The Fourth Rome

by David Drake

  Roebeck was reeling from the shock of not being laughed out of the Chief’s office and summarily disciplined. She couldn’t believe it. When her team was finally back in the launch bay, overseeing the on-loading of additional hardware, she still didn’t believe it.

  But Grainger believed it. He was sure they were dead meat, a lure to flush the bad guys out of hiding.

  “You don’t send three people to stop a threat to an entire way of life,” he grunted to her. Grainger was personally working the yellow loader lifting cases into the TC’s hold. He wanted to make sure he got exactly the weapons he’d requisitioned—and nothing he hadn’t.

  “Why the hell not?” Chun puffed. She was guiding the crates into the TC’s hold. Roebeck was checking the manifest. “The ARC was formed to capitalize on force multiplication through superior technology. It’s our stock in trade.”

  “It was our stock in trade, when we thought we had superior technology,” Grainger corrected.

  Thanks to the Chief’s blessing, they’d been able to get the ADCSOPS to enforce the ruling about privy parties. So they were on their own, isolated, operating in a sanitized environment even in the TC bay. But that meant they had to load on their own. Roebeck checked her timetable.

  “Let’s hurry this up. I want to lift and strike in twenty minutes.”

  They made the elapsed-time deadline that Roebeck had set, but only barely.

  When they were locked down inside TC 779, going through their systems’ checks, somebody opened the bay’s doors. It shouldn’t have happened. The ADCSOPS had promised it wouldn’t happen. But it was happening.

  “Ignore him,” Grainger begged Roebeck. “Just go. Go!”

  Whoever was out there would be dead in seconds if that someone came too close to the TC as it displaced out of here.

  “Can you tell who it is?”

  “That’s the Chief’s job, not ours. We don’t care who it is. Nobody’s supposed to be in here but us,” Grainger pleaded.

  Chun was looking at Roebeck, not saying a word, her control wands poised and ready.

  Grainger, although clearly paranoid, might tie right this time. Maybe there were forces from Up The Line loose in Central.

  “Okay, Chun. Do it. Now. Go!” Roebeck ordered.

  The TC bay sparkled out of existence around iJiem like so much confetti blown on a wild wind.

  Six Kilometers West of the Rhine River, Free Germany

  September 2, 9 AD

  You know…” said Flaccus as he saw a dozen German horsemen top the hill and begin to spread out. “I’d got to hoping the Fritzes’d dick around watering their horses long enough that we’d come home free.”

  He spat. “Well, it wouldn’t be much of a pension anyway.”

  “Beckie, keep the group moving,” Pauli Weigand ordered as he checked one, then the other, Skorpion. “I’ll send these off and then catch up with you.”

  He flipped the submachine gun’s sights to the 150-meter notch. That was an optimistic range for the light bullets to do any real damage, but he was going for psychological effect.

  The leading Germans dismounted two hundred meters from the refugees. For a moment Pauli didn’t understand what they were doing. Footmen leading more horses reached the knoll. The nobles mounted the fresh animals and shook their lances.

  Pauli glanced over his shoulder. Flaccus stood just behind him, balancing his javelin on his right palm.

  “I told you to move on!” Pauli said.

  “I heard you,” Flaccus said. “I’m bucking for a field promotion. Seems simpler than learning to read and getting one the usual way.”

  The refugees continued forward at a steady pace. They’d be able to see the Rhine over the next rise, but it was too far for people so tired to run. Beckie’d keep them in hand.

  Pauli grimaced. “I’m just going to hurt a few of them to give them something to think about,” he said. “IThen I’ll run up with the rest of our people.”

  Flaccus nodded. “And I’ll run along with you,” he said equably.

  The Germans came on shrieking a war song. Retainers ran alongside the mounted men, each placing a hand on a noble’s horse. The horsemen were armed with a mixture of lances and long swords. The commoners waved stabbing spears, though some wore Roman swords as well.

  Pauli took a deep breath. As he let it out slowly he put the front post of his sight under the face of the German noble and fired a three-shot burst.

  The German flung his arms up and went over the back of his horse. The animal swerved, tangled with a footman, and rode the man down. The riders to either side slowed unconsciously as they looked in surprise at their fellow.

  The man on the left end of the German line wore a gilded helmet with flaring wings. His short cape fluffed out with the wind of his charge. He bellowed as bullets hit him, slashed his sword through the empty air, and kicked his mount into a full gallop. Blood streamed from his neck.

  Pauli shot him again. A tooth flew from the warrior’s jaw, sparkling in the wan air. The man at last slid sideways from his horse.

  The Germans reined up. Two horsemen shouted a challenge and resumed their charge. A pair of footmen accompanied each noble. Pauli stuck the submachine gun into its holster and drew the microwave pistol.

  As the Germans came within fifty meters, Pauli shot the red- haired horseman in the face. The man’s beard and mustache flared; he did a backward somersault. He hadn’t hit the ground before Pauli dropped his blond fellow the same way.

  To the ARC Rider’s astonishment the retainers continued to stride forward, brandishing their spears. Pauli stunned them each in turn.

  The other Germans remained where they’d halted. Several of the nobles had dismounted to examine their fallen fellows. More warriors reached the knoll. One raised a brass-mounted cow horn to his lips and blew a staccato summons to those behind.

  “Let’s go,” Pauli muttered, sliding the pistol back into the loops on the lining of his cape. “They’ll probably follow, but I’ll drop another and maybe they’ll keep back.”

  Maybe. Pauli drew a submachine gun as he jogged on. He wished he had a proper holster for the microwave pistol, but when the operation started the team had been concerned not to display advanced technology on this timeline. More recently the problem had been to stay alive; niceties had gone out the window.

  The group ahead plodded into a stretch of mixed forest and disappeared. Beckie shepherded out of sight the last of the refugees, a legionary using his javelin as a staff to support his injured foot.

  “Pauli,” Gerd’s voice warned. “Nine of them are riding after you.”

  Pauli turned and fell into a squat. Flaccus halted well out of the way. He held the javelin at the balance in his right hand and supported the long point with two fingers of his left. The Roman breathed through his open mouth. He was pretty near his limit. Well, so was Pauli Weigand, truth to tell…

  He tried to settle his breathing as he aimed. The Germans, five mounted nobles and four accompanying footmen, charged down the slope. They passed the men Pauli’d dropped with his microwave pistol moments before. Their horses kicked up clods of soft earth.

  The Germans held their lances over their heads with the shafts parallel to the ground. The technique looked odd to eyes who’d seen the heavy cavalry of later ages, but without stirrups to anchor a horseman there was no way to put the whole weight of horse and rider behind the attack. A stroke with the lance firmly couched between the rider’s arm and body would scoot him off his mount’s bare back at the moment of contact.

  The man half a length in front of the others had shoulder-length blond hair and a short beard in which gray mixed with the red. He wore no armor. Six broad bronze disks jounced on his chest. They were medals that had been awarded to some Roman soldier—or just possibly to the German who now wore them, while in Roman service.

  Pauli squeezed. The Skorpion stuttered three shots before the bolt locked back over an empty magazine. The lacquered steel cases bounced into the bu
shes. There was ne time to retrieve them.

  A little smoke drifted from the silencer and the Dpen chamber. The muzzle blast was softer than the thump of the horses’ hoofs, but the breech rang against the barrel like a steel ball. Pauli thrust the submachine gun into its holster and stood up, drawing the microwave pistol. Twelve rounds remained in the other Skorpion, but if the Germans didn’t halt now Pauli was going to have to nail eight men with a microwave pistol before a lance opened him up.

  The warrior he’d shot through the upper chest rolled gracefully forward over the shoulder of his mount. The horse neighed and swerved aside to keep from trampling its fallen rider. The German charge milled to a halt. Men shouted in frightened anger. Pauli bowed to them, then turned and started after Beckie and the refugees.

  Flaccus tramped along with him. The Roman’s javelin pis-toned. He breathed a little more easily.

  “I’d just about say that was a crossbow you’ve; got,” Flaccus said. “Only I don’t see any arrow. OT any bow either.”

  “I told you, we’re magicians,” Pauli said, trying not to pant. “I cursed them.”

  “They’ll likely be coming along in a few minutes,” Flaccus said. “Hard to get anything through a Fritz’s head without you knock it off. Though I guess you’d know that.”

  “I know it,” Pauli said. He didn’t like it, but liHaccus was certainly right. In daylight, in the forest, the Germans would come from all sides at once. There wasn’t a chance of stopping them.

  Beckie looked back and forced a smile to greet their return. She couldn’t wave because she supported the injured legionary with the arm that didn’t hold a pistol ready.

  “Well, maybe I get to curse a couple more Fritzes myself,” Flaccus said judiciously. He whacked the javelin’s shaft against his left palm.

  Four Kilometers West of the Rhine, Free Germany

  September 2, 9 AD

  It struck Rebecca Carnes that most of what she’d seen on this mission was the ground in front of either her feet or her horse’s. When you’re slogging ahead that’s all there was; and this one had been a slog.

  It was going to continue that way for at least a while longer. If they got away from the pursuing Germans, a longer while than otherwise.

  “Shit!” said Arnobius under his breath as his right foot came down. Rebecca took part of his weight on her shoulder as he strode forward. The blister on the ball of the legionary’s right foot was infected and by now the size of a teacup.

  “Shit!” It was the only thing Arnobius had said for the past three hours she’d been helping him, and perhaps the only thing for days.

  He kept going. They all kept going.

  Gerd was leading them along a track that meandered with the slope. It was used by merchants and by herdsmen driving cattle to markets across the Rhine. The undergrowth was trampled clear broadly enough for two people to walk abreast; the footing was packed hard.

  “Gerd?” Rebecca said. “All those Germans we killed back at the ambush site—are we causing a revision ourselves?”

  “Probably not,” the analyst said. “Low-order changes like a few more deaths among tens of thousands get subsumed into the temporal ambiance within a year or two.”

  He turned to look back with a smile. “Of course, if we had the misfortune of killing a critical figure, then Central won’t exist when we try to return to it.”

  Rebecca’s face froze. Gerd noted her expression and added apologetically. “But that’s extremely unlikely in an ahistoric wilderness like this.”

  He nodded at the trees around them.

  They didn’t know if there was a boat on this side of the river, and it didn’t look as though they were going to reach the river anyway. Rebecca’s job for the moment was to make sure nobody fell out of line and to help Arnobius keep up. First stop the bleeding; only then do you worry about the patient’s internal injuries.

  “Coming through!” Pauli shouted, his words blurred between air and the headband intercom. He was afraid somebody’d shoot or chuck a spear through him when he burst into sight. “Coming through!”

  Rebecca hadn’t heard Pauli and Flaccus crashing up the trail behind her. They could have been an army of German warriors and she wouldn’t have heard them either. She was so completely focused on the ground and one foot going in front of the other foot.

  She glanced over her shoulder as the armored men appeared up the zigzag track. They panted like distance runners, pumping as much oxygen as possible into their lungs to support their exertions.

  The holstered submachine guns jounced against Pauli’s waist along with the sword that was part of his disguise. The guns were probably empty, but he’d kept them out of habit against leaving advanced technology on an early horizon.

  Rebecca guessed he’d kept the sword because he thought he might need it.

  “Pauli and Rebecca, the Germans are within a hundred meters of you,” Gerd’s voice warned. “They’re spreading to either side of the trail.”

  Pauli looked back. Sight distances in the woods ranged from ten yards down to arm’s length; the trail up the back of the low bluffs wasn’t straight for more than twenty feet at a time. Rebecca concentrated again on moving forward.

  “I’ve told the refugees to circle on the rock lcnob we’ve reached,” Gerd said. “I’m going to separate from the rest of you. I’ve an idea that might help.”

  “What?” Rebecca blurted. Flaccus looked at her in surprise since he couldn’t hear Gerd.

  “Gerd, don’t—” Pauli said. He stopped there because he knew from experience that giving the analyst orders was a waste of time. Gerd would do pretty much whatever he thought was best.

  “Besides,” Rebecca said, half to herself, “he’s, right more often than he’s wrong.”

  “Shit!” said Arnobius. His stride was as steadv as the tick of a pendulum. “Shit!”

  “All right,” Pauli said for the benefit of the two legionaries. “We’re going to take a defensive position up ahead. The Germans will be on us at any moment.”

  “My sword arm’s—shit,” Arnobius said, “in a damned sight better shape than—shit—my foot.”

  The knoll was slate jutting out in the midst of a stand of birches. The slim trunks and brush would interfere with the microwave pistols, but at least the defenders could see each other and the attacking Germans some distance away.

  The hill beyond rose higher than the back of the knob. A sixty-degree slope faced the trail, notched into steps by weathering between the layers of stone. Rebecca paused to brace Arnobius to climb it. Behind her hooves thudded and a voice cried, “Here the worms are!” in German.

  “Beckie, get to the top for when they come around!” Pauli shouted. “Flaccus, get her up there!”

  Callused hands grabbed Rebecca’s thighs from behind and lifted her straight up. A civilian on top of the knob grabbed her left shoulder and pulled, nearly slashing her with the sword he carried in his other hand.

  The WHACK! an instant later wasn’t generated by Pauli’s pistol directly. The low-frequency difference tone reflected from the flat surface of a German’s shield. The warrior went over with a crash of equipment.

  Rebecca got her feet down and turned. Arnobius climbed while Flaccus supported his right heel with one hand and held both javelins with the other. A dappled horse clattered on the stony trail. It leaped away when Pauli tried to grab its dangling reins.

  Ten feet back the rider lay supine. Two boards of his shattered shield were still strapped to his left arm. Rebecca fired over Pauli’s head, slamming the warrior’s chest against the ground as he tried to rise.

  Pauli dismounted a second German riding toward them. The horse neighed and turned, blocking the trail.

  “Watch it!” a legionary warned. A German flung a javelin from above the group on the knoll. It glanced harmlessly from a birch tree.

  The legionaries and armed civilians formed a wall across the neck of the knob. Arnobius pushed himself into the line, panting and swearing. He’d d
rawn his sword because Flaccus hadn’t had time to pass the javelin to him. The team’s three horses stood nearby, snorting and shivering but too blown to run.

  Rebecca got only fleeting glimpses of Germans past the line of men. A warrior approached on the side slope, poising his spear to hamstring the legionary on the end. Rebecca shot him in the stomach. When the warrior doubled up, his head was clear of the leaves that had shielded him. She hit him again and knocked him cold.

  A dozen javelins flew from the brush. One hit a civilian driver in the chest. He staggered and dropped his sword to pull the missile out with both hands. He continued to stand, holding the wooden javelin, but he didn’t pick up his sword.

  Rebecca needed a better vantage point if she was going to do any good. A birch spread into two stems four feet above the ground. She tried to pull herself up far enough that she could get her foot into the tight crotch. She couldn’t manage it, not as wrung out as she was. “Help me!” she ordered the pregnant girl.

  The girl held a ten-pound lump of quartz in one hand and a dagger with a silvered three-inch blade in the other. She looked at Rebecca with an expression as stupid as a sheep’s. Nonetheless she dropped the stone and waddled to Rebecca, ignoring another flight of javelins.

  The girl’s grip was remarkably strong. With her help Rebecca scrambled up to where she could see more than the defenders’ backs.

  A score of Germans rushed the refugee line with swords and stabbing spears. The long lances were too awlward to use in this brush; the Roman driver who’d carried one: now held a legionary’s dagger instead. The Germans had shields but the tightly grown birches knocked them askew at unexpected moments.

  Rebecca was ten feet behind the defensive line. She aimed with care before she squeezed the trigger; the refugees were at more risk than their attackers if she hosed pulses wildly.

  White bark sprayed from a tree beside a rushing warrior. He ignored the slap of sound, but when his uplifted sword flew from his hand with a clang he looked at his empty hand in amazement. A legionary let his guts out with an upward stab and twist. Rebecca chose another target.