by R. M. Meluch
Everyone tensed. This next move would trigger the alarms. Had to. This scheme could not be working this well.
Steele pushed.
The cell door swung open with a tired creak.
There could be silent alarms, but the Marines wouldn’t know that unless automatons came marching down.
The gladiators yelled bloody murder. The criminals beckoned sweetly with crocodilian smiles for the Americans to let them out. They could help, they said. They could show the Americans the way out, they said.
The Marines ignored them except to stay beyond grabbing distance from any of them.
Dak pulled out the rope they had made from braided strips of mattress covers. It had been stowed under one of the mattresses. The Marines had been careful to stack the mattresses good-side-out during the day.
Kerry Blue and Twitch Fuentes gently maneuvered Carly back through the bars. Twitch carried Carly out of the cell, Ranza seized up the guard’s lamp and they all ran.
“Wrong way!” the Romans tried to tell them.
It was the wrong way if the Marines intended to get to a door. But they knew there were automatons by all the doors.
The Marines were going out the death gate.
Kerry Blue had always been good at getting men to brag. At a stray mention of a “death gate.” Kerry’s expression of repugnance got the Romans to pile detail upon gross detail, with vivid descriptions of what went through the deatii gate, and exactly where the death gate was.
The Romans talked enough for the Marines to kluge together a rough layout of this subterranean labyrinth. And the Romans had volunteered information like, “You can’t escape from the arena. It’s not like old Rome. The lowest boxes are seven meters up.”
Okay, that means we need the rope to be longer than twenty-one feet. Thank you very much.
Ranza covered the lamp with her shirt to dampen the beacon as they moved stealthily through the labyrinth. The other prisoners kept up their clamor, but apparently no one believed them.
Twitch hissed, “Mira!”
Ranza turned the light to a dark alcove where, piled like trash, was a collection of things taken from prisoners upon capture. There were U.S. landing disks and displacement collars in the pile.
For certain there would be displacement jammers in effect here, and there were no corns in the pile with which to signal the Mack anyway.
The Marines did not want to be weighed down by something they probably would not be able to use. Still they grabbed a few displacement sets just in case God and the Merrimack smiled on them.
They proceeded to a primitive lift made of wood and operated by chains and a pulley. Ranza doused the light entirely. The Marines hauled themselves up to ground level, and stepped out to another wide tunnel. This passage smelled of chlorine.
The Romans had cleaned the stones with bleach.
Kerry whispered, “This is it.”
A lot of horrible stuff came this way. The Romans dragged the dead out of the arena through here. The Marines dashed out the death gate into moonlight.
They stood in the wide bowl of the Coliseum, a vast pit open to the sky. Insects, night birds, and bats flitted in and out of the high archways. Pennants stood listless in the idle wind. Underfoot was sand. Arena was Latin for sand.
Two moons gave the Marines double shadows. They moved back to the wall and proceeded like a line of rats out of moonlight into deep shadow.
Dak tied their braided rope onto two of the displacement collars to weight the end. He passed the line to Cain.
Cain swung the weighted end in circles to gather momentum for his toss. He let the rope fly at a high column in the first row of boxes seven meters up.
The line struck the side of the column. The weight of the landing disks caused the end of the line to loop several turns around the column.
Perfect.
“Quick!” Ranza sent Kerry Blue up the rope first. It was supposed to have been Carly, who was lightest and quickest, but Carly was still unconscious. Kerry scrambled up as if all their lives depended on it, and pulled herself over the knee wall. She got hold of the rope’s counterweights and kept them in place so the rope would not unwrap from the column.
With the top secured, Steele held down the bottom of the line and sent the Marines up one at a time.
The rope was amazing. They never should have got away with making it. No guard ever searched their cell. Romans continually fell into the trap of relying on automatons. Their disdain for low tech was unforgivable in a people who lost sixty-four Legions to the Hive because of that disdain.
The Marines were feeling extraordinarily forgiving just now.
Cain and Yurg were next up, so they could help others get over the top. The Yurg carried the lamp between his teeth.
Twitch, wearing Carly Delgado draped across his shoulders, came up next. Cain hauled Carly up from Twitch’s shoulders, then the Yurg helped Twitch over.
Twitch immediately gathered up Carly again, took the lamp, and set off through the rows and aisles of the amphitheater, scouting a way out.
He was not looking for a door. There were seventy-six of them. He could expect automatons and alarms at every one of the seventy-six.
On the second level at the outer wall on the moon-shadowed side of the Coliseum, Twitch chose one of the many open archways that framed large statues. This one looked like the goddess Diana.
Twitch turned off the lamp as he drew close. He gently settled Carly on the floor between Diana and the arch, then traced his route back so he could show the others the way.
All but four of the Marines were already over the knee wall by the time Twitch returned. Icky Iverson was climbing the rope.
Down in the arena. Colonel Steele glanced up. He noticed Kerry Blue up there at the knee wall still holding the counterweight down. He growled low at Cain, “What is she still doing here? Get her out of here!”
Cain turned his head aside, whispered, “Beat it, Kerry, I got this.”
Twitch beckoned Kerry to come with.
“Behind you!” the Yurg shouted, making everyone jump.
Down in the arena, Steele turned. The shot tore into his chest. Kerry’s screech tore the night sky, “Thomas!” Steele spun round, one hand still clutching the rope. Lost his grip. Fell on his back.
Kerry’s face appeared over the knee wall, screaming.
Ranza dropped to her knees at Steele’s side.
Icky rotated on the anchorless rope, skinned his knuckles on the wall, slipped. Avoided landing on Steele, and fell into Dak Shepard.
Steele’s blue eyes were round in shock or death. Steele’s hand lifted, zombielike, from the sand to point at Kerry Blue, the eyes staring at Cain behind her, bloody mouth moving. Repeating his last order.
Romans charged across the arena. Dak hurled the dangling end of the rope up and over the wall, out of Roman reach. Yelled at the Marines up there: “Go! Go! Go!”
Twitch reeled in the rope faster than he thought he could move. He unwound its weighted end from the column. Cain pried Kerry Blue away from the knee wall, and dragged her at a run behind Twitch with the others into darkness.
29
COULD NOT SEE A DAMNED THING for her tears and the dark. Kerry Blue just kept hold of Cain’s hand and ran the way he pulled her. Twitch was out in front, leading them up steps and through the black passageways of the Coliseum. The blackness broke to a patch of midnight sky through an open archway. Framed by the arch was the hard silhouette of a woman, larger than life, holding a bow and arrow. Statue.
Kerry glimpsed movement around the statue’s plinth, of people hiding there. She almost cried out a warning, but then recognized the figures as Marines.
Carly was on the floor, stirring, holding her head.
Twitch never slowed down. He charged up to the statue and quickly tied the rope around giant Diana’s marble legs, while the waiting Marines whispered to Kerry and Cain, “Where’s the Old Man?” And Kerry couldn’t talk.
Twitch threw the fre
e end of the rope out through the arch. He gave the rope a good tug to test its strength, then motioned for the first climber.
Cain ordered in a whisper, “Kerry, go!”
She hesitated.
“You ain’t going back,” Cain told her, hauling her toward the rope. “I got orders. Move your ass.” And Kerry would not hold up everyone else with a balk. She scrambled over the edge. Twitch and Cain kept hold of her until she got a grip on the rope and whispered, “Okay okay okay.” When they released her, she slithered down as fast as she could without tearing her palms off. The rope was too short. She had to cling to the bottom end and let herself drop the last yard or two. Landed on her feet, felt the jarring in her shins. Rolled on hard paving stones.
She rolled up to a crouch. Looked up. Did not move. Saw that the arch through which she had just escaped was positioned directly above one of the seventy-six arched doorways to the Coliseum.
And behind the bars of that arched doorway a human silhouette moved, turning outward to face her with the silhouette of a weapon.
Fear leaped inside her like iced daggers. The breath stopped in her chest. She froze in her crouch, staring. Did he see her?
Trying not to move anything more than her eyes, she lifted her gaze upward. Someone else was clinging to the rope up there, waiting for her to move. She hoped the others could see her wide wide eyes. The climber had stopped on the rope. Sensed something desperately wrong down below.
A motion behind the bars drew Kerry’s gaze forward again. The figure inside the arch raised the weapon toward her, taking aim.
The planet stood still.
The end of the rope swayed over Kerry’s head.
I’m right behind you, Thomas Ryder Steele.
The loud voice from the dark commanded, “Stand away from the door. Do not approach.”
Automaton.
Kerry heard a small gasp up above, faint as a rush of air, though there was no wind. Then there were no more whispers. No sound but night traffic in the city. Kerry’s breaths came shallow. She stood up carefully. Turned around slowly. Took several tentative steps away from the door, nothing exploding, nothing stabbing into her back.
She kept walking stiffly away.
Didn’t dare look back. But heard seven more times a drop and a roll, and the automaton voice commanding someone to stand away from the door.
Night turned to day, and the day was half gone before the Coliseum’s Vigil of the night watch was summoned before his superior, the Sub-praefect of Roma Nova.
The Vigil had spent the last hours in helpless, useless waiting, goaded by a sense of dire urgency. Time was of the essence and he had been commanded to stay put, do nothing, and talk to no one. He listened for a public broadcast, for sirens. Still heard utterly nothing of the prison break.
When at last he was summoned, the Vigil reported to his superior’s office and blurted at once: “American soldiers are loose in Roma Nova. The populace must be warned.”
The Sub-praefect left that declaration out there an inordinately long time before he gave his slow measured answer, “You shall not tell me what must be.”
On the floor next to the Sub-praefect’s pearwood desk lay the rope the Vigil had untied from Diana’s legs and reeled up from the second floor archway. Now that he could see it by proper light, the Vigil could identify the material. Strips of mattress covering. The fabric had been judged too thin to hold anyone’s weight, so the Americans had braided it.
“I accept responsibility,” the Vigil announced at rigid attention.
“No,” said the Sub-praefect, much as he would like to toss this person into the criminals’ pen. “You are not taking responsibility because there is no prison underneath the Coliseum, we are not holding POWs there, and this fiasco never happened.”
All the brilliant people in this empire, and the Subpraefect got a Vigil who signaled a lockdown that locked the automaton guards safely away from the escaping prisoners.
And he had shot their only captive officer.
Caesar had actually taken that news with a strange serenity. There could be no recriminations, because none of that had happened. “That kind of news does not get out,” said the Subpraefect. “Ever.”
“But they’re out there!” said the Vigil. “The Americans!”
“And you are going to apprehend them,” the Subpraefect assured him. “And when you do apprehend the American soldiers, your captives will be freshly landed troops.”
“But they are—”
“Freshly landed troops. You have never seen them before in your life.”
“I—”
“Have never seen them before in your possibly severely foreshortened life. Put your ears on, listen closely, and repeat this back to me, so I know you understand: There are no escaped POWs loose in Roma Nova.”
Automatons took Ranza Espinoza, Dak Shepard, and Icky Iverson back to their cell under the Coliseum. Two automatons for each of them, though one would have done. All the mattresses had been gathered up and taken away. Ranza’s writing stone had been removed from the cell. Tire words QUANTUM COIENS PIGNUS remained etched in the wall.
A gladiator, seeing only three of the escapees returning to captivity, remarked in utter disbelief. “They made it?”
“Don’t answer that,” Ranza quickly ordered Dak and Icky.
Big Dak’s face was wet with tears.
The gladiator guessed, “Well, not all of them anyway.”
A U.S. patrol picked up an FTL plot moving from the direction of Thaleia toward Palatine’s star system. “Fat PanGalactic supply ship moving your way,” the patrol notified Fleet and gave the vector. “Take it, Merrimack,” Admiral Burk ordered.
“Get me a Star Sparrow out there,” Farragut told Gypsy. A Star Sparrow was really the only thing for intercepting an FTL target. Gypsy ordered up a T541 Star Sparrow with a shipkiller load, then ordered Targeting, “Tag the Thaleian.”
“Targeting, aye. Tag away.”
“Fire Control. You have permission to launch Star Sparrow on general vector forward of the Thaleian.”
“Firing Star Sparrow, aye.” Fire Control responded. Energy coiled within the ship. A metallic scream rose from the launch tube with the missile’s leaving. The recoil carried through the deck, and the ship sang.
“Star Sparrow away,” Fire Control reported.
Targeting: “Tag has locked on target. We have a green.”
“Transmit tag signature to Star Sparrow,” said Gypsy.
“Transmitting tag sig, aye.” In a moment, “Star Sparrow has a lock. Time to intercept eleven seconds.”
“Is the target evading?”
“No, sir. Target holding course. He’s on the rails. Coming in hot. Contact in three. Two.”
Waited.
None of the ship’s stations said anything.
No flash appeared on the Tac screen.
Farragut turned to his silent tactical. “Report.”
Marcander Vincent shook his head, at a loss, “Nothing happened.” Fire Control reported, “Shipkiller did not detonate. Repeat, the warhead did not detonate.”
“Old ordnance?” Tracking suggested.
“Ordnance never gets that old on this boat.” Farragut moved quickly round to look at the tactical screen. Demanded, “Tag status!”
“Gone,” said Targeting. “We have lost contact with the tag. The lupes may have erased it.”
“Where is my Star Sparrow?”
Gypsy sent to Fire Control: “Ping the Star Sparrow.”
“No return ping, sir,” Fire Control responded. “We lost it.” Farragut said, “Lost as in it’s a runaway, or lost as in it’s joining the other side?”
“Lost as in we have no signal and no idea,” said Tactical. “Find it! I don’t want to eat this one.” And to Mr. Hicks at the com station. “Get me Fleet.” Mister Hicks immediately raised the flagship. “I have Admiral Burk, Captain.”
Farragut took up the com. “Fleet, this is Merrimack. We have a Star Sparrow that
failed to detonate and now we’ve lost track of it.”
He braced for Burk’s hand to come right out of the com and rip the stars off his collar. But Burk’s voice came back resigned, tired, and grim, “You’re not the first one, Merrimack.”
The admiral told him that the Romans had apparently foxed the U.S. tracking system for hard ordnance. He was advising all ships to adjust tactics until a solution was found.
“No hard ordnance? That leaves us basically with beams,” said Farragut.
“Yes,” was the hard answer.
At least Marcander Vincent waited until the com was closed before he opened his mouth. “That’s bullsh! Intercept an FTL target with beams? That don’t happen.”
It didn’t happen. The Roman supply ship from Thaleia made it into Palatine’s star system, where Roman ships flocked around it to escort it at sublight speed to the planet’s atmosphere.
Harsh words passed back and forth over the com among members of the U.S. Fleet. A direct hail to Merrimack carried the ironic voice of Captain Washington of Monitor:
“Merrimack, I found your Star Sparrow.”
Farragut seized up the com. “Marty! Thank God!”
“Not what I’ve been saying here,” said Martin Washington. “Your Sparrow was the one with the shipkiller?”
John Farragut was all but singing hallelujah. Laughing with relief. “If my bird had found any other ship but yours, that warhead would have lived up to its name.”
“That is true. You owe me. And I’m going to collect on this one, John. I’ll make a list.”
“Marty, I’m ready to kiss your feet!”
“Foot-kissing will not be on the list.”
Admiral Burk directed both captains to a separate channel on which to give them instructions.
“A U.S. light cruiser will be arriving from Earth carrying commandos. Merrimack and Monitor will provide distraction strikes while the commandos are inserted on the ground near their targets,” said Burk. “We need to get a lot more aggressive here, gentlemen. The softening up process has got to proceed faster. We need to get our invasion forces on the ground with all possible speed.”
“Without getting our invasion force massacred,” Marty Washington added. “I do realize that, Captain Washington,” said Burk, offended. “Something is happening on Earth,” Farragut suddenly realized.
