Their Darkest Hour

Chapter Thirty

Alien Detention Camp

United Kingdom, Day 41

The line of alien tanks moved with astonishing speed, racing cross-country towards the detention centre. Chris watched them come through a pair of binoculars, noting that the tanks had outraced their troop-carriers they’d presumably been supposed to be escorting. But the aliens trapped in the detention camp had presumably been screaming for help ever since they’d realised that the only thing keeping them alive was their value as hostages. The aliens would want to save their lives, if possible.

His original plan had been a quick smash and grab; get into the base, free the prisoners and then start running. The resistance commander, insofar as the resistance had a commander, had modified it into a better mousetrap, reminding him of stunts the Taliban had pulled during the early years of the war in Afghanistan. They’d been fond of attacking one place to lure a relief force into a trap, but they’d always paid highly for it. Chris had wondered if the resistance was likely to make the same mistakes, yet he’d been overruled. Besides, planting IEDs was all very well, but it wasn’t spectacular enough to be inspiring.

“Sir,” Maxwell called, “I have their overhead drone in my sights.”

Chris nodded. No one was entirely sure just how capable the alien drones were, but the Americans had designed and produced fantastically capable platforms before the invasion, ones capable of tracking individual fighters and dropping Hellfire missiles on their heads. He had to assume that the aliens were just as capable, even though they didn’t seem to be designed to operate in a threatening environment. But then, few Taliban fighters had ever had working Stingers. The briefers had commented that possessing such a weapon would make someone a Big Man — and if they fired the missile, they wouldn’t have the weapon any more, would they? It had struck Chris as absurd, but they had clearly had a point. The aliens, facing people less concerned with their tribal status, had lost a number of drones to handheld missile launchers since the invasion had begun. But why hadn’t they started to take better precautions?

He looked back towards the alien tanks. They’d be within engagement range in a matter of seconds and they all had to be taken out quickly, or they’d be lethal once they realised that they were under attack. Their main guns would be useless against insurgents, but they all carried heavy machine guns and their armour could stand off bullets and even grenades. The gangs in London, according to the internet, had thrown petrol bombs at the aliens, but the alien tanks had simply shrugged the blows off and kept on coming. Their soft-shelled vehicles were easier to disable or destroy.

“Fire,” he barked.

Maxwell launched his Stinger upwards towards the alien drone, while the antitank teams fired on the alien tanks. Chris saw a flash in the sky from where the drone had been hit, moments before four of the alien tanks exploded. The fifth ground to a halt and sank to the ground — the rocket had struck the underside of its carriage — but returned fire with its machine guns. Chris cursed as two of the antitank teams were wiped out before they could fall back, while the remaining alien vehicles slowed down and started deploying their troopers. He watched the alien shapes emerging from cover and swore again. They were going to be on him faster than he had planned.

“Fall back,” he ordered, raising his voice to be heard over the sound of the tank’s guns. The aliens seemed to be shooting at random, raking the ground near their position. He wasn’t sure if they were having targeting problems or if they were just trying to keep the humans pinned down. “Fall back to the next line.”

Crawling through mud wasn’t fun, but it beat being shot in the back by alien machine guns. The second set of surprises had been positioned along the route they assumed the aliens would come, yet the aliens had managed to get there before it was quite ready for action. He slipped down into the half-dug trench — any protection was welcome on a battlefield — and grasped his rifle, looking for targets. The alien infantry were still advancing, more carefully now that their tank was no longer providing cover. Chris wondered what was going through their minds, before realising that it probably wouldn’t be that different to what went through his mind when he advanced on an enemy position.

He glanced upwards and cursed as he saw a trio of alien aircraft roaring overhead. The aliens didn’t deploy aircraft with the same enthusiasm as NATO had — they could drop rocks from orbit — and seeing them now was a surprise. They swept low over the ruined base, firing rockets at anything that looked remotely dangerous. Chris saw an explosion billow up from where two of the Royal Marines had been positioned and knew that they were both death. A Stinger chased one of the alien aircraft as it headed into the distance before coming around for another run, but the aliens dropped flares and the missile, decoyed away, exploded harmlessly.

“Grenades, then run,” he yelled, unhooking the last of his grenades from his belt and pulling the pin, before throwing it right into the alien position. The others followed suit, and then started to crawl away, using the explosions to cover their departure. Unless the aliens got very lucky and guessed that they were starting to retreat, they should hesitate long enough to allow the fighters to lose them. He reached for his radio and keyed it once, sending a simple message to the other two positions, and then abandoned it. The aliens would zero in on its position and drop a bomb on him.

The grenades shook the ground as they scrambled away, keeping their heads down. Outside the detention camp, they’d had a chance to scope out possible ways to retreat, including two that led through villages the aliens had ordered abandoned by their human residents. There was plenty of cover for resistance traps and they’d set up several IEDs, enough to keep the aliens carefully sweeping for more while the fighters made their escape. Several men had volunteered to make a last stand in the houses, but Chris had vetoed the idea. They needed every man they could get and futile stands would only cost them lives for nothing. The aliens could simply fall back and hammer the houses from orbit.

He heard the sound of alien aircraft overhead and instinctively sought cover. The ground shook a moment later, a colossal explosion that sent a fireball roaring into the air. God alone knew who or what the aliens had seen, but they’d certainly killed it. He kept moving, knowing that there was no longer any point in trying to fight. They’d split up into smaller groups and meet up again at the RV point.

There was a brief burst of firing, not too far away, followed by silence. Chris wondered briefly what had happened, but it hardly mattered. Assuming that the aliens believed that their men were still in danger, they would have gone to liberate the camp first and then give chase to the resistance fighters. Or perhaps they would simply drop rocks from orbit on the deserted villages, hoping to trap some of the resistance fighters in the blasts. It struck Chris as excessive, but the aliens probably regarded it as efficient. But then, they’d never know for sure how many they’d killed.

Shaking his head, he kept moving. There was a long way to go before he could relax and start heading towards the base. He’d have to be careful that he wasn’t followed, either. The aliens might be holding back deliberately, hoping that he would lead them to a base. That was the last thing the resistance needed.

U’tra The’Stig knew that he wasn’t supposed to lead relief missions in person, but many of his subordinates were either inexperienced in fighting humans or too low-ranking to be given overall command responsibilities. With the new access his promotion had granted him, it was alarmingly easy to see just how badly the humans had mauled the Land Forces — and caused them to bring in reinforcements earlier than the planners had expected. The humans might not be the most advanced race the State had ever encountered, but they were certainly the most stubborn. A sensible race would have started seeing what niche it could carve out for itself in the State by now.

The detention camp had been devastated. They’d blown through the gate, despite the blast walls that were supposed to prevent anyone from getting in without permission, and somehow secured much of the base long enough to cut through the cages and release the prisoners. Most of them would have been in no state for running, but they wouldn’t have been given much of a choice. Even so, he could see a number of dead humans who clearly weren’t insurgents, unless the insurgents had decided to fight while naked. The prisoners had been shot down in the crossfire, probably by their guards.

He watched as the remains of the base’s garrison stumbled out of their barracks. At least they’d managed to hold out — although he had a feeling that they’d been left alive deliberately, if only to prevent higher authority from cutting their losses and dropping rocks on what remained of the base. The superior officer, an intelligence officer, came over and glared at The’Stig, before snarling orders for him to track down and kill the human insurgents. The’Stig tapped his badge, a droll reminder that he actually outranked the intelligence officer, and waited for him to calm down.

“They’ve destroyed all our work,” the intelligence officer said, finally. “We were using humans to track down other humans and they’ve destroyed our work!”

“They do that,” The’Stig agreed. The intelligence officers had a reputation for arrogance, but they did produce results. “I’m deploying my unit to hunt for the humans. I expect you and your unit to stay out of my way.”

Ignoring the intelligence officer’s splutters, he ordered his mobile command post set up in one corner of the ruined base. They were already deploying drones and attack aircraft to support the Assault Units on the ground. If the humans had managed to go to ground, they might be able to smoke them out before the operation was called off. Given the recent events in America that had forced the redeployment of several Assault Units and Security Units, it was quite possible that the humans would manage to hide. But they’d certainly do their best to rattle the humans as they fled.

“What the hell do we do with this guy?”

Chris looked over at their single alien prisoner. The alien didn’t seem to be doing anything deliberately to slow them down, but there was no denying that his bulk made it harder for them to hide from the advancing alien patrols. Chris had climbed a tree and seen several aliens advancing in their general direction, hunting for human fighters. There was an IED nearby, hidden in their path, but the aliens had become much better at spotting and neutralising them over the past few weeks.

“Cut off his clothes and leave them here,” he ordered, finally. It was possible that the aliens had hidden tracers in their clothing. Chris would have, if he’d been in their shoes. “And then we get him to the safe house and hope that they haven’t tracked us.”

It was the first time he’d seen one of the aliens naked and he had to admit that he was curious. Their captive’s leathery grey skin seemed to shift unpleasantly over his bones, almost as if the alien had lost a great deal of weight recently. There was no sign of any sexual organs, between the alien’s stumpy legs, but judging from what looked like coiled muscle under the skin the sexual organs had actually retracted into the body. Human penises did tend to shrink if the human was nervous, yet it looked as if the aliens didn’t deploy their penises unless they were aroused. He found himself trying to envisage how they would mate before deciding that it hardly mattered. They could answer that question once they were safely away from the aliens chasing them.

“Come on,” he ordered. “Let’s go.”

Fifteen minutes later, they seemed to have broken contact with the main body of the aliens, but Chris still felt uneasy. The skies seemed to be crowded with alien aircraft, some clearly hunting for the escaping insurgents, others flying down towards the base. One of them was blown out of the sky by a missile, but its comrades launched rockets towards the missile’s point of origin. Chris hoped that whoever had fired the missile had abandoned the launcher and run the moment the missile had been launched, yet he suspected otherwise. The aliens had reacted with alarming speed.

The sound of alien aircraft slowly tailed away, leaving only the occasional sound of helicopter chopping their way through the skies. Chris kept glancing upwards anyway, wondering if they were being watched by a drone. No one knew for sure how good alien sensors were, but the Americans had performed miracles. The aliens might be just as good, or they might have stolen American technology — or perhaps they’d pressed Americans into service as collaborators. Many of the reports they had from across the Atlantic were confusing, or contradictory. People had welcomed the aliens, some said, while others claimed that the entire country was at war. But America had far more land surface to hide resistance fighters. Maintaining a resistance in Britain was growing harder by the day.

He looked over at the alien, stumbling his way through the undergrowth, and wondered just how he felt about being a prisoner. How many humans had the aliens taken as prisoners — and just what were they doing to military prisoners? Perhaps their captive knew the answer to those questions. They’d have to ask him, once they found a secure place to keep him — did he even know how to speak English well enough to answer complex questions?

Shaking his head, he kept walking — and silently prayed that they weren’t being tracked from far overhead.

“Maz’Bak is missing,” the intelligence officer said. “We have been unable to locate his body.”

The’Stig looked down at the remains of the underground interrogation chamber. The humans had burned it, incinerating everything they hadn’t taken with them. They’d left nothing, but ashes behind. It was quite possible that a body had been burned so completely that it would need a full DNA sweep to prove that it had been there, but he could see the intelligence officer’s point. A missing trooper would be bad enough — the humans could do anything they wanted to him — yet an intelligence officer was far worse. He would know details that needed to be kept from human ears.

“The humans have largely made their escape,” he said. It wasn’t a pleasant thing to concede, but given how quickly they’d had to respond to the disaster, it was almost unavoidable. Small parties of troopers were still out in the gathering darkness, hunting for the humans, yet he’d had to pull most of his force back to the base. The drones might just pick up humans trying to move under cover of darkness. “If they had your officer with them…”

It wasn’t a pleasant thought. An adult Eridian had a brighter heat signature than a human, but if the humans were careful there wouldn’t be anything for the drones to detect. They’d already figured out weaknesses in some of the sensor networks surrounding Land Force Bases — did they know, perhaps, that the Assault Units had inferior night vision equipment to the devices the humans had invented? And if they had an intelligence officer to interrogate…

“I insist that you start searching for him at once,” the intelligence officer said, angrily. “The loss of one of my people is a catastrophe of the highest order!”

Particularly for his career, The’Stig thought, with a certain amount of private amusement. He’d have to keep that to himself — intelligence officers made nasty enemies, even if they were outranked by Land Force officers — but it was funny. The intelligence officer would have to explain why they hadn’t taken more precautions, or vetted the human collaborators more thoroughly or… they’d be blamed for the entire disaster. Losing an entire detention camp, to say nothing of the propaganda victory that had just been scored by the human insurgents. Someone would have to take the blame.

“I will detail units to continue the search,” he said. It would be straightforward to push blocking forces forward, although he had the feeling that the humans would successfully evade contact. They’d had plenty of time to plan their retreat. “I suggest that you start thinking about what your officer could tell the humans. Who knows what they will do to him to make them talk?”

He’d heard rumours about how the intelligence service was conducting its interrogations, ugly rumours. The humans certainly wouldn’t hesitate to retaliate in kind, once they learned the truth. And it would only stiffen their resistance. If they had enough Assault Units to tie down most of the country… but they didn’t. They’d have to call in reinforcements from the rest of the world and that wasn’t going to happen. Earth had already absorbed far more Assault Units and troopers than the planners had believed necessary.

The Command Triad would have to make some decisions, sooner rather than later. Perhaps if they pulled out of some parts of the world and left them to rot, they’d be able to return later, once the humans had finished killing each other off. The Middle Eastern humans had unleashed nuclear weapons on each other. Who knew what the British humans would do?