Christopher Nuttall - Their Darkest Hour

“Take it off, them,” he said, finally. He smiled, although Fatima could see the pain written over his face. “I guess there’s no hope of a proper rest afterwards?”

“Probably not,” she said, as she prepared the local anaesthetic. He should have been put out completely, but she preferred to avoid doing that if possible. They had had to abandon two other makeshift hospitals and unconscious patients were difficult to move. “Just lie back and let me get on with it.”

An hour later, she headed downstairs and washed her hands under the shower. The small apartment had been abandoned, according to Abdul and his men, which made it an ideal place for a resistance cell. Fatima hoped that they were right, if only because she didn’t want to have to abandon her patients. Most of the wounded resistance fighters were scattered over London, but the seriously wounded fighters were kept near her. She was their doctor, after all.

She sat down on the sofa and closed her eyes, fighting back tears. As a medical student, and then as a doctor, she’d taken pride in her work. She’d saved lives. Men and women who would have died a century ago had lived because of her — and the medical knowledge of hundreds of years. Now… she hated doing a bad job, but the truth was that there were limits to what she could do without proper equipment and supplies. Many of her patients needed a real hospital, not a makeshift set of beds which they might need to flee at any time. She’d asked if they could find a way to slip a patient into a real hospital, but Abdul had vetoed the idea. The aliens had insisted that the NHS doctors check their patients details and if they stumbled across a resistance fighter…

Fatima shook her head, wondering — again — what had happened to her family. There’d been no announcement of their fate on the BBC, just a terrible silence that was somehow far more terrifying than anything else. Anything could have happened to them — the aliens could have killed them, or enslaved them, or simply dumped them in a detention camp outside the city. After the bloody slaughter the aliens had unleashed, few dared to ask them — or to demand that the prisoners be returned to their families. For all she knew, they could have been shipped to Africa and dumped there.

The only thing keeping her from crying was the knowledge that her patients needed her — for all the good she could do for them. She had to watch many of them die because she didn’t have the equipment to save them — and as they died, a little of herself died as well. If they hadn’t needed her, she would have volunteered to drive the next truck loaded with explosives into the alien base. And that would be the end of her.

“Hey,” a soft voice said, “are you all right?”

Fatima glanced up to see Lucas, a young man who’d been serving the resistance as a runner, ever since his family had been caught up in the invasion and killed. He’d wanted to join the fighters, but his knowledge of the area made him far more useful as a runner. Or so he’d been told. Privately, Fatima suspected that Lucas wouldn’t have made a good fighter. He only wanted to hurt the aliens and didn’t care if he got hurt himself.

And he was attracted to her. She found him attractive too, and attentive, but how could she afford more emotional ties with anyone? Her family was gone, perhaps dead… anyone else she invited into her heart might go the same way. She didn’t dare take the chance.

“Just tired,” she said, pulling herself to her feet. She should have a rest, but there was no way she could sleep long enough for it to do her any good. “And yourself?”

“I got told to bring you a warning,” Lucas said. “The aliens did a sweep through a few blocks a mile or so away. They may have caught someone who knows about this place.”

Fatima swallowed a curse. Her stepmother would have slapped her if she’d realised that Fatima even knew such a word. The aliens had the services of the police — and the police knew how to get suspects to talk and implicate more people. If they knew who they’d bagged, they might uncover the makeshift medical centre. Abdul had made it clear that no one — even himself — was to know everything, but the aliens might uncover more than one cell if they managed to capture the medical centre.

And three of her patients really shouldn’t be moved.

“Go tell the patients upstairs that we might have to move,” Fatima ordered. Given time, she was sure that she could get all of the patients out, but could they do it without alerting the aliens and their collaborators? “Is anyone else coming to help?”

“The Big Man says he’s sending some of his men,” Lucas said. He grinned. When he wasn’t passing on messages, he spent most of his time with the soldiers. They were teaching him tricks he might need when he finally joined the fight. “Anyone who can’t move under his own power will be helped.”

Fatima nodded. And after that, she knew, they’d leave an IED behind, just in the hopes of bagging an alien or a few collaborators. They’d done it before. Abdul had pointed out that creating an impression of a network of IEDs slowed down enemy deployment, even if there were only a handful of real IEDs in the area. It had worked in Afghanistan and now it was working in London. Absently, she wondered how men who’d fought in Afghanistan liked using their enemy’s tactics against the enemy of the entire planet?

“Come on then,” she said. “Let’s start moving the patients.”

Alien Detention Camp

United Kingdom, Day 36

The first few days in the detention camp were unpleasant. Alex wasn’t sure why the aliens hadn’t bothered to provide shelters for their prisoners, which meant that when it rained — as it did every night — the bedding became soaked and refused to dry until the morning. A number of the prisoners were already suffering from exposure and were at death’s door, but the aliens didn’t seem concerned. When she was feeling charitable, which wasn’t very often, Alex guessed that the aliens liked the rain and believed that the humans would like it too. The other explanation was that the aliens were deliberately torturing their captives and breaking their will to resist. It seemed as likely as any other possibility.

She had spent the first day studying the alien base, what little she could see of it from behind the wire. It seemed to be a small military base, although it was definitely not as active as Bastion or any of the other major bases she’d deployed to before the aliens had invaded and turned the entire planet upside down. Judging from the way they’d extended the wire several times since the invasion — several of the prisoners admitted to have been behind the wire since day one — they might just have intended it as a prison for rebellious types.

The next few days had been worse. She’d wondered endlessly who’d betrayed them — and why? Had the traitor been terrified for his life, or the lives of his family — or had he merely wanted thirty pieces of silver? The conditions outside the cities were better than inside the cities — at least if the internet was to be believed — but no one had been very safe. Perhaps the traitor, hearing stories about entire towns being blasted from orbit for daring to harbour resistance fighters, had decided that Long Stratton would be left unmolested if the resistance was handed over to the aliens. Absently, she wondered if Archer or any of the others had made it out safety, or if they’d been caught by the aliens. She tried to form mental pictures of them blasting their way through entire alien formations, but she had to admit that they weren’t particularly likely. Archer had suggested heading into the national parks or other undeveloped parts of Britain and setting up long-term bases there. She hoped — prayed — that they managed to get out and carry on the fight. They would have to do it without her.