by R. M. Meluch
“We may,” said the XO, provisionally. “Our drones aren’t there yet, but the generational ship’s trail looks to be leading to a K-type star forty light-years rimward. Long-range readings indicate the probability of hospitable planets is very low. But we don’t know what is hospitable to a cloke.”
“Forty light-years,” Calli echoed.
“That’s twelve hours all out,” said Commander Ryan, anticipating her next question. “A Xerxes has a higher distortion threshold than our Mack. If this is a race, we can’t win.”
“You’re assuming the Xerxes is running at threshold,” said Calli.
Threshold velocity was a big strain on a ship’s system. Threshold required constant acceleration to maintain.
“Don’t ever stop running until the race is over,” said Calli. “The pirates don’t know they’re being chased.”
Apparently Merrimack was about to chase.
“And we don’t know if they’re running that way,” said Commander Ryan. He turned to Glenn. “Lieutenant, are you sure?”
“No, sir,” said Glenn. I said I wasn’t. “Not at all.”
Commander Ryan challenged her, “Why would pirates hit a planet?”
“It might be convenient for Caesar if they did,” Calli answered for Glenn. “Rome always takes the war home.”
“There’s a war?” said Commander Ryan, missing something.
“Numa is going to plant eagles on Zoe,” said Calli. “He’s making sure no more rival claimants can come in the back door.”
“In that case, he could be drawing us off Zoe,” said Ryan. “Don’t we need to be here?”
“Colonel Steele!” Calli barked.
“Captain.”
“Take the Spit boats and half your Wing. Get outside and hold the fort till we get back. Mister Ryan, organize best course to the cloke home world. As soon as Steele’s unit is outboard, punch us to threshold.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
Merrimack launched Space Patrol Torpedo boats One and Two. Red and Blue Squadrons scrambled, launching off of the space battleship’s wings.
The two Spit boats received the Swifts at all their docks until both blocky ships looked like they were being eaten alive by space predators.
Captain Carmel then ordered, “Mister Ryan. Get us out of here.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” said Ryan.
Calli heard the reluctance in his acknowledgment. Said, “I can’t let Numa kill the planet.”
“I don’t think a Xerxes carries planet killers,” said Commander Ryan.
“The pirates will find a way,” said Calli. “One strategically placed antimatter blast will close your shop for a millennium.”
“You really don’t think it’s beneath Caesar to destroy a world?”
“Numa? No,” said Calli. “Not if he can pin it on pirates.”
“Sir, I just can’t see where you’re getting the pirate-Caesar connection.”
“Mister Ryan. The pirates have no reason whatsoever for being on Zoe. They have every reason not to be on Zoe. Yet here they were. On Zoe. And here is Caesar.”
Glenn hung back near the hatch of the command deck, hoping the captain was right. She didn’t want to believe the Xerxes was heading to the cloke world so Nox could slay dragons for her.
But that was exactly what she believed.
We be one blood thou and I, he’d said. The finish of that quote was: My kill shall be thy kill if ever thou art hungry.
It was silly to think everything was about her.
But Izzy Benet called me a stupid bitch in front of Nox, and he’s strewn across rooftops.
Calli paced the ship’s corridors late into ship’s night. Merrimack was moving faster than imagination, but the distances were vast. She felt as if she were rowing the battleship across an ocean. Her heart raced as if that could make the ship go faster.
Merrimack couldn’t move any faster than she was now.
Eight hours into the twelve, Captain Carmel let the Dingo drag her onto the racquetball court. Calli smashed the little green ball with particular ferocity.
“Unusually savage tonight, aren’t we, Captain?” said Dingo Ryan, serving.
Calli slammed the little green ball off the front wall. “I keep envisioning those bloody pirates setting off an antimatter blast in atmosphere right before my eyes.” Slam. “We’re going to get there a heartbeat too late.” Slam. “I can see it.” Slam.
“It won’t play out that way, Cap’n.” Dingo lunged to make a volley. “I promise you.”
Slam. “You promise?”
“Absolutely.” Missed the volley. The little ball made shallow thuds across the floor. Commander Ryan mopped his sleeve across his dripping brow. “If we’re late, I promise it will be by more than one heartbeat.”
Bagheera sublighted before a ruddy sun. Leo piloted the Xerxes toward the dull planet orbiting at one astronomical unit out from the star.
Announced, “We are here, frateri.”
The Ninth Circle gathered in the control room for the approach to the cloke home world, still deciding how best to kill it.
An ambassadorial transport ship was not rigged for mass destruction. Bagheera had enough armament to defend itself and to engage in some piracy. It wasn’t a ship of war.
During the voyage here, none of the brothers had figured out how to arm one of the Serpent’s Tooth missiles with an antimatter warhead without killing themselves.
They agreed they needed to locate a volatile target on the planet surface and break containment of one or twelve of those.
“Nukes would be good,” said Leo. “Nukes would be great. I hope they have nukes.”
“I’ve got missiles loaded into the rack,” said Orissus. “Find me some nukes. I’ll break them open.”
Nox took a seat at the console next to Leo, looking over the sensors. “You’re going to have to get us a lot closer if I’m supposed to pick out a nuclear facility on the ground,” Nox told him.
“Aye, aye, Captain Farragut,” said Leo.
“Shut up.”
Nox was not going to feel bad about this. He felt no empathy, no kinship with the clokes.
And he had promised Glenn a bigger mammoth.
On approach to the clokes’ home system, Merrimack pushed out the Swifts of Green and White Squadrons ahead of her.
Overheard their chatter.
“I can’t see it.”
They were on the lookout for the Xerxes.
“We can never see it, you boon.”
“It’s got to be ahead of us.”
“We could have passed it and not know it.”
“We could get there first.”
“We’ll know when we get there.”
“What’s the threshold of a Xerc?”
“That’s not public knowledge.”
“Faster than us.”
“We think.”
The Swifts stabbed into the solar system and homed in on the only planet in the temperate zone. They made a hard jump down from FTL.
Came the immediate report from Delta One: “Xerxes sighted!” Couldn’t believe it. “I got a reading! All ships open fire!”
Delta Two: “I have him!”
Delta Three: “I’m firing!”
Delta Four: “Firing.”
Echo Two: “Where!”
Echo Three: “I can’t get a tone!”
Echo Four: “Gone!”
Delta One: “Skat, he was just there! Merrimack! Target went FTL.”
Dingo Ryan leaned over the intership com. “Squadron, this is Merrimack . Target could still be in the area. Watch your Tac monitors. He will come in again for another run. Do not let him at the planet.”
The planet was coming into visual range on the daylight side of the world as Merrimack followed her Swifts in.
“Oh, no.”
Captain Carmel, monitoring the pilots’ com channel, heard the sinking notes in the voice. Sounded like Delta One.
“Oh, no.”
That was the s
ound of too late.
Merrimack’s monitors showed what the Swifts saw.
No misty blue glow shone around the world, no white reflections bounced off the clouds.
The world was dark.
Delta Five: “Is it supposed to look like this? Is this cloke home sweet home?”
Closer, they saw an endless dust storm of hurricane winds.
Echo Two: “Look what they did!”
“It’s dead!” Delta Five cried.
“Merrimack. Merrimack. Merrimack. We lost,” Delta One sent.
Captain Carmel picked up the caller. “Squadron Leader, what is your status?”
“Too late, sir,” Delta One responded. “The pirates did their work. Looks like we have a dead planet.”
Calli turned to her exec. “Is anyone alive down there?”
Tactical scanned all the continents. The com tech listened on the full range of cloke radio frequencies. But no one on world was clicking.
Commander Ryan pronounced, grim, “That’s nuclear winter.”
Scanners filtered out the turbid atmosphere to show visual images of the surface. It was apparent that there used to be industry on most of the planet. It was half buried now under sludge lakes. Had been that way for a long time.
“The pirates didn’t do this,” said Commander Ryan. “Someone beat them to it.”
That was why the planet had gone unnoticed by the early drone explorer vessels. It was uninhabitable. Drones didn’t stop at dead inhospitable worlds.
“It’s dead!” Delta Five cried over the com. “They trashed it! The clokes trashed their own planet!”
Echo One sent, “Actually I don’t think we can tell whether the clokes did this to themselves or it’s a natural disaster.”
Delta Five: “What’s the difference! It’s dead!”
Captain Carmel lifted her eyebrows, said nothing.
What was the difference?
Dingo Ryan said off com, “Makes a difference how sorry we feel for those that remain on Zoe.”
It appeared now that the vast dead cloke generational ship trudging through space had not been an explorer vessel or even a pilgrim ship.
It was an Ark.
And now it was as dead as its home world.
The only ground left to the clokes was Zoe.
“I’ll turn us around back to Zoe,” said Leo.
“Why?” said Nox.
“Why?” Nicanor asked back.
“Why,” Nox. “Why go back to Zoe?”
They had all assumed they would return. They forgot there was a choice.
Pallas considered. “What are you suggesting? We go on our merry pirate way?”
“Gladiator is back at Zoe,” Nicanor said, like a reason to go back to Zoe.
“Gladiator is back at Zoe,” said Nox, like a reason not to.
“We don’t have any orders,” said Faunus, following Nox’s lead. “We could keep running. We wouldn’t technically be defying Caesar.”
“You want to run?” said Nicanor.
“We’re not Roman,” said Orissus. “Numa never said we were Roman. He said we were pirate garbage. Right, Nox? Why would we go back to him?”
“That was my question,” said Nox. “We need not walk into Shere Khan’s mouth.”
“So we have heard from Mowgli,” said Nicanor. “Who else?”
Leo was considering the logistics. “If we don’t resonate, Caesar can’t find us.”
The Xerc’s prox alarm sounded.
Leo convulsed at his station. “How in hell—!”
“Caesar found us,” Nox guessed.
“Oh, of all things buggered!” Faunus roared. “How does he do that?” Starting to think Numa had supernatural powers.
“That’s how.” Leo pointed to the monitor that interpreted the sensor readings into a visual image.
It wasn’t Gladiator.
The ship closing on the Xerxes was a Roman Striker. It was black and bronze. Antonian colors.
“A Striker is a patterner’s ship,” said Leo.
“There are no patterners,” said Nicanor. “We stopped making those.” We. He meant Rome. Nicanor still thought of himself as Roman.
“Apparently Rome made one more,” said Nox.
An Antonian one.
“Hook!” Leo cried.
“We don’t have a hook,” said Nox.
“I mean him!” Leo cried. “The Striker has a hook on us!”
It was a partial hook. A full hook would have cooked both ships.
The tiny Striker had latched onto the larger Xerxes and was reeling itself in.
“Kick him off!”
“I don’t know how!”
“Maybe the ship knows how,” said Nox. Yelled at the overhead, “Bagheera! Defend!”
Heard and felt a physical clunk of ships touching. The system monitor on Leo’s console lit up the indicator for the lower starboard dock.
“He’s here. He’s making hard dock.”
Sounds carried through the deck of the Striker’s hatches opening. The patterner was trying to board.
Bagheera’s hatches would hold against the intruder.
All the brothers saw the green light on Leo’s monitor.
“Outer hatch opened!” Leo bolted straight up from his seat at the control console.
The seven of them barreled down to the lower level. Bagheera must fry the intruder in the air lock. He must.
But already the brothers heard a voice from the far side of the hatch—the voice sounded like one of them—demanding the Xerxes to recognize him in the name of the Empire. The patterner did not give his name.
Without introduction, the voice of the traitor leopard Bagheera intoned: “Welcome.”
The brothers fanned out, crouching in the compartment adjoining the dock, daggers drawn and ready.
Measured footsteps passed through the air lock.
Leo stole a quick peek through the hatch, then drew back horrified, his bronze face gone ashy. “No. Oh, no.”
“What!”
“Screw everything!” Leo cried in a whisper.
The footfalls advanced toward the inner hatch. Leo shrank in terror, yelling, “Shut it! Shut it! Shut it!”
“What the hell is it!” Orissus snarled.
Nicanor leaned to see through the hatchway. His face slackened. “It’s Schroedinger’s bleeding bloody cat!”
The patterner stepped through the hatchway onto the inner deck.
It was Cinna.
PART THREE
Full Circle
34
CINNA. IN THE FLESH.
He was younger now. Looked seventeen and beautiful. His eyes had black irises and a bottomless stare. Dark loose curls wreathed his young face.
The brothers had all been good-looking until they’d scarred themselves and made themselves terrible, but even among good-looking clones, this man was an Adonis—except for the inhuman cables protruding from his forearms and behind his neck.
He might have been any clone of theirs, as they were all clones of a single Antonian man. Still, there was no doubt. Not even for an instant. Each and all knew, immediately knew, against every impossibility, that this was Cinna.
Even though this was not possible.
“It takes decades to make a patterner,” Leo blurted.
“That may have been true decades ago,” said the handsome Cinna-thing. He had a smooth deep voice.
“Technology marches on,” Galeo murmured faintly.
None of the brothers could understand where Cinna’s new body came from. They really didn’t want to know.
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men hadn’t had Caesar Nu-ma’s resources.
Cinna asked his brothers, all of them, any of them, “Did you really run?”
They had dropped him and left him for dead at the bottom of Widow’s Edge. Last thing any of them ever thought was that Cinna would come back to haunt them.
Did you really run?
They all hesitated in choking silence
.
Nox answered, “We could have medaled.”
Pallas told Cinna, “We are working for Caesar.” As if that would save them.
Cinna appeared to consider this. Said finally, “Then only one of you will die.”
The brothers exchanged glances in hollow shock and disbelief.
Pallas, who did believe, asked as calmly as he could, “Why does anyone need to die?”
“All for one,” said Cinna. “One for all.”
Nox stepped forward. He looked Cinna dead in the opaque eyes. “Then I will be the one.”
“No!” said Leo and Galeo at once, as Faunus cried, “Nox! No!”
“You can’t,” said Pallas.
Nicanor shouted, angry, “No! Not you! Not any of us!”
“You murderous cur!” Orissus bellowed at Cinna.
As Cinna looked from one shouting man to another, Nox shoved his dagger up Cinna’s diaphragm into his heart.
The patterner folded to the deck.
There should have been more blood.
Nox withdrew his dagger, wiped off his blade and his hand on his own tunic, furious. “Oh, for cryin’ tears. Did anyone not see that coming?”
The brothers shook their heads. The pattern had been plain a long way off.
“They don’t make patterners like they used to,” Leo said.
The patterners of yore had been nearly unstoppable. Unless they wanted to be stopped.
“Numa’s not going to like us killing his patterner,” said Galeo.
“Then Numa should have told us!” Pallas shouted. “You okay, Nox?”
Nox looked like he might pass out. His face was waxy, as if he himself were bleeding. His arm felt sticky up to his elbow. “Doesn’t feel any better than it did the first time round. Dammit, Cinna!” he cried at the body.
I killed my brother. I killed him twice!
Merrimack caught up with her Swifts around the dead cloke home world. She brought the squardron inboard.
The orange sun was catalog number PB (for Perseus Benthus) 41X1900X12. The planet didn’t have a name. But everyone on Merrimack called it cloke world.
Cloke world shrieked. Stones and sands scoured exposed bedrock. Muddy skies roiled in constant violence of thunder and lightning and lashing winds.