The Twice and Future Caesar (6 page)

“Evade.”

The pilot threw the space battleship into an immediate reverse.
Merrimack
's inertial shell kept everything that was inside her from flying out through her nose. Even so, you felt the heave.

Calli absorbed the import of the word
directly.

Directly
in a battleship's path signaled intent.

Calli announced over the loud com: “Battle stations.” Then to her command crew, “Tactical. Identify the object.”

“Shit!” Tactical cried.

Doubting that the object was literally excrement, Captain Carmel said with restrained irritation, “A statement with more content, if you please, Mister Vincent.”

“Object is a life pod. With a life in it.”

The com tech reported: “I have an SOS on the common band. Interstellar standard.”

The sensor tech reported: “The SOS is transmitting from the life pod, sir. The pod is showing a white flag.”

Calli felt her face go slack for an instant, astonished.

Someone had tossed a life pod in her path, like a baby in a basket.

“Who else is out here? Where is the Accipiter?”

Tactical reported, “Negative sightings.”

The sensor tech added, “No readings of spacecraft other than our drones. No sign of a shipwreck that ought to go with that life pod.”

“It must be from the Accipiter,” Dingo said.

Calli frowned. She had her arms crossed, her eyes narrowed. “The life pod is sending an SOS. We can't ignore it.”

“It's a trap, sir,” Dingo said.

“
That
is clear. What's unclear is what to do with it. It's a trap into which we must step. We cannot act like—” She hesitated to speak it. “—pirates.”

Dingo Ryan: “Signals!”

“Signals, aye.”

“What ship is the life pod registered to?”

Embedded in any life craft's SOS sounder was a code that identified the life craft's mothership.

The signals specialist ran down the code. “Life pod's signal traces back to
Bernini
. That ship is no longer extant.”

“Then tell me what kind of ship
Bernini
was when it existed,” Calli said.

There was a pause and a hitch while the specialist ran the query twice. “Pacific Consortium make, Xerxes model. Italian-flagged ambassadorial craft. Reported stolen.”

The words hit the command deck like a grenade.

The signals specialist kept reading, “Destroyed in 'forty-seven. That was last year.”

Yes. Most of us saw that happy event
.

The Xerxes class ship hadn't been called
Bernini
then. The pirates who hijacked the Italian ambassadorial craft
Bernini
rechristened it
Bagheera
.

“Can't be,” Dingo said. “We saw that ship die.”

“We did,” Calli said. As much as anyone could really see anything out here. You were dependent on sensors to tell you what you saw.

Bernini
/
Bagheera
died a very showy death with a lot of credible witnesses to verify it, including Caesar Numa's own patterner.

Dingo Ryan suggested, “The pirates must have ballasted their life pods sometime earlier.”

Calli shook her head. “You actually think this is a life pod that someone picked up at a surplus outlet?”

“You're right,” Dingo backed away from his suggestion. “That doesn't explain what this life pod is doing appearing suddenly in the middle of nowhere with a live person inside.”

“This is not the middle of nowhere,” Calli told Dingo. “It's
right in front of us
.”

Dingo said, “Trap.”

Calli nodded. No question. “Trap.”

Someone behind her—had to be one of the Marine guards flanking the hatch—blurted, “Sir! What if it's Colonel Steele?”

All personnel on deck stirred. Colonel TR Steele had been the commander of
Merrimack
's half battalion of Fleet Marines. He'd vanished months ago. In fact he vanished the same day the pirate ship
Bagheera
died.

Calli had never realized just how vital that man was to this ship until she didn't have him. She felt a massive amount of surprised hope rise suddenly on her command deck. Everyone wanted to believe it was Colonel Steele.

Calli felt a chill. “It's not,” she said, dead firm.

I should shoot it. White flag be damned.
That pod was registered to a pirate ship.

She could make a bomb-proof case in front of a board of inquiry as to why she blew away a lifeboat signaling an SOS and showing a white flag.

“Targeting!”

“Targeting, aye.” Targeting sounded nervous.

“Get me a lock on the life pod.”

“Lock, aye.”

“Fire Control.”

“Fire Control, aye.” Fire control sounded frightened.

“Send the trigger up here.”

“Aye, sir.” Fire control sounded relieved. “You have the trigger, sir.”

Calli regarded the light on her console, indicating the armed trigger. The safety was on. For now. “Com.”

“Com, aye.”

“Get me on the universal human distress channel.”

“Channel open, aye. On your console, Captain.”

Captain Carmel spoke, “Inhabitant of the life pod, identify yourself.”

She listened to a long stretch of dead silence. Then a sluggish voice came back in Americanese, “Pirate, ma'am.”

A few sharp intakes of breath sounded around the close-packed stations on deck.

Calli returned, “Don't ma'am me, I'm not your mama.”

Not too articulate, the voice went on, “I know who you are, Empress Calli.”

“Then you know I don't need to honor a white flag for a pirate. How stoned are you to identify yourself as a pirate?”

“I'm already dead, ma'am.”

Calli looked to the sensor specialist to confirm the dead status. The young man tilted his hand one way then the other to say
really close
.

“Your pod is failing,” Calli said into the com.

“I noticed that,” the voice returned, sluggishly dry. “I am also riddled with nanites. My exploding nanites are programmed to go off when my oscillating nanites synchronize. Something like that.”

Calli and Dingo exchanged silent stares.

Dingo spoke into the com, “Have your own lot get you out of your fix, pirate.”

The pirate's diction was getting sloppier, “Don' have the right equipment. Can spot 'em. Can't get 'em out. You're the only ship might could maybe help me. My name used to be John Farragut.”

Calli reeled away from the com as if she'd been spat in the face.

The voice from the com slurred onward, “An' I've seen Adamas.”

Calli motioned toward the com tech, her finger slicing across her throat.

“We're mute, sir,” said the com tech.

“Scan! Scan everything!” Calli ordered aloud. “Tactical!
Is there anything else out there?
”

“Negative spacecraft,” Tactical came back. “Unless it's a Xerxes. And I will bet all our lives there is a Xerxes very close to us right now.”

A Xerxes type ship could make itself register as part of the vacuum. The pirate ship
Bagheera
was a Xerxes type ship.

“Gunners. Fire Control. You are clear to fire if you
think
you have a target other than the life pod.”

Her hand formed itself into a fist.
This is a huge hoax. But I'm hooked. The pirate knows it.

If the Farragut didn't do it, the Adamas part did.

Adamas
was the Latin word for steel.

The pirate had seen TR Steele.

Do I believe him?

I see the bait. I see the hook. Can I afford not to bite?

There had been unsubstantiated reports of attacks by the pirate band known as the Ninth Circle since their spectacular deaths last year.

This man was claiming to be one of the Ninth Circle. He was claiming to be John Knox Farragut Junior—the younger brother of the famous Admiral John Alexander Farragut, former captain of the
Merrimack
.

But how to know for sure? Who was she really talking to? It was someone playing to her hopes that TR Steele, the commander of her Fleet Marines, was still alive.

“Com!”

The com tech nodded when the mute was off again.

Calli said experimentally into the com, “I have you in my sights and the trigger in my hand, John John.”

The weak voice groaned. “Oh, just shoot me. I'm cold.”

Startled, Captain Carmel snapped to the com tech. “Cut com.”

“Aye, aye, sir. We are silent.”

Calli crossed the deck with sharp, agitated strides. “He's for real.” The pirate's reaction to the name John John sealed it beyond any doubt.

Calli announced to all hands on the command platform, “Nothing the pirate said is to leave this deck!”

There was a chorus of aye, aye, sirs.

Dingo warned, “He's still a Trojan horse, Captain.”

“Of course he's a Trojan horse!” Captain Carmel said. “And I am not bringing him aboard.”

Nox waited in the cold darkness for the return voice. Or the kill shot. One or the other. Just get on with it.

He couldn't stay awake. He couldn't seem to breathe. He was dreaming with his eyes open—ugly black gray clouds swirled in the perfect black, punctuated by sparking flashes. Where were those coming from? He wondered if those were his oscillating nanites. Flashing.

He floated up against one side of the life pod and stayed pressed there. There was the aneurysm in the membrane. He was using up his oxygen in here. The life pod's rebreathers were overwhelmed and the carbon dioxide was building up. And Empress Calli had gone silent.

Nox shut his eyes.

It was a good try, O my
brothers
.

12 Ianuarius 2448
Bagheera
Indra Aleph Star System
Perseid Space

C
INNA
WATCHED
THE
MONITORS
.
Pallas and Faunus crowded him, earnestly helping him watch. Faunus said, “They're not picking him up. Why aren't they picking him up?”

Cinna had told his brothers that
Merrimack
would pick Nox up. It was frightening to see a patterner make a mistake.

“Go get him!” Pallas cried.

“No,” Cinna said softly. “We can't.”

The patterner was rattled.

I really thought they would pick him up
.

He blinked.

Nox was still cold, but he was breathing pure oxygen. And he wasn't in the life pod. A light was on. He was in a metal compartment.

He tried to rise, but that didn't happen. He was strapped down. There was a drone medic inside this compartment. Through a porthole he saw the American space battleship. Her running lights defined her majestic shape.
Merrimack
. The Americans hadn't brought Nox on board. They'd taken him into some much smaller, more expendable craft. He didn't hear
any other people on board. He guessed the Yanks weren't going to risk him blowing up inside their battleship. But the drone medic hovering over him wore the Red Cross.
Merrimack
was trying to save him.

How 'bout that?

Nox lost consciousness.

Woke again. He was in a different chamber now, comfortably warm. The biggest difference was the ambient sounds. It was noisy here. Lots of clanging, hissing, voices, banging footsteps, engines. All those sounds, some close by, some a lot farther off. He wasn't in the small craft anymore.

He was on the
Merrimack
.

That could only mean
it worked
! The Americans wouldn't have brought him aboard if he weren't free of nanites.

I'm alive
. He laughed out loud. He was going to live.

He tried to crank his head around. Couldn't. He couldn't really lift it either. He was mostly immobilized.

He was tied down. They also had a partial nerve lock on him. That was redundant. So were the shackles. Physical shackles. That was primitive. But then this boat had been known to carry swords.

He was going to live—until the Yanks sucked the intel out of him. Then they would execute him for so many murders.

He strained to look to his left. He could just see the Marine guards posted at the hatch. They were big men, dripping two-hundred-proof hatred. Only thanks to their training they weren't mauling Nox into little strands of shredded pirate. One was a square-built, mean-faced brown guy, the other a fleshy boulder of a black guy. They called each other Twitch and Dak.

The compartment hatch opened. The Marine guards snapped to rigid attention.

A long tall white swan in Navy blue undress uniform swept in. Four bars and a star on her cuff. That was a captain.

She sent the Marine guards out. She kept herself three meters away from Nox.

This had to be Captain Callista Carmel. Nox had heard of her. Who hadn't?

“Empress Calli,” Nox said. His voice came out scratchy.

“That is not my title.”

It was what they called her in Rome. It was kind of a joke.

Nox had seen pictures. In person she was a you-can't-be-serious, swallow-your-tongue kind of stunning. She could be a stunt double for Helen of Troy. But Calli Carmel only launched one ship. She could flatten Troy for herself without backup.

Nox cleared his throat. “What'd you do to me?”

“Besides save your life?”

“You took my badges.” His scars and braids he meant.

“I will not have your mother see you like that when she visits you on death row. Tell me about Adamas. Or was that just a line you threw out there to make us pick you up?”

“I couldn't make that up,” Nox said. “It was great bait, so I used it. I really did see Adamas. Last I heard he was a Colonel on
Merrimack
. I couldn't believe it when I saw him . . . where I saw him.”

“And where exactly is that?”

“In the place you're looking for.”

“What am I looking for?” Calli asked.

“It's a Romulid medical facility embedded in an asteroid in a high tilt orbit around Indra Shwa Zed. The rock is coated in ice, so it looks like a comet. The shield dome is shattered. The facility is underground. It's a rat maze and it has a really stupid game program guarding it.”

“Where did you get the nanites?”

“Got scratched.”

“Where?”

“On my back.”

“Where did you get the scratch on your back?”

“In the facility.”

“Where in the facility?”

“I honestly don't know. Did I mention it was a maze? The Romulii have your Colonel Steele in there. Or a dead ringer of him.”

“How dead was the ringer?”

“I think he was alive. I didn't look close. He was in a pink tank. You know that medical gel?”

Calli Carmel gave an annoyed-looking nod. She would know exactly what a pink tank was—from the inside out.

Nox said, “Adamas wasn't why I was there.”

“What were you doing in this installation?”

“Trying to kill Romulus.”

“Why?”

Oh,
merda
, that's a good question since I'm supposedly not working for Caesar Numa
. “I'm a psychotic terrorist. Don't you pick up the news broadcasts?”

“Did you kill him?”

“Kill who? Romulus? No. He got away.”

“He got away how?”

“No idea.”

“Under his own power?”

“Ma'am, here's what I saw.” Nox described the chamber precisely for her—the Julian colors, the royal tapestries, the empty pallet, the life-support equipment, and the sheet.

“It looked like Romulus walked out of there. Or the scene was staged to look like he walked. Ma'am, by the time I got there, he was just gone.”

“Do not ma'am me. Why did you attack my ship?”

An astonished noise sounded in Nox's throat. Finally he choked out, “We didn't. Wouldn't. Not ever.”

“Your Accipiter did.”

“I don't have an Accipiter.”

“Who attacked me?” Calli demanded.

“Someone stupid with an Accipiter,” Nox said, and he was done answering questions. “Is Lieutenant Hamilton on board?”

Captain Carmel walked out.

Merrimack
's Intelligence Officer was a lean ferret of a man named Bradley Zolman. He was called just Z.

Z met the captain outside the hatch, frowning. Z had been monitoring the interrogation. He said, “The prisoner dodged your question of why he tried to kill Romulus.”

She nodded. “I worded it poorly. Was anything he said true?”

“You need to realize that a brain scan isn't a fact checker,” Z explained. “It just tells if the subject is telling the truth as he knows it.”

“And?”

“And the prisoner believed everything he said. It's possible your pirate is working for someone who wants you to have all the information on Romulus.”

“I know,” Calli said, bitter. She knew, but she couldn't quite believe it.

She ordered the ship's Medical Officer to put the prisoner under
complete sedation; then she summoned the acting commander of her Marine Wing. “Lieutenant Salvador!”

Cain Salvador reported and snapped to stiff attention. “Aye, sir!”

“Full restraints on the prisoner. Quarantine him in a Space Patrol Torpedo boat hard-docked to the ship. Three Marine guards outside the air lock at all times, a drone guard and a drone monitor on the inside of the Spit boat.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” Cain said. “Sir?”

“What is it, Lieutenant?”

Cain asked, “Since the pirate is officially dead, can we . . . hurt him a little?”

“I cannot allow torture,” Captain Carmel told Cain. “But neither do you need to carry him like a box of apples.”

“Potatoes?”

Calli hesitated. “No mashing, boiling, peeling, or planting.”

Cain Salvador brightened. “Aye, sir. Sir? Do you know who that pirate looks like?”

“No,” the captain said—hard—like Cain Salvador better just forget he ever thought that thought. “He does not.”

Flight Sergeant Geneva Rhine took her watch with Dak Shepard and Twitch Fuentes standing guard outside the hatch of the Spit boat, SPT 1, in which the unconscious prisoner had been isolated. Rhino suggested to Lieutenant Cain Salvador something accidental involving the prisoner and the Spit boat's life-support system.

“Don't go there, Rhino,” Cain said. “You're a soldier, not a sniveling Roman assassin.”

To an all-American mutt like Cain Salvador all Romans sniveled. All Romans were assassins.

Cain added, “Soldiers kill. They don't murder.”

“It's not murder if you're doing it for your country,” Rhino said. “The guy's a traitor to the United States.”

“That's a fuzzy line. Don't go near it,” Cain said. Rhino was tenacious, even for a bulldog. So to be perfectly explicit, Cain told her, “Do not kill without orders.”

Rhino whispered between clenched teeth,
“So order me.”

“Flight Sergeant.”

When Cain called you by your rank, he was done foxtrotting. Rhino backed down. “Sorry, Cain. You know I hate Romans.”

“We all hate Romans,” Cain said.

The Roman Empire and the United States of America were close kin. One nation had founded the other, though neither nation could agree which one was the mother country and which the ungrateful traitorous breakaway colony. On board the U.S. space battleship
Merrimack
there was no question.

The prox alarm shrieked. Something was way too close to the
Merrimack
.

The deep thrum of beam generators wound up with the hiss of outgoing fire. The Navy gunners were shooting—all banks from the sound of it. Sounded like a star spray of shots, like you do when you can't see your target.

The Exec's voice on the loud com was calling for siege stations again.

Part of Calli's mind leaped into clarity, and she was barking. “Shut down!
Reel in the guns!
Lockdown! Execute! Yesterday!”

Her order closed
Merrimack
's force field to near impenetrable. The order for “yesterday” meant do it faster than you think is possible.

The space battleship's prox alarm kept blaring. A deep buzz sounded from all around.

“Tactical! What is setting off the prox alarm?”

“I don't have a plot,” Tactical said.

Dingo pointed up. “I know this sound.” The buzzing was all around them.

Calli recognized it too. It was an outside inertial field coming in direct contact with
Merrimack
's inertial field. “He's not registering on the sensors and he's
on
us,” Calli said. “That's a Xerxes.”