Muses of Terra (Codex Antonius Book 2)

by Rob Steiner

  Cordus nodded once and then followed.

  45

  Aquilina watched the lower monitor, seeing and hearing everything Cordus experienced. She marveled at how easily he had taken the Muse-based energy of the golems and then used that power to “fly” up to the alien vessel via the Muse com bands. Her own experiences with the implant com were much more mundane: just a recording of her mother standing in a drab room speaking her message. Cordus’s experiences were dreamlike and real-time, limited only by his imagination. He sped past the incoming drones and then blasted through the alien vessel’s shield. When he fell into the strange field, she began to hope. If he could penetrate the alien shields, he could defeat them.

  “Good lad,” Ulpius breathed.

  Aquilina was about to agree, but her hope turned to dread when she saw Marcia Licinius Ocella.

  “Who’s that?” Gracchus asked, his blue eyes studying the monitor.

  Aquilina sighed. “His mother.”

  “Mother? I thought she died.”

  “That is the Umbra Ancile who helped him escape Terra six years ago and who basically raised him ever since.”

  Ulpius grunted. “Well what the cac is she doing there?”

  “Distracting him,” Aquilina said.

  The Muses were not stupid. If they had Kaeso Aemilius, they likely knew everything there was to know about Cordus. Especially his emotional buttons. They would use every weapon they had. Aquilina prayed Cordus could resist.

  A tapping came from the door. Aquilina opened it to find Tarquitius standing there. She had to force herself not to put a pulse round in the man’s brain right then and there. He had helped murder her mother. His life was hers.

  But not now. Cordus needs me, and Cordus needs him. For now.

  “What?” Aquilina asked.

  If Tarquitius noticed the acid dripping from Aquilina’s voice, he ignored it. “We have incoming drones. They’re spreading across the planet. The Legion Aeris corps is engaging them, but there are too many. Some will be here in minutes. My men are protecting the implant com dish on the roof, but if something happens to the dish, only someone with an implant can access the systems to repair it.”

  “There are dozens of Praetorians with implants,” Aquilina growled. “Use one of them.”

  Tarquitius frowned impatiently. “They’re spread throughout the city looking for you. They won’t get here in time.”

  Aquilina glanced at Cordus sitting in the com chair. His eyes were closed and he looked as if he was in a peaceful sleep. She had given him her word that she would protect him while he fought the vessel. It was a matter of honor. He was her Consul, but also more. She couldn’t articulate what that “more” was. He was a good man and a good leader. Even after spending such a short time with Cordus, she could not imagine her life without him. And she knew very well he had feelings for her.

  But if the implant com signal was lost…

  “Gracchus, with me. Ulpius, guard Cordus.”

  Both Praetorians nodded. Gracchus unslung his pulse rifle and followed Aquilina out the door. Without a word, Tarquitius led them down the corridor through squads of black-armored Praetorians and Temple Custudii and to the stairwell that went up to the roof. They climbed two flights of stairs and then exited through a steel door onto the temple roof.

  A cold wind blasted Aquilina. The lights of Roma twinkled in the pre-dawn, spanning the horizon in every direction. It reminded her of the view from her tower apartment in the Suburba, though not as spectacular since no building could rise higher than the temple. She loved that apartment, despite her mother insisting she move to the Consular Palace with—

  A cold lump rose in Aquilina’s throat, and she eyed Tarquitius’s back as he strode toward the Muse com dish in the center of the temple’s roof. Her right hand rested on her holstered pulse pistol.

  I may not get a better chance…

  She took a deep breath and dropped her hand to her side.

  She spied squads of Praetorians and Custudii stationed across the roof. Mass driver cannons, their barrels pointed skyward, stood ready to rotate in any direction to combat the coming drones. The faint howl of sirens rose up from the city, warning citizens and slaves to take shelter. The crack of pulse fire occasionally echoed from all directions in the city, and Aquilina wondered if it came from looters or the rampaging golems Cordus feared he would unleash. Either way, they were not her concern.

  The Muse com dish was small and nondescript compared to all the other com dishes spread across the roof. Four Praetorians guarded it, and Aquilina recognized Tarquitius’s centurion as one of them.

  “You can take cover with me in the bunker over there,” Tarquitius said, pointing to a flat opening in the roof with stairs leading down to another door. “We’ll only need you if something happens to the dish.”

  The last thing Aquilina wanted was to be in a confined space with Tarquitius. She wasn’t sure she could stop her impulse to kill him. She was about to say she’d rather stay on the roof when the mass driver cannons erupted with fire. The sound wasn’t as bad as the concussive force from each blast. The blasts increased the pressure on her ears and affected her balance.

  “Incoming drones!” somebody shouted. All the Praetorians and Custudii took cover behind sandbagged fortifications while Tarquitius raced toward the bunker stairs.

  In between the cannon blasts, Gracchus yelled, “My lady, we must take cover!”

  Aquilina gritted her teeth and ran after Tarquitius, with Gracchus behind her. They charged down the stairs as explosions echoed around the temple and Consular Palace grounds. She glanced up at the sky to see blue streaks of light forking down around them. She had no more time to watch before Gracchus pushed her inside. He slammed the door shut just as a nearby explosion shook the entire temple. Dust and bits of stone fell on her head, and she had to blink the debris out of her eyes.

  She had never been in the temple’s roof-top command bunker, mostly because this was Custudii territory. It was a long room, but not very wide. One whole side was covered by tabulari and holo-monitors, each showing different areas of the temple complex. Six Custudii dressed in the same black armor as the Praetorians, but with Capitoline Triad sigils on their shoulders, sat at the tabulari communicating with cohorts stationed throughout the Temple complex. Aquilina noticed two Praetorian women sitting at tabulari near the far end of the room, also talking into their headsets.

  “Status,” Tarquitius called out.

  A Custudae tribune quickly approached Tarquitius, just as another explosion shook the room. The young man flinched.

  “No sign of the toxin they released on Libertus,” the tribune said. “Drones are attacking Legion bases across the planet, but not in significant force. Probably diversionary strikes to keep them busy. The main focus of their attack appears to be Roma.”

  “They don’t want to kill the whole planet,” Tarquitius said. “That’s something. What of Arrius?”

  Aquilina flinched at the Senator’s name, but she thought she hid it well.

  “His Naves Astrum is engaging the vessel, but cannot breach its shield. The vessel seems to be ignoring them. Arrius is destroying the drones as they come out of the vessel, but there are just too many for him to get them all.”

  The mass driver cannons on the roof continued their thumping blasts, making the floor and holo-monitors shake. A massive explosion on the roof made Aquilina stumble. Everyone reached for the wall or a tabulari to steady themselves. They glanced at each other with fearful eyes.

  “Direct hit on cannons five and nine!” shouted a Custudae at a tabulari. “All cannons now taking drone fire!”

  Gracchus leaned toward Aquilina. “They won’t last much longer out there.”

  “They need to protect the com dish,” she muttered back. “Cordus can’t get back without it.”

  “Could we just move the dish inside?” Gracchus asked.

  Aquilina closed her eyes and accessed her implant for technical data on the dish. I
nformation flew past her closed lids in streaks of letters, numbers, and diagrams. It took her implant seconds to search through the Muse com dish specifications. The com dish was on the roof so as to minimize any interference, but she could not find any spec saying the dish had to be on the roof. It was possible that bringing it inside would interfere with the signal, but leaving it outside at this point would surely destroy it.

  She turned to Gracchus. “Fine idea, Praetorian. Want to help me get it?”

  “Not really.” But he unslung his pulse rifle and ensured it was set to fire.

  Aquilina turned to Tarquitius. “We’re going to move the com dish.”

  Tarquitius frowned. “It’s raining drone fire out there, girl. You sure?”

  “Yes, old man, I’m sure. If we don’t protect that dish, Cordus can’t defeat the vessel.”

  Without another word, Aquilina unslung her own rifle and followed Gracchus up the stairs to the horizontal door that protected the bunker. Gracchus heaved it open. They were greeted by a cacophony of mass driver blasts, sizzling drone fire, explosions, and the screams of men. They leaped out of the bunker, and then Gracchus slammed the door shut while Aquilina raced toward the com dish. The scents of ozone and smoke made her cough. Black shapes streaked above the Temple, then blue lightning blasted holes in the roof, cannons, and men around her. More black shapes slowed down and descended, though Aquilina could not tell if they were landing on the roof or the temple grounds. Roma’s main power utilities appeared to be knocked out, for most of the city was now dark, with pockets of lights here and there. The temple compound was also dark on the outside to theoretically make it more difficult for the drones to attack. It did not seem to impede them at all, though.

  They could turn Roma into glass if they wanted to, but they’re not. They want Cordus alive. That will give us time.

  The dish was still intact, but the Praetorians who’d been guarding it were behind their sandbag bunkers. Their black-helmed heads peeked up above the bags as they watched her and Gracchus run towards them. She stopped before the com dish and knelt down to study it.

  “I need more light,” she screamed to Gracchus. He nodded, then ran over to the Praetorians and shouted something.

  As Gracchus retrieved a torch, she closed her eyes and tried concentrating on the specs for the dish. The terrible noise and shaking roof made it difficult. She had to spend several valuable seconds researching her implant’s data to find the diagrams on the dish. She located the records she needed and held them in reserve until Gracchus returned.

  He ran back to her, keeping his head low amidst the explosions. He fell to his knees beside her, activated the torch, and pointed it at the dish.

  “Look for a thumb pad on the base,” she yelled. Gracchus moved the torch around the base and located the pad.

  The small thumb pad was well hidden—it matched the matte gray exterior of the dish’s base—with only a black, oval outline to indicate its presence. Aquilina placed her thumb on it and then focused her implant to unlock it. A slot on the bottom of the base opened to reveal a flat tabulari with no interface, just a monitor the size of her hand. Tarquitius was right about the dish being inaccessible to anyone without an implant; the only way to interface with the dish was with implant communication. She needed to unlock the dish from its perch here without severing the com connection.

  She was about to focus her implant toward the dish’s interface when the sudden lack of noise startled her. The lightning had stopped, and the dark drones no longer swarmed above the temple.

  She looked at Gracchus. His eyes widened as he stared over her shoulder. He whipped his pulse rifle around and fired several pellets over her head. Aquilina ducked away from the rifle, and then looked behind her.

  A wave of spider-like creatures was racing toward them.

  The Praetorian cohort outside Vacuna’s shield began to withdraw from the landing pad and then ran up the garden path toward the palace’s exit.

  “Where are they going?” Dariya muttered, staring at the external displays.

  Daryush grunted and motioned to one of his displays on the command tabulari. It showed a view from the west, toward the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus. Dariya could see the roof through the shield’s blue haze. Cannons fired at black shapes in the sky, which returned fire with blue forks of lightning. Orange explosions bloomed across the roof, and fires spread.

  “They have bigger troubles than us now,” she said. She strapped herself into the pilot’s couch and then began the engine startup routines.

  She could feel Daryush’s accusing eyes. Without looking at him, Dariya said in Persian, “Cordus told us to leave if things went sour, and that’s what we’re going to do.”

  Daryush continued staring at her. She finally met his eyes and snapped, “I don’t like it either, but we have to take care of ourselves. Just like we’ve always done, right?”

  Daryush frowned, then turned away to stare at the command tabulari.

  “‘Ush,” she said with a softer voice, “the Romans killed our mother. They took your tongue. I will give my spirit to Angra Mainyu before I sacrifice anything more for them.”

  Daryush brought up a blank slate on the tabulari and then tapped out a message in Latin: Cordus and Blaesus are not “the Romans”. They’re family.

  Dariya sighed, then turned off the shield and engaged the ion engines. The ship hurtled into the sky above the palace.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, her grip tight on the ship’s controls. “We can’t help Cordus and Blaesus.”

  As she set a heading for space, she prayed to Ahura Mazda that the alien drones would ignore them. And that she had the luxury of her brother’s honor.

  46

  The massive temple was farther than Cordus expected. He wanted to start jogging across the seemingly endless grasslands toward it, but Ocella strolled along at a leisurely pace and he didn’t want to leave her behind.

  “Can we hurry?” he asked.

  She smiled at him. “Time does not flow here like it does in the mundane world. Your friends down in Roma do not experience things in the com room the same way you do here.”

  Fear bit at Cordus. How did she know about the com room? What else did she know?

  “Are you Ocella?”

  “Yes,” she said. “But not the one you knew.”

  Cordus swallowed. “Is she…alive?”

  “As you define it? No.”

  Cordus’s legs weakened and he gasped for air. Nausea swept through his gut, and he put his hands on his knees. He stared at the grass and soil at his feet. Oh gods, my mother is dead. They killed my mother. Kaeso, too?

  “Dear boy,” the Ocella golem said, walking back to him, “do not grieve for her. All that she was is now in me. All her memories, emotions, and dreams for the future. I have them all. Including her love for you.”

  Cordus looked up at this thing pretending to be the woman he loved as a mother for six years. She seemed so young, her light brown skin smooth around her eyes and mouth, her black hair missing Ocella’s silver strands. But she gave him the same patient look Ocella had given him the last time he saw her. Just before she and Lucia left to scout the Menota system.

  It may have looked like her and had her memories, but it was not his Ocella.

  “I want to see your masters now,” Cordus growled. He stood tall again, stamping down the nausea. “Enough delay.”

  The young Ocella regarded him with kind eyes and then nodded, “As you wish.”

  They were suddenly inside the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus. Cordus recognized the main altar chamber where hundreds of Romans gathered for mass rituals. But instead of an altar, there were three thrones. Upon those thrones sat the gods Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva. Each one was at least twelve feet tall. They looked just as impressive as they did in all the statuary and art throughout the Republic and every other world where the Pantheon was worshiped.

  To Cordus’s left, Ocella knelt prostrate on the floor before the
three gods.

  Jupiter put one fist on his knee and leaned forward, his blue eyes glittering with lightning. “You are the first being to meet us here without purification. That interests us.”

  “Is that what you mean by ‘purification’?” Cordus said, nodding to Ocella.

  Jupiter raised an eyebrow, as if Cordus had just asked if space was cold.

  Marcus Antonius appeared to Cordus’s right, a grin on his bearded face. Though Marcus looked confident, the Muses in Cordus’s mind whispered fearfully.

  “Impressive,” Marcus said. He walked perpendicular to the thrones with his hands clasped behind his back, as if inspecting a cohort line on the battlefield. “Perhaps if we had appeared to the boy like this he would’ve shown us more respect.”

  Juno stared at Cordus, her contempt for Marcus dripping from her voice. “We do not hear the words of a strain that bows to mortals.”

  “‘Mortals’,” Marcus said and then laughed. “It took us years to understand their culture so thoroughly as to manipulate them like this. You’ve done it in a matter of weeks. Congratulations!”

  The three gods stared at Cordus, ignoring Marcus.

  “What did you do to Ocella and Kaeso?” Cordus asked in a low growl.

  The owl on Minerva’s shoulder fluttered its wings. Minerva said in a serene voice, “They are part of us now. As you will be soon.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means,” Jupiter thundered, “that your mundane body will be brought to our vessel and examined.”

  Juno said, “Your coming here has helped us. We now know the source of the signal that projects your mind. We will retrieve your body presently.”

  Marcus continued to pace before the three gods, but spoke to Cordus. “You’re a unique individual in our history, young Antonius. No species, in all the millions of years we’ve roamed the universe, has ever controlled us. Some were immune or incompatible, but none have ruled us like you. They want to dissect you like a flamen inspecting goat entrails.”