Gates of Rome

CHAPTER 16

AD 37, north-east of Rome

The two MCVs bounced energetically across fields of wheat, leaving broad paths of flattened stalks in their wake. Rashim held on to the handrail as both hover-vehicles slid across a rutted track into the next field.

Their approach was relatively quiet; the deep hum of electromagnetic repulsors was almost lost beneath the clatter of strapped-on equipment bouncing against the carbominium hull. He watched the heads and shoulders of slaves emerge from the tall, swaying stalks like startled meerkats. Eyes and mouths suddenly wide with horror, then gone as they scurried away in fear of their lives.

Ahead of them a wider track thick with carts on the way into Rome became a sudden carpet of chaotic panic as slaves and merchants scattered into the fields and horses reared and bucked in their harnesses. The leading MCV veered left, on to the track. This one wasn’t ruts of dried mud but a cobbled stone track. A proper road in fact.

‘ All roads lead to Rome! ’ Stilson’s voice crackled over the comms-speaker.

Rashim wrinkled his nose and sighed in silent disgust at the blowhard idiot’s appalling cliche. He looked at the back of Stilson in the MCV in front, standing on the vehicle’s front gun platform like some buccaneer admiral on the prow of his square-rigged ship. The vice-president was punching his fist in the air with childlike excitement.

You let that jerk take over. Congratulations.

He looked at the combat unit sitting beside him on the MCV’s hull, T1-38 calmly resting across muscular forearms. He covered his throat mic. ‘Looks like someone’s having fun, eh?’

The unit had the reflective sun visor of his helmet pulled down. Rashim couldn’t see his eyes, just the bottom of his nose and the mouth, chewing on protein gum with all the grace of a horse munching on hay.

‘Yes, sir.’

To be fair, Stilson and Dreyfuss’s rejigging of the plan called for a display of bravado. They’d lost way too much of their ammunition, power-packs, equipment and manpower to guarantee being successful taking control of Rome by force. Two dozen combat units and whatever number of rounds of ammo they were carrying on their equipment belts were enough to make a spectacular display of firepower, but not much more. Certainly not enough to take on several legions and a city of one million inhabitants.

‘ Hell! We’ll give ’em a display of shock and awe all right! ’

Rashim vaguely recognized the catchphrase Stilson and Dreyfuss were using, uttered by some puffed-up presidential moron long ago. Shock and awe. Make them believe the gods have come down to earth! That was basically their plan. Roll right into the middle of Rome, make a ton of noise, intimidate the lot of them and take over the whole show. Simple.

All puff and posture. Smoke and mirrors. Bluffing it to the hilt.

Right up Stilson’s street.

The MCV ahead suddenly lurched upwards and glided over an abandoned cart left in the middle of the road. As they did the same, Rashim glanced down through the open turret hatchway at the passengers he could see crammed in down below. Approximately fifty of them, standing room only. They swayed queasily as their vehicle rose and dipped alarmingly, like a dinghy riding a rough sea. He was glad he was up here outside and not tucked away down there; he’d have thrown up by now. Hover-transports always made him travel-sick.

‘Sir!’

Rashim turned to the combat unit beside him. He was pointing dead ahead.

He followed the unit’s gloved finger and saw down the arrow-straight cobbled road, flanking rows of evenly spaced, tall, thin cypress trees like a welcoming guard of honour. Beyond them the first faint outline of the city; a long pale wall, and hovering above a sea of terracotta tile roofs that receded into a morning haze, a myriad of hairline threads of smoke from countless cooking fires and kilns, bakers, blacksmiths and tanneries stoked up for a day’s business climbed lazily towards a Mediterranean sky.

Rome.

‘Rashim, you hear me?’

It was Stilson. ‘Yes, I can hear you.’

‘Ready to give ’em a show they’ll never forget, eh?’

Rashim rolled his eyes. The vice-president sounded insufferably excited. ‘You really want to put that, uh… that music on?’

‘Goddammit! Yes, of course I do. Stick it on, man. As loud as you can!’

Reluctantly Rashim ducked down inside the hatch and nodded to the combat unit piloting the MCV. ‘Stilson says to put that music of his on now. Loudly.’

‘Affirmative.’

Almost immediately his ears were ringing from chest-thumping decibels of noise booming out of the vehicle’s PA system. Stilson’s choice of music, downloaded from his personal media digi-cube. Awful-sounding old stuff he called ‘rock music’.

The speakers mounted outside on the front of both MCVs blared and thumped, and a ragged-throated singer was screaming something about being born in the USA…