To Crown a Caesar (The Praetorian Series: Book II)

by Crichton, Edward

  At least, thoughts like that helped reassure me that I wasn’t somehow responsible for the possible extermination of mankind because of something we changed.

  Then again, the world hadn’t been all that great when we had left it either. Helena and I could joke about the ballet and football, and a life filled with little more than relaxation, love, beer, and plenty of sex, but I wasn’t so sure such a thing was even possible. At least, not in the long term. I’d almost forgotten what the world had been like before we had left it five years ago, but thinking about it now reminded me just how little there really was there for me. For us. For any of us. Nothing but war and the potential for mutually assured annihilation. Perhaps it was best to just stay, but even if I later decided that was the best course of action for us, I wasn’t about to let the timeline continue in a state of change.

  Just drop it.

  As long as I had Helena, I could make my life happy.

  Clearing my mind, I returned my attention to the battlefield and the sneaking Roman horde, when an unexpected voice from behind me nearly scared me right off the roof.

  “What’s happening kids?”

  I turned with my heart racing to see Santino crouching just outside our peripheral vision, wearing full combat gear, his rifle griped between his legs.

  “What the fuck are you doing here?” I asked.

  My sister and I had spent our entire childhoods’ popping around corners, scaring the shit out of each other. Unfortunately, instead of hardening my resolve when it came to sudden appearances, it only made me jumpier.

  “Besides proving the point that we need some kind of super-secret-identification-spy-system-code to let people know when we’re coming?”

  Helena and I glared at him.

  “That’s what the damn radios are for!” Helena hissed at him.

  He looked between us, oblivious. “Well, I can tell when I’m not wanted,” he said, remaining where he crouched. Normally, when people said something like that, they left. “So what’s happening over here? The rest of the city is pretty quiet.”

  “About the same,” I replied wearily, retuning my attention once again to the Roman siege entrenchment system. “Only a few targets so far.”

  “How long have you been there?” Helena asked.

  “Long enough to know I like the way Hunter thinks,” he replied, flicking his eyebrows at her. “I call shirts.”

  She groaned and returned her attention to her scope as well. I couldn’t help but smile.

  “So, what exactly are you doing here?” I asked.

  “Oh, you know… Wang’s stuck playing medic and I got bored and you know how I am when I get bored…”

  “Annoying,” Helena mumbled.

  “… and, well,” he continued, “Wang told me to go bother someone else. So who am I gonna but my two most favorite people?”

  “Lucky us,” I whispered.

  “Besides, I figured you might need a chaperone. We all know what happened the last time I left you two alone to watch my back.”

  “That… only happened a… few times,” I reminded him. Helena turned and glared at me.

  “Yeah,” Santino said, stifling a laugh and moving near Helena to sit against the rock she was seated on, “and the last time was only a few weeks ago. You two are practically like bunnies.”

  The first time it had happened had been completely innocent, and a short story, but one he rarely let us forget. Helena and I had been tasked with providing sniper cover while he snuck into a warehouse of some sort to recover stolen goods. For some reason, he had taken an excessively long time, and it had been a full moon… and Helena and I got a little distracted.

  A little frisky, if you will.

  It had been one of our first missions as Vani, so long ago that we were always in the mood. The next thing we knew, Santino had caught us in the act, looking more pissed than we’d ever seen him. He then angrily explained while we got dressed, how he had been forced to extract under pursuit and because we hadn’t been there to provide cover, had to deal with the threat himself. He’d been fine, but it would have been much easier for us to just shoot them.

  “Anyway,” Santino continued, tapping against Helena’s boot like a child until she shooed him away, “since the Romans have been pretty quiet this past week, I figured I’d come up here and…”

  “Shut it,” I said, waving my hand at him.

  “Well that’s not very…”

  “Shut up, Santino,” Helena ordered, jerking her rifle left and right across the horizon, “What do you see, Jacob?”

  “Ten o’clock, sector 2A. IR strobes.”

  “I see them,” Helena confirmed. “Two of them.”

  “You think its Gaius and Marcus?” Santino asked, squinting out into the darkness.

  “No,” I replied facetiously, “I’m sure it’s just some freak atmospheric anomaly screwing with our night vision.”

  Santino smiled. “Nice.”

  I rolled my eyes and clicked my com. “8-5, 8-1, over”

  “8-5 here,” Bordeaux replied.

  “We’ve got some bogies out there. IR strobes, meaning you know who. They’re in your sector. Take 8-6 and go round them up. Bring them to HQ. Everyone else, rendezvous with us in thirty mikes.”

  “Wilco, 8-1,” he acknowledged, followed by a series of double clicks from everyone else on coms.

  “Think they have good news?” Helena asked, packing up her rifle and gear.

  “Hopefully,” I replied, following suit.

  “I just hope it gets us out of the city,” Santino said, offering Helena a hand to help her from her perch. “I think Madrina and Helena here are the only two ladies left for me to conquer in this dump.”

  Using his helpfulness to his benefit, he yanked on Helena’s arm and spun her like a ballroom dancer into his arms and against his body. He wrapped an arm around her waist and swung her into a dip, puckering his lips and smooching the air in front of her.

  “In your dreams,” she said, as he allowed her to stand. She nudged him away from her and slapped him across the face. “And that’s for even thinking about it.”

  “Ow,” he said, rubbing his cheek, still smiling. “So close…”

  “Come on, Fabio” I said, smiling at the show as I hooked my arm through Helena’s, leading her off the roof. “Let’s go see what Gaius and Marcus have to say.”

  ***

  Caesarea didn’t look quite as posh as it had two months ago. Once the legion showed up to suppress the uprising, they immediately went to work laying siege to it. This meant constant bombardment by catapults and onagers, which laid waste to the once beautiful seaside city, leaving it to resemble any number of war torn and ravaged locales like the ones I’d see on CNN every night back home. The city even had men scurrying about with wraps around their heads, only these men carried swords and shields instead of AK47s and RPGs.

  The image was surreal and almost nostalgic, and it was also very dangerous. Within the first week, we had our first casualty: Wang. He’d been on a patrol when a random boulder the size of a Volkswagen Bug had come crashing into the building next to him. The ensuing rubble had killed two of his Jewish companions and had crushed Wang’s left tibia. He’s been laid up ever since, relegating him to maintaining our small field hospital instead of having him out on the lines. As Santino had just complained about, it kept him from getting into the shit as well more often than not, and this past night hadn’t been the first time he’d come to bother Helena and I while on sniper duty.

  However, while the bombardment had toppled buildings and left large chunks of the city uninhabited, it had also created extremely defensible positions for habitation. Within the rubble, the Jewish rebels had carved out vast networks of connecting chambers and hidden passageways. Tons of concrete and adobe buried on top of itself had left strong positions for us to hold out in during the siege, and also ensured the Romans would have plenty of trouble exterminating the rebels should they decide on a full out assault.
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  It also made traversing the city annoying, especially in the dark. After repelling from our sniper hide, my two companions and I climbed, jumped and precariously made our way to the small bunker we had turned into our headquarters. Three large buildings had collapsed onto a smaller fourth one, the smaller one having remained more or less intact, but with a ton of rubble atop it. The only entrance was a small skylight left open from the impediment.

  It took us twenty minutes to reach it, long enough that even Bordeaux must have made it back already with Gaius and Marcus. Santino and I shifted aside the planks of wood covering the entrance and waited for Helena to drop in. Santino followed, and after a quick look around, I joined them. Landing in a crouch, I reached up and gripped the pole connected to the planks and shifted it back to where we’d found it. Our bunker secure, I did a quick head count.

  Everyone was present and accounted for, each wearing their night ops combat fatigues, except for Madrina. While Titus had been given McDougal’s set of night ops and Multicam combat fatigues, Madrina had simply been given our late commander’s BDU duty clothing, even if they didn’t quite fit. McDougal had been Helena’s height, just shy of six foot, but Madrina was almost as tall as I was. Combined with her more shapely figure, she fit into them snuggly, but it was worth it for the added durability and efficiency.

  And just as I knew they would be, Gaius and Marcus were also already here, chatting with Wang and Santino, two pairs of Tweetledees and Tweetledums if I’d ever seen them. Their faces were dirty and they wore their darkened lorica segmentata armor over their ninja garb.

  I ignored them and moved to a small niche excavated from one of the walls. It had served as my bunk for the past few weeks, ever since the city fell into ruin, and it was the most comfortable place in the room. I plopped myself down on the extra wide cot and took note of our latest home. It was dark, dreary and overly pessimistic. Cramped, dank and with poor ventilation, it was easily the worst posting I’d ever had, even worse than Mexico. Eight bodies that hadn’t showered in weeks sharing it didn’t help either.

  That one night in Byzantium had been one thing, but three weeks in this hell hole was getting ridiculous.

  Leaning back, I reached into a small shelf I’d created out of the rubble and reached for a jug of wine, some of the last we had. Pulling the stopper out with my teeth, I spat it out against the wall and took a swig. I got comfortable and watched as Helena walked over and seated herself next to me on our bed. I offered her the jug. She took a long swallow, coughing as she tore the container away from her lips. I smiled, returned the jug, and wrapped my arm around her shoulder. She rested her head against my chest and we simply waited in contemplative silence.

  No one paid us any attention. Everyone was too tired. Of all the inhabitants of Caesarea, we had been the most active, averaging only a few hours of sleep a night, if that. We were all doing our best to cope with the stress in one way or another.

  Madrina and Bordeaux sat at our small dinner table, one of the few pieces of furniture we managed to salvage. They were eating the very last of our MREs, ironically, one of the dreaded meat patty variety. At the far end of the room, Vincent and Titus chatted together quietly.

  Their relationship constantly surprised me. While I’d known Vincent for going on five years now, I’d really spent only most of the first one with him. We’d grown rather close, I thought, despite his secrecy about the orb and what it could do. He’d become more than a simple friend, comrade and fellow scholar of ancient history, but the closest thing to a father I’d ever had. When I watched him interact with Titus, I tended to forget the fact that they’d known each other far longer than I’d known either of them.

  Who was I fooling? I was jealous of the kid.

  The relationship I’d had with my father had been nonexistent at best. After high school, even before mom died, the only times I’d ever see him was on holidays and the only reason I afforded him even that luxury was to appease her wishes. If not for her, I never would have seen him. The only positive time the two of us had spent together was when I was seven years old and he taught me how to play baseball. In fact, the only happy memory I had at all was of us playing catch in the front yard. Too bad even that ended badly on the day he decided to coach my little league team when I was nine. It had been the beginning of the end for father and son, and his overbearing and authoritative nature had driven a wedge between us that would never mend.

  Finally, I turned to Helena, who rested in the nook of my arm, with her head turned to our right, her eyes locked on something in that part of the room. I tracked her gaze and saw nothing of interest. I squinted at the location, trying to discern something escaping me but found nothing, just a dank corner of the room where we’d piled our remaining cargo containers.

  I glanced back down at Helena. If she’d noticed I was paying her any attention at all, she certainly wasn’t letting on that she was; odd behavior for the usually hyper-sensitive Helena. I reached out gently and gripped her chin, turning her head so that she was looking at me. Her eyes still seemed vacant, but a small smile tugged at her lips.

  “Everything all right, Helena?” I asked.

  She didn’t reply immediately, her eyes now darting back and forth rapidly as she examined my own. The smile at her lips grew broader and she leaned up to kiss me.

  When she pulled away she said, “everything’s fine, Jacob. Just fine.”

  I narrowed my eyes, her behavior suddenly odd. “Something you want to talk about?”

  She smiled at me mischievously and closed her eyes. I waited for her to elaborate, but she simply rested her head against my chest and breathed deeply. Knowing her she’d be asleep in seconds.

  Puzzled, I let her rest and waited for everyone to finish what they were doing. We weren’t in a rush at this point. The Romans were quiet and we could use a break. We could always use a break, it seemed. There was no sense going off halfcocked because we didn’t take a moment to catch our collective breaths.

  Fifteen minutes later, the four musketeers ended their little chat and gathered up the others. They started maneuvering chairs in my direction so I shook Helena to wake her up. I rolled my eyes when she stayed stubbornly asleep, mumbling indecipherably and biting my t-shirt in response. Switching tact, I tilted her head up, still asleep, and laid a kiss on her. She didn’t react immediately, but while her eyes remained closed, I knew she was awake when she started to kiss me back.

  She pulled away, her lips pursed, her eyes still closed.

  “That was nice,” she said quietly, biting her lower lip.

  “Don’t get a chance to do that too often these days, do we?”

  Sadly, it was true. Signs of affection were hard to come by – a few minutes ago notwithstanding. We’d only had the few opportunities Santino had mentioned earlier to find moments of intimacy since the siege had begun, and the only time before that had been way back when we were in Byzantium after I had bought her that necklace, which she was wearing even now. There just hadn’t been many opportunities with all the training, scouting and relocating, not to mention Santino’s constant presence.

  She opened her mouth to speak, but stopped to look out towards the open room.

  I tracked her look, noticing immediately how everyone else had seated themselves around us and were staring at us intently. I felt my cheeks burn, but Helena shrugged off the embarrassment with a heartwarming smile. She shifted in my arms so that we had some distance between us, but with my arm still around her. She noticed Santino’s look in particular.

  “What?” She asked him.

  He sniffled mockingly. “You two are just so darn cute.”

  She laughed. “Get a life.”

  She punctuated her insult by retrieving an apple from our shelf and hurling it at him, which he managed to snag out of the air easily. He let out an exaggerated sigh as he bit into the piece of fruit, perhaps thinking about how little action he’d gotten in the past few weeks. A besieged city was hardly the place to find a
Friday night hookup.

  “So,” I said. “Gaius. Marcus. What brings you to this neck of the woods?”

  They looked at each other.

  “We are practically in the desert, Hunter,” Marcus pointed out.

  “Never mind.” I took a deep breath and thought of home, and all the mindless ne’er-do-wells who at least understood a simple euphemism. I looked back up. “I meant what are you doing here?”

  “As we were explaining to Santino and Wang,” Gaius said, “things have changed dramatically in Germany.”

  “We finally have our supply trains established,” Marcus continued, “but the Germans are fighting harder than ever, and the empress has been too stubborn to reconsider her strategy.”

  “Right,” Gaius annoyingly confirmed. Sometimes I wondered if these two had been separated at birth. “Making matters worse is this uprising in Judea.”

  “Any information on how that’s going?” I asked. “We don’t get much news around here.”

  Gaius sighed in discontent. “These Jews are running amok all over Judea and into Syria. After the supposed death of their king, cities everywhere rose up against Rome. Most uprisings have already been put down, except for two. Here and in Jerusalem, with a number of Jews moving towards Masada. Do we have you to thank for their success here?”

  “More than you know,” I intoned.

  “What do you mean?” Gaius asked.

  So, I told them how we had instigated the rebellion and set off the chain reaction that pitted Roman against Jew. He didn’t seem impressed.

  “I shouldn’t be surprised,” he said, crossing his arms. “You people have always been very good at causing trouble.”

  “We did it to draw Agrippina away from Germany, find the last orb, and find a way to get her to abdicate. Speaking of which, did she buy you’re explanation as to why all your comrades ended up dead?”

  The two Romans glanced at each other.