Their Darkest Hour

Chapter Thirty-Four

North England

United Kingdom, Day 46

“There isn’t any question about it,” Gabriel said, flatly. “We’re going to return the alien prisoner.”

He held up a hand before Brigadier Gavin Lightbridge-Stewart could say anything. He’d come to the Prime Minister’s hiding place despite the security risks, because it was one conference that they couldn’t trust to the internet. The Leathernecks had a great many human computer experts in their hands now, people who could presumably track messages through the internet and locate their destination. Gabriel found their dependence upon messengers and carrier pigeons oddly ironic, given the circumstances. The longer the war continued, the more primitive the resistance would become.

“I know that the alien represents a treasure trove of valuable information and biological data,” he continued, “but keeping him isn’t worth a few million human lives. We can shove him out somewhere and one of their patrols can pick him up.”

Lightbridge-Stewart frowned. “There are complications, Prime Minister,” he said. “The first one is simple; if we give in to their threats, we create a precedent. If they feel that they can threaten us into submission, they will use it again and again, blackmailing us into surrendering our only hope of carrying on the fight. What would you say, a week from today, if the aliens threaten to bombard London or Edinburgh or Newcastle if you don’t surrender yourself to them?”

Gabriel hesitated. “I’m aware of the risks,” he said, flatly. “Doesn’t the fact that they haven’t threatened mass bombardments suggest that they don’t intend to push it that far?”

“They may not have believed that it would work,” Lightbridge-Stewart countered. “From what we have been able to draw from our alien friend, we know that humans are often more barbaric than the Leathernecks — we’re certainly a lot better at justifying inhuman treatment to ourselves. If we give them proof that it will work, they may try it again. Where do we draw the line and say where we will no longer allow them to threaten us into submission?”

“But this is one point where we have to make a decision,” Gabriel snapped. “We have an alien prisoner — and they want him back. Now, do you think that keeping that alien a prisoner is worth the loss of God knows how many of our own civilians?”

He pressed on before Lightbridge-Stewart could say anything. “And what happens to our reputation if we refuse?” He asked. “How many of our own people will turn against us after we lose an entire city?”

“The entire planet is at stake,” Lightbridge-Stewart said. “What decision we make here and now will have an effect on the entire world. What if our captive can tell us how to contact the other intelligent races out there? What if we could get help from someone who could take out the alien starships hovering over our heads, poised to bombard us into submission if we rebel?”

“But we don’t know that we could,” Gabriel said. “We have the insight into their computers — maybe we can get the information some other way. I won’t put so many lives at risk because we have one captive. The dangers are just too great.”

He looked the military officer in the eye. “Correct me if I’m wrong,” he added, “but am I not the ultimate civilian authority?”

Lightbridge-Stewart didn’t hesitate. “You are, and if you want to order him released, I will carry out the order,” he said. “However, there are other complications. Moving something the size of the alien cross-country will not be easy. Wherever they find him, they will certainly suspect that he was concealed somewhere nearby and start searching for him. There is a distant possibility that they might come here.”

“It’s a risk we have to accept,” Gabriel said. He glanced at the television. The volume was down, but the BBC had helpfully displayed a ticking clock counting down the seconds to when the alien ultimatum ran out. He’d watched images of desperate rioters battling the police and the aliens, or fleeing out across the countryside like locusts. Others had boarded small boats and set sail for Ireland or the Scottish Islands, where the aliens hadn’t bothered to establish a presence. They might find safety there. “We can abandon this building if necessary.”

“Yes,” Lightbridge-Stewart said. There was a long moment when they both contemplated possible futures. “I can see to his release, if that is your command.”

“It is,” Gabriel said. “Please see to it.”

“Did I do the right thing?”

Sergeant Butcher shrugged. The three SAS men stayed close to Gabriel, while a small unit of soldiers were outside, maintaining a secure perimeter. Gabriel was rather surprised that the aliens or their collaborators hadn’t bothered to investigate the old manor and register the people staying there, but Haddon Hall had been off the official radar for many years. The owners having ties with the security services had advantages for them. Gabriel would have been surprised if they even got taxed.

“I don’t think that there was any right answer,” Butcher said, after a moment. He looked down at the board for a long moment. All of the three SAS men played Chess and Gabriel had found it a good way to relax. “You have to make the decision and then stick to it.”

He moved a piece forward and smiled, thinly. “I used to serve in Africa on missions that officially didn’t exist,” he added. “The locals really didn’t trust their own governments — not without reason. If there was a foreign interest willing to spend big bucks on bribes, the governments would roll over and use troops to clear away the locals if they got in the way. I don’t think you could afford developing a reputation as someone willing to throw British lives away for one alien.”

Gabriel frowned, considering the board. “And what happened to most of those unlucky people?”

“The radicals would arrive and start convincing the people that the only hope was to fight,” Butcher said. “And most of them wound up being slaughtered while the government disguised effective genocide by claiming that it was waging war against radical Islam. There are some truly shitty places out there, boss. Even worse now that the aliens have smashed anyone who might have been able to impose order by force.”

He shook his head as Gabriel moved another piece forward. “Checkmate,” he said, moving his queen into position. “You’re getting better, sir.”

“Thank you,” Gabriel said, dryly. “You’re masters at unarmed combat, sneaking about… and Chess?”

“There was a trooper up at Hereford who was a five-star chef,” Butcher said. Gabriel couldn’t tell if he was being serious or joking. “And there was a little old woman who knew absolutely everything about plants and kept massive greenhouses. Every six months, a dozen lads from Hereford would gather around this tiny old lady and learn what they could safely eat in the wild. She never had any problems with vandals either. I wonder why.”

Gabriel opened his mouth, and then looked up as the butler entered the room. “Pardon me, sir,” he said, “but the Brigadier has returned from his trip. He is waiting for you in the library.”

“Good,” Gabriel said, standing up. Butcher moved ahead of him, watching for assassins lurking in the corridor. Gabriel had tried to talk his close-protection detail out of being so paranoid, but Butcher had pointed out that the aliens had human collaborators who might be more adroit at tracking him down. Haddon Hall’s small staff had just had to get used to the three men watching their every move. They were all security-cleared, positively vetted, yet none of them had expected to be suddenly living in an occupied country. Gabriel hadn’t expected it either.

Lightbridge-Stewart stood up when Gabriel entered the library. “We got the consignment underway,” he said. The alien was on his way back to his people, then. “I wanted to discuss a possible operation with you, while I was here. My staff have been putting together a plan we’ve entitled Operation Hammer.”

Gabriel frowned as he took his seat. The Americans loved bold and purposeful operational names — Operation Enduring Freedom, Operation Iraqi Freedom — but the Ministry of Defence preferred to assign names at random, on the grounds that anyone who heard the name wouldn’t automatically know what it meant. Using a purposeful name was unusual and it suggested that someone intended for it to become public sooner rather than later.

“The core problem, Prime Minister, is that we cannot prevent them from moving wherever they please — and, if necessary, bombarding us into submission,” Lightbridge-Stewart said. Gabriel nodded, concealing his impatience. “They have the ability to hit us wherever they want, put bluntly, and it cripples our ability to mount a sustained insurgency. We need to show them that we are not going to roll over for them and surrender.”

“Particularly after we returned their captive,” Gabriel agreed. “How do you intend to hammer the message into their heads.”

“We can cripple their command and control network,” Lightbridge-Stewart said. “Maybe not for very long, but we can bring it down long enough to mount a series of attacks on their bases — and the collaborator government in London. At the very least, we would force them to fall back and rebuild their collaborator force from scratch. We might even give them enough of a bloody nose that they pull out of Britain altogether.”

“I doubt they will feel inclined to surrender,” Gabriel said, dryly. “It’s much more likely that they’ll take a step back and hammer us from space.”

“It’s possible,” Lightbridge-Stewart agreed. “The problem, however, is simple; do we take advantage of the one chance we are likely to get to hurt them, and smash their collaborator government, or do we surrender the initiative to them? We know they’ve been working on building networks for controlling our civilians and putting them to work on alien projects. How long is it going to be before the last resistance fighters are pushed to the Highlands, or the North Yorkshire Moors, or…”

Gabriel nodded. “We’re stuck,” he said. “We can keep irritating them, but if we piss them off too much they might just decide that they’re better off without us.”

“Maybe not,” Lightbridge-Stewart said. “We were talking to the alien captive about them committing genocide — about them wiping out the entire human race. From what we were told, they can’t — there are interstellar laws that prohibit genocide.”

“There are human laws that prohibit genocide,” Gabriel pointed out. “I don’t recall anyone actually stepping up to the plate and stopping the slaughter in Sudan. The laws aren’t enforced, so…”

He shrugged, remembering how frustrated he’d felt before the aliens had landed and shown him just how helpless many people in undeveloped countries must have felt over the years. It was easy to get governments to condemn genocide, but much harder to actually convince them to do anything about it, no matter how clear-cut the case for intervention. He had no doubt that they could have stopped the slaughter in Sudan or any of the other stricken countries in Africa, yet the cost would have been horrific and there was no hope that anyone else would pick up the tab.

“Apparently, the interstellar races do enforce the laws,” Lightbridge-Stewart said, slowly. “There’s no law against invading a planet that can’t defend itself, it seems, but there is one against deliberately causing a genocide. That’s something we can use against them.”

“They can kill a hell of a lot of us without committing genocide,” Gabriel pointed out, sourly. Dear God — had he ever wanted to be Prime Minister? One less scandal and he might have died in London when the aliens landed, or perhaps found himself drafted into the collaborator government. The entire weight of the world rested on his shoulders. “How sure are we that the aliens wouldn’t exterminate us?”

“I think we are reasonably sure,” Lightbridge-Stewart said. “But they will certainly push back hard when we start pushing them.”

“True,” Gabriel said. They needed a victory. They needed something they could use to inspire resistance all over the country. And after the aliens had forced them to surrender their captive, they needed one desperately. “I authorise the operation.”

He hesitated. “And I hope to God that we’re not making a terrible mistake,” he added. “The aliens won’t hesitate to hammer us if we push them right out of the country.”

Tra’ti Gra’sha kept one eye on the countryside around him as his small patrol skimmed down the human road, looking for trouble. It all looked peaceful, apart from the handful of birds flying through the air, but the undergrowth had been known to hide all kinds of surprises over the past few weeks. The humans were past masters at burying an IED and using it to hit a patrol, and then bringing in armed bands to catch the survivors before they had a chance to escape. Some of the Land Forces patrolling the ground around their bases had taken the opportunity to burn as much as they could of the local foliage, making it impossible for the humans to use it as a hiding place.

The armoured vehicle slowed as the driver caught sight of a group of animals blocking the road. Gra’sha hefted his weapon, alert for trouble; it wouldn’t be the first time that some enterprising human had used animals to block a patrol’s route while preparing an ambush. The driver had similar thoughts and turned the vehicle onto the embankment, relaying on the hover-cushion to keep it upright and moving. A fence splintered as the vehicle brushed against it, but they ignored it and kept moving. The humans knew better than to complain about their damaged property. If they wanted to keep their property and their lives intact, they could stop harbouring the rogues who ambushed patrols.

He heard the sound of the animals protesting as the vehicle skimmed past them and back down onto the road. A pair of young humans — females, judging from their increased frontal development — jumped back in shock, clearly not having heard their approach until it was far too late. Gra’sha resisted the temptation to wave in their direction, knowing that they would probably be planting bombs or taking shots at him in the next few years. At least this bunch of humans seemed reluctant to send their young to war. There were tales of human children carrying bombs right up to patrols in some other parts of the world, although they could be just rumours. Rumour-spreading was officially forbidden, which didn’t stop troopers from exchanging rumours and survival tips at every opportunity. Even the newcomers from the homeworld had finally learned to listen to those who had landed on Earth with the first invasion force. They’d survived the worst that the humans could throw at them.

Two aircraft flew overhead, matching course with the armoured vehicle for a few moments. It always made Gra’sha feel better to know that there were aircraft overhead, watching and waiting to provide support if they ran into trouble. They were supposed to run a random patrol, but there were only a handful of possible routes from the base they could run and the humans knew them all. Even if they didn’t run into an ambush this time, they were likely to run into one the next time… and some human ambushes had been nasty.

He was still watching the environment when he saw a single naked Eridiani standing by the side of the road. For a moment, Gra’sha refused to believe what he was seeing — and then he connected it with the missing intelligence officer the Command Triad had warned them to look out for. It was just typical of intelligence to insist that the troopers on the ground poured out all the stops for a missing intelligence officer — not that he would ever dare say that out loud, of course. Intelligence officers tended to spend more time watching their subordinates for disloyalty rather than monitoring their human enemies. Absently, he wondered if that were true of the human intelligence organisations too. Probably. Certain things were universal, even among the non-humanoid race that had been the State’s first major foe.

The vehicle pulled to a halt near the missing officer and Gra’sha dismounted, quickly. It was quite possible that the humans were using their captive as the bait in a trap, although quite what they hoped to gain from it was beyond him. The intelligence officer seemed rather disorientated as Gra’sha reached him, but looked very relieved to see a friendly face. How had the humans treated him while he was their captive? They did all kinds of horrible things to their fellows, according to the briefings they’d received — what would they do to a captive trooper, let alone someone who could actually tell them what they needed to know.

“It’s all right,” he said, as the intelligence officer staggered towards the vehicle. It looked as though the humans had just dumped him, presumably some distance from their base. They’d take a look at the orbital coverage and see if they could trace the humans back to where they’d kept their captive. “You’re safe now.”

He helped the captive into the vehicle and remounted, hefting his weapon as he surveyed the horizon for human threats. Somehow, he was sure that none would materialise. The humans had wanted to give them the captive — they wouldn’t blow them up now. He smiled as the vehicle hummed back into life and started heading straight back to the base. Whatever the humans had had in mind, there was a good chance of promotion or a bonus from their superiors. And that would give the small crew a chance with the females when mating season rolled around.

And if they managed to trace the humans back to their lair, they might just be able to decapitate the resistance in a single blow.