The Trumpets of Mars (Imperium #2) - Chapter 8

Lucilla was in the charred remains of the plaza she’d walked so many times with Ky over the last few months, training with her guards. There had been some discussion among not only her guards, but her father and his advisors when she’d first expressed an interest in training.

There was a strong stigma against women participating in what most people saw as ‘manly arts.’ That went doubly so for her, since she was so much in the public light, and anything she did reflected not only on her, but on her father and his entire rule. Although she hated having men discussing what she should be doing, there had been a long conversation on where she could go to train that had enough room to be effective but wasn’t where people would see her easily.

Originally, it had been decided that the coliseum was the best place for it, since other than times when events were happening, it was completely empty, its gates barred to the public. She’d practiced there with her guardsman every day she’d been in town, right up until the insurrection. She’d actually been preparing to head to the coliseum that afternoon right before the insurrection happened, and it was only chance that had delayed her. Had she been there, or worse in transit, when the rebelling legions entered the city, she likely would have been captured, and possibly even executed before Ky and the loyal legions could get the city back under control.

Since then, her father demanded she stay closer to home when she practiced, so a new training ground had been needed. Staying close to home made it harder. She could have, for instance, gone out to the legion camps, where the commanders would almost certainly clear an area for her to train more or less unhindered, but that increased the amount of time she would have had to travel every day in order to train.

Instead, the only open area large enough was the plaza in the middle of the palace complex. The entry points into the plaza could be blocked off with some of the city guardsmen and, for now, the entire complex was off-limits to the general public, so it wasn’t hard to stay out of the public eye while practicing. Unfortunately, it was still badly damaged and several of the buildings already had scaffolding going up for the repair work to begin, which meant workers were in and out all day long. Although she was able to keep her original schedule today, since the work hadn’t actually started, she’d have to start her training in the very early morning, just before sunrise, and finish before the workers began arriving.

She wasn’t thrilled about it, but it was what she had to do to keep training, which she wasn’t willing to give up. She was done being in danger and scared. If it meant she had to get up with the sun every day, then that’s what she’d have to do.

All of which led up to her being in the plaza at dusk to see Ramirus sprinting across the plaza towards the rear of the palace, which was still standing and in which her father was still holding meetings for the day.

“Ramirus!” she called out, pulling him to a stop. “What’s happened?”

“Lucilla,” he said, slightly out of breath as she caught up to him. “I’m headed to report to your father. We’ve had another murder. A senator this time. It was … unpleasant.”

“Who was it?”

“Tiberius Norbanus Sabinianus, one of the merchant senators. He was one of the first to publicly back Ky’s new laws, which is probably what got him targeted in the first place.”

“Where did it happen?”

“A few blocks from here. Some of the guards said they saw him here, near the forum, an hour ago. He was found partway between here and his house here in town, so he must have been on his way home.”

“It happened in broad daylight? I thought we’d agreed to notify all government officials about the armed insurrectionists still being in town. After the body at the coliseum was found, I’m not even sure he should have needed us to tell him things had become dangerous.”

“He had a guard, of sorts. His brother hired one of the local toughs to protect him. We found his body a few feet from the senator’s.”

“Warnings aren’t enough. I want major members of the government to get protection starting now. Tell Faenius I want a hundred more men to be assigned as bodyguards while the crisis still persists. He’ll complain that he already gave up all of the veterans he could spare and none of his recruits are ready for service yet. Let him, and then tell him what’s expected of him. He’ll do his duty. Recommend that none of the senators travel alone for the time being, and none travel after dark. I know this attack was in the daytime, but it still limits their opportunities.”

“I was just on my way to report to your father,” Ramirus said again, casting a look towards his destination.

“Isn’t it lucky for you that I was able to intercept you and save you the time? I’ll talk to my father, but we need to get these men protected sooner rather than later. If you’re uncomfortable taking orders from a woman, take a moment to remember that I have been made the Consul’s proxy while he’s away. Besides, you know as well as I do that these are the same precautions my father would ask you to take once you had the chance to see him and repeat the same thing you just told me.”

“I’m sorry, my lady. It was simply a matter of habit. I, of course, have no issue with your instructions and I’ll do it right away.”

“Good. When you’re done, come back and find my father and me. We need to discuss how we can find these people and put a stop to their attempts to destabilize my father’s government. I know you’ve already had men out looking for them, but it isn’t enough. I’m done reacting to these people every time they decide to kill another public servant. We need to take the fight to them.”

“As you say, my lady,” he said, giving a half-bow of his head.

“Good. Go,” she said, dismissing him with a wave and returning to her guards to hand over the training sword, so she could deal with the matters at hand.

Forty miles south of the Northern Border

It was barely dawn when Ky got up, a buzzing in his ear. Ever since getting his implant Ky didn’t dream, but in his groggy partially awake state his first thought was the sound had been in his imagination. It was only when he started to come more fully awake that he realized both that he wouldn’t have dreamed it and that the noise was still happening.

The other thing he noticed was that he was fairly certain it wasn’t environmental. He wasn’t ‘hearing’ it from the world around him. The sound was inside his head the same way he heard the AI when it spoke to him. It took another moment to realize how unusual that was. His internal clock was well-tuned and he normally didn’t oversleep, and the times he had the AI had forcibly woken him up, usually by speaking at full volume to him.

“What is that?” Ky subvocalized.

“In my studies of humans and your responses, I found mentions in the documents in my system that people prefer to gradually regain consciousness. I was attempting a more subtle form of alarm.”

“Don’t. I thought something might have broken and I was about to be paralyzed again.”

“Noted.”

“We aren’t set to march for another hour and I don’t remember asking you to wake me up at this time. Has something happened?”

“Potentially. I have continued to run progression models and sever connections into your central nervous system to limit further expansion into your brain. Original models showed expansion only along existing connections points, which allowed me to preemptively place some blocks to maintain my connection to you in those areas while severing connections to less critical points, limiting my possible expansion. This morning, my network initiated new connections into previously unaffected areas of your nervous system, in areas where my systems have never had a physical attachment before. All of my models suggested that this should not have been possible and its existence calls into question all of the models I have run to date. I continue to attempt to sever these connections, but the possibility of my being unable to halt the eventual expansion has reached a level of probability that I believed you should be notified of.”

“You’re saying you can’t stop it?”

“While none of my models have reached a hundred-percent certainty, this appears to be correct.”

“How long?”

“That is still a question I am not able to answer, more so now that all of my existing models have to be called into question. It could be hours or it could be months. At its current progression rate, any time frame greater than six months seems unlikely.”

“So I could just drop dead at any time?”

“I do not believe it will result in your death, at least not your physical death, at least not immediately. Hard-wired fail-safes will continue to run your organs and vital processes. The most likely external evidence that something has happened is a seizure or coma-like state, based on reports from early failures before AI takeover was a known phenomenon.”

“I see, but I’d still be dead, right? Once that happens, I don’t really care what the rest looks like.”

“Correct. A practical understanding of the effect, from your point of view, would be death, although your physical form would continue on.”

Ky was quiet for a while after that, just staring ahead, lost in his own thoughts.

“Commander?” Sophus queried.

“What?”

“You stopped responding suddenly without issuing additional instructions on how to deal with the information presented.”

“That’s just how people respond when you’re told you’re going to die and there’s absolutely nothing we can do to stop it. What kind of instructions do you think I should give? I’d be dead and you’d be trapped in my body until I starve to death.”

“Without the availability of an IV, the most probable cause of physical death would be dehydration, barring physical damage when motor control fails.”

“That’s what I mean by not helping.”

“I am detecting elevated heart rate and body temperatures which indicate you are under stress.”

“You may be gaining sentience, but you need to learn to understand tones of voice if you want to make it as your own being. Of course I’m under stress, and I’m pissed. You tell me I’m dying and then ask me why I’m upset? Here’s a hint, if someone says they’re worried about starving to death, pointing out they’ll die another way quicker isn’t exactly going to make anyone feel better.”

“I apologize if I have caused you discomfort. Understanding human reactions is a new experience for me and there is limited data available on the subject.”

“You don’t learn it from data; you learn it from experience by observing people’s behavior and responses to the actions and words of others. That’s how we learn to interpret non-verbal communication as children.”

“I was never a child, Commander. Or perhaps I am a child now, if dating from the beginning of my sentience. I will follow your suggestion and try to observe your interactions for more than just the information presented on the surface, although I may have questions about how you interpret responses so I can understand what they mean.”

“As long as I’m not in a coma, sure.”

“My original question remains, however. Knowing that I have only managed to slow the spread of integration, how do you want to proceed?”

“We’ll continue doing what we’ve been doing until I’m dead, or at least brain-dead. That’s what people do. Just because something is hopeless, there’s no reason to just sit down and give up. We continue to fight and try to make something of the situation until the last possible moment.”

“But that’s not a logical reaction. Why spend your remaining efforts on a hopeless action.”

“Because that’s all that is left. There may be only a one-percent chance of success, but we’ll take that one percent over giving up. It’s what it means to be human.”

“I see. I will continue to assist in your actions until that time then, Commander.”

“Thanks, I guess. Now, enough of this nonsense. Let’s get started,” Ky said.

Devnum

“… and is there anything you need?” Lucilla asked for what felt like the hundredth time that day.

She’d spent the entire morning, after the sword training with her guards, doing a tour of the damaged residential areas of town currently under repair, thanks to a healthy grant from her father to pay for the workman and materials. Although the damage outside of the palace and wealthier parts of town had been less than they’d feared, it hadn’t been non-existent.

Most of the damage to the poorer parts of town had been limited to the corridor the detachments from the rebelling legions had taken from their position north of town towards the palace center. Unlike the richer areas closer to the center of town, however, these people had been unable to afford repairs to their homes and had been rendered all but homeless.

The worst area was just a block into town where a fire had broken out and ravaged through an entire swath of homes. Thankfully, citizens had been able to put out the blaze once the enemy troops passed and it was safe to do so, but hundreds of homes had been damaged or destroyed before it had been safe to come out and begin fighting the fires.

On top of the training, she insisted on doing and all of the duties she’d take over from Ky, and Lucilla still had all of the responsibilities she’d had before all of this had happened. While her brother had always had official governing duties and ceremonial things that came as the first male child of the Emperor, Lucilla’s responsibilities had been largely public relations. Although she’d begun to take some of the governing duties her brother had previously fulfilled, some of the public appearances required of her station were still necessary, since public opinion still had an oversized effect on the operation of the Emperor’s government.

Which meant appearances like this one, meeting with the people affected by the fires and other destruction, hearing their stories of hardship, and promising them that the Emperor was doing everything in his power to help them. Ministers and government officials had already been out saying the same thing, but it meant more coming from the Emperor’s daughter than some faceless government official.

Thankfully, she was on the last section and was almost finished. She still had a mountain of things to do for the day, including a meeting with the city guard commander. Reports from the praetorians investigating the murder of the senator suggested that city guard patrols had been routed around the area of the senator’s home for several hours during the time when he was killed, making it clear that he had been deliberately targeted.

With the increased patrols and multiple changes after the murder of the first guardsman who’d served as an executioner, it was impossible to find out where exactly the order moving the guard patrols out of the area where the senator was murdered originated. Lucilla wanted to talk to the guard commander and make it clear he needed to get things in order and find out who in his command was giving aide to the remaining insurrectionists still in hiding, or he would find himself replaced. She’d actually made the argument to her father that the praetorians should take overall law enforcement in the city, absorbing the guardsman worth keeping into their organization.

Unfortunately, the guard as a whole had the support of powerful political figures that made it impossible to replace them outright. Of course, if a few more senators died, that support might disappear quickly.

She bade farewell to the last family and headed back towards the palace complex for her meeting with the guard commander when a pack of Picts turned down the street. Their sudden appearance made her hesitate briefly and she could sense her guards stiffen, probably all remembering the wrestling match at the Caledonii training fields. Her guards closed in tighter as the Picts recognized her and adjusted their course to intercept her. She remembered some of the things Llassar had said in passing after her previous confrontation, about the Caledonii respecting strength and aggression.

She didn’t flinch or move out of the way as they closed in on her, continuing on as if it was beneath her to even notice they were in her way until one of them stepped directly in her path.

“You can move, or I can make you move,” she said, looking him in the eye.

Inside, she was shaking. She had her guards and these men were unarmed, but she was inches from this man that weighed twice as much as her and stood almost a head and a half above her.

The man leaned back, laughing, and looked to his friends, “The little bird is still full of fire. Careful boys or she’ll put you on your ass.”

They all seemed to find that funny. Lucilla’s first response was to be angry at their mocking, since she’d done that very thing to another one of them, and him calling her ‘little bird,’ meant he’d been there to hear the insult the first time. That, however, might end in a fight, which she wanted to avoid. If these were Roman’s, she’d know what she needed to do to defuse the situation. She wasn’t as clear on what to do now, however.

She laughed at him, not trying to copy how he laughed, but equaling the ferocity of it.

“I only fight real men. Maybe I can find a small child, to make it fair.”

Although his friends bellowed in laughter, the man in front of her went silent, his face becoming serious. For a moment, she thought she might have pushed him too far. Thankfully, instead of taking a swing at her, he opted for another insult.

“You are mighty brave with your guards following you around.”

“They sometimes get scared and ask me to accompany them, to feel safe,” she said, keeping her tone as though she was telling a joke. “Besides, they were with me two days ago when I put your friend face first in the dirt. I didn’t need them then, and I don’t need them now.”

She hoped her guards would understand what she was doing and wouldn’t take her comments to heart, since she appreciated their protection and would never suggest that she didn’t actually need them.

Thankfully, the man’s stern expression cracked as he let out another bellow of a laugh.

“A wise move on their part. We are headed to one of your local inns to try some of the watered-down wine your people seem to enjoy. Come, share a drink with us.”

She was surprised by the invitation. The Picts had been nothing but confrontational with her since she’d first encountered them, and the scene a few days before when she’d had to wrestle one of them to prove she was worth listening to suggested it wasn’t likely to change any time soon. They continued calling her little bird, which still seemed like an insult when used for someone who was nominally in charge of them. That clashed with their laughter and invitation to drink, and confused her.

She couldn’t think of many things she’d like to do less, but one of the things Ky had been working hard to accomplish was to improve relations with their new allies. He’d said, several times, that while things would work right now because there was a mutual threat, that wouldn’t make the new Empire hold together long term. Eventually, cultural differences would tear the two countries apart again, bringing down everything Ky was working to achieve.

The most long-term solution was a co-mingling of people. The more the two cultures lived among each other, the more they’d stop being a faceless foreign caricature and become real to the other side. Getting them to co-mingle, however, was difficult. Picts would have to be convinced to move south and live with the Romans, or vice versa, or both, and they’d have to be convinced not to set up their own, smaller communities inside the larger ones.

As much as she wanted to harangue the guard commander about the sudden lack of patrols exactly where a senator was murdered, Ramirus had already been on top of it, and he has much more experience in this area than she did. She still planned on speaking with him, both to apply the weight of her status and Ky’s office to Ramirus’s pressure and because she felt it was what Ky would have done if he were here.

“Sennius,” she said, turning to look at one of her junior guardsmen. “Go offer my apologies to Pullo and inform him that I will not be making my meeting with him. Make sure he knows to expect me to reschedule for tomorrow.”

“My lady,” her guard commander said, his tone that of an exasperated parent with a small child.

She didn’t look at him, only holding up a hand.

“Let’s see how well you ladies can drink,” she said, looking back at the large Pict in front of her, who burst into laughter.

The entire group crowded around her and her guards. She could feel the nervousness coming off her guard commander, and hoped he kept his head about him. She knew her father would get reports of what was happening and would probably have words with her, but if they were going to want her to take up the duties her brother had failed at, they’d have to start trusting her judgment and stop treating her like a child.