by Rob Steiner
Kaeso wouldn't know the first thing to tell them, anyway. How could he tell people who trusted and respected him that he used to be an assassin? That he had killed hundreds to save millions of Liberti?
“See that you don't,” Galeo ordered. “For their sake and ours. Communication with Libertus has never been disrupted like this. Once it’s restored, which could be at any moment, your actions will be revealed and your punishment the same as it would have been before the cut.”
Kaeso nodded, not wanting to know how a week’s worth of “punishment” felt all at once.
“Why did the Romans attack Libertus? It makes no sense.”
Galeo worked at his console without responding.
“Who was Ocella extracting?”
“The Consular Heir to the Roman Republic, Marcus Antonius Cordus.”
The Consular Heir... Kaeso closed his eyes.
“You were going to find out once the mission was underway. I suppose that’s now.”
“You fools. The Romans won’t let Libertus take one of their gods without a fight!”
Galeo frowned. “The Romans are worried about their image after the bloody nose they took in their “victory” over Kaldeth. They are a declining power, yet still prideful, so we believed they wouldn’t make public the fact they lost their Consular Heir. We didn’t anticipate their reaction to be so extreme. That means the boy is every bit as important as we think he is. The Romans would not risk an attack on Libertus for a regular boy, even if he is the Consular Heir. That means he is a threat to them. A big threat.”
No kidding, Kaeso thought. The other Lost Worlds would immediately slap a trade embargo on Roma that would hurt them worse than any military strike. The Zhonguo would embargo Roma as well, and would probably jump into the fight—not out of solidarity with Libertus, but to keep the Romans from taking the rich Libertus system in one piece. The scientific, economic, and cultural output of Libertus was far greater than all the Lost Worlds combined, and rivaled the major empires. A Roma that possessed Libertus intact would become a hyperpower no other human nation could match, and that was just too much for the Zhonguo to risk. No, Roma would never have attacked unless it was desperate.
Then a thought twisted Kaeso's stomach.
“Ocella’s betrayal helped them neutralize Umbra,” Kaeso said. “Roma has wanted Libertus for a hundred years but never knew how to take her. Now they can. Because of Ocella.”
“Many factors culminated in this attack,” Galeo said, returning to his calculations. “Our main concern right now is getting to a friendly way station.”
“We're not going to Terra?”
Galeo shook his head. “I’m a Vessel. If they can detect Umbra implants, they’ll detect me as soon as I enter the system. We’ll go to a Liberti-allied way station first. You can make your repairs and continue to Terra while I stay behind.”
“You’ll take my crew with you.”
Galeo looked at him. “Unbelievable. You still think you can do this on your own? You're not an Ancile anymore. You need to learn how to work with other human beings, Centuriae Aemilius.”
“The deal was I do this alone,” Kaeso said. “Arrange their transfer. Give them their citizenship. They've earned it.”
Galeo sighed, then returned to the console. “Perhaps you should discuss this with your crew. Your man Blaesus just snuck up the ladder to your command deck. I imagine he's about to tell your first officer what we said.”
Kaeso whipped around, ran to the door, and looked up the ladder just in time to see Blaesus's feet disappear into the corridor above.
Kaeso turned and lunged at Galeo. The Vessel was ready for him. He dodged Kaeso's reach, swung Kaeso around, and slammed his head against the console, holding it there. The numbers on the console were bright in Kaeso's eyes, almost as bright as the starbursts from Galeo’s unexpected move. He was just as angry with himself for letting his rage dictate his tactics as he was at Galeo for dooming his crew.
“You bastard!” Kaeso yelled, his cheek against the console. “You've killed them!”
“Maybe,” Galeo said. “Maybe not. If you complete this mission, maybe Umbra will show mercy and let them live with what they know.”
“Umbra doesn't do that! You know what the policy is!” Kaeso had enforced that policy on Roma many times.
“Will you stop fighting and listen to me?” Galeo said into his ear. “I’m tired of holding you. You're strong for a starship centuriae.”
Kaeso stopped struggling.
Galeo released Kaeso’s head slowly and then stepped away. Kaeso glared at Galeo as he stood. “You've killed them.”
“You need your crew. The only way I can get you to take them is if you feel you have to protect them from, well, me. You will take them with you, use their skills. Even the Persian, though dull in speech, is a genius when it comes to starship engines. You will need them all for this mission. Now their only chance to survive this is for you to complete your mission. After that, I forget they know about Umbra.”
“I don't believe you,” Kaeso said. “The Muses have never made exceptions before. They’ll never agree to this.”
“They just have. The Vessels outside Libertus now know of our deal. The Libertus Vessels will agree as well once communication is restored.”
Kaeso narrowed his eyes. “You may see my crew as game pieces on a board, but they've been my family for the last five years. The Romans will kill them if they’re caught.”
Galeo cocked his head. “See that they don't get caught. I’m sorry, old friend, but this mission is now the only thing that can save Libertus from a Roman ground invasion. If we can secure the Consular Heir, find out what he knows, then we can perhaps blackmail the Romans into lifting the siege.”
“So this cure for the Cariosus? Was that all a lie to get me to go?”
“The Consular Heir has knowledge that could lead to a cure. That is the truth.”
“He’s just a boy, what could he know?”
Galeo looked away for just an instant, but it was enough to tell Kaeso he was hiding something. “Can I get back to work?”
Kaeso moved away from the console, staring at Galeo. “Reactivate my implant.”
Galeo laughed. “If I do, the pain will knock you out for hours. Implant reactivation is not a pretty procedure. Besides, you cannot land on Terra with an active implant. We’ve already been over this.”
“The only way I can know if you're telling me the truth is through my implant,” Kaeso said. “After I’ve verified the deal, you can deactivate it again.” Kaeso grabbed Galeo’s arm, and the Vessel flinched. “Activate the implant, or we float in this gods forsaken corner of the universe for eternity.”
“Don't be so dramatic. I thought your crew was precious to you. You'd let them die in the middle of nowhere?”
“If you're lying to me, they die anyway. At least I get to take you with us.”
Galeo stared at Kaeso several moments, then sighed. “You'd better have your medicus tie you down. You don't want to injure yourself once we start.”
Lucia stared at Blaesus after he finished telling her what he'd heard in the engine room. She didn't know whether to laugh, throw Blaesus off the command deck...or believe him.
“You're sure?” Lucia asked. “You know how your hearing is these days.”
Blaesus scowled. “My hearing is perfectly fine, young lady. Bouts of ringing notwithstanding. Kaeso is a Liberti spy, or used to be, and he’s going to Roma to kidnap the Consular Heir.”
Lucia looked out the command deck window, unable to believe what she heard. She knew Kaeso had a past he refused to reveal—they all did—but she never suspected he was a Liberti spy. An actual on the ground, secret agent, assassin, spy. Kaeso Aemilius, the same man who had taken in a motley crew of runaways and criminals because his honor would not let him turn them away.
“I can't believe this,” she said. “Kaeso’s an honorable man.”
“Don’t let our Roman revilement of spies blind yo
u,” Blaesus said. “Romans may look on spies as dishonorable, but we've used them quite happily throughout our history. Spying is just another form of warfare. One in which Libertus is unparalleled, apparently.”
“This explains much,” she said. “Maybe he thought we wouldn’t follow his orders if we knew he was a spy. Maybe that’s why he didn't want us going to Terra.”
Blaesus snorted. “Or because he’s kidnapping the Consular Heir! I've never been the religious sort, but you know how the Consular Family is worshiped. Perhaps he thought we’d never kidnap one of our gods?”
“Why the Consular Heir? Does he really have this cure for Dariya?”
Blaesus shrugged. “I don't know. Which is why we need to have a talk with our Centuriae.”
Lucia nodded. “He can't worm his way out—”
The inhuman screams from the crew quarters made Lucia jump. Blaesus started as well. She jumped from the pilot's chair and slid down the ladder to the crew quarters. The screams came from Kaeso’s quarters. She charged up the corridor. Inside, Kaeso was strapped to his bunk, thrashing and screaming. The Navigator stood over him, his hand on Kaeso's head.
Lucia rushed toward the Navigator. But Nestor, standing near the door where Lucia could not see him, grabbed her arm. Lucia was about to elbow him in the face when Nestor yelled, “Wait! The Centuriae wanted him to do this!”
Lucia yanked her arm out of Nestor's grip, then drew her pistol and aimed at the Navigator. “Why? He's killing him!”
The Navigator stood over Kaeso with a serene expression, unmoving, his eyes glazed.
“No,” Nestor said. “Centuriae said this would happen and not to interfere. He said he would be all right.”
The waver in Nestor's voice told Lucia he was not so sure, considering Kaeso’s awful, ragged screams.
Lucia stepped forward, put the gun against the Navigator's head. “Stop what you're doing right now.”
The Navigator blinked, then looked at her. “If I stop now, he will die.”
“What are you doing to him?”
“What he asked me to. Now I suggest you let me continue.”
Lucia looked from the Navigator's serene eyes to Kaeso, straining against the straps over his chest, arms, and legs.
“The more you distract me,” the Navigator said beneath Kaeso's shrieks, “the longer this takes.”
“Lucia,” Nestor said, “let him finish.”
Lucia ground her teeth, and then lowered the gun. “If he dies...”
“I know,” the Navigator said, then turned his glassy stare back to Kaeso.
Blaesus and Daryush now crowded the hatch to Kaeso’s quarters asking Nestor what was happening. Lucia ignored them, only watching Kaeso's agony. Every scream clawed at her heart, every thrash made her want to hold him tight, to keep him from hurting himself. If she could, she would have taken his pain and made it her own.
She was confused and helpless. She clenched and unclenched her fists around the pistol, not knowing whether to trust the Navigator or shoot him. Why was this man causing her centuriae so much pain? And why did Kaeso agree to this? Questions burned on her tongue, but she didn’t want to scream them at the Navigator for fear he told the truth, that any distraction would cause Kaeso's death.
Kaeso stopped screaming. His red face, streaked with tears, began to relax. His eyes were still shut, but he stopped straining against the straps, his whole body settling into the bunk. For a terrible moment Lucia thought he was dead, but his chest rose and fell quickly as if he'd just run a sprint.
“I want answers,” she said to the Navigator. “Now, or you're going out the airlock.”
The Navigator lifted his hand off Kaeso's forehead. “Your centuriae just did a stupid thing.” The Navigator's gaze swept the whole crew. “For all of you.”
He tried to slip past Lucia, but she grabbed his arm. “What did you do to him?”
The Navigator smiled. “I suggest you ask him when he wakes up. He'll tell you more than you ever wanted to hear.”
“When will he wake up?”
The Navigator pulled his arm from Lucia's grip and then shrugged. “Tomorrow. His body needs time to adjust to what he asked me to do.”
Lucia raised the pistol again and pointed it at the Navigator's head. The Navigator didn't flinch, only stared at Lucia with those preternatural eyes. It galled Lucia that she couldn't intimidate him, not even with a pistol aimed at his head.
“Why won't you tell me anything? You and your people just board our ship, destroy our engines, force us to take a mission that I don't know why it's so damned important for us to take. Now we're lost and my centuriae is strapped to his bunk after screaming his lungs out. I want answers. Who are you people?”
The Navigator sighed. “You’re not a murderer. Besides, you need me to get those engines running again.”
“One, if you read anything about my past, you know that's not true. Two, Daryush has watched you since you boarded. He’ll do just fine with the engines.”
Lucia tried to ignore Daryush in the hallway behind the Navigator, emphatically shaking his head.
“Once again,” the Navigator said, “ask your centuriae when he wakes up. I am not authorized to give you the answers you want. He is.”
Lucia stared at the Navigator. Her impulse was to shoot him in the head, be done with him, and then they could figure out the engines themselves. Maybe she'd wake Dariya to help Daryush. They could make it work.
Her grip tightened on the pistol. The Navigator must have seen her resolve, for his eyes widened slightly. Good, she thought. Now he's afraid.
A groan came from behind. “Lucia, put the damn gun down.”
She half turned and saw Kaeso staring at her.
“Are you okay, sir?”
“No,” he said with a raspy voice. “But I will be. Put it down.”
The Navigator looked over Lucia's shoulder at Kaeso. “The reactivation worked, Centuriae. You can verify the terms of our deal now, if you remember how to do it.”
“I remember,” he said. His eyes glazed a moment and then refocused. He looked at the Navigator. “Good.”
“Tomorrow we deactivate it,” the Navigator said. “Agreed?”
“Agreed,” Kaeso said.
Lucia put the gun in her holster and then turned to Kaeso. Nestor was already unbuckling the straps. Her once strong, invincible centuriae looked so pale, haggard, and weak. Her worry battled her rage at not knowing what in Dis’ hell was going on.
“What,” she asked in a trembling voice, “did he do to you, sir?”
Kaeso smiled weakly. “It's a long story. I promise I'll tell you. Later.” He closed his eyes, and seemed to fall instantly into a deep sleep. His face relaxed and a bit of color returned to it.
Nestor put a hand on her shoulder. “I'll watch him.”
Lucia clenched her teeth, then said, “Let me know when he wakes up.” Then she nodded toward the Navigator. “And let me know if he comes back.”
The Navigator smiled. “I have an engine to repair, remember?” He turned and brushed past Blaesus and Daryush.
She left Kaeso’s bunk as well, watching the Navigator descend the ladder to the engine deck. She turned to Daryush. “Pay attention to everything he does. I want you to know those engines as well as him.”
Daryush cocked his head, as if to say he'd been doing that all along, but he nodded and hurried down the corridor to the ladder.
“Now what?” Blaesus asked. “I for one do not trust that Liberti thug.”
“Agreed,” Lucia said. “For now we play his game. But if he hurts anyone else on this ship, or sneezes the wrong way, I will kill him. No matter what the Centuriae says. Will you back me?”
“Of course. He’s the reason we’re here. He’s the reason Flamma…” Blaesus paused, blinking away tears. “Kaeso has not been himself since Menota. These Liberti have done something to his mind. They’re known for that.”
Blaesus stared at the ladder where the Navigator had descended.
“I'm willing to go to Roma if it means finding a cure for Dariya. But I think whatever bargain Kaeso struck with these Liberti may have cost him too much. I would feel better doing this on our own. Without their help.”
Blaesus gave Lucia a meaningful stare, and then he walked away and entered his hatch.
Lucia went to the ladder and was about to ascend to the command deck when she stopped. She thought about what just happened and what Blaesus said. She cursed, then descended the ladder to the engine room.
She found the Navigator working at the console next to Daryush. She activated her pistol and pointed it at the Navigator.
“Daryush, please leave the engine room,” she said. Daryush sighed at the interruption, but gasped when he saw her aiming at the Navigator. He hurried out and ascended the ladder.
“I want to know what you did to the Centuriae,” Lucia said. “No more games, Liberti.”
The Navigator stared at her with blank eyes. “Ask him when he wakes up.”
“Not good enough,” Lucia said. “I know your kind. There were people like you in the Legions. People so arrogant in their power they thought nothing could harm them. It’s people like you who killed my friends during the Kaldeth Rebellion. People like you who forced me to—”
The Navigator turned back to the console. “I don’t have time for this. I need to get these engines repaired and calibrated or we’re never going home. I’m sure there’s something you could be doing on the command deck. Attend to your duties, trierarch, and stop bothering me.”
Attend to your duties.
Those words slammed into her mind again after more than ten years. It was her greatest humiliation, one she never told the Caduceus crew. One she tried hard to convince herself never happened. She could not blank out the image of her former centurion’s red face above her, an open grenade in his hand, his promise to release it and kill them both unless she lay there and let him finish. Attend to your duties, he had whispered in her ear over and over again until he was through with her.
The next day, while patrolling the Kaldethian forests, she slit his throat while he urinated behind a tree, and left his body in the woods for the planet’s native carnivores to devour. Her century always suspected her, but never had any proof. Many of the women and men in her squad had approved. They had suffered the same way, and gave her knowing smiles.