by Rob Steiner
Kaeso was upright again and handing Cordus the pulse rifle. Cordus looked at him questioningly, and Kaeso said, “I won’t need it.”
“Was that Ocella?” Cordus asked. “How did she—?”
“Not important.”
Kaeso brushed past Cordus and the Romans and walked through the open doors.
“Kaeso!” Cordus yelled, but Kaeso didn’t turn.
Dariya stood next to Cordus. “What is wrong with you two?”
Cordus ignored her and ran after Kaeso. He stood in the middle of the street, searching the blue sky as if awaiting Sol Invictus to carry him away.
“Kaeso, what’s happening? Was that Ocella?”
“Yes.” He continued staring at the sky, searching for something.
“Where is she? How could she send—?”
“Kid, you’ve always had too many questions.” He gave Cordus a sad grin. “Whether you want it or not, you’re the Centuriae now. Don’t come after me, you hear? And do not go to Caesar Nova. It’s too dangerous for you there now. Just get your crew somewhere safe.” He glanced at the hospital. “Maybe Libertus.”
Cordus turned to see Aquilina, Dariya, and the Romans in the doorway staring at them.
He leaned close to Kaeso and whispered, “I don’t understand what’s happening.”
Kaeso looked up again. “Neither do I, but it’s the only way to keep you safe.”
“I’m not ready for this.”
“Nobody ever is. Ah…”
Cordus followed Kaeso’s gaze. A white dot streaked across the sky, its head growing larger as he watched. The white dot turned yellow, then red, then black.
A missile suddenly streaked toward the black vessel from the Nascio spaceport. The missile impacted with the vessel in a white ball of light, the explosion taking several seconds to reach Cordus’s ears. But the black vessel flew through it as if flying through a cloud. More missiles flew up from the spaceport, but the vessel blew through them too.
“Like I said,” Kaeso murmured, “do not come after me.”
“What is it?” Cordus asked, staring at the approaching vessel.
“A trade.”
The vessel now hovered silently fifty paces above the street near Cordus and Kaeso. It looked like a glob of black tar wrapped in thin, pulsating blue veins just beneath the surface. The vessel had no windows or engines or any other features common to a spacecraft as he knew it. As it descended, the bottom of the ship undulated and morphed until it formed a flat pad on which the vessel could rest. It touched the ground just as the bottom flattened. A door irised open, and the interior looked the same as the exterior—black with pulsing blue veins.
Kaeso pulled Cordus into a tight embrace. “You’re a born leader. I see it in you. Get them safe.”
Cordus couldn’t speak. All he could do was return Kaeso’s embrace.
Kaeso suddenly broke away. “If these bastards are honest, the way back to Vacuna will be clear for you.”
He turned and approached the vessel opening. Cordus reached out and grabbed Kaeso’s arm. Kaeso could easily have broken his grip, but the former Ancile stopped, still facing the vessel.
“What. Is. Happening?” Cordus demanded.
Kaeso didn’t move for a moment, but then he said, “Ocella is on one of these ships in orbit. My capture was the price of your freedom.” Kaeso turned to Cordus and said gently, “Let me go, kid.”
Cordus let him go. “Will I see you again?”
Kaeso gave him a long, steady look, then turned and strode toward the vessel opening.
“Centuriae!” Dariya cried, rushing down the hospital steps.
Without breaking stride, Kaeso said, “Cordus is your Centuriae now.”
“You are my Centuriae,” Dariya said.
She stared at Kaeso desperately. Cordus knew her statement was not meant as an insult to him, but as a reaffirmation to Kaeso that he was the leader she would follow to Hades if he asked her. Cordus felt exactly the same.
Kaeso understood as well. He stopped, gave her a soft grin, and then started toward the ship. He never paused as he stepped through the dark opening and into the blue-veined interior. As soon as he entered, the opening irised shut, and the ship rose straight up into the sky without a sound.
“We cannot just abandon him,” Dariya said next to Cordus.
Cordus watched the vessel disappear into the sky with a speed no human ship could match.
“We’re not. Get Blaesus and Daryush. We have to get back to Vacuna before the ship in orbit gets away.”
“The Centuriae ordered you not to pursue. I heard him from the steps.”
“He did.”
“You will pursue him anyway?”
He turned to her. “Yes. Do you have a problem with that, Engineer.”
She gave him an savage grin and shook her head. “I do not. Centuriae.” She turned and jogged back up the steps into the hospital.
Duran, Piso, and Gracchus approached Cordus. Duran said in a deep, rich voice, “If it’s all the same to you, sir, we’d like to come with you.”
Cordus looked at each one of them. “Why? This isn’t your fight. I’m probably leading my crew to their deaths.”
Duran said, “You were willing to die with us. Figure we owe you.”
Cordus glanced at Ulpius, who sat on the steps to the hospital staring at Tib’s signet ring in his hand.
“I thought Ulpius was your Centurion.”
Duran shook his head. “He and the Liberti spy got thrown in with us a day or two after we was there. He’s from a different cohort, I guess.”
Piso picked at the bandage on his head, and then said, “Sir, we have nothing left here. Our Legion is gone, our families are…” Piso’s voice caught a moment, and then he continued. “None of us know how to pilot a starship, so we can’t leave ourselves. We’d rather die fighting with you than running from golems the rest of our lives.”
Cordus didn’t know what he faced in this strange alien vessel, but he knew a fight would come if he were to rescue Ocella and Kaeso. He would need all the help he could get, especially from proven fighters like the three Romans before him.
Cordus looked past the three Romans and at Aquilina standing near a burned out car. She held her pulse rifle against her shoulder as she watched Cordus. An Umbra Ancile would be a powerful ally. But would she come with him? And could he trust her?
She smiled, and he looked away.
And could I concentrate on the mission when she does that? Gods, what is it about this woman?
Aquilina walked to him and said, “I have certain…associates who’d be very interested in what just kidnapped your friend. I may be able to help, even.”
Cordus forced himself to meet her eyes. “How would your associates feel about rescuing two former associates?”
Aquilina’s lips twitched in amusement. “With your friends’ experience, the information they can gather regarding this vessel would be quite valuable to my associates.”
Ulpius approached them. “If you two are through with your spy talk, I want to come, too. I got no other way off this dead rock. I know a thing or two about battlefield med, so I could help your wounded friend.”
Cordus looked at them all. “I can’t promise you’ll live through this.”
They all nodded their acceptance.
At the hospital doors, Dariya and Daryush stood on either side of Blaesus with one of his arms around each of their shoulders. Blaesus looked frail, and his skin was whiter than his many togas. Dariya and Daryush half-carried him to the armored car the attacking golems had used.
As they all got into the armored car, Cordus thought, Gods, I am running through deep cac now.
16
Cordus sped through Nascio’s ruined streets, having no choice but to trust that the vessel had cleared the way for them back to Vacuna. Thankfully, the vessel’s ‘word’ was true—Cordus did not encounter any other golem patrols in the city. It made him wonder why the vessel would help them, considering i
t just kidnapped the two people who meant the most to him in the universe.
It wants us to follow them. Why? He tried not to think about that now.
Not only were golems absent from the streets, but so were humans. When he asked the Romans what had happened to the humans, their eyes turned haunted. Piso explained that the local citizens who survived the initial rebellion were rounded up to ostensibly serve as laborers in the fields. But rumors of mass crucifixions made even the citizens rebel, which led the golems to slaughter them.
“There are no more people,” Piso said, shaking his bandaged head. “At least not in Nascio. Don’t know what things are like elsewhere on the planet.”
Cordus glanced in his rear mirrors. Tears streamed down Duran’s dark cheeks as he watched the passing maize fields.
Outside Nascio, the road to the spaceport was also clear of armored cars and golem checkpoints. But the bodies of crucified Romans stared down at Cordus. He lowered his window to shout at the carrion birds feasting on the corpses. The legionaries also yelled or whistled. Aquilina kept her eyes on the road ahead.
When they were within five miles of the spaceport, Cordus noticed black smoke billowing from it. They arrived to see hangars, buildings, and starships in smoking, burning ruins. The acrid chemical stench filling the air turned Cordus’s stomach.
Cordus stopped the armored car next to Vacuna. The ship appeared intact. At least they’re honest kidnappers. He jumped out and ran toward the ship’s lock. He placed his palm on the lock, and the door ramp hissed open with a slow groan.
Once the door ramp touched the ground, Dariya and Daryush rushed Blaesus into the ship. Cordus watched after Blaesus with deep worry. The old Senator was silent during the speeding trip and barely conscious the whole way. Even now he seemed on the border of lucidity and fainting. Ulpius followed the two Persians as they carried Blaesus as fast as they could to the ship’s supply lift, which would take them up to the crew deck and the ship’s medical hatch. Aquilina and Piso jogged up the ramp, while Gracchus and Duran backed in, their rifles still up and scanning the spaceport. Cordus was the last one in, and he closed the door ramp from inside Cargo One.
“Delta couches are on the crew deck,” Cordus told the Romans. He turned to Aquilina. “Only three there, so you can take one on the command deck.”
All four nodded and then followed Cordus as he hurried to the ladder. The three Legionaries jumped off onto the crew deck while Cordus and Aquilina continued up to the command deck. Cordus strapped himself into the pilot’s couch. He couldn’t bring himself to sit in the command couch.
“Know anything about delta systems?” he asked Aquilina.
She eyed the old delta controls. “I can run one as long as it doesn’t break.”
“Take the command couch,” Cordus said, beginning the engine start-up. Since all systems started normally, it looked as if the golems had not tampered with the ship.
Could be a different story once we’re flying…
Aquilina strapped herself into the command couch. “So I get to be centuriae today?”
Cordus allowed himself a sideways grin as he continued the start-up routines. “Kaeso always told me the command couch is the one place on the ship were a person can do the least damage. You can only monitor ship’s systems, you can’t change them.”
“Unless I know the password, eh?”
“Which you don’t. So enjoy the ride.”
It took less than a minute for Cordus to complete all the start-up routines, his fingers flying across the tabulari. The ship's engines engaged and Vacuna lifted off the ground. Cordus ensured the ship’s inertia cancellers were on full power, then instantly accelerated the ship past the speed of sound straight up into the sky. Even with inertia cancellers, he felt as if the hand of Jupiter was pushing him down into his couch.
He hoped the acceleration did not hurt Blaesus, but he had to get into space fast. He had no idea if the alien vessel had quantum way line engines like Vacuna, or if it had to use the alpha way lines. If the vessel had quantum engines, it was likely Cordus would never find it again.
Even before they left the atmosphere, Cordus began scanning the space above them. Reantium’s atmosphere played havoc with the sensors and seemed to return false hits all over the sky. The higher they flew, however, the more false hits fell off the screen, until he found a single large hit twenty thousand miles from his position.
“That thing is thirteen miles long,” Aquilina breathed, staring at the command tabulari. “No beacon. Surrounded by some kind of energy bubble. We can get a visual read, but nothing on its composition or internal systems.”
Cordus checked the readings and a chill went through him. The “energy bubble” Aquilina mentioned looked like the same thing the Saturnists recently installed on Vacuna based on tech from the Menota Muse archives. If it was anything like Vacuna’s shield, no scans or physical objects would be able to penetrate it. He was likely going up against a vessel packed with every bit of tech the Muses had.
Cordus clenched his teeth and set a course for the vessel. Vacuna darted toward its location.
But as soon as he set the course, the vessel shot out of Reantium’s orbit toward the alpha way line near the star system’s second planet 60 million miles away.
Cordus frowned. It was as if the vessel had been waiting for him before leaving.
Doesn’t matter. He accelerated Vacuna after the vessel.
“You’re flying into a trap,” Aquilina said. “That thing wants you to follow it.”
Cordus shook his head. “If it wanted to capture or kill us, it could have done it on Reantium. It wants us to follow for another reason.”
“So you’re going to do what it wants?”
He chewed his inner lip, thinking of Kaeso and Ocella. “I don’t have a choice.”
Cordus stared at his tabulari as he felt Aquilina’s eyes on him, but she said no more.
Even with Caduceus's scopes at maximum magnification, the vessel was still outside visual range, but Cordus got an idea of the vessel's shape from the sensor readings. It was, as Aquilina said, almost thirteen miles long and looked like a black spiked tower with glowing blue veins. Theories cascaded through his mind. Ocella had been searching the Menota system for the secret way line they saw in the Menota archives six years ago. Had she found it, gone through, and then met this alien vessel controlled by a new Muse strain?
Marcus Antonius, Cordus called with his thoughts. What can you tell me about this new Muse strain we’re following?
Marcus’s voice came from the delta systems couch behind Cordus. “It is one you’d do well to avoid.”
Cordus didn’t look behind him. Why?
Aquilina interrupted Cordus’s thoughts. “The way line it’s heading toward goes to Illium. Illium has two way lines: one to Abundantia and one to Libertus.”
A terrible coldness seized Cordus’s chest. Libertus was now the only planet in human space with the greatest concentration of Muse hosts. The Terran Muses were wiped out six years ago, along with the physiologically incompatible Menota Muses. If this new strain was like the others, then it was in a perpetual state of war with all other strains. It would do everything it could to seek out new strains and destroy them.
The vessel had Ocella and now Kaeso, so it likely knew about Umbra and the Liberti Muses.
“Your Liberti friends will not find this strain so easy to defeat,” Marcus said behind him, “so what chance do you think you have against them in this ancient garbage hauler? Flee, young Antonius.”
Marcus always seemed to urge Cordus to take the most aggressive actions. If something could scare Marcus that bad, Cordus began to wonder if he should listen to the ancient avatar’s advice.
No. Ocella and Kaeso would come for me. If I flee now, I might as well be dead; the guilt would make me a hollow shell the rest of my life.
“It’s going to Libertus,” Cordus said to Aquilina. He looked at her, praying he could keep his eyes and face hard. “We bot
h know why.”
Aquilina licked her lips, then winced as if trying to ignore a sudden pain in her head. “I can’t say anything,” she said slowly, “until I know what you know. If your friend is what I think he is, or used to be, then you’ll understand.”
Both Kaeso and Ocella told him stories of Umbra, how their implants prevented them from saying anything about the organization. Even uttering the name “Umbra” made their implants send a stabbing pain through their brain to remind them of their loyalties. Not even the Liberti consul knew of Umbra’s existence; its security was too important to trust to the honor of a citizen who would only hold the consul post for six years.
Umbra had kept Libertus—a single star system without a large space fleet—free from the tyrannical regimes surrounding it, like Roma, the Zhonguo Sphere, and numerous other warlords trying to achieve eternal glory. It used the tech given to it by its benevolent virus allies, the Liberti Muse strain, to spy, sabotage, and assassinate away any threats to Libertus before they could materialize into full-scale invasions. Umbra Ancilia were posted throughout human space watching for those threats, using tech no other human government possessed. The mysterious “bad luck” that befell anyone threatening Libertus had earned them the superstitious reputation of being protected by numina, demons of the gods.
So if Aquilina was Umbra, then she was physically unable to talk about Umbra until she knew Cordus knew the same information. Then the implant would release her to speak freely.
Cordus glanced behind him. No one else was on the command deck ladder, and he heard no one coming up.
He said to Aquilina in a low tone, “If that vessel is a new Muse strain, then it will go to Libertus to destroy the last concentration of Muses in human space. Umbra Corps.”
She sighed, as if the pain suddenly receded. “That’ll make it easier for us to talk.”
“Kaeso and Ocella were once Ancilia. I’m surprised you’ve never heard of them.”
Aquilina snorted. “If you know anything about Umbra, you know that Ancilia never get all the data they want. Only what they need to complete their mission.”