Muses of Roma (Codex Antonius Book 1) (10 page)

“Acknowledged,” Kaeso said. The proximity display showed two Roman Eagles approaching
Caduceus
fast. Too fast.

“Centuriae...” Lucia said, staring at her display.

“I know. They found the marques.”
I was never a good gambler. Now my crew will pay my debt with me.

“We should make for the rings,” Lucia said.

“We’d never make it.”

Kaeso looked out the command window, waiting for the flash of launching missiles from the two Eagles. The ships grew from white moving dots to—

Brilliant light enveloped the two Eagles, and for a moment Kaeso thought they had launched. But the flashes were too bright.

Lucia saw it too. “What happened? They're not on my display.”

Kaeso released a long breath.
You
were
out there. Let’s see if my implant will kill me.

“Centuriae, there’s another ship near where the Eagles were,” Lucia said. She squinted at her display. “Impossible…”

“What?”

“It has no beacon.”

To Lucia's Roman experience, a ship couldn’t fly without a beacon. By international treaty and long-standing religious custom—often more powerful than law—all starships had an identifier beacon built into their hulls. The engines activated the beacon and the beacon activated the way line plasma, thus making interstellar travel along the universal way lines possible. Even pirate ships had a beacon that transmitted their identification, false though it may be.

But Liberti Umbra ships did not operate by normal rules. They did not use the same engines every other human starship used.

As Kaeso expected, his com console chimed. He activated it, but no holographic head materialized.

“
Caduceus
,” said a voice with a Liberti accent, “either Fortuna is your patron god, or you knew we were here.”

Lucia frowned in confusion, but Kaeso smiled. He thought he recognized the voice, though he couldn't be sure. The voice was masked, and it had been three years since he last heard it.

“I wasn't sure you heard me the first two times.”

“We did,” the voice said. “We just didn't want to get involved.”

“Why did you?”

There was a pause. “You have an infectee aboard?”

Kaeso figured if Umbra was out there, his 'emergency code' references to Fortuna would get them involved. He knew his odd request for a single sleeper crib would start them thinking, especially considering the planet he just left. Umbra never got its hands on a Cariosa before the Romans destroyed the planet, and that was a treasure over which he gambled they’d “get involved.”

“We do,” Kaeso said, “but unless you have a sleeper crib, she won't last another three hours. You destroyed the one I was negotiating for.”

“They weren’t going to give it to you, and you know it,” the voice said. “Prepare for docking.”

When the com light turned off, Kaeso saw through the window an Umbra ship blink into existence right above the
Caduceus
. It was slightly smaller than
Caduceus
, and resembled a black teardrop with no running lights. It was hard to see due to its black matte hull. The only way he could discern the ship visually was how it blocked the stars behind it.

Lucia cried, “Gods below, where did that ship come from? Did they destroy the Eagles? Who are they?”

To Kaeso's surprise, his implant issued no warning pain. However, he didn’t want to tempt Fortuna. “They’re going to help Dariya, and they're going to help us get to Libertus.”

“Centuriae, I need more than that.”

Kaeso stood up from his command couch. “That's all I can tell you right now. You'll just have to trust me.”

He left the command deck before she could laugh at him.

Kaeso stood before the docking hatch console waiting for the connection indicator to flash. A small shudder announced
Caduceus
had docked with the Umbra ship. Once connected, he looked through the docking hatch window for someone on the other side to traverse the connector tube between the two ships.

“You do realize what you've done, right?” said a voice from behind him.

Kaeso turned to see a tall thin man with gray, cropped hair leaning with folded arms against the bulkhead. He wore the plain gray jumpsuit of a common merchant starship crewman.

“They improved the projectors since I left,” Kaeso said. “Nice. If I didn’t know this came from my implant, I’d think you were standing on my ship. Galeo?”

“My disguises never fooled you, did they, Kaeso?”

Kaeso smiled when Galeo’s clean-shaven face shimmered. The man also wore an Umbra cloak. The “cloak” was a mesh suit that covered the wearer’s entire body. It projected whatever identity the wearer’s implant could make up. Most Ancilia wore an Umbra cloak while on missions to hide their true faces. Or to make themselves invisible.

“The cloak may disguise your face, but it never hid your condescending voice.”

Galeo laughed, then strode forward and gave Kaeso a tight embrace, which Kaeso returned.
He even feels real,
Kaeso thought with wonder. If his deactivated implant could make it seem like Galeo was really here, he wondered what an activated implant could do now.

“I’ve missed you, old friend,” Galeo said. “The Ancilia these days are all business-first types. Don't know how to have fun like we used to.”

“Is that what we had? Fun?”

Galeo’s smile melted, replaced by a sad gaze Kaeso thought the suit rendered well.
They
have
made improvements since I left. I mean, since I was “relieved.”

“Well,” Galeo said, “let's just say they were interesting times.” His eyes scanned the corridor. “So this is your ship.”

“Don't let her looks fool you. She has a good heart.”

“And her crew?”

“Scoundrels, one and all.”

“Just like their Centuriae.”

Kaeso shrugged.

“And one Cariosa,” Galeo said. “What were you thinking, going down to Menota? You knew the danger.”

Kaeso clenched his teeth. “My centuriae couch doesn’t have the resources of the most prosperous planet in Human Space to back it up. Until you sit in that couch, you won’t understand our situation, so I don't want a lecture.”

“You want me to stick my neck out for a disgraced former Ancile. I think I've earned the right to give you a lecture.”

“If you bring in a Cariosa, your bosses won't care if she came out of Hades’ ass, much less from a disgraced former Ancile. You'll be a hero.”

Galeo snorted. “You don't know my current bosses.”

“Come on, Galeo. She's one of my crew and she's going to die—or worse—if she doesn't get into a sleeper crib now.”

Galeo hesitated. “I don't know who Fortuna has smiled on more today: me or you.”

“If you bring in a Cariosa, it'll be you.”

“Not what I meant.” Galeo sighed. “You think we were patrolling Menota, don't you?”

“Why else were you here?”

“We were following you.”

Kaeso looked at him. “I haven't told my crew anything they shouldn’t—”

“That's not why we’re here. An incident has occurred that requires your expertise.”

Kaeso blinked. “What incident could make the Umbra Magisterium want my help? I'm disgraced, remember?”

“You should know the gods work in strange ways.”

“What incident, Galeo?”

Galeo unfolded his arms and walked over to the Cargo One window. Kaeso had closed the metal shutters before Galeo boarded so Umbra wouldn’t see Dariya until they agreed to help. Galeo put his hands on the glass, though, as if he knew she was there.

“What I'm about to tell you falls under your implant's concealment protocols.”

Pain sparked from Kaeso’s implant as it received the signal from Galeo's implant. Now Kaeso could not reveal the conversation he was about to have with Galeo.
One more thing I need to hide from my crew
.

“Two months ago we learned that a high-ranking member of the Roman government wanted to defect to Libertus.”

“How high?”

“Consular Family.”

Kaeso felt his mouth hang open. “Is that possible?”

“We don't know.”

“It's a trick,” Kaeso said. “A Consular doesn’t up and defect to Libertus. They just want our Ancilia to make contact, flush them out.”

“It occurred to us. Either way, we had to be sure, so we sent an extraction Ancile to find out.”

When Galeo paused, Kaeso asked, “Well?”

“According to the extraction Ancile, the Consular did want to defect. No tricks.”

Kaeso shook his head. “I still don't buy it. I worked in Roma almost my entire service with Umbra. You know the missions I took. The Consulars are worshiped like gods, which they think they are. Never heard of one that didn't. How did your Ancile verify this wasn’t all
cac
?”

“Operational secret.”

Kaeso laughed. “How am I supposed to help you if you won’t tell me anything?”

“Let’s just say it was good enough for the Magisterium to order the Ancile to extract the Consular.”

“So what happened?”

Galeo turned back to the glass. “Something went wrong. Last month our Ancilia in Roma, and all across Terra, were rolled up. At first we lost communication. Then their implants went nil.”

Kaeso gritted his teeth. Nil implants meant death, for only Umbra Vessels infected with the sentient Muses could disable active implants without causing death to the implanted.

“How many?” Kaeso asked.

“All of them.”

All of them.
There were over two hundred Ancilia in Roma when he was in Umbra ten years ago. If every Ancile was rolled, Umbra and Libertus were blind to Roman activities and plans. Libertus didn’t have hosts of Legions or fleets of warships like Roma. It relied on Umbra Corps’ ultra-clandestine tools to neutralize any threats. Those threats were dealt with subtly, using everything from the fear of Liberti “
numina
” to political sabotage by well-placed Ancilia in the Roman government and targeted assassinations. The small military of Libertus kept the larger empires from seeing it as a threat. With its economic and cultural growth over the last fifty years, however, Libertus was now
de facto
leader of the Lost Worlds and a gem for expansionist empires. Only two things kept the empires from invading: fear of angering the other empires, and fear of the legendary—and Umbra-invented—Liberti
numina
.

But if all the Umbra Ancilia on Terra had been killed, Libertus was defenseless against the Romans.

A young girl’s face danced through his memories, a face he tried hard to forget every day lest the pain destroy him.

“All of them,” Galeo continued, “except one. The extraction Ancile. Her last transmission said she had contacted the Consular who wanted to defect. She said he had a secret that could bring down the Roman Republic.”

Kaeso gave a weary chuckle. “How many times have we heard a Roman defector promise that?”

“She also said the Romans know what the Muses are, and this defector has information about a cure Roma is developing against them.”

Kaeso wanted to laugh again, but then it made sense. How else could the Romans have captured every Ancile on Terra without knowing the Muses exist? The technology the Muses gave Libertus was in many cases decades, if not centuries, ahead of any other world or empire in human space.

If the Romans knew the greatest ally of Libertus was a sentient alien virus Umbra called the Muses, and Roma developed a weapon against them, then Libertus would lose its only means to defend itself.

“These are extraordinary claims,” Kaeso said. “Starting with the defection of a Consular and ending with the fact this extraction Ancile seems to be the only Umbra Ancile to survive the roll-up. How convenient for her.”

“Not necessarily. Last week we lost all communication with her implant.”

“She went nil?”

“No nil transmission. Silence.”

One impossibility piled on top of the other.
Implants were virtually indestructible. Even if the Ancile fell into a star, the implant would
still
transmit a nil signal before it went off-line. Only a Muse-infected Umbra Vessel could disable an Ancile’s implant.

What happened to the universe since I left Umbra?

“I know what I've told you so far is hard to believe,” Galeo said, “but there's more.”

“Of course there is.”

“The extraction Ancile is the last Ancile in Roma. First, we need to find out if she betrayed us. Second, we need to know if her claims of a Consular defector are true. That’s where you come in, my friend.”

“Why me? Again, I'm a
former
Ancile. I'm sure you have plenty of young bulls itching to get into Roma.”

“Of course we do. In fact, we sent some in the day after we last heard from our extraction Ancile. Their implants went nil as soon as they landed on Roma.”

“So the Magisterium wants to kill me, too? I may not have a glamorous life, but I prefer to keep it.”

Galeo smiled. “We have a theory. Since Roma can now detect active implants, it would be unwise to send more Umbra Ancilia until we've figured out how their new tech works. So we need to send someone who doesn’t have an active implant, yet knows his way around Roma and is acquainted with Umbra protocols.”

“Ah, and my name was at the top of the list?”

“More like the bottom. Every other retiree above you was either too old or turned us down.”

“Yeah.”

“There’s another reason we want you to go. The extraction Ancile is Marcia Licinius Ocella.”

Kaeso shrugged. “Should I know that name?”

“Probably not. It’s the name Umbra gave her when she entered the Corps.” Galeo paused. “You’d remember her as ‘Spuria’.”

Spuria.

My dead wife’s sis—?

Kaeso’s deactivated implant could not have driven the wind out of him as much as that name. Memories unbidden exploded in his mind, memories of a life before Umbra. His relationship with Spuria, their break-up, and then falling in love with Petra. His beloved Petra, and their beautiful daughter Claudia. Their happiness.

Then Petra’s violent death. Kaeso's near madness over the loss. His emotional neglect of his own daughter. His failure as a father.

Kaeso didn't realize he was on his knees until Galeo helped him up.

“I'm sorry, old friend,” Galeo said. “I knew this would be hard for you. It always is with us.”

Kaeso waved him away. “I'm fine,” he grunted. “I'll be fine.”

But Kaeso knew he would not be fine. The implant, even when dormant, protected him from the memories before Umbra. It enabled him to adjust to his new life outside Umbra, made it easier for all Umbra retirees to avoid contacting former friends and family. All Umbra Ancilia had to “die” to every person in their former lives when they joined the Corps. The Corps even arranged funerals with golem bodies to give family and friends closure. Such was the price to join an ultra-secret agency unknown to everyone save the Liberti Consul and select members of the Liberti Defense Force. Not even the Liberti Senate knew Umbra existed.

His family thought he was dead, and dead men do not show up on their family’s doorstep without drawing attention. That was why the implants clouded the memories of former lives. For the Ancile’s own protection. It worked well.

Until a name or place triggered the memories, and brought them back full force. The concealment protocols in Kaeso’s implant prevented him from contacting his family, but now, remembering Spuria’s name—
Ocella
!—all the memories and guilt from before Umbra were now a crushing weight he struggled to hold up.

“For what it's worth,” Galeo said, “I argued against bringing you in for exactly this reason, but the Magisterium decided this mission was too important.”

“What is the mission?” Kaeso asked.
Need something else in my head besides my daughter's face from the last time I saw her. When she told me she hated me.

Galeo eyed him, as if waiting to see if he would crack under rediscovered memories. Kaeso stood straight, his chin level.

Galeo sighed. “You were among the best Umbra had, you know Roma, and you know Ocella. The Magisterium wants you to infiltrate Roma and find Ocella. Bring her out, along with this Consular defector, if he exists.”

“If she's turned?”

“Terminate her.”

Kaeso nodded, expecting as much. “I accept the mission.”

Galeo raised an eyebrow. “That was quick. Your price?”

Kaeso managed a weak smile through the memories assaulting him. “Three things. One, cure my infected crewman.”

“You know we don't have a cure for the Cariosus. It's a Muse strain, and
they're
sure as Hades not going to tell us if one exists. Even if we wanted to develop a cure from your crewman’s blood, it could take months, if at all.”

“We could keep her in a sleeper crib until you develop one.”

“Kaeso, the Muses would never allow Umbra to work on a cure. They would sooner let the Romans wipe us out than help us find a way to kill them. Your only hope for your crewman is the Consular defector, because a Muse-strain cure will never come from Umbra.”

Kaeso nodded, assuming that would be the answer. Still, he had to try. He did not like that Dariya's life hung on the word of a Roman traitor.

“Two, I want Liberti citizenship for my crew.”

“Your crew is made up of Roman fugitives. Escaped slaves, Legion deserters, extortionists...shall I continue?”

“Liberti citizenship will protect them from extradition and keep them from being arrested if they wander back into Roman territory. You know you can make this happen.”

“Fine,” Galeo said. “Next?”

“I want back into Umbra.”

Galeo smiled. “I think a cure for the Cariosus would be easier.”

“If I can bring back Ocella
and
this defector, then that's got to be worth something to the Magisterium. At least enough for them to ignore me making a corrupt senior Ancile nervous.”