Muses of Roma (Codex Antonius Book 1)

by Rob Steiner

  “Navigator,” Kaeso called through his com, “what's your status?”

  After an agonizing pause, Galeo said, “Five minutes.” He sounded calmer, without the arrogance to which Kaeso had grown accustomed.

  “We don't have five minutes.”

  “It would’ve been ten without the help of your Persian. Five minutes.”

  A flash of light came from the window above Kaeso, and he looked down at his console. Three of the freighters had turned into a plasma cloud. The explosions were close this time, and the external temperature around Caduceus rocketed to barely tolerable levels.

  “Nestor, how’s Flamma?” Kaeso called on his com.

  “Alive, but his back is broken.”

  Kaeso felt the air leave his lungs. When he could breathe again, he said, “Can you get him to a couch? We need delta sleep in five minutes.”

  “Doing that now.”

  “The liner and freighter are gone,” Lucia announced.

  His console had blips for just Caduceus and two Eagles in the immediate sector. One of the Eagles veered off and headed back to Libertus, but the other one continued after Caduceus.

  “They have laser lock,” Lucia said.

  “Navigator!”

  “Engines online, Centuriae. Waiting for delta sleep control.”

  “Missiles launched!” Lucia yelled. “Twenty seconds till impact!”

  Nestor climb up the ladder behind Kaeso and hurried to the delta couch. “Delta generators online, acknowledge way line engine control. Delta sleep control routed to command.”

  Without acknowledging command control, Kaeso moved the slider on his console to engage delta sleep for the crew. Lucia slumped in her couch, her eyes closed. He cast a brief glance at the incoming missile blips on his console. If the new engines didn't work, at least he would wake up in Elysium.

  He engaged the delta sleep.

  23

  Ocella and Cordus arrived at the Mars Trading Fields on foot. Ocella did not want to chance a taxi ride after the murder she committed at the Temple of Empanda. Taxis had lockdown mechanisms if a suspected criminal entered them. Ironically, a drunken ex-soldier’s murder would draw greater public attention than the Consular Heir’s kidnapping. The Praetorians had kept quiet their search for the Consular Heir. But a murder would put her on every street lictor’s watch list.

  Not that walking all the way to the Mars Trading Fields made Ocella feel safer. Ocella made sure she and Cordus kept their hoods up at all times, and that they took back alleys whenever possible. She got so good at avoiding human contact that she sometimes felt as if she and Cordus were the only two people in the city.

  They arrived at the Fields before dusk, so Ocella decided to stay in an alley across the street from the gates until nightfall. When she told Cordus this, he sat down, his eyes lowered. Cordus had not spoken since they fled the Temple of Empanda, and he avoided eye contact with her as they waited for sunset behind a large trash bin in the dank alley. It had been eight hours since they'd left the Temple, and they had not risked stopping at another temple for food. She had only eaten half her meal before the soldier appeared, so she was hungry. Her mouth watered as she eyed the moldy tavern leftovers in the trash bin next to them.

  Ocella tried to make conversation with the boy, but he ignored her, and then finally closed his eyes. She did not disturb him. She knew he must be exhausted since he had not slept more than an hour here and there since they left Scaurus's house. She struggled to keep her eyes open, for she had not slept at all in the last two days. When they moved, she was weary but alert. Now that they stopped, the damp stone alley was like a feather mattress. When she nodded off, she jerked herself awake, then stood and paced the alley until nightfall. Cordus opened his eyes when she stood, but shut them again.

  Ocella kept her mind occupied by studying and memorizing every person that went through the Fields’ column gates, every ground car that parked outside the gates, every taxi. She didn’t notice any person or car that lingered, but that meant nothing. The Praetorians would switch out teams to not only avoid suspicion, but to keep their teams well rested. That was not a luxury Ocella had, and she worried her fatigue would doom her and Cordus.

  If everything had gone according to plan, the Consular Heir’s extraction should have taken two days to complete, from the moment they escaped the Consular Palace to the moment he left Terran soil.

  It had now been three weeks. Everything had gone wrong. The transport they booked had broken down. Their contacts backed out at the last second. Scaurus’s death.

  Umbra was better than the Praetorians, but the Praetorians were good. She used every skill she’d been taught in her evasion training. She thought she had done rather well up until the Temple of Empanda. The murder had complicated things, forcing her to avoid all taxis and most public places where she knew security cameras monitored the crowds.

  The murder. She couldn't erase the man's surprised look from her mind, his wide eyes, the betrayal. The blood still staining her shirt.

  She shook her head, blinking away the tears. She turned and watched the boy sleep. His mouth hung open, his breathing steady, eyes moving beneath their lids. She wondered if the Muses, or gods, or whatever the Roman elite called the virus, kept him from having bad dreams. No child should have to endure the things he had endured the last three weeks. Even if they did escape, what kind of life would he have? He was humanity's best hope for freedom, and he was only twelve years old. Most adults would crumble beneath that responsibility. He was a good kid, with a good heart. He did not deserve this.

  It took another hour before darkness covered the sky and the street lamps flickered on. Though the street in front of the Mars Fields was as well lit, the shadows were stronger and would better conceal their faces within their hoods.

  The round clock on the bas-reliefs above the column gates across the street said it was near the twenty-second hour. She put a hand on Cordus's shoulder. His eyes flickered open, and he shut his open mouth.

  “It's time,” she said.

  He blinked away the sleep, then nodded. He stood, stretched, and then pulled his hood over his head without Ocella reminding him. Ocella scanned the street one last time for anything suspicious, then they both left the alley and crossed to the Trading Fields.

  Once inside, Cordus’s mouth fell open at the exotic sights, smells, and sounds. Ocella had to drag him along when he slowed to stare at some alien animal in a cage, or pornographic holos that would make a Legionnaire blush. They finally reached the foreign quarter and descended the rock stairs down the hill toward the vendors at the river's edge. The same old man from Atlantium Auster was at the xocolatl stall, packing his wares for the night when she approached. He looked up at her without even glancing at the boy.

  “How can I serve you, my lady? Looking for something your taste buds have never experienced? I have just the thing right here.”

  The old man rubbed his right finger under his nose, then reached for a tea canister labeled as being grown on Atlantium's southern continent. He handed her the canister and then pulled off the lid.

  “Take in the scent of this fine tea, my lady. Just the thing to wake you up after a night of revelry. That kaffa the Ethiopians drink is no match for this brew's stimulative properties.”

  Ocella leaned forward and sniffed at the tea leaves in the canister. “Not bad. Do you have anything else? Perhaps xocolatl?”

  The merchant frowned, then ran his left index finger under his nose. “Unfortunately not, my lady. I sold the last canister this morning. A popular item, and growing more popular by the day. I do have tea that combines the essence of xocolatl with a hint of cinnamon. No merchant in the city does it better. Would you be interested?”

  Ocella shook her head, her chest tightening and her stomach turning to ice. “No thank you.”

  She gave the merchant one last glance and then guided Cordus toward the stairs up to the main Trading Fields. The boy frowned, but did not say anything until they
were at the top of the stairs.

  “What happened?” he asked. “I thought we were going with him?”

  “He's compromised. He can't help us.”

  The boy's mouth fell open. “Compromised? You mean the Prae—”

  “Shh!” Ocella said. A lictor strolled down the walkway toward them fifty feet ahead. When he stopped to chat with a vendor, she pulled the boy toward a different aisle.

  “Yes, the Praetorians,” Ocella said. “He can't help us anymore.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Hand signals,” she said. She had assumed the contact was another Saturnist, but the contact had used clear Umbra hand signals. The right finger under the nose meant they were being watched. The left finger under the nose meant she was being tracked. So her greatest fear was true. The Praetorians allowed her to wander free so they could see where she went for help.

  Cordus walked along with her for a while and then asked, “What do we do now?”

  “I have an idea.”

  She said no more.

  Somehow the Praetorians had attached a tracking device to either her or Cordus. Since they had not arrested her, she assumed they had time. The Praetorians wanted her free so they could wrap up the remnants of the Umbra and Saturnist networks in Roma. To complete the work she started with her initial betrayal. Her only choice now was to go to the one person left in Roma who might help her remove that tracker and get them off Terra.

  Unfortunately her life was in just as much danger with that one person as with the Praetorians.

  Lepidus and Appius stepped down from the Atlantium merchant's small cargo ship once the woman and the boy had disappeared up the rock stairs. The merchant stood near his table of teas, his back to Lepidus, watching the hill where the two fugitives had disappeared.

  “I did my part,” the merchant said without turning. “Now I want assurances that my family will live.”

  “I swore an oath they would live, and so they shall,” Lepidus said. “The Picus Reach has numerous worlds filled with valuable metals and way line fuel. They always have a need for slaves to work the asteroid belts. I hear conditions have improved over the last twenty years. Your wife and two sons should live at least another ten years. Fifteen if they have the strong will and stamina for which your Atlantium tribes are famous.”

  The merchant's head dropped slowly as Lepidus spoke.

  When Lepidus finished, the merchant said quietly, “My only regret is that I will leave them alone in this world.”

  The merchant turned around, his chin up, eyes steady. His arms dangled at his side, inviting the killing strike. Lepidus walked to within a few paces. In one fluid motion, he thrust his long knife up beneath the man’s sternum. He pulled the knife free, and a gout of blood flowed from the wound. The merchant grunted, then crumpled to the ground. Blood continued to pump from his wound as his open eyes glazed.

  Appius stooped and checked the merchant's pulse. He looked up at Lepidus, confused. “Could we not have obtained more information from him?”

  Lepidus wiped his knife on a silk fabric ream. “He wouldn’t tell us anything. He knew his family's fate regardless of what he did for us. Along with his own fate.”

  “Then why did he help us at all?”

  Lepidus regarded the dead merchant. “He was willing to die, but he would not sacrifice his family. A life of slavery for some is better than no life at all.”

  Appius nodded, then stepped back from the pooling blood. “Why not just shoot him with a pulse pistol? It's cleaner.”

  Lepidus stared at his apprentice. “If you have to kill an honorable man, show him respect by using your own hands.”

  Lepidus sheathed his knife and strode from the merchant's stall. “Call the lictors and tell them there's a body here. We need to see which traitor Marcia Licinius Ocella reveals to us next.”

  24

  Flamma Africanus was the first person to die under Kaeso’s command.

  Kaeso stared at the young Egyptian. He appeared to sleep peacefully in his bunk, with his eyes closed, his face relaxed. There was no sign his neck and back were broken in six places. Kaeso was no stranger to death. He was an Umbra assassin, after all. But this was the first time someone he was responsible for keeping alive had died.

  Blaesus stood beside Flamma, staring at him with puffy red eyes.

  “Brave, stupid boy,” Blaesus said over and over.

  Blaesus told Kaeso a way line plasma storage shelf had broken loose in Cargo Two when Lucia evaded the panicked ships around the Liberti way station. The shelf had broken through the Cargo Two window where Blaesus would have been standing if Flamma had not pushed Blaesus to safety. The shelf’s seven hundred pounds slammed into Flamma's back, throwing him into the bulkhead the same moment Lucia did another maneuver that launched him to the other side of the corridor.

  Kaeso put a hand on Blaesus’s shoulder, squeezed, then left Flamma’s quarters. He entered the corridor, then leaned his back against the wall and rubbed his eyes. First Dariya and now Flamma. Seems I’m better at killing than commanding.

  “Centuriae,” Galeo said from down the hall.

  Kaeso straightened as Galeo came down the deck ladder. He still looked pale and his eyes darted as if he were a mouse wary of a hawk.

  Galeo paused. “I’m sorry about your crewman.”

  Kaeso nodded.

  “Are you all right?”

  “I could ask the same of you,” Kaeso said. When Galeo didn’t respond, Kaeso asked, “Do you know where we are?”

  Galeo looked away. “No. We’re in a corner of space no human has ever been, so there are no navigation charts on record. It's slow work.”

  “Then the work needs to speed up,” Kaeso said. “I won’t lose Dariya as well.”

  “I'm aware of the emergency.”

  “What can I do?”

  “Do you have a Valkyrie 11 navigational tabulari in your cargo bays?”

  “Sadly, no.”

  “Then there's nothing you can do.”

  “So much for the ultimate Umbra engines,” Kaeso said.

  “The engines would have worked fine if a four inch chunk of the Liberti way station hadn’t lodged itself in your navigation dish. We’ll need to do an EVA to remove it and repair the dish. First, we need to do some things inside. If you come down to the engine room, I’ll show you.”

  Kaeso watched Galeo as they descended the ladder to the engine room. Galeo was not his confident self, but neither was he in shock like during their escape from Libertus. Kaeso had not asked Galeo about that for fear his implant might punish such questions. But if he was to trust Galeo with the repairs to his ship, he had to know if Galeo was mentally present.

  Daryush was staring at a console when they entered the engine room, and looked up when they arrived.

  “Daryush,” Kaeso said. “Blaesus could use some company.”

  The big Persian nodded, then walked past them into the corridor. Once Daryush ascended the ladder, Kaeso turned to Galeo.

  “What happened to you during the attack?” He let an involuntary sigh when no pain came from his implant.

  Galeo stared absently at his console. “I'm surprised it took you this long to ask me.”

  “I’ve been busy. I’m asking now.”

  Galeo was quiet, but Kaeso waited, the question hanging between them.

  “Same thing that happened to your collar coms,” Galeo said finally. “I lost communication with other Vessels.”

  “I didn't think that was possible. Vessels don't communicate through implants. Their Muses talk to each other.”

  Kaeso never understood the physics behind Muse communication because it was never taught to him. It was an Umbra secret that only Vessels knew. What Kaeso did know was that a Vessel anywhere in the universe could communicate instantly with any other Vessel in the universe. It was a com method bordering on the mystical, the thought of which made Kaeso uncomfortable. The Muses were a sentient, alien virus. They were not gods, though he coul
d understand how some could think so. They had a collective wisdom and intelligence going back millions of years, and they could overturn all known laws of physics with each new technology they revealed to the Vessels.

  “So now the Romans can block Muse communication?” Kaeso said. “If they can do that…”

  “Libertus won’t survive.” Galeo gave him a weak smile. “Now you know why I was so shocked at the time.”

  “Can you communicate now?”

  “Only with Vessels outside the Libertus system. But Libertus is a black hole to me.”

  With Caduceus in a corner of the universe humans had never seen, their only connection to Libertus was now cut off. Had Libertus fended off the Roman attack? Had general war broken out with the other Lost Worlds? There was no way to know if Umbra ships had taken on the invading Romans, or if they had suffered the same com failure as Galeo. If Umbra ships were neutralized, then Libertus was defenseless. Libertus and the Lost Worlds had a defense pact, but the pact envisioned Libertus defending other Lost Worlds. If Libertus was under siege, Kaeso doubted the rest of the Lost Worlds could muster a force strong enough to take on the Romans.

  “Your scowl tells me you think the situation is as dire as I think it is,” Galeo said.

  “I just realized something,” Kaeso said. “You never released the concealment protocols on my implant. Why can I talk about this? Why can I say...Umbra?”

  There was no stabbing pain behind his right ear. Kaeso smiled.

  “Don't celebrate your freedom just yet,” Galeo warned. “You’re discussing secrets that could tear your mind apart once communication with Libertus is restored. Your implant still records every conversation you have, even if it’s no longer able to censor you. Once the Muses on Libertus learn what you revealed, and to whom...”

  “I won’t tell my crew about my past, if that's what you mean.” I won’t kill the rest of them.