Strength and Honor (42 page)

Steele advanced at a walk to meet his fate, the Coliseum ringing. Xeno pointed his sword to Steele’s helmet where he’d abandoned it. Steele shook his head, refusing it.

Xeno took a battle stance. Steele made the first charge. Could be his last. Pain and fatigue vanished in an adrenaline surge. He caught the downstroke of Xeno’s sword with his shield, his own thrust deflected by Xeno’s shield, and he charged past. Both spun round, exchanging places. Xeno was first on the counterattack, and Steele could only turn out and away from the thrust. He jumped back in for a return stroke that landed on Xeno’s shield.

They traded hammering blows, till Steele got Xeno open—the sword stroke had gone
that
way, the shield
that
way—and Steele slashed.

Short! Scored Xeno’s cuirass, nothing more. Xeno bowled him over with his shield. Sprang over him, but couldn’t bring the kill home. Xeno’s sword plunged into sand and wood as Steele rolled back to his feet.

Somewhere in the eternity of minutes the spring left Steele’s legs.
This is it.
His strength was ebbing, limbs felt to be solidifying. Not even rage and noise were enough to keep his energy from slipping away.

He clashed against Xeno, shield to shield, sword hilt to sword hilt, pushed into his push. Xeno grunted behind his shield in American, “Put up a finger, Adamas. I bet they spare you.” He pushed off to the side.

They leaped apart. Xeno shouted at Steele, pointed his sword, demanded to know if he would yield. Steele shook his head. Spoke the only Latin he cared to know,
“Semperfi.”

Steele lifted his sword high, charging in for a mighty slash. His shield felt to be lifting itself as the blade sliding in underneath it ran him through.

He hit the ground twitching, spitting blood. He’d pitched over onto his back. Couldn’t breathe. Diaphragm severed. Blood in his head sang for oxygen. The gladiator stood over him with his blade poised over his throat. Steele’s trembling fingers felt round in the sand to find his sword. Found the hilt, closed his hand round it in a shaky grip but could not lift it. The muscles in his abdomen would not let him lift anything. Didn’t even know if he still had muscles down there. Nauseous and his muscles wouldn’t even contract to let him vomit.

He stared up at the blade over him. Kept trying to lift his own blade. Managed only to flip it over on its other side. The crowd noise peaked.

Sand was growing warm and wet around him. He knew what the wetness was. The victorious gladiator’s face was turned toward Caesar’s box, waiting on the verdict. Xeno was wide open. He left a perfect opening and Steele couldn’t take it, his vision narrowing down to a tunnel.

The crowd was in tumult. At least half the voices chanting
Live. Live. Live.
As the light faded.

The evading Marines had moved their camp far away from where they hid the Roman bodies.

Kerry Blue dragged back from her foraging mission, late and empty-handed. She gave a sniffle as if suffering an allergy to something Roman.

“What kept you!” Carly whispered a cry as Kerry Blue flopped down to sit by the small fire.

“Oh. Um.” Blue brushed the back of her hand under her nose. Shrugged. “I, uh, had sex with some guys I didn’t wanna.”

Kerry Blue was well known for not saying no. She stood by for the snotty remarks to come rolling in. The bull mastiffs were a tough crowd.

“Hell!”Twitch cried.

Cain said, “I’m so
sorry,
Blue!”

Kerry broke into tears. Carly looked over, scolded Cain, “What did you say to her!”

Kerry was smiling through her sobs. She grabbed Twitch and Cain in turn by the head, and kissed whatever part of the head met her lips, ‘cause she couldn’t see for tears. “I love you guys.”

Twitch wore that helpless look that guys get when a woman is hurting and they’re, well, helpless.

“You left ‘em alive?” Cain asked Kerry.

“Not my choice.”

The Marines passed round the food they’d gathered from the woods. A share came round to Kerry Blue. She pushed it away. Sniffled over her knees. “Hell of a way to treat a Russian student,” she mumbled.

Cain crouched near her, afraid to touch her. “If you see ‘em again, point ‘em out, Kerry. I’ll hit ‘em where they don’t ever wanna be hit.”

“I don’t care where you hit ‘em as long as it’s fatal,” said Kerry Blue.

“You got it, gal.”

Kerry shook back her hair. “Don’t tell the Old Man, ‘kay?” Startled them. They exchanged glances. Did she not remember that Steele was dead? Carly answered her carefully, as if she were breakable, “If that’s what you want,
chica.”

Steele came to awareness coughing up liquid on the hard white floor. Must’ve got a thumbs up from the pretty thing standing in for Caesar. He had been counting on it when he’d let himself open for that thrust. Thought it an incredibly dumb idea as the blade was going through him. Looked now as if it could pay off. He knew where he was.

This time around he recognized the moment when it came. Only two medics with elephant pikes and a locked door contained him. When the warm water spray subsided, he grabbed both pikes and hauled both medics down to the slick floor with him. He cracked their heads hard on the floor and hacked off one’s ear with a blade he found in a drawer.

The ear won him a green light on the door lock. The color made him pause a moment. Green still meant go in Rome. Only the U.S. fleet had flipped its colors for the siege.

The door opened for him without alarms, and Steele let himself out to the corridor.

He knew the way to the POWs’ cage from here. He paused at the alcove by the stairs to pull out one of the beam cannons, then ran to his Marines. Immediately said, “Gimme a language module.”

Icky Iverson, dumbfound, surrendered his through the bars, as the others rose in astonishment. Not just alive but Steele was naked, wet, and armed.

A Roman passed a tunic out through the bars of the gladiator cage. “Here. No one wants to look at that.”

Ranza said, “I’m not having a problem with it.”

Keeping his distance, Steele snatched the tunic out of the offering hand. Icky said, “Sir, you have an extra ear.” Steele used the ear to unlock the cage. He passed his cannon to Ranza, then he let the criminals out.

As Steele pulled the tunic over his head, one of the criminals snatched the medic’s ear away from him and ran with it.

The gladiators, still caged, were yelling for guards. Steele would have left them locked in there even if he still had the ear. He was leaving this circus behind him.

They heard the criminals running into guards. Heard shouts and gunfire. Ranza passed the cannon back to Steele, and the Marines headed up a cross corridor. Dak took point.

Coming to a corner, Dak glanced round first, startled to see a face
right
there. Dak grabbed the owner of the face by the front of his tunic and hauled him back round the corner with him Dak wrapped him up in a tight headlock before he saw what he had.

A young black man in Roman garb. He had a cultured look about him, not like the evils of society they had just set free from the other cage. This one was not burly as a gladiator. His skin was soft as a baby’s.

There followed from around the corner sounds of more beings coming up the corridor. Dak jumped out into the intersection, hiding behind his hostage and warned, “Don’t come any closer!” He pretended he had a weapon at the Roman’s back.

There were four armed human guards. They stopped, but one of them laughed.

The captive locked within the crook of Dak’s elbow advised Dak in perfect, if strangled, Americanese, “You chose your hostage unwisely.”

“Nuh uh!” said Dak. “You can’t pretend you’re one of us.”

“I cannot because I am not,” said his hostage, sounding altogether
stately.
“But an escaping political prisoner just won’t give the effect you are looking for.”

Ranza, hunched against the wall around the corner hissed: “Oh, no! You’re not the guy who got burned with Captain Carmel!”

“I am that guy,” said Gaius Americanus.

The guards were grinning, inching forward.

Steele reached round the corner with the beam cannon. “Dak, get down.”

Dak hunkered down, hauling his hostage down with him. Steele pointed the cannon blindly over Dak’s head.

“Aim a little lower, Colonel,” said Dak. “There. Four of ‘em. And I don’t see any personal fields on ‘em.” The four Romans kept grinning. “Are you playing Russian roulette, Yank?”

U.S. weapons only fired for their authorized owners. There were nineteen U.S. beam cannons in the alcove. Steele growled at Dak, “Is there anything out there I shouldn’t shoot?”

“Nothing but Romans. You’re good, sir. Fire at everything.”

“You think that weapon is yours?” said a Roman, closing in. “Your weapon was not in the stack, Colonel Steele.”

Steele gunned down all the smiles.

“They’re all mine,” said Steele.

Marines checked the bodies to make sure they were dead. They took the four Roman weapons. Ranza carved off one guard’s earlobe with his own knife, and gave the capsule from inside it to Steele, then started on the other three. “Romans, lend me your ears.”

Steele turned back to Dak’s prisoner, Gaius America-nus. He remembered a distinguished older man. He told Gaius, “You look different.”

“So does Captain Carmel,” said Gaius Americanus. That was true. Steele motioned for Dak to loosen his grip a little. “What are you doing here?”

“My door opened,” said Gaius. “So I think: I have a friend or I have an enemy baiting me. Either way, I decided not to cower in my cage.”

“You’re not coming with us,” said Steele.

“No,” Gaius agreed. “I am not.”

Automatons, a full dozen, came marching down the stairs. Steele turned, clutching the guard’s capsule. He spoke in halting Latin. “I have these prisoners. Go catch the others. Move.”

The automatons immediately turned and retreated double time. Steele stared after them, astonished that they actually obeyed. Ranza let out a cackle, showing her gapped teeth. “It can’t be that easy!” Steele snarled, hand to his midriff. “Marine? Be careful what you call easy.”

From somewhere within the enormous building, weapons’ fire and shouting sounded. “Mister Americanus, what’s the best way out of here?”

“I’ve never been down here before,” said the Senator. “I didn’t know this was here. This is outrageous.”

“If we get to the first floor, would you know the way?”

“Yes,” Gaius said provisionally. “I think the loading dock would be my choice. If your ear pieces haven’t been disallowed by the time we get there.” Steele hadn’t considered that. The instant that some one with human intelligence found the guards dead with bloody ears, the capsules they carried would turn from authorizations into targets. They needed to move fast.

They rushed up the stairs where the automatons had just gone. Gaius, after a momentary pause to get his bearings, led the way to the dock.

At their approach, automatons on the dock kept working, loading and unloading hover trucks. Except one, dressed as a guard. That one turned toward them with a gun. Said,
“Domni,
do you require assistance?”

“No,” said Steele.

They descended some concrete steps from the dock to the ground, where Gaius murmured to Steele, “Kindly order me to go now.”

Steele and Dak exchanged looks. What to do with the Roman Senator? Killing seemed the safest option.

As if reading their minds, Gaius said softly, “With Augustus dead, I am now Romulus’ worst enemy. You want me alive. I opposed the war.”

Himself, Steele would have voted for the war.

He motioned to Dak to release Gaius. “Go,” Steele commanded. Gaius walked quietly away into the city. The Marines could not do that. They could not blend. They draped a cargo tarp over themselves and left the dock on the flatbed of one of the hover trucks.

When the scenery was nothing but trees on either side, they baled out, leaving the guards’ capsules in the truck. In moments, backup lights appeared up the road. “Oh, skat!” The truck was coming back. The truck came to a stop next to the Marines, and in a machine voice, the truck informed the disembodied capsules riding in it that the truck had lost part of its load right here.

Steele picked up a capsule, verbally authorized the offloading of things at this point, and ordered the vehicle to continue on its way.

As they watched the truck go, the Marines realized that the Romans would have an easy job of tracking them to this location. The first task was to get as much space between themselves and this place as fast as they could. Not sure which way to go.

From this point forward, the escape plan was a little on the nonexistent side.

34

^S
ENATOR QUIRINIUS OPENED
the backdoor of his villa to find a young black man who smelled rather strongly and would do well with a haircut and a shave. Recognition poked about the Senator’s consciousness but did not set in until the young man spoke in an older voice, “Will you help me?”

“Gaius!” Open flew the door. “Gaius! I would be no kind of man if I did not! Come in! Come in.”

“You are harboring a fugitive,” Gaius warned, crossing the threshold. “And honored and proud to do so!” Quirinius shut the door. “Where have you been?”

“Locked in a place that does not exist.”

On hearing a sound from outside, Quirinius moved quickly to a rear window to peer out, and Gaius asked, “Is your house under watch?”

“No,” said Quirinius, seeing nothing. “I could wish it were. I am troubled by vandals. They steal my lambs, and I don’t know what has become of my dog.”

Quirinius offered his guest a chance to clean up, but Gaius said, “If you can stand my stench a while longer, can we speak first?”

“Yes, yes.” Quirinius beckoned him to the courtyard. He did not fear satellite surveillance. Could thank the Americans for that.

A colonnade enclosed a private garden. Vines twined up the columns. A mosaic of dolphins swam in the fountain at the center of the courtyard. A stone table and comfortable chairs sat on a circle of polished terra-cotta tiles.