Strength and Honor (34 page)

“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

^F
ARRAGUT 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 corns and the tracking units. The colonel’s disappeared from the grid.”

The corns 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.