“Rome!” the fresh veterans leading the charge shout as their shields rise against the new flight of javelins. There are gaps in the back ranks, those just disengaged. Behind the charge, men hold palms clamped over torn calves or lie crumpled around a shaft of alien wood. There will be time enough for them if the recovery teams land—which they will not do in event of a total disaster on the ground.
The warriors snap and howl at the sudden threat. Their own success has fragmented them. What had been a flail slashing into massed bronze kernels is now a thousand leaderless handfuls in sparkling contact with the Roman line. Only the leaders bunched around the command group have held their unity.
One mount is still on its feet and snarling. Four massively-equipped guards try to ring the Commander with their maces. The Commander, his suit a splash of blue against the gravel, tries to rise. There is a flurry of mace strokes and quickly-riposting spears, ending in a clash of falling armor and an agile orange body with a knife leaping the crumpled guard. Vibulenus’s sword, flung over-arm, takes the native in the throat. The inertia of its spin cracks the hilt against the warrior’s forehead.
The Tenth Cohort is on the startled natives. A moment before the warriors were bounding forward in the flush of victory. Now they face the cohort’s meat-axe suddenness—and turn. At sword-point and shield edge, as inexorable as the rising sun, the Tenth grinds the native retreat into panic while the cohorts of the right flank open order and advance. The ground behind them is slimy with blood.
Vibulenus rests on one knee, panting. He has retrieved his sword. Its stickiness bonds it to his hand. Already the air keens with landing motors. In minutes the recovery teams will be at work on the fallen legionaries, building life back into all but the brain-hacked or spine-severed. Vibulenus rubs his own scarred ribs in aching memory.
A hand falls on the tribune’s shoulder. It is gloved in a skin-tight blue material; not armor, at least not armor against weapons. The Commander’s voice comes from the small plate beneath his clear, round helmet. Speaking in Latin, his accents precisely flawed, he says, “You are splendid, you warriors.”
Vibulenus sneers though he does not correct the alien. Warriors are capering heroes, good only for dying when they meet trained troops, when they meet the Tenth Cohort.
“I thought the Federation Council had gone mad,” the flat voice continues, “when it ruled that we must not land weapons beyond the native level in exploiting inhabited worlds. All very well to talk of the dangers of introducing barbarians to modern weaponry, but how else could my business crush local armies and not be bled white by transportation costs?”
The Commander shakes his head in wonder at the carnage about him. Vibulenus silently wipes his blade. In front of him, Falco gapes toward the green sun. A javelin points from his right eyesocket. “When we purchased you from your Parthian captors it was only an experiment. Some of us even doubted it was worth the cost of the longevity treatments. In a way you are more effective than a Guard Regiment with lasers; out-numbered, you beat them with their own weapons. They can’t even claim `magic’ as a salve to their pride. And at a score of other job sites you have done as well. And so cheaply!”
“Since we have been satisfactory,” the tribune says, trying to keep the hope out of his face, “will we be returned home now?”
“Oh, goodness, no,” the alien laughs, “you’re far too valuable for that. But I have a surprise for you, one just as pleasant I’m sure—females.”
“You found us real women?” Vibulenus whispers.
“You really won’t be able to tell the difference,” the Commander says with paternal confidence.
A million suns away on a farm in the Sabine hills, a poet takes the stylus from the fingers of a nude slave girl and writes, very quickly, And Crassus’s wretched soldier takes a barbarian wife from his captors and grows old waging war for them.
The poet looks at the line with a pleased expression. “It needs polish, of course,” he mutters. Then, more directly to the slave, he says, “You know, Leuconoe, there’s more than inspiration to poetry, a thousand times more; but this came to me out of the air.”