Their Darkest Hour (39 page)

There was a pause, and then the alien nodded again.  A student of humanity, perhaps?  Human body language had to be alien to the Leathernecks, just as their own body language was almost unreadable to humanity.  He looked at the alien’s clawed hands and winced, inwardly.  The last thing he wanted was the alien behind him with those natural weapons.  He’d heard stories that suggested that the alien claws could cut through flesh and bone. 

He jerked the gun upwards and the aliens shuffled to his feet.  Chris stepped to one side and motioned for her to move towards the stairs and he obeyed, slowly.  He couldn't tell if the alien was moving slowly because he was claustrophobic or because he was hoping that its fellows would come to the rescue.  Chris poked the alien impatiently in the rear end and the alien jerked, before moving a little faster.  His massive bulk blocked half the corridor.

“Get him to the surface and out of the base,” Chris ordered, before peering through the remaining tunnels.  The lighting was failing, suggesting that the base’s emergency generator had been damaged in the fighting.  Or maybe it was just designed to add to the effect.  “We’ll finish searching down here and then get up to join you.”

The remaining rooms were empty, apart from one which had a pair of laptops and several large hard drives piled on one table.  They were definitely human manufacture, which seemed rather odd – even though the aliens had been noted as having an interest in human computers and rounding up human experts they could put to work somewhere outside Britain.  He picked them up anyway, remembering their intelligence sweeps through Taliban hideouts back before the invasion, where they’d found all kinds of interesting information – and porn – on their software.  The intelligence staff would study the laptops and determine if the interrogators had stored anything useful on their systems.  Who knew?  There might be videos of their interrogation sessions that could be played at their trial. 

He glanced into the final room and blinked in surprise.  The interrogators had turned what had once been a small kitchen into a chamber of horrors.  A small pile of tools lay beside a hospital table, which was stained with blood and shit and piss.  He recoiled, despite himself, wondering how anyone could get their kicks by torturing helpless victims.  A cigarette lighter, a welding torch, a dental knife, a rattan cane, a pair of wire cutters...he could see how they’d used each and every one of them to break their victims.  He felt sick, fighting down the urge to go find the interrogators and put a bullet through their brains.  Even the Taliban hadn’t been so unpleasant to their captives.

A glance in a cupboard revealed a small fortune’s worth of cannabis and heroin, as well as some luxury foodstuffs that had been unavailable since the invasion.  He couldn’t tell if the interrogators had used them for themselves or tormented their captives with them, although he could see how they might addict someone to a drug and then leave the withdrawal symptoms as yet another form of torture.  One compartment held booze, mainly the muck that various farmers were trying to brew in the absence of government officials to tell them not to make their own.  Some of the bottles, however, were old enough to impress even the hardened officers in the mess.  Chris couldn't imagine what the torturers had done with the booze.

“Splash the fuel around here and let’s go,” he ordered, harshly.  He didn't quite recognise his own voice.  Outside the room, back in the darkened tunnels, he could see just how easily the torturers could break their victims.  They’d be able to convince them that the tunnels went on forever, that there was no hope of escape...the bastards must have been laughing as they enjoyed making people suffer.  Perhaps they hadn't even produced results.

He unhooked a small bottle from his belt and splashed the contents around as they headed back to the stairs.  The compound had been devised by chemists – it was a distant relative of napalm – but they’d never been allowed to use it in action.  They’d followed the ROEs carefully when the world had made sense, yet they no longer mattered now.  He pulled a small detonator from his belt as they reached the top of the stairs and tossed it down the shaft.  It produced a spark which ignited the liquid, sending flames roaring through the underground complex.  The torture chamber, the supplies the torturers had hoarded and the evidence of their grizzly task went up in flames.  By the time it burned itself out, it would have incinerated everything, leaving the aliens nothing, but ashes.

“Get the prisoners out to the RV point,” he ordered, as he headed back out into the open.  The sound of shooting grew louder from the direction of the alien strongpoint.  They were merely keeping the aliens pinned down, rather than trying to kill them – and invite the aliens to bombard the base from orbit.  “Have we emptied the wire?”

The aliens had established two detention cages, one male, one female.  They’d cut through the wire once they’d driven the aliens back from the execution grounds, but several of the prisoners were too terrified to move.  Others had started streaming out as soon as the wire had been cut, heading out to the countryside and hopefully away from the aliens.  Chris had detailed men to round up the prisoners and take them to resistance hideouts, but if any of the prisoners wanted to go their own way, that was fine with him.  The further they were spread over the countryside, the harder it would be for the aliens to round them all up again.  He did hope that they were smart enough not to go home.  The aliens and their collaborators would presumably have lists of who had escaped and where their families lived, assuming they has families.

He glanced back at the alien base and allowed himself a quick smile.  They’d devastated the place.  Many of the buildings were tough enough to take the flames without being completely wrecked, but they’d killed dozens of aliens and destroyed their interrogation program.  And they’d even destroyed a handful of alien vehicles.  No one was quite sure how long it would take for the aliens to get resupplied from their homeworld, yet it would throw a crimp into their invasion and occupation plans.  And even
that
didn't take account of how badly their reputation would suffer.  Once the news of the raid got out on the internet, resistance fighters all over the world would take heart and try their own attacks on alien bases.

“Sir,” Sergeant Gravesend snapped.  “I just picked up a flash message from the watchers.  The aliens are on their way!”

Chris nodded.  “Good,” he said.  “Let’s see just how badly we can maul them this time.”

***

Alex’s entire body hurt, worse than anything she’d ever experienced, but she would have endured worse for the chance of freedom.  One of the rescue party had passed her a coat which she’d used to cover her nakedness, yet she wouldn't have minded even that.  Her feet hurt from the broken tarmac and grass they had to cross – they didn't have any shoes – and she felt as if she was half-stumbling from the pain, but she kept moving.  She wasn't going to allow this chance to escape because of the pain.

A burly man ahead of her was breaking the escapees down into small groups.  “You’re going with Group Five,” he said, pointing to Alex, who nodded.  Her heart was pounding like a drum, the rhythm seemingly echoing inside her head.  Could she hear the sound of alien helicopters, or was it just her imagination?  “Follow Wilson there and don’t slow down.  The Leathernecks are on their way.”

She caught sight of a pair of bound men being pushed along by some of the soldiers and realised, with a burst of unholy delight, that one of them was the tall man who’d tortured her.  The thought kept her moving, even as the sound of alien helicopters grew louder; there would be a chance for revenge.  Maybe she could torture him herself, if he proved unwilling to talk...she pushed the thought aside, disgusted at herself.  And yet it had a seductive appeal...

“Keep running,” Wilson snapped.  “You’re not safe yet!”

Alex bowed her head and kept moving.

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.