The Twice and Future Caesar Read Free Page A

full. Aye.”
    â€œReturn us to normal space, a thousand klicks from our original position.”
    â€œSpace normal, aye.” The pilot gave the galactic coordinates of the space battleship’s new position.
    â€œStand at full alert,” Calli ordered.
    And waited for their attacker to come back around for another strike.
    Dingo Ryan came to her side. “What do you think?” he muttered.
    Calli gave her head a small shake. Really didn’t know. “Nothing’s right about this.”
    Dingo glanced to a porthole. You never saw your attacker. But you really couldn’t help looking.
    â€œWhere is he?”
    In the waiting, the ship began a low thumping from within. You felt it through the decks—Marines ’cussing. This percussion number was their own war dance. The Bull Mastiffs of the 89th Battalion wanted out to hunt.
    The bogey had shown a Roman flag.
    Calli: “Com.”
    â€œCom. Aye.”
    â€œGive me my direct res link to Numa.”
    â€œRes link open. On your com, Captain.”
    Caesar Numa Pompeii took Calli’s hail immediately. Without greeting, the voice of Caesar himself sounded from the captain’s com. “What do you have?”
    There were no gaps in his transmission. That was telling.
    Dingo mouthed without sound,
He’s traveling sublight.
    Calli nodded silent acknowledgment. Spoke into the com, “Why did you jump me?”
    â€œCaptain Carmel?” Numa sounded innocent. Truly. Not pretending.
    Calli told him, “I just took a thousand megaton tap from your Accipiter.”
    Caesar Numa’s voice returned a quiet rumble. “Not mine. Kill it. Then find the nest and kill that.”
    Calli didn’t take orders from the Roman emperor. But she welcomed permission to open fire on a Roman-flagged vessel. That permission betrayed Caesar’s desperation to exterminate the subversives.
    Caesar Numa didn’t ask where Calli was. He would already know, the instant she’d hailed him on the resonator.
    Rome had the technology to locate the source of a resonant pulse. The United States Naval Fleet didn’t.
    The res link went dead without a signoff. Unless Calli had Romulus in custody, Numa, the emperor of Rome, had no time for her.
    Calli turned to her XO. “That Accipiter can’t be alone.”
    Dingo gave a quick nod. He also smelled a rival predator here. “There’s a hidden outpost or a mothership close by. Got to be. We got lucky flushing out that Accipiter.”
    â€œ
Lucky
never happens in my presence,” Calli said.
    Lucky
usually meant you didn’t understand the situation.
Lucky
meant you were being set up.
    â€œIt
looks
like we’re close to what we’re hunting for,” Calli said. “I don’t trust the look.”
    No one ever just happened to run into anyone between stars. And this chance encounter felt altogether wrong.
    Calli posed her problem to the XO. “Why did the Accipiter hit us?”
    Dingo Ryan didn’t understand the question. “Sir?”
    â€œWhat did the Accipiter gain by attacking us? He knows we’re shielded. All he did by shooting at us was give away his presence. Why would he reveal himself? And how did he know we were here?”
    â€œNuma knows we’re here,” Commander Ryan said.
    â€œNuma knows
now
. He didn’t know where we were until I resonated him. Why is there a short-range Roman attack craft out here and why did it hit us?”
    â€œSir, we’re in this star system hunting for a Romulid outpost. Is it too big a stretch to think we finally
found
one?”
    â€œYes. It is. You know it is. If those are Romulii in that Accipiter, then we didn’t find them. They came out and flashed us.”
    Dingo Ryan covered his eyes and gave a growling snarl.
    The war drumming from down decks was getting louder. The Marines pounded, stomping on the bulkheads and ductwork. The sound reverberated through the