Strength and Honor (27 page)

A:
[nodding] Only uncertainty is certain.

20

^B
EFORE DAWN IN ROMA NOVA
on the planet Palatine the city was cloaked in deep gray.

The stars were fading. The companion star of the Wolf was still visible, bright as a big planet, twinkling. Two of the planet’s six insignificant moons hung low over the western hills.

The air scarcely stirred. From the Palace on the Capitoline Hill the river appeared as a black glassy ribbon winding underneath the graceful arches of the viaducts between the Forum and the Coliseum. Birds sounded a few notes from the tiled rooftops. Silhouettes of the Kwindaqqin spires soared into the soft darkness, their gaudy colors yet to appear.

Caesar had not slept. Dressed in black, he walked the loggia like a brooding Hamlet.

For over a week Romulus had been fighting the ghost of the assassin. Romulus told his people that the assassin’s recording was a CIA fiction. The woman wasn’t Calli. Neither was it Claudia. It was a fabrication. The scene never happened.

Mist hung over the river.

Sirens woke up in an eerie wail.

Caesar met his guards bursting into his chamber, asked, gesturing at the noise, “Is that real?” The first guardsman gave a breathless nod. “Yes, Caesar. U.S. space fleet. Invasion strength. One hour out.”

A second guard added, “They’re approaching from the galactic southeast, under heavy distortion.” Romulus turned to look through the archway at the lightening sky as if there would be something to see. On the ground, across the cityscape, lights appeared in many windows. “I thought the Yanks were busy with their earthquakes,” said Caesar. “The American military role in the rescue effort was somewhat overstated.”

“Somewhat?” said Romulus. Glanced toward the sky. “Invasion strength?”

All week long the American media had been showing images of their space battleships in orbit around Earth, their flags at half staff for President Johnson’s funeral— images of ships which must have left the Solar system a week ago because they were almost
here.

“What things do you wish moved to your bunker, Caesar?” an attendant asked.

Romulus started to answer. Froze.

They’re coming for me.

This full-scale U.S. invasion was revenge for their President Johnson.

Possibly they knew the location of Caesar’s bunker.

“I want to be with my people,” Romulus declared suddenly, and he went down into the mass City shelter with the civilians.

The first wave appeared, winking into real space as the ships dropped down from FTL speed. Between the false plots and the double appearances, the American ships numbered somewhere between a thousand and eight thousand.

The fleet made a horrific image.

“I’m glad we’re the invaders,” said Ian Markham at Tactical. “I wouldn’t want to see us coming.”

Still the fleet was not an overwhelming force on a planetary scale. The terror would be in the wondering if the Americans had come to drop nukes.

Tactical scanned for antimatter in the planetary system in case Rome had salted the approach. Ian Markham pronounced the path clear. Roman sentinels orbiting Palatine opened fiery eyes. Missiles streaked out to meet the invaders.

U.S. beam fire detonated the missiles before they could reach their targets. The fleet advanced through clouds of debris.

Ships of the Roman home guard turned out to form a feeble blockade. It was nearly impossible to block ships in space. All the defenders were outflanked, leaving the Roman ships to chase the Americans toward the planet.

The fleet’s biggest ships descended, the ones that did not care what hit them.
Merrimack, Monitor.
The space battleships were nearly invincible when locked inside a seamless distortion field.

Roman destroyers opened fire on
Merrimack
and
Monitor,
while other Americans ships fired on the destroyers.

The big ships ignored them. Descending.

Inside the atmosphere, the barrage from space ceased.

Roman beam fire could too easily glance off an American distortion field and stab into a civilian population. Exploding warheads could radiate the atmosphere. And a successful shot on any one of
Merrimack
and
Monitor’s
combined twelve engines would unleash an apocalyptic amount of antimatter into the air.

The invaders, unconcerned with littering the landscape, lobbed shots on enemy spaceports below them. Nothing penetrated a Roman base’s stout energy dome, but the fire kept anything inside there locked in.

Merrimack
proceeded to a northern continent. The mammoth spearhead shape descended over thinly populated ground, sending bulky pad-footed animals running. Flying snakes sprang and glided away in glittery flocks. The battleship sank down gently over an open field, so low the branching antler weed scratched at the force field round
Merrimack’s
bottom sail.

“Set the roaches free,” Commander Gypsy Dent ordered. Systems created a breach in the ship’s lower force field. Container hatches opened to drop thousands of small mechs—reconnaissance robots—that skittered through the alien weeds toward a Roman spaceport. The mechs were small and moved at a pace which made them indistinguishable from resident insectoid life, and would allow them to penetrate the same kind of shields that allowed personnel to walk through. The official designation was Automated Recon Mech, ARM, and they looked more like beetles, but no one loved them and they were difficult to crush, so they were better known as roaches.

As
Merrimack
rose, robotic air-to-air gunships launched from the spaceport on the horizon. Waiting for that,
Merrimack
punched the base through its launch windows with beam fire. Black pillars of smoke spouted from the dome.

Merrimack
moved away from the drop site, her scanners looking back to see if anything else came out to stomp on their roaches, which had already dispersed themselves over ten acres.

“Got away with that one,” Cole Darby remarked, waiting in the crowded Lander for the Marines’ turn.

“The first one is free,” said Ranza.

The roaches had been a trial balloon, testing the resistance to objects on the ground. Any reconnaissance the ARMs gathered would be extra.

“Coulda sent us down on that drop,” said Cain, wistful.

“You thought this was a cruise ship, sweet baby?” said Darb.

Merrimack
brushed down again, a thousand miles away from the first drop site. Aircraft met her approach this time.
Merrimack
fired small projectiles at them. The unmanned Roman airplanes went down easily, plowing up the Roman ground.

“Drop horses,” Gypsy Dent ordered.

Merrimack
dropped vehicles, small two- or three-man hovercraft. Silver Horses they were called, after some old time cowboy hero who would whistle and his horse would come. The Silver Horses scattered as
Merrimack
rose into the air.

More Roman aircraft came over the horizon. Left smoking trails going down.

Still nothing was shooting down at
Mack
from orbit.

“It’s true,” Ian Markham remarked, looking up from his tactical readouts to see the blue sky through a clearport. “Rome is scant on the inward pointing weapons.”

And it made sense. Palatine was one nation. Ground to ground shots were not in the Romans’ home game playbook. They hadn’t had home game since their war of independence a century and a half ago.

And the orbital platforms which Rome built for making space-to-ground assaults were all in Earth’s Solar system right now.

“Enemy aircraft sighted.”

“Erase the birds,” said Gypsy. “Fire at will.”

When the air was clear again of intact Roman craft,
Merrimack
moved to another drop zone a scant thirty miles from the drop site of the Silver Horses. The space battleship bent low to ground. Her lower sail divided a field of feathery red grasses as tall as trees.

“Drop the dogs,” said Gypsy.

This time
Merrimack
put troops on the ground—seven hundred and twenty Fleet Marines—in between the clumps of soaring red plumes. Roaches skittered out at their feet in all directions.

“Hang onto your goolies, boys,” said Cain, moving out.

“Kerry Blue, you can hang onto mine.”

“Shut up, Dak.”

Ranza drew her weapon at the soft hiss of something coming in fast through the red plumage. Almost shot her Silver Horse.
Merrimack
rose away, moved across the continent, clearing the sky of everything in it. She touched sail to drop roaches on a communications tower.

Moved off to a military installation where Roman Legions were stationed. Robot aircraft rose in black clouds around the base. Came down in black hailstorms.

A ring of missile emplacements guarded the site outside the installation’s force field perimenter, so the missile launchers could fire without breaching the base’s shield.
Merrimack
punched out all the outboard missile launchers, then pounded at the base itself with a few experimental energy blasts. The base was well shielded even at ground level, and nothing got inside.

Tactical took a sounding of the surrounding ground.

Got the plot of the underground cargo tunnels by which equipment was transported into the base.
Merrimack
dropped bombs into the ground over the top of the tunnels until several sections caved in.

Taking a cue from the Roman attackers at Washington,
Merrimack
shot beams underneath the Roman installation to loosen the ground. Shook the shielded emplacement like a snow globe. Didn’t think the LEN would be objecting this time.

Merrimack
moved on to a Roman training camp. Found it not shielded and not currently occupied.
Merrimack
left it a crater.

Tactical back-traced the underground tunnels to a central transfer station. Drilled a hole with beam fire to where several tunnels converged. Opened up with the hydrogen hose down the hole.

The space battleship continued her cross continent rampage, hitting every power plant she saw, punched solar collectors and dams. Shot torpedoes into rivers to change their courses. Roared out to sea to mow down wind turbines.

“We have someone’s attention, Captain.”

“About time.” Captain Farragut took the alert in stride. “How many?”

“It’s
Gladiator.”
“That’s enough. Fire on
Gladiator.
Continuous fire. And take us back to the party on the roof.”

Merrimack
fired up at
Gladiator.
The beams glanced off
Gladiator’s
force field in all directions. That was to remind Numa that he did not want to get into a brawl down here.

And Farrgut did not want Numa sniffing around for
Merrimack’s
dogs. “Keep firing,” said Farragut. “I don’t want a nanosecond to go by that something’s not hitting
Gladiator.”

“Aye, sir. With respect, sir, what can he do?”

“He can smother us.”

Gypsy clarified, “He could hook us in his force field.”

“But then if we die, he dies,” said Targeting.

“If that’s what Caesar told him to do, that’s what he’ll do—and Romulus will consider it a better-than-even trade.”

Merrimack
ascended into the darkness of space.

“Gladiator
is moving out of range,” Targeting reported. “Far side of the planet, still in atmo.”

“Hail
Monitor”
Farragut ordered the com tech. And when Mr. Hicks had
Monitor
on the com, Farragut took up the caller: “Martin, you still down there?”

“That I am, John,” Captain Martin Washington of the
Monitor
replied. “Numa’s headed your way. I think he means to snuff you in a suicide cocoon.”

“Sounds uncomfortable. Are you on the roof?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Coming up. Thanks for the heads.”

The battle in the vacuum was largely around Palatine’s main power stations. No world ever liked to keep antimatter in atmosphere. The matter-antimatter power plants in orbit fed energy to the planet surface by beam.

Unlike the power plants orbiting Earth, none of the power plants here served neutral nations. Many American energy companies served other countries, and many American energy companies were partly or wholly owned by neutral nations. Rome had not been able to turn out the lights in America. Palatine’s power stations were all fair game.

The energy stations were all well shielded, but the attacking ships didn’t need to destroy them. They need only punt them out of orbit to render them useless.

Rio Grande
was embroiled in a slug fest with
Trajan,
who was putting up a fanatical defense of a power plant.
Monitor,
rising out of the atmosphere, added a punch at
Trajan
with a planet killer.

Trajan
choked. Her force field wavered, blinked out.

Rio
took the power plant for a ride.

Admiral Burk directed another ship, the cruiser
Edmonton,
which hadn’t yet deployed its Marines, to board
Trajan.

Ian Markham at Tactical reported: “Something odd happening out there.”

“Something more specific, please,” said Commander Gypsy Dent, irritated. “There’s a plot out there drawing a lot of Roman fire, and it’s not one of ours.”

“Augustus,” said Farragut just before Tactical cried, “It’s a Striker!”

“Whose side is he on?” said Gypsy.

“Not ours,” said Captain Farragut.

The Striker was a slippery target, evading or destroying any shot directed toward it, U.S. or Roman. A beam shot from the Striker crippled the U.S. cruiser
Guadalajara.

Roman ships converged to bang away at the wounded ship.

“Fire at the jackals!” Farragut ordered.

But the Roman ships opened the cruiser up to vacuum.