Strength and Honor

by R. M. Meluch

  Kerry ran to the window, looked for the Roman guards. Found them at the periphery of the lights, standing there, looking surly.

  “No one’s shooting!” Kerry marveled. “We’re going home!”

  Home meant the Merrimack.

  She was afraid that their evader status might exclude them from fighting the rest of the war. But they learned upon boarding Merrimack that there might not be much more war left. Other Marines from the 89th were being picked up from the field.

  With the return of seven hundred plus Marines, Merrimack reverted to its noisy, crowded familiarity.

  Colonel Steele spent extra time in quarantine, having died and been resurrected by Roman medics—like Augustus had been.

  “I am not Augustus!” Steele bellowed. But TR Steele distrusted Romans more than anyone, so he submitted to the extra scrutiny to make certain he carried nothing of them aboard.

  “So God struck Romulus down,” said Marcander Vincent at his tactical station on the command deck of Merrimack.

  “Didn’t look like God’s work,” said Systems. “Looked more like Augustus’ work.” The helm nodded, murmured, “Same thing that got Claudia.”

  “Augustus’ nanites laid out Claudia on Palatine,” said Marcander Vincent. “How could those nanites get to Vatican City?”

  Captain Farragut, listening to the crew chatter, caught in a breath in sudden epiphany. Vatican City. The seat of the old Catholic religion.

  I know a Catholic.

  He knew a Catholic who had personal nanites exempted from the sterilization of the Merrimack at the outbreak of the war. The nanites had been set outboard while the space battleship was scoured. The nanites had been picked up by their owner in space after he separated from Merrimack.

  I know a Catholic who had an audience with the Pope.

  “Young Captain!” Jose Maria de Cordillera greeted John Farragut’s hail cheerily. He wore a fine white shirt and a waistcoat the color of pure gold. He appeared to be on the coast of Spain, on a terrace of a villa on the sea, tranquil as if nothing momentous were happening anywhere in the galaxy.

  “Are you still on Earth?” Farragut asked looking at the scene behind him.

  “No. I have been to Earth and I have been home to Terra Rica since last we met. I am in transit now to another destination. This is Mercedes.” He motioned to his surroundings.

  Mercedes was Jose Maria’s little racing yacht, named for his late wife, lost on board the Roman ship Sulla years before, the first victim of the Hive.

  The turquoise sea, the white birds, the yellow sun, the villa were all a holoimage.

  Sun glanced off the water.

  Farragut finally got round to asking innocently, “How did your audience with the Pope go?”

  “Very well,” answered Jose Maria with the same false innocence. Farragut asked outright: “How did you get the nanites onto the Papal throne?”

  “I did not.” Jose Maria sipped red wine, his dark eyes impish. “I put them in the holy water.”

  Farragut shook his head. He had watched the recordings of Romulus’ entrance to the Vatican. Romulus never dipped his hand in a stoup or in a baptismal font. He never picked up an aspergillum. “Romulus doesn’t use holy water.”

  “But the Pope does,” said Jose Maria. “The hand that touches the water is the hand that rests on the arm of the throne, the hand that grips the scepter, the hand that touches the rail of the balcony. God does intervene in the affairs of humankind. But heaven helps those.”

  “You are a holy bastard, Jose Maria.”

  “I did penance just in case it was not heaven doing the helping of those who helped themselves.”

  Farragut remembered Augustus’ first shot at Romulus, the one that pierced the seat and the headrest of the throne in Caesar’s bunker during the American siege of Palatine. That attempt never quite felt right. It wasn’t enough for Augustus to shoot Romulus through the head. And it had never seemed like it had a high likelihood of success.

  That shot had been the announcement to Romulus that Augustus was coming. Death was not enough. Augustus needed to show blood on Romulus’ hands and to make him face his father.

  For that there were the nanites left in Augustus’ data bank, which he knew would be excised from his head upon his death. That trap required Caesar to touch the data bank, and Caesar hadn’t.

  Had Augustus ever meant for Romulus to touch it? Or had he foreseen Romulus avoiding that trap as well? “How could Augustus be certain Romulus would come to Vatican City?”

  “Certain?” said Jose Maria. “I do not know that he was certain, young Captain. Romulus had expressed an interest in giving a speech Urbi et Orbi et Cosmi from the Loggia. But for all we know there are more nanites elsewhere. As the nanites are only triggered by a combination of DNA in common with Magnus and memory of patricide, then any other traps, if such exist, will never be activated, never be found. I must believe Augustus created other backups. Redundance is good.”

  “Redundance is good,” said Farragut. That was why there were six engines on the Merrimack. “Was that the purpose of your audience with the Pope?” said Farragut. “To set Augustus’ trap for Romulus?”

  “Oh, no. My delivery of the nanites was a last favor to Augustus. That was not the reason for my visit to the Vatican. The reason for my journey was personal.”

  “May I ask?”

  “I must share, young Captain,” said Jose Maria, becoming quietly animated, “The Vatican has always conducted scientific research, much of it in the field of astronomy and space exploration—the search for the fingerprints of God in His cosmos. The Riverites are not the only ones who see God in His Creation. To the Riverites Creation, not the gospels, is the firsthand testament of God. It is both, of course. Outer space doth make gnats of us all. I went to the Vatican because I funded a research project for them.”

  “Success?” Farragut asked.

  Jose Maria nodded. “I am on my way to see the results of their exploration for myself even now. The Vatican ship is waiting for me at the site,”

  Jose Maria set aside his wine, looked meditative. Emotions shone in his face—wonder, sorrow, and something else.

  He gave a sad smile. His voice came out surreal, as if he could scarcely believe what he was saying—speak it and it will cease to be. “They found the Sulla.”

  The Roman Empire was in the control of a Senate without a unified head to make decisions. The Senators proceeded cautiously this time, with much debate. No one was afraid to express disagreement with anyone else. Charisma was ill regarded now, so Senator Trogus got his floor time, and Numa Pompeii had to rein in his eloquence.

  If anyone’s voice carried more authority, it was Gaius Americanus. The others were willing to pause now and consider why Magnus chose this man to succeed him. Gaius Americanus became, if not their leader, then their moderator.

  Negotiations with the United States were strained. The United States tried to take advantage of the situation and gouge out terms, which was why Caesar Magnus had surrendered his Empire to Captain Farragut, not to the United States, during the Hive crisis.

  The nations were going to be a while pounding out an Armistice. First thing the Roman Senate wanted was to stop the shooting and the sabotage on the ground. Then they wanted to collect their power plants, which had been bounced out of orbit by U.S. warships, and to reestablish communications with their colonies.

  The U.S. troop carriers had already withdrawn from the Palatine system. The armies had been confined in their spaceships for months. They would not be landing on Palatine any time soon if ever.

  The U.S. permitted a Roman hospital ship to retrieve Caesar Romulus from Earth.

  The immediate collapse of the Roman war effort upon Caesar’s incapacitation left John Farragut to wonder how Romulus had ever planned to establish his claim to any part of Earth. Something was missing.

  There gaped a giant hole in the available information where something strategic belonged.

  Sulla. She
waited in the Abyss. A cenotaph traveling faster than light. Her speed had leveled out at cruising velocity, her direction toward nowhere. She was nearly impossible to find.

  And there she was.

  She was surprisingly close to Near Space. She would have passed by unseen had no one been intently looking for her. The Vatican ship found her bound on a northerly route that would carry her out of the galaxy.

  It appeared that the last act of the crew of Sulla had been to take the ship off her homeward course and away from humanity.

  Objects traveling faster than light do not fall out of FTL. Passing the light barrier required energy—the same energy to decelerate below the barrier as to accelerate above it.

  The Vatican ship had found Sulla traveling FTL with a dead engine, no energy emanating from her, no residual heat left about her. Her antimatter in its magnetic container had been blown out the back, magnets and all, somewhere hundreds or thousands of parsecs back.

  Without intervention, the dead hull would travel on at this speed forever.

  Jagged rents in her hull, as if the metal had been peeled open, confirmed the stories and suspicions. Sulla had in fact been humankind’s first Hive victim.

  The racing yacht Mercedes made rendezvous with Sulla and the Vatican research vessel in the Abyss. The Vatican ship had been awaiting the arrival of their patron, Jose Maria de Cordillera, before boarding the wreck.

  The Mercedes matched speed and attitude with Sulla and lined up an air lock opposite one of the large holes in her hull.

  As he suited up, Jose Maria felt an irrational desire to carry a sword. But he had given his sword to Captain Farragut upon leaving Merrimack.

  Feeling naked without a weapon while going into the Hive-scarred wreck, Jose Maria slid a short blade into his calf holster, like a diver’s knife. Then, as if he were actually going to Mercedes’ rescue, he strapped on a beam knife and slung a welding torch pack across his back. Part of him felt ridiculous. Another part called out in silence, My love, I come!

  He stood in the air lock of his racer as the air was sucked out and the artificial gravity lifted away.

  The Vatican researchers had anticipated the possible state of Sulla’s hull, and had come equipped with a polymer spray to blunt the sharp metal edges around the holes in the ship. An exo-suit’s personal field would not protect it against a sharp edge approaching slowly.

  The safety coating appeared blue against the ship’s black hull. Jose Maria opened Mercedes’ air lock and turned on his suit lights.

  He crossed the short void between ships with a slow push out of the air lock. He did not need his suit’s directional jets, but gently floated straight across and caught the blunted opening.

  Carefully, he ducked inside and looked for something on which to attach the line he had carried from his own ship. He fastened the tether to an overhead conduit, then surveyed the scene around him.

  His lamps shed cheerless light that could not push back the black from this space. The cold illumination threw out fanged shadows of torn metal wherever he looked.

  His thickly gloved hands propelled him at a floating crawl through the ravaged corridors. He kept his com link open. The researchers in the Vatican ship could hear him breathing. They allowed him his silence. They watched the video feed from his helmet as he progressed through the flying tomb.

  He found her chamber. Knew it by her clothes. Her field garb, sand-colored, synthetic, was inedible by gorgons. Those small boots. How tiny her feet had been. He hugged the boots.

  He did not find teeth in her sleeping compartment. His Mercedes would not have died hiding under a bed.

  He found the control room, a scatter of teeth there. He collected all that he found and tucked them into a sealed pocket in his suit. He pulled data receptacles out of the communications station and fit those inside another pocket.

  Then he found an incisor. He knew it immediately. How many times had he gazed at her smile across a table?

  There was no gravity here, but still came the impulse to fall to his knees. He curled round one knee, his head bowed, floating. He held the tooth to his chest.

  My love. My love. I am taking you home.

  The colossus that was the Jupiter Monument was lit up to be visible from Earth. With the naked eye it appeared like a bright pinpoint moon to the planet.

  Seen through a scope, dark specks appeared, moving across the face of the monument like black ash. An observer on Luna Station spotted the specks first and asked, “What the hell is that?” The United States and the rest of Earth went on immediate maximum alert. Wolfhound turned her scanners toward Jupiter to mutters of “Those treacherous bastards.”

  The specks looked like incoming small craft. Thousands upon thousands of them, moving near light speed. Calli Garmel couldn’t believe it. A Roman double cross.

  Tactical refined the image. The specks weren’t Roman ships. A cricket in a tiny cage on the command deck, left over from the Sagittarius campaign, chirped madly. “Hive!”

  37

  IMAGES FROM THE JUPITER MONUMENT reached the U.S. Fleet at Palatine, images of gorgons crawling on the monument in a black mass that all but obscured the bright lights. Images of more gorgons headed toward Earth. Not in spheres. The new generation Hive hadn’t figured out spheres. These monsters were strewn about in gaggles, ribbons, clumps, and nets.

  Captain Farragut on the Merrimack hailed Admiral Mishindi on Earth. “A Hive emerged on Jupiter?” “No,” Mishindi responded, harried. “Jupiter is where the monsters are entering the solar system.” The Jupiter Monument was a resonant source. Naturally it would attract the Hive.

  But other than on the planet Thaleia, which was heavily monitored and contained, the Hive had no known presence anywhere near Earth. The Hive had no other history in Near Space at all.

  “Their actual point of origin is the 82 Eridani system,” Mishindi told Farragut. “The third planet, Xi.”

  “Xi?”

  Xi was a dead planet. Long, long, long dead. There was no arguing the improbability of it, since the fact was chewing on the Jupiter Monument even now.

  The 82 Eridani system was damned close to Sol in astronomical terms. Which made it close to the Roman worlds of Thaleia and Palatine as well. But so far no gorgons had started in those directions. They were all headed toward the closest resonant target, Earth. And they had arrived, falling from the sky in a spidered rain.

  It would take any ship of the attack Fleet a week at best to return to Earth to fight the Hive. Captain Farragut wanted to be there yesterday. Then the side thought struck him.

  “He knew,” he said out loud.

  Gypsy lifted dark brows toward her captain. “Sir?”

  “Romulus knew! He knew the gorgons were coming. He knew when they would get to Earth. He timed his visit so he could be there when the Hive arrived and the United States Fleet wasn’t!”

  Gypsy’s brow furled all the way up to her shaved scalp. “Why would Romulus want to be on Earth when the gorgons came?”

  “To be our savior. Romulus meant to collect our surrender under a Hive siege. God bless America!”

  And Farragut guessed how Romulus meant to get weapons to all those unarmed Roman tourists who had come to Earth. He was going to make the United States and the rest of the world arm them for him.

  Romulus had not figured on Augustus striking him down from beyond the grave. “But how did Romulus get the gorgons to Xi?” said Gypsy.

  “He didn’t.” Farragut spoke it as he realized it himself. “They’ve been there! They’ve been there for three quarters of forever!”

  “Since the galaxy’s first civilization? That can’t be. If gorgons were there, why didn’t they eat the archaeological team who found the Xi tablet decades ago?”

  “Because the gorgons of the ancient Hive moved on a long long time ago, and the new swarms didn’t hatch until the original swarms died!”

  “But most of the second generation swarms woke up months ago. What took these so long to hatc
h?”

  “I’m getting the idea they don’t hatch until there’s something they can eat. Remember Telecore was clear when we went there. The gorgons only woke on Telecore when we brought edible things down to the surface. Something edible came to Xi. And I would stake anything that Romulus sent it.”

  Gypsy followed the argument. “Whatever Romulus sent to Xi got eaten, and Romulus didn’t tell anyone. He’s worse than Calli said he was, and she had nothing good to say about that man ever.”

  “It’s looking like a new Hive can pop up anywhere the last Hive ever was. I need to ask Jose Maria—” He stopped. Cold. “Oh, for Jesus.”

  Sulla.

  Inertia carried Jose Maria up—which was the same as down, which was the same as sideways in this weightless place—into the ship’s overhead.

  His lamplight fell on a very large, black lump like a charcoal mass crusted on the conduit.

  Jose Maria uncurled in panic reflex. He bounced off the deck, clutched a grate to stop his motion. He spoke into his helmet com with restrained urgency, “Get clear of the Sulla immediately. I have Hive presence.”

  He tucked Mercedes’ tooth into the pocket at his chest. He planted his feet to take a stand on a wall, anchoring himself against the hatchway, and drew his knife from its sheath at his calf. He faced the uncurling mass of tentacles emerging in the overhead.

  Captain Farragut fought down the impulse to signal a warning to Jose Maria’s little ship Mercedes. The Hive had the ability to home on any reception point of a res pulse. If the Hive did not already know where Jose Maria was, Farragut’s signal would give his location away.

  Farragut sent an urgent message to the Vatican Observatory, warning them, “Do not contact the research ship that found Sulla. When is the last time you heard from the crew?”

  “You cannot know how much I welcome this communication, Captain Farragut,” said the monsignor who took his call. “You are a Godsend. We have lost contact with our research vessel. I pray to God that He did not send you to us too late.” The monsignor provided Captain Farragut with the Vatican ship’s last known vector.