Free Strength and Honor by R.M. Meluch

have to wait until Numa achieved Near Space. That would not be happening for at least three months.
    So Numa Pompeii, the General, the Senator, the Triumphalis, had a three-month window in which to decide a loyalty, or to figure out what kind of base of power he might organize.
    Numa Pompeii was one of only three Romans other than Romulus who knew that the Roman Senate’s vote for Romulus to the position of Caesar had been based on an incomplete last testament of Caesar Magnus.
    Romulus had unsealed his father’s testament only after he received word—from Numa Pompeii—that the patterner who sealed Magnus’ testament was dead.
    The patterner was not dead. Perhaps Numa wanted to get back to Near Space before he could be expected.
    “You’re not getting near the Shotgun, if that’s what this is about,” Farragut told Numa up front.
    “No. I do not want passage through your Shotgun. It would not look good to accept favors from Americans.”
    “So what favor can I do for you?”
    “I need to talk to Gaius.”
    The other man who knew that Romulus falsified Caesar’s testament was Gaius Bruccius Eleutherius Americanus—the man whom Magnus actually named as his successor in his true testament.
    Gaius Americanus was currently at the U.S. Space Fort Eisenhower in the Deep End.
    The reported death of the testament’s witness, Augustus, crippled any claim to power Gaius could make that Magnus chose him.
    Gaius Americanus did not know that Augustus lived.
    And Numa could not tell him. With all the U.S. com channels changed, Numa could not contact Gaius in Fort Eisenhower.
    “Gaius Americanus is safe in Fort Eisenhower,” said Farragut. “The Senator does not live to be safe,” said Numa. “He lives for Rome. As do I.”
    “Caesar is not Rome?”
    “Depends on whether Caesar is actually Caesar.”
    “Are y’all proposing to set up a government in exile at Fort Ike?”
    “A Roman government within a U.S. fortress? That will not fly. If Gaius wants to do anything for Rome—the true Rome—he will need to come out of that fortress.”
    The suggestion set Farragut on guard. He was accustomed to taking men at their word, but Numa Pompeii was an opportunist.
    Until Numa declared a loyalty, God knew where he stood. And God might oughta better check his sources at that.
    Farragut spoke, suspicious, “Last time I looked, you and Gaius Americanus were not the best of buds.”
    “We never had so much in common before.”
    The commonality would be the knowledge that Caesar Romulus was a patricidal fraud. That was a tie that could bind political adversaries. “Tell him I want to talk to him,” said Numa. “Let Gaius decide if he wants to talk to me.”
    “I will give him the message,” said Farragut.
    “And I want the patterner.”
    Farragut did not have the patterner to give. Apparently Augustus had not bothered to contact Numa upon parting company with Merrimack. Not to give anything away, Farragut sidestepped truthfully, “I won’t hand him over.”
    “You can’t hold him,” Numa said.
    You got that right, Farragut thought. He was not a good liar, so he said nothing. “Let me talk to him,” Numa pressed. Farragut did not address the demand. Let Numa continue thinking that the U.S. had custody and control of the patterner. Captain Farragut did not come out here to give information to Romans. He took the offensive, “Do you have capability to home in on the origination point of a res pulse?”
    “Would I tell you?” Numa parried.
    The answer was obvious: No.
    Farragut said, “I’ll let Gaius know you want to see him.”
    “I need a little more than that. Captain Farragut,” said Numa. “If Gaius says yes to the meeting, he will need a way out here.”
    Farragut agreed to deliver the invitation to Gaius and to arrange transportation for Gaius if he consented to leave Fort Eisenhower.
    “Choose someone of unquestionable reliability,” said Numa. “I came to you because you are honorable, Captain John