Strength and Honor (37 page)

Carly was on the floor, stirring, holding her head.

Twitch never slowed down. He charged up to the statue and quickly tied the rope around giant Diana’s marble legs, while the waiting Marines whispered to Kerry and Cain, “Where’s the Old Man?” And Kerry couldn’t talk.

Twitch threw the free end of the rope out through the arch. He gave the rope a good tug to test its strength, then motioned for the first climber.

Cain ordered in a whisper, “Kerry, go!”

She hesitated.

“You ain’t going back,” Cain told her, hauling her toward the rope. “I got orders. Move your ass.” And Kerry would not hold up everyone else with a balk. She scrambled over the edge. Twitch and Cain kept hold of her until she got a grip on the rope and whispered, “Okay okay okay.” When they released her, she slithered down as fast as she could without tearing her palms off. The rope was too short. She had to cling to the bottom end and let herself drop the last yard or two. Landed on her feet, felt the jarring in her shins. Rolled on hard paving stones.

She rolled up to a crouch. Looked up. Did not move. Saw that the arch through which she had just escaped was positioned directly above one of the seventy-six arched doorways to the Coliseum.

And behind the bars of that arched doorway a human silhouette moved, turning outward to face her with the silhouette of a weapon.

Fear leaped inside her like iced daggers. The breath stopped in her chest. She froze in her crouch, staring. Did he see her?

Trying not to move anything more than her eyes, she lifted her gaze upward. Someone else was clinging to the rope up there, waiting for her to move. She hoped the others could see her wide wide eyes. The climber had stopped on the rope. Sensed something desperately wrong down below.

A motion behind the bars drew Kerry’s gaze forward again. The figure inside the arch raised the weapon toward her, taking aim.

The planet stood still.

The end of the rope swayed over Kerry’s head.

I’m right behind you, Thomas Ryder Steele.

The loud voice from the dark commanded, “Stand away from the door. Do not approach.”

Automaton.

Kerry heard a small gasp up above, faint as a rush of air, though there was no wind. Then there were no more whispers. No sound but night traffic in the city. Kerry’s breaths came shallow. She stood up carefully. Turned around slowly. Took several tentative steps away from the door, nothing exploding, nothing stabbing into her back.

She kept walking stiffly away.

Didn’t dare look back. But heard seven more times a drop and a roll, and the automaton voice commanding someone to stand away from the door.

Night turned to day, and the day was half gone before the Coliseum’s Vigil of the night watch was summoned before his superior, the Sub-praefect of Roma Nova.

The Vigil had spent the last hours in helpless, useless waiting, goaded by a sense of dire urgency. Time was of the essence and he had been commanded to stay put, do nothing, and talk to no one. He listened for a public broadcast, for sirens. Still heard utterly nothing of the prison break.

When at last he was summoned, the Vigil reported to his superior’s office and blurted at once: “American soldiers are loose in Roma Nova. The populace must be warned.”

The Sub-praefect left that declaration out there an inordinately long time before he gave his slow measured answer,
“You
shall not tell me what
must
be.”

On the floor next to the Sub-praefect’s pearwood desk lay the rope the Vigil had untied from Diana’s legs and reeled up from the second floor archway. Now that he could see it by proper light, the Vigil could identify the material. Strips of mattress covering. The fabric had been judged too thin to hold anyone’s weight, so the Americans had braided it.

“I accept responsibility,” the Vigil announced at rigid attention.

“No,” said the Sub-praefect, much as he would like to toss this person into the criminals’ pen. “You are
not
taking responsibility because there is
no
prison underneath the Coliseum, we are
not
holding POWs there, and this fiasco
never happened.”

All the brilliant people in this empire, and the Subpraefect got a Vigil who signaled a lockdown that locked the automaton guards safely away from the escaping prisoners.

And he had shot their only captive officer.

Caesar had actually taken that news with a strange serenity. There could be no recriminations, because none of that had happened. “That kind of news does not get out,” said the Subpraefect. “Ever.”

“But they’re out there!” said the Vigil. “The Americans!”

“And you are going to apprehend them,” the Subpraefect assured him. “And when you do apprehend the American soldiers, your captives will be freshly landed troops.”

“But they are—”

“Freshly landed troops.
You have never seen them before in your life.”

“I—”

“Have never seen them before in your possibly severely foreshortened life. Put your ears on, listen closely, and repeat this back to me, so I know you understand: There are no escaped POWs loose in Roma Nova.”

Automatons took Ranza Espinoza, Dak Shepard, and Icky Iverson back to their cell under the Coliseum. Two automatons for each of them, though one would have done. All the mattresses had been gathered up and taken away. Ranza’s writing stone had been removed from the cell. Tire words QUANTUM COIENS PIGNUS remained etched in the wall.

A gladiator, seeing only three of the escapees returning to captivity, remarked in utter disbelief. “They
made
it?”

“Don’t answer that,” Ranza quickly ordered Dak and Icky.

Big Dak’s face was wet with tears.

The gladiator guessed, “Well, not all of them anyway.”

A U.S. patrol picked up an FTL plot moving from the direction of Thaleia toward Palatine’s star system. “Fat PanGalactic supply ship moving your way,” the patrol notified Fleet and gave the vector. “Take it,
Merrimack,”
Admiral Burk ordered.

“Get me a Star Sparrow out there,” Farragut told Gypsy. A Star Sparrow was really the only thing for intercepting an FTL target. Gypsy ordered up a T541 Star Sparrow with a shipkiller load, then ordered Targeting, “Tag the Thaleian.”

“Targeting, aye. Tag away.”

“Fire Control. You have permission to launch Star Sparrow on general vector forward of the Thaleian.”

“Firing Star Sparrow, aye.” Fire Control responded. Energy coiled within the ship. A metallic scream rose from the launch tube with the missile’s leaving. The recoil carried through the deck, and the ship sang.

“Star Sparrow away,” Fire Control reported.

Targeting: “Tag has locked on target. We have a green.”

“Transmit tag signature to Star Sparrow,” said Gypsy.

“Transmitting tag sig, aye.” In a moment, “Star Sparrow has a lock. Time to intercept eleven seconds.”

“Is the target evading?”

“No, sir. Target holding course. He’s on the rails. Coming in hot. Contact in three. Two.”

Waited.

None of the ship’s stations said anything.

No flash appeared on the Tac screen.

Farragut turned to his silent tactical. “Report.”

Marcander Vincent shook his head, at a loss, “Nothing happened.” Fire Control reported, “Shipkiller did not detonate. Repeat, the warhead did not detonate.”

“Old ordnance?” Tracking suggested.

“Ordnance never gets that old on this boat.” Farragut moved quickly round to look at the tactical screen. Demanded, “Tag status!”

“Gone,” said Targeting. “We have lost contact with the tag. The lupes may have erased it.”

“Where is my Star Sparrow?”

Gypsy sent to Fire Control: “Ping the Star Sparrow.”

“No return ping, sir,” Fire Control responded. “We lost it.” Farragut said,
“Lost
as in it’s a runaway, or
lost
as in it’s joining the other side?”

“Lost as in we have no signal and no idea,” said Tactical. “Find it! I don’t want to eat this one.” And to Mr. Hicks at the com station. “Get me Fleet.” Mister Hicks immediately raised the flagship. “I have Admiral Burk, Captain.”

Farragut took up the com. “Fleet, this is
Merrimack.
We have a Star Sparrow that failed to detonate and now we’ve lost track of it.”

He braced for Burk’s hand to come right out of the com and rip the stars off his collar. But Burk’s voice came back resigned, tired, and grim, “You’re not the first one,
Merrimack.”

The admiral told him that the Romans had apparently foxed the U.S. tracking system for hard ordnance. He was advising all ships to adjust tactics until a solution was found.

“No hard ordnance? That leaves us basically with beams,” said Farragut.

“Yes,” was the hard answer.

At least Marcander Vincent waited until the com was closed before he opened his mouth. “That’s bullsh! Intercept an FTL target with beams? That don’t happen.”

It didn’t happen. The Roman supply ship from Thaleia made it into Palatine’s star system, where Roman ships flocked around it to escort it at sublight speed to the planet’s atmosphere.

Harsh words passed back and forth over the com among members of the U.S. Fleet. A direct hail to
Merrimack
carried the ironic voice of Captain Washington of
Monitor:

“Merrimack,
I found your Star Sparrow.”

Farragut seized up the com. “Marty! Thank God!”

“Not what I’ve been saying here,” said Martin Washington. “Your Sparrow was the one with the shipkiller?”

John Farragut was all but singing hallelujah. Laughing with relief. “If my bird had found any other ship but yours, that warhead would have lived up to its name.”

“That is true. You owe me. And I’m going to collect on this one, John. I’ll make a list.”

“Marty, I’m ready to kiss your feet!”

“Foot-kissing will not be on the list.”

Admiral Burk directed both captains to a separate channel on which to give them instructions.

“A U.S. light cruiser will be arriving from Earth carrying commandos.
Merrimack
and
Monitor
will provide distraction strikes while the commandos are inserted on the ground near their targets,” said Burk. “We need to get a lot more aggressive here, gentlemen. The softening up process has got to proceed faster. We need to get our invasion forces on the ground with all possible speed.”

“Without getting our invasion force massacred,” Marty Washington added. “I do realize that, Captain Washington,” said Burk, offended. “Something is happening on Earth,” Farragut suddenly realized.

Burk seemed to shrink. All at once he looked old. The admiral admitted, “We think Romulus is making an end run.”

“Should we even be here?” said Farragut, alarmed.

“We absolutely must be here,” said Burk. “We need to make something happen here before Romulus makes his move there. Your battleships would be of no use on Earth right now.”

“Why?” Martin Washington asked.

Farragut and Washington could tell that Burk did not want to explain. But he had to. “The population of Earth has, over the last several months, increased by as many as a million Roman tourists.”

“Tourists,” Captain Farragut echoed.

“A million,” said Admiral Burk.

“Where?” said Captain Washington.

“Just about everywhere except the United States. The biggest concentrations are in the European nations. They are residents of Roman colonies.” Rome had over four hundred colonies in its Empire.

“The Romans have been coming in by way of LEN colonial worlds on board civilian ships owned by LEN member nations. The Roman tourists are mixed in with League civilian passengers. We can’t shoot them, we can’t stop them, we can’t board them, we can’t even turn them back.”

“What are the ‘tourists’ doing when they get to Earth?” Captain Washington asked. “Massing armies?”

“Not that we have detected yet. And our allies
are
keeping an eye on them.”

“Then what are they doing!” Farragut cried.

“Right now?” said Burk like a man waiting to wake up from an awful and absurd dream. “They’re sightseeing.”

PART FOUR
Gladiator

30

^T
R STEELE CAME TO CONSCIOUSNESS
on his hands and knees, expelling liquid from his lungs. Wet. Naked. The floor was hard and slithery under him. Lamplight felt warm on his skin. He saw the light from behind his closed eyelids. Heard words he could not understand. They sounded Latin. That meant he was in hell.

He blinked slime from his eyes.

Heard rushing water, then felt the tepid rush hitting him in a strong stream. Pink water swirled off him to the white floor between his palms. They were hosing pink medical gel off him.

But who were
they?
He shielded his eyes from the spray, trying to see who
they
were.

They looked like medics from their white coats, gloves, eye protection, and face masks. Two of them. Looked like zoo keepers from the elephant pikes they used to make sure he stayed in place.

The water stopped, replaced by a rush of warm air from above, drying him off. Off to one side there was a tank filled with pink medical gel, draining now. He had been in there.

A pallet floated over beside him. A medic rolled him onto it, strapped him down. He might have overpowered the two right there, had he his wits about him.

The medics left him alone in the room.

Physical straps on his wrists and ankles held him in place. He was still naked, no cover on him. A lamp kept him at body temperature.

He saw now that his chest was whole. There wasn’t even a scar. His coarse golden chest hair was a little finer in the place where the shot had blasted through him.

He tested his bonds, found them all too secure. He determined to jump the medics when they loosened the straps.

That idea evaporated. When one of the medics returned, it was in the company of an automaton. Steele’s bonds were not loosened until the automaton had a good grip on him.Hie medic fit a rough tunic over Steele’s head. No belt came with it.