Mrs Piper Between the Sea and Sky by Kali Wallace (Asimov’s SF, March-April 2021) opens with a British agent on her way to abduct a man called Piper from a house near Plymouth:
It was Hazel’s turn at the checkpoint.
[. . .]
“Papers,” said the guard.
A powerful stench rolled outward from the booth: the acrid scent of burnt sugar with a metallic undertone, like a dusting of rust on the tongue. For a second Hazel could not speak. Her words, her excuses, they stuck in her throat like iron needles, and a feverish fresh fear swept over her entire body.
The young man was not alone in the booth.
[. . .]
His gaze flicked to the left. The Guest was right behind him.
Hazel looked away so quickly the road blurred before her. A glance was enough.
The Guest filled the tiny booth, filled it and surpassed it and engulfed it from within, a gleaming, cold darkness without boundary or form. It stretched and seeped at the edge of her vision, a nauseating lack of stillness that was, even so, impossible to track as motion.
People compared the Guests to black fire and living oil, roiling shadows and storm-cast skies. Some spoke of the unknown depths of the sea. Hazel was not given to poetry in the face of such ugliness. To her they were only darkness and corruption.
“This is acceptable,” the man said. His voice cracked. He was so terribly young. “Go on. Move along.” p. 79
We later learn that the aliens have interrupted WWII and have annihilated both Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Russia. Piper, the man who Hazel is travelling to see, voluntarily served with the Guests, and she hopes to abduct him so her organisation can retrieve an alien control device that was inserted into him. The resistance hope this will provide information that will help them in their fight against the aliens.
When Hazel arrives (spoiler), she has tea with his wife, who cooperates, before drugging Piper and taking him away.
This is moderately intriguing, but there is a too much going on and not enough of that is explained. The ending also leaves the story hanging in the air, which makes it feels like an extract from a longer work. A pity—it is not a bad read otherwise.
** (Average). 6,500 words.