Their Darkest Hour (7 page)

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...

***

Chris Drake couldn't believe his eyes.  He was still half-convinced that he was dreaming, perhaps after a night of too many curries or kebabs.  The aliens – and they
had
to be aliens, not men in funny-fitting suits – were landing in St. James Park, right in front of him.  He keyed the switch on the camera that should have sent a live feed back to the CO, wondering what the straight-laced officer would make of it all.  The aliens...were very alien.

His first thought had been humanoid dinosaurs, but they moved with an eerie grace that belied their hulking forms.  They were larger than humans, carrying weapons that looked too ungainly for humans to use, wearing camouflage uniforms that seemed to automatically blend with their surroundings.  What little skin he could see was gray and leathery, reminding him of elephants in the jungle, but their eyes were dark and very cold.  Their faces seemed to be almost immobile, although he couldn't tell if they were naturally inscrutable or if he just couldn't recognise an alien expression when he saw it.  One of them seemed to be the leader on the ground, using hand motions to advance his troops forward; the others seemed to be grunts.  He reminded himself not to count them out too soon.  The British Army used its best troops in the Air Assault Role and he had to assume that the same was true of the aliens.

He looked down at their weapons, trying to see what they were carrying.  They didn't
look
that fancy, certainly not compared to weapons he’d seen in a hundred different alien invasion movies; indeed, he was sure that they weren't much more advanced than anything he’d seen on Earth.  There was a crudeness about their design that reminded him of some of the makeshift weapons they’d pulled out of caves in Afghanistan, or weapons produced with a Russian eye towards functionality rather than appearance.  Some of the weapons seemed to be almost portable machine guns; it struck him, suddenly, that they could probably carry more weight than the average human.  Their transport aircraft were heading off in the distance...

The CO gave the order and the fighting began.  A number of British soldiers had been positioned in nearby buildings, using them to pour fire down onto the hapless aliens, while a team of mortar gunners started to lop shells towards their landing zone.  It was a shame that they hadn't had a few days to prepare, Chris thought, as he saw a couple of aliens hit the ground, dark blood staining the grass around their bodies.  The Household Division had never expected to be fighting a major action in the heart of London.  Some equipment that they’d used in Afghanistan was outside the city.  It might as well be on the other side of the moon.

For a moment, he was sure that the aliens were doomed, before they started to return fire with surprising accuracy.  Their handheld weapons had the same rate of fire as a GPMG and their aim was better than anyone would have expected.  A pair of their leaders – he assumed, seeing they seemed to be in charge – were slipping forward, leading a direct assault against Whitehall.  One of them was shot down by a sniper, while the other managed to take cover against a damaged car.  It exploded a second later – the IED team had been putting their expertise to work – blowing the alien backwards.  Chris watched dispassionately as it crashed back down to Earth and lay still, presumably stunned or dead.  The remaining aliens had taken cover and were laying down fire towards the defenders.  From what little Chris could pick up on his radio, they’d managed to pick off many of the soldiers through heavy fire.  A handful of buildings were burning as alien grenades set fire to their interiors.

A dull roar echoed overhead as a second flight of alien transports roared down the Thames.  This time, a team with a Stinger was cleared to engage the enemy craft, launching their missile at almost point-blank range.  Whatever countermeasures the aliens had were ineffective at such a distance and the missile struck the alien craft on the side of its fuselage.  For a moment, it seemed to have survived...and then it flipped over and came crashing down into the river.  A colossal fireball blew up from where it had come down, throwing debris everywhere.  If any aliens had survived, Chris couldn't see how they could get out of the water and into the fight.  A second alien transport was hit just before it could start unloading its cargo.  This one was damaged and managed to stagger away over London before coming down in the suburbs.  Chris breathed a silent prayer for the civilians living where it had crashed before dragging his attention back to the main battlefield.  The remaining alien transports had started to deploy alien tanks.

The British Army had considerable experience moving light armour around by air, but the aliens clearly had better technology than anything available to the Army Air Corps.  Their tanks looked bigger and nastier than a Challenger II, although there was something funny about their design.  It took him a moment to realise that they seemed to be lacking any treads, almost as if they were designed to be nothing more than moveable pillboxes.  They hit the ground and bounced; Chris cursed as he realised that they were riding an air cushion, rather like small hovercraft.  Each of the alien tanks started towards the defence line as soon as they landing, big guns rotating around with terrifying speed to challenge the puny humans ahead of them.  They weren’t completely dependent upon the big guns either, he saw.  The alien tanks carried what looked like small machine guns, four to a tank.  They probably could engage multiple targets simultaneously.

A streak of light announced that one of the antitank teams had engaged the nearest target.  The alien tank stopped dead as the missile blasted through its upper armour and presumably killed the crew, but its comrades opened fire at once.  Chris felt the building shake as they raked the windows with machine gun fire, while using their main guns to clear any large obstacles on the ground.  The entire building seemed to be on the verge of collapse as a shell detonated inside; frantically, he scrambled backwards to the fire escape and started to slide down to safety.  Judging by the noise, the aliens were responding to any attack with savage force. 
They
didn't seem to have to worry about civilian casualties. 

Cursing, he ran towards the rally point, just as the Old Admiralty Building started to collapse into a pile of rubble.  Other soldiers joined the retreat, falling back to regroup and reform the defence line – but would it be enough?  They’d been warned to be ready to slip out into London and try to escape the alien dragnet.  Perhaps the time had come to leave...

A thunderous roar sent him falling to his knees.  Behind him, the aliens were advancing, carefully.  The rubble slowed their pace, but it also provided cover for their infantry.  At least they hadn't yet realised just how small humans were, compared to their hulking forms.  Humans could hide themselves in places no alien could follow.  A handful of soldiers were taking advantage of the confusion to use grenades to set up makeshift IEDs.  The aliens might take Westminster, but they’d take nothing more than a pile of rubble – and a very bloody nose.

***

The’Stig ducked as a human bullet cracked just past his ear.  He couldn't count just how many times he’d come close to death; the humans might have been small and puny, but they knew how to fight.  If it hadn't been for the tankers, the Assault Unit might have been wiped out in the first hour of the assault.  Even with the tankers, the humans were bleeding them hard.  At least their backs were to the river, he told himself firmly.  They'd have nowhere to run when the tanks closed in on their positions.  Any rational species would have realised that the position was hopeless and sought terms. 

He wasn't sure who was in command right now, not after the humans had taken down the transport carrying two superior officers and their mobile command network.  The threat of human-portable weapons had clearly been underestimated, part of his mind noted, cursing Intelligence under his breath.  Several units had been shredded, leaving him as the senior officer within eyesight.  He didn't even know half of the troopers who had been drawn into his orbit.  All he could do was keep them moving forward and hope that the tankers sucked up most of the incoming fire. 

A pile of rubble allowed him a chance to slip under cover, just as one of the troopers saw what looked like a pile of metal discs on the ground.  The’Stig was just a second too late in ordering him to stop; he picked the discs up and an explosion blew him into bloody fragments.  Even their body armour couldn't protect them against such an attack.  The’Stig scowled and inched backwards, eyes scanning the piles of rubble and peering through the smoke in hopes of seeing the humans before they saw him.  The entire area could be mined, but he doubted that he’d be able to get a team of experts to come down and remove the mines safely.  Reporting their presence to his superiors – once they were appointed – would only mean that they’d be told to be careful.  They needed to take the human leaders alive.

Something
moved
, right at the corner of his eye.  Instinct sent him jumping backwards, just in time to avoid a knife thrown at him by a young male human.  The human was wounded, he realised, and it had
still
attempted to take his life.  Was the entire species insane?  He fired a burst towards the human and watched bright red blood splash on the rubble.  They looked so fragile and yet they could kill and kill and kill...

And they could hide.  Hindsight, always clearer than foresight, showed him just what had happened.  He’d ignored the human’s hiding place because it was too small for one of his people.  If he’d taken a longer look, he might not have been surprised so badly.  And some of the other troopers who’d been ambushed might have remained alive, if they’d been more aware of what the humans could do to them.  They’d have to learn quickly on this world. 

He motioned for his troopers to hold their positions.  The tankers were coming up behind them and more reinforcements were on the way.  Let the tankers take a few bullets – which would only glance off their armour in any case.  His troopers needed a rest before they pushed onwards – and besides, the humans were trapped against the river.  They’d have to break through the assault lines to escape and
that
wasn't going to be easy.