The Twice and Future Caesar (28 page)

And in the combined presence of food and the absence of its parent Hive, those eggs wakened as a new Hive, resonating a new harmonic.

Romulus had seen that happen in the future. Here, now, he made it happen sooner.

Romulus knew the new harmonic of the successor Hive. He'd got it from
Merrimack
's future records.

Romulus knew where some eggs of the successor Hive lay buried, strategically located. He'd already seen them hatch five years from now.

And on an airless world a scant twenty light-years from Earth, tentacles broke from ancient bedrock.

14 September 2443
U.S. Space Battleship
Merrimack
Fort Theodore Roosevelt
Near Space

John Farragut visited his patterner in the brig. “Augustus, does Romulus have your Striker?”

Augustus had been playing a Spanish guitar. The guitar belonged to Jose Maria. Augustus set the guitar aside on the cot. “I believe not.”

“Where is your Striker?” Farragut demanded.

“Last we saw, Romulus chucked it out of his Xerxes. Back in the Myriad.”

“Means he might have taken your Striker in tow.”

“He didn't,” Augustus said. “You know that.”

“I do?”

“You should. Towing my ship would obviate his stealth. You would have detected it.”

“Did he scuttle it? Your Striker?”

“You would need more input to make that conclusion, and I'm lacking equipment to get any such information.”

“Ask your Striker if it's still out there.”

Farragut knew that Augustus could contact his ship remotely. Resonance didn't care how far apart you were.

“For what purpose?” Augustus asked.

“Your ship is too valuable and dangerous a piece of equipment to be left floating around.”

“So am I,” said Augustus, valuable and dangerous. “You don't want me to ping my Striker if it's still in the Myriad.”

“Why don't I want that? Because the Hive will detect your Striker receiving the res pulse? I'd like few things better than for the Hive to eat your Striker and get it off the game board.”

Saying so, Farragut walked around the moebius chessboard. Moebius chess was like real chess, but it forced you to look at the board differently. It was too easy to make a false move.

This game was still in progress. Farragut had to lean over to see the pieces in the upside down curve. “How does anyone play this?”

“Carefully.”

“Does Jose Maria have a chance of winning this game? You're a patterner.”

“He does if I don't plug into patterner mode.”

Farragut straightened up. “Ask your Striker where it is.”

“You'll cost
Don
Cordillera the game.”

Farragut crossed his arms in a pose of impatient waiting.

“If you so order,” Augustus said. “If I contact my Striker, it could destroy me. Is that what you want?”

“How? Why would your own ship destroy you?”

“It is probable, to a near certainty, that Romulus rigged my Striker to snare my programming in the event that I try to access its control system.”

“No. I don't want that,” John Farragut growled, taking big strides in the tight compartment. But John Farragut didn't like leaving a loose end of that magnitude that far behind him either.

Merrimack
's artificial gravity gave one of its hiccups. Farragut momentarily lost contact with the deck. Gravity restored, he landed without missing a step, long accustomed to his ship's moods.

The strings of the Spanish guitar vibrated an open chord.

The pieces on the chessboard were magnetic and held their positions.

Farragut signaled the guard that he was ready to exit the brig.

Augustus spoke at his back. “Tell
Don
Cordillera I have mate in three.”

15 September 2443
Kentucky, USA
Earth
Near Space

His Honor John Knox Farragut Senior, Justice of the Supreme Court of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, took a call from his wife. Mama Farragut told him they had a guest at the house.

Hospitality was a sacred duty, so it didn't matter that the visitor was Roman. Mama Farragut had taken him in, offered refreshment and insisted he stay for dinner. When she found out the visitor was a man of importance, she called her husband in the state capital. Did John Senior want to join them for dinner? The guest's name was Romulus.

Dinner itself was fairly civilized. Nothing of any weight was discussed during the meal. Romulus complimented his hostess.

When the bourbon and cigars came out, the women and children left the room. His Honor kept his work and home life separate. He did not want the mother of his children involved in politics.

The gloves came off. A smile was really just a show of teeth anyway. Romulus and His Honor smiled at each other.

John Junior, who was fourteen—just old enough to be allowed to stay in the room—remained silent, awed, as smiles flashed like razors.

The visitor was audacious. His Honor would have shot the Roman if he weren't a guest.

There were interstellar warrants out on this particular Roman, but you do not abuse guests in your house. You just don't.

Romulus had floated the idea of provincial rule for his host. Justice John Knox Farragut Senior already considered himself the de facto ruler
of the Commonwealth of Kentucky. He did not appreciate a Roman offering him what was already his.

At evening's end, His Honor left it to young John John to escort their guest out.

Romulus shocked John Junior to holy hell when he turned at the transport's hatch and told him, “Your eldest brother is overrated, you know. You bear your father's full name. Yet your father doesn't know your worth. When you get tired of being John John, here is my exclusive harmonic.” He passed young John a data slip. “It's not turning coat. America was founded as—and still is—a Roman province. The time for deciding is soon. I have seen your heart and it is Roman.
Erroso
.”

The parting word wasn't Latin. It was Greek. John Junior was well educated and recognized the word. Alexander the Great signed his letters so.
Be strong
.

As John Junior went back into the house, breaking news was showing on the receiver.

A state of emergency had been declared on the Near Space planet of 82 Eridani III. Verified reports were coming in of gorgons emerging from the prehistoric ground.

Astronomically speaking, the Hive was now in Earth's backyard.

Experts were scrambling for estimates of when the swarm might arrive on
Earth.

16 September 2443
U.S. Space Battleship
Merrimack
Fort Theodore Roosevelt
Near Space

“N
EVER
,”
Captain John Farragut declared. “We are not letting the Hive reach Earth. Ever.”

On orders from the Admiralty,
Merrimack
blazed out of Fort Theodore Roosevelt toward the 82 Eridani star system. At threshold velocity it would take her over twenty-four hours to get there.

Farragut slid down the ladders to the brig, hauled open the hatch to Augustus' cell, shrugged Augustus' scabbard off his back and threw it at Augustus. “Augustus. Out.”

Augustus caught the sheathed sword. Didn't rise. Sullen. “Give me a reason.”

“Gorgons. 82 Eridani III.”

Augustus was on his feet. His shock looked genuine.

Merrimack
tore up the distance between Fort Ted and 82 Eridani III.

Twenty-four hours was an eternity when you felt you were standing still. Without modification, there was no sense of motion inside a ship's inertial shell. You're punching through space in incomprehensible measures, but you don't know it. You only felt the ship's sudden burbles that
leaned you unexpectedly sideways or lifted you up off the deck. Otherwise you felt nothing.

In a dead calm, Navy specialists go stir crazy and Fleet Marines want to murder them. All hands needed to feel like they were getting somewhere.

So
Merrimack
's environmental systems were modified to make you feel like she was flying. And Lieutenant Colonel Steele put you to work. There were drills and a lot of cleaning. Your Swift better be clean enough to lick. He made you do it, too—lick it. There were machines that could clean things quicker and better, but machines don't mind the waiting.

And there was basketball. There was no life without basketball. Cole Darby hadn't played much before he joined the Fleet Marines. Now it was Wing versus Battery in the maintenance hangar.

This close to threshold velocity,
Mack
gets moodier. Her inertial hiccups turn you sideways and leave you there. Real interesting when you're trying to make a free throw.

Oh, bad luck, Dumbell
. The ball fell up.

Lieutenant Colonel Steele kept his Fleet Marines busy when they were on duty. Worry could gnaw a hole through your guts. The Old Man don't want you thinking about how close the gorgons are to Earth. Off duty, you snuck some bad thinking in.
We're standing on the brink of the end of everything.

Don't think, Darb. Just make this three-pointer—

Up your nose, Shasher Wyatt!

Six hours before planetfall Taps sounded. Most of
Merrimack
's personnel hit the rack. They slept if they could, and they'd better give it their best effort. In six hours they'd be back into an unholy burr ball.

TR Steele walked through the aisles of hydroponics. He was in search of light and warmth—and of those two ridiculous lizard plants Kerry Blue was so fond of. Didn't see them. They usually made themselves known. They were the only plants that didn't stay planted. They chortled. They climbed him like a tree. They did ridiculous things.

But he didn't see them now. Wondered if they might have died.

He felt a sting he shouldn't feel. Lots of things die. These two were just plants with legs. And tongues. And tails. And big eyes. And webbed feet.

And Kerry Blue loved them.

The lizard plants were as close as he could get to Kerry Blue now, in this dark hour. And they were gone.

He felt a sense of loss. And foreboding. He was going back into battle in five hours. It weighed on him. The enemy was close to home.

The hatch to the moist green compartment sucked open. Sucked shut. A Marine stepped in. Barefoot, dressed only in tank top and sweat shorts, she tiptoed up the aisle, a bushy lizard plant under either arm.

She didn't see him. The compartment was large, and a clump of what were supposed to be banana trees stood between them. Steele was from Oklahoma. He thought the banana trees were alien.

He stayed motionless. Tried to breathe silently. Saw her between the wide green fronds, her bare arms well-toned, strong in a girly way. She placed the plants in a patch of mint. Her whispered scold carried. “Stay put, you guys!”

She poured water into bowls for them.

Her brown hair was loose on her shoulders.

The sight of her hurt. There was a painful lump in his throat, a burning in his eyes. A raging hard-on down below.

Kerry Blue retreated on tiptoe.

As soon as the hatch sucked shut behind her, the lizard plants pulled themselves out of their trough and scampered for the hatch, trying to follow her. They were the dumbest looking things. And completely useless.

Steele strode over to them. They cowered low. He scooped them up. Put them back in their trough. They hunkered down in their places, goggle eyes staring.

“Stay,” he ordered them.

He left hydroponics and went back to his own cabin. He had private quarters in officer's country. He lay in his rack, cursing the desk-commando eunuch who ever thought that putting women in combat was a good idea.

Thoughts churned in the dark. Would it be any better keeping a woman safe at home? No. The enemy just now proved that there was no safe home. The Hive was erupting in quick striking distance of Earth.

He had to face it: He needed Kerry Blue here, with him. Armed and trained in twenty-one scenarios.

17 September 2443
U.S. Space Battleship
Merrimack
82 Eridani III
Near Space

An emergency evacuation of the domed settlements on the third planet of the 82 Eridani system was underway as
Merrimack
arrived.

The space battlecruiser
Rio Grande
was already there, her Swifts deployed. The fighter craft fired beam shots on the masses of gorgons as they broke out of the ground and spidered toward the inhabited domes.

“Just why are there so many people on 82 Eridani III?” Calli said, appalled.

John Farragut supposed he was wearing the same stunned expression as his XO.

Merrimack
descended low enough to physically see the settlement through her portholes.

There were acres of newly constructed domes on the dark planet. They were physical domes, not energy domes, housing a scientific expedition that made no sense. The domes shone bright white from their interior lights.

Someone with galactic amounts of currency had flushed a lot of it into this world sometimes known as Xi.

A dome flickered to darkness as it broke open.

The domes were equipped with no defenses. They had no stable of spacecraft. The research scientists had been ferried here and left without a means of quick exit.

Swifts strafed the open airless ground. You heard a holy lot of barking on the Marine harmonic. The space battlecruiser
Rio Grande
carried the other half of the 89th battalion—the Bull Mastiffs.

Captain Farragut tried to contact
Rio
's captain, but Dallas McDaniels was not on board
Rio
at the moment. Captain McDaniels had commandeered a Swift. He was outside shooting gorgons.

Captain Farragut spoke over the Fleet Marine com without identifying himself: “What do you call a Navy Captain at the controls of a Swift?”

A chorus of Fleet Marines answered at once: “Flight risk.”

The voice of Captain Dallas McDaniels: “Is that you, John, old son?”

“Ahoy and howdy, Dallas. You started without me. What's your tally?”

“Lost count,” Captain McDaniels sent back. “Don't reckon these
things died this easy in the Deep End. You have any idea what's causing them to be so amenable to the notion here?”

“No, sir. I do not. And I'm getting unkind looks from my Flight Controller. Pick up channel G.”

Captain McDaniels came back on the G harmonic, leaving the Marine harmonic to the Marines: “It's like these gorgons never seen a Swift before.”

Which wasn't possible. They both knew it. It was a well-known fact by now that you don't keep secrets from separate members of the Hive. You teach one gorgon, you've taught them all, everywhere, instantly.

“Are these even real gorgons?” Captain McDaniels asked.

“Not sure. Keep it simple. Make 'em die.”

“Roger that.”

McDaniels signed off, yelling.

John Farragut was getting harsh looks from his XO now. The commander of his Fleet Marines was also frowning.

Calli spoke very very low. “Captain, you're not.”

“No.” He was not going outside to play with a Swift. “I've got the big guns right here. TR, release the hounds.”

“Sir.”

Lieutenant Colonel TR Steele left the command platform, roaring for his pilots and gunners to kit up in bunny suits and bubble helmets. And everyone take a sword.

Kerry Blue squawked. “Not flight suits?”

Bunny suits were standard issue spacesuits for ground duty. And swords? No one took a sword on board a Swift.

Reg Monroe: “He's talking to the battery, right?”

Carly Delgado: “No,
chicas
. He's talking to all of us.”

Steele: “No one is flying. You're going in on the ground.
Merrimack
will descend to the surface. You will debark best speed. Proceed to the domes with swords at the ready. Escort the civilians to the evacuation vehicles. Secure all displacement equipment behind them.”

Kerry saw Lieutenant Hazard Sewell open his mouth, an objection in there. Never got it out.

Steele: “You are not flying. They need fishers inside the domes.”

To “fish” was to Fight Inside Someone's House. The Fleet Marines who served on
Merrimack
were masters of wielding sharp metal in tight corridors packed with equal parts gorgons and your very best friendlies.

“You are the experts,” Steele told his Bull Mastiffs.

“None better,” Lieutenant Hazard Sewell said, and gave an eighty-ninth battalion bark.

Hoo Ra
.

When the Marines assembled in full gear at the sail, Lieutenant Colonel Steele spat on Kerry Blue's bubble helmet.