Their Darkest Hour Read online

  “I don’t know what else I can tell you,” Alex admitted. “I’ve told you everything I know.”

  Simpson shrugged. “Some people will probably feel better knowing that someone in a uniform is telling them not to worry,” he said. “Back in the War” – it took Alex a moment to realise that he meant the Second World War – “they used to tell us to keep calm and carry on. And we did too.”

  “You lived out here, safe on your farm,” Smith pointed out, with some amusement. It was clear that he and Simpson were old friends. “I think the people in the Blitz probably felt a little different.”

  “I have no doubt of it,” Simpson said. He looked up at Alex. “After the meeting in the Town Hall, let me know if you decide to stick around. I have some items you may be interested in using.”

  ***

  The announcement and discussion in the Church was just as bad as Alex had feared. Nearly two hundred people had crammed themselves into the building and they all wanted to talk. The children had picked up on their parents’ emotions and looked fearful, apart from the ones too young to know that something was wrong. Alex found herself targeted by irate people who wanted to know what had happened to the RAF, or why the invasion had been allowed to take place. After trying to point out twice that she had been taken completely by surprise, she did her best to ignore the louder protesters. It wasn't as if there was anything else she could do.

  “We can survive this if we all pull together,” Leigh said, once the general panic had calmed down slightly. The sheer unreality of the situation helped, although the BBC had clearly managed to cause panic in some quarters. One report claimed that London and Manchester had been occupied by giant elephants. Alex couldn't help, but feel that little gray aliens would have been more traditional. “We don’t know what’s going to happen, but we will get through it all.”

  The crowd didn't ask for specifics, luckily. Alex allowed herself a moment of relief that it seemed to be quietening down, even though she wasn't sure what she wanted to do now. Where did she go to report in? RAF Coningsby was almost certainly destroyed – or occupied by alien forces. The RAF had been taken completely by surprise.

  She stepped outside and looked up at the darkening sky. An entire day had gone by and she’d barely noticed. High overhead, the stars were coming out – and there were a handful of trails burning their way down towards Earth. The remains of humanity’s pathetic space program, she assumed. Some of the other lights would be alien starships...

  In the distance, she heard the sound of thunder and shuddered.

  The night no longer felt safe.

  Chapter Eight

  Salisbury Plain

  United Kingdom, Day 1

  “Prime Minister?”

  Gabriel shook himself awake, surprised that he’d managed to fall asleep. After they’d left London, they’d followed the Thames upstream, with only minor delays caused by bridges that the aliens had targeted from orbit. A couple of hours later, they’d left the boat and transferred themselves to a Land Rover Butcher had recovered from somewhere. Reading between the lines, Gabriel guessed that the vehicle had been stolen, but he had found it difficult to care. Exhaustion had overwhelmed him soon afterwards.

  They had parked in the midst of woodland, with the vehicle half-hidden under the trees. A small group of armed soldiers wearing camouflage uniforms had surrounded the vehicle, glancing around nervously as they waited for the Prime Minister to disembark. Gabriel knew very little about the military, but he could tell that the soldiers were worried. No matter how he looked at the situation, there seemed little cause for optimism. A day ago, he’d been Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Now...his position as Prime Minister seemed almost meaningless. No Prime Minister had ever had to flee London for fear that enemy troops would capture or kill him. Even Charles I had managed a reasonably dignified departure from his former capital.

  Butcher led him into the woods, down towards a small concrete building marked PRIVATE, KEEP OUT. The soldier opened the door, revealing a ladder leading down into the depths of the Earth. Unwilling to show fear in front of the soldiers, Gabriel followed him down and realised to his relief that the lower levels of the bunker were properly lit. A uniformed soldier was waiting for him. The man looked deeply worried, but relieved when he saw the Prime Minister.

  “Prime Minister,” the soldier said. “I’m Brigadier Gavin Lightbridge-Stewart. Welcome to the bunker.”

  Gabriel followed the Brigadier as he led the way through a hatch into a large concrete room. It seemed primitive compared to some of the other emergency facilities he’d seen over the years, clearly not a facility that had been intended to return to active service. A number of maps had been scattered on the table, with red lines drawn on them by a handful of military personnel. Several more officers were working what looked like an older set of radios, trying to get back in touch with the rest of the world. Oddly, Gabriel felt a pang of relief as he took in the scene. The situation was bad – disastrous – but experienced personnel were trying to come to grips with it. They might not be so outmatched after all.

  “Please, be seated,” the Brigadier said. “I have a military brief for you, but you might prefer a shower and a change of clothes – and a hot meal. The situation is unlikely to change in the next few hours.”

  Gabriel hesitated. In truth, he wanted the shower, and some food, and a few more hours of sleep. But he needed to know what was going on before he could come to grips with the situation. Perhaps they could find out what the aliens actually wanted – assuming they wanted anything. If invasion and settlement was their goal, surely they’d have some kind of plan to deal with the human governments. He remembered the report that alien craft were heading towards London – the craft they’d seen as they headed upriver – and shuddered. The aliens had made at least one of their goals quite clear.

  “I’d like the briefing first,” he said, finally. The Brigadier nodded, as if he understood perfectly. Neither of them could do much to influence the situation, but they couldn't just rest while the entire country was in danger. “How much do we actually know about what’s going on out there?”

  The Brigadier tapped one finger on the maps. “Most of our military communications network has been badly hammered,” he said. “We never anticipated the physical destruction of the network nodes or the satellite network orbiting the planet, although most of the hardwired connections – the land lines – are undamaged. Our intelligence is therefore very limited and changes frequently, but I’ve had several intelligence and signals units working on what we do have and trying to put together a comprehensive picture.”

  His expression darkened. “The aliens – whoever they are, whatever they want – have clearly not limited their attentions to us,” he added. “We have intermittent contact with the Americans and they confirm that Washington has been invaded; we also picked up a brief report from a French military unit that implied that Paris had also been hit. I’m afraid that we have been unable to make contact with American or French government officials – the outlook, Prime Minister, isn't good.”

  Gabriel nodded, bitterly. He’d hoped that they would be able to call on NATO for support, but it was clear that NATO had fragmented, with the national military forces on the run – fighting their own hopeless battles. The American President was a friend and he’d managed to make some progress in talking to the French President...what had happened to them after the aliens landed? America was so powerful that he assumed that the aliens had devoted much of their attention to smashing them flat. It was quite possible that the President and everyone else in their line of succession was dead.

  “We have been attempting to make contact with personnel in Europe – we have officers at NATO Headquarters and a British Army base in Germany – but so far attempts have proven fruitless,” the Brigadier said. “I think we have to assume the worst; the units have been destroyed or scattered. Parts of the internet are still working and we may be able to establish contact, but...”r />
  He shook his head. “Overall, Prime Minister, the news is about as bad as it can get,” he continued. “From what reports we have received, the Royal Navy has been effectively destroyed from orbit. We’ve picked up witness reports of warships being hit by missiles or kinetic energy weapons, leaving them ablaze and sinking. There are reports that suggest that many large container ships have also been sunk. We assume that the other major naval forces have also been destroyed, but we’ve heard nothing apart from a brief internet message from Toulon reporting a sinking carrier.”

  “My God,” Gabriel said. How many sailors had died before they’d even known that they were under attack? “What about the air force?”

  “The RAF has lost most of its bases to orbital strikes,” the Brigadier said. “The aliens have been dropping in on some of the bases and converting them – I suspect – to bridgeheads. I’ve issued orders for material to be removed from the remaining bases before the aliens arrive and take possession – the RAF Regiment has orders to briefly engage them and then withdraw before they can be destroyed by superior firepower. A handful of aircraft survived the first strikes and attempted to hit back at the aliens, but results were...not optimum. The aliens have also been landing on civilian airports and deploying their forces to take up positions on the ground. Our ability to impede them is very limited.”

  He waited, perhaps expecting Gabriel to say something, but there was nothing to say. “They also bombarded most – not all – of the army garrisons in the country,” he concluded. “Damage was very significant, but enough soldiers survived to allow us to begin preparations for underground war – if necessary. I’ve had teams of soldiers return to the damaged bases and remove as much equipment and weaponry as we can from storage – as well as rounding up soldiers, reservists, and anyone with military experience who is willing to volunteer. I suspect that the aliens won’t leave us alone here much longer – they have to know that we’re attempting to regroup.”

  Gabriel shivered. “Brigadier...I need a honest answer,” he said. The Brigadier looked oddly insulted by the question. “Can we stop them if they come here?”

  “Unlikely,” the Brigadier admitted, after a moment. He drew out a line on the map. “I have positioned our remaining armour – that’s Challenger II tanks, the best tanks in the world – in positions where they can give the aliens a bloody nose when they come westwards. They’re backed up by antiaircraft weapons, small antitank teams and a whole series of booby traps. We can and we will give them a bloody nose, Prime Minister, but we can't stop them. They have complete air supremacy and the ability to drop rocks on us from space. A straight fight will be disastrous for us.”

  “I never claimed to be a military man,” Gabriel said, slowly, “but why are you talking about fighting them if you can't stop them?”

  The Brigadier frowned. “Prime Minister...in recent years, we have had to operate on reduced logistics that have, quite frankly, cost lives. Normally, we would be able to draw ammunition, fuel and spare parts from our deports on the mainland, although we could never afford the stockpiles that we believed to be necessary for modern warfare. Military units burn through their supplies at terrifying speeds, even under the best of circumstances. Right now, our logistics train has effectively been destroyed. I imagine that we will become unable to operate the tanks within the next week. And, of course, they have eyes in the sky. They’d be able to detect us moving the tanks and blow them away from orbit.

  “What that means is that our best chance for actually hurting them badly is now,” he added. “From what we’ve seen of their armour in London – we managed to get pictures from the battle – we should be able to give them a rough reception. Our tankers have been given orders to hit the enemy hard, then fall back and abandon their vehicles. We should be able to make them more careful about advancing into unsecured territory while we prepare our fallback option.”

  Gabriel shook his head slowly. Yesterday, he’d been thinking about the economy. Now he was forced to think about war raging across England’s green and pleasant land. It should have been unthinkable. He rubbed the side of his head, feeling a headache pounding inside his skull. How could anyone come to grips with what was tearing the country – the world – apart?

  He looked up at the military officer. “And what do we do after they’ve smashed our tanks?”

  “The only thing we can do,” the Brigadier admitted. “We fight an underground war – an insurgency – until they decide that humans are too dangerous to keep as slaves.”

  “But...” Gabriel stopped, unsure if he should believe his ears. The thought of waging an insurgency against the invaders was romantic in the abstract, but in the real world he knew it would be horrific. God alone knew how the invaders would react to insurgents – human history showed a wide range of possible alternatives. Hell, for all he knew the invaders had technology that would allow them to read human thoughts or track human soldiers by their scent. “Can we hope to win?”

  “I don’t know,” the Brigadier said. “All I can say is that it seems to be the only alternative – unless we want to raise the white flag and surrender.”

  Gabriel settled back into his chair, feeling the strength flowing out of his body. Surrender? Winston Churchill had rejected the very idea of surrender, insisting that Britain would fight on the beaches and fields and streets – but Churchill had known that invading Britain would be a monumental task for Adolf Hitler. Would his attitude have been different, Gabriel asked himself, if the Nazis had actually landed? Europe had seen bitter fighting in towns and cities, but Britain had been spared. But now...the aliens had succeeded where a long string of enemies had failed. They’d landed in England and the remains of the British military was on the run.

  And yet...what did the aliens have in mind for humanity? He’d wracked his brains, but he hadn't been able to come up with one solid reason for an advanced alien race to invade the Earth. All they could take from Earth was humans – and surely if they were advanced enough to cross the gulf between stars, they were advanced enough to make machines that would replace slaves. Maybe they were just mindless monsters, intent on exterminating all other races, but then they could have just dropped rocks from orbit. Or maybe there was something he was missing. If only he wasn't so tired...

  “I don’t know what to do,” he admitted. He cursed himself a moment later, for forgetting the one thing that should have been a priority. “What’s happening with the civilian population?”

  The Brigadier’s expression hardened. “The aliens have come down in force around London, Manchester and a dozen other cities,” he said. “From the reports we’ve had, they’ve been refusing to allow anyone to leave and they’re backing up that refusal with live ammunition. Other parts of the country have seen riots and unrest – I think that they’re only going to get worse as people realise that the government has been crippled. We’re trying to get reservists out of the cities, but...”

  He shook his head. “I’m afraid it’s going to get worse, Prime Minister,” he added. “It won’t be long before we see starvation. God alone knows how many people are going to die.”

  Gabriel silently cursed his predecessors – and himself. Over the years, Britain had become increasingly dependent upon food imported from overseas – upwards of fifty percent of British food came from outside the country. And with the global trading network shot to hell by the aliens, there were likely to be shortages very quickly. The damage the aliens had inflicted on Britain's road and rail networks wouldn't make distributing what was left any easier. There had been calls to establish a national strategic food reserve that would allow the government to feed the people, if necessary, but successive governments had chosen to avoid the issue rather than pay for the necessary precautions.

  “We never planned for this sort of global outrage,” he admitted. Perhaps, he added to himself, because the prospects were so horrifying. “What do we do about it?”

  “I don’t think we can do much about it,” t
he Brigadier said. “I think that we will have to hope that the aliens choose to feed our population – we sure as hell can’t do it for ourselves.”

  Gabriel tried to find some of Churchill’s determination within himself, but it seemed impossible to believe that there was any hope of victory – or even survival. His position as Prime Minister was meaningless...

  “Have a rest,” the Brigadier advised. “I have teams working on our long-term plans – it’s possible that the aliens will give us enough time to lay the groundwork for a long-term insurgency.”

  “Or they won’t,” Gabriel said. He pulled himself to his feet. The room seemed to be spinning around him and he was suddenly aware of the people covertly watching him. He had to be strong for them, he told himself firmly. It didn't help. “If we can't beat them, Brigadier, what’s the point of even fighting?”

  ***

  Brigadier Gavin Lightbridge-Stewart watched, his face impassive, as the Prime Minister’s bodyguards helped him down the narrow corridor. There was a small selection of rooms under the bunker, where he could have a shower and a long sleep – God knew he needed it. The man wasn't a soldier and hadn’t even considered the possibility that he might find himself on the run; for all the bellyaching about British politicians and the seemingly endless scandals, Britain wasn't Afghanistan or one of the other countries where political leaders knew to keep a bag packed for flight at all times.