The Twice and Future Caesar (3 page)

“Lockdown full. Aye.”

“Return us to normal space, a thousand klicks from our original position.”

“Space normal, aye.” The pilot gave the galactic coordinates of the space battleship's new position.

“Stand at full alert,” Calli ordered.

And waited for their attacker to come back around for another strike.

Dingo Ryan came to her side. “What do you think?” he muttered.

Calli gave her head a small shake. Really didn't know. “Nothing's right about this.”

Dingo glanced to a porthole. You never saw your attacker. But you really couldn't help looking.

“Where is he?”

In the waiting, the ship began a low thumping from within. You felt it through the decks—Marines 'cussing. This percussion number was their own war dance. The Bull Mastiffs of the 89th Battalion wanted out to hunt.

The bogey had shown a Roman flag.

Calli: “Com.”

“Com. Aye.”

“Give me my direct res link to Numa.”

“Res link open. On your com, Captain.”

Caesar Numa Pompeii took Calli's hail immediately. Without greeting, the voice of Caesar himself sounded from the captain's com. “What do you have?”

There were no gaps in his transmission. That was telling.

Dingo mouthed without sound,
He's traveling sublight.

Calli nodded silent acknowledgment. Spoke into the com, “Why did you jump me?”

“Captain Carmel?” Numa sounded innocent. Truly. Not pretending.

Calli told him, “I just took a thousand megaton tap from your Accipiter.”

Caesar Numa's voice returned a quiet rumble. “Not mine. Kill it. Then find the nest and kill that.”

Calli didn't take orders from the Roman emperor. But she welcomed permission to open fire on a Roman-flagged vessel. That permission betrayed Caesar's desperation to exterminate the subversives.

Caesar Numa didn't ask where Calli was. He would already know, the instant she'd hailed him on the resonator.

Rome had the technology to locate the source of a resonant pulse. The United States Naval Fleet didn't.

The res link went dead without a signoff. Unless Calli had Romulus in custody, Numa, the emperor of Rome, had no time for her.

Calli turned to her XO. “That Accipiter can't be alone.”

Dingo gave a quick nod. He also smelled a rival predator here. “There's a hidden outpost or a mothership close by. Got to be. We got lucky flushing out that Accipiter.”

“
Lucky
never happens in my presence,” Calli said.

Lucky
usually meant you didn't understand the situation.
Lucky
meant you were being set up.

“It
looks
like we're close to what we're hunting for,” Calli said. “I don't trust the look.”

No one ever just happened to run into anyone between stars. And this chance encounter felt altogether wrong.

Calli posed her problem to the XO. “Why did the Accipiter hit us?”

Dingo Ryan didn't understand the question. “Sir?”

“What did the Accipiter gain by attacking us? He knows we're shielded. All he did by shooting at us was give away his presence. Why would he reveal himself? And how did he know we were here?”

“Numa knows we're here,” Commander Ryan said.

“Numa knows
now
. He didn't know where we were until I resonated him. Why is there a short-range Roman attack craft out here and why did it hit us?”

“Sir, we're in this star system hunting for a Romulid outpost. Is it too big a stretch to think we finally
found
one?”

“Yes. It is. You know it is. If those are Romulii in that Accipiter, then we didn't find them. They came out and flashed us.”

Dingo Ryan covered his eyes and gave a growling snarl.

The war drumming from down decks was getting louder. The Marines pounded, stomping on the bulkheads and ductwork. The sound reverberated through the ship.
BOOM pom pom pom BOOM pom pom pom
.

Captain Carmel finally ordered, “Mr. Ryan. Throw a bucket of water on my dogs. They're not going outside.”

Four months after Caesar Numa ejected
Merrimack
from the Zoen star system at the galactic edge, the U.S. space battleship still patrolled the galactic Outback. This was not American space. The Perseid arm of the galaxy was dominated by colonies of the Pacific Rim nations of Earth. The United States had no colonies here.

Merrimack
's company and crew of 1145 hands made her the largest U.S. presence in Perseid space.

The Perseid arm of the galaxy had been a festering ground for Romulus and his rabid followers, the Romulii, even before his public rise to power. Romulus had founded most of the Roman colonies in Perseid space while his father Caesar Magnus was still alive.

After Romulus' meteoric rise and meteoric fall, his followers were still fanatics. More than ever. The Romulii became an underground subversive faction of the Roman Empire, disloyal to the legitimate Caesar Numa Pompeii.

The United States was not an ally of Rome or its current emperor, Numa. Between Romulus and Numa, Numa was the lesser of two evils. It had been Caesar Romulus who declared war on the United States of America two years ago. The U.S. didn't want to see that Caesar back in power.

Romulus was missing.

War's end had left Romulus in Caesar Numa's custody, incapacitated, and existing in an induced coma on the Roman capital world Palatine under heavy guard.

At some time between then and now, Romulus' rabid followers had spirited their comatose leader away from Numa's custody. Worst guess had him way out here in Perseid space, being rehabilitated in preparation to bring him back to power.

A healthy Romulus could mobilize worlds. Romulus had been adored. Still was.

That Romulus might be alive and recovering in Perseid space was a nightmare that must never see daylight.

So the Joint Chiefs had not ordered
Merrimack
back to Near Space.

Captain Carmel ordered, “Launch Argus.”

Argus, named for the mythical hundred-eyed giant, was a flotilla of drone scouts controlled by the Wraith—Specialist Tim Raytheon—the ship's chief V-jock and drone wrangler. Wraith was young, bony, and pale. He received a rejuv three times a year to keep his reaction times sharp.

Dingo Ryan ordered, “Mister Raytheon, turn over some rocks in this system. You're looking for just about anything. You know what belongs and what doesn't.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

The drone flotilla Argus deployed with no more noise than the hissing of missiles through their launch tubes.

As the drones dispersed, Commander Ryan moved to Calli's side. “It's a big search area, Captain,” he said quietly.

The rough dimension of the Indra Aleph star system was 500 billion cubic astronomical units.

“It is that, Mister Ryan,” Calli allowed.

But it was smaller than infinity. By galactic measure,
Merrimack
was just about stepping on the Romulid lair.

Dingo said, “I'm surprised Romulus' followers don't have him in a labyrinth.”

Romulus was beloved by his fanatics for his dangerous and twisted sense of entertainment. Calli's brows lifted. A labyrinth did sound like Rom's sort of fun.

She said at last, “Is there anything to say they don't?”

12 Ianuarius 2448
Asteroid 543
Indra Shwa Zed Star System
Perseid Space

T
HE
CRAMPED
GRIMY
CORRIDOR
looked like it used to be white. The lights buzzed within dirty fixtures. Flickered on and off. Something yellow-green dripped off a moldering ceiling that was so low that Nox had to crouch. The drops sizzled on hitting the concrete floor and gave off a sickly sweet vapor. A dark bloody brown crust dried around the fallen drops. Flat, pincered bugs the size of flounders with serrate legs clung to the peeling walls on either side of him. Their mouthparts clacked.

Then the passageway opened to a wide high chamber, and Nox saw in it what he was meant to see: In the floor, a pit. From the ceiling, a pendulum.

Perched over the doorway hunched a molting, raggy-winged, one-eyed raven with a croaking caw and a viciously barbed beak.

Almost none of it was real.

Nox pulled his monoc down over his right eye. The filtered lens on the monoc showed him only what was really there—just a plain metal chamber. No monster bugs, no blood, no pendulum. There really was something sticky on the floor, but it was clear. The raven was nothing but a caw.

Nox walked through the swinging pendulum.

Overly complicated, nonsensical squidsquat
. Nox would name this defensive program Jackass Quest, except that he was here to assassinate a Caesar. And a lot of the
merda
in here could really kill him.

Sensors implanted in Nox's eyes were sending readings up to the ship for his guide, Cinna, to process and direct him where to go. The patterner Cinna, codenamed Chessman for this mission, saw through Nox's sensor implants. The implants sent more than visual images. And it wasn't just Nox's sensors sending the patterner information.

The Chessman was seeing through the sensors that all his brothers carried, seven of them, crawling through this maze. Plugged into the ship's vast data bank in patterner mode, Cinna could process all the input at once.

“Nemo. Pit,” the Chessman warned.

“I see it,” Nox said. “What do you want me to do with it?”

“Don't fall in,” said the Chessman.

“Jump off a cliff, O Best Beloved,” Nox said back.

“This looks like a game I played,” one of Nox's brothers said.

Another answered, “I think this
is
a game I played.”

“Gurdanjan's Dungeon,” said another.

“That's the one.”

This program was set up to deter, distract, disguise, and destroy. This dungeon was meant to really kill them. Playfully.

This was what happened when you put gamers in charge of security. They built in layers of overly elaborate, impractical, and outright frivolous obstacles, when what they really needed were heavily armed guards with orders to shoot to kill.

The
gaminess
of this place had all the hallmarks of the Romulii.

A lofty, no nonsense voice that had to be Nicanor's sounded. “Chessman, can we just shut down the game generator so we can all see what we are doing?”

“We could. If one of you shows me where the generator is,” the Chessman responded, and went on just as calmly, “Ogre. Run. To your right. Fast.”

Nox heard heavy breathing over the link. Had to be Ogre. Running.

The call signs were confusing Nox. The only call signs Nox knew instantly were Nemo—that was his call sign—and Chessman—that was Cinna, the patterner. Chessman was Nox's navigator in here, his lifeline.

And Scimitar. Nox knew the call sign Scimitar. Scimitar was the whole
squad. If Chessman called Scimitar that meant all the brothers and it was an emergency. Nox listened for that one. If Chessman called Scimitar, they were probably running for their lives.

Chessman: “Loki. Walk softly. You have a human being directly under you, one level down.”

A whisper, probably Loki, sounded, “Can I shoot down?”

The Chessman: “Don't.”

The presence of human guards meant the defenders were serious about guarding something, not just playing games. The presence of human guards also meant it was going to be a son of a bitch getting out of here alive.

The man who sent the Ninth Circle in here was not desperately concerned with their getting out alive. Just in their completing the objective: Kill Romulus.

Caesar Numa couldn't openly order a hit on his predecessor. So Numa had secretly conscripted the most feared and vicious pirate band in civilized space, arranged their very conspicuous deaths, and placed a patterner in their squad.

The brothers were privateers without a marque. Officially they didn't work for Caesar. Officially they were the disgraced dead.

There was a high chance of actually dying in here. They knew that coming in.

The voice of the Chessman sounded in Nox's ear: “Nemo, Paladin. Ignore the falling rocks.”

Nox fell, screaming, with a feeling of being crushed and buried alive. His voice came out amazingly loud for having rocks caving in his chest. Nox gasped, “Chessman, is this a tactile illusion?”

“It is. Get up and walk.”

It took all Nox's will and strength. He didn't even feel his limbs moving. He just imagined walking. Then suddenly he lurched out of the illusion and staggered. And breathed.

His brother Pallas, code-named Paladin, was standing over him. “You all right?”

“I'm superluminary,” Nox snarled, gulping air.

The patterner's calm voice directed, “Nemo. See the iron maiden.”

“I see it, Chessman.”

“Open it.”

Nox hesitated. “What's inside?”

“I won't know until you open it.”

Nox's tolerance for gore was getting lower and lower. He swallowed hard. His hand quivered a bit as he grabbed the handle of the iron maiden's lid and pulled it open.

The iron maiden was viciously spiked on the inside but Nox found no victim impaled there.

There was no back part to the torture device at all.

Beyond the open lid stretched a quiet, antiseptic corridor with walls of calm sage green.

The Chessman instructed, “Nemo. Paladin. Advance.”

“Are you sure, Chessman?” Nox asked, not trusting his eyes. Nox was a terrorist. The very idea of an iron maiden terrified him.

“Reasonably sure.” Cinna's soft voice sounded maddeningly calm.

Nightmares loomed at the back of Nox's consciousness, threatening to paralyze him. He force-marched himself through the opening of the iron maiden, his back tensed, anticipating invisible spikes closing around him like jaws.

But he felt only a soft tiled floor under his foot, just like what he saw. Behind him he felt only Pallas following close as a tail.

Pleasant diffuse lighting shone from the white ceiling of the corridor. White noise drifted in from somewhere. “We're in,” said Nox. “I think.”

It looked like the game stopped here. Everything around Nox looked, smelled, felt sane and real.

“Move quickly,” the Chessman said. “You have set off a silent alarm. Whatever they send against you now will be real. And probably human.”

Nox and Pallas were wearing personal fields, which protected them against projectiles and energy weapons, but there were other ways to be killed.

Chessman: “Move.”

Nox yanked at the first side door he came to. It opened easily. He stood in the doorframe, staring.

“What am I looking at, Chessman?”

It looked like a hospital room. A man floated unconscious in a tank of pink medical gel.

“Is this real?”

“Yes. He's real.”

“You found him!” one of the brothers cried over the link.

“No,” Nox said. This wasn't Romulus.

This man was white. You could see that even through the pink gel. He was naked and he was blond. Romulus was bronze-skinned and he had dark hair. Romulus was also younger than this man. “This is the wrong guy,” Nox said.

“Are you sure?” one of his brothers asked over the com. “They could have given Romulus a new body.”

“Well they're not jolly likely to give him
this
body,” said Nox.

This man was what Americans called big, but he was not what Romans considered big. This man was only about Nox's height, but broader, more muscular with heavier bones. His skin was a paler shade of Caucasian than Nox's. His hair a whiter shade of blond. This man was older than Nox.

It was not the body of a Caesar.

Nox did a double take. He hadn't recognized the man at first because the figure was pasty and inanimate and shrouded in pink gel. This unconscious body held none of the energy and defiant fire that made the man the gladiator he was.

Nox had seen him on the imperial broadcasts during the war.

“Chessman, are you seeing this? Do you know this guy?”

“I do. I don't care. It's not the target. Keep going.”

Nox broke into a trot down the corridor, throwing doors open on the right side, Pallas was already opening doors on the left side. The rooms were scientific chambers where
medici
could work undisturbed by the insanity of this fortress's substantial moat. There were no
medici
in the rooms now.

Suddenly Nox saw where he wanted to go—the door up ahead with the crest on its lintel in black and gold. Julian colors. “That's it!”

The Chessman spoke, not the words Nox expected. “Scimitar. Scimitar.”

“NO!”

Scimitar was the code name for the whole squad. It signaled dire emergency.

“Fall back. Get out. Get out. Scimitar. Scimitar. Get
out.”