by R. M. Meluch
Romulus would not allow himself to be frightened. Uncertainty was a fact of existence. He was a patterner. He would adjust.
What hadn’t changed: Romulus’ younger self was already gathering loyal followers who would one day call themselves Romulii. He remembered doing that. His younger alter ego was recruiting Legions in Perseid space in his own name without his father’s knowledge. One of the smartest things he’d ever done. He had done a lot of things right. Those Legions were still intact and loyal to him. Romulus could use those.
Magnus didn’t know about the Perseid Legions, so that useless old man hadn’t flushed those brave souls down the Hive’s maw with the other sixty-four Legions.
I am the only one in the galaxy alive today who knows there are two Hives.
I am only one who knows the Hive harmonics.
I am the only one who knows what makes the irresistible harmonic irresistible.
Very well, there was Constantine Siculus remaining at large. Constantine also knew the Hive harmonics. But Constantine was not long for this universe. The assassin missile was on its way hubward, to Constantine’s distant lair.
Romulus was the only man alive who knew that resonating the complement of a Hive harmonic exterminated the entire Hive. He knew that because it had been done in the future.
And Romulus knew how to calculate the harmonic of the succeeding Hive generation that hatched after its parent Hive died. He’d got that algorithm from a mole on board Merrimack.
His mole wasn’t on board Merrimack in this timeline. Her name was Geneva Rhine. She had given him all of Merrimack’s historical logs. But it seemed now that the records that Geneva Rhine gave him in 2448 were not an entirely accurate record of events here and now in the year 2443.
Romulus recognized that his current existence must be a parallel universe, not just a fork in the universe he had known. Events predating his arrival had changed. The idea was terrifying.
He had no time for terror. He needed to account for the differences.
What do people in this year in this universe know of me?
They knew that Romulus was Caesar Magnus’ natural son. Leadership in the Roman Empire was not hereditary. But the Empire ran on patronage. The son of Caesar commanded attention. Romulus’ status as son of Caesar gave him a usable allowance and produced a tendency in people to say yes to him.
No one refused Romulus credit. He needn’t tap his own existing funds, which was good, because his alter ego might notice the expenditures.
Romulus was still months away from Near Space, but resonance was immediate and everywhere. Resonance knew no spatial distance. Romulus could make transactions and issue orders to Near Space from his Xerxes just as easily as he could from the palace in Nova Roma on Palatine. He need only avoid attracting the notice of his other self. His journey was long, but Romulus had work to do and he didn’t need to be on Palatine to get started.
8 July 2443
U.S. Space Battleship Merrimack
Fort Dwight David Eisenhower
Edge of Sagittarian Space
Merrimack’s crew and half bat of Fleet Marines looked out the portals as the space battleship sublighted for her approach to Fort Eisenhower.
Merrimack always got a festive welcome at Ike.
Not this time.
The assembled space stations that comprised the fort were dark. No flags. No concert over the fort’s channel. There was no light show. Few lights at all. Just reds and greens to tell Merrimack where the space lanes were, and the controller’s matter-of-fact voice telling her where to go.
It filled the ship with unease.
Everyone knew that the Hive was advancing. But the first spheres, moving at their top speed, wouldn’t be here at the space fort for another six years. It seemed a little soon to start mourning. Farragut couldn’t even call his ship’s reception subdued. It was hostile.
Should the Hive go unchecked, these space stations would be the first U.S. settlements in line to be eaten. National defense needed to find a way to turn back the Hive. Meanwhile they formulated plans to evacuate the fort.
There was already a long line of ships queued up to get into the Shotgun and back to Near Space, and back to Earth.
Lieutenant Colonel Steele could count on Farragut to treat his dogs right. But the captain was a little slow in calling for liberty this time. Steele sought him out at the change of the watch. “Captain, are my men getting any R and R?”
“Not here, TR.”
Steele withheld an expression of disapproval. The Fleet Marines always got liberty at the space forts. They really needed it now. The soldiers were battle-scarred and in mourning. They’d taken to leaving notes and candy on their dead friends’ preservation pods.
Marines bounced back quickly if you let them out to play. They lived fast, played hard, and then they were ready for the next fight.
Steele saw them gazing toward the lights in the portholes, hopeful as dogs holding their leashes in their mouths.
Farragut must have heard Steele gearing up for a protest, because he said, “You don’t want to let your dogs ashore here, TR. This is grim. You’re not hearing the com chat.”
It had got ugly. Com pundits were demanding that Merrimack go back and help the planets in the Myriad battle the Hive invasion. The voices were calling on all stations in Fort Ike not to let Merrimack personnel debark at their facilities.
Fort Dwight David Eisenhower issued its own statement advising that any space station found turning away U.S. soldiers must detach and depart from the space fort at once under its own power. The Shotgun was forbidden to it.
Farragut told Steele, “Ike is no place to walk your dogs. Mine either. Wait till we get to Fort Ted. I’m fixin’ to push us to the head of this line into the Shotgun. Don’t much care whose head I gotta kick. We’ll be there.”
“Sir?” Steele began, then waited for permission to speak further.
“Go ahead, TR.”
“This is a U.S. fort.”
Fort Ike was a huge trading post, operating under the protection of the United States military. Its international constellation of space stations depended on the Shotgun for commercial traffic.
“Why are we letting the LEN say anything at all?” Steele asked.
“We’re a member of the LEN,” Farragut said.
Steele drew in his chin. “We are?”
For allies, you really just wanted to shoot them.
Steele then asked, “Permission to go ashore, sir?”
“Purpose?”
“Foraging.”
“Go. Make it fast. Watch your back.”
Steele collected LEN glowers in Fort Ike. To hell with them. He was on a mission. He saw what the captain was talking about. Too many refugees here. Too much LEN.
He completed his objective and returned to Merrimack chased by slugs.
Steele felt all the eyes on him as he stepped into the forecastle. He’d rather be going into battle than face this lot with this news.
“Are we getting out of the can, sir?” a Marine asked. Sounded like Shasher Wyatt. Might’ve been his twin, Dumbell.
At least Steele’s dogs didn’t look all that hopeful this time, so he wouldn’t be disappointing them bitterly.
They had eyes. They could see what was out the portholes.
Steele gave one quick shake of his head. “Cap’n says the party’s at Fort Ted.”
His eyes flicked toward a porthole, to the darkness outside.
He spoke without looking at anyone. “Flight Sergeant Blue. Report to hydroponics at 2045.” And he was out through the hatch.
Kerry Blue’s eyes got big. She exchanged stares with her mates. Her voice came out pitched way high. “What now? What did I do?”
Hydroponics? She thought quickly. What could be in hydroponics? “Oh, shitska. He’s gonna make m
e beach my lizard plant!”
“Aw, no!” little Reg cried. “You don’t really think so.”
“What else could it be?”
Kerry had got the lizard plant on the planet Arra. The ruler of the world gave it to her. It was a sweet little guy—the lizard plant was. The Archon was okay too.
“The Old Man can’t make me set my little guy ashore, can he?”
Big fat long pause.
Icky Iverson blurted, “He might.”
Really might. What else could he want with her in hydroponics? “What time is it now?”
“You got seven minutes, chica.”
“I gotta go.”
Kerry Blue ran up decks, shot up the ladders, hauled herself through the hatch into the moist brightness of hydroponics. Inhaled to announce herself.
Steele wasn’t here yet.
Kerry Blue was alone with the vegetation. The large compartment was misty and warm, filled with light and oxygen.
A light weight settled on her shoulder. A webby foot touched her cheek. Her lizard plant crooned in her ear.
Poor little guy was gonna be the only one of its kind. She’d wished ever since they’d left Arra that she’d brought a friend for it. She was lucky to have this one. A wobble started in her throat. Steele was going to take her big-eyed green friend away.
At 2045 hours the hatch opened. Kerry Blue came to attention.
Kerry’s lizard plant climbed to the top of her head. It was quivering wildly.
Yeah, the Old Man could be a real scary guy. Kerry stood rigid.
Steele advanced stiffly up the row, carrying a bunch of leaves in one big hand. Funny how red Steele looked under the cool lights.
He set the green leafy bunch down in a row of lettuce under the nearest sprinkler. Grunted. “Here.”
Within the bunch of leaves, two round soulful eyes opened. The tightly wrapped leaves relaxed in a motion like a sigh. Now Kerry could see the tail, the legs.
“Oh!” She couldn’t talk, too joyful. She gushed, “How? How did you do this!”
“LEN’s been bitchin’ at us to take on refugees. I took one.”
Kerry’s lizard plant leaned so far over Kerry’s face it teetered and had to set one webby foot on her nose to catch its balance. The lizard plant was quivering. Then it jumped down into the lettuce with the new guy.
Steele had turned stiffly about face and was marching out. He was at the hatch.
Kerry cried at his back. “Sir! Thank you! Thank you so much!”
A snarl. A grunt without looking back. He was out.
The two lizard plants crooned at each other, singing and chortling. And okay, that was a giggle. Kerry had to laugh.
She wished Steele had stayed to see this. But what the hell. The man’s got a heart of brick.
9 July 2443
U.S. Space Battleship Merrimack
Fort Dwight David Eisenhower
Sagittarian Space
QUICKER THAN ANYONE EVER EXPECTED, the order came down from the XO for all hands to assume whole ship displacement stations.
No one was sure who Farragut had charmed, threatened, or promised what, but Merrimack was given the next space lane into the Shotgun. The ship would be in Near Space in no time.
9 July 2443
U.S. Space Battleship Merrimack
Fort Theodore Roosevelt
Beta Aurigae star system
Near Space
Merrimack arrived in Fort Roosevelt the same instant she left Fort Eisenhower.
Unwrapped from her displacement shroud, Merrimack made a guided approach into the wide collection of space stations that formed Fort Theodore Roosevelt. The lights were on. The flags were out.
As Merrimack traveled the space lanes among the stations, skyrockets, fanfare, and fountains of lights met her. You could see people crowding the clear ports of all the stations to wave and salute the battered space battleship. There was music piping across the Fort’s channel.
Merrimack had her running lights on. The company and crew could see the space battleship’s ragged, beaten reflection in the shiny surfaces of the stations’ clear ports. People were taking pictures of her. They cheered her and gripped friendly fists like encouraging a champion boxer to get up.
Space stations vied with one another for how many Bulldogs and Merrimackers they could host. Gotta love a place that don’t let you buy your own drinks.
Fort Ted had the facilities to repair Mack. The station’s maintenance hangar had a new engine manufactured, ready and standing by for installation. Senior Engineer Kit Kittering looked as if she’d got a pony for Christmas.
The twin suns of Beta Aurigae were wrapped together tighter than Mercury and the Sun, and they orbited each other a lot faster. All Marines and navvies had filters implanted in their eyes, or they would all be blind from staring at the suns going round and round.
There was a red dwarf component of this star system, too, but at 330 astronomical units out you couldn’t see it, even if there hadn’t been all the fortress lights washing out the view.
A miasma of escaped air from the many stations gave the Fort a slight atmosphere. It glowed a bit, like a city in fog.
Inside the space stations, the locals made the visiting Marines feel right at home.
Kerry Blue, unleashed, went pub hopping with her team.
Liberty was granted on approved stations. The Marines made the rounds, bar to bar, station to station. They didn’t go to Mad Bear O’s. Too many officers. The Fleet Marines gathered at places like The Five Chariots, MorePork, and, of course, Boobook’s under the sign of a rather astonished looking owl.
Kerry Blue and Team Alpha had to visit Squid Station. Just had to. There was no place to get a drink in Squidville, but the Vwakikikikik—“squids” to their friends—were always good for a laugh. It was always a surprise when funniness translated across alien genomes. Humor didn’t always translate among human tribes, so it was outright weird to connect with absolute aliens.
The squids were even funnier now with the new language module. The patterner Augustus had rewritten the whole interface. Never realized how many shades of meaning were missing in the old one until you listened using the new one.
Merrimack had a dedicated xenolinguist on board. You would’ve thought he might have noticed the shortcomings in the old translator. Apparently it was slow work for an unenhanced brain, and Doctor Patrick Hamilton had other things to do. Didn’t stop him from trying to find flaws in the new language module.
He didn’t find any.
In the Squid Station, more properly Vwakikikikik Station (Yeah, like squids were ever proper), transparent tunnels through the water gave visiting humans dry, oxygenated paths to stroll among the residents. You had to wear the Vwakikikikik language module to understand what the squids were saying. Sometimes it was better not to know.
Vwakikikikik Station was pretty in a blue sort of way. The red, yellow, and white corals were beautiful, but dumb as lava. The long waving lavender, yellow, pink, and green seaweeds were very intelligent. Someone had dubbed those “Sargassons.” The name stuck.
Sargassons insured the survival and spread of their species across the cosmos by being colorful and decorative in countless aquariums of many alien species across Near Space.
Unlike Sargassons, squids didn’t have much use for serenity. The squids would sneak up on you in your pedestrian tunnel at a stealthy glide through the veils of purple, blue, and green seaweed and reefs of brilliant coral, then, abruptly, they splatted themselves against the transparent walkway with a loud thwuck! of their suckers, which was squidese for “gotcha!”
Squids cackled like crumpling metal when they made people jump.
Squids recognized human faces. In fact, they recognized faces better than Kerry Blue did. So the squids all noticed there was a new guy in Team Alpha, Cole Darby. The Dar
b was carrying an octopus. He’d bought it from a vendor on the main station of Fort Ted. Now he was lugging it around in a globe.
Well, you’d’ve thought the Darb had brought a puppy. The squids were all squeaking and bubbling over the adorable little thing.
Squids did a large import trade in terrestrial octopi. (That’s octopuses if you’re a red-blooded American who refuses to use Latin plurals, thank you very much.) Most humans assumed the Vwakikikikik were eating the octopuses. Not so. The octopuses were beloved pets to the squids, like dogs to man. On the watery planet Vwakikikikikkk, octopus was squid’s best friend. And while the octopuses were edible, the Vwakikikikik found the very suggestion heinous.
The Vwakikikikik asked after Cowboy Carver. Everybody loved Cowboy, and the squids were really sad to learn of his passing. Then some large mouth went and let drop that Flight Sergeant Cole Darby was Cowboy Carver’s replacement.
Thick moment.
Darb—who turned out to be a real smart guy though not the bravest—handed over the puppy. Okay it was the octopus. Darb pushed the globe through the tunnel membrane and into the water for the squids to hold.
The squids were charmed. They ballasted the globe and passed the octopus around, bubbling. They were thrilled pink—literally—that they were allowed to keep it.
Cole Darby was no Cowboy Carver, but he was okay.
The Alphas got to reminiscing with the squids about Cowboy Carver.
There was the time Cowboy had done a male stripper act in the pedestrian tunnel. One squid turned vivid pink and curled its tentacles into quivering loops on the watery side of the tunnel membrane. Then a squid official came jetting over. The officious one informed Cowboy that his courtship had been accepted. The official had Cowboy—hell, it had all of them—convinced that the betrothal was a binding Vwakikikikik contract and that Vwakikikikik station had the sovereign status of an embassy, so squid law was THE law here.
Cowboy had gone and got himself married.
A junior squid pushed scuba gear through the passageway’s membrane and into the dry pedestrian tunnel. Told Cowboy he could gear up and pass through the membrane to consummate the union.
