R. M. Meluch - Strength and honor: a novel of the Merrimack

Copyright 2008 by R. M. Meluch.

All Rights Reserved.

Covert art by Stephan Martiniere.

DAW Book Collectors No. 1455.

DAW Books are distributed by the Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

All characters and events in this book are fictitious.. All resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental.

The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the authors rights is appreciated.

Nearly all the designs and trade names in this book are registered trademarks. All that are still in commercial use are protected by United States and international trademark law.

First Paperback Printing, November 2009

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

DAW TRADEMARK REGISTERED
U.S. PAT. AND TM. OFF. AND FOREIGN COUNTRIESMARCA REGISTRADA
HECHO EN U.S.A.

PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.

Prologue

C AESAR MAGNUS DESERVED to die.

Caesar Magnus was dead. The assassin was dead.

So did anyone really give a rats aft if someone else may have been involved in the killing of Caesar?

Even if that someone might have been Caesars own son?

Even if that son had assumed the role of the new Caesar?

Either the thought of a patricide leading an interstellar empire did not horribly unsettle the Senate and People of Rome or else denial simply served them better, because the Senate did not challenge the legitimacy of the new Caesar, and the People loved him.

Suspicion was after all only suspicion. Other than possibly murdering his own father, the new Caesar was a damn fine Caesar.

In his very new reign, young Caesar Romulus had already beaten down the monstrous Hive threat to a shred of its former terror. Only a whimpering presence of Hive remained deep in the Deep End of the galaxy. Hundreds of light-years and many American settlements stood between the remains of the Hive and the nearest Roman target. It would be a long, long time before the Hive threatened a Roman outpost again.

Caesar Romulus summoned home all Roman forces that were serving under U.S. command. Let the Americans deal with what remained of the Hive. It was no longer a Roman concern.

Caesar Romulus renounced Romes surrender to the United States.

Caesar Romulus expelled the Americans from the Roman planet Thaleia, and reinstalled Thaleias orbiting sentinels. He staged a spectacular bombing of the Triumphal Arch which his father, Caesar Magnus, had constructed on Thaleia in honor of the American John Farragut, Captain of the U.S. space battleship Merrimack.

On the Roman capital world of Palatine, Caesar Romulus redesigned the Monument to the Conciliation. The original monument featured an enormous golden eagle soaring wingtip to wingtip with a bald eagle, like two great powers flying in perfect accord.

In Romulus reworked monument, the bald eagle cowered on its back under the claws of the diving golden eagle. Here, said Romulus, let all humanity know that the Conciliation was a fraud. Here is what Rome really thinks of Pax Americana.

On an interstellar broadcast, for all the known region of the galaxy to witness, Caesar Romulus broke the spears of Subjugation under his own heel.

For that alone, many Romans called for Romulus deification.

Too savvy a politician to accept divine honors, Romulus expressed gratitude at the depth of his Peoples regard, but said, You cannot vote someone to godhood. And that only increased his popularity.

Romulus could do no wrong.

Magnus had already done it all.

Back in the desperate days when the Hive decimated Romes mighty legions, desperation led Caesar Magnus to surrender to the United States. The surviving remnants of the Roman armed forces were placed under U.S. command.

With Romes second worst enemy engaged against Romes most pressing threat, Rome found a chance to rebuild its shattered forces in secret.

While the U.S. carried the greater weight of the common defense against the Hive, Romulus organized the rebuilding of Romes armed forces on the empires most distant worlds that lay in the opposite direction from the Hive incursion. Hed started that even before the assassination of Caesar Magnus.

Upon declaration of victory against the Hive, Romulus, now Caesar, unveiled his empires new battleships.

He paraded his new legions up the Via Triumphalis on Palatine. The legions were very new. Many of the legionaries voices had not changed yet. They were full of youthful fire, rabid to reclaim Romes crushed pride, eager and ruthless as only children could be.

Lost on the proud new warriors was that Rome could not have achieved all this had Magnus not surrendered Rome to the U.S. No one would thank him for it.

Romulus had also organized the manufacture of a new generation of killer bots. Automated factories on far worlds in the Perseid arm of the galaxy had been churning out killer bots by the hundred thousand per earthly month.

The Americans never suspected it was happening. Automated weapons were worse than useless against the Hive. Machine minds could be turned against their makers. There was no reason to think Rome could be rebuilding its fleets of killer bots.

Romulus had been looking to the future.

Because of his foresight, Romulus empire could face the Americans from a position of power, not subservience, when the common enemy collapsed.

There were vicious, jealous whispers that Romulus had killed his father.

Well, he hadnt. There was a recording of the event. Everyone saw the deed. That was not Romulus hand you saw holding the pen that plunged into Caesars eye. Whispers said Romulus drove the assassin to it. But no true Roman needed any pushing to kill Magnus.

There was scarcely a citizen in Romes interstellar empire willing to look too closely for bones in the closet of a Caesar who accomplished everything Romulus had done for them.

But there was one. A Roman who could not allow Magnus Caesars death to go unavenged for any reason.

He was programmed not to.

Magnus patterner had a deeply encoded imperative to defend Rome to his last breath and beyond that. To the patterner, Caesar was Rome. And Magnus was his Caesar.

Patterners were dangerous creations, short-lived and difficult. Difficult to create, difficult to maintain, tricky to control. It was dangerous to put that much power into a thing with a mostly human brain.

Only nine of them had ever been successfully assembled. Caesar Romulus did not know it, but the last patterner was still alive. The patterner Augustus had belonged to Caesar Magnus. Augustus was out there. And he did not suspect Romulus of involvement in his fathers murder. He knew.

PART ONE
Off the Deep End

If anythings gonna happen, itll happen on the Hamster watch.

proverb on board Merrimack

L IEUTENANT GLENN (HAMSTER) Hamilton was Officer of the Watch when the Emergency Action Message came in.

She passed the EAM to the cryptotech for confirmation, and immediately paged John Farragut on his personal com. Captains presence requested on the command deck.

Captain Farraguts voice came back, Whats this about?

An instants blank panic showed on Hamsters face. The captain was often in Roman company. Hamster could not afford to explain. She answered quickly, Gypsys hair. And immediately clicked off.