by R. M. Meluch
Carly put an end to the debate. Ordered the flight to form up and follow the heat trail.
Alpha Flight caught up with the heat source while Kerry was on point.
Glory be.
“That’s Merrimack!”
Cowboy laughed like a hyena. He had seen the Roman, Bellus, on Gladiator send the destruct signal, had seen the light turn green on the console.
The destruct signal went. But: “How the hell is Merrimack going to receive the signal with all those gorgons on board uffing the systems? Did those squid-humping gits ever think of that?” He howled in gloating triumph.
Carly was sending: “Merrimack! Merrimack! Merrimack! This is Alpha Four! You have a bomb on board! Repeat message: You have a bomb on board!”
“They aren’t responding,” said Reg. “I guess they’re not receiving that signal either.”
“If they kill enough of the gorgons—and knowing Captain Farragut, they will—and someone don’t disarm that bomb, their systems come back on and Gladiator can still destroy the Mack with the flip of a switch.”
“No!” Kerry cried. Not in front of my face. Not after all this.
But how to warn Merrimack?
“Captain! I’m picking up a Morse signal!” Marcander Vincent reported, surprised. “Dead ahead. Light beacon. Claims to be Alpha Four. Says we have a bomb on board.”
Already figured that out. Still surprised, Farragut moved forward to see the beacon. “We have people out there?”
“Alpha Four says Gladiator tried to detonate the bomb.”
“Using what kind of switch?”
“Can’t ask, Captain. Ben can’t get a tight beam out of this gorgon nest, and we can’t send a light signal forward at this speed.”
Farragut was about to order his senior engineer to the command deck, when she appeared on her own. Ariel Kittering had never looked quite real—porcelain skin, China-black hair, baby-doll eyes. She appeared now like a mannequin.
“Did you hear any of that, Kit? Romans have a remote detonator that didn’t work.”
“Yes, sir. I—” She held an X-ray clutched tight in her fist.
Farragut knew that Kit had commandeered equipment from the dental lab, and apparently managed to shoot some X-rays into the heart of the gorgon swarm, which filled the maintenance shed, to get a better look at what was inside.
“What’ve you got, Kit?”
She stammered a bit. “Rome took a page from our playbook. Redundancy is good. Redundancy is good. There’s a backup destruct mechanism in there—with a timed chemical ignition.” She flapped the X-ray uselessly. “And I never seen a gorgon inhibit a chemical reaction, so the clock is . . . running.”
“How long do we have?”
Kit checked her chron. “Eleven seconds.”
Startled techs grasped at their consoles.
Farragut, very softly, “Kit, are you serious?”
“Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. It has been an honor serving under you, Captain Farragut.”
36
“NOW KIT, WHY ARE YOU scaring the royal blue peaches out of me? We’re still here.”
“Honest to God, Captain, I don’t know what happened.”
“I can tell you what didn’t,” said Farragut.
Kit checked the X-ray. “All I can think is the gorgons ate the fuse.”
Consoles lit up.
Barking resounded through the ship—Marines, turning the gorgon tide. The enemy was on the run.
Farragut asked if anyone had got at the bomb yet to disarm it.
“Not yet, Captain. We haven’t got inside the maintenance shed yet.”
Ben Mueller at the com reported, “Receiving a tight beam transmission.”
“Please say that’s not from Gladiator.”
Gladiator’s force field went up. Numa Pompeii congratulated his crew on their victory against an enemy against which all others had fallen. Told them to press the offensive until the ship was rid of every last gorgon.
The communications officer informed the general, “We are picking up English transmissions among unknown vessels and—Merrimack!”
“Sad for them they shall receive no answer,” said Numa Pompeii, hands clasped behind his back.
“But they did, General,” said the communications officer.
The Triumphalis’ glacial calm rippled, returned. “It’s a hoax.”
“Quite a good one. That is John Farragut’s voice.” The communications officer offered General Pompeii an earphone.
Numa turned to his adjutant, deadly polite, “Kindly bring my fire control officer before me.”
Portia Arrianus was a squarish woman, a long-time veteran, confident of her work, even before a scowling Numa Pompeii. “We sent the destruct signal,” she told him simply. “Systems confirms it. Apparently the signal was not received.”
“Merrimack is receiving signals now, isn’t she?” Numa Pompeii pointed out.
“Yes, Triumphalis.”
“So send the destruct signal again.”
Arrianus never questioned orders, but the Triumphalis could not have thought this one through. “If Merrimack has overcome its gorgons, is it necessary to blow her up? Wasn’t the point of this operation to destroy gorg—?”
“Send the destruct signal.”
Arrianus opened her com link to fire control. Spoke stiffly. “Bellus. Are you receving?”
“I am here, Domna.
“Send the destruct signal again.”
“Domna?”
Like chewing and spitting, “Send the destruct signal again.”
“At once, Domna. Rearming destruct trigger,” Bellus acknowledged. Then, “Ready. At your command, Domna.”
Arrianus glanced to Pompeii. There was to be no reprieve. She ordered, “Let it be done.”
Waited. Waited too long.
“Bellus? Have we detonation?”
The com link remained inert.
The communications officer reported Merrimack was still talking. The unknown vessels Merrimack was talking to were apparently U.S. Marine Swifts.
Portia Arrianus saw her career shredding under Pompeii’s glare. She barked into the com link: “Fire Control. Why don’t we have detonation? Bellus! Acknowledge!”
Got no response.
Pompeii seized the com link, but even Numa Pompeii’s roar could not wake the dead—Bellus lying on the deck, a red crowbar in his skull.
Merrimack’s Marine company hacked, slashed, and clawed their way through the mass of gorgons in the maintenance shed. The killing went faster once small weapons’ controls returned. And soon they were wading in the goo that was all that remained of a gorgon upon dying.
Techs disconnected the Roman explosive device from Engine Number Six and hustled it out an air lock.
With the Roman bomb safely outside the battleship’s force field, the techs asked the captain where he wanted it.
Farragut was not really concerned with it once it left his ship. Space was vast. The universe could end before someone tripped over it.
“Kit! Just what the blue peaches was the ultra tasty gorgon bait Numa planted in my maintenance shed?”
“It wasn’t blue peaches, Captain. It was a res sounder. We pulled the harmonic out of the chamber, but no one’s told me if it’s that exact harmonic that jacked the gorgons’ interest or if any old res pulse would do it for them.”
“Get that data to Jose Maria.”
“Already done, Captain.”
Glenn Hamilton reported in surprise that Gladiator was the only battleship in the region. The rest of the Legion must have kept running. Only Gladiator had turned back to repel the gorgon menace.
Merrimack hailed Gladiator, but the Roman ship was unwilling or unable to respond.
“Numa, talk to me or I am opening fire.”
Glenn Hamilton questioned quietly, “We’re attacking Gladiator?”
“They’ve got our people.”
“I know,” she said thickly. “And something else, John
.” Glenn moved in close so only he could hear. Made him lean down an ear. “They’ve got all our food.”
“Are we in a day’s range of anywhere?” he mumbled, glancing round at his techs.
“No, sir.”
“Then to hell with him.” Didn’t wait for Numa to respond or not. “Give Numa back his bomb.”
Merrimack slung the bomb at Gladiator and detonated it with a beam shot when it got close. The thermonuclear explosion hadn’t much punch coming from outside the battleship’s force field, but in this case it was the thought that counted.
Cowboy heeled his Swift round at the blast. “Merrimack ’s opened fire on Gladiator! EeeeeeHa!”
“Cowboy, no! Alpha Seven, join up! That’s an order!”
Carly might as well be shouting orders to a gorgon.
Didn’t know if Cowboy knew Gladiator was operational. Alpha Seven ran straight into a beam cannon pulse and broke apart.
The com tech on Merrimack yanked his headset off at the piercing scream on the Marine channel. Knew that scream, long and anguished. Kerry Blue. Everyone knew Kerry Blue.
Farragut looked to the com tech. “You okay, Ben?”
The com tech replied laconically, replacing his headset. “Marine Swift down, sir.”
“How did that happen?” said Farragut, shocked. How could he have Marine Swifts out there? Apparently there were great gaping holes in his chain of command. “Get those Marines on board! Then beat the tar out of Gladiator!”
Hamster advised, “Gladiator has run out a Red Cross.”
With a string of words Farragut did not normally use, he lunged at the console and shouted into the com, “What’s next, Numa? Grab a baby for a shield? Strike the false colors, and fight like a man!”
“Captain Farragut.” The voice was of Numa, himself, on the com. “Run out a Red Cross of your own and come with me, please.”
John Farragut sent back, “Numa, what’s Latin for ‘bullshit’?”
“No need to translate. I understand Anglo Saxon well enough.”
“I want to make sure I’m communicating. Strike the Red Cross!”
“I can’t. I am . . . choking here, Captain Farragut.”
“Captain!” Marcander Vincent cried at his tactical station. “Roman Legion entering fire zone!”
Ship after ship blinked back in, all sides.
Farragut roared into the com, “You baited me with a Red Cross?”
“This flag is not bait, and if it were up to me, I would do as you suggest and step out alone in the alley. But it is not up to me.”
Not up to him? Who could force General Numa Pompeii to run out a Red Cross against his will?
Numa said again, pained: “If you please, Captain Farragut. Run out a Red Cross of your own.”
Doing so would shield Merrimack from Roman fire—if it were an honest Red Cross. If Rome had not abandoned all sense of human law.
“I can’t!” Farragut sent back. “I am not on a mission of mercy.”
“Apparently, you are. This way, please.”
Gladiator moved out.
Merrimack fell in behind, but acquired a firing solution on Gladiator’s stern. “Numa, send food back here or I am shooting your damned flag!”
When the Romans actually dispatched a skiff, Farragut nearly shot it for a Trojan horse. But the skiff brought only food.
Two days’ worth.
“Not enough!”
Numa signaled back: “It is enough.”
If Farragut had not seen the hecatomb at the Far Cat, he would not even have considered cooperating further in any way. But he had seen, and half his crew was aboard Gladiator, so he told Lieutenant Hamilton, “Run out the Red Cross.”
Then ordered the helm to follow Gladiator on its mission of mercy. Did not know where they were headed. Was afraid of what he would find when they got there. Finally, he thought to ask his navigator, “Where are we?”
In the Abyss.
In transit into the Abyss, Captain Farragut collected the names of the missing. He already knew that his new XO Sebastian Gray was not aboard, but no one could say what had become of him.
Alpha Flight had returned to Merrimack without Flight Leader Hazard Sewell. No one aboard was sure what had become of Hazard Sewell either. Lieutenant Colonel Steele was reported dead, even though Flight Sergeant Kerry Blue swore—swore a lot—that Steele was still alive. He had to be.
Patrick Hamilton was on the list. Surprised him. Glenn had not let on. Looking back, yes, she had the bearing of someone carrying a heavy burden inside, alone. He had seen her in the ship’s chapel. Glenn Hamilton never went to chapel. He asked Mo Shah to look in on her for him.
If she needed an ear, John Farragut’s was the wrong one.
The journey lasted less than two days. During that time, the ship’s cryptotech, Qord Johnson, tried to recreate some of the ship’s information. Immediately upon surrendering to Gladiator, Merrimack had run an information destruct protocol that had vaporized the contents of Captain Farragut’s and Commander Gray’s safes and all the red files in the data banks.
Qord Johnson was the only man on board who could reconstruct the codes. He hummed while he worked, happy to be alive.
The captain looked over his shoulder. Qord looked up, met the captain’s eyes, gave a shaky grin. “They used to shoot cryptotechs on capture, didn’t they?”
Once upon a time there’d been someone on board a Navy ship who was assigned to shoot the CT if the ship fell into enemy hands.
“I heard they used to do that,” said Qord.
Farragut nodded. “They still do.” And to Qord’s open mouth and wide wide eyes, he said, “Carry on.” To Tactical: “Got a plot yet on where we’re going, Mr. Vincent?”
“Not sure, sir. Possible target dead ahead.”
“Possible target? Can I get some more information than that, Mr. Vincent?”
“Could be just a nebula. Can’t get a fix on it to measure it. It’s a bit nebulous, so to say. Vector galactic normal.” And, like dropping one shoe: “Could be a nebula.”
“Could be a refractor,” Farragut supplied the other shoe.
It was a common stealth tactic, to refract electromagnetic emissions around oneself. If the scattered light up ahead was not a nebula, then someone was hiding there.
Farragut got on the com, “Hey, Numa, have you ever known a Hive sphere to refract?”
The return message came from one of the general’s adjutants: “That is not a Hive sphere.”
The Romans knew what it was. Farragut had to wait and see, since Rome was not telling. Not over the com.
Gladiator led Merrimack into the refracting field. The Legion did not follow.
The two battleships came out the other side of the scattered signals to a clear zone.
Farragut recognized the approach, but the sight that coalesced on the sensor display still came as a shock.
“Captain!” Marcander Vincent turned from his console to show the amplified image.
A fortress, built like a mountain towering above its own reflection, hanging in the dark of space. The computer-enhanced image lit it up gold. Its griffin acroteri, normally spouting blue-white fire, stood quiescent.
Glenn Hamilton came forward from her station, breathing an invocation. “That looks like—”
It looked like what it was. “That’s Fortress Aeyrie,” said John Farragut. Caesar’s mobile palace.
Captain Farragut had just been summoned to an audience with the Emperor of Rome.
37
“WHAT WOULD CAESAR BE doing out here?”
The image on the display was, without a doubt, Fortress Aeyrie, Caesar’s mobile residence. But Captain Farragut could not quite believe that Caesar could be in it so far from Palatine.
But then the Empire did have a crisis out here of extraordinary magnitude, so perhaps Farragut should expect the extraordinary of Caesar.
“There’s no Praetorian Guard!” Lieutenant Hamilton cried a warning.
Caesar ne
ver went anywhere without his Praetorian Guard. This had to be a fraud.
This fortress had no guard ships at all—unless one counted the half Legion that had just escorted Merrimack here. Only a force field shell protected this place.
The real Fortress Aeyrie had a legendary force field. If Fortress Aeyrie should ever fall into a black hole, it could remain intact and self-sustaining for a thousand years. It did not really need guards. Still, it always had them. Fortress Aeyrie was never without squadrons of guards and flocks of hangers-on, lackeys, sycophants, and petitioners. You never saw Fortress Aeyrie hanging alone in space.
“But that is Fortress Aeyrie. And those are Caesar’s eagles,” Marcander Vincent pointed out the distinctive eagle standards on the display image.
“So where is the Praetorian Guard?” said Glenn Hamilton.
“Glenn, you were right the first time,” said Farragut in hollow realization.
There is no Praetorian Guard.
He was just beginning to wonder if anyone were left inside the fortress, when slowly, there appeared a break in the impenetrable field’s shell and a beacon to ride in on.
“I’m not docking my Merrimack with that,” said Farragut and got on the com. “Numa, you give me back one of my LRSs for me to pilot in myself, or I don’t go.”
It disturbed him that General Numa Pompeii complied.
Farragut snapped sighting brackets on either side of his eyes. Not that he would carry a gun into Fortress Aeyrie. But so that his command crew would be able to see whatever he saw. He left his com link open so the command crew would hear him also, and he could hear them.
He left the command deck. “Hamster, your boat.”
Alone in his LRS, on slow approach to the wayward mountain, Farragut was struck by the sheer size of Fortress Aeyrie. Built like an iceberg, the lower mile of it housed all the machinery that served the hundred-meter-tall residence built of rich rose granite inlaid with black marble polished to a glossy brilliance. The fortress summit, normally ablaze with white-and-gold fire-stones, stood dormant in milky translucence.
