Nightfall
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Nightfall
Moshe Ben-Or
Copyright © 2015 by Moshe Ben-Or
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
To Miriam, who was there from the beginning.
.........
Isabella grasped the mace and glided, regally, around the screen, toward the little man with the twitching nose and the beady eyes of an overanxious hamster.
“Proceed, Herr Vandergriff. Let us make haste.”
“At once, Your Ladyship,” replied the nervous little creature as he scampered out of the tent, leading the way.
“We have set the static cameras up here and here, by the pines, Your Ladyship, and the hovercams are there, and over there. I sincerely hope all is to Your Ladyship’s satisfaction.”
Yes, thought Isabella, yes indeed it was. The calm, deep forest. The lasers of a flak battery for a background. The dome of the command center.
There could only be one take.
A bright blue star bloomed suddenly in the cloudless, sun-filled sky. Another. And another, and another. They flashed and died, visible only for a moment before the sun’s radiance drowned them out again.
Rennekampff. He was a clever one, that man. He wasn’t selling his life cheaply. Not cheaply at all.
White contrails drew themselves across the azure deep, so quickly that the eye could not follow. Thunder pealed in volleys.
The ground to space missile sites at Diederhoff and Gotterburg. Father’s sole sound investment.
“Ready your broadcast, Herr Vandergriff!” snapped Isabella at the gaping director. “Our time grows short.”
This was her last chance to reach them all. From the sweltering jungles of the equator to the frozen glaciers of the poles; from tiny handhelds to enormous skyscrapers turned into projection screens; from echoing hangars to crowded public shelters; from tiny alpine villages to the great cities; from the simplest hovels to the finest mansions, her presence would fill Miranda one last time.
“At once, Your Ladyship,” bowed Vandergriff, waving to his staff.
“And in three… two… one… Action!”
“Adlige und Bürgerliche, our Baroness addresses us from a secure, undisclosed location!” boomed the famous news anchor.
Isabella felt suddenly inflated, as if a pillar of smoke and fire had descended from the heavens and filled her to the brim. The director, the pines, the cameras all grew small, and far away. There was only her and it. The thing that came and made her something else, something more than mere flesh and blood; something that did not live here, in the world of men, but only sojourned here from time to time.
“People of Miranda!” thundered the voice that was not really herself at all, “We face today new enemies, but ones who come with an old purpose. They come with their ships and their soldiers to take this world from us. They think that because they are many, and we are few, that because they have great fleets and mighty armies, and we face them with only the simple weapons in our hands, that they will subdue us. They expect us to flee. They expect us to surrender. They expect to take our world without further trouble, and make us their slaves.
“Many a fool has thought thus before them! Many a fool has found different!”
The Mace suddenly felt light as a feather in Isabella’s hand as she brandished it aloft.
“We are Miranda! We do not quail before foreign conquerors! We do not flee, nor do we abandon the struggle in fear! Let them come, as others have come before them! We will fight them at the bridgeheads. We will fight them in the fields, and in the hills, in the forests and in the swamps. We will fight them in the villages. We will fight them in the streets of our great cities. We will meet them wherever they go, from the ocean’s depths to the tops of the highest mountains.
“As long as even one among us draws breath, we will fight! We will never surrender! And though we have to fight for a thousand years, still the sacred soil of our Fatherland will burn beneath their feet! As long as a Mirandan hand grasps this scepter, as long as a single foreign soldier pollutes our sacred soil, there will be no surrender, and no peace!”
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A special thanks to my good friend Dr. Miriam, who showed great patience as my premier test reader and medical expert, as well as to all the other people who helped to bring this book to light. I would also like to thank Dane Low of Ebook Launch, who worked tirelessly on the beautiful cover to this edition.
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This is a work of fiction. Any similarity to real persons, whether living or dead, and to real events, whether past or present, is entirely coincidental. Any errors or omissions are entirely the fault of the author.
* 1 *
Bluish-golden sunlight filled the city, bathing the streets, the buildings, the parks, the occasional passerby out for a jog or just strolling to work. It raced through alleyways, whooping and cheering. It reflected in every window, bouncing back to the eye from all directions as if from a myriad mirrors. It cleaned, energized, rejuvenated the air, turning it into a crisp, sharp, salty thing that crackled through your lungs and tickled your skin. It showered down on everything within sight in a warm, soft, lazy wave, painting the Baia de los Santos an exquisite, cyan-tinted, burnished gold.
Upon the golden waves, the pleasure fleet – thousands of craft, from hundred-meter yachts to tiny launches, sails spread as white wings upon the breeze – was setting out to sea on the morning tide. From up where he stood, the four-kilometer narrows beneath the gleaming alabaster bow of the Vitoria Bridge looked so crowded that it seemed as if a man could skip from deck to deck, one shore to the other, and never touch water.
A lonely cargo shuttle tracked its way across the bottomless azure sky to an early morning splashdown in the Baia de Calma landing area just out of sight to the southwest. The eye naturally followed the pencil-thin white line of its trail, connecting the marble of the upper-class residentials to the red tile roofs of the suburbs.
Even the imperturbable bluish line of the Dourados, towering off in the distance, couldn’t resist sparkling here and there, as the rising sun reflected from the snows and glaciers of the highest peaks.
His stomach a bottomless pit after the morning workout, Yoseph Weismann looked across the open-air café, trying to locate the one member of the Delta Triangulae League Freestyle Fighting team who always dressed at least semi-formally, and at the latest peak of fashion. Even for breakfast.
Spartan men’s fashions had always tended toward militaristic nostalgia. This year, the designers had reached particularly far back, to the point where even semi-formal dress looked almost like the most formal of Spartan formalwear.
Now that he wasn’t stuck with his Shock Corps uniform, Leo had embraced the latest cutting edge in chic menswear with gusto. From his silver-and-gold turban, to the navy blue coat resplendent with gold braid and a double row of golden buttons, to the tips of the knee-high, red leather, curled-toe riding boots enveloped by the loose folds of his sky-blue cavalry breeches, the Spartan looked like he belonged leading a saber-swinging Unification-era cavalry charge, not sitting at a modern-day café table, demolishing a ridiculously large plate of cordero asado. The long, curve-bladed dagger and the beautifully damascened pepperbox revolver conspired with the emptily hanging right coat sleeve to add to the illusion. Invoking an earlier, harder time and place, far away from unromantically modern high-rise hotels. A place where life was often short, and sometimes brutal, yet somehow more vivid and juicy for all that. A place where generals lead from horseback, noblemen earned their titles with cold steel, and the wave of an officer’s saber would send swarms of minié balls flying between row
s of men packed shoulder-to-shoulder, taking off limbs and splattering heads.
There was even a cape. Navy blue, with crimson lining to match the breeches’ black-and-crimson lampasses, the black-and-crimson ribbon on the cuffs of the coat and the hand-wide cloth-of-gold sash striped with the black and crimson of House Freeman that served as the home for the priceless, antique weaponry.
In fairness to Leo, he managed to pull off wearing the whole getup for breakfast without looking in the least bit ridiculous. Perhaps it was the way the cut of the coat and breeches emphasized his enormous, square-jawed bulk, more than hinting at the huge, rippling muscles underneath. The fork looked tiny, almost like a child’s toy in his massive fist, and the sturdy metal legs of the chair upon which he perched bowed visibly outward under the weight. Or perhaps it was the sheer raw animal vigor of him, the way he positively radiated pure aggression and testosterone even when doing nothing more strenuous than sitting at an outdoor café table, picking bits of meat off a platter with a fork. You could see why most girls melted and tripped all over themselves to jump into his bed if he as much as deigned to glance in their general direction. Of course, being the heir to the Freeman ducal throne didn’t hurt, either. Every single one of them had to, on some level, entertain the delusion that she was the one. Including the ones who claimed, intellectually, to know better.
“Even sitting together with him at that table, I’m invisible,” thought Yosi, glancing at the nondescript Israeli reflected in the rooftop restaurant’s windows.
Close-cropped black hair peeking out from under a stereotypical black knitted kippah. Neatly trimmed, short beard in the traditional style that never went out of fashion. Brown eyes behind a plain pair of net glasses. Conservative-looking, long-sleeved, four-cornered tunic. White cotton. Traditionally broad, dark green vertical stripes to go with the green tzitzit. Black gartel. Black slacks. Simple sandals. Ordinary-looking pistol in a plain gray holster. Vibro set to resemble a convenient, unadorned, straight-bladed kindjal. Almost certain to be mistaken at first glance for a simple steel fighting dagger, the kind that pretty much everybody carried on New Israel.
Ordinary guy. Tall, but not so as to stand out. Good shape, but not unusually so. Nothing fancy-looking. Nothing to catch the eye. Nobody would give him a second glance. Especially when he was standing a couple of steps back, off Leo’s left shoulder. The which, of course, was the point.
In reality the pistol was a custom-made masterpiece of the gunsmith’s art that had cost his liege lord a slightly eye-popping tidy sum, the ridiculously high-quality vibro was literally priceless, the net glasses were not the kind you could just go and purchase at some store, and the simple white tee shirt peeking out through the tunic’s side slits was actually a military poncho in disguise, hiding a state-of-the-art soft vest that would stop anything up to and including flechettes fired from a military-grade pistol. And if the occasion came to demand a resort to the physical, they’d quickly discover what kind of shape he was really in. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
Noting the emergence of his friend, Leo stretched his arm outward in a gesture that attempted to encompass all the splendor before his eyes. In a thunderous voice that sent half the heads on the terrace turning, he declaimed:
“A king sate on the rocky brow
O’er the isle of Salamis;
And ships, by thousands, lay below;
And men in nations -- all were his.”
Yosi chuckled ironically, finishing the ancient stanza:
“He counted them at break of day;
But when the sun set, where were they?”
“Jerk!” grinned Leo.
“Hey, you picked it,” answered Yosi.
“Kosher menu. Cucumber salad, medium toast, olive tapenade, cheese, fruit, chocolate spread, jam, tea,” he tossed at the approaching waiter, pulling up a chair.
It was a measure of how much this place cost, reflected Yoseph, that there was an actual human out here on the veranda, doing a robot’s job. Every once in a while, though it had been over a decade and a half since Leo had dragged him into this world, such things still jolted him. Especially when he caught himself unconsciously treating a human being like a stupid machine. Even if the human being was just an Outsider.
“I wish you’d carry real weapons,” he muttered at Leo to hide his sudden discomfort.
“These are real weapons,” replied his companion sturdily.
“Buzh Frolov is still floating in a regen tank, last I heard.”
“Buzh Frolov,” retorted Yosi, “is a fat drunk with all the fine-tuned reflexes of a dairy cow. And he was wearing naught more than a linen dueling shirt when you put that soft lead slug through his chest. A real threat isn’t going to be so accommodating. Heck, I can create cover against that antique toy of yours simply by overturning this breakfast table.”
“A real threat,” smiled Leo, “would have three flechettes from your pistol through his head before I as much as close my hand around the grip of whatever it is you’d prefer me to carry instead of this fine, three-hundred-and-fifty-year-old handcrafted piece of Spartan history.
“Did you know that these once belonged to my twelve-times-great grandfather? The very first Duke Freeman, the one who fought in the Petrenko Revolt. First upon the walls of Akotiki. Shot six men from this very revolver, and then held another half-dozen at bay with this very dagger and a saber until the rest of his men could climb up the ladders and seize the battlement. For which King Hector the Great created him Duke. Ah, those were the days…”
“Yes,” answered Yosi testily.
He’d heard the story at least half a dozen times. This week alone.
“Very romantic. My vibro would slice up that dagger like it was made out of butter. And is it the Great Cholera of 274, or the Walking Plague outbreak of 277 that you find to be more appealing?”
“The Walking Plague, definitely,” laughed Leo.
“Petrenko would’ve won, otherwise, and I wouldn’t be here.
“What is it with you this morning?” he continued with a note of concern, “Can’t sleep again?”
“No,” sighed Yosi resignedly.
“I just worry. I’m only one man. I only have one pair of eyes. One pair of hands. No matter how hard I train, that won’t change.”
“Then stop worrying. Nothing is gonna happen. Ever.
“They don’t let princes anywhere near real danger, nowadays. The closest thing to an actual threat you’re liable to see for the next couple of years is going to be some sot I’m about to demolish in the ring.”
“So, it’s a couple of years now? I thought you were going to call it quits after the Olympics. Or was it after your first reserve call-up?”
“Heck, I don’t know, Yosi.”
Leo’s voice didn’t quite rise, but there was a distinct sub-tone of annoyance all of a sudden.
“Don’t look at me like that. I like Freestyle. I’m good at it. It’s fun. Not as much fun as flying, but…
“I’m twenty-five, Allmother be gracious! Everyone keeps acting like the universe will come to an end tomorrow if I don’t pick a serious career and ‘apply myself’ right away. Crown U or the Academy or whatever can wait a bit longer.”
Yosi sighed.
This ground they’d been over before. When an eight-year-old Leonidas Freeman had announced that he was going to fly atmospheric fighters one day, nobody took the declaration very seriously. What little boy, after all, doesn’t dream of flying atmospheric fighters? So what if Leo spent weeks on end obsessively memorizing aircraft recognition criteria? So what if he basically lived every spare waking moment in flight simulation VR? The boy had an obsessive streak. His father’s son, after all. It was all just a phase.
And they’d kept assuming that it was all just a phase right through high school. After all, girls loved the air pilot mystique, and Leo loved girls. An amazingly early and voracious interest, much to his grandfather’s amusement and his mother’s chagrin.
That’s what the entire Freeman clan kept telling itself while their sole son and heir methodically progressed all the way to a suborbital shuttle and interplanetary pinnace license. By seventeen, if it flew in an atmosphere full-time or part time, whether it had jets, props, rotors, ducted fans or rocket boosters, fixed wings, morph-wings or no wings at all, Leo Freeman could fly it, and fly it damned well. Anything but a fighter.
For five years, somehow, Leo’s entire family had just kept closing their eyes and pretending that Leo’s obsession was all about the girls, and the fun. That it wasn’t really serious. Then they’d had the gall to be surprised when their seventeen-year-old prince applied to the pre-draft Shock Corps air pilot selection program, breezed right through the entrance exams, and started climbing into the cockpits of fighter spaceplanes.
Much like with the romance surrounding impact torpedo bombers and surveyors, the reality of what it actually meant to have a three to five percent chance of being turned into crimson goop every time one climbed into the cockpit on a real mission didn’t quite sink in among teenagers. But the adults had all assumed that the phase would pass, that the reason the Shock Corps air jockeys were all volunteers eligible for a transfer out at any time after their thirtieth combat sortie would finally work itself into the young prince’s brain.