loyalty and honour and service to his country running through his veins.

  Foolish, Alan told himself, and smiled. Loyalty and honour meant nothing these days – and they’d meant little before the aliens arrived. All that mattered was what one did for one’s own self – and if it meant stamping on a few toes...well, you couldn't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs.

  He lifted his glass – an expensive wine, but it had been easy to obtain in starving London – and drank a silent toast. To power, he told himself...and to those bold enough t
o seize it.

  Chapter Fifteen

  North England

  United Kingdom, Day 8

  Haddon Hall was one of the original stately England manors, built before the English Civil War by a loyalist who had lost his life fighting for Good King Charles. It was a regal building, although hopelessly impractical for military purposes, surrounded by gardens that regularly won awards in regional and national contests. Some people would have found it a paradise, a chance to play at being an English aristocrat. Gabriel Burley found it maddening. It was a prison by any other name, a place where he could do anything – except leave. The handful of security staff – really soldiers wearing civilian clothes – were polite and friendly, but they wouldn’t let him leave. He was too important to risk falling into enemy hands.

  The thought made him snort in disgust as he paced the massive library. Two years ago, he’d been a junior MP with ideals, ideals that were being worn down by contact with real-life politics. How could he hope to achieve anything without compromise – and by compromising, he was steadily turning into a true politician, a man who compromised everything for the sake of power and position. A man like Alan Beresford.

  He snorted again as he picked up a book, glanced at it and put it down again. His host had given him the run of the house, and the use of an extensive collection of books, DVDs and even old-fashioned records, but it was still a prison. He couldn’t concentrate on anything, apart from his feelings of hopelessness. His position as Prime Minister was meaningless, save in name only. The invasion that gripped the country proved that, whatever he told himself; he could hardly command the aliens to leave, could he? Their forces held the entire country now, surrounding cities and trapping the civilian population within their homes. God alone knew what they would do when the resistance went to work. They’d certainly shown no sign of any scruples when dealing with unarmed civilians.

  The television remained bland, with old movies and soaps being played regularly, rather than the BBC’s news programs. Gabriel knew some of what was going on all over the world, but it didn’t help his mood. The aliens were tightening their grip – Dear God, had it only been eight days since they’d revealed themselves and descended upon a shocked and paralysed Earth? Gabriel almost wished that they would discover his hiding place and try to snatch him. At least running away would be doing something. Instead, all he could do was wait and hope that someone – somehow – found a way to hurt the aliens enough to make them leave. The military hadn’t been too hopeful. As long as the aliens dominated space above Earth, they could call down strikes against rebel towns and cities – or, if worst came to worst, exterminate the human race. Gabriel remembered all the films he’d seen with asteroids crashing into the planet and shivered. The aliens would have no trouble pushing an asteroid towards Earth and the human race wouldn’t be saved by a patriotic scriptwriter. It even made him long for Independence Day.

  There was a cough behind him and he jumped, one hand falling to the pistol he’d been told to carry at all times – and save the final bullet for himself, if the aliens caught up with him. Brigadier Gavin Lightbridge-Stewart seemed rather amused – Gabriel hadn’t even realised that he’d entered the room – but Gabriel was pleased to see him. He hadn’t been allowed an internet connection, not when the aliens might use it to track him down. Outside news – accurate outside news – only came in fits and starts.

  “Prime Minister,” Lightbridge-Stewart said, gravely. “I trust that you are well?”

  “I’ve told you to call me Gabriel,” Gabriel said, impatiently. He didn’t know where Lightbridge-Stewart had made his headquarters or even any operational details at all. What he didn’t know he couldn’t tell – and he had no illusions about his ability to hold out under torture. Or perhaps the aliens had perfect lie detectors and truth drugs. “What have you heard from the…outside?”

  Lightbridge-Stewart smiled. “Elements of the Royal Scots are preparing fall-back positions in the Highlands,” he said. “The aliens may control the cities, but they’ll find extending their control into the Highlands a little harder than they’d prefer. They may even decide to abandon the Highlands altogether.”

  Gabriel nodded, half-wishing that he could go north and join the Scots. There were plenty of areas in England where humans could hide out from the aliens, but Scotland had a smaller civilian population at risk. But he knew that he could never take an active role in the fighting to come. They couldn’t risk their Prime Minister, even if the position was meaningless.

  “King Harry isn’t adjusting well,” Lightbridge-Stewart added. “He wants to fight back, not hide out somewhere in Scotland. But I’m afraid we don’t have much choice.”

  “I can’t disagree,” Gabriel said. He hadn’t even been in politics when there had been an almighty political struggle over deploying then-Prince Harry to Iraq and Afghanistan. In the end, he’d been allowed to go – as long as it wasn't made public. It was ironic, really; the British Monarchy had held mostly ceremonial roles, yet Harry hadn’t been allowed to be a public sign that the Monarchy was willing to fight too. What made Harry any better than the hundreds of other soldiers who’d lost their lives in Iraq or Afghanistan? There had been no good answer, save that the enemy would have made capturing him a priority. His presence would have risked the lives of other soldiers.

  Lightbridge-Stewart shrugged. “There’s some good news,” he said. “And some bad news as well, I’m afraid. We managed to recover a dead alien body in the retreat from Salisbury Plain and get it to a…well, a covert military medical research establishment. The doctors there took some time to dissect the body and draw a number of conclusions. I brought copies of their reports, but the interesting detail is that they’re really not that different from us.”

  “They look like leathery dinosaurs,” Gabriel observed. It still pained him that he hadn’t seen any of the aliens at first-hand, but his minders had been clear. He couldn’t risk being recognised. “And yet they’re not that different from us?”

  “Compared to what we were expecting, yes,” Lightbridge-Stewart said. “Which isn’t really good news in the long run. They can make use of our planet and presumably eat our crops – although I don’t know if they’ll actually like them. However, the doctors believe that they cannot catch our diseases – which rather puts the leash on any War of the Worlds scenarios we might have been hoping for.”

  Gabriel frowned. “And can we catch their diseases?”

  “They don’t think so,” Lightbridge-Stewart said. “But they don’t really have any samples of alien diseases to study.”

  “No,” Gabriel agreed. “They wouldn’t.”

  He’d studied history, back when he’d thought about becoming a historian. Back when Europe had discovered America, they’d brought their diseases with them – diseases that the Native Americans had had no resistance to. Smallpox alone had killed millions, leaving a void for the Europeans to expand into and eventually control. The empires built on native labour had collapsed; the empires based on settlers had survived and prospered. And if an alien disease got loose on Earth...

  It might not even have to be natural, he realised. He’d certainly had enough briefings about the dangers of biological warfare, up to and including genetically-modified diseases that were resistant to every known vaccine. The aliens didn't have to reshape one of their own diseases to produce a monster that would exterminate humanity. They could simply rely on a simple human disease, with a little modification. Britain had no – official – stocks of Smallpox, but if the aliens had captured the stores in Russia, or America...

  He pushed the thought aside. There was no point in worrying about it. They were at the mercy of the aliens and would be for years to come.

  “The analysts think that the aliens will probably start growing their own crops on Earth sooner rather than later,” Lightbridge-Stewart said. “Unless they’ve somehow managed to produce stable wormholes that reach from planet to planet, their logistics have to be rather touchy. Gr
owing their own food will allow them to send more weapons and military supplies instead...”

  “And there’s nothing we can do about it,” Gabriel said. “I don’t suppose that anyone else has come up with a possible solution? Maybe hacking into their computers and shutting down their weapons...?”