Nightfall

by Moshe Ben-Or

  He got up. Turned his poncho back to garment mode.

  “Yoseph will do. This is Mirabelle. How can I be of service, Mr. Takawa?”

  This was ridiculous, thought Yosi. Here they were, standing in the middle of the woods, exchanging pleasantries as if at a picnic. There was a war on, for Heaven’s sake!

  “Call me Shin, if you please,” responded Takawa politely.

  “I have come across an injured belter, not far from here. It is fortunate that I happened to meet you just now. Please come with me.”

  * 32 *

  The escape pod had clearly come from a League military vessel. The fact that the thing was essentially a zero-gee bubble with a reentry shield made it pretty obvious whom it belonged to even without the prominent French lettering and the Serpent Swarm Corporate Security Force markings on the fuselage. It sat in the shelter of an ancient shelleaf whose many column-like trunks and vast spread of foliage could have easily concealed a small mansion. A camouflage parachute, barely visible to Yosi’s trained, poncho-enhanced eye, had entangled itself in the branches up near the top of the tree, about thirty meters above his head, as the pod came down. The pod’s AI was using it to conceal the great big hole the falling pod had made in the massive canopy. The mess of knocked-off branches, scattered leaves and turned-up dirt was obvious to someone standing down on the ground next to the shelleaf, but nigh-on invisible to any potential eye-in-the-sky.

  The zero-gee bubble’s occupant looked to be about sixty – middle aged for a belter. He floated lifelessly in the control chair, either dead or unconscious. Tubes and wires belonging to the pod’s autodoc stretched from the chair to the man’s body. His uniform proclaimed him to be an active-duty Senior Bosun by the name of Leclerk, currently assigned to the Paradise Joint Peacekeeping Squadron.

  With half an ear, Yosi listened to his new companion’s narrative as he took in the scene.

  Takawa had left San Cristobal in the early morning of the fifteenth of November, for reasons that sounded roughly similar to the ones that had prompted Yosi’s own trip into the wilderness. Shin had felt the need to, as he put it, escape the modern world for a few days in order to regain his inner balance. Even the natural-fabric clothes he was wearing, and the antique weaponry he was carrying, had been specially brought from back home just for the purpose of undertaking this kensho-seeking excursion.

  In Yosi’s opinion, that was a whole lot of fancy talk to mask the man’s desire for some time to himself on Paradise, away from the prying ImpSec agents who accompanied the Imperial team for “security reasons” whenever it ventured outside the Empire’s borders.

  Kensho, were that truly Shin Takawa’s object, could just as readily, and far more comfortably and cheaply, have been sought upon a square cushion in a quiet hotel room in San Cristobal. The contemplation of the living koan that was this planet’s ecology required neither an actual excursion into the Dourados, nor any traipsing about the pristine, strenuously protected wilderness above the Toxic Line.

  Were he not the Empire’s only shot at an Olympic medal in freestyle fighting, Shin Takawa would not have been allowed the liberty of seeking insight into the true nature of reality all by his lonesome, deep in the middle of an alpine forest somewhere north of the Angeleno Plateau, even if he could personally afford the expense thanks to all those Mighty Pepper commercials.

  Last night, when Shin had come across the escape pod, was the first time he’d had any reason to unpack his radio. The fact that the radio was dead had turned his thoughts from the possibility of some terrible accident to the ever-present danger that, despite the recent return to calm and nearly civil relations after the Nalus Incident, the League and the Empire had gone to war. Upon mature reflection, he had rejected this possibility as well. It simply didn’t fit.

  From the astropolitical point of view, a war between the League and the Empire could not be won by either side and would only benefit the Archduchy of Omicron. As a loyal subject of the Emperor, Shin disliked the League. But, unlike most Imperial subjects, he believed the Leaguers to be neither psychotic nor bent on universal conquest. And he certainly did not consider them foolish. If two years ago, during the Nalus Incident, the two sides could engage in fleet-level border clashes for a month and still come to terms, it was unlikely that war would break out now, in a time of relative quiet.

  Furthermore, it was inconceivable that someone from the team would not call him immediately should some outrage on the border lead to so violent a downturn in relations. Surely nothing could be so ugly as to produce war in a matter of hours.

  Since he didn’t know French, Takawa couldn’t understand the pod’s readouts and controls. Nor did he consider it wise to disturb anything, least he trigger the automatic defenses he assumed to surely be present on a League military escape pod. He therefore decided to hike as fast as possible to San Angelo and contact the authorities. He had barely started out when he’d bumped into Yosi.

  As he approached the pod, Yoseph considered whether or not Takawa could be trusted. Certainly Shin Takawa the Imperial subject was technically an enemy, however honorable. But Shin Takawa the human being seemed to be an honest and decent man. As long as the two Takawas did not come into conflict, Yosi could probably treat the man as an ally. He entertained no delusions, however, as to what would happen should Shin Takawa’s notions of personal decency stand in the way of his duty to his Emperor.

  It was improbable that the Empire was allied with the aliens who had attacked Paradise. Very improbable. Nonetheless, it was possible. Perhaps it was best to simply shoot the man now, rather than live with the potential threat that he represented. On the other hand, thought Yosi, death was an irreversible business. The likes of Shin Takawa could be useful, now and in the future.

  What he really needed to do was take a good look at the pod’s master log. He couldn’t possibly have found a better source of information.

  * 33 *

  Shin’ichi Takawa leaned against a tree, feigning casualness as he watched Yoseph Weismann examine the escape pod’s readouts. The Leaguer’s companion, a Paradisian girl with a submachinegun and a wild look in her eyes, was eyeing him suspiciously and not even bothering to conceal the fact. She stood well out of reach of Shin’s katana, weapon pointed casually in his general direction. She did not appear to be a trained warrior. Should things get ugly, he could kill her instantly, with the shuriken hidden in his sleeve.

  Weismann was a thornier problem. First of all, he was a Leaguer and thus, by definition, a trained killer. Second, he was the kind of man Duke Freeman would entrust with the life of his grandson.

  Yoseph Weismann had an air of deadliness about him, even more so than most of his disturbingly warlike countrymen. His past was one giant question mark, sealed air-tight by order of the League’s Ministry of the Interior. That privacy seal was warning in and of itself. The sole clues as to what hid behind it were a Silver Circle, an Early Citizenship by Blood citation and a Wound Badge First Class.

  Nominally, Yoseph Weismann was twenty-nine. But until about twelve years ago, as far as all accessible records were concerned, he simply hadn’t existed. Just popped out of thin air on Sparta sometime early in 3759, Silver Circle and all, and immediately entered Duke Freeman’s household in some unspecified capacity. Not four years later, the man is a Freeman household knight all of a sudden; the promotion having to do with Prince Leonidas Freeman just happening to be in the exactly wrong part of the Purple Palace at the exact wrong time.

  Because everyone takes two-am strolls around heavily guarded palaces on foreign planets in the middle of bloody coups, don’t you know? And, of course, all the eyewitnesses who claimed to have seen a bunch of Leaguers storming the Purple Palace in the middle of that same night simply needed to have their eyes examined. That’s why not a one of them had resurfaced these past eight years. They were all away somewhere, getting their eyes examined.

  “Clues enough for the wise,” thought Shin Takawa.

  Clues, and the
n some.

  He was willing to bet that Yoseph Weismann, or whatever his real name, was about three times twenty-nine; and that none of those extra years had been spent quietly sitting around.

  Even so, hand-to-hand Takawa believed that he would win, without undue difficulty.

  However, Weismann was armed. And Shin would bet Imperial Credits to sand that though the man’s back was ostensibly turned, throwing the shuriken at him would be useless. Besides, if he threw the shuriken at Weismann, thought Takawa, the girl would mow him down on the spot.

  The situation didn’t look promising.

  For the umpteenth time, Shin regretted never bothering to learn a League language. Hebrew, for example, or Spartan or even French. Weismann had told him nothing of what he was doing here, who the girl was or what in the Emperor’s most hallowed name was going on.

  The girl and the Leaguer spoke Hebrew among themselves, though it seemed to Shin that the girl understood Standard. If he knew Hebrew, perhaps he would have some information by now. For that matter, knowledge of any of the three Leaguer languages would have enabled him to read the pod’s readouts. Everything in the League was trilingual. Shin was certain the pod’s controls could be set to Hebrew or Spartan, if one understood either.

  Regrets, however, were pointless. Unless one planned to enter the Foreign Service or make a career in ImpSec, it made no sense to learn the languages of the League, with their strange alphabets and illogical structures. Or any other foreign tongue, for that matter. Standard was plainly superior. If a foreigner wished to speak to Imperial subjects, he’d better learn Standard.

  Still, Sun Tzu’s timeless wisdom kept floating, unbidden, up from the depths of his mind. “Know thine enemy, and know thyself...”

  “When this is all over, I am going to learn Hebrew,” resolved Shin Takawa. “No matter how many eyebrows that raises.”

  * 34 *

  Yosi slid his citizen’s card into the pod’s lock and placed his hand atop the genescan panel. Momentarily, the pod extended its external control console and reset its readouts to Hebrew. Yoseph mused that if Takawa had tried to open the bubble he would, indeed, most likely have been electrocuted by the automatic defenses.

  Swiftly he examined the medical display. Things didn’t look good.

  Belter bones were made out of carbon nanotubes woven into an incredibly complex pattern. Though it took years to grow, the pattern had the strength of aircraft-grade titanium alloy. In an impact, a belter’s bones would generally simply deform slightly and bounce back into shape, spring-fashion. Yet Leclerk’s lower right shoulder was smashed. Four ribs on his left side had caved in and snapped under the force of some titanic impact. Shards of bone had ricocheted through the left lung and the abdomen, perforating the large intestine, severing the pancreas in two, cutting the stomach and liver. Shock waves had traveled throughout the body, turning muscle and organ tissue into a mass of bruised and dying flesh. Enormous hemorrhages had occurred within the body cavity. Miraculously, the brain had been spared the worst. There was whiplash and a major concussion but that was all.

  Leclerk’s body had done its genetically-engineered best to cope with the damage. Cut arteries and veins had been shut down, sealed with internally produced surgical glue and bypassed as well as possible. Most of the lacerated liver had been abandoned to mummify, leaving only a small, isolated fragment to work overtime. The stomach and intestines had closed on the perforations, sealing them as best they could with what little surgical glue the body could spare. Calcium phosphate scaffolding was already beginning to knit the broken bones back together on a temporary basis, until the nanotubes grew back.

  The autodoc’s nanites, not nearly numerous enough for the job, had done their best to fix the massive bruising of the heart, right kidney and right lung, seeking to bring them into working order before the autodoc’s heart-lung-kidney machine gave out. More nanites were desperately trying to make the digestive tract capable of accepting the pod’s emergency rations, as the supply of injectable nutrients would not last much longer. The entire supply of artificial blood carried by the pod had been used up in transfusions. All thirty liters.

  With a grim precision, the medical AI formulated a final diagnosis. Leclerk was dying. The kidney, lung, digestive tract and heart could not all be repaired in time, yet all were needed in order for the patient to survive without the machine. The man needed the services of a major hospital. Given no changes, the AI predicted death due to multiple organ failure in roughly thirty hours.

  The defensive measures AI indicated that no friendly transmissions had been received by the pod and so the recovery beacon remained inactive. On the orders of the medical AI, it was preparing to destroy all logs and initiate transmission of distress signals at midnight, in the hope that the enemy would save the occupant’s life.

  Yosi countermanded the medical AI’s orders and turned to the logs.

  The pod and Leclerk had once belonged to the missile corvette DTLS Leste, assigned directly to Paradise Squadron HQ as a courier and reconnaissance vessel. As it ejected the escape pods, the Leste’s dying AI had downloaded the standard three weeks’ log and detailed sensor scans of the enemy.

  From the log, a combat squadron of unknown origin, consisting of four battleships, six battlecruisers, a carrier, three destroyers, eleven frigates, twenty-three corvettes and five gunboats had transitioned into the jump zone formed by the twin gas giants Gabriel and Mikhael at 0852.38 hours on 17 November. The jump signature indicated a transition carried out across a very great distance.

  The unidentified vessels engaged the duty detachment on station without bothering to respond to hails. The duty detachment, consisting of barely half as many ships as the enemy, fell back in good order to the cover of the guns and missile batteries of Fort Number Twelve, in orbit of Gabriel. Fort Number Twelve immediately used its ansible to request reinforcements from Squadron HQ.

  In the three minutes it took Squadron HQ to absorb the situation and issue the relevant orders via its battery of ansibles, six more enemy battlegroups transitioned into the same jump zone. In the ten minutes more it took every ship immediately available to Squadron HQ to arrive at the jump zone, the number of enemy battlegroups had swelled to twenty-two. The jump zone fortifications were being overwhelmed.

  Couriers, the Leste among them, transitioned to the half-dozen systems easily reachable from the Paradise jump zones, alerting Imperial and League border squadrons and fleet commands.

  The Leste returned to Paradise at 0935, transitioning from Esther with the ready detachment of the Sixth Fleet. Upon arrival, the Sixth Fleet detachment joined the raging battle against hundreds of alien warships pouring in a seemingly endless stream out of the main jump zone. Roughly by noon, the number of alien ships had grown into the thousands.

  The aliens’ advantage in numbers was multiplied by the fact that they clearly operated off of one set of mutually-entangled ansibles, while the surprised human defenders were forced to make do with over a dozen different ansible arrays, all mediated by laser flash, courier and the occasional flagship whose multiple ansibles had been pre-entangled with those of several neighboring outfits as per standing procedure.

  The defense simply could not have held, thought Yosi as he skimmed through the summaries. The aliens’ sheer numbers had guaranteed them a victory from the first shot. And with every lost capital ship and every damaged ansible core, the human forces’ already-discordant command and control became ever more fragmented and ever more reliant on expedients. Soon, small groups were fighting rearguard actions as remnants of the defeated human force jumped out to their various rally points.

  The Leste, together with four other corvettes and a light cruiser, was cut off from one such rearguard and pushed toward the system’s sole habitable world.

  Having suffered by now at least seventeen burn-throughs, with shield matter running low, missiles expended, microjump drive damaged, having lost nearly half her compartments, she made a desperate attempt
to prevent the enemy from bombing San Cristobal, and was destroyed at 1211.23 hours.

  Yosi paused in his reading. A heavy sadness descended upon him like a dark, wet cloak.

  Thousands of men had died in the few hours covered by the log’s final entries.

  He had expected things to be ugly out there, but this… this… armageddon…

  Yosi rubbed his eyes to keep them from tearing up.

  A tiny tendril of of fear flicked across his heart. He squashed it violently down but still it had time to squeak, with horrifying plausibility: “We might lose.”

  In this one engagement, the invaders had fielded a force more than twice the size of the entire active-duty League navy.

  “Decades,” he growled at the treacherous little tendril as fear turned instantly to ice-cold rage, “It will take decades!”

  The League did not lose wars. The League had the Advantage of No Choice.

  Miri and Shin were both staring at him. He’d growled out loud.

  The log settled it. The enemy was definitely not in collusion with the Empire. Takawa would live, for now.

  There was one thing left to do. According to the AI, Leclerk kept to the Gaian Creed. Yosi gave a simple set of orders to the medical AI.

  Fix the lung and the concussion well enough to last a few dozen minutes. Bring the patient to consciousness and keep him coherent as long as possible while keeping the pain to a minimum.

  As Leclerk opened his eyes, Yosi said, with clear and quiet solemnity:

  “You have roughly forty-five minutes left to live. The autodoc can do no more. Compose your deathword. I will witness it before the Eternal Spirit.”

  Leclerk blinked, absorbing the information. Slowly, his face assumed the ritual calm of a belter about to undergo the Passing Beyond ceremony.

  “Can you record a message?” he asked in a voice carefully controlled to keep it from trembling, “I would like to dictate a letter to my wife first.”