The Last Roman (The Praetorian Series - Book I)

by Edward Crichton

  V

  Rome

  Location: Unknown

  Date: Unknown

  “So…” Santino said offhandedly a few seconds later. “Jacob. Want to fill me in on what the fuck you just did?”

  I looked at him, his expression a reflection of my own.

  Neither one of us had any idea what was going on.

  The faces of the men arrayed before us were likewise confused. They seemed more shocked than frightened, but where I knew we could take them in a fight, they didn’t seem so sure. Not surprising considering these men were no taller than five and a half feet, and were wearing what looked like togas, compared to us in our body armor. Even Wang stood above the men, and he was the smallest of us all. He was still working on McDougal and Helena as Bordeaux and Vincent joined Santino and me.

  “Who are they?” Bordeaux asked.

  “I can’t even begin to guess,” Vincent said, squinting carefully at the men, “but, as odd as this may sound, they’re dressed like ancient Romans.”

  They were wearing togas, just like the ones worn by thousands of college students every year at the ever popular toga parties. But these were different, more complicated, intricate, genuine, and worn in. There was a thick stretch of purple, about three inches wide, running down the main opening seam on two men’s togas. If these people really were Romans, even though I knew they couldn’t possibly be, that could signify a number of things. Certain kinds of magistrates, I couldn’t remember which, or maybe augurs, ridiculous sight seers who determined a man’s fate based on whether or not it was an eagle or a crow that took a shit on you.

  I shook my head. Roman fashion hadn’t been my forte. Besides, this wasn’t really happening. We couldn’t possibly be standing in the presence of ancient Romans. There had to be a perfectly reasonable explanation for this. There always was.

  Right?

  Maybe... or maybe Santino was right, and we somehow happened into a college toga party in the middle of Syria. What other explanation could there be? I knew I couldn’t be dreaming. If I were, I’m pretty damn sure ancient Romans wouldn’t be here, or Santino, and Helena wouldn’t be unconscious.

  I tried to think.

  I did touch that glowing ball thing, whatever that was. But how could that have caused all this? I could barely remember what it had even done at this point, even though I remember that I should be remembering something. Even if I believed it somehow had something to do with this, that meant we had just found a glowing, blue time machine.

  As stupid as that sounds.

  Only one way to find out. Plan B. If it failed, at least we’ll be able to pick up a beer pong game or two.

  “Vincent, I’m going to try something, back me up.”

  “What are you…?”

  I unslung my rifle and handed it off to Bordeaux, whose jaw hung limp in its sockets. Cautiously, I approached the men with my hands up. Thinking back to my old Latin classes, I did the best I could.

  “Meus animus et summus pacis.”

  I really was rusty.

  I believe I said, “Me friend and we are peace.” I always got tripped up on those damn endings. Hopefully, it was close enough to get the message across. Sure, it relied on these guys actually being Romans, or at least a classically oriented fraternity, neither of which seemed overly plausible, but what else could I do?

  The “Romans/frat boys” looked at each other, perhaps wondering who this barbarian was butchering their language, perhaps wondering where the nearest bikinis-only jello fight was. I wouldn’t blame them on the language issue. Speaking Latin is harder than it seems. It’s a dead language for a reason, and while it may be used daily in medical and law professions, and probably at the Vatican, its conversational usage went extinct centuries before I was born.

  I just hope I got the point across.

  One of the men stood up, and after glancing at his partners, said, “Salve.”

  “Hello.”

  My jaw dropped.

  “Speak English?” I asked hopefully, to no response.

  “Parlez-vous Français?” Bordeaux offered, to even more blank expressions.

  Damn. They were Romans. Or maybe a Latin club? I shook my head and looked over at Vincent, his expression likewise in shock. I caught his eye, still not believing my own ears. “I guess you’re going to have to talk to them, Vincent. My Latin is beyond rusty. I’ll see how the Major is.”

  “I’ll do my best,” he said awkwardly, still not completely buying it that these guys were Romans either, “but you know as well as I that nobody really speaks Latin anymore.”

  “Seems they do now,” Santino mumbled.

  I ignored him. “Write it down and...” I paused, forcing myself to believe my own words, “show it to them or something, just make sure they know we mean them no harm. Maybe they really are just bunch of Roman cosplayers.”

  He nodded shakily, and I wondered if he had any idea what I was talking about.

  I wasn’t even sure if I had any idea what I was talking about.

  My mind was whirling, but Romans or no, time travel or no, alien abduction or...

  Stop it.

  We still had wounded. With no idea what to think, I made my way to their position. Both had their eyes closed, but I knew McDougal was in far worse shape. It wasn’t until I was close enough to use my flashlight that I saw Wang pressing a defibrillator against McDougal’s chest. The transportation effect must have been too much for him.

  As I arrived, Wang’s shoulders were slumped in defeat, and he dropped the paddles to the floor.

  I knelt beside him and put a hand on his shoulder.

  He choked back tears as he glanced up at me. “He was a great man, Hunter. I served with him for years, and he never let me down. He pulled me out of a burning helicopter once and carried me all the way home. But I couldn’t help him now. I couldn’t save him.”

  I looked over at McDougal’s mustached face, before slowly pulling the blanket from the cot over his head.

  “It’s not your fault, James. If anything, it’s mine. If I hadn’t flipped that truck, he may still be alive. Hell, we may be back on the Triumph by now.”

  “No. I was in front with you. I saw what you did. To hell with the ROE, you swerved to miss that man and his child. You did the right thing.” He paused. “Look, I need to clean up here. Go make sure Strauss is all right. She should be awake by now.”

  “Okay.”

  No point in telling him it might have been my fault that we arrived here as well, I turned away from him. Wang had enough on his mind.

  I shifted positions so that I was facing Helena. She seemed fine, her breathing was regular, and her skin color was normal. I put a hand on her forehead, noting it likewise felt fine, before I whispered for her to wake up.

  Her eyelids fluttered open.

  “I was dreaming,” she said, shifting her eyes toward mine. “I dreamt of men with red capes and swords. It was… weird.”

  I smirked. “How are you feeling? Can you move? We may need to get out of here in a hurry.”

  “I think so, but I’ll need your help.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m here.”

  I helped her straighten into a sitting position, but she was able to swing her legs over the side of the cot on her own. She rested her elbows on her knees and supported her head in her hands for a few seconds. She tilted her head up to look at me as she kneaded her temples.

  “I think I have the worst headache I’ve ever had. There is no way you’re driving next time.”

  “Somehow…” I said, gesturing to our surroundings, “…I don’t think that’s going to be a problem anymore.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well I’m not sure exactly, but I think – and this is going to sound really odd – we somehow traveled back in time to the days of ancient Rome.”

  She stared at me, probably considering whether to punch me or shoot me. Pro
bably deciding both required more effort than she could summon at the moment, instead, she decided to threaten me.

  “Hunter, I swear to God, if you don’t tell me what’s really going on in the next ten seconds, I promise, I will kill you.”

  I chuckled. That would be a fun fight.

  “I’m not kidding.” I paused. “McDougal didn’t make it.”

  Her hands sprang up to cover her mouth as she looked at the cot next to her, noticing the covered corpse.

  “What happened?”

  “I told you. Whatever happened wasn’t easy. It was the single most painful experience I have ever endured. You were drugged up, so it probably didn’t register as badly, but McDougal was just barely hanging in there. The transition was too stressful on him, and it killed him. Wang did what he could, but it wasn’t enough.”

  Helena looked over to where Wang knelt next to the body of his long time commander, still cleaning his medical supplies. His face was a mess, a reflection of his failure and guilt. Helena’s glance lingered respectfully, before turning back to me.

  “Say I believe you. What do we do now?”

  “Again, I’m not sure, but Vincent is talking to these people. We think they’re Roman because they’re speaking Latin and wearing togas. Not a lot to go on, I know, but...” I waited, trying to rationalize everything, “...oh, fuck it. Let’s go see what Vincent’s got.” I stood. “Need a hand?”

  I offered her my hand, which she lightly grasped. Gently, I helped her up until we both realized she needed way more help than what was already being offered. I had to swing one of her arms over my shoulder, and wrap my own arm around her waist, supporting her entire frame against my own to keep her from collapsing under her own weight.

  I grunted slightly with the effort. She was heavier than she looked. “Gee, Strauss, lay off the desserts next time, will ya?”

  “I’m not kidding this time. I will kill you.”

  I didn’t laugh. “Come on.”

  We approached Vincent and the men in togas conversing when I noticed another man, clearly not part of the group, slinking toward the only exit. He noticed my attention and quickened his pace, his face ablaze in terror. He was gone before I could say anything.

  I guessed we’d have a welcoming party when we got out of here.

  Vincent clasped a fist over his chest, indicating the conversation was over.

  He turned, and everyone, save Wang, gathered to try and make some sense of it all.

  “So?” I asked.

  “Well,” Vincent started, “unless I truly do not understand these people, I have surmised that we have in fact traveled to the days of ancient Rome, and, from what I can gather, during the time of Caligula.” He paused. “Simply amazing.”

  “You have got to be kidding me,” Santino commented, offering his usual, helpful two cents.

  “But how is that possible?” Bordeaux asked, his French accent thickening from the stress of the moment. “What possibly could have done such a thing?”

  “They didn’t say,” Vincent reported with a shrug.

  The last thing I remembered was that glowing ball, and knew it had something do with our predicament.

  “I know,” I said. “At least, I think I do. That sphere Santino picked up from Abdullah’s room had to have done it. During the firefight, I picked it up, and saw this exact room and those men within it. Then, when I touched it, I felt it pull me through, I guess taking everything in the room with me. I don’t know why it didn’t activate when Abdullah held it.”

  Everyone just stared at me. They had no idea how to respond. They didn’t cover time travel back in basic training, in any of our countries’ boot camps, but we were faced with the dilemma nonetheless. I considered myself a bright guy, and had taken plenty of philosophy classes in my time, and realized we were faced with two viable realities right now: either we’d traveled back in time or this was all an elaborate setup by our enemy, one meant to confuse and then inevitably destroy us. Unbelievably, illogically, and insanely, when trying to determine which conclusion reflected actual reality, the only one that made any sense to me was the one that involved time travel.

  “You realize we’re all dreaming right now, right?” Santino said a few moments later. “I mean, we’re standing in the middle of an impossibly paradoxical situation right now. In fact, I’m just about to wake up with Strauss rubbing my feet and Hunter feeding me a smoothie. Bordeaux, pinch me, will ya?”

  Bordeaux pinched his arm, shrugging sadly when nothing happened. Never one to give up so easily, Santino slapped his face, but the result was the same.

  “Shut up, Santino.” Helena growled at him.

  “He is right, though,” I added, nodding at Santino. “And he did use the word ‘paradoxical’ properly. I’m impressed.”

  I tossed Santino a thumbs up, and he grinned stupidly, loving Helena’s scowling expression.

  “The point is, wherever we are...” Helena informed us, splitting her attention between each of us, “…there’s nothing we can do about it right now. We need to focus on getting out of this cave.”

  “She’s right,” Vincent replied, all business. “We need to secure our gear, and see to our dead and wounded.” He lingered on that last part, the impact of command finally sinking in. “And then we should contact the local leadership and see if we can figure out where to go from there.”

  It was good to see he was taking to command so smoothly. We were going to need some form of leadership if we were going to get out of here…

  Get out of here?

  What happens when we do get out of here?

  If we had been sent to Ancient Rome – and I wasn’t exactly ready to admit that we had – then that meant we were two thousand years in the past. Having studied no actual precedent for time travel, I had no idea how such a phenomenon worked, but I did have decades of television to at least give me something to work with. I’d seen enough to know we were in an extremely dangerous position, not to mention totally uncharted waters. Everyone’s seen the movies where people travel backwards into the past and fuck up the future. Could that happen to us? Had we already messed something up with our mere presence alone?

  I still couldn’t believe the fact we actually traveled into the past hadn’t really hit me yet.

  “There’s another thing,” I added.

  “Go ahead,” Vincent ordered.

  “We can’t tell these people anything about who we are.”

  “Why not?” Bordeaux asked.

  “Well. We’re in the past, right? Our past. I’m no expert, and I’m sure Vincent can back me up on this, but in Roman history there is absolutely no mention of soldiers that fit our descriptions. That can mean one of two things. First, no one wrote it down because we either die real soon, or we don’t make any kind of impression on anyone, which is kinda hard to believe. Or, simply, we were never here, and what we do here and now, can potentially alter the future. Our mere presence may have already been enough to change something. We have to be very careful. We could accidentally kill our own ancestors just by forcing them to avoid walking into us, and then I have no idea what would happen.”

  Again, they all just looked at me.

  “You have got to be kidding me,” Santino repeated incredulously. “If this really is Ancient Rome, let’s just steamroll these guys and take the place over for ourselves.”

  “Come on, Santino. You watch TV. As far as I know, we’re the first time travelers in recorded history. I have no idea how this shit works, but from what I think I know, I believe we have to be very careful. We can’t mention people, places, terms, dates, anything. It can completely change history. And why the hell would you want to take over the Roman Empire? Think of the responsibilities…”

  Santino nodded his head in agreement, but before my words could completely sink in, the room started to shake.

  Violently.

  Cross beams and bracings starte
d to drop and rocks began to fall from the ceiling. The room was about to collapse.

  “Remember what I said about dying really quick?” I asked, twirling Helena away from a falling rock.

  “You have got to be kidding me,” Santino said for a third time, maybe hoping his final repetition and the clicking of his combat boots might whisk us away from this nightmare version of Oz.

  The Romans were already rushing out of the room, quick on their feet.

  Vincent took control. “Quick! Bordeaux, help me grab one of the containers. You too, Santino.”

  Wang came running over. “What about McDougal?”

  “Don’t worry about him. He isn’t going anywhere.”

  “But…”

  “Shut up, Wang,” Vincent yelled. “We’re going to need those supplies.”

  Helena and I were already limping our way out of the room. Santino, Bordeaux and Vincent had one of the containers hefted and out the door when Wang came rushing by us. With a last look at the crumbling room, we waited while Bordeaux and Vincent pushed the container up a hole while Santino dragged it out of the way. Next went Wang and Vincent, followed by Bordeaux and then me. I pulled Helena up through the hole just as the ceiling collapsed in on itself, with a plume of dust and dirt following behind her.

  We exited a small domed structure, emerging into the night sky on top of a rather high hill, surrounded by a familiar, sprawling city. I couldn’t quite place exactly where we were, but the city was beautiful and majestic. If I had to guess, I’d say we were back in Rome.

  But that was impossible.

  Right?

  So, not only were we transplanted into the past, but also transported half way across the Mediterranean?

  “Well, that figures,” I said, still in disbelief.

  “What?” Helena asked, from my shoulder.

  “We’re back in Rome.”

  Her only response was to look out confusingly over the huge city.

  “Damn, that really kills my frequent flyer miles,” Santino said.

  I would have punched him had Helena not been on my arm, but my attention was drawn down the street anyway. I saw the men from inside kneeling before a dozen armed men, wearing plain white togas and wielding swords and shields, torches illuminating their stone cold expressions. The sneaky man from the cavern was standing beside them, finger pointing accusingly in our direction.

  This time, I couldn’t help having the last word.

  “Aw, shit.”