The Eternal Empire (40 page)

"Sir," he asked his
commander, "since we are not formally at war with Saxony we will need to
issue some rules of engagement to the troops."

Tiberius looked at the tribune
thoughtfully before giving him an answer.

"If a Saxon puts so much as a toe
on the west bank of the Rhine blow him to hell!"

1st
August 1920

Caledonia

It was still dark when the aircraft
took off and the runways had to be illuminated by flaming oil drums. They had
practised night flying many times since their arrival in Caledonia from Saxony
and had lost five of their number in doing so. Tonight it was for real and
despite the increased tension that the pilots felt, or possibly because of it,
there were no accidents as they took off and headed for the open sea.

The lead aircraft spotted the first
reference point a few minutes after takeoff. A ship from the Caledonian navy,
lit up from bow to stern had been holding its position all night in order to
provide navigational assistance to the aircraft. One by one each plane turned
as it flew over the ship and headed for the next reference point. By the time
that dawn broke the fifty-five aircraft involved in operation 'sea lance' would
have been guided by half a dozen different ships and would be about seventy
miles from their target.

2nd
August 1920

Headquarters,
legio I Germanica

It was well after midnight before
Tiberius managed to reach Manual Dikouros. The commander of the Rhine armies
had been dining out with a delegation of senators from Constantinople and had
not told his servants where he was going. He was not at all happy to receive a
call from one of his legionary commanders at this hour. He was even less happy
to hear what he had to say.

Although he had been drinking heavily,
Dikouros sobered up fast when Tiberius informed him that Cornelius had arrived
from Saxony bearing evidence that the Saxons were going to attack. The telegram
from Gregory Nicerites instructing him to investigate reports of Saxon troop
movements and the loss of contact with the Minden embassy had arrived earlier.
Dikouros broke out in a cold sweat.

The important thing, he told himself,
was not to panic or make any rash decisions. Given time he knew that he could
gain control of the situation and limit any damage to his reputation. Tiberius
was pushing him to alert the entire army immediately.

Dikouros could hear the senators
chatting outside his study and the giggling of the 'entertainment girls' that
he had procured for them. How would it look, he asked himself, if he told them
that he had to leave because the Saxons were about to invade? How would it look
if nothing happened!

"Send me those plans
Petronius," he said gaining a bit of control over himself, "I'll
evaluate them first thing in the morning."

"But an attack could occur at any
moment!" shouted Tiberius, barely able to keep his temper. "We must
alert the army!"

"It's already past two
o'clock," Dikouros snapped back, "it'll be light in about three
hours. I'll deal with it in the morning. That is all!" he slammed the
phone down and went back to the party. He had had his eye on a little brunette
and hoped that one of the senators had not claimed her already.

Tiberius swore at the telephone with
all the elegance of someone who had spent his entire life in the army. When he
had finished he told the orderly to start contacting the legates of the other
legions along the Rhine. If Dikouros was not prepared to do something then
Tiberius would. Even if it meant a court martial.

This time it only took a few minutes to
make contact with the commander of the legio IV Primogenia even though it was
stationed over a hundred miles away near Moguntiacum. The legate there was an
old friend and it did not take long to persuade him to alert his command as
well. He was just about to ask him to contact the next legion when the line
went dead.

Tiberius looked at the useless
telephone in his hands and yelled to the orderly that he had been cut off.

"All the lines are down sir,"
cried back the orderly who was frantically trying out all the connections on
his board. "They must have been cut!"

2nd
August 1920

Headquarters,
legio I Germanica

After handing the plans over to his
uncle, Cornelius had been directed to a room in the officers’ quarters. He was
exhausted and collapsed onto the bed without undressing and fell into a deep
sleep. He would probably have slept until the following afternoon had he not
been woken up by the sound of gun fire and an explosion that shattered the
window of his room.

He sat up, disorientated and confused
by the noise around him, the room lit by the red glow of flames from outside.
As his mind began to clear, Cornelius remembered where he was and realised what
was happening. The war had started and a Saxon advance team was making an
attack on the legions headquarters.

Leaping off the bed, Cornelius ran to
the door, broken glass crunching under his feet, glad he had not taken off his
boots earlier. He opened the door and looked out into the dimly lit hallway
before leaving the room and heading for the exit. He was half way there when a
legionary with a hand gun appeared in front of him. Cornelius was about to ask
him what was happening when the soldier brought up his gun and fired.

Cornelius dived onto the floor as soon
as the saw the gun being raised and heard the bullet hit the wall close to
where he had been standing. Cornelius shouted that he was a Roman and to stop
firing. The legionary approached Cornelius slowly, keeping his gun on him. From
his prone position, Cornelius could see that the soldier was very young and had
a cut on the side of his head. He was constantly wiping the blood out of his
eyes.

"Who are you!" demanded the
legionary, who was breathing heavily and with some difficulty.

"I'm Cornelius Petronius, nephew
of Legate Tiberius Petronius!" Cornelius did not normally approve of name
dropping but considered it justified in the present circumstances. The
legionary did not look convinced but hesitated and did not fire again.

Cornelius got to his feet slowly, the
legionary covering him as he did. Then it dawned upon him that he was still
dressed in the clothes that he had been wearing since he had left Minden and
hardly looked like the relative of a senior Roman officer.

"I've just arrived from
Saxony," said Cornelius, indicating his distinctly un-Roman like
appearance, "and have not had a chance to change."

The young legionary still kept his gun
on Cornelius but relaxed slightly. Cornelius breathed a little easier. A
tribune came through the door at the end of the corridor.

"Cornelius," he said,
"are you all right?"

He was one of the officers who had been
with his uncle earlier, and at this confirmation of Cornelius's identity, the
legionary swiftly dropped his gun to his side.

"I'm fine," said Cornelius
smiling at the embarrassed legionary, "just tell me what's been
happening."

"A group of about twenty to thirty
Saxons got inside the perimeter fence and tried to get into the legates
quarters," he explained. "Luckily we had been alerted by your warning
and they were spotted. But not before they had blown up the legate's
house."

"Damage and casualties?"
asked Cornelius, automatically slipping back into his old military role.

"We've a dozen dead and wounded,
but fortunately the house was empty. Your uncle is still in the operations
centre. He hasn't moved from there since you arrived."

"What about the Saxons?"

"Dead or taken prisoner,"
replied the tribune with satisfaction. "Your uncle wants to see you
straight away," he added remembering why he had come looking for Cornelius
in the first place.

Tiberius Petronius was busy giving
orders to a group of officers when Cornelius arrived at the legion's operations
centre. The room was full of grim faced men. Armed legionaries in full battle
dress were posted around the room. 

As Cornelius approached, the officers
around Tiberius saluted and left, leaving his uncle alone peering at a detailed
map of the area around Colonia Agrippina.

"The telephone lines have been
cut," he said without taking his eyes off the map. "And until I get
word from my front line units I don't know what is happening!"

Tiberius hit the table with his fist in
frustration and then turned to his nephew.

"I need information Cornelius.
You've read their plans. I need to know what they are going to do."

Cornelius studied the map and then
turned to his uncle. He had only managed to read through the stolen plans once
during his trek to the Rhine and although there was a mass of detail, there was
no overall strategic overview in the safe and it would require a lot of
analysis before would he had taken could be useful to a battlefield commander.
All he could tell his uncle was the bare outlines.

"The Saxon attack comprises three
main thrusts," explained Cornelius, pointing to the map of the Rhine
frontier, "one here at Colonia Agrippina, another further south at
Moguntiacum, and one through the Duchies at Argentoratum."

"What's their objective?"
asked Tiberius.

"It must be Lutetia," said
Cornelius pointing to the map. "Everything in the plans point towards
it."

Tiberius examined the map as though
looking for something hidden in the contours and forests represented by the
colours on the paper.

"That's what we expect them to
do," said Tiberius shaking his head. "Lutetia is not only the
provincial capital of Gaul but the hub for all the rail and road links - it's
the obvious target. It sounds too obvious."

He turned to Cornelius. "You must
take this information to the Rhine army headquarters. There must be more to the
Saxon plans than just a drive on Lutetia. If anyone can work out what it is,
you can."

He called over the legions adjutant.
"Virgil, see to it that Cornelius gets transport and an escort to Augusta
Treverorum. But first," he gave Cornelius an appraising look, "get
him cleaned up and issued with a uniform." He gave his nephew a smile, the
first one to cross his face since Cornelius had arrived. "You look like a
Saxon peasant, and smell a lot worse. I wouldn't want one of my legionaries
taking a shot at you!"

2nd
August 1920

East
coast of Britannia

Dawn was breaking as the aircraft
involved in operation Sea Lance approached the coast of Britannia. Trusting
that the directions provided by the navigation ships during the night were
correct, the flight leader turned his force north and followed the coast line
towards the Imperial Naval Base at Peturia.

In the harbour, the ships of the
Classis Britannia lay peacefully at anchor. A few cruisers and escorts were on
patrol in the Oceanus Germanica, but all five battleships were in harbour. The
Caledonian Navy was no match for the Imperial Fleet and the mere presence of an
Imperial battle squadron was enough to secure naval superiority for the Empire.
The boilers of the battleships were not even lit, a legacy of the previous
year’s austerity measures.

As they approached the city of Peturia,
seventeen model V fighters split off and headed towards the airfield located a
few miles away from the harbour. The remaining thirty-eight aircraft, all model
VII bombers, separated into two groups. Thirteen began a slow dive towards the
harbour while the rest maintained their current altitude.

The first target to be struck was the
airfield which was being used as a base for a number of air cohorts transferred
from the Rhine army. The rebels had no aircraft of their own so the fighters
and bombers were lined up all along the runways ready for the coming days
sorties, making a perfect target for the Saxons. They dropped their bombs
amongst the tightly packed imperial aircraft and then returned to strafe the
airfield.

The thirteen bombers which had broken
away from the main force attacked cruisers and escorts in the harbour. The
pilots dropped their bombs on the sterns of the Roman ships aiming to penetrate
the thin deck armour and to cripple the ships engines. The remaining Saxon
bombers circled the harbour like vultures identifying their targets. Instead of
their standard load each of these bombers carried only a single bomb, a
converted large calibre armour piercing naval shell. Slowly and deliberately,
the bombers split into five groups, one for each battleship and flew a steady
course directly over their victims.

Each battleship was targeted by five
Saxon bombers. At the optimum altitude recommended by the air force ordinance
technicians who had converted the shells, only 30% of the bombs were expected
to hit a stationary target, but the crews on the planes involved in Sea Lance
were the best that Saxony had. The ‘Emperor Vespasian’ was hit by 3 shells, two
of which penetrated through to the boiler rooms completely destroying them. The
bridge and fire direction equipment of the ‘Alexus III’ were wrecked by two
hits whilst the ‘Justinian the Great’ received four hits causing a major list.
The ‘Emperor Theodosius’ was only hit twice but the explosions started fires
below deck which the crew could not contain and the magazines had to be flooded
to prevent an explosion.