Copyright © 2008 by R. M. Meluch.

All Rights Reserved.

Covert art by Stephan Martiniere.

DAW Book Collectors No. 1455.

DAW Books are distributed by the Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

All characters and events in this book are fictitious.. All resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental.

The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

Nearly all the designs and trade names in this book are registered trademarks. All that are still in commercial use are protected by United States and international trademark law.

First Paperback Printing, November 2009

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

DAW TRADEMARK REGISTERED

U.S. PAT. AND TM. OFF. AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES—MARCA REGISTRADA

HECHO EN U.S.A.

PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.

Prologue

CAESAR MAGNUS DESERVED to die.

Caesar Magnus was dead. The assassin was dead.

So did anyone really give a rat’s aft if someone else may have been involved in the killing of Caesar?

Even if that someone might have been Caesar’s own son?

Even if that son had assumed the role of the new Caesar?

Either the thought of a patricide leading an interstellar empire did not horribly unsettle the Senate and People of Rome or else denial simply served them better, because the Senate did not challenge the legitimacy of the new Caesar, and the People loved him.

Suspicion was after all only suspicion. Other than possibly murdering his own father, the new Caesar was a damn fine Caesar.

In his very new reign, young Caesar Romulus had already beaten down the monstrous Hive threat to a shred of its former terror. Only a whimpering presence of Hive remained deep in the Deep End of the galaxy. Hundreds of light-years and many American settlements stood between the remains of the Hive and the nearest Roman target. It would be a long, long time before the Hive threatened a Roman outpost again.

Caesar Romulus summoned home all Roman forces that were serving under U.S. command. Let the Americans deal with what remained of the Hive. It was no longer a Roman concern.

Caesar Romulus renounced Rome’s surrender to the United States.

Caesar Romulus expelled the Americans from the Roman planet Thaleia, and reinstalled Thaleia’s orbiting sentinels. He staged a spectacular bombing of the Triumphal Arch which his father, Caesar Magnus, had constructed on Thaleia in honor of the American John Farragut, Captain of the U.S. space battleship Merrimack.

On the Roman capital world of Palatine, Caesar Romulus redesigned the Monument to the Conciliation. The original monument featured an enormous golden eagle soaring wingtip to wingtip with a bald eagle, like two great powers flying in perfect accord.

In Romulus’ reworked monument, the bald eagle cowered on its back under the claws of the diving golden eagle. “Here,” said Romulus, “let all humanity know that the Conciliation was a fraud. Here is what Rome really thinks of Pax Americana.”

On an interstellar broadcast, for all the known region of the galaxy to witness, Caesar Romulus broke the spears of Subjugation under his own heel.

For that alone, many Romans called for Romulus’ deification.

Too savvy a politician to accept divine honors, Romulus expressed gratitude at the depth of his People’s regard, but said, “You cannot vote someone to godhood.” And that only increased his popularity.

Romulus could do no wrong.

Magnus had already done it all.

Back in the desperate days when the Hive decimated Rome’s mighty legions, desperation led Caesar Magnus to surrender to the United States. The surviving remnants of the Roman armed forces were placed under U.S. command.

With Rome’s second worst enemy engaged against Rome’s most pressing threat, Rome found a chance to rebuild its shattered forces in secret.

While the U.S. carried the greater weight of the common defense against the Hive, Romulus organized the rebuilding of Rome’s armed forces on the empire’s most distant worlds that lay in the opposite direction from the Hive incursion. He’d started that even before the assassination of Caesar Magnus.

Upon declaration of victory against the Hive, Romulus, now Caesar, unveiled his empire’s new battleships.

He paraded his new legions up the Via Triumphalis on Palatine. The legions were very new. Many of the legionaries’ voices had not changed yet. They were full of youthful fire, rabid to reclaim Rome’s crushed pride, eager and ruthless as only children could be.

Lost on the proud new warriors was that Rome could not have achieved all this had Magnus not surrendered Rome to the U.S. No one would thank him for it.

Romulus had also organized the manufacture of a new generation of killer bots. Automated factories on far worlds in the Perseid arm of the galaxy had been churning out killer bots by the hundred thousand per earthly month.

The Americans never suspected it was happening. Automated weapons were worse than useless against the Hive. Machine minds could be turned against their makers. There was no reason to think Rome could be rebuilding its fleets of killer bots.

Romulus had been looking to the future.

Because of his foresight, Romulus’ empire could face the Americans from a position of power, not subservience, when the common enemy collapsed.

There were vicious, jealous whispers that Romulus had killed his father.

Well, he hadn’t. There was a recording of the event. Everyone saw the deed. That was not Romulus’ hand you saw holding the pen that plunged into Caesar’s eye. Whispers said Romulus drove the assassin to it. But no true Roman needed any pushing to kill Magnus.

There was scarcely a citizen in Rome’s interstellar empire willing to look too closely for bones in the closet of a Caesar who accomplished everything Romulus had done for them.

But there was one. A Roman who could not allow Magnus Caesar’s death to go unavenged for any reason.

He was programmed not to.

Magnus’ patterner had a deeply encoded imperative to defend Rome to his last breath and beyond that. To the patterner, Caesar was Rome. And Magnus was his Caesar.

Patterners were dangerous creations, short-lived and difficult. Difficult to create, difficult to maintain, tricky to control. It was dangerous to put that much power into a thing with a mostly human brain.

Only nine of them had ever been successfully assembled. Caesar Romulus did not know it, but the last patterner was still alive. The patterner Augustus had belonged to Caesar Magnus. Augustus was out there. And he did not suspect Romulus of involvement in his father’s murder. He knew.

PART ONE

Off the Deep End

If anything’s gonna happen, it’ll happen on the Hamster watch.

—proverb on board Merrimack

1

LIEUTENANT GLENN (HAMSTER) Hamilton was Officer of the Watch when the Emergency Action Message came in.

She passed the EAM to the cryptotech for confirmation, and immediately paged John Farragut on his personal com. “Captain’s presence requested on the command deck.”

Captain Farragut’s voice came back, “What’s this about?”

An instant’s blank panic showed on Hamster’s face. The captain was often in Roman company. Hamster could not afford to explain. She answered quickly, “Gypsy’s hair.” And immediately clicked off.

She stood over the com, feeling the eyes of the command deck upon her. With her eyes set dead ahead, she spoke to anyone in range of her quiet voice, “If what I just said gets back to Commander Dent, every man jack and jane on this deck will walk the plank.” And she took the com back up, “Commander Dent, your presence is requested on the command deck.”

The lieutenant had not requested speed from either the captain or the exec. She did not want to sound alarmed. And the captain was going to arrive like a missile anyway.

John Farragut blew through the hatch to the command deck like a gust of fair wind, wearing the sky blue uniform of ship’s captain.

One of the Marine guards at the hatch announced, “Captain on deck.”

Farragut’s presence announced itself. He was a big man, fair-haired, blue-eyed, an irresistible force. Energy radiated from him. Nearly forty years old now, he kept the bright enthusiasm of a boy.

Captain John Farragut had lately been Commodore Farragut, but that had been a field promotion and temporary. His Attack Group One had disbanded after fulfilling its purpose. The two League of Earth Nations ships of the Attack Group had stayed behind at Planet Zero. The U.S. ships Rio Grande and Wolfhound were headed back to Fort Eisenhower. And the two Roman ships Gladiator and Horatius that had been under Farragut’s command separated out on orders from Caesar Romulus.

The space battleship Merrimack remained alone in very deep space, in orbit around the dead world Telecore.

Telecore had begun life as a Roman colony. Before anyone had ever heard of the Hive, the Romans built a secret outpost on the planet to outflank American expansion in the Sagittarian arm of the galaxy.

Telecore had ended life consumed by the Hive, The Hive was a great soulless evil that existed only to eat. What the Romans planted on Telecore, the Hive came to reap.

The Romans were gone. The Hive was still there.

Captain Farragut liked to know his enemy. He had been in Merrimack’s lab with the xenoscientists, observing how newly emerged gorgons behaved, when he received Hamster’s summons, Farragut spoke before anyone could tell him; “The balloon went up?”

Specialists at their close-packed stations on the command deck traded looks. Somehow, from what Hamster said, John Farragut had figured out that the United States was at war.

“Looks like it, sir.” Lieutenant Glenn Hamilton nodded toward the forward communications shack, where the cryptotech had cloistered himself with the EAM. “Waiting on confirmation.”

Commander Egypt “Gypsy” Dent entered the deck.

She had left her ferocious hair in her cabin. Her head was smooth. Her brown eyes were narrowed into a squint, half-asleep. Strong-boned, tall and frowning, Gypsy scanned the monitors for some sign of the emergency that had roused her here. Hamster advised her softly, “It’s war, sir.”

The eyes opened at once. Gypsy was awake now. “Who declared?” said Farragut. “I’m fixin’ to be almighty unhappy if it was us.”

He could not believe the Joint Chiefs would strand him out here in the deepest end of the Deep End, sitting on the biggest warship in the U.S. Naval Fleet, while the U.S. declared war without so much as a stand-by-for-heavy-rolls to warn him.

But Hamster answered, “They did, sir.” They. Rome.

The Imperial Government of Rome establishes the following facts:

Although Rome on her part has strictly adhered to the rules of international law in her relations with the United States during every period of the recent Emergency in the common defense against the Hive, the Government of the United States has used the Emergency to abridge the right of Rome to its own government, and continues to usurp the lawful authority of Rome over her own armed forces under pretext of a common defense against a threat that has been diminished to inconsequence in order to perpetuate oppression and to enforce a treaty coerced under most extreme circumstances. The United States violates Roman borders at will, and denies Rome the autonomy and security to which every nation is entitled, in actions more consistent with an organized crime racket rather than a civilized nation.

Pledges extracted upon threat of being fed to monsters cannot be bound by law.

The Government of the United States has thereby virtually created a state of war.

The Imperial Government of Rome, consequently, discontinues diplomatic relations with the United States of America and declares that Rome considers herself as being in a state of war with the United States of America.

Vlll.xiii.MMCDXLVI

CAESAR ROMULUS.

“And you are all rotten people and don’t deserve to live no more,” Tactical added in a low mutter into his console.

“Thank you, Mister Vincent,” said Farragut, a warning in his voice. Loose comments were what got Marcander Vincent bucked down to the Hamster Watch in the first place.

Farragut asked Lieutenant Hamilton, “Where do we stand?”

“We have the text of the President’s request to Congress to declare back at ‘em,” said Hamster, and fed the text to his station.

To the Congress of the United States:

On the morning of August 13,the Imperial Government of Palatine, pursuant to its course of galactic conquest, declared war against the United States.

The long known and the long expected has thus taken place. The forces endeavoring to enslave the entire galaxy now are moving into free space.

Delay invites greater danger. Rapid and united effort by all free peoples who are determined to remain free will insure a victory of the forces of justice and of righteousness over the forces of inhumanity and of totalitarianism.

I, therefore, request the Congress to recognize a state of war between the United States and the Imperial Government of Palatine.

MARISSA JANE JOHNSON.

“Congressional recognition is ‘imminent,’” Hamster added. Farragut looked to the com tech, “Nothing from Congress yet?”

“Not yet, sir.”

“ ‘Kay.” Farragut drew alongside Commander Dent, his hand between her shoulder blades. He spoke low, “If approval comes in before I get back, keep it quiet. There’s something I have to do first.”

“Understood, sir.” Their heads were close together. Gypsy’s brown eyes flicked, her focus shifting across his face, assessing.

There was a time, during the last hostilities, when Farragut had standing orders: Should Merrimack ever fall into enemy hands, Captain Farragut must kill his cryptotech. During that time, Merrimack had in fact been captured by Romans. Yet the cryptotech, Qord Johnson, was still alive to this day and authenticating the EAM in Merrimack’s communication shack right now.

Someone else had orders regarding the cryptotech in case of capture now. You never could trust John Farragut to kill his own people. Farragut still had his orders regarding the Roman patterner, whom Merrimack carried on board.

In case of war, the captain’s first task—to be carried out immediately and without question—was to take Augustus down. The Roman patterner was the single biggest threat to U.S. security. Farragut’s order was clear. Neutralize the threat. Do not try to capture Augustus or to salvage information from him. As Admiral Mishindi said, “Just drop him.”

Qord Johnson emerged from the communications shack.

He looked to the captain and the XO. “Sir. Sir.” He passed the EAM to Farragut. “Emergency Action Message confirmed. Rome declared war. President Johnson presented her declaration to Congress.”

Then it was real. War. Gypsy studied the captain’s eyes. She asked quietly, “Do you want me to do it, sir?” Farragut shook his head. “If Augustus hears anyone but me coming to visit him, he’ll know something’s up.”

That was true. Normally the crew and Marines on board Merrimack went out of their way to avoid crossing Augustus’ path.

Most men on board would like to have these orders.

Captain Farragut could not ever delegate something like this. The day he delegated because he could not carry out an order for himself was the day he delegated command of his ship.

He motioned to one of the Marines who flanked the hatch. “Do you have a single stage piece on you?” The sergeant fished a small backup weapon from his boot pocket. Surrendered it, grip first.

Farragut checked the load. Head busters. Low velocity projectiles, only meant to pierce a human body, not tear through and through. The point detonated only upon abrupt contact with human DNA.

The sergeant reminded Farragut uneasily, “That piece is coded to me, sir.” He felt stupid saying that to the captain. Would feel stupider if he hung the captain out there pulling the trigger of a gun that wouldn’t fire for him.

Weapons on board a space battleship were coded to their proper users. A weapon would not fire for anyone other than its coded owner.

But everyone on board Merrimack, company and crew alike, belonged to Captain John Farragut.

Farragut assured the Marine benevolently, “Son, there’s nothing on this boat I can’t shoot.”

Even so, he depressed the trigger halfway. A green light confirmed recognition. He let up the trigger, clicked the safety off, cocked the piece, and slipped it into his jacket pocket like a street thug.

“Do you want a Marine guard?” his XO asked.

Farragut shook his head no. “Gypsy, he can hear a gnat spit.” .

“He’ll hear you,” said Gypsy.

“Good bet,” Farragut agreed. “He’ll hear me coming. But that’s okay. He likes to pretend I don’t exist.”

Augustus never stood up when the captain entered his compartment. Most times Augustus did not even bother to look at him at all.

“I’ll be right back.” Farragut moved out fast. He did not try to soften his footsteps. He needed to sound normal.

This task had to be done. He saw the wisdom and necessity of it. And he knew how to kill—and not just at a distance. Farragut had beheaded the Roman Captain Sejanus on the command deck of his own ship with a sword. He knew how to do this.

This was just another Roman.

The most abrasive, off-pissing, caustic, sadistic son of a Roman bitch he had ever known. The most loyal. With a courage beyond question. He was having a son of a hard time with this one. Farragut would get only one shot, if that. He would not be able to say anything. No regrets. No good-bye. He could not even look him in the eyes. Augustus could read Farragut’s eyes. And Augustus was extremely fast.

No one outdraws a patterner. Just shoot him. A shot in the back if Augustus’ back presented first. A prickle like fear stung his mouth. He tried to blank out his thoughts. Stop thinking and just move.

Sounds of his ship around him were all normal. Booted footsteps on eight decks. Voices through thin partitions— fewer voices at this hour of the mid watch. The steady low hum of six mammoth engines. The sharp thunk of rubber balls in the squash court. Air rushing in the vents. Water moving through conduits. Hiss of hydraulics. Clicking of a dog that needed its nails cut.

His ship was an industrial beauty. Spare. Utilitarian. Thin partitions were only in place to keep things from passing compartment to compartment. Any equipment that might be tucked within walls on a passenger ship— conduits, pipes, struts—was all on view here. There were no ceilings, only the undersides of the upper decks along with more of the ship’s inner workings clustered up there in the overhead. You could see what this ship was made of. Except for things dangerous, secret, private, or requiring heavy containment, Merrimack was right there for you to see.

Farragut slid down the ladder to the corridor that accessed the torpedo rack room. At six foot eight in height, Augustus was difficult to billet. A torpedo rack was the only place he could fit horizontally.

Farragut made a conscious effort not to slow his stride. He wondered if Augustus could read deadly intent in a man’s footsteps.

He hoped Augustus would not look when the hatch opened. He couldn’t remember a time when Augustus ever did look. Augustus’ pattern of disdain for Farragut’s authority would serve now.

The patterner slept most of the day and all the mid watch. There was a good chance Farragut would catch him sleeping. He was probably going to murder Augustus in his rack.

Farragut kept his right hand in his pocket, gripping the sidearm.

Don’t even show the piece, he decided. Just point and shoot through his pocket. The interior space beyond the hatch was tight. The instant that hatch opened, Farragut would be very close to his target. Point-blank, in fact.

His throat tightened up as he neared the hatch. He fought off the personal reaction. To hell with it.

Big breath. Hold it.

His left arm was supposed to be reaching to pull the hatch open, but he suddenly could not move it. He hadn’t heard a thing. Two invincible, cable-reinforced arms had locked around him from behind, pinning his left arm across his chest, his right arm locked against his side. A large hand closed over Farragut’s right hand, the one gripping the sidearm inside his pocket.

Squeezed.

The weapon discharged.

The bullet lodged in Farragut’s deck boot. The head did not detonate.

The shot itself had made barely a pop. No one was going to come running to investigate.

The rough cheek pressing hard against Farragut’s temple pushed his head to an unnatural turn, forced his chin into his own shoulder, immobile.

Augustus’ breath puffed against his ear in a whispered growl. “I have the same orders.”

2

MINUTES GREW LONG for those who waited on the command deck. The deep scowl on the XO’s bold features made her look frightening.

Commander Dent was already an imposing figure, very tall, heavy-boned, hard-muscled, her head shaved. She had a smooth alto voice that she never needed to raise. Gypsy Dent commanded respect on sight.

Lieutenant Hamilton’s size did not command respect, but she did. Once you’d been dressed down by the Hamster, you never tested her authority again.

At five foot one with a dainty frame, Glenn Hamilton held her own among the tall, muscular people who surrounded her.

That the captain had an eye for pretty Glenn Hamilton was a badly kept secret. Farragut was the only one who didn’t think his affection was obvious.

The commander and the lieutenant maintained straight-ahead stoic gazes, scarcely moving. Captain Farragut should have reported in by now. Augustus should be dead.

The command deck was quiet. Time suspended.

Com silence broke. Several sharp intakes of breath met the hail to the command deck. But the incoming signal was not an internal transmission. The hail was resonant, and it originated from Earth. Congress had recognized the U.S. declaration of war.

Qord Johnson, the cryptotech, asked Commander Dent, “Commence Divorce Protocol, sir?”

“Not until we hear from the captain,” said Gypsy. Her scowl took on gargoyle depths.

Glenn Hamilton blurted, “Something’s wrong.”

The words were scarcely out when an alarm sounded.

From somewhere in the ship, dogs barked.

Merrimack’s dogs seldom barked except in case of fire.

“Fire,” the systems tech of the mid watch reported. Systems on the mid watch was a young man named Klaus Nordsen. “Fire in the port flight hangar,” Nordsen said, then, immediately, “Hull access hatch opening. Flight deck.”

The hull access .would be someone trapped by the fire in the flight hangar making his escape out to the flight deck. “Fire crew to port flight hangar,” Commander Gypsy Dent ordered.

“Hull access hatch closing,” Nordsen reported.

The atmosphere out there between the hull and the ship’s surrounding force field was thin and cold. A man did not last long out there without an atmospheric suit. And soon enough, young Nordsen announced, “Hull access hatch opening. Cargo bay.”

It seemed obvious that whoever had just fled the fire in the flight hangar was reentering the ship through the cargo bay’s man hatch.

But Nordsen then reported, “Cargo doors opening.” Gypsy moved to Systems’ console to see the readouts for herself.

Nordsen was right. The hatch in question was not the man hatch, which had shut again. What was opening now were the big doors which admitted the passage of cargo. Even over here in the ship’s fuselage on an upper deck, the command crew could feel the pressure change with the big doors’ opening. Atmosphere bled out to the space between hull and force field.

Nordsen shook his head at his console, still trying to make his readouts fit the actions of men fleeing a fire. “Why would they do that?”

Gypsy spoke, coldly certain, “That’s Augustus.” The cargo bay was where the Roman Striker was stowed.

The Striker was a Roman ship, small, long range. Fast, heavily armed. A Striker was custom built to house a patterner.

A Roman patterner inside his Striker was a nearly unstoppable force.

Augustus had destroyed his own Striker back on the planet Sagittarius Zero.

It was the Striker of an earlier patterner that was clamped down in Merrimack’s cargo bay now.

The fire in the flight hangar was undoubtedly a diversion for Augustus to get at the Striker in the cargo bay and launch himself to freedom.

“Lockdown. Lockdown,” Gypsy commanded.

The command deck jolted. Crew felt/heard muffled explosions, probably in the flight hangar. More diversions. Or Augustus destroying the Merrimack.

“Lockdown not happening, sir,” Systems reported. “I’m showing a command override here.” Nordsen turned to Commander Dent. “Override on Captain Farragut’s authorization.”

Commander Dent looked venomous. “He wouldn’t. Override that!” Gypsy ordered. “Set force field to adamant.” She pounced on the com, “Captain Farragut, please respond!” And to the com tech, “Why isn’t he answering?”

“Sir!” the com tech acknowledged. “The captain’s personal com is not registering.” It wasn’t off. It was not registering at all, which meant the captain’s personal com had been damaged or destroyed.

Farragut’s personal com was implanted in his wrist.

Gypsy spoke into the loud com. Her voice resounded through the ship: “All hands. All hands. This is the commander. Set Condition Watch One. Siege stations. Siege stations. Hostile in the cargo bay. Secure cargo bay. Eliminate Colonel Augustus.”

Systems reported, “Striker is clearing the cargo bay. Cargo doors closing.” Just because Augustus was outside the hull did not mean he was free of the ship yet.

“He is not getting through the force field,” said Gypsy.

The ship’s force field, rather than her hull, was the ship’s true line of containment, what really stood between the ship’s atmosphere and vacuum. The low-pressure space between the force field and the hull acted as a kind of air lock.

With the call to siege stations, Merrimack’s gun barrels retracted, and the ship’s force field solidified over the gun-ports and torpedo tubes and missile launchers. Nothing but layered engine vents broke Merrimack’s energy barrier.

Nevertheless, Nordsen reported, “Force field breach.”

This could not be happening.

“Where?” Gypsy demanded, looming over the console. She already knew. “Cargo bay egress. He’s got himself an opening.” Augustus the patterner had found a pattern in Mack’s command codes to let him out.

“Seal force field!” Gypsy ordered.

Nordsen attempted to obey even as he voiced concern, “Not sure how good an idea that is, sir. If we manage to trap Augustus in here, can’t he just blow himself up and gut the Mack with him? Hail Caesar and good night Merrimack!”

Gypsy waved off the objection. “He could have done that by now if that’s all he wanted. Augustus wants out.”

Once Augustus was outside Merrimack’s force field, then he could still shoot back through the breach and ream Merrimack’s insides out. Gypsy would not allow that. “If he guts us, he’s coming with us. Get that field sealed now.”

Even if Gypsy had to sacrifice Mack to a Roman suicide, she could not let a Roman patterner in possession of a Striker loose on the galaxy. Because there were bigger targets out there than Merrimack.

There was the Fort Eisenhower/Fort Roosevelt Shotgun.

And there was Earth.

“Striker is clear of force field!”

“Damn!”

Nothing to do now but survive him.

“Seal force field!” Gypsy ordered as someone, probably Marcander Vincent at Tactical, murmured, “He’s going to wax us.” Nordsen reported, shouting with relief, “Force field sealed, aye!”

Gypsy darted the young systems tech a withering glower to tell him it was a little late.

She heard the com tech dressing down some baboon on his link, “Stay off the intracom if you don’t have anything to report!”

Marcander Vincent at Tactical announced, “Striker coming round.”

Gypsy ordered, “Change field pattern. Random seed.”

Augustus’ knowledge of Merrimack’s codes would enable him to pierce the constantly changing force field unless Mack jumped to an unexpected point in the pattern.

The Striker came round.

And kept going without firing a shot.

“Striker away!” Marcander Vincent reported, surprised. “All speed.”

“Track him!” Gypsy ordered. “Mister Vincent, don’t lose him! Helm! Pursue hostile! I want that bastard. Lieutenant Hamilton! Find the captain. Find out if he’s still on board. Get hold of Colonel Steele. Tell him we may have a hostage situation—”

Movement at the hatch caught her eye. “Captain!”

“John!” flew out of Hamster’s mouth.

Farragut appeared in the hatchway, propped up by the great white rock that was Lieutenant Colonel TR Steele, commander of the two Fleet Marine companies on board Merrimack.

A red welt colored Farragut’s forehead over a forming lump. Farragut gestured at his bruised throat, his mouth opening and shutting like a grouper’s. He couldn’t talk. His larynx had been crushed. He entered limping, leaning heavily on the Marine CO. A burn hole showed through the captain’s jacket pocket.

Lieutenant Colonel TR Steele of the Fleet Marines was six feet tall and solid, a couple of years younger than Farragut. Steele was a man of enormous courage and loyalty—not a great intellect—not lacking by any means, just not packing any to spare. Steele was as down-to-earth as a man in space could be.

Steele piloted the captain to a seat. Farragut slid down from Steele’s rock hard shoulder to sit heavily. Farragut gingerly pulled off his right boot, the one with an undetonated head buster round lodged in it. Steele hovered over him, his whole head an enraged shade of scarlet underneath his white-blond buzz-cut hair.

Steele hated the Roman Augustus more than anyone on board Merrimack. It was killing him not to be able to kill Augustus.

Gypsy’s eyes raked Farragut from reddening lump to bare foot. “Captain, I’m ordering you to the hospital.”

Farragut nodded. The motion pained his throat and he winced. He held up a forefinger to say: Yes, but first. He motioned toward the loud com and mouthed the words, “Call it.”

Gypsy took up the loud com. “Now hear this. Now hear this.” And she read the Congressional resolution to the four hundred and twenty-five crew of the Merrimack and seven hundred and twenty Marines of the 89th Battalion of the Fleet Marine:

“Whereas the Imperial Government of Palatine has formally declared war against the Government and the People of the United States of America: Therefore be it Resolved, that the state of war between the United States and the Imperial Government of Palatine which has thus been thrust upon the United States is hereby formally declared; and the President is hereby authorized and directed to employ the entire military forces of the United States and the resources of the Government to carry on war against the Imperial Government of Palatine; and, to bring the conflict to a successful termination, all of the resources of the country are hereby pledged by the Congress of the United States.”

Even on a ship built for just this purpose, the words had a deep impact.

Gypsy Dent had a husband and two sons back on Earth. John Farragut had mother, father, twenty brothers and sisters and all of their offspring back in the U.S. Glenn Hamilton’s family—herself and Dr. Patrick Hamilton, ship’s xenolinguist—were both here on Merrimack.

Colonel TR Steele’s Marines were his pack. He lived to fight for the United States. Hated Rome. War was good news.

Gypsy turned to Farragut, who wasn’t making any moves toward the hospital yet.

Farragut tapped on the arm of his seat. Gypsy recognized Morse code. When you served on Merrimack you learned Morse. It was the favorite communication system of last resort on board ship.

Farragut’s dits and dahs ordered: Initiate Divorce Protocol.

Gypsy gave the command deck over to the lieutenant so Gypsy could retrieve the Divorce procedure codes from the safe in her cabin. She retrieved Farragut’s codes as well, because Farragut’s codes were in Gypsy’s safe. The captain’s own safe had been destroyed earlier during a battle with the Hive.

The cryptotech Qord Johnson ducked into his forward compartment to get his codes from his safe.

Farragut, through pantomime which only Hamster could figure out, ordered a blast bag brought to the command deck to remove Farragut’s boot with the unexploded head buster in it.

Hamster also ordered the stores admin to get the captain a new right boot, a new wrist com, and a new sky blue captain’s jacket. It was a thing an efficient officer or a close personal friend would think to do. Even so, the knowing glances passed among command deck personnel.

Farragut gave his sidearm back to the Marine guard at the hatch.

Only when Gypsy returned to the command deck and the procedures of the Divorce Protocol were underway did Captain Farragut surrender himself to the medics.

———

The United States armed forces had been ready for the eventuality of a violent split with Rome. They were not expecting it to come like this, but such things never go down as expected.

Reality was that the crew and company of Merrimack had been sharing living space on a space battleship with a Roman patterner. They had planned to kill him first thing the conflict went hot.

But the Roman patterner got away.

The authors of the protocol recognized that such a thing could happen. Things go wrong. That was an unwritten law of military tactics. Commanders failed to account for it at their peril.

The U.S. needed to operate under the absolute worst case scenario. They needed to assume that Rome had all the U.S. codes.

Access codes, recognition codes, res harmonics, authorization codes, systems codes, targeting/tracking codes, detonation codes, ops codes, com codes, displacement codes, firing codes for every cannon in the battery, every handgun, every Swift, every long range shuttle, every space patrol transport.

And so Merrimack and the entirety of the United States armed forces had to change all of them.

It was a complicated routine, which could not follow any pattern. Certain changes were designed to be subject to human whim.

The trick then was the synch up of random decisions with random decisions made in other systems thousands of light-years away.

Resonance allowed instant communication across any distance, but Augustus had been in Merrimack’s database, so Augustus possessed all the resonant harmonics currently in Navy use. The harmonics had to be changed and communicated to the Pentagon without Augustus picking up the communication.

The Divorce Protocol had been in place ever since Caesar Magnus gave Augustus to Captain Farragut at the time of Rome’s surrender.

The procedures for code changes were not stored in any database. They resided in a lot of printed text and antique code-wheels stored in the physical safes of key personnel. Even then the text was not complete, providing another circuit breaker against information leaks. There were blanks to be filled in at the time of the Divorce. The more unexpected the method of blank-filling, the better. There was dice rolling, coin flipping, blindfolded pointing, playing basketball games and using the score to pick numbers.

One of first procedures in the Protocol was to organize a nano scrub of the entire ship, starting with Captain Farragut, who had been in contact with Augustus.

The patterner’s body was rife with medical nanobots. Augustus may have left some nanomachines behind. And those might not be medical devices he left on Merrimack.

Merrimack’s hospital was bigger than most city hospitals.

The medical officer, Mohsen Shah, was waiting for the captain when he arrived from the command deck to the ship’s hospital on a levitated stretcher.

Doctor Mo Shah was an ageless man, placid, with warm, sad puppy eyes. A Riverite by creed, Mo took things as they came. “Be allowing yourself to be relaxing,” he instructed his patient.

To a Riverite, everything was a process. “The River is flowing,” he told Captain Farragut serenely.

The River was talking to a salmon.

Lying still was not Farragut’s natural state. When he lay back and closed his eyes, he was right back there in that chilling moment, in Augustus’ grip, unable to move, locked in the control of a malign strength.

The sensation of being held so still, so helpless, hurtled him back into a childhood memory, when his father used to pin him down in a choke hold and tell him he had to see if he could take it. You have to know you can take it. John Farragut never wanted to go back there.

The ordeal had brought back the same helpless feeling all over again. He could not move.

He kicked.

“The River is flowing,” came Mo’s pacific voice.

Fortunately Farragut didn’t have a voice with which to tell Mo what he could do in his River.

Mo turned up the gas.

Farragut’s eyes closed themselves. The gas did not relax him. It threw him into twilight.

Augustus’ voice came to him once again, speaking against his ear in soft menace: I have the same orders you do.

Farragut had been certain in that moment that he was about to die. Knew it and could do nothing about it. But the voice had continued:

“Fortunately for you, only one of us has his orders from a legitimate government. I need you to let me out.”

The strained angle at which Augustus had trapped Farragut’s head restricted his air, and Farragut could barely squeak out, “I can’t do that.”

“Oh, I wasn’t asking you,” Augustus said, and his thumb smashed the com on Farragut’s wrist. Then a quick fist to Farragut’s throat crushed his larynx.

Farragut could not breathe, could not inhale or exhale. His throat was completely closed. Farragut felt his own face turning purple, his lungs burning, trying to expand.

Augustus hauled him up, facing him. Red and green blotches swam in the air between Farragut’s fading sight and the gaunt face of the patterner.

Augustus’ fingers gripped Farragut’s throat and yanked his trachea back open.

Farragut inhaled in blinding pain. He tasted blood and tried to cry out. He made no sound louder than a heaving breath.

Farragut was thewed like a bull and loved to fight. He hadn’t lost a match in a long time. But Augustus was six foot eight and reinforced with steel and synthetics. Farragut struggled with all the effect of an infant throwing an almighty tantrum. His attempts to get free only annoyed Augustus.

At some point Augustus had enough, and he struck Farragut hard on both sides of the neck, interrupting the blood flow to his head and folding him to the deck.

Farragut had some awareness of being tossed over Augustus’ angular shoulder and carried. Somewhere along the way, Augustus had lobbed an incendiary through a hatch, and climbed a ladder. The deck swam away from Farragut’s watering eyes.

A top hatch opened. Wind fluttered up around him into the lesser atmosphere of the hull. And then he was on the hull.

Cold. He was upside down and having trouble breathing. Could not draw enough oxygen.

And then he was down another hatch, another ladder.

Augustus let him drop in a heap on the deck like a hunter’s kill. But he was breathing.

No one else was here. He heard the fire alarm, heard shouts and stampeding feet passing by on the other side of the partition.

And then he saw the Striker.

It took a moment to register what he was looking at because the colors were wrong. This Striker was blue and white. John Farragut had become accustomed to seeing Augustus’ own Striker painted red and black, Flavian colors. Augustus’ Striker had been destroyed.

Augustus recently liberated this blue-and-white Striker from a madman who got it from another dead patterner. Augustus had not been able to enlist any of Merrimack’s crew to repaint the Striker for him.

This Striker had the same evil lines as his own. But there was no hard ordnance left on the hard points. Those had been spent over a half century ago by its original owner. Still, the Striker had its energy weapons.

Augustus used Captain Farragut’s biometrics—his retina print, his fingerprint, his DNA—to authorize a launch window through Merrimack’s force field, and to override attempts from the command deck to lock him in.

He didn’t need Farragut’s voice print. Voices were too easy to duplicate.

The cargo doors opened.

The higher pressure air of Mack’s atmosphere rushed out with a moan through the wide doors to the layer of thinner air held between the hull and the force field. Now, Farragut thought, now will he kill me?

Augustus should have killed him long ago and always regretted not doing it when he first had the chance.

He ought to now.

Augustus climbed onto his Striker, rode it up the lift through the cargo doors.

The cargo doors were shutting. The outrush of air sped up through the narrowing egress. Augustus’ black clothes fluttered in the wind. He looked down like a perverse angel. He was not aiming a weapon at Farragut down there, lying flat on his back, looking up from the deck.

Augustus was not going to kill him.

Augustus had already told him why:

Only one of us has his orders from a legitimate government.

Augustus did not recognize Romulus. To Augustus, no legitimate authority had declared this war.

Without a war, blowing up Merrimack or killing Captain John Farragut would be acts of piracy and murder. Augustus was not a pirate.

Augustus, now and always, served Rome.

“John Farragut.”

Augustus the battered warrior looked down on him from atop his Striker. His face looked like seamed granite carved into the semblance of perfect Roman features. Cables in his forearms and behind his neck hung loose, unplugged.

“When we cross paths again, know that I will not hesitate to kill you.” Farragut whispered, all breath, no voice, “Yes, you will.”

Maybe Augustus heard him, maybe he read his lips, but Augustus blinked. He said something obscene in Latin, dropped into his cockpit, and the cargo doors banged shut between them.

Farragut stagger-crawled across the cargo bay to an authorization pad. He fumbled to cancel all authorizations that would permit opening the force field. He could not speak the instructions and he could not key fast enough.

He heard the breach forming in the field, heard the Striker power up and push off the hull.

The force field resealed.

Captain Farragut heard himself being paged.

He crawled to an intracom, rose up to his knees and hit the intracom. He hailed the command deck, whispering. The intracom would not register the shape of his voiceless breaths. The com tech on the command deck scolded him to get off the intracom if he wasn’t going to say anything.

Farragut charged into the briefing room, trying out his restored voice box on his assembled officers, “Do I look like a pork butt? Because I sure feel like one.”

Colonel Steele stood at one end of the table. He flushed dark, mortified. He would not sit. The Marines who policed Merrimack were Steele’s men. One Roman had turned the proud Fleet Marines of the 89th into cartoon tail-chasers.

Sitting at the table was the ship’s Naval Intelligence officer, Colonel Bradley Zolman. Colonel Z was a dark-haired man of middle height, lean as a ferret. His face might have been attractive if he ever smiled, but that theory had never been tested as far as anyone on Merrimack knew. Captain Farragut could not call him humorless, but Colonel Z was definitely humor deficient.

Commander Gypsy Dent was also here, stony, embarrassed at her own failure to contain the patterner.

Two xenos, Doctor Weng and Doctor Sidowski, held down the far end of the table. Weng’s and Ski’s uniforms were so pristine that the two men might have been CIA incognito. Scientists’ uniforms got unfolded from their original bags about as often as CIA pretenders’ uniforms did. Anything other than a lab coat made a xeno feel like a dog dressed up for a tea party. Weng and Ski had neglected to add their proper insignia to their uniforms, so they looked as badly dressed as they felt.

Also in the briefing room was Merrimack’s chief engineer, Kit Kittering, a little doll of an officer, boy slender, with short dark hair, big round baby doll eyes, and the foulest mouth on board ship. Apparently just about everything in Kit’s world was capable of fornication.

“Where do we stand now?” said Farragut, roving the length of the briefing room, too agitated to sit.

“At war,” said the IO in the most compact of nutshells. Colonel Z elaborated as best he could. “The exact nature of the war is not clear. Romulus never presented us with an ultimatum.”

“Has Rome attacked anyone?”

“Not so far,” said Colonel Z. “So far as we know.”

There was a lot the Merrimack might not know from out here in the Deep, orbiting a planet that lay off the edge of all the maps.

“Word is that Romulus is expelling Americans from Roman ground and Roman space,” the IO continued. “Romulus is confiscating all U.S. equipment on Roman soil. He already recalled Roman soldiers from U.S. territories before he declared war. We knew this was coming. We just expected quite a few more steps between that and this.”

“Do we know what Romulus expects to get out of the war?” Gypsy asked. “What it will take to finish it?”

“We don’t know,” said the IO. “And strategy is not our business. This is the Navy, not the Executive Office.”

“It’s our business to know what we’re doing out here,” Farragut told Colonel Z. “I haven’t received orders. You?” Farragut would not put it past the Intelligence community to angle around him.

“Not yet,” said Colonel Z. “I have my hands full executing the Divorce Protocol.”

It sounded like an excuse but Farragut recognized that the Divorce was a huge task. “We’re knocked blind and sideways out here.”

“With the Hive,” Doctor Weng reminded him.

“We’re out here with the Hive,” said Doctor Sidowski.

“I know that, gentlemen,” Farragut acknowledged.

A new Hive swarm had emerged right down there on the planet Telecore below them.

At the moment, the gorgons of Telecore were stranded on Telecore. The new gorgons seemed to be as inept as one might expect of any newly hatched thing. But Hives could learn—faster than people learned evidently, because the first Hive had driven Rome’s armed forces to the brink of extinction.

These new gorgons had not figured out that they could fly. And no one knew how long it would take them to learn that they could not only fly, but they could escape the planet’s gravity, survive in a vacuum, retain mobility in the deepest cold of space and achieve faster-than-light travel when collected together in a sphere. It could take years, centuries, even millennia, for them to learn. Or they could be chasing Merrimack tomorrow.

The xenos had known little enough about the earlier Hive. This new Hive presented a whole different set of unknowns. First among those, Farragut put to the xenos: “Why aren’t they dead? There’s nothing to eat down there.”

The Hive was polymorphic. The cells on Telecore were the gorgon type—the eating form. A gorgon appeared as a large dark shapeless sac covered all over in hoselike tentacles, any one of which could take a good bite out of you, because all the tentacles terminated in mouths. The moment the new gorgons erupted out of the Telecore ground, they snapped up everything edible.

The planet’s meager food was swiftly exhausted and the gorgons were looking for more.

“We think—” said Ski.

“Maybe—” Weng hedged.

“We have an idea—”

“A hypothesis—”

Farragut could see his exec, Gypsy Dent, on the edge of her chair, glaring at the two scientists as if she might reach down the table and smack them upside the head to make one of them finish a sentence.

Doctor Sidowski must have seen her, because he blurted without qualifiers, “They’re powered by resonance.”

Faces around the briefing table wore stunned expressions. Captain Farragut was not shocked. The suggestion had been made to him a long time ago that the Hive was a single vast interstellar organism cohered by resonance.

The theory had since been supported by the manner in which the previous Hive perished. Commodore Farragut’s Attack Group One had exterminated the original Hive by disrupting its intergalactic nervous system with a single resonant pulse.

As a unified resonant being, the Hive whole might subsist on energy consumed by any of its cosmically scattered units. It was rather preposterous to think on, but the only theory that fit the preposterous facts. One thing humankind had learned from the first Hive: you can’t starve a gorgon.

As long as some part of the Hive somewhere in the universe had enough to eat, the gorgons of Telecore might realistically wait the best part of forever for their next meal.

“Probably,” Farragut allowed the resonance-sharing premise. “But we’ve seen swarms drop below some magic number where they’re not worth maintaining. That lot down on Telecore isn’t bringing in any energy to the whole. Why doesn’t the Hive cut its losses? I want to see spontaneous disintegration down there. Why isn’t it happening?”

“Because we’re here?” Weng suggested and instantly looked as if he’d shot the captain.

Farragut blanched. Merrimack was a resonance source and receiver. Gorgons sensed the Mack’s presence. Perhaps resonance promised food, and the proximity of resonance made the Telecore swarm valuable to the Hive whole.

John Farragut was keeping the swarm alive.

“Oh, for Jesus.”

Dealing with a Hive was like navigating a minefield. Farragut hated mines.

He shook off his blunder and pushed ahead. “I can’t leave those monsters down there unsecured. Any solutions for me, gentlemen?”

“Quick and dirty fix,” said Weng. “We could nuke the whole world and take out the local swarm—”

“—But then the rest of the Hive will learn about us from that,” said Ski.

“I don’t like that idea,” said Farragut.

“Neither do we,” said Weng, then turned to his colleague to make sure. “Do we?”

“No,” said Ski. “We do not.” From battling the last Hive, the xenos knew that any experience of a swarm member was an experience immediately shared by the interstellar whole. You shoot one gorgon with a beam gun, then you must assume that all the Hive members across the universe now knew what a beam gun could do to them—though “knowing” was too elevated a term to attribute to Hive impulses. Augustus had once likened the Hive to a gut. A gut processed input, but it couldn’t be said to “know” its own processes.

Nevertheless, the Hive whole would have an awareness of what happened at Telecore. They would be aware if the gorgons of Telecore died, and maybe from their dying glean “knowledge” of what killed them.

Knowledge was power. Farragut wanted to keep the new Hives as powerless as possible.

“I need a plan,” Farragut told the xenos. “A viable plan for dealing with the Hive swarms on Telecore in the event we need to leave the planet—because we will be leaving the planet. I can’t see the Joint Chiefs parking the Mack out here watching baby monsters while Near Space is at war.”

“A plan, sir. Aye, sir,” said Weng.

“Several proposals, sir,” said Ski. “For your approval.”

The effort to maintain Hive ignorance might be futile. The range of the Hive entirety was incalculable, and God alone knew what other beings elsewhere in the universe were teaching the new Hives even at this moment. But John Farragut was never one to stop running until the umpire called him out.

He did recognize that he could expect no help from Rome. Rome lost most of its Deep End colonies to the first Hive.

Hives. There had been two.

Presumably there were two again. It was only a guess— a good guess, but still a guess—that the new monsters were offspring of the old Hives, because the new monsters were popping up in places the old Hives had been like recurrences of Ebola.

That made for a lot of new gorgons on a lot of old Roman colonies in the Deep End of the galaxy.

But the Empire had withdrawn its remaining populations from the Deep End. Rome ceded all their liabilities to their enemy.

Except one.

There had only ever been one occurrence of the Hive in Near Space. That had been on the Roman colony of Thaleia.

No new generation of Hive had erupted on planet Thaleia.

So the new Hive threat was confined to the Deep End. Rome counted on the United States’ self-interest to hold it there.

The Hive was a U.S. problem now.

That placed the United States in a two-front war— fighting the Hive in the Deep and Rome in Near Space.

Captain Farragut turned to his XO and his IO at the briefing table. “We’ve got two Roman ships of war out here in the Deep End and unaccounted for. Do we have anything on their heading?”

Colonel Z shook his head. “Wherever Gladiator and Horatius are, they’re running dark. They may be headed back to Palatine, but who knows? We can’t ignore the possibility that they could be lining up a strike on Fort Ike. In the first scenario, we don’t need to worry about them for another three months. The other scenario would be ugly.”

Numa Pompeii’s warship Gladiator and the legion carrier Horatius had been members of Commodore Farragut’s Attack Group One. His comrades in arms were suddenly enemy combatants.

General Numa Pompeii had been a powerful man during the reign of Caesar Magnus. Caesar Romulus had sent Numa to the Deep to get him out of sight and out of popular mind.

Marcus Asinius, astrarch of the Horatius, was cousin to the late Legion Commander Herius Asinius, whose teeth were interred down below on the planet Telecore. Legion Draconis was not a favorite of Caesar Romulus either.

Neither Numa Pompeii nor Marcus Asinius were fervent Romulus supporters, but they were staunch Romans. Marcus would not question authority, like it or not. But Farragut would not put it past Numa to play Lucifer and storm the gates of Roman heaven.

Numa was a cagey political animal, arrogant, popular. Farragut could not guess what Numa’s plans were.

Farragut ordered, “Gypsy, contact Fort Ike. Make sure the Fort’s on Condition Watch Two. Advise them to be on the alert for Gladiator and Horatius. And let them know there is a rogue patterner armed with a Striker out here who could take the left antenna off a mayfly from five light-minutes away.”

Kit Kittering lifted a finger to insert a comment. “Captain, I kinda doubt Augustus’ shooting is gonna be that good. That old Striker was built for someone else and it’s sixty years old. Strikers are custom jobs. He’s just not gonna run as well in someone else’s custom shoes. Patterners don’t just pilot Strikers. They kind of wear them.”

Kit had crawled through both Strikers. She knew each machine as well as she knew Merrimack.

“It’s not gonna to be like our last fight with a patterner.” Kit’s hand found its way to her midriff as if she could still feel the hole.

A patterner named Septimus, piloting his own Striker, had fired a shot straight through Merrimack, through her force field, through Kit Kittering, and out the stern.

“Can you calculate the best speed of this Striker to make it across the Abyss?” Farragut asked his engineer.

The Abyss was two thousand parsecs of relative dark that separated galactic arms of the Milky Way. The Abyss lay between the Deep End and Near Space.

“Seventy standard days.” Kit said with a head tilt to either side to indicate some give or take. “He might even get there sooner if he pushes it, but then he would arrive dead. Or vegetablized. Can we suggest it to him?”

“He may not live to see the other side of the Abyss anyway,” said Farragut. “He shouldn’t be alive now.”

Life expectancy of a patterner was limited. When Caesar Magnus gave Augustus to Captain Farragut, Augustus had already outlived his expiration date. He had not been expected to live long enough to become the loose cannon he was now.

“Something else to consider,” Colonel Z said. “That Striker Augustus took belonged to Secundus.” Secundus had been the second patterner ever assembled.

“Kit already went through that,” said Farragut.

“Mister Kittering was talking about engines and weapons,” said Colonel Z. “I’m talking about data. Augustus has Secundus’ data bank. Secundus identified the Hive harmonics using that database. When that Striker hits Near Space, Rome will have the secret of how to identify a single harmonic out of infinite possibilities.”

“If Augustus has that information, then we have it,” said Farragut. “Don’t we have a copy of Secundus’ database on Merrimack!”

“We do,” said Colonel Z. “The secret of isolating harmonics per se is not in the database. Neither is Secundus’ methodology. Secundus didn’t make notes. But some combination of facts in the database together with a patterner’s ability to synthesize data adds up to deep sewage for the United States of America. When Augustus shares that secret with his masters, we have a severe tactical disadvantage.”

“I know. I’m the one who brought the bastard aboard,” said Farragut. “We couldn’t have exterminated the old Hive without Augustus. We needed him.”

“Now we need him dead,” said Colonel Z. Insinuation there. Someone had not done his job.

Kit came to Farragut’s defense, “Augustus won’t give Romulus skat. And if Augustus doesn’t recognize Romulus as Caesar, then who gives a rat’s ass? To hell with him.”

Farragut gave Kit’s shoulder a squeeze as his pacing took him past her, appreciating the loyalty. “Can’t afford to get quite that comfortable, Kit,” Farragut said. “Augustus is still Roman. When it comes down to Us versus Them, he is definitely a Them.” And to the misgivings he saw in his officers’ faces, he answered, “And don’t anyone think that if I get a shot, I won’t take it.”

3

MY CRATE!”

That was Kerry circling her Swift in the flight hangar. The Swift’s cockpit was charred.

She lifted her arms up in the air, her fingers curled into claws calling witness to her beloved Alpha’s carnage. “Shit! Oh crap. Oh fugger.”

She glared up at a severed air hose flapping every which way twenty-five feet up in the overhead and she yowled, “Will someone shut that thing off!”

Up went an erk to the catwalk to clamp off the hose.

Kerry Blue was an ordinary sort of unretouched rough-pretty. Her race was purebred mutt. The melting pot had melted right here. Kerry Blue stood on the tall side, slim, loose jointed, with just enough padding on the bow and the stern to know you had a woman under those coveralls. Her easy loose walk really let you know.

She was battle seasoned but never hardened. She rolled with every hit and just got back up. Kerry Blue had a natural ability to ignore anything that didn’t matter at the moment. She was not a deep thinker, which meant she never thought herself into a hole. She was going to be a lifer, and would probably still be a flight sergeant when they pulled her wings off.

Her wings were everywhere at the moment. Pieces of Alpha Six lay scattered all across the flight hangar.

Her Swift’s magnetic antimatter containment field had held fast anyway, the only thing that had. But that thing was real important.

Flight Sergeant Cole Darby was down on the deck, wedged underneath Cain Salvador’s Swift with Cain Salvador, trying to pry pieces of Alpha Six out of Alpha Three’s undercarriage.

Came the roar. It was loud and it echoed round in the hangar: “What’d you do to your spacecraft, Marine?”

The Old Man. TR Steele.

Colonel Steele stopped in the hatchway, fists on his hips, eyes glowering ice blue fire. Darb sniggered. Someone else cackled. Colonel Steele was always roaring at Kerry Blue. But her Swift’s mess on the deck was so clearly not Kerry Blue’s fault that this roar had to be TR Steele impersonating himself.

Doing a good job too. Because if he’d been serious, Kerry Blue would be in the brig for kicking him in the butt.

Cain Salvador whispered aside to Cole Darby, lying on the creeper next to his underneath Cain’s Swift. “Did I just see Kerry Blue kick the Old Man in the butt?”

“Nope.” Darb kept his eyes on his work. “Didn’t happen. You saw nothing. Gimme the torch.”

“Colonel’s here,” Cain whispered. “Do we stand up?”

“Keep welding.”

It had taken Kerry Blue over two years to see what Darb had noticed in his first months on board Merrimack. Colonel Steele was always an ogre to Kerry Blue, always yelling at her. She noticed that part. The colonel did everything he could to keep her out of his sight, like he couldn’t stand the sight of her.

Well, he really really couldn’t stand the sight of her.

Blue never figured that part out until Darb hit her in the head with it: He can’t stand to be near you. That had woken her up. She’d been wide awake ever since. Steele came stalking around the husk of Kerry’s Swift, his eyes hard as arctic ice, as if looking for something to criticize in the heap.

Darb cringed in hiding under Cain’s Swift. It felt like the whole hangar could just go up in flames right now.

A small movement broke up the Old Man’s frown, like a flicker in an image that quickly repairs itself. There was some kind of strong current in here. A sparking. Something was going to ignite. Smelled like someone’s career.

Darb heard Kerry Blue talking too fast, too loud: “Look what he did! Augustus torched my crate! Why mine? I was nice to that son of a bitch!”

Kerry Blue had been nice to men beyond count.

Steele’s face turned blood red.

Kerry railed on, “Why couldn’t he torch your crate instead?” Steele said, “He knew the way to get at me.” Darb tried to reel his legs in all the way under the Swift, cringing.

Kerry brought her voice way down quiet for just Steele—and the two guys trying to disappear under Alpha Three—to hear. “Yeah?”

Darb tried to will his ears shut.

I’m not hearing this. I am not hearing this. Anyone asks, I got no idea. La la la la la—

And praise the Lord, Steele growled at Kerry, “Clean up this mess.” He stalked away. Kerry Blue’s voice sailed after him, too cheery: “Aye, aye, sir.”

Colonel TR Steele turned his back on Kerry Blue and retreated to his side of that vast chasm that separated officer from enlisted man. Man, for Kerry Blue was a man by military definition. A she-man instead of a he-man, but a man as far as the Navy was concerned.

Except that was all bullskat to Colonel Steele, and Kerry Blue was all woman and what the hell was she doing on his battleship? Enlisted!

He could not have her. He could not breathe without her. He got all tongue-tied and stupid around her. He could not afford to mess this up.

What this? He caught himself thinking. There was no this. This could not happen. There could be no this! Steele prowled across the hangar to Flight Leader Ranza Espinoza, a big woman, with broad shoulders, boy hips, and fine gray eyes. Her fat shock of coarse, light brown hair was tied back into a ponytail as thick as Steele’s fist.

Ranza was a tough soldier, but she was not terrific with details. Unfortunately, the Divorce Protocol was nothing but details.

Steele looked over Ranza’s rounded shoulder at the instructions which she kept reading and rereading. “Got it in hand, Flight Leader?”

“No, sir,” said Ranza. “This has got me by the short hairs. And I thought I knew everything there was to know about divorce too.”

Ranza had three children with three different last names, all back home on Earth with their maternal grandmother. “You have a brain, Flight Leader,” said Colonel Steele.

“Use it.” Ranza anguished over the instructions that may as well have been written in Turkish. “Sir, Fm tryin’—” Steele snatched the instructions from her. “Cole Darby!”

“Sir!” Darb’s voice sounded along with a clunk. That was Flight Sergeant Cole Darby bumping his head on the belly of Cain Salvador’s crate.

Cole Darby was an overeducated white suburban boy, who enlisted in the Fleet Marine looking for purpose in his life.

The Darb wanted a purpose? Colonel Steele would give him a foxtrotting purpose. He jammed the instructions for the Divorce Protocol into Cole Darby’s hands. “Make this happen.” Find your meaning in that.

“Aye, sir,” said Cole Darby.

Steele had expected Darb to bail a long time ago. But the Darb had hung in, fit in. Not that the Darb wasn’t still an odd duck in this company. Steele didn’t know if Cole Darby had found whatever he was looking for, but he was still here and he was useful most of the time.

Steele watched Cole Darby read the Protocol. Darb’s eyes did not glass over. You could see the cylinders turning and the tumblers falling into position.

Steele returned to Ranza, gestured back with a jerk of his thick thumb. “There.”

“Oh,” said Ranza on an arcing note, everything becoming clear. “That brain.”

“Allocate your resources, Flight Leader,” Steele tapped her shoulder with the bottom of his fist. Ranza smiled a gap-toothed smile. “Got it, sir. Thank you, sir.”

Steele surveyed the hangar. His gaze fell on a pair of booted feet, sticking out from under the Swift next to Kerry Blue’s.

Steele advanced. Let his shadow fall across the boots. “You got a girlfriend under there, Salvador?” Clunk. Head on the belly. Cain Salvador scrabbled to vertical. “No, sir.”

Flight Sergeant Cain Salvador looked like a Marine. Cain was sleek and powerful as a seal. Could have been a real afthole but he respected authority and stood before Steele at stiff attention.

“As you were.” Cain Salvador rubbed his head and crawled back under his Swift, Alpha Three.

Tromping across the deck grates and making a lot of noise operating a maintenance bot to suck the debris and soot from Kerry Blue’s exploding crate was Dak Shepard, Alpha Two. Hard not to like Dak Shepard. All heart, guts, brawn, and dick. No brain. Dak was solid.

Flight Sergeant Twitch Fuentes was changing out the canopy of his Swift, Alpha Five. Steele did not ask Twitch Fuentes anything. Steele really didn’t want to know how much English Twitch didn’t know. Twitch was a good fighter, always ready.

Carly Delgado regularly flew Alpha Four. She had pried up a deck grate and was summoning Dak over to help her with the soggy mess underneath it with a wave of her stick-thin arm. All bone and whip muscle. Carly was a hard soldier. Her small pyramidal breasts looked hard too. Mean. Too lean. She was looking particularly skinny right now. Steele ordered her, “Bulk up, Delgado.”

“I feel better when I’m hungry,” Carly answered back. Steele told her, “I don’t care if you eat or not, I want to see more Delgado.” Dak whispered, “Carly! Take your shirt off!”

“Shut up, Dak.” This mess was all Augustus’ fault as far as Steele could see. The Roman man-machine was just plain easy to hate.

The war had gone hot and Merrimack was stuck in the Deep, snarled up in the Divorce Protocol, tripping over minutia and that was Augustus’ fault too. The boffins were afraid Augustus had left rogue nanites.

Merrimack segregated all her systems. Took them down one by one, searched for signs of tampering and scoured for nanites. The crew ran test scenarios designed by the cryptotech and validated by the systems’ normal users and their maintenance personnel.

All programs were reencrypted and reseeded.

Chief Engineer Kit Kittering took down each of the fornicating ship’s six fornicating engines one at a time, exiling the fornicating antimatter into space, while she purged the fornicating system, rehoused the fornicating components, recoded the fornicating containment field, recaptured the antimatter (really fornicating on the way back in) and restarted the damned engine.

Codes needed changing on all spacecraft Merrimack carried, starting with the Swifts, their force fields, their engine containment shields. Same with the long-range shuttles and the space patrol torpedo boats.

All personnel reported to the hospital in rotation for full nano scans. That included the ship’s dogs.

Also to be scanned were the houseplants, the livestock, the hydroponic gardens. Innocuous systems—air, light, emergency light, the lifts—were all refitted with virgin programs. Decks were evacuated and sealed off one by one, opened to vacuum and sanitized.

Scrubbing for nanoparticles, you got to know how really big the Mack was.

She measured four hundred feet red light to green light, eighty-four feet of that across the beam. She was four hundred feet topsail tip to bottom sail tip; five hundred and seventy feet nose to engines, then add another ninety feet onto that for the engines.

“What’s that in nanometers?”

“Shut up, Dak.”

Steele began to wonder if those instruments couldn’t read his thoughts. Absolutely nothing else was private. Steele thanked God he’d never stashed away any images of Kerry Blue in his quarters. Nothing was left unscrutinized down to the nano level.

Harvard educated xenolinguist Patrick Hamilton apparently wasn’t smart enough to purge his stash before the searchers hit his quarters. Something turned up in his quarters not meant for wifely eyes. Whatever it was, it didn’t cause the security team any concern, but Doctor Pat’s wife was the Hamster, third in command of the space battleship Merrimack. Those were her quarters too. If Patrick Hamilton didn’t think a find like that wouldn’t get back to her there must have been a stupid contest running.

Made Steele feel like a fog trucking genius.

Captain Farragut took a walkabout of his giant ship. Not that he could see nanoparticles, but if anything were out of place on his Merrimack he could sense it.

The tap tap tap of a basketball drew him to the maintenance hangar. He recognized the cadence of the dribble. The ball’s bounces had a feminine sound. The footsteps following the ball were barely audible above the other ship sounds.

As Farragut entered the cavernous compartment, the lone player circled under the basket with a light tread. She jumped. Landed lightly and corralled the ball that bounced off the rim.

She was five foot one and light boned.

Hamster was just plain light.

She played one-on-herself in the maintenance hangar. John Farragut would have joined her, but it was probably not a good idea for him to play one-on-one of any game with Mrs. Hamilton.

Glenn Hamilton wore her auburn hair pulled back in a ponytail. She dribbled the basketball, jumped, and shot. And missed again. Caught the rebound.

“You know there is something ridiculous about you with a basketball.” Hamster glared toward the hatch. Saw John Farragut leaning in the entranceway. “Shut up,” she said. “Sir.”

Farragut strode in. He beckoned for the ball. She passed it to him, rather strongly.

He bounced the ball twice, took a shot. Missed.

Hamster collected the rebound, jumped and made the shot. “Gypsy wasn’t on deck when you called me to the command deck, was she?” said Farragut.

Hamster had to think back to the declaration of war. It seemed like a year ago since the balloon went up, even though it was scarcely enough time to count in days. More like hours.

She remembered the words she’d used to summon Farragut to the command deck in the middle of ship’s night without mentioning war.

Gypsy’s hair.

“Hell no, sir!” she answered.

Commander Gypsy Dent’s hair was an elaborate nest of serpentine dreadlocks detached from Gypsy’s head and exiled to her cabin until Gypsy got off duty, when she reattached it to her head hair by hair.

Gypsy was very proud of her hair, and she had given Captain Farragut an order: “Speak not of the hair.”

No one else would have made the connection, even if they had heard Farragut once describe Gypsy’s hair as “a war zone.” But Glenn Hamilton and John Farragut operated on the same harmonic. He figured it out instantly.

“Don’t tell Commander Dent I said that,” said Hamster. “She’ll sic her hair on me.”

She bounced the basketball.

It was the middle of Glenn Hamilton’s night. She ought to be in bed, with her husband. “All not happy in the rose garden?” Farragut guessed. “Plant the rose garden!” said Hamster. She took another shot. Bounced off the rim. “I am not going to sleep wflh that.”

She flipped the bird at her absent sweetheart.

Farragut seized her impudent digit in his fist and walked Glenn by the finger over to a data terminal. He pressed her fingertip to an authorization pad. Her hand was dainty and tiny in his big paw. Her fingernail formed a neat little oval peeking out the bottom of his fist. He let go of her finger. The authorization pad showed green. He’d given her access to the captain’s quarters. “You can rack out at my place,” Farragut told her. “Be out of there by eight bells.” Glenn collected the basketball. She tossed it from hand to hand, agitated, considering the offer. Farragut intercepted the ball, kept it. He nodded sideways out the hatch. “Get some rest.” Glenn let her chin drop to her collarbone, suddenly very sleepy. “Thank you, sir.” She left the deck, her little red ponytail swinging side to side.

Farragut forgot about the encounter until mid watch, ship’s night, which everyone called the Hamster watch. The delicate smell of someone else, someone female, lingered on his pillow.

Had the damnedest dreams.

“Word is Lady Hamilton spent the day in the captain’s rack,” Carly arrived in the forecastle with the latest gossip. Gossip had already got there ahead of her, and Darb said back, “Yeah, she did but the cap’n didn’t. He was on duty.”

“Crap,” said Kerry Blue, disappointed. “Hamster should dump Doctor Pat and make the captain happy.”

“Never happen, chica linda” said Carly. “They’re officers. Officers take that skat serious.”

“It’s not like officers’ zippers don’t go down like everyone else’s,” said Cain Salvador.

“Yeah,” said Dak Shepard and added with a snigger, “They just make a real loud sound when they get caught.” Kerry Blue’s stomach fluttered. That was exactly nothing she wanted to hear.

“Hamster ain’t right for the captain,” said Ranza Espinoza.

“You think?” said Kerry Blue.

Ranza lifted a sneering lip. “Nah. She’s not for him. She’s just here. Farragut needs a hen, and that chick don’t lay eggs.”

“Somebody told me Farragut had a wife,” said Cain Salvador.

“Yeah,” said Dak. “Named Maryann.”

“So Farragut is married?” said Cain, surprised.

“Was,” said Dak.

“A while ago,” said Kerry Blue.

“She offed herself,” said Carly.

“Really?” said Cain. “Damn, I never found him that tough to be around.”

“That’s the point,” said Cariy. “He wasn’t around.”

“She did it because he wasn’t around?” Suicide was alien to Kerry Blue and she made a face, looking around for anyone else who thought that was weird. “Seems a little drastic,” said Cole Darby to her frown. “Couldn’t she just have an affair with the stable boy?”

“I wouldn’t,” said Kerry Blue.

“Wouldn’t what?”

“Kill myself,” said Kerry.

“We know that, chica,” said Carly.

“Kerry would do the stable boy,” said Dak.

Kerry didn’t ever want to know what she would do.

Merrimack looked down from the observation deck at the devastated world of Telecore. It was getting time to leave.

Captain Farragut loathed giving ground to the enemy. As a soldier, he wanted to kill them.

It galled him to know that exterminating an entire Hive was as easy as flipping a switch. He had destroyed the two original Hives with two resonant pulses. They died in an instant.

It was pathetically easy.

And impossible at the moment.

Repeating that feat required identifying the specific harmonic that held this new Hive together. There were infinite harmonics. John Farragut had been given the first two. Xenos were working on recreating the methodology but if isolating a harmonic were not so damnably difficult then some intelligent entity would have stopped the original Hives long before now.

The Hive was so alien to organic life, so improbable, so contrary to ordinary laws of nature that worlds died before they could realize the nature of the beast.

John Farragut was sure to holy hell that no one would be giving him harmonics this time. The neutron hose option was tempting. But tactical victory could lead to strategic disaster.

John Farragut would not be the one to teach this Hive what a neutron hose was. But neither could he trust the gorgons of Telecore to stay on Telecore once Merrimack left orbit.

The xenos could not tell him what part of a Hive’s “knowledge” was learned and what was instinct.

Attraction to a resonant source was probably instinctive. Hive ability to hone in on a source and a reception point of resonance appeared to be an inborn skill as well.

Even now the gorgons of Telecore leaned up, yearning like sunflowers at Merrimack’s every orbital pass.

If this Hive behaved like its predecessor, then as soon as these gorgons became spaceborne they would immediately head to the closest resonant source. Assuming Merrimack was no longer here, that would make the swarm’s target the U.S. Space Fortress Dwight David Eisenhower. A space fort was a stationary target.

Farragut quit the observation deck and swung into the lab. “Doctor Weng! Doctor Sidowski! Show me what you’ve got!”

“I think we have come up with a workable solution—” said Weng.

“More of a stopgap than a solution—” said Ski.

“—to handle the resident swarm in the absence of human oversight,” said Weng. The xenos presented to Captain Farragut a collection of small drones.

Farragut picked one up. It was lightweight, roughly spherical, larger than a softball, smaller than a basketball. He turned it over and over. “They look like Roman rovers.”

Weng nodded. “We nicked the design.” Ski: “They’re programmed to resonate on different harmonics. This is the first set—”

“We’re calling it Toto.”

“Toto is engineered to run around on the surface of Telecore, resonating.”

“Gorgons chase resonant sources.”

“The gorgons will chase them,” said Weng. “Toto is faster than the gorgons,” said Ski. “According to current data,” said Weng. “We’re basically giving the gorgons a little exercise,”

said Ski. “Let them burn energy.”

“Keeps them occupied.”

“What if the gorgons catch Toto?” Farragut asked. “We want them to.”

“Eventually.”

“After a while.”

“Why?”

“For one thing, the gorgons will learn that a resonant source isn’t edible. We want them to think that.”

“So in the best case scenario they’ll conclude that chasing something resonant is a waste of energy,” said Ski. “We never get the best case scenario,” said Farragut. He passed the rover of Toto One back to Doctor Sidowski. “Aye, Captain. That brings us to Toto Two,” said Weng. Toto Two wasn’t in the lab. Ski brought up an image of Toto Two. Farragut blinked. “Toto Two’s a long-range shuttle.”

“Toto Two will be orbiting Telecore. If the gorgons achieve escape velocity and leave atmosphere, Toto Two is programmed to commence resonating on a new harmonic,” said Ski.

“A new harmonic in case the swarms guess that the first harmonic was a dry hustle,” Weng noted. “Not like we don’t have enough harmonics to work with.”

“Toto Two is programmed to leave orbit and lead the gorgons off in a direction away from Fort Eisenhower.”

“They’re wild geese,” said Farragut. Merrimack had used wild geese many times to draw the Hive off a vulnerable target.

“Except that Toto Two will be moving at a velocity calculated to let the gorgons gain on it in small increments,” said Ski.

“So the gorgons don’t lose interest,” said Weng. “We want to keep them chasing,” said Ski. “That should—” Weng began. “should—” Ski emphasized.

“—keep the gorgons off course and unfed for at least a year,” Weng concluded. “What do you think?” Ski asked. They both looked expectantly to the captain. “I like it, guys,” said Farragut. “Make it work. And hope the gorgons of Telecore get hungry enough to eat each other before we’re forced to deal with them again.”

4

A BITCH NAMED INGA greeted Captain Farragut at the hatch to the only civilian compartment on the space battleship. The Doberman was former crew. Drummed out of the Navy in disgrace, Inga had become pet to the only man on board permitted to own a pet, Merrimack’s civilian adviser Don Jose Maria de Cordillera.

Inga sat on Farragut’s command, her stubby tail wagging, shaking her whole stern with it, a big sharp white smile on her clueless face.

The creation of smart dogs was an idea that came and went and came and went over the centuries, and met with disaster every time it came, and always went chased by dogs.

It seemed natural for Man to want his best friend to be better. The idea of a genetically engineered canine with enhanced intelligence held irresistible promise.

The results had been the meanest, most unpredictable, most undoglike breeds ever conceived. Smart dogs had personalities a lot like Augustus’ in fact.

With self-awareness came willful disobedience.

Smart dogs were cunning, self-serving, skulking, sulking, depressive, disloyal, mutinous, thieving curs with delusions of grandeur. A dog that would just as soon bite you in the face as submit to a human being’s dominance.

Having eaten of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, Man’s creations questioned the imperative of unquestioned devotion.

Cadres of dogs trained for fearless service to humankind, loyal unto death, decided to stuff this for a game of soldiers and go their own way. A dog named Bravo, popularly known as Spartacus, led a massacre of his unit’s handlers. That fubar ended the last attempt at improving Dog almost a hundred years ago.

The remaining smart dogs had been castrated by their creator and heaved out of the garden. The Fall of the enhanced Dog was Dog’s failure to bow to the Alpha.

Merrimack’s contingent of fourteen unenhanced canines was comprised of the three rat terriers—Godzilla, Kong, and Dragon; five miniature shepherds; two golden retrievers in the medical service; Nose and Sweet Lips, the miniature bloodhounds; and Pooh the standard poodle whom the chief considered his dog.

Inga the Doberman had been sacked for killing a crewmate. The crew had been seaweed, and may have been dead before Inga started chewing on it, but Inga’s behavior was unacceptable for a member of the U.S. Navy nonetheless.

Inga was not a smart dog. John Farragut gave the now-civilian Inga an ear scratch as he entered the compartment.

At one time holograms of wide open pastures with running horses and deep blue skies had graced the confines of Jose Maria’s cabin. The space was bare now, its true small dimensions clear. In it was only a bed surrounded by stacks of crates. One crate served as a chair, another two as a writing desk. Everything else was in the crates.

Jose Maria was already packed. He knew what a declaration of war meant.

“Young Commodore.” Jose Maria rose from his chair-crate and turned from his desk-crates to greet Farragut with a smile and a continental bow. He was dressed simply in a charcoal gray tunic and black trousers of elegant weave.

“It’s Captain again,” said Farragut. The Attack Group had disintegrated and so had Farragut’s temporarily elevated title.

“Young Captain,” Jose Maria corrected himself.

A Terra Rican aristocrat, Jose Maria de Cordillera looked refined no matter what he did. Even when he’d been wielding a sword and wading ankle-deep in dying gorgons, he was a mesmerizing figure.

He was an older man, greyhound slender, his long black hair held back in a silver clasp. The silvering blaze at his temples had grown wider in the last year. He had truly beautiful hands, his neat nails shaped very short on the left hand; squared off and somewhat longer on the right. Fingernails of a man who played Spanish guitar.

John Farragut glanced over all of Jose Maria’s crates. “Where’s your guitar?”

“He took it,” said Jose Maria, tranquil.

He. Augustus.

Farragut reacted with a start. “Augustus was here?”

Jose Maria had known that Augustus was jumping ship.

John Farragut spoke, a little betrayed. “You didn’t warn me.”

“I had no idea you were unaware,” said Jose Maria. “As it was, I gave him my blessing.”

Not the way Farragut had been blessing Augustus.

“I’m sure Augustus appreciated that,” said Farragut.

“He swore at me,” Jose Maria said with a philosophical shrug.

Captain Farragut could not delay the sour news that brought him here. “I’m sorry I have to beach you at first port of call, which is fixing to be Fort Eisenhower. Under the Divorce Protocol I can’t carry a neutral anymore.”

Jose Maria showed no offense. “I understand, young Captain.”

Farragut continued, apologetic, “I can’t even take you through the Shotgun. And I know civilian shuttle schedules have got to be hashed, so I can’t even guess how long a layover you’ve got ahead of you before you can get back to Near Space.”

“I know the rules for neutrals in wartime,” said Jose Maria, unconcerned. “I have had my eye on that pretty little new-styled Star Racer. I saw them for sale at Portrillo station in the fortress on our last time through. I could never justify buying such a toy before.” His dark eyes became impish, “This is a sign, do you not think?”

Farragut smiled, picturing Jose Maria with a sassy space yacht. Jose Maria could easily afford it. He was enormously wealthy, a moral man who felt some guilt at the indulgence. But the war did provide an excuse.

Farragut said, “Do I need to ask what you will christen her?”

“No, young Captain, you do not.”

There was soon to be a quick little racing yacht named Mercedes dashing among the stars.

Jose Maria’s wife Mercedes had been a xenobotanist. She had gone to the Deep End with Romans several years ago on a secret terraforming project beyond U.S. settled space.

Everything about the planet was perfect for terraforming when the Roman explorers found it—its irradiation, its gravitation, its revolution, its rotation, its tilt, its orbital eccentricity, the pressure and composition of its atmosphere, its soil, its water, its sun. It was perfect. Better than perfect—because, despite its ideal conditions, there was no native life to compete with Roman imports.

Soon there was a balanced, thriving ecosystem on the distant colonial world. The Romans named the planet Telecore. Mercedes Cordillera started homeward on board the Roman ship Sulla.

Sulla never arrived.

For a long time no one would speak of Sulla’s existence. Voices dropped to a hush at mention of the name. No one would talk to Jose Maria.

With nearly limitless financial resources. Jose Maria set himself on a quest to find his wife. His quest brought him to Merrimack.

Jose Maria’s home was the unified nation-world of Terra Rica. Terra Rica was neutral in the U.S./Roman conflict. Jose Maria had come on board Merrimack as a sword master. The sword was not a recognized weapon of war at the time, so Captain Farragut did not call Jose Maria an arms instructor. A semantic cheat, but it got the Terra Rican neutral on board a United States space battleship without breaking his neutrality.

In their journey to the far reaches of the Deep End of the galaxy Merrimack uncovered a terrible secret.

There really were monsters at the edge of the map.

It turned out that the crew and passengers of Sulla were the first human victims of the Hive. The planet Telecore was close behind.

Someone might have wondered why a planet perfect for life had none. Rome had only found Telecore devoid of all life because the Hive had already been there once, eaten it clean, and moved on. And came back.

The Hive ate the terraformed world clean one more time.

The Hive was ancient, resilient, a veteran of countless attempts to destroy it. Swarms could outmaneuver, overpower, and turn high-tech weaponry on its owners. Yet despite all the Hive’s collective adaptations and tricks, the individual members could still be cut with a sharp edge. A ship equipped with swords was the first to survive an encounter with the Hive.

Jose Maria had assisted in destroying the original enemy, but failed in his quest to bring his wife home. He knew Mercedes was dead. He would have liked to lay her to rest on Terra Rica.

Sulla had never been found.

Jose Maria was going home alone.

“I must give you something of mine,” Jose Maria told John Farragut. “There may not be time later. I gave Augustus my guitar.”

Well, Augustus had taken it.

Jose Maria gave John Farragut his Spanish sword.

The elegant sword, its elaborate hilt fashioned like El Cid’s colada, bore nicks and scratches of honorable service. The cord that kept it in hand through many battles was frayed. “Hell of a gift,” said Farragut, profoundly moved. “Thank you.”

He asked Jose Maria if he was going home now to Terra Rica.

“Earth first,” said Jose Maria. “I have an audience with the Pope.”

“What’d that cost you?”

Eyelids lowered, brows went up. “You are channeling Augustus, young Captain,” Jose Maria scolded gently. “That was unkind.”

“That was unforgivably rude,” said Farragut, surprised that the words even came out of him. “Forgivable.” Jose Maria made the sign of the cross over him. “Te absolvo.”

Jose Maria’s standing as philanthropist and as a Catholic would make him welcome at the Vatican, seat of the archaic Earth religion which had long since parted ways with the Roman Empire.

“We’ll need to delouse you and all your things before we get to Fort Ike,” said Farragut.

The crew had come to referring to nanites as lice.

Neither the term nor the requirement surprised Jose Maria. He was aware of all the sanitization happening around him. Farragut promised him, “I’ll have the crew repack your crates when they’re done,”

Jose Maria demurred, “Young Captain, I have a set of personal nano-machines I should very much like to preserve.”

“I’ll get you a capsule. We can tow your nanites outboard with the oxygen bricks. You’ll need to park them outside the Fort and pick them up on your way out.”

“That will suffice. Thank you for accommodating me.”

“Are you taking the Shotgun home or are you and Mercedes touring the galaxy?”

“I have not decided,” he said, thoughtful.

The Shotgun could displace Jose Maria and Mercedes across the two thousand parsecs that separated Fort Dwight David Eisenhower from Fort Theodore Roosevelt in an instant. A ship existed in the Fort Ike terminus of the Shotgun one moment, and then in the Fort Ted terminus the next. Never in between.

From Fort Ted, Earth was only eighty-two light-years away. Terra Rica was not much farther but in a different direction.

A hefty tariff accompanied nonmilitary use of the Shotgun. That would not be an issue for Jose Maria if he decided to use the Shotgun.

The alternative to the Shotgun was a three-month voyage across the Abyss—the lightly starred space between galactic arms. Maybe less than three months if Jose Maria tried to set a record in his new Star Racer.

“Fort Ike and Fort Ted are both military targets,” John Farragut advised Jose Maria. “Unless the Pope is drumming his fingers, I’d take the long way home. The farther you stay from us, the safer you will be.”

“Perhaps then I should pick up a guitar in Fort Eisenhower,” said Jose Maria, contemplating the long journey across empty space. “One way or the other, I shall see you on the other side.” Jose Maria drew Farragut in for a hug and a kiss on both cheeks, and one more on his forehead, as he would one of his sons. “Vaya con Dios, young Captain.”

The ship was nearly cleansed and most of the new communications links established, when the com tech reported, “Captain, I’ve got a hail on our old res harmonic.”

Specialists on the command deck tensed at their stations. This far into the protocol, no one should be using the old harmonics. Anyone using an old harmonic had to be hostile, no matter what kind of excuse they tried to give. Captain Farragut moved over to the com station. “Who is it claiming to be?”

“Numa Pompeii in Gladiator.”

“Well, he better not have the new harmonic,” said Farragut.

Farragut relaxed, but only a degree. Numa was a devil he knew. Made sense for Numa to be on the Attack Group’s old harmonic. Did not make sense that a Roman general would be contacting Merrimack during a state of war.

Captain Farragut motioned the com tech to put the call on speaker, and he said into the com, “Numa. Maybe I can help you find your way into the nearest black hole. Where are you?”

“Not far from you.”

Farragut reared back from the com, motioning the com tech to mute it.

Not good. Not good.

Farragut ordered Targeting: “Find him.” And to Gypsy, “Are we tight?” He meant the ship’s force field.

“We’re tight, sir,” Commander Dent affirmed. The ship’s condition watch had been elevated ever since the declaration, just for this sort of surprise.

Lately an ally, Numa knew where the Mack was headed when they parted ways. Merrimack hadn’t moved from that known destination.

Numa’s Gladiator was like a hippopotamus submerged in the muddy river water. Hidden. Deadly. Powerful. Territorial.

“Should I move us?” Gypsy suggested.

“Stand by. Just because he says he’s here doesn’t necessarily mean he’s here.” Farragut motioned the com back on. “State your intentions, Numa.”

Farragut had expected Numa to be long gone. He would be, if his destination really was Near Space. And if he was not headed for Near Space, what the hell was he doing? “Permission to approach,” Numa Pompeii requested, his voice a rumble as from the volcano.

“You’ve got my permission to proceed to the Elysian Fields, Numa. Tell me where you are.” Farragut muted the com and barked aside at Targeting, “Do we have him?”

“No, sir. Trying, sir.” The needle was fat but the haystack was vast. Targeting muttered into his instruments. “Wish I were a gorgon right now so I could home in on the source of a res pulse.”

“We have gorgons right downstairs,” Gypsy said. “Are any of them pointing somewhere besides at us?” Horrified that he hadn’t thought of it, Targeting hastened to check out the idea.

Gypsy then suggested very low to Tactical, who was not helping in the hunt, “Do you know that Mister Vincent would really like to come back on days?”

Tactical could pick up a hint when it exploded on his bow. Murmured back, “Aye, sir.” And set to helping Targeting find Gladiator.

Gypsy moved to the captain, where he stood glaring at the com, waiting for Numa’s response. Again, she spoke very low. “I don’t believe the Roman, sir. He wouldn’t still be here. He’s got a three-month journey home.”

Numa’s voice sounded from the com, “I would like to come over under a white flag.” Farragut felt his own eyes go wide. Heard Gypsy whisper, “Bullskat.”

Numa Pompeii had not been Caesar Magnus’ man.

He was even less Caesar Romulus’ man.

Numa Pompeii had not been on Palatine for the Senate vote that elected the new Caesar. Worse, Numa had not been there to make his own bid for the job. Maybe Augustus wasn’t the only rogue Roman out there.

Making sure the mute was still on, Farragut told Targeting and Tactical, “Bring your search in tight, boys. He’s real close.”

Gypsy said, still in a whisper, “He’s playing us, sir.”

Farragut nodded. Numa might betray the current Roman leadership, but he would never betray Rome. He had friends.

Numa Pompeii was an enormously influential man.

And an enormous man. Built like a small mountain, Numa Pompeii moved with surprising speed and agility for his mass and age. He was nearly fifty Earth years old, though doubtless getting muscle rejuvenations for a decade or more.

Farragut nodded for the com tech to take the com off mute. “Are you seeking amnesty, Numa?”

“No,” said Numa Pompeii. “A truce. I want to talk.”

“You are not coming aboard,” Farragut declared. He had already cleared Mack of nanites. The last thing he needed was a wily-—possibly infested—Roman general on board.

“You would come aboard Gladiator?” Numa said, incredulous.

“Are you nuts?” Farragut said back. Numa knew Americanese well enough to understand that. “I’ll meet you outside. Park the gunboat—and keep it parked. Approach in a small craft to coordinates we send you, then you step outside. If I get sight of your gunship, I start shooting. If Gladiator moves, I start shooting.” He clicked off. “Send him coordinates. Someplace close to nowhere. We’ll see if he shows.”

Gypsy asked, “Do you trust him, sir?”

“ ‘Bout as far as a Planck length,” said Farragut.

Gypsy’s graceful brows twisted into dubious lines. “That far?”

Insects on shipboard went silent as Merrimack left Telecore’s orbit. Insects were standard issue on Navy ships in the Deep End. Their sensitivity to Hive presence made them invaluable. Also made them annoying.

The insects had been a nuisance as long as Merrimack orbited Telecore, sounding over and over again what everyone already knew, the Hive was here, the Hive was here.

The insects had been banished to the lab to heckle the xenos.

With the return to insect peace, tiny cricket cages were brought back to the command deck of Merrimack to resume their function as early warnings.

Merrimack headed out to a place near nowhere.

Numa Pompeii made the rendezvous in a light courier type vessel, all lit up, no armament hanging off it, white flags stiff in the windless nothing of space.

Tactical was able to back trace the location of Gladiator to a point two light-years out. “Keep a bead on him,” said Farragut. “If Gladiator moves from that position, shoot Numa.”

At the appointed galactic coordinates, a large space-suited figure emerged from the Roman courier and floated into the deepest of oceans.

Farragut suited up. Drifted out an air lock.

Space was raw, absolute, stark, beautiful, merciless.

Farragut got a little lost gazing at the overwhelming vastness. Finally he engaged the small jets that propelled him to rendezvous with the other microbe out here in this eternal sea. They braked in front of each other and clasped gloved hands.

The meeting of unequal masses set them on a slight drift, backward for Farragut. They grasped each other’s sleeves and touched helmets.

Sound conducted through their faceplates.

“Ave,” said Numa. His voice reverberated in Farragut’s helmet.

“Hey,” said Farragut, an Appalachian hello. Farragut was American blueblood, but he tended to speak like just folks.

They were face to face. So close that Farragut could see very little other than Numa’s face, but not so close that Numa would have three eyes.

Numa’s face was unretouched and not good-looking. A face like an assembly of stones. Numa had wealth, power, a big personality, and energy second only to Farragut’s, so you didn’t notice the homeliness of the face unless you were inches from it.

“I can’t see Romulus authorizing this meeting,” said Farragut. “You’re not doing anything treasonous, are you?”

“Not yet,” said Numa.

Farragut guessed: “You haven’t pledged to Romulus.”

“I have the luxury of time.”

Kissing Romulus’ ring would have to wait until Numa achieved Near Space. That would not be happening for at least three months.

So Numa Pompeii, the General, the Senator, the Triumphalis, had a three-month window in which to decide a loyalty, or to figure out what kind of base of power he might organize.

Numa Pompeii was one of only three Romans other than Romulus who knew that the Roman Senate’s vote for Romulus to the position of Caesar had been based on an incomplete last testament of Caesar Magnus.

Romulus had unsealed his father’s testament only after he received word—from Numa Pompeii—that the patterner who sealed Magnus’ testament was dead.

The patterner was not dead. Perhaps Numa wanted to get back to Near Space before he could be expected.

“You’re not getting near the Shotgun, if that’s what this is about,” Farragut told Numa up front.

“No. I do not want passage through your Shotgun. It would not look good to accept favors from Americans.”

“So what favor can I do for you?”

“I need to talk to Gaius.”

The other man who knew that Romulus falsified Caesar’s testament was Gaius Bruccius Eleutherius Americanus—the man whom Magnus actually named as his successor in his true testament.

Gaius Americanus was currently at the U.S. Space Fort Eisenhower in the Deep End.

The reported death of the testament’s witness, Augustus, crippled any claim to power Gaius could make that Magnus chose him.

Gaius Americanus did not know that Augustus lived.

And Numa could not tell him. With all the U.S. com channels changed, Numa could not contact Gaius in Fort Eisenhower.

“Gaius Americanus is safe in Fort Eisenhower,” said Farragut. “The Senator does not live to be safe,” said Numa. “He lives for Rome. As do I.”

“Caesar is not Rome?”

“Depends on whether Caesar is actually Caesar.”

“Are y’all proposing to set up a government in exile at Fort Ike?”

“A Roman government within a U.S. fortress? That will not fly. If Gaius wants to do anything for Rome—the true Rome—he will need to come out of that fortress.”

The suggestion set Farragut on guard. He was accustomed to taking men at their word, but Numa Pompeii was an opportunist.

Until Numa declared a loyalty, God knew where he stood. And God might oughta better check his sources at that.

Farragut spoke, suspicious, “Last time I looked, you and Gaius Americanus were not the best of buds.”

“We never had so much in common before.”

The commonality would be the knowledge that Caesar Romulus was a patricidal fraud. That was a tie that could bind political adversaries. “Tell him I want to talk to him,” said Numa. “Let Gaius decide if he wants to talk to me.”

“I will give him the message,” said Farragut.

“And I want the patterner.”

Farragut did not have the patterner to give. Apparently Augustus had not bothered to contact Numa upon parting company with Merrimack. Not to give anything away, Farragut sidestepped truthfully, “I won’t hand him over.”

“You can’t hold him,” Numa said.

You got that right, Farragut thought. He was not a good liar, so he said nothing. “Let me talk to him,” Numa pressed. Farragut did not address the demand. Let Numa continue thinking that the U.S. had custody and control of the patterner. Captain Farragut did not come out here to give information to Romans. He took the offensive, “Do you have capability to home in on the origination point of a res pulse?”

“Would I tell you?” Numa parried.

The answer was obvious: No.

Farragut said, “I’ll let Gaius know you want to see him.”

“I need a little more than that. Captain Farragut,” said Numa. “If Gaius says yes to the meeting, he will need a way out here.”

Farragut agreed to deliver the invitation to Gaius and to arrange transportation for Gaius if he consented to leave Fort Eisenhower.

“Choose someone of unquestionable reliability,” said Numa. “I came to you because you are honorable, Captain John Farragut. Most Americans are rabid Roman haters. I do know the American definition of a good Roman. How can I be certain that the transportation you provide won’t seize at a chance to turn Gaius into a good Roman even under a white flag?”

“I have just the man for the job,” Farragut assured him. “She doesn’t hate Romans. She only hates you.”

THE OUTER DARKNESS DIALOGS

(Being a series of conversations among Jose Maria de Cordillera, Augustus, and John Farragut on board the flagship of Attack Group One en route to Sagittarius Zero)

A.D. 2445

The dialogs. I.

A: The Hive is entropy incarnate. Entropy is a fundamental condition of the universe.

JF: Well, entropy is an enemy of the United States, so it is my sworn duty to combat entropy.

A: Leave it to John Farragut to simplify the matter down to a one-brain-cell level. Fact is the universe is falling into disarray. The Hive just accelerates it. The universe’s ultimate perfect form is destined to be a vast spread of attenuated atoms quivering in the eternal night forever and ever amen. So what is any of it for? Life is a cosmic waste of consciousness.

JMdeC: Stated that way, yes, it would be.

A: The Catholic speaks. Catholic arguments don’t count, Don Cordillera. When logic fails, you can’t just resort to magic.

5

JOHN FARRAGUT, YOU KNOW Numa I Pompeii is my least favorite sapient being in the known galaxy.”

“I know that, Cal.”

Calli Carmel, captain of the wolfhunter class spaceship Wolfhound, received the secure message from Captain Farragut on one of the new channels.

She could not believe what he told her. Captain John Farragut expected her to ask her adored former teacher Gaius Americanus to come out of the safety of Fort Ike to meet with the man she called Numa Pompous Ass.

“Do you trust him?” Calli asked, all but crawling into the com, as if she could take hold of him and shake some sense into him.

“Glory, no! I’m just delivering the message. It’s not an endorsement. Though an insurgency against Romulus’ rule would not be a bad thing.”

“If that’s really what this is about.” Calli smelled something else.

“It’s not your decision, Cal. Deliver the message to Gaius Americanus.” The flatness in his voice said he was pulling seniority on her. Do it, Cal.

She could probably appeal to Admiral Mishindi, but Mishindi would tell her to follow Farragut on this one. This was the Deep End and it was war. Challenging John Farragut just to keep her favorite Roman safe would be an extraordinarily bad idea.

“It’s Gaius’ decision,” said Farragut. “If Gaius decides to come out of hiding to meet with Numa, give him safe passage out of the Fort and give them a meeting space.”

Calli could not argue with that. Hated it. “Can I bug the space?”

“I’d be real disappointed if you didn’t.”

Captain Calli Carmel was a minor celebrity. Most of her fame was not for her heroism in battle, though she had planned and executed a couple of high impact missions, both as executive officer of the Merrimack and later as captain of her own ship, Wolfhound.

But what Calli Carmel was known for was her beauty. A stupid thing to be known for by her own reckoning. Anyone could look like anything these days. Calli had the indefinable something else that pushed her above and beyond physical beauty. Didn’t make it any less stupid.

Calli Carmel had gained notoriety across the settled part of the galaxy when she attended a public ceremony on the arm of Romulus not-yet-Caesar. That ceremony saw the assassination of Romulus’ father, Caesar Magnus. So the image of Calli at Romulus’ side was witnessed over and over on interstellar media. Ever since then, the media called her Empress Calli.

Nearly two decades earlier, during peacetime, Calli had attended the prestigious Imperial Military Institute on Palatine. Numa Pompeii had been One of her instructors—a belittling, scornful bastard of a non-instructive instructor.

Calli had since used Pompeii’s overweening pride and disdain against him. She had embarrassed the Triumphalis more than once in battle.

Another of her instructors at the Imperial Military Institute had been Gaius Bruccius Eleutherius Americanus. Gaius was not a native Roman. He had been born on Earth, christened Dante Porter, an impoverished, ill-educated U.S. citizen. He had attended a school system that passed students out like bilge water. It had scandalized and mortified the U.S. when an American citizen renounced his citizenship to sell himself into slavery in the Roman Empire just to get an education.

“Property rights” on Palatine often referred to rights of the property. Dante the slave had the right to food, shelter, and a Roman education. Roman education was uniformly excellent. Dante earned his education, his freedom, and his Roman citizenship.

Renamed Gaius by the Bruccius family who adopted him, he rose from the bottom of society’s birdcage to become a Senator, Consul, and right hand to Caesar Magnus.

Gaius Americanus had been young Calli’s mentor at the Institute. He had seen in her a sharp intellect and a fellow outsider. He had been willing to help someone driven to learn.

Calli never stopped adoring him.

She wished like hell she could just lose this message. She would have, except she had been entrusted by John Farragut to deliver it. Farragut’s trust had a nearly magical force that made people risk anything not to disappoint him.

She could only pray that Gaius would refuse Numa Pompeii’s invitation.

Gaius Americanus had not come to Fort Eisenhower for his own safety. Gaius came to the Deep to keep his family out of reach of Romulus’ long knives.

Gaius knew that a man who would kill his own father would not hesitate to do the same to the wife and children of his chief rival if it served him.

Coming out here had been a political mistake. But Gaius valued his family above all else. If he had to do it over again, his decision would be the same.

He recognized immediately—even before Magnus was declared dead—that Romulus had been ready and waiting to seize control out of the chaos. Romulus had anticipated the chaos.

Gaius immediately knew he was the next target, and he moved his family out of Romulus’ range. He tried to keep in mind the words of Philip II, upon a retreat: I fall back like the ram, to charge again harder. But this ram was finding the footing too slippery to mount any kind of charge.

It did not help that Romulus was an effective leader. Gaius had been asked, “If he’s a good leader, why would you want to overthrow him?” The question amazed him. How could a patricide be a good leader? Foul was foul. Was Hitler a good leader except for the Holocaust? He had also been told, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” To which he tried to explain, “It’s broke.”

No one wanted to hear that. The expedience of evil allowed decent citizens to turn blind and deaf when it served them.

“What does it make you when you allow a man without morals, without ethics, to lead you?” Gaius said.

“Roman.” That was the American answer.

The report of Augustus’ death came as a blow to Gaius’ efforts to assemble a power base. Without Magnus, without Augustus, Gaius was the sole witness that Magnus named a successor in his last testament. That Gaius was the named successor made him an unconvincing witness.

Then came the invitation to leave the shelter of the U.S. fortress to go out and talk with Numa Pompeii.

The Triumphalis had never been Gaius’ political ally. Numa Pompeii was a hawk, a grandiose, bread-andcircuses sort of Roman. A charismatic politician, an opportunist. A bully. But Numa Pompeii was loyal to the empire—his own vision of the empire—but still his loyalty lay with Rome.

Trust him, Gaius did not. Gaius could not risk his family. But he could risk his own life. He accepted Numa Pompeii’s invitation to come out and talk.

Even before the declaration of war, big ships never docked directly with the main station of Fort Eisenhower. And displacement in or out of the station had never been permitted. Jammers made sure it never happened.

Fort Eisenhower encompassed an assemblage of space stations in a volume of space roughly the size of a small planet. Lights refracted off the exhaust gases from ships and stations, turning the fortress into a manmade nebula, colorful and shining.

At the heart of it, heavily protected, sat one terminus of the Shotgun. Either end of the Fort Roosevelt/Fort Eisenhower Shotgun was a prime target in wartime.

Smuggling Gaius out of Fort Ike required a balance between secrecy and the need not to be mistaken for a bogey by the trigger-happy fortress defenses.

The plan called for a small craft to ferry Gaius Americanus from the main station out of Fort Eisenhower to Calli’s heavily armed ship, Wolfhound. Wolfhound would then carry him to the meeting site.

Calli Carmel came into the main station in person to collect Gaius. Calli was one of few people permitted to carry a sidearm here. She escorted the Roman Senator to the dock.

She wanted to tell Gaius that Augustus lived. But giving information to the enemy was the act of a traitor. Gaius was Roman. She was American. They were at war.

Let Numa tell him.

Security had cleared the corridors of all extraneous personnel. No tourists, no workers, no military personnel except those who needed to be there were there. They had cleared the receptacles of all confiscated goods, emptied the trash, chased off the vendors. Military dogs gave the path a good sniff, then security cleared away the dogs.

Calli and Gaius were scanned and analyzed and verified one more time.

They walked through a semirigid tunnel to the hatch of the Space Patrol Torpedo boat—SPT or Spit boat, as it was known in the Navy.

Gaius halted, looked inside the craft, suddenly wary. “Where is the pilot?”

“I’m the pilot,” said Calli. Saw his face. “What? You don’t trust me?”

“They used to call you Crash Carmel.”

“They still do,” said Calli.

“Is there a reason for that?”

“I wrinkled a couple of ships,” Calli admitted. “There was some shooting and fire involved.” Gaius looked hesitant, which was fine with Calli. She offered, hopeful, “You can still call this off.” Gaius stepped through the hatch to board the Spit boat. This was the weakest link of the journey. Calli told him, “If we get hit, it will be here.”

Gaius nodded. He strapped himself into the copilot’s seat beside Calli.

The Spit boat had a rhino hull. Most ships relied on their energy fields rather than their physical hulls to keep the vacuum out. A rhino hull could survive in space even without a distortion shell around it.

“No weaponry?” Gaius noted.

“We’ll be inside a hook for all but a few seconds,” said Calli. “Inside the hook, we wouldn’t be able to launch a torpedo even if we had one.”

Fort Ike was secure, but it hung in the ocean of infinity. Wolfhound waited, as close as she was allowed.

A treacherous gulf stretched between them.

Calli was not even really piloting the boat. The Spit boat would be first pushed by the station hook, then pulled by Wolfhound’s hook.

There would be a precarious instant in which the station gave up its hook and Wolfhound replaced it with its own force field.

Calli heard the controllers exchanging messages over the com. The instruction came from Wolfhound to the station, “Cut hook, Ike.”

The instruction resonated on the proper harmonic. Calli recognized the voice and inflection of her lieutenant, Amina Patel, on Wolfhound.

Fort Eisenhower responded, “Cutting hook, aye. Your boat, Wolfhound”

The Spit boat was now naked to the stars.

In the next instant the boat was surrounded by a new energy bubble. Wolfhound had thrown out a hook, bringing the Spit boat into her protection.

Wolfhound commenced reeling the craft in. Calli sat back in her seat and exhaled. She cast Gaius a fleeting little smile that was a confession of nervousness just passed. They were both feeling better now.

“That was the naked part,” Calli told Gaius.

Then lights appeared, flashing off Wolfhound. Someone was hitting her with beam fire from the direction of outer space.

Because beams traveled at light speed, you never see them coming until they’re hitting you or passing you through gaseous matter.

Because the attacker was actually hitting a moving target with a light speed weapon, that meant he had to be close.

Calli clicked on the com, “Wolfhound! This is Captain Carmel. Lieutenant Patel, give me a status!”

The reply came from the com tech, with a lot of earnest voices audible in the background, “Unknown attacker, Captain. At indeterminate distance. Possibly retreating.”

Retreating, but still firing. There were a lot of flashes. Wolfhound’s force field sparkled like blown glass.

The aging Wolfhound did not generate as adamant an energy field as Merrimack’s, which allowed Mack to stand closer to a black hole than any solid object had a right to.

Still, the Hound’s field was stout enough to weather this barrage. It was not a convincing attack in Calli’s judgment. The beams were having no effect except to light up the ship’s bow. Some of the shots were going wide, which meant the attacker was taking aim from a distance of over several light-seconds. It was not an efficient attack at all.

Flights of Rattlers, launched from the space fort, streaked out in the direction of the beam weapon. The brute, snub-nosed, bulky gunships of the space cavalry bristled with heavy ordinance, itching for a fight.

Beams continued to light up the Wolfhound.

“Has the look of a diversion,” Calli murmured.

“I concur,” said Gaius.

The two of them might have been back at the Institute discussing an interesting scenario. Except for the sensation of death tightening Calli’s throat. “So where aren’t we supposed to be looking?” Calli said, checking the Tac readouts.

Wolfhound’s defensive systems would automatically arrange her force field to present the thickest part of her field toward the source of the attack.

Wolfhound, like any ship, was most vulnerable through her engine vents in her stern. Calli slammed on the com. “Lieutenant Patel! Never mind the beam fire! Cover the Hound’s ass!”

A projectile rocketed up Wolfriound’s engine vent. The missile did not penetrate but it made the force field grow tenuous. Made the slender energy hook that held the Spit boat flicker.

“Numa, you bastard—/”

In that instant, an incendiary round from somewhere very close and astern pierced the Spit boat.

A flash of fire filled the cabin.

The dialogs. II.

JMdeC: I admit that I find the open-ended, negatively curved model of the universe philosophically disappointing. I wanted to see a positive curve. At the end of the Big Bang, I rather like the idea of the Big Crunch, in which everything compresses back down to an infinite point and bangs anew. It reflects the nature of the universe as I observe it around me—death and rebirth. Plants going to seed, dying, born again in their progeny. Instead of a second bang we seem to be doomed to a whimper. It disappoints my sense of what ought to be—cycles of seasons, cycles of procreation. The negatively curved universe ends in eternal night. The Biblical Outer Darkness, where lost souls go in the end.

A: Well, hell, Don Cordillera.

JMdeC: Yes. Hell. I reject the medieval, sadistically conceived vision of hell. Hell is the absence of God. If you reject God, then you simply die. If you put yourself into the hands of God, you transcend this physical reality to be with God. After everything else is gone, something lives, while the physical universe of attenuated atoms becomes the Outer Darkness.

A: That’s where I’m going. And I have news, so are you.

JMdeC: The corporeal me, yes. The part of me that transcends the physical house, no.

A: And where do you propose to go? JMdeC: Elsewhere.

6

YOU CAN’T DO BATTLE in space with an enemy who won’t stand. Merrimack raced out to the source point of the diversionary fire that had hammered Wolflhound but that shooter was long gone. Captain Farragut tried to hail Gladiator on the old harmonic, but Gladiator was not responding. Anyone listening on the official harmonic had heard Calli’s last words: “Numa, you bastard—” Some doubted her ID of her assailant. But it was not necessarily a reasonable doubt.

Numa Pompeii had not stayed in the area to explain, deny, or take credit for the attack, or to find out if Gaius survived it.

Likely Numa was on his way to Palatine. Numa Pompeii had something to offer Romulus now. He had the death of Gaius Americanus.

Still, there were other Romans in the Deep End who could have hit Wolfhound.

The Roman Legion carrier Horlatius was out here somewhere. Marcus Asinius was in command of the ship if not the Legion.

Marcus Asinius and his Legion Draconis had no love for Romulus. They respected John Farragut, but their loyalty lay absolutely with Rome.

Farragut could not see Marcus Asinius participating in an assassination of a Roman Senator. But Marcus could have hit Wolfhound without knowing there was a target beyond Wolfhound or without knowing the identity of the passenger in the Spit boat.

And Augustus was out there.

“That wasn’t Augustus,” said Farragut, fact.

“Sir?” said Commander Dent, less certain. The Augustus she knew was a first magnitude prick.

“Augustus is still devoted to Magnus. Gaius was Magnus’ chosen heir. If Augustus were anywhere near this neighborhood, Gaius would have made it where he was going.”

Augustus had to be on a spearline to either Palatine or to Caesar’s mobile palace Fortress Aeyrie to kill Romulus.

The U.S. Rattlers of Fort Eisenhower had caught the second shooter immediately, the one who fired the kill shot on the Spit boat—a lone man in a small craft, not a patterner’s Striker. The Rattlers killed him. Killed him a bunch of times. Kept killing him because they could not undo what he did to Captain Carmel.

The burn unit in the main station of Fort Ike smelled like medical gel. “Is Calli—?” Farragut was about to say all right, but he knew she was not all right. “—alive?”

The doctor hesitated, looked thoughtful.

“She’s dead?” Farragut filled in the silence.

“Those are interesting questions,” said the doctor. Too detached for Farragut’s liking. Doctor Emil Embry. Older guy, not some kid who joined the Navy to learn the trade. Cool and steady. Almost callous. “She lost a major organ. We are regrowing one for her.”

“Which organ?”

“Her skin.”

Farragut knew that Calli had been burned. “How bad?”

“One hundred percent BSA,” said Dr. Embry. “I’m used to Naval acronyms, Doc. I don’t know your alphabet clumps.”

“BSA. Body Surface Area. She has no skin. It was all necrotic, so we had to remove it. We are oxygenating her through medical gel.”

“Will she—?”

Live?

Dr. Embry heard the unspoken word. “If I have anything to say about it, Captain Farragut. And, if may I say so, that counts for a hell of a lot.”

Confidence was a good thing in a physician. Farragut felt the muscles in his neck relax a little. He held his head higher. “What about internal damage?”

“The fire damage was mostly on the surface. She did not inhale, which is a blessing. It was a flash fry. It left her muscles in decent shape. Only the outer layer got cooked. Like fried ice cream.”

Farragut muffled a sound of startled disgust that rose in his throat.

“Or baked Alaska.”

“Oh, for Jesus.”

“Her internal organs are getting assistance. So she’s in remarkably good condition—for a woman without skin.” Farragut cast a glance upward. God? Sir? Thank you. And back to the doctor: “What about the Roman Senator, Gaius Americanus?”

“I’m less certain about the prognosis for the Roman. He is a strong man, but he’s working too hard. He won’t come down from the hyperdynamic phase. We’re watching him for acidosis, burn encephalopathy, and renal failure. Mister Carmel’s body is behaving more sensibly.”

“Can I see her?”

“She may not want anyone to see her.”

“Let me see her.”

Dr. Embry admitted the captain to Calli’s chamber in the secure area of the burn unit. Even though the doctor had warned him, John Farragut was not quite ready for the sight.

Removal of her skin left her as a piece of Calli-shaped meat suspended in pink gel in a tank. With her drastically reduced vascular volume, she was kept in a literal blood bath. Medical gel supplied the tissues with oxygen and fluids. There were entubated auxiliary organs working outboard of her body to lessen the stress on her own. Farragut recognized a kidney and a liver.

There was a breathing tube down her throat. They must have blocked her nostrils—wherever those were.

Farragut squinted through the gel from several angles.

“Where’s—? Does she—? Does she have a jaw?”

Dr. Embry spoke very softly, “No. Shattered.”

Farragut had a replacement jaw himself, so he supposed the jawbone was the least of her worries. No jaw. That meant she had taken a blow to the face. “How’s her brain?”

“In good condition,” Dr. Embry answered softly. “That’s a hardheaded woman.”

“I can testify to that, sir,” said Captain Farragut.

Over the speakers Pachelbel’s “Canon in D” played soft joy. It made Farragut feel like he ought to be standing at an altar waiting for a bride.

The music and Dr. Embry’s abrupt switch from callous jackass to a soft-spoken bedside manner made Farragut wonder, “Can she hear me?”

“Possibly,” said Dr. Embry. “She’s in an induced coma, but her brain is functioning on the subconscious level and she still has her eardrums. So I thought—” He gave a shrug at the lilting music from the speakers. “Why not?”

Farragut was a tactile person. He would have held Calli’s hand, but she was entirely inside the antiseptic tank, encased with medical gel. And she had no skin. He put his palm to the transparent barrier.

He spoke to her. “Well, hell, Crash. You bent another boat. Gaius is alive.” She would need to know that. “And so are you, just in case you’re wondering. They’ve got you in the pink medical slime. And I gotta tell you it’s not your best color.”

He kept his voice buoyant. Did not want to sound like he was attending her funeral. She looked ghastly. “Gypsy’s coming in to see you after I get back. You know we can’t both leave the boat at the same time.”

Gypsy Dent had been Calli’s XO on the Wolfhound before Gypsy came to Merrimack. Calli and Gypsy were tight as sisters.

“They got the guy who flamed you. They’re still picking pieces of him out of the vacuum with a sieve. You know him. I’ll tell you who it was when you get out of there.”

The kill shot on the Spit boat had come from a small Roman sleeper vessel, which had been trolling in the dark outside Fort Eisenhower for a very long time. It housed a single pilot—a disgraced Roman sent to redeem himself with a long, long, lonely vigil, waiting for a suicide task.

The second shooter’s identity tended to support the idea of Numa Pompeii as the shooter of the diversionary fire.

Farragut quit the chamber, shaken.

He clasped Embry’s hand firmly in leaving. “Take care of her, Doc.”

“I have every faith in Mister Carmel,” said Dr. Embry. “And in me.”

“That’s what I need to hear.”

“Captain,” Dr. Embry caught him on an afterthought. “There is a space lawyer who keeps trying to get in here. I find the persistence of lawyers offensive. I don’t need hyenas and jackals in my hospital. He’s Navy and keeps quoting code at me. I confess I know as much law as he knows medicine, so I have no idea if he’s making a valid legal point or not, and I don’t care. Can you arrange a restraining order on him?”

Farragut was about to agree but hesitated on a second thought. “Is he this tall,” Farragut asked, his hand over his own six-foot-one head, “This big around?” He made a circle with his fingers. “Looks about fifteen years old, and I’m told he’s cute?”

“That about describes him, yes.”

“Make sure his DNA checks to Rob Roy Buchanan and let him in. He’s not her lawyer.” He used to be her lawyer, but Calli had fired him a while back. “Oh, and tell him to get a shave.”

Captain Farragut proceeded from the secure burn unit to the stationmaster’s office.

General Aniston Weld was long past harried. Long past trying to hold everything together. By now he was just watching the pieces fall and adding another note to his list of things that needed addressing.

Things that had been Priority One just a day ago were now somewhere around number eighty-four with a twelve-ton sinker.

The man in putative control of Fort Eisenhower was not even sure what he was dealing with—an act of war or an internal assassination within the Roman Empire. He knew it happened in his fort and it took out a U.S. Navy captain with it. Captain Carmel may have been the real target for all General Weld knew.

General Weld listened in an odd state of defeated calm as an animated Captain Farragut rattled off rapid fire:

“The Romans have someone inside Fort Eisenhower. He’s probably inside the main station. Someone had to let the shooters know that Gaius Americanus was leaving the station, when he was leaving, and which ship he was on. The mole is likely communicating to the outside by resonance. Resonance leaves no trace. This is a huge fort here, so instead of screening everyone, we should pull the recordings from the surveillance monitors on the burn unit. The mole will follow up to see if Gaius lives. Identify all visitors or loiterers at the burn unit since the attack. Our mole might be one of them.”

The stationmaster listened until Farragut came up for a breath, then watched him for another minute like he was observing some energetic alien creature. Weld spoke at last, “You a control addict, Captain Farragut?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Hm.” It was a satisfied hm. The admission was disarming. “I suppose you’ll want all those ‘visitors and loiterers’ smelled too.”

“Please,” said Farragut. He wanted them all investigated. “Sniff hard.”

“I suppose that’s reasonable,” General Weld said, riffling through his contact list. “I’ll hand it over to my Intelligence unit.”

“How’s your intelligence here?”

“Not as good as I thought, now, is it?” Weld said dryly. He paged his Chief Intelligence officer and gave him the burn unit surveillance assignment.

General Weld clicked off the com, returned to Farragut. “Interesting that you bring up the burn unit visitors. There has already been one suspicious character in and out of the burn unit. He hasn’t been able to get in, but I’ve been told—repeatedly—that he’s persistent. Space lawyer, name—” He snapped his fingers, couldn’t place it, leafed through his handwritten notes for something way down below eighty-fourth on the priority list.

“Rob Roy Buchanan,” said Farragut.

“That’s the one. Your man?”

“No. But I’d bet my eyeteeth he’s clean. Go ahead and check him anyway. We can’t overlook anything.”

“Oh we can” Weld sighed. “We just mustn’t.”

John Farragut strode through the station to the shuttle dock for his return to Merrimack. Security was tight on all shuttles now. There used to be dozens of them launching any given minute throughout the space fort. Now interstation traffic was a backlogged mess.

Someone is pulling off my wings. Farragut was not thinking about the shuttles.

Thinking of Calli in the bloody tank.

Missing Jose Maria, his father figure. The kind and wise way his father had never been. Jose Maria was gone, homeward bound on a space yacht named Mercedes. And Augustus. Missing—of all people to miss— Augustus. And that thought almost made him laugh.

Alarms sounded. Hatches shut. Red lights flashed. A lot of sounds rose from the travelers—gasps, murmurs, shouts, demands, cries, questions.

A soothing female voice over the loud com announced that the dock was under lockdown and thanked the travelers, some of them shrieking now, for their patience.

The bells sounded an unfamiliar alarm sequence. Farragut knew all of Ike’s codes, and he had never heard this particular one.

It had never happened.

Fort Ike was under attack.

Roman attack craft winked in, on all sides of the space fortress, as they dropped from FTL. One of them was the Legion carrier Horatius.

Perimeter sentinels had detected the unauthorized approach to the fortress. Barriers went up, energized grids meshed and locked tight, enclosing all the stations of the fortress in a planetary-sized energy shell. No ships, no ordnance could pass in or out without the controller creating an opening.

Nothing was getting through right now.

Roman fire, Roman drones, a Roman destroyer, all caromed off the adamant barrier.

You could see the Roman barrage visually from here, through the wide viewports—flash after flash against their solid sky.

People rushed around Farragut, who stood at the dock with a finger in one ear to block out the noise as he shouted into his wrist com: “Gypsy, I’m not getting out of here. She’s your boat.” And to let Gypsy get on with her job, he said, “Let me talk to Hamster.”

Lieutenant Hamilton took over com contact with the captain. “Hamilton, aye.”

“Where are y’all? In or out?”

“We’re inside the grid,” Hamster answered.

That was more bad than good. Good that Merrimack was safe, but very much not good that she could not fire on the attackers unless the controller made a window in the titanic energy shell—or if the attackers breached the perimeter.

The grid defenses heaved out energy bolts, space javelins, chaser rounds, and beams, to put on a dizzying show. John Farragut could not tell from here if they were having any effect.

“Number and nature of hostiles?” he asked Hamster. “Horatius for one. Those will be your boarders if they can get close to a station to throw a corvus.”

“Won’t happen. They have to get through the grid first. Then a station field.”

“Eight cruisers and eleven destroyers are their pounders,” Hamster continued. “No Gladiator. No Striker.”

The attackers banged at the joints in the grid. Auto-gunnery sprayed beams at them. Missile silos hurled out hard ordnance.

“These ships are new designs,” said Hamster. “We don’t have their specs in our data bank. How can there be this many Roman ships?”

“It means Romulus started executing this attack at least three months before he declared war,” said Farragut.

It took three months to cross the Abyss. This attack force launched from Roman territory a while ago.

“There are drones everywhere,” Hamster reported. “Can’t give you a good count. We think we’ve been double and triple counting them. They jump to FTL and come back.” Then as if she had just been passed a note, “We have IDs on some of these ships. She read off the ship names and their commanders. Gens names like Trogus, Quirinius, Umbrius—”

“This reads like a list of everyone Romulus wants dead,” said Hamster.

“The psychotic bastard isn’t stupid,” said Farragut.

Romulus had sent his political opponents to a very hard target to field-test the new weaponry.

“This is nobody I want to kill,” said Hamster.

Romulus no doubt sent them out with standard Spartan orders: With your shield or on it. Victorious or dead. Romulus could not lose either way.

The legion carrier Horatius charged at the grid and immediately glanced off the energy barrier as if making too steep an approach to a planet’s atmosphere. The big ship spun out to space, winked out, gone FTL.

A pack of U.S. Rattlers that were outside the grid jumped past the light barrier to give chase. It was nearly impossible to chase an FTL target, but Rattlers had high threshold velocities and were probably hoping that Horatius had winked out because she was wounded.

As soon as the lockdown lifted from the dock to let the trapped travelers retreat back into the station, Farragut ran to the stationmaster’s office.

General Weld was not there. A cadre of Marines told him where the general had gone. Two of the Marines escorted him to the Fort Ike command center. They ushered him through a crush of reporters who were camped outside the command center hatch.

The reporters reacted with a horrified frenzy to see Captain John Farragut here, away from mighty Merrimack, in this time of crisis. Recorders followed him. He heard his name reported in voices of alarm and doom, talking about him like Samson without hair. Merrimack without her Captain Farragut. A mortal blow to station defenses. They transmitted their apocalyptic reports to Earth under huge banners: UNDER SIEGE!

Farragut made it through the hatch into the command center, where all the voices were low, quick, clear, and efficient.

General Weld was organizing his forces, taking in tactical reports. He glanced up. Double-took. Eyed Farragut up and down. Much calmer than the reporters, he said, “Well, this is unsettling.”

General Weld had the most formidable battleship in the United States on hand—except that its head was cut off. Figured.

“Commander Dent doesn’t play in the farm league, sir,” Captain Farragut defended his exec.

Weld returned to his com, demanding of someone: “Where’s the Striker? Anyone pick up the Striker yet?” It was a tired sort of demand.

Weld clicked off and gave his attention to Farragut. “If you have any suggestions, I’ll listen to them.”

Farragut jumped at the invitation. “You’ve got Rattlers outside searching for Horatius. Don’t let them get suckered into a chase. Marcus will just draw them out, turn around and eat them. If your boys and girls want to shoot at Horatius, don’t worry, he’ll come back. He’s not going to stay out there with nothing to shoot at. He has orders to take the fort or die trying.”

“Horatius” Weld echoed. “That was one of yours.”

“Yes, sir.”

Horatius had been a member of Commodore Farragut’s Attack Group One.

Weld issued the recall to the pursuing Rattlers.

Farragut heard someone else in the command center signaling Fort Ted. “Fort Roosevelt. This is Fort Eisenhower. Are you under attack?”

The answer came back negative. There had been no attack on the Near Space terminus of the Shotgun. Damaging one end was all it took to disable the Shotgun. With one end out, the other was useless.

Tactical reported: “Roman drones inside the containment zone.” Weld put off any exclamation of shock and impossibility that came to mind. He told the controller to put Merrimack on the interior drones.

The controller complied. “Merrimack. Merrimack. Merrimack. This is Fort Eisenhower Control. I have trade for you. Seek and destroy enemy hostiles within the containment zone.”

Only then did Weld say to one of his officers, “How in bloody hell did they get inside the grid? Locate the breach.”

“Grid holding solid, sir,” Tactical advised. “Nothing came through the containment field.”

Closer flashes appeared now, clearer without the distortion barrier in between. The new lights would be Merrimack annihilating Roman rovers inside the fortress’ energy sphere.

Farragut turned his com to the Marine harmonic so he could listen to the Swift pilots’ excited chatter, shooting skeet.

“Mine mine mine mine— Oh, you hog!”

“Don’t polish that cannonball, Darb! Take the foxtrotting shot!”

“Ho! Shitska! Didja see that!” That was the voice of Alpha Six, Kerry Blue.

“See what?”

The station controller evidently saw what Alpha Six saw. Reported: “Drones appear to be getting inside the containment zone by displacement.”

“How?” Weld demanded. “Are they jamming our jammers?”

“No, sir. We don’t have any jammers outside the stations. The station jammers are all functioning. We just never put jammers in the empty space between the stations.”

“We have a fifth column,” Weld concluded. “Who planted displacement receivers in space?”

It had been known to happen before—the placement of Roman landing disks (LDs) in space. No bigger than dinner plates, LDs looked like space debris. This attack had been three months in the approach. The local mole had three months to figure out how to sneak LDs out there between the many stations of the space fort.

“Merrimack. Merrimack. Merrimack. This is Fort Eisenhower Control. Seek and destroy displacement equipment in the vacuum.”

“Fort Eisenhower. This is Merrimack. Already on it. Aye.”

The voices coming over the Marine channel sounded like kids on a coin hunt, calling out their victories.

One Swift fired on a displacement disk at the precise instant that a Drone flashed into existence on the disk. Vaporized both of them. “Yahtzee!”

“Didja see that! Didja see that!”

A boom tremored the deck of the command center. The sound came from a com, not from an explosion within the station, but so loud they all felt it. Six more explosions in chain reaction followed.

“Not encouraging,” said Weld. “What was that?”

A missile silo on the perimeter had taken a shot up the nose. And its magazine had an insufficient firewall to contain the eruption of its contents.

Because of the distortion shroud, the command center was having trouble assessing the damage.

Tactical reported: “Horatius back in range.”

Weld’s graying brows gave a little lift, marking Farragut’s successful prediction. The command center was receiving feeds from various U.S. media transmitting from Near Space. One featured interviews with anxious families at Fort Ted waiting for their loved ones stranded in the Deep End. The reports lamented in dire tones the inability of the U.S. to send reinforcements to the besieged Fort Eisenhower while the Shotgun was shut down. They forecast what destruction of the Shotgun could mean to the U.S., its people, its economy.

President Marissa Johnson made an appearance, decrying the attack. Her staff had immediately figured out that this attack began before the declaration of war. She called on the League of Earth Nations to break its neutrality and take a stand against the belligerent Roman Empire.

General Weld glanced up at one of the monitors. Saw the Near Space media feed cut over to visuals of the missile silo at the perimeter exploding. “Are we on broadcast?” Weld asked, then answered himself, wearily, “Of course we’re on broadcast.”

The perimeter explosions were out there for the whole galaxy to see.Then rerun, because they were spectacular— the initial blast, six more explosions, the anxious voice of the reporter with background screams inside the station.

“That’s it,” said Farragut.

Fire ships clustered round the Shotgun, spewing blue fire suppressant onto the piers. The sensor stations were coated with the stuff. The displacement equipment belched enormous plumes of smoke into space. The dirty clouds spread, curled inward at the energy grid. Bottled inside the energy barrier, the thick clouds made Fort Eisenhower look like a gargantuan murky crystal ball portending an ominous future.

The media picked up the images, sent them across the known galaxy in an instant on resonant feed with the news:

FORT EISENHOWER SHOTGUN DESTROYED

The dialogs. III.

A: There is no elsewhere. This is the universe.

JMdeC: If there is no “elsewhere,” then whence the original Bang? It is terribly parochial to think that this is the only everything there is. The Greek word cosmos meant universe. It also meant world. Because the world was their entire universe at the time the word was coined. But there is more to the universe than planet Earth. Can we assume this cosmos, the one that we can observe now, is the only one? You must admit the possibility of universes other than this putative everything. Admit that something beyond our conception and perception could exist.

A: I allow the theoretical existence of alternate brane worlds in higher dimensional space, but I reject out of hand your implication that you are going to evade the entropy of this universe by faith.

PART TWO

The Return

7

ROMAN RECONNAISSANCE DRONES skimmed the rock surface on the night side of the world. All was dark, airless, silent, dead. At less than twenty light-years from Earth the planet would make a good platform from which to stage an invasion. But this solar system was League of Earth Nations territory, which made its planets neutral worlds.

That made the world off-limits to the U.S. military as well as to Rome. But Caesar Romulus was certain he could trust the U.S. to cheat.

If Roman drones could find a U.S. military installation on the planet, Rome could contest the world’s neutrality and build its own base on it without bringing the LEN into the war.

Allegedly there was nothing on the planet except an ancient archaeological site.

The Milky Way galaxy was fifteen billion years old. In the beginning, the universe consisted of nothing but hydrogen. All other elements were created within stars from the primordial hydrogen. Those first stars began to form nearly twelve billion years ago.

The lifetime of a star ranges from as short as a few million years to as long as a few trillion years, depending on the mass of the star.

The biggest stars lived fast. After a few million years of existence, the mammoth stars blew up.

Not one of the smallest stars had died yet. The universe was not old enough. The smallest stars burned slow and long and would eventually fade out.

The color of stars varied by mass, appearing in nearly the same order as the colors of the rainbow—red, orange, yellow, white, blue, indigo, violet—from lightweight star to heavyweight star.

Mid-weight, where logic suggested the stars ought to appear green, the stars shone white instead.

The light produced by middleweight normal stars peaks in the green wavelength. But all stars emit all wavelengths to some degree along with their strong suit. In stars strongest in the middle green wavelength, the short blue wavelengths and the long red wavelengths meet in the middle with equal strength, so the star shines a balanced full visible spectrum. The full visible spectrum appears as white light.

There are no green stars.

The biggest, heaviest violet-blue stars burned very fast, spun very fast, blew up very fast. Habitable planets were never to be found orbiting a violet, indigo, or blue star. A few million years was not time enough for matter to cool and for life to evolve around them. The biggest stars tended not to form planets at all. They spun so fast that they kept all their mass close to themselves rather than trailing some out in an orbital plane to form worlds. Metal ionized in the hellish internal furnace of a blue end star. Even helium, which holds onto its electrons more tightly than any other atom, ionized inside a violet star.

A supernova was a gargantuan star in its spectacular death throes. Supernovae scattered their newly created heavy elements far and wide.

The element-rich debris then coalesced into new stars.

Once upon a time, supernovae were common. These days, a supernova appeared once in a hundred years in the skies over Earth or Palatine.

Most habitable planets orbited second generation, middleweight stars—those stars which inherited the heavy elements ejected from the early supernovae.

In first generation stars any element heavier than iron was extremely scarce, including the precious metals of gold, silver, and platinum, as well as some elements that were extremely precious if you didn’t have them, like iodine and zinc.

82 Eridani was an old disk star, born eleven billion years ago. It was a yellow star, G type, superficially like Sol, close to Sol in size but over twice its age and less luminous. For a star born so early, 82 Eridani had a lot of metal. It was element-poor compared to second-generation stars. Sol had twice as much iron as did 82 Eridani.

Even so, 82 Eridani managed to spawn planets solid enough to walk on. The earliest evidence of sapient life in the known galaxy had been found on 82 Eridani’s third planet. Humans had only explored an eighth of the Milky Way galaxy, so they had only a small sampling of possible worlds, but an age of ten billion years for sapient life was looking like a hard record to beat.

Life on 82 Eridani III died ten billion years ago. With the elements available at the time, the aboriginal inhabitants could not have been robust, so there were no physical remains of the beings themselves. Ten billion years was a lot of time for lightweight remains to turn to dust. The artifacts which human explorers found on the planet were few and often suspected of having been planted there, though challenges to their age held up against any test.

A near pass of something large had swept away the atmosphere of the third planet of 82 Eridani aeons ago. Its surface was mostly bedrock.

The star system’s rotation had slowed over the last billion years, and the third planet’s orbit had widened out of the habitable zone. The planet’s rotation had slowed so that its days lasted longer than an Earthly year.

Terraforming had never been attempted. With inadequate raw materials in the star system, the planet would never be self-supporting. In human hands it had only ever been a scientific outpost, unprofitable and abandoned.

Born before the Milky Way galaxy settled into its spiral shape, 82 Eridani had been around the galaxy a couple of times on a highly eccentric orbit, moving very fast.

82 Eridani had seen it all.

Romans called the third planet 82 Eridani III.

American archaeologists called it Planet Xi.

It had been dead a long, long time.

Roman drones circled in, skimming the rocky surface. The star 82 Eridani shone as a small, cold, orange-yellow disk in the skyless night. The drones transmitted images back by res pulse on a harmonic specific to their mission. Passive scans of ambient radiation were translated to digital images at the drone’s controlling station within Fortress Aeyrie, which lurked in the wide-open vastness of space.

The watchers searched for something. Anything. Finding nothing.

Nothing might be a good thing. If no one had any interest in 82 Eridani III, then Rome could smuggle a missile site down there—and paint it red, white, and blue just in case the LEN authorities spotted it and wanted to sanction someone.

The remote pilots located a level site and set down their drones.

The pilots themselves sat light-hours away in a clear, uncluttered compartment inside Fortress Aeyrie, underneath the palace proper. Their displays moved with their heads.

“Motion!” a remote pilot reported, too loud, too excited, wholly unexpected. “The instruments detect motion.”

The pilot flinched at the sound of someone else’s hand slapping against a console, like an ah-ha\ Someone crowed, “Got them!”

Another pilot confirmed, “I have motion.”

The curator moved in closer to the spotters. “Naturally occurring motion?” Lollius Lunaris requested guardedly. He needed to be absolutely certain of his facts before reporting anything to Caesar.

“Can’t be,” said one of the remote pilots who had yet to detect anything. “Not on this rock. No seismic activity. The core has gone cold.”

“This motion is localized,” said the first spotter.

The curator put out the wanted conclusion: “The Americans have an underground installation!”

The first pilot shook his head. “I don’t see how. Our rovers put down on bedrock.”

“I know that,” said the curator. “Tell me, how else does bedrock move?”

“Domni, I just drive and shoot.” The first pilot magnified his holographic display to fill half the compartment. Scans from the cold distant rock were enhanced to give visual images of what existed in total darkness.

As the curator viewed the barren image from Planet Xi, a smooth tentacle broke free of the planet bedrock, reached toward the camera, looped around it.

The image went dark.

Fortress Aeyrie was a Caesar’s spaceborne mobile palace. The Fortress Aeyrie of Caesar Magnus had been designed to fill the visitor with wonder. The Fortress Aeryie of Caesar Romulus was meant to scare the crap out of him.

Magnus’ fortress had been wrapped in mist. Inside the glistening mist, space opened to brilliant clouds where winged creatures cavorted in the light.

Romulus’ fortress was shrouded in dark fog. Inside was a pillar of fire. The visitor must fly into the Inferno to dock with the fortress.

The smart pilot kept his viewports dark and flew in by instrument readings only.

The audience hall of Caesar Romulus was a black sky filled with auroras and lightning flashes. The music was loud and moody, underscored with a heavy percussion line.

Romulus also had a chamber in each of his palaces called the Caligula Room, each an indulgent piece of work for only Caesar and his closest friends to enjoy. The programmers had great fun designing and generating all those women, and testing the sensory virtual masks that made the illusions interactive.

Lollius Lunaris, the curator of the remote reconnaissance force, was never invited to the Caligula Room. The curator approached Caesar’s audience hall. He steeled himself against Caesar’s sense of humor.

Lollius Lunaris was admitted through doors that could dwarf a blue whale. He looked across a chasm to where Romulus was seated on his lightning throne.

Romulus looked a natural thirty-seven, his athletic build in perfect proportion. Romulus favored clothes that showed off his physique. You seldom saw the man in a toga—not the easiest thing to drape or to wear well. Lunaris did not own one.

Romulus was here in black close-fitting trousers, a short, sleeveless scarlet tunic, and a short, jaunty scarlet cape over one shoulder, secured with a golden chain that ran under his muscular right arm.

A gold oak crown sat on his thick dark locks, the gold nearly lost in his loose curls. He had the dark indulgent features of a god of love—sultry dark eyes with heavy dark lashes; pouting lips seductively shaped.

The space between Lunaris and the throne looked like a bottomless pit.

Caesar beckoned.

Lunaris must trust Caesar that the floor, against all appearances, was in fact solid under the illusion. He took a breath for courage. Took a step over the edge. Plummeted down. Oh gods—

And slammed into an invisible deck less than two meters down.

Lunaris lifted himself to hands and knees in seeming midair, looking down into the abyss, sure he saw his stomach down there, continuing on down and down.

“You need not bow quite so low,” said Romulus.

“Yes, Caesar.” Lunaris got up, trying to show a game smile. Refrained from rubbing his wrists, which hurt like hell.

“Have you seen this?” Caesar gestured toward an illusion that began to take shape on one wall. It appeared like a huge window opening to a scene two thousand parsecs away.

The Fort Eisenhower Shotgun churned out gray smoke into its own protective energy sphere. “Yes, Caesar,” Lunaris answered, feeling round for the edges of his pit to pull himself out. “Your Deep End counterparts accomplished this.”

Caesar was pitting Lunaris against the curator of the remotes in the Deep. “Did they confirm the damage, Caesar?” Lunaris asked. “What does this look like?” said Romulus, enjoying the scene. “Looks like an image taken from outside the American perimeter,” said Lunaris.

“Well, yes. The Americans destroyed all the drones inside the perimeter,” said Caesar, then added with a smile, “After they did this.”

“With respect, that is not good confirmation, Caesar.”

“Don’t be jealous, Lunaris.”

Lollius Lunaris was not a high level Intelligence officer but he knew that Imperial Intelligence had a paid informant within Fort Eisenhower—an American, a midlevel agent in the fort’s own Naval Intelligence service. That informant ought to be able to confirm or deny the damage to the Shotgun. It disturbed Lunaris that Caesar had not invoked better confirmation than pictures of smoke.

But Lunaris could see he was vexing Caesar. He proceeded cautiously. “Does Caesar know what submarines subject to bombardment by depth charges did during World War Two?”

“I have little interest in ancient history that is not Roman,” said Romulus, losing his good mood. “You asked for this audience. What do you have for me?”

“Gorgons, Caesar.”

“I have no interest in those either.”

“The Hive is on 82 Eridani HI.”

“No.”

“No, Caesar?” Lunaris was reporting fact, not a selection of options. “No, it is not possible,” said Caesar. “Please come see what we are looking at,” Lunaris started quickly.

“You are summoning me?”

“Caesar may check our sources and point out where we misinterpreted the data,” said Lunaris.

Romulus rose spryly and jogged down from his dais.

He crossed the abyss, appearing to stride on nothing. He halted at the edge of the trap Lunaris had fallen into. “Get out of that hole,” he ordered.

Lunaris scrambled out of the pit. Romulus took him by the arm, steered him around the trap to the mammoth doors and pushed him out ahead of him. “Show me.”

The six remote pilots rose at their stations and stood at stiff attention upon Caesar’s entrance.

“I’m not causing a prang, am I?” Caesar asked, jovially, seeing all the pilots abandoning their controls.

“No, Caesar,” Lunaris answered for them.

The reconnaissance drones were equipped with survival backups in case of loss of their resonant control signal.

Lunaris presented Caesar with live images transmitted from the rovers on 82 Eridani III. Luckily there continued to stream images of tentacles breaking out of solid rock for Caesar to witness.

Romulus watched for several moments, then said, “This is a ‘scarecrow.’ “ He used the American word. “We know for a fact that John Farragut’s Attack Group used to carry mock gorgons with them. This is one of those. Don’t believe all you see.” Romulus patted Lollius Lunaris on the back and smiled at him, “You know better.”

Then one rover’s transmitter showed tentacles disassembling another rover.

Romulus nodded at that image. “You see? Real gorgons would just ignore the rovers because the rovers are not edible. Gorgons only attack metal or polymers if something organic is inside the inedible shell.”

“With respect, Caesar,” said Lunaris, “would a newly hatched gorgon know what is edible and what is not? Wouldn’t they think if it moves itself and resonates, then it must be alive?”

“It is not Descartes,” said Romulus. “It does not think.”

“I advise that we inform the League of Earth Nations of this and advise them to sanitize the world with a neutron hose,” said Lollius Lunaris.

“No.” Lunaris sputtered. “This puts gorgons within a year of Palatine!” Top speed of the old Hive clocked out at 200 times the speed of light. If these gorgons achieved spaceflight, they could be on Earth even sooner than they hit Palatine.

Romulus ignored him. “Recall those rovers.”

“Caesar! Gorgons have attached themselves to several of the rovers!”

“Good,” Romulus said. “Bring them in. Let us take a look at the American scarecrows. We can trace their manufacture back to the United States, and that will give us legitimate access to the planet. This is exactly what we were looking for. You have done well, Lunaris. Be happy.”

“And if they are real gorgons, Caesar?”

“Then John Farragut is not the only man in the galaxy who can use a sword,” said Caesar. And on second thought, his hands on either hip where one might wear a scabbard, “Do we have a sword in the palace?”

It took the Roman drones two hours to make rendezvous with Fortress Aeyrie. The palace defenses scanned them for explosives and unauthorized devices. Finding none, the drones were allowed inside the fortress’ energy barrier.

“Now we shall see what our gorgons are really made of,” said Romulus.

As the drones passed through Fortress Aeyrie’s protective field, scarab crickets left their heraldic poses on either side of monumental archways in the palace.

Caesar watched the large insectoids detach from their posts and fly. He had never seen them move, much less fly. “I thought those were bronze ornaments!”

“I think this is what they call Hive sign,” said Lollius Lunaris nervously.

“I think you’re right,” said Romulus, intrigued.

“We need to get you to safety, Caesar.”

“I am safe! I’m going to kill a gorgon. Where’s my sword?”

This was not Magnus’ palace any more. Romulus kept weapons in Fortress Aeyrie. An attendant ordered a sharp sword brought down to the rover bay in the lowest level of the fortress.

The returning recon drones slid home into their allotted tubes, which were thirty centimeters in diameter.

Two of the outside caps would not shut.

An inside cap swelled, popped off like a projectile, narrowly missing Caesar’s attendant as it bulleted across the compartment and pierced the rear partition.

And something bulged out from the uncapped rover tube, growing, like a hideously distended bowel, diseased, black and oily looking, inflating.

Then a shock of tentacles bloomed free and inflated into hose shapes. Rings and rings of teeth terminated each hose, so the thing looked like a nest of grasping moray eels.

Romulus danced in close with his sword and swung a mighty stroke that mowed off the toothed ends in a swathe. The tips fell to the floor, teeth still gnashing like razor blades. In moments they dissolved in a caustic pool.

The cut stumps of tentacles, still attached to the oily body, emerged from the tube, spurting gore. They splashed Romulus’ hand. Romulus studied his hand with interest, the palm, the back, the palm again. “That stings.”

He regripped his sword and slashed again to take off the next bundle of stalks that flowered obscenely from the rover tube.

The black balloon of the body sputtered itself empty and dissolved. The attendant backed away, the neck of his tunic pulled up around his nose and mouth against the caustic stench.

Lollius Lunaris just stared with watery eyes.

Romulus prowled over the gore. “That was easy.”

Caesar thought, but did not say: we lost sixty-four Legions to this? Not to disparage the might of Rome before anyone.

It ought to have been obvious that there was more to the Hive than he had seen, but he was too elated with himself to go that way.

“So there are gorgons here. So much for America’s victory against the Hive!”

“They did warn us it was not finished, Caesar,” Lunaris said.

Another tube cap popped, shot across the compartment and dented the rear wall. Tentacles sprouted in a grotesque nest.

“Leave it! Mine!” Romulus dashed in.

The tentacles reeled in like a startled sea anemone, back into the rover tube. The Hive was already learning. Romulus stabbed his sword into the tube up to the hilt.

He turned his face away from the ooze that jetted out. He pushed deeper, up to his elbow, into the tube. Flinched. Turned the sword, stabbed several times.

He pulled his sword out and revealed a star-shaped wound bitten into his hand.

“Ha!” He regarded his wound from all angles. Rather proud of it. He was going to let it scar. “Any more?” he asked, hopeful.

But the scarab crickets had gone silent.

Romulus tossed his sword to the floor. Let someone else retrieve it and clean it. He passed verdict: “Not nearly as diabolical as the Americans would have us believe.”

No one dared remind Caesar that this Hive was born yesterday. Not even yesterday. Today. These creatures had not been around for countless millennia, consuming and learning from every encounter with every alien it ate.

Caesar made eye contact with the men in the chamber, the curator, his attendant. “You are not to tell anyone about this. Not anyone.”

Lunaris’ face showed bald horror. “They’re so close! Should we not call for help from the United States?”

“Oh, is that not what they wish!” Caesar cried. “They planted these monsters in Near Space so they can demand Subjugation again.”

“These gorgons hatched out of bedrock, Caesar. How could they possibly be imported?”

“How could the Hive have planted them in solid rock!” Caesar countered. “If gorgons hatch upon the death of their parents, what have these been waiting for?”

“Something to eat?” Lunaris suggested. “The League of Earth Nations should be warned. Earth is not the enemy. The United States is the enemy. Earth is the home world. We intend to retake Earth. We do not want it eaten, Caesar.”

“And I have told you the Earthlings will know when they need to know,” said Caesar, and softly, “Did you ever hear the old saying ‘two people can keep a secret if one of them is dead?’”

Lunaris felt every muscle in his face just let go, his expression gone stupidly slack. He stared as he would up the barrel of a gun.

Caesar broke a smile. “I never placed much store by that saying. You—and you,” he turned to his attendant, “will swear yourselves to secrecy and we shall leave it at that.”

They swore.

———

The human media was filled with images from Fort Ike. The U.S. broadcasts concentrated on the worry and grief of separated families and the interruption of trade between Near Space and the Deep End. Roman broadcasts reran the smoking images of the Shotgun.

The League of Earth Nations protested the Roman attack on Fort Eisenhower on grounds that it was launched three months prior to the declaration of war.

Romulus disingenuously explained that be had deployed a portion of Rome’s forces to the Deep for defensive purposes. Rome, he assured the LEN, had no intention of mounting an attack at the time of the ships’ launch. But, “sensitive to the LEN protest,” Romulus declared he would recall his warships at once.

Romulus had already achieved his objective of shutting down the Shotgun. The LEN protest now allowed Romulus to call his warships back with all possible speed and be thanked for it.

He had cut off U.S. access to the Deep. He had stranded John Farragut’s Merrimack in the Deep End. And the Monitor was deeper still. And Wolfhound. Those warships were now three months away from Palatine and Earth.

So were Gladiator and Numa Pompeii.

Numa would just need to deal with that. Romulus thought he might leave some crumbs for Numa to sweep up by the time he got here.

“What became of Gaius?” Romulus asked as he strode through his mobile fortress. He did not address the question to anyone. He need only speak to air, and an answer would come to him.

“Dead, Caesar.”

“Pity,” said Romulus. “Launch Operation Homeland.”

———

Horses bolted across the Kentucky field. A pregnant mare kicked up her heels.

Chief Justice John K. Farragut had just sat down at the head of the table for breakfast, his wife seated at the foot, daughter Lily and the children in between. Lily had renamed all her children Farragut after moving back in with her parents. Could not have too many Farraguts.

A roar from the sky shook the house, shook the ground. Shook great-great grandma’s crystal.

Horses whinnied, stampeded.

Through the window His Honor saw the pregnant mare hauling herself away in lumbering panic. “What idiot—!”

His Honor rose from the table, seized his revolver, and stormed out of the house, napkin still tucked into his collar. He brandished his Colt at the sky where ranks of Roman missiles passed over, just above the treetops, in his Kentucky sky.

8

THE CONTINENTAL U.S. had a porous border.

Roman missiles entered Earth’s atmosphere high over international waters, then dropped to sea level and cruised one hundred feet over the surface to enter U.S. airspace. Those missiles that survived the coastal defenses continued on the deck to terrorize all they passed. They flew between tall buildings, through mountain passes. They would seem to be headed straight at a metropolis, then abruptly lift up and skip over civilian skyscrapers.

Missiles cruised over Kentucky, passing one hundred feet over the house of Justice John K. Farragut.

Missiles drove into the defensive shields of military installations at Fort Campbell, Kentucky; Vance, Oklahoma; Oaxaca, Oaxaca; Tacoma, Washington; Fort Bliss and White Sands in Texas and New Mexico.

U.S. defenses could not just shoot the missiles down. Once the missiles hit atmosphere, they caused less damage if allowed to slam into their heavily shielded military targets than if shot down elsewhere.

Attempts to deflect the missiles had little effect. The missiles course-corrected and pursued their targets with a singular will. Someone was driving them.

Interceptors in space caught many of the missiles before they reached Earth, detonating them in the vacuum. Many more got through.

U.S. Space Patrol Torpedo Boats hunted for the missile carriers in space. The missiles could be traced back to their launch points, but the Roman carriers moved away faster than light immediately upon launching their missiles, so the Spit boats found nothing at trail’s end.

Five days into the attacks, a Roman armada of five great gunships dropped down from FTL just inside the orbit of Jupiter. They showed themselves silhouetted against the bright lights of the Jupiter Monument so they could be seen and feared on their approach. Their force fields repelled all ordnance, and the Romans wanted that to be seen too.

Roman camera ships broadcast the images everywhere, just in case the United States failed to do it.

Caesar Romulus picked up the scene from his distant, hidden Fortress Aeyrie. His attendants arranged for him to have a wide, wide vista of space, as if he were right there, watching the armada like Xerxes from his throne at the Battle of Salamis.

“Salamis was a disaster,” Romulus said. “You might have invoked something better than that.”

“Thermopylae then,” the attendant revised quickly.

“So was Thermopylae.”

The attendant sputtered. Romulus cut him off, “Please do not try again.” He settled, mildly disgruntled, into his throne to watch the show.

Saw beam flashes glancing off the five juggernauts.

Saw the five massive ships closing on the fragile blue-white jewel that was Earth. Saw the five on approach, belching fire at their attackers. Saw a titanic spearhead shape lower into his view between the leading camera and the five.

Romulus said, “What is that?”

“That—” his personal guard started, leaving a long, long space between the subject and verb, “appears to be Merrimack.”

“It does, doesn’t it?” said Romulus.

“Merrimack is in the Deep,” another attendant said.

“It could be Monitor,” said Caesar’s guard.

“Monitor is also in the Deep.”

Romulus commanded, “Get some data weasels up here and get an identity using something other than visuals.”

The answer he wanted was not the one he got: “Remote surveillance confirms this is not an illusion. The plots are solid.”

“But is it Merrimack or Monitor?”

“It is Merrimack and Monitor.”

Romulus’ head whip-turned toward the vista.

Two. There were two.

“Did anyone bother to confirm the damage to the Shotgun?” Caesar asked. Silence told him that that particular ball had been dropped and was rolling around under the deck. “And what does our informant in Fort Eisenhower say?” Romulus tried again.

“Our informant went silent before the Shotgun was destroyed,” said an attendant, then revised, “Before the Shotgun appeared to be destroyed.”

“Ah,” said Caesar. He sat back in his throne. “Let’s watch the show.”

The five Roman gunships powered up their weapons. Their enormous barrels jutted through their thick hulls, just breaking the surface of their stout force fields, ready to hurl their load of smart shells.

Monitor and Merrimack swept in on either side of the lead ship, banged into it with body checks, squeezing it between their own force fields as the Roman ship fired.

The ordnance had nowhere to go. All the force fields were adamant. The only path of irresolute resistance was in the guns themselves.

Unable to come out, the charges blew back.

The lead Roman gunship blew up. Its engine shields lost integrity, and the antimatter reservoirs blew up like minor suns.

Merrimack and Monitor had anticipated that, and were away in time, but one of the flanking Roman gunships took a matter/antimatter blast on its bow that flickered its shields.

Romulus watched from his throne. Said, “Who made that Xerxes remark? I want his throat slit.”

An attendant asked shakily, “Truly, Caesar?”

Romulus answered, cross, “Of course not. I am angry. I am not mad.”

———

Fort Eisenhower had been blowing smoke.

Few antique submarine movies were ever made that did not feature the submarine, under siege from depth charges, spilling out oil and air and clothing to give evidence of its own destruction. So the odds on success using only smoke clouds to give the appearance of the Shotgun’s demise had seemed very small. And it was really the shrill news reports that sold the disaster, the agonized voices of the reporters, the dramatic images of roiling smoke photographed so lovingly and aired over and over. Images of sobbing relatives back home, not knowing the fate of their loved ones. Those people more than the smoke turned back the Roman warships from Fort Eisenhower.

So Merrimack was able to return to Near Space in just the time it took to clear the smoke out of the Shotgun.

She arrived at Fort Roosevelt in less than a blink, less than a heartbeat. In literally no time, space tenders had been unwrapping the foil shroud from the ship two thousand light-years from where she existed a moment ago.

From inside the ship, the lifting of the shroud revealed the spectacular twin white stars of Beta Aurigae through the viewports on one side, and the lights of Fort Theodore Roosevelt on the other.

Bigger than Fort Ike, Fort Ted covered a volume of space nearly one light-minute in diameter. Fort Ted held the largest human population not situated on a solid world.

Monitor arrived at Fort Eisenhower from her Deep End patrol right on her sister ship’s heels and followed her through the Shotgun to Fort Roosevelt.

Once they cleared the fort the two space battleships blazed out of the Beta Aurigae system, charging the eighty-two light years toward Earth at threshold velocity.

They expected some anger and resentment upon their surprise appearance. But the people of the United States were so joyous to find the Shotgun working, and so profoundly relieved to be connected to the Deep End, and so utterly enraged over the Roman attack on Earth soil, that most people forgave the deception. Red-blooded citizens were willing to support anything that would strike back at Rome.

———

Marine Swifts from Merrimack dove into Earth’s atmosphere. They intercepted Roman missiles and herded them like stray doggies, up and up. The missiles tried to turn around, back toward their targets, but the Swifts bounced them higher and kept knocking them, until they were high enough to vaporize safely.

“YeeeHAW, git along little doggie! Oh no no no no no, not that way!” That was Kerry Blue on the com. Her missile had slipped out of her control and had slid under her Swift. “Somebody pick me up!”

“I got your doggie, Alpha Six,” That was Ranza Espinoza. She gave the escaping missile a rough nudge. “Take my wing.”

Kerry Blue fell in on Ranza’s flank, watching her missile get bounced higher and higher. “Can I space that?”

Ranza replied: “No, you lost it. I get to kill this one.”

“Are we high enough?” Dak Shepard sent. “I wanna roast this weenie.”

Ranza: “Keep going, Alpha Two. You are still in atmo. Alpha Seven, what the hell are you doing?”

“Uh, fugging myself,” Cole Darby replied, who was absolutely no good at herding missiles. This was a new scenario for him. It was new for all of them, but Darb did not pick up physical games quickly.

Ranza: “Cain, pick up the Darb.”

Cain Salvador, Alpha Three, was good at everything. He collected Cole Darby’s diving missile and booted it spaceward again.

Twitch Fuentes, Alpha Five, intercepted a diving missile head on, attempted to duck just under its nose to bump it up at the last instant.

At the last instant the missile also dipped to avoid the head-on collision and so the two collided so hard the missile detonated.

“Twitch!” Carly Delgado’s shriek filled all the headsets.

Cain: “Yo ho, hombre, you there?”

Kerry Blue: “Twitch!”

Ranza: “Alpha Five, what is your status?”

Twitch: “Hot hot hot!” And Alpha Five streaked toward the ionosphere.

The Swifts’ cooling systems were not really made for operations within an atmosphere.

“Carly, spot Twitch.” That was Ran/.a. But Carly did not need telling. She was already on her way, flanking Twitch’s climb to colder altitudes.

Dak: “Heads up, the Old Man is in atmo.”

Cain Salvador: “Flight risk.” That was the term for a colonel at the controls of a fighter craft. Steele: “I heard that, Salvador.”

“Oh, fug.” Cain fumbled his missile. It turned on its back and dove. “Did you think you were on a private channel, Marine?” Steele punted Cain’s missile back up. Cain gave the missile a final kick to escape velocity and opened fire.

Upon Ranza’s command all the Swifts of Alpha Flight rose to cool off in the way high. They collected Twitch and Carly, then dove back down to round up another batch of Roman missiles out of the U.S. skies.

Kerry Blue thought she would turn all thumbs with Colonel Steele flying with her. Instead she was brilliant. She dropped none of her missiles and picked up one of Darb’s.

Steele pretended to ignore her, except once to ask, “The boffins get your crate put back together right, Alpha Six?”

“Yes, sir.” This was an open channel. And he was not asking about her crate. “She’s okay,” said Kerry Blue, afraid everyone could hear the silly grin in her voice.

Thinking the Shotgun destroyed, Romulus had launched his attack on the Continental U.S. before Merrimack and Monitor were actually cut off from Earth. As Marcander Vincent at Tactical put it: “We got Rom to jack early again.”

“We did that,” Farragut had to agree. Gypsy Dent said, “But what if the Roman warships turn around in the Abyss and go back to Fort Eisenhower?”

“A concern, but not a disaster,” said Farragut. “Playing dead wasn’t our last-ditch effort to save the Shotgun. I just wanted to make the Romans go away the easiest way possible.”

“And we did not want to fight Horatius,” said Gypsy.

“We did not,” Farragut confessed. Captain John Farragut had a very soft spot for Legion Draconis. “We erased all the rovers inside the perimeter shield and Weld’s people caught Rome’s inside man, so I really don’t think Fort Eisenhower is in serious danger anymore. Thank God I told General Weld not to exempt Rob Roy from questioning.”

Gypsy’s eyes appeared white all around. “You mean Calli’s young man?” she said, astonished, horrified. “He wasn’t!”

“No, no, Rob Roy wasn’t the spy,” said Farragut quickly.

“Who was it?”

“One of the station Intelligence officers.”

“Oh, my God.”

Farragut nodded.

“How can that happen?” Gypsy’s own loyalty was unshakable, so the crime was unthinkable.

Farragut shrugged. “Frontier greed.” That was the name of the syndrome. Bribery cases were twice as common in the Deep End as in Near Space. “It was actually the Intelligence agent General Weld charged with investigating visitors to the main station burn unit.”

“Weld handed the flock over to the wolf!” said Gypsy.

“He did. He didn’t know it—how could he? But that’s exactly what he did.” And the wolf had eagerly questioned the sheep. Among the subjects of his inquiry he found the perfect patsy on whom to pin his own crimes. He needed to identify someone as the Roman traitor if he ever hoped to stop the hunt for himself.

He found a guileless lawyer, who looked young as a boy, and who had made a pest of himself trying to get into the burn unit where security was tight around the American captain and the Roman Senator.

Rob Roy Buchanan looked like the perfect mark.

But the interrogation had gone horribly wrong. The interrogator found his own verbal maneuvers fed back to him by this junior lawyer, and then he committed a fatal error.

“He told Rob Roy to shut up.”

“An Intelligence officer never ever tells the subject of an interrogation to shut up,” said Gypsy. “And not while the fort is under siege and the subject is supposedly a suspected traitor.” The first rule of interrogation was to keep the subject talking.

While Rob Roy Buchanan kept his interrogator talking, other Intelligence officers dug into the interrogator’s business transactions and searched his living compartment. They found a million dollars in very cold cash in the freezer, data pointers to a numbered account in his private records, and some unsatisfactory explanations for solo trips through the fort that provided opportunity to disperse Roman landing disks between the fortress stations.

The image in the final report made Rob Roy Buchanan look even younger than usual. His eyelashes were very faint so his eyes appeared to be just the two brown disks of his irises. He had shaved. He looked fifteen years old, except that, he stood between six-two and six-five depending on his posture. He looked utterly disarming.

And Farragut had almost, almost told General Weld that Rob Roy did not need interrogating. “That’s a good man,” said Gypsy. “Calli should keep him.”

Many of the Roman missiles and drones hitting the Continental United States were coming from carriers, cloaked in distortion and ready to flee faster than light as soon as they were sighted. But U.S. scanners picked up some other possible sources, moving in plain sight—registered internationals, flagged as cargo vessels.

Some nations would flag a paper airplane if the fee were paid.

Scanners located a suspicious hulk—claimed to be an Eastern Alliance trader—bearing a Freelander flag. Roman missile trails led back to this cargo ship.

Traders normally earned premiums for early delivery. The Freelander’s course led back on itself in a wide circle around nothing, in a hurry to get nowhere.

Merrimack was riding in its shadow now.

“Want to shoot it?” Gypsy asked, standing next to Farragut on the command deck.

“I do,” said Captain Farragut. They were so close they could hit the cargo ship with their lights and actually see it.

The neutral Freelander flag was posted all over it.

“If this goes bad, it will fall on your head,” Gypsy gave a dutiful warning. “Hard.”

“Oh, my head’s used to it. I have identified the plot as an enemy hostile. Commander Dent, destroy the Freelander.”

“Aye, sir. Targeting, acquire the Freelander.”

“Target acquired and tagged, aye,” said Targeting. He turned around at his station. “It’s right there. Should we get some space between us if that thing’s carrying what we think it’s carrying?”

Targeting was still speaking as the com tech reported, “Freelander is screaming that he’s neutral.”

“Advise personnel aboard the cargo ship to take to their lifeboats and get behind us. Helm, make a few hundred klicks between Mack and the target.”

Helm responded: “Adjusting separation, aye.”

Tactical: “Target is showing life craft.”

Helm: “Separation achieved.”

The cargo ship was no longer in visual range. But the tags would assure that any ordnance from Merrimack would connect with the target. Gypsy looked to Farragut, “What kind of chaser do you think?”

“I think if we could light a match in there it might do the trick,” said Farragut. “Fire Control. Single torpedo, standard load,” Gypsy ordered.

“Torpedo ready, aye. Fire Control standing by.”

“Fire torpedo,” said Gypsy Dent.

“Torpedo away, aye.”

The torpedo hissed upon leaving the ship. It instantly disappeared into the dark in search of the cargo ship.

The damn thing turned out to be a space munitions dump. The cargo ship became visible like a supernova. All Merrimack’s viewports dimmed under the intense light.

Marcander Vincent stood right up at his station and shouted as if across the vacuum: “Hey, Caesar! This is what real up-blowing looks like!”

A haze hung in the atmosphere over the United States. Dark clouds rolled across the continent, visible from space, and rains fell like after a volcano. Winds swept the skies clear to brilliant sunsets.

There was a lull in the missile strikes, but no peace in the silence. America waited for the next wave of attacks.

Captain Farragut received a message from his father.

The judge wanted to move the family to the outer colonies.

“No, sir,” said Captain Farragut, an order. And to the judge’s outraged bluster, he asked the old hunter, “What’s more likely to get shot—a pheasant lying low in the field or a pheasant taking to the air? Stay low!”

“There are missiles over my house. OVER MY HOUSE!”

“Then go up the road and stay with the Lees or the Wilkens,” Captain Farragut answered. “Just keep to the ground and do not get into anything that looks like a government vehicle.”

“They’re doing this to get at you, you know!” the elder Farragut accused.

The missile flights directly over the Farragut house—yes, those probably had been aimed to get the younger Farragut’s attention. “Yes, sir.”

“Then you make them stop!”

“Aye, aye, sir,” said Captain Farragut.

The attacks had already stopped. For this moment. That was part of the terror. The not knowing when they would start again.

It was unclear what Romulus had hoped to achieve. The three surviving giant Roman gunships had vanished faster than light. Those could be anywhere.

The attacks on U.S. military installations had not made a single penetration.

So far there had been no strikes on utilities or on civil ian transports.

“If he’s not going after utilities, that strongly suggests his intent is occupation,” Farragut observed.

The Pentagon was adding up the damage, and keeping watch for the next strike, and expressing indignation.

“I suppose this means we’ll be bombing Palatine,” Gypsy said.

“I think we might oughta better,” said Farragut.

“Ya ha and hoo ra!” a Marine guard at the hatchway let loose. Shut himself up, looking contrite. There came no rebuke for the outburst. “Can’t we hit Fortress Aeyrie too?” Tactical asked. “Would,” said Farragut. “If we knew where it was.”

“Palatine is the better target, sir,” said Gypsy. “Especially if Caesar is not there.”

That would let the Roman populace see the might of Caesar, hiding in his mobile fortress while U.S. ships were bombing Palatine.

Farragut nodded, but warned, “They’ll be ready for us. They must know the Yanks are coming.”

“Lunaris, tell me about World War Two submarines,” said Romulus with a voice of silk.

Lollius Lunaris explained, “There was a tactic—it may even have been a fiction, but it was recounted so often that every American knows it. A submarine under attack would crash dive and jettison debris and an oil slick to make it appear dead to the hunter ships on the surface.”

Caesar said, “You had information that the destruction of the Shotgun was likely a ruse and you failed to pass it on.”

Lunaris opened his mouth. I tried to tell you.

The words went unspoken, but Caesar heard them anyway. “This is the Imperial Palace. There are no half measures. It is your job to make certain that vital information gets where it needs to go. There is no excuse for doing half a job.” He swept his hand at the space vista that took up one enormous wall of the audience hall—the scene of a crippled Roman gunship drifting amid the widely scattered wreckage of another.

“You killed those ships, Lunaris. You are dismissed.”

Lunaris tottered out of the throne room, not sure how he managed to stay vertical.

He ordered a sword and fell on it.

President Marissa Johnson dispatched an official protest of Rome’s violation of the articles of surrender and of Caesar’s groundless declaration of war.

Caesar Romulus opened a visual communication with the American leader. Marissa Johnson had the jowls of a second term President. They were expected, almost required.

In Rome, a man of wealth was expected to be beautiful, whether the wealth was inherited or manufactured. Visually, Caesar was a beautiful man, with those lush brown curls, his petulant lips, his deep brown eyes, and his nose perfectly Roman. His voice was a masculine baritone. Caesar Romulus answered President Johnson serenely. He was much less paranoid and strident since the Roman Senate had ratified his position. “With respect, Madame President, violating the surrender is rather the point.”

“The terms were lenient,” said President Johnson. “Unreasonably lenient.”

Rome’s armed forces had come under U.S. command in order to mount a concentrated offense against the Hive. Rome had been permitted to keep its internal government and all its laws.

“We were joined for the common good,” said President Johnson. “And the alien threat is still here. Your obligation is not fulfilled.”

“The alien threat is in your yard, Madame President. Clean it up yourself. Rome has no obligation to you. I am not a pirate or a thug. Here is how it is: when you pry pledges out of a drowning man as you dangle the lifeline over his head, do you expect the pledges he makes to be binding? Not in any court, Madame President of the United States of America. Not even yours.”

“We came to Rome’s aid in the Empire’s hour of need!”

“America’s aid to Rome was entirely self-serving. The defense of Rome was the defense of America. But the defense of America is not the defense of Rome.”

And Romulus outlined his demands for a lasting peace. The demands included annexation of the United States of America into the Empire as a province of Rome.

Marissa Johnson replied publicly that the United States would be formulating an appropriate response to Rome’s demands. Though she was rumored to have turned directly to her Secretary of Defense and said: “Bomb their ass.”

9

IT WAS A WEEK’S JOURNEY for a space battleship from Earth to Palatine. Monitor stayed behind at Earth, pretending to be both Merrimack and herself. Other attack ships also pretended to be more than they were as their twins stole toward the Roman capital, two hundred light-years away.

Merrimack kept her Swifts inboard to minimize the chance of detection. Chances of being detected at FTL normally ranged between remote and impossible, but any approach to heavily patrolled and monitored Palatine was an exception.

“They know we’re coming, so what’s the point of hiding?” Carly said, kicking a soccer ball foot to foot on the hangar deck, stir crazy. “And just what are you grinning at?”

Kerry Blue and the Darb had just come into the hangar, grinning and sniggering.

Kerry darted in and stole the ball from Carly.

Kerry Blue had not been herself lately. She hadn’t been yab yumming anyone. And Kerry Blue had yab yummed just about every man on board. She passed the ball to Darb, who missed it completely. “Darb showed me a Greek play.”

Twitch corralled the loose ball as Carly said, “A what? Yuk! How cultured! Doesn’t everybody die?”

“That’s a Greek tragedy,” said Darb. “This was a comedy. Everyone gets married at the end of a comedy.” Dak’s face rolled up as if smelling mold, “So was it funny?”

“Yeah,” said Kerry Blue, still laughing at some of the lines. “Lots of sex jokes. It was updated, wasn’t it, Darb?”

“No,” Cole Darby sighed. “Sex was funny back then too.” Cain reached in a foot and stole the ball from Twitch. “I don’t know, my man. Sounds way too Roman for me.”

“Me too.” Ranza threw her weight into Cain and snagged the ball.” ‘Kay. Darb. Tell me how the iupes kept their society secret for two thousand fox-trotting years.”

The ship’s gravity gave one of its random burbles. Ranza lost her step and the ball. She let her arms slap her sides, watching the ball escape. “Millions of lupes. All over the world. Big fat secret. I can’t keep my birth date secret. How’d they do that?”

“In plain sight,” said Darb.

During the Long Silence the Roman cloak of secrecy had leaked like the Titanic. But anyone who tried to reveal the secret empire came off as a raving dwit. A secret Roman Empire was just another conspiracy theory.

Romans concocted a lot of different conspiracy theories just to keep their real one hidden in the stack. There was competition among them to see who could get the most followers for the wildest idea.

Romans passed down their secret traditions generation to generation, though not necessarily by blood. They did not hesitate to adopt worthy persons, bestow upon them their own gens name—their secret true name—and make them part of their tribe.

Romans preserved their language in the disciplines of law, medicine, religion, science, and higher education. Latin infested the English language. The Roman mythos was taught in schools. Roman symbols were ubiquitous—the caduceus, the scales, the symbols for male and female, for the planets.

Roman culture was not buried very deep. Non-Romans would trip over an exposed root and think nothing of it.

Heirs, whether by blood or adoption, blended into local society. They rose to positions of prominence, whether as research scientist or judge or Pope.

The World Wide Web was the beginning of the empire’s resurrection. Global communication made a united organization possible. Race and nationality mattered less and less as globalization progressed. Rome, long accustomed to annexing foreigners, folded the worthy in. Strength and Honor were what mattered.

With the advent of faster than light travel, the secret empire conceived a plan for a mass exodus from Earth, to be deployed once a suitable destination was found.

A U.S. corporation—wholly owned by a secret society of Romans—terraformed and colonized a nearby world, two hundred light years away, in the Lambda Coronae Australis system. The corporation christened the colony Palatine.

In A.D. 2290 the Romans of Palatine raised their standards and their eagles, and declared independence from the United States. The call went out Earthwide to all their secret kind to come. And the Exodus was on.

The result was a severe talent drain from all of Earth, not just from the United States. Romans were everywhere, and they left in tribes. Earth lost, if not the best and brightest, then at least the extremely talented and very, very smart. Romans had cultivated fine minds. They were highly educated and technically adept. Motivated. With a proud—arrogant—history.

There followed a short, embarrassing war of independence. The United States tried to hold onto the colony built under their flag. The League of Earth Nations came out in favor of colonial independence, and promised to lend military support to Palatine if the United States continued to press its claim by violent means.

Next came the attempted embargo. The U.S. cut off all assistance to Palatine and all trade. If Palatine wanted to stand alone, let it stand alone and languish.

Palatine flourished. Romans had designed their new home world to be self-sustaining. Romans used a great deal of automation.

The new Rome started out without a human under class. Automatons performed menial, repetitive, or dangerous tasks. Wherever there was a problem, there was a programmable solution. Rome had the minds. Palatine had the natural resources. They lacked population, but resolved that by mass reproduction, using in vitro conception and ranks and ranks of incubators to supplement a limited number of wombs. Roman civilization rapidly spread into an interstellar empire. Palatine colonized new worlds faster even than the United States—because Rome did not care if a world had a resident civilization or not. As long as an Earth nation hadn’t got to it first, the world was theirs.

Upon arriving in the Lambda Coronae Australis star system, Merrimack let loose the dogs of war by launching her Wing. Sprung from a week’s confinement, the Marines were rabid to shoot Romans. The Swifts strafed Palatine.

The results were unexpected.

Alpha Seven reported first over the com: “I don’t know what the target’s transmitting, but I can’t get a tone on my own foot.”

Alpha Three: “Try taking it out of your mouth, Darb.”

“I don’t hear a whole lot of hoo ras out of anyone else!” Darb sent. “Are you hitting anything?” Dak offered: “I bit my tongue.”

Alpha Flight circled the target for a second pass, but computer-guided sighting went AWOL in the Roman distortion. Shots from the hip rebounded from Roman energy shields.

The Marines then discovered why the lupes had come in low when they attacked the U.S.—Palatine’s planetary defenses could not hit a crate on the deck. The Swifts decided to try the Roman tactic against them. They dropped fast and fired low.

But come in too low, you didn’t get shot but your shots and you rebounded off the Roman energy shield. Kerry Blue heard Cain sailing away on a high bounce: “ WAhoooooooooo!”

Kerry Blue touched right down on the ground and tried to send a shot in the front door of her target.

The shot came straight back at her. It hit her on the fat part of the distortion field, so she survived it. She passed verdict on the tactic as she climbed: “That’s a DDT.”

Don’t Do Twice.

None of the attack craft had any joy. Whether shooting in atmosphere or from space, no one could land a significant shot on a Roman military installation.

No one was accustomed to missing.

Cain: “Something is uffing my targeting system here!”

Darb: “You are not alone.”

Cain: “That gives me no comfort!”

Alpha Flight was operating near Roma Nova, the daylight side of the world, and they were all overheating. Ranza Espinoza bellowed: “Alpha Flight! Come on yous! On the roof! Pattern Zulu Tango. Now!”

The Swifts of Alpha Flight rocketed out of the atmosphere on an evasion path to avoid intercepts during ascent.

In the cooling darkness, Kerry Blue sent: “We aren’t going home yet, are we? I don’t want to go back with gots.”

Dak: “Me neither.”

Twitch: “Yo.”

Cain: “You can leave me here. I am not going back to Merrimack empty-handed.” Ranza:” ‘Kay. Let’s go get the chicken. Let’s go get the chicken.” And she dove into atmo. Dak rolled over and dove after her. Then Carly, Twitch, Darby, and Kerry Blue. “Chicken?” Cain asked, falling in behind everyone else.

“A chicken is a yellow bird,” said Carly.

Technically speaking most chickens were white. But even Darb could figure out that Ranza meant yellow in the chickenly sense of the word—cowardly.

The Alphas were over Roma Nova. Ranza had her Flight on the deck on a direct line with the Monument to the Conciliation.

A golden eagle was a yellow bird.

The monument had been redone so that the bald eagle cowered on its back with the golden eagle positioned high over it, diving at it, claws outstretched.

“We’re not allowed to hit the palace!” Kerry cried as they neared the Capitoline. “We’re not hitting the palace,” said Ranza. “We’re hitting the chicken.”

“We’re not allowed to hit the Capitoline!” said Kerry. “The monument is not on the Capitoline.” Darb, that time. “It’s at the foot of the Capitoline.”

“See? Some of the skat Darb knows is useful. Chicken sighted off the starboard bow!” Ranza veered up the Via Triumphalis.The others followed in a long chain just above the ground traffic.

Citizenry dodged out of the buildings lining the Via to look at the roaring spacecraft, then skittered back inside.

“I can’t get a bead,” Carly reported on approach, worried. “Ranza, I can’t get a bead. The monument’s got distortion around it.”

“Okay let’s do this the old-fashioned way. Line it up by eyeball. We’re gonna make a mess. Follow me. Nobody hit the palace or we’re all chucked.”

“I’m showing hostiles headed in,” Darb reported. “Lots. Thirty seconds out.”

“Then get this done in twenty-nine seconds!”

“We’re gonna get atomized.”

Ranza held to her kill course. Closed fast on the monument, lobbed a shot on the golden eagle and veered up. A miss. Next in was Dak.”Gotcha, gotcha,gotcha—oh!” Looked back, climbing. “Winged it!”

He had taken off the very tip of the golden eagle’s portside wing. Darb made a big hole next to the monument’s base. Carly, Twitch, and Kerry scored clean misses. Twenty-five seconds down. No time left. “Bad guys are hording in. Whole bunches. Don’t seem happy,” said Darb. Only thing protecting them from long-distance fire was the close proximity of the Imperial Palace and the grand buildings in this neighborhood. The Roman ships charging in now were bound to be harpies. They would snatch the Swifts out of the sky and haul them off elsewhere to crush them.

“Take your shot, Cain!”

Cain came riding in just topside of a Roman hoverbus.

“Cain, it’s up to you now. Bring it home!”

“Cain! Cain! Cain!”

On the deck. On level. Cain’s clearsceen filled with golden feathers.

“Hoorah!”

Took his shot and veered straight up. “Mama, get me outta here!” Cain yelled, a whole fleet of pissed off and ugly coming after him. Covering fire was coming from above as Alpha Flight climbed away from Roma Nova, chased by an angry mob.

“Alpha Flight. Alpha Flight. This is Merrimack. You are clear to approach portside flight deck, hot as you need to.”

The Alphas cleared atmo and came in at a near crash atop Merrimack’s port wing. Mack’s force field clapped down over the Swifts.

Merrimack’s force field lit up and sparkled under a rain of fire.

Clamps rose up from the flight deck, clamped the Swifts down. The elevators carried the fighters down inside the ship to the hangar deck.

At the green light, the Alphas popped canopies.

The whole hangar deck was filled and chanting, “Cain! Cain! Cain! Cain!” Anyone who could be here was here. Merrimack must have jumped to FTL to have this many people free to crowd the hangar. Kerry climbed out of her Swift, jumped down to the deck and joined in the chant. “Cain! Cain! Cain!”

The man of the hour climbed out of his cockpit to stand atop his Swift. Cain Salvador gave a sheepish shrug of his big shoulders, and an “aw shucks” kind of nod. He gave his admirers a thumb’s up.

And suddenly the deck went silent.

You knew who was here without looking.

Colonel Steele. Stalking through the crowd.

Flight Leader Ranza Espinoza stepped forward, talking before the colonel could reach the front, “Sir, this was my idea, my responsibih—”

“Shut up.”

Ranza shut.

Steele stalked up the line of Alphas.

“I thought that kind of crap died with Cowboy Carver.”

Ranza started, “Sir, I—”

“Shut up.”

“Hm,” Ranza made a sound, uncertain whether she should verbally acknowledge that order or just obey it.

“That stunt was extremely dangerous. Not only was the target unauthorized but it was within range of civilians and the palace which are absolutely off-limits. Your actions were not on any list of contingency plans. It was freelance bullskat.”

Steele paced, his head red, fit to steam out his ears.

“Here is where I tell you how deep a hole you’ve dug for us. Unfortunately, I can’t reprimand any of you.” Pacing. Teeth grinding. The Alphas’ gazes remained fixed stiffly forward but all of them just wanted to exchange glances and say, “Huh?”

Steele was mad as hell. And not just at them. Someone wearing a lot of brass had got hold of that bullmastiff’s leash and yanked.

Words came out of TR Steele like he was performing his own appendectomy: “They are dancing in the streets back home. I have orders from our C in C to buy each of you a beer.”

And to the cheer about to erupt, his forefinger jerked up in the air to silence it, and he warned all on deck, “You can sit on that till I leave.”

He spun on Ranza. “Espinoza, this doesn’t ever happen again.”

“Aye, sir. And I agree. I should never—”

“I don’t give a skat if you agree, soldier. You just do.”

“Aye, sir.”

Steele stalked back through the ranks. A navvy, not in Steele’s chain of command, spoke over his clanging march toward the doors, “The beer order is coming from President Johnson?”

Steele looked at the navvy and snarled. He had just said that.“I wouldn’t.” He nearly collided with Chef Zack come marching into the hangar deck with a six-pack in either hand. Zack had appointed himself to the task of hand delivering the President’s order.

Someone else brought in the recordings to show the Alphas what had caused the Presidential hallelujah.

Cain hadn’t just knocked the golden eagle off its perch. He had knocked the monument base over sideways so that the bald eagle, which used to be cowering on its back, now looked for all the world like it was rolling over to get up.

That’s what they were roaring about Stateside. “Wow,” Cain looked at his work. No wonder the beer got here before his Swift even dried off. “That’s my hole,” said Cole Darby. He pointed at the hole that allowed the monument to cant over. “That’s my hole.”

“Nice hole,” said Cain.

“A real sharpshooter would have picked off the chicken without breaking the bald eagle’s left toe,” said Cole Darby.

Cain swaggered over, hooked his arm round Darb’s neck, snugged him in close for a side-by-side hug, nearly strangling him in the crook of his elbow. “And here’s my man, Darb. I love him like a brother.”

Darb’s voice came out strained, muffled by a face full of muscular arm. “I’d feel much better about this if someone other than a guy named Cain were talkin’.”

———

The handle to the hatch of Steele’s private compartment clicked, turned.

Steele watched it, scowling. Could not quite believe what he was seeing. Someone was letting himself into Steele’s quarters without knock or permission.

The hatch opened to Kerry Blue, holding beer for two. Steele looked away. “Flight Sergeant, you do not want to be here.” She let herself in. The hatch shut behind her. “That was crappy what they did.”

They? He was plenty pissed with her too. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t been flying with Alpha Flight. Kerry Blue had been as much a part of it as Cain Salvador.

“I am not happy with any of you.” Steele rested his chin on his fist, not looking at her. “Huh? Oh, I wasn’t talking about the Alphas. We did what we did and I really expected to be in the lower sail right now guarding a box of donuts for it. They shouldn’t be giving you different orders from two hundred light-years away about your Marine Flight.”

They. He lifted his head. She was talking about President Johnson and the DC brass holes. Kerry finished, “I thought the chain of command went both ways.”

“So did I,” Steele said into his fist. Still pissed, but amazed that she understood why he was pissed. She offered, “I can go to the lower sail if it’d make you feel better.”

She had already made him feel better. She got it. She got it. He just wanted someone to recognize that he had been undercut from on high. And of all people, it was Kerry Blue who got it.

If he felt any better Kerry Blue would be on her back on the deck right here, right now.

“Give me those beers and get out of here,” he said.

“You can handle these by yourself?” Kerry put her hps to the mouth of one bottle before surrendering it. “Sure you don’t need reinforcements?”

“Out!”

10

THE MEDIA WERE CALLING IT the Doolittle Raid, after an air strike nearly a half millennium ago. That operation had not taken out a single military target either.

The strike on Palatine had rattled a lot of windows and cracked a few foundations, made the Romans dive like prairie dogs, and rolled over the chicken. That was about the sum of it.

But U.S. morale soared, and that had probably been the real mission objective anyway, because Merrimack was ordered home. The crew were not told if other ships were being left behind at Palatine, but everyone on board wondered why they couldn’t stay in the enemy system to do some real damage.

Titus Vitruvius lay in his sleep chamber in the city of Antipolis on the planet Thaleia, not sleeping.

His tiny chamber in the ziggurat had once been clothed in the illusion of a tree fort. That was too babyish for him now. Now his chamber was rigged to appear like a Legion commander’s quarters aboard a ship of war.

While he was in his room he was not in a self-contained city on an automated factory world. He was on board the Legion carrier Horatius. In his world, he had taken over command of Horatius upon the death of Herius Asinius.

On a shelf of gods he prayed to, he had Mars and Bellus and Minerva and Virtus and Honorus. No one really quite believed in gods but it never hurt to ask them for favors.

Also on the shelf was an image of Herius Asinius. Rome did not officially deify people anymore, but Titus did.

Titus belonged to gens Vitruvius, but the standards and the grey and scarlet legion colors in his room were gens Asinius.

Because Thaleia was the home of PanGalactic Industries, the patron god of the planet Thaleia was Vulcan, the craftsman. Outside of the self-contained city’s pleasant illusions, the world was bleak, harsh. But it had an atmosphere, free-flowing water, sun, wind, and minerals. Thaleia’s settlements existed to serve its factories.

Titus Vitruvius wanted nothing more than to get off of Thaleia. Vulcan had no place on Titus’ shelf. Titus preferred Mars to Vulcan, Achilles to Odysseus. Brawn and courage to industry and cunning.

Thaleia’s factories were largely automated and self run, so the population of Thaleia was small as planetary populations were reckoned. The factories churned out killer bots. PanGalactic Industries’ killer bots had been redesigned so they could not all be commanded to self-destruct by a single signal as the first generation of killer bots had been. There used to be millions of them, and soon would be again.

Thaleian factories manufactured the missiles and the drones that were terrorizing America, and they assembled the carrier craft which transported the missiles and drones to within striking distance of Earth.

Thaleia’s factories had also rebuilt the planet’s orbiting defenses. At a distance of seventy-one light-years, Thaleia was the closest Roman planet to Earth and to the hated United States of America.

The heavy defenses kept the enemy away from Thaleia. Titus had expected the Americans to make their strike here instead of Palatine. But Thaleia sat out that action, and Titus was disappointed.

If he must be on a planet instead of on a warship, Titus wished he could be on Palatine, shooting Americans out of the Roman sky.

His mother wouldn’t let him go anywhere.

He was at the age where your mother is a boat anchor. And he was unfortunate enough actually to have a mother. His friends had been born from incubators. Lucky them. Oh, they knew where their maternal DNA came from, but Jupiter! You get pushed out between a woman’s thighs, she thinks she owns you and does not let go. Ever. His mother just did not understand. Titus had fought against the Hive. He had helped Herius Asinius defend the Roman fortress! He was a combat veteran! He was twelve years old!

Upon his final parting, Herius Asinius had given Titus an order to protect his mother. Titus knew that legionaries often got orders they didn’t like and they were expected to obey. But things had changed since then. If Herius Asinius were alive, he would give Titus new orders. Titus just knew it.

Titus still kept his ant farm and his jar of zakan moths with him. They used to give warnings of any Hive presence. The moths only ever did anything if Hive monsters were very, very close.

The Hive in Near Space was dead. It was completely gone from Thaleia.

The last Hive stragglers were thousands of light-years away in the next arm of the galaxy, across the Abyss in the Deep End. Titus kept his telltales because they had been a gift from Herius Asinius, whom he adored. And they had saved his life once.

Midnight. Titus was awake, and not sure why. His eyes were open, watching the ants. They crawled out of their tunnels as if someone had kicked their container. The zakan moths began to chirp.

“Mater! Mater!” Titus Vitruvius ran into his mother’s chamber. “Hive! Hive sign!”

Verina Vitruvia stirred sleepily. Her compartment smelled like flowers. She smelled like flowers. She moved her long hair from her face. She groaned at the chronometer. Mumbled, “It must be something else.” Her head fell back into her pillow.

“No. They are here.” He tried to shake the bed, but it wouldn’t shake.

Verina’s voice came from the pillow. “Go back to bed, dearest.”

Titus stomped into the corridor and pulled the city alarm. Flashing lights flared to life, and the clangor rose up and up the spiral corridors of the ziggurat.

Verina was up as if catapulted. She ran into the corridor and shut the alarm back off. She hissed at her son to keep herself from shrieking, “What are you doing!”

Screams rose from somewhere. Male voices.

“You’ve started a panic,” Verina scolded, trying to usher Titus back inside their chambers. “We will be fined for this.”

“Romans do not panic,” said Titus.

“What?”

The screams. He meant that men were not screaming just because the alarm sounded.

The screams sounded like men on fire, and they were coming from way down in the lowest level of the ziggurat. Then the alarm reactivated. The lights were flashing, the clangor blaring. Someone else had pulled it this time.

Verina turned Titus around, started to herd him down the ramp to the exit. Titus planted his heels and seized her night cloak to make her stop.

“Don’t go this way. The gorgons are under the city. That’s where they came from the first time. This way.” He took his mother by the hand and tugged for her to come up the ramp.

He bellowed—as deep as a boy’s soprano voice could bellow—to everyone they met stampeding down the spiral corridor to turn around and go to the roofs. He shouted for someone to contact the home guard to order an airlift to take them off of the rooftops.

A voice responded from somewhere in adult baritone, a military acknowledgment, “It shall be done.” And Titus at last understood why Herius Asinius, the god, had ordered him to stay in Antipolis.

———

Romulus returned to the Imperial palace on Palatine, abandoning the safety of his mobile palace Fortress Aeyrie to be with his people. He publicly regretted that he had not been here during the raid. The U.S. ships had already withdrawn from Palatine by the time Romulus took up residence again.

Upon his return, Romulus found rumors of Hive appearances in Near Space circulating on Palatine. Romulus could not believe how quickly the word of the Hive spread from his own trusted people on Fortress Aeyrie to Palatine—even after he swore them to silence. Caesar was going to crucify someone for this.

But the rumors going round Palatine were not of gorgons on 82 Eridani III.

These rumors were of gorgons on Thaleia.

“Kill the rumors and find out what is really happening on Thaleia,” Caesar ordered. “It’s all U.S. propaganda.”

A top adviser lingered behind after the others had left. The aging general Julius Zosimus was not close enough to be a confidant. Romulus did not have those. But Zosimus was given as much trust as one could expect from a man who had seen his father murdered by a top adviser.

The two were alone. Zosimus knew there were anti-surveillance jammers here. Still he drew close and kept his voice low. His lips barely moved in case anyone had a camera on him. “Caesar, there appears to be a real gorgon presence on Thaleia. Not large, but it’s—”

“Rumor,” Caesar finished for him. “Listen to what I am telling you. Kill the rumors. Everyone is to understand that the gorgons in Near Space were only ever U.S. propaganda, and that we are too clever to swallow any dung they try to feed us.”

“Understood, Caesar.”

At the base of the Capitoline a wide swathe of new grass sprouted where the Monument to the Conciliation used to stand. Of the Monument itself nothing remained. The wreckage had been removed quickly after the American attack.

General Numa Pompeii stood on the new grass, too late to the dance. There had been U.S. ships over Palatine, and Numa Pompeii had not been here to turn them away.

Numa Pompeii had spent the last three months slogging across the two thousand light-years of the Abyss. Caesar might have waited until Gladiator could pass through the U.S. Shotgun before he decided to declare his war. Romulus had known exactly what he was doing. The palace guards admitted Numa readily enough. A servant offered him the traditional refreshment, which Numa declined. Another servant showed him to a chamber, there to wait.

The Imperial Palace that Numa Pompeii remembered was built of blue and white marble, with stately Ionic pillars holding up coffered ceilings.

The circular chamber in which the returning Triumphalis was left cooling his heels had been redone in holoimages, so he was standing inside a storm cloud.

Lightning flickered. Thunder rolled. The short, graying hairs on the back of Numa’s thick neck stood up with the electricity.

Numa Pompeii had dressed for an audience with the Self, not as a Senator, but as a general. His polished bronze cuirass was inlaid with gold and silver across his vast chest. Greek style leather tabs skirted his short tunic. Bronze greaves sheathed his shins. The formal military garb left his powerful arms and legs in view.

He wore his siege crown. “About bloody time, Pompeii.” Caesar Romulus strode into the chamber with a lightning flash.

Romulus sported an old style Roman cloak draped over black clothes of a modern cut. A small gold oak wreath sat on his lush curls.

Numa was certain that others found the lightning distracting, but he did not flinch at the bolts. He kept his eyes on Romulus. The young man had gotten very comfortable in his role since Numa last saw him. All his stridency was gone. There was a sure, easy set to his posture.

“Whose side are you on?” Caesar asked.

“You stuck me in the Deep,” said Numa. “Blindsided me with that declaration of war. Held your confirmation vote without me. I am on your side of course.”

Romulus grinned at him. “You always land on your feet, Pompeii.” He nodded like a rival recognizing a superior player. “I am told you killed our Gaius Americanus and Captain Callista Carmel.”

Numa did not bother telling Romulus that the attack on Gaius and Calli Carmel was not his doing. Caesar already knew that. Denial would just make Numa sound weak. He asked in turn, “Are they dead then?”

“I’m asking you,” said Caesar.

“I cannot confirm the report. I saw the attack. I did not stay around for the result. A lot of American ships were out for my blood and there was a very large U.S. space fort within quick striking distance of the scene.”

“That part jibes with what I have heard. I remember listening to a recording of Captain Farragut calling off the chase. I think he said, ‘Let him go. Numa’s gotta be flying out of U.S. space faster than a turkey in November.’ “

“Faster than light, actually,” said Numa.

Caesar’s voice went soft with a venomous undercurrent. “I am told that the reason Gaius left the fortress, and the reason the Americans think you killed him, is that you invited Gaius out.”

“True,” said Numa, looking Caesar in the eves.

Caesar blinked. “You killed him?”

“I invited him out,” Numa said.

“Why did you want to meet with Gaius? What did the two of you have to talk about?”

“I did not want to meet with Gaius. I wanted to offer him transportation home. You do know that you marooned two senior Senators out there without access to the Shotgun.”

“You found your way home.”

“I did.” Numa let the sourness bleed into his voice. That trip had been a monumental waste of time. “A ship can run a lot of drills in three months. It is a very long journey when your world is at war. Longer still when your world is under attack.”

“We survived,” said Caesar. “Without you.”

“I rejoice,” said Numa.

Romulus was suddenly cheerful. “I’m glad to see you, Pompeii. I am. I have work for you to do. But first.”

Caesar Romulus stepped back, held his ring hand before him, downward, so that one needed to kneel in order to kiss it.

The dialogs. IV.

A: Do you not, Don Cordillera, have a problem being Catholic even knowing that your Church was created as a Roman power lever?

JMdeC: The secret Roman imperialists lost their grip on the Church in the twentieth century.

A: We did not lose our grip. We let go. Yet Catholic priests still learn Latin. Why is that?

JMdeC: The idea of Latin in the Church was not to be a vehicle for your language. It was so the faithful might go to any church in the world and hear the same Mass. The idea was to make the church catholic.

A: It served to unify the Roman Empire.

JMdeC: The Church still stands without Romans.

A: In Vatican City. Within Old Rome.

JMdeC: You abandoned the Vatican.

A: Rome left a lot of valuable crap behind if you noticed. A fortune.

JF: That means something?

A: We’re coming back, don’t you know?

11

BASE SIRIUS WAS A U.S. outpost, critical for its location within nine light-years of Earth.

The main star in the system, Sirius A, was just over twice the mass of Sol, and twenty-six times as bright. That and its closeness made Sirius the brightest star in Earth’s sky.

But Sirius A was not the Dog Star of ancient Greece. It was the companion star, the Pup, Sirius B, that had caused wonder in the ancient heavens.

Two millennia ago, Sirius B left the main sequence and swelled up to red gianthood. It ballooned so large and bright that it was visible from Earth in the light of day. The Greeks thought the heat from that giant red star made the Dog Days so hot. But the Dog Days were only hot because Sirius appeared closest to the sun when it just happened to be summer in the northern hemisphere.

The Dog Days of August continued to be hot for millennia after the red giant shrank down to a planet-sized white dwarf, dense, dim, invisible in Earth daylight like any other star—leaving later Earthlings to wonder what was so special about the Dog Star, and how could anyone possibly imagine that Sirius added heat to Earth’s northern summers.

The U.S. space station Base Sirius orbited the bright primary star at four times the distance from Earth to Sol. Even at that, the station’s muscular solar filters were needed to keep Base Sirius from burning up.

And these days there was also the Pup to consider. The orbit of Sirius A and Sirius B around each other was highly eccentric. At the moment, the two stars were just widening from periastro, putting Base Sirius almost the same distance from one as from the other. From the station there was no confusing the two—the main star was several times bigger and ten thousand times brighter than the Pup.

The station orbited the main star on a slight oblique so that its view to Earth was never occluded.

“Occultation, ninety by ninety by three,” Station Watch sang out. “Incoming hostile. It’s a big one. Nothing stealthy about this one.”

“Call the station to invasion alert,” the stationmaster ordered, then hailed Jupiter Control to advise them that Base Sirius was about to come under attack.

“We see him, Sirius,” Jupiter Control answered on a resonant link. “Wolfhound will respond.”

“Send more ships,” Sirius sent. “My lookout is telling me the incoming hostile is big.”

“It’s very big,” Jupiter Control acknowledged. No comfort there. “It’s Gladiator. Tell your people to stand by for heavy rolls.”

The station immediately hailed its rescuer: “Wolfhound, Wolfhound, Wolfhound. This is Base Sirius. What is your location?”

A wolfhunter class spaceship appeared from behind the ferociously bright primary star. “Base Sirius, this is Wolfhound. We are here.”

“Thank God,” Sirius responded, watching the enormous plot that was Gladiator closing on the system.

Base Sirius received Wolfhound into its energy field and established hard dock. The ship essentially became part of the station and added its strength to the force field.

Gladiator approached, brute, daunting, nearly the size of the space station.

Wolfhound kept up continuous fire on Gladiator as the Roman massif approached. The station itself was poorly armed, its defenses designed to repel pirates.

The gigantic Gladiator jammed a force field hook through the station’s force field, and pried it wide. Wolfhound had to instantly cease fire.

Gladiator stabbed a corvus into the station hull and drew alongside with deafening booms.

Then sounds of metal tearing and shearing carried throughout all three vessels.

The stationmaster sent a nervous message to the adjacent Wolfhound, “You’re not leaving us are you, Wolfhound?”

Wolfhound could cut and run. An orbital station could not. “No,” Wolfound answered. “Gladiator will not take this station.” Metal tore. Romans cut a wide opening in the station’s bulkhead to create their own dock. Air pressed in on the sinuses and the ears with the addition of Gladiator’s heavier Roman atmosphere. Roman soldiers stood in the rough dock, prepared to board the station.

They hesitated at the sight of tendrils racing along the deck, in through the breach, into Gladiator, quick as snakes. The tendrils wedged themselves under hatches, through vents, all through the ship.

The Roman boarding party cut the tendrils. The tendrils immediately re-formed, re-fused, became whole again. “Sever those,” Numa Pompeii ordered from his command deck as the tendrils stretched into the compartment.

“The men are trying,” Gladiator’s exec answered very quickly, with something more urgent to tell him: “Domni, there is an autodestruct rigged and counting down. Ground point is Wolfhound.”

“Isolate Wolfhound from the station,” Numa ordered.

“Unable to comply, Domni. These—tendrils—are all through the station. And now they are in Gladiator and they are preventing our interior partitions from sealing.”

A Roman ship was built like a chambered nautilus. The tendrils caused this nautilus to leak through every chamber.

On a Roman ship, the partitions were fire walls. The Triumphalis made an impatient sound. “What is their intent?”

“We have no message from Wolfhound, Domni. The countdown is at two minutes.” The exec tried to sound pragmatic. Was not succeeding. ‘”Earth minutes. They’re shorter.” Even Numa Pompeii was a little disconcerted, confused. A bluff was no good without a warning. The count was down to one minute forty seconds. No ultimatums were coming. “I don’t believe this,” Numa snarled to himself, and aloud: “Recall our boarders. Quickly. Hail Wolfhound.” In a moment the communications specialist presented the com: “Wolfhound, Domni.” Before he opened the com to speak, Numa Pompeii paused to check: “Who is captain of Wolfhound!”

“Callista Carmel.”

“I mean who is captain now.”

“The captain of record is still Carmel.”

Numa muttered, impatient. He had seconds here. “Wolfhound, this is Numa Pompeii of the Imperial warship Gladiator. What is your intention?”

“To blow your ass to kingdom come if you don’t release this station.” Numa Pompeii took a physical step away from the com as if it had reached up and bit him. The voice sounded again on the com, “You like fire, Numa? You can give it, let’s see how you can take it.” General Pompeii immediately recovered himself. Spoke into the com, “Callista, there is no need for this.”

An unfamiliar female face appeared on the video. Unfamiliar lips moved to the sound of Calli Carmel’s voice: “Back it off, Triumphalis, or you’re coming with me.”

It was without a doubt Callista. With a new face. Still he knew her.

There was no time for grappling with the disconnect between the unfamiliar face and the familiar voice and the all too familiar attitude. Numa said, “This is pure hysteria.”

“Hysteria?” Calli echoed, surprised at the distinctly female word. “That’s Greek for ‘womb,’ isn’t it? Do you mean you can’t stand losing to any woman? Here I thought it was just me.”

“I am not losing!” Numa thundered.

“What do you call dying with all hands on board? Oh, that’s right, I’m about to call that winning. You will have to call it losing, because Rome is not taking this station.”

Irritated, impatient, with that damn countdown grating on him, Numa scolded, “Callista, this is not how battles are fought.”

“It’s my ship, my station, my battle. We’re doing it my way. This is my pyre, and those snares make sure you’re in it. The ties that bind. If you’re still here in sixty seconds, you die.”

“So do you,” he reminded her. She had to know. But she wasn’t getting it.

“I’m small coinage,” said Calli. “You always tell me so. But I am taking out the great Numa Pompeii and the Gladiator. My tombstone will look good with a silver star on it. And I spent enough time on Palatine that that actually matters to me. I can’t lose.”

“Your crew and the station personnel would rather live.”

“But I pretty much want you dead, and I would really love for you to know what it feels like to burn alive, so I can’t decide what I hope you do here. I’m all in. Call or fold.”

Weary, exasperated, Numa jerked his head to signal the specialist to cut the com link.

Numa turned to his exec: “Is everyone on board?”

“At once, Domni. But you do not think she is bluffing?”

“I know she is not! Seal the ship the instant everyone is on board. Break those damned snares, tendrils, whatever they are!”

Twenty-two. Twenty-one. Twenty.

“She would take out her own ship and an entire American station?”

“Move! Move!” Thirteen. Twelve. The last Romans clattered back aboard. Hatches shut.

Tendrils severed.

But the tendrils immediately eeled through the seals to reform themselves, leaving a small breach in the Roman hull.

“The seals are imperfect!”

Nine. Eight.

“Get some space between us!”

Gladiator separated. The tendrils stretched, snapped. The ship’s seals closed. The force field solidified.

Five. Four.

Gladiator wore away faster than light.

“Abort! Abort!” Calli ordered. “Shut down destruct sequence!”

Three. Two.

“Destruct sequence terminated, aye.”

Calli took no moment to relax, already barking, “Load Star Sparrow! Target Gladiator! Hit him!”

“Star Sparrow loaded, aye. Acquiring firing solution.”

“Fire when ready!”

“Star Sparrow away.” Gladiator launched a missile rearward to meet the Star Sparrow and detonate its warhead before it could catch up.

Numa Pompeii ceded Sirius Base to the Americans.

Captain Calli Carmel boarded Base Sirius. She was a tall woman, thinner than she had been, and she had always been slender. Her new scalp produced an uneven thatch of something that passed for hair. The new hair was thinner and several shades lighter than her former luxurious chestnut locks. She cut her new hair very short because it would not grow right and she did not have time to screw with it.

She asked after the wounded and after any damage to the station.

Snapped ends of Wolfhound’s snares hung out the large breach which the Romans had cut in the station’s bulkhead. The force field had resealed upon Gladiator’s separation and kept everything inside intact. The stationmaster had already summoned a patch crew.

“You sounded dead serious back there, Captain Carmel,” the stationmaster said, shaky with relief. Calli’s dead silence said how dead and how serious she had been.

“How did you know he would back off, Captain?”

“He left,” said Calli.

“I mean, how did you know he would leave?”

“That’s when I knew.”

The stationmaster grew angry. “You would have—?”

Calli cut him off. “You can’t go into a game of Russian roulette without accepting that one of those chambers does have a round in it.”

Outraged, the stationmaster asked, “You play?”

“Only when the stakes are worth dying for,” said Calli.

Base Sirius sent a request to the Department of Defense: Next time we signal for help, don’t send Wolfhound.

There was not going to be a next time. The showdown at Base Sirius had proved the vulnerability of these lone outposts.

The Department of Defense ordered the immediate evacuation, dismantlement, and booby-trapping of all space stations outside of a fortress. Solo orbital stations were all hostages waiting to be taken.

“I will be accepting requests for transfer in my cabin,” said Captain Carmel, preparing to leave the command deck of her ship, Wolfhound, which had just disconnected from Base Sirius.

A round of snorts circled the command deck, and a chorus of raspberries sounded over the intracom from engineering—what her crew thought of her offer to take their transfers.

There was a stark sincerity to the juvenile noises. They left no doubt that Calli’s men were still her men, every man jack and jane of them.

A proto-smile jerked at her lips. “That’s so sweet,” said Calli, struggling to keep her eyes from puddling up. “The name of this boat ain’t Lapdog, Captain,” said Lieutenant Amina Patel.

According to Amina, anyone who did not know what the captain was about after the battle at the Citadel musta gotten a legal separation from his brain. Wolfhound already had a berserker reputation, and her captain was called Crash Carmel for some reason or other.

Her com tech gloated, “Did you see the look on Pompeii’s face when he saw you, Captain?” It hadn’t occurred to Calli that Numa might not have known what she looked like after his attack on her shuttle. She had quickly gotten used to being behind this face.

“Yeah,” said Calli softly.

She gave the watch over to her lieutenant and left the command platform because she thought she was about to throw up.

Calli returned to her cabin. Looked in the mirror.

Is that what it took? she wondered. Get your face flamed off to get respect? Or did Numa Pompeii think she became “hysterical” because he ruined her looks? Is that what it came down to?

She turned the mirror over. Did not care what Numa Pompous Ass thought of her. Just glad he had believed her.

She had cared very much which choice Numa made. Even though she had wanted him dead, he made the choice she really wanted.

There was a buzzing in her hands, as if her pulse had sped up a hundred times. She swallowed down nausea. She had come very close to killing a lot of people today, half of them friendly.

Watched her hands shake. She lay down, closed her eyes. Weathering the aftershocks. She had won. She could kill Numa later.

12

ROMAN ATTACK CRAFT HAD returned to the American skies, nagging as wasps.

Romulus’ three surviving new gunships had not been sighted again in the Solar system. They had not just dissolved, so they must be somewhere the U.S. truly did not want them.

Monitor patrolled the Solar system, actively hunting for them.

Plagues of unmanned fighter craft in Earth’s atmosphere harried U.S. military installations. The Roman craft could not penetrate the military base’s force fields, but they interfered with deliveries of supplies, and with personnel coming and going.

Defenders destroyed them, but others arrived from hidden carriers to take their places without delay.

John Farragut arrived at Fort Carolina under a swarm of them. It had required his entire Marine Wing to get him inside the force field dome.

He had come to hear the admiralty discussing the status of the conflict.

This war had been nothing but unconventional. Romans always knew how to reinvent war. Hiding one’s true objective was not new, but Romulus was inscrutable—though a lot of people expressed a desire to scrut him.

Rome had not been able to stop U.S. imports and exports. The United States was a member of the League of Earth Nations. Anything could enter or exit the United States as long as a ship of a League of Earth Nation member carried it.

There were constant alarms from U.S. colonies across Near Space. None amounted to more than a cry of wolf, probably started by the wolf. Rome was trying to make the Americans scatter their resources.

As for Romulus’ objective in declaring this war, he was keeping that to himself. Unless he was hiding in plain sight.

“Could Caesar seriously—seriously—mean to annex the United States to the Roman Empire?” the Secretary of Defense put it to the admiralty.

“He would be mad,” said one.

“So was Hitler,” said Admiral Mishindi. “Did not make him less dangerous.”

The Secretary recognized Captain Farragut who wanted to speak. Farragut stood up, said, “Augustus told me America was a Roman colony.”

“Not seriously,” said the Secretary.

“Augustus,” said Farragut, “was serious.”

“Is the patterner still alive, Captain Farragut?”

“He was way too alive last I saw him, sir.”

“But now?”

Farragut shook his head. “I don’t know.” A Striker had a higher threshold velocity than Gladiator. “He should have arrived in Near Space before Numa Pompeii if he were coming.” So I guess it’s starting to look like not.

Captain Farragut walked under a sky of Carolina blue streaked with contrails. Sunlight shimmered slightly through the distortion field.

He sighted a tall willow walking with an easy stride under the Carolina dome, a veteran certainty in her gait. Her strong slender figure made even dressdown khakis look good. Her face tended toward the elfin. Her skin was baby smooth, but she couldn’t be that young, not with a walk like that. Her short hair was a sassy mess of nothing but cowlicks.

Farragut moved in to stride beside her. “I feel like I should know you.” He reached across himself to offer his hand. “John Farragut.”

Her long-fingered, baby-smooth hand slid into his grasp. “Hi John. I’m Calli Carmel.”

His blue eyes grew huge. He pulled her into him with a great bear hug, held onto her. “Oh, for Jesus!” Rocked her. “Oh, for Jesus.”

“I guess I look awful,” said Calli over his broad shoulder.

“No,” he choked.

She caught the chagrin in his voice. “Right.” She pulled back to look at him. “John, you look like you’ve been hit in the face with a wet cat.”

“Well, I might. It’s like I just got caught flirting with my sister!” She had been in his chain of command so long he could not think of her as anything but one of his sisters. She blinked in delighted surprise. Spoke, tickled, “You were flirting with me?”

His face turned an honest pink. He fished about for a subject to change to. “How do you like the Yankees’ chances in the Series this year?”

“Don’t you try to take it back, John Farragut. I don’t look in mirrors much.”

“It’s not bad at all, Cal. It’s cute. It’s just really, really different.”

The face was heart shaped, less symmetrical than it used to be when she had been Helen of Troy. The jawline was altogether different. The nose shorter, pert. Eyes light brown. An attractive face with a powerful life force behind it.

“It’s a field job,” said Calli. “Uncle Sam special. They were talking about six weeks to get me into a specialized clinic and re-create what I used to look like, and lots of over the budget money that I am not spending on a face. I told ‘em gimme the off-the-shelf jaw, stick in whatever eyeballs you got on hand, slap a nose on me and get me back in service. There’s a war on.”

John Farragut held her hands in his. They were her same full-sized hands but with no lines whatsoever, and her nails were thin—the pliant nails of a little girl. Calli said, “Aren’t they ridiculous?”

“It’s good to see you with skin on, Cal.” He kissed her ridiculous fingertips. Took her face, kissed both her baby soft cheeks, her brow, her mouth. Pulled back, ran his hand over the fuzzy top of her head. “What’s with the hair?”

“I don’t know, John. I think it’s on strike. I never realized how heavy all that was. I may never grow it back.”

“I heard your buddy Numa finally made it back to Near Space.”

“You heard that,” said Calli wryly.

“Just a little almighty furball at Base Sirius.”

“No furball,” said Calli. “I told him to leave and he left.”

Farragut had heard the details. “Dumb, Cal. Don’t do that again.”

“I probably won’t have to. Apparently I’ve established myself as a real DNFW.”

Do Not Foxtrot With.

“I don’t guess nobody’s fixin’ to be asking you to dance this war,” said Farragut.

“I hope not,” said Calli. “Between you, me, and the brick wall, I don’t have another one of those stunts in me. I just hope I’ve built up enough psycho capital to carry me through to the end.”

“I’m sorry about Gaius Americanus,” Farragut told her. He had heard the news of her mentor’s passing.

Calli’s new face fell, more reflective than mournful. Her eyes were down, her brow pinched. She did not seem sad. “I was sorry to hear that too.” Spoken too carefully.

He picked up her intonation. “What do you know, Cal?”

“I don’t—” she started, paused very long. Lifted her head.”—know.”

He listened carefully to what she was not telling him. They had both seen too many dead people walking around on their hind legs these days to trust an obit. Unless you saw the body, you did not really know. And even then you checked it for DNA.

Calli said, “I want Numa dead. And I don’t even care who does it. Romulus can plant him on a pike and that would be good for me.”

“The guy who actually flamed you and Gaius was Praefect Rubius Siculus.” Calli nodded. She had been told. “I uffed him over pretty good,” she said with some regret.

“You saved his life.”

She remembered that moment with stinging clarity. “I didn’t do him a favor.”

She had saved Rubius Siculus from a disaster of her own making, and she had killed Romans under his command in the process.

Rubius Siculus hated her. Had a right to. He had probably died happy thinking he had killed her. And that was okay with Calli. She had never hated him. He had just been there.

But it could not have been Rubius Siculus’ private vendetta that brought him to Fort Eisenhower, a voyage of months, to lurk there in the darkness outside the fortress, alone, for time without measure, waiting for someone at long last to come out. Rubius Siculus had to be under orders.

“We never did catch the ship that executed the diversion,” Farragut told her, apologetic.

“Oh, I know who that was,” Calli said. “Rubius Siculus was always under Numa Pompeii’s command. This is Numa Pompeii’s work.”

Farragut signed time out. “If it was Numa, why didn’t he just let Gaius come aboard Gladiator and slit his throat?”

“He wanted to take me out too,” said Calli.

“You weren’t the target, Cal.”

She seemed insulted. “My being there was a coincidence!”

“It would be an odd universe without coincidences. Yes. You were collateral and you know it.”

That stopped her.

She did know it.

Organizing a hit on Calli did not fit Numa Pompeii’s practiced disdain. Numa was her nemesis, but she had never been hated by him. She was too far beneath him ever to be a rival, or worthy of a plot of any sort.

Numa did not give her any more thought than to toss an insult her way if she crossed his path. “He could have killed you way back at Planet Zero,” said Farragut. “But it was Numa who called Gaius out of the fort.” Calli gave her last best argument.

“Gaius could have said no to Numa. But sooner or later Gaius was coming out. And however he came out, whenever he came out, someone would still be camped out and waiting for him. It just happened to be Numa who gave the opening. Whoever ordered the hit had the money to buy off a station Intelligence officer who could tell him exactly when and how Gaius was leaving the fort. He had military resources to deploy at least two ships in the Deep End to make sure the deed got done.”

“Numa has power and money,” said Calli, but she did not sound convinced anymore. Numa had been with her at Planet Zero.

“Seems to me the person who had motive and means to set up the assassination of Gaius Americanus would be the same person who had motive and means to order the siege of Fort Eisenhower,” said Farragut, and almost as an afterthought, “and the motive and means to set up the assassination of Caesar Magnus.”

The dialogs. V.

JF: We hold these truths to be self-evident. That all men are created equal.

A: While we of the Empire recognize your self-evident truth to be buzzard vomit.

13

THE ROMAN SENATE HAD convened in the Curia. Neither consul was present, not an odd thing in wartime. Those men had real work to do, thought Romulus.

The poet had called Romans masters of the world, the People who wear the toga, so the toga would be with Rome forever though it could be a bitch to wear. All Senators wore them, white with deep crimson bands of strictly prescribed width. The crimson boots came in and out of fashion. Currently out. The poet had said nothing about Romans being the People who wear the crimson boots.

It seemed some opposition Senators had brought a guest to the Curia today. And Romulus had to wonder what those ferrets were up to. No coincidence that “Senate” and “senile” stem from the same word.

At last a messenger arrived at the palace. He bowed very low before the throne. Caesar’s attendance was requested in the Curia.

“Yes, I was wondering when they were going to let me in on their plot,” Romulus murmured. Romulus deigned to appear. He draped a toga of solid blood red over his short black tunic and trousers.

The colors of his own gens, Julius, were black and gold, but Romulus considered black and red the most dramatic combination, and wondered how the damned Flavians had secured those colors.

The stone building of the Curia sat in counter position to the palace on the Capitoline. The Curia had been constructed circular this time, like a theater—rather fitting given the shows put on here.

When Caesar arrived, a young black man was on the Senate floor with Senator Trogus.

Trogus was a weasel—lean, aesthetic, pinched-faced. A suspicious, heel-biting, garbage-picking rodent. Trogus questioned everything put before him. For a man in a position of public trust Trogus showed a singular lack of trust in anyone else, even his emperor.

Trogus had proved himself in battle all right, but he had not supported Caesar’s declaration of war. He opposed it actually, remarkably lacking in vision of Empire.

Trogus had been one of a handful of Senators who had opposed confirming Romulus in his father’s position. That was to be expected. The five percent rule said that five percent of any population will oppose any given proposal just for the hell of it.

Romulus made a show of tolerating Trogus. It made Romulus look good to be so forbearing of the Senator’s open animosity.

The young man whom Trogus and his troglodytes had trotted in for this show looked to be kin to the late Gaius Americanus. His features and his posture were the same, just younger. This could be nothing but kin to Gaius. Romulus had thought all of Gaius’ family was hiding in the American Fort Eisenhower in the Deep End.

The visitor had been thoroughly screened by security. Trogus gave the young man’s name as Dante Porter, born on Earth in the United States. Security found a birth record of such a Dante Porter, but it was far older than this man appeared. This looked like a younger version of Gaius Americanus. But anyone could appear like anyone these days, so a DNA test had been done.

Romulus entered the chamber quietly, unannounced. He stood next to Senator Ventor who hated to sit for so long, and was standing against the back wall. Romulus muttered aside to Ventor, “Gaius’ bastard?”

“Clone, I should think,” Ventor murmured back. “His DNA is nearly a match to Gaius. Has only the variations you would expect in a clone.”

Romulus did not think that Gaius had ever been cloned. “Just what the Empire needs,” Romulus muttered. “Another Gaius.”

The chamber had gone silent.

Romulus had been noticed.

The Praetor paused the proceedings to welcome Caesar to the Curia.

Caesar Romulus strode down the steps to take command of the Senate floor. He turned round at the center of the open space and looked round to see who was attending this circus.

Quirinius, of course. And Umbrius and Opsius, men of inaction, existing only to lie down in Caesar’s way. Romulus came back round to the young man, Dante Porter of planet Earth.

No toga. This Dante Porter was not a Senator. He wore trousers and a black single-breasted jacket of midthigh length. A white shirt with stand-up collar made him look vaguely like an old-fashioned priest. His hair was very short and lay close-crimped against his dark head.

Romulus walked half round him, sizing him up. The young man let himself be studied. Did not become unsettled.

Caesar spoke at last, aloud, for everyone to hear: “Am I to understand you are Gaius’ bastard?”

“No, sir,” said Dante Porter. The voice was not the voice of a young man. It was elderly and shockingly familiar. “I am that bastard, Gaius.”

Romulus immediately looked to Senator Trogus. As expected, Trogus was enjoying his triumph. Trogus collected the desired shock and murmurs with a superior smile. The Senate chamber stirred with the rustling of togas, the rush of whispers.

Romulus would not be thrown. He had been ready for some attempt to unbalance him. When the chamber hushed, Romulus spoke mildly to the Gaius-thing, “I have been told you are a clone.”

“The outer centimeter is all cloned material,” Gaius explained, pinching his own baby soft cheek. “But my beauty is only skin deep. I earned those sags and wrinkles and spots. I lost them in the fire. And I want them back. Alas, they are ash, and here I am with new skin,” And then, as if reading Caesar’s mind, “Yes, Romulus, like a snake.” The floor seemed to be moving. Romulus fought for balance. The voices swept all around him in the chamber like wind rushing.

Gaius ... Gaius ... Gaius.

Romulus declared loud enough to silence all the whispers. “Gaius is dead. This is an American creation.”

The security guard who had performed the original verification moved down to the floor, brandishing a DNA probe. “With permission,” he solicited Senate’s indulgence. And to Gaius, “May I, Domni?”

Far from objecting, Gaius opened his arms. “I insist.” He offered all of himself. Let the guard pick a place. Any place.

It was a nanoprobe this time. Too small to see or feel. The nanoprobe could reach deep. The guard extracted random cells from several places within the young-looking man.

The deep cells were not the same as the first sampling. This time they were perfect matches in both DNA and age to Gaius Bruccius Eleutherius Americanus.

Senators fired questions at Gaius—questions to which only Gauis would know the answers. The man on the Senate floor remembered Gaius’ private conversations. He correctly failed to remember any imaginary incidents laid out to trap him.

When the Senators were satisfied, Caesar Romulus had a question for Gaius: “What was the name of your street gang?”

Romulus dredged up Gaius’ squalid past in front of the Senate. Not that any one of them did not know, but Romulus thought they needed reminding.

Dante Porter, as he was called at his birth, had risen up through slime. “East Street Pirates,” Gaius answered frankly, pushing up his sleeve to bare his forearm. He remembered only then with apparent chagrin that his gang leader tattoo had been burned off too. Under his sleeve now was only unmarked young skin.

“Ah. The albatross has fallen off,” he said in slight surprise. “My bones were tattooed here.” His gangland tattoo, the mark of an old sin, had been a garish mark on his forearm. Something he lived with and could not remove for himself, like the ancient mariner’s albatross.

Fate had intervened to take the stain away. “I can start wearing short sleeves,” he said, a little bit astonished, as if he had been absolved.

At the end of the grilling, no one doubted that this young-looking man was the elder statesman, Senator Gaius Bruccius Eleutherius Americanus.

The Praetor asked formally, “What has Senator Gaius to say to the Senate?”

“I am here to tell you that the testament which was read here before this Senate, the document purported to be the last testament of Caesar Magnus, suffered an elision. A line was deleted from Magnus’ true will.”

All eyes turned to Caesar. Waited for Caesar to speak. Waited long. The Praetor finally had to ask, “Have you any answer to that, Caesar?”

“No, of course I have not!” said Romulus. “I have questions. Does the testament have an elision? How could it? I read the testament of Caesar Magnus to this Senate. I broke the seal right here in this chamber.”

Senator Trogus spoke out of turn, “No one tested the security of that seal before Caesar allegedly broke it for the first time.”

“I did,” said Caesar. “I tested it. I wanted to be sure I had my father’s will. Why did you not test it? I shall tell you why. So you could come back later and throw doubt on its authenticity, just in case my father’s final word contained something you did not like!”

Gaius said, “Romulus, I thought I left that twisted brand of leadership behind on East Street.”

“All your insinuations are built on vapor,” said Romulus. “Because the author of the testament, my father, Caesar Magnus, is dead.”

“There is also the word of the patterner who sealed the testament,” said Gaius.

“We don’t have Augustus’ word. Augustus is dead.”

“You have my word, a witness,” said Gaius. “Who was almost dead. Am I vapor?”

“Tell us again, who put you back together, Gaius?”

“The Americans,” Gaius admitted without hesitation. “And how did you get back from your hiding in the Deep, Gaius?”

“An American military transport through the U.S. Shotgun,” said Gaius frankly.

“You took aid from the enemy. In wartime. I accuse you of treason, and of colluding with the enemy in time of war.” He signaled to the guards. “Take this man to a cell.”

Gaius answered back, “Sir, I accuse you of treason and attempted assassination.” Romulus reeled back as if shot in the chest, “You dare accuse me of my father’s murder!”

“No,” said Gaius. “The assassination attempt was on me. The assassination of your father was rather a success.” Guards moved in to flank Gaius, hesitant yet to touch him. Gaius spoke to the assembled Senators in the rising rows. “Examine the testament. You will find the gap.”

“A gap,” said Romulus, derisive. “Lack of evidence is no evidence. Have Augustus come in and testify.” A shadow eclipsed the sunlight that had streamed through the round window at the top of the dome. Something was moving up there, very close. Nothing was allowed to fly over the Capitoline. There followed the deep heavy clunk of something substantial making contact with the stone roof. “What is that?” Sunlight glinted around sharp-edged metal landing gear supporting a small spacecraft with lines of a wasp, in red and black. It was a patterner’s Striker.

14

AUGUSTUS!”

The entire Senate stared up to the top of the dome.

“What is he doing?”

“Testifying?” Gaius suggested.

The round window at the center of the dome cracked. A metal leg of the Striker’s landing gear jutted through the circular opening with a rain of pelleted glass. Senators fanned out toward the surrounding wall. There was nowhere to run with a Striker out there. There was a bunker deep beneath the Curia, but no one wanted to go underground.

A brass tube struck down from the dome like a bullet in the center of the floor, taking a chip out of the red marble. Bits of tempered glass clattered down around it.

The Senators shied from the canister on the floor as if it were a grenade.

Once the glass stopped raining, they saw the canister was the shape and style of a formal container for a parchment roll, delivered more harshly than usual.

The shadow of the Striker lifted away from the broken window.

Romulus bellowed for the home defense.

Already the hiss of outbound missiles could be heard through the opening in the dome. A cadre of guards trooped into the Curia to surround Caesar. They brought a personal force field for him.

“A little late,” Caesar said, but strapped on the mechanism and activated it. He motioned the guards away from him. They took up stations at the exits.

Senator Ventor was standing at the wall with one finger to his ear in order to listen to a phone in his other ear. He called across the Curia: “Caesar, I am getting word from Imperial Intelligence. That is not Augustus’ Striker.”

“I knew it!” said Romulus. “This is a hoax.”

Ventor demurred, “One moment, Caesar.” He listened some more, then spoke. “They are telling me that could very well be Augustus inside the Striker. But the Striker is not the one built for Augustus.”

“What? He borrowed one?” Caesar said, losing patience.

“The chirp from the vessel identifies it as a Striker that disappeared sixty years ago. It belonged to the patterner Secundus. It was blue and white. These new colors make Intelligence think that Augustus could be at the controls.”

The Striker up there was red and black. Flavian colors. Augustus was Flavian.

“And it’s certainly not Secundus.”

Romulus’ gaze fell on Numa Pompeii seated in the front row. Numa had held his position rather than scurrying to the wall with most of the others. He was now conferring with someone on his com, appearing discontented.

Caesar strolled across the floor, leaned on the railing that separated them. Caesar asked faintly, casually, looking up through the broken skylight. “Pompeii, what was that?”

Numa Pompeii clicked off his com. “They’re telling me it is Augustus.”

“Not dead, is he,” Romulus observed.

Numa, unapologetic, said, “My information on that did come from the Americans.” Romulus turned from the rail. “Senator Gaius, make Augustus come in.”

“I do not control him,” said Gaius. “I never have. I never supported patterner technology. Augustus already knows the truth of it, and he has made the judgment. He only needs to execute the sentence.”

Caesar’s eyes widened. He pointed, the full length of his arm extended toward Gaius, imperious. “Now that is a threat.”

Caesar’s guards did not hesitate to lay hands on Gaius this time and take him to a secure cell under the nearby Coliseum.

There were no prisons for punishing criminals in Rome. Imprisonment was not a sentence in the Empire. Cells were only for holding the accused for investigation and trial. And for holding slaves likely to flee.

Of the canister lying on the Senate floor in a scatter of glass bits, Caesar commanded: “Have a bomb squad destroy that!”

“No!” Senator Quirinius shouted, moving between the guards and the canister. “In the name of the Senate and the People of Rome, no! That was delivered to the Senate! The Senate must be allowed to view the message inside!”

Many other Senators shouted, murmured, grunted agreement. Even some of Caesar’s followers added their voices, curious to see what the patterner sent them.

The guards hesitated, torn between Caesar and the Senate. Caesar clearly feared what was inside the canister, which made even more Senators want to see it.

Romulus abruptly reversed himself. He waved off the guard. Told Senator Quirinius, “Go ahead. Take it. See what the traitor fed you through your roof before he ran away.”

Quirinius moved around Romulus to get at the canister.

Romulus spoke as Quirinius stooped to pick it up. “Clean it first. I would not want you to come down with something lethal and incurable.”

Imperial Intelligence opened the message canister before a room full of witnesses, and withdrew from it a document that turned out to be a copy of Magnus’ testament, date-sealed with a chemical tag. The seal’s molecules came from a specific numbered batch created for just this purpose. The molecular decay gave the document an indisputable time stamp.

“It is the testament of Caesar Magnus,” said the Intelligence magister. “The authentication copy.”

“Authentication copy?” said Caesar. “There is such a thing?”

“Yes, Caesar.”

“How would Augustus just happen to have it?” Caesar asked with heavy scorn.

The magister dropped his voice. “As the witness who sealed the original document, he is supposed to have it, Caesar.”

The document proved identical to the testament Romulus had unsealed before the Senate. Except this one had one more provision.

This one named Gaius Bruccius Eleutherius America-nus as heir to Caesar’s position. Caesar’s choice of his own successor was not binding. But Caesar’s choice was always due heavy consideration. Caesar Magnus’ nomination of Gaius had received none.

Gaius, brought before the assembled Senators in old-fashioned chains, was allowed to speak. “Romulus deleted the line,” said Gaius. “That is the reason Romulus waited until he believed Augustus was dead before he unsealed Magnus’ testament. Then I, as the only other witness, became target of an assassination attempt ordered by Romulus—Caesar Pretender.”

Gaius was returned to his cell while the Senate ordered data experts to make a close analysis of the testament Romulus had first presented to them.

Upon analysis, the experts concluded: Yes, there was evidence of an elision.

Romulus was then called to speak.

“Gentlemen,” said Romulus. “I am irritated. I am insulted. Know that this pains me deeply. I don’t deserve this. It is demeaning for me to have to explain this. Very well. Let us play this charade to the end. Let us assume, to argue on behalf of the devil, that someone may have deleted a line from my father’s testament. May not that someone have been Augustus, who is more than capable of perjury and data manipulation? The same Augustus who orchestrated my father’s murder? May not that someone have been my father? Could my father not have had second thoughts on naming an heir? And Gaius? My father named Gaius?

“We have a story—from Gaius and the Americans— that someone made an attempt on the life of Gaius Bruccius Eleutherius Americanus. We have no proof that this attack ever occurred.

“Oh, yes, I know we have Gaius’ new skin as evidence of something. Is it not interesting that this purported attempt on Gaius’ life left Gaius in much better condition than he was in when he ran away? Better than when he ran away from Rome directly after my father was murdered!

“Yet you look at me with suspicion. Was I ever a gang leader? If my father’s testament was altered, why are you assuming it was done by me? I wasn’t named Caesar’s heir. If I changed the testament, why did I not put my own name down as heir!”

“Because it would be too obvious,” said Senator Trogus. “Because this way you can use the absence of your name as a sign of your innocence.”

“That is pathetic,” said Romulus. “That is so—never mind. The Senate confirmed me as Caesar based on my competence. But since you think you need to, go ahead. Retake your confirmation vote. I will abide by the decision of the Senate and the People of Rome. Do it. On belief that a rogue cyborg and a runaway American Senator— beneficiary of this fraud—have uncovered my father’s true—nonbinding—testament. Take your vote.”

There had been no Roman strikes on American soil for days, while rumors of political turmoil on Palatine made the rounds. With both Merrimack and Wolfhound orbiting Earth, Captain Farragut seized on the relative quiet to invite Captain Carmel to his Mess for dinner.

“Permission to come aboard,” Captain Carmel requested in Merrimack’s shuttle dock. “Come on in, Cal,” Farragut welcomed her in with a huge wave of his arm. At Farragut’s side, his normally sedate XO, Commander Gypsy Dent, saw Calli and cried, “Your hair!”

Gypsy and Calli embraced, Gypsy crying, “Your hair!”

Calli laughed, “What about my face?”

“The face is fine,” said Gypsy. “It’s a face. But, oh, honey, we need to do something about this.” Gypsy fluffed up a brown tuft on Calli’s head.

“Cal, don’t take help from Gypsy,” said Farragut.

Gypsy held up a warning forefinger. Didn’t say it, but the words were in her flashing eyes, Speak not of the hair. Gypsy’s own elaborate and carnivorous-looking hair was still banished to her cabin.

The three officers proceeded to the Captain’s Mess. They were on appetizers when Lieutenant Hamilton appeared in the hatchway. She motioned down their looks of alarm and told them all to stay seated. “Nothing wrong with the boat, Captain,” she anticipated Farragut’s first question. “I just wanted to tell you this in person as soon as we heard it. Augustus is back.”

Farragut knocked over his champagne glass. Gypsy pushed away from the table to avoid the spill over the edge.

A small maintenance bot unobtrusively saw to the cleanup as Farragut demanded, “Where!” His heart leaped in eighteen different directions.

“On Palatine. Over Roma Nova.”

“Romulus is dead then,” Farragut concluded.

“No. Augustus dropped Magnus’ complete testament on the Senate floor.”

“And the Senate turned on Romulus like a pack of wolves,” Farragut wrote the end of that scene.

Lieutenant Glenn Hamilton hesitated on distasteful reality. “The Roman Senate reconfirmed Romulus as Caesar.”

Farragut could not stay in his seat. “They have proof that he’s a liar, probably a patricide, and—!”

“They don’t care,” said Hamster.

“Romans don’t back down, John,” Calli said. “It’s a proven fact that even Americans tend not to back down once they’ve taken a public stand, even in the face of compelling argument or new facts. Changing your mind makes you look indecisive. It’s a sign of weakness.”

“I thought—” Farragut strode to one end of the table. “I knew—I mean I knew—” To the other end of the table. “Once the truth came out, the Senate would toss their original vote. What the Senate did was—” Farragut sat back down, stunned. “I don’t believe it.”

“Welcome to the real world, sir,” said Gypsy, with a hand on his broad shoulder. She sounded rather sad. She liked John Farragut’s version of the world. “I hear you were an Eagle Scout.”

“I am an Eagle Scout,” said Farragut. You never stopped being an Eagle.

“Strength and Honor are worshiped in adjoining temples,” said Calli. “Rome’s been hitting the Strength pretty hard, a little light on the Honor.”

“It gets worse,” said Hamster. “On behalf of these United States, President Marissa Johnson recognized Romulus as head of state of the Empire of Rome.”

“What?” Farragut and Gypsy spoke as one.

Only Calli was not surprised. “I have to guess Johnson doesn’t want to look like she’s undermining a foreign country’s legitimate government.”

“The CIA has been in that business for centuries,” said Farragut. “What’s different now?”

“Opposition to Romulus only reinforces popular support for him. Johnson’s recognizing Romulus defangs him. He can’t keep calling us lying, scheming tyrants if we’re saying hail Caesar.”

“Hope I didn’t ruin dinner,” said Hamster, taking a backward step, preparing to return to the command deck.

“No. Good call, Hamster,” said Farragut. “That was definitely a need-to-know.” He detained her with one more question, “Where is Augustus?”

“On the loose,” said Hamster. “With a price on his head.”

Chef Zack had peered into the Mess. He sent in the salad of Centaurian greens, broiled ostrich, and tussah fruit with a stronger bottle of wine.

Farragut speared one of the lavender-colored fruits. “So Romulus got Marissa to salute. The man can get anyone to do anything. I’m still wondering how Romulus got Magnus’ own friend to kill Magnus.”

“Money is the usual tool,” said Gypsy.

Assassinating a Caesar was clearly a suicide mission, so any money would be paid to a survivor. Though Imperial Intelligence would follow that money trail to the beneficiary, who would not remain a survivor for long.

And the assassin—his name was Urbicus—was an old friend of Magnus. He belonged to gens Julius same as Magnus and Romulus.

“This was not a work for hire,” said Calli.

Farragut tried another angle. “If someone were leaning on Urbicus, why wouldn’t Urbicus have just reported the threat to Imperial Intelligence? Does that mean it was Imperial Intelligence who was doing the leaning?”

“No. It means it had to do with sex,” said Gypsy.

“Of course it had to do with sex,” said Calli.

Farragut could not argue. What else could make a man so thoroughly misplace his brain? There was someone out there whom Urbicus had no business loving.

After both Caesar and the assassin were dead, Imperial Investigators recovering the assassin’s purged data files had found too too many pictures of a girl. A sloe-eyed bambi with long coltish legs. She was flat-chested and slender as a reed. But she was clothed in all the pictures.

It was obsession at a distance. Julius Urbicus had never actually crossed the last line with her. The girl did not even know him. Urbicus had a collection of images of her in the gymnasium, in the pool, at picnics, laying flowers in a temple, dancing in a school play, riding in a transport, sleeping in the sun.

“Think of Hadrian and Antinous,” said Calli.

Gypsy blinked away that image. “I’d rather not.”

“I have a sister her age,” said Farragut.

Calli said, “Would you rather be known as Caesar’s assassin or a pedophile?”

“Caesar’s assassin,” Farragut and Gypsy spoke as one. Then Farragut alone, “But Urbicus never touched that girl. He was just creepy, not criminal. How could Romulus get him to kill his friend Caesar Magnus and die over a secret like that?”

“Someone promised to cut up Pretty Girl if he didn’t kill Caesar,” Gypsy guessed. “That’s why Urbicus couldn’t take it to Imperial Intelligence. The double I’s would have killed her themselves to remove the lever.”

“Well, whoever was making the actual threats, it wasn’t Romulus,” said Calli. “Not directly. Romulus had no contact with Urbicus in the months before the assassination. Romulus’ enemies checked that.”

“Hell, I wouldn’t want contact with him either,” said Farragut.

“The capita always distances himself from the crime,” said Gypsy. “He gets someone else to tell someone else to walk and talk for him.”

“So Romulus would have had someone he trusted threaten Urbicus,” said Farragut, then echoed himself, “Someone Romulus trusted. That narrows it way down. Cal?”

A very odd look had fallen across Calli’s new face.

She said, “That narrows it down to one.”

“Rom?”

That was her innocent, wheedling voice. She wanted something. Romulus responded, “Hm?” She came into the study barefoot, her dress a jewel-colored assembly of strategically tied scarves. Maybe there had been seven at one time, but now there were five.

“Who programmed that raunchy redhead in the Caligula room?” She flounced down to sit at his feet in a billow of silk where he sat at his reading desk.

“I don’t know,” said Romulus, eyes on his documents. “I have not seen her recently.”

“I deleted her.”

“That explains why I haven’t seen her.”

“She was rude to me.”

Romulus made a small noise like a partial laugh. “She’s just a bunch of code.”

“Not any more.” Romulus’ brows lifted. “I suppose you showed her.”

“Well that is the point—I haven’t.” She stood up, came round to the front of his desk, braced her palms on the edge of it and leaned over so he had to look at her. “Whoever programmed her wants a lesson in respect.”

“I shall talk to the programmers.” He sat back, stretched out his legs. Looked up at his sister. “I don’t want to rein them in too hard. There really have been some fun surprises in that room.”

Claudia made a small moue. She had to allow that.

She circled behind him, looped her arms round his neck, lay her cheek on his hair. “You are distracted.”

“I am.” He put his hand over her hands on his chest. “Is it the re-vote?”

“No. That is behind us now. It’s Augustus. I commanded him dead, and he is not dead.”

“He is Flavian. Make the Flavians turn him in,” said Claudia. “Start executing their children until you have the rogue Flavian in custody or dead.”

Romulus patted her hands. “Efficient, Claudia. But not in our best interest.”

“You are irrevocably Caesar now. Do what you want. Marry me. I want to be Empress.”

“We can’t.”

“Why? The prohibition is prehistoric. There is no danger of idiot offspring anymore. As if you and I would leave the construction of our sons and daughters to chance. We would get the best of both of us. Not that we have a single idiot gene between us.”

“Oh, we do,” said Romulus with an unhappy chuckle. “Don’t fool yourself, dear. Look who sired us.” He had her there. She gave a hmmm. “Well then, eliminate those genes for certain. Marry me.”

“Claudia, you know appearances matter.” He reached up to touch her beautiful face. “It would not be popular.”

“You are extraordinarily popular.”

“Crowds are fickle.”

“It is what I want. No one is more devoted. Who better to be at your side?”

It was true. There was no one more constant. No one he could trust. He held her perfumed hands. “It will happen. But not just now.”

“When?” she demanded.

“When I am sitting on the Papal throne in the Vatican in old Rome, and America is annexed into the Empire, and I am giving my address Urbi et Orbi et Cosmi. Then the People and the Senate will deny us nothing.”

15

WITH ROMULUS FIRMLY reestablished at the helm of the Roman Empire, Roman missiles resumed their attacks on the Continental United States.

So did Roman drone fighters.

Both weapons were renewable and persistent as gorgons. Unlike gorgons, the drone fighters numbered only in the dozens at any one time. The drone fighters were adaptable, elusive, almost creative. Sometimes they acted in concerted packs. Other times not. Their behavior evidenced programming far more advanced than anything the United States had ever developed. Naval Intelligence badly wanted a drone fighter’s central processing unit for analysis.

“Catch it! Catch it! Catch it!” Carly Delgado cried over the com. “There’s money in it! I got your topside, Twitch, just catch it!”

The rest of the Alphas kept the other drones off Twitch’s back as he drove his Swift down on a drone he had cut out of a pack.

He rode it all the way down and mashed it into the ground, pinning it under his belly shield. He had the stoutest part of his force field down there, trusting his mates with his ceiling.

He and the drone were still intact, on the ground, in the middle of a cornfield. The fight had started in Kansas. Coordinates said Twitch was in Nebraska now. The drone struggled to get out from under his Swift. Twitch kept it pinned.

The drone blew up under him.

Fluent Anglo-Saxon from Twitch.

“What’d you do?” Ranza sent.

“Catched it,” said Twitch.

Drone fighters always scuttled themselves when crippled. That was why there was money in a capture. Thwarted, frustrated, Alpha Flight raced to the roof to let off heat and much foul language.

Twitch, who had cooked something in his undercarriage, returned to Merrimack. Alpha Flight returned to atmo without him.

There was a lot of yelling on the com from Echo Flight. Roman drones had ganged up on the new guy in Echo, who was screaming.

Kerry Blue would have screamed too. It was a horrible sight. A mob of Roman drone fighters hit Echo Six and hit him again, shooting, ramming, bouncing. They could have killed him by now, but it looked like they were saving that part.

Kerry loosed her guns. Nailed one drone. “Hoo ra!” Turned wide.

Roman drone fighters were built for maneuvers in atmo. Swifts were not. Kerry’s kill hadn’t turned any of the rest of them from their game of beating up Echo Six.

Cain and Delta Four disintegrated another drone. Both pilots claimed,”Mine!” Steele was ordering Echo to the roof before they burned up. Echo Six, the new guy, tried to climb with his Flight. The drones slammed him down and down.

Too many drones, too close to Echo Six.

Echo Six went down in a stream of smoke.

Immediately a U.S. evac rig rose from the ground. It was necessary to remove the crippled Swift out to vacuum in case its magnetic antimatter chamber lost integrity. If the drones meant to cause havoc, they should have gone after the evac rig next. They didn’t. The drone that had killed Echo Six was busy turning a victory roll.

After a quick cool-off, the surviving Echoes returned from the vacuum in a pack and erased the gloating killer drone from the sky. No slamming, no games. They just executed him. All of them could claim that kill.

The surviving Roman drones scattered. They bounced up and down in the air. Looked like they were laughing.

Alphas and Deltas chased and killed them all.

And a fresh round of drones entered atmosphere, while the Marine Swifts had to head topside again. The new drones prowled for ground targets. TR Steele ordered the entire Wing back to Merrimack. His dogs howled loud protests but all obeyed. Locked down on the hangar deck, the Swifts slammed their canopies back.

Hot, angry Marines climbed out of their Swifts.

No one angrier than Colonel Steele.

“Sir!” the Marines appealed to him, like pet dogs looking to their master, as if he could make it stop raining. Steele’s jaw was set, blue eyes ice hard. A helmet rocketed across the hangar, bashed into the bulk. Steele’s.

He stalked out of the hangar.

The bullmastiffs settled a little. Good to see the Old Man angry. TR Steele was going to make it stop raining.

Captain Farragut heard Colonel Steele coming before he saw him. Met him outside the command deck and redirected him to the briefing room. Asked Commander Dent to join them. Hailed the IO, Colonel Z, on his com and requested his presence as well.

Gypsy Dent arranged for recordings of the drone encounter to be piped to the briefing room.

The officers watched the debacle play back.

“This is whaleskat,” Farragut told the Intelligence officer. “Steele’s dogs don’t need to catch one of those things to know what’s driving them!” The spontaneity. The end-zone gloat. The gang mentality. The victory roll.

“Those aren’t machines driving,” said Steele.

The Intelligence officer, Colonel Z, agreed. “The behavior argues against an onboard artificial intelligence. We’re still certain that the missiles are automatons, but the drone fighters do appear too smart. They apparently have remote human drivers using a resonant signal.” Virtual jockeys. V-jocks, they were called on Merrimack.

Naval Intelligence had insisted all along that the Romans were using sophisticated onboard computers.

“How could anyone ever think these were artificial intelligences?” said Farragut throwing an arm wide across the deadly playful images. “Computer brains cost, and Rome spends these things like trash. They’re not afraid of dying. And they’re snotty.”

Steele was incensed. V-jocks brought to mind an image of someone lounging in a comfortable chair, his feet up, drink and snacks at his elbow, playing games.

They had played games with Echo Six.

“They laughed. They laughed!” Steele roared, red in the face. The playback had come to the bouncing drones. “Could be interpreted that way,” said Colonel Z, studying the image.

“We’ll never defeat them like this,” said Farragut. “Steele’s dogs kill a drone, a new one comes down from the carrier, and the pilot is right back in it.”

“Kill the pilots,” said Colonel Steele. “The pilots could be anywhere,” said the IO, like the last word in an argument.

“They could be anywhere, but they’re not,” said Farragut. He was not going to be stonewalled. “They are somewhere. Some places are more likely than others. I wouldn’t look for zebras in the wardroom—I’d look in a zoo. And zoos are in major population areas. Narrow it down! Where would you put V-pilots?”

“We have V-jocks here on Merrimack,” said Colonel Z. “The Roman V-jocks could be on a ship as well. Which means they could be, I beg your pardon, anywhere.”

“Our V-jocks are on board to give options to this mobile battle platform. Why would the Roman V-jocks be on a ship for an invasion of Earth? Earth isn’t going anywhere! A shipboard base gives them no advantage and it makes them vulnerable. If I were a Roman commander, I would keep my remote pilots on the ground and shielded.”

“And scattered for greater security,” said Colonel Z. “Which means they could be in Asia for all we know.”

Asia was the popular term for the Perseus Arm of the galaxy, in the opposite direction from the Deep End and just as far away.

Farragut blinked. “You think they’re in Asia?”

“There is no solid reason to think the remote pilots are precisely there,” said Colonel Z. “My point is the search area is inconceivably vast. The V-pilots could be separated by light-years. We’ll never ferret them out. We don’t know that they’re all in one place.”

“But we do,” said Gypsy.

She had been watching the recordings, still playing on the monitor. She pointed. “Can you stop that and replay that last segment?”

The recording was set back. Farragut, Steele, Colonel Z, and Gypsy Dent watched a drone on an attack run. The drone fighter inexplicably lost concentration, jinked, and shot wide of anything like a target. Another drone suffered the same malfunction immediately afterward. Then the first drone shot at the second drone.

The IO was mystified. “What could cause that kind of malfunction?”

Gypsy kept her eyes on the playback. “I know exactly what’s causing that.” And she asked that the officers move the discussion into Merrimack’s own remote pilot center. She commanded one of Merrimack’s V-jocks to join them there.

Merrimack’s remote control center was a small bullpen with a half dozen stations.

Steele stood against the wall, muscular arms crossed in front of his wide chest. V-jocks. Steele didn’t like ‘em. Marines called them gamers. And the word was not used kindly when spoken by a Marine.

Gypsy cranked up the simulator and loaded a ground strike program.

Commander Gypsy Dent took a seat at a console next to the gangly V-jock everyone called Wraith. Gypsy put on a V-helmet and told Wraith, “Take an attack run with me. Race you to first kill.”

“You’re on, sir.”

Wraith was an expert. He immediately located a target in the simulation, moved into position, and was locking in for the kill.

Gypsy—the person, not the remote craft—physically reached over from her station and shoved Wraith. Wraith’s simulated craft jinked and his shot went wild.

“Hey!” Wraith cried, and, in instant retaliation, he shoved her back and took a virtual shot at her craft. Wraith and Gypsy took off their V-helmets and looked up at their audience. Farragut said: “All the remote pilots are in the same room.” Commander Gypsy Dent turned to Wraith. “Push me again, I’ll pull your ears off, soldier.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And don’t you ma’am me. I’m not your mama.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Thank you for your help, soldier,” said Gypsy.

Farragut was absorbing the import. Could the Roman pilots be in the same room, reaching over and shoving each other? Sniping at each other? “It sure fits,” said Farragut. “But I just always pictured a lot more discipline from Rome.”

“They’re kids,” said Gypsy. She had two of them. “Not necessarily, sir,” said Wraith, ducking his head between his bony shoulders, sheepish.

The IO added, “I seem to recall Merrimack once had a casualty in its own Marine Wing, a Swift flying backward into an explosive, I believe? And another pilot tunneled a Swift twenty feet into a planet?”

“Yes, we did,” Steele said tightly. That second one had been Kerry Blue. His Kerry Blue. “Our Fleet Marines are a boisterous group,” said John Farragut. “So the Roman V-jocks aren’t as disciplined as the Legions. Where does that get us?” said Z. “It gets us looking for one concentrated installation,” said Farragut. “Possibly a bunker.”

“Which could still be anywhere in the galaxy,” Z repeated wearily. Gypsy shook her head. “They’re kids and they’re close to home.”

“All Roman soldiers are young these days, Commander Dent,” said Colonel Z. “Children are mass produced and mass schooled.”

“They don’t mass teach remote piloting,” said Gypsy. “It’s not regarded as real warfare. It’s useful, but there’s no honor in it. A remote is the weapon of a coward.”

“Or of someone you want to keep safe,” Farragut boarded Gypsy’s train of thought.

“Remote work would be choice duty for a child who actually has parents instead of genetic donors,” said Gypsy. “The parents could keep their child safe and still have him serve the Empire. I would look on Palatine for their bullpen. Maybe Thaleia. In fact, look at Thaleia first. Putting the pilots on Thaleia would keep the whole project together. Thaleia’s population is all engineers. What’s an engineer’s child going to do in wartime?”

The IO allowed, “Thaleia has a small population. That does make for a search with small enough parameters to be reasonable. If we come up empty, then we haven’t squandered a lot of time and resources on this goose chase.”

“Do it,” said Captain Farragut.

Colonel Z set his intelligence analysis programs to sift through Department of Defense surveillance recordings of the planet Thaleia. He was looking for traffic patterns, materials movements, and energy emanations from underground.

Colonel Z located a likely site, within a military base, underground, with high security. Traffic surveillance recorded adults arriving with a child and departing the site without the child.

Farragut had Z go back to look at surveillance from the time of the bunker’s construction. The foundation gave a picture of its layout. It was the. sort of place the spooks called a Land Sub—a self-contained twenty-four-hour operation with dormitory, dining, and operations facilities like a submarine, except that this facility was subterranean. Colonel Z estimated one hundred and eighty personnel inside.

Armed with enough certainty, Farragut took the proposal to Admiral Mishindi. “I don’t need to tell you, John, that anything on Thaleia is. a hard target,” Mishindi warned.

“We need this target,” said Farragut. “The remote attack drones are replaceable. We shoot down the drones, the pilots come right back in with a new machine fresh out of a carrier. But if we take out the pilots, that’s a victory.”

Mishindi nodded, “And so much for Rome’s much vaunted one hundred percent survivability for their remote pilots. That would wake them up to the realities of war.”

Farragut added, reluctant, “The reality of war is that we are gunning for children on this one.”

Mishindi nodded, grave. “Most of Rome’s fighting force is of an age that has kept me up in the middle of many a night. We can’t let them continue killing Americans. Enemy combatants are righteous targets.”

“Yes, sir.”

“John, do you want to be excused when we move on the Gameroom?” Gameroom was the spooks’ name for the site of the Roman V-jocks’ bullpen.

And Mishindi had apparently agreed to the attack.

The offer tempted. Farragut’s voice hitched as he tried to answer. Had to clear his throat before he could push ahead, “No, sir. I wouldn’t send someone else to do what I wouldn’t do.”

“You’re not sending anyone, Captain Farragut. I am.”

“That’s sophistry, sir. If you need the Mack to hit enemy combatants, Mack will hit enemy combatants.” Mishindi dismissed him. Farragut started to go, turned at the hatch. “Sir?”

“Captain?” Mishindi answered, quizzical.

“What if, instead of a space strike, we take the Gameroom.”

“Take the Gameroom,” Mishindi repeated slowly, rolling the absurdity of those words around his mouth. “You can’t hold a Roman installation on a Roman planet.”

“We don’t need to hold it longer than it takes to get the pilots out. We penetrate the planetary defense, penetrate the installation, nap the kids, and run like hell. That’s Plan A.”

“John, I can’t remember last time a Plan A ever worked.”

“Then we go to B.”

“What’s plan B?”

“That will be determined on the ground. I’ll bet my ass Rome’s not expecting ground troops.”

“Is your ass going in?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I like the general concept. But Captain Farragut, your ass is not going into the installation. Send Marines. That’s what thev do.”

“Sir—”

“That’s an order. The United States does not need Captain John Farragut in Roman captivity. Send another ass.”

16

MERRIMACK HAD BEEN TO Thaleia before, on a mission to destroy the only Hive presence ever recorded in Near Space. Rome had never wanted Americans on its manufacturing capital, but had no choice then.

Rome’s fears regarding Americans exploring Thaleia and probing into all its facilities back then were validated now. The U.S. space battleship Merrimack was able to penetrate Thaleia’s impenetrable orbital defense system.

The planet’s topmost shields allowed for sunlight and air movement through it. A spacecraft could get through if it moved slow enough to make itself an easy target.

Merrimack moved slow. She absorbed all the hits Thaleia’s orbiting sentinels had to give.

Underneath the top shields, any given point in Thaleia’s atmosphere was in range of at least two emplaced guns on the ground.

In the atmosphere Merrimack unleashed a myriad of Wild Weaselets—tiny unmanned decoy craft which showed false profiles to make the Thaleian defenses give chase.

At low altitude Merrimack deployed one genuine craft, a Lander, amid another cluster of Weaselets.

The space battleship itself stayed as a top shield over the Lander until the Lander set down on top of the target installation. Then Merrimack moved away to distract the planetary defenses from the landing site.

Merrimack crossed to another continent to attack a secondary target—the rebuilt Ephesian munitions factory—as if that were what she’d come for.

The Lander plunged an auger through the top entry hatch to the bunker, which jutted up like a submarine’s sail.

The opening revealed a steel ladder, extending down into a concrete shaft.

Flight Leader Ranza Espinoza reminded the Marines, “After yous get in there, if someone draws on yous, drop ‘im. I don’t care if she’s a ten-year-old with pigtails. If her hands ain’t empty you drop her.”

The Marines sent a camera scope down the hole first. It showed a cross tunnel, which was clear of people, but there were beam sentinels at every ceiling corner. Those opened fire and took out the camera.

The camera’s death gave the Marines a measure of the sentinels’ beam strength. The Marines’ personal fields would protect them.

Marines climbed, slid, jumped down the ladder, and fanned out in the corridors.

Beam fire from the auto sentinels glanced off them.

“C’mon, yous. Get in. Get in! Stop gawking at the flashy lights.”

Doors opened. Four Roman guards armed with beam cannons came running out. Ranza dashed in close to one guard, like jamming up a boxer, pushed the barrel of her head buster into his face, and fired.

The round penetrated, but did not explode as it should have. It had not encountered DNA.

The guard, with a neat bullet hole just below his nose, closed a crushing hand on Ranza’s throat. She fired into the guard’s midriff. That round did not detonate either, but it penetrated the guard’s CPU. Motion ceased. Ranza pried the polymer hand off her throat. Coughed. Rasped, “Pan-Galactic products, boys and girls. Hit ‘em under the ribs!”

Other Marines took down the remaining three automaton guards. Kerry Blue was shooting the beam sentinels out of the ceiling.

“Whatcha doin’, Blue?”

“They bother me,” said Kerry Blue. She hit another one.

Carly with a now-that-you-mention-it look said, “Me too.” She shot out another sentinel.

When there were no hostiles left standing in the corridors, and the sentinels no longer flashed, the Marines faced five locked doors.

Ranza retrieved a projection of the bunker’s layout from her wrist com. She sent Green and White Squads to the dormitory sections of the installation. Teams Alpha and Baker of Red Squad, and Charlie and Delta of Blue Squad each took a door to one the four operations rooms.

“I hear adult voices in there,” said Cole Darby with his ear against the door to Gameroom One. “I hear kids, too. But there are adults in there.”

Guards. They hadn’t expected human guards. Internal guards were always light at Roman installations, so human guards seemed excessive in such a well-defended place.

But the adults were probably here more as guardians than as guards. Because children had less developed brains, they tended to try to get away with things they shouldn’t and failed to weigh the consequences of their attempts. The region of the brain that governed impulse control and moral judgment was last to mature.

Ranza ordered down the auger and drilled the lock on Gameroom One. She tossed the auger over to Team Baker, who had broken theirs.

High voices sounded within the Gameroom, all shouting at once. Some screaming. Sounds of scuffling, ducking and covering.

Ranza sent a camera scope through the hole in the door. She counted up the people in the room before the camera was caught and stomped on.

Ranza signaled back to her team: Five adult guards armed with beam cannons. Twenty-five underage V-pilots hiding under their stations.

The pilots themselves had no firearms as far as the camera detected. There would be no reason to have firearms on home ground among friends. High spirits and live rounds would only make the young pilots a menace to each other.

On Ranza’s signal the Alphas turned on headlamps. They could expect the lights to be out in the wolf’s lair.

Cain Salvador hauled the door open. Ranza Espinoza and Dak Shepard charged in first, low. Beam shots flashed off of their personal fields. Carly Delgado darted in, thrust her knife into the kidney of the guard who sprang out from beside the doorjamb to jump Dak from behind.

Real blood darkened Carly’s blade. The Roman contorted, squeaking. Carly jabbed again, higher.

“These aren’t PanGalactic guards in here, hermanos!” Carly shouted. “They die better!” And she darted aside to let the others in.

Dak was locked in a sparring match with a guard, both of them wielding their beam cannons as if they were staffs. The guard got Dak pinned up against the wall, choking him with his weapon. Dak let go one of his hands from his cannon to rabbit punch the snarling face in front of him. He brought a knee up into the man’s groin as the guard sagged from the punch, and gave him a cannon butt on the back of his neck on his way down. He stuck a knife in the Roman to make sure he stayed there.

Beam fire crisscrossed the chamber. Children shrieked under their consoles. They seemed about eleven or twelve years old.

There was a rack of swords on the wall. One boy dashed out of hiding, went for the rack, took down a sword. Twitch Fuentes folded him over, his big fist in the boy’s diaphragm. The boy withered to the deck, trying to breathe. Twitch tossed the sword to Ranza, because energy bolts and head busters weren’t doing the job here.

A Roman guard intercepted the toss. He raised the sword at Ranza.

Kerry’s foot in the back of the guard’s knee brought him to a sudden begging posture before Ranza. Ranza drove her heel into his chin, sent him reeling backward. Kerry jumped clear of the falling sword. Ranza stomped on the Roman’s throat.

Another guard scuttled out from under one of the consoles where he’d been hiding like a child. Cain seized the dropped sword, took a mighty swing at the man’s head.

Something came off with a spurt of blood—a piece of skull—flying with a rag of bloody hair and spray of gray matter.

Kerry felt a sharp crack on the side of her head with a wet slap. She blinked, spat. A shard of skull, not hers, slid, dropped from her head. She had to peel the scalp with its bloody hair off her. Gray gore stuck to her skin, her hair, her uniform. “Oh. Oh.” She was perilously close to heaving up breakfast. She retreated into a detached persona, like a remote control robot. Emotionless. Wrapped in stillness.

Wiped blood from her eyes. Saw no more guards standing. There were only bleating children cowering under their battle stations.

Cole Darby, who wore a language module, informed the children in halting Latin that they would be unharmed if they obeyed. Told them to come up with their hands out.

The Romans came out mewling, crying. A couple emerged dry-eyed, with fiercely protruding lower lips.

“Pick your brain, Kerry?”

A white-hot haze fell before Kerry Blue, and she was suddenly back into her empty place. Her voice came out in a weird cat hiss: “Shut up, Dak.”

“Move ‘em out!” Ranza shouted. “Darb, don’t bother pulling the res chambers. You know they’re just gonna change all the harmonics.”

The prisoners shuffled through the door in a line out to the corridor. Cole Darby said, “Uh, there’s a countdown happening in here.”

“Oh, beat yourself dead!” Ranza cried.

The bunker was counting down an auto-destruct sequence. The system had probably been demanding verification and not gotten a proper response from anyone. “The bunker knows it’s in hostile hands,” said Darb. “It’s going to self-destruct.”

“Or it’s just going to flush us out with a false countdown,” Cain suggested.

“Hell, I’m not going to bet the barroom on that,” said Ranza. “Get everybody out within the count!”

“What countdown!” said Dak. “I don’t hear a countdown. What kind of word is quinquaginta?”

“It’s a countdown in Latin, you bozon!” said Darb, getting a little panicked. “Isn’t anyone else wearing a language module?”

Carly shrugged. “I ain’t here to negotiate.”

Ranza: “And I ain’t here to die! Move! Move! Move!”

Team Alpha herded the children toward the doorway, except for the one Twitch hit. Twitch ended up carrying that one.

The other three Gamerooms had been secured. Teams Baker, Delta, and Echo were already marshaling their children out and up the ladder, Yurg carrying two of them.

The last child in Gameroom One decided to block the exit, his hands and feet braced on the doorjambs for a suicidal stand. “Virtus et Honus!”

Ranza hunkered down and charged, rammed him through the opening, almost to a first down.

“Gameroom One, clear!”

The Marines tossed timed explosives behind them into each Gameroom, just in case the countdown was a bluff. They did not want to leave the equipment in Roman hands for new recruits. Whether by Rome or by the U.S. this installation was in for a good up-blowing.

Redundance was good. Redundance was good.

Marines scrambled up the ladder through the top hatch into the Lander, pushing little butts up as fast as they could go. Colonel Steele was up there seizing wrists and hauling children up and over to Cain, who loaded them into the Lander’s hold.

With all the Roman prisoners in the hold, Cain slammed the rear hatch shut. The remaining Marines were coming up much faster, strapping themselves into their seats as fast as they boarded.

Steele’s hands slipped on Kerry Blue’s gory wrists. He grabbed her upper arms hard, lifted her up and passed her over to Dak. Ranza shouting from below, “Go! Go! Go! It’s gonna blow!”

Ranza was the last one up. “Clear!”

Steele secured the bottom hatch of the Lander.

Darb, buckling in. “Is it going to implode or explode?”

“Now what kind of Darb question is that!” Ranza there, dropping into the seat next to him. “Honey, it’s gonna ‘plode! Don’t give a frog’s tit about the details!”

Steele shouted to the pilot, “Get us airborne now!”

The engine whined.

The bunker ‘ploded.

The concussion slammed into the Lander’s force field, heaved the stomach into the throat. And suddenly reversed. The Lander waddled up. The Marines could feel the motion and shouldn’t.

The lights dimmed to dark.

“Ex,” said Darb.

“Huh?”

Lights back up.

“ ‘Plosion.Wasn’t very big. Only enough to scuttle the bunker.”

“How’d you know it wasn’t a big explosion?” Darb stomped at the deck with one heel.” ‘Cause these S-Nine Landers aren’t shielded for crap.” Ranza turned to Steele, “Next sortie, leave this guy. He is full of too much skat I don’t never need to know.”

Steele looked to Darby. Said at last, quietly, “We probably shouldn’t have set down the Lander on top of the bunker?”

Darb nodded, reluctant to agree. “Sir.” It was a dumbish mistake.

Steele looked to Kerry. She seemed to be in one piece. Unhappy. A slime of repulsive stuff on her. He could not see a wound on her. Wished he could take her into his shower and clean her off. He could still see a pretty woman under that revolting mess. He was a dead man and knew it.

Ranza was speaking, “So what’s the difference if it’s an implosion or an explosion? If it was a big one, either way we’re swimming with the sushi.”

“An implosion would have impeded the liftoff,” said Darb.

“Impede,” Ranza echoed. “Who uses that word? What’s an impede?”

“Really small pede.” Darb put his forefinger and thumb close together. “Like a centipede. Less legs.” Kerry was looking out a viewport as the Lander rose. Murmured, “Here’s the interesting part.” She pictured what Calli Carmel looked like trying to get from Fort Ike to Wolfhound. We got in. We woke them up.

Getting away from Thaleia involved a lot of Stingers which had not been out there on the inbound leg of this journey.

Shots from the Stingers battered the Lander. Kerry Blue did not need to know that these Landers weren’t shielded for crap. A shadow fell over them.

It was Merrimack. Descending. The great ship formed a top shield over them. The Lander was still vulnerable on the horizons. Stingers swarmed on every horizon.

A distinctive boom reverberated through the bulkheads. The Lander had been hit by a sounder, making way for something large.

“Good night,” said someone. The end.

They were about to be Carmelized.

Kerry closed her eyes. This is gonna hurt.

She heard the whoosh. Orange lights of fire flickered behind her eyelids. Did not feel the bone deep agony. Opened her eyes. The Lander stopped rocking and booming. The fire was on the other side of the force field.

“Mack’s got us.”

The Lander was inside Merrimack’s distortion field.

Merrimack rose straight up with the Lander in tow, Stinger strikes flashing off the force field in useless pretty sprays.

Safe. Kerry sat back. Listened to her head pound.

Dak on one side, sweating like a cold beer.

Carly on the other side. A lot of blood on her, none of it hers.

The prisoners in the hold started to make noise, yelling and stomping and banging on the bulks like a cageful of bad-tempered monkeys.

“Oh, you know what?” Kerry Blue unstrapped, getting up, wincing. “I’ve been hit in the head. I’m icky. I’m not in a good mood. This is not happening.” She stalked back to the rioting hold. Wrenched open the hatch.

She stood in the hatchway, her eyes wild, chin forward. Felt the blood and brains drying on her face. Hair wet with it. She was a grotesque vision and knew it.

The children silenced at once.

“We need to lighten the load,” Kerry rasped. “Who wants to walk?”

They all stared at her, became very still.

She glared wildly over every last one of them. Spoke crisply,” ‘Kay then. I’ll get the straws.” Kerry slammed the hatch. She sat back down, head still throbbing. But the hold was quiet.

“How’d you do that, Blue?” Carly asked.

“Easy,” said Dak. “Kerry Blue has all the brains.”

Kerry whispered, “That is so not funny.” Looked as if she would cry.

Started to laugh like a lunatic till she thought her head would split.

Kerry unloosed her straps so she could lean over her knees. Her head ached so bad it pushed tears into her eyes.

He blurry gaze fell upon an object on the deck. The sword that had got ah this junk on her. It took her thoughts a moment to catch up with what happened back there in the bunker.

She sniffled. That hurt. Mumbled into the deck, the sword swimming before her eyes.

“Why’d they have swords in a bunker on Thaleia?”

17

CAPTAIN JOHN FARRAGUT recognized the boy. He had seen him on his first mission to Thaleia—a young boy with his arms clasped around the legate of Legion Draconis as the city of Antipolis smoldered after a gorgon attack. He remembered the dark eyes. The boy had grown, as boys will, and cut his curls very short since then.

Farragut entered the briefing room on his ship. He wore a language module. John Farragut liked to try to speak to people in their own tongue. People usually appreciated the attempt, though Augustus had forbade him to ever speak Latin in his presence.

Farragut took a seat opposite the boy at the table. “Are you Herius Asinius’ son?”

The boy’s eyes widened. He stayed silent.

“Convention says you can give me your name, soldier,” said Farragut. “Titus Vitruvius,” the boy announced, and added his rank. “Pilot.”

Farragut nodded. He recognized the name.

“Why did y’all have swords down there, son?”

Latin was one of those languages that actually had a good translation for the word “y’all.” A child’s idea of not talking was flexible. Titus sneered. “As if you did not know.” Farragut was the man who first put swords on a space battleship. Swords were used to kill gorgons.

Farragut was instantly on his com. Spoke in American: “Farragut to command deck. Gypsy, get a message to the JC. Hive presence on Thaleia.”

He sent Titus back to the brig and returned to the command deck.

Gypsy turned, searched his face in hope there was some mistake. “The Hive is in Near Space? We’re certain?”

Farragut nodded, his mouth tight, massively not happy.

The first Hive presence on Thaleia had been brief—a duration of mere months. Romans, Americans, the League of Earth Nations, and nearby alien species had all ganged together to exterminate the monsters. And until now everyone had supposed that the planet Thaleia had escaped an eruption of a second generation Hive. Rome had reported Thaleia clear while new swarms were springing up in the Deep End.

“The boy couldn’t have lied?” Gypsy made a last grasp for a better answer.

“No. He didn’t even mean to tell me,” said Farragut, in motion. He wasn’t really pacing the command deck. He was stalking. “Interrogating children is like shooting fish in a barrel.”

“Who shoots fish in a barrel, sir?” He shook his head. He didn’t know. “Had to been some ‘billy’s idea of a good time.”

The United States released the news that Rome was covering up the presence of the Hive on the Near Space planet Thaleia. The broadcasts reached Palatine under headlines like: WHAT YOUR GOVERNMENT WILL NOT TELL YOU!

Both the U.S. and Rome had repeater stations that made sure that the other nation’s homeworld received its propaganda.

Roman broadcasts in turn showed images of dead children, purportedly killed in a U.S. raid on Thaleia. They also unveiled “secret U.S. recordings” of Roman children being tortured and killed in U.S. detention. The images were certain to shock, sicken and outrage anyone and everyone.

According to Rome the United States was using their fiction of a Near Space Hive presence as a pretext for their invasion of Thaleia, while committing atrocities on Roman children there.

The real captive children from Thaleia—one hundred of them—were on board John Farragut’s space battleship. Three of them had been banged up during capture, treated in the ship’s hospital, and were currently housed in the brig.

Analysis of the Roman broadcasts revealed the images of dead and tortured children to be digital fiction. “No children were harmed in the making of this propaganda feature,” said Colonel Z when he brought his report to the command deck.

“This is dirty combat.” said Farragut.

“No, this is dirty politics,” said Colonel Z. “Rome’s better at it than we are.”

“I never saw this coming,” said Farragut, stunned.

Gypsy Dent touched his shoulder, said gently, “You wouldn’t, sir.”

Farragut’s own claims of gorgons on Thaleia were meeting with more skepticism than Rome’s claims of child torture.

Unlike on the Deep End colony of Telecore, there was plenty to eat on the Near Space world of Thaleia—a vicious plenty that would fight back against the Hive—but plenty. Yet there were no vast swarms of gorgons to be seen from space, chewing across Thaleia’s fields of razor grasses and whipthorn.

If Rome was covering up a Hive presence, they were covering very well, and making a liar out of Captain Farragut. Merrimack’s Intelligence officer offered to produce some visuals to prop up the U.S. story.

“No,” said Farragut. “I’ll go back to my source.”

“I shall conduct the interrogation,” said Colonel Z.

“No, I’ve got him,” said Farragut.

“Sir,” Colonel Z objected. “You are not trained in interrogating children.”

“I’m not?” said Farragut, almost laughing. “Do you know how many kid brothers I have?”

Titus Vitruvius was escorted back to Merrimack’s briefing room again. He told his guard that he was not talking, so she should just take him back to the brig right now.

When the guard delivered the boy to the briefing room, Captain Farragut was already seated at the table, popping back oqib nuts. He offered the open bag to Titus. “Nut?”

Titus Vitruvius refused with a big shake of his head, his chin up, arms crossed.

“Sit,” said Farragut.

Titus sat, stiff as a Roman standard.

“Do you know why we’re at war, son?”

The child did not even register the question. He answered what was on his mind. “You’re just mad because we tore down your arch. You should never have got that.”

Accustomed to hearing non sequiturs out of children, Farragut followed the leap. Titus was talking about the Triumphal Arch erected on Thaleia to mark the human victory over the Hive in Near Space. Caesar Magnus had dedicated the arch to John Farragut.

Romulus destroyed it. Farragut sat back. “I never really liked the damned thing.” The boy stayed rigid. His whole being shouted: I am not talking. See me not talking.

“Heri said you were a brave soldier, Titus Vitruvius.”

“Don’t care what any American said.”

Negative declarations apparently did not count as talking. “Heri,” Farragut explained, “was Herius Asinius, legate of Legion Draconis.”

A gasp escaped Titus.

“Heri said you defended the Roman fortress at his side. That’s why I’m surprised to find you in a Gameroom, Titus. I thought you were bound for a Legion.”

Titus’ fortress of attempted silence crumbled. “I wanted to join a Legion!” he cried. “They posted me with the gamers!”

“Have a nut.”

Titus shook his head a vigorous no.

“Diomede Silva dined with me after we took the Valerius. And I dined with Numa Pompeii when he took my Merrimack. You’re allowed to have a nut.” Farragut tossed one at him. The boy caught it by reflex.

Titus stared at Farragut. He asked, awed, “You met the great Numa Pompeii?” He nibbled cautiously on the edge of the nut. “Met?” said Farragut with a big laugh, and regaled Titus with war stories.

The boy listened wide-eyed, enthralled. Farragut had him fighting very hard not to smile at a story about Herius Asinius and a trench.

And Farragut told him how the brave Herius Asinius died.

The tale had the boy in tears—soldier tears, so they were allowed. Titus Vitruvius was profoundly moved, and proud to have been associated with a man like Legion Commander Herius Asinius.

“You and I have the same mission,” Farragut told the boy. “The same duty to Herius Asinius. Now I don’t expect you to tell me anything about Rome. Tell me about our enemy, the Hive.”

Titus sniffled. He sat up imperially straight. “Like what?”

“Gorgons came back to Thaleia again, didn’t they?”

“They’re all gone,” Titus said, unconvincingly.

“You had swords in the Gameroom,” Farragut said.

Titus looked at him straight and spoke like a miniature adult, not a question, “You’re never sure they’re gone, are you?”

Farragut stopped breathing for a moment. It had been one of the worst moments of his career the day the gorgons came back to Antipolis the first time.

“No, sir,” Farragut answered the child gravely. “You’re never sure.”

And he got Titus to tell him about the night the Hive returned to Antipolis the second time. Titus gave him the exact Roman date.

“You don’t have a big population on Thaleia,” said Farragut. “Why hasn’t the Hive overrun the planet by now?”

“We are Roman,” said Titus proudly.

“Y’all were Roman the first time round, and y’all needed help then.”

Titus admitted, “They’re not that smart this time.” He meant the gorgons, not the Romans. “They don’t turn our automatons on us. They don’t make it hard to breathe. They’re easier to kill.”

But the Hive learned. From each and every encounter. The new Hive would have learned quite a lot from the deaths of the gorgons of Thaleia.

“They’re all gone now,” said Titus. A loud unspoken maybe on the end of that. “There weren’t that many anyway. Not like last time. Someone said they didn’t have time to plant a lot of seeds.”

“Seeds?”

Titus shrugged. “They come out of the ground.”

“Hell of a thing to keep quiet,” said Farragut.

“We were afraid you’d invade,” Titus defended.

“I did that anyway.”

Titus seemed to remember then that John Farragut was the enemy. But he couldn’t seem to get the right hate up.

Before Farragut returned Titus to his fellow prisoners, he told him, “You’re right, you know. Heri should have got the arch.”

A journey of three days brought Merrimack back to Earth where she dropped off prisoners, picked up equipment, and walked some dogs.

The drone fighter raids over the U.S. had stopped immediately after the raid on Thaleia, so the skies were quiet.

TR Steele sat on the edge of a pier on the waterfront at sunset. Actually he was more like propped against the pier, his legs out in front of him at an angle, beer in hand.

Sun on his broad shoulders threw his very long shadow out before him.

He looked out to the water. A wide sky. Seagulls. Sails.

Sighted her off the port beam. A young female approaching up the sea strand. Loose build. Rangy walk. Tank top showed her wide shoulders. Shorts of girene green. Hard-toned legs. The only soft parts on her were what separated her from the boys.

She strolled to him. Let her head tilt. Her hair was loose. She guided a windblown lock to behind her ear. “Come here often, soldier?”

“Only when I’m taking time out from maiming children.” Roman propaganda had lodged under TR Steele’s skin, and stayed there crawling and biting.

“Romans talk,” she shrugged. “Their lips move but it still smells like it’s coming out the other end.” Steele snorted. A real woman of refinement, his Kerry Blue. Steele was uncomfortable around refinement. Kerry Blue always managed to say what he was not allowed to. “Thanks,” he said. Her take on it knocked things into perspective. A piper ran across the sand at the waterline on its little stilt legs. A gull squalled. Kerry Blue lifted her leg over his, like mounting a horse, to sit straddling him, face-to-face, hips to hips. Warm.

She propped her forearms atop his broad shoulders, her wrists crossed behind his head. Her fingers toyed with the short hairs behind his neck. Her brown eyes looked into his.

He gazed back. “What are you doing, Marine?”

Her body rocked a little.

“Sir? Nobody’s fooling anybody here.”

The rough palms of his big hands cradled her head, fingers laced in her hair. He had no idea what had become of the beer. He agreed, “No.”

“Just another man and another woman on the waterfront,” said Kerry looking round at the sunset couples. “We’re just harder than the civilians.”

“One of us is a lot harder.”

‘”Thomas?” His name in her voice set all his common sense free on holiday. “Can we go somewhere?” It was a career wrecker. Thomas Ryder Steele could not even spell career at the moment. He unwound her arms from round his neck, stood up, enclosed her hand in his to take her somewhere.

Lying on his back. Morning sun in the window of the little room. She’d fallen asleep on top of him. Steele with his arms wrapped round Kerry Blue. All the way around, to hold her, all of her, contain her, protect her. That could not happen. Kerry Blue would not be contained or protected.

She stirred.

She’d gotten maybe an hour’s sleep. He none. He did not want to lose a moment. He felt her breathing. She lifted her head. Her hair fell in her face. She focused on him. Smiled. “Hi.”

Her sleep-swollen face looked amazing. She. She. The heaven-break-open, lightning-strike, star-shattering sex had nothing to do with her skill, though God knew she had gobs of experience he never wanted to think about.

It was this woman he had lived with for several years now. Courageous in her own way. She would be screaming her head off in fear, but still fighting in the front line, right there for you.

Her muscles were cute, girl-hard under smooth skin. Scars flecked her arms and legs. She lived rough. She parked her chin on his sternum, eyes looking up at his face. “You still gonna be mean to me?”

“Meaner.”

He ran his palms down her back. Her skin was slightly damp.

He had thought (and that would teach him to try thinking!) that once he gave in, the need would be finished. Get it out of his system. He’d been wrong seven times now. And deep down he’d known it. He had tried so hard to resist. Because now he was—knew he would be—utterly lost. There was no getting over this woman, ever.

And she. What did she think? He brushed a grain of sleep out of the corner of her eye. Her eyelashes caressed his thumb. He said, “The rat on you around ship is that you haven’t been yourself lately.”

She knew what he was talking about. She tugged on his blond chest hairs. “Been holding out,” said Kerry.

“Never heard you could do that.”

“Never nothing worth holding out for.”

What he wanted to hear. Amazed to actually hear it. Made him want to go out and bring down a buffalo or something with his bare hands.

“Was I worth it?”

“Oh, yeah.”

She nipped his nose and got up to take another shower.

He listened to her patter around in there. Could get used to hearing that every morning. He ought to marry her. For a lot of reasons. Mostly because he wanted to.

Not that it would allow her to splash around in his shower on board Merrimack. They still could not get caught together.

He couldn’t ask her to marry him. She could laugh. Oh, you thought? How could you be so dumb?

Chilled him to the bone to think she might not be as serious as he was. She got what she was holding out for. All done? Game over?

He called into the bath, kept his voice nonchalant: “Ever been to Vegas?”

“I got no money! What am I gonna do in Vegas?”

We could walk down the glittery streets, stroll by a tacky chapel and hope she says, “Hey, Thomas, let’s get married.” A sudden signal on Steele’s com broke the perfect morning. He had turned that damn thing off.

The com turned itself on, as it could in dire emergency.

And then there was Kerry Blue dashing out of the shower, dripping wet, grabbing up her clothes, calling down abominations. Her com was awake too. Spacecraft One had been shot down. President Johnson was dead.

18

HOW COULD THAT HAPPEN!” Farragut tried to keep his voice down, talking to his admiral.

Admiral Mishindi on video from Base Carolina looked haggard. He shook his head, completely in sympathy with Captain Farragut. “Tranquility Base got pounded last week. The President decided she had to make an appearance on the Moon for morale. It was unscheduled. Quiet. No media. We had Secret Service thick as Hive around her. Everything was fine until she tried to come back to Earth. Rome had someone on Tranquility.”

“A mole!” Farragut cried, astonished.

“A deep seeded mole. Just when we think we got them all.” Mishindi pushed his lower jaw forward, frustrated past words. “The mole obtained the field codes for Spacecraft One. And all those Roman warships we stranded at Fort Ike? Those dropped out of FTL right here. They opened fire on the President’s ship. All of them, including your old friend, the Horatius. The President did not have a prayer. Not a solitary prayer.”

“Did we get the mole?”

Mishindi closed his eyes and nodded grim satisfaction. “Our people on Tranquility showed great restraint in taking him alive. I cannot guarantee that his interrogation will strictly abide by convention.”

“Where are the Roman warships now?”

“Oh, they’re still here. Punching the hell out of Washington.The state, not DC. Ground defenses are taking hell. Monitor, Wolfhound, and Rio Grande are already there. Merrimack is to engage the Roman warships as soon as you get your people aboard.”

Farragut knew there were a lot of military bases in Washington, but: “Why Washington?”

“Fault lines. It’s a disaster, John. Rome’s not even targeting the military bases. Those are too well shielded. And they’re not shooting at the cities, which would be an obvious crime. They’re shooting into Puget Sound, which is not as obvious but still criminal. Tacoma, Whidbey Island, and Seattle are built on top of shallow faults. The shallow ones make the surface rock.”

Gypsy already had Merrimack curving shots around the horizon, tagging Roman ships over Washington, and shooting missiles out to chase the tags.

As soon as Colonel Steele reported on board, Merrimack charged in to take an interceptor position over Seattle.

The Swifts were bottled up in the hangars, their force fields inadequate against the kind of firepower let loose in the brawl over Washington. The Marines were all at their gun blisters.

“Have fun on leave, Kerry Blue?” Ranza said as Kerry swung into her gun seat. As if the rest of her team had been waiting for her.

Kerry took up the controls and started shooting at missile ports of enemy ships.

“Yeah, I did.” Her hair was still damp. “You’re it!” she crowed as she nailed a missile just emerging from its chute. “You’re it!” Got two.

Dak craned his head around. “What got into Blue?”

“I’m saving the world,” said Kerry Blue.

There was no lack of targets. They were just all very very fast, and the big ones were shielded. Targeting was all by instrument. Visually all you saw were the flashes in the dark above, the gray clouds of smoke rising from the blue planet below. The tactical plot looked like a three-dimensional scribble. The Marines had only two orders: stop the enemy from shooting at the ground, and shoot the enemy.

“So who’s in charge now?” said Kerry. “Not Sampson Reed?”

“Well, uh-yuh,” said Cole Darby. “That is how the chain of command works.”

“Sampson Reed?”

The chin. Himself. A great shock of thick honey-colored hair, pearly white teeth, vast slab of dimpled chin, lantern jaw, mind like large curd cottage cheese.

“Why weren’t we escorting Spacecraft One?” said Carly. Then, to a target, “Gotcha!”

“She had Secret Service.”

“When’s the last time you saw the Secret Service take out a Roman ship of war?” said Cain. “She shoulda had us.”

“They said the head of state should not be a legitimate target,” said Darby. And to his target, “Oh, come on, stand still.”

“Who’s they? They who?” said Cain Salvador. “What p-brane said that? And please say it wasn’t Vice President—I mean President Reed.”

“It was. He did,” said Darb. “Oh, for—! I hit you, you Roman ace in the hole! Stop moving!”

“Spacecraft One was a military transport!” said Cain. “MARISSA JOHNSON WAS THE COMMANDER IN CHIEF OF THE UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES!”

That kind of sort of made her a military target.

“Yes,” said Darb. “I’m just telling you what our new Commander in Chief said.”

“We’re doomed,” said Dak.

“Yep.” Kerry sang out, “You’re it!” and another, “You’re it!”

Carly, “Ho, chica!” She bumped forearms with Kerry Blue.

“Gotta be the R and R,” said Dak. “I want me some R and R.”

Carly leaned over to Kerry. “Was he that good?”

Kerry jerked, startled. Prickling fear tingled her throat.

Carly knew? Kerry Blue turned her head to stare at Carly’s foxy grin. Kerry could see that Carly knew what, but Carly didn’t know who with. Carly had recognized the Look. Left Kerry nowhere to hide but behind the truth. “Uh, yeah. He was that good.”

“Civilian?” Ranza was in it now.

“No.” Kerry tried to concentrate hard on a target. Said quickly, “Can’t talk about it. He’s wrong branch of the service. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.”

Wasn’t quite a lie. Carly and Ranza let her off with sly winks.

Kerry’s face felt to be some color of flame. Needed to shoot at a target.

And suddenly there weren’t any. “Hey! Where’d they go?” She stood up in her seat. Dak declared his instruments had gone dead.

But nothing was wrong with the instruments. The Romans were just gone.

Middle of the melee, all the enemy ships vanished.

They had jumped to FTL and did not reappear.

Merrimack jumped to FTL to pursue, but lost the Romans in the scrambled trails leading off from the heavily traveled space between Earth and the Moon. A ship in space could not do battle with an enemy who won’t stand. Merrimack returned to orbit Earth, waiting for the enemy to come back.

They didn’t.

The reason behind the disappearing act came later, with the news that the League of Earth Nations had stepped in. The Roman attacks on the shallow American faults had caused tremblers in Canada, Japan, and the Pacific Rim. The LEN demanded Rome stop its attacks at once or consider itself at war with all of Earth and her colonies. And Rome did cease fire. Even apologized to the LEN, excluding the U.S. per se.

Rome offered to send in planetary engineers to settle the tremblers. Rome had colonized many a restless world. Roman engineers could calculate where to drill vents to bleed off pressure under the Earth’s crust and control the movement of the disturbed plates.

The Romans only caused such chaos because they were capable of undoing much of it. Romans had always been as gifted at building as they were at destroying. They could put the world back better than they found it. Only let them come in to fix it, they asked.

Of course that would mean allowing Roman engineers in to the U.S. Northwest.

The LEN relayed the offer to its member nation. The American response ran along the lines of: “We’ll consider that while we check the weather forecast in hell.”

The nations on the other side of the Pacific rim also declined Rome’s generous offer of engineers. Those nations would engage their own repair crews. They only needed to know where to send the invoices for restitution.

As the faults under the Pacific Northwest lay close to the surface, the Roman strikes had caused—and continued to cause—intense shaking. The Romans may as well have been shooting at the civilian centers for the fire, upheaval, chaos, injury, and death they caused in the state of Washington.

Civilians in the area had died by the thousands. Rome could not bring them back to life. More civilians by the millions had been left homeless. Seattle’s airport and spaceport were clown. Commerce was at a stop, and the military bases suffered ruptures.

The U.S. Secretary of State told the Roman Praetor Peregrinus, “This isn’t war. It’s terrorism.” The Roman response was frosty. “And what do you call kidnapping, torturing, and murdering children?”

“Propaganda,” said the Secretary. “You do realize you are reciting your own propaganda, don’t you?”

“No. It’s not.” The Roman Praetor stood by the official line. But analysis of his vocals and his body language said that he had inwardly blinked. The State Department considered that progress, however small, to get someone of Peregrinus’ station in the Empire to question his own information.

This was not the Rome of Caesar Magnus. Magnus flew with eagles. Romulus crawled with termites.

———

Senator Ventor and Senator Philadelphus joined Caesar in the bath. The baths in Roma Nova were patterned after those in ancient Bath in England, though the new baths were not lined in lead and the frisky frescoes here had been lifted not from Bath but from ancient Pompeii.

Men spoke more freely in the soothing waters, naked, with a glass of wine at the side, and pictures of uninhibited men, women, and goats on the walls.

Romulus knew a lot of Senators had begun to question his leadership and the direction of the war.

These two, Ventor and Philadelphus, were counted among Caesar’s allies. But Romulus was always sensitive to changes in the current. It was time to get these two in the water and see which way they floated.

Ventor propped himself at the edge of the long pool. “Is it true there are gorgons on Thaleia,” he asked, pseudo-casual. “Or is that U.S. propaganda?”

“A bit of both,” Caesar answered, sounding unconcerned. “There have been gorgons seen on Thaleia. That much is fact. The Americans have puffed up the numbers. The gorgons’ numbers are few and Intelligence suspects they were planted.”

“Planted!” Philadelphus sputtered. His hand gestures made a splash. Caesar’s casual attitude was no comfort at all. “Who could have planted gorgons on Thaleia!”

“The United States,” Caesar suggested. “Or Augustus.”

Philadelphus had investments on Thaleia. “Where can I get the names of the children whom the Americans killed and the ones they are holding prisoner?”

Romulus brushed the question aside. He was Caesar, not a directory. “Where is Augustus?” Caesar looked from one Senator to the other. “I am unhappy knowing he is out there. No one claims to see him. Did he defect to the Americans?”

“Don’t know, Caesar,” Ventor said.

“Does Augustus not have a kill switch?” Romulus said.

“No, Caesar,” said Philadelphus. “He is not a PanGalactic product.”

“Shall we then fight fire with fire?” said Romulus. “Where is the next generation patterner? Send that after the rogue!”

“There are no more,” said Ventor. “Augustus is the last.”

“Your father killed the project, Caesar,” said Philadelphus.

“Damn him,” said Romulus.

The Senators went rigid with a start.

Romulus met their stares. “Why should I not damn Augustus?”

“Oh. I—” Philadelphia started. “Sorry, Caesar.”

“The patterner project has always been too costly,”

said Ventor. “Huge overruns are the usual. Too many failures, not enough good candidates. And the final product is short-lived and dangerous. It’s just too much power to put in a single being. The patterner Secundus was turned to work for the enemy. And now we have Augustus out there apparently acting for Augustus. That should not be happening. A patterner is programmed to serve Rome absolutely, unquestionably, even to his death.”

“And when the hell is that going to happen? His death?”

“He could already be dead for all we know,” said Ventor. “We do know there will be no others.”

———

Imperial Intelligence received a recording from an anonymous source. Anonymity was rare in the modern age, and the message did not stay anonymous long.

At first the message was assumed to be from Augustus. But Imperial Intelligence traced the message back to Caesar Magnus’ dead assassin, Julius Urbicus.

Until now the death of Caesar Magnus had been a murder without motive. A lot of men had wanted Magnus dead, but Julius Urbicus was not one of them.

Julius Urbicus had been a longtime associate of Magnus. He had served with distinction in the earlier wars. He had lost his sons in those wars. His wife left him. Julius Urbicus had not remarried. He had been entirely too interested in young girls—one in particular, though he never acted on those impulses. He was always a quiet, tightly contained, disciplined man. Magnus had trusted his steady statesmanship.

Few people knew about Urbicus’ fascination with girls until he killed Caesar. Julius Urbicus had less than nothing to gain by killing Magnus.

The message from the late assassin originated from a secret cache. Its posthumous release had been triggered by an obituary.

A young girl had died.

Lilia.

She was the object of Julius Urbicus’ obsession. Pictures of young Lilia clogged his database. Images of ten-year-old Lilia moved around the walls of his bedchamber. Lilia’s innocent smile, her deep brown eyes.

Lilia had died earlier today. An accidental drowning. The message arrived at Imperial Intelligence seconds after Lilia’s death notice was posted.

Imperial Intelligence summoned Caesar’s sister Claudia to their center.

She answered the call peevishly. She had a public appearance this evening and must get her hair done. That probably meant her face, too, which changed according to the fashion of the day.

Imperial Intelligence headquarters was away from the Forum, mostly underground, constructed like a catacomb. It exuded a creeping dread—all without illusions. It was cut from unpainted weathered stone, like a ruin.

Ancient Rome had been full of color. As was modern Roma Nova. Everything was tinted.

Intelligence headquarters had no color. It stood naked as if bleached by age. Going down into it gave you a sense of walking into your own tomb. And that you had died a very long time ago.

Claudia paused in the corridor to touch a carved limestone figure, a muscular male haunch. She ran her fingers along its solid sinews. Claudia liked male bodies. That was no secret. Nor should it be. Romans prided themselves on living at full throttle.

Over a decade and half ago, Claudia had attended the Imperial Military Institute in the same class as her brother Romulus and the young American woman Calli Carmel. Claudia had never intended a military career. Claudia was there for the men. Officially Claudia had withdrawn to pursue other interests. Actually she was sacked for a plethora of disciplinary infractions. She had only been admitted to the Institute out of deference to Caesar Magnus. Magnus, who never expected anyone but himself to put up with Claudia, was not upset or surprised by her sacking.

Claudia was only ever prepared for a career as imperial brat. At the Institute, all the attention given to Calli’s beauty set Claudia to fury. Claudia made a point to sleep with anyone Calli did. Calli was selective, so she was pitiably easy to keep up with on that score. The looks were more difficult. Claudia, accustomed to being the center of all attention, was determined to be the most beautiful woman in the world, something Calli never worked at. Calli just had beauty. At one point Claudia was physically identical to Calli, and still everyone could tell them apart. They said Calli was the prettier one.

Calli claimed looks were not that important.

“Then you shan’t mind if I take a razor blade to your face,” Claudia said.

“I should mind that a lot,” Calli had replied.

Claudia made her entrance at Imperial Intelligence briskly, as if she had only a few moments to spare for the curiosi.

Dour agents took her to a secure area, and played a recording for her.

It was a bad amateur work. Audio and video only. Flat. No enhancements. Obviously done in secret by a nonprofessional.

It opened to the sound of pounding, as of fists on a closed door, and the visual of a figure recognizable as Julius Urbicus scurrying toward the camera. You saw his fingers, huge in the frame, adjusting the position of the tiny camera. Then he drew back.

Julius Urbicus’ seamed face frowned into the camera. He threw a piece of gauze over it, very thin, something that would hide the camera from view without opaquing the recording. The image softened, became slightly fuzzy.

A woman’s sharp shout sounded from off camera, “Urbicus! Open up, you pervert!”

Julius Urbicus left the frame. He returned with a woman following him. He sat at the edge of the frame, and anxiously watched the woman approach. His posture tensed as if he were mentally guiding the woman to sit in a chair positioned at center focus of the camera.

She sat. And her face came into the picture.

One of the many incarnations of Claudia Julia. Long chestnut hair. Brown almond eyes. Long gown with a loosely draped bodice. Evening gloves up over her elbows. “Here.” Claudia threw a static photograph at Urbicus. “I brought you a present. Bet you don’t have this view of her.”

Urbicus bent over the photo. He did not present it toward the hidden recorder. A groan found its way out of him, of some extreme emotion. Could have been fear, anguish, lust. It was impossible to tell.

Claudia produced a fistful of cartridges from her glittering handbag. They were ink cartridges for antique style pens.

“Load all the pens so you don’t need to worry about getting them mixed up,” she instructed. “I promise it will be a fast death. Hers won’t be if you fail.”

Urbicus could not tear himself away from the photograph. Claudia held out the cartridges in her gloved fist. “Her fate is in your hands.”

Urbicus received the cartridges into trembling hands. One of them would kill Caesar. And Julius Urbicus would die shortly after.

He begged, abject, “Promise you won’t hurt her.”

She flashed a brief eye roll. “Oh, I swear.”

She rose, bending forward to flash her breasts at him. Might have been a cow flashing her udder for his reaction. She let herself out.

When she was thoroughly gone. Julius Urbicus tottered to the camera. The image became nothing but his palm reaching toward it. The picture went black.

No message had accompanied the delivery of the recording to Imperial Intelligence.

How would one compose a cover message like that? Julius Urbicus was barely holding himself together, and he was about to murder Caesar. How would he say he was killing Caesar because of a girl? Betraying his country, himself, his friend, for her? What could he say: If you are seeing this recording, Lilia is dead and I have killed Caesar for nothing. You are seeing this because I, the lying treacherous assassin pedophile, have been betrayed.

No, there could not have been a message to go with this record.

Claudia looked to the Intelligence officers who were looking at her, waiting.

She waited. They waited.

Then finally, irritated, Claudia said, “Why do you show this little horror show to me?”

They were not expecting her to say that. Behind their stony masks they were reeling. They waited for something more.

And Claudia waited back.

They stayed silent.

She became agitated. “Why am I here?” She stood up, pointed toward the door as if to dispatch them. “Go get her!”

An agent, confounded, explained to her, “Claudia, you are under arrest.”

She gave a shrill little laugh at something so very not funny. “Who do you think that is, you coiens asine who pass for Intelligence!”

They were not seeing what she was seeing.

One prompted politely, “Domna?”

Claudia said, as if the picture ought to be clear even to the blind and the dead, “That is the American spy, Calli Carmel!”

———

IT LOOKS LIKE you.”

Claudia coughed, drew her chin inward, affronted. “She can only try!”

The curiosi looked from the image in the recording to Claudia. It was not an exact match, but Claudia was a work of art and the work was constantly in progress.

Claudia had, during her days at the Imperial Military Institute, looked nearly identical to Calli Carmel.

To hear Claudia tell it, it was Calli who mimicked Claudia in those days, not the other way around, and Claudia changed her own looks because Calli’s mimicry struck her as too weird.

“Just why do you suppose Calli cut all her hair off and changed her face again!” Claudia challenged the stunned Intelligence agents. “Bit of a mutt face now, isn’t she?”

One of the agentes told her, “Captain Carmel’s face was recently burned in an attack outside Fort Eisenhower.”

“Of course it was,” Claudia said, patronizing, nodding in nostril-deep sarcasm. “The same attack that made Gaius Americanus change his face and pretend to be dead. Where is the intelligence that is supposed to be down here? There was no attack on Gaius Americanus and Calli Carmel! It was a story made up by the American CIA! So there you have it—the Americans and their spy Calli Carmel killed my father. And Gaius Americanus was in on it!” She stood up to go. “Do something!”

———

Merrimack’s hospital was filled past capacity with casualties from the Northwestern military bases. The ship’s Marine companies were on the ground assisting with disaster relief.

Cain Salvador strapped a wounded man onto a backboard for evac to Merrimack’s hospital. He brushed dirty sweat off the top of his lip with the dust-covered back of his wrist. Gave himself a mud mustache.

“I need to quickly go to my office,” the man protested weakly, scarcely able to move. “I was supposed to soon be in a meeting.”

“Take it easy, sir,” said Cain. “I’m sure your meeting was canceled.”

“Where am I to now be taken?”

“Merrimack, sir. Just relax.”

The man did seem to relax.

“I’ve got this one,” said Cole Darby, taking over for Cain. Darb strapped the man down tight and hailed Merrimack. He asked for the Intelligence officer instead of the hospital.

“Colonel Z? This is Flight Sergeant Cole Darby down on the planet. I think I have a Roman here.”

The man, immobile on the backboard, rolled his now enormous eyes toward Darb. Darb crouched next to the man, gave him a reassuring pat on the restraints as he spoke into his com, “What do you want me to do with him?”

Wolfhound sat on a rubble hillock and pumped out drinking water as fast as she could make it.

“I feel like a milk cow,” said Captain Carmel standing in the shade of her beached ship as John Farragut hiked up the rise, stepping over the hoses running out from Wolfhound.

The water synthesizing system on board the wolf-hunter class ship was overkill for servicing a single midsized ship. It had been designed for a situation just like this.

Actually the wolfhunter was designed to fight her way into a site under siege and provide drinking water to the population.

Captain Farragut joined Captain Carmel in the shade. They surveyed the scene around the waterfront. Saw nothing not wrecked, broken open, upended. Lost count of the sources of belching black smoke. Merrimack’s dogs were down here, searching the collapsed buildings for trapped survivors.

The sky up high was merciless blue.

Farragut spoke in a very odd voice, not quite believing what he was telling her, “Calli, you’re wanted for the assassination of Caesar Magnus. They have a cross ready at the base of the Capitoline for your execution.”

Calli absorbed this news, then said, “I don’t rate a sword?”

Roman honestiores had to be executed by the sword.

“Don’t be flippant, Cal.”

She nodded. “I’ve been warned about that. Can’t seem to help myself.” The news was so utterly absurd. She asked, “I killed Magnus?”

John Farragut nodded. “You and your lover, Gaius.”

“I begin to like this story.”

“Cal.”

“You know I can’t speak a man’s name without rumors flying.”

“According to rumor, you and Gaius have been flying.”

“Even now that I’ve lost my looks?” She ruffled all her cowlicks. Concrete dust fell to her shoulders.

The Roman public was ferociously in love with the news story. They loved Calli’s new face—especially the way the Roman media retouched the shadows to make her look haggish. They relished the sight of a proud American beauty brought low. It validated their belief that the Americans had been behind Caesar’s assassination. They knew it all along.

“Sampson Reed is suggesting they hold a trial in The Hague,” said Farragut. “Get it cleared in the international arena.”

“I am not going to kangaroo court.”

“I don’t think The Hague hops.”

“I am not going to court,” said Calli. “It’d be a waste of time and prove nothing. Rome will say America bought off The Hague when I’m exonerated. If Rome can’t already see this is a pile of squid muffins, no trial will make it more obvious. They know the United States had no motive to kill Magnus. Magnus surrendered to us and submitted to the Subjugation. We liked Magnus. We had nothing to gain by his death.”

“But you did.”

“I did?”

Farragut pulled up a headline posted in the American media directly after Magnus’ assassination: EMPRESS CALLI.

She had acquired that nickname because beautiful Calli had attended the event (which was not meant to be an assassination) on the arm of Romulus.

“So why am I not empress?”

“Romulus turned you down, you presumptuous slut. Their words.”

“They called me a slut?”

“A presumptuous slut.”

“Oh, when a Roman calls you a slut, you’ve gotta be the whore of Babylon. Can someone explain to Reed this is an obvious farce?”

“Reed likes the idea of international cooperation. Says innocence can breathe in the open air.”

“My Commander in Chief is a dwit. Does he realize that the person who can testify to my whereabouts on Palatine before the assassination was Romulus? Honest to God, John, if I could get a hold of Augustus I’d tell him to pick me up right now.”

“That would look sublime.”

“It is sublime! In that corner I’ve got a sociopath hailed as Caesar and in my corner I’ve got a Commander in Chief with the IQ of birdseed.”

A miniature shepherd dog, head hanging, tongue hanging, coat gray with dust, padded up to the captains and flopped down on the tops of Farragut’s boots, panting. Farragut looked to Calli. “Know where I can get some water?”

———

“Darb’s getting a bong!” Flight Leader Ranza Espinoza announced. Her bright grin showed the gap between her front teeth.

“No bullsh?”The more massive Cain bumped into Darb with his shoulder, making him stagger. “What for?”

“Our Darb bagged a Roman spy trying to sneak on board Merrimack as a med-evac case,” said Ranza. “So he’s getting a cute little piece of hardware to hang on his dress jacket.”

Kerry Blue crouched on a cinder block to stretch her back muscles. She smiled up. “How’d you manage that. Darb?”

“The guy was splitting infinitives.”

“Everyone does that,” said Carly, surprised she remembered what an infinitive was.

“I don’t even know what that means,” said Cain. “It’s something impossible to do in Latin,” said Darb.

“Or Spanish. It used to be improper English to split ‘em but that rule got flushed because the only reason it was ever improper to split an infinitive in English was because you can’t do it in Latin. Well, English isn’t Latin and this isn’t the Roman Empire, so everyone splits infinitives now. Well, this guy, to absolutely prove that he was not a native Latin speaker, used an infinitive in every sentence so he could proceed to then split the hell out of every one no matter how bad he had to completely mangle the language to always do it.”

“Darb, I’m glad you understood what you just said.”

“You can kiss my bong, Dak.”

———

“That is not Callista.”

Numa Pompeii watched the recording in the cheerless underground chamber of Imperial Intelligence Headquarters. Twice.

It was not just the features and the voice, which anyone could alter, but the way the woman moved, the nuances other voice, the words she chose. There was nothing of Calli Carmel in that woman who pushed poison ink cartridges at Julius Urbicus.

Numa Pompeii saw that Imperial Intelligence already knew that. They were just fishing for corroboration of Claudia’s story where they thought they could get it.

Imperial Intelligence had closed ranks around their leader. The woman in the video must not be Claudia. That was the fact. Now they needed to find or create proof.

One of the agentes prompted, “Remember this is a disguise, Triumphalis. You need to look through the surface.”

“I would know Callista anywhere,” said Numa. “And that is not she.”

“You don’t suppose the recording could have been tampered with?” another suggested. “Suppose whatever you like,” said Numa, who could read a battleground. “I am not an expert in data tampering.”

Romulus had his curiosi trying to make Numa confirm his sister’s wild story, even when it was obvious that the person in the recording was Claudia. It was every inch, every gesture, every word Claudia. It was the soulless soul of Claudia. And it was the quick, cagey, psychotic mind of Claudia to claim it was Calli instead. Just like her brother.

It was Claudia. But Numa was not going to champion the truth when it could get him stabbed in the night. The curiosi did not intimidate Numa Pompeii. But Numa was smart enough to be wary.

He was not trusted, Numa knew that. He was not let in on Caesar’s strategy in the war—if Romulus even had a strategy.

The strikes on the Washington coast had been Rome’s first substantive hit on the United States in this war. And it brought out all the negative effects of battle on Earth. The United States shared an atmosphere with a lot of neutral nations Rome did not want entering the conflict on the wrong side. Romulus pushed his limit on that one.

Romulus had demanded the U.S. surrender, but that was bluff and posture. If serious, it was unrealistic at best. Romulus hadn’t the background in either statesmanship or warfare to be Caesar, and it was beginning to show.

It would catch up with him sooner or later. Numa needed to survive until later.

He told the curiosi, “If the recording has been altered, then that could be anyone.”

“Calli Carmel?” they pressed.

“If you need it to be.”

———

“Why did the little girl need to die?”

Claudia pouted, vexed. “Why are you asking me?”

“It was a needless death,” said Romulus. “And it has turned out unfortunate.”

“Who knew the old sod had a sleeper message? I took care of it, did I not? It was an accident anyway.”

“Was it?”

“Of course.”

———

A camera shoved its way in front of Calli Carmel’s face, her new face streaked with mud, dust, and sweat. Calli was ready to answer questions about her ship’s water synthesizing system and the relief effort here in Seattle, but the reporter asked Calli, inter nos, if that figure talking to Caesar’s assassin in the assassin’s secret recording wasn’t really Calli after all.

Calli glared into the camera, looking cross. “Yes, that was I. I was in Rome as guest of Romulus. I was on his arm at his father’s assassination. Romulus had charge of my comings and goings, and you know I could not have got my face changed or gone to Urbicus’ house without Romulus providing access. I delivered the poison pens to Urbicus to force him to kill Magnus. Romulus promised I would be empress if I helped him. But he ballasted me after he was done with me. I destroyed my looks in a fit of self-hatred.” She presented her new face to the cameras. “I have found Jesus now. I forgive Romulus for using me. But for his arranging his father’s murder, that is between Romulus and our Lord Jesus Christ.”

The recording went straight to broadcast through the civilized part of the galaxy. The entire crew of Merrimack gawked at the image of their former XO confessing to Magnus’ assassination.

It was playing on the monitors of the command deck.

“She didn’t say that!” Hamster cried, on the verge of laughter.

“Oh, I bet she did.” Farragut said, hiding an amazed smile behind his hand, his eyebrows lifted so high they were stuck somewhere in the overhead.

He had never heard a higher, more suspiciously scented pile of moon cheese in his life. Yet the media were picking it over as if it were real news.

Calli had already learned that the best way to fight lies was not always with the truth. No matter what she said in answer to that question, no one was ready to believe her. So she fed them a bigger, fatter, juicier, sizzling lie. Let the public choose between Romulus’ sister forcing the assassin’s hand or Romulus’ lover doing it with help from Romulus. Romulus came out smelling either way.

Gypsy shook her head at the monitors. Murmured, “Oh, Cal, honey, you spent too much time in Rome.”

Doctor Weng and Doctor Sidowski had bad news for Captain Farragut.

“Toto Two has been activated,” said Weng.

“Toto ... ?” Farragut started, hadn’t located the brain ceil that housed the meaning of that name yet.

“Two,” said Ski.

“Telecore!” Farragut had it now. “The decoys.” Merrimack had left two sets of decoys behind in the Deep End to draw the gorgons of Telecore away from human settlements.

“The gorgons acquired escape velocity—” said Weng.

“—and FTL capability,” said Ski.

“So fast!” It had taken the new Hive only months to discover they could survive in vacuum and attain faster than light speed travel. Farragut was dismayed. He had hoped for more time—something measured in decades.

“Like ducks to water,” said Weng.

“Woke up Toto Two,” said Ski.

“Are the gorgons at least following the bait?”

“Yes, sir.”

That was a break. “Are they gaining on Toto Two?”

“Yes, sir,” said Weng.

“At the proper speed, sir,” said Ski.

“Should give us more time, sir.” Weng.

“We hope, sir.” Ski.

“Thank you, gentlemen.”

“Captain?”

“Yes, Doctor Sidowski?”

Ski, with a self-conscious glance down at his own shuffling feet: “Is Captain Carmel seeing anyone?”

The dialogs. VI.

JMdeC: I see patterns. I can tell you a snowflake under normal circumstances will have six symmetrical arms. I can tell you a tiger will have stripes. Can you do better than that?

A: I can do better if you tell me the temperature and the species of the tiger. I can do even better if you tell me the air pressure and show me all the tiger’s ancestors.

JMdeC: So chaos comes into consideration with how fine you split the hair.

A: All depends on how fine you need the hair.

JMdeC: If you know all the variables, you can predict the result.

A: Yes.

JMdeC: Of course my if statement there is clearly an impossibility so even a patterner can forget about one hundred percent accurate predictions.

A: [nodding] Only uncertainty is certain.

20

BEFORE DAWN IN ROMA NOVA on the planet Palatine the city was cloaked in deep gray.

The stars were fading. The companion star of the Wolf was still visible, bright as a big planet, twinkling. Two of the planet’s six insignificant moons hung low over the western hills.

The air scarcely stirred. From the Palace on the Capitoline Hill the river appeared as a black glassy ribbon winding underneath the graceful arches of the viaducts between the Forum and the Coliseum. Birds sounded a few notes from the tiled rooftops. Silhouettes of the Kwindaqqin spires soared into the soft darkness, their gaudy colors yet to appear.

Caesar had not slept. Dressed in black, he walked the loggia like a brooding Hamlet.

For over a week Romulus had been fighting the ghost of the assassin. Romulus told his people that the assassin’s recording was a CIA fiction. The woman wasn’t Calli. Neither was it Claudia. It was a fabrication. The scene never happened.

Mist hung over the river.

Sirens woke up in an eerie wail.

Caesar met his guards bursting into his chamber, asked, gesturing at the noise, “Is that real?” The first guardsman gave a breathless nod. “Yes, Caesar. U.S. space fleet. Invasion strength. One hour out.”

A second guard added, “They’re approaching from the galactic southeast, under heavy distortion.” Romulus turned to look through the archway at the lightening sky as if there would be something to see. On the ground, across the cityscape, lights appeared in many windows. “I thought the Yanks were busy with their earthquakes,” said Caesar. “The American military role in the rescue effort was somewhat overstated.”

“Somewhat?” said Romulus. Glanced toward the sky. “Invasion strength?”

All week long the American media had been showing images of their space battleships in orbit around Earth, their flags at half staff for President Johnson’s funeral— images of ships which must have left the Solar system a week ago because they were almost here.

“What things do you wish moved to your bunker, Caesar?” an attendant asked.

Romulus started to answer. Froze.

They’re coming for me.

This full-scale U.S. invasion was revenge for their President Johnson.

Possibly they knew the location of Caesar’s bunker.

“I want to be with my people,” Romulus declared suddenly, and he went down into the mass City shelter with the civilians.

The first wave appeared, winking into real space as the ships dropped down from FTL speed. Between the false plots and the double appearances, the American ships numbered somewhere between a thousand and eight thousand.

The fleet made a horrific image.

———

“I’m glad we’re the invaders,” said Ian Markham at Tactical. “I wouldn’t want to see us coming.”

Still the fleet was not an overwhelming force on a planetary scale. The terror would be in the wondering if the Americans had come to drop nukes.

Tactical scanned for antimatter in the planetary system in case Rome had salted the approach. Ian Markham pronounced the path clear. Roman sentinels orbiting Palatine opened fiery eyes. Missiles streaked out to meet the invaders.

U.S. beam fire detonated the missiles before they could reach their targets. The fleet advanced through clouds of debris.

Ships of the Roman home guard turned out to form a feeble blockade. It was nearly impossible to block ships in space. All the defenders were outflanked, leaving the Roman ships to chase the Americans toward the planet.

The fleet’s biggest ships descended, the ones that did not care what hit them. Merrimack, Monitor. The space battleships were nearly invincible when locked inside a seamless distortion field.

Roman destroyers opened fire on Merrimack and Monitor, while other Americans ships fired on the destroyers.

The big ships ignored them. Descending.

Inside the atmosphere, the barrage from space ceased.

Roman beam fire could too easily glance off an American distortion field and stab into a civilian population. Exploding warheads could radiate the atmosphere. And a successful shot on any one of Merrimack and Monitor’s combined twelve engines would unleash an apocalyptic amount of antimatter into the air.

The invaders, unconcerned with littering the landscape, lobbed shots on enemy spaceports below them. Nothing penetrated a Roman base’s stout energy dome, but the fire kept anything inside there locked in.

Merrimack proceeded to a northern continent. The mammoth spearhead shape descended over thinly populated ground, sending bulky pad-footed animals running. Flying snakes sprang and glided away in glittery flocks. The battleship sank down gently over an open field, so low the branching antler weed scratched at the force field round Merrimack’s bottom sail.

“Set the roaches free,” Commander Gypsy Dent ordered. Systems created a breach in the ship’s lower force field. Container hatches opened to drop thousands of small mechs—reconnaissance robots—that skittered through the alien weeds toward a Roman spaceport. The mechs were small and moved at a pace which made them indistinguishable from resident insectoid life, and would allow them to penetrate the same kind of shields that allowed personnel to walk through. The official designation was Automated Recon Mech, ARM, and they looked more like beetles, but no one loved them and they were difficult to crush, so they were better known as roaches.

As Merrimack rose, robotic air-to-air gunships launched from the spaceport on the horizon. Waiting for that, Merrimack punched the base through its launch windows with beam fire. Black pillars of smoke spouted from the dome.

Merrimack moved away from the drop site, her scanners looking back to see if anything else came out to stomp on their roaches, which had already dispersed themselves over ten acres.

“Got away with that one,” Cole Darby remarked, waiting in the crowded Lander for the Marines’ turn.

“The first one is free,” said Ranza.

The roaches had been a trial balloon, testing the resistance to objects on the ground. Any reconnaissance the ARMs gathered would be extra.

“Coulda sent us down on that drop,” said Cain, wistful.

“You thought this was a cruise ship, sweet baby?” said Darb.

Merrimack brushed down again, a thousand miles away from the first drop site. Aircraft met her approach this time. Merrimack fired small projectiles at them. The unmanned Roman airplanes went down easily, plowing up the Roman ground.

“Drop horses,” Gypsy Dent ordered.

Merrimack dropped vehicles, small two- or three-man hovercraft. Silver Horses they were called, after some old time cowboy hero who would whistle and his horse would come. The Silver Horses scattered as Merrimack rose into the air.

More Roman aircraft came over the horizon. Left smoking trails going down.

Still nothing was shooting down at Mack from orbit.

“It’s true,” Ian Markham remarked, looking up from his tactical readouts to see the blue sky through a clearport. “Rome is scant on the inward pointing weapons.”

And it made sense. Palatine was one nation. Ground to ground shots were not in the Romans’ home game playbook. They hadn’t had home game since their war of independence a century and a half ago.

And the orbital platforms which Rome built for making space-to-ground assaults were all in Earth’s Solar system right now.

“Enemy aircraft sighted.”

“Erase the birds,” said Gypsy. “Fire at will.”

When the air was clear again of intact Roman craft, Merrimack moved to another drop zone a scant thirty miles from the drop site of the Silver Horses. The space battleship bent low to ground. Her lower sail divided a field of feathery red grasses as tall as trees.

“Drop the dogs,” said Gypsy.

This time Merrimack put troops on the ground—seven hundred and twenty Fleet Marines—in between the clumps of soaring red plumes. Roaches skittered out at their feet in all directions.

———

“Hang onto your goolies, boys,” said Cain, moving out.

“Kerry Blue, you can hang onto mine.”

“Shut up, Dak.”

Ranza drew her weapon at the soft hiss of something coming in fast through the red plumage. Almost shot her Silver Horse. Merrimack rose away, moved across the continent, clearing the sky of everything in it. She touched sail to drop roaches on a communications tower.

Moved off to a military installation where Roman Legions were stationed. Robot aircraft rose in black clouds around the base. Came down in black hailstorms.

A ring of missile emplacements guarded the site outside the installation’s force field perimenter, so the missile launchers could fire without breaching the base’s shield. Merrimack punched out all the outboard missile launchers, then pounded at the base itself with a few experimental energy blasts. The base was well shielded even at ground level, and nothing got inside.

Tactical took a sounding of the surrounding ground.

Got the plot of the underground cargo tunnels by which equipment was transported into the base. Merrimack dropped bombs into the ground over the top of the tunnels until several sections caved in.

Taking a cue from the Roman attackers at Washington, Merrimack shot beams underneath the Roman installation to loosen the ground. Shook the shielded emplacement like a snow globe. Didn’t think the LEN would be objecting this time.

Merrimack moved on to a Roman training camp. Found it not shielded and not currently occupied. Merrimack left it a crater.

Tactical back-traced the underground tunnels to a central transfer station. Drilled a hole with beam fire to where several tunnels converged. Opened up with the hydrogen hose down the hole.

The space battleship continued her cross continent rampage, hitting every power plant she saw, punched solar collectors and dams. Shot torpedoes into rivers to change their courses. Roared out to sea to mow down wind turbines.

“We have someone’s attention, Captain.”

“About time.” Captain Farragut took the alert in stride. “How many?”

“It’s Gladiator.”

“That’s enough. Fire on Gladiator. Continuous fire. And take us back to the party on the roof.”

Merrimack fired up at Gladiator. The beams glanced off Gladiator’s force field in all directions. That was to remind Numa that he did not want to get into a brawl down here.

And Farrgut did not want Numa sniffing around for Merrimack’s dogs. “Keep firing,” said Farragut. “I don’t want a nanosecond to go by that something’s not hitting Gladiator.”

“Aye, sir. With respect, sir, what can he do?”

“He can smother us.”

Gypsy clarified, “He could hook us in his force field.”

“But then if we die, he dies,” said Targeting.

“If that’s what Caesar told him to do, that’s what he’ll do—and Romulus will consider it a better-than-even trade.”

Merrimack ascended into the darkness of space.

“Gladiator is moving out of range,” Targeting reported. “Far side of the planet, still in atmo.”

“Hail Monitor” Farragut ordered the com tech. And when Mr. Hicks had Monitor on the com, Farragut took up the caller: “Martin, you still down there?”

“That I am, John,” Captain Martin Washington of the Monitor replied. “Numa’s headed your way. I think he means to snuff you in a suicide cocoon.”

“Sounds uncomfortable. Are you on the roof?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Coming up. Thanks for the heads.”

The battle in the vacuum was largely around Palatine’s main power stations. No world ever liked to keep antimatter in atmosphere. The matter-antimatter power plants in orbit fed energy to the planet surface by beam.

Unlike the power plants orbiting Earth, none of the power plants here served neutral nations. Many American energy companies served other countries, and many American energy companies were partly or wholly owned by neutral nations. Rome had not been able to turn out the lights in America. Palatine’s power stations were all fair game.

The energy stations were all well shielded, but the attacking ships didn’t need to destroy them. They need only punt them out of orbit to render them useless.

Rio Grande was embroiled in a slug fest with Trajan, who was putting up a fanatical defense of a power plant. Monitor, rising out of the atmosphere, added a punch at Trajan with a planet killer.

Trajan choked. Her force field wavered, blinked out.

Rio took the power plant for a ride.

Admiral Burk directed another ship, the cruiser Edmonton, which hadn’t yet deployed its Marines, to board Trajan.

Ian Markham at Tactical reported: “Something odd happening out there.”

“Something more specific, please,” said Commander Gypsy Dent, irritated. “There’s a plot out there drawing a lot of Roman fire, and it’s not one of ours.”

“Augustus,” said Farragut just before Tactical cried, “It’s a Striker!”

“Whose side is he on?” said Gypsy.

“Not ours,” said Captain Farragut.

The Striker was a slippery target, evading or destroying any shot directed toward it, U.S. or Roman. A beam shot from the Striker crippled the U.S. cruiser Guadalajara.

Roman ships converged to bang away at the wounded ship.

“Fire at the jackals!” Farragut ordered.

But the Roman ships opened the cruiser up to vacuum.

Monitor slung a hook out to surround Guadalajara, stretching her own force field fearfully thin, and hurtled up to FTL, vanishing from the battlefield.

No one tried to pursue.

Chief Engineer Kit Kittering, watching the Striker on the monitors, observed out loud, “That old Striker doesn’t have any solid ordnance.” Just as the Striker sent a cluster of pencil missiles up the gunports of the U.S. Landing Command Ship Chimney Rock.

“Yes, he does.”

Chimney Rock’s force field flickered out, leaving her naked in space. A single beam sliced her in two. Ships from both sides moved in to save/destroy what was left.

When Augustus had taken the old Striker from Merrimack months ago, its magazines were empty. Augustus had found someplace to reload since then.

The Striker started down into the atmosphere. Farragut immediately barked, “Target the Striker!” He could not let Augustus down there to pick off his ground troops.

“Lost him,” said Tactical.

“How can you lose him in the atmosphere?” Gypsy’s voice came out brittle, as if about to dismiss Markham from the deck.

Targeting came to Tactical’s rescue, “Striker has submerged into the ocean off the coast of Roma Nova. We’re just not very good underwater, sir.”

Gypsy looked to Captain Farragut, astonished. As if only John Farragut could know what Augustus was doing under the sea. Farragut shook his head. “We are not following that cobra into its hole.”

“We should find him and hit him while he’s underwater,” said Kit. “That Striker’s not built for undersea ops.”

“Neither are our weapons,” said Farragut, but not to give up, he ordered, “Send down the V-jocks. Let them take their shot.”

The remote fighter craft launched. The V-jock named Wraith, safe in his compartment within Merrimack, declared that his remotes would win the war.

A sudden blast like a small nova filled the viewports. A concussion rocked the ship. Someone’s antimatter had escaped containment. “Jesus Christmas!”

And another nova immediately after the first.

“Ours?” Farragut demanded.

Tactical responded, “No and yes. Trajan did not want to be boarded.”

“Norris,” Farragut whispered like a prayer. The other nova would have been Edmonton. Captain Norris of the Edmonton had been charged with taking Trajan.

Mr. Hicks on the com reported that Monitor had returned to the battle zone. Monitor had with her the survivors from Guadalajara. There were very few. Captain Washington communicated Guadalajara’s, FTL vector to other ships in the fleet. Just in case Monitor did not survive the battle, someone else would know where to collect the dead later. The wreck of the Guadalajara would not just vanish into history like the Roman Sulla.

Wraith sent his report from the remote control chamber. The remotes had got as far as the water. They submerged where the Striker had gone in, then lost contact. Wraith could not even say what hit them.

Merrimack’s force field lit up with a boom and shudder.

“Shit!” That might have been anyone.

“Striker,” said Tactical. Had not seen him coming. “On the Sixes.”

“The number of the beast,” said Systems.

The Helm was jinking. Another shot landed. The distortion field dispelled most of the shock. The deck still started into a roll, abruptly stopped and did not settle back as the inertial system stabilized.

“He’s after Merrimack now!” said Tactical. Gypsy looked to Farragut, “Does this mean Romulus is dead?”

Farragut shook his head, couldn’t tell. He was taking a message from Admiral Burk: “The Striker is your responsibility, Merrimack. Take it out.”

Farragut heard the subtext in the admiral’s voice: Don’t let the patterner go this time.

Helm was steering a wild random course. And, knowing that his own randomness had a pattern to it, switched hands.

Tactical advised, “I’m counting at least six Roman ships firing on the Striker.”

“Is the Striker returning fire?”

“No, sir. We’re his only target.”

The Helm had run out of hands, so Farragut took a turn driving the boat in a weird scribble path as he spoke, “The only certain shot we have will be up the Striker’s barrel. We need to jam a shot up his nose. Here, take this.”

He gave the helm to Kit. She bobbled and wobbled. “You’re going to jam up a patterner?”

Gypsy took a hand at the helm. Graceful lines with sudden turns. “You know he’s going to do the same thing— jam something up one of our barrels. And Augustus has actually done it before.”

“I remember,” Farragut assured her. “It’s not his Striker. It’s sixty years old and built for someone else. Systems, clam us up!”

The ship’s gun barrels reeled in. Klaus Nordsen at Systems took the ship’s force field to adamant. Merrimack was almost safe, but quite useless in this mode. Roman ships swarmed around the Striker like sharks to blood in the water. Captain Farragut picked up the caller, told the com tech, “Put me on the old Attack Group code.”

“Aye, sir. You’re set to resonate, sir.”

Farragut opened the com and spoke: “Augustus. Looks like a one-sided friendship out there.” He did not identify himself. Did not need to. “Why do your friends want you that dead?”

The familiar laconic voice on the com returned: “There’s money in it.”

Romulus had put a bounty on the patterner’s head.

In space there is no up and down, but the Striker’s orientation in space was the same as Mack’s, as if the two were standing on the same floor facing each other.

With the com on mute, Farragut spoke aside to Gypsy, “Get a line up his cannon barrel When you’ve got it, make a window and take him out. Make it happen.” And on the com, Farragut started up a chat, “Augustus, you’re fighting for an evil government that wants you dead. Do you see anything wrong with that?”

“Got a line up my barrel yet?”

Farragut’s startled inhalation through his nose was probably audible over the com. Augustus knew what Farragut was doing.

“You couldn’t dissemble your way to a surprise birthday party, John Farragut.” The Striker suddenly jinked wildly, and darted away from the planet.

“Stay with him!” Farragut ordered.

The Striker led Merrimack on a chase that took them around Palatine’s outermost moon. It was a small moon that could sit inside the Gulf of Mexico. Sunlight reflected bright off its face.

Merrimack circled once around. “Where is he?”

“He’s on the far side,” said Tactical. “Mirroring us. Maintaining distance.”

They circled. Merrimack came round to the dark side of the moon. “Stop all progress.”

“Stopping, aye.”

The ship stood still, waiting for Augustus to come around.

He didn’t.

“Where is he?”

“Opposite us.”

Tactical showed no incoming ordnance curving round the moon. No tags. Augustus was waiting too.

“Ready all torpedoes, ready all forward beams, and stand by to open our field and fire everything we’ve got.”

“Torpedoes ready, aye. Beam cannon ready, aye. Standing by, aye.”

The patterner had already destroyed a U.S. cruiser and a U.S. command craft and a hail of Roman missiles. Patterners did not miss.

“Stand by to clear the moon. At my command, take the Mack straight up, open the gunports and hit him straight on.”

Gypsy would not question orders. She arranged all stations to readiness for everything to happen at the captain’s single command.

“Ready, aye. Standing by, aye.”

Gypsy stood aside, hands clasped behind her back, at ease.

John Farragut was a straight shooter.

Augustus knew that.

Gypsy could only obey. Mentally she said good-bye to her husband. Her sons. She and the proud ship were about to die in this showdown.

Captain John Farragut and Augustus out in the street, guns ready, waiting for one to say Draw.

“Fire.”

PART THREE

The Janus Gate

21

BRIGHTNESS FILLED ALL PORTS, overloaded all the monitors, bright as if plunging into the sun, with a thunderclap and roar, shudder, and crackling hiss. Saw it. Heard it. Which meant, We’re still here! A shout from Targeting: “Got him!” Specialists jumped to their feet at their stations.

“Yeah!”

Brightness dying away, the main monitor showed the Striker, spinning in space, its force field flickering. Commander Gypsy Dent shouted orders over the noise. “Targeting! Tag the Striker!”

Dead. Augustus had to be dead. But the U.S. could not let the Striker or the contents of Augustus’ data bank fall into Roman hands.

“Fire Control! Stand by to fire torpedo on the Striker!” Gladiator’s great hulk moved in between Merrimack and the Striker. Targeting: “Tags—No good! I—I’ve tagged Gladiator.”

“Fire!” said Gypsy, not to leave money on the table.

“Fire on Gladiator\ Targeting. Get a tag on that Striker!” Lights of Merrimack’s torpedo detonations flared against Gladiator to no effect other than the lights. Targeting reported, “I have tags on Gladiator again. Gladiator has the Striker inside a hook.” The Romans wanted Augustus’ machine memory. Gypsy would not give it to them.

“Fire on Gladiator. Continuous fire.”

From somewhere in the melee around the planet a Roman was spitting out killer bots like hornets from a nest, and they were swarming here to the outer moon. Merrimack threw off a wall of energy to detonate a mass of them short of the ship.

“Targeting. Get a firing solution on the thinnest part of Gladiator’s hook.”

“Targeting, aye. Solution acquired, aye.”

“Fire Control. Fire all beams.”

“Firing, aye.”

The tendril of energy that connected Gladiator to the captive Striker lost integrity.

“Hook the Striker!”

But too quickly, a flight of Roman fighters had swarmed in, surrounded the Striker in a tight box formation, and locked their force fields together into a solid shell. The tortoise was an old Roman tactic.

Captain Farragut was peripherally aware of the rest of the battle around the planet, of a fireball in Palatine’s atmosphere. Someone had slid into the planet’s gravity well. Romans were responding. It was their planet. They could not let any ship’s antimatter containment fail in their atmosphere.

Farragut said, “I want an ID on that ship. Friend or foe?” A Roman salvage craft was rising from the ground to meet the falling wreck.

“Foe,” said Tactical. “Roman.”

Captain Farragut had Mr. Hicks open a tight beam communication link with Captain Dallas McDaniels of Rio Grande. “Need a favor, compadre.”

“Name it, John, old son.”

“Hook the tortoise. Keep a drag on it. I don’t want the lupes escaping to FTL with the Striker.”

Immediately an energy hook shot out from Rio Grande and lassoed the Roman tortoise formation. It was an energy loop instead of the sort of hook that takes the target object within the ship’s force field. Not as secure a hold, but a lot safer in case the target decided to blow itself up.

The tortoise dragged Rio Grande like an anchor.

“Done,” said Captain McDaniels. “What do you want me to do with this slow tortoise now?”

“Try to angle him away from anyone friendly. Keep a hold on him, until I tell you, then drop him and run for your life.”

“John, old son, do you mean to tell me you’re about to throw that dead Roman ship down there at me?”

There was an imminent matter/antimatter explosion coming up from the planet Palatine in the body of the crippled Roman ship.

“Yes, sir.”

“Send it,” said Captain McDaniels.

Captain Farragut looked to Commander Dent. “Got that?”

“Aye, aye, sir.” Gypsy quickly issued orders to the various stations to set up the delivery of the ship-bomb to the target Roman tortoise.

The actions and calculations, based on ever shifting input, would be too complex and come in too fast for voice commands to execute the firing sequence. The decision algorithms and resultant action triggers were loaded into the fire control program.

Merrimack moved in close to the planet as the Roman salvage craft seized the falling spaceship and swung it spaceward at better than escape velocity.

The wreck came flying back into vacuum. Merrimack hit the Roman wreck with a repulsive force to redirect it toward the Striker. Rio dropped its hold on the Roman tortoise and sprinted away.

The tortoise, abruptly free of Rio’s drag, hurtled away in the opposite direction—on an intercept course with the wreck which was going rapidly critical.

The redirection pulse had been enough to shake the last coherence from the antimatter containment system of the ruined craft. Antimatter met matter short of interception with the tortoise. Detonated.

“Miss!”Tactical cried.

“Close enough,” said Targeting.

The pure white nova expanded and kept traveling into the assembled ships of the Roman tortoise. The blast shook the box formation of Roman fighters. Their combined force field wavered. “Fire on the tortoise!” Gypsy ordered, and missiles arrowed into the unstable formation.

The tortoise shell broke apart. The Roman fighter ships staggered, naked to the vacuum. Beams from Rio Grande picked them off.

“Lasso Striker!” Farragut ordered. He did not want to bring the Striker inside Merrimack’s own protective field in a hook. There was no telling what the tug-of-war over the Striker’s carcass had done to its own magnetic containment fields. Farragut would not risk Merrimack swallowing an antimatter blast from the Striker.

“Got him!” Engineering reported. “Oh, hell, Numa’s going to sit on us,” said Farragut. “Helm, take us somewhere.”

The Roman Legion carrier Horatius moved in to cut across the hook, but Helm changed course, avoiding the cross.

“Can we go FTL and still hold a lasso hook?” Farragut asked anyone who might have an answer. “Chances are against it,” Kit Kittering replied. “We’re more likely to drop the Striker.”

“We don’t dare reel him in, and Rome’s not fixin’ to let us keep him,” said Farragut. He made the decision he had been avoiding. “Scuttle the Striker.”

Gypsy immediately ordered, “Tag the Striker.”

“Tagging Striker, aye. Striker tagged, aye.”

“Launch torpedo.”

“Launching torpedo, aye.”

The torpedo screeched out from its tube below decks—detonated. No pronouncement came from Tactical. Just a gasp.

“Hit?” Gypsy inquired.

“No!” Tactical cried, just now making sense of his readings. “Gladiator intercepted the torpedo! He’s got a hook on the Striker. A whole hook.”

“Hook over hook,” Farragut ordered.

Merrimack’s energy hook clapped over the top of Gladiator’s, like a fist over a fist, and pulled. “Let’s arm wrestle.”

Merrimack’s hook was not solid. The secondary grip kept threatening to slip.

“Oh, for Jesus.” Farragut got on the fleet com: “Any ship! Any ship. This is Merrimack. Gladiator is stretched! Hit him!”

Admiral Burk returned on the com, “Not your fleet, Captain Farragut.”

Farragut leaned straight-armed over the com. Turned his head, appalled and amazed. Met Gypsy’s brown eyes. She spoke low, “Missing Calli, sir?”

He nodded. “Real bad.” If Cal were here, she wouldn’t need asking to kick Numa around. But Rio was here. Captain Dallas McDaniels slammed a planet killer up Gladiator’s stern. Which should have done something but didn’t. Numa had been braced for the blow. Beam bursts flashing on Mack’s force field were from the Legion carrier Horatius.

Gladiator got a firm hold on the Striker, yanked.

“Lost hook!”

Targeting spoke, “Sure hope Augustus has that Striker on self-destruct mode, because there he goes.” The Striker, with whatever was left of Augustus, disappeared inside Gladiator’s dark maw. Admiral Burk sounded the order for the fleet to retreat to FTL.

22

U.S. SPACECRAFT HAD VANISHED from the Lambda Coronae Australis solar system. The lights were on in the capital city of Roma Nova. The skies were clear, the city untouched.

“Did our Legions crush their ground troops?” Caesar Romulus asked, coming up from the city bunker with a throng of people after him. He wore a crown of bright paper loops on his dark curls. The children of Roma Nova had taken to decorating him down in the shelter.

“There were no enemy ground troops, Caesar,” a military adviser informed him. “No one can win a war without ground troops,” said Caesar, incredulous. “They cannot put troops down without air-space superiority and they don’t have it.”

“The United States has been denied!” Romulus pronounced to the delighted throng around him. They escorted him from the city bunker to the palace.

Inside the palace, one of Caesar’s most devoted attendants appeared distraught. The older man looked up and beheld Romulus as if beholding great Caesar’s ghost.

“Caesar!” Atticus cried in shock and relief. “I looked inside your bunker! I feared—” His hands shook in the presence of a miracle. As if Romulus had returned from the dead. The man’s knees buckled under him, as he was crushed with relief, in tears and groveling for joy.

Adoration was good, but this was embarrassing and overdone.

Roma Nova had not been hit, This sort of shock at Caesar’s survival was a bit theatrical. Romulus pushed Atticus away with his foot. “I’m fine. Get up.”

“I saw your bunker—”

“I wasn’t there,” Caesar said, annoyed. “I wanted to be with my people.”

Romulus shed his fawning servant at the door to his informal business office. An Intelligence officer waited there. A more seemly sort of man, this one saluted, fist to chest. “Caesar.”

Romulus did not greet him. Couldn’t remember his name. “Where is Augustus?” Caesar demanded.

“Dead, Caesar. Inside the Striker.”

“Where is the Striker?”

“In our possession.”

Romulus inhaled, drinking in the sweet bitterness of the moment. “So then, do you have something for me?” Romulus had demanded Augustus’ head on a platter. “In quarantine, Caesar. There is a lot of nanoactivity in the Striker. The men are being cautious. I understand they will be making up a plate for you when it’s safe.”

“Wise.” Caesar controlled his impatience. “I thank you.”

He turned a control to open the windows.

Romulus’ satisfaction was colored by voices of people in the street. They were not calling Romulus. They were calling Numa Pompeii. Romulus crossed to a tall window, pulled back the scarlet curtain. Pompeii colors were out in force—bronze and steel -through the streets.

Numa Pompeii was the hero of the hour. Numa Pompeii had defeated the renegade patterner. Numa Pompeii had battled back Merrimack and set the U.S. fleet to rout.

“Come with me,” Caesar bade the Intelligence officer.

Caesar Romulus found Numa Pompeii waiting in Caesar’s audience hall, preening. None of the holoimages were powered up, so the chamber appeared as it truly was, a stately space, its high ceiling held up by pillars, its walls painted with frescoes of serene landscapes, mountains and vineyards. There were no storm clouds. No lightning.

“Pompeii!” Romulus entered at a jaunty strut, not to show the least sign of weakness in front of the massif that was General Numa Pompeii.

The big man’s smile looked smug, his salute felt ironic.

Romulus told him, “I suppose you’ll be expecting another Triumph for this.” And Caesar quickly stepped up to his dais, to get his head above Pompeii’s.

Numa Pompeii shrugged a great shoulder. “The people seem to expect it.”

“Yes, the people.” Those fickle people.

“But I don’t,” Numa continued.

“How modest of you,” said Romulus, wondering if he ought not to demand a DNA check on this person.

“Because the Yanks have not retreated,” said Numa. “Not really. They have only gone FTL. They are minutes away.”

“You have seen this?”

“Some things you know without seeing. I have seen that half the world is in blackout. There are areas without public water.”

“Yet our defenses here held!” Romulus opened his arms to his light-filled palace and the happy people outside who did not seem to be wanting for water.

“Roma Nova held because Roma Nova was not hit,” said Numa. “The primary power plant for this continent was destroyed. You are running off your local backups now. All the orbital power stations are off-line. We’ve lost several spaceports and underground terminals, and all the communications satellites. Foreign tourists and business travelers are clamoring to get out. I will have a full report for you when all the damage assessments are in, Caesar.” Numa strode for the doors, turned, and added as if in afterthought, “But Augustus really is dead this time.”

Romulus brightened. “You’ve seen him?”

Numa Pompeii nodded down.

Romulus snapped his fingers at the Intelligence officer.

“I want those remains verified.”

“It shall be done, Caesar,” the Intelligence officer inclined a bow.

Numa Pompeii left the presence at a swagger, threw wide the tall doors of the palace. Let in the chants from outside: “NU MA! NU MA! NU MA! “

After the third servant gawked at Romulus with an expression of utter shock that could have nothing to do with his paper crown, Romulus ventured down to his bunker alone.

The imperial bunker was a large warren of rooms like a small palace, complete with bedchamber, servants’ quarters, kitchen, and throne room.

He found the small hole that had been burned through miles of dirt, through the bunker’s massive concrete stone and concrete foundation, up through the seat of Caesar’s throne and out through the back of the throne at head level.

A shot. A Striker shot. From outside. From under the sea. Romulus started to shake. He crouched, dizzy, glad he was alone.

Oh, shit. Oh, crap.

A patterner’s shot, clean through all the palace defenses into his place of safety, and twice through his throne.

That would have been my head! He shot at my head!

He sat on the oriental carpet. Brought his breathing under control. Recovering.

Stared at the hole.

His breaths came deep with bitter defiance and triumph.

You missed. YOU MISSED!

He allowed himself a laugh. It sounded maniacal even to his ears, but he was alone and he had to laugh. You’re dead, damn you, patterner, and you missed!

———

The invasion fleet lurked just beyond the orbit of the Wolf Star’s companion star. All the U.S. troop carriers were out here too, waiting their turn.

Signals from a plethora of roaches on the planet surface did not indicate that Rome was aware that the Fleet had set a couple thousand Marines down on Palatine. The guerrilla strikes could go forward.

Ships of neutral nations were rising from Rome’s civilian ports. Members of the League of Earth Nations—Italian, Chinese, Brazilian ships—as well as alien ships.

No ships were coming in at the moment, though the Fleet kept watch for the possible approach of Colonial reinforcements. The Roman Empire was vast. But surveillance had yet to indicate that the capital world had called for help from its hundreds of colonies, except for nearby Thaleia. Those ships would never reach Palatine.

Merrimack felt big and empty without her Marines.

The ship smelled like popcorn. The captain and off-duty crew assembled in the maintenance hangar to watch the resonant broadcast from Earth. The news included a Presidential address—or the News from the Continental Shelf, as Sampson Reed was known, in reference to his vast chin. Farragut had ordered popcorn brought in from the galley for his crew.

Reed’s speech was largely a justification of the attack on Palatine. He spent a lot of verbiage trying to appease the League of Earth Nations, which apparently was furious that it had no warning of the attack, as many League nations had people doing business on Palatine.

“No warning!” someone in the maintenance hangar yelled at the video. “What does the League think a declaration of war is!”

Someone else: “They wanted us to give them the date of our surprise attack.”

“Oh. Got it.”

When the President of the LEN came on video, the audience in the space battleship’s hangar yelled at the image and threw popcorn through him.

“If you can’t stand the bombs, stay off of Palatine!”

The U.S. Secretary of Defense got a cheer when he gave warning to the LEN not to send ships to Palatine because they would be turned away. Those League ships that were already on Palatine could leave, but don’t try to come in. The US. would not be responsible for whatever happened to any ships that got through.

Then they got to see Caesar on national broadcast. Rome was calling the battle a victory.

Jeers and catcalls drowned out much of Romulus’ speech. The ship’s dogs were running through the video images picking up all the thrown popcorn.

Farragut studied the image of Romulus.

It looked like Romulus. Moved like Romulus. Spoke like Romulus—not that Farragut could hear much of what he was saying over his crew’s enthusiastic abuse. This Romulus did not have the subtle flaws of an automaton. It was not an imposter. It was far too Romulus. Alive.

Romulus was alive. And Augustus was dead.

This is not right.

It had taken a while for a sense of reality to catch up with Farragut. I killed Augustus.

After the news show, Captain Farragut returned to the command deck. His arrival startled the Officer of the Watch, Lieutenant Hamilton and the rest of the Hamster Watch crew. “Something wrong, Captain?”

Farragut shook his head. He left Hamster in charge of the deck. He dropped into a seat at one of the day crew’s stations. Told Hamster, “Not sleeping.”

Hamster made a head motion in the direction of the now quiet maintenance hangar. “Sounded like fun over there.”

“I think they had a good time,” said Farragut, unusually subdued. He fell silent.

I killed Augustus.

Not sure he believed it. Seemed a fact. He knew by now never to trust the report of a death unless you actually see the body. This one felt real.

He asked Hamster, “Did we get any readings on the Striker during the time we had it?”

Hamster checked the records log. “Yes, we did. Looking for something specific?”

“Any life signs?”

“None. When we got hold of it, the Striker was colder than the grave.” She looked at Farragut. “We knew that.”

“We did,” he said. “ ‘We’re just having a hard time believing it.” He had outdrawn a patterner.

That should never ever have happened.

A patterner’s brain was augmented to allow it to interface with a data bank and analyze the whole of its contents. The patterner was designed to use the human brain’s natural inclination to detect patterns and to order data on a level that machines could not do. Human insight was necessary to conceive of the need or to realize the impact of a data set before a machine intelligence could recognize it.

If, while pursuing an inquiry, the human mind encounters an unexpected pattern the human suspects could be critically important, the human mind—some of them—will chase that pattern. A program will carry out its task, then stop. A machine, when asked a question, answers with the facts within its programmed parameters. A human, asked a question, can sense something odd in the apparent responsive facts—something relevant but not conceived of when the question was first asked—and the human will look for more facts.

Telling a machine to look for “something that could be critically important” was just not specific enough criteria for a machine mind to retrieve all relevant data and then order it. Machines overlooked targets of opportunity. Because a programmer had to consciously see the opportunity and program for it before the machine could know opportunity when opportunity presented.

When creating the patterner mind—in a case of scope creep run utterly amok—the engineers gave patterners enhanced physical strength as well and then tailored a spaceborne weapon around them—the Striker.

Augustus had always rejected the term cyborg. He did not fit the definition. He was not a human being enabled to survive an extraterrestrial environment by means of artificial implants.

Augustus’ alterations did not enable him to survive. They gave him a very, very short life span.

But Augustus should have killed Romulus before he died. He should not have come up from the planet while Romulus still lived.

Farragut was missing something here. Had to be.

The pattern was all wrong.

23

THE AIR PRESSURE WAS higher, but after your first nose blow you didn’t even notice that it was any different from Earth pressure. The alien plants didn’t seem to smell much. Darb said that probably meant the native proteins had a different orientation, whatever that meant. Everything felt a little heavy here, including Kerry Blue’s own feet. The sun was too white.

Alpha Team got the go-ahead to proceed to their first target. “Rome don’t even know we’re here,” said Ranza, packing her gear onto her Silver Horse. “Move it out.”

There had not been enemy troops on Palatine since the war of independence one hundred and fifty years ago. All wars since then had been fought on colonial worlds or in space over stations, convoys, and outposts, never the home worlds.

Still Rome had not let down its guard. The target of the day was nearly impregnable. Alpha Team had been inserted on the planet surface to hit a manufacturing facility.

The site had not been vulnerable from the air. It was contained in a double energy barrier that excluded everything except slow-moving objects at certain points at ground level.

Inside the energy barriers were the compound’s solid polymer walls.

The factory made res chambers—one of three such manufacturing facilities on Palatine.

Security sensors on the rooftop watched for any unauthorized approach. Defensive weapons lay dormant in underground pits.

So far the place was matching up to the information Recon had given the Marines. The little spy bots had done their duty.

“Gotta love roaches.”

“Darb?” said Kerry Blue. “You don’t never want to say that around me.” The facility was also protected by its isolation. It was set in a prairie, convenient to nothing.

The team put on shaggy, tawny yellow camouflage gear and approached to the perimeter of the facility’s surveillance area. They joined in with a vast shambling herd of tawny yellow herbivores that were grazing on the high tawny yellow grasses. The Marines moved in at a grazing gait among the three-toed yaks. The shaggy hooded cloaks disguised their own human shapes. Recon had advised them that detection of a human shape or human motion would trigger the installation’s auto-defenses.

Closer to the facility the approach was blocked by a wide barrier of imported tanglethorn, planted round the factory like a corn maze—without any pathways. It was a solid barricade of vicious vegetation. Rip you to ribbons sure as razor wire. Unless you had a cool torch on hand.

Someone had not been thinking when he put up this barrier instead of razor wire. The tanglethorn grew tall and dense enough to obscure the Marines from the roof monitors’ view when they got close enough. And the stuff was easy to tunnel through. The cool torch broke down the woven thorny stems into component molecules that then formed a soft layer of litter at the Marines’ feet as they hollowed out a man-sized tunnel through the tanglethorn.The operation left enough of the tightly woven branches intact overhead as a ceiling to shield their work.

“Nice of the lupes to plant this shit,” Cain whispered. Recon hadn’t mentioned any Roman listening devices. The hiss of their cold torch hadn’t attracted any gunfire. They easily reached the factory’s outer wall.

Perhaps razor wire would have announced too loudly that there was something of critical importance inside the lonely building.

The installation was self-contained. Power generators and water synthesizers were all inside. The air in there did not need to be pleasant because there were no human workers. But the equipment did need cooling.

There were no dedicated air vents. Air came in with the raw materials deliveries that came in via deep underground tunnels. Sneaking in with a delivery had not been a viable option. Entries were heavily monitored and measured. Even the air intake was metered.

Exits less so.

The Romans could have closed in the waste water system too, but a decision had been made somewhere along the line to draw the line somewhere. There was a point where an excess of caution was truly excessive, not cost effective, and just served pork to some contractor.

The place was protected by spatial barriers, energy barriers, physical barriers, continuous monitoring, and exact measurement of all deliveries. That ought to be enough.

The Marines found the pipe where Recon said it would be. A large pipe that carried out industrial water, heat, and liquefied manufacturing waste. One-way valves kept the water from back flushing, and stopped the odd water rat from swimming up the pipe and getting itself dead in the filtration system.

Dak Shepard widened a pressure relief hole in the top of the pipe with an awl.

Alpha Team had come armed with robotic eels the boffins had ginned up in between games of Moebius chess on Merrimack. The eels were thin as minnows. While the rest of the team was already in retreat, Cain Salvador, the fastest runner of the Alphas, fed the eels into the pipe. Had to feed them in one at a time so no sensor could detect a potential clog.

The eels raced up current, as programmed, negotiating the valves and turns, seeking air, but programmed to avoid their point of launch. You didn’t want one of those coming back at you. The eels were programmed to jump out of the water at their first chance.

And to detonate when dry again.

At the last eel drop, the rest of the Alphas were already at the tunnel entrance in the shadow of the tanglethorn, picking up their tawny yellow hoods where they left them, and waiting for Cain to come charging out of the tunnel like a cannon shot.

Don’t really care if the roof surveillance picks you up at this point. The installation and its monitors were not long for this world. By the time it identifies you as intruders and warns you to stop your approach, you’re already pelting a retreat through the yellow grass. Or mounting a yak if you can catch one. Or getting your mates almost trampled by stampeding yaks, thank you for that, Cain Salvador.

Meet up at pre-set coordinates. Cain the last to arrive, because there’s no steering a yak.

Summon your Silver Horses outside the area of the factory’s vigilance. Beyond the surveillance equipment’s programmed scope of interest, you just don’t exist. And off you go, close to the ground on your Silver Horse, listening for the kaboom.

Silver Horses left no tracks, except for a faint heat trail that was quickly carried away and dispersed in the prevailing winds.

The initial space battle had taken out any satellite that could have picked up a visual image of the fleeing Alphas on their ground skimming horses.

Somewhere along the way Twitch Fuentes steered around and pointed. “Mira!”

All the Alphas turned to look. Saw it before they heard it. The pillar of fire, straight up, sky high, blue and orange with transparent swirls of superheated air curling off of it.

“Wooly Bully!” said Dak.

“Ausgesichnett!”

Kerry Blue leaned forward around Cole Darby seated in front of her on the Silver Horse. “You German, Darb?”

“No, I just like the sound of the word.”

The factory going up in flames was one of just three factories on Palatine which produced Roman res chambers. Romans were as big on redundance as the Americans were. Which meant Teams Baker and Charlie were doing the same thing to the backup plant and the backup’s backup half a world away.

Any new res chambers would need to come in from the planet Thaleia—but only if the Thaleian ships could get past the U.S. Fleet lying in wait outside the solar system.

The Silver Horses drew a snaking path cross-country, avoiding all cities and settlements. They crossed a narrow sea in darkness under a chill rainfall.

Got themselves to the designated hideout area for a short rest. A place with tawny yellow grass where they could sleep under their shaggy cloaks. It was not raining here.

Woke before dawn for the next raid. “Would be a hell of a lot easier if we could just displace,” said Carly, a little saddle sore. Wiry Carly Delgado didn’t have much upholstery on her butt.

Seemed like the whole planet was under displacement jammers. All the ships in space were. No one wanted to be on the receiving end of a displaced bomb.

Dak checked his landing disk and displacement collar for correspondence. “Hey! I got a green light!”

“Dak, you boon!” Kerry cried, scared for his life. “They changed the color codes!”

For the siege of Palatine, all U.S. displacement equipment had been coded in reverse of international standard. Red was green and green was red. Green was not a good thing to see on U.S. displacement equipment down here. Green meant stop. Wrong. No go.

“Oh,” said Dak, disappointed. “Yeah. It just looked so friendly. It’s green.”

“Think of green gobs of goo gushing from your gut,” Darb suggested.

“Okay. Yeah. That works,” said Dak. “I think I got it straight now.”

“All yous!” Ranza commanded. “Forget about displacing! There ain’t gonna be no shooting up a flare to get displaced out of here, ‘kay? Ground don’t get more hostile than this, ‘kay? You step in sushi, there ain’t gonna be no dust off. There ain’t no cavalry. It’s just us. Got that?”

“Why’d they give us these?” Kerry Blue flipped the displacement collar hanging off her Silver Horse.

“Shit if I know,” said Ranza.

“So why aren’t the Roman jammers on our target list?” Darb asked.

“That’s a lot of targets, Darb. Jammers are everywhere. Saddle up, boys and girls. And just so yous all know, the lupes got a real good idea we’re here now.”

The Alphas’ next target was Palatine’s data relay station.

The Romans had sensors orbiting all their colonial worlds throughout their vast Empire and around any other world they could manage to deploy a spy satellite. The sensors picked up enormous amounts of various kinds of data. Information from the sensors came in to Palatine via resonance.

There was no stopping a res pulse without knowing the exact harmonic. If you knew the harmonic, you could white out the pulse with its complement harmonic. But State harmonics were closely guarded secrets, and there was no taking a guess. Harmonics were infinite.

There were hundreds—thousands—countless—satellite eyes sending data to Palatine on unknown harmonics. The Americans could not punch out all those eyes, and could not stop the satellites from transmitting their data.

But the Marines could take out Palatine’s receiver station.

The eyes would still be staring but the optic tracts would be gone. All that information from all those distant eyeballs would not arrive at Palatine.

No doubt another relay station elsewhere (redundance being good and all) was receiving the data, but it wasn’t getting to this planet now.

Speeding away from their victory on Silver Horses, the Alphas were jubilant. Kerry Blue shared a horse with Cole Darby. Cole Darby felt her behind him. Kerry Blue’s hands resting on his hips. Maddening.

A man makes a big score, he wants to celebrate with a lady. But Darb knew who Kerry Blue belonged to. Pretty damn obvious. Some of the guys back on Mack, confused by the sudden drought, had gone to the MO to ask if Kerry Blue were not dying of some strange space ailment. Darb knew better than to try to celebrate with Kerry Blue.

Ranza Espinoza was female. Sort of. Ranza was off-limits because of her rank, and that was a good thing, because Ranza scared him.

Carly was kind of pretty in a lean hard kind of way. But she and Twitch were real close friends. Twitch was shorter than Darb, but wider and brawny. Twitch didn’t say nothing, but you didn’t want to be on wrong side of that hombre.

That left Darb dating Hot Trixi Allnight in the dream boxes on Merrimack. Trixi wasn’t real but she was better than a real shiv between the ribs.

Trixi wasn’t here now. Still Darb could ride the high of their demolition, feel the wind in his face, Kerry Blue back there laughing. Cain sideswiped them. Kerry Blue licked her middle finger and waggled it over at Cain.

Darb wanted to be Cain when he grew up. Except that Cain was younger than Darb. Cain was one of the top picks in anybody’s choose up game. Korean / Hispanic / white / black / yellow / brown mutt. Hell, there was probably some Cherokee in there too. Cain didn’t have much of anything in the way of body hair and he shaved off what was on his head. If Darb did that he was pretty sure he would look like a penis.

Kerry Blue’s laughing voice. “Darb, what are you doing!”

“Singing! Can’t you tell?”

Kerry Blue’s giggle. “No.”

Felt/heard the jarring bang underneath them. Kerry Blue’s grunt. Cold spot on his back where she had just been. Him sailing through the air without his Silver Horse. Hit the ground hard. Heard a snap. No pain. Real bad sign.

Heard words he only understood because he was wearing a language module: “Don’t move.”

24

THE PROVINCE AROUND THE ROMAN capital city maintained a facade of normality. By A now Caesar was aware there were enemy vermin on the planet, but refused to acknowledge they were of any consequence. As for the power, water, and communications problems elsewhere, well, some inconveniences were to be expected.

He also knew that U.S. ships were somewhere outside the star system turning merchant vessels away from Palatine. He would just see how long the League of Earth Nations tolerated that. If the Americans could use the LEN as a lever, so could he.

There had been a few minor surprises, but Caesar Romulus knew he was winning this war. Today the Magister of Imperial Intelligence, in person, carried the head of Augustus to Caesar. It was not actually the head. That would be too grisly. Too psychotic. Rome was a modern civilization.

What Munda brought to Caesar was Augustus’ black box—the data bank that had been implanted inside the patterner’s head—on a covered silver platter.

The Magister of Imperial Intelligence was tall, severe, his face thin and hard like something carved in stone with razor blades. Munda had no ability to smile, not even an evil smile. His sense of drama was limited. He did not carry the silver platter over his head, balanced on one palm, or even have a servant do it for him.

Munda brought the platter to the palace in the company of three of his curiosi, agents of the secret police. They were admitted to a reception hall.

No holoimages shrouded this room. No illusions. No lightning strikes, of which Romulus was notoriously fond. Munda did not like holos around him when he was not the one controlling them.

This room was only what it appeared to be. The walls enclosed a wide and tall space in the palace annex, with tall Ionic columns, beautiful frescoes of gardens and villas and aqueducts, olive trees and grape vines. Sedate paintings, all of them. The frisky frescoes were in the bathhouse. The floor of mosaic tile featured animal portraits within geometric borders. Overhead soared a coffered, painted and gilt ceiling. Clerestories let in the daylight.

Caesar did not make the magister wait long, did not take the throne when he entered. Munda appreciated Romulus not playing intimidation games with his own Intelligence agentes.

“Munda!” Caesar strode in smiling. Senator Ventor heeled at Caesar’s flank, clad in a toga that reflected his rank. Caesar and Munda were both simply dressed. They had nothing to prove. “You have something for me.”

“Per your desire, Caesar,” said Munda. “I give you—”

Munda lifted the polished silver lid.

“—Augustus.”

Caesar’s eyes widened despite himself. Ventor, standing a few respectful paces back, craned his head to see around Caesar.

“It’s huge,” said Romulus.

The data receptacle was two inches in diameter, not entirely round because it was not entirely rigid. Its surface was a smooth gray. It was the biggest data storage unit Caesar had ever seen.

“It is a big one,” Munda allowed. “Sixteen exabyte capacity.” Romulus stepped closer. Shied back again on a sudden thought.

“Is it clean?”

“Any cleaner and the data would be erased,” said Munda. “We need the data. But we’re certain this is infected with a lethal virus.”

Romulus shrank away farther, backed into Senator Ventor and stepped on the hem of his toga.

“Lethal to data,” Munda clarified. “A data virus. We are setting up a discrete system in which to analyze the data, entirely isolated from any other system.”

“We know this is infected?” Romulus asked in a voice that clearly said, Why they hell did you bring this in here?

“We cannot afford to assume otherwise, Caesar. Nanites have eaten out the data banks of the Striker, and left no data tracks to be recovered.”

“Nanites.” Caesar looked round as if he could see the infinitesimally small machines crawling. Palace guards at the doors glanced down at their feet. The curiosi did not blink.

“Are they on the loose?” Romulus asked.

“The nanites on the Striker were self-limiting. They executed their tasks, then ceased to function. Then housekeeper nanites erased even those from existence. It was a precision process. Typical of a patterner.”

Romulus put on black kid leather gloves. He had expected to need gloves to keep the data bank pristine. Now it was his hands, not the data bank, which he felt needed the protective barrier. He took a step closer, tentative as a wild animal lured by an offering of food. He peered over the edge of the platter. Glanced up from the silvery black box to Munda’s stone face.

“Are there any nanites in there?”

“We detected no nanoactivity. Does not mean there are no nanites in there. There are nanoparticles all through the patterner’s remains. Nanites kept his body from rejecting the augmentations. Some of his bionanites are trying to keep his remains alive even now.”

Nanotechnology had been known for over four hundred years now. Machines worked faster as their size decreased. Machines with walls one atom thick worked very fast and required miniscule amounts of energy to operate.

The first nanoscale devices counted specific molecules in a chemical sample. The next natural task was to have them identify pathogens in a blood sample. Then to diagnose disease. Then more advanced nanomachines were used to seek out and destroy pathogens in the human body.

The CIA and Imperial Intelligence had come up with less benevolent tasks for them. Nanomachines could modify physical materials at a molecular level. They could be programmed to replicate themselves, or to build or destroy structures one atom at a time.

No one could say what use a malevolent patterner might put them to. “Most of the nanites in Augustus’ body stopped functioning at the patterner’s death,” said Munda. “Most.” Romulus took another step back, snugging his gloves on tighter. He nodded up at Munda. “Touch it.”

Munda shifted, uneasy. “Really?” More uneasily still under Romulus’ blinkless stare. No one was offering Munda gloves. “Caesar?”

The magister’s stone face turned chalky, as if he’d been asked to set himself on fire. Senator Ventor stared. The curiosi were very still. The guards held their breaths. Romulus broke into laughter. “Of course not.” He gave a boyish grin.

Munda did not laugh.

Senator Ventor stepped forward. He had brought polymer gloves with him and he put them on. His hand hovered over the silvery receptacle. “Is it fragile?”

“No. Not at all,” said Munda, but added, “I wouldn’t step on it.” Ventor inhaled. Boldly done, if to be done at all. He closed his hand around the ball and lifted it.

“Has some weight to it,” he said, feeling his hand still intact, no spikes driving into his palm, no explosions, no sudden itches.

“Yes.” Munda was glad enough to be able to let the platter drop to his side.

Sounds of disturbance carried through the monumental wood doors of the chamber. Then the doors themselves parted. Palace guards were challenging a knot of Senators who would not be turned away. They wore their togas with the crimson stripes to impress their rank on Caesar’s minions.

These men were too high-ranking to be manhandled without further word from Caesar. As the doors parted, the guards looked to Caesar, searching for permission to club these men.

Caesar lifted his hand high, beckoned to the intruders like visitors. “Enter.”

The guards let the four Senators through, but closed ranks behind them, blocking the attempted entry of the Senators’ attendants. The guards shut the doors on the attendants with some shoving and scuffling.

Munda’s curiosi took several steps forward from the wall where they had been standing at ease. They crossed their arms now and fixed their basilisk gazes on the Senators in silent warning.

Senators Trogus, Umbrius, Quirinius, and Opsius stalked in with long strides, chests puffed out, eyes and nostrils flaring, mouths twitching in umbrage.

Trogus, leader of this rat pack, shouted, “This is an outrage!”

“It is certainly disrespectful,” Caesar allowed in a civil voice with a whisper of a smile.

Two of the Senators had the sense to be abashed.

Quirinius had, in the days of Caesar Magnus, been considered the third man in the Empire. His rank was now closer to two thousand and fifty-first. Still he was a seemly person. Dignified. Quirinius gave a nod of apology toward Caesar.

Trogus would not be shamed off course. His voice was thin and irritating. “That is the most valuable data reservoir in the Empire! It is not a ball to amuse Caesar! You shall surrender the patterner’s data bank to the Senate immediately!”

“You want it?” said Caesar faintly. He met Ventor’s eyes, tilted his head toward Trogus. Ventor took up the cue, tossed the silvery black box to Senator Trogus.

On reflex, Trogus caught it bare-handed. Was immediately aghast at the thing in his hands. He took note of the gloves on Ventor and Romulus. A tremolo infected Trogus’ voice, “Caesar?”

Umbrius, Quirinius and Opsius drifted backward. The palace guards leaned attentively inward. The curiosi looked curious. They all watched Tragus in silence for several extended, loudly ticking seconds. “Well, there he is,” said Caesar. “The formidable Augustus.”

Senator Tragus tried to recover his dignity and control. His voice came out pitched too high to have any semblance of courage. “Of course any sabotage will be in the data.”

“Yes, we all know that,” Romulus said, impatient. “What you really came here looking for is something to use against me. Augustus’ own version of my father’s testament will be in there.”

Tragus sought the high ground. “What we are really looking for are the Hive harmonics. The menace has returned to Near Space. There are gorgons on Thaleia.”

“And you suppose I am not looking for Hive harmonics? I am not so petty and irresponsible as to use my position for personal spite.”

“Your decisions have been questionable, Caesar, and I have a duty to question them. This data bank belongs to the people of Rome. It is not to be kept by one man or tossed about like a toy!”

An inner door opened. The guards held their stations. This was an intruder not to be denied. She was allowed through like a swallow through the rafters.

Claudia entered with a swish of silks and billow of patchouli and dark spice.

“Is he here?” she said, her dark exotic eyes alight.

She danced to the center of the knot of men. She faced Tragus. Her fingers lifted with a glitter of emeralds. “So here is the dreaded Augustus.”

“Claudia, don’t—”

Claudia plucked the data receptacle from Tragus’ hand.

“What? This?” She turned her wrist as if holding a faceted bauble to the light. Augustus’ data bank was plain and gray no matter which way she held it.

“It’s harmless,” said Tragus.

Claudia spoke to the black box in silken spite, “Did you see this moment coming, patterner?”

Senator Ventor deftly snatched the data recepticle from Claudia’s fingers before she could decide to punish it.

The Intelligence Magister, Munda, growing agitated watching the valuable data passing hand-to-hand, held up the tray and urged Ventor, “Kindly replace the black box on the tray, Senator. We have a segregated system set up to analyze it and control any data surprises.”

“What? What?”

The sudden screech made everyone start, and Ventor nearly bobbled the silvery ball.

“Why are you here!”

Claudia went rigid, her hands clenched into glittering fists, her eyes staring at air with fear, fury, and hatred. Romulus opened his hands solicitously to his sister. “Claudia?” Claudia shouted at someone not there, “Shut up! Shut up! Go away!”

Caesar’s guards and the Intelligence agentes hastily scanned the chamber for light benders and pinpoint sound packets. They found nothing in the chamber that could be causing false images.

A murmur came from someone, “Seems Banquo’s ghost is in the room.”

Romulus detonated. “I heard that!” He rounded on Senator Umbrius. Caesar commanded his guards, “Slay him!”

Caesar’s guards look alarmed, but started forward, drawing their swords, for honestiores required a sword. Umbrius’ eyes grew huge. The rest of the man visibly shrank. Romulus held up his hand. Said quickly, “I rescind the order. I am enraged is all.” Banquo’s ghost. As if his sister were here confronted by the ghost of someone she had conspired to murder.

Romulus spoke in deadly calm to Umbrius, “You impugned my sister’s honor and I reacted as any man would. But I am not any man, I am your Caesar and you will apologize to me and to my sister.”

Umbrius did, earnestly, on bended knee before Caesar. Claudia was taking backsteps. “Get that thing out of here!” She might have been talking about Umbrius, but she was looking at empty space. “It’s not real!” she screeched. At least part of her knew that. “What do you see, Claudia?” Romulus moved toward her. She whirled on him. “Don’t you dare try to make me sound stupid!”

Romulus flinched back from her rage. He made to put his arms around her. Stopped. His mouth burned. He backed away carefully. Talked soothingly, “Well, Claudia, obviously it has light benders on it. None of us can see it. You need to tell me what is there.”

Munda marked Caesar’s deft wording. Most other people would have said, Tell me what you think you see. Caesar’s Tell me what is there sounded as if he believed her entirely.

But Claudia’s attention was now on her own hands. She tried to rub something off them. She beheld her hands in advancing horror, as if they were covered in something hideous.

Munda covered the data receptacle on the platter and whisked it away, his curiosi in his wake, back to the catacombs of Imperial Intelligence.

25

DON’T MOVE!” ROMAN legionaries bellowed. A lot of them Large boots tromping Cole Darby’s face.

Okay, thought Darb cooperatively. On the ground, not sure if he was lying on his back or his front. Getting the idea his neck was broken. Not moving was not a problem. If the lupes ordered him to move he was screwed. Didn’t feel his own breath from his nostrils against his upper lip and wondered if he was breathing. If not, he ought to be blacking out soon.

Heard grunts of the others. Ranza. Cain. Dak. Carly. Twitch. There was some kicking going on.

Kerry Blue’s cry sounded frightened. “Darb!”

A voice in Latin: “This one’s dead.”

A lupe may have kicked him because Darby’s head rocked slightly against the grass and he felt his cheek move against the dirt.

The pitiful cry, “No!”

I love you, Kerry Blue.

Strange face loomed close to his. No pity there. Very young. Perfect Roman. Cole Darby moved his eyes to tell the face he was not dead.

“He’s alive!” Kerry cried.

The face rose away.

The Latin pronouncement, “No, he’s not.”

Barrel in his ear. Kerry Blue’s screech. The leading edge of a blast.

———

Claudia cried for days, racked by headaches. Blisters, real ones, appeared on her hands. She scratched at them until her hands were bloody. Specialists tried to block the reception of the nerve endings to her brain, but it didn’t help. As if the itching was not in her hands but all in her head.

She screamed from a stabbing pain in her eye.

Medici sedated her.

More than once she bolted up from what should have been deep sedation to scream: “Pater!”

Attending medici looked up as Caesar Romulus entered Claudia’s room in the private clinic. He had brought fresh flowers.

One of the attendants took the flowers and put them into a vase at Claudia’s bedside.

Claudia was unconscious, twitching, moving, her face pale against the pillow, her thick eyelashes quivering, noises coming from her throat.

“You cut off her hair,” said Romulus, shocked. It brought to mind Calli Carmel, and he had to wonder if Calli were not behind this monstrous attack.

“She was tearing at it,” said a medicus. “We have it here.” She indicated a side table where Claudia’s long dark locks lay cleaned, combed, and bagged next to her emeralds. Hair was easily reattached, and Claudia looked in no state to be missing it.

Her hands were covered in gauze, her wrists bound in soft restraints at her side. “She has been calling for your father, Caesar,” a medical attendant advised, insinuation in his voice.

“She is calling God, you idiot,” said Romulus.

Chastised, the attendant said, “She is in terrible pain.”

“Then stop the pain! What is wrong with you?”

The senior medicus, Pontius Placidus, moved in, took over. “We have shut off the neural pathways from the nerve endings to her brain, Caesar. We cannot stop the pain. The nanites are inside her brain.”

“Nanites!” Caesar recoiled. “From the patterner’s black box?”

“Yes, Caesar.”

“Other people have touched the black box with their bare hands,” said Romulus. “Why isn’t Trogus scratching his hands off?”

“The nanites are programmed to activate upon a trigger event.”

“What trigger?”

Pontius Placidus said quietly, “Caesar, may we talk in private?” and showed Caesar to a door. Opened it for him and let Romulus precede him through it to the kind of room where they tell you, “I’m so sorry.”

The room was chock-full of potted plants, crowded with life, green and flowering. Tiny jewel birds uttered soft fluttering notes, not their characteristic hard banging chirps. The light through the false windows was soft as Earthlight. The chairs were overstuffed to hug you when you sat in one. The hearth held an eternal flame.

Romulus refused the chair. He was dressed all in black, even to his gloves, which had become part of his usual garb. He held his arms crossed so hard that he was hugging himself. Struggled not to bite the hand that tried to heal. He just wanted to execute the lot of these quacks and bring in someone competent.

Pontius Placidus was the best neurologist in the Empire.

“There are several specialized types of nanomachines at work here,” Pontius Placidus explained. “The syndrome is activated by a combination trigger. The recognition molecules react with a specific target biologic. In this case the recognition molecules are reacting to a near DN A match to Magnus. A filial match.”

“Augustus targeted me,” Romulus translated.

The medicus seemed to hedge. Continued, “DNA is not enough. It is a combination trigger. Contact with DN A having filial commonality with Magnus is the first thing the nanite looks for. That contact triggers the nanite to construct a second set of recognition molecules, which are dispatched to the hippocampus and the frontal lobe to troll for electrical pulse patterns within the central nervous system that equate to patricidal memory and guilt.”

“Stop!” Caesar cried. “You cannot possibly read a mind from electrical pulses.”

“In a limited sense, yes, we can,” said Placidus. “A patricidal experience alters the map of the human brain. Crime leaves physical tracks. The recognition molecules look for the shape of a memory. Killing one’s father is a major event. The experience leaves an impression—a characteristic brain pattern.”

“The nanite cannot have found that in my sister,” Romulus declared.

“It thinks it did,” the medicus said diplomatically. “That event triggers the creation of yet another recognition molecule which looks for a guilt reaction associated with the memory. Guilt dwells in the frontal lobe—guilt as in the fear of being caught. The nanites do not look for remorse, which is a separate pattern. Finding a filial match for Magnus’ DNA, patricidal memory, and guilt, the nanites then construct other nanites to inject information into the brain. They bring the patricidal memory to the fore cortex and create visual, auditory, and olfactory electrical pulses. Electromagnetic pulses trigger the release of the brain’s own neurotransmitters to create a synthetic reality—pain, visions, stench, itching. Other nanites create the physical blisters.”

“You are implying that my sister is guilty of something and I know that is not true. She is high-spirited and self-indulgent. That is all. Very well, she is a brat. I know that. Augustus was a murderous renegade. He killed our father and tried to divert his own guilt to a high, high target. Augustus and Gaius Americanus and the American Callista Carmel are all in this.”

Pontius Placidus could see that familial loyalty was blinding young Romulus to the obvious guilt of his sister. A difficult thing to explain to a Caesar. “The recognition molecules—”

Romulus cut him off. “Claudia has a memory of killing our father, then Augustus’ nanites created that too. He just had his nanites destroy the evidence of that part of the scheme before he let you find the ‘recognition molecules.’ He was a patterner! He could create and hide evidence at will! Claudia did not kill our father. I know she did not.”

The medicus had not considered the possibility of the patterner planting a false memory first, then sending his recognition molecules out to find it. “I apologize, Caesar. I fell for it. You are correct. It would not be beyond the ability of a patterner.”

“Where would Augustus get the raw data to find the pattern to do that? He had American help, didn’t he?” Romulus guessed the answer he wanted to hear.

The medicus was reluctant to follow that leap. “Nanotechology has been around for hundreds of years. We have it. The Americans have it. Brain alterations? I’m afraid those are Roman advances, Caesar. Augustus had Secundus’ Striker. Strikers carry extensive data banks already installed. You are correct, patterners don’t normally construct things. But this particular patterner, Secundus, worked under Constantine Siculus. That means both Secundus and Augustus had Constantine’s database.”

“PanGalactic Industries,” Romulus gave a horrified murmur.

Constantine Siculus was the founder of PanGalactic Industries. The father of modern manufacturing. Tell the PanGalactic program what you want with great specificity, and PanGalactic will figure out how to get it made. Augustus must have asked for very specific nanites.

“Augustus knew I wanted his head!” said Romulus, agitated. “Those nanites were meant for me!”

“I believe you may have it, Caesar.”

“How do those nanites travel? Are they loose in my palace?”

“They are only mobile within a human body. But they may pass by contact like dust. If you are the nanites’ true target, then you are in danger, Caesar. The nanites could be on your gloves if you touched the black box even with your gloves on.”

“I didn’t touch the black box at all.”

“Claudia. If you touched your sister after she touched the black box, you are certainly already exposed.”

“I haven’t.” A chill passed through Caesar’s body. He had started to touch her many times, but always stopped himself. “Myself,” said the medicus. “I have touched the black box extensively.”

Pontius Placidus could tell by the look on Romulus’ face that Caesar would love to throw the medicus into the nearest annihilator. Caesar instead commanded soberly, “Kindly confine yourself to a quarantined area.”

“Yes, Caesar. Anything Claudia touched may carry these nanites. With your permission I shall organize a cleansing of this site, and the reception area where she first contacted the black box. We can sanitize your shoe soles on the way out.”

“Good man,” said Romulus. “I have noted your initiative, your thoroughness, and your discretion in this affair.”

Pontius Placidus nodded, accepting the recognition. He could expect tangible gratitude for his service. Caesar Romulus could be wildly generous.

“Make her comfortable,” Caesar commanded. “And get those things out of her brain!”

“I will do my best, Caesar.”

Romulus breathed a big angry inhalation, about to shout at Placidus that best wasn’t good enough. Forced himself down from boiling wrath. Tried to find words to impress the urgency on this intelligent ape. “Pontius Placidus, she is your sister. She is your daughter. She is your wife. She is your mother. You understand how important she is?”

“Everything possible will be done,” said Pontius Placidus. Romulus left the clinic, quaking to the foundation of his being.

Romulus contacted his chief of palace security with orders that Senators Umbrius, Trogus, Quirinius and Opsius be expelled from the palace and denied future access, by force if necessary. Then he added Numa Pompeii to that list. He thought about ordering Gaius Americanus killed or quarantined, but Gaius was confined under the Coliseum, so there was no point dredging him up.

Romulus considered having an arsonist torch the palace annex. Damned Augustus again.

He had wondered about the shot through his throne in his bunker. He wondered what made Augustus so sure Romulus would be on the throne when he took the shot.

Obviously Romulus had not been on the throne, and obviously Augustus hadn’t been sure.

But Augustus knew—for sure—that Romulus wanted his head.

Augustus had left this trap for him.

Claudia sprang it instead.

It was meant for me. It was meant for me. I survived you again, you mechanical zombie abortion. I am Caesar and you are dead!

Romulus was filled with a sudden sense of elation, an amazing freedom. The air felt clean and pure in his lungs. He was alive, and he felt like celebrating.

Merrimack ghosted a French merchant ship that was not where it was supposed to be, on a stealthy approach to Palatine.

Captain Farragut did not like to shoot at civilians, even French ones. But he did not intend to let the ship pass. The decision was between gentle ramming and terminal blasting.

“Let’s show ourselves,” said Farragut.

“He could run, sir,” Tactical advised.

“Then we’ll catch him again when he drops to sublight at the planet. We know where he’s going.” Merrimack moved in close enough to read the name on the hull, Pharaon.

Merrimack swept in front of the freighter. Hailed on the international channel and commanded the ship to turn back. The freighter Pharaon did not respond. Maintained course.

Merrimack’s Intelligence officer, Colonel Z, suspected the freighter was not the French craft it appeared to be.

Thaleia was the more likely point of origin.

Farragut looked to his exec. “Anything, Gypsy?”

Gypsy Dent had sent a res inquiry to Earth upon first sighting the freighter, to verify the ship’s authenticity. “Waiting for something back from France,” said Gypsy. “Bumper cars,” said Farragut.

Helm made two gleeful fists. “Aye, aye, Captain!”

“Go easy,” said Farragut. “Don’t hurt him yet. See if he has anything to say now.”

Merrimack moved in like a killer whale trying to balance a baby seal on its nose, while the com tech held his headset away from his ear.

“What do you have?” Farragut asked.

“He’s squawking,” said the com tech.

“What’s he saying.”

“It’s in French.”

“Aren’t you wearing a module?”

“It’s real bad French. I got the words ‘outrage’ and ‘my government.’ “

“We can wait and see what his government has to say.”

“Can I keep bumping him, sir?”

“Oh, sure. Carry on.”

Reports from Palatine indicated that Mack’s Fleet Marines had some success on the ground. But Farragut was beginning to suspect they had paid dearly for it. Several teams had dropped out of contact. He could only pray they were on the run.

Intelligence had been sifting through ground chatter within the Roman populace. The scandal of the hour was that Caesar’s sister Claudia was calling for her father and sprouting blisters on her hands.

“What was Lady Macbeth’s first name?” Gypsy mused.

“I don’t know,” said Farragut. “Was it Claudia?”

Romulus had accused the patterner of poisoning his sister. John Farragut never took Romulus’ accusations at face value. But there were rumors about Augustus’ head on a platter and programmed nanites that made it sound like Augustus really had committed this attack.

But it also sounded like the nanites had been meant for Romulus. Augustus meant for his head to go to Caesar on that platter. But he miscalculated who would touch it. Augustus got Claudia instead of Romulus. Farragut guessed Augustus would want to get Claudia too, but Romulus had slipped the snare entirely.

And it seemed a pretty precarious snare with a number of tenuous links, all of which must be connected in order for the nanites to find their target.

Augustus was a patterner. He could calculate patterns too intricate for the human mind to hold. Still, “Wouldn’t you think he would have some more direct, more certain way to get Romulus?”

“Maybe he was long past his life expectancy and he was just missing at the end,” Gypsy suggested. Hamster: “Maybe he’s counting on you to finish it, John.”

“Oh, if that’s the case he really did lose it at the end. Not that I wouldn’t love to set Rom’s soul free. I’m not a political assassin. Unless I meet Romulus in battle, that just can’t happen.”

And anything that Farragut could do to Romulus just wouldn’t be bad enough. Clearly Augustus missed his target.

“Captain, we have trade.”

France had failed to acknowledge the freighter out there. “Pharaon is not French?”

“Not French.”

“And the not-French ship has friends,” Tactical reported. “Roman gunboats, three of them, not disguised as anything.”

“Not-French ship is running,” said the helm.

Captain Farragut stood up at his station, a hunter’s gleam in his blue eyes. “Tally ho.”

The dialogs. VII.

A: Don Cordillera, does your Church still have those thrones and dominations, and those sixteen-headed, eight-winged seraphim no one can look at? So how do you know what they look like anyway?

JMdeC: That is the apple talking. It was the choice of the apple that caused Man to leave the Garden. It is the willingness to let go the apple that takes us home. You cannot find God by logic.

A: And there is the supreme cheat, damn you. Knowledge got Adam kicked out of the Garden and you can’t find God through knowledge. There’s a double bind. How bloody convenient. When your game doesn’t make sense, make the first rule of the game that you need to turn off your God-given brain as a prerequisite of playing. Now that explains John Farragut, but you, Don Cordillera, you have eaten way too many apples to sucker yourself into discarding all you know. I’ll bet your soul there are no seraphim.

JMdeC: My soul? Not yours?

A: I don’t have one. I was created by man.

26

ALL AROUND PUGET SOUND heavy lifters hauled pieces of bridges and streets and buildings out of the water. Tremors continued to hamper attempts to make order out of the chaos in the Pacific Northwest.

But the cities had drinking water systems working now.

The wolfhunter class ship Wolfhound lifted off the uneasy ground and returned to space, taking up a vigilant orbit around Earth.

She had gone from milk cow to traffic cop. Wolfhound routinely stopped incoming vessels to demand identification.

“Wear off, Wolfhound. We are French nationals,” the latest object of interest declared, and kept going forward toward Earth’s atmosphere.

“Cease forward progress, Bertrand,” Captain Carmel of the Wolfhound commanded the French ship. “Please wait while we confirm your identify.”

“I have already told you who were are.”

“You will wait until France agrees with you, Bertrand.”

The French merchant ship did not slow or alter course.

“Hook the Frenchman,” Calli ordered.

“Hooking the Frenchman, aye.”

Wolfhound threw out an energy net to snag Bertrand and stop the ship from getting any closer to Earth.

“This is piracy!” Bertrand declared. “The United States cannot board a vessel of any League signatory!”

“We are not boarding you, Bertrand. You and I are waiting together for confirmation from France. Then you may be about your business.”

“I will be about my business now\”

“You are—allegedly—our ally, and Rome declared war on us. You have given us no assistance. Is it too much to ask you to wait while we make sure you are who you say you are? What happened to all for one and one for all? Wasn’t that a French saying?”

“You derive great protection from our neutrality! See how we lifted siege from your Pacific coast? As long as Rome is not at war with the whole world, you are sheltered by our peace. Would you have us open the whole world to nuclear fire? Do you not have laws against illegal search and seizure?”

“We are not searching you, Bertrand. And we’ll let you go, if you prove to be French.”

“I need not prove anything to you! This is not our war. You will let us go now.”

“How is it not your war?”

“Rome does not fight us, and we do not wish to fight Rome.”

“You don’t? Didn’t you just say you were a member of the League of Earth Nations?”

“You know that we are. And the League of Earth Nations shall hear about this!”

“As we are part of the League, that means the League is hearing about this right now. And this member of the League has a war on its hands, like it or not. War was declared on us, and the rest of Earth goes about business as usual.”

“You are talking in circles. You have not been listening to a word I say—”

And he was right. Calli Carmel hadn’t been listening. She was just letting the Frenchman rail while she waited for the report from France. As long as they were talking, the Frenchman wasn’t doing anything dangerous.

The hand signals from her com tech on the other channel caught her attention. Thumbs up. The Frenchman’s identity was confirmed.

“Release hook,” Calli ordered.

“Hook released, aye,” Engineering responded.

Calli took her com off mute to interrupt the Frenchman, who had been scolding her without taking a breath. “Okay, you’re free. I’m glad we had this time to talk. Have a good day.”

She needed some polite words to show on the transcript, which was certain to be attached to the Frenchman’s complaint to the LEN.

The com tech reported: “Captain! The Frenchman is calling back.”

“Don’t take the call,” said Calli.

The red-haired kid at the com, Red Dorset, happily clicked the Frenchman off. “That one was nasty.”

“They’re all nasty,” said the cryptotech. Tactical reported, “Italian transport coming in. Lord, Italy has a lot of traffic.”

“At least the Italians wait,” said Calli, moving around the close-packed deck to the tactical station to see the plot’s attitude. “They moan, but they wait.” She reached over Tactical’s shoulder. Her long finger with its baby-thin nail pointed at the Italian plot. “Check this one out.”

“Aye, aye, Captain.”

The Italian vessel stopped upon request.

Red Dorset at the com station issued a verification inquiry to his Italian contact, Guglielmo Baptista in Old Rome. Red and Guglielmo were on a first name basis by now.

International traffic to and from Earth had continued as if everything were normal. If anything, traffic had increased. To the rest of the world, the conflict was “the American war.” Palatine was America’s enemy, not theirs.

Red Dorset drummed his fingers at his station, waiting to hear back from his Italian buddy. He thought out loud, “I wonder if the Frenchman didn’t have a point back there. These other countries do sort of protect us by continuing trade.”

“He had a point,” said Captain Carmel. “One. But those ships can still damn well stop for an ID check.”

Red was young and talked a lot. Calli could picture a redheaded toddler driving his mother up the wall with a constant “Why? Why? Why?”

“It’s surprising—” said Red. “Well, I think it’s surprising— Rome hasn’t been hitting our infrastructure while we’re sabotaging theirs. Not complaining, mind you. But why isn’t Rome hitting our infrastructure?”

“Because Romulus thinks America’s infrastructure is his infrastructure. That’s the Province of America down there, and we’re just infesting it.”

Rome had hammered just one small part of the United States. The upper left-hand corner. Romulus would not want to ravage the entire countryside. He did not want to take possession of a disaster area. Romulus wanted a fat productive province.

Red Dorset sat suddenly straight, hand to his earpiece. He spoke into the com, “Grazzi, Guglielmo!” And turned to the captain. “The Italian checks out.”

Calli took up her com to officially thank the Italian pilot for his patience and gave him leave to continue to Earth.

And Red was asking questions again. “How can Romulus think he can take over America? He can’t get air space superiority. Is he just going to walk in and plant his Eagles on the Mall in DC and everyone will just hail Caesar?”

Calli nodded. It’ll be something like that.

———

Captain Farragut had lost contact with two of his Marine units who were down on Palatine. No one else was sharing information on how many other Marine units from other battalions were down there or how many of those were now missing. And Farragut did not have good data on how the softening up of the battlefield was progressing.

Ship noises had a hollow ring without his seven hundred and twenty Marines. A lot of heavy feet were not thumping round the raised jogging track at all hours. Spirited games were not played against the navvies in the squash courts or in the basketball court that was actually the maintenance hangar.

The crew were slightly older, more measured men and women, with advanced engineering degrees and less brawn than the Marine companies. The crew played less. Shouted less.

Merrimack was quiet, circling Roman space like a shark, waiting for swimmers to dare cross her waters.

Captain Farragut spent a lot of time in the squash court.

Playing squash with his XO was to remember just how very long her arms were. And hard. In Greek myth the woman Daphne turned into a tree. Farragut was convinced that Egypt Dent was that very tree turned back into a woman. She was moderately fast. Very fast for a tree. More strong than agile. She didn’t change direction quickly but she could smash that little green ball as hard as any Marine. Gave a loud “Uh!” with every smash, like a tennis player’s grunt or a martial artist’s kiap.

Swinging hard at a fast-moving target with a comrade close by had been good training for using swords to cut down gorgons.

Gypsy missed a return, and the hard little ball hit her in the thigh. Hard. “Gorgon bite!” she cried, limping off the pain. She growled at herself. “Out of practice.”

“As are we all,” said Farragut, lining up a serve.

Gypsy spun her racquet in her hand and crouched ready for another volley. Farragut served. Gypsy returned. “Are we—uh!—getting any updates—uh!—on the new Hives? Ha! My serve.”

“If there are any reports, I’m not getting them.” Farragut tossed the traitorous ball to her and crouched ready for the serve.

“Ace!”

Farragut retrieved the ball and tossed it back to her again. “I really don’t think anyone is compiling reports on the Hive.”

Gypsy frowned. Her frowns were frightening. “Do they think if they pull the sheets up over their heads, the gorgons can’t bite them?”

“I guess.” A mighty return. “Cowabunga!” The little ball thudded at Gypsy’s feet. She scowled at the captain. “What kind of word is that?”

“No idea.” He,tossed his racquet up and caught it by the grip. “We don’t have any shortage of Thaleian supply ships trying to run the blockade,” said Gypsy. And some of them were succeeding. It was a high-risk run, but if the ship was coming from Thaleia, odds were high that it was unmanned, so anything on board was replaceable.

“If the Thaleians can send supplies off world that means the Hive presence on Thaleia hasn’t gotten critical.”

“Yet,” said Farragut.

“Any updates on Toto Two?”

Last she heard the decoy drone flock dubbed “Toto Two” had been leading the gorgons of Telecore away from Fort Eisenhower.

“Gorgons are still chasing.” Farragut slammed a shot off the rear wall. It sailed to the front wall where Gypsy crowded it back into the front wall. Scored.

“But,” said Farragut.

“With Weng and Ski, there’s always a but,” said Gypsy.

“Always. And Weng and Ski tell me they have evidence from a monitor on the planet that other gorgons have lifted off the surface of Telecore and those headed off in the opposite direction.”

“Toward Fort Ike.”

“Toward Fort Ike.”

Gypsy lost her serve.

“Can Weng and Ski confirm that?”

“Nope.” Farragut aced his serve with a mighty blow. “The gorgons ate the monitor.”

Gorgons from Telecore would be several years getting to Fort Eisenhower. But years had a way of evaporating in time of war. Farragut would rather do something about the gorgons some time before they were eating through his hull and chewing on his boots.

No one was ready for another battle with the Hive. And, if these had been swords instead of squash racquets right now, Gypsy woulda just cut his arm off.

“Romulus has announced he will be holding games in the Coliseum,” Mr. Hicks reported from the com station.

Farragut gave his head a small shake. Not sure what made that remarkable. “That’s what the Coliseum was built for.”

“I mean with gladiators, sir. Fighting to the death.”

“You have got to be shagging me.”

“How can Romulus announce anything?” the systems tech asked. “I thought the Marines took out Palatine’s relay station.”

“That was the resonant receiver station,” said Hicks. “That took out their reception of galactic surveillance. The local network is fine and Romulus can still send his pronouncements out on the capital harmonic.”

“And he’s going to hold games,” said Captain Farragut. “Glad to see he has his priorities in order.”

Lieutenant Glenn Hamilton, looking over Tactical’s shoulder, not terribly sure of herself, said, “Captain, we have trade.”

Farragut turned to Ian Markham at Tactical, brows very high and questioning why Tactical had said nothing.

“It’s Wolfhound!” said Markham, hands up, defensive.

“Moving sublight,” said Hamster watching the plot. “Approaching the planet. Lots of Romans around and no one’s shooting at her.”

“She’s giving all the recognition signals,” said Tactical, his face growing hot. Wanted to say he didn’t need the captain’s girlfriend looking over his shoulder. Hamster should stick to the mid watch.

Farragut looked to Gypsy. “Did you know Cal was coming?”

Gypsy shook her head, as surprised as anyone. “No, sir.”

Mr. Hicks had Wolfhound’s harmonic on the resonator before the captain could demand it. “Calli, where are you?” Farragut sent without a preface of any sort.

There would be a moment while the Wolfhound’s mystified com tech passed him over to Wolfhound’s captain. Calli answered, “John?” her voice very surprised. Then uneasily, “Do you want to verify yourself?”

“Cal, I’m lookin’ at your ship entering Palatine’s star system.”

“My Wolfhound?”

“Your Wolfhound.”

“Blow it up,” said Calli.

“Roger that. Farragut out. Helm! Get us between Wolfhound and the planet, yesterday!”

“Aye, sir.” Engine sounds crescendoed. “We’re there, sir.”

“Punt.”

Merrimack rammed the Roman backward before the Roman could register Merrimack in the area. Merrimack opened up with beam fire, and sent tags to the false Wolfhound’s stern in prep for torpedoes. Mr. Hicks put his current communication on the speaker. “Captain, this is what’s coming over the fleet channel.”

The voice on the speaker sounded like Calli Carmel’s, requesting assistance, claiming Merrimack was in Roman hands and firing on her ship.

But Admiral Burk was not the old woman who lived in a shoe, and knew for damned certain that Wolfhound was not assigned to his Fleet. Burk opened a tight beam to Merrimack, “Captain Farragut, I assume you confirmed that the ship is not Wolfhound.”

“Yes, sir,” said Farragut, his ship not pausing in its fusillade on the Roman imposter. “I just talked to Cal seconds ago. Looks like the lupes have infiltrated our Fleet channel.”

“Very well. Carry on.”

———

Lieutenant Colonel TR Steele stood straddling his Silver Horse in the tundra dusted with snow. Windblown ice crystals hit the Silver Horses with a thin tinny clatter. The Marines, the Silver Horses, and their gear were camouflaged black and white as volcanic rock and snow. Curtains of auroras waved in the weird sky that was neither night nor day. TR Steele felt like a ghost.

He had died inside when he received the signal from Flight Leader Ranza Espinoza. Ranza had hit the panic button and there had been no further word after that. No information. It had been sudden whatever it had been.

Kerry Blue was in Ranza’s unit.

Steele’s team had stopped here to check their bearings.

A Marine known as the Yurg stood with his ear pressed to his com, listening to the Fleet channel. Yelled, “Merrimack’s shooting at Wolfhound.”

Steele scowled, confused. “Wolfhound is here?”

The Yurg paused. “No. Guess that’s why the Cap’n’s shooting.”

A shower of big red meteors, which may have been the end of the Roman imposter, drew wide fiery streaks across the dark sky. The men grunted some hoo ras.

It was warming to know Merrimack was nearby. “Fleet’s switching over to Channel B,” the Yurg advised.

Steele nodded. Switched his own com over. He looked to Icky Iverson, who had been a damn long time getting a read on their present location.

At long last Icky announced, “We’re here.”

The Marines dismounted their Silver Horses.

Their footsteps made harsh sounds in the brittle air.

The Marines had navigated to a weapons depot. One of the fleet’s big ships had buried supplies here in preparation for the team’s next guerrilla attack.

Steele’s men found the place by global coordinates. There were no physical markers at all to distinguish it from the surrounding tundra.

Icky found the edges of the lid, which melded perfectly into the landscape. The Yurg pried up the top. Shone a light inside the underground cache.

“Shit!”

“Everything’s gone!”

“Drop that!” Steele yelled, of the cover. “Mount up. Run!”

Marines ran to their Silver Horses, Steele shouting into his com, “Gabriel. Gabriel. This is King Rat. Are you up there? Depot’s been smoked and we’re about to be bounced. Can we get a dust off?”

“King Rat, this is Gabriel. That is affirmative. Keep running. We’ll catch you.”

Marines mounting their Silver Horses. Lifting from the ground. Icky, in the rear, slipped. Landed on his face. Steele turned a circle with his horse. He bellowed at Icky, “Get on!”

Icky got himself up. Took a step. Lost his balance again. The ground was moving.

In the dark sky, out of the moving curtains of red lights, a mammoth spearhead shape descended, growing larger.

Merrimack.

The motion in the ground was all around the Marines.

Suddenly Romans poured out of camouflaged pits, too dark, too many to count. Steele slashed wide with his field knife, sliced one Roman’s throat open. To no effect.

Androids.

You only get one shot with an android. Immediately the knife flew out of Steele’s hand; his cannon and his sidearm lifted away. He lost contact with his saddle. No idea what became of his Silver Horse. His wrists immobilized in a superhuman grip.

Two Silver Horses sped away in icy clouds. And immediately plowed into black nets. Metal screeched against volcanic rock. A swarm of androids crowded around Merrimack’s lowering sail. While, black on black, a low flying sheet of killer bots moved in fast. Merrimack opened up like a dragon, spouting hydrogen fire at the advancing bots.

The androids stormed the sail as Merrimack’s hatch opened. Navy sharpshooters on a platform picked off androids one by one, trying to weed them out from their Marines. The ship could not just scoop up the whole skirmish and spit out the bad ones—a Roman android in captivity tended to go off like a bomb.

Steele struggled. The android held him fast. He could not even wave at the sharpshooters to tell them to nail this thing.

The androids were thick around the sail. If Mack had her Fleet Marines on board, they could fight these things off, Steele thought.

He lost sight of his men in the throng of androids. Merrimack’s force field had solidified. It glittered under the auroras. The hatch to the lower sail was still open.

Steele could see Captain Farragut hanging from a ladder like a pirate in the rigging of an ancient ship, weapon at the ready, searching all round. Steele could not hear him through the force field, but could see his mouth moving, clearly yelling: TR1 TR! As TR Steele fought uselessly against the machines that dragged him. He was pulled down, kept going down. Underground. Lost sight of Farragut. Of Merrimack. Of anything.

From the subterranean blackness he heard the space battleship rising, the searing shriek of outbound fire following after her.

27

FARRAGUT CAME UP THE LADDER from the lower sail like a missile launch. He charged onto the command deck, bellowing: “Tracking! Do we have him? Where is he?”

“I can tell you where we lost them, sir,” said Tracking. “The lupes must have killed all the coms and the tracking units. The colonel’s disappeared from the grid.”

The coms and the tracking units were dead. And what of the Marines wearing them?

Farragut stalked the confines of the crowded deck with a ready fist. Nothing safe to hit, and it was all his equipment anyway. “What was Steele’s next target?”

“Space control relay tower, five clicks from where the lupes grabbed them.”

“Let’s go get it.”

“It’s shielded top to bottom, Captain,” Gypsy advised, only after giving the orders to put Merrimack on course to the target.

Merrimack descended back into Palatine’s atmosphere. Because the ship and her shields were designed to deflect anything she met head on, she plowed sideways into the relay tower.

The enemy shields held, but the tower canted over, its foundations uprooted.

Merrimack rose out of the atmosphere to massing Roman warships, avid as piranha, Gladiator in the thick of them.

The command crew could tell that the captain wanted to get into a street fight with Numa Pompeii. The better part of valor ordered, “Dodge and run. FTL.”

Farragut took some verbal fire from Admiral Burk for freelancing.

“I support the men under my command, sir,” Farragut sent back.

Expected to catch hell for that remark, but no more hell was forthcoming. His next communication was Admiral Burk ordering the Fleet to switch communications to Channel C.

———

Roma Nova, the second eternal city, lay tranquil, beautiful and impressive in the morning light. Romans loved to impress. The city had been built on the premise that human beings need beauty. Only observe the amount of work and money spent on art and music, and one must recognize the need for beauty as a basic hunger.

Opponents of Caesar expected some backlash at Romulus’ proposal of holding games in Roma Nova. Especially from areas of the planet suffering the effects of the U.S. military strikes.

But the backlash was limited. Places still struggling without power were feeling patriotic and defiant. Let the Americans see Rome unbowed. Households with independent generators invited neighbors and stranded travelers in to watch the games from there.

The Senate and the Roman intelligentsia were appalled at the very idea of gladiatorial contests. Appalled at the public interest in them, at the distraction from things of importance.

Senator Trogus, who was not permitted into the Presence since his contact with Augustus’ black box, appeared before Caesar as a projected holoimage, ugly in his anger. “This is outrageous. It’s prehistoric!”

“No, games lie squarely in the historical era,” said Caesar smoothly. “There is written documentation of them.”

Trogus sputtered. Caesar had taken a convenient turn down a semantic detour and had not addressed the point. “We are an enlightened society! You make us into cartoon barbarians! Caesar, you humiliate us in front of the civilized galaxy!”

“Gladiatorial contests are the farthest thing from barbarism,” said Romulus, composed, sober.

He was seated very casually, both feet on the seat of his throne, one folded leg resting flat, the other up at a right angle. He was all in black but for the gold of his oak leaf crown. Black and gold. Julian colors. “I honor our fathers. I do not disavow them as some men will. I remember where we came from. The games give a man who is without honor a chance to restore his dignity, his status as a man, by blood and courage. A last chance at honorable death. This is a privilege. What could be more elemental? More Roman?”

“I suppose Caesar intends to have an old-fashioned spectacle of animals tearing at each other as well!”

Romulus drew himself up straight in his throne, astonished and offended. Feet on the floor and palm to his chest as if stabbed to the heart. “No. What kind of sick mind could suppose that? Animals are innocent and without honor. What have you against animals, Trogus?”

Left Trogus tangled in his own argument. One must choose words with extraordinary care when talking to Caesar. No one was better at stabbing you with your own blade than Caesar Romulus.

Let Trogus feel idiotic for bringing up the subject of animal fights. Romulus did not mention that there could be some animal feeding at the games.

The lifting of the hood revealed an underground passageway, wide, high, all stone. Stone archways led off to chambers on either side blocked by metal bars. Cages. Prisoners crowded the cages. Animal snarls and scuffling sounded from farther down the brooding corridor.

“Colonel!”

The voice came from down the corridor where TR Steele was headed. He saw his Marines. Behind bars.

Cain Salvador. Dak Shepard. Twitch Fuentes. Carly Delgado. Ranza Espinoza.

Steele’s heart stood still, leaped into sunlight. Kerry Blue.

The Marines crowded at the bars, thrilled and dismayed to see their CO down here. Steele’s own team was in there too, arrived ahead of him. Icky Iverson. The Yurg. Big Richard. Taher. Menendez. Androids ordered the American prisoners against the back wall, then opened the cage to push Steele in. No one rushed the door. No human ever won a hand-tohand with an android. “Fresh meat,” the prisoners in the opposite cage announced.

The barred door clanked shut behind Steele, locked. His Marines rushed forward. Kerry Blue seized the excuse to get her arms round Steele. Everyone else was mugging him too. The Yurg reaching over the rest of them to pat Steele on his buzz cut blond head.

“Do that again, Marine, I’ll brig you,” Steele snarled. Yurg grinned. Colonel never made too many jokes. “Yes, sir.” Kerry Blue pressed against Steele’s side like a missing piece restored. Nothing looked too grim anymore. He had to let go of her to clasp other hands and knock fists with his men. The Marines bombarded him with news. Darb was dead. They killed Darb.

Steele hushed them. “Save it. Don’t talk.”

He turned round to see all the Roman eyes across the corridor, watching them. Listening.

Steele tried to take in all of what was here. He had twelve Marines with him, men and women together in one roughly ten- by twenty-foot cage.

He noted that the lupes had let the Marines keep their language modules, and their gunsights still bracketed their eyes. But no one had a com on him.

There were Romans down here too, behind bars, separate from the Americans. The group in the cage opposite the Marines were bigger men, healthier, and better kept than the shabby collection crowded into the cage at the intersection of the next corridor.

A heavy weight dropping on the overhead made a loud dull thump and sent sawdust sprinkling down from the wooden ceiling.

The oddity of this place caught up with Steele. He spoke out loud, incredulous. “Where the hell are we?”

“Roma Nova, sir,” said Icky Iverson.

More to the point, Ranza Espinoza said: “Under the Coliseum, sir.”

A Roman prisoner in the cage across the corridor offered, “If they fit you for armor, you’re going up there.” He nodded up at the ceiling.

“Don’t listen to them, sir,” said Ranza. “Those guys’ve been torquing us around with that skat since we got here.”

“If it’s skat, why are you here?” the Roman called. “This is Death Row.”

“ ‘Cause they don’t got nowhere else to put us,” Ranza shot back. “Rome don’t got prisons.” The prisoner smiled ironically, gave the heavy metal bar a flick with his finger. “Hm. Verily.”

Steele turned to grip the bars. He watched the Romans watching him from behind their bars. “I thought Rome didn’t keep prisoners.”

“We’re not prisoners.” The man grinned and spat. Didn’t quite make the distance across the corridor to the American cage. “We’re gladiators.”

Steele gestured down the corridor at the other cage of sorrier Romans. “What are they?” The gladiator gave a disparaging glance toward the shabbier men. “Dead,” he answered.

“Scum,” said another gladiator.

“Crabs,” said another.

A flat surly voice from the slum answered, “You’re exciting me, O Big Strong Gladiators.”

“Those are criminals,” Ranza told Steele. “Bottom of the birdcage.” Steele looked at the gladiators in their cage, then at the scum of Palatine in their cage. “What’s the difference?”

“Gladiators fight each other. The scum get fed to something.” The animal noises from somewhere in these catacombs pressed to the fore of Steele’s attention.

“Gladiators take an oath,” said a gladiator.

“Yeah,” said Ranza. “To endure burning, beating, killing, bludgeoning, buggering—”

“Ho!”

“Okay, I added that last one,” Ranza admitted.

“They swear to take that all?” said Steele.

Ranza nodded.

Steele shrugged. Those were all good things to happen to Romans.

The duty of a prisoner was to escape. Ranza had been taking note of things about their surroundings. One of the first things she noticed was there were no cameras down here.

Steele didn’t believe it. “There have to be cameras.”

The Romans chuckled at him. “This place does not exist.”

Steele could not see any sound recorders but could not afford to think there were none. There had to be listening devices with American POWs down here. He asked if the Marines had been interrogated.

“No, sir.”

That sealed it. “They’re listening,” Steele told her.

After that, Ranza and Steele conferred under cover of a cloak. Gladiators hooted and offered to pay to watch what he and she were doing under there.

While the Marines tapped a cover of Morse garbage. Any Roman surveillance would think there might be embedded messages in all the junk. At least Rome could not afford to leave the cryptic messages unanalyzed.

Tapped nonstop nonsense:

Claudia is a cow.

Claudia is a sow.

Claudia is a bowwow.

Claudia is a meow.

It would give the Roman cryptos something to chew on while Steele and Ranza plotted an escape. The code was all crap and the Alphas could keep it up till the Claudias came home.

... slut.

... mutt.

... butt.

Under the cloak Ranza and Steele communicated silently in a combination of signs and lipreading. Steele did not trust whispers.

Ranza told Steele about the guards. They were almost all automatons. Not many human guards. Ranza had seen one or two.

She told him that the human guards never approached close enough to the cages to be grabbed. The guards carried shockers—contact-type shockers—in case some klutz of a guard dropped his shocker and it fell into a prisoner’s hands, it couldn’t be used against the guard. Unless he was idiot enough to come within arm’s length of the cage.

A guard had been grabbed by the scum while the Marines were down here. Automatons had come to the rescue real quick for that. But if a brawl broke out, no one would come.

Automatons were stationed at all the outer doors. There were no patrols. Automatons did the feeding. Automatons emptied the crappers. Ranza told him the criminals had a deader in their cage. He lay dead in there all day. Automatons fed and emptied the cage but left the stiff. A human guard came later. Didn’t notice the body till the inmates demanded it be removed. The guards made the prisoners stand against the far wall, and they brought down more automatons before they opened the cage and dragged out the corpse.

How does the automaton know who is guard? Steele asked.

Ranza shrugged, guessed, Signals from an implant?

Steele considered what could be worked around that piece of information. He pressed his fingers to his ears to keep out the tapping so he could think.

... hag.

... rag.

... bag.

... drag.

...gag.

On top of the Morse, other Marines kept up a cover of whispers for Roman surveillance to pick up. The Roman spooks would eventually sift out the whispers from the Morse and all the other noises, and figure out what the Americans were saying in secret.

Then the Roman cryptographers’ next task would be to decipher what “My dog has fleas” was code for. And how much wood would a woodchuck really chuck.

———

At night—at what the Marines assumed was night—the lights went out. No warning. Just sudden darkness. It ended any covert conversations under the cloak.

Bioluminescent mold or lichen on the ceiling gave off the faintest pale green glow so the underground chambers were not totally black once the eyes dilated.

The jailers had provided mattresses for the POWs to sleep on. The Marines kept their mats stacked against the back wall when not in use. They dragged the mats out to the floor as soon as their eyes adjusted to the dark.

Carly shared a mat with Twitch. Ranza kept to herself, and no one bothered Ranza. The men beckoned Kerry Blue as she tiptoed through the reclining bodies. Most of them knew her too well. There was an assumption that being with her once conferred a lifetime membership. She picked her way through them, dropped down on a mattress near the wall, to lie back to back with Colonel Steele. All the men sounded a disappointed, “Awww.”

Steele snarled low into the wall, his back to her. “Not a bright idea, Marine.” She stayed where she was, back to broad back. Whispered, “Sir? It’s a cage full of men.”

“They’re Marines.”

“So are you.”

The colonel had no business ever touching her. Ever. And that had not stopped him. He growled, “As you were.”

28

THE WORDS VIRTUS ET HONUS were chiseled into the back wall of the gladiators’ cell.

Strength and Honor.

Ranza had found a small stone which had crumbled out of the floor, and decided she wanted to write Quantum coiens pignus on her cell wall with it.

Big deal.

“Tell me how to draw that,” Ranza asked anyone. Cain started spelhng, “Q—U—” Ranza interrupted, “But how do you write that in Roman?” Cain was confused. “Quantum coiens pignus IS Latin.”

“I mean the letters,” said Ranza. “Don’t they write in those squiggles?”

“No. Just use Roman characters.”

“I don’t know Roman characters,” Ranza tried to tell him again. “Urn,” said Cain. “They write the same as us.”

“No shit?” Her silver-gray eyes blinked surprise. “Romans use our alphabet?”

“Uh,” Cain started, changed his mind about what he was about to say. Said, “Yeah. Q—U—A—”

Ranza scribed the letters with her stone into the wall as Cain dictated. She muttered, “Dang, those lupes stole everything from us, didn’t they.”

———

Every day the gladiators were let out for exercise in small numbers in the company of automatons. POWs were not.

The Marines traded taunts with the gladiators. In spite of the insults, you could tell the gladiators regarded the American POWs as several steps above the Roman scum in the other cage. Those were something you scrape off the sole of your sandal. The POWs were soldiers, and therefore honorable. They were just on the wrong side of the war.

The noises from above started early this day, sounds of lots of people climbing bleachers. Festive voices. Music. Vendors hawking goods.

All the sounds funneled down here.

The prisoners watched a giant lizard float past on a heavy lifter through the corridor that divided the Americans from the Romans. The beast was fourteen feet long not counting its eternal tail. The great expanse of its rough skin was mottled green, brown, and dark red. A thick squat horn topped its nose like a small pyramid. Its wide feet were three-toed like a dinosaur’s.

The lizard was chained to its platform, but so lethargic it didn’t seem to need restraints. It took no interest in the humans. The Marines could not see its teeth. Didn’t want to. The thing looked smelly and wasn’t.

“Local life has an opposite thing going,” said Kerry Blue. “Opposite orientation. To its protein. That’s why the lizard doesn’t stink to us and we don’t smell tasty to him.”

Her cellmates looked at her strangely. “How’d you know that, Blue?”

“Something Darb told me.” Tears sprang suddenly to her eyes. She dashed them away before they could escape. “That’s why on some planets we can’t eat anything.” Her face wrinkled up. She did cry.

“Darb?” said Steele. Jealousy in the name.

Kerry’s arms hung uselessly at her sides. “He was like everybody’s weird brother. Came out with these strange bits of information. Like in comedy everyone gets married. Tragedy everybody dies.” She wiped her face with her sleeves. “I’m gonna miss him for a while.”

Ranza said, “I’m gonna miss him.” Cole Darby was her outboard brain.

Soon automatons, more of them than usual, trooped down to the dungeon. They passed the Americans by and stopped at the criminals’ cage and ordered the prisoners against the back wall.

An automaton opened their cage. The dirty Romans—and these were, literally, dirty— cringed.

You didn’t like those guys. They were Roman and they were slime. Still something moved in the gut, made the breath come shallow, drummed at the nerves to hear the names of human beings called forward for execution.

An automaton called a name. Terror showed in all the men’s eyes. No one answered. Then you noticed, because an automaton was picking one up, the tiny capsules on the stone floor in the passageway.

The automaton that picked up the capsule walked into the cage and down the line of prisoners. Some of the men had bloody ears.

Apparently the prisoners had dug the thin capsules from their earlobes and pitched them out to the corridor.

The automaton found a match, perhaps to the blood. The machine being seized the prisoner and dragged him out screaming and thrashing.

A gladiator cupped his hands around his mouth and scolded, embarrassed, from his cage, “Not in front of the Yanks!”

Five other prisoners either came as their names were called or got forcefully collected.

One of the damned let himself sail away into a euphoric hysteria. He smiled and blew kisses back to the ones left behind, his eyes glassy. Another vomited. His cellmates offered comfort: “Don’t do that in here! Who’s going to clean that up!”

The automatons shut the cage and took the condemned away.

When the automatons came back for the gladiators, the chosen stepped forward proudly when called. Those were led out in chains rather than in the grip of automatons.

When they were gone, the underground cell blocks took on the quiet sullenness of a death watch.

Ceremonial trumpets blared from above.

A tumultuous cheer, and thunderous chanting: “CAESAR CAE-SAR CAE-SAR.”

Steele’s artic blue eyes lifted. “Is that prick up there?”

A little later, raucous jeering signaled the appearance of one or more of the condemned criminals in the ring.

Then, not from above, but from somewhere in the underground corridors, sounded the clanking of stout chains, a tremendous roar, a pounding and splintering of massive wooden doors.

Kerry whispered, “That thing’s down here!” The noise was coming from the direction the lizard had gone. Not lethargic anymore. It sounded enraged. Angry huffing and puffing and hissing built up to another roar.

Then came the sudden sound of chains rattling out. A huge door opening. Great limbs thrashing, claws gouging, the beast launching itself up a ramp and out.

Shrieks and cries from the crowd, the voices full of fear, awe, and blood thirst. Drumming pandemonium reverberated down below. Noises of horror and disgust carried downward, followed by cheers and fervent applause.

There was a smaller sound amid the din, very close. A voice of a single someone right above the Marines’ heads. Whimpering against their ceiling became a soul-curdling scream. Then a roof-shaking thwomp!

A rain of splintered sawdust and sand filtered down from the ceiling.

Kerry Blue shook the grit out of her brown hair. The lupes had taken her hair band away from her for some reason. She moved over to crouch next to Steele, who was blinking sand from his eyes.

And it went on. You couldn’t talk. Because you couldn’t think. Just listen to the sounds.

After a while, the giant lizard floated back through the corridor the way it had come, lazy on its lift, breathing deep and slow. Its yellow eyes showed no interest in the aliens behind the bars.

Much later, after all the noise had died away, automatons returned some of the gladiators to their common cell. The men were clean, shaved, and dressed in fresh tunics. They collected nods of recognition from their cellmates. Apparently you got taken care of if you won.

Some time in the middle of the night Steele became aware of Kerry Blue tapping Morse against his hip with her forefinger.

Kerry tended to get her d’s and her u’s mixed up, so she ended up telling him: I love you. He had no choice but to tap on her hand: I love yod too.

Two nights later, a screaming and howling and banging carried up from the dungeons to the guards’ chamber on the ground level.

The brawl down in the cages sounded like a hoax. The human night guard was too smart for that. He waited an hour or more after the sounds died away to wander down to see if anyone had been killed. If the deader was someone scheduled to die in the morning, he would need to pick a replacement.

He did not turn on the underground lights, as he did not want to disturb the animals. He carried a lamp to review the cages.

He found the body. It was fish-belly white, in the Americans’ cage, lying against the bars.

And there was a skinny American woman, all the way through the bars so she was standing in the corridor— except that her head was caught between the bars.

The large male body lay right where she could spit down on it. There was a long gash in his head, crusted with blood, and a bloodstain on the stone floor under him.

No problem with him. Someone else could clean that mess up on the next watch.

The woman was a problem. She turned her head at the guard’s approach. Friendly as a badger, that one. She cocked a leg, ready to kick.

The guard brandished his shocker. He ordered the American prisoners to get back against the far wall. Then told the woman to squeeze her skinny ass back inside.

She gave a feral snarl. The bars prevented her from angling her face around to look at him, and her dark hair was in her eyes. She kept her heel up and ready to clock him if he came up behind her.

The Romans caged farther down the corridor told him to leave her like that. They goaded him: Take her! Take her!

The guard was not getting snared in this. He was smarter than that.

He tried to keep his distance and still get a better look at the woman. He was not altogether convinced that she couldn’t get her head the rest of the way through those bars. Maybe if she left her ears behind.

From the look of her, he guessed she might do just that.

He touched his shocker to the bars at the edge of the cell, hoping that would carry through and stun her. But the weapon didn’t activate against metal.

He wished he could just kill her. Unfortunately he did not have the authority to kill U.S. POWs. And explaining the need for deadly force against a female that size would not advance his career.

“Call for reinforcements!” the prisoners cackled.

“You need automatons! Lots of them!”

“Help! Help!” someone called in falsetto.

There were dogs bigger than she was. He was twice her size.

He made sure the other Americans were still against the back wall, before he quickly, gingerly darted in from the side, near the bars, out of the striking line of her waiting heel, and jabbed her with his shocker.

Even before she dropped, he felt a very large hand close on his ankle and pull. He fell harder.

The Romans prisoners howled and clamored like baboons, calling for guards, in earnest this time.

The Marines reached through the bars and pulled the guard’s body close. They’d got very lucky. The guard’s head had smacked the stone floor hard. He was unconscious or dead.

The Yurg’s body had cushioned Carly’s face-first drop straight down. Kerry supported Carly’s head as the Yurg got out from under Carly and rose to his feet.

They had chosen the Yurg to be the deader because he was a very pale guy and he had the longest arms. His head wound was only a slice which he had cut with his own thick thumbnail, sharpened against the stone wall. It was a shallow gash, but a scalp wound bled like a son of a bitch, and he had looked frightening.

Steele gouged the recognition capsule out of the guard’s earlobe.

The guard’s blood on Steele’s hands, the guard’s capsule, and the guard’s control unit won him an amazing green light on the lock of their cell door. The Marines stared at the miracle.

There was a moment of breath-holding before the opening of the door.

Everyone tensed. This next move would trigger the alarms. Had to. This scheme could not be working this well.

Steele pushed.

The cell door swung open with a tired creak.

There could be silent alarms, but the Marines wouldn’t know that unless automatons came marching down.

The gladiators yelled bloody murder. The criminals beckoned sweetly with crocodilian smiles for the Americans to let them out. They could help, they said. They could show the Americans the way out, they said.

The Marines ignored them except to stay beyond grabbing distance from any of them.

Dak pulled out the rope they had made from braided strips of mattress covers. It had been stowed under one of the mattresses. The Marines had been careful to stack the mattresses good-side-out during the day.

Kerry Blue and Twitch Fuentes gently maneuvered Carly back through the bars. Twitch carried Carly out of the cell, Ranza seized up the guard’s lamp and they all ran.

“Wrong way!” the Romans tried to tell them.

It was the wrong way if the Marines intended to get to a door. But they knew there were automatons by all the doors.

The Marines were going out the death gate.

Kerry Blue had always been good at getting men to brag. At a stray mention of a “death gate.” Kerry’s expression of repugnance got the Romans to pile detail upon gross detail, with vivid descriptions of what went through the deatii gate, and exactly where the death gate was.

The Romans talked enough for the Marines to kluge together a rough layout of this subterranean labyrinth. And the Romans had volunteered information like, “You can’t escape from the arena. It’s not like old Rome. The lowest boxes are seven meters up.”

Okay, that means we need the rope to be longer than twenty-one feet. Thank you very much.

Ranza covered the lamp with her shirt to dampen the beacon as they moved stealthily through the labyrinth. The other prisoners kept up their clamor, but apparently no one believed them.

Twitch hissed, “Mira!”

Ranza turned the light to a dark alcove where, piled like trash, was a collection of things taken from prisoners upon capture. There were U.S. landing disks and displacement collars in the pile.

For certain there would be displacement jammers in effect here, and there were no coms in the pile with which to signal the Mack anyway.

The Marines did not want to be weighed down by something they probably would not be able to use. Still they grabbed a few displacement sets just in case God and the Merrimack smiled on them.

They proceeded to a primitive lift made of wood and operated by chains and a pulley. Ranza doused the light entirely. The Marines hauled themselves up to ground level, and stepped out to another wide tunnel. This passage smelled of chlorine.

The Romans had cleaned the stones with bleach.

Kerry whispered, “This is it.”

A lot of horrible stuff came this way. The Romans dragged the dead out of the arena through here. The Marines dashed out the death gate into moonlight.

They stood in the wide bowl of the Coliseum, a vast pit open to the sky. Insects, night birds, and bats flitted in and out of the high archways. Pennants stood listless in the idle wind. Underfoot was sand. Arena was Latin for sand.

Two moons gave the Marines double shadows. They moved back to the wall and proceeded like a line of rats out of moonlight into deep shadow.

Dak tied their braided rope onto two of the displacement collars to weight the end. He passed the line to Cain.

Cain swung the weighted end in circles to gather momentum for his toss. He let the rope fly at a high column in the first row of boxes seven meters up.

The line struck the side of the column. The weight of the landing disks caused the end of the line to loop several turns around the column.

Perfect.

“Quick!” Ranza sent Kerry Blue up the rope first. It was supposed to have been Carly, who was lightest and quickest, but Carly was still unconscious. Kerry scrambled up as if all their lives depended on it, and pulled herself over the knee wall. She got hold of the rope’s counterweights and kept them in place so the rope would not unwrap from the column.

With the top secured, Steele held down the bottom of the line and sent the Marines up one at a time.

The rope was amazing. They never should have got away with making it. No guard ever searched their cell. Romans continually fell into the trap of relying on automatons. Their disdain for low tech was unforgivable in a people who lost sixty-four Legions to the Hive because of that disdain.

The Marines were feeling extraordinarily forgiving just now.

Cain and Yurg were next up, so they could help others get over the top. The Yurg carried the lamp between his teeth.

Twitch, wearing Carly Delgado draped across his shoulders, came up next. Cain hauled Carly up from Twitch’s shoulders, then the Yurg helped Twitch over.

Twitch immediately gathered up Carly again, took the lamp, and set off through the rows and aisles of the amphitheater, scouting a way out.

He was not looking for a door. There were seventy-six of them. He could expect automatons and alarms at every one of the seventy-six.

On the second level at the outer wall on the moon-shadowed side of the Coliseum, Twitch chose one of the many open archways that framed large statues. This one looked like the goddess Diana.

Twitch turned off the lamp as he drew close. He gently settled Carly on the floor between Diana and the arch, then traced his route back so he could show the others the way.

All but four of the Marines were already over the knee wall by the time Twitch returned. Icky Iverson was climbing the rope.

Down in the arena. Colonel Steele glanced up. He noticed Kerry Blue up there at the knee wall still holding the counterweight down. He growled low at Cain, “What is she still doing here? Get her out of here!”

Cain turned his head aside, whispered, “Beat it, Kerry, I got this.”

Twitch beckoned Kerry to come with.

“Behind you!” the Yurg shouted, making everyone jump.

Down in the arena, Steele turned. The shot tore into his chest. Kerry’s screech tore the night sky, “Thomas!” Steele spun round, one hand still clutching the rope. Lost his grip. Fell on his back.

Kerry’s face appeared over the knee wall, screaming.

Ranza dropped to her knees at Steele’s side.

Icky rotated on the anchorless rope, skinned his knuckles on the wall, slipped. Avoided landing on Steele, and fell into Dak Shepard.

Steele’s blue eyes were round in shock or death. Steele’s hand lifted, zombielike, from the sand to point at Kerry Blue, the eyes staring at Cain behind her, bloody mouth moving. Repeating his last order.

Romans charged across the arena. Dak hurled the dangling end of the rope up and over the wall, out of Roman reach. Yelled at the Marines up there: “Go! Go! Go!”

Twitch reeled in the rope faster than he thought he could move. He unwound its weighted end from the column. Cain pried Kerry Blue away from the knee wall, and dragged her at a run behind Twitch with the others into darkness.

29

COULD NOT SEE A DAMNED THING for her tears and the dark. Kerry Blue just kept hold of Cain’s hand and ran the way he pulled her. Twitch was out in front, leading them up steps and through the black passageways of the Coliseum. The blackness broke to a patch of midnight sky through an open archway. Framed by the arch was the hard silhouette of a woman, larger than life, holding a bow and arrow. Statue.

Kerry glimpsed movement around the statue’s plinth, of people hiding there. She almost cried out a warning, but then recognized the figures as Marines.

Carly was on the floor, stirring, holding her head.

Twitch never slowed down. He charged up to the statue and quickly tied the rope around giant Diana’s marble legs, while the waiting Marines whispered to Kerry and Cain, “Where’s the Old Man?” And Kerry couldn’t talk.

Twitch threw the free end of the rope out through the arch. He gave the rope a good tug to test its strength, then motioned for the first climber.

Cain ordered in a whisper, “Kerry, go!”

She hesitated.

“You ain’t going back,” Cain told her, hauling her toward the rope. “I got orders. Move your ass.” And Kerry would not hold up everyone else with a balk. She scrambled over the edge. Twitch and Cain kept hold of her until she got a grip on the rope and whispered, “Okay okay okay.” When they released her, she slithered down as fast as she could without tearing her palms off. The rope was too short. She had to cling to the bottom end and let herself drop the last yard or two. Landed on her feet, felt the jarring in her shins. Rolled on hard paving stones.

She rolled up to a crouch. Looked up. Did not move. Saw that the arch through which she had just escaped was positioned directly above one of the seventy-six arched doorways to the Coliseum.

And behind the bars of that arched doorway a human silhouette moved, turning outward to face her with the silhouette of a weapon.

Fear leaped inside her like iced daggers. The breath stopped in her chest. She froze in her crouch, staring. Did he see her?

Trying not to move anything more than her eyes, she lifted her gaze upward. Someone else was clinging to the rope up there, waiting for her to move. She hoped the others could see her wide wide eyes. The climber had stopped on the rope. Sensed something desperately wrong down below.

A motion behind the bars drew Kerry’s gaze forward again. The figure inside the arch raised the weapon toward her, taking aim.

The planet stood still.

The end of the rope swayed over Kerry’s head.

I’m right behind you, Thomas Ryder Steele.

The loud voice from the dark commanded, “Stand away from the door. Do not approach.”

Automaton.

Kerry heard a small gasp up above, faint as a rush of air, though there was no wind. Then there were no more whispers. No sound but night traffic in the city. Kerry’s breaths came shallow. She stood up carefully. Turned around slowly. Took several tentative steps away from the door, nothing exploding, nothing stabbing into her back.

She kept walking stiffly away.

Didn’t dare look back. But heard seven more times a drop and a roll, and the automaton voice commanding someone to stand away from the door.

———

Night turned to day, and the day was half gone before the Coliseum’s Vigil of the night watch was summoned before his superior, the Sub-praefect of Roma Nova.

The Vigil had spent the last hours in helpless, useless waiting, goaded by a sense of dire urgency. Time was of the essence and he had been commanded to stay put, do nothing, and talk to no one. He listened for a public broadcast, for sirens. Still heard utterly nothing of the prison break.

When at last he was summoned, the Vigil reported to his superior’s office and blurted at once: “American soldiers are loose in Roma Nova. The populace must be warned.”

The Sub-praefect left that declaration out there an inordinately long time before he gave his slow measured answer, “You shall not tell me what must be.”

On the floor next to the Sub-praefect’s pearwood desk lay the rope the Vigil had untied from Diana’s legs and reeled up from the second floor archway. Now that he could see it by proper light, the Vigil could identify the material. Strips of mattress covering. The fabric had been judged too thin to hold anyone’s weight, so the Americans had braided it.

“I accept responsibility,” the Vigil announced at rigid attention.

“No,” said the Sub-praefect, much as he would like to toss this person into the criminals’ pen. “You are not taking responsibility because there is no prison underneath the Coliseum, we are not holding POWs there, and this fiasco never happened.”

All the brilliant people in this empire, and the Subpraefect got a Vigil who signaled a lockdown that locked the automaton guards safely away from the escaping prisoners.

And he had shot their only captive officer.

Caesar had actually taken that news with a strange serenity. There could be no recriminations, because none of that had happened. “That kind of news does not get out,” said the Subpraefect. “Ever.”

“But they’re out there!” said the Vigil. “The Americans!”

“And you are going to apprehend them,” the Subpraefect assured him. “And when you do apprehend the American soldiers, your captives will be freshly landed troops.”

“But they are—”

“Freshly landed troops. You have never seen them before in your life.”

“I—”

“Have never seen them before in your possibly severely foreshortened life. Put your ears on, listen closely, and repeat this back to me, so I know you understand: There are no escaped POWs loose in Roma Nova.”

Automatons took Ranza Espinoza, Dak Shepard, and Icky Iverson back to their cell under the Coliseum. Two automatons for each of them, though one would have done. All the mattresses had been gathered up and taken away. Ranza’s writing stone had been removed from the cell. The words QUANTUM COIENS PIGNUS remained etched in the wall.

A gladiator, seeing only three of the escapees returning to captivity, remarked in utter disbelief. “They made it?”

“Don’t answer that,” Ranza quickly ordered Dak and Icky.

Big Dak’s face was wet with tears.

The gladiator guessed, “Well, not all of them anyway.”

———

A U.S. patrol picked up an FTL plot moving from the direction of Thaleia toward Palatine’s star system. “Fat PanGalactic supply ship moving your way,” the patrol notified Fleet and gave the vector. “Take it, Merrimack,” Admiral Burk ordered.

“Get me a Star Sparrow out there,” Farragut told Gypsy. A Star Sparrow was really the only thing for intercepting an FTL target. Gypsy ordered up a T541 Star Sparrow with a shipkiller load, then ordered Targeting, “Tag the Thaleian.”

“Targeting, aye. Tag away.”

“Fire Control. You have permission to launch Star Sparrow on general vector forward of the Thaleian.”

“Firing Star Sparrow, aye.” Fire Control responded. Energy coiled within the ship. A metallic scream rose from the launch tube with the missile’s leaving. The recoil carried through the deck, and the ship sang.

“Star Sparrow away,” Fire Control reported.

Targeting: “Tag has locked on target. We have a green.”

“Transmit tag signature to Star Sparrow,” said Gypsy.

“Transmitting tag sig, aye.” In a moment, “Star Sparrow has a lock. Time to intercept eleven seconds.”

“Is the target evading?”

“No, sir. Target holding course. He’s on the rails. Coming in hot. Contact in three. Two.”

Waited.

None of the ship’s stations said anything.

No flash appeared on the Tac screen.

Farragut turned to his silent tactical. “Report.”

Marcander Vincent shook his head, at a loss, “Nothing happened.” Fire Control reported, “Shipkiller did not detonate. Repeat, the warhead did not detonate.”

“Old ordnance?” Tracking suggested.

“Ordnance never gets that old on this boat.” Farragut moved quickly round to look at the tactical screen. Demanded, “Tag status!”

“Gone,” said Targeting. “We have lost contact with the tag. The lupes may have erased it.”

“Where is my Star Sparrow?”

Gypsy sent to Fire Control: “Ping the Star Sparrow.”

“No return ping, sir,” Fire Control responded. “We lost it.” Farragut said, “Lost as in it’s a runaway, or lost as in it’s joining the other side?”

“Lost as in we have no signal and no idea,” said Tactical. “Find it! I don’t want to eat this one.” And to Mr. Hicks at the com station. “Get me Fleet.” Mister Hicks immediately raised the flagship. “I have Admiral Burk, Captain.”

Farragut took up the com. “Fleet, this is Merrimack. We have a Star Sparrow that failed to detonate and now we’ve lost track of it.”

He braced for Burk’s hand to come right out of the com and rip the stars off his collar. But Burk’s voice came back resigned, tired, and grim, “You’re not the first one, Merrimack.”

The admiral told him that the Romans had apparently foxed the U.S. tracking system for hard ordnance. He was advising all ships to adjust tactics until a solution was found.

“No hard ordnance? That leaves us basically with beams,” said Farragut.

“Yes,” was the hard answer.

At least Marcander Vincent waited until the com was closed before he opened his mouth. “That’s bullshit! Intercept an FTL target with beams? That don’t happen.”

It didn’t happen. The Roman supply ship from Thaleia made it into Palatine’s star system, where Roman ships flocked around it to escort it at sublight speed to the planet’s atmosphere.

Harsh words passed back and forth over the com among members of the U.S. Fleet. A direct hail to Merrimack carried the ironic voice of Captain Washington of Monitor:

“Merrimack, I found your Star Sparrow.”

Farragut seized up the com. “Marty! Thank God!”

“Not what I’ve been saying here,” said Martin Washington. “Your Sparrow was the one with the shipkiller?”

John Farragut was all but singing hallelujah. Laughing with relief. “If my bird had found any other ship but yours, that warhead would have lived up to its name.”

“That is true. You owe me. And I’m going to collect on this one, John. I’ll make a list.”

“Marty, I’m ready to kiss your feet!”

“Foot-kissing will not be on the list.”

Admiral Burk directed both captains to a separate channel on which to give them instructions.

“A U.S. light cruiser will be arriving from Earth carrying commandos. Merrimack and Monitor will provide distraction strikes while the commandos are inserted on the ground near their targets,” said Burk. “We need to get a lot more aggressive here, gentlemen. The softening up process has got to proceed faster. We need to get our invasion forces on the ground with all possible speed.”

“Without getting our invasion force massacred,” Marty Washington added. “I do realize that, Captain Washington,” said Burk, offended. “Something is happening on Earth,” Farragut suddenly realized.

Burk seemed to shrink. All at once he looked old. The admiral admitted, “We think Romulus is making an end run.”

“Should we even be here?” said Farragut, alarmed.

“We absolutely must be here,” said Burk. “We need to make something happen here before Romulus makes his move there. Your battleships would be of no use on Earth right now.”

“Why?” Martin Washington asked.

Farragut and Washington could tell that Burk did not want to explain. But he had to. “The population of Earth has, over the last several months, increased by as many as a million Roman tourists.”

“Tourists,” Captain Farragut echoed.

“A million,” said Admiral Burk.

“Where?” said Captain Washington.

“Just about everywhere except the United States. The biggest concentrations are in the European nations. They are residents of Roman colonies.” Rome had over four hundred colonies in its Empire.

“The Romans have been coming in by way of LEN colonial worlds on board civilian ships owned by LEN member nations. The Roman tourists are mixed in with League civilian passengers. We can’t shoot them, we can’t stop them, we can’t board them, we can’t even turn them back.”

“What are the ‘tourists’ doing when they get to Earth?” Captain Washington asked. “Massing armies?”

“Not that we have detected yet. And our allies are keeping an eye on them.”

“Then what are they doing!” Farragut cried.

“Right now?” said Burk like a man waiting to wake up from an awful and absurd dream. “They’re sightseeing.”

PART FOUR

Gladiator

30

TR STEELE CAME TO CONSCIOUSNESS on his hands and knees, expelling liquid from his lungs. Wet. Naked. The floor was hard and slithery under him. Lamplight felt warm on his skin. He saw the light from behind his closed eyelids. Heard words he could not understand. They sounded Latin. That meant he was in hell.

He blinked slime from his eyes.

Heard rushing water, then felt the tepid rush hitting him in a strong stream. Pink water swirled off him to the white floor between his palms. They were hosing pink medical gel off him.

But who were they? He shielded his eyes from the spray, trying to see who they were.

They looked like medics from their white coats, gloves, eye protection, and face masks. Two of them. Looked like zoo keepers from the elephant pikes they used to make sure he stayed in place.

The water stopped, replaced by a rush of warm air from above, drying him off. Off to one side there was a tank filled with pink medical gel, draining now. He had been in there.

A pallet floated over beside him. A medic rolled him onto it, strapped him down. He might have overpowered the two right there, had he his wits about him.

The medics left him alone in the room.

Physical straps on his wrists and ankles held him in place. He was still naked, no cover on him. A lamp kept him at body temperature.

He saw now that his chest was whole. There wasn’t even a scar. His coarse golden chest hair was a little finer in the place where the shot had blasted through him.

He tested his bonds, found them all too secure. He determined to jump the medics when they loosened the straps.

That idea evaporated. When one of the medics returned, it was in the company of an automaton. Steele’s bonds were not loosened until the automaton had a good grip on him. The medic fit a rough tunic over Steele’s head. No belt came with it.

The lock on the door opened to the medic’s touch. The verification must be in the medic’s ear.

The automaton kept hold of Steele through the door. The medics stayed inside the white room.

The automaton took Steele down the corridor at a walk for sixteen feet to a set of steps. A human guard joined them there and down the steps to another passageway.

Coming to a turn in the corridor, Steele had to wonder where the hell he was. He had gone from a sterile medical facility to—

I’m still under the Coliseum.

He was back in the familiar dungeon corridor, just not approaching from any direction he had ever come unhooded. The automaton walked him past an alcove where weapons lay stacked in haphazard piles like trash—swords, morning stars, double axes, maces, elephant pikes, and U.S. beam cannons. A US cannon was not useful to anyone until it was recoded to its bearer.

Because his hands were held fast in the automaton’s grip, Steele had to lean his head to the automaton and brush his temple against the android shoulder so he could find out if his sighting bracket was still attached there, outside his eye socket. It was.

The human guard noticed the motion. Said something snide to him in Latin.

“Huh?” said Steele.

The guard pushed an American language module into his language port at the base of his skull and said again, “Good luck trying to find your own weapon in that heap.”

As Steele approached his cell, he saw with a dull and sinking sensation that there were more people in it. Almost a dozen. Had no one escaped?

Immediately he looked for Kerry Blue.

When he got closer he saw that, besides Dak Shepard, Ranza Espinoza, and Icky Iverson, the other Marines were not the same ones who had been here before. These were from Echo Team.

“Ah, hell,” said Steele. The Marines looked round at the sound of his voice. Acted like he’d returned from the dead.

———

On Merrimack, Mister Hicks at the com had been monitoring public Roman com channels. He reported: “The Romans are going to pit an American against a gladiator in the Coliseum.”

Farragut erupted. “They can’t!”

“They say they can. They say he died trying to escape capture. They revived him for a proper execution.”

“I don’t give a damn what they say or if that makes any legal sense. That’s bullskat.”

“And you know it won’t be a real fight,” said Hicks. “It’s going to be an execution, because the American is untrained. But he’s a legate so he deserves the sword.”

“He’s a what?” Farragut suddenly felt very cold, a suspicion creeping up his spine. “They claim they have an American legate. A Legion Commander. What is that in American?” Gypsy looked to Farragut, “A Legion equates to what? A battalion?” Hicks said, “They’re saying they have the Legate of the U.S. Legio LXXXIX Bullmastiff.”

“Oh, for Jesus.”

———

Under the Coliseum, the criminals were taken out early in the morning on game day, so they could be put to death first. You heard the monsters roaring as they were prepped for the feeding.

Guards in full regalia came for the gladiators later.

At the same time, Steele was also taken out of his cage. “Where am I going?”

A guard nodded up, “Arena.”

“The lowlife get the animals,” a gladiator told Steele. “You will actually face a Roman gladiator. That is a sign of respect, Yank.”

Farragut played these honor games, but to Steele the enemy existed to be destroyed. He spat on the floor of the corridor. “Animal’s an animal.”

The gladiators girded for battle. Steele was left barefoot in his unbelted tunic. The gladiators were instructed to swear their oath before Caesar.

“I’m not swearing that,” said Steele.

“Neither do the animals,” said a gladiator.

Ranza yelled through the bars. “They can’t do this! You can’t do this! There are rules for treatment of POWs.”

A Roman guard spoke to Steele instead of Ranza, “You died. You’re ours.” A lift carried Steele up in chains between two guards. Stout gates parted to sunlight and universal booing. The two heavily armed men in ceremonial armor walked Steele out to the center of the arena in chains.

Steele craned his head around to look behind him. They had left the automatons behind at the lift. Those did not enter the ring.

The enormity of sound hit him like an ocean wave. Mass emotion sparked the air like a physical current.

The space seemed all the grander for being walled in. The shape gave it a sense of moment, focus, energy, like a stadium or a diamond or a cathedral. The tiers of seats, the crowd took on the presence of a single Roman monster.

Steele blinked in the sunlight at things he had not seen in the dark during the escape. All the bright colors, the painted stucco and statues, the black and red marble walls. The fabulous buntings flying. Caesar’s gleaming golden eagles. And there was the head prick himself ensconced in his gilded box. No Claudia at his side.

At the center of the arena, one of Steele’s ceremonial guards unlocked his chains. The heavy cuffs fell away from his wrists. The other guard dropped a short sword at his feet, and the two backed away, their shields locked. They were not his opponents. Steele stood alone and amazed. Unchained. Life was suddenly possible.

He picked up the sword, put it through a few experimental passes to heckles from the spectators. They weren’t there. The blade was everything.

The gladiator sword was shorter than he was used to, better suited to stabbing than slashing. Steele was a slasher. He would need to get closer to his opponent.

A trumpet blare sounded from a rank of long thin cornu, heralding something. A massive gate opened. A gladiator advanced from shadow.

Big guy. Big guy. The way Rome bred them. Tall as Augustus with a lot more meat on him. He held a short sword, the gladius, same as Steele’s, in his right hand. He held a rectangular shield, a stout one, on his left arm.

He had a helmet. That would limit the Roman’s peripheral vision, if Steele could ever get to his periphery. He wore full armor, a cuirass of metal-clad leather round his chest, front, and back, a tabbed leather skirt round his thighs and nads, and metal shin guards.

All that equipment ought to slow him down, but Steele couldn’t count on that. That was a big damn Roman.

The gladiator lifted his sword to Caesar and the crowd. Too much space between them for Steele to dash in with a surprise stroke.

Steele, in his rough tunic with only a sword, probably ought to run, but there was nowhere to go. And Steele was not inclined to run from anything. Certainly not from a Roman.

He eyed the shield. The gladiator would use it. It made him feel safe. He would try to feel out his opponent before striking. The Roman had the time. He was not naked.

As Farragut would put it, he’s not going to swing at the first pitch. He’s going to take one to see what you’ve got.

Steele charged in high, at a slight angle, eyes on the man’s sword side. Made the gladiator commit the shield across himself, and lift his sword up for a counterstrike across his own shield.

While Steele shifted at the last instant, lunged instead toward the gladiator’s shield side and down low.

Steele’s left knee hit the sand as a pivot on which to swing himself round with the sword under the Roman’s shield, slashing from the back. He sliced the gladiator’s Achilles’ tendons through to his anklebones.

Steele rolled away as the big man went down in a howling heap. The crowd rose in a tsunami. The great sea of Romans erupted booing. Caesar was booing.

Steele scrambled to his feet, gingerly danced in to stab the gladiator under his helmet, up under his jawbone to finish him. The crowd cheered that. Even Caesar clapped his hands wryly.

Steele tugged the shield off the heavy, rubbery left arm. He found the sword which the gladiator had dropped, and kicked that behind him. He looked round to see if anything were running at him from behind. Clear, he picked up everything—the shield, his sword and the gladiator’s sword—and he retreated to the far side of the arena.

From another gate strode not another gladiator but a man dressed like the grim reaper carrying a spear instead of a scythe. This was supposed to be Hades. The figure proceeded out slowly. Steele waited for him, but Hades did not come for Steele.

Hades strode out to the fallen gladiator. He poked the body with his spear to make sure he was thoroughly dead. Hades wore skeletal gloves, which made his fingers appear very long and bony. He gestured to a slave to take the body away.

The slave was dressed like Steele in a rough tunic except that the slave had a belt. The slave came out with a meat hook, which he plunged up into the gladiator’s rib cage and dragged him off the arena floor by a rope through a tall gate.

The sign over the gate read Portia Libitinensis. The death gate. Steele recognized it now. It had been dark when he had come out that way.

He dropped his shield, sprinted across the sand behind retreating Hades, to an alarmed wave of sound from the crowd, and snatched the spear clean out of Death’s hands.

He could have killed Hades right there, but Steele darted away again. He got what he wanted from him. The crowd was laughing. Steele returned to his little arsenal. Now he had a spear, a shield, and two short swords.

The crowd sounds subsided to confused muddled noise. Steele sensed a quandary here. That was not supposed to have happened. It was meant to have been Steele going out on the meat hook.

Now they had a dead executioner and a still living victim standing in the way of the next act of this circus.

Caesar gave a shrug and an impatient gesture to someone else in his box, who relayed instructions over a com, perhaps to backstage. Or under stage as it was here.

Steele picked up the spear, tried to get a feel for it and gauge a distance from which he could get a realistic shot at Romulus.

The sand in center stage heaved, fell back in a cloud of dust. A screeling sound of sand in a winch set the teeth on edge. The sand lifted, spilled from the great wooden trap door in the arena floor as it opened. Out from the depths burst an alien thing.

Like a cross between a prehistoric wild boar, a buffalo, and an angelfish, with a short thick coat of violet-gray hair and black bristles. A stand-up mane lined its highly arched, narrow back from head to broom tail. The Romans had tipped its four tusks in polished copper, filed dagger sharp. Angry little yellow eyes gleamed in the sides of its massive head. The tiny eyes squinted against the flying grit on the wind. The pig didn’t like the sand either. It sneezed, then folded its enormous head back to rub first one eye against its bristly side, then the other eye on the other side. It blinked. Teary eyes found Steele.

Steele crept forward, jabbing with spear and sword, circling round the snorting animal, which turned with him, keeping its tusks toward him, until Steele felt the wind at his back. He dropped the sword, reached down, grabbed a fistful of sand and threw it into the little piggy eyes.

The head folded back with a sound between a squeal and a roar, as the creature tried to clear an eye. Steele snatched up the sword again and charged at the blinded beast with both weapons. He buried the spear into the high crest of the neck, then slashed down the slab side of it with the sword.

Blood, red and warm, gushed free. Then Steele was airborne without his weapons. The beast’s dying convulsion threw Steele high.

He landed in a hard roll, quickly scrabbling away from the creature’s thrashing final throes.

Steele got to his feet and walked—because nothing was chasing him—back to his little arsenal, which consisted now of the gladiator’s sword and shield.

The man with Caesar in Caesar’s box, possibly the ringmaster of this show, was looking nervous and perplexed. Caesar gave another shrug. His gesture seemed to say: What else you got?

While the Romans were prepping another opponent, Steele dragged his sword and shield over to the shade at one edge of the arena under a box of women, the kind who, in collective, you call a bevy.

You would never find Kerry Blue in a bevy.

Steele had learned back in his hellion youth that women who decorated their eyes like that liked bad men. He reached up a thickly sinewed, bloody arm and beckoned, demanding in American, “Give me your water.”

And down into his hand dropped a water bottle. He drank. Poured some in his eyes, rinsing away blood and sand.

Heard the gates open with a collective gasp from the sea of spectators.

A long fat eel, big around as a Swift’s fuselage and three times as long, glided on finlike membranes that lined its either side. Pale, translucent, some color of flesh, it glided low across the arena, spitting sand clouds out underneath it in fans. The crowd was shrieking in terror, the lower boxes pulling back in their seats.

Steele dropped his water bottle.

The thing didn’t seem to see him, and Steele couldn’t see its eyes. Couldn’t tell how it was moving itself. Seemed to be sucking up sand and jetting air and sand out its underside gills.

He watched it float across the arena, glimpsed its underside. Saw a slit like a manta’s mouth, filtering, grazing. The eel happened over the dead pig. Paused there, but passed over. Too big.

Still the eel managed to rake the top layer of hide off it in passing, then it turned, trolling for something closer to bite-sized.

Steele dropped his shield and ran all out toward a gate.

The eel in languid pursuit passed over the tall shield where Steele had left it in the sand.

The monster seemed to hiccup with a grinding sound, and glided onward, leaving the shield behind, its surface scraped.

The gate was locked of course. Steele flattened himself against the gate set within its slight recess, which at least got him off the grazing field.

But the eel, frustrated with the pickings in the sandy arena, turned itself over sideways and came gliding around the curved wall, making a circuit, its mouth sucking.

Steele’s hiding place was fast looking like a deadly mistake. His recess in the wall was turning into a vertical food trough.

As the eel swept round the wall, Steele dashed back into the center of the arena, to roaring laughter. Wished to hell he had the spear back. The damned gladiator sword was too short.

Steele ran behind the eel to collect the shield.

The eel reacted to the movement, turned round.

Steele huddled down, holding the shield over him like a shroud with both hands. He waited for the eel. Heard its advancing intake of air and sand. As it came over him, he rammed the tall shield into the slit mouth, hard.

The beast bowled him off his feet. Steele felt the gills sandblast him as they passed over.

Then the eel turned over belly up like an attacking shark. Steele ran out of the way of its mad thrashing, as it tried to dislodge the shield from its mouth.

The bottom rows of box seats had backed up into the second tier. Romulus was laughing. . Spearmen posted in the audience moved down to the first row, ready to repel the eel in case it came up. Steele staggered to the arena’s edge, caught his balance against the wall. He’d lost his sword. It had to be buried in the sand under the convulsing eel. He roared up at one of the guards. “Give me your spear!” The man stared down at him as if he were mad.

“Give me the fucking spear!”

The guard looked across to Romulus, who appeared amazed, delighted, and he motioned for the guard to give Steele the spear.

The eel flipped back over, coughed out the shield, spitting yellow fluid on the sand. Might have been eel blood. Its sides rippled in wrath or pain.

Steele approached it, spear at the ready. The eel backed away from him—the crowd laughing uproariously—the monster retreating from the mouse.

Ain’t funny down here.

The eel rippled backward. Its tail touched the wall, and it turned its head with a start. Steele ran in, stabbed the spear into a nexus of dark conduits visible through the eel’s translucent skin just behind its head. He could only hope those were blood vessels or something critical in a nervous system.

May as well have been an off switch. The thing collapsed instantly, motionless, yellow stuff leaking from its mouth.

Steele staggered away from it, breathing hard. Not sure why he had chased the thing. Something the Romans had said down in the dungeon. If you bore the crowd, they’ll kill you themselves.

The crowd was not sounding murderous. They were happy with the show, chattering excitedly, laughing. Steele cast about for his sword. It was nowhere to be seen.

The pig-buffalo had finally stopped twitching. Steele retrieved the other short sword from its carcass. Like yanking something out of a stone.

Steele’s muscles were losing their strength.

The front rows were refilling.

Steele looked around to see if he could find where he’d dropped his water bottle. The crowd had taken up a chant: A-da-mas! A-da-mas! Caesar was looking somewhere between amused and bemused, and now just musing what to do.

Those animals had been meant to kill some of the scum from the criminals’ cage. Steele guessed the lupes were going to keep bringing out shit till something got him dead.

Soldiers in full armor came out next. Bunch of them. This was it. Steele just didn’t have anything left in him. He faced them, gory sword in hand.

The lead soldier shouted something at him in Latin. Sounded like a command.

Another said in American: “Drop your weapon.”

Steele let the sword drop.

The soldiers surrounded him, poked him to make him walk back through an arch, into a caged lift. Not the way he came in, and not the death gate. The crowd was on its feet, cheering him as he descended.

The guards prodded him down an unfamiliar corridor where automatons took custody of him and forced him into a shower.

He expected gas for sure, but he got water. Cold, but clear drinkable water. Under the flow he found he had taken the skin off his left knee and one elbow. His shoulders were scraped. There was a big knot on his shin he didn’t remember getting, and another scratch from who the hell knew what. A million stinging points from the sand blasting he’d got from the eel.

A clean tunic waited for him when he came out. Still no belt. Food. An intradermic injection took away some of the ache that was setting into his muscles.

The Romans had removed his language module when they sent him into the arena. They plugged it back in now, and punched a capsule into his earlobe.

Automatons took him back to his cell. He took note of all the doors, all the corridors along the way, who or what was on guard where.

As he came in sight of the cell, the Marines gasped and rose to their feet. “Colonel!”

“I knew it,” said Dak. “I knew it!” Dak had absolute faith in the Old Man. Dumb, but Steele appreciated the faith. Steele knocked forearms with Dak and accepted the hoo ra!

The Roman gladiators in the opposite cell rose slowly too, clapping ironically.

“You were meant to die, you know,” a Roman told him. “Got that,” said Steele. “Gives real meaning to getting the hook.”

He shuddered at the afterimage of the big gladiator being hauled away like zoo meat. Then he became aware of animals roaring from their cages. And suddenly wondered what actually became of the defeated gladiator’s body.

Another Roman remarked, “You must have done well, Adamas. They like you.”

Must have. With a language module plugged in, he could now understand the chant that had followed him out of the ring.

A-da-mas! A-da-mas!

It was his name in translation. Steel.

He actually owed these gladiators for that remark about not wanting to bore the crowd. But he was not about to thank them.

Ever in escape mode, Steele asked the Romans, “Why didn’t they send automatons out to get me?” The gladiators recoiled. “Not in the arena!” A shudder in it, as if Steele had suggested blasphemy. “It is not done.”

———

Munda, the Magister of Imperial Intelligence, requested a private meeting with Caesar Romulus. Munda claimed to be free of nanites but Caesar did not permit him in the palace. Caesar came to Imperial Intelligence wearing an exo-suit as if he were in outer space.

Munda received him in a secure chamber. Caesar would not sit, would not touch anything. Munda remarked on none of it.

“I wanted to alert you before I informed the Senate, Caesar. It seems the patterner Augustus isolated the harmonics of both of the new Hives.”

Caesar inhaled in cautious wonder. Stopped short of a smile. “Are you sure?”

“We won’t know for absolute fact until we resonate the complements and both Hives die, but it seems real, because we have the method by which he derived them.”

This was Power. Ultimate Power.

“Who else knows?” Romulus asked.

“Only the team I have assigned to this project in Imperial Intelligence.”

“The Senate has this?”

“No,” said Munda.

“But they’ll find it for themselves. The have a copy of Augustus’ data bank,” said Romulus, testing.

“But they don’t have the Striker,” said Munda. “They didn’t ask for it and we didn’t volunteer it. It’s a sixty-yearold vessel. But half the key is in the old Striker.”

Caesar was hard pressed not to laugh. “Then we can keep this secret!”

“We could, but why would we do that?”

“The Hive will arrive at Earth before it reaches Palatine.”

Munda looked disapproving. On Munda’s face that counted as horrorstruck. The man was expressive as rock. “The Hive knows no nations. It is not a weapon,” said Munda.

“Can you not see it?” said Romulus. “Earth on the eve of destruction, the United States on its knees, and Rome delivers—Passover.”

“An enjoyable fantasy,” Munda allowed. “Please be serious now. The Hive cannot be contained. This is not a matter of war, but a question of humanity.”

Caesar nodded gravely. “Of course it is. Thank you for your outstanding handling of this project.”

Magister Munda died in his sleep.

31

THE EARTHLY ORIGIN of the escaped Marines forced them to stay near the city and its surrounding terraformed cultivation. Being human they could not forage off the alien land. They could not digest any of the native growth.

Neither could they go into the city in daylight. Their clothing was U.S. issue arctic black and white camouflage, out of place in Roma Nova in the spring.

At least their clothes were frictionless. Nothing adhered to the fabric. Their bodies might get ripe but their clothes never smelled of anything.

They had been hiding in an olive grove since their escape from the Coliseum. Unfortunately it was springtime and there was no fruit on the trees.

There were ducks on the pond, but getting one was the trick. The birds’ presence did indicate that there were edible things in the pond. However in this season the edible aquatics were still tadpoles, not even full frogs.

There were violets to be found in the shade, but there was not a Marine born who could survive on violets. In the forest beyond the olive grove there were last fall’s acorns. The white oak acorns. The ones from the red oaks gave you cramps.

Farms covered the beautiful landscape, but they all had security systems.

There was one picturesque little farm on a hillside with sheep and spring lambs, guarded by a dog.

“What happened to the dog?” Kerry Blue asked over a lamb supper in the forest.

“Don’t ask,” said Cain.

The meal was more of a breakfast, because it had taken the better part of the night to get a fire going, then to prepare the meat without proper tools.

The next night Carly managed to snag a woman’s tunic that had been left out on a deck, and the Marines sent Kerry Blue into town foraging for food in daylight.

She came back with five pizzas and a lighter for making a fire, which she pitched to Taher, their designated chef. “How’d you get that?” Taher wondered at the gift of fire.

“I asked,” said Kerry.

“You talked to Romans?” said Big Richard. “Now how didn’t that give you away?”

“I told them I was a Russian student and my language module was an American piece of shit.”

“Kerry does better than Cain at food duty,” said Menendez, tearing into the pizza.

“Yeah, what she brings isn’t still walking or clucking.”

“Hey, I killed it and skinned it, and it was good,” said Cain. Carly gave a goatly bleat and opened another pizza box. “Blue still gets better stuff,” said Menendez just before he plunged an entire slice of pizza into his mouth. “That’s ‘cause Blue has a marketable commodity,” said the Yurg.

Kerry Blue threw dirt in his face.

The Yurg wiped off his face, picked dirt off his pizza. “That sucked, what I said, Blue.”

“Yeah,” said Kerry. Night was closing in. They took stock of their displacement collars and landing disks in the last light. They had only five sets of displacement equipment. The escaped Marines numbered eight.

“Fine, then we send five, and they send their collars back for everyone else,” said Cain.

“Fine, but is there any chance in the known universe that we can find an area not covered by Roman jammers?” said Big Richard.

Carly checked a displacement set for correspondence. “Uh, a really good chance.” Heads whipped round. Carly held up her LD and collar. The lights were all red. “We’re here.”

“We just need a destination correspondence now,” said Cain.

“How do we do that?” said Big Richard. “We don’t have a com. Makes these things about twelve shades of useless.”

“We have a com.” Kerry Blue produced a Roman-made universal com she’d got on her last foraging mission. “If anyone knows a U.S. channel, see if you can raise the Mack.”

Cain seized the com. The Yurg kissed Kerry’s hands. “Kerry Blue, I am sorry for what I said. I am not worthy to be in your company. I am mud. I am garbage. I am rat feces.”

“Eyeew.” Kerry pulled her hands away from his.

“Forgive me?” Yurg asked.

“Yeah. Forget it, Ratcrap.”

———

“Mack Mack Mack. This is Alpha Three drinking wild whiskey. Can we get a dust off?”

Mister Hicks literally jumped out of his seat on the command deck. He turned to the captain. “Sir! I have evaders calling on the emergency channel on a nonstandard com.”

The captain and the XO both moved to the com station, motioned for Hicks to continue the communication. Hicks put the call on the speaker as he answered, “Alpha Three, this is Merrimack, please authenticate.”

“We’re in the pit of fubarosity here, how would you like us to do that?”

“What’s your name, son?”

“Captain!” Cain recognized the voice. “This is Flight Sergeant Cain Salvador, sir!”

“What color is the exec’s hair?”

“Never seen it, sir. Her eyebrows are black.”

Gypsy scowled at Farragut. Her dark eyes warned:

Speak not of the hair.

Gypsy asked a question of her own: “What is the mid watch called?”

“Hamster watch, Commander Dent, sir.” Cain knew her voice too.

“What is redundance?” said Farragut.

“What is—?” that stumped him. Then, “Oh! Oh! It’s good! It’s good! It’s good! It’s good!”

Farragut turned to Gypsy, “Authentic enough for me.”

“I agree,” said Gypsy.

Farragut said, “Get us in range and get them out of there.” Gypsy spoke into the com, “We are showing five displacement signatures, Flight Sergeant.”

“That’s all the displacement equipment we have,” Cain returned. “There are eight of us.”

“Then gear up five and stand by to displace. We will advise you when we are in range.” She could hear Cain barking, “Blue, Big Richard, Yurg, Taher, Menendez. Collars! Disks!”

Kerry Blue could not say how scary it was to stand by for displacement while wearing red lights. At least if this went south, she would never know it.

Cain lifted the com.

A black figure out of the dark came over Cain. Black-gloved hand sealed over his mouth and the com flew out of his hand. Immediately, Kerry Blue was bowled off her LD. A black-clad figure landed on her, held her down.

Romans were coming out of the trees. She couldn’t count them, could hardly see them. They moved like humans. Kerry saw guns, and that was enough to take the fight out of her.

When chaos resolved out of thrashing black figures, Kerry counted ten Romans, and still eight of the good guys. No one had managed to get away.

The Romans acted like humans. They taped the Marines’ mouths shut.. Kerry guessed the lupes weren’t trusting automatons’ decision-making skills on this mission.

Kerry recognized one man when the black mask came off his face. That one used to be the night Vigil under the Coliseum.

Gypsy Dent’s voice was sounding on the com. “We are in range, Flight Sergeant. Take your disks.” Romans stared at each other in amazement. You could see the whites of their eyes get real big. They had clearance to displace five people onto Merrimack.

The Vigil muted Cain’s com. Another Roman said, “What can only five of us do on a space battleship?” The Vigil said, “Five of us, armed, with a chance to board Merrimack! We have the element of surprise.”

“It’s an enormous risk.”

The Vigil took Kerry Blue’s displacement collar roughly from her neck and closed it round his own neck. “Who else wants the honor?”

Four others unsnapped collars from the other Marines, and snapped them round their own necks. The five Romans who were staying behind kept weapons trained on the Marines.

“We’ll never get another chance like this!” said the Vigil. “We have green lights! Fortune favors the bold!” Cain moaned on reflex. His shock was genuine, staring at green lights that had been red just moments before.

The Romans stood on the disks.

“All greens.”

The Romans must have brought jammers into range with them. Did they not realize that?

“Tell your ship to bring us.” A Roman shoved a weapon into Cain’s face and made to take the gag from his mouth.

“No! Don’t trust him on the com,” said another Roman. “He’ll just give a warning. Don’t wait for Merrimack to bring us. Initiate send.”

The five Romans touched the controls on their collars.

In a thunderclap, they vanished, lights showing green on the LDs. The remaining Romans looked smug. The Marines looked appropriately horror-struck. “We have boarders on Merrimack” one Roman told another in crowing disbelief.

He should have paid attention to that disbelief. The U.S. boffins had switched all the red and green lights that came down to the planet, just to confuse the Romans. The switch confused Marines too. Kerry Blue silently recited Red is right. Green is ... She tried to remember what Darb said about green lights. Think great green gobs of gushing goo?

Merrimack had gone silent. Commander Dent must have figured out something had gone wrong down here. Not that any piece of the displacing Romans could possibly have arrived, gooey or otherwise. But Mack’s displacement techs knew the difference between a red light and a green light.

A Roman, still imagining that the boarding of Merrimack was a success, ordered his technician, “Quick, restore displacement jammers to this area!”

The technician was checking his equipment. Trying to comprehend what he was looking at. “Jammers are showing already on ...” Slow horror just making itself felt. The Romans stared at the green lights on the U.S. equipment. Starting to suspect they had made an assumption they should not have made. They hadn’t even thought to question the meaning of a green light. Green was simply the universal go.

There were only five Romans left now. In the Roman confusion, the Marines jumped them. Fought hand to hand. Or boot to chin—Kerry Blue’s favored method, as her hands just weren’t that strong.

The Marines took the Roman weapons, quietly shot their owners with them, cut the capsules from their ears, hid the bodies in the woods, and threw the capsules into the river.

Watching the moons’ light on the river, Kerry clawed the tape from her mouth. “Who’s got the com?”

They all looked at each other. No one spoke.

“Well, who had it last?” said Kerry.

“One of the Romans?” Taher suggested.

“Fubarosity,” said Cain.

———

Steele was taken out of the cage again. He was given no armor. That meant it was feeding time for the animals. “Good-bye, Adamas,” said a gladiator.

The ceremonial guards unlocked his chains and dropped a short sword at his feet as they left him in the ring.

This time there were two men already out there. One wore a metal half-collar of sorts and a thickly padded sleeve on one arm. He wielded a heavy net, which he flourished like a matador’s cape. The other gladiator, who wore a helmet, had a short blade sheathed in his belt, and carried a trident. Steele was calling him the picador.

Steele supposed he himself was the bull.

But he wasn’t.

The two gladiators saw Steele enter, then turned their attention toward another gate with an attitude of anticipating something big and deadly to come charging out.

Steele wasn’t waiting.

Steele darted across the arena, came up behind the picador, the crowd shrieking a warning. Steele got there just as the man was turning. Steele slashed down on his shoulder right where the helmet left off. The picador fell to the ground, spouting blood, that ghastly shade of arterial red, in a strong pulsing stream.

Steele seized up the trident, raised it high and threw it downward through the other gladiator’s swirling net, pinning the net’s edge down through the sand to the wooden floor. Steele crouched to launch himself into a charge at the gladiator, when the gates burst open. The giant lizard bolted out with a metallic screaming growl.

Not the lethargic thing Steele had seen float past his cell on a lift. This beast was gnashing and snapping in a crazed fury, its giant tail lashing. The spectators all drew back in their seats.

The lizard bugled and roared as if in pain, and came straight at Steele.

This is not right.

Steele dodged behind the gladiator who was trying to get his net free from the trident. The lizard ignored the gladiator and tracked Steele’s motions. It wanted him and only him.

Kerry had told him that humans did not smell tasty to the giant lizards. Humans were not edible. And the lizard did not appear to be hungry. The only thing Steele could think of was the object the medic had punched into his earlobe. Steele bet his life it was a transmitter.

Galloping dinosaur feet shook the floor. Spectators laughed, feeling the jarring in their seats. The lizard tossed its head, ramming its pyramidal nose horn into the wall. A great scream rose from the crowd, descending in nervous laughter.

Steele was running, dodging, shifting directions, letting the momentum of the lizard’s great mass carry it past its mark, tumbling nose over tail, and getting up roaring. Like a rhino chasing a chipmunk. One skid on the sand and Steele would be done.

He couldn’t find a still moment to lift his sword close to his neck without cutting his own throat, so he dug at the capsule in his earlobe with his fingernails.

And turn!

The lethal tail swept past.

The capsule came out, a small rod, no bigger than a ten-gauge wire, between his blood-sticky fingers.

The surviving gladiator had his net free by now. He swirled it over his head, either to net Steele or to drive him toward the beast.

Steele pitched his capsule at the gladiator.

The lizard instantly lost interest in Steele, and followed the capsule’s arc through the air. The giant head bowed down and plowed through the gladiator’s net. Metal fabric tore before the pyramidal horn. Lizard jaws closed on the gladiator’s middle, and the beast gave him a backbreaking dog shake before hurling him aside. The beast then pounced on a spot in the arena, scrabbled in the sand with its three-toed feet, and stomped.

The stomp must have crushed the tiny transmitter, because the lizard lay down in a sudden flump, relieved and panting. A shred of metal netting still hung off its face. Its giant sides moved with its pain-free breaths.

The lizard’s yellow eye focused on Steele, then shut.

Didn’t care about him.

And Steele didn’t care about it anymore.

The chant started: A-da-mas! A-da-mas!

Steele collected the gladiator’s short blade from its sheath at the corpse’s waist, and the trident from the sand. He tested the weight of the trident in his hand.

He moved close to Caesar’s box. Looked up.

And damn everything to hell, Romulus wasn’t there.

32

I’VE LOST CONTACT with the Marines,” Mister Hicks announced from the com station.

“We’ve lost correspondence,” Merrimack’s displacement tech reported to the command deck. “Roman jammers are in effect down below.”

“Clam us up,” Gypsy told the displacement tech. “Restore our jammers.”

“Jammers activating, aye.”

Gypsy ordered the com tech, “Stop hailing. Go silent.”

“Gone silent, aye,” said Mister Hicks, somber. They had been so close. He had just talked to Flight Sergeant Cain Salvador. They had come within seconds of getting five of their own out of there.

Captain Farragut prowled station to station, helpless. Five Marines just within grasp, and suddenly gone. He could not give up.

“Did we get the coordinates of the displacement equipment?” Farragut asked. “We can take the Mack down and pick them up.”

“Forty-one degrees, twelve minutes, fifty-nine seconds north latitude, eighty-nine degrees, two minutes, fifteen seconds west longitude.” Marcander Vincent looked up from his tactical station to Captain Farragut. “They’re in Roma Nova, sir.”

“God bless America!” Farragut shouted, frustrated to hell. He had orders—strict orders—not to enter space over Roma Nova. “Get us out of here. Fire something at Numa’s ship on the way out.”

Marcander Vincent noted: “I have a ship rising out of planetary atmosphere. Italian signature. Has the appearance of an Earth civilian craft.”

“Check that one!” Farragut ordered, wanting badly to shoot something.

Upon leaving atmosphere, the Italian ship jumped to FTL. Merrimack followed and easily picked it up again on a predictable course toward Earth. The ship executed no evasive maneuvers. No Roman ships accompanied it in escort.

Merrimack took up a parallel course. Mister Hicks hailed the ship. “Italian vessel, this is the U.S.S. Merrimack. Identify yourself.”

The pilot begged, “Don’t shoot. We have children on board! They are children!”

“We’re not going to shoot,” Captain Farragut told him. “We’ll probably hook you if you don’t check out. And contrary to Roman propaganda we don’t torture children.”

“We will ‘check out.’ This is a school bus!” the pilot cried. He recited his school district’s identification and the ship’s identification numbers.

Mister Hicks sent the confirmation request to Italy via res pulse. He received back confirmation that the vessel really was a school bus from a suburb of Old Rome, carrying a group of young students. The Italian added a plea not to hurt the children.

Everything checked, yet something was odd. John Farragut picked up a subliminal sense of something not quite fitting. But it was nothing he could bring into focus.

Most of the viewports were masked, but Marcander Vincent angled a scanner beam through one to reveal children. They were in the ten-year-old range, acting like kids with some adults in the back. The pilot was sweating like a smuggler, but then he had a space battleship menacing off his port quarter.

There was something wrong.

“He’s smuggling,” said Farragut.

“What do you want to do, sir?” Gypsy asked.

Farragut shook his head. Enough that there were children on board and it was an Italian vessel.

“Wear off. Notify Jupiter Control. I want this bus checked again next week when it’s coming in to Earth.”

———

A Roman guard, a human one, came down to the dungeon underneath the Coliseum with a contingent of automatons to the POWs’ cage. The man sent an automaton into the American cell.

The automaton knew which prisoner was Steele. “Here, try this on,” the automaton told him.

This was a gladiator’s helmet.

Ranza Espinoza moved to the bars and shouted at the human, “This is a violation of conventions of war!”

“And I’m sure we’ll hear about it,” said the man outside the bars. He was standing carefully on the corridor’s center line, out of arm’s reach from either side.

“What pinhead was this made for?” Steele tossed the helmet back at the automaton. The automaton turned to face the Roman. “He rejected it.”

“I see that,” said the human and gave orders to another automaton in his ranks. “Find a bigger one.”

“A bigger helmet?” the automaton requested clarification.

“Yes, a bigger helmet,” the man said, irritably. “Go.” Then thought to add, “Find a bigger one and bring it back here!”

Steele recognized the man now. He was not a guard. He was the one Steele called the ringmaster of the games. The Romans called him a lanista.

In the arena the lanistifs tunic glittered. Here he was wearing blue jeans. He had a mane of flowing yellow hair, chiseled features, and manicured hands.

“You have become a popular villain, Adamas”said the lanista.

Steele said nothing. Stared like a bull.

When the automaton returned with another helmet, someone from the gladiator’s cage called, “You’re going against one of us!”

Steele looked around the lanista, across to the gladiator. “I never had a problem killing Romans.” The second automaton entered the cage, offered the helmet to Steele. “Here, try this on.”

Steele did. Felt like wearing a bucket with eyeholes. There was metal around his head, but he wouldn’t be able to see a blow to avoid it, so it didn’t strike him as a gain. Steele was an offensive fighter. He didn’t win hiding behind armor.

He took the helmet off. Tossed it at the automaton. “I’m not wearing that one either.”

“He rejected it,” the automaton told the lanista.

The lanista nodded wearily to the automaton. To Steele he said, “Nevertheless, it is yours to wear or not to wear. I am tired of you and I hope you die.”

“Same,” said Steele.

After the lanista collected his automatons and left the dungeon, the gladiator pointed across to Steele. “I hope it is you and I.”

This time Steele couldn’t say the same. The man was another big one, a black-haired, bronze titan. The others called him Xeno.

Xeno informed him with a grin, “To yield you lift a finger.”

“This one?” Steele asked.

“No.”

It occurred to Steele that he hadn’t seen this one in a while. Xeno had gone out to the ring one day and had not come back. Steele asked him, “Aren’t you dead?” The gladiator Xeno shrugged massive shoulders. “They like me.” One of society’s dregs called over from the death cage, “Adamas! Don’t use your sword for blocking.”

Two others added at once. “Especially not against an ax.”

“Yes. Not against the ax. Don’t use anything to block an ax.”

Xeno’s head turned with a wolfish snap at the criminals. “You’re aiding the enemy, traitor!”

The criminals smiled. “Yes, we are!” said one.

Another of the condemned said, “What are you going to do to me?” And he cackled, as if he were fatally funny.

Steele doubted how sound the advice could be coming from a piece of crap. He asked the criminal, “Have you been out there?”

The condemned man grinned. “I’ve seen the vid casts from the colonies. They haven’t held games up there in a long time.” He pointed at the ceiling.

“They fix the fight?” Steele asked. Not really a question. His fight against the lizard had certainly been fixed.

So the answer surprised him. “You would think,” said the condemned man. “But in front of this crowd? If this crowd spots anything fake, you will both be tied to a bull’s horns. When I go out there, they will want to see groveling and pissing and my insides spilling out. From gladiators they want to see a fight.”

“I’m not a gladiator,” said Steele.

All the expressions changed. The prisoner narrowed his eyes. “You think not, Adamas?”

Steele’s armor arrived in the morning. A leather cuirass with leather shoulder pieces. There was no metal on his such as he had seen on the Romans’ armor. Good. He didn’t need the weight. Gravity was slightly stronger here already.

He received one of those stout leather oblong shields his guards carried. He bashed it against the cage bars to see if it would really hold up against a pounding.

From across the corridor someone called, “Ah, you go out with the real gladiators, Adamas. Today you die.”

He left the helmet behind in the cell when the guards came to get him. Automatons kept the Marines against the back wall, while human beings in full armor shackled Steele. One carried a short sword for him. Another picked up his shield and the discarded helmet and brought that along too.

When the gates opened and the sunlight hit Steele’s white-blond hair, the noise swelled to a riot of cheers and catcalls and roars. The stands drummed with stamping feet.

Steele’s surrounding wall of guards expanded away, leaving his sword, his shield, and his helmet in the sand. Steele immediately seized up the sword and the shield, and moved from the spot, just so not to leave himself where the Romans planted him. He looked up for surprises, glanced around the arena for trapdoors threatening to open. Gates opened, one on either side. One gladiator strode out from each gate.

Steele knew them from the cage.

On the left was a big guy—as if they weren’t all foxtrotting huge—wielding an ax. Didn’t know his name. Steele was calling him the Ax now. From the right came a bulky black man armed like Steele except that he wore a helmet—a helmet not as bad as the metal shroud with eyeholes they had given Steele. This gladiator’s eyeholes were big and insectoid-looking because of the metal mesh which protected the cutouts.

The gladiators closed in with measured steps from either side. When they were far enough into the ring, Steele sprinted to the wall and made a flanking run back around the Ax.

First thing you learned in sparring two opponents was to get them both on one side.

Steele chose the side with the Ax because that was the more dangerous. If Steele didn’t take the Ax down first, he was never getting him down.

Don’t try to block an ax with a sword, the condemned men had said. Looking at the weapon, Steele believed it. Don’t use anything to block an ax, they had said.

The ax looked like it could cleave iron bars.

They don’t fix the fights, my ass, he thought.

But the guys may have been right about the crowd recognizing fight-fixing when they saw it. There was an awful lot of contempt in the crowd noise as the two gladiators stalked toward him, and the derision didn’t all feel directed toward him.

The Ax took the point position as the two closed in. This was going to be like boxing a bigger man with a longer reach. Steele was only six feet, so he had done that often. The only way to box a man with arms like an orangutan was to jam him up. Steele dropped his shield and edged forward with just his sword.

An enormous gasp sounded from all round, punctuated by titters and jeers. He had given up his shield.

The shield would slow him down.

The heavy ax was rising up for a killing stroke. Steele barreled in like a fastball. In before the blade came down. The long ax handle hit his shoulder as he ran into the holder. He bodily collided with the Ax full length, jarring his teeth. Felt the crunch of flesh and bone against his blade as his sword drove in low. Steele rolled off to the side, wrenching his sword out with him.

The ax fell limply from the gladiator’s grip. Steele jumped aside to get clear of the wounded man, who was tottering and trying to hold his guts inside the horrible wound.

Sounds of delicious revulsion oozed from the crowd. Groans, deeply felt, rose from their own intact guts. They loved it. Intoxicating, to be so close to death and to take their next breaths without pain, exhilarated to be alive.

Steele was busy locating the shield he’d dropped and keeping an eye on the other gladiator.

He kept the tottering, mortally wounded Ax between himself and his fresh opponent. When the Ax fell in the sand with a ghastly spill, Steele bounded over him, landed low to snatch up the ax and jabbed it toward the other gladiator to back him away.

The gladiator danced out of the long weapon’s reach. He tapped the ax blade with his sword, testing, watching for his opening.

Steele stalked forward, jabbing, keeping his opponent at bay until he was standing over his shield.

The ax was too heavy to be of use to him beyond poking his opponent away. If he tried to wield it in earnest, he would die like the man behind him.

He chucked the ax forward. The startled gladiator made a huge leap backward from the enormous blade as Steele took up his shield and lunged forward. He roared on a furious high, “Come on! Come on!”

The crowd rose in a wave, roaring.

Two men with swords and shields clashed. The spectators liked this much better than two against one. All of them screamed at their chosen fighter.

The gladiator smashed his shield at Steele. Steele met it with his own shield. Mistake. If his shield was engaged—

The sword was coming in low. Steele deflected it at the last instant with his own blade, not quite in time. He felt its edge draw a line of fire across his thigh.

A second blow from the gladiator’s shield knocked Steele on his back. Steele kicked the man’s ankles. As the gladiator stumbled and caught his footing, Steele sprang to his feet.

The noise swelled. A bizarre current he could feed off of. The burn in his thigh was nothing. The noise pushed him into an adrenaline high, too hot to care about the pain.

The two circled round the ax. The gladiator kept glancing down at it. He had to move his whole head to do it because of the limited field of vision his helmet gave him.

To Steele seeing was life.

He would not be lured into moving his shield too far from center, because that was apparently what the gladiator wanted him to do.

At a wild overhead strike, Steele jumped back. At a sword swing coming in from the side, Steele dodged to the other side.

The gladiator tried slamming his shield into Steele’s shield again; Steele was ready to take the hit—and not straight on this time, but at an angle that blocked the gladiator’s sword arm. Steele was already reaching around him with his sword for the man’s hamstring. Got the back of his knee instead. The gladiator folded hard onto the knee and pitched backward, unable to hold himself upright. His helmet hit the arena floor, and sat askew on his head, blinding him.

Steele dashed in, stabbed into the crease of his groin. Arterial spray and sounds of enthusiastic disgust from the crowd answered him.

As the spectators relished the sickening horror, a whole cadre of fully armed soldiers came out of a gate. One commanded Steele to drop his sword.

The sword dropped from his hand of its own accord. The guards surrounded him in their box formation. Heat was leaving with the end of danger. Steele was feeling his wound now. He saw his leg coated with blood.

The guards held ranks around him, while all eyes turned to Caesar’s box.

Romulus of late appeared only for the games’ commencement, then gave his seat over to some picturesque damsel while he tended to weighty affairs of state and war.

The yellow-haired lanista walked out in his sparkling robe to the fallen Ax, whose guts had fallen from his abdomen.

The designated sweet of the day in Caesar’s box stood up. She came to the gilded rail and spread her bangled arms to the crowd, soliciting their opinion.

The enormity of sound swelled, most of the thumbs voting down.

The young woman’s thumb made a slow feint upward to boos. Then, with a foxy smile, she thumbed decisively down. The cheer soared to the sky.

One of the guards strode over to the Ax and plunged a sword into his neck. A spurt of blood said that the Ax had not been quite dead yet. But he had been a gladiator so he got the sword, before Hades could poke him with a spear, and the slave with the hook came out to collect his carcass.

The lanista proceeded to the other gladiator. This time the crowd was demanding, “Live! Live! Live!” and the young woman obliged with a thumb up. The crowd cheered, though it really seemed too late. The bleeding from his severed femoral artery had stopped. That one was already dead.

Still, men rushed out with a litter and physically carried the fallen gladiator out of the arena at a run.

So that was what the bronze gladiator Xeno meant by they like me. If they like you or they need you, they don’t let you stay dead. Roman medical technology for resuscitating the newly dead was unrivaled.

Steele’s muscles were cooling, trembling a little from dehydration. The wound in his thigh hurt now. He was ready for a shower and one of those nice intradermic injections. Come on, let’s go, guys, take me in, he thought.

He heard the lanista announcing something in Latin. Crowd cheers spiked. Steele tried to see what was happening through the armed wall of his guards.

Got a glimpse of a gladiator in shining armor, bounding out the gate and collecting adoration, tens of thousand of voices chanting his name: XE-NO! XE-NO! XE-NO! The champion himself, back from the dead.

Steele’s wall of guards started to separate around him. One commanded Steele to pick up his sword.

They were making him fight again.

33

STEELE PUSHED ASIDE MORTAL disappointment and picked up his sword from the sand.

Dissonance roiled within the crowd voices. Sympathy for the devil. This fight was fixed and their favorite villain deserved better. Their champion deserved better.

They wanted to see Xeno go against the mighty Adamas in full strength, not a defanged tiger.

Instead they were getting the championship bout with the villain lamed. A champion was only as strong as his strongest enemy. Someone had seen fit to prechew Xeno’s meal.

Steele’s guards were leaving him, keeping their shields toward him.

The lanista was striding toward the gate. I am tired of you and I hope you die.

Xeno waited.

And Steele charged sideways, to hell with the pain in his thigh. He ran all out to catch up with the lanista headed for the gate. It was not wise to expend strength on someone without a weapon, but this man had already killed him. Steele could not survive this bout and every one knew it. He was going to take his real killer with him.

The amphitheater filled with sounds of surprise, alarm, screams. The lanista became aware of his peril, looked back in time to see Steele’s face just before Steele took off his ridiculous yellow hair and his head with it. It surprised even Steele that his blade went all the way through muscle and bone, but he didn’t think he had ever been so angry. Through his blur of rage he heard the shrieks and laughter. And applause.

He turned to his opponent. Xeno was pounding his shield with his own sword. Took Steele a moment to realize that Xeno was applauding too.

Steele looked up to the crowd, gestured at the lanista’s body with his sword, soliciting a thumbs down.

And got it, with riotous laughter.

He turned to face Xeno across a length of sand. The noise died away, came back in a slow tide of chants and roars, rising and rebounding off the enclosing walls, to become a physical force.

Steele advanced at a walk to meet his fate, the Coliseum ringing. Xeno pointed his sword to Steele’s helmet where he’d abandoned it. Steele shook his head, refusing it.

Xeno took a battle stance. Steele made the first charge. Could be his last. Pain and fatigue vanished in an adrenaline surge. He caught the downstroke of Xeno’s sword with his shield, his own thrust deflected by Xeno’s shield, and he charged past. Both spun round, exchanging places. Xeno was first on the counterattack, and Steele could only turn out and away from the thrust. He jumped back in for a return stroke that landed on Xeno’s shield.

They traded hammering blows, till Steele got Xeno open—the sword stroke had gone that way, the shield that way—and Steele slashed.

Short! Scored Xeno’s cuirass, nothing more. Xeno bowled him over with his shield. Sprang over him, but couldn’t bring the kill home. Xeno’s sword plunged into sand and wood as Steele rolled back to his feet.

Somewhere in the eternity of minutes the spring left Steele’s legs. This is it. His strength was ebbing, limbs felt to be solidifying. Not even rage and noise were enough to keep his energy from slipping away.

He clashed against Xeno, shield to shield, sword hilt to sword hilt, pushed into his push. Xeno grunted behind his shield in American, “Put up a finger, Adamas. I bet they spare you.” He pushed off to the side.

They leaped apart. Xeno shouted at Steele, pointed his sword, demanded to know if he would yield. Steele shook his head. Spoke the only Latin he cared to know, “Semper fi.”

Steele lifted his sword high, charging in for a mighty slash. His shield felt to be lifting itself as the blade sliding in underneath it ran him through.

He hit the ground twitching, spitting blood. He’d pitched over onto his back. Couldn’t breathe. Diaphragm severed. Blood in his head sang for oxygen. The gladiator stood over him with his blade poised over his throat. Steele’s trembling fingers felt round in the sand to find his sword. Found the hilt, closed his hand round it in a shaky grip but could not lift it. The muscles in his abdomen would not let him lift anything. Didn’t even know if he still had muscles down there. Nauseous and his muscles wouldn’t even contract to let him vomit.

He stared up at the blade over him. Kept trying to lift his own blade. Managed only to flip it over on its other side. The crowd noise peaked.

Sand was growing warm and wet around him. He knew what the wetness was. The victorious gladiator’s face was turned toward Caesar’s box, waiting on the verdict. Xeno was wide open. He left a perfect opening and Steele couldn’t take it, his vision narrowing down to a tunnel.

The crowd was in tumult. At least half the voices chanting Live. Live. Live. As the light faded.

———

The evading Marines had moved their camp far away from where they hid the Roman bodies.

Kerry Blue dragged back from her foraging mission, late and empty-handed. She gave a sniffle as if suffering an allergy to something Roman.

“What kept you!” Carly whispered a cry as Kerry Blue flopped down to sit by the small fire.

“Oh. Um.” Blue brushed the back of her hand under her nose. Shrugged. “I, uh, had sex with some guys I didn’t wanna.”

Kerry Blue was well known for not saying no. She stood by for the snotty remarks to come rolling in. The bull mastiffs were a tough crowd.

“Hell!”Twitch cried.

Cain said, “I’m so sorry, Blue!”

Kerry broke into tears. Carly looked over, scolded Cain, “What did you say to her!”

Kerry was smiling through her sobs. She grabbed Twitch and Cain in turn by the head, and kissed whatever part of the head met her lips, ‘cause she couldn’t see for tears. “I love you guys.”

Twitch wore that helpless look that guys get when a woman is hurting and they’re, well, helpless.

“You left ‘em alive?” Cain asked Kerry.

“Not my choice.”

The Marines passed round the food they’d gathered from the woods. A share came round to Kerry Blue. She pushed it away. Sniffled over her knees. “Hell of a way to treat a Russian student,” she mumbled.

Cain crouched near her, afraid to touch her. “If you see ‘em again, point ‘em out, Kerry. I’ll hit ‘em where they don’t ever wanna be hit.”

“I don’t care where you hit ‘em as long as it’s fatal,” said Kerry Blue.

“You got it, gal.”

Kerry shook back her hair. “Don’t tell the Old Man, ‘kay?” Startled them. They exchanged glances. Did she not remember that Steele was dead? Carly answered her carefully, as if she were breakable, “If that’s what you want, chica.”

———

Steele came to awareness coughing up liquid on the hard white floor. Must’ve got a thumbs up from the pretty thing standing in for Caesar. He had been counting on it when he’d let himself open for that thrust. Thought it an incredibly dumb idea as the blade was going through him. Looked now as if it could pay off. He knew where he was.

This time around he recognized the moment when it came. Only two medics with elephant pikes and a locked door contained him. When the warm water spray subsided, he grabbed both pikes and hauled both medics down to the slick floor with him. He cracked their heads hard on the floor and hacked off one’s ear with a blade he found in a drawer.

The ear won him a green light on the door lock. The color made him pause a moment. Green still meant go in Rome. Only the U.S. fleet had flipped its colors for the siege.

The door opened for him without alarms, and Steele let himself out to the corridor.

He knew the way to the POWs’ cage from here. He paused at the alcove by the stairs to pull out one of the beam cannons, then ran to his Marines. Immediately said, “Gimme a language module.”

Icky Iverson, dumbfound, surrendered his through the bars, as the others rose in astonishment. Not just alive but Steele was naked, wet, and armed.

A Roman passed a tunic out through the bars of the gladiator cage. “Here. No one wants to look at that.”

Ranza said, “I’m not having a problem with it.”

Keeping his distance, Steele snatched the tunic out of the offering hand. Icky said, “Sir, you have an extra ear.” Steele used the ear to unlock the cage. He passed his cannon to Ranza, then he let the criminals out.

As Steele pulled the tunic over his head, one of the criminals snatched the medic’s ear away from him and ran with it.

The gladiators, still caged, were yelling for guards. Steele would have left them locked in there even if he still had the ear. He was leaving this circus behind him.

They heard the criminals running into guards. Heard shouts and gunfire. Ranza passed the cannon back to Steele, and the Marines headed up a cross corridor. Dak took point.

Coming to a corner, Dak glanced round first, startled to see a face right there. Dak grabbed the owner of the face by the front of his tunic and hauled him back round the corner with him Dak wrapped him up in a tight headlock before he saw what he had.

A young black man in Roman garb. He had a cultured look about him, not like the evils of society they had just set free from the other cage. This one was not burly as a gladiator. His skin was soft as a baby’s.

There followed from around the corner sounds of more beings coming up the corridor. Dak jumped out into the intersection, hiding behind his hostage and warned, “Don’t come any closer!” He pretended he had a weapon at the Roman’s back.

There were four armed human guards. They stopped, but one of them laughed.

The captive locked within the crook of Dak’s elbow advised Dak in perfect, if strangled, Americanese, “You chose your hostage unwisely.”

“Nuh uh!” said Dak. “You can’t pretend you’re one of us.”

“I cannot because I am not,” said his hostage, sounding altogether stately. “But an escaping political prisoner just won’t give the effect you are looking for.”

Ranza, hunched against the wall around the corner hissed: “Oh, no! You’re not the guy who got burned with Captain Carmel!”

“I am that guy,” said Gaius Americanus.

The guards were grinning, inching forward.

Steele reached round the corner with the beam cannon. “Dak, get down.”

Dak hunkered down, hauling his hostage down with him. Steele pointed the cannon blindly over Dak’s head.

“Aim a little lower, Colonel,” said Dak. “There. Four of ‘em. And I don’t see any personal fields on ‘em.” The four Romans kept grinning. “Are you playing Russian roulette, Yank?”

U.S. weapons only fired for their authorized owners. There were nineteen U.S. beam cannons in the alcove. Steele growled at Dak, “Is there anything out there I shouldn’t shoot?”

“Nothing but Romans. You’re good, sir. Fire at everything.”

“You think that weapon is yours?” said a Roman, closing in. “Your weapon was not in the stack, Colonel Steele.”

Steele gunned down all the smiles.

“They’re all mine,” said Steele.

Marines checked the bodies to make sure they were dead. They took the four Roman weapons. Ranza carved off one guard’s earlobe with his own knife, and gave the capsule from inside it to Steele, then started on the other three. “Romans, lend me your ears.”

Steele turned back to Dak’s prisoner, Gaius Americanus. He remembered a distinguished older man. He told Gaius, “You look different.”

“So does Captain Carmel,” said Gaius Americanus. That was true. Steele motioned for Dak to loosen his grip a little. “What are you doing here?”

“My door opened,” said Gaius. “So I think: I have a friend or I have an enemy baiting me. Either way, I decided not to cower in my cage.”

“You’re not coming with us,” said Steele.

“No,” Gaius agreed. “I am not.”

Automatons, a full dozen, came marching down the stairs. Steele turned, clutching the guard’s capsule. He spoke in halting Latin. “I have these prisoners. Go catch the others. Move.”

The automatons immediately turned and retreated double time. Steele stared after them, astonished that they actually obeyed. Ranza let out a cackle, showing her gapped teeth. “It can’t be that easy!” Steele snarled, hand to his midriff. “Marine? Be careful what you call easy.”

From somewhere within the enormous building, weapons’ fire and shouting sounded. “Mister Americanus, what’s the best way out of here?”

“I’ve never been down here before,” said the Senator. “I didn’t know this was here. This is outrageous.”

“If we get to the first floor, would you know the way?”

“Yes,” Gaius said provisionally. “I think the loading dock would be my choice. If your ear pieces haven’t been disallowed by the time we get there.” Steele hadn’t considered that. The instant that some one with human intelligence found the guards dead with bloody ears, the capsules they carried would turn from authorizations into targets. They needed to move fast.

They rushed up the stairs where the automatons had just gone. Gaius, after a momentary pause to get his bearings, led the way to the dock.

At their approach, automatons on the dock kept working, loading and unloading hover trucks. Except one, dressed as a guard. That one turned toward them with a gun. Said, “Domni, do you require assistance?”

“No,” said Steele.

They descended some concrete steps from the dock to the ground, where Gaius murmured to Steele, “Kindly order me to go now.”

Steele and Dak exchanged looks. What to do with the Roman Senator? Killing seemed the safest option.

As if reading their minds, Gaius said softly, “With Augustus dead, I am now Romulus’ worst enemy. You want me alive. I opposed the war.”

Himself, Steele would have voted for the war.

He motioned to Dak to release Gaius. “Go,” Steele commanded. Gaius walked quietly away into the city. The Marines could not do that. They could not blend. They draped a cargo tarp over themselves and left the dock on the flatbed of one of the hover trucks.

When the scenery was nothing but trees on either side, they baled out, leaving the guards’ capsules in the truck. In moments, backup lights appeared up the road. “Oh, skat!” The truck was coming back. The truck came to a stop next to the Marines, and in a machine voice, the truck informed the disembodied capsules riding in it that the truck had lost part of its load right here.

Steele picked up a capsule, verbally authorized the offloading of things at this point, and ordered the vehicle to continue on its way.

As they watched the truck go, the Marines realized that the Romans would have an easy job of tracking them to this location. The first task was to get as much space between themselves and this place as fast as they could. Not sure which way to go.

From this point forward, the escape plan was a little on the nonexistent side.

34

SENATOR QUIRINIUS OPENED the backdoor of his villa to find a young black man who smelled rather strongly and would do well with a haircut and a shave. Recognition poked about the Senator’s consciousness but did not set in until the young man spoke in an older voice, “Will you help me?”

“Gaius!” Open flew the door. “Gaius! I would be no kind of man if I did not! Come in! Come in.”

“You are harboring a fugitive,” Gaius warned, crossing the threshold.

“And honored and proud to do so!” Quirinius shut the door. “Where have you been?”

“Locked in a place that does not exist.”

On hearing a sound from outside, Quirinius moved quickly to a rear window to peer out, and Gaius asked, “Is your house under watch?”

“No,” said Quirinius, seeing nothing. “I could wish it were. I am troubled by vandals. They steal my lambs, and I don’t know what has become of my dog.”

Quirinius offered his guest a chance to clean up, but Gaius said, “If you can stand my stench a while longer, can we speak first?”

“Yes, yes.” Quirinius beckoned him to the courtyard. He did not fear satellite surveillance. Could thank the Americans for that.

A colonnade enclosed a private garden. Vines twined up the columns. A mosaic of dolphins swam in the fountain at the center of the courtyard. A stone table and comfortable chairs sat on a circle of polished terra-cotta tiles.

A human slave brought refreshments. Quirinius had no automatons. He never cared for false people. He told the girl to prepare a bath, fresh clothes, and a bedchamber for his guest.

Then Gaius and Quirinius listened in horror to each other’s tales, tales of deeds within the prison, and worse without.

Quirinius had not thought he could be more disgusted with Romulus. “I would say that Caesar is insane except that he appears to have complete command of all his faculties. I can only conclude that he is evil.”

Quirinius had no idea there were any Americans in Roman captivity other than the famed Adamas, which was revolting enough. Quirinius had no idea that the American POWs had escaped—twice now—and there had been no public warning. The cover-up was abominable.

“Half the world is still dark. The Americans drop out of FTL at will and snipe at our repairs as soon as we are ready to go live again. We have citizens boiling water—boiling water in this century, because we cannot provide purification. We have lost surveillance on our colonies. And Caesar plays his games.”

“Is that truly Caesar?” Gaius asked.

The question jolted Quirinius. “Why? Why ask?”

“I have heard the gladiators complain that they don’t fight before Caesar. Why doesn’t Caesar witness his own games? Has he been involved in affairs of state?”

“He has not come to the Curia,” said Quirinius. “But he does introduce the games.”

“Does he?” said Gaius.

Quirinius sat back, reviewing his recent memories of Caesar. Caesar appeared only briefly at the start of the games, reciting formal declarations before ceding his seat to a young woman. Now that Quirinius thought about it, an automaton could do that much convincingly.

Quirinius rose and went inside to his home office. He opened up vid com to the Imperial Palace and demanded an audience with Caesar.

The major domus refused him, informing Quirinius that he was on a list of those forbidden from entering the palace. Quirinius demanded a video audience instead. “Unless I am forbidden to look upon the visage.” He meant it as sarcasm, but that demand was denied without explanation.

Quirinius shut off his vid com. Looked up at Gaius, who had been listening from behind the camera. Gaius commented, “This begins to smell worse than I do.”

Quirinius said, “Perhaps I am less than wise making these inquiries from my home. And I think now I should not use the com to inform my lady wife that we have a houseguest. I am going out. I shall leave you in the care of my slave. Anything you want, ask or help yourself. This is your house.”

Gaius nodded his gratitude.

Quirinius put on his Senatorial toga. He instructed the slave to inform the lady Ludmillia face-to-face that they had company.

Quirinius tracked down the identity of one of the young ladies who filled in for Caesar at the games. He located the woman herself, and accosted her coming out of a dressmaker’s shop.

Because Quirinius was a Senator of some rank the woman welcomed the attention and answered all his questions.

Of the man who appeared at the games and gave his seat to her, she confided in a conspiratorial whisper, “That is not really Caesar.” She put her finger to her lips and winked.

Quirinius nodded that her secret was safe with him, while near bursting with outrage. Caesar was expected at the games if he were in Rome. How dare he stage this barbaric circus and not attend in person? The man forgot that he was not an autocrat; he was servant of the People.

“Where is Caesar?” Quirinius tried to sound casual asking that one.

The young woman shrugged, jingling her new earrings.

The question had been a long shot. Of course she would not know. Upon returning home, Quirinius found Gaius shaved, washed, dressed in clean clothes, and having coffee in the courtyard with Ludmillia.

Ludmillia rose to kiss her husband, then sat back down to hear what Quirinius had learned in the city. Quirinius had few secrets from his wife and did not try to exclude her. She was safer knowing what he was about.

Quirinius reported that he could gather no verifiable sighting of Caesar within the last several days. And that the man who was introducing the games was not Caesar, and was not even a man.

Ludmillia speculated, “It is possible that Romulus has fallen to Claudia’s malady?”

“What is Claudia’s malady?” Gaius asked.

Quirinius sat forward, appalled. “Have they told you nothing, Gaius?”

“I have been in a cage beneath the Coliseum. I heard gladiators’ gossip. The Americans are very careful to speak nothing of importance, not that anyone can hear.”

Ludmiliia explained that Claudia was in intense pain and calling for her father. Her sickness started after she had touched something of the patterner Augustus.

“I’m not sure if she is calling her father,” said Quirinius. “I saw the woman, and that cry sounded like fear. Her pain and her delusions are being driven by nanites from the patterner. The data receptacle inside Augustus’ head was infected with nanites.”

Gaius had not even known Augustus was dead, killed by John Farragut in the first siege of Palatine. Gaius at least knew that Palatine was under attack. He had gathered that from the prisoners under the Coliseum.

Gaius said, “If that is not Caesar opening the games, then who is sending out the replica of Caesar and who is running Rome?”

“It must be Romulus, from wherever he is,” said Quirinius. “There is no one who could or would use Romulus as a front.”

“I concur,” said Gaius.

“Romulus is up to something,” said Quirinius. “Something more, I should say.”

“But where is he?” said Gaius. “Maybe he is visiting the ravaged cities on the dark side of the world, giving solace and succor to the victims,” said Ludmillia. Quirinius touched her hand, appreciating the irony, but he could not laugh. Quirinius went out again, this time to pay a call on Romulus’ comrade in the Senate, Senator Ventor.

Ventor did not admit his visitor into his house. Did not even let him within the perimeter of the heavily monitored grounds. So right there at the ornamental front gate, Quirinius asked Ventor when last he had seen Caesar.

“Scheming, Quirinius?” Ventor asked back.

“Just tell me that the holder of your leash is in Rome,” Qurinius challenged.

The question seemed to surprise Ventor, and he did not answer, which left Quirinius to wonder if the silence came from Ventor not knowing the answer, or was it because Caesar was not in Rome?

More direct still, Quirinius demanded, “Where is Caesar?”

A twitch moved the corner of Ventor’s eyelid. Ventor did not answer. He turned his back on his caller and boarded an elevated carriage to carry him back up the long drive to his house.

Quirinius could read that answer clearly.

Ventor didn’t know.

After much internal doubt and debate, Munda’s successor as head of Imperial Intelligence sent a resonant signal on Caesar’s private harmonic.

The new magister had been instructed not to make contact except in cases of dire importance. In his message, the magister stated only, “Gaius Americanus escaped.”

Important enough. Caesar did not rebuke him for the contact, and responded, “Was he shot?”

“No, Caesar. Senator Americanus successfully escaped. With an American group of prisoners of war and several violent criminals.”

“Well, now he is obviously a traitor,” Caesar sent back. “Have Gaius Americanus shot on sight.”

———

TR Steele took point. He moved through the forest at night. Three moons in various phases added light to the faint glow from the city below. His eyes had grown accustomed to the dark, so he spotted the figure ahead on the rise—a female silhouette in tunic and boots framed between trees against the sky of midnight blue.

Steele stopped. He blinked at the vision of exactly what he wanted to see. Was this Roman bait set out for him? What Roman could know the one thing TR Steele wanted to see more than anything in the universe?

He wanted too badly to believe his eyes, so he didn’t dare. Yet he knew that loose rangy build, those wide shoulders for a woman. He recognized the way she moved when she shook out her hair, the way she jerked her head back to bat away a bug in her face. That was not an automaton. That was nothing that could be duplicated by PanGalactic or anyone else.

The figure suddenly froze, like a deer hearing a twig snap, even though Steele hadn’t made a sound.

He had seen that wary stance from her many times on Hive watch. Her right hand had frozen in the act of reaching for her sword, which wasn’t at her side now.

Steele cupped his hands round his mouth and whispered, “Blue. Kerry Blue!” She didn’t move. Steele slowly emerged from the underbrush so she might see him. The silhouette stayed mapped against the night sky like a still photograph, immobile. A tremor rippled the image. And suddenly she dropped out of her stance, hurtling down the incline at a twig-snapping, leaf-crushing run.

Steele caught her jumping into his arms.

Her arms, her legs wrapped round him tight.

He held her hard, trying not to crush her. His hands found every part of her. He tangled his fingers in her wet hair. She had bathed in a stream; her skin was damp and a little chilled. He felt her heart pounding close to his. Her life in his arms. He kissed her neck, her hair, her ear, her face. Held her head, and kissed her mouth with a hunger deeper than the need for water or air.

At last he came up from the kiss, crushed his face against the side of her head, and whispered with difficulty, like requesting she remove something vital from his chest, “Let go of me, Marine.”

She lowered her feet to the ground, pulled back to look at him in the dark, her eyes half-drowned with happy tears, smiling giddily. She touched him several times with her palms, just to make sure he was really really here and hadn’t vanished.

“How many of you are there?” he whispered.

“Eight,” she said. “We’re eight. Everybody.”

All eight of the Marines who escaped on the night he was shot still lived. He thanked God again.

“I have ten,” Steele told her. “I’m bringing them. Tell yours not to shoot us.”

“We don’t have guns,” she whispered. “The Roman crap we got don’t work for us.”

He seized her head, kissed her fiercely, and let her go.

Kerry dashed up the rise to tell the others.

Steele went back to get his team.

At the approach of Steele’s group, Kerry Blue’s group hid themselves behind trees. Carly grabbed Kerry and dragged her behind an uprooted tree with her. Scolded, “How could you bring them! They’re Roman fakes! That can’t be Steele! He’s dead!”

“He’s real,” said Kerry. “Oh bitch, babe, you gotta trust me on this.”

Carly shook her head wide, pitying. “Chica, chica—”

Cain Salvador stepped out of hiding, making himself a clear target for whatever approached. “I have to believe Kerry on this one.” He strode down to meet Colonel Steele. Saluted, “Sir!”

“As you were, Marine.”

“But you died!” Carly called from behind her tree. “Sir.”

“Twice!” Ranza called back, flanking Steele. “He died twice.”

Steele ordered the two groups of Marines to ask each other personal questions, the answers to which the Romans could not know. His men needed to trust each other.

A lot of questions were exchanged, with quite a lot of laughter at things they dredged up to establish their identities.

Carly asked Kerry, “How’d you know Steele was alive?”

Kerry screwed up her face at her. “Carly! I been with you the whole time. Why you asking me a question?”

“I just want to know how you knew,” said Carly.

Carly hadn’t been at the knee wall when the colonel had been shot during their escape. But Twitch had told her about Kerry’s anguished scream.

Thomas.

Carly hadn’t known TR Steele’s name was Thomas. Hadn’t seen him lock gazes with Cain Salvador at the end and order Cain to get Kerry out of there.

Okay, so Kerry fell in love stupid. And Steele even stupider back. Didn’t explain how Kerry Blue, who saw him dying, knew he was alive. “So how’d you know?”

“I got no idea how.” Kerry shook her head. “He just had to be.”

Colonel Steele nodded to Flight Sergeant Cain Salvador. His voice dropped down a choked octave. “Good job, Salvador.”

Cain had kept Kerry Blue alive. Steele’s gratitude was profound, suffused with an intensity that could not be faked ever. The embarrassment, the depth of raw emotion, the trust.

Weird having charge of your CO’s girlfriend, who was also your comrade-in-arms. Awkward. That’s why there were rules against this kind of skat.

Yet the difference here was the difference between Hey soldier, cover my ass while I shoot off some unauthorized ordnance, and an order spoken with his dying breath to protect the woman he loved. No matter that he was not allowed to love her. There was no distinction in the military code of conduct, but the difference on the human level was huge and definite. Unwritten, understood, and recognized when it was thrust upon you as something you must do, a pact from man to man. And you accept it. Because you’re human.

Cain shrugged as if it were no big deal. This had probably been a Neolithic ritual. The shrug to say it was nothing, which really meant, Thank you for admitting that you put a hell of a load on me and I went off grid for you.

Sudden harsh white lights fell on all of them from above. Threw hard black tree shadows out on the ground. Illuminated more figures among the surrounding trees. A loud voice from behind the light commanded in Latin: “Do not move.” Oh, hell, not again.

———

Civilian space traffic into Western Europe had been on an alarming increase for months. Italy got the bulk of it. Italy was not at war with Palatine, either as a nation for herself, or as a member of the League of Earth Nations. At first the Italian authorities did not object to civilians of the Empire of Rome visiting their country. But they did not mean to invite quite this many Romans.

And did not seem to be able to stop them. Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, Morocco and Algeria had huge numbers of Roman visitors.

Captain Carme! on board Wolfhound, orbiting Earth with the home guard, signaled Jupiter Control regarding a new raft of Italians. “Are we sure these are all civilians?”

“We are sure there are enough Italian citizens on board those ships that we can’t shoot at them.”

And because the ships were not attempting to land in the United States, Calli could not buzz them away from entering Earth’s atmosphere.

Italy would not authorize the U.S. military to come in on the ground to repel their excess visitors, much less allow them to drop any ordnance on Italian soil.

Most of the visitors did not have proper admittance documents. They were obviously Roman. They spoke flawless Italian or French or Portuguese or Spanish or Arabic depending on the country they visited. Immigration was not inclined to incarcerate masses of orderly people. The visitors gently bypassed immigration. Italy did not authorize the use of force against them, and the immigration officials did not attempt to make any arrests. The Romans were breaking immigration law, but they were well dressed, friendly, said hello, and brought nice gifts. Colonial wine was very fine, and a confection that rivaled chocolate for divinity was a nice gift.

The visitors submitted to searches. They carried no weapons, they had adequate currency, did not look as if they would be a burden, and there were just too many of them and not enough reason to get belligerent with them.

Wolfhound could only watch all those wolves coming in among the lambs.

“That’s cheating,” said Red Dorset at the com station.

“You tell ‘em,” said Tactical. “Bet you’ll really hurt their little feelings with that one.”

The Romans had staged a mass Exodus from Earth a century and a half ago. “Is this the Eisodos?” Red wondered out loud.

Tactical straightened up at his station, yelped, “You mean they’re all coming back?”

Red Dorset passed a message from Jupiter Control to Captain Carmel. Per instructions from Captain John Farragut a week ago, Jupiter Control reported the approach of an Italian ship bearing Italian colors, Italian ID, and a passenger manifest of children.

Calli ordered Red Dorset to contact his buddy Guglielmo in Italy to recheck the ship’s identity while she took Wolfhound closer for a look at the target.

———

Merrimack was in Palatine’s atmosphere, making decoy drops on the planet’s surface. Any time Merrimack dropped to sublight speed she had all the Roman ships’ attention. The Romans knew by now that Merrimack was often used as a diversion, sent down only to draw fire. And the diversion always worked, because Roman defense could not afford to ignore her.

Captain Farragut gave his XO the deck so he could take Calli’s hail. “Little busy here, Cal. You still at Earth?”

“Yes, I’m still here, and your Italian school group is here.”

Farragut remembered the school group leaving Palatine. A busload of ten year olds going home. “Did I miss that call?” he asked. He had already vetted that bus, and lain off it as civilian. Still he had known something was wrong with it.

“It’s a bone fide school group and it’s Italian,” said Calli. “But they’ve got a Roman passenger.”

“Can’t start shooting for one Roman,” said Farragut. “Not children.”

“I know,” said Calli. “But you were right, and I sure wish I had your patterner friend with me.”

“What’s wrong?”

“The Roman passenger. I got a bead right through the view port. John, I’m looking at him. It’s Romulus.”

35

SHOCK SELDOM SLOWED DOWN John Farragut. He responded immediately “That’s not real likely, Cal. Caesar is in Roma Nova. He’s been holding games.” Had to suppress anger at that. He had seen a recording of Steele’s last contest in the arena and wanted nothing better than to run Romulus through with a sword.

Calli sent back, “Are you sure you’ve got the real Caesar there?”

“Are you?” Farragut returned.

“Actually, yes,” said Calli. “I am. I know Rom. This is Rom. I just want you to argue with me.”

“I—” had to consider carefully. The Caesar whom Farragut had seen on the recordings only made cameo appearances to introduce the games. “—can’t,” he finished. And added significantly, “Your guy is hiding behind children.”

“I’ve got the real Romulus,” said Calli. “Numa’s shooting at me,” Farragut sent and had to break communication. “Give him my worst,” said Calli. Wolfhound received orders to wear off from the Italian school ship at the stratosphere.

In her place, U.S. Rattlers swarmed up and took positions on either side of the descending spacecraft. The Rattler pilots could see the children through the viewports. The children did not appear frightened. Did not seem aware of the Rattlers. The ship must have one-ways activated on the viewports so the children could not look out and see gunships and start screaming. Calli listened to the transmissions between the Rattlers and Ground Control.

Control: “Is Romulus on board?”

Rattler 6: “Looks like him, sir.”

Control: “What is he doing?”

Rattler 6: “Singing, sir.”

Control: “What?”

Rattler 6: “Frere Jacques, sir.”

Romulus had a flock of the children around him, and one on his knee. The viewports were only occluded oneway instead of fully opaqued. Romulus wanted the world to see this.

He let the children teach him the song. Pretended not to know the words. The children were eager to show off their mastery of foreign words to the Roman Emperor.

Control: “What are they doing now?”

Rattler 6: “Rounds, sir.”

Control: “What load?”

Rattler 6: “No. Rounds. They’re singing Frere Jacques in rounds.” The lead Rattler hailed the school ship, demanded the pilot stop. The Italian pilot hotly demanded the U.S. gunships cease menacing his craft. Caesar added his own message to that, “No harm shall come to these children. They are under my protection.” Hearing that, Calli had to walk away from the com, incensed.

“Skata! They don’t even know they’re hostages! He is under their protection! With those children around him, we don’t dare aerate his head!”

They were singing Alouette now. The children giggled as Romulus kept pointing to the wrong body parts of the plucked lark, his fingertip to his elbow when they were singing beak, to his knee when the children sang neck. The emperor was being very silly.

When the ship set down at the spaceport in old Rome, it was greeted not just by parents of the schoolchildren, but by such a mass of people that there was no controlling them. With his people around him, Romulus went anywhere he wanted. People reached out to touch him like a sports hero or the Pope. Or a conquering Caesar.

Snipers in space could not get a clean shot on his eminence. Romulus was wearing a two-stage personal field, which protected him from beams, projectiles, and even thrown rocks, none of which were headed his way. Joy and adoration surrounded him.

Anything the Americans could send down there capable of penetrating his personal field would take out a wide radius around him as well. The Pentagon was debating the pros and cons of doing so.

Unfortunately the people closest to Caesar were not Romans. They were Italian civilians caught up in mob fervor. Not that the Romans were not part of the masses.

There were hundreds of thousands of Roman tourists in Italy. They had come without weapons. But weapons could always be bought. Civilians could become soldiers. Their commander in chief was here.

Caesar proceeded on foot to Vatican City where the Swiss Guards forbade him and his thousands entry. Tried to forbid. The titanic crowds made the gates part for him. Romulus walked past them.

Romulus walked into Saint Peter’s Square with his legions of civilians around him. And the guards could not bring themselves to wreak violence on unarmed people.

Romulus advised the unhappy guards to ask God to smite him, if He objected to his being here.

The guards were more concerned with the flouting of international borders and possible lifting of Vatican treasure than they were with God’s will.

The U.S. had been denied entry into Vatican City airspace, so there was nothing but blue sky and the glint of high distant spacecraft overhead. And a dark swarm of approaching aerial news craft.

Romulus stopped at the Vatican obelisk, which stood in the center of the square. In actuality it was Caligula’s obelisk. A soaring red granite phallic symbol brought here a thousand years ago by Sixtus V. The Catholics had stuck a cross on top of it. Sixtus V had been Roman.

Romulus announced that he wanted to sit on the Throne of the Fisherman. He pretended not to know the way. By involving the people in his quest, he took ownership of their hearts. The throng directed him to the palace. The mob, swept up in the sense of this historic moment and the grandeur of the place, made sure Romulus got whatever he wished. Excitement crackled like lightning within a thunderhead, common sense swept aside by the rapture. This moment had been thousands of years in the coming. A Caesar had returned to Rome.

Romulus strode into the Papal palace and up to the chamber like returning royalty. The Vatican ran a lean organization, so there were few people to stand in his way.

The Pope did not come out to oppose him, but his personal secretary, the monsignor, did. The people cleared the path for Caesar. Romulus strode up the steps of the dais and sat on the red velvet cushion of the gilded throne.

Someone brought him a scepter like a shepherd’s crook, which he accepted. He refused the miter. He wore his own crown of gilt oak leaves.

Media transmitters shoved their way into the chamber. Caesar requested the curtains be parted so the airships could get their views through the windows. Romulus used the public media to transmit a greeting to the President of Italy.

He also said into the cameras, “Someone can tell Sampson Reed that We are here if he has anything to say to Us.” He was speaking in royal plurals now. Omitted Sampson Reed’s title of President of the United States.

And he posed for people to record images of him. He glanced toward the window. “Can we get some white smoke out there?”

The crowd outside roared, because his words were carried everywhere instantly on the news media. And soon white smoke issued from the chimney that normally announced a new Pope.

Cheers resounded from Saint Peter’s Square.

Merrimack pulled back from her battle with Gladiator. Jumped to FTL, then slowed back down to sublight speed again in a new location and transmitted to Gladiator, “Time Out.”

Time Out? The Romans on Gladiator’s command deck were mystified. They looked to each other as if their language modules were malfunctioning. “Did he say Time Out?”

Numa Pompeii took up the com: “Do you think this is an American game of football, Captain Farragut?” Farragut returned, “Numa, just stop shooting for a minute and turn on any news broadcast from Earth.”

This was possibly a trick, but this was also John Farragut. Numa was curious now. He nodded to his command crew to comply.

Everything in the universe was stopping to watch the news from Earth. The signals from Vatican City were broadcast by resonant pulse, so the feed was immediate and everywhere.

White smoke.

“What does that mean?” Numa asked the air, because he could not expect anyone around him to have the answer. “Is that Romulus? Did he just take possession of Vatican City?”

Difficult to be Pope when Romulus wasn’t Catholic. Though historically there had been Popes with dim claims to the faith.

When Caesar had collected the attention of the better part of the known galaxy, he rose from the Throne of the Fisherman. He spoke to anyone who would know, “Show me the way to that balcony. I need to give my address Urbi et Orbi et Cosmi.”

“That balcony” was description enough to get him where the Pope traditionally spoke his message to the City, the World, and the Universe.

By the time his procession wended it way from the palace to Saint Peter’s Basilica, up the stairs, and to the doors that led out to the central balcony, the sky over Saint Peter’s Square was clogged with camera ships. The pilots angrily signaled to each other to get out of the picture.

Curtains over the doors to the Loggia of the Blessings moved. The human ocean down below roared.

Romulus stepped onto the balcony, sunlight on his oak leaves. He collected the voices, the immense sound of Biblical thunder.

Romulus stepped to the railing, made eye contact with individuals in the crowd, waved and smiled. The cheering only intensified, resolving into a chant that rocked the earth: CAE-SAR! CAE-SAR! CAE-SAR!

Romulus was in no hurry for silence. The streets before him had become rivers of humanity. People clustered on the rooftops. Faces filled all the windows. Small craft jockeyed for positions in the sky.

Romulus gripped the railing, bowed his head, collecting himself to address the multitude. At length the crowd allowed itself to go quiet, listening. The galaxy held its breath.

Romulus looked out.

His focus faltered, swam away. He held tight to the railing for balance. A murmur rolled back in a wave. His lips moved, no sound coming forth at first, confusion, disgust, and fear moving on his face.

Romulus reached forward, his hand out to empty air over the square, his eyes fixed in profound horror. Blood appeared on his palm, not like the wound of a nail, but blood all over both hands. He screamed at something no one else could see.

“Pater!”

PART FIVE

The Outer Darkness

36

STEELE AND HIS RECAPTURED MARINES sat on the floor in a boxcar. The compartment smelled like sheep. Every surface felt greasy with lanolin. There was no light. After several hours, a voice in the dark sounded, moaning, “Just how long does it take to get to the Coliseum?” It was probable they were not going back to the Coliseum after two escapes.

They didn’t seem to be going anywhere.

Daybreak brought light and nothing else, Time wore on. There was no food. There was still a carton of water, which they were relunctant to drink because there was no crapper in here.

“Did you see the light, sir?” Dak Shepard asked.

Steele looked to either side of himself for some other “sir” who might answer the question. He squinted at Dak Shepard. “What?”

“When you died,” said Dak.

“I saw it once,” said Kerry Blue. “The light.” She had been drowning.

Dak turned to her. “See anyone at the end?” Kerry shook her head. “I didn’t get very far before a medic was squishing water out of me.”

“Sir?” Dak turned back to Colonel Steele. “Did you?”

Steele slowly nodded. “Saw my mom. She told me to go back.”

Dak nodded, liking that answer. But it was only part of what Steele heard from the light.

What Ma Steele actually said was, Boy, you go right back there and get her.

The sun was past zenith when the boxcar set down, and the door lifted open. Automatons and human guards herded the Marines into a clean Spartan dormitory, some place where the season was autumn. The guards locked the Americans in by themselves.

There was a security system all around the building, but no locks on the doors to the individual rooms. Once locked inside, the prisoners had free run of everything. There were dry showers, cots with air mattresses, food, drinking water, heads, a first aid kit, and a dry laundry.

Cain blurted, “Wow! Was there a regime change?”

Steele supposed the League of Earth Nations must have stepped in to enforce conventions of treatment of POWs.

Dak looked around for a video. That was asking too much. But there were decks of cards.

So the Marines played cards, talked, making up stories of what could have changed about the war to land them here. Except for Steele, Ranza, and Cain who spent the daylight inspecting their confines, searching for a way out.

There were two cots in each sleeping room, but enough rooms for each Marine to have his own private space.

At nightfall Kerry Blue came to Flight Leader Ranza Espinoza’s room, and stood in the doorway hugging a pillow. “Can I stay here?”

Kerry Blue hadn’t had her own room ever and discovered she didn’t like it. On Merrimack there would be eight women stacked into a space this size. And there would be Dak Shepard snoring right on the other side of the thin metal partition that walled Kerry’s pod from the guys’ rack.

The private room felt like exile.

Ranza was trying to make her thick cloud of freshly cleaned hair lie down. She shot Kerry a sneer through the mirror. “You mean you’re not going to bunk with Thomas?”

Ranza had been in the arena when Kerry screamed the colonel’s name over the wall.

Kerry asked, “You gonna bust me, Ranza?”

“Nah. Can’t. Take that cot. I got this one.”

“Thanks,” Kerry came in. She sat on her cot. Thought to ask, “You can’t?”

“Can’t,” said Ranza. “‘Cause if the Old Man wanted to feat with me, I’d be there in a half a heartbeat.”

———

Wolfhound had not received new orders since Caesar’s collapse, so she maintained orbit around Earth. When the wolfhunter ship finally received a message other than a general broadcast, it wasn’t from Command.

Red Dorset at the com reported, “Captain Carmel, I have a resonant hail coming in on a disallowed harmonic. Claims to be Gaius American us.”

“I’ll take it,” said Calli. The transmission came with a video. Calli saw the face and let out an involuntary, “Oh.”

Gaius Americanus touched his own young face. “Oh, yes.” He had forgotten, as had she, that they hadn’t seen each other since they had both been burned. “That’s what my wife is going to say, I’m afraid.”

“What’s happening, Gaius?”

The Roman appeared to be debating how much to say, “You saw the transmission from the Vatican?”

“The whole universe saw that,” said Calli. “Our nations are talking.”

“Who is speaking for the Empire?” Last seen, Romulus was screaming incoherently. “The Senate.” Calli noticed that Gaius was wearing a red-bordered Senatorial toga.

“No interim Caesar?”

“Not a chance.”

That meant Rome was working in a power void—which would be more of a power glut if you counted all the Senators. No one could expect that many ambitious brains to agree on anything, except that they all distrusted anyone who might seize control as deftly as Romulus had upon Magnus’ death.

“What is the purpose of this call, Senator?” Captain Carmel kept her words formal.

“A personal favor, if at all possible,” said Gaius. “Check on my wife and children at Fort Eisenhower? I know you can’t carry a message. If you could just see that they are well?”

“I think I can accommodate that,” Calli said.

Seeing him, and speaking of Fort Ike, memories of their doomed flight in the shuttle came back to her. The attack. The fire. “I’m sorry the war might be ending without my getting a chance to kill Numa.”

“He’s right here,” said Gaius.

“No, no, don’t pass me over to— What do you want?”

The vastness of Numa Pompeii filled her com screen. “I wanted to let you know I had the warrant for your arrest lifted, Callista.”

“What warrant?”

“For your arrest for the murder of Caesar Magnus.”

That nonsense? She had assumed Claudia’s accusations were long behind her. “That wasn’t I.”

“I know that,” said Numa.

“Why isn’t there a warrant out for your attempted murder of Gaius?” said Calli. “And why is he even talking to you? Gaius! Where’s Gaius! Put Gaius back on!”

“You ridiculous American cowgirl,” Numa’s deep voice rolled like mumbling thunder. “Had I wanted Gaius dead, he would be dead. I would have let him board Gladiator and executed him with my own sword. I would not have hatched a sniveling plot in the dark using a disgraced moron from Daedalus Station and Romulus’ other toadies.”

What he said made sense, but Calli was never good at backing down or giving Numa Pompeii the benefit of any doubt. She said back, “What was Romulus hoping to achieve here?”

“I was not privy to Caesar’s plans and would not tell you if I knew. I like your new face by the way.”

“Don’t be cruel.”

“I mean it,” said Numa. “It lets the strength behind it show through. Before you were just pretty.”

———

Sound and lights outside the POWs’ dormitory woke the Marines, who had become light sleepers anyway. Ranza rolled off her cot to look out the window. A lander descended, right next to the building. Leaves and dust fanned out beneath it. “It’s one of ours!”

Kerry ran to the window, looked for the Roman guards. Found them at the periphery of the lights, standing there, looking surly.

“No one’s shooting!” Kerry marveled. “We’re going home!”

Home meant the Merrimack.

She was afraid that their evader status might exclude them from fighting the rest of the war. But they learned upon boarding Merrimack that there might not be much more war left. Other Marines from the 89th were being picked up from the field.

With the return of seven hundred plus Marines, Merrimack reverted to its noisy, crowded familiarity.

Colonel Steele spent extra time in quarantine, having died and been resurrected by Roman medics—like Augustus had been.

“I am not Augustus!” Steele bellowed. But TR Steele distrusted Romans more than anyone, so he submitted to the extra scrutiny to make certain he carried nothing of them aboard.

“So God struck Romulus down,” said Marcander Vincent at his tactical station on the command deck of Merrimack.

“Didn’t look like God’s work,” said Systems. “Looked more like Augustus’ work.” The helm nodded, murmured, “Same thing that got Claudia.”

“Augustus’ nanites laid out Claudia on Palatine,” said Marcander Vincent. “How could those nanites get to Vatican City?”

Captain Farragut, listening to the crew chatter, caught in a breath in sudden epiphany. Vatican City. The seat of the old Catholic religion.

I know a Catholic.

He knew a Catholic who had personal nanites exempted from the sterilization of the Merrimack at the outbreak of the war. The nanites had been set outboard while the space battleship was scoured. The nanites had been picked up by their owner in space after he separated from Merrimack.

I know a Catholic who had an audience with the Pope.

“Young Captain!” Jose Maria de Cordillera greeted John Farragut’s hail cheerily. He wore a fine white shirt and a waistcoat the color of pure gold. He appeared to be on the coast of Spain, on a terrace of a villa on the sea, tranquil as if nothing momentous were happening anywhere in the galaxy.

“Are you still on Earth?” Farragut asked looking at the scene behind him.

“No. I have been to Earth and I have been home to Terra Rica since last we met. I am in transit now to another destination. This is Mercedes.” He motioned to his surroundings.

Mercedes was Jose Maria’s little racing yacht, named for his late wife, lost on board the Roman ship Sulla years before, the first victim of the Hive.

The turquoise sea, the white birds, the yellow sun, the villa were all a holoimage.

Sun glanced off the water.

Farragut finally got round to asking innocently, “How did your audience with the Pope go?”

“Very well,” answered Jose Maria with the same false innocence.

Farragut asked outright: “How did you get the nanites onto the Papal throne?”

“I did not.” Jose Maria sipped red wine, his dark eyes impish. “I put them in the holy water.”

Farragut shook his head. He had watched the recordings of Romulus’ entrance to the Vatican. Romulus never dipped his hand in a stoup or in a baptismal font. He never picked up an aspergillum. “Romulus doesn’t use holy water.”

“But the Pope does,” said Jose Maria. “The hand that touches the water is the hand that rests on the arm of the throne, the hand that grips the scepter, the hand that touches the rail of the balcony. God does intervene in the affairs of humankind. But heaven helps those.”

“You are a holy bastard, Jose Maria.”

“I did penance just in case it was not heaven doing the helping of those who helped themselves.”

Farragut remembered Augustus’ first shot at Romulus, the one that pierced the seat and the headrest of the throne in Caesar’s bunker during the American siege of Palatine. That attempt never quite felt right. It wasn’t enough for Augustus to shoot Romulus through the head. And it had never seemed like it had a high likelihood of success.

That shot had been the announcement to Romulus that Augustus was coming. Death was not enough. Augustus needed to show blood on Romulus’ hands and to make him face his father.

For that there were the nanites left in Augustus’ data bank, which he knew would be excised from his head upon his death. That trap required Caesar to touch the data bank, and Caesar hadn’t.

Had Augustus ever meant for Romulus to touch it? Or had he foreseen Romulus avoiding that trap as well? “How could Augustus be certain Romulus would come to Vatican City?”

“Certain?” said Jose Maria. “I do not know that he was certain, young Captain. Romulus had expressed an interest in giving a speech Urbi et Orbi et Cosmi from the Loggia. But for all we know there are more nanites elsewhere. As the nanites are only triggered by a combination of DNA in common with Magnus and memory of patricide, then any other traps, if such exist, will never be activated, never be found. I must believe Augustus created other backups. Redundance is good.”

“Redundance is good,” said Farragut. That was why there were six engines on the Merrimack. “Was that the purpose of your audience with the Pope?” said Farragut. “To set Augustus’ trap for Romulus?”

“Oh, no. My delivery of the nanites was a last favor to Augustus. That was not the reason for my visit to the Vatican. The reason for my journey was personal.”

“May I ask?”

“I must share, young Captain,” said Jose Maria, becoming quietly animated, “The Vatican has always conducted scientific research, much of it in the field of astronomy and space exploration—the search for the fingerprints of God in His cosmos. The Riverites are not the only ones who see God in His Creation. To the Riverites Creation, not the gospels, is the firsthand testament of God. It is both, of course. Outer space doth make gnats of us all. I went to the Vatican because I funded a research project for them.”

“Success?” Farragut asked.

Jose Maria nodded. “I am on my way to see the results of their exploration for myself even now. The Vatican ship is waiting for me at the site,”

Jose Maria set aside his wine, looked meditative. Emotions shone in his face—wonder, sorrow, and something else.

He gave a sad smile. His voice came out surreal, as if he could scarcely believe what he was saying—speak it and it will cease to be. “They found the Sulla.”

———

The Roman Empire was in the control of a Senate without a unified head to make decisions. The Senators proceeded cautiously this time, with much debate. No one was afraid to express disagreement with anyone else. Charisma was ill regarded now, so Senator Trogus got his floor time, and Numa Pompeii had to rein in his eloquence.

If anyone’s voice carried more authority, it was Gaius Americanus. The others were willing to pause now and consider why Magnus chose this man to succeed him. Gaius Americanus became, if not their leader, then their moderator.

Negotiations with the United States were strained. The United States tried to take advantage of the situation and gouge out terms, which was why Caesar Magnus had surrendered his Empire to Captain Farragut, not to the United States, during the Hive crisis.

The nations were going to be a while pounding out an Armistice. First thing the Roman Senate wanted was to stop the shooting and the sabotage on the ground. Then they wanted to collect their power plants, which had been bounced out of orbit by U.S. warships, and to reestablish communications with their colonies.

The U.S. troop carriers had already withdrawn from the Palatine system. The armies had been confined in their spaceships for months. They would not be landing on Palatine any time soon if ever.

The U.S. permitted a Roman hospital ship to retrieve Caesar Romulus from Earth.

The immediate collapse of the Roman war effort upon Caesar’s incapacitation left John Farragut to wonder how Romulus had ever planned to establish his claim to any part of Earth. Something was missing.

There gaped a giant hole in the available information where something strategic belonged.

———

Sulla. She waited in the Abyss. A cenotaph traveling faster than light. Her speed had leveled out at cruising velocity, her direction toward nowhere. She was nearly impossible to find.

And there she was.

She was surprisingly close to Near Space. She would have passed by unseen had no one been intently looking for her. The Vatican ship found her bound on a northerly route that would carry her out of the galaxy.

It appeared that the last act of the crew of Sulla had been to take the ship off her homeward course and away from humanity.

Objects traveling faster than light do not fall out of FTL. Passing the light barrier required energy—the same energy to decelerate below the barrier as to accelerate above it.

The Vatican ship had found Sulla traveling FTL with a dead engine, no energy emanating from her, no residual heat left about her. Her antimatter in its magnetic container had been blown out the back, magnets and all, somewhere hundreds or thousands of parsecs back.

Without intervention, the dead hull would travel on at this speed forever.

Jagged rents in her hull, as if the metal had been peeled open, confirmed the stories and suspicions. Sulla had in fact been humankind’s first Hive victim.

The racing yacht Mercedes made rendezvous with Sulla and the Vatican research vessel in the Abyss. The Vatican ship had been awaiting the arrival of their patron, Jose Maria de Cordillera, before boarding the wreck.

The Mercedes matched speed and attitude with Sulla and lined up an air lock opposite one of the large holes in her hull.

As he suited up, Jose Maria felt an irrational desire to carry a sword. But he had given his sword to Captain Farragut upon leaving Merrimack.

Feeling naked without a weapon while going into the Hive-scarred wreck, Jose Maria slid a short blade into his calf holster, like a diver’s knife. Then, as if he were actually going to Mercedes’ rescue, he strapped on a beam knife and slung a welding torch pack across his back. Part of him felt ridiculous. Another part called out in silence, My love, I come!

He stood in the air lock of his racer as the air was sucked out and the artificial gravity lifted away.

The Vatican researchers had anticipated the possible state of Sulla’s hull, and had come equipped with a polymer spray to blunt the sharp metal edges around the holes in the ship. An exo-suit’s personal field would not protect it against a sharp edge approaching slowly.

The safety coating appeared blue against the ship’s black hull. Jose Maria opened Mercedes’ air lock and turned on his suit lights.

He crossed the short void between ships with a slow push out of the air lock. He did not need his suit’s directional jets, but gently floated straight across and caught the blunted opening.

Carefully, he ducked inside and looked for something on which to attach the line he had carried from his own ship. He fastened the tether to an overhead conduit, then surveyed the scene around him.

His lamps shed cheerless light that could not push back the black from this space. The cold illumination threw out fanged shadows of torn metal wherever he looked.

His thickly gloved hands propelled him at a floating crawl through the ravaged corridors. He kept his com link open. The researchers in the Vatican ship could hear him breathing. They allowed him his silence. They watched the video feed from his helmet as he progressed through the flying tomb.

He found her chamber. Knew it by her clothes. Her field garb, sand-colored, synthetic, was inedible by gorgons. Those small boots. How tiny her feet had been. He hugged the boots.

He did not find teeth in her sleeping compartment. His Mercedes would not have died hiding under a bed.

He found the control room, a scatter of teeth there. He collected all that he found and tucked them into a sealed pocket in his suit. He pulled data receptacles out of the communications station and fit those inside another pocket.

Then he found an incisor. He knew it immediately. How many times had he gazed at her smile across a table?

There was no gravity here, but still came the impulse to fall to his knees. He curled round one knee, his head bowed, floating. He held the tooth to his chest.

My love. My love. I am taking you home.

———

The colossus that was the Jupiter Monument was lit up to be visible from Earth. With the naked eye it appeared like a bright pinpoint moon to the planet.

Seen through a scope, dark specks appeared, moving across the face of the monument like black ash. An observer on Luna Station spotted the specks first and asked, “What the hell is that?” The United States and the rest of Earth went on immediate maximum alert. Wolfhound turned her scanners toward Jupiter to mutters of “Those treacherous bastards.”

The specks looked like incoming small craft. Thousands upon thousands of them, moving near light speed. Calli Garmel couldn’t believe it. A Roman double cross.

Tactical refined the image. The specks weren’t Roman ships. A cricket in a tiny cage on the command deck, left over from the Sagittarius campaign, chirped madly. “Hive!”

37

IMAGES FROM THE JUPITER MONUMENT reached the U.S. Fleet at Palatine, images of gorgons crawling on the monument in a black mass that all but obscured the bright lights. Images of more gorgons headed toward Earth. Not in spheres. The new generation Hive hadn’t figured out spheres. These monsters were strewn about in gaggles, ribbons, clumps, and nets.

Captain Farragut on the Merrimack hailed Admiral Mishindi on Earth. “A Hive emerged on Jupiter?”

“No,” Mishindi responded, harried. “Jupiter is where the monsters are entering the solar system.” The Jupiter Monument was a resonant source. Naturally it would attract the Hive.

But other than on the planet Thaleia, which was heavily monitored and contained, the Hive had no known presence anywhere near Earth. The Hive had no other history in Near Space at all.

“Their actual point of origin is the 82 Eridani system,” Mishindi told Farragut. “The third planet, Xi.”

“Xi?”

Xi was a dead planet. Long, long, long dead. There was no arguing the improbability of it, since the fact was chewing on the Jupiter Monument even now.

The 82 Eridani system was damned close to Sol in astronomical terms. Which made it close to the Roman worlds of Thaleia and Palatine as well. But so far no gorgons had started in those directions. They were all headed toward the closest resonant target, Earth. And they had arrived, falling from the sky in a spidered rain.

It would take any ship of the attack Fleet a week at best to return to Earth to fight the Hive. Captain Farragut wanted to be there yesterday. Then the side thought struck him.

“He knew,” he said out loud.

Gypsy lifted dark brows toward her captain. “Sir?”

“Romulus knew! He knew the gorgons were coming. He knew when they would get to Earth. He timed his visit so he could be there when the Hive arrived and the United States Fleet wasn’t!”

Gypsy’s brow furled all the way up to her shaved scalp. “Why would Romulus want to be on Earth when the gorgons came?”

“To be our savior. Romulus meant to collect our surrender under a Hive siege. God bless America!”

And Farragut guessed how Romulus meant to get weapons to all those unarmed Roman tourists who had come to Earth. He was going to make the United States and the rest of the world arm them for him.

Romulus had not figured on Augustus striking him down from beyond the grave. “But how did Romulus get the gorgons to Xi?” said Gypsy.

“He didn’t.” Farragut spoke it as he realized it himself. “They’ve been there! They’ve been there for three quarters of forever!”

“Since the galaxy’s first civilization? That can’t be. If gorgons were there, why didn’t they eat the archaeological team who found the Xi tablet decades ago?”

“Because the gorgons of the ancient Hive moved on a long long time ago, and the new swarms didn’t hatch until the original swarms died!”

“But most of the second generation swarms woke up months ago. What took these so long to hatch?”

“I’m getting the idea they don’t hatch until there’s something they can eat. Remember Telecore was clear when we went there. The gorgons only woke on Telecore when we brought edible things down to the surface. Something edible came to Xi. And I would stake anything that Romulus sent it.”

Gypsy followed the argument. “Whatever Romulus sent to Xi got eaten, and Romulus didn’t tell anyone. He’s worse than Calli said he was, and she had nothing good to say about that man ever.”

“It’s looking like a new Hive can pop up anywhere the last Hive ever was. I need to ask Jose Maria—” He stopped. Cold. “Oh, for Jesus.”

Sulla.

———

Inertia carried Jose Maria up—which was the same as down, which was the same as sideways in this weightless place—into the ship’s overhead.

His lamplight fell on a very large, black lump like a charcoal mass crusted on the conduit.

Jose Maria uncurled in panic reflex. He bounced off the deck, clutched a grate to stop his motion. He spoke into his helmet com with restrained urgency, “Get clear of the Sulla immediately. I have Hive presence.”

He tucked Mercedes’ tooth into the pocket at his chest. He planted his feet to take a stand on a wall, anchoring himself against the hatchway, and drew his knife from its sheath at his calf. He faced the uncurling mass of tentacles emerging in the overhead.

———

Captain Farragut fought down the impulse to signal a warning to Jose Maria’s little ship Mercedes. The Hive had the ability to home on any reception point of a res pulse. If the Hive did not already know where Jose Maria was, Farragut’s signal would give his location away.

Farragut sent an urgent message to the Vatican Observatory, warning them, “Do not contact the research ship that found Sulla. When is the last time you heard from the crew?”

“You cannot know how much I welcome this communication, Captain Farragut,” said the monsignor who took his call. “You are a Godsend. We have lost contact with our research vessel. I pray to God that He did not send you to us too late.” The monsignor provided Captain Farragut with the Vatican ship’s last known vector.

Farragut hailed Admiral Mishindi again. He did not need to beg to be cut out from the Fleet and assigned to the rescue mission. “Sulla has been classified as a plague ship,” said Mishindi. “It must not be allowed to advance into Near Space. Merrimack, you are clear to separate from the Fleet to stop the Hive incursion and attempt a rescue of the Vatican vessel and Doctor Cordillera.”

Merrimack blazed out to the Abyss at threshold speed.

“We should be able to see her,” said Gypsy as Merrimack closed on the projected course of the Vatican ship.

Tactical sang out. “Occultation! Dead ahead! Got him!”

The plot turned out to be a solo ship. Not the Mercedes. Not the Sulla. It was the Vatican ship, alone, running Earthward.

Merrimack veered to make intercept. The Vatican ship appeared intact. Merrimack hailed her on a tight beam instead of resonating so not to alert the Hive of their location.

“Is Jose Maria with you?” Farragut demanded.

The Vatican personnel told him that the Hive had emerged on Sulla. Jose Maria had ordered the Vatican ship to run.

“Where is he!” The Vatican pilot gave Merrimack Jose Maria’s vector. It led galactic north, fastest route out of the galaxy. As Merrimack blazed away, the pilot’s benediction followed, “May God be with you.”

After a chase that took far too long, with John Farragut stalking the corridors of his ship as if he were pushing her along, Merrimack caught up with another solo ship.

It wasn’t Jose Maria’s Mercedes.

It was Sulla.

She was an image out of a nightmare, a mass of torn metal, riddled with jagged holes, cold as space. Dead. “Where is Jose Maria?”

“No other ships detected, Captain,” Tactical reported. “Did we cross a heat trail?”

“No, sir.There’s no one else out here except them”

Alongside the ghost ship Sulla, a Hive sphere traveled on a parallel course at matched speed. The swarm was a small one, the sphere only about three quarters the size of Merrimack.

“The new Hive has learned spheres,” Gypsy noted gravely.

The sphere was the most heat conservative shape possible, giving the highest survivability rate to the swarm’s members.

“No! They haven’t learned skat!”Tactical cried. “That’s not a Hive sphere! That’s Mercedes!”

A scan revealed a ship at the core of the sphere. The scan also alerted the gorgons that Merrimack was here.

The sphere was a writhing nest of black tentacles. Monster crawled over monster trying to get to the core where Mercedes was encased in their hunger. The outer tentacles now lifted toward Merrimack like hesitant squirrels, gauging whether they could make the jump.

Commander Dent called Merrimack to battle stations. Mister Hicks at the Com could not establish contact with Mercedes. “I’m sorry, sir,” said Hicks. The young man sounded as if he might cry.

“That doesn’t mean he’s dead,” said Farragut.

It mustn’t mean he was dead. It only meant Jose Maria was not answering, or the Hive had overwhelmed Mercedes’ com system. “Those Star Racers have strong force fields,” said Systems.

There was still hope. He might still be in time. This Hive might not have figured out insinuation yet. The ability to slowly penetrate an energy field was one of many exotic characteristics of the parent Hives.

“We do know Jose Maria will have put full power to his energy field,” said Farragut. Gypsy picked up that cue. “Fire Control, power up hydrogen jets.” Mercedes with her field at full could withstand a hydrogen jet. “Fire Control, aye. Powering hydrogen jets, aye.”

Mister Hicks sent another tight beam to Mercedes. “Doctor Cordillera, this is Merrimack. Can you respond?” Receiving nothing but silence, Mister Hicks turned to the XO and shook his head.

“Command. This is Fire Control. Hydrogen jets powered and standing by.”

“Fire!” said Gypsy.

Merrimack, like an enraged archangel, hurled pillars of purest hellfire on the sphere.

Gorgons burned, peeled away, layer on seared layer to reveal an intact energy screen underneath.

But there were gorgons within the shield itself, distorted, impossible, squashed figures, slowly insinuating their way through the energy barrier in toward the ship.

“They’ve learned insinuation!”

Worse. A jagged hole showed clearly in Mercedes’ hull. The gorgons had already eaten through the hull. The monsters were on board Mercedes. One man could not stand long against a swarm. There was no telling how long ago the gorgons had gained entry to the ship, how many gorgons were already inside.

One more gorgon, preserved from the hydrogen blast by being inside the force field, oozed itself free on the inside of the field and scuttled into the ship through the hole in the hull.

“Get an energy lever through that field and spread an opening for soft dock at that hole,” Farragut ordered. “All possible haste. Colonel Steele! I need a boarding party, suited for potential vacuum and armed for Hive. Yesterday!”

John Farragut had to believe they were in time.

Never say die.

Never say die until you’re dead.

Time that could be clocked in seconds passed in abysmal slowness before soft dock was achieved and Marines charged through the flexible tunnel to board Mercedes.

Armed with swords, the Marines slashed off any tentacle that pierced the flexible docking tube, and they boarded the yacht through the gorgon hole. The Marines found the ravenous enemy on board and engaged them at once.

Several Marines stationed themselves at the hole to hack down flankers that were still emerging from the force field. Other Marines on Merrimack stood by for boarders coming back their way.

Colonel Steele was in the fore of the boarding party, Captain Farragut bringing up the rear, sword in hand, a second sword in a hanger at his side.

Gravity was rock solid and uniform on the Star Racer.

Farragut ran down a side corridor. He kicked open a compartment. Found masses of monsters within what looked like a bedchamber, chewing on leather and wood and linen with all their mouths.

Oh, God. Too late.

So close. Oh, for Jesus. Late by how long? Minutes?

Farragut cut down gorgons in a fury.

Then the full import of the scene before him caught up with him. There was a lot in here left to eat. A lot left to eat. And Jose Maria would not be standing still. Farragut shut the compartment, tore his helmet off and bellowed: “Jose Maria!”

No answer. Yet Jose Maria must be here. Alive. An experienced gorgon fighter, Jose Maria would be the very last thing on board to get eaten. Certainly there were a lot of gorgons inside the ship, but their numbers were not yet overwhelming. Mercedes’’ force field must have been only recently penetrated. Jose Maria must be alive.

“Jose Maria!”

Farragut opened another hatch. He could not possibly have arrived here just seconds too late. God would not allow it.

Then again God often called the best people home early.

“Jose Maria!”

No one answered.

Dammit. Dammit Dammit.

Farragut whirled and slashed down a gorgon that intruded on his damnations. He raced forward to the cockpit. He found a sight that made his flesh creep. Mercedes’ res chamber was active, sending a resonant pulse. The ship’s resonance would be drawing the gorgons to her.

Horror gave way to puzzlement. Jose Maria knew the effect resonance had on the Hive. Jose Maria would know what he was doing.

Jose Maria, what are you doing?

Farragut tried to back figure what had happened here.

Jose Maria found gorgons on Sulla.

He had ordered the Vatican ship to run.

And where did Jose Maria go?

Farragut spun away from the console.

He never left Sulla!

Farragut opened his com link with Merrimack. “Gypsy! Hook Sulla! Get a Marine detail on Sulla yesterday!”

The instant that soft dock was achieved, John Farragut charged on board Sulla. He was in the fore this time. He hacked through the gorgons that met him at the ragged opening.

Were gorgons still here because they were still hatching? Or were they here because there was still one thing left on board to eat?

Farragut barreled through the tight, ravaged corridors. “Jose Maria!” And from somewhere he heard the jet of a gas torch and a muffled voice, “Aqui!” Farragut dashed to the head of a ladder, looked down the hatch.

Jose Maria, on the deck below, backed against the bottom rungs of the ladder, wielded a failing blowtorch against a mob of gorgons.

“Jose Maria!”

Jose Maria looked up through the hatch, saw what Farragut had, reached up. Caught the sword—his own El Cid colada—as it dropped into his hand.

38

JOSE MARIA SALVAGED a few bottles of aged wine from Mercedes and set those on the captain’s table at dinner on board Merrimack. Jose Maria was in good spirits but moving gingerly from multiple burns, cuts, and gorgon bites.

Chef Zack was thrilled to be creating dishes for Don Cordillera’s palate again. Not that John Farragut lacked refinement but Jose Maria’s taste was extraordinarily subtle, not one of the top fifty words ever used to describe the captain.

They had left Sulla behind in a dead calm, the galactic coordinates of her location recorded, and a finder beacon activated on board. Sulla could be collected after the Hive emergency passed, if the emergency ever passed.

Merrimack now raced back toward Near Space at flank speed with Mercedes in tow. The sturdy little Star Racer was in good working shape. Her amenities however were a bit ragged.

Earth’s state of emergency shocked Jose Maria. “How did gorgons get to Earth so fast? Was the outbreak on Thaleia that much worse than we ever thought possible?”

“No,” Farragut told him. “The gorgons attacking Earth didn’t hatch on Thaleia. They came from the planet Xi.”

Which meant that a dormant gorgon egg, or whatever the next generation Hive sprang from, could remain coherent longer than most rocks.

Xi was the site of the galaxy’s most ancient civilization.

The Xi civilization had fallen to an unknown catastrophe an unimaginably long time ago. It was clear now that the mysterious catastrophe had been the Hive.

Agent of entropy, Augustus called the Hive. Entropy was a constant throughout the universe. From the first instant of the Big Bang there had been entropy. Entropy governed all things from the turning of leaves, to coffee growing cold, to iron rusting, to objects breaking to pieces rather than piecing themselves together, to all human things turning to dust and ash.

“Xi was Origin,” said Farragut.

Jose Maria tilted his head quizzically. “Origin?”

Farragut gave his head a wake-up shake. “I don’t know why I keep forgetting you weren’t with us at the Myriad.”

In the globular cluster IC9870986, a/k/a the Myriad, Merrimack had encountered a race of beings from a distant planet known as Origin. Origin turned out to be distant: in time rather than space. Origin was Xi a long time ago.

“The Mj’riadians tried to go back in time to their Origin and change their history.”

“Of course they changed nothing,” said Jose Maria.

“How do you know?” Farragut asked. “How do we know this isn’t an alternate timeline?”

“Now you are being fanciful, young Captain. The Xi civilization is still extinct. Chaos changes the details, but in the grand design the end is inevitable.”

“Except that it hasn’t ended yet,” said Farragut. “Extinction of everything may be inevitable, but it doesn’t need to be now. Even someone as fatalistic as Augustus fought the Hive.”

When John Farragut first met Augustus, they did not meet face-to-face. Augustus had come in his Striker to the Myriad, where he was presented with a clear shot at Merrimack’s stern. And Captain Farragut made no move to defend his ship, because it meant dropping hold of a lifeline to two of his Marines in a small craft. Had he dropped his Marines, the encounter could have been a battle. As it was, the Striker had a simple shot at a foe who refused to defend himself.

“Augustus never told me why he didn’t shoot me at the Myriad.”

It had been a defining moment, when Augustus had John Farragut’s back and did not take the shot.

Jose Maria said, “He told me.”

“He did?” Farragut stared at him, astonished. And asked at last, “So why?”

“Because he wanted you to exist. Augustus did not believe in John Farragut. And he wanted to.”

“I don’t understand.”

“A parable, young Captain,” Jose Maria proposed. “Once upon a time, a great hunter came upon a tigress with her cubs trapped in a ring of fire. Never mind the nonsense of how that situation came to pass, there it is. Put yourself there. The tigress can jump free. She has one cub in her mouth but she will not leave the other cubs. She is an easy mark. Does the hunter take the shot?”

“No,” said Farragut.

“You say that without the hesitation of even a moment. Did you mark that, young Captain? Romulus would take the shot. A lot of men would take the shot. And a sensible tigress would have jumped out, saving one cub.” A mild scold there.

“But the tigress was not sensible,” Jose Maria went on. “She was stupidly courageous, and you are correct, the hunter could not shoot her. You put it all on the line not to abandon your own Marines. Because you knew the good hunter could not take the shot. And you only knew the hunter was good because you are good and the thoughts of the petty and cowardly did not occur to you in the ring of fire.”

Augustus had not been able to shoot John Farragut in the back while he was trapped in the act of something nonsensically heroic.

“So I guess I really didn’t outdraw him at Palatine,” Farragut had to admit. Some not too deeply buried part of him had thought he was Superman.

“No one outdraws a patterner,” said Jose Maria. At Palatine, Farragut and Augustus had guns pointed at each other once again. No backs turned that time. No one else in the balance. The showdown at Palatine had been a gunfight in the street. A moment for choosing loyalty.

I chose country. Augustus chose me.

“Does he still need me to exist?” Farragut wondered out loud.

“I cannot say.”

“He was, without a doubt, the most obnoxious, cynical, abrasive, bad-tempered man I have ever known. I miss him.”

“Do we know what became of the mortal remains of Augustus?” Jose Maria asked, speculative.

“Except for the black box, which was man-made anyway, I think Romulus had Augustus atomized.”

“Something of his first incarnation I would expect to be interred at the Corindahlor Monument with the other two hundred and ninety-nine of the Roman Tenth,” said Jose Maria. “One only needs a finger to lay someone to rest.”

“And they had more remains than that,” said Farragut.

The brain and his spinal cord had been walking around in a second incarnation as Augustus. But there was more than that left of Flavius Cassius’ body, which had fallen over the side of the bridge.

“I believe he rests with his cohort,” Jose Maria concluded. “Though some souls spend time in purgatory before moving on.”

Farragut hesitated. “Augustus always claimed Flavius Cassius was not he.”

“And we both know he was—how do you say?—full of shit. Corindahlor is not far from here.”

“No, it’s not,” Farragut agreed, sounding wistful. “Be all kinds of irresponsible to take a quick detour to Corindahlor with Earth under siege.”

“I have a racing craft, young Captain.”

The smaller mass of Mercedes gave her a much higher threshold velocity than the titanic space battleship. “Is she that fast?” He meant was she fast enough to make a side trip to Corindahlor and still catch up with Merrimack without losing time.

“We can make it a race,” said Jose Maria.

Farragut lifted his wrist com. “Farragut to Command.”

Gypsy’s voice responded, “Command, aye.”

“Commander Dent, you have the ship.”

“Aye, sir,” said Gypsy, accepting the order, only then questioning, “What are you doing, sir?”

A reminder there that the Hive was on Earth.

“Going to see Augustus.”

“He’s dead, sir.”

“I’m not.”

I’m not. Why am I not?

Why did he let me live the third time?

Corindahlor, a planetary system known less for itself than for one of its bridges, lay just to the galactic south of Merrimack’s homeward course.

Decades ago, a Roman cohort made a heroic stand at the bridge. They lost the battle. The valiant three hundred died to a man. But the heroic defeat set in motion events that won Rome the world.

The famous stand had been recorded—by the victors of that battle, to their eternal dismay. It was a picture of Roman heroism.

Augustus had been one of the three hundred in his past life.

The Roman Horizon Guard granted the unarmed neutral Terra Rican ship Mercedes permission to enter Corindahlor airspace and set down.

The Bridge.

Gray and massive. Two miles long. A choke point connecting land masses. The proud inhabitants had left the beam fire scars unrepaired and the bullets lodged in the original railings.

Augustus always had cynical things to say of the three hundred and the monument to youthful gullibility. He said it reinforced witless credulity so that future generations of prime stupid youth would not hesitate to answer the call to serve their country. Isn’t it grand to be dead?

Farragut had told Augustus that he demeaned his empire’s war dead by speaking so. Augustus said, “Do I? Because I know what it is.”

The monument was stirring in its simplicity. Built on the defender’s end of the bridge. Large, not colossal. The Roman Tenth had been the Few against overwhelming odds. The memorial was simple. Enduring. Steadfast. It bore three hundred names.

Farragut found him in the Flavian century list. He lifted his fingers toward the name. Cyprian Flavius Cassius.

Hesitated.

Touched the name.

Heard Jose Maria’s gasp. Then a voice:

“John you flaming idiot Farragut.”

Farragut was not sure why he didn’t jump. That voice, those words seemed the most natural thing in the world for him to hear. And weirdly comforting.

He turned to the holoimage of Augustus that had given Jose Maria such a start.

The image’s mouth moved. The voice sounded from somewhere nearby, “Here you are. Some things are just inevitable.”

Augustus appeared as he had the day he left Merrimack. A battered sardonic warrior. In black. A ruby showed like a drop of blood on his chest where soldiers wore their medals.

“What is it about touching a name on a grave monument that makes you think you can contact a spirit? This is not a spirit. I am not here. This is a recording.

“This recording will appear only for you, John Farragut, and only after Romulus is effectively dead.” Captain Farragut supposed Romulus’ current condition qualified as death.

“You are the only one I can trust—obscene and absurd as that notion is. I’m giving you this for the same reasons Caesar Magnus chose you to take Rome’s surrender. Do not use this information for political or tactical advantage. If you do, you will end like Romulus. You see, I really don’t trust anyone. And I didn’t let you live because I like you.”

A hiss sounded from the span of the bridge. Smoke rose off its surface with an acidic smell. Red marks began to appear on the bridge. The marks took the shapes of numbers etching themselves into the concrete.

“Rome has these figures from my black box and the Striker, but I don’t know if they have put the knowledge to use or not, because, as you have noticed, I am dead. Get these to Jose Maria if he’s not standing next to you.” Farragut and Jose Maria glanced at each other. Exchanged the same thought: Patterner. “I shall meet you in the Outer Darkness,” said Augustus.

And he was gone.

Farragut and Jose Maria stepped onto the bridge to read the smoldering figures burned into the stone. “Can you read that, Jose Maria?”

“It may be an algorithm,” Jose Maria said provisionally, his eyes still roving up and down the numbers. He withdrew a computer from his pocket.

Farragut was receiving a signal from Gypsy on Merrimack. “Admiral Mishindi for you, Captain,” she told him.

Farragut waited for Gypsy to pass through the signal, expecting to hear piss and brimstone for his separating from Merrrimack, though Farragut could not believe Gypsy would sing on him. And when Farragut answered the hail, Mishindi did not seem to be aware that Farragut was not on board the Mack.

Admiral Mishindi sounded more surprised and confounded than angry. “John! What did you do?”

Farragut foundered. The admiral hadn’t demanded, “Why aren’t you on your ship? Or where the hell are you?”

Puzzled, Farragut asked back, “What did I do?”

“I’ve got reports coming in from all over Earth and the Deep End of gorgons melting and gorgons freezing solid in space. Just like the last time you erased the Hive. You mean this is nothing you did?”

“I.. . may have done.” He looked to Jose Maria, who was casting round the bridge supports for something. “I’ll report when I have something definite, sir.” Clicked off.

Jose Maria hiked up from under one end of the bridge.

“I have found it.”

“It?”

“The resonant chamber. You touched the name. Your action did not just trigger the holoimage of Augustus. You triggered two resonant pulses.”

Farragut asked, “Can I assume those two pulses are on harmonics complementary to the two new Hive harmonics?”

“From what your admiral says, it would seem that they are.” A harmonic pulse and its complement cancelled each other out so that neither existed. A Hive lived by its harmonic resonance. Without its resonance, a Hive ceased to exist.

“Augustus killed both Hives.”

Just like that.

Augustus had waited until Romulus was dead— effectively dead—to do so. A little high-handed, that. To allow the Hive to flourish while Augustus waited for his revenge.

But then again, allowing the Hive to flourish was not all Augustus’ doing.

Rome has these figures.

“Rome could have done this much sooner,” said Farragut. “Other than Romulus, who in Rome would have access to Augustus’ data?”

Jose Maria placed his hand over his breast pocket. Spoke, resentful, “Roman Imperial Intelligence counts among its members some of my least loved acquaintances under God’s heaven.”

Waiting for Farragut to touch the name had not been a delay in getting the cure to the disease. It was the backup plan to make sure the cure got to the disease somehow, in case someone in Rome decided to withhold it for his own purposes.

Redundance is good. Redundance is good.

There had been a period of time when no one knew where Augustus was. Between the time he left Merrimack in the Deep End and his reappearance over the Roman Curia.

Sometime in that range Augustus had come here to walk over his own grave.

And to plant this recording and these res signals.

“If I didn’t come here and trigger those two resonant pulses, Rome has ...” Farragut looked to the numbers on the bridge. “What exactly does Rome have there?” The figures looked like more than just two harmonics. There were equations.

“I think,” Jose Maria answered slowly because he hadn’t had time to verify what he thought, “this is an algorithm for calculating the shift in harmonic between the old Hives and their successor Hives. The difference between the old and new generations in both Hive entities share a progression. Should a third generation emerge—may God forbid—then this algorithm should calculate the new harmonics, and allow us to destroy them as well.”

Augustus had been programmed to serve Rome, and so he had done to the end. “He saved his Empire and our Earth,” said John Farragut. “And no one but you and I will thank him for it.”

“Augustus did not believe in heroes,” said Jose Maria.

“Oh, he crabbed a lot, but there’s a reason he came back here.” Back here to the place he first died. To the monument from a grateful nation.

Farragut touched the name again. The image did not come again. Only a voice: “Get the hell out of here. I am still dead, and you are still an idiot.”

39

AT THE DINNER DANCE in honor of his promotion, Rear Admiral Farragut made his entrance with a young thing on his arm. He had been dreading the ground posting as district commander until his future tripped and fell on him on the steps at the inn where he was staying.

She was twenty-five years old, brown hair, moderately pretty face, the nose a little pointy, a bright genuine smile. Blue-gray eyes. You could see at once that someone was home behind the eyes. She was athletic, very thin, a bit angular. Pretty as only a laughing woman of that age wearing an evening dress and making an entrance on the arm of a hero admiral can be.

Farragut could have carried less weight, and he had fifteen years on her, but the two looked good together. That Farragut smile, those blue eyes never looked brighter. He looked amazingly buoyant, even for John Farragut.

He had intended to come to the party stag. Until this young woman tripped over him. He’d caught her. “I didn’t trip,” Kathy confessed at the party in a circle of admirals. Her name was Kathy.

“I knew that,” Farragut confessed back.

They danced a lot of the dances. Kathy got introduced to everyone. Looked you right in the eyes.

After the toasts to the rear admiral’s success, John Farragut in turn toasted Captain Calli Carmel on her new post as captain of the space battleship U.S.S. Merrimack.

Not altogether sure about leaving his command to an officer known as “Crash,” he added at the end of his toast, “Don’t bend my boat, Cal.”

Lieutenant Colonel TR Steele made a brief appearance. Stiff. Steele was always stiff at formal events, especially when the room was full of brass. It was worse when all those senior officers made way for him and the chant started, “A-da-mas! A-da-mas!” His head burned red and bright enough to serve as a port sidelight.

Steele extended congratulations to Rear Admiral Farragut and to Captain Calli Carmel, and quickly left. Kathy watched him go. “That was fast. That was the gladiator, wasn’t it? Does he have a date?”

“I try not to know,” said Commander Gypsy Dent.

Calli asked, “Is that Marine girl still on board the Mack? What was her name?” She remembered the young woman, good-tempered, eager, and moral as a cheerful dog. Steele snarled at her all the time. “Kerry Blue. Is she—?”

Gypsy hummed and took an interest in the light fixtures.

Farragut asked Kathy to dance.

“Ah,” Calli said, and nothing else.

Captain Calli Carmel, who had come to the dance stag—or doe—spent much of the evening discussing Roman strategy with a cluster of admirals. They had been following the many speculations over who would be Caesar’s successor. Bookmakers had odds on the front-runners. Odds on Rome reverting to a republic were fairly steep.

Calli snorted at the mere suggestion of republic. Rome needed its Caesar. And to Calli, Gaius Americanus was the obvious choice.

But she also recognized that the Empire did not think as she did.

Though Romans had respect for a man who survived an assassination attempt and who came back to confront his attacker and endured imprisonment for it, Gaius had spent much of the war in hiding and in an American hospital—not good places for a leader to be. He had been the one to speak openly against Romulus. He had walked onto the Senate floor to certain doom and denounced the madman. The Senate had chosen Gaius as moderator for the debates concerning the Empire’s future course.

But while Gaius’ integrity was beyond question, his ordeal did not make him quite the man of action Romans preferred. Gaius was also an extreme moderate, and the middle ground was always a good place to get shot in the Roman Empire.

The field of possible successors was wide open.

Senator Quirinius was a strong possibility. He was philosophically similar to Gaius. He had given shelter to Gaius upon his escape from prison. A protector was a more attractive image than an evader.

Numa Pompeii had always been quintessentially Roman. But he had been bested in battle by the Merrimack and by Calli Carmel. He had obeyed Romulus-—as had everyone except for Gaius. But more was expected from the mighty Triumphalis.

Among the dark horses was the father of Herius Asinius, the heroic commander of Legion Draconis who had died fighting the Hive. Also among the long shots was Senator Trogus, who had resisted Romulus, but he was a very very long shot because no one could love him.

A Senator Siculus was making a bid for the supremacy, but Siculus was just not a popular name.

A serious contender was Flavia Irena. Irena was an ironic name for a Flavian, as it meant Peace. This Irena, like most Flavians, was a hardcore hawk. Irena was the feminized clone of one of the fallen at Corindahlor—but not of Augustus.

No one was considering any clones of his. A mind could not be cloned—thank all the gods.

A strange and alarming number of Romans were not recanting their support for Romulus’ agenda. It went against human nature to back down from a public stand. And denial was often stronger than reason, so there was an odd litter of Julians vying for the top position.

The admirals asked Calli for her prediction. Calli shook her head. All things being equal—and things were never equal—the Senate should elect Gaius. She answered, “I guarantee Rome will surprise me.”

———

Jose Maria de Cordillera came later in the evening to offer his congratulations to Rear Admiral Farragut and to kiss Kathy’s hand.

Jose Maria and John Farragut toasted Augustus, because no one else would. “Augustus finally found his way to the Outer Darkness,” Farragut said sadly. He and Jose Maria used to speak of such things. Rather a lot of alcohol was usually involved in those dialogues. Jose Maria offered one more opinion, “I believe not.”

John Farragut objected, “Augustus was obnoxious, but I can’t think he belongs in hell.”

“Neither can I,” said Jose Maria. “I believe he is with God in heaven.”

“Isn’t that completely at odds with your creed?”

Jose Maria demurred, “It is a core belief of Catholicism that Man was given free will. Augustus did not have it.” Augustus had been altered and programmed. His choices were not entirely his own.

“What does that make Augustus?” Kathy asked.

“An agent of God’s will,” Jose Maria proposed. “Perhaps sent to stop the Hive from destroying all God’s children. God shall take his angel back to Him.”

“Augustus? An angel?” Farragut’s eyebrows could lift no higher. “That’s some real creative theology there, Jose Maria.” But Farragut drank to the idea anyway.

When Kathy left John Farragut’s side to fix her brown hair, which was kind of all over by now, his eyes followed her till she was out of sight.

Gypsy asked, “You going to marry that girl, Admiral?”

“Yes, I am.”

“She know that yet, sir?”

“Not yet.”

“How long have you known her?” Farragut checked his chron. “Nine hours now.”

“What’s taking you so long?” said Gypsy. Gypsy’s husband, Marshal Dent, widened his eyes at that question, silently asking his wife, Long? Gypsy, Calli, and Farragut explained to the civilian Marshal Dent in unison, “See the target, acquire the target, secure the target.”

There was no time for fox-trotting around in between.

Farragut said, “I’m just not sure I’ve got a lock on the target.”

Gypsy patted his broad shoulder. “Oh, you have tone, sir.”

The band chose that moment to play one of those songs to which anyone who had someone special must take the floor. That left Calli on the sidelines while John Farragut danced with his young woman, Gypsy Dent with her man. TR Steele, not here, was out somewhere breaking all kinds of rules to be with his someone.

As the celebration wound down, Calli told John Farragut like an afterthought, in a bad attempt to sound casual, “While I was in the burn tank I kept having a recurring dream. Kind of funny.” She made a motion to slide a long lock of hair that wasn’t there anymore behind her ear. “I dreamed Rob Roy was reading to me. Through the Looking Glass, if you can believe it. Then it was Vingt mille lieues sous les mers, I think. Different books, but the dream was always that Rob Roy was reading to me. What do you think that means?”

“You weren’t dreaming, Cal,” Farragut told her.

Unfamiliar expressions moved across Calli’s new face.

John Farragut saw Kathy home. Walked her to her door.

They had come to that moment which probably hadn’t changed ever since the invention of doors. They lingered at the threshold.

Kathy uttered the words, “Do you want to come in?”

Farragut looked up at the stars. “There is a God.”

In the morning, when Kathy looked stellar wearing just his admiral’s jacket, John Farragut asked her to marry him.

She asked him what took him so long.

———

The new captain of the Merrimack marched into the Navy lawyer’s office in the main station of Fort Eisenhower, dropped documents straight down on his desk so that they made a decided slap upon landing. “Orders,” she said as the lawyer looked up from his writing. “You’ve been reassigned.”

His face was very very young for a thirty-eight-year-old man.The beard stubble did not age him. His opaque brown eyes assumed a quizzical expression that made him look even younger. He recognized her immediately, though last time he had seen her, she had no skin.

Rob Roy Buchanan set aside his stylus and considered the top document. “I see there is a provision in the budget for a legal officer on board an RBS.”

RBS. Really Big Ship. Merrimack was one.

No one had asked Rob Roy if he wanted to be reassigned from his post at Fort Eisenhower. Merrimack had gone a long time without finding need for a legal officer. “Why does Merrimack need a legal officer now?”

“Captain wants one.” Rob Roy looked up from the orders. “This could be construed as harassment, Captain.”

“Yeah?” said Calli. She sat on the corner of his desk. “Read the next one.”

She was wearing tailored trousers. One long leg crossed over the other. Her foot twitched like the tip of a cat’s tail. Calli never twitched.

Rob Roy read. Read again. Brown eyes moving back and forth.

Calli’s foot was really twitching now.

Rob Roy stared at the document.

“Speak now, Robbie. There can be no hesitation on a space battleship.”

“It’s not hesitation. It’s—” looking for a word. And it better be a good one. “Wonder.” He picked up a stylus and signed his name to the second document. He handed it up to Captain Carmel. “Don’t call me Robbie.”

She slid off the desk. She gave her head a habitual toss as if she still had long tresses to swing over her shoulder instead of those cowlicked tufts that lay in a sassy mess on her head. “Can you find us a judge? I need to buy a dress. I think I want to look like a girl for this.”

There was no waiting period in the Deep End.

“You didn’t come prepared?” Rob Roy said, rising. “Inefficient, Captain.”

“I wasn’t sure what you’d say.”

“You were sure.”

“I can get scared.”

“I can find a judge before you can find a dress.”

It was nearly a tie. Calli appeared outside the judge’s chambers wearing a short champagne number. Legs same as ever, only with softer skin. She found Rob Roy waiting, clean shaved, in dress blues. Flowers and a ring box in hand. He tried to stand up straight, which made him as tall as she was in heels.

She took the flowers, took his arm.

“Is this your dream wedding, Calli?” Rob Roy asked.

A crease appeared in her smooth forehead, considering. She nodded. “Pretty close. My dream wedding was Dad’s holding the ladder and Mom’s holding the shotgun.”

“Do we have vows?”

Calli shook her head. “Let’s go traditional. Honestly, all I can think of is, ‘See the target, acquire the target, secure the target.’”

Epilogue

MERRIMACK’S NEW LEGAL OFFICER reported to the space battleship. The quartermaster showed him to the captain’s quarters, where he saluted the captain. A courier had brought a small package wrapped like a wedding gift addressed to the captain of the Merrimack.

“We got a wedding gift from Rome,” said Calli.

“Are we sure we want to open that?” said Rob Roy.

Because it originated on Palatine, it had been through all the scanners. Twice.

It was heavy for a small box. Calli pulled back the gilt wrapping to reveal a life-sized solid gold locust. “Son of a bitch.” Calli picked it up. It had the heft of solid gold. She turned it over.

Greek characters, engraved in the golden locust’s thorax, read: To Callista. “Son of a bitch,” she laughed. Inscribed in Greek as it was, her name was not her name but the inscription on the golden apple—the infamous gift at the wedding of Peleus and the goddess Thetis that started the Trojan War.

Translated, it really read: To the fairest. Calli was not sure if he was calling her beautiful or picking a fight. “Son of a bitch.”

Rob Roy took the card that came with it. It bore only the signature, engraved in gold. Made his eyes go wide.

“Oh, that can’t be a surprise,” said Calli, reaching for the card. No one in this universe would give her a locust but Numa Pompeii.

“Oh, it is a surprise,” said Rob Roy. “A little anyway. It seems you’re not the only one with a new title, Captain Callista Carmel Buchanan.” He passed her the card.

The gold letters identified the sender:

CAESAR NUMA.

Table of Contents

Prologue

PART ONEOff the Deep End

1

2

3

4

THE OUTER DARKNESS DIALOGS

The dialogs. I.

5

The dialogs. II.

6

The dialogs. III.

PART TWOThe Return

7

8

9

10

The dialogs. IV.

11

12

The dialogs. V.

13

14

15

16

17

18

The dialogs. VI.

20

PART THREEThe Janus Gate

21

22

23

24

25

The dialogs. VII.

26

27

28

29

PART FOURGladiator

30

31

32

33

34

35

PART FIVEThe Outer Darkness

36

37

38

39

Epilogue