Nightfall

by Moshe Ben-Or

  There was a blue flash, from a first-story window this time.

  A man who had just staggered onto his feet threw up his hands and toppled backwards with the limp finality of a discarded rag doll.

  Yosi returned fire as he ran.

  A bot took the designation from him a split-second later, putting a machinegun burst through that embrasure.

  Rifles, unlike lasers, would kill even armored men. And even police rifles like the ones Diaz’s people were equipped with had sights able to discern stealthed-up opponents. He needed to nail all the remaining rifles first.

  He was beneath the window now. Deftly, Yosi chucked a grenade inside as he ran past. The barracks entrance was just around the corner.

  “Come on, First Platoon, let’s go! Headquarters group, stack on me!” yelled Yosi as he led his men forward.

  Behind him, the ground erupted in fountains of dirt as the entire second floor of the barracks came suddenly alive with muzzle flashes.

  Shards of concrete and clouds of dust exploded outward from the second-story walls as the men in the courtyard fired a volley of homemade rockets and charged forward after their commander, screaming at the top of their lungs.

  The men of the second wave were coming over the wall, firing wildly as they leapt down into the courtyard.

  Juho Jarvinen’s heavy weapons opened up again, vainly trying to silence the enemy riflemen hidden behind three and a half meters of compressed earth and concrete.

  One of the bots was already galloping ahead of Yosi, aiming to smash up the barracks door.

  * 52 *

  He had badly underestimated Rodrigo Diaz, thought Yosi ruefully. He should have paid more attention to Patty’s apprehensions. He should have listened more closely to her warnings regarding the man’s cunning and intelligence. He should have been more diligent with reconnaissance. He should have, damn it all to hell, spent more time rehearsing the assault.

  With twenty-twenty hindsight, Yosi now knew exactly what had given the bastard such boundless confidence. Diaz didn’t have some two hundred men, like he’d estimated. The son-of-a-bitch had had at least three hundred and fifty. He’d had not one, but two quick reaction forces, of sixty men each, positioned inside the buildings. Able to reinforce each other, too. The barracks and the mansion had turned out to be connected via tunnel.

  Diaz’s best men. The original, pre-Collapse hacienda staff. A good third of them former members of Palmer’s secret police. Two-thirds had been armed with the rifles Diaz had spirited out of the Ministry of State Security building in San Angelo on the day when General Palmer’s headless body had been thrown off the balcony of the Presidential Palace and trampled into hamburger by the riotous mob outside.

  Not only was there a huge arsenal at the hacienda, but the fellows who’d wielded it had been tied to the House of Diaz by bonds stronger than steel. Even before the Collapse, probably every third man had owed the hacendado his life, or at least his freedom. Hand-picked loyalists, every last one, with wives and small children cowering in the interior rooms behind them. Not a single one of those men had run when Juho Jarvinen’s heavy weapons had made mincemeat of the newly-recruited cannon fodder whom Diaz had sent out to man his wall.

  The only saving grace was that the hacendado’s elite troops had lacked ponchos and body armor. If, reflected Yosi, Señor Diaz had been a major in Palmer’s army and not his secret police, the remnants of his own force would now be beating a hasty retreat back up into the hills. As it was, not only had the plan gone out the window the moment the lead squad had crossed over the wall, but the whole thing had been touch-and-go for nigh-on two and a half hours afterward.

  Ultimately, the grenades had saved the day. Them, and the homemade rockets. But mostly the grenades.

  The simple friction-fused cylinders filled with nitroglycerin-soaked ground fertilizer were more reenactors’ toys than real weapons of war; something out of Sparta’s Wars of Unification, completely out of place on a modern battlefield. The shrapnel they scattered couldn’t pose any threat whatsoever to modern armored infantrymen. But against Diaz’s unarmored collaborators the grenades were devastatingly effective.

  Yosi had issued eight to every trooper. And, just as they had practiced, the men threw them everywhere. Not a room, not a hallway and not a stairwell was entered before one, and sometimes two or three grenades had exploded inside. Men rushing in on the heels of the explosions would hose down interior spaces with fully automatic weapons fire, slaughtering anyone still left breathing.

  It would have been nice, thought Yosi, to have used the Zin bots as armored battering rams, to break down the enemy’s desperate opposition. But the bots’ missile launchers were the only weapons he had, other than the three static guns in Juho Jarvinen’s weapons platoon, that were realistically capable of confronting a Zin armored vehicle or aircraft. Fighting at close quarters inside the buildings, the bots’ precious sensors and weapons systems would have been too vulnerable. He had, after all, no ready access to spare parts.

  And so the bots had remained outside, guarding against the possibility that the lazy watch officer whom Señor Diaz had desperately screamed at had, in fact, done something more than shrug his shoulders and go back to sleep when the hacendado’s transmission had cut off in mid-word.

  Instead, the headquarters group had ended up being the battering ram. The which had become a double-edged sword within minutes of the wall having been scaled.

  While Yosi and Leo were busy storming rooms instead of commanding, chaos would reign, units would become intermixed, and confused men would let the enemy slip away, skip rooms, leave flanks uncovered, get lost, or even accidentally start shooting at one another. If they stopped storming rooms and started commanding, the assault would begin to stall.

  Worse still, as far as Yosi was concerned, was the fact that the old barracks building had turned out to retain its original, defense-oriented interior layout. He had expected to take the place in a few minutes with only two squads, but the confusing maze of narrow corridors, tiny rooms and winding spiral staircases had soaked up the entirety of First Platoon for a good two hours.

  In the meantime, Second and Third platoons, lacking both ponchos and armor, were supposed to have established a base of fire in the barracks and later supported armored First Platoon’s assault on the big house. Instead, despite Shin Takawa’s shouts ordering them to stop, the lead two squads of Second Platoon had ended up overexcitedly running right past the barracks building and storming into the mansion. And the whole damned support element had followed them.

  The sheer enthusiasm with which the two unarmored platoons had gone into the attack, and the shock Diaz’s people had still felt from Juho Jarvinen’s devastating opening barrage, had been sufficient to carry Takawa’s troops into the house. But once about half of the first floor had been seized, the assault lost momentum, and the attackers became the defenders, under fire simultaneously from three directions, as well as from the second floor above and from the basement below.

  Only after Yosi had finally managed to get the situation inside the barracks under control and lead two squads of armored men into the manor house did the fight in there swing decisively in his favor.

  But it wasn’t quite over yet. He had finally silenced the last pocket of resistance in the basement. He’d figured that Diaz would be there, down by the armory and the command center. It was, after all, the strongest position in the building. He’d even brought Patty along, hoping that the man could be persuaded to surrender without further unnecessary bloodshed.

  But he’d been mistaken. Diaz wasn’t there, and no one in this house was inclined to surrender.

  Which left the second floor. Shin was claiming that Second Platoon had finally found the bastard.

  “Where is he?” shouted Yosi as he pounded up the staircase.

  “We have him cornered up here, sir!” came an answering shout from upstairs.

  There was a flurry of gunfire, followed by sudden screams of pain
.

  “Hold on!” replied Yosi as he took the stairs two at a time.

  They really needed more body armor. Or at least some radios. This lack of comms was driving him up the wall.

  A couple of men from Second Platoon’s third squad crouched at a corner in the upstairs hallway. The fellow who’d done the screaming was propped up against a wall, wide-eyed face white with shock, staring at a freshly-tourniquetted stump.

  Their corporal. A flechette had taken his left leg clean off at the knee.

  Clearly, Señor Diaz had no intention of putting up his hands and coming along quietly.

  “Well, screw it,” thought Yosi.

  He wasn’t in the mood for gracious surrenders anyway, especially after that goddamned bloodbath, down in the basement. Diaz had killed too many of his men to be afforded such niceties.

  “What’s around the corner?” asked Yoseph by way of taking charge of the situation.

  “Straight shot to a doorway, sir,” answered the calmer-looking of the two infantrymen.

  “Windows on the left. Nothing else. He’s shooting through a crack in the door.”

  “Beseder,” answered Yosi, pulling a rocket off the rig on his back.

  He had just the door knocker for Señor Diaz.

  Leo was already pulling out a rocket of his own as he stacked up on the right-side wall.

  Great minds think alike, smiled Yosi to himself.

  He shook his head silently as he motioned for Leo to take the first slot instead of the second. The Spartan nodded, shooting an annoyed glance at his friend in the split-second before he stealthed up.

  Yosi didn’t care.

  Annoyed or not annoyed, stealth or no stealth, Prince Leonidas Freeman was not going to be the first man to step out into that hallway. He didn’t even have full armor. Just a helmet, gauntlets and boots. Simple rocket backblast reflecting off the wall behind him could be enough to do serious damage, never mind a desperate man with a rifle.

  Patty waved the two hale Second Platoon infantrymen out of the way as she took up the third position in the stack. The two remaining headquarters runners took up positions behind her.

  Through the contact interface between them, Yosi could see the ghost-like thread of the recon tentacle as it extended from Leo’s poncho and peeked around the corner.

  There really was only one door at the end of the hallway. Looked to be solid wood, like all the other doors in the house.

  Open just a crack. Hinges on the left.

  With a couple of flicks of his eyes, Yosi designated aim points for the rockets. Leo’s on the right doorpost. His own on the left. Leo blinked the icons in acknowledgement.

  A deep breath.

  One more room to go. Last one for the night.

  Leo tapped his thigh.

  Ready.

  Time slowed to a crawl. Yosi could hear the slow rhythm of his own heart pulsing hollowly in his ears.

  Thump-thump.

  Thump-thump.

  Yosi tapped Patty’s thigh.

  An immeasurable moment passed, feeling like an eternity of eternities.

  Thump-thump.

  Thump-thump.

  Patty tapped him back, and Yosi passed the tap back to Leo.

  The tension exploded, like a coiled spring released from its confines.

  In a blur of motion, Leo stuck a fist around the corner, unleashing his rocket. A split-second later, almost precisely in time with the explosion, Yosi stepped out into the hallway and fired his. As he dropped the expended tube and knelt, with the second explosion still ringing, Patty let out a fusillade of full-auto suppressive fire, rushing the door at the head of the three-man assault group.

  Yosi sprung up off the floor and followed the assault group into the cloud of smoke and plaster dust, with Leo sprinting behind him.

  The room at the end of the hallway was a study. What was left of the door hung crazily at an angle, barely held up by the mangled remnants of the top hinge. Pieces of wood, cement and compressed earth block littered the floor. The couch over by the window, directly across from the door, looked like an oversized pincushion. But a bust of General Palmer on the desk off to the left had survived with nary a scratch, as had the paper ledger that sat on the dead display surface next to it, looking for all the world like a prop from an immersie set during Sparta’s Time of Isolation.

  An athletic-looking fellow in his late middle age sprawled on the floor, bleeding copiously from nose and ears. He was covered head to toe in plaster dust and powdered earth block. A jagged splinter of doorpost almost as long as Yosi’s forearm protruded from the man’s thigh.

  It looked like Patty had stomped on the hacendado’s reaching hand, and booted him in the face for good measure, before she’d kicked away his rifle. The hobnails of her sabaton had punched pyramidal holes in the man’s flesh. His metacarpals were probably splintered. As Yosi watched, the hacendado spat out a small puddle of bloody saliva, seasoned liberally with splinters of tooth.

  A headless female body lay in a heap by the armchair off to the right of the couch. Evidently she’d made the mistake of accidentally being in the path of one of Patty’s flechettes. A middle-aged woman huddled by the corpse, face just beginning the transition from shock to tears. Two boys aged somewhere around eight and ten clung to her, staring in terror at the armored invaders who’d just popped out of thin air in front of them. A beautiful, raven-haired young woman, about Patty’s age, gaped about in startled incomprehension as she emerged from underneath the desk, staggering slightly as if drunk.

  “Shock,” thought Yosi.

  And concussion from the rocket blasts, no doubt.

  “Colonel Weismann,” said Patty with a courtly sweep of her hand, “Señor Rodrigo Diaz.

  “His wife Lucia.

  “Younger daughter Maria.

  “Older daughter Regina, what’s left of her.

  “Sons Fernando and Rodrigo Junior.”

  For all the world as calm as if she was making introductions at a ball, thought Yosi.

  Just a tiny touch of tension in her voice to indicate the effort of will she’d needed to catch her breath this quickly.

  He had once known another woman like that.

  For just a moment, Yosi felt a chill running down his spine.

  A few more grenade blasts and the whoosh-bang of a rocket somewhere on the opposite end of the mansion ushered in a fusillade of laser fire, and then a sudden, ringing silence.

  “That’s it,” thought Yosi.

  A split-second later, Shin Takawa sent an update to confirm it.

  The stubborn pocket of resistance at the top landing of the eastern stairwell was done with. His men had cleared the third floor.

  There was a rush of footsteps outside. Miri stepped through the ruined doorway, still wiping her hands on some rag. Her arms were spattered with blood up to the elbow.

  “How many?” asked Yosi.

  “Seventeen dead. Nine critical wounded. Twelve amputations. Forty-three minor scratches. All but six of those can walk.

  “I’ve found their infirmary. What’s left of it, anyway. We’re not going to get much. Krista is taking inventory.

  “I was hoping to find these people’s doctor. We have four abdominals and a sucking chest wound who won’t live out the hour without surgery. Our AI download can’t do it from its tablet. The infirmary’s surgical bot is toast, too.”

  “Regina was the doctor,” interjected Patty, “More’s the pity.

  “Although there might be one among the new farmhands.

  “There should also be a vet somewhere. Should have his own stash of supplies and gear.

  “Older man. Short. White hair. Name of Lorenzo. Last year, before all this started, he was potbellied.”

  At the expression on Yosi’s face, Maria Diaz blanched and fell to her knees.

  “Please, Señor!” she cried, “Colonel! Show your greatness! Spare the defeated! We will cooperate! Please, anything!”

  At Yosi’s icy answering sta
re, the woman crawled toward Patty, grabbing desperately at gauntleted hands as she begged for her family’s lives.

  “Please, Patricia!” she implored hysterically, “I was always your friend! You were always welcome in this house! Please tell him! Tell him that we’ll cooperate! In God’s name, please!”

  “You have cooperated,” retorted Patty brutally. “With the wrong side, as usual.”

  She jabbed a derisive thumb in the general direction of the Palmer bust.

  “How does it go again? Remind me, will you?

  “’Progress. Unity. Justice.’ Isn’t that right?”

  “At least spare the children,” rasped Señor Diaz from the slowly spreading pool of blood down on the floor, “They’ve done harm to no one.”

  “Why?” snapped Patty, “So they can grow up to avenge you?

  “No point in wasting flechettes on the likes of these, sir,” she continued, ostensibly to her commander. “Does them too much honor. The tree out in the yard will do nicely.”

  Leo raised a questioning eyebrow in his friend’s general direction.

  Well into his teens, the young Prince Freeman had fantasized incessantly about going back in time to the romantic good old days just before the Unification, reflected Yosi.

  Well, here they were. Warts and all.

  Colonel Yoseph Weismann considered the two wide-eyed Diaz boys for a moment. His shoulders moved up and down in a weary shrug. Patty’s reasoning was sound. They were here to send a message. And there was no sense in leaving behind any future avengers.

  Maria Diaz sobbed brokenly at Yosi’s waved assent.

  Jeers and catcalls greeted the small clutch of prisoners as armed men prodded them out into the yard. As the first rope flew up into the branches of the oak tree, newly-liberated slaves began to cheer.

  * 53 *

  Leo stomped his way unsteadily down the corridors of Castle Diaz.

  He’d liberated a two-liter bottle of vodka from the hacendado’s study, gulping down about half of it on the spot. That, in retrospect, had been a mistake. With every step he took, the last of the adrenaline that had kept him going across three hours of non-stop door-to-door combat drained into the floor tiles, leaving behind nothing but cold sweat and bone-deep fatigue. With every step, his body felt more and more like a wrung-out dishrag, and with every step his walk became more and more of a stagger.