Christopher Nuttall - Their Darkest Hour

The lead alien vehicle came around the bend and accelerated down the road. Alex was mildly impressed by how it seemed to glide above the ground — it was almost silent compared to the trucks carrying policemen — but there was no time to stare. She reached for the detonator and held it in her hand, cradling it while running her finger over the button. There were no safety features, Archer had told her, with a thin leer. They’d been less careful in those days. Of course, the planned resistance cells in Britain had also had more training than Alex had ever received. If there was ever a day when the RAF returned to service, she made a mental note to insist that ground combat skills were included in what they taught their pilots.

Just before the alien vehicle reached the grit bin, she pushed down on the button. There was a heart-stopping pause — and then there was a thunderous explosion. The alien vehicle was picked up and flung right into the following truck, crushing a number of policemen under its weight. An engine caught fire and another truck went up in flames, just before two more trucks collided with the vehicles ahead of them. The second alien vehicle was untouched, but the alien infantry dismounted anyway. They moved with eerie grace as they surrounded the scene, clearly expecting another attack at any moment. Alex silently cursed her own oversight. She could have had several men with hunting rifles in position to pick off most of the aliens — but then, they would have had to risk remaining at the scene long enough for reinforcements to arrive.

She’d had time to plan her own exit and so she ran, keeping her head down and praying that she wouldn’t be noticed. The alien helicopters had returned to the convoy to hover menacingly over the ruined vehicles, no doubt looking for enemy insurgents to target and kill. She almost fainted as she heard the sound of gunfire, before realising that the aliens were shooting at rabbits. The noise had flushed a number of the little beasts out of hiding and the aliens had thought that they were humans! She was still grinning at the thought when she headed further into the countryside, back to her hiding place. They’d never find her.

“You hit the bastards,” Smith said, three hours later. The aliens had visited their farm yesterday and given the farmer and his wife their ID cards. Alex had examined them and concluded that the aliens had actually encoded information into the cards — hardly an unfamiliar form of technology, but one with ominous implications for population control. “What do you think they’ll do in response?”

Alex shrugged. There was no way to know. She’d actually offered to leave, knowing that her presence would bring danger to their house, but they’d refused to hear of it. Besides, as Smith had assured her, they needed help on the farm. The aliens had stated that they would be expected to start expanding their yield and Alex suspected that failing to produce food for the aliens would result in losing the farm. Their children were still lost somewhere in Britain, unable to return to their home.

She looked down at Smith’s ID card. The policemen had been very clear on what the farmer could and could not do. Leaving the county without permission would result in arrest. Failing to produce the card when requested would result in arrest. Their grown children and their families, if they ever arrived, would be expected to report to the aliens through the local police station — or they would be arrested. It seemed that putting even a single foot wrong would result in arrest. Alex could almost understand why they were issuing such edicts; it was as demoralising as hell and it certainly kept humanity under foot. Given enough time, the aliens could start organising the country to suit themselves.

The sound of helicopters — they had to be alien — nearby sent another chill down her spine. How much could they mobilise to hunt her and her little band down? An entire army, a small force of soldiers… or would they bombard the nearest town purely for the hell of it? There was no way to know, but she would have to find out — somehow. She rubbed her face, fought down a yawn, and headed outside. There was work to be done on the farm.

“But the last time I fought was in Malaya!”

Major Terrence Smyth scowled at the aliens, who seemed unresponsive. For all he knew, they couldn’t speak English. It wouldn’t be the first time that some conquering bastard had thought that keeping his soldiers from speaking the native tongue would stop them from developing any attachments to the locals. Of course, humans had always been able to communicate, even if by gestures alone. And they’d always wanted the same things — women, money, a chance to go home without having certain vital parts separated from their bodies. The thought of the aliens paying attention to human women was sickening.

The policemen at least looked ashamed, when they bothered to meet his eyes. They’d taken his son away somewhere, purely for the crime of trying to defend his old man. Terrence had fought in Malaya before leaving the British Army, decades ago. It seemed that the aliens didn’t give a damn about how long ago a person’s military service was — if a person had military experience, he or she was to be arrested and taken away.

He stared around the small holding pen. It was a simple fence of wire, holding seventeen men and one woman, surrounded by the aliens. Escape seemed impossible; even if they’d been able to cut or climb the wires, the aliens would shoot them down before they managed to run away from their base. Hell, he didn’t even know what they’d done to the area — they’d set up a handful of oversized buildings surrounding the holding pen. And he wasn’t entirely sure of where he was.

Must be getting old , he thought, bitterly. And to think that he’d been planning a comfortable retirement. He was in his seventies, after all, but still as active as ever… well, maybe not as active as he’d been when he’d been a young soldier in the trenches. His wife wanted to travel the world and he’d been happy to oblige her. But now…

He looked up as a heavy lorry roared its way into the camp. The driver was a human, probably yet another of the damned civil servants who’d managed to find a soft landing in the arms of the aliens. Terrence glowered at him, before deciding that he was being unfair. The arsehole might have joined up to feed his family. Not everyone in Britain lived on a farm.

The policemen opened the gates and waved the prisoners forward. They didn’t bother to shackle them, but what would be the point? Inside the lorry, they’d be prisoners just as much as they were prisoners inside the holding pen. He shuffled as slowly as he dared until it was his turn to climb into the vehicle, and then he pretended that his leg had failed, staggering down and collapsing on the ground. A moment later, a policeman helped him into the lorry.

He found a place to sit as the doors were closed and the big vehicle made its way out of the camp. There were no windows to allow him to see where they were going. A quick check revealed that they couldn’t force open the rear doors to escape. The sound of engines grew louder, suggesting that they had joined a small convoy. Or maybe it was a very large convoy. He found himself praying that resistance fighters — or the remains of his old service — were still out there, ready to attack the convoy, but nothing happened. The hours wore onwards as the truck took them further and further away from the land he’d known.

It almost made him want to cry. His wife, his children… would he ever see them again? Or would the grandchildren grow up without knowing their granddad? He told himself that they wouldn’t keep him prisoner forever, but there was no way to know. For all he knew, he might be going to his own execution. But they could have killed him easily without bothering to transport him halfway across the country. Maybe they wanted slave labour, or maybe they just had a holding camp for former military personnel somewhere isolated from the general population. They’d grow old and die there while the aliens took control of the rest of the country they’d sworn to defend. His grandchildren would grow up in a world where the aliens were a fact of life.