Christopher Nuttall: Their Darkest Hour

He’d seen action in Afghanistan, but he’d never expected to have to fight a war in England — no one had. Some of the lads had been worried about their wives, girlfriends and children and in truth Chris knew that he couldn’t blame them. The CO had worked hard to keep them focused on the incoming threat, but without it Chris suspected that some of his comrades would probably have seen to their own families. They’d expected months — perhaps years — of warning before Britain itself came under threat. No one had expected an attack that had crushed them under its treads within a few hours.

The sound of engines pulled his attention back to the here and now. One of the tech guys down on the streets below had been able to rig up a passive detection system — or so he’d heard — but radar coverage was a thing of the past. It was possible that their enemy — little green men or whatever — would manage to get tactical surprise, even though the troops were dug in about as well as they could given the short notice. He started scanning the skies with binoculars, looking for trouble. Who knew what alien landing craft would look like? Flying saucers, or something humanity might have built itself, or maybe even tiny blue boxes that were bigger on the inside. There were just too many possibilities.

When he finally caught sight of the craft heading towards London, he was almost disappointed. They were big, all right; larger than any aircraft he’d seen in his career, massive shapes that seemed oddly unsteady in the atmosphere. The wings seemed too stubby to keep the craft in the air, although the roar of their engines suggested that whatever was powering them was more advanced than anything on Earth. In fact, they reminded him of something out of Thunderbirds . Despite himself, he felt a little relieved. They might not be as badly outmatched as he’d feared. The thought of facing the aliens from Independence Day had scared hell out of the soldiers.

The craft roared closer, moving with deceptive ungainliness. He formed a mental picture of a SAM blasting one of them out of the air, but realised quickly that the CO would want to hold off on that if possible. God alone knew how much damage a crashing alien transport would do to London, or to the civilians who happened to be caught in the blast. He reached for his radio, checked the channel quickly, and keyed the switch twice. They’d discovered that they could beat the jamming to some extent, if they used higher frequencies. Chris suspected that the aliens might be relaxing the jamming — whatever they used to coordinate might not be too different from what the humans used — but it hardly mattered. The entire city would have seen those craft making their final approach.

They flew over Hyde Park and started to shower tiny objects down towards the park below. Chris peered at them through his binoculars, trying to make out shape and form. They looked like paratroopers, but there were no parachutes. He wondered if they’d smash themselves into bloody ruin on the ground below, before realising that they had to have some way to slow their fall. Some of the SAS operatives had talked about opening their parachutes at terrifyingly low levels, barely slowing their fall before they touched down.

Other paratroopers were falling now, heading towards St. James Park. Chris leaned forward as the first of the black objects touched the ground and straightened up. The sight was so surreal that, just for a moment, he was convinced that he had to be dreaming. He hadn’t wanted to believe it, but it was true. The aliens had landed.

London

United Kingdom, Day 1

Tra’tro The’Stig braced himself in the cramped confines of the landing shuttle as the pilot started to count off the final seconds. Like most of the other assault formations, Assault Landing Unit #352 had been tasked with decapitating the prey — the humans , he reminded himself — before they could rally their troops and counterattack. The Kyg’pa - the Land Force — had had plenty of experience carrying out assault landings on hostile worlds and much of that experience suggested that the prey were easier to beat if their leaders were dead. In all of the endless briefings after they’d been pulled out of their stasis pods, they’d been warned that the humans — although primitive — were dangerous. Anything that weakened them before their world was occupied and their new position as Workers of the State was explained to them was all right by the Land Force. The concerns passed down to them about capturing the human infrastructure intact were irritating. It meant that the starship crews were unlikely to fire down at the planet’s surface without authorisation from the Command Triad.

He kept his concerns to himself. Anyone who served the State knew that dissent was not considered welcome, at least from the lower ranks. The people at the top had the right to determine everything from troop dispositions to attack strategy and they didn’t need his input. If he kept working away, and survived the coming war, he might just reach the higher levels where he could actually influence policy. And it was just as likely that the humans would roll over and surrender without a shot being fired.

The alarm echoed through the transport as it started to slow down over the human city. The’Stig had seen images taken by spy drones during the briefings and had to admit that the humans didn’t seem to know when to stop building. Their city seemed completely disorganised, while their buildings would be alarmingly tight for his soldiers. They’d probably have to start establishing their own headquarters on the surface rather than using human buildings, if only because of the size difference. Humans seemed to be shorter and thinner than his people and their buildings had been built for their comfort. They hadn’t thought to widen them for their new masters.

He flinched as the drop field caught him and propelled his unresisting form towards the hatch, followed by the remainder of the Assault Landing Unit. As always, there was a moment of sheer terror as he tumbled down towards the planetary surface, just before the counter-gravity field caught hold of his form and cancelled his motion, a mere second before he would have slammed face-first into the ground. Earth smelt funny — it was clear that the human disunion even affected their older cities — but he pushed that aside. The Assault Unit was spreading out, looking for trouble. Intelligence had stated that the humans had already lost their command and control networks, but the next thing Intelligence got right would be the first. They were really nothing more than well-connected officers who had the ability to avoid being assigned to front-line combat missions.

A dead human lay on the ground, not too far from his position. He glanced down at the body, recoiling in shock from its oddly-disjointed form. The humans looked as if they were permanently on the verge of falling over when they moved, with a suppleness that was alien to his people. A brief glance at the frontal area confirmed that they were looking at a male. There was no way to tell how the human had died.

The radio network hissed, suddenly. “Contact,” it snapped. The sound of human weapons almost drowned the coordinator’s voice out. “Engage and destroy!”

The’Stig cursed and dived for cover. Intelligence had made its usual flawed assessment — they’d landed right in the midst of a Grisna nest and the wretched little creatures were stinging like mad. Hefting his weapon, he led a small detachment forward, towards the buildings that served as the human centre of government. The human leaders were probably long gone, but taking their buildings would show their impotence. Or so Intelligence promised…