Strength and Honor (15 page)

“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

^I
T 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.