by Rob Steiner
“Are you up for another walk?” she asked.
He sat up straight and blinked the tears from his eyes. “Yes,” he said, then stood up and strode to the opening.
Claudia looked up at him as he passed her. “Father?”
Kaeso ignored her and left the room.
The sadness and rejection on her face broke Ocella’s heart. She was a golem…but from her perspective, she was Claudia Abiff. Ocella couldn’t imagine the horror and shock this golem must be feeling right now. It was still hard for Ocella to even imagine a golem could feel such things.
What would I have done if my scratch had oozed yellow?
Ocella stooped down next to Claudia. “Come with us.”
Claudia gave her a hopeless expression. “Why?”
“No matter what you are now,” Ocella said, “there’s still a bit of Claudia in you. Her memories are all there in your mind. We’ll be walking a long time, so I’d like to get to know you better.”
“Why would you care about me? You don’t know me. Or her.” She issued a shaky sigh.
Ocella opened her mouth, but then hesitated. Why was she so nervous about revealing her old name? It’s just a golem, it’s not the real Claudia. It was partly due to her Umbra conditioning to never reveal her old identity to the people she once knew. It was also her shame at abandoning Claudia as well. She and Claudia had never been particularly close, only seeing each other on holidays and the occasional visits. When they did see each other, they shared many laughs and played many games. Ocella liked to think she had been the “favorite aunt”.
So it may not have crushed Claudia when Ocella’s old self “died”, but considering little Claudia had just lost both parents within the span of two years, it could not have been easy.
But if the real Claudia was dead, this was the closest thing to that woman left in the universe. Maybe I can find out what kind of woman my little niece has become.
Ocella held her hand out to Claudia, and she took it. Ocella helped her up.
“Let’s talk,” Ocella said, then guided Claudia out of the room.
27
Cordus strapped himself into the command couch and looked with annoyance at his tabulari. Its displays were dimmed, which meant he was locked out of all the ship’s controls. He glared at Aquilina in the pilot’s couch, and she gave him a sweet smile.
“I appreciate your help,” she said, “but I still don’t trust you. I will be running the delta systems on this trip.”
“You and your people watched Dariya, Daryush, and me the whole time we ran the delta diagnostics and quantum way line calibrations. You saw us enter the coordinates for Terra. What’s the problem?”
She gave him a wink. “Because you’re not only pretty, but you’re clever. I wouldn’t put it past you to try something.”
Cordus leaned back in his couch. “Fine, run the damned ship.”
“No need to pout, Antonius.”
Cordus shot her a glare. “We still have a bargain, right? We take Blaesus to a Terran hospital, then we get Kaeso and Ocella. Once they’re safe, you can call me whatever name you want. But until then, I am Titus Aemilius Cordus.”
“Peace, Titus, it was a slip of the tongue. Of course we still have a bargain.” She turned back to her pilot’s tabulari. “All crew in delta couches. Starting delta sleep now.”
The displays for all the crew couches turned yellow, indicating they were under delta sleep.
Aquilina turned to Cordus. “Good night, Titus.” She tapped the delta controls…
…and then Cordus opened his eyes. He looked at Aquilina in the pilot’s couch. She was asleep. He checked the delta readouts for the rest of the crew. All the Romans were still asleep, but Dariya, Daryush, and Blaesus were awake.
He tapped his collar com. “Vacuna crew, report.”
“‘Ush and I are here,” Dariya said over the com.
“Blaesus here, too, Centuriae,” the old Senator’s voice croaked. He then chuckled, which transformed into a raspy cough. “That was fun,” he said after his coughing subsided.
Cordus felt an emotional dagger against his heart. Blaesus needed true medical attention yesterday. But first, Cordus needed to secure the ship before he could get Blaesus to a medicus that wouldn’t arrest him on sight like they would on Terra.
“Good work, Blaesus,” Cordus said, unstrapping himself from the command couch. “They weren’t watching you after all.”
“One of the perks of being old and wounded,” Blaesus breathed. “Nobody thinks to monitor my systems access. Quite insulting, actually. Just because I’m the ship’s scholar, diplomat, and comedic relief, doesn’t mean I can’t reprogram a delta system.”
Aquilina and the Romans had indeed watched everything Cordus, Dariya, and Daryush did as they programmed the quantum way line engines for a jump to Terra. But they had ignored Blaesus, who seemed asleep the whole time.
Except for when he wasn’t and using the tabulari in the medical hatch to set a little trap for the Romans.
Cordus checked the star charts and smiled. They had not moved. The delta sleep systems had engaged, but Blaesus had set a hidden program to cancel the way line jump yet maintain the delta sleep for the Roman couches. Cordus hadn’t given the idea much chance for success, but it was the only thing he could come up with so quickly.
It was something Kaeso would have done, and Cordus allowed himself a moment of pride.
I’m going to find you, old man. You and Ocella. But only as centuriae of this ship. And then I’ll give her back to you.
Cordus bent over the sleeping Aquilina and entered coordinates to a Liberti mining colony in the outer reaches of the system. It was likely overrun with refugees by now, but it was an hour away at their ion engine’s top speed and their only option to get Blaesus the surgery he needed.
As soon as Cordus sent Vacuna on its way to the colony, Dariya’s voice came over the collar com.
“Centuriae, we have a problem with the way line engines.”
Cordus shut his eyes a second and took a deep breath. Gods, you never let it be easy.
He tapped his collar com. “I’ll be right down.”
When he arrived in the engine room, Cordus found Daryush growling at the tabulari in front of him. The big Persian put his fists on his hips and then flinched when he noticed Cordus enter the engine room. He shoved his hands into his pockets and seemed embarrassed that Cordus had heard him.
“So this is how you talk when no one’s around?”
Daryush gave an embarrassed grin and then shrugged.
“He heard the same from me just now,” Dariya said from behind Daryush. “The Romans made a mess of my engines, Centuriae, and I do not think I can fix them. At least not without parts from a way station.”
“What did they do?”
“The quantum and alpha way line engines are locked. We need a key code to unlock them both and it is different for each one.” Dariya let loose a stream of curses in Persian and Latin, and turned around to study the tabulari. “I was so focused on the delta sleep system that I did not see this lockout program.”
“Have you tried entering a key? Maybe—”
“Yes, I assume I could get lucky and enter all 16 alphanumeric characters in the correct order with a pure guess. And Ahura Mazda could jump out of the engines and make me a goddess.”
“Dariya, you’ve always been a goddess to me.”
She shot him an incredulous glare, which he returned with a grin.
“Centuriae, you are too young and too Roman for me.” She turned back to the tabulari console, muttering something in Persian. “Besides, I already tried entering a key and here is what happened.”
Cordus came over and watched the tabulari as Dariya tapped the key into a text field. The text field disappeared from the screen and then a video of Aquilina came up. She was sitting in the pilot couch on the command deck.
“Salve, Marcus Antonius.” She smiled briefly, then continued. “If you’re seeing this, it�
�s because you somehow subdued me and my men. I hope you didn’t kill us, because that would ruin my high opinion of you. Anyway, so you’ve taken control of the ship and are trying to engage the way line engines. By now you know they are locked. Think of it as my backup plan to bargain for my release…or my revenge from the underworld.”
“Cac,” Cordus muttered.
“Only I know the codes, so it would be a waste of time trying to get them out of my men. If you want to go anywhere, you’ll need to bargain with me. If I’m dead, well, I’m sure the Liberti Defense Force will be along soon—once they’re done rebuilding.”
She leaned forward as if to turn the video off, but then said, “Oh, by the way, if you enter the wrong code on each engine more than three times, the engines will overload and destroy the ship.”
She smiled, and then the video winked out.
“I would just as soon bargain with Angra Mainyu then that Roman bitch,” Dariya spat. “No offense, Centuriae.”
Cordus stared at the blank video screen. “We may have no choice. Once we drop Blaesus off at the Liberti mining colony, we’re going to need those quantum way line engines to catch up to the alien vessel. I won’t abandon Kaeso and Ocella.”
“No, we will not,” Dariya said. “But say we do bargain with her. How can we trust her? She certainly won’t trust us after this. How can we know she has not left some other trap in our systems, waiting for the right time to spring it on us?”
“I know, but what choice do we have?”
She cursed again. “None. I just do not like it.”
Cordus couldn’t agree more. He hated bargaining with Aquilina, especially since she probably had more tricks awaiting them once he woke her up. She had survived on Reantium, taken control of Vacuna, and hid that way line lockout program without even Dariya detecting it. She had fooled Cordus into thinking she was from Libertus and an Umbra Ancile. It all meant she was too dangerous to even wake up, much less bargain with. Any bargain they made with her held the prospect of hidden treachery. But if they didn’t bargain with her, Vacuna would never leave the Libertus system. Only the Vacuna’s quantum way line engines could catch up with the alien vessel.
There is a way you can ensure she deals honestly with you…
Cordus’s stomach roiled at the thought. Not only because he’d sworn he would die before doing such a thing again, but because it had come from his own mind and not his Muses.
Marcus Antonius appeared next to Daryush.
“You’re right,” Marcus said, his dark eyes boring into Cordus. “You have no choice. If you want to save your friends, this is the only way to ensure that mean little Praetorian up there won’t cac all over you. What is your decision, young Antonius?”
Before he could think too hard on it, he said to Dariya, “I want you and Daryush to stay off the command deck, no matter what you hear. And make sure Blaesus stays in his bed.”
“Are you sure you want to be alone with her? She is dangerous.”
He turned to the hatch. “I’ll be fine. I just don’t want any of you up there when I…”
Gods, am I really going to do this? Am I really going to break the only promise to myself that has held any meaning to me my whole life?
“Centuriae,” Dariya said from behind him in a hard voice, “you do what you have to do to make her talk.”
Marcus grunted. “Your Persian makes sense, young Antonius. Listen to her.”
Cordus left the engine room and climbed the ladder to the command deck. Dariya assumed he was going to torture Aquilina into giving up the codes. In some ways, he wished that’s all he had to do.
28
Cordus tightened the shoulder straps over Aquilina as she slept in the pilot’s couch. He had wrapped more straps across her body and the couch. She could escape with a little effort, but Cordus only needed to keep her still until his Muse aura took hold.
He made his preparations as if he were an empty-minded golem. He tried ignoring his protesting conscience. He had to empty himself of all emotion if he was to get the information he needed. He had begun to have feelings for Aquilina, and he wondered if she had felt something for him. It was most likely an act on her part, he decided. His feelings were real, though, and they were augmented with a grudging admiration for the skill in which she had fooled him and taken control of the ship. If they were playing a latrunculi match, she had rolled over him like a master would a novice.
“Marcus,” Cordus said aloud, “I will need your help to keep focused.”
Marcus Antonius appeared in the delta couch behind the command couch. He wore a look of greedy anticipation. “Whatever you need.”
The Muses whispered in Cordus’s mind. They swept away all emotions, replacing them with a singular focus—get the key codes from Aquilina. He had not let the Muses infiltrate his mind like this in so long that he almost instinctively tried to push them out.
Cordus leaned over Aquilina, brought up the delta controls on her tabulari, and turned off her couch’s delta sleep field. Her eyes blinked open, she looked up at him, and then tried to move. She glanced at the straps and then raised an amused eyebrow at him.
“You didn’t disappoint me,” she said.
“What are the key codes to the way line engines?”
“Right down to business, eh? What are you willing to—?”
Cordus leaned forward. “Give me the codes.”
She must have seen the lack of emotion on his face, for she hesitated and uncertainty replaced her amusement. “No.”
Make her trust me, Cordus told the Muses.
He felt the billions of Muse viruses in his body each release just a few molecules of aura. The molecules floated through Cordus’s blood and up to his lungs and skin, escaping through his breath and pores.
Aquilina’s eyes grew unfocused. She opened her mouth to speak and then shut it again. She blinked, then her lips curled in anger. “What are you doing?”
Make her love me, he told the Muses. They released more aura.
Aquilina drew in a sharp breath and stared at Cordus with soft eyes. The eyes of someone in love. Or what Cordus imagined it would be.
“Give me the codes,” he said again.
She gave him a languid smile and was about to speak, but then hesitated. She shook her head in two quick motions, and shut her eyes tightly. When she opened them again, rage burned there. “No,” she said through clenched teeth.
Make her worship me.
Her mouth fell open, and her eyes held adoration for him meant only for the gods. It was how he remembered supplicants staring at his father years ago. They worshiped him as a god. And he believed it.
Cordus struggled to ask her the question once again. Nausea over what he was doing fought the Muses, and it was hard for him to focus. “Give…me…the codes.”
Aquilina’s mouth opened and closed. She was fighting the aura, fighting it with all her will. A high-pitched moan issued from her open mouth, growing louder and louder until it became an anguished shriek.
Through her screams, she stared at Cordus with adoring eyes. In between the screams, she said, “Slave…or…soldier…?” She said it over and over again.
My father had slaves. Kaeso had soldiers.
Cordus’s conscience blasted through the walls he’d built and threw the Muses out of his mind. He fell back into the command couch, sweating and crying. He leaned forward and put his head in his hands.
I can’t do this. I’m sorry Kaeso, Ocella. I can’t do this…
“Oh, young Antonius,” Marcus said from the delta couch, “you were so close.”
Cordus jerked his head up. “I am not your puppet,” he said aloud. “I am not like my father, and you will know your place!”
Marcus held up his hands in surrender. “Of course. Poor choice of words.” He disappeared.
Cordus looked back at Aquilina. Her eyes were red and her cheeks flushed from the effort of fighting the Muse aura.
“What did you do to me?”
&
nbsp; Cordus held her gaze. “I’m sorry. I swore I’d never— But I need those codes. The lives of my friends are at stake. I’m not going to use the Muses again to force you to tell me the codes. But I need them.”
She leaned back in the couch, then closed her eyes. “What would you do with them, Consular Heir?”
Cordus tried not to wince. “I told you, I would rescue my friends. This is the only ship outside Umbra that can get within that vessel’s shield sphere—”
“Say you rescue your friends. What will you do then?”
Cordus gave an exasperated sigh. “I don’t know. Live my life. Will you give me the codes or not?”
She leaned forward as far as the straps on the couch would allow. “You think my mother is just another warlord with delusions of starting her own dynasty.”
“By your own admission, she let Libertus die!”
“She saved you! Do you really think you could have stopped that vessel? When the finest warships in the Liberti arsenal couldn’t scratch it? When not even their Umbra ships, which have the same quantum way line drives as this ship, were swatted from space like flies? If we had tried your plan, we’d all be dead now!”
Cordus wanted to shout back at her, but he knew she was right. He had always known his plan was risky at best, suicidal at worst. But he had wanted to do something, anything, to rescue Kaeso and Ocella. Even if that something had a low likelihood of success. They had risked everything for him more times than he could count.
All he would’ve done was kill the rest of his crew.
“Yes, she may use the same tactics as the other warlords,” Aquilina continued, “but she believes in the Republic. She believes it must survive or humanity will descend into a dark age.”
Cordus snorted. “A bit dramatic. Plenty of other worlds exist—”
“But almost all share a common culture with Roma. Almost all share the same religion, the same government, the same language. Even a large chunk of the Zhonguo worships the Roman Pantheon. Libertus and Roma were the same in virtually every way.”