The Last Roman (Praetorian Series - Book One)

by Edward Crichton

  “Gathered here are some of my generals, members of the senate and my uncle, Claudius,” Caligula continued, sweeping his right arm behind him.

  Claudius?

  I looked amongst the gathered men, but could not spot anyone who fit his description. I wasn’t sure what he looked like, but he was known to stutter and twitch, not to mention he was described as feeble and weak. Unfortunately, none of the men present exuded any of those qualities. One man was tall and blond, with the short hair reminiscent of Caesars, but was far from the feeble stutterer I imagined.

  Claudius must be in the back, out of sight somewhere, which wouldn’t have been a surprise considering his reputation.

  “With their help,” he finished, “we will determine whether your existence shall continue, and whether you have a place amongst my people. Now. What will you require?”

  Vincent answered immediately. “First, we need our weapons. With them, we will demonstrate their range, accuracy and lethality. In order to do so, we will need a dozen spare suits of armor set up to appear like men. We will also require a large piece of fruit, and a marble column as thick and strong as you can spare and move here.”

  Smiling, Caligula replied, “Is that all? Perhaps I should have the entire Gaulic war band present for you to defeat. Perhaps then,” he said, the arrogance and depravity that was missing earlier now surfacing, “you would be able to do enough.”

  Vincent returned his smile. “I think we’ll be all right.”

  ***

  Forty five minutes later, our column finally arrived. A simple stone cylinder, barely Doric in style, it was easily the width of a large oak tree, and twice as tall as Bordeaux. It would explode beautifully.

  During that time, we were presented with our confiscated firearms, and had the opportunity to quickly inspect them and make sure they were ready for use. I had to admit, it felt good to have Penelope back in my hands, her reassuring weight doing wonders for my confidence. I pulled back the cocking mechanism and checked the ejection port for any kind of tampering or dirt buildup. It seemed clear, so I released the mechanism with a loud clank, resulting in murmurs spreading through the crowd. I turned to look at them, a nervous smile on my face, before returning my attention to my gear.

  Caligula noticed our focused attention and returned to the railing. “While we are waiting,” he said impatiently, “why don’t you describe what these weapons do.”

  Vincent nodded, pulling a magazine from a chest pouch, and extracting a bullet. “Of course. This,” he said, indicating his upheld M4, “is called a rifle. These are our primary weapons. Most of the ones we are using are of various design and model, each having their own particular benefits and deficits. We all chose our particular rifles based on which one we felt suited us best. Each of our weapons fire a certain size projectile, which is different depending on the rifle.”

  He held up one of the bullets and demonstrated how he loaded it into a magazine.

  “This small object is a bullet,” he said, always using the English terms to describe modern items. “We insert it into what we call a magazine, which holds multiple bullets. Then, to prime the weapon we insert the magazine thusly.”

  He finished by ramming the magazine into the magazine well and pulled the cocking lever, feeding a round into the chamber. “The rifle is now ready to fire.”

  “So, these… bullets,” Caligula said, having trouble wrapping his mouth around the foreign word, “are like the lead pellets used in slings? I ask, because while slings have their place on the battlefield, they are not the most effective projectile weapons. Additionally, they are only effective in mass barrages. What use are these bullets with only the six of you?”

  Vincent smiled. “Patience, Caesar. Things will become very clear, very soon.”

  Caligula mused over Vincent’s paternal tone, clearly annoyed. “What is that shiny object on your leg?” He asked, indicating his side arm.

  “This is a pistol. We refer to it as a sidearm or secondary weapon. It too fires bullets, but with reduced efficiency. We use them as backups.”

  “You carried that thing into my presence?”

  “Yes, we did. Hopefully, the fact that we did not use them helps alleviate any fear or concern you may have towards us. We could have at any time.”

  “So you say, but I have yet to observe anything that leads me to fear these so called, ‘weapons’.”

  Caligula was demonstrating more curiosity, tact, and intelligence than I ever gave him credit for, but that imperial arrogance was getting irritating.

  When the column and legionary armor were finally in place, I couldn’t be more excited. Not because I thought this was a good idea, but because I really didn’t want all of Rome’s military might bearing down on us if we delayed too long.

  Vincent walked over to the railing and held out his hands. “I suggest you wear these,” he said, holding small, foam ear plugs. “These will help muffle the noise of our weapons. They will be extremely loud.”

  One of Caligula’s military men stepped forward and accepted the small gifts, nodding in thanks.

  “Just squeeze them until they are flat, insert them in your ear, and allow them to expand. You will experience a slight drop in hearing ability, but trust me, you will appreciate it later.

  The men and women struggled to insert the ‘foamies,’ understandable, since none of them had ever used anything remotely like them.

  They were in for one hell of a surprise.

  One of the men, a burly, older fellow, refused to use them at all, dropping them to the ground with a haughty laugh.

  Content the spectators were adequately protected, Vincent joined Santino, Wang, and myself in a firing line twenty feet from our targets. Helena and Bordeaux sat off to the side, saving their particular skills for later. We three shooters glanced over at Vincent’s position, waiting for the go ahead. Each of us made eye contact, acknowledging his unspoken question with smug looks.

  Turning his head, he spoke to the grandstand. “With your permission?”

  Caligula waved a hand dismissively.

  Vincent offered a small smirk of his own. “All right. One magazine each. Don’t worry too much about accuracy. Fire in controlled bursts, but do it quickly. Understood?”

  There was a chorus of affirmatives.

  “Open fire!” Vincent bellowed.

  A half second later, we unleashed a hailstorm of fire that echoed throughout the city. We fired in controlled bursts, as ordered, but it seemed like one continuous stream of rifle fire with the four of us shooting in tandem. The armor, set up on stands that we requested be anchored to the ground, were permeated with a hundred little holes and one even fell over.

  The Romans’ reaction was laughably predictable. Every single hand went directly to their ears, and the man who had thrown his earplugs on the ground went diving after them. Some of the men almost fled and most of the women did. Curiously, the extremely attractive blond did not, and instead sat there as calmly with her hands lightly cupping her ears. Even Caligula had his hands to his ears, but did a pretty good job maintaining his imperial demeanor.

  Not twenty seconds later, our magazines spent, we unloaded, put our guns on safe, and admired our handiwork. Not a bad clustering for a couple of Special Forces fellows. The dummies would have been dead a dozen times over. We gathered up the mutilated armor, and brought them before the Romans for their inspection.

  Vincent described what it was they were seeing. “As you can see, our weapons are quite formidable, more so than a simple sling. Just one or two of these holes could kill a man. Additionally, we can carry at any given time at least three hundred rounds of ammunition each, and can easily wield more if necessary. The lethality of our weapons are also high at ranges far greater than those you just witnessed.”

  Caligula inspected one of the gaping holes with a probing finger. His jaw was slightly ajar, amazed at our rifles’ stopping power. “What is the range of your weapons?”

  “They can easily
surpass the range of your arrows, which we will demonstrate next. If you will, please place that large piece of fruit on the highest level of the arena, at the farthest end.”

  “Impossible. That distance is too far to hit such a small target.”

  “Are you sure?”

  He thought about it for a second, glancing at the ruined sets of armor.

  “No.”

  Ten minutes later, the piece of fruit high above the rest of us, Helena and I sat down to take aim. We ran through the calculations quickly, and while she wasn’t using the Barrett, her DSR-1 was more than able to reach the mark. Another ten minutes later, the piece of fruit exploded in a shower of sticky fruitiness. This time, the Romans applauded. Even Caligula joined in.

  Helena and I joined Vincent near the podium.

  “An impossible shot! Miraculous. And from a woman! How is that a female has the same skills and status as a man in the realm of warfare amongst your people?”

  “What did he say?” Helena whispered, clearly aware of his attention on her.

  I wasn’t exactly sure, but I got the gist of it. “You don’t want to know.”

  “Where we come from, pure strength isn’t the only prerequisite needed for war,” Vincent informed. “Far more aptitudes are required, and while women comprise only a small minority in our militaries, their presence is still noticeable and appreciated.”

  Caligula thought this over for a few minutes before nodding. I wasn’t sure if he simply understood or shared our sentiments, but considering what he just saw, he didn’t need to.

  “And what are you to conclude with?”

  “You have seen our primary weapons at work, but to facilitate our needs, we can call on many other pieces of equipment to aid us in battle. One is an explosive device able to obliterate extremely large and durable objects.”

  “Are you referring to that small brick I saw your very large man place on the column?”

  “Indeed, and if you would be so helpful,” Vincent said, holding out the detonation device, nothing but a small box with a trigger, “when I say all is clear, squeeze the two pieces of this box together, and you shall see.”

  Caligula accepted the device, turning it over in his hand, before nodding to Vincent.

  Vincent turned to Bordeaux. “Ready?”

  “Oui, but I suggest we move everyone to the far end of the arena.”

  Once Vincent requested everyone do so, we were ready to go. Vincent gave the go ahead, and Caligula squeezed the detonator. Across the arena, the column exploded in a plum of dust and debris. The explosion ballooned well above the walls of the arena, sending a cloud of marble in all directions, and the sound was deafening. It seemed as though Bordeaux used just a bit too much C-4, but I’m sure it was purposeful. He just wanted to make a big bang, something all demolition men took way too much pride in. I always figured they were overcompensating for something.

  After the debris cloud settled, and a few of the Romans had returned from their hiding spots, some not returning at all, Vincent turned towards Caligula, a slight smile on his mouth.

  “Well? Have we satisfied your interests, Caesar?”

  Caligula continued to stare at the ruined column, barely recognizable after its explosive ending. For a second I thought he was going to declare us evil sorcerers and have us crucified, but soon his face softened.

  His eyes met Vincent’s, his look of superiority gone. “You have, indeed. I will order a team to recover your fallen comrade, and then we shall talk about how you may best serve the glory of Rome.”

  ***

  Three days later, we were still waiting for Caligula to come through on his end of the bargain. We were still locked up in the same building we were thrown in the very first night, but there really wasn’t much room for complaint. We were no longer treated as prisoners, at least not officially, and we were allowed to leave the building, a freedom we took advantage of twice a day to workout. Food was provided, we were given fresh clothes and bedding regularly, and we had our very own private bathroom, thankfully, only a short walk away from our little house.

  On the downside, however, we were always under the watchful eyes of Praetorian guardsmen, and our weapons were confiscated again, including our side arms. The Romans weren’t going to let that trick fly twice. Occasionally, one or two particular Praetorians, their names not provided, would spend hours speaking to Vincent. He spoke in detail about our weapons, as well as modern combat tactics. The Romans were extremely interested in our methods of waging war, where the largest battlefields saw small, eight man squads, engaging in endless skirmishes, as opposed to legions of thousands of men, fighting one, massive battle. He left out the parts about tanks, planes, ships, and nukes, at least for the time being.

  I continued to voice my dissent about telling them anything at all, reiterating the fact that we could still be in the process of altering future events. I even told him a story I had read about time traveling dinosaur hunters who accidentally killed a butterfly in the past, and ended up changing their utopian government into a tyrannical regime, sixty five million years later. Granted, it was an extreme, unscientific opinion of what could happen, but I hoped it would be enough to change his mind.

  It didn’t, and I eventually realized there was nothing I could do to convince Vincent. For some reason, he was being particularly stubborn about his decisions.

  Still, despite the tight spaces and endless boredom, the time helped the unit bond. As a team, we spent the time playing cards and chatted endlessly.

  Generally, the games left me pretty frustrated, especially after I realized Wang and Helena were phenomenal poker players. I never knew poker was so popular amongst the English and Germans, but while I gained little from the games, I learned plenty about my teammates.

  Bordeaux, for instance, spoke of his checkered youth, a life of crime and insolence that landed him in the foreign legion in the first place. He told us about how his military life had changed him, how he had found God, and even a wife.

  During a mission in Africa, his team had rescued a group of French peacekeepers, captured by a local guerrilla militia. Successfully rescuing the group, one of the young women immediately fell in love with the bulky hero, and eventually married him. The story lacked a happy ending, however, when Bordeaux also told us how she had died in the Vatican terrorist attacks. The attack only fueled his focus, and it had driven him to find his own way into the Praetorians, instead of being chosen like I was. I immediately connected his loss with the reason behind his unfocused attention during the briefing back in modern day Rome.

  Wang continued to grieve, but his attitude quickly shifted when he realized his poker skills were far superior to the rest of ours. Poker soon boiled down to a deadly game of one on one between him and Helena.

  I didn’t mind. I wasn’t very good at poker, anyway.

  He seemed happiest, though, when he told stories of McDougal and his heroics. From what I learned, he couldn’t have been a better commander, and I only wished I could have served with him longer.

  Santino, meanwhile, had a story for everything. Whether it was about his first stealth kill in North Korea or the first vanilla smoothie he ever had in high school, he always had something to say. And while it may have seemed annoying, they were actually good stories, even the one about the smoothie, which he seriously told.

  Helena and I held back our more personal stories with the group, both of us reluctant to delve into our personal lives. It was, however, a personality quirk that strengthened our own friendship. Since swim buddies were bunked together, we had plenty of alone time, and we often found ourselves talking about things we couldn’t have told the others. She became someone I could really talk to.

  Our stories tended to revolve around our repressive fathers, who always had the best intentions at heart, but at the expense of what their children wanted. Her father had taught her to hunt, and mine, to play baseball, but both led us in directions neither one of us really wanted. When she had pressed
the issue of why I never finished my schooling, I told her it was because of how my father forced me into the military. It was his opinion that school was unnecessary after achieving an undergraduate degree, and only because that degree was important in securing entry into Officer Candidate School.

  It was a bad moment in the Hunter family saga. Dad spoke of cutting me off, severing my ties to the family if I didn’t comply with the family tradition. The shouting matches had been epic. When I’d given up completely, figuring I’d have to settle with Christmas cards from mom only, she and my sister took up the cause and pleaded with him to let me make my own choices, but he was stalwart. My sister stopped talking to him for a long while back then, but my mother was more diplomatic. She loved her husband and wanted to make him happy, so she relented and sat me down. Like any good mom could, she compromised, making me understand that military service would be good for me and my career, and that since the world was as peaceful as it had been in decades, it would be safe. So, wanting to make my mother happy, as she did my father, I signed up, and instead of taking the safe route by joining the intelligence sector, I decided to stick it to my father and do something he never could. I joined the SEALs, something he’d tried for back in the 80s, but couldn’t hack.

  We didn’t hate our fathers, we just didn’t understand them, like they didn’t understand us. Although, after my father had snubbed me back at the airport, hate wasn’t that far off.

  Our mothers, on the other hand, were startlingly similar, despite completely different backgrounds. Loving, guiding, and our primary care givers, we had both spent more time with them than our fathers and loved every moment of it, and after the way Helena spoke of hers, I really hoped to meet her one day.

  A duchess or baroness of some kind, Helena described her as eternally loving and beautiful, far more so than even herself, reason enough to get home so I could meet her. She had been very hands on with Helena, always a guiding presence, even with the cadre of maids, nurses, teachers, and other caregivers Helena had been surrounded by. My mother had been horribly pedestrian in comparison, but after I’d shown Helena a picture of her that I kept stashed in my go-bag, she commented how she must have been a wonderful lady, beautiful on both the inside and out.