Muses of Roma (Codex Antonius Book 1)

by Rob Steiner

  “Not much room for negotiation,” Nestor mumbled.

  Time to see if Vallutus was right, Kaeso thought. Along with the cancellation fee, Vallutus had given Kaeso the code phrases he planned to use when he bribed the Roman sentries. Kaeso tapped the com on his tabulari.

  “Corus, this is Caduceus. We have authorization from Menota’s Agricultural Praetor to land on the planet and conduct soil tests.”

  “We have no record of any scheduled landings today. Turn your ship around now or you will be fired upon.”

  Kaeso bit his lip. Damned bad luck to have a junior officer challenge him on the com rather than the ship's centuriae. “It was Praetor Gurges, my lord. Please tell your centuriae it was Praetor Gurges who authorized this landing. Your centuriae will have the records.” Fortuna grant it be so...

  There was a long pause, a minute which felt like an hour to Kaeso. Sweat trickled down his back. Why the wait? Was he unlucky enough to run into the most honest centuriae in the Roman fleet? Kaeso never heard of a Roman centuriae who would ignore a bribe.

  “Caduceus,” the com said. “Power down your ion drive and prepare for boarding.”

  “Damn,” Lucia cursed.

  “Confine your crew to quarters,” the com continued. “You alone, Centuriae, will meet the boarding party. Do you have any weapons onboard?”

  Kaeso sighed. Better to be honest and avoid any surprises. “We have seven pulse pistols.”

  “You will place all seven pistols in your galley. Any crewman seen with a pistol—even if it is holstered—will be shot. Acknowledge.”

  “Acknowledged.”

  “Come about to bearing 271. Corus out.”

  “You heard the man, Lucia. Power down the ions.”

  “They'll take us back to Roma for sure,” Lucia murmured.

  “Not if they take the bribes.” Kaeso said into his collar, “All crew return to quarters and lock your doors. They’re going to board us. Lucia?”

  “Sir.”

  “Stow the pulse pistols in the galley and get to your quarters.”

  “Maybe we should keep—”

  “I don't want anyone shot by mistake. Stow the pistols.”

  “Then I should at least be with you when they board.”

  “Again, no. They ordered everyone but me to their quarters. We’re in no position to disobey them. Besides, I don't think you want Roman Legionaries seeing you.”

  She sighed. “No, sir, but it's too dangerous for you.”

  “Why are we still talking about this? Follow my orders, Trierarch.”

  Her eyes narrowed, then she said, “Yes, Centuriae.”

  Kaeso turned to Nestor. “You, too, Medicus.”

  The Greek nodded, then unstrapped himself from his delta couch and exited the command deck, leaving Kaeso to watch the two Roman Eagles grow larger in the window.

  5

  At Caduceus's entry hatch, Kaeso moved the sliders on the tabulari to equalize the pressure in the air lock. At the other end, several helmed heads peered through the Eagle’s airlock window.

  “Docking secure, Caduceus,” the Corus officer said over Kaeso's collar com. “Open your hatch.”

  Kaeso moved a tabulari slider, and the airlock hatch opened. The first thing he saw were red Roman boots. Caduceus’s nose was docked with the Corus's underbelly like a suckling wolf, so the Romans had to climb “down” through their connector and then reorient themselves ninety degrees when they met Caduceus's gravity field.

  As soon as the helmeted soldiers could stand, they stormed through the hatch with their pulse rifles pointed at Kaeso’s head. He noticed the charge indicator near each rifle’s trigger showed ‘maximum’, and their projectile clips were likely full as well. Their faces were hidden behind gold visors.

  “Hands on your head,” the lead soldier ordered. He was a centurion, judging from his shoulder stripes. Kaeso backed away from the controls and placed his hands on his head.

  “Face the wall.”

  Kaeso turned. The centurion shoved Kaeso’s back and pressed him into the wall. Gloved hands patted him down, removed his collar com, and then put bindings on his wrists.

  “Is this necessary?”

  “You the ship’s centuriae?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where’s your crew?”

  “In their quarters, like you asked. The pistols are in the galley. Like you asked.”

  “Where’s the galley?”

  “Down the corridor, up one level, first hatch on the right.”

  “Rullus, Silo, secure the galley and the pistols. Centuriae, you said you had seven pistols, right?”

  “That's right.”

  “There better be.”

  Two Roman soldiers in dark-red uniforms proceeded down the corridor, their pulse rifles raised in a firing position. Kaeso made sure his crew were in their quarters before he docked with the Corus, but he prayed they wouldn’t be stupid enough to use the latrine right now.

  The soldiers yanked Kaeso away from the wall and turned him toward the airlock hatch. The Romans stood at attention as the Centuriae of the Corus stepped through. She was like most Roman Eagle Centuriae Kaeso met in his time with Umbra: short, gray-haired, and with an imperious bearing that would impress the Consul. She sniffed the air and scowled.

  “Let's get this over with, centuriae,” she said, as if addressing a dog on a cac run. “I have no desire to be here any longer than I have to. Your ship smells of rotten cabbage.”

  Kaeso bowed his head. “I can assure my lady we've never transported rotten cabbage.”

  She looked at him, gauging whether or not he was being insolent.

  Kaeso said, “I didn’t catch my lady’s name.”

  “No, you didn’t. Why does the good Praetor Gurges want a Liberti ship to study a planet the gods have declared a blasphemy on humanity?”

  “The Praetor believes soil samples can—”

  The Centuriae snorted. “Soil samples? The planet is irradiated. It will be thousands of years before moss grows there, if ever. What does he want with dead soil?”

  Kaeso paused and then smiled his most charming smile. “My Lady Centuriae, we both know why I'm here. We both know why you're here. So to limit the Lady Centuriae's olfactory exposure to my ship, I suggest we discuss our arrangement.”

  The Centuriae upturned her lips in a quick smile Kaeso almost missed. “Very well, centuriae. Let us discuss terms then. I will permit you to land on the planet for twenty-four hours after you transfer a port entry fee to the Corus's purse.”

  The Centuriae sounded so official when she explained the bribe’s terms that Kaeso thought he was talking to an actual way station customs officer.

  “How much is the, um, port entry fee, Lady Centuriae?”

  “How much do you have in your ship's purse?”

  “We can contribute 500 sesterces.”

  The Centuriae laughed, then turned toward the airlock. “Centurion, confiscate the ship and arrest the crew.”

  “I meant 1,200 sesterces, Lady Centuriae,” Kaeso said.

  She paused, then turned her head. “A good start, but it's still not enough. The Collegia Pontificis have released a Missive of the Gods saying any ship landing on Menota will be damned for all eternity. The gods don’t issue such strong proclamations too often.”

  “We have 1,500 in the ship's purse.”

  The Centuriae sighed. “You’re making this hard for me. Fifteen hundred may satisfy me, but I have the centuriae of the Virtus to consider, and he has more expensive tastes than I.”

  “You can check the tabulari yourself,” Kaeso said. “It's all we have.”

  She stared at Kaeso, once again evaluating him. “I will grant you this concession: we will take the 1,500 sesterces in your ship's purse. Also, once you return from the planet, we will board your ship again and confiscate 70% of what you find on the planet. I’m willing to 'overlook' the remaining thirty percent.”

  “Thirty...”

  “Come now, Centuriae,
let's not be greedy,” she said with a straight face. “If what the stories say is true, thirty percent of what is down there is more than enough to buy yourself a new ship. From the look and stench of this one, you could use an upgrade.”

  “Lady Centuriae, my crew and I will be risking our lives. Shouldn't we deserve at least half?”

  “I happen to believe the vaults are a myth,” she said. “The Roman fleet is thorough when it comes to its duties. Anything valuable was certainly evacuated or destroyed. From where I stand, I'm only getting 1,500 sesterces out of this deal.”

  “Yes, but thirty percent is—”

  “Thirty percent or I destroy your ship. Decide now.”

  Kaeso shook his head. “I suppose I have no choice, do I, Lady Centuriae?”

  She raised an eyebrow.

  “I accept your ladyship's most generous offer.”

  The Centuriae turned and entered the airlock. “Transfer your ship's purse to Corus as soon as we leave. If you try to run after you leave the planet, I will destroy you whether or not your 'soil collection’ was successful. You have twenty-four hours.”

  Once the Roman centuriae left Caduceus, the centurion unbound Kaeso's hands. He rubbed his wrists. “Is she always so generous?”

  Kaeso could not see the man's expression behind the gold visor, but the centurion faced Kaeso a moment and then gave him a slight nod.

  After the Romans left the connector tube, Kaeso sealed the outer airlock door. He reattached his collar com and said, “All crew, the Romans have left Caduceus, so you can leave your quarters. They have graciously allowed us to land.”

  Lucia's voice came back, “What did we have to give up, sir?”

  “Everything in the ship's purse,” Kaeso said, climbing up to the command deck, “and seventy percent of what we take from the planet.”

  “So we keep thirty percent?” Lucia asked.

  “Uh-huh.”

  After a long silence, Blaesus laughed. “Vallutus was giving us twenty-five. Well done, Centuriae! I had no idea you were such a vicious haggler.”

  Kaeso entered the command deck and strapped himself into his delta couch. “No haggling, we just got lucky. The catch is we have twenty-four hours on the planet. Vallutus said he could get us three days, which means we’ll be grabbing fewer marques.”

  “Indeed,” Blaesus said. “But I'm happy to work a little harder for five percent more.”

  Lucia entered the command deck and strapped herself into her pilot's couch. Kaeso said into his com, “All crew prepare for landing. We enter atmosphere in fifteen minutes.”

  6

  Caduceus fell through Menota’s atmosphere. Kaeso’s tabulari readouts told him Lucia was doing a fine job “steering the pulse pellet” that was Caduceus. All any pilot could do during re-entry was aim the ship at a certain point on the planet, then let the atmosphere slow the ship enough to where the engines could take over the descent. It was the most dangerous part of space travel due to the frictional, gravitational, and inertial forces pushing and pulling the ship. At least Caduceus’s grav and inertial cancelers kept the ride somewhat smooth.

  “Re-entry burn complete,” Lucia said. “Switching to thrusters and grav propulsion.”

  A small drop in his stomach told Keaso the grav propulsion kicked in, making the ship “ignore” the planet's gravity and float in the atmosphere. Out the window Kaeso saw billowy gray and brown clouds a mile below Caduceus. It was beautiful and peaceful from this high up, but he knew the planet's surface was quite different.

  “I don’t see any beacons from the old cities,” Lucia said. “We’ll have to make visual confirmation of our landing site.” She glanced out the command deck window. “Don’t know how we’ll see anything in this soup.”

  “That's what you pay me for,” Blaesus said, entering the command deck with his rolled maps and scrolls. “My encyclopedic wisdom and sharp wit.”

  Kaeso stood up from his command couch. “Well sit that wisdom and wit in the couch and find our landing site. We should be through the clouds in a few minutes.”

  “The honor is mine, Centuriae,” Blaesus said as he sat in the couch. “And thank you for keeping the couch warm for my old bones.”

  Kaeso gave him a sideways look. “You seem extra gracious. You weren’t in the wine again, were you?”

  “Centuriae,” Blaesus said, looking over his scrolls, “the only thing I’m drunk with is excitement at exploring a new world.”

  Kaeso nodded, satisfied with Blaesus' response and the absence of wine on his breath.

  “Entering lower cloud cover,” Lucia announced.

  The ship dove toward the gray clouds at a thirty-degree angle. When Caduceus entered the clouds, the view outside turned gray and black. Condensation gathered on the window and on the camera lenses outside the ship.

  “Let us see what we can see,” Blaesus said, moving some sliders on the tabulari. “Starting terrain scans.”

  The view on the tabulari monitors turned from the gray clouds to color-coded terrain. Red outlines indicated mountains, greens for valleys, and blues for the small bodies of water left on the planet. Kaeso did not see any cities or other human ruins.

  “How far are we from the site?” Kaeso asked.

  When the former Senator didn't say anything, Kaeso asked again.

  “I’ll tell you when I find it,” Blaesus said. “Remember what I said about not having Vallutus’s coordinates? Patience, Centuriae.”

  The thing Kaeso found hardest about command was allowing his crew to do their jobs without hovering over their shoulders. Once the mission started, there was little for Kaeso to do besides stand back and watch his crew perform. When they did well, all he could do was feel useless. Lucia piloted the ship, Blaesus looked for the vaults, and Kaeso stood behind them both with hands in his pockets. It was a feeling he still hated after three years as Centuriae of Caduceus.

  Lucia turned to Blaesus. “We're above the sector Barbata gave us. See anything yet?”

  “Not...yet...” Blaesus said, going from the tabulari monitors to his scrolls. “Can you bring the ship below these clouds?”

  Lucia frowned. “The clouds are a thousand feet above the ground.”

  “I need visual input. These damned color-coded readouts don’t have the same flavor as sight. I need sight to feel my way to the location.”

  “You'll feel it if we crash into a mountain,” Lucia said.

  “I thought you were a better pilot than that?”

  “I'm already getting proximity alerts from the mountains, and we're two thousand feet above the nearest peaks.”

  While Blaesus and Lucia bantered, Kaeso stared at the open map scroll on the former Senator's lap. It was an old satellite print from the days before the Roman bombardment, when Menota was a lush world with a thriving Roman colony. Before the Cariosus plague threatened to escape this one world and spread throughout human space. Blaesus had circled certain valleys and mountains with a red wax pencil.

  “Blaesus, the locations you circled are nowhere near Pomona,” Kaeso said, searching for the colonial capital on the map. “Weren't the vaults in the city?”

  “My good Centuriae,” Blaesus said, “the bits of information Barbata gave us indicated the vaults were hidden in the mountains.”

  “No, she said they were in ‘the canyons of sector 2109 beneath a white tholus tree.’”

  “I circled sector 2109 on the map, but I doubt we’ll find any living tholus trees down there.”

  A twinge of pain shot from behind Kaeso's right ear, and he grimaced. Kaeso had assumed Blaesus would know Pomona's landmarks. Kaeso recognized the term ‘canyons of sector 2109’ from an Umbra mission he’d once performed on Menota. How to explain to Blaesus without revealing how he knew?

  “In Pomona there was a street with a colosseum on one side and a theater on the other. The locals sometimes called it the Canyon since both buildings were so large.”

  “I never heard that. But then again I've never been to Menota
.” Blaesus looked at Kaeso. “Have you?”

  A warning burst from the implant, but Kaeso masked his wince. “No,” he lied, “but I knew someone who visited years before the Cariosus struck.”

  Lucia shook her head. “The Legion slagged every city on the planet. Even if the vaults are in Pomona, there's no way we could dig through six feet of glassed rock.”

  “Ah,” Blaesus said, “but the Legion did not slag Pomona. They irradiated it with diraenium bombs. Killed two million citizens and every organism there so they would not have to destroy the planet's only temple consecrated to Jupiter Optimus Maximus. The gods would not look kindly on such a desecration.”

  Blaesus then turned to his map. “Pomona is in sector 2109. And it would make more sense for the vaults to be in a city where they'd be easier to access. What was the street’s name, Centuriae?”

  “I don't know,” Kaeso lied again. “Look it up in the tabulari. We now have less than twenty-three hours to find the vaults and get the money, so let's start with the location that makes the most sense.”

  “As you wish, Centuriae. You hear that, dear Lucia? No flying through cloud-covered mountains. You get to fly through a cloud-covered city.”

  “Praise Juno,” Lucia muttered. “The Pomona beacon is no longer transmitting, or Menota’s nav satellites. We'll have to do this the old-fashioned way. What are the longitude and latitude coordinates for Pomona?”

  Blaesus turned his map over and then relayed a series of numbers. Lucia tapped them into her tabulari. The view out the command window tilted right and down. Kaeso glimpsed land through the gray clouds, and then the ship dropped beneath the cover. A blackened landscape spread out below them. Kaeso had been to dead moons and planets, but they’d all evolved that way. Menota was a murdered world, killed by Roman mass drivers and diraenium bombs. With the little light filtering through the thick clouds, Kaeso could see barren hills and mountains, empty lake and riverbeds, and glossy black craters from mass driver impacts.

  Wind buffeted Caduceus. Kaeso grabbed the command couch to steady himself. Not for the first time, he wished the ship's inertial cancelers compensated for impacts like it did for acceleration and deceleration. Maybe he could buy a new inertia system with the money they might find in Pomona.