Nightfall

by Jay Allan

  He slid down a steep drop on the path and turned toward the entry, pushing aside the vines hanging down, completely obscuring the view of the barely recognizable door. Just as he reached out, it swung open, and he was greeted by several Marines standing just inside, rifles pointed at his head.

  It only took an instant before they recognized him, and even as they lowered their guns, he stumbled down to one knee…and then to the ground.

  Exhaustion took him, and even as he struggled to regain his focus, darkness came over his eyes, and, after a brief welcoming session, he stumbled to the pile of straw that served as his bed, and he slipped into a deep sleep.

  * * *

  “Your report sounds positive, Kiloron, but any analysis at all shatters that illusion and reveals it to be just a carefully-concocted brew of excuses.” Carmetia stood in the middle of the room, her posture rigidly erect, every movement, every glance of her eyes leaving no doubt who was in command.

  She turned her head. “And, you, Master Develia, what do you have to say about this?”

  Develia looked as though she was trying to suppress anger, though whether that stifled rage was directed at Kaleth, the kiloron who’d pursed the rebels and somehow managed to lose them, or Carmetia, who never seemed to tire of asserting her superior ranking whenever the two met.

  “Commander…Kiloron Kaleth is correct. We may not have caught the partisans or found the exact location of their refuge, but it is very likely we have narrowed the area to…”

  “Narrowed? Is that not what you have been doing for months now? Narrowing your search parameters?” Carmetia knew she was being unfair, at least to an extent. Develia hadn’t entirely pacified the resistance, but her forces had degraded it enormously. Whatever was still out there, it was a fraction of what it had been, in both numbers and capabilities. The days of massive assaults on power plants were behind them now, and in Port Royal City, pacification operations were proceeding quite satisfactorily. If things continued the way they had been, she even imagined commencing the project to give the former Confeds the Test. She was curious how they would rank. In some ways, they seemed foolish and primitive to her, yet in others, she saw something more.

  “In fairness, Commander, if you look at the casualty estimates and the operations reports, I think you will see we are actually moving matters at a satisfactory pace.”

  “It is not satisfactory to me, Master Develia, and since Commander Chronos appointed me military governor of the entire system, I guess my opinion is all that matters.” She paused. “Get your senior officers in here now, Develia…and tell them we’ll be here all night, and probably all day tomorrow, too. We’re going to go over every scrap of information you have, and we’re not leaving here until we’ve got a plan to crush the remnants of this pointless resistance.”

  * * *

  “Are you sure, sir?” Clark Hoffman looked over at Holcott, at least as well as he could with his single remaining eye. Hoffman had survived the fighting, lived to stand beside Holcott in the last refuge, but he hadn’t done it without paying a price. He’d lost the eye to enemy incendiary fire. The Kriegeri had a nasty weapon, a sort of shrapnel that superheated as it struck the atmosphere. Only the tiniest fragment had hit him in the face, but it had proven to be enough to burn out his entire eye.

  “What choice do we have, Captain? We’re down to our last hideout…and, that’s what it’s become, a place to hide. We don’t have the personnel or the ordnance to conduct any meaningful operations anymore.” He looked up at the other Marine. “Except maybe one more.”

  “What chance do we have of success, Major? I just don’t see how…”

  “Would you rather sit here until they triangulate our location? Would you prefer to die in this stinking, moldy pit, exterminated like some kind of vermin?” A pause “Look around, Clark. Does this look like someplace we can defend against the kind of assault they’ll launch at us? Do we have the ordnance left to face those tanks, to gun down hundreds of Kriegeri?” Holcott knew the answer to his question already, and he was pretty sure Hoffman did, too.

  The captain nodded, but he remained silent.

  “We’re finished, Luther. You know that as well as I do. I have no idea what is happening in the war at large, but unless a massive Confederation fleet is on its way to Dannith, the battle here is over. The people have given up, and our attacks have hurt them as much as the enemy. They probably hate us as much as they do the Kriegeri. But, if we do this…well, if we have to die, this is how I would choose to do it.”

  Holcott stared into his exec’s eyes, and he could almost see the officer imagining the operation. Launching a decapitation strike into Port Royal City, targeting the Hegemony headquarters and killing every officer in sight…it seemed insane, something only the craziest fool would try. And, perhaps, in that, lay the one chance for some level of success.

  The raid would be a suicide operation, almost certainly, but remaining in their last rathole, waiting like sheep for the enemy to find them…that was just as likely to end in death. And, an end far more bitter to a Marine than dying on the attack, striking at the enemy with his final breath.

  There were many ways to die, and Luther Holcott would choose the Marine way. If his people had to die, if they were to face their last stand, they would do it weapons in hand, striking at the enemy in the last way they had available to them.

  “I’m with you, sir…and the others as well, I’m sure. You are right. If we have to die, let us die as Marines.”

  * * *

  “You will have to come up with at least a thousand more Kriegeri for the final push.” Carmetia was looking down at the table, at a map of the area two hundred kilometers around Port Royal City. One section to the northwest of the city was shaded, approximately eight hundred square kilometers with a ninety-six percent chance of containing an enemy base of operations…and an eighty-two percent probability that refuge was the last one remaining. The forces Develia and her staff had proposed were likely adequate to trap and destroy the remnants of the resistance, but the ground commander on Dannith had underestimated the enemy before, and Carmetia was determined to see that didn’t happen again. She wanted the enemy destroyed, and enough troops committed to cover every possible avenue of escape. The war on Dannith would end with this operation, whatever it took to ensure that.

  “That will require transferring forces from garrison duty, Commander. With the first round of the Test coming, and the ongoing construction of fleet support facilities, it will be difficult to find that number.” Dannith was designated as the primary support facility for the fleet, a way station for incoming supplies and ordnance as well as the location of planned shipyards to support the efforts of the logistical fleet. “Perhaps if so many of the ground troops initially assigned to the invasion had not been so quickly withdrawn…”

  “Do not try to obscure your failures with fleet policy, Commander. You had ample forces to pacify this planet.” Carmetia wasn’t being entirely honest. She, also, thought Chronos had been too quick to pull forces out for his invasions of Ulion and other Confederation worlds. But, there was nothing she could do about that, and she wasn’t about to listen to Develia complain about it.

  “My apologies, Master Carmetia. It is only…that the enemy here has exhibited far greater endurance and tenacity than I had expected.”

  Carmetia didn’t know if Develia was trying to manipulate her, or if she was just being honest, but she’d been riding her immediate subordinate hard the past few days, and she decided to pull back on that a bit. “That is certainly the case, Commander. The defensive forces here have lasted longer than I expected, as well…and I suspect nothing you could have done would have quickly or easily defeated them. This is their world, after all. They know it better than we do. And, you have done quite well in controlling the citizenry. If you hadn’t, we’d likely be facing outbreaks of rebellion in a hundred places. Instead, there is little support for the resistance…and in some cases, actual resentment for the da
mage those forces have inflicted.”

  “Thank you, Master Carmetia. Your words are greatly appreciated.”

  Carmetia nodded. The two Masters had a tentative, sometimes outright difficult relationship, but Carmetia knew friction between them wasn’t helpful to their shared mission. “It is as much for such reasons I believe we must err on the side of too much force. If we indeed have a chance to eradicate this prolonged resistance, we must do everything possible to see that it is done in this final effort.”

  “I agree, Master Carmetia.” A pause. “I believe we can draw two hundred Kriegeri from spaceport security. It is unlikely the enemy would be able to penetrate the outer defenses there. We might also place several hundred on extended duty…delaying rest periods and minor medical procedures.”

  Carmetia just nodded. She’d had Develia and her people there for almost twelve hours, and they were going to be working a lot longer. The final search and destroy mission on the resistance fighters would launch in thirty-six hours, and she wasn’t about to let anything interfere with that. Chronos was deeply occupied in the assault on Megara, but she wasn’t about to let the fleet commander check on her after that fight and realize she was still fighting to secure Dannith, while he had crushed the Confederation fleet and taken their capital.

  “Very good…that gets us a third of the way there.” She glanced up at the chronometer. It was late…and it was going to get later. A lot later. Because no one was leaving the room until the assault was one hundred percent planned out and ready.

  * * *

  “Keep moving…there’s no time to waste. We’ve got to be at the target before dawn.” Holcott still felt unsettled. The rapidity of the planning and the immediacy of the execution was almost overwhelming. It made the whole thing seemed half-baked, which, of course, it was. But, his Marines were formed up behind him, and they were with him, too, in every sense of the word. The base, their last stronghold, had been abandoned and booby-trapped. Whatever happened, is was beyond unlikely any of them were going back there.

  He pushed forward, his feet moving slowly through the muck of the swamp floor, his body half-submerged in the murky water. He was cold, his fatigues soaked through, the bite of the night air only adding to his misery. But, none of that mattered. His mind was on the mission, on the task ahead. The plan was an audacious one, crazy even, but it just might work. Surprise would be on his side, at least, if only because no one would imagine he and his few survivors would try something so insane.

  He looked through the reedy plants to the dry ground just ahead, and beyond, the city. Port Royal, the capital of Dannith, and home to one of the most notorious Spacer’s Districts in the Confederation, where all manner of illicit trade flourished.

  Had flourished. It felt strange for a Marine to think wistfully of smugglers grounded and criminal organizations shut down, but if the cost of such law and order was domination by the Hegemony and its Masters, he’d just as soon put up with the Badlands adventurers and small time District gangsters.

  He reached up, grabbing onto a course vine and pulling himself up out of the water. The swamp had to be the most miserable route to sneak into Port Royal City, but it was also the most discrete. They’d run into one small patrol of two guards, but they’d managed to take the Kriegeri by surprise and kill them before they could radio for help. One of the soldiers had cried out before he’d fallen, and Holcott had endured a tense half hour or so wondering if anyone had heard the shouts. But, all seemed well.

  As well as they could be for one hundred eighteen Marines, exhausted and soaked to the bone, marching through a city occupied by thousands of the enemy…to strike a desperate blow to kill as many of the invaders’ high command as possible. He almost laughed as he repeated that in his head, a caustic bit of gallows humor.

  He pulled the rifle from his back, and he lowered it, stepping slowly forward, first through the soft wet ground, and then up a small rise, to firmer footing. He was out in the open now, more or less, and he knew from this point on, the journey would get more and more dangerous.

  He looked down at his tablet, his eyes scanning the map, checking what he already knew. The Hegemony headquarters was three point two kilometers from where he stood. Less than an hour’s march.

  Then, his survivors, the last, tattered remains of a planet’s defense forces, would be in position.

  In position to cut the head off the enemy.

  * * *

  Steve Blanth sat quietly in the corner. He might have thought he was being ignored, that there was a chance to escape, or at least to strike some kind of blow against the enemy. But, he’d come to know Carmetia too well to imagine the Master would be so careless, and a second glance around the room identified at least three Kriegeri who’d clearly been tasked to watch him. He wouldn’t get two meters from his chair before one of them dropped him with a clean shot to the head…and he knew the Kriegeri rarely missed, at least at such short range.

  Carmetia had brought him into the room, no doubt in her ever-persistent hope that she could convince him to cooperate, or at least to give something away. It was a fool’s game, at least as far as getting him to knowingly help the Kriegeri hunt down his Marines. But, he’d come to appreciate Carmetia’s keen intellect. However repugnant he found the Hegemony’s system of genetic rankings, he couldn’t help but realize the Masters in general, and Carmetia in particular, did seem to be highly intelligent, and physically able specimens.

  That was going to make them even more dangerous enemies than he’d imagined. Though, it didn’t look like he’d be back in the fight anytime soon.

  “The operation will commence at dawn tomorrow.”

  He heard the discussion, the plans for the annihilation of his Marines, the few that still survived, and it cut at his insides that he couldn’t warn them. He considered making a run for it again, trying to find a communication station or some other way to get word to his people. Then, even through the grimness of his despair, he almost laughed at the absurdity of it all. He’d have risked his life, or sacrificed it outright, for any kind of chance at success, but the thought of getting past the Kriegeri, and finding a comm unit before they stopped him was ludicrous to say the least.

  His head snapped around, an abrupt response. He’d heard something, a distant rumble. For an few seconds, he imagined he was hearing things. Then, an alarm went off, and the Kriegeri all snapped up and ran to their stations.

  Any doubt he had vanished an instant later with another sound, an explosion, far closer this time. Then, the sound of gunfire, just outside.

  For an instant, he was stunned, confused, unsure what could be happening. Then, he realized.

  The Marines!

  Suddenly, it all made sense. They had to know the enemy was on the verge of wiping them out…so they decided to launch a surprise attack. Right on the Hegemony headquarters.

  He felt a rush of excitement, a pride in his people, even above the dark realization that they would almost certainly all die in this last titanic effort. But, if they had to die, they would at least met their ends as Marines should.

  And, so would he!

  He scanned the room, trying to look as calm as possible, even as his heart began to beat like a drum. There were still two Kriegeri watching him, but they were also scanning the doors to the room, looking back and forth as though they weren’t sure what to do.

  He waited, biding his time, even as the Masters and Kriegeri senior officers present sprang into action, snapping off orders, gesturing in multiple directions. He almost leapt from his chair, but he stopped himself. No, not yet…

  He was ready to die, but not to throw his life away pointlessly. He needed patience. He had to wait for the right moment.

  An instant later it came.

  The building shook as some kind of explosive, a big one, went off just in front of the structure. The lights blinked, and dust fell from the ceiling. He could hear the sounds of some kind of structural supports collapsing out in the hall, and the soun
ds of the injured screaming.

  Only one Kriegeri was watching him now, and the soldier turned, his eyes moving toward a wounded Master stumbling into the room. Decades of subservience, of dedication to the Masters made it impossible to ignore the wounded commander. The trooper turned, just for a second.

  But, it was the second Blanth needed. He bent his knees low, and then he sprung up from his chair, throwing himself toward the distracted Kriegeri.

  The soldier turned, just in time to see Blanth, but not in time to get out of the way or bring his weapon to bear. The Marine slammed into the augmented soldier, and the two of them fell hard to the floor.

  Blanth struck at the Kriegeri, planting his fist into the soldier’s kidneys, even as his adversary shoved an arm against Blanth’s neck. The fight was a brutal, no holds barred struggle to the death. Only seconds had passed, but it already seemed like an eternity. Blanth knew his opponent was stronger, courtesy of his implants and the controlled breeding that had created a perfect soldier. He was at a disadvantage, one growing ever more dire with each passing second, as the effects of the surprise he’d initially enjoyed faded away.

  The two men rolled across the floor, even as the sounds of gunfire erupted from within the building. The other Kriegeri had run out into the hall. Only Carmetia and two other Masters remained, and they’d been distracted by the attack of the Marines. Now, one of them looked over toward the desperate struggle and moved to intervene.

  Blanth knew he only had seconds. He reached for the pistol at the Kriegeri’s side, even as his enemy tried to bring the weapon around to shoot him. His hands were on his enemy’s arm, his face red and swollen, sweat streaming down everywhere, as he struggled desperately for the pistol.

  The Kriegeri moved to the side, and the two of them rolled over…and then a shot rang out, the gun between the two of them firing.