Copper Centurion (The Steam Empire Chronicles) (7 page)

“Ah, you mean Brittenburg, right after the flood? Yes, well, I suppose there wasn’t a dam here you could bust now, could you?” Gwendyrn picked up a small stone and tossed it from hand to hand, still refusing to look his commander in the eyes. “I’ve heard reports that half the townsfolk are missing. They’re somewhere out there.” He gestured to the smoldering cityscape. “You know—mothers without sons, fathers without daughters, wives missing husbands. But I suppose, of course, that they deserved it, being barbarians and all. I’m sure they were the masterminds behind the raid on your hometown . . . sir.”

Julius wobbled to his feet, his face twisted in outrage. He could feel his anger burning red hot inside him. He wanted to hit Gwendyrn, to wipe that smirk off the larger man’s face. How dare the man make fun of his loss and pain and suffering?

Gwendyrn tossed the rock off the battlement and stood calmly before Julius, ignoring the waves of anger and hate radiating from Julius.
How can he be so calm? I ought to have him flogged or thrown out!

“How dare you!” Julius sputtered. “I’ll have you demoted and thrown out of the legions. Those barbarians destroyed my home, my family, everyone I loved. These barbarians might not have been there, but what’s the difference? I’ll have you strung up and flogged and—and—” Julius’s rant devolved into a string of heavy curses and invocations of the gods. He was waving his arms and gesturing at Gwendyrn when his crutch struck a crenellation and he pitched backward, nearly falling off the wall. His arms pinwheeled and the crutch dropped beyond the wall, bouncing off several stacked boxes.

Unable to use both feet to right himself, Julius flailed atop the rampart, looking like a turtle turned shell side down. Gwendyrn stood and watched him, unmoving. “Well don’t just sit there, help me!” Julius ordered, his voice cracking as he frantically tried to avoid falling the fifteen or so feet to the street below.

Just when he felt his body beginning to slip over the edge, Gwendyrn’s gauntleted hand grasped his arm and hauled him back over the edge. “Seriously, sir?” the big man said. “I’m glad you’ll take help from a barbarian when you need it, because otherwise it seems to be fair game on any of them.”

Julius glanced up at him once he had regained his composure, and for the first time he looked past the outward signs of Romanness—the armor, weapon, uniform.
I always assumed he was mostly Roman, except for his name
. “I didn’t mean it that way—”

Gwendyrn cursed at him. “Spare me your whining, sir. My family has more children than I have fingers on my hand. I lived in a shack my entire life on a farm no bigger than your apartment. We did not have an ‘autodryer’ to do the dishes. We didn’t even have running water!” Whirling, Gwendyrn marched away in disgust, then turned and glared at Julius. “Yes, you lost your family, and I’m sorry. You aren’t the only one who is having issues, sir, but you have to get it together. Your decisions impact everyone in this cohort. Other men, they can go about their business, they know it wasn’t these people who did the damage to the city. In case you forgot, it was a
rebellion
. Yes, the Nortlanders were involved, and that’s why we’re here, but we’re also here chasing those rebels.”

Julius stared at Gwendyrn, shocked. Gone was the humorous banter, the slightly childish bearing. In its place was an angry man, disgusted and ashamed of his commanding officer’s behavior. And Julius realized something then—he was ashamed of himself too. All his words and actions and choices weighed on him more heavily than the loss of his family.

Julius placed his hands on his head and slumped down, ignoring the throbbing pain from his ankle.

Gwendyrn sat heavily next to him. “I know how you’re feeling, sir. But take my advice. Keep the personal, personal. This is business. And those people out there, they’re business. We didn’t come here to slaughter innocents. I helped cover for your . . . lack of sensitivity . . . yesterday.”

Julius looked questioningly at him. Gwendyrn shrugged. “I woke up a neighbor and told them to run for the fire department when we left. No one deserves to die in a fire.”

Feeling more ashamed than ever, Julius sat in silence for a while. Gwendyrn remained next to him, waiting patiently. Finally Julius spoke. He had to clear his throat a few times to get the words out. “Junior Centurion, did I ever tell you about my family?” Gwendyrn shook his head. Julius smiled. “Let me rectify that right now.

“You would have liked Marciena. I joined for her, you know. To send her to school. I know it’s not the thing to do, but I wanted my sister to be smarter than me, maybe even marry up in this world. And my father, well, I think he’d like you too.”

Gwendyrn laughed. “If she’s anything like you, I bet your sister is a fireball.”

Julius thought for a moment, then chuckled. “She can be. Once she loosened all the chair legs in the house, and every time my father tried to sit down, the chair would collapse under him. My mom laughed so hard, she cried.” Julius could still see his mom crying with laughter as her husband broke chair after chair.

“That sounds like my older brother, Alaric. The boy was a natural-born troublemaker.”

“I thought
you
were a natural-born troublemaker,” Julius pointed out.

“Naw, just learned from the best. And Alaric, he was the best. He got a cow up on the headman’s roof one time. I have no clue how he did it. But there it was in the morning, mooing up a storm. The mayor’s daughter had to climb up on a ladder and milk the poor beast before they could get it down!”

Their laughter floated out over the bustling docks.

For hours, the men swapped stories about their families, until dusk settled over the harbor. Finally Gwendyrn stood and helped Julius to his feet. “I think it’s time we got down, sir. Hopefully we haven’t been missed. We’re supposed to return to the air later today.”

“That will be a lot of fun now, won’t it?” Julius smiled. “Just as long as you don’t screw up like you did the first time you tried to descend from a ship. I remember—”

Gwendyrn punched him and they both laughed. The conflicts between them settled for now, the two men left the battlement above the ruined city.

Chapter 6

Alexandros

C
aptain Rufius Tiveri Alexandros paced
the length of the bridge of the H.M.A.S.
Scioparto
. The shining wooden surface was worn with use and age, running a good twenty-five paces or so from starboard to port sides. His pace slowed as he reached the starboard side and looked out the large observation bubble. His mouth puckered as if he had swallowed a lemon, and he maneuvered into the lookout’s chair and pulled the binoculars from a pouch on the bulkhead. Sweeping them left to right along the edge of the curved glass, Alexandros surveyed the destruction and chaos, so similar to what he had seen many times before in his long career.

Days after the initial assault, he could still make out wisps of smoke and steam escaping the ruined city.
Surely this could have been avoided,
he thought as he zoomed in on the tiny figures surrounding the docks. The docks were about the only structure still intact in the town proper. A few buildings north of the narrow river had survived, and a Roman fort was rapidly being built to span the river, the legionnaires and engineers doing what Romans do best—build.

Still fuming from his survey of the wanton destruction below, Alexandros turned to the watch officer. “I’m going to my cabin. Alert me if anything comes up. We should be expecting Tribune Appius’s 13th Cohort soon.” He’d gone the last twenty-four hours without sleep.

The officer gave a quick salute in acknowledgement before returning to his duties. Confident that the ship was in good hands, Alexandros strode aft down the hallway running the length of the trireme-like airship, the
Scioparto
mirroring the ocean-going vessels right down to the familiar pointed ram jutting from the bow of the long, sleek airship
.
That always made Alexandros chuckle.
We’d probably bounce off any enemy ship that was that close. Our gasbags would collide first, and we’d bounce off each other like those new-fangled rubber balls the rich use in their games.

He passed through several doorways, here inhaling the enticing aroma of stew wafting from the galley, there overhearing laughter and conversations from the crew quarters. Alexandros did pop his head into the combination galley/mess room to check on lunch. Crewmembers lounged about, eating food from gray iron plates and drinking from lidded metal cups resting before them on tables with lipped edges that kept things from sliding off during turbulence. Several others stood in line before the cook and his helper, grabbing plates and jostling over food. The atmosphere was relaxed. Alexandros paused for a moment, silently drinking in the sense of camaraderie and friendship that he was, by position, prevented from having within the airship community

The tight quarters of the airship limited the ability to have separate messes for officers and crew, but he knew that most officers chose to dine in his first officer’s cabin. Travins was friendly and open, but there was definitely a professional gulf that prevented a closer friendship.

“Officer on deck!” a rating called out, and the men snapped to attention, standing upright and looking straight ahead.

Sighing, Alexandros waved them down. “As you were, lads. Didn’t mean to interrupt lunch. Figured I’d grab a plate as well.” He joined the line and waited behind the men. Alexandros believed he was a relatively popular captain; his ship was tightly run and had few discipline problems, and the crew was fanatically loyal to both ship and officers. Alexandros knew he was infringing upon his men’s rare off time, but he wanted the chance to just talk and listen to his crew talking about things that didn’t involve the day-to-day running of the ship. As he claimed a seat, he asked a few tentative questions, made a few slightly off-color jokes, knowing that the men were following strict naval code for talking in the mess.

We’ve abandoned half of those foolish naval traditions, but we insist on retaining the ones based on food. Because rules about food make the most sense two miles up in the air,
he thought sardonically.

When the suddenly oppressive atmosphere in the room refused to lift, Captain Alexandros gave up. He surrendered his plate to the cook’s assistant with a polite word of thanks and a comment about the cooking, then left the room.

He could hear conversation spring up behind him as he left. He paused in the hallway, then shook his head and decided to tour the ship. He headed forward, passing crew and officer cabins, storerooms, the wireless room, and finally reaching the forward staircase that curved tightly between decks. He descended quickly to a lower deck humming with the whir of machinery. The air was thicker here, the smell of oil and cleaning materials mixing with the slight tang of sulfur and coal.

He carefully checked into the long side decks. Lightweight scorpions and their larger ballistae cousins were carefully stowed several feet apart at regular intervals, their ammunition in long lockers against the back wall. The area made Alexandros think of a gymnsaium.
Up in the clouds,
he amended. There were only a few crewmembers about in the weapons galley. They saluted Alexandros as he passed, and he nodded acknowledgement as he continued aftward.

The hallway zigged around the arsenal, the most protected and heavily armored place in the ship. The ships’ supply of gunpowder, fuses, and more lightweight weapons such as repeating crossbows and a few sets of anti-boarding armor were safely secured here. Involuntarily, Alexandros’ hand reached for the small keys hanging on a chain around his neck, probing the cluster for the arsenal key. Finding it, he sighed with relief. He always feared that he’d discover he’d lost them at the worst possible moment—when he needed them.

As he continued aft, the hum and clatter of machinery grew more noticeable, until he stepped into the engine room itself. The construct took up most of the room, pistons pumping and gears clanking. Alexandros greeted his chief engineer with a quick salute and was not surprised at the halfhearted wave that could, maybe, possibly, have been a return salute. It wasn’t about respect, just that Chief Mechanic Idonis Tuderius was far too busy staring at dials and levels and crankshafts to be bothered by anything as mundane as saluting.

Alexandros had to raise his voice to be heard over the industrial noise. “How is she running? Did you get out the kinks from the refit yet?”

Tuderius’s eyebrows puckered and he cocked his head to the side, looking quizzically at the captain. Alexandros repeated himself, cupping his hands around his mouth to amplify his voice this time.

Shaking his head, Tuderius pointed a soot-blackened finger at a series of dials, their needles wavering erratically. “We’re still trying to figure out why we’re getting these incredibly strange readings. My own grandmother could have done a better job installing this than those stupid dockworkers.”

“Is there anything you need that I can provide to help you out? More men or materials?” Alexandros asked.

“Well, Captain, a full month’s time in a large hanger with capable ground crews would be a start . . .” He sounded wistful.

Alexandros smiled grimly and shook his head. “Can’t do; there’s a war on, or haven’t you heard?” he said, his tone more upbeat than it had been all day. “I know you’re doing the best you can, and I trust you to make this ship fly when she has to.”

The engineer nodded. “We’ll do our best, sir.”

Alexandros returned to the bridge to find his first officer clutching the all-call microphone. “Oh, there you are, Captain. I was just about to send for you. Ground control has sent a wireless message requesting we reduce altitude and prepare to load troops.”

Nodding, Alexandros read the message, hastily written in a curved but legible scrawl on the thin parchment paper that was the hallmark of wireless dispatch offices everywhere. “Set us in motion, Mr. Travins. Be sure to watch the shore side of those mountains. I don’t really know how strong the wind is at ground level, but it’s probably stronger than what we’re currently feeling.”

Engines pumping, the airship slowly descended toward the newly constructed airfield that graced one corner of the otherwise traditionally built Roman fort. The design hadn’t changed for centuries, and Alexandros was certain that even legionnaires from Roman Republic times could have found their way around this fort. They
would just have wondered why such a large parade ground was built in one corner
. Alexandros chuckled inwardly as the
Scioparto
closed in on the landing field.

A few moments later, hearing the faint shouts of crewmembers as they tossed lengths of rope out the windows to waiting ground crew below, he walked over to the observation bubble to keep an eye on the ground. Although he was confident in his first officer’s skills, it was always better to be safe than sorry, especially with the low afternoon sun blasting its way through the bridge windows.