Christopher Nuttall - Their Darkest Hour

He snorted at the thought. The troopers who’d led the first landings on Earth had warned the reinforcement units that humans were sneaky, but he hadn’t seen any evidence of human sneakiness in the four days since he’d landed on Earth. Sure, they’d managed to use treachery to kill many troopers, yet they’d also killed thousands of their own kind. No race, even one as strange as humanity, would carry one like that — their own kind would turn against them. And the humans who drove the trucks were properly loyal. They knew their place — and they also knew that any sign of disloyalty would result in their families being executed.

Earth itself was an odd world. It’s climate was rarely perfect, often being too hot or too dry. The rainstorms they’d had just after landing had been refreshing, but they’d really been too cool for proper enjoyment. It wasn’t too surprising that the local weather patterns had been screwed up — the Land Forces had bombarded human bases and centres of resistance with KEWs, while the Chinese humans had been insane enough to use nuclear warheads against their own cities — and the weather experts promised that it would get better soon. Indeed, they’d even pointed out that accelerating the greenhouse effect would make the planet warmer, melt the ice caps and generally make it more habitable. He couldn’t understand why so many humans seemed concerned about global warming. Didn’t they want a warmer world?

But the human opinion didn’t matter, not now that their world had been absorbed into the State. They would learn to live on the reshaped world or die, while many of their fellows were shipped away to serve the State. And then…

He glanced down at the drone’s feed as it shrilled a warning. It was in danger! Someone was using a seeker head to target it… he hesitated, convinced it had to be a malfunction, and then a flash of light in the sky marked the end of drone coverage. And then the world blew up in his face.

It had been surprisingly easy to gain access to the maintenance tunnels running under the motorway. Indeed, none of the soldiers could think why anyone would want the tunnels, but they’d come in handy. They’d loaded enough explosive into the tunnels to blow up half the motorway, while lurking in ambush and waiting for the aliens to respond. The destruction of their drone had been the only risky part of the ambush Chris had planned; if the aliens had realised that they were driving right into a trap, they might have deployed or simply turned back and called for reinforcements. But everything had worked perfectly…

He watched in delight as the lead alien vehicle — a tank, he suspected — literally vanished within the blast. Several human-built lorries were blown to atoms, their cargo picked up and scattered across the motorway. He heard the sound of brakes as the other vehicles struggled to come to a stop, but it was far too late. They crashed into the broken vehicles and caught fire themselves. Two alien vehicles crammed with their soldiers managed to skim to one side and up the embankment, a display of initiative he wouldn’t have expected from the Leathernecks. Not that it was going to help them. He’d planned on the assumption that they wouldn’t catch any of their escorts with the oversized IED.

“Go,” he bellowed. Two Milan antitank missiles leapt towards their targets. One slammed into an alien vehicle before the aliens had a chance to dismount, blowing the vehicle and its passengers into bloody chunks. The other vehicle was luckier, or perhaps its commander had already issued the order to dismount before the aliens realised that they hadn’t escaped the trap completely. Half of its passengers were already out when it was hit and sent careering into the motorway. “Hit the bastards!”

He smiled as the two GPMGs opened fire with savage intensity, sweeping the alien positions down below. An alien tank, bringing up the rear, skimmed around and opened fire, although it seemed that they were reluctant to risk coming any closer. Chris couldn’t blame them. A Challenger II had been hit with a Milan and hundreds of RPGs in Iraq and survived, but few tankers would have been happy about driving straight up and charging into the teeth of antitank missiles. The alien tank’s main gun fired twice, tossing high-explosive shells into the wood. Chris had to admit that it was an effective tactic, assuming that the aliens didn’t have any way to localise their enemies. But why weren’t they shooting back at the machine guns…

The alien infantry had responded with impressive speed. Most of the survivors had taken cover and were firing back, trying to force the insurgents to keep back from the remains of the convoy. A pair of human bodies on the ground suggested that they’d killed their collaborators, perhaps assuming that one of them had betrayed them to their enemies. Or perhaps they’d been shocked and hadn’t realised that the collaborators were their allies. Chris waited long enough to be sure that all the aliens were out and fighting, and then he barked a second order. The three L16 81mm mortars fired as one, tossing high explosive shells down into the teeth of the enemy position. Their cover was effective against bullets, but the mortar shells landed behind their cover, tearing their positions apart. The aliens appeared to be tougher than humans — they certainly had tougher skin — yet they couldn’t stand up to mortar shells landing far too close to them. Fire spread through the remaining vehicles as the second round of mortars was fired, just before the mortar teams started breaking down the weapons. They’d been reluctant to leave ahead of the rest when the plan had been drawn up, but Chris had been insistent. Moving a single mortar without a vehicle was difficult — artillerymen were strong — and they’d slow the rest of the unit down if they attempted to leave together.

He cursed as the alien tank reversed course and fled, denying him the satisfaction of a complete victory. Seeing it run puzzled him; whatever else one could say about the Leathernecks, they weren’t cowards. Perhaps the tank commander had thought better of remaining close to antitank weapons, or perhaps his superiors had decided that it wasn’t a good idea to risk losing another tank. It took far too long to produce a human-designed Main Battle Tank. God alone knew how long it took the aliens.

Another series of explosions ran through what remained of the convoy, followed by an uneasy silence, broken only by the sound of fire. Chris barked an order and his men held fire, staring down at the wreckage. Most of them had seen action in Afghanistan, but even the Taliban hadn’t been able to wreck so much devastation on a British convoy. The training and equipment of Coalition forces had given them an advantage. He looked down for a long moment, and then nodded to the rest of his platoon. Carefully, weapons at the ready, they headed down towards the convoy.

Up close, there was something eerie about the alien vehicles, something that suggested that their designers worked from different ideas about how the universe worked. Their armour didn’t seem to be quite up to human standards, although Chris was uneasily aware that once they ran out of antitank missiles, it was likely to be a great deal harder to inflict losses on the alien vehicles. He glanced inside one and saw a set of charred alien bodies, blackened and burned by the heat. The stench was appalling. He had to fight to keep himself from throwing up his lunch into the alien vehicle.

“Look for prisoners,” he bellowed, although he had no hope of finding any. The alien soldiers had been caught by the mortars and shredded. He moved from vehicle to vehicle, glancing inside and shaking his head at the carnage. Judging from the remains of some of the human trucks, they’d been transporting food rather than weapons. He couldn’t blame the aliens for being reluctant to arm their collaborators. Who knew when a collaborator might change his mind?