Strength and Honor (33 page)

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

^A
LL 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.

“t/fc/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?”